THE EFFECTS OF EXPOSURE AND EXPLICIT PHONOLOGICAL INSTRUCTION OF ENGLISH VARIETIES ON GELT LISTENING COMPREHENSION

THE EFFECTS OF EXPOSURE AND EXPLICIT PHONOLOGICAL INSTRUCTION OF ENGLISH VARIETIES ON GELT LISTENING COMPREHENSION

The Global Englishes Language Teaching (GELT) approach plays an essential role in English as a lingua franca. Previous GELT studies only examined the influence of Global English exposure on learners’attitudes in the Inner, Outer, and Expanding Circles. This study added explicit instruction on phonological features in addition to a variety of exposures to enhance listening proficiency. The participants were 88 first-year students majoring in Applied English at a central Taiwanese university, assigned either to an exposure or an experimental group. Both groups were exposed to English Received Pronunciation, Singaporean English, Japanese English, Standard American English, and Taiwanese English. In addition, the experimental group received explicit instruction on the first three varieties mentioned above. Pre- and post-listening comprehension tests and multiple-choice accent identification tests were quantitatively collected for comparisons. Semi-structured interviews allowed the participants to qualitatively elaborate on their performances and the effects of phonological instruction. The results showed that a variety of exposures with additional phonological explanations significantly increased their overall listening scores and raised their phonological awareness.