Learning Strategies Used by English Department Students in Learning Pronunciation
LEARNING STRATEGIES USED BY ENGLISH DEPARTMENT STUDENTS IN
LEARNING PRONUNCIATION
Hermin Dwi Wulandari
English Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of Surabaya.
[email protected]
Lies Amin Lestari
English Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of Surabaya
[email protected]
Abstrak
Sebagian besar siswa bahkan mahasiswa Indonesia memiliki kesulitan untuk melafalkan bahasa
Inggris dengan tepat. Maka, diperlukan adanya strategi yang tepat untuk mempelajari pelafalan bahassa
Inggris dengan tepat. Penelitian terdahulu telah menyebutkan bahwa siswa yang berprestasi menggunakan
strategi belajar cognitive melalui kegiatan menonton TV, mendengarkan musik, menggunakan kamus, dll,
serta strategi metacognitive melalui memperhatikan secara seksama bagaimana bahasa Inggris dilafalkan
dengan benar. Maka, diperlukan untuk menggali lebih dalam tentang proses yang rinci dari strategistrategi tersebut karena penelitian terdahulu hanya menyebutkannya secara umum. Pertanyaan yang
muncul adalah : 1. Strategi apa yang digunakan mahasiswa utnuk belajar pelafalan bahasa Inggris? 2.
Bagaimana strategi tersebut membantu mahasiswa untuk menguasai pelafalan bahasa Inggris? 3.
Bagaimana pendapat mahsiswa tentang keefektifan strategi yang mereka gunakan dalam belajar pelafalan
bahasa Inggris? Penelitian ini termasuk penelitian kualitatif dimana interview dilakukan untuk
mendapatkan data. Hasil yang didapat menunjukkan bahwa siswa memiliki strategi yang bervariasi dalam
mempelajari pelafalan bahasa Inggris yang dikategorikan dalam taksonomi Oxford. Masing-masing
strategi memberikan pelajaran dan manfaat. Siswa juga berpendapat bahwa strategi terbaik dalam belajar
pelafalan bahasa Ingris adalah melalui pembicara asli dan diskusi dengan orang lain
Kata Kunci: pelafalan, strategi belajar
Abstract
Most of Indonesian students, even college students, got difficulty in pronouncing English
pronunciation. Then, it is necessary find out the best strategy to learn pronunciation, so it can the model or
guidance for others to learn English pronunciation. A previous study mentioned that good language
learners used cognitive strategy such as, watching movie, listening to music, checking dictionary, etc and
metacognitive strategy through paying attention on how English words are pronounced (Mulyani,
Haryanto & Dollah, 2014). Therefore, it is necessary to know the detail process of the strategies used in
learning pronunciation because the previous research just listed it very generally. The questions are
formulated as follows: (1) What strategies are used by English Department students in learning
pronunciation? (2) How do learning strategies help English Department students to master English
pronunciation? (3) How are the students’ perspectives of the effectiveness of strategies used? Qualitative
research is used in which interview is conducted to get the data. The result showed that the students used
various strategies categorized in Oxford’s taxonomy. Each strategy gives different exposure depending on
the opportunity and advantages given by applying the strategies. Then, the students argued that the best
strategy in learning pronunciation are through learning from native speakers and practicing by discussion
with others.
Keywords: English pronunciation, strategy
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of learning English is to be able to
communicate both spoken and written form. In spoken
form, one of the language components is pronunciation
which means not only how English sounds are produced
but also how stress and intonation are used. In fact, vowel
1
and consonant sounds belong to segmental features,
while stress and intonation belongs to supra segmental
feature (Kanoksilaphatam, 2014). Those components
must be well-mastered not only theoretically but also
practically in order to succeed the speaker’s intention.
In terms of English sounds, either vowel or
consonant sounds need to be accurately pronounced in
Learning Strategies Used by English Department Students in Learning Pronunciation
connected speech. It is because mispronouncing those
sounds may distract the listeners to get the message
across though no doubt context always takes part in
spoken form. For instance, the word “ship” may be
pronounced /ʃiːp/ instead of /ʃɪp/ in which those two
sounds have different meaning. Also, though
mispronouncing sounds do not even change any meaning,
it gives such a strange sounds which make listeners
getting difficulty in catching the message. Thus, English
sounds are crucial because it deals with the intelligibility.
Besides, as mentioned above, pronunciation also
deals with stress which is divided into two types; those
are word and sentence stress (Bian, 2013). This
component is one of the characteristics of English in
which there are some rules of it. For example, nouns
mostly have stress in the first syllable while verbs may
have it either first or second syllable. Also, sentence
stress indicates the prominent part of the message. Both
word stress and sentence stress are necessary to master
because it deals with the message that is going to express.
Another is intonation which cannot also be
ignored due to determining the certain meaning of the
message. The intended meaning not only about the word
which is uttered but also the tone which is used. For
instance, the sentence of I’ll arrive at eight o’clock with
falling tone in the word of o’clock indicates as the
statement, whereas the raising tone in the word eight
indicates as the question (Harmer, 2007: 39). It shows
that the same sentence with different tone give different
function of the expression.
With regard to the importance of those three
aspect in spoken form, of course, everyone who learn
English has to master it. Therefore, in educational
context, the teacher’s pronunciation must be paid
attention because of being model for the students. Then,
as the one of the primary sources of input of FL in the
classroom, teachers are continuously teaching
pronunciation whether directly or indirectly (Tejeda and
Santos, 2014). Automatically, those who are prepared to
be an English teacher must ready about the quality of
pronunciation including to S1 students of English
Department. They are no doubt expected to have such an
accurate pronunciation so that the students have good
model in learning pronunciation.
However, Indonesian college students especially
English Department students get difficulty in
pronouncing English sounds especially for the sounds
which are not common in Bahasa Indonesia (Tiono and
Yustanto, 2008, Hakim, 2012 & Andi and Pallawa,
2013). It is explained that those difficulties are influenced
by the difference phonetic feature between English and
Bahasa Indonesia or even regional language. In case of
English stress, a research showed that most of the English
Department students could not identify word stress,
monosyllabic, dissyllabic, trisyllabic word, words with
suffixes or words with prefixes (Weda, 2012). It shows
that having good English pronunciation for Indonesian is
indeed extremely hard regardless of the causes behind it.
Realizing the phenomenon that English
Department students got difficulty in English
pronunciation, there must be appropriate strategy to
support in learning it effectively. That strategy is called
as learning strategy which can support learners to
manage, direct, determine and guide their learning
process (Hu & Tian, 2012 cited in Souriyavongsa, et al,
2013). It is believed that the appropriate strategy will lead
learners to gain English mastery in terms of English
pronunciation though it is not the only one factor. It is
good indicators of how learners approach problems or
tasks faced in the process of language learning (Tseng,
2005). Thus, learning strategy gives prominent role for
learners to learn and solve any problem in English
pronunciation.
Actually, there are some learning strategies that
have been explained, for instance Ellis (1997) mentioned
three learning strategies: those are cognitive,
metacognitive and social/affective strategy. Whether it is
aware or not, actually, every learner has own strategy to
master English especially in pronunciation. The selection
may because of some factors, such as gender, age,
motivation, etc. Then, the language learning strategies
chosen may have a greater effect on learner’ efforts to
learn English (Ismail & Khatib, 2013). Further, strategies
use do indeed cause a difference in language proficiency
significantly (Oxford, 1999). It showed that there is linear
relationships between strategy use and language
proficiency in which greater strategy use frequency
results greater proficiency. Thus, it is believed that
learning strategy chosen by learners contribute to succeed
learners in having such an accurate pronunciation
regardless of what factor influencing its choice.
Therefore, it is necessary to find out how
students who have good pronunciation learn English
pronunciation. A previous study has shown how
Indonesian good language learners learn English in four
skills and three language components (Mulyani, Haryanto
& Dollah, 2014). It is mentioned that in case of learning
pronunciation, the participants most often use cognitive
strategies like listening to the English song, checking
dictionary, etc. However, it is just listed in very surface
because, indeed, the research was conducted in some
focuses. Therefore, it triggers the present study to
research learning strategy used by English Department
students that are so-called having good pronunciation
including English sounds and stress in more detail. It is
about how the students learn English pronunciation, solve
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Learning Strategies Used by English Department Students in Learning Pronunciation
difficulties and maintain accurate pronunciation. Also, it
is necessary to analyse how often, when and where the
strategy is applied, and the opinion related to advantages
and obstacles in applying certain strategy.
1.
What strategies are used by English
Department students in learning pronunciation?
2.
How do learning strategies help English
Department students to master English
pronunciation?
3.
How are the students’ perspectives of the
effectiveness of strategies used?
all the important items were gathered based on the
interview guidelines, while the unnecessary information
were eliminated since those data had nothing to do with
this research. Then, all the strategies mentioned by the
students were categorized based on the Oxford’s
taxonomy and explained according to the students’ detail
information.
RESULTS
1. Strategies used by the students
The results showed that the students used
various strategies in learning pronunciation. Those
strategies are conducted to improve English
pronunciation inside and outside of classroom and to
solve pronunciation difficulty. Those are categorised
based on the Oxford’s taxonomy which is presented in
table 1 (see appendix 1). It showed that the students
applied
cognitive,
memory,
compensation,
metacognitive, affective and social strategies.
Inside of classroom especially in pronunciation
class, all the students applied cognitive strategy by
practicing formally from the lecturer and the book given.
Especially student 1, she also used memory strategy to
support her learning by taking note. It is conducted by
giving symbols to keep certain information, such as
underlining which part of syllable must be stressed. In
other classes, the students also have different strategies.
Student 3 and 4 tended to apply social strategy by having
discussion with friends and asking to others. Then,
student 6 used metacognitive strategy by paying attention
to how the lecturer’s way in pronouncing English words.
Then, he tried to imitate it with soft voice.
METHODS
This research belonged to qualitative research
since this research deals with data which are in the form
of words or pictures rather than number and statistics
(Ary, et al. 2010). The researcher applied basic
interpretative research in which it aimed to describe a
phenomenon or process of how the students learn,
improve and solve difficulty of English pronunciation,
and understand the subjects’ point of view of their
strategies used. There were 7 students participated in this
research in which they belonged to the students who have
good pronunciation. Purposive sampling was used in
which the students were chosen based on their score for
both pronunciation and speaking courses and
achievement for their GPA and ESC’s level.
Researcher was the main instrument to conduct
the interview. Then, Interview guideline was also used as
in collecting data. There were fourteen open-ended
questions in which those questions were formulated
based on the research questions.
For this research, interview was conducted to get
the information in-depth. This research used semi or
partially structured interview because though interview
guidelines were used, the researcher might modify the
questions during the interview process. Taking notes was
conducted to take the information while recording the
interview was also applied. Taking notes was still
conducted to keep the information and formulate the next
questions because the students sometimes explained the
information very generally so that the target information
must be got by using another question. Recording was
conducted to confirm all the notes and support the
information that has been noted.
In analyzing the data, the researcher used the
three stages called organizing and familiarizing, coding
and reducing and interpreting and representing (Ary et al.
2010). First, reading the notes, and transcribing the
recording were conducted to organizing the data. Then,
In outside of classroom, various strategies are
conducted to support their learning. Watching movie is
the learning activity applied by student 1, 3, 5, and 7 to
learn pronunciation. By this activity, the students apply
cognitive strategy through listening very carefully and
imitating what the actors or actresses utter. Those two
strategies are conducted by student 1, 3 and 5, while
student 7 just focuses on listening the sounds. Student 3
and 7 mentioned that there were some steps they
conducted. First, they watched movie by using
Indonesian subtitles. Then, they changed it into English
subtitles after they can recognise English sounds well.
The last, they watched movie with using no subtitles. By
time goes, they could recognise how English word is
pronounced and they can learn English pronunciation
easily
Student 1 and 5 prefer listening to the sounds
very carefully to watching the subtitles. Student 1 argued
that using subtitle, especially Indonesian subtitle, gets her
to ignore the sounds produced by the actors / actresses.
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Learning Strategies Used by English Department Students in Learning Pronunciation
Student 5 added that he gets confused when he watches
movie by using subtitle due to dividing his focus.
Additionally, to maximise his learning, he often plays the
same movie for certain movies that consist of interesting
talk.
she mispronounces certain words. Then, she knows what
is wrong.
Joining competition is also used to learn
pronunciation. Through this activity, student 4 and 5
apply strategy of paying attention and listening very
carefully to the other contestants’ speech. Student 5 can
find students who have very good pronunciation that can
be role model for him. He listens to his friends’ talk and
gets input in terms of how certain words are pronounced.
Additionally, both student 4 and 5 also practice how to
produce English pronunciation correctly through their
speech or conversation.
The last strategy is using source through
dictionary. Electronic dictionary is mostly-used to check
how certain words are pronounced. This cognitive
strategy is applied by all the students, except student 7.
They apply this strategy to know and confirm how certain
English word is pronounced by listening to the sounds
given. Additionally, student 3 and 6 sometimes read the
transcription and match it with the sounds.
There are some difficulties that are be faced by
Indonesian students, like the distant relation between the
sounds and spelling and some English sounds which are
not common in Bahasa Indonesia such as [v], [tʃ], [ʃ].
Then, to solve it, the students tend to use cognitive,
compensation, affective and metacognitive strategy.
Those strategies are conducted to practice and maintain
how to produce those sounds.
That activity is also conducted by student 2 and
6 with different media, like talk show and TV series. By
watching TV series, student 6 can do much exposure
because that program tends to be regularly-released, such
as how I met your mother and the flash. He always
downloads those series one or two hour after it was
released in America. Therefore, mostly, he watches it
without any subtitle. He applies strategy of listening very
carefully to catch sounds accurately. Then, when he has
the subtitles, he also displays English subtitles and
matches the sounds and the spelling.
Listening to song is conducted to improve
English pronunciation by student 1, 2, 3, 6, and 7.
Student 7 made kind of experiment and found that a
brain, actually, always keeps all the information inputted
even in unconscious condition. His experiment was
trying to input data by listening to song when he slept in
which that song is not played in conscious condition.
Then, he could recognise how to pronounce English
words belonging to the lyrics. Thus, one of his strategies
in learning pronunciation is listening to music in
unconscious condition. He usually makes a playlist about
ten to fifteen songs when he is going to sleep. Then, he
listens to it while sleeping. He listens it regularly to
maximise he exposure.
Besides, listening to song is mostly conducted
in conscious condition by student 2, 3, 6, and 7. They try
to listen it carefully to recognise the English sounds.
Additionally, they learn the lyric of the song to match the
sounds and spelling. Further, they also imitate how the
singers pronounce the lyrics by singing along to it.
Another strategy is communicating with others
which belong to social strategy; it can be discussion with
other people or native speakers. Discussion with friends
is conducted by student 1, 4 and 7. Student 1 uses ESC
program by making rule which require all the members to
correct each other or ask in terms of pronunciation.
Besides, having conversation with native speakers is
applied by student 3. She often comes to the event which
represents native speakers as the informants. She tries to
communicate with them. Therefore, she can get much
input about how English words are pronounced and
practice to produce English speech. She also uses native
speakers’ responses to measure and correct her
pronunciation. It is because native speakers usually
repeat those words correctly to verify her intention, when
Metacognitive strategy is used by recording
voices to asses own pronunciation and evaluate it.
Student 1 and 2 usually record their voice to read certain
passage. Then, they play it and decide what words are
mispronounced. Then, they correct it, record and check it
again. They do correction until they can pronounce all the
passage perfectly. They conduct it to measure and
practice their pronunciation to be accurate. Especially for
student 2, she also conducts it to evaluate whether her
utterances still sound Javanese or not.
Another way is conducted by student 3. She
collects some vocabularies which are related to the
difficult sounds. Then, she practices it by pronouncing it
in many times until she can pronounce it correctly.
Additionally, she integrated English pronunciation that
she learns into daily conversation by communicating
using English with her sister. Student 1 also usually
speaks English with her family, such as her father and
sibling in which she practices how to use English
pronunciation in her conversation. It is similar to student
4, 5, 6 and 7. They practice how to pronounce those
sounds by integrating it into conversation. Student 6 often
speaks English in social media in which he practices to
produce correct pronunciation. Additionally, student 7
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Learning Strategies Used by English Department Students in Learning Pronunciation
mentioned that his way is increasing his awareness about
those sounds. When he is aware of wrong pronunciation
or sounds that he utters, he directly revises it so his
mistake will not be fossilised.
misunderstanding that may happen when she talks to
native speakers.
2.
How those strategies help the students to
master pronunciation
This part explains the detail information about
the strategies they used. The first is about the exposure
given by applying those strategies which deals with the
advantages that the students got. The second is the
opportunity of applying those strategies. It explains how
the strategies give the students opportunity in learning
pronunciation in terms of frequency.
Guessing is conducted by student 5. This
compensation strategy is used when he finds new word
and he does not know how to pronounce it. He just uses
his instinct to guess certain pronunciation. He can guess
confidently how certain word is pronounced due to his
experience.
Specifically for English sounds which do not
exist in Bahasa Indonesia, student 1 has special way how
to approach this problem. Actually, she has great
experience in learning Koran in which she has to
pronounce Arabic sounds accurately. She learns it for
several times until she can pronounce it perfectly.
Therefore, she uses her experience to learn English
sounds because some Arabic sounds are similar to
English sounds. She believes that her success of
pronouncing some English sounds are influenced by her
experience in learning Koran.
The exposure got by applying strategies
The students must learn all the aspects of
pronunciation in order to master English pronunciation. It
is believed that applying certain strategies can help them
to master all those aspects, so the goal of learning
pronunciation can be achieved. Actually, each strategy
must have benefit in terms of the practice and input got
by the students in applying certain strategies. Those
practice and input must be depended on each student in
maximising their learning.
Besides direct learning conducted by students
to solve pronunciation difficulties, some students use
indirect learning that support their learning. S4 and S6
apply affective strategy in which they always motivate
themselves to improve pronunciation in order to have
good pronunciation. S4 believes that all people especially
Javanese can imitate English pronunciation perfectly.
Then, S6 always motivates himself that he must be able
to pronounce English perfectly by imitating the way of
pronouncing words like native speakers continuously.
By practicing formally from the lecturer in
pronunciation class, all the students learn English
pronunciation theoretically and practically. They argued
that they even know how to pronounce [v], [ð], [ʃ], [θ],
etc from pronunciation class. Then, they practice how to
pronounce it accurately by listening and imitating the
lecturer’s model of English production. They also learnt
about stress and intonation. For instance, student 2
mentioned that she learnt about how to pronounce WHquestions and yes-no questions from the book she has.
Therefore, whenever she forgets about it, she just opens
the book to learn.
Some difficulties are also mentioned by the
students. Student 2, 5 and 6 have difficulty in recognising
phonetic symbols to read certain pronunciation. For
instance, student 6 gets confused to produce sound of the
symbol of /i/ and /I/. He mentioned that the ability of
reading the symbols can be practiced by noticing and
matching between the symbols and the sounds in every
occasion he checks dictionary. However, other students
usually checks pronunciation directly through the sounds
or model given by the electronic dictionary without
noticing the phonetic symbols. In other words, some
students neglect the phonetic symbols in learning
pronunciation.
Another strategy applied inside of classroom is
taking note. By that activity, the students can keep
information about stress by symbols given. For instance,
she noted the word record by giving symbols for which
part must be stressed. Another strategy applied inside of
classroom is imitating the lecturer’s talk with soft voice.
By that activity, student 6 can use this strategy to imitate
the three aspect of pronunciation. Therefore, this strategy
helps him input knowledge and practice how to
pronounce it independently.
Student 3 sometimes gets difficulty of
pronouncing British and American English in which she
sometimes mixes between British and American. Then, to
solve it, she mostly checks it from dictionary.
Additionally, she explained that her knowledge about
accent can be grasped from movie automatically. She
added that accent is important to learn to prevent the
Movie or other TV program provides three
aspects of pronunciation; those are English sounds, stress,
and intonation. All students who apply this learning
activity agree about it. However, different focus and
opinion about how they learn those three aspects are
shown. By applying strategy of listening very carefully
and imitating the actors or actresses’ talk, student 1, 2, 5,
5
Learning Strategies Used by English Department Students in Learning Pronunciation
and 7 stated that they can learn all those aspects. For
instance, student 1 mentioned that she knows how to
pronounce the word ‘intonation, gravitation, vibration’ as
/ˌɪn.təˈneɪ.ʃ ə n/, /ˌgræv.ɪˈteɪ.ʃ ə n/, /vaɪˈbreɪ.ʃ ə n/ in terms
of the sounds and stress. She knows that stressing is
placed in the syllable before ‘ION’. Student 7 added that
he can remember how to pronounce the word ‘channel’
as /ˈtʃæn. ə l/ instead of using /ˈkæn. ə l/ from the
exposure given from the movie. Student 1, 2 and 5 added
that they also learn about accent in which it can help
them to be native like. For instance, when they watch
movie Harry Potter, they know British accent because the
actors / actresses use British accent. They mentioned that
they can also imitate those words whenever they find new
words so it can help them to memorise and practice how
to pronounce that words directly.
consist of those three aspects, mostly, the speech is
conducted fast and flatly. Therefore, somehow, stress and
intonation are denied.
Then, by discussion with friends, the students
can practice all the aspects of pronunciation in their
speech or conversation. Student 5 can improve his ability
to speak with correct sounds, stress, and intonation.
Therefore, he can produce English speech in
conversation. Additionally, he can get correction so that
he knows which pronunciation need to be corrected.
Furthermore, through corresponding with the foreigners,
student 3 also gets correction about certain word which is
mispronounced, in terms of English sounds. Therefore,
she knows and re-produces which sounds must be
corrected.
Checking dictionary is also regarded as
important strategy. From this strategy, the students can
confirm how to pronounce certain words, especially the
difficult words, such as the word of repertoire which its
pronunciation is like French. Student 2 stated that she can
know how pronounce it as /ˈrep.ə.twɑː r / by checking
dictionary. Student 4 added he knows how to pronounce
the word ‘butcher’ as /ˈbʊtʃ.ə r / instead of /ˈb ʌtʃ.ə r /.
Student 1 and 3 added that they check both UK and US
so that she knows what the difference is. Therefore,
dictionary helps the students to know and practice how to
pronounce English words through listening and imitating
the sounds given, especially difficult words.
However, student 1 is interested in intonation to
learn most because she likes to notice the intonation of
the expression given from the movie. For instance, if a
question just consists of a word or phrase to express for
sure, the intonation is rising, such as ‘My husband? Sure?
Right?’. It is different from the complete question
sentence, such as ‘How is he? How does he look?’ which
has low intonation in the end of sentence. Besides,
student 6 learns most about English sounds and stress. It
is because the intonation including to TV series is
mostly-depended on the how the character is going to
present. For instance, when the character needs to show
his / her sarcasm, the intonation must be uttered with high
tone of voice which actually it does not happen for other
characters.
By listening to the song, matching the lyrics and
the song, and singing along, those who apply this strategy
concern on the English sounds because of the
intervention of the music. For instance, student 2 knows
about how to pronounce the word ‘fragile’. She got
information that the way to pronounce it is [ˈfrædʒ. ə l]
from the song, while other people often pronounce
[ˈfrædʒ.aɪl]. Besides, pronouncing certain phrase or
expression in connected speech can be also learnt.
Additionally, student 7 added that listening song helps
him to remember the lyrics so that he knows how certain
English words are pronounced automatically. Thus,
listening to music helps them not only to input but also
practice how certain words are pronounced in terms of
English sounds.
The opportunity of applying those strategies
The opportunity of applying strategy is another
factor of students’ success in mastering English
pronunciation. It deals with where, when, and how
frequent those strategies are used. The greater their
opportunity in applying those strategies are, the better
their progress are. It is because certain strategy can be
conducted as often as the students want, while others
depend on situation or occasion.
Strategies applied inside of classroom tend to be
conducted in pronunciation class which is provided only
one semester. However, student 1 always applies strategy
of taking note whenever she finds novel words, then she
checks it. It is because this strategy is derived from her
habit since she was in Junior High school. Additionally,
she applies this strategy consistently until she is in
college.
By joining competition applied by student 4 and
5, they can practice how to use English pronunciation
that they know. However, when student 5 learns
pronunciation by following the competition, like debate
contest, he can only learn and focus about English sounds
and accent. It is because though conversation must
Applying strategies dealing with technology
tends to be frequently-applied, such as movie and music.
Besides those are their hobby, they can choose and
download which movie or music is interesting to watch
and listen. Watching movie, video or TV series is
strategy which can be applied every time the students
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Learning Strategies Used by English Department Students in Learning Pronunciation
wants. All those who apply this strategy stated that it is
their hobby in which they tend to apply this strategy very
often. Besides, they have applied this strategy for some
years. In terms of frequency, all the students stated that
they apply this strategy very often. Specifically, student 1
mentioned that she can even watches three or four movies
in a day in weekend. Surprisingly, student 6 can spend
one season of TV series which contains 20 till 24
episodes in one or two days when he finds good series. It
is because he can download it freely from the internet.
Similarly, listening music can be conducted as many as
the students want. Student 6 added that he always listens
music when he is driving every day, while student 7 plays
music almost every night when he is going to sleep.
as mother tongue is the best way. Student 5 believed that
there is no other model even lecturer can be equal to
native speaker. He emphasised that native speaker is the
standard of English pronunciation which must be
followed. Also, student 3 explained that it is the most
effective way because she can learn those three aspects of
pronunciation. Then, student 2 added that movie is a
complete medium of learning pronunciation because she
knows how the English is used in daily conversation. In
terms of the frequency, student 6 regards this activity as
the most effective strategy because he tends to do this
activity very often. In short, this strategy is regarded as
the most effective strategy due to the high-frequency, the
exposure given, and their belief of credible sources.
However, some strategies can be conducted in
certain occasion. ESC as the medium to discuss with
friends can be conducted in some occasion in a week
depending on the deal all the members. Student 5 added
that he often discusses with his friends using English
twice or three times of a week. Then, student 3 which
applies strategy of talking to native speakers, mentioned
that she comes to the certain event, such as international
seminar and exhibition, in certain occasion. It is rarer
than the previous strategy because those events are held
once a month or even more. She has applied this strategy
consistently since she was in Junior High school. She was
always interested in communicating to native speakers
though her pronunciation was not good as now.
Sharing with friends is also regarded as the most
effective strategy by student 1 and 4. Student 1 explained
that by sharing with her friends, she can get a lot of input.
It can also be conducted whether inside or outside of the
classroom. She added that many of her friends have very
good pronunciation that gets her to learn much from
them. In line with it, student 4 explained that by doing
discussion and communication with his friends, he can
improve his ability to speak with correct sounds, stress,
and intonation. Therefore, he can measure whether his
pronunciation is well-understood or not. Thus, he can
both get input from his friends and practice English
pronunciation in conversation directly.
3.
Besides watching video, student 7 also regards
listening to music is as the effective strategy. It is because
that strategy can be conducted as many as he wants.
Then, the exposure tends to be got continuously based on
the necessity. For instance, he can download the lyrics
when he got difficulty to recognise the sounds and the
spelling. Another reason is that this strategy does not
need extra money and is easy to do without depending on
other people so that he can conduct it independently.
Students’ perspectives of the contribution of
strategies used.
This part explains the students’ perspectives of
the effectiveness of strategies used. All students
convinced that all those strategies applied are quite
helpful to master English pronunciation. Student 7
emphasised that the strategies he applied have helped him
to achieve the target of having good pronunciation. Then,
student 2 stated that strategies outside of classroom
support her to learn pronunciation in regard to the single
semester of pronunciation class. In line with it, student 3
added that much of her exposure of English
pronunciation is got from her strategies outside of
classroom, while inside of classroom is the medium to
apply what she has learnt. Furthermore, actually, each
student has perfectives about which strategy gives the
greatest contribution in mastering English pronunciation
completed with the reason and factor based on his/her
experiences.
DISCUSSION
Based on the result, the students improve their
pronunciation through various strategies which are
categorized into six types. Those are cognitive, memory,
compensation, metacognitive, social, and affective
strategy. Those strategies help the students to learn
pronunciation both directly though practicing, imitating,
etc and indirectly through monitoring, evaluating
learning, etc. It is consistent with taxonomy mentioned
by Oxford (1990) that there two types of learning
strategies named direct strategy comprising cognitive,
memory and compensation strategy and indirect strategy
comprising meatcognitive, social and affective strategy.
All the students apply more than one strategies
so that they can learn pronunciation from different
Listening and imitating the actors or actresses’
talk from video which is comprised native speakers is
regarded as the best way on learning pronunciation by
student 2, 3, 5, 6, and 7. All students agreed that learning
English pronunciation through those who speak English
7
Learning Strategies Used by English Department Students in Learning Pronunciation
strategies. Student 1, 2 and 6 apply strategies both inside
of classroom and outside classroom. While other students
only focus on the strategies outside classroom, they have
more than one strategies, such as listening to music,
discussion, talking to one self, etc. Therefore, all their
strategies are combined to help them to transfer such an
input and practice about English pronunciation in terms
of English sounds, stress and intonation. In other words,
strategies applied by the students are complementary. It is
in line the theory that one of conditions of the students’
strategy success is that when certain strategy is related to
other relevant strategies (Oxford, 2003).
Naiman et al (1978) cited by O’Malley and
Chamot (1990) mentions that listening carefully,
repeating aloud after a native speaker, a teacher, or a
tape, and talking aloud, including role playing are the
technique for second language learning in terms of sound
acquisition. Those three activities are also applied by the
students in learning pronunciation. For instance, when
they watch movie, they not only listen to the sounds very
carefully, but also repeat and imitate what the actors or
actresses say. Talking aloud is also conducted to practice
producing English pronunciation. This strategy is
conducted by reading aloud to the passage, talking to
oneself in front of mirror, collecting English words and
recording one’s voice. Therefore, they can learn English
pronunciation completely both getting input and
producing English pronunciation.
Listening very carefully is conducted by
focusing on the sounds in terms of English sounds, stress
and intonation produced by the actors or singers, and
rewinding the song or movie is sometimes conducted to
get the sounds more clearly. It is an appropriate step in
learning pronunciation because listening L2 carefully can
increase students’ awareness in recognizing English
sounds. It is in line with the theory that it is crucial to
have the learners listen and notice how English is
pronounced through audio, video or their teacher
themselves besides getting them to produce correct
sounds or intonation tunes (Harmer, 2007: 250).
In term of English sounds, there are some
English sounds which do not exist in Bahasa Indonesia.
Student 3 tries to collect some vocabularies related to the
sounds that she wants to practice, then she practices to
pronounce those sounds for several times until she can
pronounce it well. Additionally, she also improves her
pronunciation by practicing it with her sister in. It is
similar to the strategy mentioned by Rusbult (2011). He
states that problem-solving strategy can be used to
improve pronunciation which include defining soundgoal, experimenting to explore possibilities, transferring
sounds quality into conversational speaking quality.
Pronouncing of English sounds accurately is
indeed not easy to do because mostly Indonesian are only
practiced to pronounce Bahasa Indonesia and regional
language. Especially student 1, she states that her success
in pronouncing English sounds are influenced by her
experience in learning Arabic especially learning Koran.
When she succeed in learning Koran by pronouncing
Arabic sounds accurately, she also practices how to
pronounce English sounds indirectly. It is because some
English sounds are similar to Arabic sounds. It is in line
with the theory that some Arabic sounds which are learnt
by Indonesian students can be used to help students in
pronouncing the target English sounds (Cahyono and
Widiati, 2009).
In case of the effective way in learning
pronunciation, based on the previous research, it is found
that the effective way to acquire native like pronunciation
are paying attention and imitating to native speaker
(Mulyani, et al, 2014). Similarly, this research shows that
in terms of the students’ perspectives, most of them
argues that learning pronunciation through those who use
English as mother tongue or native speaker is the best
way. They state that native speaker is the credible sources
and standard of English which must be followed.
CONCLUSIONS & SUGGESTIONS
Based on the results presented in the previous
chapter, there are three conclusions can be drawn. The
students apply various strategies in learning
pronunciation which are categorized in Oxford’s
taxonomy. Strategies that the students use comprise of
inputting and practicing English pronunciation in terms
of English sounds, stress and intonation. The students
mentioned that best strategies are listening and imitating
the actors/actresses’ talk, having discussion and listening
to music.
The strategies mentioned by the students can be
the model or reference in learning pronunciation.
Therefore, it is suggested to apply those strategies like the
students do for those who want to improve English
pronunciation, especially for English Department
students. For English teacher, it is suggested to guide her /
his students to apply those strategies in learning
pronunciation independently. Then, modification of those
strategies, such watching video, listening to music, and so
on can also be used as technique to teach English
pronunciation.
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9
Learning Strategies Used by English Department Students in Learning Pronunciation
Appendix 1
Table 1
No
Type of
strategy
1. Cognitiv
e strategy
Strategies used
Strategy used
Practicing formally from the lecturer
Pronouncing English words
separately
Checking dictionary
Imitating the lecturer’s talk with soft
voices
Listening carefully to the actors /
actresses’ talk
Listening carefully to the song /
lyrics
Imitating to the actors / actresses’
talk
Reading aloud
Talking to one self loudly
2. Memory
strategy
Taking note by giving symbols
3. Compens
ation
strategy
Guessing how to pronounce words
4. Metacog
p
nitive
a
y
strategy
i
n
g
Paying attention to the lecturer’s in
pronouncing English words
Paying attention to other
participants’ talk in competition
Paying attention to natives’ talk
Recording voices to assess one’s
own pronunciation
Increasing awareness
Evaluating sounds production
5. Social
Communicating in social media
Having discussion with friends and
correcting each other
Corresponding to native speakers
6. Affective
strategy
Motivating one self
10