This study tested the effects of hand-clapping to the rhythm of newly learned French words on the pronunciation of these words by 7- to 8-year-old Catalan children. In a short training experiment with a pre- and posttest design, 28 children either repeated cognate words in French (e.g. French "aspirateur," Catalan "aspirador"…

This study explores the effects of embodied prosodic training on the production of non-native French front rounded vowels (i.e. /y, ø, oe/) and the overall pronunciation proficiency. Fifty-seven Catalan learners of French practiced pronunciation in one of two conditions: one group observed hand gestures embodying prosodic features of the sentences…

Language classroom interactions can be characterized as multimodal, since teachers may resort to a variety of resources provided by their body or by their immediate space in order to convey meaning, manage activities and assess pupils' performances. Furthermore, teachers' multimodal practices constitute an essential component for the…

Though research has shown that rhythmic training is beneficial for phonological speech processing, little empirical work has been carried out to assess whether rhythmic training in the classroom can help to improve pronunciation in a second language. This study tests the potential benefits of hand-clapping to the rhythm of newly learned French…

Junctures are pauses used in speech separating thought-groups from one another in order to give the listener time to digest the utterance to signal the end. Where junctures are present, hearers find it easier to understand what is said as they are able to discern the individual words between such verbal breaks. Junctures being universal…

Investigates how the intonation of French differs from that of English and discusses French intonation under the headings of stress, rhythm, and intonation patterns. Outlines a program to teach the rudiments of French intonation based upon the theoretical analyzing of French notation presented in the first part of this paper. (SED)

Although a great many textbooks of general phonetics deal with the articulation and the acoustics of speech sounds, these works generally deal only briefly with the facts of suprasegmental phonetics--rythm, accent, and intonation. The author feels "it is precisely suprasegmental phonetics which is the most important in our French classes because…

Paper read at the Congress for the Oral Education of the Deaf, Northampton, England, in June 1967. (DS)

Special edition devoted to media in modern language instruction. (RS)

Underlines the importance of semantic, situational, and phonological factors such as intonation in the teaching of French as a second language. (Text is in French.) (CLK)

Presents a method for the systematic teaching of prosodic features, particularly in French, based on a general theory of intonation and on the use of a pitch visualizer. (Text is in French.) (AM)

Students of French learn to pronounce the syllables of the same rhythmic group with the same stress and the same intonation while lengthening slightly only the last syllable uttered. Several techniques designed to help students acquire correct French rhythm patterns are described here. They include: (1) counting aloud, (2) syllable division, (3)…