PRONUNCIATION ERRORS MADE BY THE TENTH GRADE STUDENTS OF SMA MUHAMMADIYAH 3 JEMBER IN READING THE NEWS ITEM TEXT

Abstract

This research was intended to describe the pronunciation errors made by the tenth grade students of SMA Muhammadiyah 3 Jember in reading the News Item Text. Pronunciation errors in this research refer to English word pronunciation errors that focused on the students’ errors in producing the vowel sounds, consonant sounds, diphthong sounds, and other categories of errors in reading the News Item text. Based on the interview, the tenth grade English teacher of SMA Muhammadiyah 3 Jember has ever taught pronunciation integratedly with other English skills such as listening, speaking, and reading. To make the students understand better about pronunciation, the English teacher gave some examples to the students that were the teacher read the News Item text first before asking the students to practice or gave other examples like video or cassette dealing with the material about Pronunciation. The problem of this research were “What pronunciation errors are found in reading the News Item Text of the tenth grade students of SMA Muhammadiyah 3 Jember?” and “What is the percentage of the pronunciation errors made by the tenth grade students of SMA Muhammadiyah 3 Jember in reading the News Item text?”. This school was chosen purposively. The research respondents were determined based on proportional random sampling. The research data were obtained by pronunciation test, interview, observation, and documentation. The pronunciation test was intended to obtain the primary data. Then, they were analyzed by using the percentage formula. Meanwhile, the interview, observation, and documentation results were described to complete and support the primary data. Based on the results of pronunciation test given to the students, it was known that the tenth grade students of SMA Muhammadiyah 3 Jember made word pronunciation errors in producing the vowel sounds, consonant sounds, and also diphthong sounds. The results were the vowel errors made by the students were 1178 errors or 60.4%. Vowel errors mean that the students made errors in producing the vowels sounds. There were twelve kinds of vowel sounds and some of the students made errors in producing the sounds. The consonant errors made by the students were 112 errors or 5.7%. Consonant errors here mean that the students made errors in producing the consonants sounds. There were twenty four kinds of consonant sounds and some of the students made errors in producing the consonants sound. The diphthong errors made by the students were 123 errors or 6.3%. Diphthong errors mean that the students made errors in producing the diphthong sounds. There were eight kinds of diphthong sounds and the students made errors in producing the sounds. The additional type of errors is other categories of errors. There were 539 sounds or 27.6% errors in other categories found when the students read the News Item text. It means that the students produced the errors in adding sounds that was actually not necessary to be pronounced, words that were unread by the students, missing sounds in the words, and words that were pronounced differently from what it was written in the News Item text. It was still found that there were some students who made errors in other categories of errors when reading the News Item text. The results of interview showed that the tenth grade English teacher had tried all the things that she could do for the students to make them able to pronounce the English words correctly. She also tried to ask her students to practice reading and asked them to ask their English teacher if they had difficulties in pronouncing the English words. The result was still not good because she found that there were a few students who wanted to practice or asked some questions to their English teacher. Most of the students still did not want to practice reading aloud or even asked their English teacher about their problems. The research findings above were expected to give some feedback to the English teacher. She should keep continuing to give the examples of pronunciation to the students to make them interested in learning pronunciation and giving the students more time to practice reading the News Item text to overcome their problems with pronunciations.