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Articles

Vol. 28 No. 3 (2025): Second language pronunciation: Current issues and developments

Student attitudes towards high variability phonetic training in Spanish phonetics courses

DOI
https://doi.org/10.37213/cjal.2025.35877
Submitted
December 15, 2025
Published
2025-12-15

Abstract

High variability phonetic training (HVPT), in which listeners practice identifying stimuli spoken in a variety of voices, has consistently proven effective in improving listeners’ ability to differentiate and identify non-native sounds. Nevertheless, it is rarely integrated into language coursework. In this classroom account, we describe how we incorporated HVPT as online homework into upper-level Spanish pronunciation classes and collected students’ attitudes towards these tasks. Overall, students indicated that they found HVPT to be a useful, although not always enjoyable, tool for improving their Spanish listening comprehension and pronunciation. Given students’ positive impression of the utility of completing HVPT as online homework, we argue that these types of tasks should be incorporated by textbook publishers into their accompanying websites as a useful way for instructors to add pronunciation-related content to their classes.

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