The study explored the pedagogical use of Text-To-Speech (TTS) synthesizers by comparing two groups of students learning the pronunciations associated with Regular Past Tense (RPT) marking in English (e.g. talk[t], clean[d], want[id]). While one group received TTS-based instruction, the other was taught RPT with teacher assistance. Our findings…

This paper focuses on the link between 16 primary and 5 global personality factors and the Foreign Language Pronunciation Anxiety of 63 Slovak learners of English, who underwent a 24-week psycho-social training (in the experimental group) combined with English pronunciation training (both in the control and experimental group). Data was collected…

Oral communication is one of the main reasons language learners attend language classes. As pronunciation is among the most significant aspects of oral communication, this study attempted to see how learning-oriented assessment (LOA) could affect pronunciation learning of Iranian EFL learners. To this end, 64 language learners in a private…

Pronunciation features are not equal in how they affect listeners' ability to understand. Some are low value, while others are high value. This study explores whether contrastive stress is high value. Previous research has shown that identification of contrastive stress is learnable (Pennington & Ellis, 2000), and that explicit teaching about…

This study focused on an instructional component often neglected when teaching the pronunciation of English as either a second, foreign, or international language--namely, the suprasegmental feature of lexical stress. Extending previous research on collaborative priming tasks and task repetition, the study investigated the impact of task and…

This study explores the potential of the English File Pronunciation (EFP) app to help foreign language learners improve their pronunciation. Participants were 52 Spanish EFL learners enrolled in an English Studies degree. Pre- and post-tests were used to assess the participants' perception and production (imitative, controlled, and spontaneous)…

This article aims to analyze whether formal instruction influences Brazilian speakers' perception of the English high back vowels contrast. There have been a few L2 pieces of research that focused on the instruction of specific vowel contrasts. Previous studies indicate that a single L1 category seems to be a source of difficulty to L2 vowel…

This investigation aimed to provide insights into the controversial debate on the role that age at onset of bilingualism plays in human language capacity with a focus on what it entails for first language (L1) attrition. L1 performance of Turkish immigrants (n = 57) in the United Kingdom with age at onset ranging between 7 and 34 years was…

The present study was aimed at providing the English teachers across Iran with a good and fruitful method of teaching pronunciation. To this end, sixty female intermediate EFL learners were put in three different but equivalent groups of 20 based on the results of a pronunciation pre-test. One of the groups received explicit instruction including…

This study examined the effect of using authentic videos on Iranian EFL learners' prosodic ability. To this end, the researcher selected 40 Iranian intermediate students and randomly assigned them in two equal groups; one experimental group and one control group. A pre-test was administered to both groups to make sure that they are homogeneous.…

Despite their potential benefits, teacher-created animated cartoons have not found much room in second-language (L2) research, probably due to some technical challenges involved in creating them. This paper reports the findings of a mixed-methods embedded experimental study, designed to test the impact of tailor-made animated cartoons on the…

The purpose of this article is to report results of an investigation into the production of a covert contrast by native speakers of Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish in the acquisition of the English distinction between the high front vowels /i/ and /?/. A covert contrast is a statistically reliable acoustic distinction made by a language learner…

This study examined the factors that influenced Iranian teachers' use of computer-assisted pronunciation teaching (CAPT) in teaching English pronunciation. Iranian teachers have serious problems in teaching pronunciation such as lack of enough time, knowledge, experience, training, and suitable pronunciation materials. In this study, the…

Text length is considered as one of the factors that cause listening task difficulty along with others such as speech rate, clarity of voice, accents, text genre and topic. Despite all these factors, teachers sometimes consider text length as the single reason for a listening activity's difficulty. Not many studies have focused on the length as a…

This paper intends to examine the efficacy of song education to develop English proficiency in China's EFL context. By conducting a comparative study between two parallel classes and analyzing the results of forty-eight questionnaires, the paper reveals the following: 1) song education can help improve pronunciation and intonation skills to a…