issn-i 2631-2840 | issn-e 2631-2859
68
errores comunes de entonación de la producción del idioma inglés como
lengua extranjera (efl) en estudiantes adultos de nivel intermedio-bajo
()
Diana Vaca Barragán
Instituto Superior Tecnológico Cordillera (Ecuador)
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9932-6550
: 10.29166/kronos.v2i1.3111
Intonation, Praat,
rising and falling tones, pitch
contours, suprasegmental features.
Entonación,
Praat, ascenso y descenso tonal,
contornos tonales, características
suprasegmentales.
is paper investigates the intonation of questions and requests produced by 10
adult lower intermediate students who are learning English as a foreign language
during the rst term of the year 2021 in a private institute in Quito-Ecuador. As
these learners are not as exposed to the language as second language acquisition
() learners, one of the biggest challenges for them when learning English is
mastering speaking skills such as intonation. at is the reason why the aim of
this study is to identify and analyze the most common intonation mistakes in
order for further research to create methodological resources that t dierent
student’s necessities. In order to achieve this objective, this quantitative and
qualitative study compares the pitch contours of two questions and two requests
produced by native speakers with the intonation of English as a foreign language
() learners. In order to analyze the intonation of the learners, this research
uses a soware tool called Praat which is a platform that let the researcher visu-
alize and compare dierent intonation patterns. is study concluded that: the
learners seem not to be aware of pitch contours and the function of intonation
patterns; moreover, it is concluded that the 1 inuences the production of the
2. ese results suggest that some technological tools such as Praat can be used
in the process of teaching and learning intonation.
Este proyecto investiga la entonación en preguntas y pedidos en 10 alumnos que
aprenden inglés en un instituto privado en Quito-Ecuador durante el primer
periodo del año 2021, y que tienen un nivel intermedio de inglés. Debido a que los
estudiantes no están expuestos al idioma como aquéllos que aprenden el idioma
en el lugar nativo del mismo, uno de sus mayores desafíos cuando aprenden inglés
es dominar habilidades del habla como la entonación. Por esa razón, el objetivo
de este estudio es identicar y analizar los errores de entonación más comunes
para, en un futuro, crear recursos metodológicos de acuerdo a las diferentes
necesidades de los estudiantes. Para analizar la situación actual de entonación,
este estudio cualitativo y cuantitativo compara los contornos tonales de dos
preguntas y dos pedidos de hablantes nativos con estudiantes. Para analizar la
entonación de los estudiantes, esta investigación usa la herramienta Praat que
es una plataforma que permite al investigador visualizar y comparar distintos
patrones de entonación. Este estudio concluyó en que los estudiantes parecen
| - | vol. | n.°
Recibido: 25 de abril 2021
Aprobado: 26 de julio 2021
69
is study is based on one complex area of English as
a foreign language () teaching: intonation. Studies
have stated that this area is not commonly touched in
classrooms because the methodological resources to
foster intonation do not seem to be enough (Nikolic,
2018). e general issue that this research found is the
lack of intonation awareness. Hence, this qualitative and
quantitative study identies the most common intona-
tion issues in learners through the comparison of
intonation patterns of questions and requests between
native speakers and learners. is has been done
in order for further research to propose appropriate
materials to foster this suprasegmental feature.
In this sense, author such as Krashen (2006) state
that it is not necessary for people to know the sound
system of a language to communicate. Rather, the
suprasegmental features such as intonation are im-
portant to be developed because they have a social
meaning implied. us, Krashen (2006) states that
the sound system of a language is acquired naturally
by the input learners receive. However, the acquisition
in a Second language background seems to be more
feasible than in an background where students are
not commonly exposed to the language, which means
that students who are learning a second language in an
background would need direct instruction in order
to acquire the language properly. However, it seems
the methodological resources to work with intonation
are not enough because the importance of teaching
intonation in learners is not well known. Hence,
it is necessary to study the current state of intonation
in order to propose accurate methodological resources
regarding intonation.
is is why this research investigates intonation
in lower intermediate adult students. In order to
achieve this objective, some studies that have been
done in recent years will be described in order to
clarify the importance of studying intonation. Fur-
thermore, this study will present some intonation
problems based on the analysis of the pitch contours
produced by 5 female and 5 male intermediate stu-
dents. Finally, according to the intonation problems
found, some recommended intonation activities
proposed by Collins, Mees (2013) Murcia, Brinton
and Goodwin (2006) are analyzed.
e importance of intonation
One of the main reasons why students want to learn
English is because of academic purposes. Douglas and
Rosvold (2008) state that in many developed countries,
there are growing numbers of students who come from
dierent backgrounds seeking to get a bachelor or a
master’s degree. Consequently, students need to
learn how to interact eciently in academic contexts,
and it is the teacher and institution’s responsibil-
ity to carry out this task. In this sense, studying the
current state of intonation in students in order to
propose dierent methodological resources to improve
intonation plays a vital role.
In fact, Roach (2009) states that the function of in-
tonation is similar to the role of punctuation in written
production. e melody of delivered utterances termed
as intonation is part of these suprasegmental features
needed to produce our daily oral communication.
It is also signicant to mention the role intonation
plays in eective interaction. Murcia, Brinton and
Goodwin (2006) state that a word produced with a
dierent pitch variation can produce dierent eects
of communication. For example, Roach (2009) states
that if the speaker wants to say «yes or no» to respond
to someone, the «falling tone» will be probably used. If
speakers use them in a questioning manner, the «rising
tone» will predominate (Roach, 2009, p. 163). In this
sense, if the speaker does not intonate properly, the
delivered message could be misunderstood.
Linguistic functions of intonation
One of the functions of intonation mentioned by
Collins and Mees (2013) occurs when the speaker
highlights or emphasizes important and signicant
information by stressing the words. In this sense,
Murcia et al (2006) states that there might be a lot of
words receiving sentence stress, but there will be only
one main idea or prominent element delivered in an
utterance. Sometimes, the speaker tends to raise the
pitch of the voice when delivering new information,
and some authors state that stressed words generally
occur at the end of an utterance.
Among other intonational functions, the attitudinal
and discourse functions are commonly found in drama
no estar conscientes de los contornos tonales y la función que desempeñan los
patrones de entonación. Además, se concluyó que el idioma nativo inuye en
la producción del segundo idioma. Estos resultados sugieren que herramientas
tecnológicas como Praat pueden servir en el proceso de aprendizaje y enseñanza
sobre entonación.
70
plays. Intonation, therefore, has a grammatical function
that let the speaker specic syntactic relationships
(Collins and Mees, 2013). For instance, depending
on the intonation of the speaker an utterance can be
understood either as a question or an emphatic state-
ment (see Figure 1).
The intonation patterns described above might
depend on the intonational function which in turn
will depend on the context and the intention of
the speaker.
Intonation patterns in yes/no questions
e history of spoken English language is fairly broad.
Indeed, there are dierent accents, dialects and varieties
which come from dierent regions and are deserved
to be studied. However, since the main concern of this
research is to study the intonation in students,
we shall mention that the authors cited to explain the
patterns of English intonation such Collins and Mess
(2013) study a non-regional pronunciation which
represents a «neutral type of modern British English».
is research also presents the point of view of Murcia
et al. (2006) who study the sound system of North
American English. In this sense, the approaches on
the analysis of English intonation patterns in questions
and requests will be based on these systems.
ere are some features that should be dened
before analyzing the pitch contour of an utterance.
For example, in any statement, question or request
there is one stressed syllable that guide the ow of
the intonation. It is stated that this stressed syllable
is called the intonation nucleus which «has a marked
change in pitch, and is somewhat longer and louder
than the rest» (Collins and Mees, 2013, p. 142). From
the nucleus there is the fall -rise and the rise-fall which
involve the pitch movement either from high to low to
mid or from mid to high to low. Moreover, the high-
pitched syllable that is produced before the nucleus
is termed as onset, and what is between the onset and
the nucleus is termed the head.
As it was mentioned, intonation also meets a dis-
course function that covers the signals for turn tak-
ing in a conversation. In this context, there are two
basic categories: the rising and falling tones. Yes/ No
questions involve rising tones. is common English
pattern has two diverse pitch contours. e rst one
goes from middle to high level and in the other, the
voice rises from low to a middle level (Murcia et al.,
2006, p. 187). us, it is stated that Yes/ No questions
tend to follow the middle to high rise pattern (see
Figure 2).
In the case of the samples that are going to be used
in this research, the questions and requests have the
pattern described.
Some studies around intonation: e inuence of
the 1
Since this research is focused on common intonation
mistakes in Yes/ No questions and requests in
students, it is also important to take into account the
1, and its inuence in the production of a second
language. A study done by Busa and Stella (2015) in-
vestigates the intonation patterns of English 2, Italian
1 and English 1, and it analyzes and compares the
intonation contours of English 2 with the Italian and
English 1 in 4 Italian native speakers.
is study concluded that the 1 has an important
inuence in the production of the 2. However, some
dimensions of the 2 are acquired dierently, which
let the researcher state that « 2 learners may be able
to acquire the phonology, but rarely the phonetics
of L2 prosody» (Busa and Stella, 2015, p. 23) which
means that it is dicult for learners to acquire and to
be aware of the eects of rising and falling the pitch
of the voice. is nding is related to what Derwing
(2008) states. He mentions that before proposing ma-
terials to work with intonation, it is necessary to study
the 1 to contrast with the 2 in order to comprehend
their similarities and dierences. In fact, this research
found out that some mistakes are made because of the
inuence of the 1.
Technological tools to study intonation: Praat
Since this study uses a technological tool to analyze the
intonation of speakers, it is necessary to mention
some studies related to the study of technological tools.
In this sense, Zhang and Liu (2018) studied the pros-
ody of spoken English produced by Chinese students.
rough a computer assisted speech recognition tool,
they could study speed, rhythm, accuracy and intona-
tion. e authors concluded that the analysis of speech
through this technological model could accurately
reect the level of English of the participants. Hence,
the application of computer-aided speech recognition
technology can support the process of learning a lan-
guage in terms of evaluating speaking, and providing
systematic feedback to students. Furthermore, these
technological tools can also guide teachers and students
in the process of teaching and learning speaking.
Hence, in order to measure the voice of students
quantitatively, a soware tool called Praat (Boersma and
Weenink, 2011) can be used. Praat is a computer pro-
gram that let the researcher analyze dierent phonetic
features such as intonation, intensity, pronunciation,
rhythm, among other suprasegmental features. is
tool was developed by the Phonetics Department at
the University of Amsterdam below the direction of
Boersma and Weenink (2008). (Farías, 2013). In this
sense, the tool provides spectrograms of the speaker’s
71
voice in which the levels of pitch and intensity can be
observed. A spectrogram, indeed, is a spectro-temporal
representation of the sound (Boersma and Weenink,
2011). Furthermore, the graphics will contain time
and frequency scale that is represented in Hertz (Hz).
e spectrogram also shows a darker part that repre-
sents the density of the voice energy. On the contrary,
the lighter parts mean a low density in regards to the
energy of the voice. Moreover, there will be red, blue
and yellow vertical time cursors representing the fre-
quency of spectra peaks, the pitch and the intensity
contour respectively.
In contrast, De Bot and Mailfert in the study: «e
teaching of intonation: Fundamental research and class-
room applications» (1982) mention that there could
not be eective intonation teaching if students do not
know the importance of it. is research concluded that
«perception of intonation leads to improved produc-
tion» (Kees de Bot and Kate Mailfert, 1982, p. 77). In
conclusion, the idea is not only to have students in front
of a technological tool that could help them improve
intonation, but also to have students be aware of the
role that intonation plays when speaking to someone.
is qualitative and quantitative research aimed to
identify the most common mistakes in questions and
requests made by students in regards to intonation.
e participants were 10 Spanish native speakers
(5 females, 5 males) who were learning English as a
foreign language during the rst term of the year 2021.
It is signicant to mention that in this foreign language
context, the participants were not exposed to the lan-
guage as in a second language learning environment.
us, one of the biggest challenges for learners was
to master speaking skills. e participants who were
randomly selected, have an A2+ level of English, and
they were ranging the age from 20 to 25 years old. It
is also necessary to mention that they were currently
pursuing an English language certicate because it
was a requirement to graduate from the university.
is research aimed to work with the pitch of the
voice when asking questions and requests. For this
reason, two questions and two indirect requests were
extracted from Cambridge Interchange h Edition.
In the following chart, it can be seen the samples used
(see Table 1).
Figure 1. Examples of the grammatical function of intonation (Collins and Mees, 2013, p. 147)
Figure 2. Example of Yes/No question intonation contour pattern (Murcia et al., 2006, p. 287)
Table 1
/
Q1. Were you born in Buenos Aires? R1. Could you tell me where the nearest is?
Q2. Did you take English classes in Argentina? R2. Can you tell me how oen the buses run?
72
For the purpose of this study, the soware tool Praat
was used in order to visualize the pitch contour. is
study also compared the data obtained from the in-
tonation of native speakers and the participants in
order to identify the most common mistakes produced
by speakers. Furthermore, it was believed that a
good quality of the recordings can help this research
to obtain more reliable results, thus every audio was
improved in terms of quality in Adobe Audition (2019).
In order to carry out this investigation, a model
of each question and requests from a native English
speaker was extracted from the audios that are included
in Interchange Cambridge h edition book (2018) (4
recordings in total). e audios obtained were analyzed
in Praat. ese models were described quantitatively
and qualitatively.
e quantitative data presents an average of the
minimum and maximum pitch, this average will help
to calculate the «mean pitch» of each question and
request. On the other hand, the intonation contour in
blue was also described and compared according to
what it was seen in the model audios and the recordings
of the participants.
Second, the participants recorded their voice ask-
ing the same set of questions and requests, and the
recordings will also be analyzed in Praat (40 recordings
in total). It is signicant to say that the participants
did not listen to the audio models previously. Since
the questions and requests proposed t the level of
the students, they were supposed to know how these
questions should be pronounced.
Each student’s recording was compared with the
model audios, according to what could be seen in the
spectrogram in relationship with the words, the mean
pitch and the pitch contour presented. e results will
also be analyzed according to a qualitative perspec-
tive using the dierent author’s criteria, especially
those developed by Roach (2009), Murcia, Brinton
and Goodwin (2006).
Intonation contours in Yes/No questions produced
by native speakers
Armstrong and Ward (1926) in Cruttenden (1980)
stated some universal patterns related to ordinary
statements and questions or requests; the falling tone
is common is statements while «the rising tone is used
for yes/no questions, requests, statements with impli-
cations» (Cruttenden, 1980, p. 78). In this sense, it is
signicant to mention that the questions and requests
selected for this research have the common rising tune
pattern. Indeed, in regards to the rst yes/no question
produced by a native male speaker (gure 2) shows
that the voice maintains a medium level of pitch in
the words were and you, at the end of the last word
the pitch of the voice falls and ascends in «born». e
word «in» maintains the same level as «you», and the
words «Buenos Aires» are higher. e highest level
of pitch is located in the end of the question, and the
mean pitch of this utterance is 122.95 Hz.
Figure 4 shows question 2. It can be seen that the
pitch of the voice rises from low to high in the words
«you, take and English», the voice falls and rise (+) in
the last word, and there is a glide in the last syllable of
the word «Argentina». e highest peak of the question
is in the rst letter of the word «English» and in the
last syllable of «Argentina». e mean pitch is 144.50
Hz. e questions show a common pattern in English,
according to Murcia, et al in «Teaching pronunciation»
(2006) (see Figures 3, 4, 5, 6).
Intonation contours in requests produced by native
speakers
Figure 6 shows that in the case of the request 1, the
voice starts with a high pitch, and it falls in «tell».
ere is an + pattern in the beginning. e voice
rises again in the word «me» and falls in «nearest» e
pitch maintains the same level until «» and it starts
rising to say «is». e highest peaks are located in the
beginning and in the end of the request.
It can also be seen in gure 8 that the pitch contour
is similar to request 1. Indeed, it starts with a high
pitch in the word «did» and it falls in «you» the voice
rises again in «me» and «oen», and it falls again in
the article «the». Finally, the pitch ascends from low to
high in the words «buses and run». e request ends
with a high pitch. And the highest peak of the voice
occurs in the word «run» that is located in the end of
the request. e mean pitch in request 1 is: 214.74 Hz
and 208.55 Hz in request 2 (see Figures 7, 8, 9, 10).
Intonation contours in Yes/No questions produced
by speakers
From men, only one participant’s pitch was lower than
the model. In gure 8, it can be seen the low pitch
contour produced by participant 3, the pitch of the
voice of the rest of participants were pretty higher.
Furthermore, only 1 participant (P1) rises the voice
at the end of question 1 representing the highest peak
(gure 10). e others reached the highest peak in
other parts of the question (see Figures 11, 12).
From the 5 female participants, 3 of them raise the
voice at the end of the question as the native speaker
does. e mean pitch in the case of women is higher
than the male’s participants because the frequency or
women is higher. Moreover, 3 participants raised their
73
Figure 3. Spectrogram that shows the pitch contour in blue and
the intensity contour in yellow of question 1 produced by a native
speaker
Figure 5. Spectrogram that shows the pitch contour in blue and
the intensity contour in yellow of question 2 produced by a native
speaker
Figure 7. Spectrogram that shows the pitch contour in blue and the
intensity contour in yellow of request 1 produced by a native speaker
Figure 9. Spectrogram that shows the pitch contour in blue and the
intensity contour in yellow of request 2 produced by a native speaker
Figure 11. It shows the pitch contour and the corresponding words
to question 1 produced by participant 3
Figure 4. It species the pitch contour and the corresponding
words of question 1 produced by a native speaker.
Figure 6. It shows the pitch contour and the corresponding
words of question 2 produced by a native speaker
Figure 8. It shows the pitch contour and the corresponding
words of a request produced by a native speaker
Figure 10. It shows the pitch contour and the corresponding
words of a request 2 produced by a native speaker
Figure 12. It shows the pitch contour and the corresponding
words to question 1 produced by participant 1
74
voice since the beginning. It seems that most of them
got confused between the question «here» and the
verb to be in past «were». According to Murcia, et al.
(2006) the pattern of a question is dierent from
a Yes/No question.
In regards to question 2, only one male student (1)
raises his voice at the end of the question. e rest of
the participants raise the pith of the voice in the words
«you and take». On the contrary, in the case of females,
all of them rise the pitch of the voice at the end, and
the pitch contour pattern is closer to the model than
in the case of men (see Figures 13, 14).
Intonation contours in requests produced by
speakers
In relation with request 1, all the participants raised
the pitch of the voice at the end of the requests. ere
are some peaks in words that should not be stressed.
Since this request is longer than question 1 and 2, as it
can be observed in gure 13, the intonation does not
follow a natural contour. A similar pattern occurs in
nearly all the participants (see Figure 15).
In regards to request 2, any male participant reaches
the standard level of frequency, the mean pitch of the
participants will be explained in the next part. More-
over, they all tend to stress in the word «you», and the
words that are stressed in the model such as «tell and
run» are not produced with a high pitch.
e dierence of mean pitch
Since the two rst samples (questions) were recorded
by a male native speaker and the requests by a wom-
an native speaker, the levels of frequency are going
to vary because the frequency of women is dierent
from men. However, as Murcia, et al Goodwin (2006)
state, in reference to the phonetic notion of pitch, the
levels that are analyzed are the «pitch levels of a given
speaker» not the high or low levels that men’s and
women’s voice might have.
e diagram below represent the dierence existing
between the mean pitch of the model (standard) and
the mean pitch of the participants. ose participants
who are closer to 0, are the ones who are closer to the
intonation standard level.
In diagram 1, it can be seen the mean pitch of ques-
tion 1, participant 3 has the lowest mean pitch. e
rest of the audios have a higher mean pitch which
means that they are very distant from the standard
model audio. Since the model audio was recorded by
a man, it can be seen that male participant’s frequency
is closer than the model audio. In regards to women,
the diagram shows that participant 10 has the most
distant mean pitch.
In regards to requests, any male participant reached
the standard level of the native speaker intonation,
the frequency is too low. However, in all the cases, the
voice rises at the end of the request. e mean pitch
of 3 out of 5 females is higher than the standard mean
pitch of the model audio (see Figure 16).
In investigating the most common intonational mis-
takes by nding out the dierences in the production
of questions and requests between native speakers and
learners to know the current state of intonation,
this study found that the frequency of requests is too
distant from the model audios. It seems that the rea-
son is because the requests provided are longer than
questions. e pitch of the voice of students who deal
with intonation have undetermined pitch contours,
on the other hand. is means that the pitch of the
voice tended to be raised in any part of the utterance.
In other cases, the intonation seemed to be lineal,
there were not rising or falling intonation contours.
Moreover, in other cases, instead of raising, the pitch
of the voice tended to fall as it can be seen in gure
14. As a result of this nding, it can be stated that
students do not seem to be aware of the importance of
stressing signicant words in an utterance. Either in a
statement or a question, stressing plays a phonological
role, this is why, there are dierent intonation patterns
that deliver dierent meanings.
In regards to what it has been stated, intonation
may be dicult to teach because learners «are
not always aware of the uses and meanings of prosody
even in their own language» (Busa and Stella, 2015, p.
16) Furthermore, it is known that intonation as part
of prosody is the key for successful communication
since intonation patterns reect the grammatical and
discourse functions of an utterance (Murcia et al.,
2006, p. 184). In fact, Collins and Mees (2013) state
that if the nucleos of a yes/no question is produced
with a falling pattern, it can reect insistence. Likewise,
another type of intonation can reect other dierent
discourse eects (see Figure 17).
Furthermore, there are some peaks that are ex-
tremely high or low. And they are abruptly separated
from the intonation contour. is can be the eect of
not following a natural ow of the request, the stu-
dents, whose pitch contour have this problem, could
not pronounce well the word. When listening the
audio from participant 6, it was evident that she was
doubting at pronouncing the words, which did not let
her intonate properly. us, all the speaking features
are related, and they have to be mastered in order to
improve speaking’s intelligibility (see Figure 18).
75
Figure 13. It species the pitch contour and the corresponding
words of question 2 produced by participant 1
Figure 15. It shows the pitch contour and the corresponding words of
request 1 produced by participant 9
Figure 16. Request 2: Dierence between the audio model and the
participants in relation with the MEAN PITCH
Figure 17. It species the pitch contour, and the corresponding words
of the request 2 produced by participant 3
Figure 18. It shows the pitch contour and the corresponding words of
request 1 produced by participant 6
Figure 14. It shows the pitch contour and the corresponding
words of question 2 produced by participant 9
76
e present research also holds the idea that the
1 inuences the production of the 2 because it was
found that there is a similar pattern between the into-
nation of yes, no questions and requests produced by
the native English speakers and students. Indeed, in
the study done by Busa and Stella (2015) is stated that
the 1 inuences in the perception and production of
the 2 in terms of prosody features such as intonation.
In general, in the chart below it can be seen that most
students tended to raise the pitch of their voice at the
end of the questions. However, the questions seem to
be easier to produce than requests.
is supposition let the research conclude that
it may be signicant to study the sound patterns of
the native speaker’s language in order to understand
intonational problems. In fact, Collins and Mess
(2013) state:
e pronunciation errors that second language learn-
ers make are not just random attempts to produce
unfamiliar sounds. Rather, they reect the sound
inventory, rules of combination, and the stress and
intonation patterns of the native language. (p. 259)
Finally, through these spectrograms, we can not only
measure intonation and the levels of the voice, but also
the quality of speaking in general.
Recommended activities
In regards to the lack of stress awareness, Murcia et al.
(2006) and Collins and Mess (2013) recommend some
activities to present syllable prominence to students.
As it has been stated, syllable stress can change the
meaning of utterances, and it can change the discourse
eect. At rst, it is important for students to be aware
of rising and falling movements.
Hence, in order for students to work with pitch
and intonation. Collins and Mess (2013) propose an
activity that consists of imitating the pitches described.
Students visualize pitch contours and imitate what
they see. ere are a variety of systems in which
students can visualize the frequency of the voice
(see Figure 19).
Once students know what rising and falling mean
in an utterance. e learner needs to know the func-
tions of intonation. us, there is the possibility to
have students be aware of the changes in meaning of
the same utterance that is pronounced with dierent
intonation patterns. In the activities based on Celce
Murcia, et al (2006), students imitate the pitch con-
tours. In activity 2 the stress syllable is presented in
the upper case, in activity 1 students can visualize the
pitch contour (see Figures 20, 21).
In order to let students, know the importance of
intonation. Aer the previous exercise, students can
notice the eects of pronouncing statements with
dierent pitch contours (see Figure 22).
e data obtained aimed to identify common intonation
mistakes of the 2 production in lower intermediate
adult students. Since intonation seems not to be
commonly touched in classrooms, it is important
to understand the type of errors that learners make
in order to propose dierent teaching methods and
materials.
Aer nding out the most common intona-
tion mistakes in students, it is concluded that
the idea is not to have the learner sound like a
native speaker, but to be aware of the features
that are needed to improve our second language’s
intelligibility. It must be said that authors such as
Krashen, (2013) point out that Second language
pronunciation is acquired naturally and it can be
successfully instructed by the input students receive
without any planned instruction. For instance,
based on his experience, it is stated that the second
language accent will depend on the mood of the
person, but not on formal instruction. In other
words, if the learner does not feel comfortable
with the people he is talking to, the aective lter
will increase and consequently, it will aect all the
features that let the speaker be understood. In this
sense, the author states: «For pedagogy […] there
is no evidence that second language accent can
be permanently improved by direct instruction»
(Krashen, 2013, p. 19). However, the instruction
of an learner is dierent from students who
acquire the language in a second language back-
ground because an learner is not exposed to
the language as a Second Language learner. us,
some studies around this eld are needed in order
to improve teaching. Moreover, the current
research states some ndings to develop aware-
ness about the role of intonation in meaningful
conversations.
Having students practice dierent components such
as pronunciation and intonation is part of master-
ing speaking skills. Furthermore, it is known that
an accurate intonation facilitates an understandable
communication; thus, more methodological and in-
teractive activities are needed to be recommended
since resources related to intonation does not seem
to be enough.
77
Figure 19. Exercise extracted from Collins and Mess (2013, p. 141)
Figure 22. Exercise extracted from Murcia et al. (2016, p. 185)
Figure 20. Activity 1 Figure 21. Activity 2
is research has made the way for further intona-
tion studies such as the analysis of how recommended
activities work in real teaching settings. Moreover,
since teaching in general have become virtual because
of the pandemic, it would be signicant to study some
intonation activities and pedagogy guidance that could
be used in virtual classes. Finally, the technological
tool Praat that was used to analyze intonation can
also be applied in e classrooms as a tool of teaching
speaking. us, further research can identify more
valid and reliable technological tools that can be used
in e classrooms in order to foster speaking.
Busà, M. G. and Stella, A. (2015). e acquisition of English
L2 prosody by Italian native speakers: Experimental
data and pedagogical implications. In J. Levis, R. Mo-
hammed, M. Qian and Z. Zhou (eds). Proceedings of
the 6
th
Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and
Teaching Conference, 2380-9566, Santa Barbara,
(pp. 15-26). Ames, : Iowa State University.
Boersma and Weenink (2011). Praat: doing phonetics by
computer. Viewing a spectrogram. https://www.fon.
hum.uva.nl/praat/
Celce-Murcia, M., Brinton, D. M. and Goodwin, J. M. (1996).
Teaching pronunciation: A reference for teachers of
English to speakers of other languages. Cambridge
University Press.
Cruttenden, A. (1981). Falls and rises: meanings and uni-
versals. Journal of Linguistics, 17(1), 77-91.
Collins, B. and Mees, I. M. (2013). Practical phonetics and
phonology: A resource book for students. Routledge.
De Bot, K. and Mailfert, K. (1982). e teaching of into-
nation: Fundamental research and classroom applica-
tions.Tesol Quarterly,16(1), 71-77.
Derwing, T. M. (2008). Curriculum issues in teaching pro-
nunciation to second language learners. Phonology and
second language acquisition, 36, 347-369.
78
Farías, M. G. V. (2013). A comparative analysis of intonation
between Spanish and English speakers in tag questions,
wh-questions, inverted questions, and repetition ques-
tions. Revista Brasileira de Linguística Aplicada, 13(4),
1061-1083.
McCrocklin, S. (2015). Automatic speech recognition: Mak-
ing it work for your pronunciation class. In J. Levis, R.
Mohammed, M. Qian and Z. Zhou (eds). Proceedings
of the 6th Pronunciation in Second Language Learning
and Teaching Conference ( 2380-9566), Santa Bar-
bara, (pp. 126-133). Ames, : Iowa State University.
Nikolić, D. (2018). Empirical analysis of intonation activities
in student’s books. International Journal of Applied
Linguistics and English Literature, 7(3), 181-187.
Richards, J. (2013). Interchange (5
th
edition). United King-
dom: Cambridge University Press.
Roach, P. (2009). English phonetics and phonology paper-
back with audio s (2): A practical course. Cambridge
University Press.
Krashen, S. (2013). Second language acquisition: eory, ap-
plications, and some conjectures. Cambridge University.
Zhang, Y. and Liu, L. (2018). Using computer speech recogni-
tion technology to evaluate spoken English. Educational
Sciences: eory and Practice, 18(5).
