Preparatory Students’ Pronunciation Difficulty and Its Influence on their EFL Speaking Skills: Jimma Preparatory School Students in Focus

Abstract

The overall purpose of this study was to examine the major pronunciation difficulties of preparatory students and the negative influences of these challenges on their global EFL speaking skills. Specifically, the study explored 1) some of the major pronunciation challenges that the students faced both at segmental (vowel and consonant sound) and suprasegmental (prosody) levels; 2) the negative influences of these (segmental and suprasegmental) difficulties on their EFL speaking skills, and 3) the attitude of students toward learning English pronunciation. To achieve the general and specific objectives of the study, the researcher devised three distinctive types of data gathering tools. These were: a) pronunciation and intelligibility tests which aimed to diagnose the students’ speech production and comprehension difficulties on the target pronunciation items both at segmental and suprasegmental phonological features; c) questionnaires and d) guided interviews. The questionnaires and the guided interviews were used to investigate the needs analysis of the students’ attitude toward learning pronunciation skills. For the manageability of the pronunciation and intelligibility tests, 25 grade eleven students whose NL was Amharic were purposefully selected since the researcher’s mother tongue is Amharic, and since attitude is not affected by NL, 110 students from the same grade level whose mother tongue was homogeneous were recruited for questionnaire responses, and 12 students were randomly selected for the interview responses from Jimma Preparatory School grade eleven. To this end, the students faced the /θ/ and the /ð/ consonant sounds the most frequently mispronounced sounds; the long vowels such as /i:/, /ɜ:/, /ɔ:/, /ɑ:/, /u:/ were indistinguishably mispronounced as their short vowel counterparts /ɪ/, /ə/, /ɒ/, /ʌ/, /ʊ/ respectively; and /ʊə/, /ɪə/, and /eə/ diphthong vowel sounds were found to be the most problematic pronunciation difficulties at segmental levels. The students also encountered problems in using correct stresses and comprehending speeches in connection, meaning comprehensions from sentence stress and intonation at the suprasegmental features. However, they showed an enthusiasm to acquire and to have good pronunciation skills by different means. Finally, the researcher recommended that curriculum developers and syllabus designers incorporate pronunciation lessons in attainable and consistent ways for better Ethiopian EFL industry.