Students’ Pronunciation Problems: A Case Study at English Education Department Batch 2012 of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
Students’ Pronunciation Problems: A Case Study at English Education Department
Batch 2012 of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
A Skripsi
Submitted to the Faculty of Language Education on a Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements to Obtain the Degree
Sarjana Pendidikan
Written by:
Muhammad Iqbal Nur Rizky
20120540082
English Education Department
Faculty of Language Education
Univeritas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
2016
i
Students’ Pronunciation Problems: A Case Study at English Education
Department Batch 2012 of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
A Skripsi
Submitted to the Faculty of Language Education on a Partial Fulfillment of
the Requirements to Obtain the Degree
Sarjana Pendidikan
Written by:
Muhammad Iqbal Nur Rizky
20120540082
English Education Department
Faculty of Language Education
Univeritas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
2016
ii
Approval Sheet
Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
Faculty of Language Education
English Education Department
We hereby approve the Skripsi of
Muhammad Iqbal Nur Rizky
20120540082
Candidate for the degree of Sarjana Pendidikan
November, 26th 2016
Dr. Suryanto, S.Pd., M.H.Sc.
The Skripsi Supervisor
November, 26th 2016
Gendroyono, S.Pd., M. Pd.
The Examiner I
November, 26th 2016
Maryam Sorohiti, S.S., M.H.Sc.
The Examiner II
Accepted
Gendroyono, S. Pd., M. Pd
The Dean of Faculty of Language Education
Yogyakarta, November 26th, 2016
iii
Statement of Authenticity
I am a student with following of identity:
Name
: Muhammad Iqbal Nur Rizky
NIM
: 20120540082
Department
: English Education Department
Univeristy
: Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
Certify that Skripsi entitled “Students’ Pronunciation Problems: A Case
Study at English Education Department Batch 2012 of Universitas
Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta” is authentically my own work. I am completely
responsible for the content of this paper. Others’ opinion of findings included in
this Skripsi proposal are quoted in accordance appropriate with the standards.
Yogyakarta, October 27th 2016
Muhammad Iqbal Nur Rizky
20120540082
iv
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Alhamdulillahirabbil’alamin
Finally done! I would like to give my greatest thanks to my lord, Allah
SWT for the ideas, strength, opportunity and the patient to conduct and finish this
research.
I would like to give my special thanks to my parents, the real superheroes
alive, Mr. Agus Wahyudin, S.Pd., M.Pd. and Mrs. Kis Andayani, S.Pd. who
always pray and give the best support ever in every inch of my needs. Thanks buk,
pak. My gratitude also for all my family members especially my grandmother
mbah Ti who always give me life advice and teach me to see the world from
different perspective. Such a great pleasure, mbah. I also thank my sister, Khalda
Nailah for all the cheers and joy that boost my mood to complete this research.
My greatest sincere thanks go to my great supervisor, Dr. Suryanto, S.Pd.,
M.H.Sc. for vacated his time to answer all my questions and for guides me thus I
could finish this research. I also thank Ms. Maryam Sorohiti, S.S., M.H.Sc. for
always supports, gives suggestions and spurs me to finish this research.
I would like to express my solemn thanks to all the members of the EED
family for the opportunity to study English education in these last four years,
especially for my dearest friends, Didin, Anis, Saran, Nindha, and Elin who
always help me to complete this research. Such a great honor to meet you, guys.
My gratitude also goes to my best friends, Nizar, Nurul, Khadar and the big
family of Teater Tanda Tanya SMAN 4 Bogor for always being flawless
supporter to finish this research. I would like to give my deepest thanks to my
v
Ucok squad for all the laughter and the happiness we shared. You all are amazing
in each your style.
Last but not least, I would like to express my thanks to all the participants
who gave their time to share the ideas and the opinions to complete this research.
They were really helpful and kind to me. This research could not be finished
without their participation. This research could be completed because of them.
Thank you.
Yogyakarta, October 2016
M. Iqbal Nur Rizky
20120540082
vi
TABLE OF CONTENT
COVER
i
APPROVAL SHEET
ii
AUTHOR’S DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY
iii
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
iv
TABLE OF CONTENT
vi
TABLE OF FIGURE
viii
ABSTRACT
ix
Chapter One Introduction
1
Background of the Research
1
Identification and Limitation of the problem
4
Research Question
5
Purpose of the Research
5
Significance of the Research
5
Chapter Two Literature Review
7
Theoretical Framework of Pronunciation
7
Definition of Pronunciation
7
The Problems in Pronunciation
8
The Strategic Problems in Learning Pronunciation
15
Miscellaneous Issues in Teaching Pronunciation
20
Review of Related Research
21
Conceptual Framework
25
Chapter Three Methodology
Research Design
27
27
vii
Setting and Participants
28
Data Collection Technique
29
Data Analysis
31
Chapter Four Finding and Discussion
32
Findings
32
Discussion
41
Chapter Five Conclusion and Recommendation
46
Conclusion
46
Recommendation
48
References
Appendix 1. Interview Guideline
Appendix 2. Selective Coding
49
viii
TABLE OF FIGURE
Figure 1. Conceptual Framework
26
Figure 2. Data Collection Techniques
30
ix
Abstract
This study focuses on the speaking skills of students. To be more specific,
this research aims to investigate the pronunciation problems faced by the students
of EED UMY (English Education Department, Universitas Muhammadiyah
Yogyakarta) batch 2012. The research question of this research was about what
the pronunciation problems were faced by students of EED UMY batch 2012. The
methodology used in this research was qualitative study that used interview to
gather the data. The participants were four students that consisted of two males
and two females. They were interviewed one by one on their preference places
approximately 5-10 minutes. The interview was recorded and analyzed using
thematic analyses that were undertaken through codings. There are three findings
that became the result of the research. The first finding is about the pronunciation
problems faced by students EED UMY batch 2012 including pronunciation’s
belief, problem in distinguishing sounds, and difficult materials. The second one
is about the strategic problem in learning pronunciation at PBI faced by the
students. They lack of practice, pronunciation learning environment, and lecturer
does not emphasize the importance of pronunciation. The last one is about the
miscellaneous issues of teaching pronunciation comprising need more sks for
pronunciation, the impression about pronunciation learning activity at PBI, not
enough portion to learn pronunciation at PBI, and the participants’ suggestion for
PBI.
Keywords: pronunciation problems, students’ difficulties, EED UMY
batch 2012
1
Chapter One
Introduction
This chapter discusses the background of the research that presents the
reason of the researcher to conduct the research. This chapter also discusses about
identification & limitation of the problem, research question, the purpose of the
study and significance of the study.
Background of the Research
Pronunciation is one of the focuses covered in the subject of Capita
Selecta on Grammar which is held and provided by English Education
Department of UMY to make the students understand about the importance of
pronunciation in English. They could apply the pronunciation focus not only
about the theories but also about how to speak properly for delivering the
argumentation or the ideas. Claire and Burns (2003) stated that, “pronunciation
refers to the phonology of the language – or the meaningful perception and
production of the sounds of that language and how they impact on the listener” (p.
5). Pronunciation refers to a way to pronounce words with the precise method and
produce correct meaning and purpose based on English pronunciation rules. It is a
tool to deliver our thoughts and ideas to the others. Nevertheless, Gilakjani and
Ahmadi (2011) stated that, “those who start to learn English after their school
years are most likely to have serious difficulties in acquiring intelligible
pronunciation” (p. 74). That statement becomes evidence that learning
pronunciation for college students is tough, especially for those who do not learn
about pronunciation at all. This one has a big influence in English communication.
2
If the pronunciation is bad, our speaking partner will not understand the meaning,
it will lead to misspelling, mispronouncing, and the worst is misunderstanding.
But if the pronunciation is good, there will not be a problem in communication.
Messiha (1985, as cited in Binturki, 2001) reported that, “Majority of
English language learners have an ambition to master native-like english mastery.
In fact, they still possess a considerable number of errors in using the language.
The errors may cover spelling and vocabulary errors, pronunciation, intonation,
rythm, and other voice quality matters” (p. 1). It leads to the problems faced by
some of the students in English Education Department (EED). Many students
admitted that pronunciation is a tough part of learning English. It is shown by
their score in Capita Selecta Grammar’s class which focus on pronunciation. They
tried to pronounce like a native without obeying the rules of pronunciation. In the
end, they could not speak in a proper way and they did not know the knowledge
of learning pronunciation.
Based on the researcher’s experiences, there are many students of batch
2012 who have problems in pronunciation despite batch 2012 of Universitas
Muhammadiyah (UMY) are in the last semester of study. They have practiced the
pronunciation skill in subject of capita selecta on grammar 3, listening and
speaking for daily conversation, listening and speaking for the formal setting,
listening and speaking for academic purpose, and listening and speaking for career
development. Although the students have practiced in their speaking skills in all
previously mentioned subjects, they have less time to learn pronunciation
specifically since pronuction is just taught implicitly. For this reason, on my
observation, many students are still less fluent in speaking, especially in
3
pronunciation. They can speak in a long period of time but still they indicate that
they have incorrect pronunciation. It also becomes a scary thing for students when
they know that their pronunciation is not proper although they have learned and
practiced for a long time. Consequently, they try to avoid speak English in order
not to be embarrassed. That is ironic for those who are in the last semester of
study phase.
Most of the students know their pronunciation problem but barely know
how to mend the error. It refers to the aspects of pronunciation such as
monophthong, diphthong, and vowel. Gilakjani & Ahmadi (2011) found that,
“the difficulty of learning to pronounce a foreign language is cognitive rather than
physical, and that it has something to do with the way ‘raw sound’ is categorized
or conceptualized in using speech” (p. 74). In this case, accent, intonation, and
mouth contour take a part on it. Also, lack of references and less spirit to practice
make it worst. It will lead to a bad thought about pronunciation so that they could
not reach it properly. Charity & Mallinson (2011 as cited in Lin, 2014) stated that,
“in fact, it is understandable that an ESL student using a nonstandard variety of
English might be negatively affected while acquiring the English language if they
are not familiar with standardized English” (p. 16).
Based on the researcher’s experiences, pronunciation is really needed for
English education students. Pronunciation indirectly shows the skill of students’
speaking ability. Students can recognize their goodness and badness of their
pronunciation from the way they speak and deliver their ideas to the others.
Pronunciation becomes a measurement to judge their speaking skill. It really often
happens when students who are good in English grammar but the lack of speaking
4
skill especially in pronunciation. The researcher found the fact that it will not
enhance their pronunciation skill if they do not practice and learn. Students who
have a weakness in pronouncing are really needed to change their weaknesses,
considering that the way we speak is the most important in communication.
Studying in-depth the pronunciation problems faced by students seems providing
a path for students and other stake holders to overcome the students’ weakness in
learning English especially for speaking skills, to be more specific, pronunciation.
For this reason, the researcher is eager to conduct a study on this topic entitled
“Students’ pronunciation problems: A Case Study at English Education
Department Batch 2012 of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta”.
Identification and Limitation of the Problem
The researcher is one of the students at EED UMY. He found that many of
students feel uncomfortable and lack of confident because of pronunciation
problems. Most of them chose to not to speak though it could not be avoided.
Pronunciation is a part of the English focuses that needs more practice. The
researcher found that many students got frightened when they should speak in
front of the class, group, or forum. It decreases their sense of speaking learning.
The researcher also found that many of students failed to acquire the good
knowledge of the strategies to master pronunciation such as conversation, drilling,
and listening instead those strategies became their very first obstacle in acquiring
intelligible pronunciation. Besides, not all the lecturer give an attention to
encourage students to have a good pronunciation. The researcher also feels that
5
EED UMY is less on pronunciation focus concern. Therefore, the pronunciation
problems to be revealed in this context to facilitate students learning. To reveal
such problems, a study needs to be conducted to ensure that evidence-based facts
can be found out to be the bases of teaching and learning pronunciation.
Research Question
According to the problem faced by the students of EED UMY batch 2012,
the researcher investigated the problem by one question formulation. The question
is: What are the pronunciation problems of EED UMY students' batch 2012?
Purpose of the Research
After the problem formulation, the researcher conducted this research in
aiming to investigate the pronunciation problems faced by students of EED UMY
batch 2012.
Significance of the Research
For the next researcher, this research provides a basis for the following
researchers to conduct a further study on the same topic. The future researchers
may administer a study with different research design, different and bigger
subjects, and also different contextual research sites. For EED UMY lecturers, it
might develop the new methods to teach pronunciation, and also it might be the
reason to find a solution for help students who have pronunciation problems. For
students, this research can give them the motivation to create a better
pronunciation learning environment, and also give an answer to learn more about
pronunciation, practice and apply in daily life. Also, this research can be the
reason to improve and develop their speaking skill. Therefore, the significance of
6
the study might help to spur their spirit to learn deeply about pronunciation as
their concern for future research.
7
Chapter Two
Literature Review
In this chapter, the researcher would like to explain the theoretical
framework of the research. The theory is really important to shore up the research.
This chapter also discusses the review of the prior study in depth. Furthermore,
the researcher discusses pronunciation and the difficulty on pronunciation faced
by students.
Theoretical Framework of Pronunciation
Students of English education need to master pronunciation skill in order
to enhance their speaking skills directly. However, pronunciation is known as a
spectre for English beginner students. This is considered as one of the tough parts
of learning speaking skill. This part is going to discuss pronunciation and its
problem faced by English student learner.
Definition of Pronunciation. According to Gilakjani & Ahmadi (2011),
“pronunciation is one of the parts of speaking skills. Pronunciation is viewed as a
sub-skill of speaking” (p. 74). Pronunciation is the act or result of producing the
sounds of speech, including articulation, stress, and intonation, often with
reference to some standard of correctness or acceptability (dictionary.com, 2016).
While according to Diah Kristina et al (2006 as cited in Astuti, 2011, p. 6),
“Pronunciation is the manner or the rule how to pronounce word in such a way
that is acceptable and appropriate” (p.1). Pronunciation shows the quality and
comprehension of someone speaking skill. Students of English education are
needed to master this skill in order to enhance their speaking skill directly.
8
Pronunciation takes an important role in English speaking skill. This is
how a person shows his emotion and the ideas in communication. Boyer (2002)
stated that, “pronunciation is a necessary part of speaking (oral communication).
It involves making the correct sound of a particular language, as well as how the
sounds are put together in the flow of speech” (p. 1). Students need to master
pronunciation so they could speak clearly and properly. Pronunciation includes
features such as stress, rhythm and intonation (aspects of prosody). Therefore,
“these features need to be taken into account when it comes to look at the learning
outcome” (Krausz & Centerman, 2011, p. 12). It really influences the speaking
skills. Pronunciation makes speaking easier to hear and understandable for those
who could pronounce properly.
The Problems in Pronunciation. Some experts had already published the
researches about the problems in pronunciation. Pronunciation in L2 learners
often happen because they did not know what pronunciation really is. Gerbhardt
(2011) said that, “another common problem is the stress placed on the
pronunciation of words and phrases, as English is stress-timed” (p. 3). According
to Ondracek (2011), “a foreign accent such as that a non-native student of English
will almost inevitably possess may compound the problems that such a student
will experience because of the additional temptation to choose and use a simpler
vocabulary and less complex grammar than they are capable of through lack of
confidence” (p. 14). In other words, students feel to be hindered with their
problems to pronounce a complex word. They could not speak based on their will,
and for a long term effect since it would decrease their spirit to learn. O’Connor
(2003) said that, “the errors of pronunciation that learners of English from
9
different language backgrounds make are systematic and not accidental” (as cited
in Hassan, 2014, p. 31). Many students are confused with English pronunciation
rules. It is hard to learn something that did not exist in their mother language such
as: /z/ and /ð/, /s/ and /θ/, /b/ and /p/, /ʃ/ and /tʃ/. Some of them assume that
pronunciation is scary because they have no experience in learning pronunciation
and lack of knowledge. According to Hassan (2014), there are four problems
faced by students in general. The first one is about Mother tongue Interference,
second one is about sound system differences between L1 and L2, third one is
about inconsistency of English vowels, and the last one is about influence of
spelling on pronunciation.
Mother Tongue Interference. Students in EED UMY come from a lot of
different regions in Indonesia. Some of them come from a region which has a
dialect or accent in their daily communication. Those students often use a
vernacular in their daily communication. It is really hard when they have to
change their habit into English. It is the opposite of their daily language.
Kurniawan (2011) stated that,
When Indonesians learn English, our mother tongue will interfere the
process and this is called interference. The interference can be positive and
negative. The interference is said to bring positive effect if the mother
tongue can ease the process and it happens if the two languages have many
similarities. Negative impact will appear if our Indonesian language causes
much difficulty. They will use the patterns of mother tongue to produce
the utterances in oral and written forms which are not available in target
language.
10
On the other hand, Brown (2000 as cited in Hassan, 2014) stated that, “a second
language learner meets some difficulties because his LI affects his L2 especially
in adulthood, and this effect is a result of LI transfer; so it is a significant source
of making errors for a second language learner” (p. 33). Other studies imply that
L1 has a big impact in learning a new language. Clearly, L1 takes a part in
receiving new second language where it could be affected the process of learning
L2. A learner who tries to process information about new language has to deal
first with his/her mother language habit. “What actually happened between trying
to receive new information about new language and first language is usually
called interference between L1 and L2. That is the first wall of learning new
language” (Ladefoged, Carter & Nunan, 2001 as cited in Hassan, 2014, p. 33).
Many students confused about the way to pronounce English vocabulary,
especially when they have to speak about English vowel and diphthong. Their
first language affect automatically to their understanding about new language. It
make a confusion to receive the information about new language, and it often
happened to the new L2 learners. According to Shastri, Sinha, Banerjee, and
Avanika (2009), “the first language interferes in the acquisition of the second
language and it is applicable universally” (p. 123). Many of them feel confused to
distinguish between one vowel and diphthong. e.g: /p/ and /b/, or in word ((p)ull)
with ((b)ull), ((p)hone) with ((b)hone), ((p)roud) with ((b)roud). According to
Strange (1995 as cited in Shastri, Sinha, Banerjee, and Avanika),”perceptual
foreign accent” to refer to the “significantly difficulty” which adults have
“perceiving most (but not all) phonetic contrasts that are not functional in their
11
native language” and they notes that this can interfere with learning an L2
phonology.” (p. 119).
The mispronunciation of the above sounds is the result of the over practice
of the first language, a process of fossilization. The adult’s vocal musculature is
set to pronounce foreign sounds with an accent (Yule; O’Connor, 2003 as cited in
Hassan, 2014, p. 33). A habit is something that is really hard to change. It
becomes an identity of someone’s life. When the students need to pronounce
some words or sentences in English, their accent of the first language will
influence the way they speak. It is natural and it flows unconsciously. Hassan
(2014) said that, “the main problem of English pronunciation is to build a new set
of sounds corresponding to the sounds of English and to break down the
arrangement of sounds which the habits and the systems of our LI have strongly
built up” (p. 33).
Shastri, Sinha, Banerjee, and Avanika (2009) noted that, “phonological
awareness plays a major role in learning to read words, sentences or paragraphs in
a particular language. It refers to the sound of one’s language in the processing of
writing and speaking” (p. 119). Nevertheless, the mother tongue interference takes
an important part as the first wall faced by the student in mastering the
pronunciation. According to Kasper & Faerch (1983),
Sometimes there are interferences and occasionally responses from one
language system will intrude into speech in the other language. It appears
that learning is most successful when the situations in which the two
languages (L1 and L2) are learned. In other words, it would reduce the
12
interference if the students know much more about the basic of both
languages (as cited in Bhela, 1999, p. 23).
Sound System Differences between LI and L2. The sound system in
every language generally different from others, especially for the EED students of
UMY. Some words might have a similar characteristic with the target language,
but still have a lot of differences of the sound system. Flege (1995 as cited in Pech
& Izquierdo, 2011) explained that, “sounds which are similar but slightly different
in the L1 and L2, are difficult to acquire since the new L2 sounds can be confused
with the familiar L1 sounds” (p. 3). In the other words, automatically, students
could not distinguish new language that similar to their first language. It has
already been set on their unconscious. Thus, the student who learns English as the
second language is needed to learn more about the differences of the sound
system between their first language and English. According to Flege (1995 as
cited in Pech & Izquierdo, 2011), “L2 sounds that are similar to L1 sounds are not
easy to acquire because they are perceived as L1 equivalents. Nevertheless, some
studies show that it is really possible to get used to English sound system and
throw out the influence of the first language” (as cited in Pech & Izquierdo 2011,
p. 3). Instruction is one of the methods that is used to reduce perplexity of
students. To examine the effects of instruction. According to Pech & Izquierdo
(2011)
Derwing, Munro and Wiebe (1997), exposed 12 advanced learners of
English to 12 weeks of suprasegmental instruction. The participants had
lived in an English-speaking country for over 10 years. Before and after
the instruction, speech samples were obtained from the participants.
13
Analyses revealed that the participants had improved their intelligibility
and comprehensibility, and had reduced their accentedness (p. 4).
That is one of the evidences to reduce the L1 effect in learning L2. Students could
use that to correct their mistake in learning the second language.
The Inconsistency of English Vowels. English vowels have more than
one pronunciation. For a beginner learner, it is quite difficult to learn. Many of
students who have no experiences in English pronunciation confused with those
vowels. The inconsistency of English vowel might lead them to mispronunciation
and another bad imprint. Cruttenden (1994) stated that, "the main difficulty for all
those whose own languages have a less complex vowel system, lies in the
establishment of the qualitative oppositions” (p. 3). Most of the learners think that
every vowel has only one type, e.g: blood /bl ʌ d/, among /əm ʌ ŋ/, come /k ʌ m/,
among /əm ʌ ŋ/. They think that this occurs to all the same characteristic word, in
this case, is /ʌ/ so that they pronounce it all in the same way. But in fact, not all
the word with the same characteristic shall read in the same way. It might be
caused by the first impression that all the same characteristic word has to
pronounce in the same way. Thus, they remember that as a rule of pronunciation.
This is one of misunderstanding that happened among the beginner learner, and
this is one of the problems in English pronunciation.
O'connor (2003 as cited in Hassan, 2014) reported that, “it is not simple to
know the exact sounds the letters stand for or represent in a certain word for
instance in the words city /siti/, busy /bizi/, women /wimin/, pretty /priti /, village
/vilidʒ/, English /i ŋ gliʃ/ the letters y, u, o, a, e, all of them stands for the same
14
vowel sound /i/” (p. 34). Some beginner learners who have no experience and
proper knowledge of pronunciation would not understand to distinguish all of
them into the correct pronunciation. According to Power (2003 as cited in
Hassan, 2014), “there are 23 common pronunciation problems, some of them are
related to vowels e.g. the students confuse /I/ with /i:/ as in sit, seat, and /ɔ/ with
/əu/ as in not, note and / æ/ with /ei/ as in mat, mate and /e/ with /ei/ as on let,
late” (p. 34). It is tough when the learner needs to pronounce vowel with
inconsistency on it. Therefore, the learner needs to be more seriously to take an
attention in pronouncing something in English because the incorrect
pronunciation might trigger the ambiguous meaning.
Spelling on Pronunciation. Spelling is known as the way to speak in
pronunciation, and it also becomes something that needs to be mastered for the
beginner learner. Based on the researcher experiences as a prospective teacher in
EED UMY, it is found that many of students in EED UMY often spell the wrong
pronounce on pronunciation. It is the cause of the different rules of both English
and Indonesia. English pronunciation rules have some inconsistency. Not all the
same letters are pronounced in the same way. It makes students confused because
there is no rule like that in Indonesian Language. The Indonesian language
pronounces the word like what is written, and it is really different from English.
Bancha (2013) noted that, “the fact that English spelling is inconsistent makes it
more difficult and requires more effort to memorize” (p. 3). Yule (2001 as cited in
Hassan, 2014) also noted that, “the sounds of spoken English do not match up, a
lot of time, with letters of written English so if we cannot use the letters of the
15
alphabet in a consistent way to represent the sounds we make, it is difficult to
describe the sounds of a language like English” (p. 35).
The learner who still does not have the mastery of pronunciation of such
words pronounces each of them by looking at its spelling, and he is expected to
mispronounce them (O’Connor, 2003 as cited in Hassan, 2014, p. 35). English
pronunciation rules are quite complicated for the learners, especially for those
who have not known English and lack of experiences. There are rules in English
pronunciation which spell some words in the same way but quite different in the
pronunciation, e.g: /fuse/ /fjuːz/ and /furtive//ˈfɜː(r)tɪv/, /neglect/ /nɪˈɡlekt/ and
/negligent//ˈneɡlɪdʒ(ə)nt/, /police//pəˈliːs/ and /policy/ /ˈpɒləsi/. The differences
are on (u), (e), and (o). Nevertheless, the beginner learners are really hard to
realize the differences. They would speak just like what was written and that is the
common problem in learning pronunciation faced by almost all of the second
language learners.
The Strategic Problems in Learning Pronunciation
Based on the situation above, there are a lot of pronunciation problem
faced by the English learners. To prohibit students’ bad thinking about
pronunciation, the strategies are the best way to make them learn pronunciation
properly. This is the only thing students need to do in order to master
pronunciation. The strategies improve their pronoun skill obviously, find a new
method of learning pronunciation, diminish their bad behaviour in speaking which
is influenced by their first language, and enhancing their confidence and make
them better. The most important one is to make them fully understand,
16
comfortable and confidence in pronouncing words. The strategies are the best way
to change their inappropriate perspective about pronunciation. This is what they
need to do in order to gain their spirit to learn much more about English, and to
help them to speak more fluent than before.
There are four strategies to enhance English learners’ pronunciation skill.
Gilakjani and Ahmadi (2011) noticed that students need to practice conversation,
make drilling, obtain expert guidance, and exercise critical listening. These
strategies are basic for the beginner learners to get to know about pronunciation
properly. However, students usually met the difficulties regarding to the strategies
in learning pronunciation. Those strategies become their first obstacle to master
pronunciation. Many students feel the difficulties to learn the strategies because of
lack of knowledge and did not know the ways to learn pronunciation. Therefore,
the strategies issues also become the problem in learning pronunciation.
Conversation. What learners most want (Willing, 1993; Volkoff &
Golding, 1998) - and what will help them most are plenty of authentic
conversation practice (Burns & Joyce, 1997, as cited in Gilakjani and Ahmadi,
2011, p. 79). The conversation could be taught by the lecturer in the class, but the
most valuable action is the effort from students themselves. The students should
consider the big thing to practice conversation. They need to find the best partners
to make a conversation with them. The expert said that the good partner is a native
speaker who already knows student’s first language so that the native could make
a correction about incorrect pronunciation. However, the students usually do not
have a partner to practice the conversation with. Sometimes, students
underestimate the conversation and feel that conversation is something ordinary
17
that did not need a special attention. As the result, the students stuck and could not
develop their pronunciation skill.
Drilling. Sardegna (2011) mentioned that, “analyzing the spelling and
applying orthography-based prediction rules for linking to figure out which
sounds you should link and how you should pronounce them is the way to
improve student’s pronunciation weaknesses.” (p. 108). Students would know
better about their pronunciation errors in speaking. Gilakjani & Ahmadi (2011)
noted that, “analyse students mistakes by themselves are something that makes
them thinking about some weak part that needed to be repaired. Learners also
need considerable drilling and repetition - but this must directly exercise the
speech that they will actually use in real life.” (p.79). Students should drill and
repeat their weakness after knowing the problems so that they think a lot and they
are able to find the best strategies to develop and enhance their pronunciation
skill. Students can drill the minimal pair or practice tongue twister to make mouth
habitual with the alien words. However, the best way to do the practice is only
with something common that students have known already. Sometimes, it also
becomes the problem because not all students know this strategy. Drilling is a
strategy that is really effective to make the students tongue adapted with the
pronunciation. Thus, students could consolidate their basic pronunciation
knowledge before they continue to the tough parts.
Expert Guidance. There are three technics to get a better pronunciation
practice. The first one is about speech monitoring, the second one is about
comparing the performance with other models, and the last is about changing the
performance to match the model.
18
The first one is about speech monitoring. It is driven at the way students’
awareness about their own mistakes and evaluate the mistakes and correct them
into the correct ones. In this point, students have to drill their mistakes and guided
by the visual guide. It could be some native on the recording or the video that
expert gives the best example of pronunciation to be learned by the learners. The
success rate depends on the desire to learn of students itself.
Second one is comparing the performance with other models. This
compare student production to a recording of the text or other sources that
illustrate the same linking sound(s), or students’ own models from memory.
(Sardegna, 2011, p. 108). After drill words many times, students need to compare
their result with an expert or their trust resource. It is useful to search an incorrect
pronoun and repair it directly.
The last one is changing the performance to match the models drive at
evaluating and make a program to manage their learning process so that they
could increase their skill and make them pronounce properly. Students only take
the best way and leave behind the unnecessary things.
Those technics depend on the spirit of students. They are basically guided
by the students themselves, but the students still need assistance from the expert.
In the other way, Gilakjani and Ahmadi (2011) noticed that, “learners are most
helped by teachers who can appreciate and imaginatively explore what the sounds
seem to like to learners, gradually leading them to more appropriate ways of
thinking about English pronunciation” (p. 79). The verbal thing is to take a part of
students learning process. A communication has a plus point for students’
19
development. However, students need to be clever to point their guidance.
According to Burn & Joyce (1997), “this requires the understanding of crosslanguage - as well as English - phonetics and phonology, and of speech perception
and production (psycholinguistics). They (guidance) need to be terms based on the
way the learner thinks about the sounds, not the way English speakers do. A
variety of ‘tricks’ can be found for most learners” (as cited in Gilakjani and
Ahmadi, 2011, p 79). A proper expert guide is the one who understands the
students’ personality and perception first before they judge the problems so that
they could lead the student in a good way. Ironically, sometimes the students feel
embarrassed to ask and practice with the expert guidance. On the other hand,
sometime there are no enough number of expert to guide the students, and that is a
problem to learning pronunciation. Hence, the students could not learn properly
and get the maximal experience in learning pronunciation.
Critical Listening. “Learners need sample opportunity to listen to their
own speech and that of fellow learners in comparison with that of native speakers,
and to learn to distinguish the aspects of learner pronunciation that make
comprehension difficult for native speakers.” (Gilakjani and Ahmadi, 2011, p.
79). The rate of success of learning pronunciation is pointed at critical of students.
If students want to speak properly, they have to be a good listener too. Students
could record their speech and find the particulars on it. Discuss with the expert to
find the referring the problems. Being a critical learner to increase the perception
of pronunciation learning is the better way to be better than before. However,
students meet the difficulties regarding to this strategies. Critical listening needs a
20
good listening skill and many of student also have a problem with listening, so
that it hinder them to be a good critical listener.
Miscellaneous Issues in Teaching Pronunciation
Related to the problem and the strategies above, there are a lot to concern
about by the provider of material and focus of the subject. The concern is
categorized as needs in effort to reach a good pronunciation. It is better if the
institution as the subject provider give an optimal effort as a major that provide
pronunciation focus. The problem is that in English courses there is usually little
or no time allocated to teaching pronunciation and the majority of lesson planning
is devoted to vocabulary and grammar progress (Baker 1990, p. 1 as cited in
Mikulastikova, 2012, p. 12). In this case, the institution that provide the subject
would be better if they give more time allocation for learning pronunciation,
because as a second language learner, pronunciation would be an obstacles to deal
with. King (2007) stated that,
ELL‘s need more time than native speakers (beginners require much more)
first is silent period. It is time to listen, learn, secretly practice orally, and
assess safeness of class/instructor. Second one is wait time. Once
production begins, allow for time to think and formulate reply. Third one
is preparation time. It is time to prepare an oral response. Fourth one is
practice time. It is time for social interaction and to work on aspects of
language difficult for student. (p.7)
On the other hand, to master good pronunciation needs more experts’ effort and
the strength of the teachers. The pronunciation would be optimal if the expert
21
gives more concern to the students and guide them based on their needs. Santos &
Tajeda (2014) stated that, “teachers should focus on the needs of their learners
rather than generalize the teaching of pronunciation” (p.154).
In addition, it is better to make some continuation of pronunciation class
or it could say an advance level to make student develop and keep the consistency
in learning pronunciation. A separate pronunciation class may be very helpful
here, because in such dedicated classes learners may have more time to counteract
the ‘filter’ of their first language and redevelop their awareness of the sounds and
patterns of English (Yates & Zielinski, 2009). Thus, it would be better if the
subject provider makes a special program that concern to the pronunciation and it
contains a lot of material that encourage students to learn in particular of their
needs. Yates & Zielinski (2009) stated that, “practice and provide feedback on
pronunciation in an ongoing way is more useful than a truckload of pronunciation
materials.”
Review of Related Study
Hassan (2014) in his research entitled “Pronunciation Problem: A Study
Case of English Language Students at Sudan University of Science and
Technology” conducted in Al-Farabi Private College, Riyadh, KSA. It took 80
participants to do test divided into two parts. The first part involved 50
participants conducted to do the recording for the study test, and the second part
involved 30 participants that have to fulfil the questionnaire on the exact sound
which the students mispronounce and the reason for the pronunciation problems
facing by them. The researcher used tape recording and observation to collect the
22
data from participants. On the other hand, a structured questionnaire was used to
collect the information from the sample of the teachers. Hassan (2014) stated that,
“the questionnaire contained (22) items reflect the opinions and ideas of the
teachers about the pronunciation of some Sudanese Students of English (SSEs). In
the questionnaire, each teacher was asked to choose one answer according to the
Tri Regression Measurement, which contains three levels (agree-not suredisagree)” (p. 36).
It was noticed that many SSEs have problems with the pronunciation of
monophthongs that have more than one way of pronunciation; Ted power
considers the mispronunciation of vowels are of minor importance if
compared with the long vowels, diphthongs, stress and intonation
.However the researcher believes that it is a serious error to mispronounce
/servis/ as /servais/ or/meik/as /mæk/. (Hassan, 2014, p. 41).
The mispronunciation happened in Sudan Student of English (SSE) was because
of lack of the phonemes in Arabic. Arabic phonemes have many different
phonemes with English that make them could not distinguish it clearly. Moreover,
the researcher of this research concluded that most of the SSE have a problem
with voiceless bilabial /p/, the voiced bilabial /b/, and also voiced dental fricatives
/d/ and /z/.
Another research was written by Lili (2005) entitled “Pronunciation
Difficulties Analysis: A Case Study Using Native Language Linguistic
Background to Understand a Chinese-English Learners Pronunciation Problems”.
This research conducted in order to know and make a prevent action toward
23
Chinese second language learner’s problem during the learning. The participant
was a female named Zhang Ya. She was a graduate student who took Intensive
English Program for fulfilling the criteria of International Teaching Assistants
(ITAs). The researcher interviewed her for collect the validity of data. The
interview aim was to know the current condition of pronunciation problem and to
get Spontaneous Speech Sample (SSS).
That was required to measure how big the pronunciation problem is. On
the other side, Zhang Ya was taped reading the diagnostic Passage (DP) adapted
from Prastor & Robinett’s Accent Inventory (1985) ( Lili, 2005, p. 78). This test is
head for diagnosing individual pronunciation weakness of students from different
language backgrounds. DP & SSS record monthly because each record was not
the same. As the result, the researcher noted that there are three categories of
problems faced by the participant on the last session of collecting data. The results
were about individual sounds (improper articulation vowels and consonants),
problems with combining sounds into words (obtrusive vowel insertion, an
omission of endings and contraction, failure in pronouncing consonant clusters)
and the problem with prosodic patterns (improper application of word and
sentence stress, wrong intonation at the end of the sentence.
According to Lili (2005), “typical English pronunciation difficulties for
Chinese learner is categorized into seven types: consonant such as /v/, /r/, /n/, /l/,
/b/, /p/, /d/, /k/, and /g/; vowel such as /i/ and /ei/; consonant clusters both in the
initial or final position, especially when they need to produce the longer words;
word stress; sentence stress; pausing and thought groups and intonation variation”
(p. 80). It makes her confuse about the purpose of speaking. Those sounds do not
24
exist in Chinese so that she has to recognize it first and memorize it as something
new. That was the big problem for Chinese learner.
There are 3 ways that make Chinese learners suffer for. The first is about
the words English which have the consonant like /v/, /p/, /b/ would make them in
trouble. For example, consonant /v/, this consonant does not occur in most
Chinese dialects. As a result, they will pronoun /v/ with /w/. The second is the
sound-spelling system. Most of the Chinese words have a vowel ending, except
for ‘n’ and ‘ng’, so as the result, final consonant clusters in grammatical endings
as in the plural, possessive and the third a person would be a real trouble for
Chinese learners. The last one is about transferring from the different prosodic
patterns in Chinese from that in English such as intonation, word stress, linking
and suprasegmentally errors would be their trouble too.
Another research was conducted by Kurniawan (2011) entitled
“Indonesians’ Barriers in Learning English”. This research was conducted to
know the barriers of Indonesian language toward English. According to his
research, the process of learning English for Indonesians is not easy. There are
many problems that are faced to succeed in learning this language. Experts who
study the language acquisition deeply for years have identified two broad factors,
namely linguistics and non- linguistics. Linguistics differences between English
and Indonesian in domain of sounds, words, sentences are barriers that bother
English mastery. In addition, non-Linguistics factors, which consist of mother
tongue interference, social contact and language aptitude also contribute to the
slowness of English acquisition for Indonesians.
25
Conceptual Framework
Pronunciation is known as one of frightening spectre for L2 learners.
Pronunciation takes a big part in students’ speaking skill. Many types of research
admitted pronunciation as one of the difficult things in learning English yet
students are expected to master pronunciation in order to shore up their speaking
skill. However, students are faced with many problems that make them stuck and
confused to learn pronunciation such as Mother Tongue Interference, Sound
System Differences between LI and L2, Inconsistency of English Vowels, and
Influence of Spelling on Pronunciation.
Based on the problems faced by students, the researcher find three main
topics research that will be investigated in this research. The first one is about the
pronunciation problems faced by them, it includes their point of view about
pronunciation and their personal problem that make them hard to learn
pronunciation. The second one is about strategic problem to learn pronunciation
which shows their first obstacle to learn pronunciation properly. The third one is
about miscellaneous issues in teaching pronunciation that shows the weakness and
the issues in the process of pronunciation teaching and learning. However, since
the problem related to the EED students, the researcher will conduct the research
at EED UMY to investigate the problem faced by EED students’ batch 2012 of
Universitas Muhammadiyah. The conceptual framework will be presented on the
figure below.
.
26
Figure 1. Conceptual Framework
Pronunciation
The pronunciation problems
-Mother tongue interference
-Sound system differences between
L1 and L2
-Inconsistency of English vowels
-Spelling on pronunciation.
(Hassan, 2014)
The strategic problems
in learning
pronunciation
Miscellaneous Issues in
Teaching Pronunciation
27
Chapter Three
Methodology
In this chapter, the researcher would explain the detail about the
methodology used in this research. It presents research design used to do the
research, research setting and participants, data collection method to collect the
needed data for the research, and data analysis to analyse the data and get the best
result of the research.
Research Design
This research was conducted to know students’ problems and their
difficulties in learning pronunciation. This research used the qualitative case study
as the method to collect the data from respondents. Qualitative research is
characterized by an interpretative paradigm, which emphasizes focused
experiences and the meanings they have for an individual (Starman, 2013, p. 30).
According to Mesec (1998 as cited in Starman, 2013), “a case study is a
description and analysis of an individual matter or case with the purpose to
identify variables, structures, forms and orders of interaction between the
participants in the situation (theoretical purpose), or, in order t
Batch 2012 of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
A Skripsi
Submitted to the Faculty of Language Education on a Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements to Obtain the Degree
Sarjana Pendidikan
Written by:
Muhammad Iqbal Nur Rizky
20120540082
English Education Department
Faculty of Language Education
Univeritas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
2016
i
Students’ Pronunciation Problems: A Case Study at English Education
Department Batch 2012 of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
A Skripsi
Submitted to the Faculty of Language Education on a Partial Fulfillment of
the Requirements to Obtain the Degree
Sarjana Pendidikan
Written by:
Muhammad Iqbal Nur Rizky
20120540082
English Education Department
Faculty of Language Education
Univeritas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
2016
ii
Approval Sheet
Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
Faculty of Language Education
English Education Department
We hereby approve the Skripsi of
Muhammad Iqbal Nur Rizky
20120540082
Candidate for the degree of Sarjana Pendidikan
November, 26th 2016
Dr. Suryanto, S.Pd., M.H.Sc.
The Skripsi Supervisor
November, 26th 2016
Gendroyono, S.Pd., M. Pd.
The Examiner I
November, 26th 2016
Maryam Sorohiti, S.S., M.H.Sc.
The Examiner II
Accepted
Gendroyono, S. Pd., M. Pd
The Dean of Faculty of Language Education
Yogyakarta, November 26th, 2016
iii
Statement of Authenticity
I am a student with following of identity:
Name
: Muhammad Iqbal Nur Rizky
NIM
: 20120540082
Department
: English Education Department
Univeristy
: Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
Certify that Skripsi entitled “Students’ Pronunciation Problems: A Case
Study at English Education Department Batch 2012 of Universitas
Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta” is authentically my own work. I am completely
responsible for the content of this paper. Others’ opinion of findings included in
this Skripsi proposal are quoted in accordance appropriate with the standards.
Yogyakarta, October 27th 2016
Muhammad Iqbal Nur Rizky
20120540082
iv
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Alhamdulillahirabbil’alamin
Finally done! I would like to give my greatest thanks to my lord, Allah
SWT for the ideas, strength, opportunity and the patient to conduct and finish this
research.
I would like to give my special thanks to my parents, the real superheroes
alive, Mr. Agus Wahyudin, S.Pd., M.Pd. and Mrs. Kis Andayani, S.Pd. who
always pray and give the best support ever in every inch of my needs. Thanks buk,
pak. My gratitude also for all my family members especially my grandmother
mbah Ti who always give me life advice and teach me to see the world from
different perspective. Such a great pleasure, mbah. I also thank my sister, Khalda
Nailah for all the cheers and joy that boost my mood to complete this research.
My greatest sincere thanks go to my great supervisor, Dr. Suryanto, S.Pd.,
M.H.Sc. for vacated his time to answer all my questions and for guides me thus I
could finish this research. I also thank Ms. Maryam Sorohiti, S.S., M.H.Sc. for
always supports, gives suggestions and spurs me to finish this research.
I would like to express my solemn thanks to all the members of the EED
family for the opportunity to study English education in these last four years,
especially for my dearest friends, Didin, Anis, Saran, Nindha, and Elin who
always help me to complete this research. Such a great honor to meet you, guys.
My gratitude also goes to my best friends, Nizar, Nurul, Khadar and the big
family of Teater Tanda Tanya SMAN 4 Bogor for always being flawless
supporter to finish this research. I would like to give my deepest thanks to my
v
Ucok squad for all the laughter and the happiness we shared. You all are amazing
in each your style.
Last but not least, I would like to express my thanks to all the participants
who gave their time to share the ideas and the opinions to complete this research.
They were really helpful and kind to me. This research could not be finished
without their participation. This research could be completed because of them.
Thank you.
Yogyakarta, October 2016
M. Iqbal Nur Rizky
20120540082
vi
TABLE OF CONTENT
COVER
i
APPROVAL SHEET
ii
AUTHOR’S DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY
iii
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
iv
TABLE OF CONTENT
vi
TABLE OF FIGURE
viii
ABSTRACT
ix
Chapter One Introduction
1
Background of the Research
1
Identification and Limitation of the problem
4
Research Question
5
Purpose of the Research
5
Significance of the Research
5
Chapter Two Literature Review
7
Theoretical Framework of Pronunciation
7
Definition of Pronunciation
7
The Problems in Pronunciation
8
The Strategic Problems in Learning Pronunciation
15
Miscellaneous Issues in Teaching Pronunciation
20
Review of Related Research
21
Conceptual Framework
25
Chapter Three Methodology
Research Design
27
27
vii
Setting and Participants
28
Data Collection Technique
29
Data Analysis
31
Chapter Four Finding and Discussion
32
Findings
32
Discussion
41
Chapter Five Conclusion and Recommendation
46
Conclusion
46
Recommendation
48
References
Appendix 1. Interview Guideline
Appendix 2. Selective Coding
49
viii
TABLE OF FIGURE
Figure 1. Conceptual Framework
26
Figure 2. Data Collection Techniques
30
ix
Abstract
This study focuses on the speaking skills of students. To be more specific,
this research aims to investigate the pronunciation problems faced by the students
of EED UMY (English Education Department, Universitas Muhammadiyah
Yogyakarta) batch 2012. The research question of this research was about what
the pronunciation problems were faced by students of EED UMY batch 2012. The
methodology used in this research was qualitative study that used interview to
gather the data. The participants were four students that consisted of two males
and two females. They were interviewed one by one on their preference places
approximately 5-10 minutes. The interview was recorded and analyzed using
thematic analyses that were undertaken through codings. There are three findings
that became the result of the research. The first finding is about the pronunciation
problems faced by students EED UMY batch 2012 including pronunciation’s
belief, problem in distinguishing sounds, and difficult materials. The second one
is about the strategic problem in learning pronunciation at PBI faced by the
students. They lack of practice, pronunciation learning environment, and lecturer
does not emphasize the importance of pronunciation. The last one is about the
miscellaneous issues of teaching pronunciation comprising need more sks for
pronunciation, the impression about pronunciation learning activity at PBI, not
enough portion to learn pronunciation at PBI, and the participants’ suggestion for
PBI.
Keywords: pronunciation problems, students’ difficulties, EED UMY
batch 2012
1
Chapter One
Introduction
This chapter discusses the background of the research that presents the
reason of the researcher to conduct the research. This chapter also discusses about
identification & limitation of the problem, research question, the purpose of the
study and significance of the study.
Background of the Research
Pronunciation is one of the focuses covered in the subject of Capita
Selecta on Grammar which is held and provided by English Education
Department of UMY to make the students understand about the importance of
pronunciation in English. They could apply the pronunciation focus not only
about the theories but also about how to speak properly for delivering the
argumentation or the ideas. Claire and Burns (2003) stated that, “pronunciation
refers to the phonology of the language – or the meaningful perception and
production of the sounds of that language and how they impact on the listener” (p.
5). Pronunciation refers to a way to pronounce words with the precise method and
produce correct meaning and purpose based on English pronunciation rules. It is a
tool to deliver our thoughts and ideas to the others. Nevertheless, Gilakjani and
Ahmadi (2011) stated that, “those who start to learn English after their school
years are most likely to have serious difficulties in acquiring intelligible
pronunciation” (p. 74). That statement becomes evidence that learning
pronunciation for college students is tough, especially for those who do not learn
about pronunciation at all. This one has a big influence in English communication.
2
If the pronunciation is bad, our speaking partner will not understand the meaning,
it will lead to misspelling, mispronouncing, and the worst is misunderstanding.
But if the pronunciation is good, there will not be a problem in communication.
Messiha (1985, as cited in Binturki, 2001) reported that, “Majority of
English language learners have an ambition to master native-like english mastery.
In fact, they still possess a considerable number of errors in using the language.
The errors may cover spelling and vocabulary errors, pronunciation, intonation,
rythm, and other voice quality matters” (p. 1). It leads to the problems faced by
some of the students in English Education Department (EED). Many students
admitted that pronunciation is a tough part of learning English. It is shown by
their score in Capita Selecta Grammar’s class which focus on pronunciation. They
tried to pronounce like a native without obeying the rules of pronunciation. In the
end, they could not speak in a proper way and they did not know the knowledge
of learning pronunciation.
Based on the researcher’s experiences, there are many students of batch
2012 who have problems in pronunciation despite batch 2012 of Universitas
Muhammadiyah (UMY) are in the last semester of study. They have practiced the
pronunciation skill in subject of capita selecta on grammar 3, listening and
speaking for daily conversation, listening and speaking for the formal setting,
listening and speaking for academic purpose, and listening and speaking for career
development. Although the students have practiced in their speaking skills in all
previously mentioned subjects, they have less time to learn pronunciation
specifically since pronuction is just taught implicitly. For this reason, on my
observation, many students are still less fluent in speaking, especially in
3
pronunciation. They can speak in a long period of time but still they indicate that
they have incorrect pronunciation. It also becomes a scary thing for students when
they know that their pronunciation is not proper although they have learned and
practiced for a long time. Consequently, they try to avoid speak English in order
not to be embarrassed. That is ironic for those who are in the last semester of
study phase.
Most of the students know their pronunciation problem but barely know
how to mend the error. It refers to the aspects of pronunciation such as
monophthong, diphthong, and vowel. Gilakjani & Ahmadi (2011) found that,
“the difficulty of learning to pronounce a foreign language is cognitive rather than
physical, and that it has something to do with the way ‘raw sound’ is categorized
or conceptualized in using speech” (p. 74). In this case, accent, intonation, and
mouth contour take a part on it. Also, lack of references and less spirit to practice
make it worst. It will lead to a bad thought about pronunciation so that they could
not reach it properly. Charity & Mallinson (2011 as cited in Lin, 2014) stated that,
“in fact, it is understandable that an ESL student using a nonstandard variety of
English might be negatively affected while acquiring the English language if they
are not familiar with standardized English” (p. 16).
Based on the researcher’s experiences, pronunciation is really needed for
English education students. Pronunciation indirectly shows the skill of students’
speaking ability. Students can recognize their goodness and badness of their
pronunciation from the way they speak and deliver their ideas to the others.
Pronunciation becomes a measurement to judge their speaking skill. It really often
happens when students who are good in English grammar but the lack of speaking
4
skill especially in pronunciation. The researcher found the fact that it will not
enhance their pronunciation skill if they do not practice and learn. Students who
have a weakness in pronouncing are really needed to change their weaknesses,
considering that the way we speak is the most important in communication.
Studying in-depth the pronunciation problems faced by students seems providing
a path for students and other stake holders to overcome the students’ weakness in
learning English especially for speaking skills, to be more specific, pronunciation.
For this reason, the researcher is eager to conduct a study on this topic entitled
“Students’ pronunciation problems: A Case Study at English Education
Department Batch 2012 of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta”.
Identification and Limitation of the Problem
The researcher is one of the students at EED UMY. He found that many of
students feel uncomfortable and lack of confident because of pronunciation
problems. Most of them chose to not to speak though it could not be avoided.
Pronunciation is a part of the English focuses that needs more practice. The
researcher found that many students got frightened when they should speak in
front of the class, group, or forum. It decreases their sense of speaking learning.
The researcher also found that many of students failed to acquire the good
knowledge of the strategies to master pronunciation such as conversation, drilling,
and listening instead those strategies became their very first obstacle in acquiring
intelligible pronunciation. Besides, not all the lecturer give an attention to
encourage students to have a good pronunciation. The researcher also feels that
5
EED UMY is less on pronunciation focus concern. Therefore, the pronunciation
problems to be revealed in this context to facilitate students learning. To reveal
such problems, a study needs to be conducted to ensure that evidence-based facts
can be found out to be the bases of teaching and learning pronunciation.
Research Question
According to the problem faced by the students of EED UMY batch 2012,
the researcher investigated the problem by one question formulation. The question
is: What are the pronunciation problems of EED UMY students' batch 2012?
Purpose of the Research
After the problem formulation, the researcher conducted this research in
aiming to investigate the pronunciation problems faced by students of EED UMY
batch 2012.
Significance of the Research
For the next researcher, this research provides a basis for the following
researchers to conduct a further study on the same topic. The future researchers
may administer a study with different research design, different and bigger
subjects, and also different contextual research sites. For EED UMY lecturers, it
might develop the new methods to teach pronunciation, and also it might be the
reason to find a solution for help students who have pronunciation problems. For
students, this research can give them the motivation to create a better
pronunciation learning environment, and also give an answer to learn more about
pronunciation, practice and apply in daily life. Also, this research can be the
reason to improve and develop their speaking skill. Therefore, the significance of
6
the study might help to spur their spirit to learn deeply about pronunciation as
their concern for future research.
7
Chapter Two
Literature Review
In this chapter, the researcher would like to explain the theoretical
framework of the research. The theory is really important to shore up the research.
This chapter also discusses the review of the prior study in depth. Furthermore,
the researcher discusses pronunciation and the difficulty on pronunciation faced
by students.
Theoretical Framework of Pronunciation
Students of English education need to master pronunciation skill in order
to enhance their speaking skills directly. However, pronunciation is known as a
spectre for English beginner students. This is considered as one of the tough parts
of learning speaking skill. This part is going to discuss pronunciation and its
problem faced by English student learner.
Definition of Pronunciation. According to Gilakjani & Ahmadi (2011),
“pronunciation is one of the parts of speaking skills. Pronunciation is viewed as a
sub-skill of speaking” (p. 74). Pronunciation is the act or result of producing the
sounds of speech, including articulation, stress, and intonation, often with
reference to some standard of correctness or acceptability (dictionary.com, 2016).
While according to Diah Kristina et al (2006 as cited in Astuti, 2011, p. 6),
“Pronunciation is the manner or the rule how to pronounce word in such a way
that is acceptable and appropriate” (p.1). Pronunciation shows the quality and
comprehension of someone speaking skill. Students of English education are
needed to master this skill in order to enhance their speaking skill directly.
8
Pronunciation takes an important role in English speaking skill. This is
how a person shows his emotion and the ideas in communication. Boyer (2002)
stated that, “pronunciation is a necessary part of speaking (oral communication).
It involves making the correct sound of a particular language, as well as how the
sounds are put together in the flow of speech” (p. 1). Students need to master
pronunciation so they could speak clearly and properly. Pronunciation includes
features such as stress, rhythm and intonation (aspects of prosody). Therefore,
“these features need to be taken into account when it comes to look at the learning
outcome” (Krausz & Centerman, 2011, p. 12). It really influences the speaking
skills. Pronunciation makes speaking easier to hear and understandable for those
who could pronounce properly.
The Problems in Pronunciation. Some experts had already published the
researches about the problems in pronunciation. Pronunciation in L2 learners
often happen because they did not know what pronunciation really is. Gerbhardt
(2011) said that, “another common problem is the stress placed on the
pronunciation of words and phrases, as English is stress-timed” (p. 3). According
to Ondracek (2011), “a foreign accent such as that a non-native student of English
will almost inevitably possess may compound the problems that such a student
will experience because of the additional temptation to choose and use a simpler
vocabulary and less complex grammar than they are capable of through lack of
confidence” (p. 14). In other words, students feel to be hindered with their
problems to pronounce a complex word. They could not speak based on their will,
and for a long term effect since it would decrease their spirit to learn. O’Connor
(2003) said that, “the errors of pronunciation that learners of English from
9
different language backgrounds make are systematic and not accidental” (as cited
in Hassan, 2014, p. 31). Many students are confused with English pronunciation
rules. It is hard to learn something that did not exist in their mother language such
as: /z/ and /ð/, /s/ and /θ/, /b/ and /p/, /ʃ/ and /tʃ/. Some of them assume that
pronunciation is scary because they have no experience in learning pronunciation
and lack of knowledge. According to Hassan (2014), there are four problems
faced by students in general. The first one is about Mother tongue Interference,
second one is about sound system differences between L1 and L2, third one is
about inconsistency of English vowels, and the last one is about influence of
spelling on pronunciation.
Mother Tongue Interference. Students in EED UMY come from a lot of
different regions in Indonesia. Some of them come from a region which has a
dialect or accent in their daily communication. Those students often use a
vernacular in their daily communication. It is really hard when they have to
change their habit into English. It is the opposite of their daily language.
Kurniawan (2011) stated that,
When Indonesians learn English, our mother tongue will interfere the
process and this is called interference. The interference can be positive and
negative. The interference is said to bring positive effect if the mother
tongue can ease the process and it happens if the two languages have many
similarities. Negative impact will appear if our Indonesian language causes
much difficulty. They will use the patterns of mother tongue to produce
the utterances in oral and written forms which are not available in target
language.
10
On the other hand, Brown (2000 as cited in Hassan, 2014) stated that, “a second
language learner meets some difficulties because his LI affects his L2 especially
in adulthood, and this effect is a result of LI transfer; so it is a significant source
of making errors for a second language learner” (p. 33). Other studies imply that
L1 has a big impact in learning a new language. Clearly, L1 takes a part in
receiving new second language where it could be affected the process of learning
L2. A learner who tries to process information about new language has to deal
first with his/her mother language habit. “What actually happened between trying
to receive new information about new language and first language is usually
called interference between L1 and L2. That is the first wall of learning new
language” (Ladefoged, Carter & Nunan, 2001 as cited in Hassan, 2014, p. 33).
Many students confused about the way to pronounce English vocabulary,
especially when they have to speak about English vowel and diphthong. Their
first language affect automatically to their understanding about new language. It
make a confusion to receive the information about new language, and it often
happened to the new L2 learners. According to Shastri, Sinha, Banerjee, and
Avanika (2009), “the first language interferes in the acquisition of the second
language and it is applicable universally” (p. 123). Many of them feel confused to
distinguish between one vowel and diphthong. e.g: /p/ and /b/, or in word ((p)ull)
with ((b)ull), ((p)hone) with ((b)hone), ((p)roud) with ((b)roud). According to
Strange (1995 as cited in Shastri, Sinha, Banerjee, and Avanika),”perceptual
foreign accent” to refer to the “significantly difficulty” which adults have
“perceiving most (but not all) phonetic contrasts that are not functional in their
11
native language” and they notes that this can interfere with learning an L2
phonology.” (p. 119).
The mispronunciation of the above sounds is the result of the over practice
of the first language, a process of fossilization. The adult’s vocal musculature is
set to pronounce foreign sounds with an accent (Yule; O’Connor, 2003 as cited in
Hassan, 2014, p. 33). A habit is something that is really hard to change. It
becomes an identity of someone’s life. When the students need to pronounce
some words or sentences in English, their accent of the first language will
influence the way they speak. It is natural and it flows unconsciously. Hassan
(2014) said that, “the main problem of English pronunciation is to build a new set
of sounds corresponding to the sounds of English and to break down the
arrangement of sounds which the habits and the systems of our LI have strongly
built up” (p. 33).
Shastri, Sinha, Banerjee, and Avanika (2009) noted that, “phonological
awareness plays a major role in learning to read words, sentences or paragraphs in
a particular language. It refers to the sound of one’s language in the processing of
writing and speaking” (p. 119). Nevertheless, the mother tongue interference takes
an important part as the first wall faced by the student in mastering the
pronunciation. According to Kasper & Faerch (1983),
Sometimes there are interferences and occasionally responses from one
language system will intrude into speech in the other language. It appears
that learning is most successful when the situations in which the two
languages (L1 and L2) are learned. In other words, it would reduce the
12
interference if the students know much more about the basic of both
languages (as cited in Bhela, 1999, p. 23).
Sound System Differences between LI and L2. The sound system in
every language generally different from others, especially for the EED students of
UMY. Some words might have a similar characteristic with the target language,
but still have a lot of differences of the sound system. Flege (1995 as cited in Pech
& Izquierdo, 2011) explained that, “sounds which are similar but slightly different
in the L1 and L2, are difficult to acquire since the new L2 sounds can be confused
with the familiar L1 sounds” (p. 3). In the other words, automatically, students
could not distinguish new language that similar to their first language. It has
already been set on their unconscious. Thus, the student who learns English as the
second language is needed to learn more about the differences of the sound
system between their first language and English. According to Flege (1995 as
cited in Pech & Izquierdo, 2011), “L2 sounds that are similar to L1 sounds are not
easy to acquire because they are perceived as L1 equivalents. Nevertheless, some
studies show that it is really possible to get used to English sound system and
throw out the influence of the first language” (as cited in Pech & Izquierdo 2011,
p. 3). Instruction is one of the methods that is used to reduce perplexity of
students. To examine the effects of instruction. According to Pech & Izquierdo
(2011)
Derwing, Munro and Wiebe (1997), exposed 12 advanced learners of
English to 12 weeks of suprasegmental instruction. The participants had
lived in an English-speaking country for over 10 years. Before and after
the instruction, speech samples were obtained from the participants.
13
Analyses revealed that the participants had improved their intelligibility
and comprehensibility, and had reduced their accentedness (p. 4).
That is one of the evidences to reduce the L1 effect in learning L2. Students could
use that to correct their mistake in learning the second language.
The Inconsistency of English Vowels. English vowels have more than
one pronunciation. For a beginner learner, it is quite difficult to learn. Many of
students who have no experiences in English pronunciation confused with those
vowels. The inconsistency of English vowel might lead them to mispronunciation
and another bad imprint. Cruttenden (1994) stated that, "the main difficulty for all
those whose own languages have a less complex vowel system, lies in the
establishment of the qualitative oppositions” (p. 3). Most of the learners think that
every vowel has only one type, e.g: blood /bl ʌ d/, among /əm ʌ ŋ/, come /k ʌ m/,
among /əm ʌ ŋ/. They think that this occurs to all the same characteristic word, in
this case, is /ʌ/ so that they pronounce it all in the same way. But in fact, not all
the word with the same characteristic shall read in the same way. It might be
caused by the first impression that all the same characteristic word has to
pronounce in the same way. Thus, they remember that as a rule of pronunciation.
This is one of misunderstanding that happened among the beginner learner, and
this is one of the problems in English pronunciation.
O'connor (2003 as cited in Hassan, 2014) reported that, “it is not simple to
know the exact sounds the letters stand for or represent in a certain word for
instance in the words city /siti/, busy /bizi/, women /wimin/, pretty /priti /, village
/vilidʒ/, English /i ŋ gliʃ/ the letters y, u, o, a, e, all of them stands for the same
14
vowel sound /i/” (p. 34). Some beginner learners who have no experience and
proper knowledge of pronunciation would not understand to distinguish all of
them into the correct pronunciation. According to Power (2003 as cited in
Hassan, 2014), “there are 23 common pronunciation problems, some of them are
related to vowels e.g. the students confuse /I/ with /i:/ as in sit, seat, and /ɔ/ with
/əu/ as in not, note and / æ/ with /ei/ as in mat, mate and /e/ with /ei/ as on let,
late” (p. 34). It is tough when the learner needs to pronounce vowel with
inconsistency on it. Therefore, the learner needs to be more seriously to take an
attention in pronouncing something in English because the incorrect
pronunciation might trigger the ambiguous meaning.
Spelling on Pronunciation. Spelling is known as the way to speak in
pronunciation, and it also becomes something that needs to be mastered for the
beginner learner. Based on the researcher experiences as a prospective teacher in
EED UMY, it is found that many of students in EED UMY often spell the wrong
pronounce on pronunciation. It is the cause of the different rules of both English
and Indonesia. English pronunciation rules have some inconsistency. Not all the
same letters are pronounced in the same way. It makes students confused because
there is no rule like that in Indonesian Language. The Indonesian language
pronounces the word like what is written, and it is really different from English.
Bancha (2013) noted that, “the fact that English spelling is inconsistent makes it
more difficult and requires more effort to memorize” (p. 3). Yule (2001 as cited in
Hassan, 2014) also noted that, “the sounds of spoken English do not match up, a
lot of time, with letters of written English so if we cannot use the letters of the
15
alphabet in a consistent way to represent the sounds we make, it is difficult to
describe the sounds of a language like English” (p. 35).
The learner who still does not have the mastery of pronunciation of such
words pronounces each of them by looking at its spelling, and he is expected to
mispronounce them (O’Connor, 2003 as cited in Hassan, 2014, p. 35). English
pronunciation rules are quite complicated for the learners, especially for those
who have not known English and lack of experiences. There are rules in English
pronunciation which spell some words in the same way but quite different in the
pronunciation, e.g: /fuse/ /fjuːz/ and /furtive//ˈfɜː(r)tɪv/, /neglect/ /nɪˈɡlekt/ and
/negligent//ˈneɡlɪdʒ(ə)nt/, /police//pəˈliːs/ and /policy/ /ˈpɒləsi/. The differences
are on (u), (e), and (o). Nevertheless, the beginner learners are really hard to
realize the differences. They would speak just like what was written and that is the
common problem in learning pronunciation faced by almost all of the second
language learners.
The Strategic Problems in Learning Pronunciation
Based on the situation above, there are a lot of pronunciation problem
faced by the English learners. To prohibit students’ bad thinking about
pronunciation, the strategies are the best way to make them learn pronunciation
properly. This is the only thing students need to do in order to master
pronunciation. The strategies improve their pronoun skill obviously, find a new
method of learning pronunciation, diminish their bad behaviour in speaking which
is influenced by their first language, and enhancing their confidence and make
them better. The most important one is to make them fully understand,
16
comfortable and confidence in pronouncing words. The strategies are the best way
to change their inappropriate perspective about pronunciation. This is what they
need to do in order to gain their spirit to learn much more about English, and to
help them to speak more fluent than before.
There are four strategies to enhance English learners’ pronunciation skill.
Gilakjani and Ahmadi (2011) noticed that students need to practice conversation,
make drilling, obtain expert guidance, and exercise critical listening. These
strategies are basic for the beginner learners to get to know about pronunciation
properly. However, students usually met the difficulties regarding to the strategies
in learning pronunciation. Those strategies become their first obstacle to master
pronunciation. Many students feel the difficulties to learn the strategies because of
lack of knowledge and did not know the ways to learn pronunciation. Therefore,
the strategies issues also become the problem in learning pronunciation.
Conversation. What learners most want (Willing, 1993; Volkoff &
Golding, 1998) - and what will help them most are plenty of authentic
conversation practice (Burns & Joyce, 1997, as cited in Gilakjani and Ahmadi,
2011, p. 79). The conversation could be taught by the lecturer in the class, but the
most valuable action is the effort from students themselves. The students should
consider the big thing to practice conversation. They need to find the best partners
to make a conversation with them. The expert said that the good partner is a native
speaker who already knows student’s first language so that the native could make
a correction about incorrect pronunciation. However, the students usually do not
have a partner to practice the conversation with. Sometimes, students
underestimate the conversation and feel that conversation is something ordinary
17
that did not need a special attention. As the result, the students stuck and could not
develop their pronunciation skill.
Drilling. Sardegna (2011) mentioned that, “analyzing the spelling and
applying orthography-based prediction rules for linking to figure out which
sounds you should link and how you should pronounce them is the way to
improve student’s pronunciation weaknesses.” (p. 108). Students would know
better about their pronunciation errors in speaking. Gilakjani & Ahmadi (2011)
noted that, “analyse students mistakes by themselves are something that makes
them thinking about some weak part that needed to be repaired. Learners also
need considerable drilling and repetition - but this must directly exercise the
speech that they will actually use in real life.” (p.79). Students should drill and
repeat their weakness after knowing the problems so that they think a lot and they
are able to find the best strategies to develop and enhance their pronunciation
skill. Students can drill the minimal pair or practice tongue twister to make mouth
habitual with the alien words. However, the best way to do the practice is only
with something common that students have known already. Sometimes, it also
becomes the problem because not all students know this strategy. Drilling is a
strategy that is really effective to make the students tongue adapted with the
pronunciation. Thus, students could consolidate their basic pronunciation
knowledge before they continue to the tough parts.
Expert Guidance. There are three technics to get a better pronunciation
practice. The first one is about speech monitoring, the second one is about
comparing the performance with other models, and the last is about changing the
performance to match the model.
18
The first one is about speech monitoring. It is driven at the way students’
awareness about their own mistakes and evaluate the mistakes and correct them
into the correct ones. In this point, students have to drill their mistakes and guided
by the visual guide. It could be some native on the recording or the video that
expert gives the best example of pronunciation to be learned by the learners. The
success rate depends on the desire to learn of students itself.
Second one is comparing the performance with other models. This
compare student production to a recording of the text or other sources that
illustrate the same linking sound(s), or students’ own models from memory.
(Sardegna, 2011, p. 108). After drill words many times, students need to compare
their result with an expert or their trust resource. It is useful to search an incorrect
pronoun and repair it directly.
The last one is changing the performance to match the models drive at
evaluating and make a program to manage their learning process so that they
could increase their skill and make them pronounce properly. Students only take
the best way and leave behind the unnecessary things.
Those technics depend on the spirit of students. They are basically guided
by the students themselves, but the students still need assistance from the expert.
In the other way, Gilakjani and Ahmadi (2011) noticed that, “learners are most
helped by teachers who can appreciate and imaginatively explore what the sounds
seem to like to learners, gradually leading them to more appropriate ways of
thinking about English pronunciation” (p. 79). The verbal thing is to take a part of
students learning process. A communication has a plus point for students’
19
development. However, students need to be clever to point their guidance.
According to Burn & Joyce (1997), “this requires the understanding of crosslanguage - as well as English - phonetics and phonology, and of speech perception
and production (psycholinguistics). They (guidance) need to be terms based on the
way the learner thinks about the sounds, not the way English speakers do. A
variety of ‘tricks’ can be found for most learners” (as cited in Gilakjani and
Ahmadi, 2011, p 79). A proper expert guide is the one who understands the
students’ personality and perception first before they judge the problems so that
they could lead the student in a good way. Ironically, sometimes the students feel
embarrassed to ask and practice with the expert guidance. On the other hand,
sometime there are no enough number of expert to guide the students, and that is a
problem to learning pronunciation. Hence, the students could not learn properly
and get the maximal experience in learning pronunciation.
Critical Listening. “Learners need sample opportunity to listen to their
own speech and that of fellow learners in comparison with that of native speakers,
and to learn to distinguish the aspects of learner pronunciation that make
comprehension difficult for native speakers.” (Gilakjani and Ahmadi, 2011, p.
79). The rate of success of learning pronunciation is pointed at critical of students.
If students want to speak properly, they have to be a good listener too. Students
could record their speech and find the particulars on it. Discuss with the expert to
find the referring the problems. Being a critical learner to increase the perception
of pronunciation learning is the better way to be better than before. However,
students meet the difficulties regarding to this strategies. Critical listening needs a
20
good listening skill and many of student also have a problem with listening, so
that it hinder them to be a good critical listener.
Miscellaneous Issues in Teaching Pronunciation
Related to the problem and the strategies above, there are a lot to concern
about by the provider of material and focus of the subject. The concern is
categorized as needs in effort to reach a good pronunciation. It is better if the
institution as the subject provider give an optimal effort as a major that provide
pronunciation focus. The problem is that in English courses there is usually little
or no time allocated to teaching pronunciation and the majority of lesson planning
is devoted to vocabulary and grammar progress (Baker 1990, p. 1 as cited in
Mikulastikova, 2012, p. 12). In this case, the institution that provide the subject
would be better if they give more time allocation for learning pronunciation,
because as a second language learner, pronunciation would be an obstacles to deal
with. King (2007) stated that,
ELL‘s need more time than native speakers (beginners require much more)
first is silent period. It is time to listen, learn, secretly practice orally, and
assess safeness of class/instructor. Second one is wait time. Once
production begins, allow for time to think and formulate reply. Third one
is preparation time. It is time to prepare an oral response. Fourth one is
practice time. It is time for social interaction and to work on aspects of
language difficult for student. (p.7)
On the other hand, to master good pronunciation needs more experts’ effort and
the strength of the teachers. The pronunciation would be optimal if the expert
21
gives more concern to the students and guide them based on their needs. Santos &
Tajeda (2014) stated that, “teachers should focus on the needs of their learners
rather than generalize the teaching of pronunciation” (p.154).
In addition, it is better to make some continuation of pronunciation class
or it could say an advance level to make student develop and keep the consistency
in learning pronunciation. A separate pronunciation class may be very helpful
here, because in such dedicated classes learners may have more time to counteract
the ‘filter’ of their first language and redevelop their awareness of the sounds and
patterns of English (Yates & Zielinski, 2009). Thus, it would be better if the
subject provider makes a special program that concern to the pronunciation and it
contains a lot of material that encourage students to learn in particular of their
needs. Yates & Zielinski (2009) stated that, “practice and provide feedback on
pronunciation in an ongoing way is more useful than a truckload of pronunciation
materials.”
Review of Related Study
Hassan (2014) in his research entitled “Pronunciation Problem: A Study
Case of English Language Students at Sudan University of Science and
Technology” conducted in Al-Farabi Private College, Riyadh, KSA. It took 80
participants to do test divided into two parts. The first part involved 50
participants conducted to do the recording for the study test, and the second part
involved 30 participants that have to fulfil the questionnaire on the exact sound
which the students mispronounce and the reason for the pronunciation problems
facing by them. The researcher used tape recording and observation to collect the
22
data from participants. On the other hand, a structured questionnaire was used to
collect the information from the sample of the teachers. Hassan (2014) stated that,
“the questionnaire contained (22) items reflect the opinions and ideas of the
teachers about the pronunciation of some Sudanese Students of English (SSEs). In
the questionnaire, each teacher was asked to choose one answer according to the
Tri Regression Measurement, which contains three levels (agree-not suredisagree)” (p. 36).
It was noticed that many SSEs have problems with the pronunciation of
monophthongs that have more than one way of pronunciation; Ted power
considers the mispronunciation of vowels are of minor importance if
compared with the long vowels, diphthongs, stress and intonation
.However the researcher believes that it is a serious error to mispronounce
/servis/ as /servais/ or/meik/as /mæk/. (Hassan, 2014, p. 41).
The mispronunciation happened in Sudan Student of English (SSE) was because
of lack of the phonemes in Arabic. Arabic phonemes have many different
phonemes with English that make them could not distinguish it clearly. Moreover,
the researcher of this research concluded that most of the SSE have a problem
with voiceless bilabial /p/, the voiced bilabial /b/, and also voiced dental fricatives
/d/ and /z/.
Another research was written by Lili (2005) entitled “Pronunciation
Difficulties Analysis: A Case Study Using Native Language Linguistic
Background to Understand a Chinese-English Learners Pronunciation Problems”.
This research conducted in order to know and make a prevent action toward
23
Chinese second language learner’s problem during the learning. The participant
was a female named Zhang Ya. She was a graduate student who took Intensive
English Program for fulfilling the criteria of International Teaching Assistants
(ITAs). The researcher interviewed her for collect the validity of data. The
interview aim was to know the current condition of pronunciation problem and to
get Spontaneous Speech Sample (SSS).
That was required to measure how big the pronunciation problem is. On
the other side, Zhang Ya was taped reading the diagnostic Passage (DP) adapted
from Prastor & Robinett’s Accent Inventory (1985) ( Lili, 2005, p. 78). This test is
head for diagnosing individual pronunciation weakness of students from different
language backgrounds. DP & SSS record monthly because each record was not
the same. As the result, the researcher noted that there are three categories of
problems faced by the participant on the last session of collecting data. The results
were about individual sounds (improper articulation vowels and consonants),
problems with combining sounds into words (obtrusive vowel insertion, an
omission of endings and contraction, failure in pronouncing consonant clusters)
and the problem with prosodic patterns (improper application of word and
sentence stress, wrong intonation at the end of the sentence.
According to Lili (2005), “typical English pronunciation difficulties for
Chinese learner is categorized into seven types: consonant such as /v/, /r/, /n/, /l/,
/b/, /p/, /d/, /k/, and /g/; vowel such as /i/ and /ei/; consonant clusters both in the
initial or final position, especially when they need to produce the longer words;
word stress; sentence stress; pausing and thought groups and intonation variation”
(p. 80). It makes her confuse about the purpose of speaking. Those sounds do not
24
exist in Chinese so that she has to recognize it first and memorize it as something
new. That was the big problem for Chinese learner.
There are 3 ways that make Chinese learners suffer for. The first is about
the words English which have the consonant like /v/, /p/, /b/ would make them in
trouble. For example, consonant /v/, this consonant does not occur in most
Chinese dialects. As a result, they will pronoun /v/ with /w/. The second is the
sound-spelling system. Most of the Chinese words have a vowel ending, except
for ‘n’ and ‘ng’, so as the result, final consonant clusters in grammatical endings
as in the plural, possessive and the third a person would be a real trouble for
Chinese learners. The last one is about transferring from the different prosodic
patterns in Chinese from that in English such as intonation, word stress, linking
and suprasegmentally errors would be their trouble too.
Another research was conducted by Kurniawan (2011) entitled
“Indonesians’ Barriers in Learning English”. This research was conducted to
know the barriers of Indonesian language toward English. According to his
research, the process of learning English for Indonesians is not easy. There are
many problems that are faced to succeed in learning this language. Experts who
study the language acquisition deeply for years have identified two broad factors,
namely linguistics and non- linguistics. Linguistics differences between English
and Indonesian in domain of sounds, words, sentences are barriers that bother
English mastery. In addition, non-Linguistics factors, which consist of mother
tongue interference, social contact and language aptitude also contribute to the
slowness of English acquisition for Indonesians.
25
Conceptual Framework
Pronunciation is known as one of frightening spectre for L2 learners.
Pronunciation takes a big part in students’ speaking skill. Many types of research
admitted pronunciation as one of the difficult things in learning English yet
students are expected to master pronunciation in order to shore up their speaking
skill. However, students are faced with many problems that make them stuck and
confused to learn pronunciation such as Mother Tongue Interference, Sound
System Differences between LI and L2, Inconsistency of English Vowels, and
Influence of Spelling on Pronunciation.
Based on the problems faced by students, the researcher find three main
topics research that will be investigated in this research. The first one is about the
pronunciation problems faced by them, it includes their point of view about
pronunciation and their personal problem that make them hard to learn
pronunciation. The second one is about strategic problem to learn pronunciation
which shows their first obstacle to learn pronunciation properly. The third one is
about miscellaneous issues in teaching pronunciation that shows the weakness and
the issues in the process of pronunciation teaching and learning. However, since
the problem related to the EED students, the researcher will conduct the research
at EED UMY to investigate the problem faced by EED students’ batch 2012 of
Universitas Muhammadiyah. The conceptual framework will be presented on the
figure below.
.
26
Figure 1. Conceptual Framework
Pronunciation
The pronunciation problems
-Mother tongue interference
-Sound system differences between
L1 and L2
-Inconsistency of English vowels
-Spelling on pronunciation.
(Hassan, 2014)
The strategic problems
in learning
pronunciation
Miscellaneous Issues in
Teaching Pronunciation
27
Chapter Three
Methodology
In this chapter, the researcher would explain the detail about the
methodology used in this research. It presents research design used to do the
research, research setting and participants, data collection method to collect the
needed data for the research, and data analysis to analyse the data and get the best
result of the research.
Research Design
This research was conducted to know students’ problems and their
difficulties in learning pronunciation. This research used the qualitative case study
as the method to collect the data from respondents. Qualitative research is
characterized by an interpretative paradigm, which emphasizes focused
experiences and the meanings they have for an individual (Starman, 2013, p. 30).
According to Mesec (1998 as cited in Starman, 2013), “a case study is a
description and analysis of an individual matter or case with the purpose to
identify variables, structures, forms and orders of interaction between the
participants in the situation (theoretical purpose), or, in order t