Integrating information technology in theteaching/learning of english pronunciation in the classroom: designing and impl an online course to teach word and sentence stress to tertiary level students

• Autores: Nadia Kebboua Chaker
• Directores de la Tesis: Joaquín Romero Gallego (dir. tes.)
• Lectura: En la Universitat Rovira i Virgili ( España ) en 2019
• Idioma: español
• Materias:
  • Matemáticas
    • Ciencia de los ordenadores
      • Enseñanza con ayuda de ordenador
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• Resumen

  • This study investigates the potential of using technology in the teaching and learning of pronunciation. It explores students’ progress in English pronunciation with regard to word and sentence stress. An original web-based pronunciation course was specifically created for the participants of this study, bearing in mind the typical mistakes Spanish/Catalan L1 speakers make as a result of first language interference. The study was carried out on two groups of 24 first-year university students, in both control and experimental groups — the control group received instruction on English stress by conventional means whereas the experimental group made use of an online tool for learning pronunciation. The study used a pre-test, intervention, and post-test design.

    To evaluate the data, three different approaches were adopted. The reading tasks were evaluated by means of acoustic analysis. In addition, the timed picture-description task was assessed by means of native English ratings, who evaluated the recordings in terms of comprehensibility, accentedness, and fluency. With regard to the qualitative questionnaire, participants used a 5-point Likert scale to give their opinions and feedback on the pronunciation course in general.

    The acoustic results reveal that, while both the control and experimental groups showed improvement in their pronunciation of word and sentence stress, this improvement was more significant in the experimental group, even though there was a great deal of variability depending on the specific word or phrase. With regard to the results of the judges’ ratings, even though there was some improvement in the three areas measured, statistical significance in both groups was only observed for the fluency rating.

    The results therefore provide evidence of the usefulness of information technologies in the learning of English pronunciation in the classroom.