Do indirect tests of English intonation measure students' ability in performing English nucleus placement?

Abstract

This study focuses on nucleus placement in English intonation and attempts to investigate (1) the reliability and validity of indirect tests on nucleus placement, and (2) the credibility of English proficiency tests as a predictor of students’ ability in nucleus placement. Three tests were administered to 111 Japanese EFL university students: (a) an English proficiency test, (b) an indirect test on nucleus placement, and (c) a direct test (oral performance test) on nucleus placement.

The results obtained are: [1] the internal reliability of the direct test was very high, but the internal reliability of the indirect test was very low, and [2] there were no significant correlations among the three tests. These results indicate that indirect tests and English proficiency tests cannot predict the students’ performance of nucleus placement. This research also made us realize the responsibility of teachers to receive adequate phonetic training to learn to auditorily discriminate between their students’ correct and incorrect performances.