Listening skill is often a major challenge for EFL learners, so careful preparation is essential for learners to reach the expected outcome. In addition to background knowledge related to the listening topic, students should be familiar with the meanings as well as the sounds of new words that will appear in the upcoming listening text. Sound familiarization of new words or proper names is of great importance since learners may catch the sounds easily while they are listening. To facilitate the process of sound familiarization, eSpeak is a software employing the Text-to-speech (TTS) to convert written text to voice. Taking advantage of this software in designing various activities in order to prepare students for listening lessons. This research paper aims to prove TTS is an effective tool in enhancing students' motivation and help familiarize students with words in the listening tasks, from which listening skill of learners will be developed. Mixed-method approach was utilized in the research with 60 participants at a university in Vietnam indicated that TTS software can both facilitate students in Listening lessons and motivate them in Listening activities. In the final part, the research recommends some implication for further research as well as helpful activities that teachers can apply into teaching Listening. Keywords: TTS, text-to-speech, eSpeak, listening