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You read ‘Suggestions for Beautifying the Pronunciation of Efl Learners’ in category ‘Essay examples’ A welltrained English teacher in phonetics and phonology can diminish the negative transfers of sounds to a greater extent. So, he should use specially prepared pronunciation teaching techniques. Then, the non-native English teachers are struggling with the negative interference from the mother tongue of the students in all their teaching lives, and they should do so for a decent teaching practice. 2. The Age Factor This is one of the most important factors in the learning of the ronunciation of a foreign language. We can say that if someone pronounces a second language with a nativelike accent, s/he must have probably started to learn it during their childhood. For instance, children of immigrants may be given as an example. Since these children start their second language learning process in target language speaking people environment, they have more advantages than the children who try to learn the target language in their motherlands because there are indispensable differences between the language a group uses and the language of mainstream classrooms and workplaces.

At the same time, if young children are exposed to 2 more than one language before the age of puberty, they seem to acquire all languages equally well since it has been claimed that children are better at learning than adults. As Krashen (1988: 43) mentioned acquirers who begin to exposure to a second language during childhood generally achieve higher second language proficiency than those beginning as adults. He also stated that lateralization may even be complete by age 4, not by puberty. Some researchers and neurolinguists have claimed that there is a strong connection between language learning and lateralization.

Lenneberg hypothesized that lateralization is a slow process that begins around the age of 2 and is completed around puberty. He had also added that right hemisphere in children is more active in the language function but as child develops the two sides of the brain become specialized for different functions and thus lateralization takes place. The critical age hypothesis claims that there is such a biological timetable (Brown, 1987: 42). It has been claimed that there is a critical age period for language learning, but it is widely discussed whether there is a critical period for language or not.

Evidently, foreign language teaching researchers have outlined many views about the critical age hypothesis. Generally speaking, it coincides with the period when lateralization is taking place and ends when it is complete. This was hypothesized by Lenneberg who was one of the wholehearted supporters of critical age hypothesis. In sum, since children are better in learning the language in short run, teaching pronunciation process should be started in puberty because it has been claimed that beyond puberty it is quite difficult to teach the learners to acquire a native-speakers like language accent.

As a result, the age of the learner is highly important in the pronunciation learning of a foreign language due to the factors mentioned above. The aged learners pick up the correct pronunciation a little bit late, so the foreign language teachers must be very patient in this sense, and must prepare special pronunciation drills and have the students repeat. They will obtain an acceptable level of good articulation in the long term. 3. The Amount of Exposure Another factor is the amount of exposure to the practice of English. English is not only used in the classroom environment.

We can handle this subject from the point of view whether the learner has been living in a country where English has been spoken or not. If the learners have been living in an English-speaking country or community, or a country where English is the second language, then the learners will have many opportunities to listen to and to use the target language, that is they will be surrounded by the target language. But, on the contrary, if the learners have been living in a non-English speaking country, like Indonesia, there will be no advantage for them.

So these learners will only be exposed to focusedlistening, so they will have no chance or opportunity to use the target language in a real environment. This means that there will be no communication and if there is no communication, there won’t be language learning. Since those learners won’t have any English-speaking environment except their classrooms, they will have to be satisfied with listening, but it is clear that you cannot teach correct and accurate pronunciation by just asking students to listen to artificial listening courses carried out in the classrooms.

Krashen in Celce-Murcia (1996: 16-17) states that learners acquire language primarily from the input they receive, and they must receive large amounts of comprrehensible input before they are required to speak. It must not be forgotten that there are many people who live in an English speaking country, but spend much of their time in a non-English speaking environment, maybe any other language is spoken at home or outside. For this reason, it is not merely exposure that matters, but how the learners respond to the opportunities.

Briefly, Kenworthy (1987: 6) mentions that exposure can be a contributory factor, but it cannot be a whole and necessary factor for the development of pronunciation. If a learner is aware of the necessity of being exposed to the target language, s/he should make use of its opportunities. 3 If the learner does that, s/he will be more successful in case of improving his/her pronunciation. The best ways of being exposed would be native speakers, videos shows, films, cds, radio or TV programs, computer assisted language teaching programs, and etc.

Also, the amount of exposure is crucial and it must make the students creative and active, not passive and dull. Therefore, the quantity of exposure must be adjusted with caution. 4. Phonetic Ability There is a common view that some people have a better ear capacity for foreign language than some other people. So, they are able to discriminate between the two sounds more accurately than the others and able to imitate sounds better. We can accept these people as those with phonetic abilities.

Also, this phonetic ability of the learner affects the development of his/her pronunciation. But it does not mean that people who have a better phonetic ability will be successful but the others won’t be successful. Accordingly language aptitude ability exists in many people, but its degree is variable, therefore some people have more ability but some have less. Besides the factors mentioned above, the influence of age must be stated as an efficient factor for phonetic ability because the beginners start to learn a language, the more they become successful.

It is clear that learners may lose some of their abilities when they become older, so it can be difficult for them to pronounce the target language with a native or near native-like accent. At the same time, immigrants, especially their children, have more chance in learning the target language since they have started to their learning process in a target language speaking environment. The poor phonetic ability can be cured again by the foreign language teachers’ patient attempts. There are several devices to motivate the poor pronunciation of the learners such as the phonetic labs and remedial pronunciation teaching techniques.

Those learners must not be discoursed but must be treated meticulously. 5. Personality and Attitude This is also another important factor affects the pronunciation of EFL learners in a bad way if the learners have negative attitudes for the target language community or they are introvert learners. For instance, shy or introvert students do not want to take part in classroom activities, so they cannot find any opportunities to make practice and to make use of phonological and/or phonetic activities.

Besides, courageous or extrovert students have more chance to improve their pronunciation. On the other hand, attitude of the learners toward the new language has an effective role in pronunciation learning. If the learner has good attitudes for the target culture, s/he can easily develop more accurate, native-like accents. If the learners have some prejudices on the target language and its society, this event will influence his/her approach to the language.

For example, some people do not believe in the necessity of learning a second language, and they think that foreign language will influence the learners’ cultural development in a negative way, that is to say, their culture will be imposed on the target language community. In this case, it will not be reasonable to teach or try to teach these learners a foreign language. Thus, personal features and attitudes of the learners are also decisive in the learning of pronunciation. The educational pedagogues may be of great help on this issue.

They could give some guidelines to the foreign language teachers. 6. Motivation If the learners are highly motivated to have a better pronunciation, they can develop a concern for pronunciation, and become more eager to take part in the activities and pay more attention to discriminate the sounds of the target language, and they try to produce better utterances. Motivation can be the key to learn the target language, and they try to produce 4 better sounds. Here it must be pointed out what the motivation is and how the learners will be motivated.

According to Brown (1997: 114-115) the motivation is thought of as an inner drive, impulse, emotion, or desire that moves one to a particular action. He also stated that learning a foreign language requires some of all three levels of motivation which can be global, situational, or task-oriented. For example, a learner may possess high global motivation but low task motivation on the written mode of the language. On the one hand, some factors such as intelligence, aptitude, and self-confidence have much contribution to the formation of motivation.

For example, to motivate the less intelligent people will be more difficult than the intelligent ones because these people cannot appeal to their needs. Motivation, of course, is a number of different kinds of attitudes and can be divided into two basic types: instrumental and integrative motivation (Brown, 1997: 115-117). First one refers to the instrumental goals such as furthering a career, reading some kinds of materials, translation, etc. An integrative motivation is the one which is employed when the learners want themselves to be in the culture of the second language group, to identify themselves with and become part of the society.

Needless to say, teachers may need to discern the source of a student motivation in order to meet particular needs. That is, pronunciation teaching must be directed according to the needs, expectations, attitudes, intelligence, etc. of the learners. If the learners’ main goals are to make translation from the native language to the target language, less time may be needed for pronunciation activities, and therefore teachers will spend less time for motivating them.

If the learners are highly motivated to have a better pronunciation, they can develop a concern for pronunciation, and become more eager to take part in the activities, and pay more attention to discriminate the sounds of the target language, so they try to produce better sounds and utterances. At the same time, motivation can be achieved by paying attention to the learners’ concern for pronunciation because learners generally are not aware of that the way they speech is full of irritation and misunderstanding for the hearer. Consequently, some factors that are effective in pronunciation accuracy are examined here.

All of these factors exert much influence on the learners. We cannot change and affect some of these factors, for example, it is impossible for us to change the age and phonetic ability of the learners. It is clear that the influence of age is undeniable in language learning process. Children are more successful than the adults. When we take into consideration the children of immigrants, we see the difference between their counterparts. Since they start their learning process in their early ages in the target language spoken country, they can be able to speak the target language with a native like accent. So, f a learner starts his/her foreign language learning period abroad, in other words, in a place where the target language has been spoken, s/he will get a better pronunciation because there are differences between the language learning environments, that is to say, to learn a foreign language in classrooms is different than to learn it abroad. So, if we don’t have any chance to change the conditions mentioned above, cannot we do anything to train our learners with a near-native like pronunciation? Is it impossible to help them to well-trained learners having good pronunciation? Of course the answers of these questions are “No.

For that reason, here we will state some useful techniques to eliminate these negative factors over the pronunciation of EFL learners in our country and suggest some possible solutions. C. Techniques for Eliminating Pronunciation Problems of EFL Learners It is important for the learners to acquire an accurate pronunciation. According to Baker and Sharon (1990), pronunciation is very important and learners should pay close attention to pronunciation as early as possible. Scarcella and Oxford (1994) similarly assume that pronunciation should be taught in all second/foreign language classes through a variety of activities.

The obvious argument in favor of pronunciation teaching branches from the 5 techniques adopted by linguists in making a phonological analysis. When we look at the contrast between a minimal pair like bit and beat, we can see that mastery of the difference between the phonemes /? / and /i/ is necessary if the two words are to be adequately differentiated. Thus, the learner must learn the differences in the pronunciation of these two sounds because if he does not learn, he will be misunderstood. For example, ‘Hit the ball! ‘ or ‘Heat the ball! ‘. We can increase the number of this type of example.

Teaching of pronunciation should be an integral part of an English teaching program from the early stages, and it must not be a luxury to be left to the advanced level studies of the language. It must be borne in mind that during pronunciation teaching, some certain methods or techniques should be applied because teaching of pronunciation is not a simple task, on the contrary it must be the essential part of language teaching program. Here, some methods and types of teaching pronunciation will be handled to determine its importance in language teaching process. 1.

Initial Teaching Technique This technique focuses on areas which are the essential to basic communications such as introducing stress and intonation, the fall or rise as the difference between spoken questions and answers, the development of a polite and interested way of speaking. Hubbard et al. (1983: 209) explain this: ‘It is a PEN’ always precedes ‘It is a BLUE PEN’ and initial presentation of the present continuous tense is often with intransitive verbs, therefore, there is no object, which would mean a second stress (i. e. He’s running / She’s sleeping, etc. ).

This example shows this method fits well with a structural syllabus (Demirezen, 1986: 108-125) symbolizes the sustained, rising, and falling intonation with the following signs: >, ^ , v, and give some examples and activities for classroom application. He uses [>] for incomplete sentences and statements wherein the speaker intends to say something. [^] is used for yes/no questions in statement forms, yes/no questions in interrogative forms, when phrases or clauses precede the main clause as a breath-group often heard in lectures and speeches, special calls for children, and stressed word, phrase or clause in a series.

Lastly [v] is used for questions with ‘or’, asking questions with question words, declarative statements, in giving commands, and some emphatic statements. Here are some examples and activities. >In sum Since 1999 If you wait She is a nice girl It is dubious ^ v What I am trying to state I miss you Jane Who is it? Are you interested in Do you need an apple or perhaps music? fruit? Do you love her? He looked under the desk with the food prep and in the closet We am crazy She droped into the pond 2 . Helpful Teaching Technique This is a systematic approach and deals with the problems of person sounds (Hubbard et ‘s. 1983: 209-210). It can be viewed as consisting of two separate techniques ” Quick Remedial and Planned Remedial. For Quick Remedial, the strategy is going to divide into four parts: (1) bogus, (2) demo, (3) connection, and (4) explanation. For instance , teacher to start with draws focus on the ‘offending’ sound and pronounces it in isolation to become imitated by learners. In the event this becomes inefficient, then simply teacher displays the students how the sound is formed by placing his tongue between his teeth to produce as well as? / or perhaps /d/ by utilizing demonstration portion.

However , particular sounds are generally not easily made visible, and so the 6 teacher may take up the process of relationship. In this process, sounds should be isolated and attention has to be drawn to the similarities between two sounds in terms of whether or not they are voiced, lateral, and dental, etc . Finally, justification may help as the instructor explains in the mother tongue if necessary, how the audio is formed and provides instruction towards the students to advance their tongue forward, rounded their lip area, etc . If, despite quick remedial works, the ‘offending’ sound nonetheless causes concerns for the learners, then simply Planned Helpful work is necessary.

In this section, teacher should never insist, but make a note of the situation and strategy a short remedial drill intended for the lesson. (Some of those drills will be explained in the following sections). Remedial teaching can easily be applied to individual appears by using a identical technique used by the TPR Technique. Teacher may use a plank and colored board-marker to indicate a sound which is displayed by different spelling. For example , the three conceivable pronunciation in the regular [-ed] ending /t/ and /d/ and as well as? / may be represented by different vibrant board-marker, and words may be written in three content on the white board: blue is for /-t/, red is good for /-d/, and green is good for /-id/. The [-ed] finishing is the item written in the appropriate color while the rest is created in regular black. For example , BLUE REDDISH COLORED GREEN dived saved continued to wait washed begged folded In other words, the color code can be used again and again as the teacher can indicate the pronunciation in the [-ed] finishing by writing it in appropriate color. 3. Going Technique

To get drilling approach there are many useful drills for purifying and teaching the correct and correct pronunciation with the utterances and words. Want handle some of the common kinds. a. Term , association Drill This is one of the simplest ways to give the students practice on certain problem noises while the manifest purpose of the drill seems to be vocabulary research. Concentrating on the phonemes /? / and /e/, educator may request the students intended for antonyms of the following words: sick, stay, thin, and more. The students might respons with well, stand, fat, and less.

In this sort of drill it truly is useful to contact the students’ attention to the very fact that the words and phrases they will choose all include /? / or /e/. For example , 1 . In which of the following expression, do we possess /? as well as sound? a. bed n. bad c. but deb. bear e. beer 2 . In which in the following word, do we possess /e/ sound? a. carrier b. email c. acquire d. pond e. feet 3. In of the following words can we have two /? / sounds? a. handicap m. butterfly c. breakfast g. bankrupt electronic. walkman w. Saturation Drill This type of exercise is suitable for almost all positions with the problematic audio. For example , discussing take / s / sound as a problem audio.

It can be drilled in its three positions by means of saturation drill. Initial see seep appear seed Medial leasing pistol classic faucet 7 Final peace relative purse curse c. Illustrating A Learned Sound In this type of exercise, students offer examples of the sound being researched. For example , to rehearse the diphthong /? / first, learners listen to requirements pronounced by the therapist. Then, they are questioned to listen discriminatingly by suggesting whether the audio pronounced by therapist as ‘ correct ‘ or perhaps ‘ incorrect ‘ in a series of correct and incorrect pronunciations including /a?, /a? /, /o? /, /e? /, and so forth When the sound has been set, the initially student begins a chain with a phrase ‘I try ‘. The second college student repeats the phrase, and adds his own, ‘I try but I cry’. The third 1 picks up the past part and says ‘I cry but I sigh ‘, and goes on. g. Mobility Drill As Rochmis and Doob mentioned (1970: 29), reaching lightness of utterance and mobility of the tongue in conversational speech is a very essential requirement of going. It is often neglected on the general belief that the student will make and hear the sound on the conversational presentation.

The following drill is an illustration for flexibility of the as well as? / audio. Step 1 : Inquire your college students to suggest 5 basic words you start with /b/ such as: bat , boat , bike , ball , boy Step two: Encourage them to enunciate these phrases with a solid emphasis, and after that add the term ‘the’, keeping the routine of stress. the softball bat , the boat , the bike , the ball , the boy 3: Substitute the words ‘to the ,. ‘ maintaining the pattern. towards the bat, , to the boat, ,., and so forth Step 4: Still amplify the phrase, holding the pattern, but changing its exercise. rom the, , , , , , , , , , there may be the, , , , , , , ,.. with and without the, , ,. due to the, , , , , , , electronic. Comparative Drill In this sort of drill, phrases almost identical in every esteem except one element to get drilled are put in accommodement. Since we tend to confuse music that is similar these types of drills with stimulate accuracy in reading, performance, and judgment. Most traditional texts in voice and diction are excellent sources of these kinds of drill material. For example , this drill could possibly be effective in the event that two seems are baffled such as /f-v/, /p-b/, as well as? /, /? -e/, and so forth For example , 1 ) A sample comparison drill pertaining to /f-v/ and /p-b/ sounds fee , bee feat , peat freeze , visa , pisa piece of cake freed , breed take flight , ply fled , bled truth , pact 2 . A sample comparative exercise for /? -e/ seems sat , set band , fold sand , send bad , foundation fig , pig intensify , pester pan , pen It will eventually readily be seen that previously mentioned drills possess certain perimeter benefits in this the words will be arranged in line with the vowel scale. Vowels which might be commonly mixed up are best drilled in this type of drill.

The students’ personal participation in composing this sort of drills will be worth the time it will require because he can drill more intelligently and therefore establish new habits more strongly and quickly. At the same time, it will eventually give him/her a technique to apply to other areas where drill may be necessary (Rochmis and Doob, 1970: 27-28). almost eight f. Alternative Drill This type of drilling can be applied by simply substituting any sound instead of the other audio. For example , /t/ instead of /? / or /d/ rather than /? /, etc . Here are a few exercises for classroom app. 1 . This really is thin / tin.. Did you see her lunge / lunch? 3. Was it a brand / bland revealing? 4. He could be our ruler / kin. 5. It is cheap / chip. 6th. Don’t mp3 / tap. Number of these activities could possibly be increased in fact it is also conceivable to apply ‘practicesounds’ and ‘contrast-sounds’ exercises such as, 1 . Exercises to practice /? / sound a. Your canine gave a pointy bark. m. The debate started if the guard rejected them access c. The yard was so darker. 2 . Work out to compare /? / and /? / seems. a. That hut was certainly popular. b. Did he stroke or deceive? c. Side this cup to the police officer.. Tongue Twisters This type of activity is known as a term or term which is difficult to say quickly. In the literary works there are different ideas regarding the use and the functionality of this activity. Celce-Murcia (1996: 5) says that there is a little transfer via practice to natural connection. But , if it is needed and necessary, they may be used. Here are a few sample of tongue twisters taken from Dalton and Seidlhofer (1994: 132-133). 1 . Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. installment payments on your Did philip Piper look for a peck of pickled peppers?. If Philip picked a peck of pickled potatoes 4. Where’s the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper chosen? 4. Computer system Aided Pronunciation Teaching (CAPT) As stated by simply Park in Hasan (2011: 45), which the extreme presumptions embedded in Computer Aided Pronunciation Teaching (CAPT): “technology can resolve the educational problems, speech technology brings toward EFL. With proper version, speech technology allows start language college students to practice speaking the langu age outside the classroom. SHOW ME MORE Communication by

Auralog is one of the speech recognition software program, which uses speech identification to provide conversational practice, image feedback about prosody, and scoring of pronunciation. It has dialogue-based computer software using fixedresponse Automatic Conversation Recognition (ASR) which lets learners have a simulated conversation with a computer. Training with this kind of programs should help pupils improve fluency and self-confidence in pronouncing English terms. Using phonetic exercise, as part of the TELL ME MORE Communication, is a great way to find out how to enunciate words.

Furthermore, the software can offer individual reviews on pronunciation, which is a thing that is often lacking in the language classroom. Related to the statement previously mentioned, learning pronunciation using SHOW ME MORE Communication offers a lot of advantages compared with conventional mass media being used currently. It also offers interesting activities when learning process the following: (1) position play, (2) dialogue, (3) video and questions, (4) sentence pronunciation, (5) phrase pronunciation, (6) phonetics exercise, (7) picture/word association, (8) word queries, (9) crossword puzzles, on the lookout for 10) expression order, and (11) dictation. Hasan (2011: 50-52) claims that techniques for improving learner’s pronunciation proposed by TELL ME MORE Communication happen to be as follows: 1) Imitation of teacher or recorded model of sounds, words, and phrases 2) Saving of novice speech, in contrast with indigenous model 3) Systematic reason and instructions (including details of the structure and movements of parts of the mouth) 4) Immitation drills: duplication of sounds, words, and sentences 5) Varied repeating of drills (varied acceleration, volume, mood) ) Learning and carrying out dialogues (as with drills, using choral work, and varied speed, volume, mood) 7) Self-correction through playing recordings of own talk. D. Realization and Ideas We can admit the techniques mentioned above could be used to ensure that the EFL scholars in advanced schooling will be able to enunciate the target terminology accurately. As i have said before, instructing pronunciation is one of the significant aspects of foreign language instructing and at the same it is a serious task.

Consequently , it should be analyzed in the early stages from the language teaching program in order to eliminate the elements affecting the pronunciation of the learners in a negative method and also to get over the negative influence of mother tongue interference, fear, making mistakes, etc . While this process, the tactics mentioned above can be applied to terminology teaching program in higher education through the teaching method. As a result, terminology teachers must be aware of these methods or methods and should apply any of them while teaching pronunciation.

It must be borne in mind that teachers would be the models for his or her learners, therefore first of all they must have very good pronunciation, or else, they can injury their students. References Avery, P. and Susan Wirklich. 1987. Initial Considerations inside the Teaching of Pronunciation. Birmingham: TESL Centre. Avery, L. and Susan Ehrlich. 1992. The Educating American British Pronunciation. Oxford: Oxford College or university Press. Baker, Ann and Goldstein, Sharon. 1990. Pronunciation Pairs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brownish, D. L. 997. Guidelines of Learning and Educating. (3rd education. ) Nj-new jersey: Prentice Lounge Regents. Celce-Murcia, Donald Meters. Brinton , Janet Meters. Goodwin. 1996. Teaching Pronunciation: A Reference for Teachers of English to Loudspeakers of Other Languages. Ny: Cambridge College or university Press. Dalton, C. and Barbara Seidlhofer. 1994. Pronunciation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Demirezen, M. 1986. Phonemics and Phonology. Ankara: Bizim Buro. Hubbard et ‘s. 1983. A Training Course to get TEFL. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Krashen, S. Deb. 1988. Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning. New York: Prentice Hall Regents. Krashen, S i9000. D. 1988. Principles and Practice in Second Language Buy. New York: Prentice Hall Regents. Kenworthy, M. 1987. Teaching English Pronunciation. London: Longman. Knowles, G. 1987. Habits of Used English: An intro to British Phonetics. Greater london: Longman. Larsen-Freeman, D. 2k. Techniques and Principles in Language Educating. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10 Streams, W. M. 1968.

Instructing Foreign Language Expertise. (2nd ed. ) Chicago, il: Chicago School Press. Rochmis, L. and D. Doob. 1970. Speech Therapy. New york city: The Steve Day Business. Scarcella, 3rd there’s r. , Oxford, R. T. 1994. Secondary language Pronunciation: State-of-the-art in Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zainnuri, Hasan. 2011. A Thesis: The Effectiveness of Using SHOW ME MORE Communication to Improve Students’ Pronunciation Skill (An Trial and error Study on The Tenth Level Students by SMA Negeri 7 Surakarta in The Educational Year of 20102011). eleven