The use of kids song to improve studentsAo pronunciation of dental sounds /y / // and palatoalveolar sounds /tE/ /de/ Fadillah Salwa Aurelita1.
Hery Yufrizal2.
Khairun Nisa3 Universitas Lampung.
Jl.
Prof.
Dr.
Soemantri Brojonegoro No.
Bandar Lampung 1,2,3 Correspondence e-mail: aurelitasalwa@gmail.
ABSTRACT
This study aimed to find out whether there was statiscally significant difference of the dental sounds // /y/ and palato-alveolar sounds /tE/ /de/ between the pre and the post tests after the implementation of kids song and and to find out whether there was a statiscally significant difference on studentsAo ability in pronouncing voiceless and voiced sounds of dental sounds // /y/ and palato-alveolar sounds /tE/ /de/.
This research was conducted at the first-grade students of MTs Darurrahman Perintis in the academic year 2022/2023 in the first semester.
Class VII A which consist of 20 students was the sample of this research.
This research was conducted through quantitative approuch by using one group pre-test post-test design.
Pronunciation test was used as the instrument of this research.
The data was taken from pretest and posttest in the form of scores from pronunciation tests that had been recorded and analyzed by using Paired Sample T-test.
The result presented that studentsAo mean score of pretest was 26.
24 and the mean score of posttest was 73.
Moreover, the improvement of studentsAo mean scores from pretest to posttest 88 and the p-value of significant level was 0.
000 which was lower than 0.
It proved that H1 is accepted that there was a statiscally significant difference of the dental sounds // /y/ and palato-alveolar sounds /tE/ /de/ between the pre and the post tests after the implementation of kids song.
Moreover, it also can be found that studentsAo ability in pronouncing voiceless and voiced sounds of dental sounds // /y/ and palato-alveolar sounds /tE/ /de/ at the significant level 0.
000 (<0.
both in voiceless sounds // /tE/ and voiced sounds /y/ /de/.
It also can be seen that the mean difference of voiceless sounds // /tE/ were greater than voiced sounds /y/ /de/ .
175>2.
Based on the results.
It can be inferred that the use of kids song is effective in teaching pronunciation of dental sounds // /y/ and palato-alveolar sounds /tE/ /de/.
Keywords: Kids song, teaching pronunciation, dental sounds, palato-alveolar sounds.
INTRODUCTION
English is an international language that is used by many people around the world to communicate, there are even some countries that use English as a second language and official language.
Pronunciation in English is very important to avoid miscommunication.
Pronunciation is the production of a sound that does not disturb the communication process (Paulston & Burder, 1.
It is about how to say a word.
When we are speaking in English, pronunciation is important because proper pronunciation is the key to mastering the English language.
Correct pronunciation makes the vocabulary we know will be more effective in communicating.
ThatAos why pronunciation is an important aspect in learning English.
There are only a few people that can pronounce English words well as foreign language.
While pronunciation has important role in our life because it shows our identity which refers to a particular group in society (Seidlhofer, 2.
Students need to know how to pronounce English word before studying other material.
Lacking in pronunciation makes people insecure and lazy to learn English as foreign language, even for middle school students and above.
Furthermore the sound inventory of our own language can differ from a language that we are learning.
Moeliono and Dardjowidjojo .
3: .
states that English sounds such as /y /, //, /E/, /tE/, /de/, and /e/ cannot be found in Indonesian language.
Meanwhile, mastery of English is very important for students as a provision to learn English for the next phase so that they are not left behind in the global competition later.
In this globalization era.
English is very important for everyone, especially for students.
English is an international language used in all countries to communicate with each other.
People also need to be able to speak up their message in English well so that the interlocutor can understand it.
In order to express the message well, we must be able to pronounce every word we say correctly so that the other person can understand what we are ThatAos why we need to teach how to pronounce English as foreign language properly to students.
It can built their confidence and makes them want to learn English continuously without feeling bored.
Song is a media that can make learning process seems fun.
Students can enjoy learning process because of its flexibility.
Song has important part in the development of languageAos pronunciation for It is very useful because it can help young learnersAo listening skills and pronunciation to be better, therefore it has a possibility to improve their speaking skills.
Songs which contains music has correlation to the language learning.
There are definite similarities between music and language: in expressing meaning, both use rhythm and pitch changes.
Music with sounds helps to produce excitement, overcome self-consciousness, and activate linguistic capacity (Laroy, 1.
Songs can help students learn to make new sounds in a unique and fun way and certainly free from boredom.
Murphey .
believes that music can be naturally remembered by the brain and songs can also be remembered by the brain in the long and short term so that songs can be used as a media in English learning.
There are some researchers conducted research related to song in improving young learnersAo A research that was conducted by Sumantri .
shows that using songs for the learning process is more effective and it can help students to improve their ability in English pronunciation.
In this study, the score of experimental class is higher than the score of controlled class so it can be concluded that using song in learning process gave a significant improvement in this study.
The researcher also stated that using song in teaching pronunciation makes the atmorphere more interesting, relax and Another related study was conducted by Riana .
, it shows that there was significant effect on studentsAo result after being taught by using English song.
Another finding on her study was word stress which is common difficulties on studentsAo pronunciation.
Moreover, the researcher also stated that the students are being active and more interested in teaching learning process.
Furthermore, since the previous studies shown that songs can help young learners improve their pronunciation, the researcher will try to conduct further research about the significant improvement of studentsAo pronunciation especially of dental sounds // /y/ and palato-alveolar sounds /tE/ /de/.
II.
METHODS
This research was conducted through quantitative method.
In order to collect the data, this research used the pre-test post-test design.
This research was conducted by using one class.
At the first meeting, the students are asked to do a pretest, the pretest was in form of pronunciation test by pronouncing some words that contains dental sounds // /y/ and palato-alveolar sounds /tE/ /de/.
In the next meeting, the students started to be given the treatment by using kids song.
The treatments were conducted three times.
Then, the students were given the post-test at the end of the treatment by pronouncing some words as in the pre-test to know whether studentAos pronunciation can improve or not by using kids song as the teaching media.
The population of this study was the first grade of junior high school in MTs Darurrahman which consist of 41 students from two class.
The researcher used one class (VII A) which had 20 students for this research and the researcher used simple random sampling in selecting the sample.
The data was U-JET.
Vol 12.
No 2, 2023 collected by using pronunciation test.
It was collected from pronunciation test by pronouncing the word lists then it was analyzed by using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS).
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Result After giving the treatment and collecting the data the results show on the table below.
Table 1.
Improvement of Each Sounds Gain of Mean of Mean of Percentage of Sounds Mean Pretest .
Posttest .
Gain Score // Voiceless Dental /y/ Voiced Dental /tE/ Voiceless Palato-Alveolar /de/ Voiced Palato-Alveolar All Sounds // /y/ /tE/ /de/ Based on the table 1, it showed that the gain of mean score of // voiceless dental sounds is 2.
/y/ voiced dental sounds is 2.
8, /tE/ voiceless palato-alveolar is 3.
625, /de/ voiced palato-alveolar is 2.
and for all sounds are 46.
It can be concluded that the gain of /tE/ voiceless palato-alveolar sound is 625 improved statiscally than the other sounds.
It means that kids song can make significant difference on studentsAo pronunciation of dental sounds // /y/ and palato-alveolar sounds /tE/ /de/.
Moreover, paired sample t-test was used to prove this result.
It can be seen in the following table.
Hypotheses were analyzed by using Paired Sample T-test of Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 22 in order to know the improvement of studentsAo pronunciation after they have been taught by using kids song.
The basis for taking the decision to accept or reject H0 in this test is as follows.
If T-value > T-table and probability (Asymp.
Si.
< 0.
05, then H0 is rejected and H1 is accepted.
If T-value < T-table and probability (Asymp.
Si.
> 0.
05, then H0 is accepted and H1 is rejected.
U-JET.
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No 2, 2023 Table 2.
The Hypothesis of Paired Samples T-test Paired Samples Test Paired Differences Pair 1 Pretest Ae Posttest 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference Mean Std.
Deviatio Std.
Error Mean Lower Upper Sig.
Table 2 proved that that H1 is accepted while H0 is rejected.
It showed that the mean difference of studentsAo pronunciation scores in the pretest and posttest is 46.
It shows that studentsAo pronunciation of dental sounds // /y/ and palato-alveolar sounds /tE/ /de/ improved after being taught by using kids Furthermore, the table shows the significant level of the difference is 0.
000 which is lower than It means that studentsAo pronunciation ability improved significantly.
Table 3.
The Comparison of Voiceless Sounds // /tE/ Paired Samples Test Paired Differences Pair 1 pretest posttest 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference Mean Std.
Deviation Std.
Error Mean Lower Upper Sig.
Table 3 compared the mean difference of studentsAo pronunciation of voiceless sounds of dental // and palato-alveolar /tE/ in the pretest and posttest which is 3.
It shows that studentsAo pronunciation of all the voiceless sounds improved after being taught by using kids song.
Furthermore, the table shows the significant level of the difference is 0.
000 which is lower than 0.
It means that studentsAo pronunciation ability of all the voiceless sounds improved significantly.
Table 4.
The Comparison of Voiced Sounds /y/ /de/ Paired Samples Test Paired Differences Pair 1 pretest Ae 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference Mean Std.
Deviation Std.
Error Mean Lower Upper Sig.
U-JET.
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No 2, 2023 Table 4 compared the mean difference of studentsAo pronunciation of voiced sounds of dental /y/ and palato-alveolar /de/ in the pretest and posttest which is 2.
It shows that studentsAo pronunciation of all the voiced sounds improved after being taught by using kids song.
Furthermore, the table shows the significant level of the difference is 0.
000 which is lower than 0.
It means that studentsAo pronunciation ability of all the voiced sounds improved significantly.
Discussion Discussion on Finding 1 The result of this research conveyed that the use of kids song can improve dental sounds // /y/ and palato-alveolar sounds /tE/ /de/, which answers the first research question.
It can be found from the comparison between the students pretest .
and posttest .
scores in appendix 13.
From table 5, it can be seen that the mean difference of studentsAo pronunciation scores in the pretest and posttest is 87 out of 20 students.
It showed that all of the studentsAo scores increased from the pretest to the Moreover, in order to find out whether there is a significant difference in studentsAo pronunciation of dental sounds // /y/ and palato-alveolar sounds /tE/ /de/ after being taught by using kids song, the researcher had tested the significant level of pretest and posttest.
It can be seen in table 4.
4 which showed that the significant level of studentsAo improvement is 0.
000 which is lower than 0.
Therefore.
H1 is accepted that there is an improvement on studentsAo pronunciation of dental sounds // /y/ and palatoalveolar sounds /tE/ /de/ after they have been taught by using kids song.
It proved that English songs help students to improve their pronunciation ability significantly.
StudentsAo pronunciation improvement indicated by the way they pronounced the words.
The students made improvement on their pronunciation which is being more appropriate, clearer and closed to how native speakerAos sounds.
From the recording of pretest, most of the students made wrong pronunciation and it sounds so far from how the sounds should be pronounced.
The wrong pronunciation affected the meaning of the word such as the words author-other, ether-either, larch-large, rich-ridge.
However, students made signficant improvement in pronouncing dental sounds // /y/ and palato-alveolar sounds /tE/ /de/ after been taught by using kids song and also in posttest.
It proved by studentsAo pronunciation which became clearer and closed to the correct The students can identify the dental sounds // /y/ and palato-alveolar sounds /tE/ /de/ and pronounce it correctly.
Related to the theories of kids song which has been discussed on chapter II, kids song can improve studentsAo pronunciation of dental sounds // /y/ and palato-alveolar sounds /tE/ /de/ significantly because students can practice directly how to pronounce words in English and practice their speaking skills using songs without any burden because it is fun to learn.
Using kids song in teaching English is one of audiolingual method.
One of the basic psychological assumptions about audiolingual method in teaching foreign language according to Dako .
is that language skills are learned more effectively when the items foreign language is given orally before the written form.
Using song to teach English and improving pronunciation of dental sounds // /y/ and palatoalveolar sounds /tE/ /de/ is a fun method for teacher and student because its flexibility in teaching-learning activity which can make the situation more enjoyable, fun and comfortable.
Murphey .
also stated that music has the potential to change the atmosphere in a classroom.
The use of songs in English teaching is one of the unique and interesting media.
Songs make learning more fun and relaxing.
Students can practice directly how to pronounce words in English and practice their speaking skills using songs without any burden because it is fun to learn.
Previous studies have shown that music can help learner in U-JET.
Vol 12.
No 2, 2023 learning activity which improves memory, increases concentration, makes learning English more fun, reduces stress, increases a sense of community to a group and increases motivation (Farmand & Pourgharib, 2.
Researchs conducted by Yustiana .
Sumantri .
and Riana .
also proved that song can significantly improve studentsAo pronunciation.
The findings of this research is correlate with KhairunisaAos .
findings, it showed that there is improvement on studentsAo pronunciation after being taught by English songs which improved at 25.
and were signifcantly different at a level of 0.
01 (<0.
It also proved that students score in posttest is higher than their scores in pretest.
Another findings that correlate with this research is from RianaAos .
findings, it was found that using English song as teaching media has significant effect on studentsAo pronunciation achievement.
It proved by the t-observed value was higher than t-table in which t-observed > t-table, 3,80 > 2,00 at level of significant 0,05.
The implementation of English kids song as a media for teaching pronunciation proved that it to makes environment more relax and it also help students more enjoy in the learning process.
It also in line with Endraswara .
who stated that kids song is kind of song that are cheerful and reflect good noble ethics for students.
Based on the discussion above, it can be said that there is an improvement on studentsAo pronunciation of dental sounds // /y/ and palato-alveolar sounds /tE/ /de/ after they have been taught by using kids song.
Discussion on Finding 2 The next result of this research conveyed that there is significant difference on studentsAo ability in pronouncing voiceless and voiced sounds of dental sounds // /y/ and palato-alveolar sounds /tE/ /de/, which answers the second research question.
It can be found that the comparison between the mean difference of voiceless sounds // /tE/ in table 4.
9 is 3.
175 and voiced sounds /y/ /de/ in table 4.
10 is From the tables, it can be seen that the mean difference of studentsAo pronunciation of voiceless sounds // /tE/ is greater than voiced sounds /y/ /de/ .
175>2.
Yet, it also showed that all of the studentsAo scores increased from the pretest to the posttest out of four sounds, both including voiceless and voiced sounds that have been investigated in this research.
oiceless sounds // /tE/ & voiced sounds /y/ /de/).
Moreover, in order to find out whether there is any significant difference on studentsAo ability in pronouncing voiceless and voiced sounds of dental sounds // /y/ and palato-alveolar sounds /tE/ /de/, the researcher had tested the significant level of voiceless and voiced sounds in pretest and posttest.
It can be seen in table 4.
9 which showed that the significant level of studentsAo improvement in pronouncing voiceless sounds // /tE/ is 0.
000 which is lower than 0.
In table 4.
10, it can be seen that the significant level of studentsAo improvement in pronouncing voiced sounds /y/ /de/ is 0.
000 which is lower than 0.
Moreover, both tables proved that the mean difference of studentsAo pronunciation of voiceless sounds // /tE/ is greater than voiced sounds /y/ /de/ .
175>2.
Therefore.
H2 is accepted that there is significant difference on studentsAo ability in pronouncing voiceless and voiced sounds of dental sounds // /y/ and palato-alveolar sounds /tE/ /de/.
It proved that English songs also help students to improve them in pronouncing every sounds that have been investigated in this research, especially voiceless sounds // /tE/ that has highest mean difference.
Based on the result, it can be seen that there is significant difference on studentsAo ability in pronouncing voiceless and voiced sounds of dental sounds // /y/ and palato-alveolar sounds /tE/ /de/ U-JET.
Vol 12.
No 2, 2023 which show that studentsAo ability in pronouncing voiceless sounds (//, /tE/) were better than voiced sounds (/y/, /de/).
Students felt quite hard to produce voiced sounds because voiced sounds required vibration in the vocal cords.
Zhao .
stated that voiced dental sound /y/ production involves vocal fold vibration as well as air turbulence through the vocal tract constriction formed by the tongue between the upper and lower teeth or the tongue behind the back of the upper teeth.
Moreover, voiced dental sound /y/ is extremely difficult to determine the exact nature of the initial sound because it is generally unstressed and usually spoken quickly.
Meanwhile in contrast, the voiceless dental sound // is characterised by relatively non-intense, diffuse energy lasting for about 188 ms (Moorthy & Deterding.
A nonstrident fricative such as // tends to have little overall energy, and the energy it does have is generally diffuse across the spectrum (Kent & Read 1992:.
Smith .
also stated that because of the voiced phoneme /y/ appears word-initially in function words and word-finally in verbs .
here the voiceless phoneme // does not appea.
, so it is difficult to create psycholinguistic tasks in which the salience of the contrast can be measured.
For the voiced palato-alveolar sound //.
Sulistyorini & Wibowo .
stated that students did error in pronouncing English palato alveolar sound // became sounds //, /d/, /c/, /g/, /j/, and /t/, because they were distracted by the distractor which is orthographic writing.
Another reason is because the sound // does not exist in Indonesian so that many of the students substituted the sound // with the sound /j/ which exists in both English and Indonesian, therefore their tongue used to pronounce the sound.
Hadroh .
conducted research which showed that students ability in pronouncing voiceless palato-alveolar sound // were better than voiced palato-alveolar sounds //.
Students should read the Hijaiyah A Aletters as that is the pronunciation of "gy" //, but the students pronounce as "g" consonant in Indonesian transcript still read "gAy.
Then it is an analysis of the "ght" pronunciation, which there is no consonant form or symbol since most "ght" is at the word end.
Only most of the students pronounce, such as pronouncing the word "k" or sometimes like reciting the word "tAy.
According to Utami .
, most Indonesian speakers are confused with voiced palato-alveolar sound /de/ since it is not found in Indonesian phonetic system.
Students should pay attention to this specific sound production in order to make this particular sound appropriate.
Linguistically, students may find it easier to produce voiceless sounds because they are produced without the vibration of the vocal cords, which makes them easier to distinguish and produce accurately.
Voiced sounds, on the other hand, require the vocal cords to vibrate, which can be more challenging for learners to control and coordinate with the other articulators involved in producing the sound.
Additionally, some languages may not have voiced sounds, making them unfamiliar to learners and more difficult to acquire.
StudentsAo pronunciation improvement indicated by the way they identified each sounds, classified each sounds, analysed each sounds, found the differentiation of each sounds and pronounced the words of each sounds.
The students made improvement of each sounds on their pronunciation which is being more appropriate, clearer and closed to how native speakerAos sounds.
Most of the students made wrong pronunciation in the pretest and they also can not differentiate each sounds.
Most of their pronounciation of minimal pairs of voiceless and voice sounds were sound the same, such as the words think-this, ethereither, larch-large.
Meanwhile, those pair words should be pronounced differently because those words were pair of voiceless and voiced sounds and the wrong pronunciation affected the meaning of the word.
However, students made signficant improvement in posttest in pronouncing voiceless // /tE/ and voiced sounds /y/ /de/ after been taught by using kids song.
It proved by studentsAo differentiate each sounds and U-JET.
Vol 12.
No 2, 2023 their pronunciation of each sounds became clearer and closed to the correct sounds.
The students also can identify, classify, differentiate and analyse the voiceless // /tE/ and voiced sounds /y/ /de/.
The findings of this research is correlate with the research conducted by Juliardi .
where the findings showed that the most pronunciation errors were in the voiced dental fricative sound /y/, where there were 278 errors out of 300 words .
67%).
He also found that participants tended to replace dental fricative consonants to alveolar stop /d/ and /t/ which was the closest equivalent of the consonants in Bahasa Indonesia.
He concluded that it happened because dental fricative sounds are not found in Indonesia and the students have problem in pronouncing dental fricative sounds because they were confused to distinguished among //, /y/, /t/ and /d/.
This confusion happened because the students are unaware of incorrect pronunciation of the dental fricativ in English words.
From Metruk .
findings, it also can be seen that students were better in pronouncing voiceless sounds rather that voiced sounds.
It showed that 17 participants .
%) mispronounced consonant //, and half of them .
mispronounced consonant /y/.
Next related research is from Anggraini .
which focused on unfamiliar sounds /y/, //, /E/, /e /, /tE/, /de/.
For the dental sounds // /y/, the result showed the percentage correct of pronunciation of both voiceless and voiced were 54.
For the palato-alveolar sounds /tE/ /de/, the result presented the percentage of correct pronunciation of voiceless sound /tE/ is 45%, while the percentage of correct pronunciation of voiced sound /de/ is 15%.
It means studentsAo has equal ability in pronouncing dental sounds of voiceless // voiced sounds /y/ .
29%=54.
29%).
Moreover, studentsAo ability in pronouncing palato-alveolar sounds was better at voiceless sound /tE/ rather than voiced sound/de/ .
%>15%).
Another findings that correlate with this research is from MeltiaAos .
findings that focused on palato-alveolar sounds /tE/ /de/, it showed that most of the students were more able to pronounce voiceless sound /tE/ rather than voiced sound /de/.
It showed that with singing performance, there were 8 students that pronounced three correct words of voiceless palato-alveolar /tE/ which were check, future and Meanwhile, there were 8 students that pronounced only one correct words of voiced palatoalveolar /de/ which was general.
It means that studentsAo ability in pronouncing voiceless sound /tE/ was better than voiced sound /de/.
A research conducted by Irfan .
showed that the lowest frequency of studentsAo correct pronunciation was in coda position of voiced dental fricative.
Result found out by Utami .
also in line with this research which showed that there are nineteen kinds of deviation of fricative and affricate sounds including the substitution of those particular sounds in all of the three positions and elision of sound that solely occurred in the pronunciation of // sound.
She concluded that there are five factors affect pronunciation difficulties.
Those are L1 interference, amount of language learning.
English habits, phonological background knowledge, and motivation.
She also stated that most Indonesian speakers are confused with voiced palato-alveolar sound /de/ since it is not found in Indonesian phonetic system.
Students should pay attention to this specific sound production in order to make this particular sound Based on the discussion above, it can be found that majority of studentsAo ability in pronouncing voiceless sound are better than voiced sound.
Moreover, it can be said that there is any significant difference on studentsAo ability in pronouncing voiceless and voiced sounds of dental sounds // /y/ and palato-alveolar sounds /tE/ /de/.
It also proved in this research that the mean difference of studentsAo pronunciation of voiceless sounds // /tE/ is greater than voiced sounds /y/ /de/ .
175>2.
U-JET.
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No 2, 2023 IV.
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
Conclusions This research is aimed to find out whether there is any improvement on studentsAo pronunciation of dental sounds // /y/ and palato-alveolar sounds /tE/ /de/ after they have been taught by using kids song and to investigate there is any significant difference on studentsAo ability in pronouncing voiceless and voiced sounds of dental sounds // /y/ and palato-alveolar sounds /tE/ /de/.
Based on the result and discussion, it can be concluded as follows:
There is an improvement on studentsAo pronunciation of dental sounds // /y/ and palato-alveolar sounds /tE/ /de/ after they have been taught by using kids song with a significant level 0.
(<0.
and the improvement is 46.
It can be concluded that the use of kids song can improve studentsAo pronunciation of dental sounds // /y/ and palato-alveolar sounds /tE/ /de/.
There is a significant difference on studentsAo ability in pronouncing voiceless and voiced sounds of dental sounds // /y/ and palato-alveolar sounds /tE/ /de/, with significant level 0.
000 (<0.
both in voiceless sounds // /tE/ and voiced sounds /y/ /de/.
It also can be found that the mean difference of voiceless sounds // /tE/ were greater than voiced sounds /y/ /de/ .
175>2.
Suggestions In line with this research about the use of kids song to improve studentsAo pronunciation of dental sounds // /y/ and palato-alveolar sounds /tE/ /de/, the researcher would like to propose some suggestions as follows:
For the English Teacher .
Teacher is suggested to make sure that the learning atmosphere is not noisy and relaxed because students need to listen to the song carefully so that they can pay attention to how to pronounce the words correctly and clearly.
Besides playing the songs, it is better for teachers to show examples of how to produce the sounds correctly to the students, teachers can also add movements while singing so students do not feel bored during the teaching-learning process.
Teacher is suggested choose the songs that make students interested and enthusiastic in the teaching-learning activities.
For the Future Researcher .
It is suggested for the future researcher to make sure that when collecting the data the classroom atmosphere is tranquil so that studentsAo pronunciation can be heard clearly in recording and easier to analyze.
It is better for the future researcehr to find studentsAo problem or difficulties in pronouncing English language such as their anxiety, motivation, interference native language, etc.
REFERENCES