Graduate Research Presentation: At the Intersection of Multiliteracies and Pronunciation Development: The Case of L2 Spanish

This research project investigates the effect of pronunciation instruction embedded within multiliteracies pedagogy on the development of L2 Spanish pronunciation as measured by listener ratings (i.e., perceptions of participants’ speech). The research design of this project follows Saito and Plonsky’s (2019) framework for L2 pronunciation measurement, in which a pre-, post-, and delayed post-test are administered to collect spontaneous and controlled speech samples, and the instructional intervention is grounded in multiliteracies pedagogy (Cope & Kalantzis, 2009; New London Group, 1996). Stimuli created from a control and experimental group of 5th semester learners of Spanish were evaluated for global pronunciation features by listeners recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk. Findings from this project inform the implementation of pronunciation instruction within lessons that reflect the knowledge processes of a multiliteracies framework.

Presenter
Marie Mangold is a Ph.D. candidate in Hispanic Linguistics in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese Studies at the University of Minnesota where she teaches undergraduate Spanish courses. Her primary interests include Second Language Acquisition and pedagogy, curriculum analysis and design, language assessment, and foreign language teacher preparation and certification.