Raising Awareness of Two Varieties of English via an Interactive E-book: Vowel and Consonant Pronunciation in British and American English
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Abstract
The purpose of the study was to investigate the effectiveness of an interactive e-book in raising English learners’ awareness of the differences between British and American English. The e-book consisted of vowel variations as in ‘tomato’ /təˈmɑː.təʊ/ or /təˈmeɪ.toʊ/, consonant variations as in car /kɑː/ (non-rhoticity) or /kɑːr/ (rhoticity), and water /wɑːtər/ or /wɔːʔə/ (flap /t/). The descriptions were integrated with audio examples, followed by a 10-item practice quiz. A total of 30 first-year students enrolled in the English for Communication program offered by a Thai university were selected as research participants. A pre-test–post-test design was employed to measure the learners’ awareness of the differences between British and American English. A pre-test and a post-test were administered to measure the students’ ability to recognize and understand the pronunciation differences. The results revealed an increase in the mean scores from M = 6.30 in the pre-test to M = 18.90 in the post-test. A paired-samples t-test confirmed that the improvement between the pre-test and post-test was statistically significant (p < .001). Furthermore, a satisfaction questionnaire was administered to examine students’ satisfaction with the interactive e-book. The results indicated positive results with a mean score of M = 4.89 out of 5. It was concluded that the use of the interactive e-book significantly improved students’ pronunciation awareness and effectively supported more understanding of the differences between British and American English.
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