Showcase of Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavors (SOURCE)

Determining Pronunciation of /p/ and /r/ in Spanish 101 Students Using Spanish Tongue Twisters (Trabalenguas)

Previous research shows that tongue-twisters can improve pronunciation in second-language learners. This experiment explores the pronunciation of /r/ and /p/ from participants in two Spanish 101 classes at a small, public, four-year university. One class participated in weekly tongue-twister practice sessions for eight weeks, where the professor read a tongue twister, the participants repeated the tongue-twister, and then practiced on their own or with a partner. The second class was used as a control group and no pronunciation practice was provided. Sound analyses were conducted post-experiment to determine if pronunciation improved when using tongue-twisters in the classroom. Additionally, a pre-experiment survey provided information on participants’ motivations in improving Spanish pronunciation, which allowed for correlations to inform researchers on the non-linguistic factors that may have aided in pronunciation improvement.