Presentation The Effect of AI-assisted Shadowing on Pronunciation for EFL Students more

This quantitative study compared the effectiveness of both traditional and AI-assisted shadowing in improving students’ English pronunciation. Sixty-two EFL students from two intact speaking classes (Class A, n = 32; Class B, n = 30) at a Japanese university completed 20 shadowing practice exercises, in addition to a pronunciation pre-test and post-test. Class A, the control group, recorded themselves shadowing 20 different audio clips. The teacher gave pronunciation feedback on each of the recordings. Class B, the treatment group, used an online application called “Shadowing” to complete the same shadowing exercises. The application provided pronunciation feedback for their recordings. The pre-test and post-test shadowing recordings were marked by two independent raters, who were English language teachers. Following the post-test, a 20-item questionnaire was administered to assess student perceptions of the effectiveness of the shadowing exercises. The pre-test revealed no significant differences between the groups, in terms of their shadowing abilities. However, the post-test results demonstrated that the treatment group scored significantly higher than the control group. A Cohen’s Kappa analysis indicated no notable differences between the raters’ scores. The study underscores the value of shadowing and using AI-assisted applications in language learning to augment students’ language learning experiences.