English Ideas: Journal of English Language Education Vol.
October 2020
Copyright A 2020 English Ideas EFL STUDENTSAo PRONUNCIATION ERROR ANALYSIS ON ENGLISH
SHORT VOWEL SOUNDS
Monica Feby Fadhillah monicafeby98@gmail.
Universitas Singaperbangsa Karawang Fauzi Miftakh miftakh@unsika.
Universitas Singaperbangsa Karawang Mobit mobit@fkip.
Universitas Singaperbangsa Karawang Abstract The purposes of this research are to identify the most frequent error and to know the significant source of error in pronouncing english short vowel sounds made by efl The researcher used qualitative approach and interpretative study in order to answer formulation of the research problem.
The participants in this research are five students at the second grade of a vocational islamic boarding school cianjur.
Test and interview were used by the researcher in collecting the data.
The results of this research showed that the most frequent error in pronouncing english short vowel sounds is the /y/ sound with the percentage 36.
15% and the significant source of error in pronouncing english short vowel sounds is inter-lingual transfer with the percentage 62.
analyzing the pronunciation error of the students, english teacher can know the weaknesses of the students so english teacher can provide the correction.
In addition, the students who have the correction can be more aware of their pronunciation so they will not have the same error in the future.
Keywords: English short vowel sounds, error, pronunciation.
INTRODUCTION
Pronunciation is one of the main aspects of improving speaking skill.
It is inline with Ellis .
as cited in Sahatsathatsana .
points out that good pronunciation is a key to have good speaking.
In communication process, good pronunciation can avoid verbal misunderstanding.
People can communicate easily by pronouncing English words clearly.
At the same line.
Gilakjani .
said that people who had incorrect pronunciation would not be successful in However, it is not easy to be mastered in English pronunciation.
Most of the students have serious problems in acquiring understandable pronunciation (Gilakjani, 2.
At the same line.
Fraser .
believed that many adult students considered pronunciation as the hardest aspect in English According to the preliminary observation conducted by the researcher, some of students had difficult in pronouncing English language.
They pronounced the English Ideas: Journal of English Language Education Vol.
October 2020 Copyright A 2020 English Ideas English words based on the way English word is written.
For example the letter AuuAy in the word AustudyAy is pronounced as /u/ instead of /U/.
This case also happened in the research by Ramasari .
who found most of students pronounced /data/ for the word AudataAy which should be pronounced /deto/.
There are two main factors that influencing English pronunciation error made by the students.
The first factor is the English teachers.
According to Yoshida .
, most of English teachers point out that there is no time for teaching pronunciation.
In their limited class time, most of English teachers considered to teach grammar and vocabulary instead of pronunciation (Harmer, 2007:.
The second factor is the students themselves.
There is lack of motivation for the students to learn English pronunciation (Nurhayati, 2.
It is because they think that they do not use English language in daily conversation.
Based on the problems above, the researcher was interested to conduct the research entitled AuEFL StudentsAo Pronunciation Error On English Short Vowel SoundsAy.
There are some references from the previous research which related to this research.
The first previous research was conducted by Ramasari .
who focused on the studentsAo pronunciation error in segmental features, they are English vowel and consonant.
The second previous research was conducted by Cahya .
which has the same focus with the third previous research conducted by Ali .
These two previous researches focused on the studentsAo pronunciation error in English vowel, that is pure vowel and diphthong.
However, this research expected to describe the most frequent error and source of error in pronouncing English short vowel sounds error made by the EFL students.
This research was only focused on English short vowel sounds aspect (// /O/ /o/ /e/ /y/ /U/ /e/).
The purposes of this research were to know the most frequent error and the significant source of pronunciation error on English short vowel sounds made by EFL students at the second grade of a Vocational Islamic Boarding School.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Pronunciation Pronunciation is the way of producing particular sounds (Richard and Schmidt, 2002 as cited in Ramasari, 2017:.
According to Yates .
as cited in Gilakjani .
, pronunciation is making meaning by using sounds Hence it can be concluded that pronunciation is the way of sounds production which has meaning.
Having meaning in producing sounds here means every sound gives the significance meaning.
In teaching and learning English language, pronunciation can leads students to understand the meaning in different sounds and also improve their speaking skill.
This research is only focussed on the pronunciation aspect of short vowel There are seven sounds of short vowel (Kelly, 2.
, they were //, /O/, /o/, /e/, /y/, /U/, and /e/.
English short vowel is a basic of English vowel in Correct pronunciation of English words depends on English vowel For example the English word of present .
is pronounced /prOzunt/ while present .
is pronounced /Opruz.
If the students do not know how to pronounce these English short vowel sounds, it may create misunderstanding in pronunciation.
Thus, the English teachers have to give the English Ideas: Journal of English Language Education Vol.
October 2020 Copyright A 2020 English Ideas material of pronunciation for the students.
Also, it is necessary to identify studentsAo individual pronunciation difficulties (Harmer, 2007:.
Teachers can ask students about which words students find difficult to pronounce so students are probably more aware of their pronunciation.
Teachers also can promote phonemic symbol with explanation about where the sounds are made.
If students can read phonemic symbol, they can know how the word is pronounced correctly (Harmer, 2007:.
Error and Sources of Error The students will do error or mistake in their learning process, especially in the pronunciation.
Brown .
defined that mistake is a deviation which is made inconsistently.
Mistake refers to the use of the language system incorrectly that caused by the studentsAo carelessness, memory lapses, and physical condition.
The students will be inconsistent while making mistake.
Sometimes, the students get it right but wrong in another time.
When making mistake, the students usually recognize their own mistake.
However, error must be different from mistake.
Brown .
stated that error is a deviation which is made repeatedly by the learner who has not learned something.
Error refers to the use of the language system incorrectly that caused by the studentsAo lack of knowledge.
When making an error, the students usually cannot recognize their own error.
Thus, students will be consistent while making an error if there is no correction from the others.
According to Richards .
as cited in Brown .
, four sources that causing an error in learning second/foreign language are inter-lingual transfer, intra-lingual transfer, context of learning and communication strategy.
This research is only focused on inter-lingual transfer and intra-lingual transfer source of error which discussed about the learnersAo error in using second/foreign language influenced by mother tongue of the learners and caused by the language system itself.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The researcher applied qualitative approach and interpretative study as a research design.
According to Ary et al .
, qualitative approach is the way for understanding behaviour meaning or action meaning by human in particular social setting.
Ary et al .
also point out that interpretative study is a study to describe phenomenon that appeared in humansAo experience which is occurred naturally.
This research was designed to describe phenomenon of studentsAo pronunciation error with non-numerical data.
The participants of this research were five students as the most intelligent students at the second grade of a Vocational Islamic Boarding School Cianjur, who recommended by English teacher.
In taking participants, the researcher used criterion sampling as a type of purposive sampling technique which sets senior/vocational high school as the criterion of education level of participants.
is because the researcher had to know the intelligent students who have been studying English for a long time have pronunciation error or not.
The instruments of this research were pronunciation test sheet, interview guidance, and recorder.
Pronunciation test sheet was very useful to help the English Ideas: Journal of English Language Education Vol.
October 2020 Copyright A 2020 English Ideas researcher to know the most frequent short vowel sounds error made by the students, interview guidance was used to direct the researcher in conducting interview to focus on the questions, and recorder was used to help the researcher to listen repeatedly the studentsAo pronunciation ability in pronunciation test and the studentsAo answer in interview session.
The research data collected from pronunciation test and interview.
Lloyd et al .
as cited in Huxham et al .
point out that oral test is a type of test which is suitable for assessing spoken performance.
Since pronunciation ability can be seen as spoken performance, oral test was used by the researcher in collecting the data.
In pronunciation test, the students were asked to pronounce 49 words which contained English short vowel sound.
Furthermore.
Ary et al.
said that interview is activity that is used to obtain the data about opinions, beliefs and feelings of participants in their own words.
In interview session, the students were asked to answer 7 questions related into the studentsAo experience and knowledge in pronouncing English language.
During test and interview, the studentsAo pronunciation and answer were recorded by the Then, the researcher analyzed the results qualitatively with three steps by Miles.
Huberman and Saldana .
as follows:
Condensing the data In this step, the researcher transcribed recording of the studentsAo pronunciation ability in pronunciation test and the studentsAo answer in interview session to the written form.
Displaying the data In this step, the researcher described and explained deeply about the information of the result in the form of text and table as the research finding and discussion.
Drawing conclusion In this step, the researcher presented the result briefly as the research
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
The Most Frequent Error In Pronouncing English Short Vowel Sounds The pronunciation test results showed that the students made some errors in pronouncing 26 out of 49 English words which contained English short vowel It can be seen in the following table:
Short Vowel Sounds English Words Error Table 1.
English Short Vowel Sounds Pronunciation Error
/O/
/e/ /U/ // sound
/o/ sound
/y/ sound
English
// Ie /e/ /O/ Ie
/o/ Ie /U/ /e/ Ie
/y/ Ie /e/ /U/ Ie
/e/ // /o/ /U/ Ie
/e/ // Ie /e/ /O/ Ie
/o/ Ie /U/ /e/ Ie
/y/ Ie /e/ /e/ /o/ /e/ /e/ Ie
/O/
/e/ Ie /U/ English Ideas: Journal of English Language Education Vol.
October 2020
Copyright A 2020 English Ideas // Ie /e/ /O/ Ie
/U/
// Ie /u/ // Ie /U/ // Ie /a/ // Ie /a/ Frequency of Error Percentage of Error /o/ Ie /e/ /y/ Ie /e/ /o/ Ie /O/ /y/ Ie /e/ /y/ Ie /e/ /y/ Ie /e/ /y/ Ie /e/ /y/ Ie /U/ In English short vowel // sound, the majority of the students mispronounced the letter AuiAy of the words AuwindAy and AuliveAy as /ai/.
It is inline with the research by Jam et al .
, they found that the participants mispronounced the word AuhiddenAy as /hadon/ instead of /hdon/.
The students already known spelling rule about the letter AuiAy with /ai/.
Then, they were overused this rule in pronouncing English words which contained the letter AuiAy.
The other students had an error in pronouncing the letter of English words same as they pronounced the letter in Indonesian language system.
For example the letter AueAy of the words AuEnglishAy.
AureplyAy.
AuprettyAy pronounced with /e/ by the students and the letter AuuiAy of the word AubuildAy pronounced with /ui/ instead of //.
It was also happened in another English short vowel sound.
In the /O/ sound, the letter AuoAy of the word AuwolfAy pronounced as /e/.
In the /o/ sound, the letter AueAy of the word AumiseryAy pronounced as /e/.
In the /y/ sound, the letter AueAy of the word AuabsentAy pronounced as /e/.
In the /U/ sound, the letter AuoAy of the word AumonthAy pronounced as /e/.
In the /e/ sound, the letter AuaAy of the word AuwatchAy pronounced as /U/.
This case was appeared in the research by Ramasari .
who found that the participants had an error in pronouncing the word AudataAy /deto/ as /data/.
It was happened because the students used Indonesian language system in pronouncing English words.
Furthermore, the other students tend to pronounce English short vowel sounds in English word by another word.
Some of them had an error in pronouncing the word AucouldAy as /keld/ instead of /kOd/.
However, the students should be pronounced as /keld/ for the word AucoldAy.
The same case was happened in another short vowel sounds.
In the /e/ sound, the word AueventAy mispronounced as /ivon/ for the word AuevenAy.
In the /e/ sound, the word AushotAy pronounced as /EOt/ for the word AushootAy.
Also, the students pronounced incorrectly the words AutodayAy /tode/.
AuheadAy /hed/, and AumonthAy /mUn/ as /tOde/, /hd/, and /mon/.
is inline with the research by Ababneh .
who found that the participants mispronounced the words AulateAy /let/ as /let/ which should be referred for the words AuletAy.
Harmer .
point out that the majority of students were still confused about where the sounds produced exactly.
On the other hand, most of the students produced the /U/ sound for the letter AuuAy in the words AubusyAy.
AupushAy.
AusuccessAy, and AusubmitAy as /bUs/, /pUE/, /sUkses/ English Ideas: Journal of English Language Education Vol.
October 2020 Copyright A 2020 English Ideas and /sUbmt/ which should be pronounced as /bz/, /pOE/, /sokses/, and /sobmt/.
This case was occured in the research by Purba et al .
which the participants pronounced the letter AuuAy in the words AubusyAy as the /U/ sound.
It was happened because the students overused the /U/ sound for the letter AuuAy in English Moreover, the English short vowel /y/ sound was the most difficult to be pronounced by the students.
Most of the students changed the /y/ sound with the /e/ sound.
In the /y/ sound, the students mispronounced the words AupassionAy /pyEon/.
AubadAy /byd/.
AuhappyAy /hyp/.
AucatAy /kyt/.
AubackAy /byk/.
AuabsentAy /ybsont/ and AufactAy /fyk/ as /peEon/, /bed/, /hep/, /ket/, /bek/, /ebsent/, and /fek/.
This problem was happened in the research by Kartyastuti .
who found that the participants pronounced incorrectly the word AuhadAy /hyd/ as /hed/.
It was happened because there is no /y/ sound in Indonesian language.
The unfamiliarity of the /y/ sound made the students produced the /e/ sound.
The Significant Sources of Error The researcher classified English words error based on four error sources by Richards .
as cited in Brown .
in order to know the source of According to the interview result, all of the students claimed that they never had English pronunciation material from their English teacher.
They stated that English teacher only taught them about vocabulary and grammar, gave some exercise in LKS and also practice in four English skills .
istening, reading, writing such as making text, and speaking such as storytellin.
Also, many students said that they only used English dictionary for learning part of speech and they never checked pronunciation in dictionary.
There was no pronunciation error found in recording of the students caused by context of learning and communication Thus, this research only focused on inter-lingual and intra-lingual The percentage of inter-lingual and intra-lingual transfer as the pronunciation error sources can be seen in the following table below:
Table 2.
The Percentage of Inter-lingual and Intra-lingual Source of Error Source of Error Words Error Short Vowel Error Frequency of Error Percentage of Error Inter-lingual Transfer English // Ie /e/ // Ie /e/ // Ie /e/ // Ie /u/ /O/ Ie /e/ /o/ Ie /e/ /y/ Ie /U/ /U/ Ie /e/ /e/ Ie /U/ /y/ Ie /e/ /y/ Ie /e/ /y/ Ie /e/ /y/ Ie /e/ /y/ Ie /e/ /y/ Ie /e/ /y/ Ie /e/ Intra-lingual Transfer /O/ Ie /e/ /e/ Ie /o/ /e/ Ie /O/ English Ideas: Journal of English Language Education Vol.
October 2020 Copyright A 2020 English Ideas /o/ Ie /O/ /e/ Ie // /U/ Ie /o/ // Ie /U/ /O/ Ie /U/ /o/ Ie /U/ /o/ Ie /U/ // Ie /a/ // Ie /a/ Inter-lingual transfer was occurred because of the first language Brown .
point out that interference is the process which involved previous language system into the present language.
In inter-lingual transfer, the students mispronounced English short vowel in the words AuEnglishAy.
AureplyAy.
AuprettyAy.
AubuildAy.
AuwolfAy.
AumiseryAy.
AuabsentAy.
AumonthAy, and AuwatchAy based on the way of those vowels were pronounced as its written same as in Indonesian language system.
This case was referred into inter-lingual transfer because the students still used Indonesian language system as their first language in pronouncing English short vowel sounds.
The other inter-lingual transfer case was replacing English short vowel sound of /y/ into /e/ such as in English words by the students.
Cahya .
said that this error was appeared because the students do not know about vowel sounds in English language.
The students changed the /y/ sound with /e/ sound because of the /y/ sound does not available in Indonesian language.
Thus, the students used the /e/ sound as the closest sound with the /y/ sound.
This case also referred into inter-lingual transfer because of Indonesian language as the studentsAo first language was involved in pronouncing English short vowel sounds.
Beside inter-lingual, intra-lingual transfer was appeared in this research as the source of error.
Intra-lingual transfer refers to the unsuccessful learning English language as the foreign language.
The English words AucouldAy.
AueventAy and AushotAy were pronounced incorrectly by the students.
They produced /keld/ for the word AucouldAy which should be referred for the word AucoldAy, produced /ivon/ for the word AueventAy which should be referred for the word AuevenAy, and produced /EOt/ for the word AushotAy which should be referred for the word AushootAy.
Purba et al .
said that this error was occurred because the students didnAot have the material about phonetic symbols yet.
They still confused how to pronounce English short vowel sounds in English words correctly.
The next source of error in intra-lingual transfer was overgeneralization.
Overgeneralization is the process of overusing particular rule incorrectly in target language (Brown, 2000:.
For example the letter AuoAy can be pronounced as O/ and /o/ sound such as in the words AuwolfAy /wOlf/ and AupersonAy /purson/.
This rule leaded the students overused O/ and /o/ sound for the letter AuoAy in English words.
According to the data gained from pronunciation test, most of the students mispronounced the letter AuoAy of the word AutodayAy as /O/ instead of /o/ sound and the letter AuoAy of the word AumonthAy as /o/ instead of /U/.
Furthermore, most of the students overused the rule about the letter AuuAy that can be pronounced as /U/ sound such as in the words AurunAy and AustuckAy.
In this research, the letter AuuAy in the words AubusyAy /bz/.
AupushAy /pOE/.
AusuccessAy /sokses/.
English Ideas: Journal of English Language Education Vol.
October 2020 Copyright A 2020 English Ideas and AusubmitAy /sobmt/ mispronounced by the the students as /U/.
Some of the students also had an error in pronouncing the letter AueaAy in the word AuheadAy because of overgeneralization the rule in pronouncing the word AuleadAy.
This case also was happened in the research conducted by Cahya .
who found that the participants pronounced incorrectly the word AustudentAy as /stUdont/ instead of /stOdont/ and the word AugreatAy as /grt/ instead of /gret/.
The other source of error in intra-lingual transfer was appeared because of spelling interference.
Most of the students pronounced the English words like they were spelled.
For example, they produced the /ai/ sound for the letter AuiAy in the words AuwindAy and AuliveAy instead of // sound.
The same case was happened in the research conducted by Jam et al .
They found the participants produced the /a/ sound for the letter AuiAy in the word hidden instead of // sound.
It was happened because of overgeneralization spelling rule in pronouncing English short vowel sounds.
CONCLUSION
Based on the discussion, it showed that the /y/ sound is the most frequent error in pronouncing English short vowel sounds made by the students with the The English short vowel /y/ sound was the most difficult to be pronounced by the students because there is no /y/ sound in Indonesian The unfamiliarity of the /y/ sound made the students replaced the /y/ sound with the /e/ sound.
Also, the researcher found that inter-lingual transfer is the significant source of error in pronouncing English short vowel sounds made by the students with the percentage 62.
Rather than intra-lingual transfer, inter-lingual transfer is the source of error that the most appeared because most of the students still tend to use Indonesian language system in pronouncing English Therefore, it can be concluded that the students who have been studying English for a long time even the most intelligent students had pronunciation error because they had never been taught pronunciation from their English teacher.
The researcher recommends the English teachers can give the students some explanation about where the sounds are made in learning pronunciation and its phonetic symbols even without specific pronunciation teaching in syllabus.
Also, the English teachers can give the students some corrections as feedback when the students had an error in pronouncing English language.
REFERENCES