Limitations of self-imitation. Effects of self-imitation practice on L2 pronunciation with the use of a Golden Speaker Builder – an interactive tool for pronunciation training
Ewa Kusz · 2023
One increasingly popular method of L2 pronunciation improvement is self-imitation practice, which involves mirroring one's own voice synthesised with that of a native speaker. The Golden Speaker Builder (Ding et al. 2019) is a tool that allows users to generate a personalised model voice, which mirrors the learner's voice but with a native accent. Thirty-five participants of the study performed a three-week self-imitation task by repeating some of the sentences they had previously recorded. The participants took a pre-test, a post-test after three weeks of practice, and a delayed post test. Each participant completed two qualitative questionnaires: before and after the exercises, to find out their opinion about the tool used. The results show a significant improvement in pronunciation in terms of fluency and comprehensibility, but the feedback from the questionnaire indicates that GSB cannot replace the personalised comments received directly from a teacher during pronunciation training.