Websites for English Pronunciation

Pronunciation has always been a vexing issue for second language learners. It is generally believed that pronunciation instruction(PI) is one of the dominant areas in instruction of second language acquisition. For those learners who do not have the privilege of assessing their target language environment. Learning from recordings of native speakers seems to be the preferable way to study the pronunciation of their target languages.

The website "Youglish" is a great tool for learners to get the ideas of unbiased answers about how English is spoken in real context. Simply by typing in the words you are looking for, the website will be able to extract videos that contain the pronunciation of target words from youtube.

This can also be a wonderful websites for ESL and EFL teachers. Its contextual instructions and the abundance of materials can provide a large amount of exposure.

However, I believe this website is more suitable and more effective for advanced learners. Learners with lower proficiency level might not be able to elicit the pronunciation in the videos and discriminate the perceptual accuracy of the pronunciation.

The other website English Accent Coach can sufficiently guiding learners, both advanced and beginning level, to recognize their pronunciation difficulties.

However, it is unwise to rely heavily on technology and computer-delivered PI. As Junkyu Lee(2014) pointed out "studies that provided PI using technology, whether entirely or in part, produced smaller effects than those that relied exclusively on human-delivered instruction." and the reasons for this ineffectiveness might involve with (1)the lack of adaptability and perceptual accuracy in computers compared to human teachers, and (2)perhaps the inability of computers to provide appropriate feedback.

As discussed above, these websites can definitely served as an assistance for both EFL teachers and English learners, pronunciations of English as well as other languages should not overlook the importance of human teachers who function as both instructor and interlocutor.