Effects of multimodal feedback on L2 English learners' lexical stress error correction: The role of learning style...

Lexical stress contributes to intelligibility and comprehensibility in English, yet it remains challenging for many second language (L2) learners and is often underemphasized in pronunciation instruction. With the rapid development of technology-enhanced language learning, multimodal feedback delivered through text, audio, or visual cues offers promising avenues for improving L2 pronunciation, although evidence for its effectiveness on lexical stress remains limited. This study examined how different feedback modes facilitate the correction of English lexical stress errors and whether learning styles and learners' feedback-mode preferences influence outcomes. Thirty-three Chinese L2 English learners participated in a within-group design in which all received corrective feedback across seven modes: text, audio, picture, text-audio, picture-audio, text-picture, and text-picture-audio. Data collection comprised a learning-style questionnaire, three reading-aloud tasks (pretest, immediate test, delayed posttest), and a preference questionnaire. A total of 2772 lexical items were rated and analyzed using repeated-measures ANOVAs. Results indicated that feedback including audio information (audio, text-audio, picture-audio, text-picture-audio) showed significant immediate effectiveness, whereas modes incorporating text information (text, text-audio, text-picture-audio) and picture-only feedback showed sustained effectiveness. No clear interaction between learning styles and feedback modes emerged. Learners' preferences for feedback did not consistently align with performance. Discussion with relevance to the cognitive theory of multimedia learning suggested that the effectiveness of multimodal feedback is shaped by the informational value of each mode and task-specific processing demands rather than mode-based predictions alone. These results highlight the need to consider how feedback modes, cognitive processing, and learner factors (e.g., learning strategies, motivation) jointly influence L2 pronunciation development.