Investigating learnes pronunciation of english
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Date
2008
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Oum-El-Bouaghi university
Abstract
The present research work is set up with the aim of exploring the english foreign language pronunciation learning at the university of Guelma. Particularly, the interest is to examine the relationship between the ability to pronounce english intelligibly and a set of learner-based variables. In addition, it is intended to discover the sources of the problems the participating students have with the sound system of english.The statistical procedures adopted, namely quantitative analysis of questionnaire data and Spearman's rank correlation coefficient rho, prove the hypothesized significant positive correlations between the learners' levels of pronunciation intelligibility on the one hand, and the amounts of practice they exhibit, the personality traits they reveal and the degrees of motivation they demonstrate, on the other hand. Specifically, learners with large amounts of practice, lots of self confidence and high degrees of motivation are found to be the most successful in acquiring an intelligible articulation of english.
Additionally, the error analysis of the subjects' English verbal performances shows that, as it was hypothesized, their major causes of difficulty in pronouncing english are intralingual, mainly due to the non-correspondences between english spelling structures and pronouncing forms. Moreover, the students are also found to produce fewer, but not less serious, pronunciation errors stemming from interlingual, miscellaneous and other causes. Nonetheless, the advanced examination of all the identified errors and sources reveals the new hint that nearly all the problems the subjects have with the pronunciation of english are an indirect result of their lack of exposure to the native speakers' verbal language. Explicitly, the students' unfamiliarity with accurately spoken english have caused them to base their pronunciation performances on misleading inputs, particularly, the orthography of english, the French corresponding pronunciations, their teachers' sometimes erroneous articulations, and their own assumptions about how the target words can be properly pronounced.
The findings of the present study bear important implications for both pronunciation teachers and students at the english department at the University of Guelma. In particular, teachers are invited to increase their learners' exposure to, and practice of, RP accurately pronounced speech patterns. Promoting students' motivation to learn can also be remarkably helpful as it can multiply their chances of benefiting from teaching and practice sessions. This could be ensured by raising the learners' awareness about the importance of pronunciation to communicate effectively and by building enjoyable communicative contexts for pronunciation teaching and practice. On their part, the students are asked to positively
Finally, it needs to be clarified that the significant correlations the present research has established between levels of pronunciation intelligibility and amounts of practice, degrees of motivation as well as certain types of personality traits do not imply a causality relationship between the involved variables. All what is meant here is that the variables in question go together and that where one is present the others are also likely to be there. A cause-effect relationship is only a plausible supposition that can serve as a hypothesis for further research in future.
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English : prononciation