AN ANALYSIS STUDY ON STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES IN PRONOUNCING CENTERING DIPHTHONGS

Abstract

The paper entitled “An Analysis Study on Students’ Difficulties in Pronouncing Centering Diphthongs” is aimed to analyse the students’ difficulties in pronouncing centering diphthongs and to find the most difficult centering diphthong pronounced by the students. It is conducted to the first semester students of English Education Study Program, Faculty of Teachers Training and Educational Sciences, Pakuan University. The writer chooses this semester because they have taken Pronunciation 1. Purposive sampling technique is used to choose only one class, namely A class. The result of this research is shown based on three categories. First is students’ ability, the students seldom practise to pronounce the English words. They only read the dictionary when they find the unfamiliar words to know the correct pronunciation of English words. Second is the students’ knowledge. They know the phonetic transcription in English but they still make mistakes and do not know how to pronounce the correct sounds. Last is students’ difficulty. Some factors of students’ difficulties in pronouncing centering diphthongs are caused by the inconsistency between the written words in English and the sounds and the unfamiliarity of the students to say and practise English words in their daily conversation, and diphthong is a combination of two vowels. In addition, they did not get Pronunciation in senior high school, so they find it difficult when they have to pronounce centering diphthongs correctly. The most difficult centering diphthong pronounced by the students is [eә].