earticle

영어

In this study evidence is presented for the effectiveness of tracking to improve EFL learners’ speaking competency. EFL speaking fluency can be assessed in various aspects, among which we focus on pronunciation (in particular, suprasegmental features). We used the tracking technique by which the subjects listen to a recorded material and repeat it modeling the native speaker’s pronunciation in every aspect. We hypothesized that tracking could help learners improve the naturalness of their pronunciation, which can be analyzed in terms of the key factors such as general impression, segmental pronunciation, stress/intonation, speech rate, and thought group. The experimental group of Korean adult EFL learners were required to do nine tracking tasks during one semester, and three native English teachers evaluated the subjects’ speaking, focusing on their pronunciation. Both the experimental group and the control group took a pretest and a posttest, and the results were compared through statistical analyses. We found that the experimental group of Korean adult EFL learners significantly outperformed the control group in the key factors of pronunciation. We argue that tracking is a verified and desirable method to improve EFL speaking fluency.