Sample of good assignment

FAKULTI PENDIDIKAN DAN BAHASA

HBEL1203
ENGLISH PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY

SEMESTER MAY 2012

Phonetic symbol of the word

/p/
/b/
/t/
/d/
/k/
/g/
/f/
/v/
//
//
/s/
/z/
/m/
/n/
//
/l/
/r/
/w/
/h/
/j/
//
//
/t/
/d/

Phonetic symbol of students

pronunciation

Pit /pt/

/pt/

Bit /bt/

/bt/

Time/tm/

/tm/

Door/d/

/d/

Cat /kat/

/kat/

Get /gt/

/gt/

Fan /fan/

/fan/

Van /van/

/fan/

Think /k/

//

That /at/

/dat/

Sue /soo/

/zoo/

Zip /zp/

/sp/

Man /man/

/man/

Nice /ns/

/nis/

Ring /r/

/ri/

Light /lt/

/rt/

Rat /rat/

/Rad/

Wet /wt/

/Wt/

Hat /hat/

/had/

Yet /jt/

/jt/

Shop /p/

/sp/

Leisure /l/

/leze/

Chop /tp/

/tp/

Jump /dmp/

/dm/

Phonetic symbol of the words

Phonetic symbol of students

pronunciation

//

Pit/pt/

/pt/

/e/

Pet/pet/

/pet/

//

Pat/pt/

/pt/

//

Pot/pt/

/pt/

//

Luck/lk/

/lk/

//

Good/gd/

/gd/

//

Ago/g/

/g/

/i/

heed/hid/

/hd/

//

Car/k/

/k/

//

Caught /kt/

/kt/

//

Girl/gl/

/gl/

/u/

hood/hud/

/hd/

/e/

Day /de/

/d/

//

Sky/sk/

/sk/

//

Boy/b/

/b/

//

Beer/b/

/bea/

/ea/

Bear/bea/

/bea/

//

Tour/t/

/t/

//

Go/g/

/g/

/a/

Cow/ka/

/ka/

Introduction

Language is a means of expressing ideas, thoughts, opinion, and feeling, or it can be

said that language is an instrument of communication and interaction used by human
being. In learning English that is taught in Malaysia as a foreign language, the students
should accomplish many language aspects such as language skill, components, and
functions. The division of language skills are reading, listening, speaking and
writing. Language

components

consist

of

vocabulary,

grammar,

and

pronunciation. Depdikbud (1999:33) states

The learning of

English

pronunciation, spelling

and

language skills

elements
idiom

is

namely
to

support

vocabulary,

grammar,

the

of

ability

in teaching and learningprocess.

elements that are difficult for the students

four

English
can

be

presented

separately in systematic way accordance with the theme which was being presented in
the class.
Many students find some problems in learning English especially in
pronouncing the words. It is reasonable, because the system of pronunciation used in
English are different from Malay language. In English, most of the words are not
pronounced as they are spelled. As Franklin and Rodman cited in Riman (2009:1) say
that grammar, consist of phonology that studies the sound system. In addition, Lado
cited in Riman (2009:1) says, The system of the sound used in English is different
from those used in Malay language, and their differences cause difficulties for students
in learning English.

These problems are due to the fact that some English sounds do not exist in Malay
language for examples, the sounds [ ], [ ], and [ ]. The ability to pronounce the
English words correctly is very important for the English users. There fore, the
pronunciation of English should be practiced by the students. As Robinet (1978:64)
stated in Sukmarini (2000:3) stated that one of the most important aspects of learning a
second language is the effort to master the sound systems, to pronounce the language. In
other words, the linguistic system of English is different from that our mother tongue.
It is very difficult for some students to pronounce English sounds appropriately and
correctly. Sounds can be very difficult for language learners too, also because of the
position they occupy in relation to other sounds in words or sentences. The different
will be difficult. For example, the words pain, some students pronounce it pain
with no change of the letter a. Therefore, to master the English sounds is not easy.
In viewing the above statements, saying that the English pronunciation is
difficult as it is, and one effort to help the students for learning English pronunciation is
the phonetic symbols. The writer is interested to use the phonetic symbols in teaching
pronunciation, because she referred to what Gerald (in Haviyanti, 2009:2) states that the
phonetic symbols are a great help when comes to learning to pronounce English words
correctly. Any time the students open a dictionary, he/she can find the correct
pronunciation of words he/she does not know before, by looking at the phonetic
symbols that follows the word, understanding of the phonetic symbols can greatly
simplify the learning process.
Another reason that most of the teaching of English does not start with phonetic
lessons, even though common sense suggest that good pronunciation and intonation
require persistent practice in listening, speaking, and reading aloud. Students in all
levels of education do not receive such practice. In addition that English has a
alphabetic system of writing, but its sounds and spelling are far from consistent and
regular.

The same combination of letters can have quite different pronunciations. For
example, ch in chair,
and [ ]. The
pronounce

andmachine are

pronounce

letter a in page,tall, dare, rabbit,

as [ ei ], [ ]. [ ], [],

respectively

and dilemma are,

and [ ]. The

as [ t ],

[k],

respectively,
combination

of oo in book and food have different pronunciations. The irregularity of sound

combinations makes the learning of phonetic symbols indispensable for ESL students.

The target of teaching and learning English is to enable students to communicate

in the language. It is expected that the students have ability in four language skills;
listening, speaking, reading and writing. All the language skills support one another.
There must be a balance among the skills. Each skill consists of three components; there
are grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation.
Speaking plays a crucial role in the language learning process. It is a productive
skill; that is, some product is expected. Compared to the listening and reading, which
are both receptive skills; students are passively receiving and processing information.
Speaking involves vocabulary, pronunciation as well as the structure and rules of
grammar. Pronunciation can be defined as the way in which a person sounds the words
of a language while speaking. The students of spoken English language or any other
spoken Language face the problems in the pronunciation of the particular language.
A form one student from public school have English subject three times a week,
and 60 minutes per class. He is a Chinese student so he mostly uses Cantonese in his
daily life.The teaching and learning activities cover four language skills; listening,
speaking, reading and writing. He pays full attention to the teacher and the lesson but he
still has some problems. One of the major problems his facing is pronunciation. He
tends to mispronounce the English vocabularies.

Findings
1. Vowels
The student has difficulty to pronounce all the vowel sounds in English clearly.
It is due to the difference of long vowels and short vowels. The student tends not to
make difference in long and short sounds.

In the recorded, the student mostly has problem to pronounce long vowels and
he tends to pronounce to short vowels. In example, the

/i:/sound in heed is a long

vowel sound but the student pronounce it as hid and change the vowel to /I/. Another
example is the word hoot. The

/u:/sound in hootis a long vowel and the student

change it to //. Thus, it makes it sound like hoodword.

heed

hid

/i:/

//

hoot

hood

/u:/

//

caught

cot

//

/kt/

2. Consonants
When pronouncing any vowel sounds or some consonant sounds, our vocal cords
should vibrate. The sounds that vibrate the vocal cords are known as voiced sounds.
The consonant sounds that do not vibrate our vocal cords are known as voiceless
sounds.
For the student, the main problem with English consonant sounds is how to say
voiced consonant and make them different to voiceless consonants. This problem is
because the consonants in Cantonese are voiceless. One example that can show this
problem is when the student tried to pronounce
sound in van is voiced sound and he changed it to

vanbut

change it to

/f/voiceless sound.

van

fan

/v/

/f/

(voiced)

(voiceless)

sue

zoo

/s/

/z/

(voiced)

(voiceless)

that

dad

//

/d/

(voiced)

(voiceless)

vet

wet

/v/

/w/

(voiced)

(voiceless)

fan. The /v/

The student also has problem to differentiate /l/with /r/. He tends to change /l/ to
/r/. For example, he pronounced rightinstead of lightthus it change the meaning of the word.

light

right

/l/

/r/

The usage of /s/as in seeinstead of / /as inshecan sometimes cause problem. In

making of /s/, only the tip of the tongue is raised and almost touches the roof of the
mouth just above the upper teeth, but in making / /, not only the tip but the whole
front portion of the tongue is raised.

she

see

/ /

/s/

Problem Solving

These are few suggestions on how to prevent the problem mispronounce to occur again:

1. Use a Standard English dictionary to check its pronunciation because the

dictionary always includes the pronunciation phonetically of each entry of the
word.

2. Learn to recognize the differences between some English sounds and some
Cantonese sounds.

3. Take notice the articulary organs move when pronouncing words. Then practice
moving the jaw, lips, tongue etc. as correctly as possible according to the word.

4. Teachers can use Drill Method in class to improve the student ability to
pronounce. The teachers ask the student to repeat the words they say after them.
It is useful because the student learnt to pronounce correctly from a model.

Conclusion
Pronunciation problem occur when speaking a second language because
the student used to hearing and making sounds in his mother tongue.
There are many sounds in Cantonese and English that are similar. Some
however, are only partially similar and others are totally different. The student
always got confused with the sounds and it is easily makes mistakes. The
student should be more aware of how sounds in a different language are made
and practice listening to them and the try to pronounce the as much as possible.