Acoustic and articulatory visual feedback in classroom L2 vowel remediation

Kocjančič Antolík, Tanja (author), Bořil, Tomáš (author), Hofmann, Susanna (author)

This paper presents L2 vowel remediation in a classroom setting via two real-time visual feedback methods: articulatory ultrasound tongue imaging, which shows tongue shape and position, and a newly developed acoustic formant analyzer, which visualizes a point correlating with the combined effect of tongue position and lip rounding in a vowel quadrilateral. Ten Czech students of the Swedish language participated in the study. Swedish vowel production is difficult for Czech speakers since the languages differ significantly in their vowel systems. The students selected the vowel targets on their own and practiced in two classroom groups, with six students receiving two ultrasound training lessons, followed by one acoustic, and four students receiving two acoustic lessons, followed by one ultrasound. Audio data were collected pre-training, after the two sessions employing the first visual feedback method, and at post-training, allowing measuring Euclidean distance among selected groups of vowels and observing the direction of change within the vowel quadrilateral as a result of practice. Perception tests were performed before and after training, revealing that most learners perceived selected vowels correctly already before the practice. The study showed that both feedback methods can be successfully applied to L2 classroom learning, and both lead to the improvement in the pronunciation of the selected vowels, as well as the Swedish vowel set as a whole. However, ultrasound tongue imaging seems to have an advantage as it resulted in a greater number of improved targets.

• Language: English
• Keywords: L2 vowel remediation, real-time visual feedback, ultrasound tongue imaging, formants, Swedish
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: PEF - Faculty of Education
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2025
• Number of pages: Str. 865-886
• Numbering: Vol. 68, iss. 4
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-179896
• UDC: 81'342.41
• ISSN on article: 1756-6053
• DOI: 10.1177/00238309231223736
• COBISS.SI-ID: 197115651
• Publication date in RUL: 26.02.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Language and speech
• Shortened title: Lang. speech
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• ISSN: 1756-6053
• COBISS.SI-ID: 519813913

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: samoglasniki, vizualne povratne informacije, jezik (jezikoslovje)

Projects

• Funder: EC - European Commission
• Funding programme: European Regional Development Fund
• Project number: CZ.02.01.01/00/22_008/0004595
• Name: Beyond Security: Role of Conflict in Resilience-Building