General auditory processing, Mandarin L1 prosodic and phonological awareness, and English L2 word learning

Abstract This study examined general auditory processing, Mandarin L1 prosodic and phonological awareness, and the relations with English L2 word learning. Participants were 61 Mandarin-speaking children who learned English as an L2 in Taiwan. They received the following tasks: general auditory processing (i.e., amplitude envelope rise time, pitch contour and interval), Mandarin L1 prosodic and phonological awareness, and English L2 word learning (at Time 1 and 2). The results revealed that (1) only amplitude envelope rise time discrimination, independent of years of English learning, predicted English L2 word learning at Time 1, (2) Mandarin L1 phonological awareness, relative to Mandarin L1 prosodic awareness, made more contributions to English L2 word learning after controlling amplitude envelope rise time discrimination, and (3) successful English learners outperformed their unsuccessful peers on Mandarin L1 phonological awareness. Taken together, beginning English learners might use amplitude envelop rise time cuing syllable boundaries and rely on L1 prosodic and phonological awareness for English L2 word learning.