A STUDY ON STUDENTS‟ DIFFICULTIES IN PRONOUNCING ENGLISH WORDS IN ENGLISH STUDY PROGRAM OF UNIVERSITY OF HKBP NOMMENSEN PEMATANGSIANTAR

Abstrak

This study deals with the difficulties in pronouncing English words of the first semester students in English Study
Program of University of HKBP Nommensen Pematangsiantar. Pronunciation means the way how we say a word or a
sentence to express our idea or feeling. Difficulty of the students is the matter or problem in learning especially in
pronouncing vowels sound and consonants sound. The objective of this study is to find out the difficulties of the student‟s
in pronouncing English words. In this research, the relevant theories such as: Brown (2000), Harmer (2000), Jones
(1972), Nunan (2003), and Syafei (1988). The limitation of this study is on the students‟ difficulties in pronouncing
English especially on first semester students, group A in English vowels and consonants of the simple words. From the
data analysis the writer found the finding of the research were: the students of the first semester in English Study Program
of University of HKBP Nommensen Pematangsiantar were not able to pronounce English words. The students have
difficulties in pronouncing English vowels and consonants. There was some mispronouced that the students do when
pronouncing some words. The students have difficulties in vowels, like; æ – e, ɪ - e, ə - ʌ, θ – t, ʌ - Ͻ, ð – t, ə - Ͻ, ə - ɒ, e -
ɪ, θ - tʃ, θ – d, ɜː - ʌ, and i: - e. The students have difficulties in consonants, like; v – f, z - s, dƷ – e, t – ð, dƷ – g, dƷ - tʃ,
g – dƷ, and dƷ – z. The students have difficulties in pronunciation when read the words.