This blog post covers two methods of The ACA Method:
- Ear (Aural) Training â Minimal Pairs
- Immediate Feedback
How can an adult language learner expect to produce the sounds of a new language if they canât even âhearâ them?
Is it simply too late to âhear the unhearableâ?
No!
Many theories suggest that a baby is born with the innate ability to produce the phonemes, or sounds, of all the worldâs languages. And that around 6 to 12 months, the mind begins to imprint and focus more on the sounds of their soon-to-be native language.
Some languages, like Rotokas only have 11 distinguishable sounds, spoken on an island near New Guinea, whereas others, like the Taa language, mostly spoken in Botswana, have somewhere over 120!
So those born to learn Rotokas may have some difficultly later in life re-training the brain to adapt to completely foreign sounds.
Japanese Speakers: Rock or Lock?
Japanese speakers have no /r/ and /l/ sound similar to how they are pronounced in English, but rather somewhere in between.
A child born in a Japanese household simply isnât going to get exposed to enough R or L-like sounds in order to produce them, and as we will see, wonât even be able to hear the difference!
Much like an English speaker might have difficultly hearing the difference between Seung, Seong or Sung, a Japanese speaker canât normally hear the difference between Rock and Lock.
âTeaching the /r/â/l/ discrimination to Japanese adultsâ (McCLelland)
In 2002, Dr. James McClelland at Carnegie Mellon University, decided to try and see if he could teach Japanese speakers.
Native Japanese speakers living in the United States were recruited and placed in front of a computer. One group attempted to discriminate ârockâ vs. âlockâ, and the other âroadâ vs. âloadâ.
When words differ in only one phoneme, they are known as minimal pairs. They form a crucial part of The ACA Method and the pronunciation training we do.
The subjects were instructed to either press [R] or [L] on the keyboard, depending on what word they heard. They trained with roughly 500 trials before testing. Their performance was compared with native English speakers.
The results? No better than chance, with most of the results falling around 50%. No learning was measured.
The Power of Immediate Feedback
Then, McLelland had subjects repeat the experiment but this time they were given immediate feedback. If they guessed correctly, they would see a green check mark, incorrectly, a red x.
The results were nothing short of remarkable.
Most of the subjects were able to train to levels of around 80% accuracy.
In only a few hours of works, Japanese speakers had learned to hear new sounds that their brains were never adapted for.
Minimal Pair training, combined with immediate feedback, can make you hear the unhearable!
Hear It Before You Speak It
Studies tell us that in order to be able to produce novel sounds one must first be able to distinguish them, which is why Ear Training in the ACA Method comes before Mouth or Eye Training.
This old aphorism tells us everything we need to know about where and how to begin. Listening is the most important, and most often overlooked, skill in acquiring a new language. Many studies show that language students canât possibly be expected to produce a sound they canât yet distinguish when listening. So before you can expect to be able to speak, youâve got to be able to listen!
So why isnât ear (aural) training more emphasized? It isnât as sexy. Most students want to hit the ground running and learn some cool new words and phrases that they can start practicing from day one. And most teachers are more than willing to oblige.
But The ACA Method isnât interested in whatâs cool but in whatâs effective. And as youâll see, actually being able to listen, and therefore speak, properly is way cooler and sexier than struggling through saying a few common phrases. Patience young grasshopper.
