THE EFFECT OF TEACHING PHONOLOGICAL RULES ON ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION AMONG IRANIAN PRE-INTERMEDIATE EFL LEARNERS

摘要

This study was intended to examine the impact of teaching phonological rules on English pronunciation among Iranian pre-intermediate EFL learners. To fulfill, 50 pre-intermediate students who were studying in a private language institute in Ahvaz, Iran were selected via non-random sampling (convenience sampling). They participated in a homogeneity test ( Oxford Quick Placement Test ) to determine their homogeneity level. Then they were randomly divided into two groups of control (n=25) and experimental (n=25). Before starting the treatment, a validated teacher-made pronunciation test was administered to both groups as the pre-test. Then the experimental group received the treatment, which was teaching phonological rules activities and the control group received conventional instruction including examples in an implicit method . At the end of the treatment, a post-test on pronunciation was administered to evaluate the effect of phonological rules instructions to assess the participants’ pronunciation improvement . At the end of the study, the analysis of the obtained data was carried out using SPSS, version 25. The obtained results indicated that there was a significant difference between the performances of both groups. The experimental group participants were found to have a better performance than the control group . Generally, the experimental group outperformed the control group. This study suggests that teaching phonological rules can help learners to learn pronunciation more easily and effectively.