The Effect of Explicit Pronunciation Instruction on Listening Comprehension: Evidence from Iranian English Learners

Abstract

This study was an attempt to examine the effect of two methods of instructing English words' pronunciations on Iranian EFL learners’ listening comprehension. Pretest-posttest design was employed to scrutinize the possible improvements of three classes of intermediate English learners (two experimental and one control group) as listening comprehension was concerned. A 25-item listening test was constructed inspired by the Cambridge Key English Test listening materials to measure students’ listening ability. All groups were exposed to the same listening test as the pre and the post-test, however, only the experimental groups received the special treatment regarding the phonetic symbols and phonemic transcription, segmental features (group A) and supra-segmental features (group B). After the application of the study’s treatment, data analysis process initiated which indicated that experimental groups who received explicit pronunciation instruction had a better performance than the control group on the final listening test. In addition, the findings suggested that the experimental group which received segmental pronunciation instruction had a better performance than the experimental group which received supra-segmental pronunciation instruction. Generally, the findings imply that pronunciation instruction can positively affect the listening comprehension ability of intermediate EFL learners.