The Impact of Shyness Awareness Training on English Pronunciation of Young EFL Learners

This work attempts to investigate the effect of Shyness as psychological variable on the English pronunciation of youngIranian Foreign Language (EFL) between the age range of 6 to 12 years (Low-intermediate Level) in Hamedan, Iran.Due to this, after taking pronunciation pre-test through Speechace Browser, 38 beginner students participated in twogroups of experimental (19 students) and control (19 students) in this study. In order to compare these groups, theshyness awareness method given by a teacher accompanied by a psychological method in experimental group and all ofthe pronunciation items includes in tests (consists of vowel /ɪ/ and /i/ and vowel /ʊ/ and /u/ words). It should bementioned that the control group was taught in a traditional method of pronunciation teaching. Finally, the researchersadministered the post-test whose results of an independent sample t-test (conducted on the gain scores (the deviationscore)), revealed that there was a difference between the pretest and the posttest of students in experimental group. Inaddition to these comparisons, the teacher reported the students positive reaction and attitudes in learningpronunciation in decreased shyness context. For conclusion, the results revealed that experimental group has been veryinfluential and useful in creating an efficient and pleasurable English learning environment. The finding of the studyhave some useful implications which are compatible with EFL teachers, EFL instructors and EFL administrators,analysists, educators, psychologists.

Keywords:

Pronunciation , English Vowels , Shyness Awareness , EFL