Acquisition of English Syllable Structure through Explicit Teaching among Hausa Speakers

Abstract

The debate between the effectiveness of explicit and implicit teaching has taken a center stage in the second language acquisition literature over a long period of time. Most of such debates center on grammar teaching and very few discuss suprasegmental features especially, syllable structure. All languages have some sort of syllabicity; however, the phonetic characteristics of syllables differ across languages. The difference can be seen in the types of sounds that can cluster together around a single syllabic nucleus. The current work examines the effects of explicit instruction on the acquisition of English syllable structure among native Hausa speakers. The work investigates the efficiency of interventions through explicit teaching on the English syllable structure in a classroom setting. English syllables have some structures that are absent in Hausa and these structures pose some difficulties for Hausa speakers who learn English. This work explores the structures and adopts explicit instruction as an intervention to remedy the difficulties through explicit teaching. The investigation was done on participants who are Ghanaian Hausa speakers learning English. Generally, the work adds to the literature on the efficacy of explicit teaching, and specifically on the teaching of English syllable structure among Hausa speakers. Finally, the work investigates some of the constraints that learners and teachers are faced with in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) and offers suggestions for improving the teaching of English pronunciation to Hausa learners. The study discovers that in disyllabic word, there is preference of trochaic syllable over iambic syllable, acquisition of onsets is easier than acquisition of codas and finally, explicit teaching is very effective in classroom.