COMPUTER-MEDIATED PRONUNCIATION TECHNIQUE IN DEVELOPING HIGH SCHOOL LANGUAGE LEARNERS: THE CASE OF PRAAT

This study aimed to examine the relationship between the effects of the traditional method and PRAAT software to teach pronunciation to female high school students in Dehloran. The design of the research was a descriptive and comparison group design to interpret the phenomena under study. Third-grade high school girls were selected based on cluster sampling and were randomly divided into two experimental and control groups. The experimental received pronunciation instruction via PRAAT but the control group attended traditional classes with learning pronunciations through repetitions and practice. The participants took a pretest of pronunciation at the beginning of the intervention period; and after the intervention sessions, the same test was given to both groups in the posttest. Finally, an attitude questionnaire was given to the experimental group eliciting their views on the use of PRAAT software in learning pronunciation. The data was gathered and analyzed through t-test analysis. The results showed that the experimental group who were taught by PRAAT outperformed significantly the control group who were taught by the traditional approach to learning English language pronunciation. Moreover, the findings indicated that the EFL students were interested in learning pronunciation via PRAAT. Implications suggest that EFL students were provided with the opportunity to practice pronunciation using pronunciation tasks via technology.