Phonological aspect of English teaching and learning - Research Proposal Example

Phonological Aspect of English Teaching and Learning This research will investigate into phonological aspect of English teaching and learning for Arabic speakers who are non-native English speakers. There are discussions on the topic how and which English to teach, consequently, there are different language classifications and approaches to it as a subject taught. Some linguists analyze it from the point of view of ELF and EIF, that is, English as Lingua Franca or English as International Language (Young & Walsh, 2010).

There are also present such interpretations as NS and NNS levels, that is, native speaker and non-native speaker. (Zoghbor, 2014, Rampton, 1990). In teaching process much depends on a teacher of foreign language and what English is taught and spoken by the teacher. Nowadays, interest rises in the sphere of phonology and phonetics, as growing number of English speakers of outside the cycle and expanding cycle globally leads to modification of original English under the influence of globalization.

It is necessary to analyze this issue on the Arabic learners of English language. (Abd-Elbasseer, Barakat, 2007) Research Questions: 1: To which extent does the phonological System of Mother Tongue (Arabic in this research) influence learning English langauge? 2: Is it possible to avoid mixing of phonology of the mother tongue and English langauge by means of use of audiovisual aids? Introduction: The matters of mother tongue influence and its avoiding while learning English of what and how to teach are one of the most discussed ones, both from the students’ and the teachers’ sides.

English learning is a wide field of research, especially because of there are several variants of English, and each is considered to be right by its speakers. Influence of Mother Tongue on Foreign Languages Learning: English teaching methodology has proved the fact of mother tongue influence on English learning statement. (Kavaliauskiene, G., 2009). Mother tongue influences foreign language as the learner tends to compare what to teach to the mother tongue, and all the information received is analyzed and digested from the point of view of differences between these two languages.

When pronouncing the sounds of English, vowels and consonants of the mother tongue make the basis for the sounds studied which is incorrect and needs remediation in the process of studying. (Kavaliauskiene, 2009). Peculiarities of mother tongue may lead to more errors and incorrect way of comprehension of the knowledge taught: researches of Arabic students productivity (Ryan, Meara, 1991) in such tests as choosing correct variants of the English words have shown that. Although they tend to choose incorrect variants of the words, their choice has the same consonant pattern as the correct word, for example: the choice is moments, while the correct one is mountains, or pulls vs. plus. It is clear that the consonants are almost unchangeable in these pairs of words.

This is because most Arabic words are made up based on consonant consequences, for example: k-t-b root combination: maktaba (library), Ketaab (book), Kataba (he wrote) (Ryan, Meara, 1991). Phonological Aspect of English Teaching and Original Pronunciation: Aside grammar and lexicology in foreign language teaching, it is necessary to mention that some sounds of any language are totally different from the sounds of the other one, and other language may seem similar. This peculiarity is applied to Egyptian Arabic speakers as well, for example, Arabic [z] is often used instead of English [ð].

As the above mentioned states, the words are made up based on consonant roots, the same role they play in oral speech. There are variants of English taught nowadays that can be referred to as national ones: Thai English and Indian English. When the speakers learn them the sounds are greatly influenced by those of the mother tongue. This fact causes inconveniences and often leads to misunderstanding when communicating with the native speakers or people taught “classic” English variants, such as British or American.

(Young, Walsh, 2010). There is, for example, a case in Egyptian dialects of English. Some speakers tend to pronounce a digraph “th” not as [ð] in the word “there”, but as [z], as it is more habitual and widely used in their mother language. Though it is possible to reach some understanding, it is preferable to teach the learners original pronunciation by means of listening to the original content (audio records, pieces of speech like dialogues). Conclusion: Mastering English phonology is a specific process which is influenced greatly by the learners’ mother tongue.

The peculiarities of the mother tongue can create difficulties while learning other languages, as the paper shows, on the Arabic students’ example in reference source of Ryan, Meara, 1991. This peculiarity is why it is necessary to use original content and sources and native speakers’ speech as an example of mastering phonetics which will be a reliable and helpful instrument of mutual understanding.