Self-awareness Strategy Using Podcasting to Improve Tense and Lax Vowel Pronunciation Sounds in Beginner EFL-Adult Learners

Dalia Lisette Aguilar Vacacela, Maria Rossana Ramirez

Abstract


This action research study measured the effectiveness of a self-awareness strategy and podcasting to help beginners EFL-adult learners to pronounce tense-lax vowels in English accurately. The participants were 17 adult students with an A1.2 English level. This innovation was implemented in a language school in a coastal city in Ecuador, South America. The results were obtained using quantitative data gathered from a pre and a post-test, which were divided in two parts; a scripted and extemporaneous one. The final scores produced a large effect size of 2.27 for tense vowels and 4.89 for lax vowels, indicating that most of students were able to pronounce more than the 80% of tense and lax vowels accurately. These results demonstrated that the self-awareness strategy and the podcasting had a great impact on tense-lax vowels pronunciation in adults. Despite the favorable results, further and deeper research is needed with a larger sample, period of time, and training.

Keywords


self-awareness; tense-lax vowels; podcasting; pronunciation

Full Text:

PDF

References


Brown, H. D. (2000). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy (2nd ed.). White Plains, USA: Longman.

Consejo de Educación Superior del Ecuador (2016). Reglamento de Régimen Académico [Regulation of Academic Regime]. Retrieved April 19, 2019, from http://www.ces.gob.ec/

Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd Ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Council of Europe. (2018). Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). Retrieved from https://www.coe.int/en/web/common-european-framework-reference-languages/home/-/asset_publisher/FfMaiIs48Xwv/content/recommendation-and-resolution?inheritRedirect=false

Deng, F., & Zou, Q. (2016). A study on whether the adults’ second language acquisition is easy or not—from the perspective of children’s native language acquisition. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 6(4), 776-780. doi.org/10.17507/tpls.0604.15

Díaz-Maggioli, G. (2004). Teacher-centered professional development. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Ducate, L., & Lomicka, L. (2009). Podcasting: An effective tool for honing language students’ pronunciation. Language Learning & Technology, 13(3), 66–86.

Education First. (2018). English Proficiency Index. Retrieved from https://www.ef.com.ec/epi/regions/latin-america/ecuador/

Gilakjani, A., Ahmadi, S., & Ahmadi, M. (2011). Why is pronunciation so difficult to learn? English Language Teaching, 4(3), 74-81. doi:10.5539/elt.v4n3p74

Hasan, M. M., & Hoon, T. B. (2013). Podcast applications in language learning: a review of recent studies. English Language Teaching, 6(2), 128-132. doi:10.5539/elt.v6n2p128

Ingels, S. A. (2011). The effects of self-monitoring strategy use on the pronunciation of learners of English (Doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). Retrieved from https://goo.gl/VDjZ8a

Kang, T. (2016). The effectiveness of strategy instruction using podcasts in the second language listening and speaking (Doctoral dissertation, Northern Arizona University). Available from ProQuest Central. (1808501344). Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1808501344?accountid=174323

Lane, L. (2010). Tips for teaching pronunciation: A practical approach. White Plains, USA: Pearson Education.

Ma, J. R., Henrichsen, L. E., Cox, T. L., & Tanner, M. W. (2018). Pronunciation’s role in English speaking-proficiency ratings. Journal of Second Language Pronunciation, 4(1), 73-102. doi:10.1075/jslp.00004.ma

Nurani, S., & Rosyada, A. (2015). Improving english pronunciation of adult esl learners through reading aloud assessments. Lingua Cultura, 9(2), 107-112. doi:10.21512/lc.v9i2.825

Phillips, B. (2017). Student-produced podcasts in language learning – exploring student perceptions of podcast activities. IAFOR Journal of Education, 5(3), 158-168. doi:10.22492/ije.5.3.08

Richards, J. C. (2006). Communicative language teaching today. New York, USA: Cambridge University Press.

Rouse, J. C. (2010). Future English for results (2010 ed., Vol. 2). White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.

Schaetzel, K., & Low, E. L. (2009, July). Teaching Pronunciation to Adult English Language Learners. CAELA Network. Retrieved from http://www.cal.org/adultesl/pdfs/teaching-pronunciation-to-adult-english-ll.pdf

Shi, H. (2017). Learning strategies and classification in education. Institute for Learning Styles Journal, 1, 24-36.

Steiner, P. (August, 2014). The impact of the self-awareness process on learning and leading. The New England Journal of Higher Education. Retrieved from https://nebhe.org/journal/the-impact-of-the-self-awareness-process-on-learning-and-leading/

Triola, M. F. (2007). Elementary statistics (10th ed.). Canada: Pearson.

Tripp, D. (2005). Action research: a methodological introduction. Educacao e pesquisa, 31(3), 443-466. doi.org/10.1590/S1517-97022005000300009

Tomlinson, B. (2013). Applied linguistics and materials development (1st ed.). London, UK: Bloomsbury Academic.

Volker, V., & O’Bryan, A. (2009). Handbook of research on web 2.0 and second language learning. lowa, USA. doi: 10.4018/978-1-60566-190-2.ch018

Woolfolk, A. (2016). Educational psychology (13th ed.). Ohio,U.S: Pearson.

Yates, L., & Zielinski, B. (2009). Give it a go: Teaching pronunciation to adults. North Ryde, N.S.W.: Adult Migrant English Program (AMEP) Research Centre, Macquarie University.




DOI: https://doi.org/10.18196/ftl.5148

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2020 Journal of Foreign Language Teaching and Learning

 

 

 

Address

Journal of Foreign Language Teaching and Learning

KH. Ibrahim Building (E6), 1st Floor, Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta

Jalan Brawijaya, Tamantirto, Kasihan, Bantul, Yogyakarta, 55183

Phone: +62 274 387656, ext. 447

Email: journalfltl@gmail.com

E-ISSN: 2580-2070

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Creative Commons License
Journal of Foreign Language Teaching and Learning is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.