The Use of Multimedia Drills in College Students‟ English Pronunciation Training

For a time, pronunciation teaching and practice has been put aside in many English language classrooms perhaps due to the belief that pronunciation is a weak measure of a person’s English proficiency. The declining English proficiency of Filipinos, especially in speaking, is something that needs to be given careful and immediate attention. The response of the education sector in this issue is highly critical and necessary more than ever before. Since higher educational institutions provide the final frontier of education and training before participants become part of the local and international work force, these institutions are in the best position to make significant interventions; thus, this study. This experimental research aims to investigate the effects of using multimedia drills in college students’ English pronunciation training. First, the most common pronunciation errors are identified; second, a pre-test-post-test experiment is performed to test if the use of multimedia drills help minimize the errors; finally, a pronunciation module is developed. The findings of the study reveal that the most common pronunciation errors are /ð/, /z/, /θ/, /æ/, and /i/. Two tests are used in the experiment: listening and speaking tests. In the listening test, the experimental group performs better than the control group; however, in the speaking test, the experimental group also performs better than the control group but the difference is not statistically significant. The effect of the use of multimedia drills on the experimental group is significant for the listening test but not for the speaking test; hence, the multimedia drills has an effect in improving the perception of the critical English sounds but not their production. It is therefore recommended that pronunciation training be conducted for a relatively longer period so that the use of multimedia drills may have a significant effect on the students’ production of English speech sounds especially those which pose the most difficulty.

Keywords: critical English sounds, multimedia drills, pronunciation errors, pronunciation training