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ability. In this case, the students are not only introduced the English sound system, but they are also given the other information or aspects in
pronunciation that related to the improvement of their speaking ability and that can help their communication being understood, for example howwhere the
words should be stressed in sentence. Absolutely, these goals require lots of practice in pronouncing the word or sentence.
Furthermore, in Silabus KTSP 2006 noticed that the goals in teaching pronunciation at junior high school in Indonesia
, is to improve the students‟ communicative competence.
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It means the students are involved to develop their speaking skill. In fact, based on the writers‟ observation, the students have
their own goal. The goal may be different with the main goals in learning English which is to improve the communicative competence. The goals in
learning English pronunciation that the students set are some of them just want to communicate English at a basic level or to pass examination. And other goal
is to achieve the best they possibly can, that is to be able to pronounce English well, and it would be beneficial in getting job later. However, again, the
standard of pronunciation goal is the students have to achieve their pronunciation to improve their speaking ability.
From the discussion the writer concludes that the goals of teaching pronunciation is to train the student‟s communication ability in English, so that
they can communicate English accurately and fluently, and make their speaking can be understood by others.
4. Pronunciation Problem
The errors in pronouncing English word pronunciation that are made by students; apparently could give bad effect to the improvement of students‟
communicative competence. Ur 1996 explained some pronunciation‟s error
from various sources: 1. A particular sound may not exist in the mother tongue, so that the
learner is not used to forming it and therefore tends to substitute the
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Silabus KTSP 2006
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nearest equivalent he or she knows the substitution of d or z for the English th ð as in that is a typical example.
2. A sound does exist in the mother tongue, but not as a separate phoneme: that is to say, the learner does not perceive it as a distinct
sound that makes a difference to meaning. In Hebrew, for example, both the i and i: shipsheep sounds occur, but which is used
depends only on where the sounds come in the word or phrase, not what the word means; and if one is substituted for the other, no
difference in meaning results.
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The problems showed by Ur seem the common problems that are appeared and faced by the foreign language learner. Those problems are also
existed in the Indonesia‟ students‟ pronunciation when they speak English. In addition, Harmer 1994 assumed that “some students have great
difficulty hearing pronunciation features which we want them to reproduce. Frequently, speakers of different first language have problems with different
sound that the students‟ first language does not have the same sounds.”
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In this case, the students‟ problem is lack of students‟ knowledge for English sound,
so they might face difficulties when they find the different sound between their target language and their first language. They seem confused to imagine what
kind of sounds they heard. This problem may influence the students‟ listening and speaking comprehension because when they are asked to reproduce that
English new sound or word they may be quite or cannot respond the spoken. Moreover, different sounds between English language and the students‟
native language exist in some moments. This problem is also supported Avery and Herlich 2009, which the mostly problem in pronunciation is because of
the uncommon sounds f or the students‟ first language that exists in English.
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For example, learners from most language backgrounds have difficulty with the English th sounds.
Furthermore, Ur 1984 added, “sometimes the foreign learner of English may have difficulty with the sequences and juxtapositions of sound typical of
36
Penny Ur, a Course in …p.52
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Jeremy Harmer, the Practice of… Fourth Edition, pp. 249-250.
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Peter Avery and Susan Ehrlich, Teaching American English Pronunciation, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009, Second Edition, p. 95.
19
English words. ”
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For example, word „crisps‟, the foreign learner is usually
pronounce by crisp or crips, the phoneme „s‟ is omitted. Meanwhile, word „crisps‟ should be pronounced by crisps. It happens because the three-
consonants rarely appear in their native language andor even it disappears. Based on the writer observation, some of these problems were found in
the teaching learning process at students class VII.3 SMPN 66 Jakarta as it have been explained in chapter one. The problem mostly was because of the
student‟s difficulties in transferring their mother tongue into target language. The problem was because the different sound system between their native
language and their target language which were they could be contrasted. In table 2 below, the writer tries to show the contrastive phoneme
between English and Indonesian language. These are taken from any sources.
Table 2.2 The Contrastive Phoneme between English
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and Indonesian
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Vowel Phonemes Consonant Phonemes
No. English
Indonesian No.
English Indonesian
Short Vowels 01
01 02
02 03
03 04
o 04
05 a
05
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Penny Ur, Teaching Listening Comprehension, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984, p.12
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http:www.btinternet.com~ted.powerl1all.htmlmay 26th,2010
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Abdul Chaer , Linguistik Umum, edisi baru, Jakarta: Rineka Cipta, 2007, p.119
