The Effect of L2 Minimal Pairs Practice on Iranian Intermediate EFLLearners’ Pronunciation Accuracy

The aim of the current study was to investigate whether L2 minimal pairs practice would have an effect on Iranianintermediate English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ pronunciation accuracy. For this purpose, 30 Iranianintermediate EFL learners at Simin Institute participated in the experiment of the study. The selection of subjectswas done from among 150 EFL learners at intermediate level. In order to make subjects homogenized an SPT wasused, then they divided into two groups of 15 who were assigned to experimental and control group randomly. Apre-test of pronunciation accuracy was administered to both groups, then the experimental group received 5 sessionsof teaching L2 pronunciation as well as Minimal Pairs Practice (MPP) while the control group received a placebo,in other words, teaching L2 pronunciation via the existing method. After the treatment again the same test wasadministered as posttest to both groups of the study. The data obtained from the tests were analyzed via independentsamples T-test between the posttest scores of experimental and control group to see whether there is a differencebetween performance of the groups and the paired-sample T-tests was used between the pretest and the posttest ofeach group to show the progress. The results revealed that Iranian EFL learners in the experimental group performedbetter and received higher score in pronunciation test after 5 session of treatment

Keywords:

pronunciation accuracy , minimal pair , EFL learner , teaching pronunciation , intelligibility