Effect Of Self-directed Audio Podcast On Learners’ English Pronunciation Acquisition

From the perspective of positivism, the study explores the effect of self-directedaudio podcast on English learners’ pronunciation acquisition. By having studentsrecording two types of podcast in one semester of14weeks, scripted andextemporaneous pronunciation podcast, we examine the change of their pronunciationand the effect of the acquisition in the process, and we also investigate the differencebetween the scripted and extemporaneous pronunciation podcast in studentspronunciation performance. Meanwhile, we survey students’ attitude towardspronunciation before and after the experiment, based on the PAI questionnaire of Elliot(2005), to observe their change of attitude towards pronunciation over time. And weinterview some of the subjects to further know their attitudes towards pronunciation andfeelings about the experiment.The result of the study demonstrates that，in general, students’ pronunciationperformances don’t show obvious improvement in comprehensibility andsupra-segmental feature and that the scores of students’ scripted pronunciation podcastsand extemporaneous ones have little difference in the two mentioned criterion. But, incomprehensibility, students’ scripted pronunciation podcasts have higher percentage ofimprovement than their extemporaneous ones, while in supra-segmental feature,students’ extemporaneous podcasts have higher percentage of improvement than theirscripted pronunciation ones. Besides, through questionare and interview survey, we findthat the subjects’ attitudes towards pronunciation are more active and optimistic thanbefore, which is specially manifested in their higher senses of self-efficacy towardspronunciation and understandings of the necessity of improving their pronunciation.Meanwhile, most students are satisfied with the task in this experiment, and show thewill to improve their pronunciation.The result of the study proves that web-based and self-directed audio podcast hassome positive effects on English learners’ pronunciation acquisition and practice. Itgives us some enlightment for current oral English teaching in college, especially thepronunciation teaching, and it provides a new insight of students’ self-directed learningand training of oral English and pronunciation. Therefore, college English teachers areadvised to attempt to give students opportunity to record web-based audio podcastautonomously after class, and try to permeate the guidance and training of students’ oral English and pronunciation in their teaching.