Professor Rada
Remedial Speech Assessment Report for SP05
Report and data analysis prepared by Dr. Franca Ferrari-Bridgers
List your student learning outcomes as described in your syllabus. Please list ALL of the Student Learning
Outcomes that are listed in your syllabus
Gen Ed. Obj.
1.
Communicate
effectively through
reading, writing,
listening and
speaking
2. Students will
integrate knowledge
and skills in their
programs of study.
Outcome desired
Students will achieve
an increased level of
intelligibility in
speaking
Outcome desired
Students will
recognize, and
discriminate and
pronounce the vowel
and consonant
phonemes of
American English
Students will
recognize and use the
elements of syllables
and word stress,
rhythm and intonation
patterns and
incorporate them in
their conversational
speech
Students will increase
their fluency in
conversational
speech
Dr. Franca Ferrari 02/9/2016
REMEDIAL SP05
Outcome desired
Outcome desired
Page 1
Describe the assessment activity and the (student learning outcome(s) it addresses ) that occurred in your
course.
Assignment:
Students were asked to read aloud the ‘Rainbow passage’ that is an OSHA standardized test to assess articulation of
American English sounds therefore satisfying the student learning outcome “Students will recognize and discriminate
and pronounce the vowel and consonant phonemes of American English”.
Instructions: Instructors administered the test twice during the semester: the first time was during week 2 and the
second time was during week 12. Students did not have the opportunity to see the test before reading it.
List the data collection instrument (s) used for assessment.
Participants of this study were not given prior opportunity to view the reading material before the third week of class.
The students were instructed to read the rainbow passage out loud in a microphone. The students’ performances were
recorded in a soundproofed booth using the software AUDACITY. The students were not provided with verbal or visual
cues for correct pronunciation of the “Rainbow Passage”,
THE RAINBOW PASSAGE 1
When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act like a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of
white light into many beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path high above, and its two
ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but
no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold
at the end of the rainbow.
1
For more information about the usage of the Rainbow :https://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=standards&p_id=9780
Dr. Franca Ferrari 02/9/2016
REMEDIAL SP05
Page 2
Student performance was evaluated by the instructors indicating students’ errors on instructor’s copy of the reading.
Scoring was based on the thirty-none phonemes (24 consonants and 15 vowels) of American English, as specified in the
course textbook. Sound placement and specific consonant blends were included in the tally, bringing the total number of
target sounds to 81 items. Instructors then determined the total number of items produced incorrectly by each student.
Certain sounds occurred more often in the passage than other sounds, therefore the number of possible errors per
student was 319. However, the participants were scored on the number of total errors (tokens), they made while reading
the passage.
Provide an analysis (and summary) of the assessment results that were obtained.
20 students were assessed in total. Students were part of SP05. The percentage and the total number of errors, i.e.,
mispronounced sounds, between the first and the second reading (PRE and POST) of the Rainbow passage is reported in
the charts below.
Total Percentage of Mispronunced Sounds
20%
18%
% OF ERRORS
16%
14%
12%
10%
8%
6%
4%
2%
0%
Series1
Dr. Franca Ferrari 02/9/2016
PRE
13%
REMEDIAL SP05
POST
8%
Page 3
Number of Mispronounced Sounds
Number of ERRORS
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
Series1
Dr. Franca Ferrari 02/9/2016
PRE
486
REMEDIAL SP05
POST
308
Page 4
MOST COMMON TYPES OF MISPRONOUNCED SOUNDS
140
120
Number of errors
100
80
60
40
20
0
F_t(10) F_s(5) F_z(11) M_θ(1) F_θ(2)
IN_δ(1
blend_ blend_
F_m(2) F_n(7)
IN_r(6) M_r(6) M_i: (8) IN_I (8)
F_nd(8) F_ld(2)
1)
M_I
(11)
M_o
(4)
M_ʊ
(4)
M_ʌ
(6)
M_aɪ
(6)
PRE_ERRORS
17
9
20
15
19
117
10
16
28
23
13
19
8
28
16
7
16
9
15
POST_ERRORS
11
8
18
9
21
61
7
32
8
17
7
4
3
7
9
11
17
4
6
We performed two Paired Sample Mean t-Tests, one for the items and one for the students.
As the t-Statistics for the ITEMS analysis, t (80) = 2.03, p < 0.05, suggests the mean difference between the PRE
(M1=0.13) and the POST (M2=.078) was significant. The percentage change shows that students decreased their number
of errors by 40%.
Dr. Franca Ferrari 02/9/2016
REMEDIAL SP05
Page 5
As the t-Statistics for the STUDENT analysis, t (19) = 6.11, p < 0.05 , suggests the mean difference between the PRE
(M1=24.3) and the POST number of errors per student (M2=15.4) was significant. The percentage change shows that
students overall performances improved 36.6% between the pre and the post.
The t-Statistics together with the mean and percentage difference values indicate that students improved their
performances from the PRE to the POST. For the Item analysis, overall students decreased the number of
mispronounced sounds, suggesting that items were pronounced better in the POST. For the student analysis, the data
shows that individual students’ performance improved between the pre and the post assessment.
Describe how the assessment results that were obtained affected (or did not affect) the student learning
outcomes you identified. As part of your discussion, describe any plans you have to address the areas where
students need to improve.
According to professor Rada, the results indicate that the GEN-ED 1 learning outcomes have been generally met, with the
students demonstrating a significant reduction in the number of incorrect phoneme productions from Pre-Test to PostTest.
Student performance indicated overall improvement in their production of the phonemes of American English. Our current
enrollment consists largely of Chinese and Spanish speaking students.
The literature and observation document the following characteristics in the speech of these populations.The speech of
Chinese-speaking individuals presents with the following features:
1. Chinese does not have the following phonemes: the voiced fricatives /v/, /th/, /z/, / /,
/d /, and consonant blends in word final position.
2. There are no voiced plosive sounds (/b/, /d/, /g/) I n word final position.
These factors would result in discrimination problems, as well as sound omission problems which impact intelligibility and
the listener’s ability top correctly recognize lexical items and morphological features such as the plural and past tense
markers, which are indicated by final consonant sounds.
3. The rhotic /r/ is pronounced as /w/ in word in initial position or may be pronounced as /l/, particularly in consonant
blends.
Dr. Franca Ferrari 02/9/2016
REMEDIAL SP05
Page 6
4.
5.
6.
7.
There is confusion with the sounds /l/ and /n/.
Final /l/ is labialized and pronounced as /w/.
In Cantonese, /i/ and /I/ are pronounced the same way.
There is no difference between tense and lax vowel sounds; therefore /i/-/I/, /e/-/E/, and /u/-/U/ are identical.
The speech of Spanish-speaking individuals is characterized by the following features:
1. There is word final consonant omission. There is also omission of consonant sounds in word medial position.
2. There is no voiced labiodental fricative /v/,; /b/ is substituted in word initial position and a bilabial fricative is
substituted in other word positions.
3. / / and /d/ are positional variants in Spanish, thus we see substitutions of these sounds.
4. Final consonant blends are simplified, with the second sound being omitted.
5. /j/ and /d / are substituted for each other.
6. There are fewer vowel sounds in Spanish than in English and no difference between tense and lax vowel sounds.
Action Plan:
Data analysis might go beyond determination of total number of phoneme type errors for the entire population and each
student by considering the percentage of each type of error for each student. This would indicate a “consistency of error”
(as mentioned in Rada Assessment In statute Report, 2015). This would be more indicative of the effect of the phoneme
error on the student’s overall performance.
Reflecting on the specific errors noted in this assessment, instructors might look at the data utilizing a phoneme process
approach. For example, noting that a number of phonemes are recorded as “incorrect” in final word position, the type of
error should also be noted. Indeed, the majority of final sound errors were omissions. This would guide the instructor is
choosing remedial strategies such as increased listening/discrimination activities and increased use of written cues.
Noting which vowel sounds are produced incorrectly might indicate that a particular type of vowel is misarticulated by a
student. The instructor might concentrate on one tongue placement for that entire set of vowels.
Some recommendations for remedial procedures might include the following techniques:
Dr. Franca Ferrari 02/9/2016
REMEDIAL SP05
Page 7
Discrimination exercises utilizing minimal pair contrasts plus exercises which incorporate moto-kinesthetic cues could be
utilized to establish correct production
SAMPLE
STUDENT1
of error sounds.
For some consonant omission problems, linking exercises might be utilized. For example, the production of a correct /l/ in
final position may be established by using word sequences such as pill - low. The /l/ is likely to be pronounced correctly
when these words are linked, as it then assumes word medial position. The production of low would then be silenced, so
the /l/ occurs in word final position.
Since we see many instances of consonant omission, it might be useful to employ both auditory and visual cues to
facilitate inclusion of these sounds.
These suggestions are not exhaustive; many strategies may be employed according to the individual patterns of sound
production exhibited by the students in each class.
There is a need to focus on self-monitoring to increase correct sound production and to optimize carryover into
conversational situations within and outside of the classroom. The use of the Speech Department Multimedia Lab would
be beneficial to realize these outcomes.
Finally, in order to better understand the nature of the students’ errors we will use a four dimension rubric to evaluate the
quality of the students’ sound production. For each of the assessed sound we will assign a 0 if the sound is omitted, a 1 if
the sound is incorrectly articulated, a 2 if the sound is approaching the target sound but it is not quit right and a 3 if the
sound is correctly articulated.
A sample copy of the rubric is given here below.
Dr. Franca Ferrari 02/9/2016
REMEDIAL SP05
Page 8
PRE
STUDENT 1
IN_ p(4)
M_p(3)
F_p(1)
blend_pr(1)
IN_b(4)
M_b(4)
IN_t(3)
M_t(5)
F_t(10)
IN_d(1)
M_d(5)
F_d(8)
Number of
incorrect
sounds
Omission =0
3
0+0
Approaching the
target sound=2
Target
sound=3
12
9
3
4
2
Incorrect
sound =1
1
1+1
0
2+2
1
blend_dr(1)
IN_k(1)
M_k(5)
Dr. Franca Ferrari 02/9/2016
REMEDIAL SP05
Page 9