scholarly journals IDENTIFYING AND OVERCOMING CHALLENGES IN TEACHING AND LEARNING PRONUNCIATION IN AN EFL CLASS: AN EXPERIENCE FROM CAMEROON

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-48
Author(s):  
Azane Abimnui
Keyword(s):  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Skills Training ◽  
Data Representation ◽  
Language Learner ◽  
Individual Student ◽  
Unique Contribution ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
English Pronunciation ◽  
Post Test

Purpose: There are still gaps in knowledge with regard to reliable research-based information on what works and what does not work in pronunciation teaching. This gap can be filled by increased academic research on this topic, especially from other teachers’ experiences and practices. This paper investigates some factors hindering the English as a Foreign Language learner (EFL) learners’ acquisition of English pronunciation and reviews issues with English pronunciation instruction from a teacher’s perceived challenges. Methodology: The setting that defines the EFL learner is presented in a case study of an institution of Higher learning, Prepavogt in Yaounde. The participants are 51 students who are in the first year of their studies in a Management and Finance department. Data was collected through observation and analyses of audio tape recordings of students’ oral productions as part of a pre-test and post-test TOEFL examination preparation during the 2020/2021 academic year.  Textual data representation is favored as the objective was to supplement qualitative statements with some data. Findings: The findings reveal the factors that affect the students ease of learning pronunciation. These emanated from factors such as the novelty in exposure to the practice of phonetics, the influence of mother tongue, and lack of interest. Segmental features; such as vowels, consonants and suprasegmental features like intonation and stress were all identified as posing serious problems that affected intelligibility. From the pre-test to the post-test, observed individual student improvement are indicators that the teaching strategies, coupled with the supporting audio-visual material, were successful in arousing students’ interest, and developing improved pronunciation.   Unique contribution to theory, practice and policy: With the popular decry of how pronunciation skills training are done in secondary schools, which have been proven to be unhelpful, this study demonstrates that appropriate target and focused teaching with supporting equipment, and teacher motivation is needed to train for effective and intelligible standard pronunciation in English among the Cameroonian EFL learners.

scholarly journals A Survey on the Effectiveness of Mother Tongue on Learning L2 Vocabulary by Iranian Pre-intermediate EFL Learners

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (7) ◽  
pp. 113
Author(s):  
Mohammadreza Khodareza ◽  
Maryam Kaviani
Keyword(s):  
Mother Tongue ◽  
First Language ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Proposal A ◽  
Post Test ◽  
Objective Structures ◽  
L2 Vocabulary ◽  
Learning English

<p>This study investigated the role of mother tongue on learning English vocabulary by Iranian pre-intermediate EFL learners. For this purpose, 30 female pre-intermediate learners were chosen. After administering a Nelson test participants were selected from the intact classes at Foreign Language Institute in Babol. These 30 partners were randomly allocated to 2 gatherings (one laboratory and the other control) each comprising of 15 partners. The participants received a pre-test comprising 70 English words to ensure that they did not have previous information of objective structures. Experimental group received their instruction, meaning of each target word, and translation of target words with their mother tongue (Persian). But control group just received target language (English) for all activities or instructions. Both teacher and students in this group didn’t allow using Persian. After the treatment, the same pre-test was given to the participants as a post-test to measure the effectiveness of therapy gained. After collecting the data, to respond the research proposal, a t-test was conducted. The results indicated that first language had significant effect on learning English words. The findings of this study are considered to be useful in methodology issue.</p>

scholarly journals Pronunciation and Conversation Challenges among Saudi EFL Students

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 85
Author(s):  
Issa Mohammad Muflih Naser ◽  
Mohd Hilmi Bin Hamzah
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Teaching Methods ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Classroom Observations ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
English Pronunciation ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
Preparatory Year ◽  
Attitude And Motivation

This study aims to identify the difficulties of pronunciation and conversation faced by EFL learners who undertook a Preparatory Year Program (PYP) in Saudi Arabia, It highlights the main issues in pronunciation and conversations (e.g., textbooks, teaching methods, and students' attitude and motivation) and techniques to address these problems. The instruments used in the study were classroom observations and teachers' discussions. The results revealed that firstly, students did not have a sound knowledge of grammar. Secondly, students' outside environment was influenced by their mother tongue. Thirdly, the teaching methods did not suit their proficiency levels. Finally, they were demotivated and thought that they have an impossible mission to improve their English pronunciation and conversation.

scholarly journals English Vowels and Diphthongs Problems of Sundanese Learners

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 571-581
Author(s):  
Kuntum Palupi Setyaningsih ◽  
Agus Wijayanto ◽  
Suparno Suparno
Keyword(s):  
Elementary School ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Contrastive Analysis ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
English Vowels ◽  
English Pronunciation

EFL Sundanese learners encounter the difficulties in English pronunciation. The learners are often unable to differ between English vowel sounds long [i:] with short [I] like the word cheese they pronounce it as /ʧIz/ instead of  /ʧiːz/, despite they have learned English since elementary school, officially they have learned English for around 5 years. The purpose of this study is to explore the interference of mother tongue in pronunciation field that was made by Sundanese learners dealing with English vowels and diphthongs. The participants were 30 EFL learners with Sundanese background as their mother tongue. The data were collected by recording the students’ pronunciation and analysed using contrastive analysis. The results demonstrate that the learners met obstacles in uttering English vowels [i:],[u:],[ɔ], and diphthongs[eɪ],[əʊ],[æ]. The dominant mispronunciation of the English sounds occurs because of the absence of those English sounds in the learners’ mother tongue. This paper offers some recommendations to the teachers to overcome the phenomenon mother tongue interference.

Study of Consonant Pronunciations Errors Committed by EFL Learners

2019 ◽  
pp. 48-56
Author(s):  
Ali Akbar Khansir ◽  
Afsaneh Salehabadi
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Age Group ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Listening Skill ◽  
English Pronunciation ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
Knowledge Of Language

As the topic suggests, the research paper presents Study of Consonant Pronunciations Errors Committed by EFL Learners. Error analysis always tries to resolve language learners’ problems in acquiring second or foreign language setting. Learning to English pronunciation is perhaps as important as learning listening skill, speaking, and spelling. Errors in English pronunciation create several problems for English language learners in their works. In other words, most of the English language errors of pronunciation are due to the lack of knowledge of language learners. However, all the students in our sample are of age group (16-25) at Bushehr language institute and they are all Iranian nationals. In addition, all of them were female learners. An English pronunciation (consonant) test was used to get information about the knowledge of the learners in English pronunciation. Findings of this article indicated that the first and second hypotheses of this article were accepted, but the third hypothesis was rejected. However, the findings of this paper showed that the Iranian EFL students have problem to pronounce English sounds correctly.

The Effect of Using Flipped Classroom Model to Improve Iraqi EFL Learners’ Pronunciation in English at University Level

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (40) ◽  
pp. 631-654
Author(s):  
Khaldoon Waleed Husam Al-Mofti
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Flipped Classroom ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
English Pronunciation ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Quasi Experimental ◽  
University Level ◽  
The University ◽  
And Control ◽  
Experimental Group

For Iraqi EFL learners who are studying English pronunciation in a traditional instruction method often requires more effort and hard work. Thus, using new methods of teaching such as the flipped classroom model (FCM) is necessary to facilitate learning and improve performance. Hence, this study reports on explanatory research that investigates the effect of using the FCM in the teaching of English pronunciation for Iraqi EFL learners at the university level. The study implemented mixed research methods for data collection in a quasi-experimental analysis. Therefore, two tests were conducted on the assigned groups to measure the effect of the FCM before and after the intervention. Besides, a questionnaire and interviews were used on the experiment group students to collect data about their perceptions of the FCM. The study length (lasted)  was 15 weeks and is comprised of 60 students from the department of English, College of Arts at the University of Anbar. The students were divided into two groups, experimental, and control with 30 students in each group. The findings revealed that there was a significant statistical difference between the two groups in favour of the experimental group with better performance, indicating that the FCM has considerably assisted the Iraqi EFL learners to improve their English pronunciation. Moreover, the students expressed their positive feedback and satisfaction on the use of the FCM in their responses to the questionnaire and the interviews. As such, the current study recommends further research to study the effect of applying the FCM in areas and disciplines other than language learning.

scholarly journals The Effect of Aural and Visual Storytelling on Vocabulary Retention of Iranian EFL Learners

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 92
Author(s):  
Maryam AminAfshar ◽  
Ahmad Mojavezi
Keyword(s):  
Vocabulary Learning ◽  
Vocabulary Knowledge ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Vocabulary Test ◽  
Vocabulary Retention ◽  
Visual Storytelling ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Post Test ◽  
Experimental Group ◽  
Do So

EFL learners at all ages and proficiency levels are usually confronted with various problems in vocabulary learning and retention. This study sought to introduce strategies for improvement of vocabulary learning and retention. Therefore, the effects of using aural/visual storytelling on Iranian EFL learners’ vocabulary learning and retention were investigated. To do so, 50 intermediate female EFL learners were randomly assigned to two groups. After the administration of teacher made English Vocabulary Test as the pre-test, aural storytelling method was used for the control group, and visual storytelling method was used for the experimental group. After three months of instruction, the aforementioned teacher made English Vocabulary Test, as the post-test, was given to the students of both groups to assess their improvements. Two weeks after post-test, they were given a delayed post-test to measure their retention of English vocabulary knowledge. The reliability of the English Vocabulary Test using Cronbach's Alpha was estimated equal to 0.80. Finally, Using ANCOVA, the results revealed that, the experimental group’s participants outperformed those of control group in both learning and retention of English vocabulary. So, it can be noted that the training program according to visual could have impressive impact on the learning and retention of vocabulary knowledge.

scholarly journals Using Podcasts to Improve Second Language Comprehension in Iranian Language Classrooms

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 24
Author(s):  
Mohammad Davoudi ◽  
Mojtaba Rezaei
Keyword(s):  
Language Comprehension ◽  
Good Method ◽  
Placement Test ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Language Classrooms ◽  
Post Test ◽  
Experimental Group ◽  
Transcript File

<p>The present study aims at investigating the influence of podcasts (POD) on language comprehension of Iranian pre-intermediate EFL learners. An Oxford Placement Test (OPT) was administered to 60 male and female university students. The participants were considered as pre-intermediate learners and were divided into two groups (one experimental group and one control group). During the fifteen sessions of the treatment, thirty podcasts were presented to the two groups. The experimental group received just the audio file of the POD, and the control group received a different treatment which was the transcript file of the same audio podcast file of the experimental group. The results of the t-tests revealed that there was no significant difference in language comprehension scores across the posttest between two groups. Based on the interview results after the post-test, all of the participants (100%) agreed that both audio and the transcripts (written texts) were useful for them and claimed that it is a good method of improving language comprehension.</p>

scholarly journals Effect of Collaborative Writing Combined with Blog Online Learning on Indonesian EFL Learners’ Writing Skill across Motivation

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-98
Author(s):  
Rizki Anugrah Putri Rahayu
Keyword(s):  
Online Learning ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Collaborative Writing ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Quantitative Data Analysis ◽  
Writing Skill ◽  
Post Test ◽  
Quasi Experimental ◽  
And Control ◽  
Different Levels

Abstract:   This study aims to investigate collaborative writing combined with blog online learning on the writing skill of Indonesian English foreign language (EFL) learners’ across their motivation. This research included a quasi experimental with the comparative time series. A quasi experimental study was employed by involving 61 learners of Senior High School. This research applied in into two groups: experimental and control. The treatment was conducted at 7 sessions, including the pre-test and post-test. The scores of pre-test and post-test in writing were used as a base of quantitative data analysis whereas the learners’ responses to motivation questionnaire were used to categorize their motivation. The result revealed that the collaborative writing combined with blog online learning on the writing was effective to enhance the learners’ writing skill. In addition, to apply the combination of collaborative writing and online blog learning, teacher should not worry about different levels of motivation among students where the students were motivated to use language.  

scholarly journals Effect of Life Skills Training On Emotional Distress: A Comparative Study between Adolescent Boys and Girls

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
C. R. Hita ◽  
G. Venkatesh Kumar
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Distress ◽  
Emotional Development ◽  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Life Skills ◽  
Emotional Health ◽  
Skills Training ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Adolescent Boys ◽  
Life Skills Training ◽  
Post Test

Adolescence is considered as a crucial stage for emotional development. It is also seen as a time of hyper-emotionality, emotional conflict, and volatile mood states. Given that adolescents lack skills for emotional management, emotional distress during these years can hamper their immediate growth and adversely affect their transition to the next stage of life. Interventions that promote positive emotional development during adolescence are the need of the hour. Keeping this in focus, the present study investigated the Effect of Life Skills Training on Adolescent boys and girls with high Emotional Distress. The study used pre- and post-test experimental design with a control group to examine the stated objectives. 160 adolescent boys and girls (n=80), with a mean age of 16.44 years, were selected for the study using Positive and Negative Affect Schedule. Of these, 80 in the experimental group (boys=40, girls=40) were trained in life skills. Descriptive statistics, independent sample t-test and repeated measures of ANOVA were used to analyze obtained results. Major findings of the study indicate that Life Skills training has significant effect in reducing emotional distress and improving emotional health in adolescents. And the significance of it was found to be higher in girls compared to boys.

scholarly journals The effect of peripheral learning on elementary EFL learners’ grammar improvement: The case of prepositions of time and place

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 91-100
Author(s):  
Islam Namazian Doost ◽  
Soheila Tahmasbi
Keyword(s):  
T Test ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Control Groups ◽  
Teaching Environment ◽  
Learning Abilities ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Post Test ◽  
Elementary Classes ◽  
And Control ◽  
Experimental Group

This study aims to investigate the possible effects of peripheral learning on elementary EFL learners’ grammar improvement: the case of prepositions of time and place. Two elementary classes were selected as experimental and control groups. Before beginning the treatment, a grammar test was administered to both the groups as a pre-test. Then, as treatment, the experimental group was exposed to realia, pictures, posters and texts, while the control group was not. After term-long treatment of 10 weeks, the two groups received the same grammar test as post-test. The results of t-test showed that the experimental group improved their grammar ability, i.e., knowledge of prepositions of time and place more than their friends in the control group. The finding of the study may open an optional path for teachers to include some peripheral materials in their teaching environment to further invest on unconscious learning abilities of the students.   Keywords: Peripheral learning, reposition of time, prepositions of place, grammar.

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