The Role of Audio Stories in Enhancing EFL Learners’ Pronunciation (the dark [l]and the clear [l])

Abstract

Teaching pronunciation has long been neglected in many EFL classrooms which leads to a series of difficulties and obstacles for English learners concerning the articulation of sounds due to the absence of using audio materials inside the classroom .Audio materials use in learning a foreign language is vitally important due to its positive reflection on the acquisition of an accurate pronunciation through a direct exposure to the target language as it is produced by the native speakers . The present research tries to find out the importance of using audio stories in improving EFL student’s pronunciation accuracy. The current study hypothesizes that the use of short stories by EFL teachers as a listening input leads to a better achievement of an accurate pronunciation of the dark [l] and the clear[l] to a large extent. For this reason quasi-experimental design was designated to the third year LMD students at the department of English, University of Relizane. The use of the chosen method would provide us with a wide-ranging representation of the reflection of listening to audio stories on the acquisition of the accurate pronunciation of the dark [l] and clear [l] for the two groups (experimental and control group). The results revealed in this work shows the significant role of listening to audio stories on acquiring accurate pronunciation of the dark [l] and clear [l], by EFL learners. Subsequently, this dissertation confirms the importance of listening to audiostories on improving EFL learners’ pronunciation accuracy.