Investigating the vowel mispronunciation of undergraduate students of the Faculty of Management and Commerce, South Eastern University of Sri Lanka

Abstract

This study was conducted to investigate the vowel mispronunciation of undergraduate students of the Faculty of Management and Commerce, South Eastern University of Sri Lanka. The aim of this study was to identify the problems and difficulties faced by the students in pronouncing vowel sounds in their loud reading and speaking, and the factors which affects students’ pronunciation development. It has been observed that learners encounter number of pronunciation problems and difficulties in speaking and loud reading. In this study, fifty 2nd year Students of the Faculty of Management and Commerce, South Eastern University of Sri Lanka were randomly selected as sample population for investigation. The primary data were collected using qualitative and quantitative methods, and the research instruments used in this study were oral pronunciation test, questionnaire and audio tape recording. The instruments enabled the researcher to identify vowel mispronunciation with their opinions about pronunciation. According to the data analysis, the findings show that the learners encountered difficulties in pronouncing vowel sounds such as /iː/ as /i/, /uː/ as /u/ and /əʊ/ as /ɔ/. Moreover, the opinion survey revealed that the learners show lack of interest in learning pronunciation and many factors that affect their pronunciation development. These pronunciation problems and difficulties can be overcome and improved through implementing pronunciation as a separate component like grammar and writing in English as a Second Language curriculum of Department of English Language Teaching of South Eastern University of Sri Lanka.