Exploring EFL students' pronunciation through the application of AI-powered tool Reading Progress: A case study in Vietnam
This study employed AI-powered tool Reading Progress in Microsoft Teams as a tool to explore challenging sounds faced by Vietnamese students, and the effectiveness of the application in learning English pronunciation. Participants of this six-week study were thirty-four first-year students learning English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) course in a university in northern Vietnam. Semi-structured interviews with the students and AI analysis results in Reading Progress were used as instruments to collect data. The findings indicated that five most notable challenges sounds analyzed by AI were /ɪ/, /z/, /ə/, /ʃ/, and /t/. The results also showed significant progress among students across categories of pronunciation, particularly in reading speed and reduced mispronunciations and omissions through pronunciation training in the tool. Students reported increased engagement and confidence, alongside decreased anxiety, when practicing with Reading Progress. The findings contribute to advancing AI integration in language teaching, offering valuable insights for educators and policymakers. While the study highlights the advantages of Reading Progress in EFL education, limitations include the short duration and specific text constraints. Future research should investigate long-term effects, diverse language learning contexts, and additional AI tools to maximize learning outcomes.
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