Revista de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales
© 2023. Universidad del Zulia
ISSN 1012-1587/ ISSNe: 2477-9385
Depósito legal pp. 198402ZU45
Portada: S/T. De la serie “RETORNO”.
Artista: Rodrigo Pirela
Medidas: 60 x 60 cm
Técnica: Mixta/Tela
Año: 2009
Año 39, Regular No.100 (2023): 131-154
ISSN 1012-1587/ISSNe: 2477-9385
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7637478
Recibido: 15-12-2022 •Aceptado: 13-01-2023
The ideal English pronunciation resource: non-native
teachers’ beliefs
Cristina Castillo Rodríguez
Universidad de Málaga
ORCID: 0000-0002-7200-7442
cristina.castillo@uma.es
Milagros Torrado Cespón
Universidad Internacional de La Rioja
ORCID: 0000-0002-3213-8405
milagros.torrado@uma.es
Alfonso Lago Ferreiro
Universidad de Vigo
ORCID: 0000-0001-8697-4807
alago@uma.es
Abstract
This paper aimed to explore teachers’ beliefs on the digital resources
for an adequate practice of English pronunciation/phonetics. Two
teacher samples were collected: preuniversity teachers (secondary
education and vocational training) (PU = 51) and university teachers (UN
= 76). The results showed that i) PU teachers usually employed paper-
based materials from textbooks whilst UN teachers created their own
materials; ii) pronunciation practice was integrated into activities devoted
to practising speaking and listening skills; iii) teachers would like to
employ more materials to download and specialized websites to practice
phonetics; and iv) their ideal resource should be ‘reusable’, ‘multimedial’,
and ‘open’.
Keywords: English pronunciation; teachers’ perceptions; English
as a Foreign Language; tools.
Recurso ideal para pronunciación inglesa: creencias de
docentes de ILE no nativos
Resumen
El principal objetivo es explorar la opinión del profesorado sobre los
recursos digitales para practicar pronunciación/fonética inglesa de forma
adecuada. Se recopilaron dos muestras: preuniversitario (secundaria y
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formación profesional) (PU = 51) y universitario (UN = 76). Los
resultados mostraron que i) los PU normalmente utilizaban más
materiales en papel (libros) mientras que los UN creaban sus propios
materiales; ii) la pronunciación se suele practicar en actividades de
producción y comprensión orales; iii) a los dos grupos les gustaría usar
más materiales para descargar y páginas especializadas para practicar
fonética; y iv) las principales características que ambos grupos
consideraban esenciales fueron ‘reusable’, ‘multimedia’, y ‘abierto.
Palabras clave: Pronunciación inglesa; percepciones docentes;
inglés como lengua extranjera; herramientas.
1. INTRODUCTION
Since the last decade of the last century, and particularly from the
beginning of the 21st century, the use of emergent technology has
become a must for educational activities in all stages of education
(preschool, primary, secondary, vocational training, and higher
education). Besides, current resources should turn up in the form of
digital and online environment, given the needs of teachers, but above all,
our learners today —considered digital natives (Ciliers, 2017; Prensky,
2001); but mainly due to the circumstances caused by the COVID-19
pandemic since March 2020, which imposed a shift into emergency
remote teaching and learning (Borzkurt & Sharma, 2020; Hodges et al.,
2020; Murphy, 2020).
When it comes to imagining the ideal resource in a specific knowledge
area the difficulties and the necessities increase. In the case with which
we are concerned, finding the perfect digital resource for practicing EFL,
in general, and English pronunciation/phonetics, in particular, becomes
an arduous and challenging task (Bai & Yuan, 2019; Gilakjani & Sabouri,
2016; Gómez González & Sánchez Roura, 2016).
Our main aim was, then, to explore the non-native teachers’
perspectives regarding the use of digital resources to practice English
pronunciation/phonetics taking into account the educational stage in
which they teach.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
Due to the rapid increase of online resources on education, the search
for appropriate resources and materials are now perceived as essential
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(Baker & Murphy, 2011; Chyr et al., 2017), especially after the pandemic
situation (Ali, 2020; Baker et al., 2021). However, determining the
appropriate tools is not a new issue, as the evaluation of digital resources
has been the focus of some studies (Churchill, 2017; Xie et al., 2018).
Mhouti et al. (2013) designed an instrument which paid special
attention to the quality of four dimensions: i) adademic quality (reliable,
accurate); ii) pedagogical quality (teaching monitoring and learning
support, organization of the resource, its interactivity, the possibility to
go back-forward or home page button, etc.); iii) didactic quality
(appropriate activities and veracity of content); and iv) technical quality
(design, the suitable use of the colours, the aesthetic aspect; the ease of
navigation; and the inclusion of multimedia elements).
In Spain, the standardization organism (UNE) established a norm to
value the quality of digital educative resources and materials: UNE
71362:2020. The norm, designed like a rubric, posits a total of 15 criteria
and provides the evaluators (a teacher, a student, or a person involved in
educative contexts) with a tool to score each criterion:
Didactic description
Quality of content
Capacity to generate learning
Adaptability
Interactivity
Motivation
Format and design
Reusability
Portability
Robustness, technical stability
Structure of the learning scenario
Navigation
Operability
Accessibility to audio-visual content
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Accessibility to text content.
Other authors proposed a checklist to evaluate the resources. The
checklist of Aguayo and Ramírez (2020) focused on the quality of the
technical issues of websites and how understandable the resources is to
navigate for users. The two main categories are: functionality (navigation,
adequacy of technology, interactivity, and accuracy of technology for the
specific purpose); and usability (intelligibility, ease of use, operability, and
design). In the context of languages, the checklist of Moreno and
Risueño (2018) focused on nine areas in a language resource: general site
information, language skills and components, educational material,
multimedia use, interactivity, communication, aid tools and linguistic
resources, website ergonomics, and content quality.
As far as the teaching of the sounds of English as a foreign language
is concerned, many studies have focused on the research of certain tools
or specific software implemented for practice in the classroom
environment. Eshankulovna (2021) examined the advantages and
disadvantages of using apps to practise speaking and pronunciation for
successful mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) and proposed some
guidelines to assess EFL software following three criteria: content and
design, L2 methods, and technology. Spring and Tabuchi (2021)
examined the implementation of automatic speech recognition (ASR) to
help Japanese university students improve their pronunciation in EFL.
Calvo Benzies (2013) conducted a survey of undergraduates’ exposure
to English pronunciation, their attitude towards learning it and their
preferences and difficulties concerning this area. In a later study (Calvo
Benzies, 2017), she addressed the importance of digital materials for the
current, more integrated approach to the teaching and learning of English
pronunciation and intonation. This study analyzes three basic types of
digital resources: i) software, including pronunciation training programs,
programs converting text to phonetic transcription and recording
programs; ii) apps; iii) websites, blogs, social networks and the like. A
valuable overview of undergraduates’ opinions regarding these tools has
been provided as well. However, her approach focuses on description
rather than evaluation.
However, no specific studies focusing on the teachers’ requirements
and perceptions of the issues that a pronunciation/phonetics resource
should contain have been found in the literature. Hismanoglu (2010)
carried out a valuable analysis of teachers’ use of online pronunciation
resources, but he did not systematically assess those resources. Likewise,
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studies which address teachers’ conceptions of the teaching of
pronunciation (Bai & Yuan, 2019), teachers’ motivation to change their
behaviour towards implementing tools for pronunciation in the
classroom (Hermans et al., 2017), or defending the effectiveness of
CALL for pronunciation (Kim, 2012) do not focus on the desirable
features that these resources should have.
Thus, we aim at analysing the teachers’ perspectives regarding the use
of digital resources to practise English pronunciation/phonetics
depending on the educational stage. To accomplish this general objective,
some Research Questions (RQs) were posed:
RQ1: Which are the pronunciation/phonetics resources used by EFL
teachers in class in the PU and UN educational contexts?
RQ2: Are teachers’ materials or resources for pronunciation practice
strongly associated to certain skills?
RQ3: Which resources would EFL teachers like to employ in class?
RQ4: What do EFL teachers think a resource/tool to practise
phonetics/pronunciation should be in terms of design and
accessibility, reusability, and technical issues?
3. METHOD
3.1. PARTICIPANTS
A sample of 127 teachers divided into two educative contexts
(preuniversity, PU, and university, UN) was collected for this study. This
is a probabilistic sample in which teachers from different regions of Spain
participated. PU teachers (n=51) included secondary education teachers
(SE), from both compulsory and upper secondary education, and
Vocational Training (VT). Only 13.73% of PU respondents were male
(n=7), whilst for UN teachers this percentage increased to 39.47%
(n=30). The ages of PU teachers ranged from 26 to 59 (means=41.92;
standard deviation, SD=10.079), whilst the ages of UN teachers ranged
from 25 to 67 (means=48.30, and SD=10.210).
As for the years of experience, the mean for PU teachers was 12.96,
considering a range from 0 to 32. Nevertheless, in UN teachers, the mean
of years of experience was 18.53, ranging from 1 to 37.
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3.2. INSTRUMENTS
Data were collected by means of an online survey, elaborated in
Google Forms, and ws designed by a group of researchers involved in the
competitive national project under whose framework this study was
conceived. To validate the survey, it was sent to an expert committee
composed of teaching staff who were specialists in EFL from different
educative stages.
The teachers’ survey featured 39 questions focused on the following
dimensions: 1) Socio-demographic data; 2) Academic background; 3)
Attitudes towards the teaching of pronunciation/phonetics; iv) Resources
to practise pronunciation/phonetics.
3.3. PROCEDURE
Both groups of teachers from the different educative stages (PU and
UN) were invited to participate. The information was registered into
Excel and then exported to the statistical package SPSS (v.22). The
survey was available from 1st February 2021 until 31st May 2021.
On the basis of the general objective and the RQs posed before, we
analysed some questions of the survey belonging to Dimension 1,
Dimension 2, and Dimension 4. Questions from dimensions 1 and 2
were used to categorise the educational stages of teachers participating in
the study, and to determine the age, mean, and years of experience of the
participants. For dimension 4, the results section is devoted entirely to
the outcomes of the data provided by the participants’ responses
concerning the RQs pursued in this paper. Table 1 illustrates the
dimensions and questions of the present study.
Table 1. Questions (classified per dimension) of the survey
Dimension
Response
Type
Scale
Dimension 1. Socio-demographic information
1. Age
Open
Numeric
2. Gender
Closed
Single choice
Dimension 2. Academic background
3. Academic degrees and/or postgraduate
degrees
Closed
Multiple
choice
4. Educative stage in which you teach EFL
Closed
Single choice
5. Indicate degree or postgraduate degrees
where you teach EFL (if university stage)
Open
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6. Years of teaching experience
Open
Numeric
Dimension 4. Resources to practise
phonetics/pronunciation
25. With which skill do you include your
pronunciation/phonetics practice?
Closed
Multiple
choice
32. Do you use some of the following
resources to practise pronunciation/phonetics?
Closed
Multiple
choice
35. Which kind of resources would like to have
to practise English pronunciation/phonetics in
the classroom
Closed
Multiple
choice
36. Indicate your degree of importance towards
the following features of an ideal
pronunciation/phonetics digital resource
Closed
Likert (1-5)
36.1. Reusability
Closed
Likert (1-5)
36.2. Design and accessibility
Closed
Likert (1-5)
36.3. Technical issues
Closed
Likert (1-5)
Source: Own elaboration
3.4. DATA ANALYSIS
The statistical packages used were SPSS for Windows v.23 (IBM SPSS
Statistics, Chicago, IL, USA) and Microsoft Office Excel 2016 (Microsoft
Corp., Redmond, WA, USA). Descriptive statistics included frequencies,
mean and standard deviation.
The analysis of our study was descriptive. Student’s t-distribution, a
type of inferential statistics used to determine if there was a significant
difference between the means of two groups, was calculated for
independent samples as grouping dichotomous variable. Correlation
analyses were measured with regard to the age variable: the bivariate
Pearson correlation between the age and the means of each criterion
(question 36 of the instrument) was calculated.
4. RESULTS
4.1. RESOURCES USED BY TEACHERS
Teachers responded to the following multiple-choice question: Do you
use some of the following resources to practise phonetics/pronunciation? 63.16%
chose the option “My own creation material” in UN teachers, compared
to the 39.22% of PU who selected that option. The most frequent option
by PU teachers was “Physical (or paper-based) materials from publishing
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houses with which the centre collaborates” (58.82%), although the
percentage dropped in the case of UN teachers (36.84%).
The least selected option by UN teachers was “Online materials from
publishing houses with which the centre collaborates” (27.63%), although
almost half of the PU teachers employed those materials (49.02%). On
the contrary, the least selected answer in PU was “Materials from
monolingual dictionaries” with 11.76%, whilst for UN teachers this
option obtained a higher percentage (42.11%). The reason for this might
be that UN teachers tend to teach the phonetic system and to propose
more practical activities through dictionary searches.
Both PU and UN teachers marked as their second preferred option
“Specialized websites”, which shows the importance of this kind of
resources. Figure 1 shows the resources that PU and UN teachers
declared to use.
Figure 1. Resources used by PU and UN teachers according to their
responses to I use… Source: Own elaboration
Regarding with which skills PU and UN teachers integrate their
phonetics/pronunciation practice (question 25), the respondents could
select more than one option. The objective was to know which skills, if
any, were usually more easily integrated into phonetics/pronunciation
practice. Generally, PU and UN teachers indicated that the skill with
which they most integrated the teaching of phonetics was speaking
(98.04% of responses from PU and 97.37% of UN teachers). The other
skill associated with orality was listening, which was often selected by
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participants of both samples of teachers (80.39% of PU and 80.26% of
UN).
On the opposite side, the skill least integrated into the practice of
phonetics/pronunciation was writing, with 9.8% of PU responses, and
14.47% of UN teachers. The second least selected was Use of English
(grammar) in both samples of teachers (33.33% in PU and 31.58% in UN
teachers). Figure 2 shows the data provided by respondents regarding the
skills with which they usually integrate their pronunciation or phonetics
practice.
Figure 2. Skills usually integrated into pronunciation/phonetics practice
by PU and UN teachers. Source: Own elaboration
4.2. RESOURCES TEACHERS WOULD LIKE TO HAVE
AT THEIR DISPOSAL
The following question is intended to ascertain teacher needs as far as
resources are concerned: Which kind of resources would you like to have to
practise English phonetics/pronunciation in the classroom? Multiple answers could
be selected by PU and UN teachers.
In general, more teaching needs were detected in PU teachers, since,
except for the option “Some software to install on my computer”, the
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remaining percentage of responses in each kind of resource is greater in
PU teachers when compared to the UN teachers.
The most recurrent option of both samples coincided in “Material to
download (exercises, PDF documents, etc.)” with 90.2% of PU responses
and 77.63% of UN answers. The second most frequent option marked by
PU and UN teachers was “Specialized website to practise phonetics” (PU
= 80.39% and UN = 76.32%). The least selected option was “Material to
print” in both groups.
The fact that teachers required fewer paper-based materials might be
due to the fact that surveys were administered after the COVID-19
pandemic situation emerged worldwide; therefore, teachers opted for
more digital resources rather than paper-based ones. Figure 3 shows all
the options and the percentages of answers.
Figure 3. Responses around teaching needs (I would like to have…).
Source: Own elaboration
4.3. ESSENTIAL FEATURES FOR THE IDEAL
PRONUNCIATION/PHONETICS RESOURCE
PU and UN teachers were asked about the characteristics that an ideal
resource should have in order to practise pronunciation/phonetics
(question 36).
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Upon the criteria, parameters and indicators observed in the literature,
in our study, we proposed three main criteria with some indicators in
each one:
Criterion 1. Reusability
Adaptable (modifiable according to the users’ needs)
Flexible (attending to different contexts)
Reusable (educative purposes).
Criterion 2. Design and Accessibility
Accessible (used by a great number of people)
Textual (text)
Sound (sound)
Visual (images)
Audiovisual (acoustic and graphic)
Multimedial (text, images, graphic and sounds)
Soft colours and black font
Intense colours and black or blue font.
Criterion 3. Technical Issues.
Open
Home button available
Durable (guarantee of resource validity)
Short URL
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Modular (interacting with other resources)
Usable (different devices)
Portable (different platforms)
Regarding the first criterion, Reusability, and its three indicators
(Adaptable, Flexible, Reusable), according to the data (see Table 2), both
PU and UN teachers considered extremely important (highlighted in grey
in Table 2) the three of them for their ideal resource. However, PU
percentages were significantly higher than UN, as UN percentages
remained around half of the sample for the three indicators (PU =
58.82% 70.59%, and 76.47%; UN = 46.05%, 44.74%, and 51.32%).
Table 2. Teachers’ responses towards the degree of importance of
indicators included in Reusability criterion
NI
BI
I
VI
EI
TOTAL
PU
N
1
7
13
30
51
%
1.96
13.73
25.49
58.82
100
UN
n
1
1
13
26
35
76
%
1.32
1.32
17.11
34.21
46.05
100
PU
n
3
12
36
51
%
5.88
23.53
70.59
100
UN
n
1
2
8
31
34
76
%
1.32
2.63
10.53
40.79
44.74
100
PU
n
4
8
39
51
%
7.84
15.69
76.47
100
UN
n
1
3
7
26
39
76
%
1.32
3.95
9.21
34.21
51.32
100
Source: Own elaboration
Note: NI stands for Not important, BI, a bit important, I, important, VI,
very important and EI, extremely important
The second criterion, Design and accessibility, comprises several
indicators related to format, font, and how the information is provided.
Both PU and UN teachers coincided in their answers, although the
degree of importance differed depending on the indicator to appraise. PU
and UN teachers considered that a resource must be accessible (PU =
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86.27 and UN = 69.74 for extremely important). None of the teachers
selected the options not important or a bit important in this indicator.
Regarding how information should be offered in a
pronunciation/phonetics resource, teachers’ opinions differed. PU and
UN teachers selected important the “textual” form (45.1% in PU and
27.3% in UN), “acoustic” (37.25% in PU and 27.63% in UN) or “visual”
(43.14% in PU and 32.89% in UN). It is remarkable, however, how in the
second option both samples differed in the importance provided to
“acoustic” and “visual”, this being extremely important for PU
(“acoustic” = 23.53%, and “visual” = 19.61%), which contrasted with the
not-important option selected by UN (23.68% for both “acoustic” and
“visual”). Nevetheless, both samples considered as extremely important
“audiovisual” and “multimedia”, being greater in the last feature
(PU=64.71% and 84.31%; UN= 43.42% and 71.05%). None of the
teachers selected a bit important for both indicators, and only UN
indicated, to a lesser extent, not important (just 9.21% for “audiovisual”
and 2.63% for “multimedia”).
Answers to the indicators related to the colours on the background
and font seem to suggest that teachers gave them a similar importance.
Both samples regarded the two features (“soft colours and black font”;
“intense colours and black or blue font”) as important (PU=33.33% for
both features; UN=30.26% and 34.21%, respectively). However, in the
case of UN teachers, their second option differed depending on one and
another feature: the second highest percentage was found in extremely
important for the first feature of colours, whilst for the second feature
the percentage was equal to the other option selected by this sample of
teachers, that is, 34.21% but in not-important option. Table 3 shows all
the percentages for all the indicators under the Design and Accessibility
criterion.
Table 3. Teachers’ responses towards the degree of importance of
indicators included in Design and Accessibility criterion
NI
BI
I
VI
EI
TOTAL
Accessible
PU
n
2
5
44
51
%
3.92
9.8
86.27
100
UN
n
6
17
53
76
%
7.89
22.37
69.74
100
Textual
PU
n
13
5
23
3
7
51
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%
25.49
9.8
45.1
5.88
13.73
100
UN
n
20
20
21
10
5
76
%
26.32
26.32
27.63
13.16
6.58
100
Acoustic
PU
n
9
6
19
5
12
51
%
17.65
11.76
37.25
9.8
23.53
100
UN
n
18
10
21
13
14
76
%
23.68
13.16
27.63
17.11
18.42
100
Visual
PU
n
9
5
22
5
10
51
%
17.65
9.8
43.14
9.8
19.61
100
UN
n
18
11
25
12
10
76
%
23.68
14.47
32.89
15.79
13.16
100
Audiovisual
PU
n
6
12
33
51
%
11.76
23.53
64.71
100
UN
n
7
10
26
33
76
%
9.21
13.16
34.21
43.42
100
Multimedia
PU
n
2
6
43
51
%
3.92
11.76
84.31
100
UN
n
2
4
16
54
76
%
2.63
5.26
21.05
71.05
100
With soft colours
in the background
page and black
for the font
PU
n
2
7
17
10
15
51
%
3.92
13.73
33.33
19.61
29.41
100
UN
n
9
8
23
14
22
76
%
11.84
10.53
30.26
18.42
28.95
100
With intense
colours and black
or blue for the
font
PU
n
13
12
17
4
5
51
%
25.49
23.53
33.33
7.84
9.8
100
UN
n
26
13
26
5
6
76
%
34.21
17.11
34.21
6.58
7.89
100
Source: Own elaboration
As for the third criterion, Technical Issues, and its seven indicators,
PU and UN teachers agreed on considering extremely important the
following ones: open; homepage button; durable; usable; and portable.
The highest percentage found for extremely important in PU was for
“usable” indicator (84.31%), and in UN was for “durable” (73.68%). The
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second most frequent response for this degree of importance was “open”
in both samples (PU = 80.39%; UN = 72.37%), although the percentage
found for “portable” in PU was exactly the same (80.39%).
The “short-URL” indicator was regarded as important (PU = 35.29%;
UN = 32.89%). And, finally, in the case of “modular” both samples acted
differently when considering the feature as extremely important or very
important. PU teachers registered a higher percentage in extremely
important (56.86%), rather than very important (23.53%). UN teachers’
opinion was towards considering the indicator as important (35.53%) and
extremely important (31.58%).
As observed in Table 4, PU registered greater percentages in all
indicators when compared to UN percentages.
Table 4. Teachers’ responses towards the degree of importance of
indicators included in Technical issues criterion
NI
BI
I
VI
EI
TOTAL
Open
PU
n
1
4
5
41
51
%
1.96
7.84
9.8
80.39
100
UN
n
3
18
55
76
%
3.95
23.68
72.37
100
Homepage button
PU
n
2
8
7
34
51
%
3.92
15.69
13.73
66.67
100
UN
n
6
21
14
35
76
%
7.89
27.63
18.42
46.05
100
Durable
PU
n
3
8
40
51
%
5.88
15.69
78.43
100
UN
n
1
2
5
12
56
76
%
1.32
2.63
6.58
15.79
73.68
100
Short URL
PU
n
4
6
18
7
16
51
%
7.84
11.76
35.29
13.73
31.37
100
UN
n
9
7
25
16
19
76
%
11.84
9.21
32.89
21.05
25
100
Modular
PU
n
1
9
12
29
51
%
1.96
17.65
23.53
56.86
100
UN
n
1
6
18
27
24
76
%
1.32
7.89
23.68
35.53
31.58
100
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Usable
PU
n
5
3
43
51
%
9.8
5.88
84.31
100
UN
n
2
8
18
48
76
%
2.63
10.53
23.68
63.16
100
Portable
PU
n
1
4
5
41
51
%
1.96
7.84
9.8
80.39
100
UN
n
1
2
7
21
45
76
%
1.32
2.63
9.21
27.63
59.21
100
Source: Own elaboration
Correlation analyses were carried out taking some variables into
account. Regarding the age variable, the bivariate Pearson correlation
between the age and the means of each criterion was calculated. The age
is not correlated with the obtained score. However, some of the scores of
some criteria are correlated.
T student for independent samples was also measured, since grouping
dichotomous variable (educational stage) is categorical. Table 5 illustrates
the means of every criterion according to educational stage (PU and UN).
The PU teachers’ sample presented higher means when compared to the
other sample of teachers. As observed, the highest means were
encountered in both samples of teachers in the Reusability criterion,
followed by Technical issues, and finally by Design and accessibility. It is
remarkable the particular case of Reusablity, since it was composed by
three indicators in which the percentages for extremely important were
very high.
Table 5. Criteria’s means, standard deviations and standard error of the
mean in both teachers’ samples
CRITERIA
N
MEAN
SD
STANDARD
ERROR OF THE
MEAN
Reusability
PU
51
4.5752
.58530
.08196
UN
76
4.2588
.76517
.08777
Design_accessibility
PU
51
3.6397
.61474
.08608
UN
76
3.4030
.72445
.08310
Technical_issues
PU
51
4.4426
.52858
.07402
UN
76
4.1898
.61385
.07041
Source: Own elaboration
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First, we verified the result of Levene’s test of sample variances,
which showed that the level of significance of F is >.05 in all the criteria.
In these cases, we do not reject null hypothesis for equality of variances
and, therefore, we can assume that variances are equal and can continue
with t student. The significance level of t is <.05 in the cases of the
Reusability criterion (p=.014) and the Technical issue criterion (p=.018),
being rejected null hypothesis of means and showing, therefore, that
there exists a statistical difference between the value obtained for these
criteria and the educational stage. However, for the Design and
accessibility criterion, the t value is .058>.05, confirming null hypothesis
of equality of means (see table 6).
Table 6. T student for grouping variable ‘educational stage’
LEVENE’S
TEST OF
VARIANCES
QUALITY
T STUDENT FOR EQUALITY OF MEANS
F
Sig.
t
df
Sig.
(bilateral)
Means
dif.
Statistical
error dif.
1.
Reusability
means
Equal
variances
assumed
3.101
.081
2.501
125
.014
.31639
.12649
Equal
variances
not
assumed
2.635
122.785
.010
.31639
.12009
2. Design
and
accessibility
means
Equal
variances
assumed
1.150
.286
1.916
125
.058
.23675
.12358
Equal
variances
not
assumed
1.979
118.188
.050
.23675
.11965
3. Technical
issues means
Equal
variances
assumed
1.609
.207
2.402
125
.018
.25273
.10521
Equal
variances
not
assumed
2.474
117.368
.015
.25273
.10216
Source: Own elaboration
5. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
Benefits of using technology are unquestionable today. Besides, with
the pandemic situation caused by the COVID-19 in March 2020, the
implementation of digital resources in the classroom environment has
become an essential part of the teaching and learning process. In the
context of EFL teaching practice, and, above all, pronunciation or
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phonetics, teachers from different educational stages might require
diverse specific resources. In our study, we wanted to explore teachers’
perspectives on the use of digital resources for an appropriate practice of
English pronunciation or phonetics, depending on the educational stage.
We posed some RQs:
Regarding RQ1, Which are the pronunciation/phonetics resources used by
EFL teachers in class in PU and UN educational context?, both samples of
teachers gave different responses: UN teachers declared to use their own
materials to a greater extent, whilst PU teachers employed physical
materials from publishing houses with which their centres collaborate.
This might be due to the fact that at university students usually consider
activities from textbooks very repetitive, as the study carried out by Calvo
Benzies (2013), in which the data from the survey to university students
demonstrated negative attitudes towards pronunciation practice in EFL
textbooks. Therefore, UN teachers have no option but to prepare their
own materials so as to present varied practice to their students.
As for RQ2, Are teachers’ materials or resources for pronunciation practice
strongly associated to certain skills?, we observed that pronunciation practice is
frequently integrated with skills related with orality, that is, speaking or
listening, but not integrated equally with all linguistic skills. However, this
is not line with the recommendation of Levis and Sonsaat (2016), who
stated that the activities and practice presented in materials should be
fully integrted with the teaching of oter linguistic skills, according to one
of the principles they proposed for pronunciation materials.
About RQ3, What resources would EFL teachers like to employ in class?, a
great percentage of both PU and UN teachers declared “material to
download: exercises, PDF documents, etc.”, but also, as their second
option, “specialized websites to practise phonetics”, the latter being in
agreement with studies defending the use of sites and technological
materials to improve English pronunciation (Hermans et al., 2017; Kim,
2012; Setter, 2008).
Finally, regarding RQ4, What do EFL teachers consider a resource/tool to
practise phonetics/pronunciation should be in terms of reusability, design and
accessibility, as well as technical issues?, some indicators of the three criteria
have been considered essential for an ideal resource to practise English
pronunciation or phonetics.
It is remarkable how in the Reusability criterion all the indicators were
considered very important with a high percentage in both samples when
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compared to the rest of the degrees of importance; the “reusable”
indicator obtained high percentages (PU=76.47%; UN=51.32%). This is
in line with studies in which the possibility to reuse resources or learning
objects was stressed as a relevant issue in the e-learning context (Karatay
& Hegelheimer, 2021; Klerkx et al., 2010; Littlejohn, 2003; Mohan, 2004;
Tate & Hoshek, 2009).
The best valued indicators in the second criterion in both samples of
teachers, Design and accessibility, were particularly found in the
“accessible” (PU=86.27%; UN=69.74%) and the “multimedia” features
(PU=84.31%; UN=71.05%), the latter referring to how the content is
presented in an ideal resource for phonetics/pronunciation. Not very
remarkable percentages were encountered in the two last indicators of the
second criterion, that is, the colours of the background and font, which
were just considered important; this contrasts with the relevance
provided in certain studies highlighting the suitable use of the colours
and the aesthetic in general of a resource (Mhouti et al., 2013 or the
standard UNE 71362:2020).
As for the third criterion, Technical issues, some indicators were
given more importance than others. PU teachers considered extremely
important the features “usable” (84.31%), “open”, and “portable” (both
sharing the same percentage, that is, 80.39%). UN teachers also declared
as extremely important the “open” (72.37%) and “usable” (63.16%)
features. This means that they bestow more relevance to being able to use
the resource through different devices and platforms, and with no
limitations in its functionalities, which is in accordance with the
importance provided in the literature to the possibility to employ a
resource online/offline, over smartphones, tablets, PCs, or any other
platforms (Alqahtani, Kaliappen & Alqahtani, 2020; UNE 71362:2020) or
totally open with no restrictions (Olgren & Ploetz, 2007; Tran, 2021).
However, in UN teachers, the highest percentage was found in “durable”
(73.68%) which has to do with the fact that a resource is valid and is
related to the robustness proposed in the assessment criteria for
resources of UNE 71362:2020.
As future prospective, it would be ideal to search for specific tools to
practise EFL pronunciation/phonetics gathering the most essential
features according to the point of view of teachers from different
educative stages, as analysed in this paper. Besides, our further lines
contemplate the creation of a genuine tool to practise EFL
pronunciation/phonetics so as to meet the teachers’ requirements we
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have explored in the surveys, and to test that tool in order to check not
only teachers’ but also students’ satisfaction.
6. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This paper has been developed under the framework of the national
research project “Teaching the sounds of English to L2 and L3 learners
in digital learning environments L2 and L3 learners in digital learning
environments” (Agencia Estatal de Investigación, Spain) (ref. PID2019-
105678RB-C21).
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BIODATA DE AUTORES
Cristina Castillo Rodríguez. Senior Lecturer with Tenure in the
Department of Didactics of Language, Arts and Sports at the University
of Malaga (Spain). She coordinates some competitive and private projects
related to innovative methodologies, emergent technologies, and
linguistic training for bilingual-education teachers. Her main research
lines cover learner corpora analysis, bilingual education, teacher
development, and active methodologies with technologies.
Milagros Torrado Cespón. PhD English from the Universidade of
Santiago de Compostela (2011). Lecturer at Universidad Internacional de
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Revista de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales. FEC-LUZ
La Rioja, where she teaches intercultural communication and language
learning and English didactics for primary education. Main researcher in
ENTELEARN research group. Coordinator for the CleverCookie. English
language resources for speakers of Spanish tool and author of the English
Pronunciation for Speakers of Spanish Multimedia Lab.
Alfonso Lago Ferreiro. Received the M.Sc. Physics from the University
of Santiago de Compostela, Spain in 1988, and the Ph.D. degree in
Electrical Engineering from the University of Vigo, Spain in 1994. He is
an Associated Professor at the University of Vigo. He is an IEEE Senior
Member since 2012 and member of the IEEE Industrial Electronics
Society, IEEE Power Electronic Society, and IEEE Education Society.
UNIVERSIDAD
DEL ZULIA
Revista de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales
Año 39, N° 100 (2023)
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