The PRO-VOC application is designed to benefit Omani learners who study English as a foreign language and would like to improve their phonetic and semantic skills. The material is based on research on Omani EFL learners’ phonetic/semantic competencies, acquisition, perception, and production. For this reason, it does by no means include everything one might need to know about how to develop EFL learners’ segmental phonetics practically through the utilization of word modeling and attached with native recordings and representative photos. It is a suggestion for what can be seen as the core items that EFL learners should learn to improve their speaking skills through developing EFL pronunciation and vocabulary skills. The specific target group in terms of EFL learners age or skill level is Omani students of English at the university level; therefore, it is left to the teachers discretion to decide whether and how to utilize any given tasks or phonemes. The teacher knows his or her students the best and is the right person to evaluate what is important in teaching.
Learners of foreign languages need to learn pronunciation. But they dont usually learn it like children learn to speak their mother tongue: by picking it up as they grow, by listening to and interacting with people close to them. Instead, the traditional pattern is to listen to tapes in a classroom and repeat words or sentences after the teacher. To some learning is easy: you hear sounds and you repeat them. However, for some and we dare to guess for most, it is not that simple. Sounds can be different from those in your first language. It may be difficult to distinguish between different sounds. Attempts to repeat after a recording or the teacher might result in getting the tongue in a twist and in feeling frustrated. Perhaps students dont want to speak at all, especially in front of other people. In any case, it is extremely rare for an EFL learner to reach a native-like pronunciation.
Thus, the PRO-VOC aims at employing semantic word modeling as a technique to enhance EFL learners’ pronunciation and vocabulary skills as it presents a huge number of common and new vocabulary for Omani EFL learners to be exposed to.
Pronunciation segmental features are presented according to phonemes’ places of articulation in which a page is devoted for each phoneme to be exemplified and practiced within vocabulary word modeling.
PRO-VOC is divided into two parts; part one contains all the English 44 phonemes (24 consonants and 20 vowels) classified according to their places of articulation. Omani EFL learners can practice each phoneme separately.
Part two, however, includes some important phonetic rules that can assist EFL learners to develop their pronunciation through following the rules and practice.