Aki Tsunemoto

• PhD
• Associate Professor at Tohoku University

This study examined the role of visual cues (facial expressions and hand gestures) in second language (L2) speech assessment. University students (N = 60) at English-medium universities assessed 2-minute video clips of 20 L2 English speakers (10 Chinese and 10 Spanish speakers) narrating a personal story. They rated the speakers’ comprehensibility,...

This study investigated listener-based assessment of the job performance of second language (L2) speakers employed as customer service agents in outsourced foreign-based call centers, focusing on agents’ job performance as a function of the comprehensibility, fluency, and accentedness of their speech. Using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing pl...

This study examined the effect of benchmarking and peer‐assessment activities on second language (L2) French learners' self‐assessments of accentedness, comprehensibility, and fluency. The learners, who included 25 L2 French students enrolled in a 15‐week university‐level French course, recorded two oral presentations at the beginning and the end o...

This study examined the role of discourse organization in second language (L2) comprehensibility ratings. Twelve English for Academic Purposes teachers listened to 60 L2 speech samples elicited through a TOEFL–type integrated speaking task, evaluating each sample for comprehensibility and coherence (perceived interconnectedness of ideas). The sampl...

This study examined the relationship between holistic rater judgments of second language (L2) speech fluency (i.e., perceived fluency) and temporal measures of fluency (i.e., utterance fluency) in a read-aloud task. 63 L2 English Japanese secondary school students were audio-recorded while carrying out a 69-word read-aloud task. 11 L2 English-speak...

Exposure to different varieties of English is increasing due to the globalization of society. At present, however, little is known about how teaching a particular variety of English can improve listeners' comprehension of second language (L2) English speech. Therefore, the goal of this study was to examine the effects of awareness-raising activitie...

This study examined whether task practice can reduce social influences (operationalized in terms of positive or negative social priming) on listener-based evaluations of second language (L2) speech. Seventy English–French bilingual listeners evaluated audio-recorded picture narratives made by 40 French speakers of L2 English for accent and comprehe...

This study investigates what individual differences may play a role in second language (L2) learners’ pronunciation, exploring whether English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ attitudes toward English is linked to their perceived accentedness. Japanese EFL secondary school students ( N = 62) carried out a 69-word read-aloud task and their spee...

This study examined the stability of second language (L2) speech ratings as a function of bilingual raters engaging in perspective taking through practice of the target speaking task. Thirty English-dominant English–French bilinguals evaluated narratives from 40 French speakers of L2 English for segmental errors, intonation, and flow. Before provid...

Teacher cognition has attracted increased attention among second language (L2) researchers and practitioners, likely because of its potential consequences for classroom practices, such as teaching and assessment. Prior research has revealed links between teacher beliefs about pronunciation teaching and teachers’ own experience (e.g. amount of teach...