Phonological Difficulties Faced by Students in Learning English

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Phonological Difﬁculties Faced by Students in Learning English
Conference Paper · May 2016

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.2233.1763
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ISBN: 978-602-74437-0-9
PHONOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES FACED BY STUDENTS

IN LEARNING ENGLISH
Ahmad Renaldi1, Ranni Putri Stefani2, Ingatan Gulö3
ahmadrenaldi71@gmail.com1
stefani3153@gmail.com2
atan@teknokrat.ac.id3
STBA Teknokrat
Abstract
Being exposed to English use at campus, the writers were interested in phonological difficulties
faced by the students as second language learners of English. The question arised was about what
kinds of phonological difficulties the learners are having in their effort to learn and speak English.
Underlining this research question was the objective to focus on those difficulties when teaching
English to L2 learners of English. In collecting the data needed, the initiation was to conduct a
survey on talks, speeches, and presentations made by the students. From the findings, main areas
where to focus on were decided. The results were then used to list possible difficult sounds and
asked the students to pronounce them. How they pronounced the words were recorded to be
analysed. The students were also interviewed in order to have another measurement to determine
the difficulties they faced. As the result, most of the phonological problems found were related to
consonant sounds such as voiced dental fricative, voiceless dental fricative, voiceless post-alveolar
fricative, and voiced alveolar approximant sounds. These are the striking features among other
phonological issues found after conducting the research.
Keywords: consonant, difficult sound, L2 learning, phonology
1. INTRODUCTION
This study came about as a result of observing the way language learners speak in English. As
the researchers dealt with those learners both in academic and social contexts, pronunciation errors
attracted their attention. General surveys were then done on the issue, starting from social media
and the internet to the previous works conducted on the matter. There are various findings on the
error analysis like those on grammatical errors (Alonso, 1997; Özşk, 2014; Erarslan, 2014)
to
those covering phonological problems (Bada, 2001; Lekova, 2010).
As those studies vary in foci, objectives, and findings, the present researchers tried to conduct
research to different participants with distinct linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Such
consideration was the reason behind this study. The researchers intended to find out phonological
difficulties faced by specific learners of English and pose the facts found to enrich linguistic
elaborations on relevant issues. Because the result of the obervation indicated some consonant
sounds as the most difficult ones, the report was then narrowed to those kinds of sounds.
2. REVIEW OF RELATED THEORY

This research was based on Error Analysis Hypothesis introduced by Larry Selinker and
friends in 1970’s (Lightbown, 2011: 79-81) in their reaction to the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis.
While most of the previous works focus on why certain errors are made and how to predict further
errors ocurring (Henderson, 1985; Yu, 2011), the present researchers in holding this theory just
focused purely on finding out the errors made by the learners.
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3. METHODOLOGY
The researchers began the study by observing talks, speeches, and presentations made by the
students. From the findings, general understanding on the difficulties were obtained. This made it
possible for the researchers to list certain difficult sounds and ask the students to pronounce them.
In this phase, their pronunciation were also recorded in order to have proofs and data for further
analysis. To strengthen the analysis and the conclusion made, the students were also interviewed
related to the phonological difficulties they face when talking in English.
4. FINDING AND DISCUSSION

The data processed by the researchers were classified according to the main points set forth
below as they represent the most common errors made by the students. The phoneme /r/ in this
research is used for that of Indonesian sound carried by letter r and // is for that of American
English carried by the same letter, not to pose a new issue but simply to bridge problems that may
arise between English and Indonesian phonetics on the letter.
Voiced Alveolar Approximant Sound
The first four of the six words shown below demonstrate the use of the turned R or voiced
alveolar approximant sound in their pronunciation. Represented by letter r, this sound in English
can be seen in red or zero. The pronunciation of the last two in the table, however, is somehow
different from the first four. Being at the end of the words factor and car, the voiced alveolar
approximant sound // becomes less stressed in English.
Correct Student’s
No. Word Pronunciation Pronunciation
1 red /ed/ /red/
2 write /a/ /ra/
3 zero /./ /r./
4 agree // /r/
5 factor /.t/ /e.tr/
6 car // /r/
From the data analysed by the researchers, it was found out that the students pronounced the
letter r as voiced alveolar trill /r/. As the researchers were observing the presentations delivered by
the students, the voiced alveolar approximant sound, looked more like that of Indonesian voiced
alveolar trill sound. They also treated the one at the end of a word like those in (5) and (6) above the
same way.
Voiced Dental Fricative Sound
The data found and analysed by the researchers showed that the learners also had problems
with voiced dental fricative sound //. For this sound, among other variations that appeared in the
data, there are two common pronunciation errors they made.
Correct Student’s
No. Word
Pronunciation Pronunciation
7 that // /de/
8 them /e/ /de/
9 although // /t/
10 brother /./ /r.dr/
Igniting a Brighter Future of EFL Teaching and Learning in Multilingual

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Seen from the table, the first type of mistake they made is by assuming that the sound // is
pronounced like voiced alveolar plosive sound /d/. Examples are presented in (7), (8), and (10)
above. The other type is seen in datum (9) in which // is treated as /t/ by the student.
Other kinds of mistakes are also seen from the data. They can be seen from how the students
pronounced the words although and brother and compared them to the standard pronunciation of
the given words. In addition, they also made mistakes in treating other consonant and vowel sounds.
Voiceless Dental Fricative Sound
Still about dental fricative sounds, the students also found it difficult to produce the voiceless
type of the sound. Compared to the previous kind discussed above, this sound is much more
difficult for them. This is seen from the interview done and from the fact that they sometimes made
it right in pronouncing voiced dental fricative sound but they hardly made it right when articulating
the voiceless dental fricative sound.
Correct Student’s
No. Word
11 think // //
12 thanks /s/ /es/
13 mathematics /./ /te../
14 something /./ /.t/
15 both // /t/
16 mouth // /t/
In the data given above, for example, they say the words think as //, something as
/.t/, and both as /t/. Such phenomenon is commonly heard when the students deliver their
presentations or when they talk to their friends outside the class.
Just like in the data presenting voiced dental fricative sounds, the students also make mistakes
related to sounds other than voiceless dental fricatives. They often pronounce think without the
sound /k/, thanks with /e/ replacing // and without /k/, mathematics with similar case, or mouth
with // replacing the sound // like in the data presented in (11) through (16).
Voiceless Post-alveolar Fricative Sound
The last common mistakes made by the students related to phonological issues of consonants
is about voiceless post-alveolar fricative sound. In English, this sound is represented by the
combination of letters s and h in succession. Below are six words chosen from the data indicating
the difficulty the students face in pronouncing this sound.
Correct Student’s
No. Word
17 shoe // /s/
18 she // /s/
19 cashier // /esr/
20 finishing /n/ /ns/
21 English // /es/
22 wash // /s/
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It is obvous from the data reported that this and other kinds of phonological errors are
potential to cause misunderstanding from the listeners. The pronunciations /s/ in (18) and /s/ in
(22), for instance, might be misunderstood as they sound more like see or sea and was rather than
sound like she and wash as the actual words being used. Problems with this voiceless post-alveolar
fricative sound always occur whenever the students found s and h being grouped and pronounced
together.
5. CONCLUSION
From the data analysed by the researchers, there are other problems related to phonological
difficulties in consonant sounds. However, those presented here are the ones occuring the most in
the data and, thus, are representative of the difficulties faced by the students in learning English as a
foreign language. In the previous works studied while conducting this research, there are findings
which show that errors made by second language learners are caused by their linguistic
backgrounds. The researchers do have a tendency to accept the possibility of such phenomenan
occuring in the data analysed, but they also consider the arguments posed against that outcome. The
issue should be left for further discussion, partly because the aim of this research was purely finding
the difficulties the students faced and partly because a more comprehensive and throughout study is
needed in order to arrive at a strong conclusion about it. It is strongly suggested, however, that these
phonological difficulties should be paid attention to in teaching learning process of English. This
conclusion is supported by the result of the interview done by the researchers.
REFERENCES
Alonso, M. Rosa. 1997. Language transfer: Interlingual errors in Spanish students of English as a
foreign language. Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses, Vol. 10, 7-14.
Bada, Erdogan. 2001. Native language influence on the production of English sounds by Japanese
learners. The Reading Matrix, Vol. 1(2).
Erarslan, Ali and Devrim Hol. 2014. Language interference on English: Transfer on the vocabulary,
tense and preposition use of freshmen Turkish EFL learners. ELTA Journal, Vol. 2(2), 4-22.
Henderson, Michael M.T. 1985. The interlanguage notion. Journal of Modern Language Learning,
Vol. 21, 23-27.
Lekova, B. 2010. Language interference and methods of its overcoming in foreign language
teaching. Trakia Journal of Sciences, Vol. 8(3), 320-324.
Lightbown, Patsy M. and Nina Spada. 2011. How Languages are Learned. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Özşk, Cem. 2014. Identifying preposition errors of Turkish EFL students. ELT Research Journal,
Vol. 3(2), 59-69.
Yu, Weihua. 2011. A review of studies of the role of native language. Journal of Language
Teaching and Research, Vol. 2(2), 441-444.
ISELT 4
The Fourth International Seminar on English Language and Teaching
ISBN: 978-602-74437-0-9
English Department, Faculty of Language and Arts, Universitas Negeri Padang
2016
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Phonological Difﬁculties Faced by Students in Learning English

Conference Paper · May 2016

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PHONOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES FACED BY STUDENTS

2. REVIEW OF RELATED THEORY

4. FINDING AND DISCUSSION

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