Pronunciation Problems of Final English Consonant Clusters: An Analytical Study of First-Semester EFL Learners at the Faculty of Education, Misurata
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.65417/ljere.v2i1.85Keywords:
Consonant clusters, English phonology, phonological constraints, English pronunciation, Libyan EFL learnersAbstract
The difficulties of pronouncing English consonant clusters are a common barrier amongst Libyan learners. Therefore, the present study is conducted to investigate the phonological phonotactics in English syllable-final consonant clusters by Libyan learners of English. The study is conducted in the Faculty of Education/ Misurata on forty Libyan students who study in the English Department, and on twelve teachers who were asked to respond to a questionnaire, and two of them were observed during their classes.
The results show that the subjects of the study seem to have difficulties in pronouncing English syllable-final consonant clusters, particularly the three consonant clusters in the English three consonant clusters and four consonant clusters in the syllable-final. Besides, the results show that Libyan learners have tendency to insert vowel sounds in the English syllable-final consonant clusters. The results further reveal interesting phenomena in the production of pronunciation in syllable-final consonant clusters produced by Libyan learners of English, such as reduction, substitution and deletion.
The results of the questionnaire as well as the classroom observation show that teachers face difficulties in their teaching of English consonant clusters. Time allocated for teaching phonetics is not enough to deal with each
student' pronunciation. Teachers need to listen more to their students to encourage them to speak
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