The effects of visual and production components in training the perception and production of English consonant contrasts by Mandarin speakers

Studies have shown the effectiveness of auditory-only training in improving the perception and/or production of non-native contrasts. This study investigated whether providing additional visual and production components are more useful than auditory-only training. The contrasts /ð/-/z/ and /θ/-/s/ were chosen since studies reported these common confusions among Mandarin EFL learners. Forty-five participants were divided into five groups receiving 10 training sessions: auditory-only (A), audio-visual (AV), auditory and explicit production (AP), visual-only (V) or explicit production-only (P). All auditory and visual stimuli were produced by six native General American speakers while the production training involved a native GA speaker giving immediate feedback. Word-level identification and reading pre/post-tests were used to measure their perception and production performance. Robust perceptual improvement of the two consonant pairs was found in A, AV, AP, and P although they did not differ significantly. Their production only improved significantly when they were trained under A, AV, AP, and P, whereas AP and P groups performed significantly better than other groups. These results showed auditory-only training could already improve the perception and production of difficult contrasts, while visual and production components did not make a significant difference in perception improvement. Only direct production training was more beneficial in training participants’ production.