An assessment of the auditory speech perceptual skills of young Turkish learners of English: Perceptual assimilation model

摘要

This paper examines the perceptual capacities of Turkish learners of English in differentiating native and non-native consonanta minimal pairs. Both age groups (i.e. four and six- year olds) performed better in word-initial place distinction. The six-year-olds outperformed the four-year-olds for place and voice distinction, whereas the four-year-olds performed better with word-final non-native voice distinctions. This supports the notion of’ younger is better’, since their perceptual skills are not yet constrained by their first language parameters. This paper will consider the wider linguistic and pedagogical implications of the data, and assess the applicability of the Perceptual Assimilation Model (Best, 1994).