Text-To-Speech Software for Promoting EFL Freshman Students’ Decoding Skills and Pronunciation Accuracy

Two groups of freshman students, enrolled in a Vocabulary I and Reading I courses, participated in the study. Before instruction, both groups took a recognition (vocabulary) and a production (oral reading) pre-test. Comparisons of the pre-test scores showed no significant differences between the experimental and control group in decoding skills and pronunciation proficiency. Then, both groups were exposed to the same in-class vocabulary and reading instruction. They covered the same lessons, skills, exercises, and tests. Since freshman students have problems in producing phonemes, consonant clusters, word stress and lack skill in associating written graphemes with their corresponding phonemes, read word by word and lack oral reading fluency, the experimental group used a text-to-speech (TTS) software called NaturalReader. Every week the students typed or copied and paste the lessons they took in class from the textbook into NaturalReader and practiced listening to the lessons read by the software. They could listen to the text as many times as they needed in the language lab or at home and could adjust the software reading speed. Every 4 weeks, experimental students took an oral reading and a vocabulary test and at the end of the semester (after 12 weeks), both groups took a recognition (vocabulary) and a production (oral reading) posttest. Results showed significant differences between the experimental and control groups as a result of using the NaruralReader. Improvement was noted in the decoding skill enhancement, reading fluency and pronunciation accuracy but not in vocabulary knowledge. Results showed slow but gradual improvement. Significant improvement was noted after 8 and 12 weeks. There was a positive correlation between the number of lessons and texts practiced and weekly practice time and decoding and pronunciation proficiency posttest scores. The students reported positive attitudes towards practicing decoding and pronunciation via NaturalReader. Procedures, results and recommendations are given in detail.