Main Article Content

Abstract

The objective of this research was to find out the types of pronunciation errors are made by the seventh semester  students of English education study program at Bengkulu University in the academic year 2020/2021. This research used a descriptive quantitative method. 94 students as the total population 30 students  were chosen randomly as the samples. The instrument of the research were pronunciation test and interview. The test comprises 52 sentences which contain 13 silent letters i.e. “k, gh, th, g, p, l, t, s, w, n, b, h, d”. Each letter appears 4 times in the test. The results of the research showed that the students made two types of errors namely pre-systematic errors and systematic errors. The pre-systematic errors occurred more frequently than the systematic errors. The highest errors made by the students  were silent letters “g” (e.g. gnaw) and “b” (e.g. doubt) which total numbers of errors of each of them were 93 times (77%). It could be concluded that the students faced high difficulties in pronouncing the silent letters which completely different from Indonesian phonetic system. It was recommended that the English lecturers should pay more attention to students’ pronunciation and find more suitable method or technique of teaching it and students should study harder about the silent letters in English language.

Keywords

Error Pronunciation Silent Letter

Article Details

Author Biographies

Mukhrizal Mukhrizal, University of Bengkulu

English Education Study Program, Department of Language and Art

Hilda Puspita, University of Bengkulu

English Education Study Program, Department of Language and Art
How to Cite
Pusfarani, W., Mukhrizal, M., & Puspita, H. (2021). Students’ Pronunciation Errors in English Silent Letters. Journal of English Education and Teaching, 5(3), 453–467. https://doi.org/10.33369/jeet.5.3.453-467

References

  1. Alqunayeer, H. S. (2016). Pronunciation errors of letter “G” in English language made by Saudi undergraduate students. English language and literature studies Canadian center of science and education. Vol. 6, No. 4.
  2. Arikunto, S. (1998). Prosuder penelitian suatu pendekatan praktek. Jakarta: PT. Rineka Cipta.
  3. Ayumi, P. (2018). The pronunciation of English words containing silent letter “G” by the elementary and advanced level students of English made easy (EME) English course. Undergraduate Thesis. Yogyakarta: Universitas Sanata Dharma.
  4. Brown, H. D. (2000). Teaching by principles 2nd ed. Now York: Pearson Education Longman Group.
  5. Brown, H. D. (2007). Teaching by principles: an interactive approach to language pedagogy. New York: Pearson Education, Inc.
  6. Ellis, R. (1994). The study of second language acquisition (Oxford Applied Linguistics). Philadelphia: Oxford University Press.
  7. Gilakjani, A. P. (2012). “A match or mismatch between learning styles of the learners and teaching styles of the teachers”. Modern Education and Computer Science. 11: 51-60.
  8. Irianto, N, A., Imranudin, & Sabarudin, S. (2018). An analysis of pronunciation errors of English consonants : /?/ and /ð/ by the students of the English education study program of University of Bengkulu. Journal of English Education and Teaching (JEET), 2(3).
  9. Kenworthy, J. (1987). Teaching English pronunciation. New York: Longman Inc.
  10. Ningrum, S. C. (2019). An analysis of students’ ability in pronouncing morphophonemic in English words. Undergraduate Thesis. Bengkulu: Universitas Bengkulu.
  11. Pallawa, B, A. (2013). A comparative analysis between English and Indonesian phonological system. International Journal of English Language Education. 1(3), 103-129.
  12. Podhaizer, M. (2001). Painless spelling. New York: Baron’s Educational Series.
  13. Salwa, S. (2017). An Analysis of interlingual errors in English pronunciation made by the fifth semester students of English education study program At Uin Raden Fatah Palembang. Undergraduate thesis. Islamic State Palembang: University Raden Fatah.
  14. Styvant, R., Arasuli., & Afriazi, R. (2019). An analysis of English speaking syllable words stress errors by the students of English education study program of University of Bengkulu. Journal of English Education and Teaching. 3(1), 106-115.
  15. Taylor, J. R. (1997). An introduction to error analysis (2nd ed). California: University Science Books.
  16. Utama, T. T. (2018). Error analysis of silent letters “H” and “W” in English words by non-English department students”. Undergraduate Thesis. Yogyakarta : Sanata Dharma University
  17. Widhiarso, W. (2005). Mengestimasi realiabilitas. Yogyakarta: Fakultas Psikologi UGM.