ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION COMPETENCE OF THE SECOND

SEMESTER STUDENTS CIVIL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT OF

SAMARINDA STATE POLYTECHNIC

Sektalonir Oscarini Wati Bhakti, S.Pd., M.Pd

(Staf Pengajar MKDU Jurusan Teknik Sipil Polnes)

Fariyanti, S.E., M.Si

(staf Pengajar Jurusan Akuntansi)

Abstract

This research investigated the second semester students’ pronunciation competence who are studying in Civil Engineering Department. This research belongs to

quantitative research which the data taken from the test. The students were asked to pronounce 100 words that consisted of 1-syllable, 2-syllable, 3-syllable, and 4 and

more-syllable words. The result of the test showed that the average score was 75 so that it was classified into “Fair”. It also showed that no students got score under 50. It means that no students had problem in pronouncing the words of test. There were 11 students got fair score, between 60 – 69, and two students got poor score, between

50 -59. Although, it was said that no students got no problem in pronouncing the words, but it needed considering that those students still need to have some exercises

to pronounce the words correctly.

INTRODUCTION

Pronunciation is one of essential aspect in learning English. The deficiency in

pronunciation ability can affect the ability of speech production. Carruthers (2007),

states that good pronunciation is one of the foundations of effective spoken

communication. If speakers pronounce the words clearly and correctly, their

audience interlocutor would be able to understand what they are trying to express

easily. However, misunderstanding, in many cases, occurs when words are

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inaccurately pronounced. Besides the ability to communicate, Nation and Newton

(2009) informs that the lack of stable pronunciation can seriously affect students’

memory. The amount of stable pronunciation knowledge can help the learners

enhance long-term memory capacity.

Pronunciation must be acquired by the students since it is a fundamental skill

that affect comprehensions. There are two keys problems with pronunciation

teaching. First, it is likely to be neglected, second, if it is not neglected, it tends to be

reactive to a particular problem that has arisen in the classroom rather than being

strategically planned (Kelly: 2000).

Besides those problems above, some factors also reveal in teaching

pronunciation as the results of some researches of pronunciations. Some of them are

the limitation of time in pronunciation practice in traditional classroom instruction,

the less attention in speaking and listening skills of the teachers in the classroom, the

students attitudes that tends to give less attention to the speaking and listening skills,

and the teachers’ insufficient skill in teaching pronunciation.

THE PURPOSE AND THE SIGNIFICANT

The purpose of the research was to find out the English Pronunciation

Competence of the second semester students Civil Engineering Department of

Samarinda State Polytechnic. The significant that gained from the research were the

researcher would expect to be able to share good inputs about the students’ English

pronunciation competence, to contribute valuable information to English lecturers

and Management of Samarinda State Polytechnic, and to give some additional

information to anyone who is interested in investigating the same area of research.

REVIEW OF LITERATURES

The Definition of Pronunciation

There are some definitions of pronunciation that delivers by some researchers.

Macháčková (2012:9) defines pronunciation as a way how sounds are articulated by

speakers marking their social class, education and so forth. According to

www.nceltr.edu.au/pdamep , pronunciation refers to the production of sounds that we

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use to make meaning. It includes attention to the particular sounds of a language

(segments), aspects of speech beyond the level of the individual sound, such as

intonation, phrasing, stress, timing, rhythm (suprasegmental aspects), how the voice

is projected (voice quality) and, in its broadest definition, attention to gestures and

expressions that are closely related to the way we speak a language (2002:1).

Department of Education Training and Youth Affairs (DETYA) also states

pronunciations includes all those aspects of speech which make for an easily

intelligible flow of speech, including segmental articulation, rhythm, intonation and

phrasing, and more peripherally even gesture, body language and eye contact.

Pronunciation is an essential ingredient of oral communication, which also includes

grammar, vocabulary choice, and cultural considerations and so on (2001:6).

It could be concluded that pronunciation is an essential aspect in

communicating. A person who has a good pronunciation even not in other aspects,

such as grammar, will be understood by his partner in speaking. Even pronunciation

has connection to grammar, especially in English. The speaker who pronounces

correctly the endings of the words, for example, can give grammatical information.

The Factors Contributing to Students’ Pronunciation

Kenworthy, Collier and Brown in Yangklang (2006) propose six other factors

that affect student’s pronunciation, i.e., native language, age, exposure, innate

phonetic ability, identity and language ego and motivation and concern for good

pronunciation ability.

The native language will be the most influential factor affecting a students’

pronunciation. If the students are familiar with the sound system of their native

language, they will be able to diagnose their own difficulties. Many L1-L2 carryovers

can be overcome through a focused awareness and effort onthe learners’ part.

Age is not the crucial and only factor that affects learning or improving

pronunciation abilities. Adults were probably able to learn second language

phonology as well as children did, in a direct way, using a traditional listen and-

repeat exercise, minimal pairs in the context of the sentences, conversation and role

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playing. Moreover, the older students were faster and more efficient than younger

students in the early states of language learning. Older students and adolescents

developed their second language skills continuously, but adults would diminish after

the first year. However, there was no evidence for a simple and straightforward link

between age and ability in pronunciation of a new language. Both younger learners

and adults can improve their pronunciation ability.

Various studies compared the pronunciation accuracy of people living in

English-speaking countries and those who did not. It seemed that the amount of

exposure is a contributing factor but not a necessary factor for the development of

pronunciation skill.

This skill is sometimes called ‘phonetic coding ability’. It is a common view

that some people have a ‘better ear’ for a foreign language than others. Although

students may have had exposure to a foreign language as children and attuned to

phonetic discrimination, some studies have suggested that some elements of learning

are a matter of awareness of the different sounds. Pronunciation can improve with

effort and concentration on those sounds.

Another influence was one’s attitude toward speakers of the target language and

the extent to which the language ego identified with those speakers. Students with a

positive attitude toward the people who spoke the language were likely to learn

pronunciation more successfully. They were not afraid of the second identity that may

have been emerging within them.

The learners’ motivation can be the strongest factor. If the learners’ motivation

is high, then they will be willing to improve their abilities by themselves. On the

other hand, if they do not see the value or care about pronunciation, they may not be

motivated to do well.

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RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Research Design

This research applied quantitative design that is about explaining phenomena

by collecting quantitative data that are analyzed using mathematically based methods

(Muijs, 2004:11).

The Research Context

This research was designed to describe English reading problem of Civil

Engineering of Samarinda State Polytechnic, East Kalimantan. This research will use

quantitative method. All the participants were second semester students Civil

Engineering Department of Samarinda State Polytechnic.

Population

In this research, the researcher took all second semester Civil Engineering

Department students of Samarinda State Polytechnic as the population. The

researcher found out that it was possible to give the test to all second semester Civil

Engineering Department students of Samarinda State Polytechnic as long as they

were still in the same campus.

Data Collection Techniques

The instrument used in this study was a test that aimed to investigate the

participants’ pronunciation competence. Since one of the objectives of the current

study focuses on English pronunciation and as far as the syllable numbers are

concerned, these 100 words were divided into four groups: one syllable (e.g. read,

street), two-syllable words (e.g., process, data), three-syllable words (e.g., engineer,

energy), four and more -syllable words (e.g., automatic, construction) with 25 words

each. All of these words selected were arranged in the ascending order based on their

number of syllables. That was, the test begins with a group of one-syllable words and

ends with four and more-syllable words. The words were taken from Civil

Engineering handbook.

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Data Collection Procedures

The researcher found out how many participants would be her population of

the research. The data of the participants were gotten from the Academic Department

of Samarinda State Polytechnic that concerns about the students’ data. After figuring

out the number of the population, then the researcher constructed the the test.

Data Analysis

Percentage of students passing the test would be used to determine the

participants’ pronunciation competence. They were classified that below 50 will be

problem area.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

Before conducting the test, the researcher conducted pilot test to ten the

second students of Diploma Four of Civil Engineering Department to find out the

validity and the reliability of test. The validity of the 1-syllable word was 0.7246, the

validity of the 2-syllable words was 0.7521, the validity of the 3-syllable word was

0.7246, and the validity of the 4 and more-syllable word was 0.7456. The reliability

of the 1-syllable words was 0.9646, the reliability of 2-syllable words was 0.9646, the

reliability of 3-syllable word was 0.9895, and the reliability of 4 and more syllable

words was 0.9831. And there were 20 invalid number, so that there were 100 valid

number.

The pronunciation test was consisted of four parts. They were one-syllable

words, two-syllable words, three-syllable words, and four and more-syllable words.

After conducting the test to the second semester students of civil Engineering of

Samarinda State Polytechnic, the researcher scored the test. Then, the researcher

tabulated the data to find out the mean score and the number of the students who got

the problem in pronunciation or not.

From table 1., we can see that there were 48 students who conducted the test.

And the highest score was 92 and the lowest score was 56. And the average score

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was 75. We also can see that there were no students who got the problem in

pronunciation because no one got score under 50.

Table 1. The Student’s Score of the Pronunciation Test

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In spite of the good score, the researcher also classified the score into scoring

standard according to Arikunto (1989:249). From the conversion table, we can find

that 16 students (33%) got excellent score (A), 19 students (40%) got good score (B),

11 students (23%) got fair score (C), two students (4 %) got poor score (D), and no

students failed in this test.

Table 2. The Conversion Table

Range of

ScoreInterpretation

Letter

Grade

Number of

StudentsPercentage

80 – 100 Excellent A 16 33

60 – 79 Good B 19 40

60 – 69 Fair C 11 23

40 – 59 Poor D 2 4

0 – 39 Fail E 0 0

The researcher also tried to find out which syllable was the most difficult and

easiest for the students to pronounce. From the table we can see that 2-syllable word

was the easiest syllable to be pronounced and 4 and more-syllable word was the most

difficult one.

For 1-syllable word, the easiest word was number 13 because 45 students were

correct to pronounce it and the most difficult word was number 3. For 2-syllable

word, the easiest words were number 12, 13, and 14 because all the students could

pronounce it correctly but there were only 35 students could pronounce number 18

correctly. For 3-syllable words, there were 27 students could pronounce number 3

correctly so that it was considered as the most difficult word while the easiest words

were number 13 and 14. The easiest word for 4 and more-syllable word were number

1 and 12 because there were 36 students could pronounce them correctly. And the

most difficult word for 4 and more syllable was number 10.

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Table 3. The Test Analysis

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Conclusions

This research investigated the English pronunciation competence of the

second semester students of Civil Engineering Department of Samarinda State

Polytechnic. The students were tested by pronouncing 100 words that consist of 1-

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syllables words, 2-syllable words, 3-syllable words, and 4-more syllable words. Each

syllable was consisted of 25 words.

The research revealed that no students had problem in pronouncing the words

that always appear in their reading about civil engineering. Nevertheless, the average

score was 75 or categorized in “fair”. There were 16 students got excellent scores

(33%), 19 students got good scores (40%), 11 students got fair scores (23%0, two

students got poor scores (4%), and no students got fail score. The most difficult

syllable to be pronounced was 2-syllable word and the easiest was 1-syllable words

Suggestions

According on the findings of the research, the researchers would like to give

some suggestion that could give contribution to the management of Samarinda State

Polytechnic. Because most of the participants no students got problem in

pronouncing the words, but the average score was only 75 (fair). It means that there

are still ways to increase the students competence in pronouncing the words.

First, the management needs to appeal to the English lecturers to give some

reading exercises to their students, not only silent reading but also loud reading, so

that the students are able to find out to pronounce the words correctly. And then, the

English lectures need to conduct the pronunciation test so that the teacher will find

out their competence in English pronunciation.

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