Incorporate GenAI-based pronunciation tools to give anxious learners additional low-stakes speaking opportunities outside the classroom¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

The authors recommend that, in contexts where corrective pronunciation feedback is limited, delayed, or avoided to preserve face, "educators may consider incorporating generative AI–based pronunciation tools to provide learners with additional low-stakes speaking opportunities outside the classroom, particularly for those who experience high levels of evaluation anxiety". The strategy leverages the immediate, private, and non-judgmental nature of GenAI practice environments to lower affective barriers to oral participation.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Learners need access to GenAI pronunciation feedback tools and experience using them for the perceptions measured in the study

Constraints¶

• Evidence base is a cross-sectional survey of learners at a single institution using convenience sampling, so the association is not causal

Target Learners¶

• Chinese university EFL learners
• learners with high levels of evaluation anxiety

Target Learning Goals¶

• Willingness to communicate in English
• Reduced affective barriers to oral participation

Affordances¶

• Sct Genai Feedback Self Efficacy Wtc Model

Related Strategies¶

• Incorporating Self-Testing
• Reduce anxiety and build self-confidence in older language learners

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Lu Y, Yang Y, Cui T, Yang Z, Cai Y and Jing B (2026) Associations between generative AI–based pronunciation feedback and willingness to communicate in English: the mediating role of English pronunciation self-efficacy. Front. Psychol. 17:1918980. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1918980