This paper presents a study on the teaching of pronunciation of English fricatives that are said to be challenging to learn for Japanese learners of English. Participants used English Accent Coach (Thomson, 2023), which is a cloud-based pronunciation training program, to practice perceiving six English fricatives. The participants used the program twice a week under the conditions designated by the instructor (the first author). They were also explicitly instructed on how to articulate the sounds and were asked to practice articulating them while shadowing after model passages in their textbook over a period of five weeks. The results of pre- and post-tests showed that the overall perception rate improved significantly. The overall articulatory accuracy also improved significantly. The results indicated that the utilization of a computer-assisted high variability phonetic training program in an English as a foreign language situation together with explicit articulatory instruction and regular shadowing practice were an effective combination for teaching fricatives to Japanese learners of English.
Iino et al. (Fri,) studied this question.