ESL and EFL Learners Improve Differently in Pronunciation: The Case of Lebanon

Many ESL/EFL students in Lebanon reach the university level with poor English in general and underdeveloped phonetic competence in particular. Phonetic competence is one of the abilities to communicate regarding pronunciation skills (Saz, Rodríguez, Lleida, Rodríguez, & Vaquero, 2011). Students in Lebanon acquire Arabic as their mother tongue. Some learn English as their second language (ESL) in schools where English is the medium of instruction. However, in French schools, students learn English as their foreign language (EFL) and study the content subject matters in French, the medium of instruction. It's commonly known among many educators in Lebanon that French educated students develop their English language skills and proper pronunciation more perfectly than do their English educated fellows in middle/low class schools. This phenomenon is widely observed; however, it is not based on research findings. This study aims to investigate whether there is a difference among French and English educated students in terms of English pronunciation after intervention of pronunciation learning strategies (PLS) such as using phonetic symbols and transcriptions, repeating after the teacher/others, and minimal pair drilling. 22 EFL and ESL university students took part in this study. A checklist of frequent common pronunciation mistakes was used to collect data. Ten sounds (segments) were identified in the pretest as common mistakes. The post-test took place five weeks later. Findings showed that PLS improved the pronunciation of both EFL and ESL learners. However, there was no statistical difference in the improvements between these two groups. Limitations and recommendations are provided in this study.