Pupils’ Most Common Pronunciation Hindrances Case study of secondary school’s First Year EFL pupils in Ain Temouchent schools

Abstract

Although the Algerian pupils start learning English at the age of 11 years, they learn it 4 years at middle school and 3 years at secondary school; it has been noticed that a big number of them still face some difficulties in expressing themselves in English accurately and fluently. This means that studying errors of English pronunciation could be a valuable source that provides us with specific information about students’ mistakes. This would help teachers to correct the learners and improve the effectiveness as well as accuracy in teaching English pronunciation. Accordingly, this research work aims to investigate the main factors that hinder pupils from speaking and interacting naturally in the classroom during the oral session.The main problem underlying this work is that many pupils are unable to utter correctly words that have silent letter, consonant cluster,/ʤ/ sound and words which have interference with French pronunciation. To conduct this study, two questionnaires were administered, one to teachers of English language and another tofirst year pupilsof secondary education at secondary schools. Besides the questionnaire, we have as well used observation as a research tool to collect more information. A total of 12 classes which contain nearly 230 learners have been observed.The results obtained from the datawhich were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively showed that ELF (English as foreign language) first year learners are still finding difficulties in having inappropriate utterances of the former sound’s problem. Eventually, this study aimsat suggesting some strategies, techniques and procedures that may help teachers toteach speaking skills and help English pupils to improve and develop their speaking ability