ELT in Japan (ELT-J)

Teaching English /r/ and /l/ to EFL learners: a lexical approach (parts 1-3 final) Charles Jannuzi University of Fukui, Japan Introduction English /r/, /l/ and contrasts across these two categories of sounds are often cited as pronunciation and listening perception problems for a variety of EFL learners, most from E. Asia. The language backgrounds most often associated with these problems are Japanese, Korean, Chinese and some languages of SE Asia (e.g., Thai but also Cantonese Chinese). Other language speakers have also expressed an interest in improving their pronunciation of English /r/ and /l/, including Russian and German EFL learners. Perhaps the most well-known group to have a problem with the two categories of sounds is Japanese EFL learners. This could be because their native language background creates the most difficult problems to overcome, both in terms of listening perception and spoken production. It could also be because Japan attained affluence b...

Looking at our own criteria for evaluation Charles Jannuzi University of Fukui, Japan SLA research is often defended on the basis that it can be 'generalized' into epistemological claims. However, this is actually one of those crucially unexamined aspects of SLA research. For it to generalize, they would have to specify what population the findings are supposed to generalize to (and they never do). Another related weakness of SLA research is that they are, in effect, running tiny, short-term 'sociological' studies of populations and then trying, rather weakly, to draw out psychological (developmental)/psycholinguistic (acquisitional) implications based on a 'small group' study. This makes for conceptual and interpretive incoherence in most SLA. However, in the classroom we practitioners often say, we use this or that because it 'works', because it is 'effective'. But what criteria do we base that on? I mean, I would like to think I know wha...