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Digital Audio-visuals Aids and Listening in English as a Foreign Language Classrooms

Many scholars and language practitioners have stressed the importance of listening and speaking in language learning and teaching particularly in formal contexts. However, learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in Burkina Faso appear to perform very poorly in those basic language skills. This experimental study investigates the potential of digital audio-visuals to improve the listening skills of EFL learners in secondary schools in Burkina Faso. Assuming that learners born around the year 2000 are digital natives, we have tried to integrate smartphone-friendly audio-visuals in their EFL classrooms in a four-week experiment involving one Experimental Group and one Control Group. The experiment aimed at gauging the effectiveness of those aids operated via students‘ smartphones in improving learners‘ listening and speaking skills. Independent T-tests were used to compare the groups and Sample Paired T-Tests to make comparisons within groups. Furthermore, Cohen‘s d, an effect size formula, was used to measure the effect size. The findings show that the listening skills of the students exposed to the digital audio-visual aids improved on average from 10.2 to 18.5. It was noticed incidentally that their speaking skills improved as well. The study suggests that, if appropriately used, smartphones are excellent devices for language teachers and learners in this digitizing world.