Native-Like Pronunciation: Students’ Problems and Strategies to

Be Native-Like Speaker in Speaking English Accent

Mukrim Al-Ghozali1, Desi Puspitasari2

1
Institut Agama Islam Negeri (IAIN) Ponorogo, Indonesia. E-mail: mukrimalghozali@gmail.com
2
Institut Agama Islam Negeri (IAIN) Ponorogo, Indonesia.E-mail: desipus@iainponorogo.ac.id

ABSTRACT

As the spread of English language, people from different place have their own pronunciation.
Pronunciation is one of the important skills to be mastered in speaking English as a tool to communicate.
Both of the speaker and the hearer must be able to know what the meaning of the speech. In Indonesia,
where English is regarded as foreign language, students often face difficulties to pronounce the language
correctly. In other words, native-like pronunciation in speaking English is challenging for the students.
This article explores the pronunciation problems faced by students and their strategies to be native-like
speaker in speaking English accent. The data were collected by using observation and interview with 6
students sixth semester of English Department at IAIN Ponorogo. From this study, the findings show
that students are relatively hard to pronounce some monophthongs, diphthongs, and also mispronounce
some consonants. The researcher also found that in order to overcome these problems, the students have
similar strategies. They usually do activities or hobbies such as listening music, watching movies or
videos from youtube, and also imitating what the speaker say. In other words, the students prefer to learn
pronunciation by themselves or independently as their strategy to improve their pronunciation.

Keywords: Native-like pronunciation; Pronunciation problems; Pronunciation strategies; Native accent

INTRODUCTION
English is widely spread around the world. In almost all of the countries,
learning English has become a common norm of majority people. One of the
outputs of learning English is communication or speaking. Speaking is used in
expressing the one’s thoughts to the interlocutor and also understanding the
other’s thoughts1. In speaking, both of the speaker and the hearer must be able
to understand each other.

In the context of English as a global language, the local people from every
region have their own way to pronounce English. In other words, people have
their own unique accent. This foreign accent can occur when a second language
(English) begins to be acquired in the early ages when the first language is
growing at the same time. As a result, the second language is highly influenced
by the first language. Additionally, motivation of the speaker is also can be a
possible influencing factor of foreign accent characteristic. Surprisingly, either
native or non-native people, they can easily recognize when a speech is not the
same as their own variety, such as in the form of words or phrases 2. In
1
Sadullayeva Nilufar Kadamovna, ‘The Importance Of Speaking Skills For Efl Learners’ 8, no. 1
(n.d.): 28.
2
Tracey M. Derwing and Murray J. Munro, ‘Second Language Accent and Pronunciation
Teaching: A Research-Based Approach’, TESOL Quarterly 39, no. 3 (1 September 2005): 383,

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Indonesia, the number of English speakers is becoming more and more. Latifa
(2001) said that this may happens due to English intervention that resulting
various varieties of accented English. The characteristics of people’s accent is
influenced by several things such as their knowledge of the language, their
accent, and how strong their accent they have3.

People mostly assume the standard English that they can use as references
are British English and American English 4. Despite of the same language, they
have differences in some aspects, such as lexical, grammatical, word stress or
especially pronunciation which is the main discussion of this research.
According to Richterova (2013), the pronunciation of /r/ is different in those
varieties. In American English (AmE), mostly are rhotic, rather than non-rhotic
(or known as /r/ dropping) as the British English (BrE) does. For example, AmE
usually flapping the /t/ like in the word butter into [budder], but BrE tends to use
glottal pronunciation [bu?ə]. Another example is the word car is pronounced
[kar] in AmE, and it pronounced [ka:] in BrE5.

Pronunciation is relatively hard for the most Indonesian learners. Research

by Sembiring & Ginting (2016) found that there are still many mistakes in
pronouncing words by the students. The highest percentage is pronouncing
consonants (i.e [ϴ], such in the word thin, think, thought, etc.), vowels (i.e [aw],
like in the word mouth, house, down, etc.) and diphthongs (i.e [ay], such in the
word high)6. Another study by Alifa Camilia (2020) showed that majority of
Indonesian students shorten the pronunciation of English language. For
example, in vowels such as [æ] into [e], in diphthongs such as [au] in the word
applause and because into [o], and [ou] in the word mountain into [o]. meanwhile,
in consonants, the students mostly pronounce them inaccurately, such as [r]
that pronounced strongly, change [z] sound into [s] sound, etc7.

Native-like pronunciation involves many factors that affect the speaker.

As stated by Zhang (2009), it is affected by two factors, namely internal factors
and external factors. Internal factors include the individual and biological
factors such as identity, attitude, motivation, efforts to learn, goal, hearing
perception, age, and aptitude. Meanwhile, the external factors include speaker’s

https://doi.org/10.2307/3588486.
3
Ammang Latifa, ‘The Attitude of Indonesian Learners in Tertiary Level toward Spoken English
and Its Learning’, Journal of World Englishes and Educational Practices 3, no. 2 (27 February 2021): 2,
https://doi.org/10.32996/jweep.2021.3.2.1.
4
Monika Dharma and Christian Rudianto, ‘Indonesian EFL Students’ Attitudes Toward Various
English Accents and Their Own Accents’ 11, no. 1 (January 2013): 67.
5
Hana Richterová, ‘Department of English and American Studies English Language and
Literature’, 2013, 9.
6
Novalina Sembiring and Fiber Yun Almanda Ginting, ‘An Analysis Of Pronunciation Errors
Made By The Fourth Semester Students Of English Education Study Program At Unika’ 3 (2016): 51.
7
Alifa Camilia Fadillah, ‘Pronunciation Difficulties Of Efl Learners In Indonesia: A Literature
Study’ 1, no. 2 (2020): 10.

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first language, education, and also exposure 8. Other factors proposed by Nation
& Newton (2009) are speaker’s development, knowledge of style, experience,
and condition of learning and teaching9.

However, English speaking with clear or standard pronunciation is

important because it will be easier to understand when two or more people are
speaking. Derwing & Munro (2005) stated that an intelligibility is the reason of
why pronunciation with good quality as the key to help in communication of
certain language10. Thus, the speaker must pronounce the target language
correctly, or the message of speech cannot be understood by the hearer.
Additionally, in pronunciation, not only phonemes that should be mastered,
but there are two other aspects namely stress and rhythms, and also intonation
that must be considered. By conducting this research, some benefits can be
taken both for students and teachers. For students, it can be a reference or
guidance to improve their pronunciation. Meanwhile, for teachers, it can help
them to apply the appropriate strategies to improve students’ pronunciation
skills.

METHOD
This research was conducted by using qualitative method because it is
effective to provide valuable insights of the local population experience
towards a given research problem or topic. To make the data rich of
information, the researcher used two kinds of qualitative methods, which are
participant observation and in-depth interview. The researcher used those
methods because they are appropriate to study about individual’s behavior,
perspectives, and experiences, particularly when sensitive topics are being
explored11.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

FINDINGS
1. Students’ problems to be native-like speaker in pronunciation of English
accent.

Table: 1 Students’ pronunciation problems

Pronunciation Problems Details
Participants
Vowel Consonant
MFH [ʌ], [əʊ], [ɒ] or [θ], [z], [r] [ʌ] in the words tough, hiccough, but. [əʊ]
[ɑ:], [ɜ:], in the words know, bough, dough. [ɒ] or

8
Qian-Mei Zhang, ‘Affecting Factors of Native-Like Pronunciation: A Literature Review’, 2019,
37.
9
I. S. P. Nation and J. Newton, Teaching ESL/EFL Listening and Speaking, ESL & Applied
Linguistics Professional Series (New York: Routledge, 2009), 78.
10
Nation and Newton, 75.
11
Natasha Mack et al., Qualitative Research Methods: A Data Collector’s Field Guide (United
States of America: Family Health International, 2005), 1–2.

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 [ɑ:] in the words cork, ward. [ɜ:] in the
words learn, bird, word. [θ] in the words
broth, both, moth. [z] in the words lose,
gooze, choose. [r] in the words dear, pear,
bear.

MS [ʌ], [əʊ], [æ], [tʃ], [r], [ʌ] in the words tough, hiccough, but. [əʊ]
[ʊ], [eɪ] in the words know, bough, dough. [æ] in
the words trap, perhaps. [ʊ] in the words,
good, choose, you. [eɪ] in the words great,
straight. [tʃ] in the words match, chicken,
choose. [r] in the words dear, pear, bear.

LNK [əʊ], [ʌ], [u:] [f], [θ], [r], [∫] [əʊ] in the words know, bough, dough. [ʌ]
in the words tough, hiccough, but. [u:] in
the words through, you. [f] in the words
tough, cough. [θ] in the word broth, both,
moth. [r] in the words dear, pear, bear. [∫]
in the word wish.

NDI [ʌ], [əʊ], [æ], [f], [θ], [r], [ʌ] in the words tough, hiccough, but. [əʊ]
[eɪ] [z] in the words know, bough, dough. [æ] in
the words trap, perhaps. [eɪ] in the words
great, straight. [f] in the words tough,
cough. [θ] in the word broth, both, moth.
[r] in the words dear, pear, bear. [z] in the
words lose, goose, choose.

NKDA [ʌ], [əʊ], [æ], [θ], [ð], [r] [ʌ] in the words tough, hiccough, but. [əʊ]
[aʊ] in the words know, bough, dough. [æ] in
the words trap, perhaps. [aʊ] in the words
out. [θ] in the word broth, both, moth. [ð]
in the words other, that, they. [r] in the
words dear, pear, bear.

MID [ʌ], [əʊ], [æ], [θ], [r], [z] [ʌ] in the words tough, hiccough, but. [əʊ]
in the words know, bough, dough. [æ] in
the words trap, perhaps. [θ] in the word
broth, both, moth. [r] in the words dear,
pear, bear. [z] in the words lose, goose,
choose.

Based on the table 1 above, there are many mistakes in pronunciation of

English accent, both of American or British. Participant 1, he was relatively
hard to pronounce vowel sounds like [ʌ] in the words tough, hiccough, [əʊ] in
the words know, dough, instead he just pronounced it [ɒ] like in the words
hot, boss, box. In consonant pronunciation, he pronounced [z] as the same as
[s], [θ] as the same as [t], and [r] was strong which is typically Indonesian
people. Meanwhile, participant 2 pronounced [eɪ] in the words great and
straight into [e], [ʊ] similar to [u:], [tʃ] in the words match, chicken, choose was

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 pronounced as the same as cheap and [r] was also strongly pronounced.
Similarly with participant 1 and 2, participant 3 had other mispronounces in
some words. [f] in the words tough, cough was pronounced similar to [p], [θ]
in the word broth, both, moth was pronounced similar to [t], and [∫] in the
word wish was pronounced closed to [s]. Participant 4, 5 and 6 were closely
in mispronunciation English words with native accents or standard. They
pronounce diphthongs similarly with monophthongs. In consonants, they
hard to pronounce like [θ], [ð], [r], and [z] pronounced like [s].

2. Students’ strategies to be native-like speaker in pronunciation of English

accent.

Drawing on the interview data, the researcher found some similar

strategies among the students or participants. Participant 1 said that he
learns pronunciation through activity that he loves. He added that his
strategy to improve pronunciation was similar with his strategy to improve
vocabularies and speaking skills. He told that usually he learns
pronunciation through watching movies, listening to songs, listening to what
people speak, or imitating the pronunciation from youtube videos.

“…to improve pronunciation, I will usually do it through the things that I like.
almost the same as what I did to increase my vocabulary and improve my speaking.
Usually I watch movies, listen to songs, imitate other people's words or pronunciation
videos on YouTube, like that. So, I imitated what native speakers said.” (MFH, June
29th, 2022)

Majority of the students prefer to learn pronunciation by their self

rather than learning together in classroom. As stated by participant 1,
learning independently brings more benefits such as lots of time, learning
through what is interesting, and being able to learn anytime when they want.
However, studying pronunciation independently is hard if there is lack of
motivation of the student itself. Otherwise, in classroom, students should
learn together and guided by the teacher. It makes some students feel like
they are being forced to learn or imitate what the teacher said, even though it
brings stimulation for the students.

“I think I prefer to learn pronunciation independently rather than learning it

together in classroom. I know that both of them have their own strengths and
weaknesses. If learning in classroom, the students like it or not, they learn and imitate
the teacher. It will be useful for the students who lack of motivation to learn individually
and at least there is input knowledge for them. If the students have big motivations to
learn individually, mostly will gain more than what they gain in classroom activity.”
(MFH, June 29th, 2022)

Similarly with participant 1, the other participants also do the same

strategies to improve their pronunciation closely like native speaker. As told

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 by participant 2, he usually listens to the pronunciation audio and imitating
it at the same time. If he found new words, he repeated them until his
pronunciation is similar to the audio. Other strategy is listening to English
songs although he seldom to do it. He added that he preferred to learn
pronunciation individually rather than learn it in classroom.

“…I usually listen to audio pronunciation then I imitate it. if there is a new word
or pronunciation, I repeat it over and over until I can. there is another strategy that is
listening to songs, but I rarely do that. So, I listen to English songs, then imitate it. In
my opinion, it is better for me to learn pronunciation independently than studying in
class because I can do it anytime.” (MS, June 29th, 2022)

The other four participants also do the same strategies to improve their
pronunciation closely like English native speaker. They usually learn it
through watching movies, listening songs, and also watching youtube video.
There are so many videos in youtube that students can use as references.
They listen and imitate what they heard, even repeating the pronunciation
many times.

“…I learn pronunciation by doing my hobbies. My hobbies are watching movies

and listening songs. I do it when I have spare time…” (LNK, June 29th, 2022)

“I usually watch videos from youtube as my references. There are many of English
native speakers, like American or British people who teach pronunciation…” (NDI, June
29th, 2022)

“I love watching movies which also can improve my pronunciation. I usually

watch Harry Potter as my references of British accent and European action movies to
improve my American accent…” (NKDA, June 29th, 2022)

“…I usually watch movies and listening songs. I use the subtitle to know what is
spoken, and in songs, I use the lyrics to know the words so I can improve my
pronunciation as well as my vocabularies.” (MID, June 29th, 2022)

DISCUSSION
The findings show that students have the same problems in
pronunciation of English with native or standard accents. They are relatively
hard to pronounce English vowels, especially diphthongs such as [ʌ] in the
words tough, hiccough, but. [əʊ] in the words know, bough, dough. [ɒ] or [ɑ:] in the
words cork, ward. [ɜ:] in the words learn, bird, word. [æ] in the words trap, perhaps.
[eɪ] in the words great, straight. Etc.
The students also mispronounced some consonants. For example, [θ] in
the word broth, both, moth similar to [t] sound. [f] in the words tough, cough
similar to [p] sound. [tʃ] in the words match, chicken, choose. [z] in the words lose,
gooze, choose like [s] sound. [r] in the words dear, pear, bear is strongly
pronounced. [ð] in the words other, that, they closely to [d] sound. And also [∫] in
the word wish like [s] sound.

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 According to Kosasih (2021), the students may hard to pronounce
English words correctly because there are significance differences in both of
vowels and consonants between English and Indonesian language which is
their first language. For example, the students could not distinguish vowels
such as [i:] and [I], [e] and [æ] because the [i] and [e] sounds are more familiar
in their language. That is why in back vowels such as [ɒ] or [ɑ:] are also difficult
to be pronounced because Indonesian language only have [o] sound. Even in
diphthongs sounds, fricative consonants [θ], [ð], and affricative consonants [∫],
Indonesian language does not have them12.

Meanwhile, students’ strategies to be native-like speaker in

pronunciation of English accent are similar to each other. The students usually
learn it through activities that they like to do. For example, they watch movies,
listening songs, watching youtube videos, and imitating at the same time. These
are closely related with study by Akyol (2013) that found that listening to tapes,
television, movies or songs appeared to be the most popular strategies.
Additionally, the students often read references, taking notes, or even study
with someone else13.

Research by Sihombing (2018) approved that using songs and movies is

effective to improve students’ pronunciation. Even they can improve their
vocabularies at the same time. Most of them were interested to learn by using
medias. The students do not feel threatened by theories. Instead, they feel more
relax to study and their motivation is increased 14.
CONCLUSION
Finally, the researcher concludes that there are many pronunciation
problems by students in speaking English native accents. Both vowels
(monophthongs and diphthongs) and consonants (fricative and affricative) are
still mispronounced by the students. For example, in vowel sounds, [ɒ] and [ɑ:]
is pronounced similar to [o] sound, shortening [əʊ] into [o] sound, shortening
[eɪ] into [e] sound, and others. In consonants, they hard to pronounce [θ] in the
words think, thought; [ð] in the words those, that; pronouncing [∫] and [z] sound
similar to [s] sound.

Whereas, related to their strategies to be native-like speaker in

pronunciation of English native accents, the students relatively do the same.
They improve their pronunciation through activities that they love to do. For

12
Marcella Melly Kosasih, ‘Factors Affecting Indonesian Students in Learning English
Pronunciation’, International Research in Higher Education 6, no. 3 (27 August 2021): 17,
https://doi.org/10.5430/irhe.v6n3p13.
13
Tugce Akyol, ‘A Study on Identifying Pronunciation Learning Strategies of Turkish EFL
Learners’, Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 70 (January 2013): 1461,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.01.211.
14
Humiras Betty Marlina Sihombing et al., ‘Improving Students’ Pronunciation Mastery Through
Learning by Using Medias (English Songs and English Movies)’ 26, no. 1 (August 2018): 598.

Page | 7
example, they do watch movies, listening to music or songs, also watching
youtube videos and imitating it. As the addition, they prefer to learn
independently because they have more time, feel more relax, and able to do it
anytime they want rather than learning in classroom.

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