Oral Dialogue Journals and Iranian EFL Learners\' Pronunciation

This study focused on the impact of oral dialogue journals on Iranian EFL learners' pronunciation. Three classes of intermediate learners, after being reassured of their homogeneity, were randomly assigned to treatment (14 students), control (9 students), and placebo (10 students) groups. Learners in the treatment group had to respond to the teacher by recording their voices using a voice recorder for two to five minutes. Learners in the placebo group had to record their voices in a form of monologue and learners of the control group did pronunciation practice and activities as a usual requirement of the course. The recorded oral dialogues between the teacher and the learners were thematically related to the units of their course book. The teacher then had to respond as fully as possible by giving the feedback in the forms of, for example, recast to emphasize learners' mispronunciation. Brown's (2004) scale for pronunciation rating was used by two trained raters. The data were then analyzed through one way ANOVA and it was revealed that the learners in the treatment group had better pronunciation achievement regarding, focus on sound, focus on word stress, focus on connected speech, and focus on intonation. The results suggest the use of oral dialogue journal for pronunciation instruction.