Studying the Effectiveness of Two Techniques for the Teaching of Onset Consonant Clusters

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to clarify the effectiveness of two teaching techniques of onset consonant clusters with Japanese university learners of English. Two teaching techniques― ‘A’ (Celce-Murcia, Brinton, & Goodwin, 2010), and ‘B’ (Walker, 2005) were assessed. Selected words with onset consonant clusters were chosen specifically from combinations of voiceless consonants and voiced consonants (C[−voice]-C[+voice]). These words were combined with the carrier sentence: “Say ________ again,” and recorded by students. The time between consonants were measured in milliseconds by Praat, a computerized sound analysis program. The results indicate that teaching technique ‘A’ is more effective in comparison to technique ‘B,’ especially with lexical items containing /kr/, /ʃr/, /sn/, /fl/, /kl/ consonant clusters. This is also seen with the place of articulation, particularly in the cases of /k/ + liquids, /s/ + nasal, and /f, s, ʃ, θ/ + liquids.