Didactic intralingual dubbing as a novel pedagogical tool for enhancing English aspirated plosives in Spanish EFL learners
Submitted: 2025-11-28
|Accepted: 2026-04-01
|Published: 2026-07-24
Copyright (c) 2026 Revista de Lingüística y Lenguas Aplicadas
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Keywords:
Didactic intralingual dubbing, pronunciation enhancement, initial plosives, EFL, innovation
Supporting agencies:
Abstract:
This study examines the effectiveness of Didactic Intralingual Dubbing (DID) as an innovative technique to enhance Spanish learners’ production of word-initial aspirated English plosives (/p/, /t/, /k/). The lack of aspiration in these consonants, common among Spanish EFL learners, can compromise intelligibility, a key component of successful international communication. A DID-based pedagogical intervention, requiring learners to revoice short video excerpts in the target language, offers an interactive and technology-mediated solution by combining auditory modeling, articulatory focus, and repeated oral practice in context. To assess its impact, a quasi-experimental design was implemented with 71 pre-service teachers divided into an experimental and a control group. Speech samples were obtained at three stages: pre-test, dubbing stage, and post-test. Inter- and intra-group analyses revealed significant gains in all three plosives for the EG, while the CG showed no improvement. Overall, findings support DID as a motivating, effective, and pedagogically innovative tool for short-term pronunciation enhancement.
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