Comparing the effects of the listening, repeating and recording and the listening, repeating and recording plus teacher feedback and the traditional method on improving Thai learners' pronunciation English consonants

The purpose of this study were as follows. One was to determine which techniques between the traditional method (TM) technique; the listening, repeating and recording (LRR) technique and the listening, repeating and recording with additional teacher feedback (LRR+TFB) techniques could effectively improve the English pronunciations of Thai learners. The other was and to explore Thai EFL learners’ opinions regarding the use of the three techniques for improving the pronunciation of the target phonemes at the initial and final positions: /v, //, //, /z/,/ /, and/3. The participants of the study were 94 second year English major students at Ubon Ratchathani Rajabhat University. The research instruments were a pre-test, a post-test and a questionnaire. The data was analyzed by using a one-way ANOVA analysis and a paired t-test.
The results of this study indicated that the LRR and the LRR+TFB techniques significantly improved the participants’ pronunciation, whereas the TM technique demonstrated no significant improvement. The results from the questionnaire revealed that most of the participants preferred the LRR+TFB technique for their future learning over other techniques to practice their English pronunciation. The study also yielded useful information for teachers and researchers who are searching for the proper techniques to help learners overcome problems regarding their students’ poor pronunciation of English consonants.