THE USE OF PERCEPTUAL COMPUTERIZED TESTS IN THE IMPROVEMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE PRONUNCIATION

In the contemporary challenging context for language teaching, the foreign language teacher has to be able to understand the contribution of different elements on education and it includes the strengths and limitations of new technologies and practices. Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that student motivation and teacher instruction can be improved with the use of technology in language learning as it provides them tools with which language can be effectively learned. This proposal aims to describe the procedures of a computerized test which deals with the perception of segments and suprasegmentals in foreign languages by non-native speakers. It was first developed to test Brazilian speakers´ perception of the pronunciation of English stress and the pronunciation of English regular verbs in the past (-ed). However, the software can be adapted to a wide range of different pronunciation features in any language. All words and sounds used are maintained in a database and are randomized before each test. During the test, the participants can listen to each word as many times as they want and press a button which corresponds to the feature they imagine they have listened. At the end of each test, the software provides a spreadsheet so that the researcher can analyze how many times the participants listened to each word, and which button they pressed. This kind of tests provides good results and considerable aid for teachers who want to assess their students´ perception of non-native pronunciation before preparing a syllabus for a foreign language course, for example. Also, various studies have shown that the perception of a non-native sound is essential for the production of that sound. Therefore, this software may help teachers investigate and then focus on their students´ problems or weaknesses in the pronunciation of a foreign language.