Training English Word Stress Perception and Production with Technology

Abstract

Word stress is frequently afforded secondary importance in English teaching as stress placement rules are complex and because stress can be learnt along with each new word. However, training learners to pay more attention to word stress cues can support them in predicting the stress patterns of new vocabulary. Also, for speakers of fixed stress languages, perceiving and producing word stress can be more challenging, as they are accustomed to fixed stress patterns and weak acoustic stress cues. Moreover, even though L1 English speakers largely cue stress segmentally through vowel quality, speakers of languages which do not feature vowel reduction find it difficult to use this cue in stress perception and production. New methods such as High-Variability Phonetic Training (HVPT) and certain mobile learning tools have been found to benefit foreign language acquisition. These approaches have the potential to help learners master English word stress, yet most available tools focus on vowels and consonants rather than stress perception and production. This article, therefore, reviews methods for word stress teaching, both with and without technology, and presents a mock-up of a HVPT tool that focuses on both segmentals and suprasegmentals.

Keywords

• word stress teaching
• high-variability phonetic training
• perception and production training tool