O n f e r e n c e

Teaching targets and tests 
The teaching targets for the experimental part of the study were articulation, perception 
and production of English phonemes: vowels and consonants (in isolation, contrastive 
pairs and texts), English rhythm and intonation. Diagnostic Tests, A (Section 1) and B 
(Baker, 2006, pp. ix-
xi), were used at the beginning of the course, after the teacher’s 
instructions, and after the teacher’s comments on each student’s movies. Section A was 
used for the written part of the test. 
In Section B, students were asked to practice reading each test item of a 
Shopping List 
(Baker, 2006, p. xi) and a story in 
Reading aloud 
section (Baker, 2006, p. 49), record 
their voice and submit the sound files to the teacher using PC@LL system. Since the 
reasons for mispronunciation are many, and some may be caused by reading difficulty, 
the teacher read all the items of the list before the test, so that the students could know 
how to read each word. Oral tests results were recorded (using PC@LL system), analyzed 
and compared for each student. The number of pronunciation mistakes for each student 
per each test was registered. Written tests results were also analyzed and compared for 
each student. 
SPSS Statistics 17.0 
software was used to process the data. 

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-306- 
2014 CALL Conference 
LINGUAPOLIS
www.antwerpcall.be 
Initial Diagnostic Test results 
The initial diagnostic test results showed that the students participating in the 
experiment made most of the common, for Japanese EFL learners, mistakes in 
pronunciation, recognition and differentiation of English phonemes (Baker, 2006, p. v). 
In addition, when reading a text, the students did not reduce vowels in weakly stressed 
position, and stressed each word in an utterance. Most of the mistakes could be 
explained by the differences in English and Japanese articulation, rhythm and intonation. 
Although not all the students had difficulties with the same phonemes, up to 80% of their 
mistakes in speech sound perception and discrimination related to students’ errors in 
pronunciation.