PRELIMINARY DISCRIMINATION TRAINING IN THE TEACHING OF FRENCH PRONUNCIATION.

A NEED TO DETERMINE THE VALUE OF PRELIMINARY DISCRIMINATION TRAINING IN INCREASING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF LANGUAGE LABORATORY PRACTICE ON THE PRONUNCIATION OF FRENCH SOUNDS HAS RESULTED IN THIS STUDY. DESCRIBED IN CHAPTER 2 ARE ELEVEN PILOT STUDIES, INVOLVING MORE THAN 1,000 STUDENTS, THAT PERMITTED THE DEVELOPMENT OF MATERIALS, TRAINING PROCEDURES, AND METHODS OF EVALUATION NEEDED FOR THE MAJOR EXPERIMENTATION. FOLLOWING A DISCUSSION OF THE PROBLEMS OF DEFINING AND TESTING DISCRIMINATION, TRAINING DISCRIMINATION, EVOKING STUDENT ORAL RESPONSES, AND JUDGING PRONUNCIATION, THE REPORT EXPLAINS THE THREE CONTROLLED MAJOR EXPERIMENTS CARRIED OUT TO TEST THE MAJOR HYPOTHESIS OF THE PROJECT. FOR EACH, THERE IS A CLARIFICATION OF THE EXPERIMENT'S HYPOTHESIS, SUBJECTS, DESIGN, LANGUAGE LABORATORY FACILITIES, PROCEDURES AND MATERIALS, SCORING, DISCRIMINATION TEST, AND RESULTS. CITED IN THE ANALYSIS OF THE EXPERIMENTAL FINDINGS ARE THE CONCLUSIONS THAT DISCRIMINATION TRAINING DID RENDER MEASURABLY MORE EFFECTIVE SUBSEQUENT LANGUAGE LABORATORY PRACTICE IN THE CASE OF THE PHONEMIC PROBLEM OF DISTINGUISHING AMONG THE FRENCH SOUNDS "EN" . . . "ON" . . . "AIM," BUT NO SUCH MARKED IMPROVEMENT WAS NOTED IN THE CASE OF THE PHONETIC PROBLEM PRESENT IN THE FRENCH "CHAUD" VERSUS THE AMERICAN "SHOW." LISTED AMONG THE CONCLUDING REMARKS ARE A NUMBER OF IMPLICATIONS SUGGESTED BY THE EXPERIMENTATION AND A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF REFERENCES. THREE APPENDIXES INCLUDE MATERIALS USED IN THE THREE EXPERIMENTS AND AN ARTICLE BY PIMSLEUR ON PROGRAMING ACOUSTIC DISCRIMINATORY SKILLS. (AB)