Innovation in Language Learning

The differences in melody, accentuation, and rhythm patterns between the students' native language (L1) and the target lanuage (L2) are often viewed as the most likely causes of the learners’ intonation mistakes. Suprasegmental mistakes of this sort contribute to the appearance of the so-called "intonational" foreign accent and may seriously impede effective oral communication; therefore, identifying these mistakes in an EFL classroom is important to help students achieve better intelligibility of their speech. The results of the auditory and acoustic analyses of Czech students' recordings, including the British native speakers’ perceptual assessment of their phonetic and phonological accent, were employed by the research to identify the problematic areas of L2 intonation acquisition. An attempt was also made to link these areas, namely the insufficient expression of prominence, differences in speech segmentation, and the choice of melody patterns, with L1 intonation transfer. The report concludes that although these mistakes do not pose a severe obstruction to communication, focused classroom instruction aimed at overcoming L1 interference will significantly facilitate English intonation acquisition and improve the general intelligibility of students’ speech.

Keywords: intonation, melody, prominence, L1 transfer, comfortable intelligibility.

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