THE FACTORS OF ARABIC LANGUAGE (L1) THAT EFFECT LEARNING ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION AS A FOREGIGN LANGUAGE (L2) (The Case of the Libyan Post Graduate Students of Diponegoro University)

Abstract

Based on the researcher experience in teaching English language as a foreign language, he noticed that most of Libyan learners face problems in learning English language. This study aims at illustrating one of the speaking problems (pronunciation) that Libyan post graduate students at Diponegoro university face with different English consonant and vowel sounds. It also concentrates on the communicative competence (speaking skill). The research measures the speaking abilities of Libyan academic students in Diponegoro University in order to find out the difficulties that they encounter in speaking (pronunciation) in the target language (English). It is a descriptive research used to investigate about the pronunciation problems faced by Libyan post graduate students at Diponrgoro University in speaking English. The subjects were Arab Libyan learners of English as a foreign language who are intermediate level. It does not focus on any other Arab nationalities, and just cited some examples to support this thesis idea. The data were collected through two instruments which are observation and a structured questionnaire. This data described as the research is a descriptive one. The research provides an introduction on pronunciation, consonant and vowel sounds in English and the reasons that lead to these errors. All the participants in the study are ESL learners and they have never been to any English speaking country .The students are from different majors and they belong to different areas in Libya. The results of this research went side by side with the researcher assumption. It was so clear that most of Libyan learners find difficulty in pronouncing some English consonants and vowels. The problematic consonant sounds are: /p/, /ʃ/, /dʒ/, /ᵑ/, /v/, /s/, the cluster /gh/ and /tʃ/ and vowel sounds /a/,/e/,/i/,/o/, and/u/. Finally, the research attempts to provide some suggestions and methods that could help students, teachers and learners of English as second languages improve their pronunciation.