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ESL and EFL learners improve differently in pronunciation: The case of Lebanon Hanadi S. Mirza

 Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

1877-0428 © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license

(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Peer-review under responsibility of Hacettepe Üniversitesi.

doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.07.536

ScienceDirect

GlobELT: An International Conference on Teaching and Learning English as an Additional

Language, Antalya – Turkey

ESL and EFL learners improve differently in pronunciation: The

case of Lebanon

Hanadi S. Mirza

Lebanese University, Faculty of Pedagogy, Beirut, Lebanon

 

ABSTRACT

Many ESL/EFL students in Lebanon reach the university level with poor English in general and underdeveloped phonetic

competence in particular. Phonetic competence is one of the abilities to communicate regarding pronunciation skills (Saz,

Rodríguez, Lleida, Rodríguez, & Vaquero, 2011). Students in Lebanon acquire Arabic as their mother tongue. Some learn English

as their second language (ESL) in schools where English is the medium of instruction. However, in French schools, students learn

English as their foreign language (EFL) and study the content subject matters in French, the medium of instruction. It’s commonly

known among many educators in Lebanon that French educated students develop their English language skills and proper

pronunciation more perfectly than do their English educated fellows in middle/low class schools. This phenomenon is widely

observed; however, it is not based on research findings. This study aims to investigate whether there is a difference among French

and English educated students in terms of English pronunciation after intervention of pronunciation learning strategies (PLS) such

as using phonetic symbols and transcriptions, repeating after the teacher/others, and minimal pair drilling. 22 EFL and ESL

university students took part in this study. A checklist of frequent common pronunciation mistakes was used to collect data. Ten

sounds (segments) were identified in the pretest as common mistakes. The post-test took place five weeks later. Findings showed

that PLS improved the pronunciation of both EFL and ESL learners. However, there was no statistical difference in the

improvements between these two groups. Limitations and recommendations are provided in this study.

You can download the FULL TEXT from hanadimirza.academia.edu “RESEARCH” section

Or Contact the author at hanadym@hotmail.com

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