How Thai EFL Learners Deal With English Regular Past Forms: A Case Study of a Speech Sound Perspective

Abstract

The pronunciation of regular past tense verbs seems to be difficult for most L2 learners, especially in L2 learners whose first language phonological system is different from the English one. It is predicted that Thai EFL students could encounter difficulties perceiving English coda clusters like the '-ed' ending sounds. For this reason, this research investigates the extent to which the first-year and the third-year English major undergraduate students in a public university perceive the English regular past tense verbs. To be precise, this study compares the ability to perceive the regular past tense of the first-year and third-year students. In addition, the strategies they use to perceive the '-ed' ending verbs among the three different allomorphs ([t], [d] and [ɪd]) are investigated. The data collection was derived from the perception tests of 30 first-year and 30 third-year students and a Pronunciation Learning Strategy (PLS) questionnaire. The perception tests were divided into two subtests: perception test and perception syllable identification test. The PLS questionnaire was employed to find out the strategies they used in English pronunciation learning. The overall results show that the third-year students demonstrated a better performance than the first-year students in both tests (t=-2.778; p<.01 in the perception test; t=-1.466; p>.05 in the syllable identification test). However, the syllable identification test's results do not show consistency with Solt et al.'s (2004) model, while the perception test's do. Moreover, the findings from the questionnaire reveal no statistically significant difference between the first and the third-year students in terms of pronunciation learning strategies (p>.05).

How English as a Foreign Language (EFL) University Students Understand the Pronunciation of Adjectives Ending in -ed

“…Regarding problematic allomorphs for students, evidence supports research by Bassetti and Atkinson, 2015; Caballero and Rosado, 2018;Cardoso, 2018;Davila, 2013;Yaowaratana and Rungruang, 2018, that the allomorph /#d/ is easiest for students to recognize and produce. e main reason could be attributed to the obvious inclusion of the /#/ sound, thus making pronunciation more salient for Spanish speakers since every letter in Spanish has a clear, distinct sound and vowels are never silent.…”

Students’ Problems In Pronouncing -Ed Ending In Reading Aloud At STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat In 2019/2020 Academic Year

“…As stated by (Arief, 2017), Salaberry in (Davila, 2018), (Giantari et al, 2020), the -ed ending word is the word that end in -ed or -d which is added to a regular verb to form the regular past tense and the regular past principle inflection. Therefore Brown & Attardo in (Zilva, 2017), Celce Murcia et al in (Jiménez et al, 2020),and Finegan in (Yaowaratana & Rungruang, 2018) explain that -ed ending have some rules as follows: First, if there is a verb which ends in /d/ or /t/, the ending takes an epenthetic vowel and is pronounced as /Id/. Second, if there is a verb which ends in a voiced sound (/b, g, z, ʒ, dʒ, v, ð, ŋ,l,r) other than /d/, the ending is pronounced as /d/.…”