TEACHING PRONUNCATION BY USING PHONETIC SYMBOLS TO THE ELEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS OF SMA NEGERI 1 SUNGAI ARE

 

1. Background

            Language is a means of expressing ideas, thoughts, opinion, and feeling, or it can be said that language is an instrument of communication and interaction used by human being.  In learning English that is taught in Indonesia as a foreign language, the students should accomplish many language aspects such as language skill, components, and functions.  The division of language skills are reading, listening, speaking and writing.  Language components consist of vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation.  Depdikbud (1999:33) states

The  learning   of English elements namely vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation,  spelling and idiom is to support the ability of four language   skills    in   teaching   and   learning process. English elements   that  are   difficult   for   the  students can be presented separately  in  systematic  way accordance with the theme which was being presented in the class.

            Many students find some problems in learning English especially in pronouncing the words.  It is reasonable, because the system of pronunciation used in English are different from Indonesian language.  In English, most of the words are not pronounced as they are spelled.  As Franklin and Rodman cited in Riman (2009:1) say that grammar, consist of phonology that studies the sound system.  In addition, Lado cited in Riman (2009:1) says, “The system of the sound used in English is different from those used in Indonesian language, and their differences cause difficulties for students in learning English.  These problems are due to the fact that some English sounds do not exist in Indonesian language for examples, the sounds [ æ ], [ Ө ], and [ ∂ ].  The ability to pronounce the English words correctly is very important for the English users.  There fore, the pronunciation of English should be practiced by the students.  As Robinet (1978:64) stated in Sukmarini (2000:3) stated that  one of the most important aspects of learning a second language is the effort to master the sound systems, to pronounce the language. In other words, the linguistic system of English is different from that our mother tongue.  It is very difficult for Indonesian students to pronounce English sounds appropriately and correctly.  Sounds can be very difficult for language learners too, also because of the position they occupy in relation to other sounds in words or sentences.  The different will be difficult.  For example, the words “pain”, some students pronounce it “pain” with no change of the letter “a”.  Therefore, to master the English sounds is not easy.   

            In viewing the above statements, saying that the English pronunciation is difficult as it is, and one effort to help the students for learning English pronunciation is the phonetic symbols.  The writer is interested to use the phonetic symbols in teaching pronunciation, because she referred to what Gerald (in Haviyanti, 2009:2) states that the phonetic symbols are a great help when comes to learning to pronounce English words correctly.  Any time the students open a dictionary, he/she can find the correct pronunciation of words he/she does not know before, by looking at the phonetic symbols that follows the word, understanding of the phonetic symbols can greatly simplify the learning process.  Another reason that the writer realizes that most of the teaching of English does not start with phonetic lessons, even though common sense suggest that good pronunciation and intonation require persistent practice in listening, speaking, and reading aloud.  Students in  all levels of education do not receive such practice.   In addition that English has a alphabetic system of writing, but its sounds and spelling are far from consistent and regular.  The same combination of letters can have quite different pronunciations.  For example, ch in chair, and machine  are pronounce respectively as [ t∫ ], [k], and [ ∫ ].  The letter a in page, tall, dare, rabbit, and dilemma are, respectively, pronounce as [ ei ], [   ]. [ εə ],  [æ], and [ ə ].  The combination of oo in book and food have different pronunciations.  The irregularity of sound combinations makes the learning of phonetic symbols indispensable for ESL students.

            Hence, this study will be entitled “TEACHING PRONUNCATION BY USING PHONETIC SYMBOLS TO THE ELEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS OF SMA NEGERI 1 SUNGAI ARE.”

2. Problem

            In this study, the writer will focused on teaching pronunciation by using phonetic symbols.  To make the problems clear, the writer presents the limitation of the problem and the formulation of the problem.

2.1 Limitation of the Problem

            The problem of this study will be focused on the teaching pronunciation by using phonetic symbols.  The writer limits the study in teaching pronunciation by using phonetic symbols with the words taken from the text entitled “Art “ and the words that will be investigated to be pronounced are only 20 words. 

                                                                                                                          

2.2 Formulation of the Problem

The problem which discussed in this study deals with the teaching pronunciation by using phonetic symbols, in this case the words will be taken from the text entitled “Art” from the students’ book page 71. The formulation of the problem is “Is teaching pronunciation by using phonetic symbols effective to the eleventh grade students of SMA Negeri 1 Sungai Are? 

3. The Objective of this Study

            Based on the problem of this study, the main objective of this study is to find out whether or not phonetic symbol is effective in teaching pronunciation.

4. The Significance of the Study

            The writer hopes that this study would be useful for the writer himself to increase his knowledge of conducting a study and to enlarge of English on the phonetic symbols and pronunciation.  For the teachers of SMA Negeri 1 Sungai Are, the writer hopes the result of this study would be useful at least for giving information to the teachers in teaching pronunciation.  For the students it would give them motivation to study English especially in learning English pronunciation. This study will be carried out in order to know phonetic symbol is effective in teaching pronunciation.

5. Hypotheses

            In relation to the objective of the study as mentioned above, the writer formulates the following two hypotheses.

Ho        :  it is not effective using phonetic symbols in teaching pronunciation to the eleventh grade students of SMA Negeri 1 Sungai Are.

Hi         :  it is effective using phonetic symbols in teaching pronunciation to the eleventh grade students of SMA Negeri 1 Sungai Are..

6. Criteria for Testing the Hypotheses

            For testing the hypotheses formulated above, the writer will use critical value of the students of matched t-test distribution table (Hatch and Farhady, 1982:272).  Due to the fact that the writer will use 40 students as the sample of the study, and the degree of freedom (df) was 39 (40-1), therefore to accept the alternative hypotheses with 5% significance with one tailed test, the result of the matched t-test of t-obtained should exceed 2.021 (Hadi, 1990:443) and the null hypotheses (Ho) is rejected.  On the other hand, if the result of the matched t-test is the same or less than 2.021 as the critical value, the null hypotheses (Ho) can be accepted consequently the alternative hypotheses (Hi) is rejected.