Phonetic perception skills in Spanish as a Second Language and their relationship with language proficiency

Abstract

Acquisition of the phonological component of a foreign language involves developing new production skills and complex perceptual strategies. We assume that both components evolve in parallel, as they are complementary activities that depend on each other. To evaluate the perception skills of a large group of Spanish students, identify what phonetic aspects are more challenging and determine the impact of language proficiency level on perception, 204 students of Spanish as a Second Language (SSL) participated in a perception test. The students were native speakers of ten different languages and their proficiency in Spanish ranged from level A2 to C1 (according to the CEFR standard). A total of 61 200 answers were obtained and subjected to statistical analysis. Results show that the perceptive skills of participants were highly homogeneous and no statistically significant differences were found with regard to the native linguistic command of the speaker. We conclude that the development of perception skills in SSL follows a temporal pattern different from that of production skills.