Attitudes toward English phonetics learning: a survey on Indonesian EFL learners

Abstract

Indonesian EFL learners face challenges in comprehending English phonemes as it becomes one of the significant predictors of English literacy. Hence, the English Phonetics subject is considered one of the most difficult ones, making the teaching and learning process less effective. Addressing Indonesian EFL learners’ attitudes toward English phonetics teaching is significant to improve phonetics teaching, yet, research on this has not received much attention. This present study was conducted to explore EFL learners’ attitudes toward English phonetic learning. A quantitative approach with survey design was employed involving 112 Indonesian EFL students. The researchers identified students’ attitudes using an adapted questionnaire from Lintunen and Mäkilähde (2015). Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 25 was utilized to analyze the data. The results indicate that Indonesian EFL students perform positive attitudes toward English phonetic learning, although they confess that phonetics is challenging. It implies that phonetics learning is potential and promising to support their English fluency; hence, lecturers need to make phonetics Learning more enjoyable, easier and participating in drawing the students' full engagement by considering their preferences and attitude toward phonetics learning.

The Sounds of Indonesian English: Acoustic Phonetic Analysis of the Monophthong Vowels Across Genders

“…Therefore, when students have phonetic awareness and skills in English, they can accurately discern consonants (by place and manner of articulation), and vowels (by tongue position, tongue height, lip rounding, and the characteristics of monophthongs, diphthongs, and triphthongs of the language) (Hismanoglu, 2012). Despite the diverse varieties of English among groups of non-native English learners (Yusuf, 2019), examining the similarities and differences between the sounds produced by a diverse group of speakers can assist students in better comprehending and being understood by their interlocutors (Istiqomah et al, 2021). Today, the obsolete objective of achieving nativelike fluency in pronunciation instruction has been replaced with the objective of intelligibility or the degree to which one's speech is understandable to others with varied first and second language backgrounds (Loewen, 2015).…”

/a?/ Recognition: Maximizing English Sounds and Spelling Exercises in Pronunciation Class

“…This exercise comes from the idea of phonological awareness and is in line with phonemic awareness (Istiqomah et al, 2021). Students have to spell the written words they recognize how many sounds there are, for example, on the word CAT.…”

“…Knowing students' difficulties before the class begins is essential for teachers to give correct feedback and concise advice (Istiqomah et al, 2021). The third until sixth meetings showed improvements during the process of having exercise and pronunciation practices.…”

“…Unfortunately, although pronunciation is essential for learning a language, especially English, teachers fail to bring a successful pronunciation class (Istiqomah et al, 2021). One of the reasons is that pronunciation is vague and much more challenging to teach.…”