Overcoming the pronunciation barrier. The aptitude for phonetic mimicry and German ESL students' linguistic awareness

Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2020 in the subject Learning materials - English, grade: 1.3, University of Cologne, language: English, abstract: This paper firstly compares and contrasts the phonetic and phonological systems of English and German and then goes on to describe some frequently occurring problems concerning pronunciation and non-native accents of German ESL students. Some of the factors leading to the problems that will be scrutinized are interference of German, learners’ attitudes and insufficient knowledge of phonetics and phonology systems of the English language, among others. Moreover, the concept of what is commonly referred to as the aptitude for (phonetic) mimicry will be illuminated and discussed from different viewpoints, taking into account the origin of the term and its applicability to linguistics, particularly within the fields of phonetics and phonology. One of the objectives of this paper will thus be to determine possible factors affecting learners’ pronunciation competence and to examine to what extent formal instruction in phonetics and phonology can alleviate certain pronunciation difficulties. To that end, a small-scale study was designed and conducted at the University of Cologne with first- and second-year English students, five of whom had not yet taken the Practical Phonetics & Phonology (PPP) course that forms an obligatory part of the English Studies Bachelor’s Degree Program and five who had taken it during the previous semester and had passed the end-of-module exam.