The Effect of Using a Phonetics Learning Package to Enhance EFL Students’ Pronunciation of the English Final Consonants /ʃ/, /ʒ/, and /tʃ/

Abstract

The goals of this research article were: 1) to develop a phonetics learning package for enhancing EFL students’ pronunciation of the English final consonants /ʃ/, /ʒ/, and /tʃ/ to meets the 80/80 criteria; 2) to investigate the effectiveness of the phonetics learning package for enhancing EFL students’ pronunciation of the English final consonants /ʃ/, /ʒ/, and /tʃ/; and 3) to explore students’ satisfaction with the phonetics learning package. The sample group was composed of 42 eighth-grade students, class 2, at a public school in Kamphaeng Phet Province during the 2^nd semester of the academic year 2022 and selected by simple random sampling. The research instruments were: 1) a phonetics learning package to enhance EFL students’ pronunciation of the English final consonants /ʃ/, /ʒ/, and /tʃ/; 2) an achievement test of the English final consonants /ʃ/, /ʒ/, and /tʃ/; and 3) students' satisfaction questionnaire toward the use of a phonetics learning package. The data was analyzed using statistical methods, including the mean, standard deviation, efficiency (E1/E2), and t-test (dependent sample). The findings showed that: 1) the efficiency of a phonetics learning package is 80.19 (E1)/80.95 (E2), which is higher than the specified criteria; 2) the achievement of enhancing English final consonant pronunciation showed that the pre-test score was 8.17and the post-test score was 24.29. In the same way, the post-test score was significantly higher than the pre-test score at the.05 level; and 3) the students' overall satisfaction with the phonetics learning package was at a high level ( = 3.91).