Problems that Libyan Student Face in Spoken English - Research Proposal Example

Running Head: Problems that Libyan student face in spoken English Education Your name Course name Instructor’s name Date of submission Abstract Spoken English in Libya is marred by various problems ranging from pronunciation which is mostly attributed to the linguistic background of the students. Arabic is the main language spoken language and so it affects in a big way the way students pronounces some English words (Gimson, 1980). Teachers also contribute to these problems because from the study, 90% of the teachers speak English as a second language because they are Libyans. Teaching strategies are also major contributors of these problems; for there is no enough time for spoken English exposure. There is a big problem to English students in Libya because they fail to differentiate the English system by the substituting Arabic /b/ with English /p/. Pronunciation problems are a common case in Libya but this is major contribution by the mother tongue (O'Connor, 1976). This study shows that /p/ can be devoiced before consonants and before a voiced consonant. If teaching strategies are changes and emphasis put on speaking English frequently by the students and by using the right rules, this problem can be curbed to a lower percentage. There is in no way the pronunciation will be perfectly correct to the student by there is room for improvement in pronunciation most emphatically to the initial /p/ Introduction In Libya, English language phonetics and orthography (sounds and letters) are faced by various handles ranging from the English orthography taught at early stages of learning and the interference of the Libyan Arabic variety. Language has phonological systems through which every initial said passes through. This system is acquired from the mother tongue. So when dealing with another language one uses the acquired system to analyze the language and this results to mistakes in pronunciation. This is by the incorrect phonological interpretation of the second language since they are forced through the phonological systems of the mother tongue (Hyman, 1975) Aim and scope The object of the paper is to give a general overview of the current problems faced by English language student in Libya with emphases on pronunciation of English letter /p/ bearing in mind that Arabic is the widely spoken language in the country. The current education structures in Libya states that English must be taught in all levels of education with the advocated policy authorizing all schools to put a lot of emphases in English as a language. This therefore means that they students start to practice on spoken English at an early stage. The study presents a current statistical overview of problem of pronunciation of initial /p/ by English students in Libya and tries to indentify the cause of problems they face most importantly on the pronunciation of letter /p/. Due to the fact that English is widely used in the country in even the administrative systems, there has been a dire need for students to familiarize themselves with the United Nations recognized English language in the country. This paper shows the role played by mother tongue effect to the spoken English by the students in Libya. Within this perspective the author’s intention is to inform a lay audience of education experts and statisticians at large about the problems faced by English language students in Libya. The purpose is to raise the level of awareness to information regarding the following 1. How mother tongue language influences spoken English language in Libya 2. The current problems faced by English students in Libya when pronouncing letter /p/ 3. What urgent measures need to be taken to help these students out. English started taking roots in Libya in 1970s as a foreign language whereby it is taught in primary schools up to university levels (Obeidi, 2001). Most courses ranging from scientific, technical and medical are conducted in English. Government has implemented a policy that implies that English must be taught in elementally, secondary schools and universities (General Peoples Committee, 2007). There are some government jobs that dictate that English proficiency is a must and this has widely encouraged English language learning the country. Moreover, many private schools in the country have also been a huge boost to English language learning but their spoken English is highly influenced by their own cultural background and this result to translation pitfalls. Methodology This study is aimed at: 1. Identifying, classifying and analyzing errors of insertion made by Arab learners of English in the area of pronunciation especially on initial /p/. 2. Finding the possible sources of this errors 3. How the students can be helped to overcome the problem. Five Libyan students participated in this study. All of them speak Arabic is their mother tongue. The students were then asked to read a list of words designed by the researcher. The participant’s pronunciation was recorded on a computer which was having a sensitive microphone. The utterances were later phonemically transcribed and compared with the English language norm so as to decide which were correct and which ones were wrong. Finally three native speakers of English were asked to evaluate the pronunciation of the participants. So as to get the best results I interviewed the students using the Arabic language. The errors found in the study are categorized in three different types; including insertion, substitution and deletion. In this study insertion and deletion are not emphasized but substitution is the majorly talked in this study. It is indispensable that Arabic language has a strong interference to English learner’s pronunciation. It is found that the vowel /p/ is erroneously substituted in the word- purple, word- ship and word-sheep and some others. In this case, /p/ is substituted by /b/. There are several factors that were noted as the contributors to pronunciation problems is Libya. They include age, personality, mother tongue influence gender and learning context. It was clearly noted that age, personality and L1 background are the factors that mostly affect student’s mastery of L2 pronunciation. Adult students, this means that when students passes the critical period hypothesis which ends at age 12 without attaining complete mastery of English words pronunciations, it is difficult for them to get them right later (Lanneberg 1967). Personality means that goals, attitude towards the language, culture, motivation contribute much to the pronunciation skills of students. In this case those students who interact much with native speakers are has less pronunciation problems (Avery & Enrlich, 1992). Pronunciation depends on how the students practice outside of class and how ready they are. Mother tongue is another major contributor to pronunciation problems. Student’s first language is transferred into English language and causes foreign accents. The pronunciation problem is a clear sign of mother tongue influence of sounds, rules, stress, and intonation. Mother tongue influences pronunciation in several ways, one sound in the target language which may not be in the foreign language, secondly, rules of combining sounds into words. Finally, rhythm and melody of language determines its pattern of stress and intonation, students transfer these patterns into English language (Avery & Enrlich 1992) Spoken language in Libya is faced by failure of the realization of English consonant in terms of phonetic feature rather than their whole segments. For instance the pronunciation of the letter /’p/ is a common problem. This is articulated by lack of detecting the different states of glottis (Voicing) expressed by initial consonants, different places of articulation of the initial consonants and the different manners of initial consonants articulation. /p/ as a consonantal segment does not have one on one relation counterpart in the phonemic system of Libya Arabic language. Thus to English language students it is voiceless and replaced by its voiced counterpart /b/ which has a phonemic value in Arabic phonemic system. The voiced /b/ is available in both languages having phonological values in both; however students do not realize the voiceless-ness and aspiration features of English /p/ sound (Roach, 1991). It is worth noting that, learning vowels is much more difficult that learning consonants. This is due to the fact that consonants are categorized on articulatory criteria. I.e. throughout the vocal tract, airflow is obstructed while vowels fall under auditory criteria. It is therefore advised that when learning vowels, practices should be done in relation to sound continuum of one vowel to another. Having that all English vowels are voiced articulation places and manners is not specified. According to English rules, vowels are much longer before voiced consonants and before voiceless consonants. Moreover post vocalic voiceless consonants are much longer than the related voiced consonants after the same stressed vowel (Ladefoged, 1993) Through the interview it was noted that there is no much time given by the teachers for talking in the classrooms. This might have contributed deeply on the problems these students are facing in spoken English, during the lecture periods, there program used is not interactive. By this I mean that there is no dialogue or debate session that would expose students to more time in speaking English. 90% of the teachers of the students I interviewed were non native English speakers. This therefore means that, just as the students are, their teachers use English language as their second language and most probably will register the same errors if the same study is conducted to them. It was noted that, they use mother tongue referrals when teaching English with a clear intention of making their student understand the language. The errors made were then classified in regard to the type of error made. Phonemic problems English system is perfectly symmetrical while that of Arabic is skewed. This means that there is no voiced counterpart of /p/. This is a big problem to English students in Libya because they fail to differentiate the English system by the substituting Arabic /b/ with English /p/. Pronunciation problems are a common case in Libya but this is major contribution by the mother tongue. The missing phonemes are easily inserted due to the availability of phonotactic arrangements and regional variation in the Arabic system. For instance this study shows that /b/ can be devoiced before consonants and before a voiced consonant. In Libya the mostly spoken language is Arabic and its words are very different from other languages words where these words are made up of subtle roots and affixes that are additions to the stem. Arabic words however have a root that consists of three consonants combined with different patterns of vowels to form a meaningful word. Data collection Initial /p/ Student’ A’ Student’ B’ Student ‘C’ Student ‘D’ Student ‘F’ Party Portal Pool Pictures * * * * * * * Total 2 0 1 3 1 Media /p/ Student’ A’ Student’ B’ Student ‘C’ Student ‘D’ Student ‘F’ Cooper Apple Puppy Happy purple * * * * * * * * * Total 2 0 2 4 1 Final /p/ Student’ A’ Student’ B’ Student ‘C’ Student ‘D’ Student ‘F’ Tap Cap Jeep Ship Sheep * * * * * * * * Total 2 0 1 3 1 The effect of pronunciations problem is as a result of mother tongue language setting. Arabic syllable structure is classified into two types; Open syllables consisting of (CV and (CVV) and closed syllable consisting of (CVC) (CVVC) and (CVCC). Every syllable starts with a consonant; it can never begin with a vowel (Raja, 1979). Glottal stop is an independent consonant in Arabic phonology and therefore any word starting with a vowel like /al/ the word is recognized as starting with the consonant /?/ or glottal stop. Words ending in a vowel and the following starts with a glottal stop, then the glottal stop and the vowel are at times elided and consonants the closes the final syllable. In Arabic phonetic contrastive words are not stressed. This is totally dependant with the length of the vowel. Results and discussion Phonology The following phonological process was noted while analyzing the data collected. Devoicing Devoicing phonemes was a common case as a process of assimilation of lexical borrowing to the phonological system of Arabic which is the host language. English voiceless bilabial stop /p/ and its voiced counterpart /b/ exemplified the phonological process as in the case of purple [bu:bl:e] and happy [habi]. Vowel lengthening It is noted that short vowels like /u, o, i/ were lengthened when being pronounced. This is caused by the phonological system of mother tongue language which is designed to produce stressed long vowels in the final syllables of multi –system words (Suleiman, 1981). This was evident from the words; portal [por:ta:l], pool [p:oo:l], apple[?apple]. in addition short vowels were lengthened for instance /a/ was lengthened into the central vowel; as in [c’a:p] cap. Vowel shortening Effect of two syllable system of the Arabic language also affects pronunciation; CVCC or CVVCC. Some end with a germinate cluster because CVCC fits the mother tongue (Arabic) syllable structure perfectly. Unlike English Arabic lengthens vowels before voiceless consonants and shorten them before they are voiced ( Khalil, 1999). Segment Deletion The word report was pronounced as [ra:bo:t]. This means that phonological system of Arabic does not allow the occurrence of three consonants clusters or more, /s/ is deleted. Possessive Forms Libyan people used borrowed English lexical within their Arabic morphology. For instance they used possessive pronunciation attached to many English words like the use of computer [kimbyuta]. Even though in this word there was the use of borrowed English lexical, the letter /p/ was still substituted with its counterpart /b/ (Rakas, 1981). In Libya, English students face many pronunciation problems but through the contribution of the mother tongue. Teachers therefore need to concentrate on the features related to speech so as to curb the problems related to pronunciation which are very wide spread to the students. However, teachers need to be guided for instance in the discussion of individual phonemes put emphasis on the specific which deserve most urgent attention. This is because when handling such issues need to be keenly handled not to incapacitate communication which is very necessary for the students. Whatever the level of the students, extensive practice is the only solution to pronunciation improvement; this can be efficiently applied through exercise or with the help of their teacher’s device their own sample exercises. My recommendation is the use of learning by heart connected texts, for this will assist the mastery of features of connected speech. Statistical treatment of data Measurement was performed by counting the number of errors from each student. They were then entered in Microsoft Excel to calculate the frequency of pronunciation error followed by the percentage categorizing of each. The percentage of the errors were calculated to show to what extent errors are due Arabic interference or to the teaching strategies applied. A chart was drawn to reflect the percentage of initial /p/ pronunciation error on every student. From the five interviewed students there was a notable problem in pronouncing initial /p/ correctly. 60% of the students substituted /p/ with /b/ in the sentences. 35% of /p/s pronounced was right while 65% were wrong. This was a clear indication that the language background of the interviewees was the main contributor to this and this is due to its absence in their mother tongue. Sources of errors The errors noted in this study are reported to have come from several sources: i. Language transfer ii. Training transfer iii. Strategies of second language learning and communication Mother tongue influenced in a big way they way students pronounced some words. Secondly, the teacher’s background is also a factor contributing to the problems of spoken English language to the Libyan students. In this case, students tend to copy what the teacher says since this is a second language to them. The use of mother tongue when teaching English language is also doing more than good; Teachers combine mother tongue (MT) language which is Arabic to make English teaching easier and help students understand easily, this results to them not differentiating between the letters sounds. Implications According to this study, Libyan students are facing two kind of problem in spoken English: translation from their mother tongue and incomplete learning of spoken language rules and conventions. The teachers should therefore increase the number the number of chances for spoken English. There should be assignments which require the students present them orally. When implementing this they should be allowed to work in groups and as a team on their oral projects, practice together and speak in English with each other instead of English, above all they should correct each other mistakes. Spoken rules and convention should be emphasized at an early learning level Limitations and suggestions for further studies As we are all aware, different types of written material have chances of producing different distributors of errors or even different set of error types (Corder, 1974). So as to recognize the error, the analyst must make a correct interpretation of the student’s intended meaning of the context, this is due to the fact that, students seem to be inconsistent in their production of errors ( Corder, 1974). These are some of the facts than need to be taken into consideration when conducting an error analysis and reaching into a conclusion that is reliable. This study was conducted on a small number of students and also had limited number of essays. This study is just a preliminary which gives an idea of the problems faced by English students in Libya. I believe that it is a pace setter to other studies which would cover a bigger number of students and a wider range of materials. I hope to conduct one myself in the near future. Conclusion Human are prone to making errors not only language related errors but also err in the judgment they make of the errors committed by others (Jain, 1974). This means therefore that, care need to be taken when conducting an error analysis study. This study was an attempt to identify, categorize the problems Libyan student face in spoken English language whose mother tongue is Arabic. It has been found that, one third of the foreign language leaner’s problems can be related to NL language transfer; this is what this study concluded. This pronunciation problems are attributed by an over application of L2. There is a need therefore to encourage students do more practices at home and at school with their friends in order to reduce the number of errors due to negative L1 transfer, but more importantly teach more on the rules and convention of spoken English language. It worth noting that, L2 user’s knowledge of a foreign language is apparently not the same with that of the native speaker even at advanced levels. L2 users of their first L1 are not the same as that of monolingual native speakers. L2 users think in quite different ways to monolinguals. This therefore means that it’s a hard task to try and make these students to be like native speakers There is therefore a need tom allow people to be what they are when this is an unchangeable effect of birth or early childhood up bringing (Cook, 1999). References Avery, P. and Ehrlich, S. (1992). Teaching American English Pronunciation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cook, V.J. (1999). Going beyond the native speaker in language teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 33, 2, 185-209. Corder, S.P. (1967). The significance of learners' errors. Error Analysis: Perspectives on Second Language Acquisition. London: Longman, pp. 19 - 27 (Originally in International Review of Applied Linguistics, 5 (4)). General People Committee, (2007) Report no. 309 for syllabus Design. Libya: General People Committee. Hyman, L. (1975) Phonology: Theory and Analysis Holt Rinehart Winston. Jain, M. (1974). Error Analysis: Source, Cause and Significance. In Richards, J. (Ed.). Error analysis: Perspectives on Second Language Acquisition. 189-215. Essex: Longman. Lenneberg, E. H. (1967). Biological Foundations of Language. New York, NY: Wiley Gimson, A.C. (1980) An Introduction to the Pronunciation of English 3rd Ed. Arnold General People Committee, (2007) Report no. 309 for syllabus Design. Libya: General People Committee. Hyman, L. (1975) Phonology: Theory and Analysis Holt Rinehart Winston. Raja, J. (1979) The Structure of Arabic Librainrie du Liban Rakas, M. (1981) Phonological consonants and Phonetic vowels in Eastern Libyan Arabic M.A. Dissertation, Ulster University U.K. Roach, P. (1991) English Phonetics and Phonology Cambridge University Press Suleiman, S. (1981). Linguistic Interference and its Impact on Arabic-English Bilingualism. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, State University of New York at Buffalo. O'Connor, J. (1976) A course of English Pronunciation The Camelot Press Ltd. Read More