Pronunciation Difficulties Research Articles

The Learning of Arabic Alphabets for Special Needs Students in Elementary School

This research was motivated by the learning of Arabic letters in students with special needs as a basic stage of learning Arabic and the Qur’an. This study aimed to describe the learning of Arabic letters in students with special needs in elementary school Campurdarat Tulungagung East Java Indonesia.This type of research was descriptive qualitative. Data collection techniques by interview, observation, and documentation. Sources of data in this study were principals, teachers, students with special needs, and documents. The results of this study were descriptions of the learning of Arabic letters for students with special needs in elementary schools. (1) Learning planning included promissory notes, syllabus, and lesson plans like schools in general. (2) The implementation of learning included teaching materials with Islamic handbooks while learning methods included alphabetical methods, demonstrations, recitation, and lectures dominated by sign language, while the learning media included cards and Juz ‘Amma. (3) Evaluation of learning included evaluation of processes and results that show students with special abilities can identify Arabic letters, but difficulties in pronunciation.

DIFFICULTIES FACED BY MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS IN ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION

Pronunciation for students is one of the important parts in learning English. The students often find a problem with pronunciation when they speak, read, or listen in English word. They still have poor pronunciation. It can be seen in the daily teaching and learning process, especially in speaking class. It is difficult for the students to pronounce English words. The problem was most of the student’s pronunciation was likely to be influenced by their first language., in this case, madurase language. This research aims to investigates two problems which become the main discussion of this research. The first is to describe students difficulties in English pronunciation and to know the solution of students difficulties in English pronunciation. This research is qualitative research by using descriptive case study. The participant of this research are students in first grade of SMP Negeri 2 Kedungdung. the data were collected by using observation and some interview between the researcher and students, and also the researcher and the teacher. The result of this research showed that the word difficult to pronunciation by students is “wanted” and “remembers”. All of the students make mispronunciation in “wanted” and 16 students make mispronunciation in “remembers” word. The factors students difficult to pronounce English word is the different between lettering and pronouncing, English in not their mother tongue, and the students did not practice English in their daily activity. The possible solution from the researcher to resolve the students difficulties in English pronunciation: the teacher can give motivation to the students about English is interesting to study, the students can listening English music and practice it, and the teacher make strategies to teach English lessons that make students interesting to study.

Effect of Hyaluronic Acid Filler Injection on the Interdental Papilla in a Mouse Model of Open Gingival Embrasure.

The black triangle resulting from interdental papilla (IDP) loss is associated with poor aesthetics and difficulty in pronunciation and food impaction. There is limited knowledge of gingival tissue inflammatory response to hyaluronic acid (HA) filler injection, a minimally invasive IDP reconstruction method. This study aimed to examine the morphological and histological changes in IDP and the inflammatory cytokine localization to the IDP post-HA filler injection using an open gingival embrasure (OGE) mouse model. Mice from the control, sham, and OGE groups were attached with reference, inactive, and activated wires for 5 days, respectively. The degree of IDP loss was determined based on the spring-papilla distance (SPD). Morphological and histological changes in the OGE group injected with phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) or HA fillers were examined on days 2 and 7 post-injection. Immunohistochemical analysis was performed to determine the localization patterns of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-6, myeloperoxidase (MPO), and Ki67. Five days post-wire attachment, the control and OGE groups exhibited a significantly higher SPD than the sham group (p < 0.0167). The SPD of the HA filler injection group was significantly lower than that of the PBS injection group on days 2, 4, and 7 post-injection (p < 0.05). The IDP of the OGE group was wide and flat. HA filler was stable in the connective tissue underlying the epithelial tissue even on day 7 post-injection. TNF-α, IL-1β, IL-6, MPO, and Ki67 were highly localized to the connective tissue surrounding the filler on day 2, which decreased on day 7 post-injection. Thus, HA filler can safely and successfully reconstruct the IDP in cases of OGE.

The psychological perception of the glass menagerie from author’s perspective: Critical perception and view

This study aims to investigate the pronunciation mistakes in English in accordance with the phonetic study of voiceless and voiced inter-dental fricatives [θ], [ð] and alveolar liquid [r] sounds among Chinese learners of English at University Utara Malaysia (UUM). In order to find out non-native English leaner pronunciation errors, these errors reflect the interference of different sound systems on English pronunciation. Speech samples of the subjects’ pronunciation were taken through words in terms of [θ], [ð] and [r] sounds. Data was collected by contracting survey through structure; six Chinese students were selected by using non-probability convenient sampling technique. Using a reading 30 wordlist worksheets as the instrument of this research, the respondents’ pronunciation was observed and assessed by using native/ phonetics expert speaker and also ensured by the evaluation form. In addition, data of this study was analysed by SPSS (22 version) software package. Data was collected and analysed with the guidance of phonemic transcription of Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary. Using different pronunciation analysis, potential difficulties of English pronunciation for the three subjects were listed by comparing the sound systems of English among Chinese learners. Moreover, the pronunciation errors of subjects were diagnosed into categories based on Error Analysis. The findings would help to provide a clear understanding of the common characteristics of pronunciation errors made by the subjects. Finally, some recommendations have been proposed to overcome the pronunciation difficulties of non-native English learners.

THE SIGNIFICANT FEATURES OF PRONUNCIATION IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

This article deals with the issue of the features of pronunciation in teaching English specifically on the pronunciation difficulties of Uzbek learners. An important aspect in learning a particular language is pronunciation. Based on the explanatory Dictionary of Contemporary English Longman, pronunciation is a particular person’s way of pronouncing a word or words. In English language, there are not one-to-one correspondence between the letters of the alphabet and the sounds they represent. It is the aptness in pronunciation that makes our language comprehensible to others. Therefore, apart from grammar and spelling, one has to concentrate on pronunciation as well. There are some problems for foreign learners like age and perception as well. Very often students mispronounce the words, distort the pronunciation because they are not involved into the conscious approach of practicing sounds, words and sentences, instead, they are simply made to parrot out sounds and words without realizing what they are doing. In fact, training English pronunciation is necessary from the very beginning of learning a foreign language. Otherwise, it will be quite difficult to correct and make up for the fixed errors. Everyone faced the problem of pronunciation in the initial stages of language learning. It is important from the beginning of training to master sound speech, to learn how to pronounce sounds like native speakers do. In addition, the article considers the problem of interference and notes the most typical mistakes made by Uzbek learners when pronouncing English vowels and consonants. The goal of this article is mainly aimed at teaching and mastering the simplest and easiest ways of correct pronunciation of the studied language.

The The Influence of Semendenese South Sumatra Dialect (SSSD) Towards Students’ English Pronunciation

In the process of acquiring L2, most of the students usually face many difficulties in pronunciation. One of the problems is L1 transfer. Therefore, the objectives of this study is to explain the influence of Semendenese South Sumatra dialect (SSSD) towards students’ English pronunciation of English vowels, consonants, diphthongs, consonant clusters, to explain the effort of the teacher in developing of the student’s pronunciation. This study used descriptive qualitative research. The results of this study can be concluded that SSSD gives positive transfer on the final vowel sound [ǝ]. Since this vowel sound existed in SSSD in words were frequently produced on final position. Moreover, SSSD did not strongly give positive transfer on students’ pronunciation of English vowels [ɪ], [ʌ], [ʊ], [e], [ɒ], consonants [p], [b], [t], [d], [z], [k], [g], [f], [h], [s], [m], [n], [ŋ], [l], [r], [w], [j], final diphthong sounds [ɔɪ] and [aʊ], and consonant clusters [st], [pr], [str], and [spr]. Moreover, SSSD did not strongly give negative transfer on the substitutions of long vowel sounds [i:], [ɜ:], [ɑ:], [u:], [ɔ:], and [æ] into short vowel sounds [ɪ], [ǝ], [ʌ], [ʊ], [ɒ], [e], consonant sounds [tʃ], [dӡ], [v], [ɵ], [ð], [ʃ], [ӡ] into sounds [t], [j], [p], [f], [d], [z], and diphthong sounds [iǝ], [eǝ], [ʊǝ], [eɪ], [ǝʊ]. It occurred not only because of these sounds did not exist in SSSD sound system, but it was also influenced by spelling interference from L1 and lack of pronunciation training. Last, the effort of teacher in developing students’ pronunciation was still lack and had to be improved.

The Effect of Local Arabic Dialects on Learning English Language Pronunciation

Due to the variety of their local dialects and accents, Arab learners occasionally face some problems when pronouncing English letters and phonemes. These pronunciation errors are caused by the influence of native language interference. Each language in any part of the world has its linguistic characteristics and rules that control their pronunciation and even word-formation process, which distinguishes them from those of other nations. Modern linguists described this phenomenon as verbal behaviors because, by the end of a special stage of a child’s growth, it becomes as constant customs. As a consequence, generations inherit these verbal qualities from their ancient without having any choices to make a linguistic formation in particular. As they work to develop their English language fluency, Arabic ESL students, for instance, face several pronunciation difficulties such as adding or replacing new phonemes that do not exist in the target language. The linguistic differences between Arabic and English usually have a crucial impact on how simply a learner can study to form the English letter sounds.

Language Cognition and Pronunciation Training Using Applications

In language learning, adults seem to be superior in their ability to memorize knowledge of new languages and have better learning strategies, experiences, and intelligence to be able to integrate new knowledge. However, unless one learns pronunciation in childhood, it is almost impossible to reach a native-level accent. In this research, we take the difficulties of learning tonal pronunciation in Mandarin as an example and analyze the difficulties of tone learning and the deficiencies of general learning methods using the cognitive load theory. With the tasks designed commensurate with the learner’s perception ability based on perception experiments and small-step learning, the perception training app is more effective for improving the tone pronunciation ability compared to existing apps with voice analysis function. Furthermore, the learning effect was greatly improved by optimizing the app interface and operation procedures. However, as a result of the combination of pronunciation practice and perception training, pronunciation practice with insufficient feedback could lead to pronunciation errors. Therefore, we also studied pronunciation practice using machine learning and aimed to train the model for the pronunciation task design instead of classification. We used voices designed as training data and trained a model for pronunciation training, and demonstrated that supporting pronunciation practice with machine learning is practicable.

Designing Phonetic Alphabets for Bahasa Indonesia (PABI) for the teaching of intelligible English pronunciation in Indonesia

The sociolinguistic development of English has placed a greater emphasis on intelligibility as the ultimate goal of pronunciation instruction. However, various studies have indicated that English pronunciation of Indonesian English learners was not satisfactory due to difficulties in learning English pronunciation and lack of emphasis given to the teaching of English pronunciation in English classrooms in Indonesia. In this paper we propose the development of Phonetic Alphabets for Bahasa Indonesia (PABI). This practical instrument allows English teachers and students in Indonesia to transcribe the pronunciations of English words into phonetic transcription with locally-appropriate readability and accessibility without compromising the pronunciation intelligibility. The development of PABI started with contrastive analysis of common phonemes in the two languages, i.e., English and Bahasa Indonesia (BI). Next, we identified the English phonemes missing in Bahasa Indonesia which English learners in Indonesia have to conceptualise. We then located those English sound ‘pairs’ which seem identical to Indonesians and are thus used interchangeably in BI. A corpus of 30,000 commonly used English words was transcribed in PABI using a computer software IPA to L1PA developed by Rahman and Bhattacharya (2020). Proposals to modify the IPA to suit the BI sound system entailed the adjustments in the consonant phonemes, vowel phonemes, and cluster sounds. These adjustments are expected to improve the readability and accessibility of the conventional IPA in facilitating the teaching and learning of intelligible English pronunciation in Indonesia. Practical uses of the PABI guidelines are drawn to improve its utility. Implications for the development of context sensitive and locally-appropriate pronunciation teaching and learning are drawn based on the findings.

Pronunciation Pedagogy and Intelligibility Issues in Language Acquisition

Language teachers’ knowledge of pronunciation pedagogy affects their classroom practice. The study sought to find out language approaches used to teach pronunciation and to establish how teachers’ mastery of pronunciation facilitate the acquisition of sounds by learners. The findings revealed that teachers of English had challenges when teaching pronunciation hindering mastery of English sounds by learners. Some of their pronunciation was not comprehensible distorting meaning. They used imitation, phonetic transcriptions, minimal pair drills and sentence drills to teach pronunciation. It was established that some of them had pronunciation difficulties affecting the intelligibility or comprehensibility of what they were communicating about. Learners do not have to achieve native like pronunciation but they should surpass the threshold level to ensure that their pronunciation does not distort the meaning of what they communicate. When a teacher who is meant to be a role model and source of input for learners uses incomprehensible pronunciation distorting meaning, it is a significant setback to English Language Teaching (ELT). There is need to reassess policies concerning who should be trained to teach English as a Second Language.

Diagnosing Saudi Students' English Consonant Pronunciation Errors

Diagnosing the pronunciation difficulties second language (L2) learners encounter assists in identifying their training needs. Since a clearer profile of Arab students' English pronunciation difficulties is yet to be reached, this study tried to identify which English consonant sounds and clusters Saudi English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) students have difficulty in pronouncing, and examine how students' language proficiency levels may influence their English consonant pronunciation performance. Forty Saudi female university students with two different English proficiency levels (lower-intermediate versus intermediate) took part in the study (20 students in each group). They completed a 4-section productive pronunciation test diagnosing their errors in pronouncing problematic consonant sounds and clusters in varied word positions. The data analysis showed that the participants' highest error percentages were in pronouncing: /ʒ/, /ŋ/, /p/, /ɹ/ and/ʧ/; /t/ and /d/ of the regular past morpheme -ed; and the 4- and 3-consonant clusters. It was also found that the lower-intermediate level students made more errors than the intermediate ones in pronouncing the majority of the consonant sounds and clusters, and that the variance between their errors is generally higher in the word-initial positions than the word-medial and -final ones. The study indicates that the consonants in the word-initial and -final positions are likely to cause more pronunciations difficulties than the ones in the word-medial position.

Impacts of supra-segmental phonemes in learning Speaking in English as a foreign language: A Case Study at faculty of education - Kordofan University

The present study was carried out in University of Kordofan at Faculty of Education during the period 2016-2018. The study aimed to investigate the impacts of supra-segmental in learning speaking in English language as foreign language, to identify the difficulties of pronunciation of the supra-segmental features “stress, intonation, pitch and rhythm”. The descriptive and deductive methods were followed. The primary data was collected through different sources including questionnaire, recorded oral test and personal interview for taking notes observation. Comprehensive sampling was used to select the English language lecturers in Faculty of Education and Faculty of Arts where the sample size compromises18 lecturers to answer the questionnaire where 100 students in the department of English at Faculty of Education who were taught supra-segmental programs were selected from population size of 400 students to be given the oral test to measure segmental and supra-segmental features. The data were analyzed by Excel program using Chi-squire Test to measure the differences. The results revealed that 94 % of lecturers stated that supra-segmental affect learning speaking in English language,80 % mentioned that supra-segmental features are not well applied by the students whereas the supra- segmental phonemes according to oral test, students scored mean percent of 77% in the level of stress, 45% in intonation, 55% in rhythm and 44% in pitch. The difference between students score at level of stress and intonation was significant at 0.05 level with calculated and critical χ2 values of 8.39 and 3.84 respectively, the difference between level of stress and rhythm was not significant at 0.05 level with calculated χ2 value of 3.66 and critical value of 3.84 and the difference in scores between level of stress and pitch was significant at 0.05 level with calculated χ2 value of 9.0 and critical value of 3.84.The difference between intonation and rhythm was not significant at 0.05 with calculated and critical χ2 values of 1.0 and 3.84 respectively and between intonation and pitch was not significant at 0.05 with calculated χ2 value of 0.011 and critical value of 3.84. The difference between rhythm and pitch was not significant at 0.05 level where the calculated value of χ2 was 1.22 and the critical value was 3.84. It was concluded that most students faced difficulties in pronouncing the segmental consonant phonemes and have problems in segmental vowel phonemes due to mother tongue language interference. The highest scores were recorded by the level of stress and to some extent the rhythm while intonation and pitch recorded the lowest scores. It is recommended that instructors should raise students&#39; awareness about the importance of learning supra-segmental features. In addition, students should be encouraged to use internet to communicate with English native speakers. Furthermore, supra-segmental must be considered in the teaching and included in the curriculum of English language.

English Vowels and Diphthongs Problems of Sundanese Learners

EFL Sundanese learners encounter the difficulties in English pronunciation. The learners are often unable to differ between English vowel sounds long [i:] with short [I] like the word cheese they pronounce it as /ʧIz/ instead of /ʧiːz/, despite they have learned English since elementary school, officially they have learned English for around 5 years. The purpose of this study is to explore the interference of mother tongue in pronunciation field that was made by Sundanese learners dealing with English vowels and diphthongs. The participants were 30 EFL learners with Sundanese background as their mother tongue. The data were collected by recording the students’ pronunciation and analysed using contrastive analysis. The results demonstrate that the learners met obstacles in uttering English vowels [i:],[u:],[ɔ], and diphthongs[eɪ],[əʊ],[æ]. The dominant mispronunciation of the English sounds occurs because of the absence of those English sounds in the learners’ mother tongue. This paper offers some recommendations to the teachers to overcome the phenomenon mother tongue interference.

Diagnosing Saudi Students' English Consonant Pronunciation Errors

Diagnosing the pronunciation difficulties second language (L2) learners encounter assists in identifying their training needs. Since a clearer profile of Arab students' English pronunciation difficulties is yet to be reached, this study tried to identify which English consonant sounds and clusters Saudi English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) students have difficulty in pronouncing, and examine how students' language proficiency levels may influence their English consonant pronunciation performance. Forty Saudi female university students with two different English proficiency levels (lower-intermediate versus intermediate) took part in the study (20 students in each group). They completed a 4-section productive pronunciation test diagnosing their errors in pronouncing problematic consonant sounds and clusters in varied word positions. The data analysis showed that the participants' highest error percentages were in pronouncing: /ʒ/, /ŋ/, /p/, /ɹ/ and/ʧ/; /t/ and /d/ of the regular past morpheme -ed; and the 4- and 3-consonant clusters. It was also found that the lower-intermediate level students made more errors than the intermediate ones in pronouncing the majority of the consonant sounds and clusters, and that the variance between their errors is generally higher in the word-initial positions than the word-medial and -final ones. The study indicates that the consonants in the word-initial and -final positions are likely to cause more pronunciations difficulties than the ones in the word-medial position.

Analysis of Phonetic and Phonological Constraints of Saudi EFL Learners

This study explores the pronunciation difficulties experienced by Saudi EFL learners at Jouf University (JU) in the north of Saudi Arabia. To achieve this purpose, two main instruments were implemented: an experiment of pronunciation sensitivity response and two interview formats. The sample of this study was selected randomly and consisted of (n=20) students studying English major in their sixth level at JU, and (n=10) English language instructors from the same institution. A mixed-method approach was employed to find out the phonetic and phonological difficulties that participants encountered during the implementation of the experiment of pronunciation sensitivity response, and to interpret participant&amp;#39;s responses to the interview formats. The findings revealed that EFL learners experienced six phonetic and phonological problematic patterns related to mispronunciation of: initial consonant cluster, final consonant cluster, multi-syllabic words, unfamiliar sounds, vowels, and voiced or voiceless phonemes. It was also found that EFL learners and instructors had different views regarding these phonetic and phonological issues. The limited time for practice, the lack of authentic materials and tasks, and the need for immersion classes, and effective instruction and learning were all found to be responsible about the phonetic and phonological problems EFL learners encountered and at the same time they were found to be the motives for overcoming these issues. It is believed that the implications and recommendations included in this study would improve the performance of Saudi EFL speaking abilities once they are incorporated effectively in their English learning settings.

English vowel sounds: Pronunciation issues and student and faculty perceptions

This article presents the results of the research project named Longitudinal Study of the Pronunciation of Vowel Sounds in English of Students from the Bachelor Degree in English Teaching at the Paraíso Campus of the University of Costa Rica. The project was conducted from 2015 to 2018, and it responded to the researchers’ concern to find out which are the most troublesome pronunciation areas for learners. The main objective of this investigation was to determine the most difficult English vowel sounds to pronounce for the learners in their first, second and third year of their major. The study also examined the students’ and professors’ perception in relation to the difficulty of these vowels sounds. As for the methodology, the study followed a correlational design within a mixed method approach that encompassed a total of 57 students divided into two groups. To gather the data, the students’ pronunciation was recorded and surveys were administered to learners and instructors. The data obtained from the recordings was processed using logistic regression; the vowels were organized from the most difficult to the easiest, and then the findings were compared to the data obtained from the surveys. The results revealed that the three most difficult vowels for students were /ɪ/, /æ/ and /ʊ/. The findings also showed discrepancies in the vowel sounds that learners and teachers perceived as difficult in comparison to the pronunciation difficulty found in the recordings. These significant differences have an impact not only on the decisions that instructors make, but also on the students’ awareness of their pronunciation problems.

Investigating english listening comprehension deficiency among students at secondary schools from psychological and educational view

This study aimed at investigating the deficiency of English listening skill among students of secondary schools in Port Sudan town. The researcher provided a number of factors that cause the deficiency, and then set out a group of suggestions to deal with it. This study is of a descriptive analytical nature, focused on the listening skill so, the researcher used the descriptive methodology which described the problem before dealing with it and also used the analytical methodology as an additional method to analyze some data and diagrams which the researcher used in the research. Tools used in the study were a questionnaire to students both males and females and a written interview for teachers who were teaching them. The researcher discussed and analyzed the results revealed by the students' and teachers' responses. After that, the researcher moved to conclude the study by presenting the findings of the study such as most of students tried to listen to English but they failed because of many reasons such as difficulty in identification different English words pronunciation, besides clear and correct pronunciation help students to comprehend English words in a right way. The methods of teaching listening comprehension are not convincing and enough to achieve the purpose of teaching. Finally, the materials provided by the curriculum and learning activities were not sufficient to enable students to learn listening in English language. Hence according to these findings, the researcher suggested a plan to solve these problems to achieve the goal of the study

LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF THE LANGUAGE SYSTEM AS THE INFLUENCING FACTOR ON THE STUDY PROCESS (using the material in English and Spanish)

The object of the research in this article is the features of teaching English and Spanish. The subject of the research is the influence of these features on the process of learning these languages. The considerable attention is paid to the problem of teaching foreign languages that are different from English and the demand for Spanish in the educational services market. The didactic features and difficulties of teaching pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar of the languages as well as the main impact factors of the system of language on the teacher’s activities are described in detail. The purpose of the study is to reveal the features of the systems of learning English and Spanish, the effect of these features on the organization of the educational process and on the actual process of learning these languages in its various aspects. The research method in this article is a contrastive-comparative analysis of the phonetics, vocabulary and grammar of English and Spanish languages as well as the analysis of their own experience in teaching these languages and the difficulties arisen in this process. The result of the study. This study has revealed the influence of the linguistic characteristics of foreign languages on the didactic features of their study and teaching. The practical importance is seen directly in applying the results in the educational process, namely in its organization, the choice of methods of teaching English and Spanish. The main author’s conclusions are as follows: 1) the issue of teaching and learning foreign languages other than English is not sufficiently covered in the methodology as English is taught mostly; 2) considering that the number of people who speak English is growing, there is a demand for other international languages, in particular, Spanish; 3) English and Spanish have common features, but significantly more differences in phonetics, vocabulary and grammar; 4) such differences affect not only the course of a particular lesson, but the organization of the course of study as a whole.

The Voice Notes and Arrangement in the Chinese Textbooks in Korea from the Consonants Comparison between Chinese and Korean : Taking Chinese initial teaching of Korean mainstream Chinese textbooks as an Example

The research scope of the thesis is limited to the initial stage of Chinese consonant teaching. Based on the research and development of Korean local textbooks and the comparison of Korean and Chinese consonants, the thesis combines Korean Learners’ pronunciation difficulties in Chinese learning, which examines the pronunciation arrangement and annotation of Korean mainstream adult Chinese textbooks.BR Firstly, the thesis investigates the consonant system and characteristics of Chinese and Korean consonants, and comprehensively describes the differences between Korean and Chinese consonants. For example, from the size of consonant catalogues in Korean, English and Chinese, Chinese consonants are more difficult than English consonants; at the same time, the Korean and Chinese consonants are contrasted around the pronunciation position and pronunciation method that some Chinese consonants are identical with Korean consonants in terms of pronunciation position and pronunciation method. In case of this, these consonants are taught in the same pronunciation of the mother tongue, which can improve the teaching efficiency. In addition, some Korean and Chinese consonants have similar pronunciation methods, but their pronunciation parts are different which will cause negative transfer when they are taught by the method of similar pronunciation in their mother tongue.BR Secondly, after investigating four mainstream adult Chinese textbooks widely used in Korea, there are two questions found by the author. On one hand, Korean learners’ recognition of Chinese pronunciation has been neglected. On the other hand, the arrangement of textbooks basically follows the arrangement order of the Chinese phonetic scheme, which is difficult to find a reasonable reason. Based on the comparative analysis and textbook survey results, and according to Prator

Beyond self-directed computer-assisted pronunciation learning: a qualitative investigation of a collaborative approach

In foreign language education, instruction in pronunciation has received less attention than instruction in other language skills. Many teachers do not know how to teach correct pronunciation due to lack of knowledge in pronunciation pedagogy even if they want to or they assume that students pick it up on their own. With the development of technology, automatic speech recognition (ASR) software has been adopted in computer-assisted pronunciation training (CAPT) and has been found to be effective in facilitating pronunciation learning. Nevertheless, CAPT software still has its limitation. Very little research has been done on what difficulties students may encounter during practice with the system, such as how to read the feedback provided by the software. Moreover, very few CAPT studies investigated how collaborative learning can be integrated to augment the advantages of the technology. Efforts also have to be made on how to increase the enjoyment of learners using it when their motivation is curtailed by the unchanging feedback the CAPT system provides. The present study aims to investigate how those software users feel about the mediated assistance the system offers, their difficulty and attitudes toward using it, and, above all, how peers can help to mediate the pronunciation learning of students using MyET, a CAPT system designed in Taiwan. Two groups of junior college students (N = 60) practiced the system for 10 weeks with or without their peers. A qualitative investigation found that the collaborative group wrote down more statements about how they had benefited from the software than about their pronunciation difficulties. They also reported that the feedback helped raise their awareness of pronunciation errors. In the collaborative practice with the CAPT system, they revealed that they could explore more functions the software provided and had fun. This study further examines how peers interacted, analyzed, and discussed the effects of collaboration on computer-assisted pronunciation learning. Finally, suggestions were made for teachers interested in conducting CAPT in a collaborative context.