Title of article :
TheEffectofUsingPRAATSoftwareonPre-IntermediateEFLLearners’SupraSegmentalFeatures
Author/Authors :
Aramipoor, Simin ELTDepartmentAbadanBranch - IslamicAzadUniversity Abadan, Iran , Gorjian, Bahman ELTDepartmentAbadanBranch - IslamicAzadUniversity Abadan, Iran
Abstract :
ThepresentstudyinvestigatedtheeffectofusingPRAATasafreecomputersoftwarepackageforthescientificanalysisofspeechinphoneticsonpre-intermediateIranianEnglishasforeignlanguage(EFL)learners’suprasegmentalfeatures(i.e.,intonationandstress).Thede-signofthestudywasaQuasi-experimentalresearchdesignwithapreandpost-test.Indoingso,40maleandfemalemajoringinEnglishtrans-lationwiththeagerangingfrom19to37yearsoldwereselected.TheywerestudyingEFLattheIslamicAzadUniversityofAbadan,Iran.Theparticipantswereselectedamong55studentsthroughtheOxfordPlace-mentTest(OPT)andtheirlevelofproficiencywasdeterminedasthepre-intermediatelevel.Thentheyweredividedintotwoexperimentalandcontrolgroupsthroughconveniencesamplingmethod.Thentheytookapre-testtoevaluatetheirproficiencyinsuprasegmentalfeatures(i.e.intonationandstress).Thecontrolgroup(n=20)wasexposedtothetraditionalmethodandtheexperimentalgroup(n=20)wasexposedtotheuseofPRAATsoftwareinlearningsuprasegmentalfeatures(i.e.intonationandstress).Afterthetreatmentsessions,bothgroupstookthepost-testthatwasamodifiedpre-test.DatawereanalyzedthroughIndependentandPairedSamplest-tests.Resultindicatedthe experimentalgroupoutperformedthecontrolgroup.ImplicationsofthestudysuggestthattheEFLteacherscanusePRAATsoftwaretoteachsuprasegmentalfeatureseffectively
Keywords :
EFLlearners , pronunciation , suprasegmentalfeatures , PRAATSoftware
Journal title :
Journal of Studies in Learning and Teaching English
