Shadowing English suprasegmentals for developing EFL learners' listening comprehension and speech intelligibility

Abstract

<p>The study reports on a group of EFL learners studying listening and speaking intensive course at Qassim University, KSA. The study reports on engaging the sample of the study in awareness-raising and practicing suprasegmentals of the English language. For achieving the objectives of the study and raising the participants’ self-perceptions and efficacy in listening comprehension, and speech intelligibility a shadowing technique was implemented. The shadowing cycle is a comprehensive one built upon cognitive and technical norms. Results of the study showed a systematic pattern of participants and endorsement for native speakers, improvement in their perceptions of suprasegmentals, and listening comprehension as well. Furthermore, results revealed the participants’ familiarity with suprasegmentals and their ability to implement them in their oracy.</p>

Using Praat to Develop English Majors' EFL Intonation Production

“…Such features and functions of intonation should therefore be presented and incorporated in EFL courses, and particularly the ones where speaking skills constitute a prominent element (Hodgetts, 2020). Recent literature on using intonation-based instruction in EFL learning revealed that it may be beneficial in promoting students' speech intelligibility (Elesery, 2021), listening comprehension (Alsaddon, 2021; -102 - Elesery, 2021;Hasanvand, Mehrdad, & Tabar, 2016), oral reading performance in terms of focus, pause, and reading rate (Çelebi & Börekçi, 2020), and schematic knowledge for making inferencing (Barati & Bakhtiarvand, 2016). To the researcher's knowledge, few studies were conducted to develop the EFL intonation production ability of English majors (Abdu-Allah, 2013; Ansari, Mehrdad, & Ahmadi, 2016; Baresh, Ali, & Darmi, 2019;Chootharat, Veerachaisantikul, & Junnak, 2016;Damar, 2014;Eissa, 2019;Mirzaei, Abdollahian, & Ranjbar, 2012;Namaziandost, Esfahani, & Hashemifarnia, 2018;Seenak, 2017;Sugiarto, Prihantoro, & Edy, 2020).…”