As far as the productions of read phrases are concerned, we have hypothesized that Group B
would evince a stronger evolution than Group A, mainly because Training B included oral
practice at the level of the entire phrase. Yet, the opposite is actually found; the segmental
group showed a greater evolution from pre-training to post-training production than the
prosodic group. In Table 6 below, the evolutions of both groups according to the three judges’
mean scores are presented, following the schema pre-training ? post-training = rate of
evolution (whether increase + or decrease -, expressed in percentage):
Table 6: Pre-training to post-training evolutions for phrases
For Judge 1, the better evolution of Group A is clear, and the gap between the two groups
is large; Group A has increased by 31.2%, but Group B has decreased by 0.56%. This result is
all the more unexpected as the evolution of Group A is very strong. On the contrary, the
mean evolution of Group B is close to that of Group A if one follows Judge 2’s scores.
Although still higher, the evolution of +15.7% of the segmental group is almost on a par with
the 15.3% increase of the prosodic group. As regards Judge 3, yet another pattern can be
observed, since Hypothesis 4 #2 for phrases is here validated. The increase of Group B is
greater than that of Group A, with +20.6% and only +7.74%, respectively.
Despite the latter result, the general result denies the hypothesis concerning phrases. The
mean evolution of Group A, i.e. +18.15%, is above the mean evolution of Group B, which is
only +11.2%.
The pre-training to post-training evolution for isolated words may lead to a twofold
hypothesis. On the one hand, if prosodic features have more importance than segmentals,
and Birdsong’s (2003) idea proves to be true, then the prosodic group will have evolved more
that the segmental group. This would imply that a suprasegmental training help learners
with segmental production, as well. On the other hand, considering that a segmental training
is based on phonemes and oral practice of individual sounds and words, it is just as
conceivable that the mean score of Group A for words will have increased more than that of
Group B.
As is shown in Table 7, we may conclude that the second hypothesis is true; the segmental
group has a stronger pre- to post-training evolution than Group B.
Table 7: Pre-training to post-training evolutions for words
Once again, Judge 1’s scores and the calculation of the evolutions foreground a significant
gap between the 26.6% increase of Group A and the 2.53% decrease of Group B. Even though
it is confirmed that the segmental group has evolved in word reading more than the other
group, it is hardly comprehensible that Group B should have thus decreased. For Judge 2,
both groups have increased in the word reading task, but the increase of Group A is much
stronger than Group B, with +39.4% compared with +8.67%. Finally, the increase of Group A
is slightly weaker with Judge 3, i.e. +21.3%, but it is still above Group B, with +8.12%.
On the whole, the evolution of word production of Group B is rather weak, as the mean
score has changed from 3.42 to 3.6 (+5.26%). As could be expected, however, the segmental
group showed significant improvement in word reading, going from a mean score of 2.84 to
3.68 (+29.6%).