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THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH PHONOLOGY AT ENGLISH EDUCATION
DEPARTMENT OF STATE UNIVERSITY OF MAKASSAR

PENGAJARAN FONOLOGI BAHASA INGGRIS PADA JURUSAN

PENDIDIKAN BAHASA INGGRIS UNIVERSITAS NEGERI MAKASSAR

Murni Mahmud
English Department FBS Universitas Negeri Makassar
Jln Dg Tata Parangtambung Makassar
dwimurnye@yahoo.com

Abstract

This paper discusses the teaching of English Phonology at English

Education Department of State University of Makassar. The main
focus is the difficulties faced by the students in the teaching of
English Phonology. This paper is based on the data collected
among the English students of State University of Makassar,
Academic year 2009/2010. The population was three classes but
the sample was chosen randomly. Of 120 students, 40 students
were taken as a sample. A questionnaire was given to them to
reveal their difficulties in the teaching of English phonology. The
data shows that the students mainly found difficult in learning
English phonology. Their difficulties are mainly due to the
complicated materials and lack of practice. Other reasons relate to
inappropriate textbooks, ineffective methods, low interest, etc.
Another interesting reason is caused by their Indonesian
background in which they cannot pronounce certain English speech
sounds that are not existed in their mother tongue, and therefore
they cannot adjust their speech organ to produce appropriate
English pronunciation.

KEY WORDS: English phonology, English sounds, vowels,

consonants

Abstrak

Makalah ini membahas pengajaran fonologi bahasa Inggris pada

jurusan Pendidikan bahasa Inggris Universitas Negeri Makassar.
Fokus utama adalah pada kesulitan-kesulitan yang dihadapi oleh
mahasiswa dalam pengajaran fonologi bahasa Inggris. Makalah ini
didasarkan pada data yang diambil pada 120 mahasiswa jurusan
pendidikan bahasa Inggris angkatan 2009/2010 dengan mengambil
40 sampel. Responden diminta menjawab kuesioner yang
menyangkut kesulitan-kesulitan yang mereka hadapi dalam

1
 pengajaran fonologi bahasa Inggris. Data menunjukkan bahwa
mahasiswa umumnya mengalami kesulitan dalam belajar fonologi
bahasa Inggris. Kesulitan mereka umumnya disebabkan oleh materi
fonologi yang sangat kompleks dan kurangnya praktek dari teori
yang diajarkan. Kesulitan lainnya disebabkan oleh buku teks
fonologi yang tidak sesuai, metode yang kurang efektif, dan
kurangnya minat mereka dalam belajar fonologi. Sebab lain yang
menarik adalah pengaruh latar belakang mereka sebagai orang
Indonesia yang tidak bisa mengucapkan sejumlah bunyi bahasa
Inggris yang tidak mereka dapatkan dalam bahasa Indonesia, dan
oleh karenanya mereka tidak bisa menyesuaikan organ suara
mereka untuk menghasilkan bunyi bahasa Inggris yang sesuai.

KATA KUNCI: fonologi bahasa Inggris, bunyi bahasa Inggris,

vokal, konsonan

1. Introduction

The teaching of English in Indonesia is undoubtedly becoming important

as a means of international communication and as a medium for increasing high

and modern technology. However, the facts show that the teaching of English is

also becoming more difficult. Many problems are encountered by the students in

learning English as the second language.

Problems in learning the second language are mostly caused by differences

in the language systems of the two languages. If the two languages learned were

exactly the same, there would be no problems existed. Unfortunately, there are no

languages are the same. Even the same language may have several differences in

their language use as influenced by dialects, etc. Ramelan (1985:7) supported the

idea that ‘the degree of difficulty in learning is also determined by the degree of

difference between the two languages. The greater the similarity between them,

the less difficult it will be for student to learn foreign language’.

2
 One of the important subjects in English Language teaching is phonology.

This subject becomes a compulsory subject for students learning English,

especially at university level. In this subject, students are recommended to know

the basic knowledge of sound productions such as vowels and consonants,

including the symbols and the ways to produce those different sounds. This

knowledge is particularly important as the basic concepts for understanding the

sound productions in English. As Roach (1987:3) states that the theoretical

material learned in phonetics and phonology is needed to understand the

principles regulating the use of sounds in spoken English.

It cannot be denied that good pronunciation is the key success in learning

English. As supported by Brown (1991:1), ‘learners are clearly aware that poor

pronunciation represents a considerable barrier to their success in English’. The

phonetic and phonological materials learned in the teaching of phonology will be

useful in developing good English pronunciation.

As one part of language studies, this English phonology is also regarded as

a difficult subject. Based on my observations as a lecturer of English phonology,

every year, there are many students who reprogram and rejoin the class of English

phonology because they failed the subjects or because they got low score.

This paper is going to explore some difficulties experienced by the

students of English Department who learn English phonology. This is based on

the data collected in 2010 among the English students of the State University of

Makassar. The population of the research was the second semester students of

English Education Department Academic year 2009/2010, consisting of three

3
classes. Each class consisted of 35 students. Forty students were taken randomly

as a sample. The respondents were then given open-ended questionnaires to reveal

their difficulties in the teaching of English phonology.

2. English Phonology

Hyman (1975:2) defined phonology as ‘the study of sound systems, that is,

the study of how speech sounds structure and function in languages’. Furthermore,

Fromkin et al. defines phonology as follows:

Phonology is the study of the sound patterns found in human language. It

is a term to refer to the kind of knowledge that speakers have about the
sound patterns of their particular language. Phonology studies the ways in
which speech sounds form systems and patterns in human language. The
phonology of a language is then a system and patterns in human language
(1984: 72-73).

Phonology is differentiated from phonetics in that the focus of the study is

different. If in phonetics deals with ‘the formation, production, and perception of

sounds’, in phonology, the focus in phonology will be about ‘how the sounds are

realized and arranged when used in actual speech’ (Dardjowidjojo, 2009:14). As

Fromkin et al (2007) defined these two terms differently in which ‘phonetics is

the sound of language and phonology as the sound pattern of language.’

Therefore, when studying phonology, phonetics will also be discussed as

that provides the means for transcribing speech sounds. These sound

transcriptions are important as this provides the symbols for each sound as it is

produced. Therefore, when English learners know the symbols for each sound,

they are able to recognize the ways of producing those sounds.

4
 In English phonology, there are two main topics namely vowels and

consonants. In each part, studies are focused on how the vowels and the

consonants are produced by the speech organ and how different the ways of

producing one sound to another. Each sound has a certain symbol which should be

recognized in order to differentiate the sounds.

In English, there are 24 consonants and 11 vowels; each of them has

different symbols. The consonants are /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, /g/, /f/, /v/, /ð/, /θ/, /s/,

/z/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /h/, tʃ/, dʒ/, /m/, /n/, /η/, /w/, /r/, and /y/, whereas the vowels are /i:/, /ɪ/,

/e/, /ɛ/,/ӕ/,/ә/, /u:/, /u/, /ɔ/, /o/, and /a/ (adapted from Dardjowidjojo, 2009:103,

122).

In explaining the consonants, there are usually five parameters as follows:

a. State of the vocal cords (voiced or voiceless), usually identified by the

vibrations of the vocal cords. Students are given exercise to touch their

vocal cords in their throat or by covering their ears while pronouncing a

certain sound. A voiced sound such as /z/ will result in vibration.

b. Lateral or central (which sound produced in the central or the mouth or on

the side of the mouth). Students were directed to know that the only lateral

consonant is /l/, others are central.

c. Oral or nasal (which sound produced in the oral cavity and in the nasal

cavity). In this case, consonants such as /m/, /n/, and /η/ are produced with

the interaction with the air flowing through the nose causing nasal sounds.

Other consonants are known as oral as they are all produced in the oral

cavity.

5
d. Place of articulation (the position of the mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, alveolar,

or velar ridge when producing the sounds). In this case, students were

directed to know the terms of places of articulation such as bilabial,

labiodentals, alveolar, palatal, alveopalatal, velar, and glottal. Bilabial

sounds, for example, are produced by touching the two lips together such as

producing /m/, /b/ and /p/.

e. Manner of articulation (the ways the air from the lung is articulated

throughout the mouth, whether it is stopped, causing friction, or stop first

and having friction). The consonant /m/, /b/ and /p/, for examples, are

regarded as stop consonants because they are produced by flowing the air

from the lung and stop in the lips.

(Adapted from Ladegofed, 1975:11; Dardjowidjojo, 2009:59-104).

Therefore, one sound will have its own name. For example the sound /s/ in

/say/ is named a voiceless, oral, central, alveolar, fricative. When explaining this

sound, it is called voiceless as it does not cause vibration on the vocal cords. This

sound is also called central as it is produced in the middle of the mouth; oral as it

is produced in the oral cavity with no interaction with the nasal cavity such as /m/

in /many/. It is also alveolar as the position of the tongue will touch the alveolar

ridge behind the upper teeth when producing this sound. Last, it is named as

fricative because when producing the sound, it causes friction for the airstream

from the lung.

Like consonants, the vowels production also has parameters which are

divided into four as follows:

6
a. The height of the tongue, which is the relative high-low placement of the

tongue in the mouth. The tongue can be raised high or be lowered while the

jaw will adjust it.

b. The position of the tongue, which is the placement of the tongue in front, at

the centre, or at the back of the mouth. When the tongue in front position,

the sounds produced are called front vowels; when in back, they are called

back vowels.

c. The protrusion or rounding of the lips, which relates to the shape of the lips.

The lips can be spread or rounded.

d. The tense or lax state of the muscles, which is used to indicate the strength

of the muscles when producing the vowels. If it produces high tension, it is

called tense vowel and if it produces low or no tension, it is called lax vowel.

(adapted from Dardjowidjojo, 2009:107-126)

Therefore, one vowel will also has a name. For example, the vowel /i:/ in

/sheep/ has a name, a high front unrounded tense vowel. When producing this

vowel, the position of the tongue is high in the front part of the mouth. The lip

will be unrounded and it causes high tension on the muscles of the mouth.

This is different from the vowel /ɪ/ in /ship/, with the name a high front

unrounded lax vowel. The main difference is in which when producing long /i:/ in

/sheep/, it causes high tension in the muscle of the mouth which is not the case

when producing the short /ɪ/ in /ship/.

The complexities of the sound productions are accompanied by other

distinctive features which should be known as well such as ± vocalic, ±

7
consonantal, ± sonorant, ± strident, ± syllabic, ± continuant, ±coronal, ±anterior,

etc. (Dardjowidjojo, 2009:1 27-138).

Therefore, one consonant will have its own name and its distinctive

features. An example of this is the consonant /s/ which is voiceless, oral, central,

alveolar, fricative, ˗vocalic, +consonantal, ˗sonorant, +strident, ˗syllabic,

+continuant, +coronal, ˗anterior, etc.

Theories of vowels and consonants above are not enough. The materials

on phonology will also cover other aspects such as stress, intonation, and pitch.

Students are then recommended to know the differences of one word to another in

terms of stress or intonation. One of example of this is the difference of stress

between two similar spelling word: /present/. The word /preˈsent/ with a stress in

the middle will mean differently from the word /presentˈ/ with a stress at the end

of the word. The former means a gift whereas the latter means to give or to

explain.

The above theories are very important for students learning English

phonology. Failure to recognize the above names and symbols for each vowel or

consonants may cause mispronunciations. Therefore, students learning English

phonology are demanded to know the theories of sounds productions and the ways

of producing those sounds.

3. Difficulties in the Teaching of English Phonology

Many difficulties, however, are experienced by the students in the teaching

of English phonology. Ramelan (1985:7) notes that different elements in sound

8
system between the native and the foreign language offer difficulties for students

learning English phonology. The sounds may be new or strange because the

sounds may be similar but different distributions or variants.

Oktaberlina (2010:388-389) also notes some causes of difficulties in

learning English pronunciations such as (1) some English sounds do not exist in

Indonesian sounds such as /v/, /ð/, and /θ/, (2) some English speech sounds are

almost the same in Indonesian but different in terms of manner of articulations

such as the sound /r/; (3) some of English speech sounds formations do not exist

in Indonesian speech sounds; and (4) different spelling system of Indonesian and

English.

The case of stress pattern, for example, may cause difficulties for English

learners who need to pronounce the words in appropriate stress patterns. The fact

is that the stress patterns between Indonesian and English are different. Basri

(2010:348) has stressed that the stress patterns of English is different from those

in Indonesian language. In Indonesian language, the stress pattern will fall on the

penultimate syllable, whereas for English, the stress will fall on the heavy syllable.

Basri further stated that English shows a rather complicated stress pattern,

which is difficult to be predicted. This is different from the stress pattern of

Indonesian language, which can be predicted easily. Therefore, he suggested

relying much on the dictionaries since in English dictionaries, stress of the words

will be identified. In addition, learning a word in English need practices of

pronouncing the words. This implies that there are adequate phonological rules

which can describe the stress pattern of English (2010:346).

9
 These facts suggest that the teaching of phonology is difficult and

complicated. Many things need to be learned and to be differentiated. Therefore,

there should be clear explanation and a lot of practice on it.

Difficulties in the teaching of English phonology are also experienced by

the students of English Education Department, State University of Makassar.

Based on the questionnaire given to them, the majority of the respondents (100%)

stated that English phonology is a difficult subject. Some of their reasons can be

seen in the following table:

Table 1: Difficulties in the Teaching of English Phonology

No Reasons for Difficulties Quantity

1 First time to learn (a new subject) 2 respondents (5%)
2 Complicated materials 33 respondents (82,5%)
3 Inappropriate books 4 respondents (10%)
4 Speech organ is not adjustable 2 respondents (5%)
5 Indonesian background 18 respondents (45%)
6 Lack of practice 22 respondents (55%)
7 Inappropriate methods 16 respondents (40%)
8 No interest 9 respondents (22,5%)

Based on the above table, it can be seen that the majority of the difficulties

faced by students in learning English phonology is caused by complicated

materials (33 respondents or 82,5%). Materials in phonology indeed are very

complicated as they contain symbols and items that should be recognized and

memorized. Students are recommended to know the ways to produce those sounds

10
which will be different from one another. Of course, they are required to know the

differences of each sound.

The second prominent problem is the lack of practice (22 respondents or

55%). This problem occurs because the teaching of phonology mainly concerns

about theories of vowels and consonants productions, in which they contain

certain symbols and difficult items. In fact, the students want more practice in

each item in order that they can differentiate between one sound to another sound.

For example, the production of the consonant /s/ and /z/ in which one of them is

voiceless and the other one is voiced. Students need to demonstrate the difference

between vibrated sound /z/ and non vibrated sound /s/.

Next, is about their background as Indonesian. There are 18 respondents

(45%) who stated that their difficulties in learning English phonology were

mainly caused by their cultural background as Indonesian, or even as Bugis or

Makassar people. Their dialect in Bugis or Makassar sometimes made them

difficult to pronounce the English words with good or appropriate stress. In

addition, their Indonesian language, which does not recognize certain sounds in

English, such as /ʒ/ in /measure/ or /ð/ in /mother/. This make them difficult to

produce those sounds while wrong ways of pronouncing the sounds may end in

wrong interpretations of the meaning of the language.

Another problem is caused by inappropriate methods, which is chosen by

16 respondents or 40 % of the respondents. The students need appropriate

methods in teaching English phonology. Usually the lecturers rely much on

conventional methods such as explanations about the speech productions followed

11
by drilling the examples. However, such methods are regarded not effective by the

students. In facts, the students need various methods such as group oral

presentations, watching movies, and games in the class in which they can learn

and play. The students also want to be active in the teaching process by involving

them in the class activity. In addition, the presence of native speakers in teaching

English phonology is also recommended by the students as the native speakers

may have appropriate pronunciations.

Other problems in methodology seem to be caused by the ways the

lecturers teach the students. Due to the complicated materials in English

phonology, the students need clear explanation. Teaching English phonology by

using English as a medium is not really helpful for the students. They need a

combination of English and Indonesian in the teaching process, given that the

teaching of phonology is on the early semester, in which the students are still in

the level of beginners. Otherwise, it will be unclear.

Again, interest of the students also becomes the problem in teaching

English phonology. There were 9 respondents (22,5%) who stated that they had

no interest in learning English phonology. Mostly they study it because it is a

compulsory subject in their early semester. They do have to learn it and of course

they have to pass the subject. Unless they are not interested in the course, they

may not find difficult to learn it as they like the subject.

There are four respondents (10%) stated that their difficulties in learning

English phonology is caused by inappropriate books for phonology. This is also a

current phenomenon in the teaching of English phonology because there are no

12
appropriate books for Indonesian students. As stated by Dardjowidjojo (2009:xiii),

‘books about phonology in the market is not bad, they just do not fit very well

with our needs’. Textbooks available in English seem to be inappropriate for

English students and often, different books will have different symbols for each

sound. This bear another problem for students which make them confused and not

clear for sound explanation in English phonology.

Another problem for students in learning English phonology is caused by

the existence of English phonology as a new subject (2 respondents or 5 %). That

is a new course for them. If they have learned before they entered the university,

they could have known and understood about the subject. Often new subject is

difficult for learners especially for beginners.

The last problem is relating to their speech organ (2 respondents or 5%).

This may caused by their inability to adjust their speech organ to appropriate ways

of producing the sounds in English. This is of course influenced by their language

habit in which they are not accustomed to pronouncing certain sounds in their

own language. Another problem may be cause by abnormalities in their speech

organ such as having tongue tie or in Indonesian language known as cadel.

4. Conclusion

This paper has discussed the teaching of English phonology as one of the

important subjects in the English language teaching. English phonology is the

basic concept for studying English language skills and components. In fact, it is

13
the basic idea for acquiring good pronunciation, one of the English language

components. Good pronunciation is needed for good speaking performance.

Several difficulties are experienced by English students in learning

English phonology. The main difficulties are caused by complicated materials in

English phonology. There are so many things to be learned and differentiated in

phonological matters (vowels and consonants differences). Other problems

contribute to those difficulties which may end in failure in phonology course such

as their Indonesian language, which is totally different from English language,

lack of practice, poor methods in teaching English phonology, inappropriate

books, etc.

This requires urgent attentions. In terms of methods, for example,

conventional method in which teachers rely on explanation may not be useful

anymore. Although phonology course is about theoretical matters, more practices

are needed for understanding the sound differences. Appropriate books are also

needed. Often textbooks available in the market are not appropriate for Indonesian

students need. Therefore, more significant effort is needed to improve the quality

of the teaching of English phonology in Indonesia. The high qualified phonology

teaching acquire more appropriate books, more practice in the sounds productions

(not only theories), and more creative teaching.

REFERENCES

Basri, Hasan. 2010. A Comparative Account of Indonesian and English Stress

Patterns and the Potential Impacts to the Teaching of English to

Indonesian Student. The Proceeding of the Yearly International

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Kajian Bahasa dan Budaya, Unika Atma Jaya Jakarta, 345-349.

Brown, Adam. 1991. Teaching English Pronunciation: A Book of Reading.

London: Rotledge.

Dardjowidjojo, Soenjono. 2009. English Phonetics and Phonology for Indonesian.

Jakarta: Yayasan Obor Indonesia,

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Ladefoged, Peter. 1975. A Course in Phonetics. New York: Harcourt Brace

Jovanovich, Inc.

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