Positive effects of games application in teaching pronunciation in vus centers graduation paper, major english language

INTRODUCTION The advantages of games application in teaching English to young learners have been known for years.. The purpose of this study was to clarify the positive effects of games

HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES -

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

Class: SA1502 Major: English language

Ho Chi Minh City, June 2019

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

It is impossible for this research to be completed without the support, assistance, contribution, and guidance of these special people The researcher would like to send the appreciation to these followings:

Department of Foreign Languages, HCMC University of Foreign Languages and Information Technology for allowing this research to be recognized

Mr Nguyen Huy Khai (M.A), an enthusiastic advisor, who gave me step-by-step instructions for this research to be finished in details

Mr Le Hoang Duy, for being a friend who encouraged and assisted me to solve problems while the research was being conducted

Ms Tran Thanh Truc (M.A), for encouraging and giving me advice when needed

Ms Tran Kim Thy, Training Quality Manager of VUS Kids Tran Nao Campus, for allowing this research’s experiment to be conducted in the campus

VUS’s teachers and staffs for supporting me to carry out the research successfully

VUS’ learners for the enthusiastic participation in the experiment and the interview

All my family members and friends who support, motivate and encourage the researcher until the end

ABSTRACT

Games application is used popularly in most of English centers in Vietnam

It has been known as a great tool in attracting young learners and imparting knowledge Furthermore, it also assists children to learn English and communicate with each other better in a more natural way However, the number of reliable research has been done in Vietnam is minor Therefore, the demand for practical experiments and further study has been rising This paper examined how far games application could have positive effects on teaching pronunciation In addition, learners’ attitude towards in-class activities was also recorded to support the idea All of the subjects participating in the experiment which was conducted in a campus

of VUS centers were at the beginning level of English proficiency The final result showed fairly positive attitude of learners towards in-class games, and some aspects

of pronunciation which were improved through activities On the other hand, some negative cases in the experiment were also recorded to support for this research Overall, this paper’s findings support the original idea of the positive impacts of games application in teaching pronunciation and attracting learners’ attention

Contents

I INTRODUCTION 1

II LITERATURE REVIEW 2

1 The concern of teaching and learning English pronunciation: 2

2 The difficulties in learning English pronunciation of Vietnamese learners:3 3 The application of games in teaching pronunciation: 5

4 Difficulties in organizing games in classroom and tips for managing classroom: 7

III METHOD 9

IV RESULT 12

1 Data analysis from structured interview 12

2 Data from the observation 18

V DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATION 26

1 Discussion 26

2 Implication 29

VI CONCLUSION 33

APPENDIX 34

REFERENCES: 50

I INTRODUCTION

The advantages of games application in teaching English to young learners have been known for years However, not many experiments to confirm the benefits and drawbacks of this method have been conducted in Vietnam Despite the fact that games are used commonly in warm-up, and review sessions in teaching four skills

of English, the games application in teaching English pronunciation is still unpopular

Although there are many teachers who believe in the positive effects of games application in teaching English, particularly pronunciation, some people still go against this idea Furthermore, due to the limited conditions of the researcher, this paper only focused on a small group of young learners who were studying English

in Tran Nao Campus of VUS English Centers in district 2

The purpose of this study was to clarify the positive effects of games application in teaching English pronunciation for young learners in elementary level Additionally, students’ attitudes toward games application in teaching English pronunciation were also considered The performances of students which were conducted through the observation, combined with their attitude to support the original hypothesis

The research begins with an introduction about games application in teaching pronunciation and the scopes that researcher has met while carrying out this experiment The paper then discusses more intensely about the positive effects of games application in teaching English pronunciation and mentions some other works on the same matter of different researchers The next chapter focuses on how the research was conducted and provides findings After that are the discussion, recommendation, and conclusion

II LITERATURE REVIEW

1 The concern of teaching and learning English pronunciation:

In the past, when people talked about learning English, they usually paid attention to 4 skills – reading, speaking, reading and listening Pronunciation was just mentioned as a sub-skill Gradually, people’s awareness about correct pronunciation has been increasing Gilakjani (2011) claimed: “Pronunciation is one

of the most important skills in English Language Teaching If speakers have very bad pronunciation, their speech will not be understandable to the listeners (p.1).” Pronunciation is a combination of phonemes and suprasegmental features (Kelly & Harmer, 2000) According to Coombs (2017), “pronunciation teaching was important in the classroom because it was relevant to some of the core teaching methodologies of the time” (p.12), and “correct pronunciation is a basis for efficient communication in English” (Nguyen, 2015, p.2) In teaching pronunciation, it is very important to help students recognize and make new sounds, and that is also a part of teacher’s roles (Kenworthy, 1987) Moreover, a teacher needs to decide what activities are suitable to different classes, how to do assessments and help students

to establish practice plans for improving pronunciation (Kenworthy, 1987) Teachers are also recommended to figure out pronunciation mistakes and help students correct them, provide opportunities for students in practicing pronouncing words correctly (Nahari & Alfadda, 2016) Besides, teachers have to consider the amount of knowledge given to students each course, and use their contact hours effectively to support learners without making them feel under pressure (Cunningham, 2009) Moreover, “teachers need a greater appreciation of the pronunciation difficulties faced by learners of ESL/EFL and the reasons for these difficulties, and a simple framework for understanding the situation of the second language learner” (Gilakjani, 2011, p.11)

According to Cunningham (2009), every student has their own demands in the target of learning English However, “English is not widely spoken in Vietnam”

(Cunningham, 2009, p.115) Hence, there are many students who rarely have chances to speak English in other situations besides communicating with each other

in class (Cunningham, 2009) On the other hand, learners at young ages often have great imagination, and love to study in a joyful environment where they can learn and play at the same time (Nurhayati, 2015) Thus, children’s motivation and enthusiasm in learning English pronunciation can be raised by teachers through in-class activities like games (Nurhayati, 2015)

2 The difficulties in learning English pronunciation of Vietnamese

learners:

Young learners, especially students who are at the ages of kindergarten school, have typical problems in learning English pronunciation English is a new language to them Thus, there are some words which are difficult for them to pronounce They prefer reading the words based on the letter than the sound, so they will tend to guess the words by logical thinking (Nurhayati, 2015) Another concern is that young students lack language input, and they are not active enough, and easily get bored (Nurhayati, 2015) Hence, “if the activities are done monotonously, they will be bored because there is no variation in that learning process (Nurhayati, 2015, p 216).”

According to Hewings (2004), the problems with English pronunciation can cause students to be disappointed, and less motivated since they make the same mistakes continuously when communicating with others Asian students in general and Vietnamese students in particular are good at writing skill but have problems with speaking (Hewings, 2004 and Avery & Ehrlich, 1992) Mispronouncing can cause difficulties for non-native speakers in expressing themselves to the native ones (Kelly & Harmer, 2000) The mistakes of mispronouncing happen in almost elements of pronunciation

Firstly, Vietnamese students can find difficulty in pronouncing English consonants since some of them do not exist in Vietnamese consonant system (Lane

and Brown, 2010) According to Lane and Brown (2010), there are 24 consonants in North American English Among them, /ð/, /θ/ - fricative dental sounds, do not exist

in Vietnamese sounds system, which will cause difficulty for Vietnamese to pronounce without the instruction from teacher For example, in pronouncing the word “think”, instead of saying “θɪnk”, learners usually say “thɪnk” with the sound /th/ in Vietnamese accent, or “tɪnk”, which make the foreigners confused when hearing Students, furthermore, have problems with aspirating sounds like /k/, /p/, /t/ When pronouncing these sounds at the beginning of the words, especially the sound /p/, students usually forget to release a puff of air (Avery & Ehrlich, 1992) For example, Vietnamese learners usually say “bay” instead of “pay”, which completely changes the meaning of the speech Moreover, the sounds /ʒ/, /dʒ/, /tʃ/ are difficult for Vietnamese to pronounce them as the final sounds (Ha, 2005) Nguyen (2007) claimed that people are confused with /t/ and /d/ as final sounds and /t/ and /d/ in everywhere of a word

Secondly, consonant clusters are another new term to Vietnamese learners

In fact, consonant clusters do not exist in Vietnamese sounds system According to Nguyen (2008), “Final consonant clusters consisting of voiced stops, fricatives, or liquids will be the most difficult for Vietnamese L2 learners of English to pronounce (p.5).” Therefore, the tendency of learners is omitting one or more difficult consonants in a cluster (Avery and Ehrlich, 1992)

Strong and weak form also cause students to be confused According to Avery and Ehrlich (1992), “when function words are spoken in isolation, they are stressed; that is, they are pronounced in strong form In connected speech, when function words are normally unstressed, they are pronounced in weak form (p.81).” However, students whose mother tongues do not have much distinction between strong and weak form tend to produce strong form unreasonably (Hewings, 2004)

“Assimilation is something which varies in extent according to speaking rate

p.110).” According to Le (2011), Vietnamese learners have trouble with assimilation due to the differences between English and Vietnamese phonetics system; therefore, they tend to omit the ending sounds when speaking Moreover,

“students’ awareness of practicing assimilation process is not high enough (Le,

2011, p.22).”

Some English vowels are also difficult for Vietnamese students to pronounce According to Avery and Ehrlich (1992), “vowels are differentiated from consonants by the relative wide opening in the mouth as air passes from the lungs out of the body.” Based on the length, there are two kinds of vowels: the long and the short ones Short vowels include ɪ, æ, e, ʌ, ɒ, ʊ; and long vowels include iː, ɜː, ɑː; ɔː; uː (Roach, 2009) Avery and Ehrlich (1992) claimed that Vietnamese learners have difficulty in distinguishing tense vowels (iy, ey, uw) and lax vowels (ɪ, ʊ, ɛ) /æ/ and /e/ are also mistaken by Vietnamese students as the vowel æ does not exist

in Vietnamese sounds system; therefore, they tend to pronounce /e/ instead of /æ/ /aʊ/ and /ɔ/ share the same situation with /e/ and /æ/

On the other hand, Vietnamese learners also have problem with linking sounds Avery and Ehrlich (1992) claimed that consonant omission at the end of English words is a popular habit of people who were born and live in Vietnam Therefore, the transition from a word to another is not smooth, which will affect the qualities of students’ speech

Avery and Ehrlich (1992) found that Vietnamese learners have problems with contraction The reason is there are some difficult sounds combinations are created by contraction (Avery and Ehrlich, 1992)

3 The application of games in teaching pronunciation:

There are many ways to teach pronunciation including song, chants, games, etc Applying games in teaching to help students improve their pronunciation has been using for years because of its advantages By applying games into a lesson, students can enjoy it without thinking that they are studying; furthermore, students

are also able to use prior language based on the situation (Nurhayati, 2015) and (Codina, 2018) According to Nurhayati (2015), “games are helpful because they can make students feel that certain words are important and necessary (p.221)” Another game which is Tongue Twister uses vocabulary that is easy to understand can support young learners in distinguishing similar sounds The advantage of this game is also admitted by Hewings (2004) and Lane & Brown (2010) Besides, Lane

& Brown (2010) also suggested that minimal-pairs games such as “A Big Problem” can help Vietnamese students improve /v/ and /w/ sounds, which are difficult for learners to pronounce correctly

Nguyen (2015) who conducted a study about applying games in teaching pronunciation in HUBT proved:

The majority of students (85%) agreed it was interesting and effective to learn pronunciation through than the traditional way that they were usually

exposed to Some other students (15%) said that they felt more confident to

improve their speaking skills as well as communicate with their friends by

pronunciation games

According to Kelly & Harmer (2001), “Odd one out” is one of used activities

to introduce new sounds to students and help them to recognize sounds better However, this game should contain vocabulary that similar to learners so that they will not be confused when playing, which will provide them greater opportunities to acknowledge new sound better Nurhayati(2015) mentioned some games told to be effective for children in learning pronunciation according to teachers: Association Dominoes - a kind of card games, Hangman, Decide on names, Go Fish, Puzzle Dadu/Dice, The Snake Game, Odd Man Out, Whisper Down the Alley These games are told to be good not only for improving pronunciation but also supporting students in acknowledging new vocabulary, as well as new grammar

On the other hand, applying digital games in teaching can help students to pay attention to the sounds that they are studying (Garton and Copland, 2018) The

effects of digital games such as sounds, images and interactions are catchy, but it also has drawbacks When playing this kind of games, learners usually tend to concentrate on game tasks or missions instead of the knowledge that they will gain after finishing playing (Reinders and Wattana, 2012) Hence, if teachers want to apply digital games in teaching pronunciation, they should focus on the aim of education

Codina (2018) used three games which are “The diphthong board”, “Sounds like sound?”, and “Basket pronunciation game” to teach pronunciation Although the results were positive, applying these games in teaching pronunciation still had drawbacks For example, the target of correcting dipthong words was not stressed since learners who pronounced those words correctly from the start would still speak them correctly no matter games were organized or not to help them improve these sounds

4 Difficulties in organizing games in classroom and tips for managing classroom:

Games are fun and easily catch learners’ attention However, organizing games in class still has some problems First, games usually require students to work in pairs or in groups However, some learners, especially Vietnamese ones, will hesitate and do not want to work with their classmate Nguyen (2015) stated that “some students lack cooperative attitudes with other members in the group They remained inactive during the activity (p.15)” Besides, the environment also plays an important role in children’s attitude in participating in-class activities According to Scott, Ytreberg & Grant (1990), children have better responsibility with interesting and familiar environment; hence, they will be more independent and adventurous when they feel secured Besides that, Scott, Ytreberg and Grant (1990) claimed teacher should have appropriate desk arrangement due to the size of classroom so that the game can be played smoothly

Finally, classroom management also plays an important role in a successful game Here are some suggestions of Srivener & Underhill (2011) for managing classroom:

• Teacher should set up activities and give instructions

• Activities should be monitored by teacher

• The games must have appropriate timing

• Games are well ended

• Students must be formed into groups before playing and reformed

at the end of the games

III METHOD

Subjects of this research were 12 students of class Pre-Superkids1 Aa1901.001) studying in VUS Kids Tran Nao Campus This group of elementary students was at the ages of six and seven Besides learning with a foreigner and a Vietnamese teacher, the subjects also studied with two teaching assistants The researcher was one out of two teaching assistants

(PSK1*-These students participated in a 4-week experiment before the mid-term test Their course started from March 16th, 2019 to June 15th, 2019 The duration of every lesson was 2 hours in Saturdays and Sundays, from 7:40 to 9:40 in the morning Students were suggested to come to class 15 minutes before the lesson started to review the previous lesson with teaching assistants The coursebook used

in this course was Everybody Up Starter, second edition of Oxford Publisher, including Student’s book, Workbook with online practice Besides, they were offered a 6-week Imagine Learning course – an online English learning course Online practice part and Imagine Learning were done at home, only Student’s Book and Workbook were finished in class Students also were required to do homework

in the Notebook – mostly rewriting new words and sentences studied in every lesson

The responsibilities of researcher were recording students’ in-class participation and behaviors, helping the subjects solve problems in studying English

in class, such as misunderstanding about new lessons, game rules, or helping them improve their pronunciation The objectives of this course were building up learners’ confidence in basically English language communicative skills, helping very young learners to recognize the alphabet letters and corresponding sounds, and providing key vocabulary and structures needed for every young learner for the next course

The experiment was conducted in 4 weeks before the mid-term test (from April 6th, 2019 to April 28th, 2019) There were 5 games applied to help the objects

improve their pronunciation and sounds recognizing ability, including Slap The Words, Bingo, The Missing Flashcard, Chinese Whisper, Guessing Game

• Slap The Words: Students were divided into 2 teams and made

2 lines The teacher said a letter, for example, “a”, or a word, for instance,

“egg”, and two students from two teams run to the board, used the fly slappers to slap the correct one on the board The faster one was the winner and earned 1 point for his/her team

• Bingo: The teacher gave each student a bingo sheet with 9 blank squares Then the teacher wrote down the vocabulary taught in that day’s, or even previous days’ lessons on the board Students chose 9 words randomly and wrote down in the squares, each square contained 1 word The teacher (or any students were chosen to be “the teacher”) said any words written on the board, and if students had that word in their sheet, they needed

to cross it out Their goal was to cross out 3 words in a vertical, horizontal, or diagonal row The winners would receive stickers from the teachers

• The Missing Flashcard: The teacher had students sit in a circle

on the floor, showed them all the flashcards Then the teacher hid one or two flashcards and learners needed to guess what flashcards were missing With one correct answer, students won stars for themselves

• Chinese Whisper: Students were divided into 2 teams and made two lines The teacher whispered a letter, or a word to two students standing at the back of the lines, while the others were not allowed to turn around to see what the teacher was telling to their teammates Those two students then whispered what they heard to the teammates standing in front

of them The whispering was continuing until two people at the front of the lines were whispered the answer to and run to the board to write down what they heard The faster student with a correct answer would be the winner and gained 1 point for his team

• Guessing Game: Students sat in a circle on the floor The teacher showed them 3 flashcards of three words The teacher then put these flashcards in 3 folders, made sure that students could not see what was inside The teacher changed these folders’ position, then said one word and students had to guess which folder contained that word Students who got the correct answers would earn stars for themselves The words were different in each round

After the experiment, learners were interviewed about their feeling about studying English through in-class activities, and a structured interview was organized to collect students’ thoughts about these activities There were 12 questions including three parts A, B and C used in the interview Part A included three questions about their personal information such as full name, age, and gender Part B was two questions about their sentiments of playing games/activities while learning Part C included seven questions that dug deeper into the problems they were facing to while playing games In this part, there were two questions required learners to arrange five applied games in order based on their enjoyment and difficult levels in their opinion, and five others were about the reasons why they liked/disliked that game, why that game was difficult for them The collected information then was processed by using Excel program to analyze the effectiveness

of games application in students’ sounds recognition and pronunciation ability, and how far their enjoyment was with in-class activities The collected data was also visualized in chart forms for a detailed evaluation

Besides the experiment, each game had an observation day for the researcher to evaluate students’ participation, pronunciation ability and improvement, and the feedback that they received from the teacher and their classmates while playing games The observation data was recorded by videos and pictures, and the notes in observation sheets

IV RESULT

1 Data analysis from structured interview

Chart 1 Learners’ attitudes toward games application in the lessons

Chart 1 illustrates the attitudes of 12 learners toward in-class activities In general, 100% of young learners expressed their positive attitude with playing games applied in the lessons A half of interviewers claimed that they really liked studying English through games, and 50% of others said that they liked playing games while studying None of them showed neutral or negative attitudes toward in-class activities

a bit dislike

Chart 2 Most interesting game ranked by learners

Due to the fact that games can adjust the atmosphere in the classroom to be livelier and more active, students rarely have negative feeling about learning English through in-class activities These learners were asked to arrange in order their favorite games from one to five that were applied through a 4-week experiment based on their personal taste Overall, there was slightly distinction in the amount of votes of each game Slap The Words and Chinese Whisper shared the similarity in the number of votes with three votes for each game, which made them

to be the two most interesting games out of five activities On the other hand, The Missing Flashcard, Guessing Game, and Bingo all received two votes from students, just 1 vote fewer than Slap The Word and Chinese Whisper It could be figured out that the attraction of five games was significantly equal to 12 learners

Chart 3 Students’ opinion about factors that contribute to an appealing game

Chart 3 demonstrates learners’ viewpoints about aspects relating to an interesting game Obviously, these mentioned factors were evaluated noticeably equivalent Some reasons were even received the total agreement of students All of twelve learners admitted that a game which could catch their attention was a fun game and able to help them improve their pronunciation Furthermore, they also agreed that being able to raise interest in learning English was an important aspect that contributed to an appealing in-class activity Otherwise, there were 11 youngsters who said that an interesting game could assist them in memorizing the vocabulary more effectively In addition, a student thought that his chosen game is interesting since it was entertaining

Chart 4 The least interesting game voted by two genders

Besides positive sentiments, some of five games mentioned were not interesting to young learners The quantity of negative votes in chart 4 was fluctuated due to each gender experience Slap The Words gained the highest negative votes with 3 votes which were all from the girls No female students showed boring expression when talking about Guessing Game Instead, there were two out of six boys answered that Guessing Game was their least interesting game Two other male students also chose Chinese Whisper as the most boring game Otherwise, only one schoolgirl voted Chinese Whisper for the least appealing activity The Missing Flashcard received the same votes from male and female young learners Only one boy answered that he liked this game the least, which was similar to another girl’s respond Bingo shared the similarity with The Missing

Flashcard in the quantity of votes from both genders

The Missing Flashcard

Chinese Whisper

Bingo

Female Male

(students)

Chart 5 Reasons why some games were not interested

Chart 5 studies more intensely about causes that led to learners’ negative attitudes towards applied games According to this chart, boredom was the answer that most of subjects replied when talking about their least interesting activities (11 out of 12 votes) Otherwise, 6 students said that they were often defeated by others,

so they did not enjoyed games 5 other learners claimed that they were not interested in games since they felt that there was no improvement in vocabulary retention In addition, one student answered that she did not like The Missing Flashcard because it was so challenging for her to enjoy

Other

(votes)

Chart 6 The most difficult games in learners’ opinion

Chart 6 gives information about games that learners believed to be the most difficult It is obviously that there is not much distinction in the choice of these subjects The most challenging games in students’ viewpoint were Bingo and The Missing Flashcard with three votes for each game Otherwise, Chinese Whisper, Guessing Game, and Slap The Words received the equal votes from learners Each game was chosen by two students Generally, these applied games in some aspects were challenging to youngsters

Chart 7 Elements that contribute to the challenging level of a game

according to the interviewees

Most of in-class activities are interesting and easy to catch learners’ attention However, some aspects, such as games’ difficulty level, will have negative influence on students’ English learning interest Chart 7 demonstrates the factors that had impact on the subjects’ belief about the challenging level of a game Noticeably, the influence of each element was not similar The biggest problem that prevented learners from enjoying these games was having no idea about the games’ instruction 9 out of 10 answers responded that they were facing this difficulty when playing in-class activities The second reason was students’ memorizing problem 7 learners told that they could not play games well since they did not remember the vocabulary Furthermore, there were 6 students claimed that they were not be able

to enjoy games since they had pronunciation mistakes Two last students said that games were difficult because it was the first time they played them, and they were not fond of these games so they did not pay attention to the instruction

2 Data from the observation

Besides the structured interview, the researcher also collected data from the observation The observation mainly focused on learners’ interest, engagement,

Don’t know how to play

Don't remember the vocabulary

Incorrect pronunciation

Other

(votes)

cooperation, instruction comprehension, and pronunciation ability In addition, the researcher also recorded the feedback from the teacher to students when they made pronunciation mistakes, and feedback from students to each other There was one observation session for each game

Chart 8 Learners’ interest and participation while playing games

Chart 8 shows the information of students’ interest, engagement, cooperation, and instruction comprehension in in-class activities The data was fluctuated among 5 games Firstly, Slap The Words, Chinese Whisper, Bingo, and Guessing Game were received positive respondses from most of children All of twelve learners performed their cooperation and instruction comprehension while playing these games These twelve students also showed their interest when playing Slap The Words Especially, students performed best when they participated in Guessing Game Comparing to Chart 4 and Chart 6, although there were two students who said that this game was least interesting, and two others answered it was difficult for them to play Guessing Game, they still did a good job in this activity Cooperation and instruction comprehension in The Missing Flashcard were

Bingo Guessing

Game

The Missing Flashcard

Interest Engagement Cooperation

Instruction comprehension

(students)

slightly fewer than other games with the expression of 11 students Least learners showed their interest in playing Bingo, quite different from the information in Chart

4 Finally, Bingo had the least engagement compared to the others Only 5 students performed their engagement when playing this game

Through the observation, the researcher found out that by playing games, learners could produce either correct or incorrect pronunciation, and most of them were individual sounds Those mistakes might be corrected in the next activities, or they were repeated

(students)

who pronounced the /s/ sound incorrectly Instead of saying /es/, that student said /et/ Furthermore, /ʃ/ was correctly pronounced by 8 students, 3 learners less than the sound /s/ On the other hand, /ʃ/ was more difficult to pronounce than /s/ with 5 learners who produced it wrongly, while there was only one student who produced the wrong /s/ sound

of /æ/ The situation was not improved till the end of the lesson In contrast, /e/ was

a similar sound to Vietnamese Thus, the number of learners who make the right sound were up to 8 students There were 4 youngsters who made the right sound

(students)

/æ/, shared the similarity with the amount of students who pronounced /e/

incorrectly

Chart 11 Learners’ pronunciation performance in the Guessing Game

on April, 20 th 2019

The chart visualizes the record of the researcher about students’

pronunciation when learning two consonant clusters /pr/ and /kr/ In general, many

students made wrong pronunciation while playing this game Firstly, 8 students in

class had problem with pronouncing the /pr/ sound This sound was only

pronounced correctly by 4 learners The researcher noticed that youngsters who had

difficulty saying this sound often omitted the voiceless sound /p/ when speaking

/kr/ was also a difficult consonant cluster for 7 students who pronounced it

incorrectly For this consonant cluster, youngsters usually omitted the sound /k/

when they pronounced word that contained this consonant cluster There were 5 out

of 12 learners who could pronounce this sound correctly

(students)