The effect of computer assisted pronunciation learning program on Thai college students' pronunciation performance and autonomous learning capacity

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the computer assisted pronunciation learning (CAPL) program on Thai college students’ English pronunciation performance and autonomous learning capacity. Some quantitative and qualitative techniques were applied. Forty nine Srinakharinwirot university students who enrolled in English Phonetics were randomly divided into experimental and control groups. Students in the experimental group studied pronunciation by the integration of the traditional teaching style and the CAPL program, while students in the control group learned pronunciation by the traditional teaching style only.

An independent sample t-test was utilized to tabulate the significant differences in pronunciation performance between the two groups. Pair samples t-test was used to find significant difference in students’ attitudes toward the CAPL program and autonomous learning capacity. Multiple regressions were used to find the factors affecting students’ attitudes toward the CAPL program. Some content analysis techniques were utilized to analyze the data of the semi-structured interview and students’ journal entries.

The results show that at the end of the semester, students in the experimental group attained higher scores on the pronunciation proficiency test than students in the control group, and students in the experimental group held more positive attitudes toward the CAPL program and gained higher autonomous learning capacity. Gender is the only factor affecting students’ attitudes towards the CAPL program.

The key finding of this study is that learning pronunciation by integration of the traditional teaching style and CAPL program can highly enhance pronunciation performance and autonomous learning capacity of Thai university students.