AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE COMMON PRONUNCIATION ERRORS MADE BY YOUNG LEARNERS

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the common pronunciation errors of young learners who study English at a language school as their extra-curriculum. This study adopted the qualitative methodology, using voice recording to allow a deeper insight into the reality of pronunciation errors made by these students. There are 50 participants (aged from 11 to 15 years old) who are studying in Language School A – Branch 2. The students had to read one paragraph in the text book aloud and the researcher recorded their voice. To make the accuracy of the study, the students have already known how to pronounce the words that are used to test the students’ pronouncing ability the research. Based on the analysis, the sounds that were commonly mispronounced by the students were long vowel sounds, plosives consonants and the final consonants. This study will be a useful resource for both teachers and students to enhance the teaching and learning with regard to phonology aspect. However, the small size of dataset means that it is not possible to generalize the whole situation and thus another study with a larger size of sample should be carried out to find out a more accurate answer for the problem.