USING ONLINE RESOURCES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF LEARNER AUTONOMY AND ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION: THE CASE OF INDIVIDUAL LEARNERS

Abstract

The paper presents the findings of a quasi-experimental study which sought to explore the effectiveness of online resources on the development of learner autonomy and to determine whether increased autonomy results in greater pronunciation gains as well as to compare it with the effects of traditional instruction when it comes to individual students. What is more, the study sets out to determine whether the gains in the two areas are maintained over time with respect to individual learners. The subjects were 45 Polish senior high school learners. The targeted structure was the final -ed sound of the simple past tense of regular English verbs. Three groups, two experimental and one control group, participated in the study. The intervention spanned the period of two weeks. The learners in Experimental Group 1 were provided with access to the Internet and were thus allowed to exercise more freedom in learning English pronunciation. The students in Experimental Group 2 were taught in a traditional way (i.e. controlled by the teacher) and the learners in the control group did not receive any instruction. The data were collected by means of a pronunciation autonomy questionnaire, as well as pronunciation tests administered before and after the study was concluded. The results reveal that the majority of individual students in Experimental Group 1 showed more autonomy and they outperformed their counterparts on the tests, which provides a justification for using digital technology as a tool for promoting autonomy and teaching pronunciation.