The role of phonetic instruction in enhancing speaking skills for high school students: a study based on cambridge FCE exam results

Today, studying English as a foreign language is essential for communicating with native speakers. It is compulsory to reinforce English language skills. However, speaking is one of the most difficult skills when learning the language because L2 learners must increase their pronunciation to communicate accurately. By learning the language through phonetics, learners can achieve clear pronunciation. Thus, the present article is aimed to evaluate the influence of phonetic instruction on high school students' speaking test scores in the Cambridge FCE exam. For this purpose, this research design was quasi-experimental, meaning there were two groups to be analyzed and compared. The data obtained was examined through an IBM program named Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). It allowed us to verify the alternative hypothesis or reject the null hypothesis. The statistical method used in this research was the T-test. A detailed analysis of the effects of phonetic instruction on speaking skills revealed that this instruction not only improved pronunciation clarity but also enhanced listening comprehension and fluency, contributing to overall communicative competence.