test for Equality of Means

Age Method/Group N Mean

t df Sig.

(2-tailed) 13-16 Intuitive-Imitative

(II)

15 49.20

3.57 23 0.002

17-20 10 44.00

13-16 Analytic-Linguistic (AL)

15 52.67

3.33 23 0.003

17-20 10 56.50

teaching. Despite reluctance displayed by some language teachers, learners place a high value on instruction in pronunciation, as reported in some studies, pointing to a contradiction between teachers' and the learners' views on pronunciation teaching (Edwards, 1992, cited in Barrera Pardo, 2004; Madden & Moore, 1997; Vitanova &

Miller, 2002). However, not all teaching methods are equally effective for L2 learners. In addition, as Derwing and Munro (2005) point out, pronunciation is a multifaceted experience affected by personal, social, and psychological variables, which make its learning so complex. That is why in the search for a more flourishing pronunciation teaching method, age, as a personal factor, has been selected and attended to in a sub-part of the present study. That is, keeping the personal differences in mind, attempts have been made to introduce a more promising approach in pronunciation teaching in the course of this research.

One of the major lines of current research development concerned the issue of the effectiveness of instruction as a whole. When the participants' performances on the pretest and posttest were analyzed irrespective of the type of instruction or treatment, the results, as reported in Tables 2 and 3, indicated the contribution of the treatments of this study to the participants' state of knowledge. In other words, intuitive and analytic approaches are among the effective approaches that can lead to some sort of change in the earlier state of knowledge. This further highlights the assertion concerning the enhancing impact of pronunciation teaching in EFL classrooms, no matter which particular variety of English (i.e., American, British, etc) is selected. As with the findings of Derwing, Munro and Wiebe (1998), who found that both instruction in segmental accuracy and instruction in prosodic features would lead to improved pronunciation, the results reported here should help to dispel the doubts of those teachers who are skeptical about

the value of pronunciation teaching.

As to the first research question of the study, the method of ‘listen and repeat’ seemed effective in altering the learners’ current state of knowledge toward the better. In the intuitive-imitative instructive group, the teacher or the recorder gained success in promoting the learners’ recognition and production of English sounds as a whole, and non-existent English sounds in Persian in particular. The intuitive-imitative approach helped to improve the participants' pronunciation of sounds including consonants, pure vowels, diphthongs and one semivowel which seem to be often difficult for Iranian EFL learners to master. Thus, according to the results obtained in this study, the first null hypothesis of this study is rejected. The second research question was intended to examine the effectiveness of the other approach to teaching pronunciation (i.e., analytic-linguistic). Similarly, the influence of explicit interventions like describing articulatory complexities such as place and manner of articulation showed a significant improvement in the EFL learners’ pronunciation performance. Accordingly, the second null hypothesis is rejected, too. The above findings support the results of the study by Ruhmke-Ramos and Delatore (2011, who investigated the effect of training (i.e. perception activities without explanation) and training allied to instruction (i.e. explanation of target sounds) on the English interdental fricatives in a Brazilian context. Both studies indicate that intervention programs can be useful and improve speech intelligibility.

The third research question sought to examine the difference between the effects of intuitive-imitative and analytic-linguistic approaches to pronunciation teaching. As pointed out in the results section, these approaches significantly differed in terms of their degree of impact, with the analytic-linguistic approach taking the lead. Put differently, the explicit analytic nature of the analytic-linguistic approach appeared to provide a higher

state of effectiveness with respect to the L2 learners’ primary knowledge condition. The practical nature of this latter approach, in general, looks to be more promising in fulfilling the participants' needs with respect to pronunciation. Despite its effectiveness in promoting the L2 learners’ production attempts, the intuitive-imitative approach lagged behind the analytic-linguistic approach in improving the participants' pronunciation of the sounds under study when the age factor was not taken into account. That is, there was overall support for 'teacher explanation' as activities in the analytic-linguistic approach.

The mere repetitive nature of this sort of teaching, even though effective, did not appear much in line with the L2 learners’ general needs in achieving good pronunciation, hence their lower pronunciation improvement. Accordingly, the third null hypothesis is rejected, too. The above results support the findings by Catford and Pisoni (1970) about the effectiveness of systematic production training versus automatic capacity to listen and imitate sounds. Their results indicated that auditory methods were significantly less effective than teaching pronunciation by means of systematic application of articulatory phonetic knowledge. Furthermore, the results of this study agree with Ruhmke-Ramos and Delatore (2011), who found out that training combined with instruction tend to be a more effective tool to improve learners’ perception than training alone in pronunciation classes. However, the results of this study are different from Ruhmke-Ramos and Delatore's (2011) findings in that the changes from the pretests to posttests in their two methods were not enough to reach any statistical significance, but the results of the present study demonstrated statistical significance for the changes from the pretests to the posttests as well as the effect of the analytic-linguistic method as opposed to the intuitive-imitative one. Thus, instruction and explanation about target sounds can provide short-term improvement and facilitate L2 learning.

In the last research question, the effect of age as a personal variable was specifically put under investigation. In the present study, age turned out to be an important factor with respect to both pronunciation instruction approaches. In line with the earlier studies (see Lund, 2003; Senel, 2006; Yates & Zielinski, 2009), the younger and older learners attained different rates of success when the two different methods (intuitive-imitative vs.

analytic-linguistic) were applied. Possibly due to certain neurological, sociocultural, psychological or physical differences between two age groups of 13-16 and 17-20, different training priorities were observed. The imitation-based instruction appeared more effective in the case of young (13-16) learners. Lacking sufficient knowledge to use in analytic attempts, the younger learners were positively affected by the intuitive-imitative approach, improving their ability to accurately pronounce certain L2 sounds (i.e., British English sounds). Thus, the advantage that younger students seem to have is that they have an ability to replicate pronunciation extremely well, which in turn puts many Iranian EFL teachers at a disadvantage in classrooms in schools since these teachers are almost never native speakers of English and learn English intensively in teacher training universities after the age of 18 in order to be employed as English teachers in public schools. Unlike the younger participants, the older participants (17-20), as suggested by a higher mean of their performance, favored the linguistic-based method of instruction. In other words, the analytic-linguistic approach was significantly effective among the older participants, helping them to establish new phonetic boundaries. The higher state of knowledge in this latter group paves the ground for positive reactions to this specific analytic training approach.

The findings of this study could enrich the literature in the area of second language acquisition development. In general, children learn L1 pronunciation by imitation, which

sometimes remains the basic technique in the course of learning the sound system of the L2 by adults. However, as Brown (2005) states, due to the rarity of perfect mimics, most adult learners appear to successfully benefit from linguistic explanations about the sounds with which they have difficulty. The findings of this study are in line with what Brown claims to be true. Also, similar to Catford and Pisoni's (1970) suggestion, a scientific knowledge of articulatory phonetics is a positive aid to language teachers, enabling them to lead their students step by step into the correct pronunciation of foreign sounds; the application of phonetic knowledge by the teachers can empower the students to pick up some knowledge of phonetic theory by experiencing phonetic activities in their own vocal tract. Hence, it is suggested that L2 educators and teachers leave some room for pronunciation teaching in the course of L2 teaching. It is specifically proposed that they sometimes develop analytic-based pronunciation training sessions to raise learners' awareness of areas of their deficiency since, as Sharwood Smith (1981) states, consciousness and awareness raising are sometimes important in L2 acquisition/learning.

Also, the value of "systematically and explicitly incorporating a pronunciation sub-syllabus within the overall sub-syllabus'' of L2 learners has been emphasized by Couper (2003, p. 53). Furthermore, it might be helpful for L2 practitioners to clearly specify either intuitive-imitative or analytic-linguistic approaches for young learners' and adult learners’ classes, with the purpose of achieving higher rates of success in the learners’

pronunciation performance. In addition, the results of this study imply that it is better to have a pronunciation approach which is in line with L2 learners' style of learning. With the advent of learner-centered approaches, L2 teachers have the responsibility of training L2 learners in a way which corresponds with their learning path. As to the field of materials development, L2 materials developers should keep in mind that the type of

pronunciation materials should not necessarily be the same for all age groups to improve speech intelligibility.

Conclusion and Limitations

The significant role played by accurate pronunciation in successfully conveying our intentions and meanings cannot be disregarded in the course of cross-cultural communication. Knowledge of grammatical rules and the lexical diversity of a foreign language, even though important, do not necessarily guarantee success in communicative attempts. According to a number of researchers and writers (e.g., Celce-Murcia, 2000;

Celce-Murcia et al., 1996; Morley, 1991; Yates & Zielinski, 2009), the accurate pronunciation of foreign language utterances, which makes foreign language learners intelligible in speaking (i.e., easy to understand) to native and nonnative speakers of the language, is also considered important, no matter which variety of language is used in the act of communication with others. "Good pronunciation will be understood even if they make errors in other areas, while those with unintelligible pronunciation will remain unintelligible, even if they have expressed themselves using an extensive vocabulary and perfect grammar (Yates & Zielinski, 2009, p. 11). Thus, there has been some effort to introduce pronunciation into the English L2 curriculum in recent years (Celce-Murcia et al., 1996; Couper, 2003; Morley, 1994; Pennington, 1994). However, a related question which remains substantial in L2 learning concerns the way to improve language learners’

pronunciation. The necessity for a different instructive approach, as against mere focus on imitation and automatic perceptions, was the focus of this study.

The present study was developed to contribute to the existing literature on L2 learning.

Through this attempt, two different training approaches were examined with a close look

at age factor as one of the possible moderating variables in this course. The results obtained from this study show that pronunciation ability can improve through intervention training instructions, highlighting the inclusion of formal pronunciation teaching in the L2 curriculum. Also, the results obtained in this study have indicated the more effective nature of an analytic-linguistic approach on the whole. As Fraser (2006) points out, L2 teachers frequently employ an imitative approach towards pronunciation regardless of the age of the learners, trying to apply certain strategies with respect to the learners’ needs in their classes. This view is not rejected by this study, yet a more scientific account of the issues would be more acceptable among L2 learners. While some L2 teachers may know intuitively how to teach pronunciation, most may need some formal training in how to teach pronunciation analytically and successfully so that L2 learners can benefit more.

In addition to a scientific treatment of the pronunciation teaching approaches, there are other moderating variables, such as age, exerting influence on choosing a more effective approach to teach pronunciation. The results of this study have indicated that younger and older learners need different pronunciation teaching approaches. The younger state of knowledge span suggests imitation-based training techniques as inspiring in the field. For older participants, an analytic account of pronunciation teaching proves its significance.

By implication, a knowledge-based decision in terms of the most useful teaching approaches for certain age groups would be of a crucial role in administering the classes.

This advantage also keeps the L2 learners interested and proves effective in achieving good pronunciation levels.

In the course of this study, there were several sources of limitation which exerted some effects in restricting the progressive nature of the findings. For one thing, this study was

limited to low intermediate-level EFL learners, so the issue of weak generalizability of findings to other levels of language ability needs to be considered. A second limitation of this study relates directly to an accessibility issue in terms of the participants. It was found to be extremely difficult to find an appropriate number of students in order to have a random selection out of a larger population. In the third place, evaluation of the oral and aural skills and components of the language is not free of certain limitations.

Factors such as subjectivity and impossibility of including a simultaneous assessment of all sounds might affect the accuracy of decisions and the concluding remarks. Finally, some aspects of the pronunciation (i.e. tensing or laxing vowels) may be extremely difficult for listeners, even native speakers, to recognize in utterances. Thus, a little uncertainty still exists about the degree of reliability of the data on pronunciation, including the assessment of participants' pronunciation by the raters in the present study.

Thus we must be cautious about making strong generalizations from these findings.

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