The effectiveness of auditory phonetic training on Greek native speakers2 perception and production of southern British English vowels

This study investigated the effectiveness of auditory phonetic training on Greek native speakers’ perception and production of Southern British English vowels. The trainees identified and produced English bVt words before and after receiving five sessions of High Variability Phonetic Training (multiple speakers in multiple contexts). All of the trainees improved in their overall identification of English vowels. A perception experiment showed that their post-training productions were more accurately identified by native English speakers than their pre-training productions. Taken together, the results demonstrate that speakers of a language with a simple 5-vowel system (viz. Greek) can improve in both perceiving and producing the vowels of a language with a complex system (viz. English) via intensive laboratory training.