International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature
International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature
Article history The purpose of the study was to find out the problems related to the teaching of English
Received: April 17, 2018 pronunciation in the pre-service training institutions. Wesley College of Education, Kumasi,
Accepted: July 15, 2018 Ghana, was used as a case study. Out of the problems, deductions were made to make
Published: November 01, 2018 recommendations. Three tutors of English and twenty students were purposively sampled for
Volume: 7 Issue: 6 the study. Through the use of interviews, three key findings, realized from the research include
Advance access: September 2018 the following: First, the mode of correcting students’ mispronunciation. The manner in which
some tutors correct students’ mispronunciation was found to be very discouraging to the
students; second, the less attention given to English ‘pronunciation’ as one of the aspects of
Conflicts of interest: None English language teaching/learning was a concern; In any case, though pronunciation was not
Funding: None conspicuously part of the English course outline, it did not imply that there was no form of
pronunciation teaching. Thus, during the teaching learning process pronunciation teaching go on
directly or indirectly. In terms, of other subject areas other than English language, pronunciation
teaching hardly happens. More importantly, another vital problem found was the poor foundation
at the basic level of education. The student teachers should in-turn have a better grounding in
English pronunciation to teach the pupils in the basic schools in Ghana. Unfortunately, the ill
tradition of unintelligible pronunciation goes on, which the researcher terms it the ‘dark cycle’.
The views of students and tutors were gathered through recording and transcription of interviews.
The research generally reveals the need for language teachers and curriculum planners to factor
in pronunciation as a vital aspect of building up students; especially, student- teachers who will
complete soon and go and teach younger ones, ensuring the avoidance of ‘dark cycle’ as the
researcher’s term, explained in the ‘key words’.
Key words: ‘Dark Cycle’, First Language, Second Language, Blood Vomiting, Blood
Coughing, Transforming Teacher Education and Learning
ation should be reasonably understanding to his listeners for in government schools receive almost no opportunity to speak
successful communication which will boost the competence in the L2 in classes that are still teacher-centered” When a
of that individual (the speaker). On the contrary, an individ- class is teacher-centered and the students do not get the op-
ual who is hardly understood by his/her listeners may surely portunity to speak, they neither get the opportunity to express
suffer embarrassment and lose his communication compe- themselves nor have their mistakes corrected. This does not
tence. This reflects the importance of teaching and learning help such students to build up their English pronunciation
of English pronunciation in pre-service training institution, skills. In relation to the study, if student-teachers of Wesley
where student-teachers are being trained to go and teach pu- college of Education, Kumasi, Ghana and in colleges of Edu-
pils at the basic level of Education in Ghana. Based on the cation in general have such pedagogical problem, it might be
importance of pronunciation discussed, the study researched a contributing factor to their English pronunciation problems.
into the problems related to the teaching of English pronun-
ciation in the pre-service training institution; Wesley College Spelling and pronunciation
of Education, Kumasi, Ghana.
Another problem reviewed was spelling. Rodman and From-
kin (1978:159) stated that “Writing has, however affected
LITERATURE REVIEW speech only marginally and most notably in the phenome-
The review of related literature discusses three issues. These non of spelling pronunciation”. Many English words are not
include good or bad pronunciation, problems of English lan- pronounced the way they are spelt. Without having knowl-
guage teaching, and pronunciation and the curriculum. edge about their correct pronunciation, one may pronounce
the words as they are spelt. For example, the word ‘island’
[ailǝnd] is not pronounced as [islᴂnd] neither is the word
Good or Bad Pronunciation ‘pneumonia’[nju: mǝuniǝ] pronounced [pǝnuj: mǝuniǝ]. With
What can be considered as a good pronunciation and bad their reference to spelling pronunciation, they discussed how
one? In as much as the terms are relative to an individual, it spelling has affected speech especially since the sixteenth
is obvious that one’s pronunciation may be considered as a century. Rodman and Fromkin (1978:159) made reference to
problem when the listener struggles to comprehend. Robert- the struggle between those who were of the view that words
son (2002:11) says, “ In a world of numerous different teach- should be pronounced according to their spelling and those
ers with localized dialects, one cannot begin to postulate even who felt words should be spelt according to their pronuncia-
an image of ‘perfect pronunciation’ without meeting barrage tion. They indicated that at that time /h/ sound was not pro-
of questions, most of which will succumb to different answer nounced in honest, hour, habit, hospital etc. Also most of the
by different nationality teacher”; Thus, difficult to declare words underwent change from /t/to/ɵ/ such as anthem, author,
what ‘perfect pronunciation’ is. By the existence of different and theater. This is how the issue of spelling is a pronuncia-
cultures in general, including different languages, the differ- tion problem; in terms of teaching, when the teacher himself/
ent native languages of individuals have influences on their herself is not well abreast with the changing trends and does
English language to make it sound unique. It therefore be- not have a good grasp of comfortably intelligible pronuncia-
comes difficult to declare which one is perfect and which one tion, which becomes another problem altogether. They clearly
is not. In the teaching of English pronunciation, it may be stated that, “The most important of such changes stem from
very vital for teachers to be conscious of this and accommo- the eighteenth century under the influence and ‘decrees’ of
date all students in terms of their pronunciation. However, dictionary-makers and the school teachers.” This shows how
this does not imply that where there is difficulty in compre- instrumental teachers especially are, in terms of language in
hending a speaker’s pronunciation, nothing should be done general and pronunciation in particular. Teachers, in the mist
of all the problems of the teaching of English pronunciation
about it. Robertson (2002:11citing Kenworthy 1996:3) indi-
must do their best to curb the pronunciation problems of their
cates that he prefers to see the strong term ‘perfect pronun-
students, though the competence of their pronunciation skills
ciation’ reduced to ‘comfortably intelligible pronunciation’.
is another issue worth discussing.
In this sense, irrespective of one’s native language, his/her
English pronunciation should be intelligibly understood by
listeners without any strain. The teacher of English will now Influence of L1 on L2
have to employ this as an encouragement to help curb the Naturally, considering Nunan’s (1991) view, the influence of
pronunciation problems of his/her students in order for the L1 on L2 is an obvious problem in pronunciation teaching.
students to have the ability to express a comfortably intelli- It is thus likely to be a challenge for student-teachers of the
gible English pronunciation. pre-service training institutions as well as the pupils they in-
turn teach when they complete their training. Nunan (1991)
Problems of English Language Teaching indicated that:
“Teaching of pronunciation is dealt with from different
Opportunity for students to express themselves in class
points of view because the influence of the first language
The problems of English pronunciation reviewed included seems prominent in the case of pronunciation and only gift-
less opportunity for students to express themselves in class. ed learners can attain mastery over pronunciation, though
Robertson (2002:6 citing Dash 2002) indicated that “students they start learning language after puberty”. Deducing from
Problems Related to the Teaching of English Pronunciation in Pre-service Institutions: A Study
at the Wesley College of Education, Kumasi, Ghana 39
Nunan’s(1991) view, the problem of pronunciation does not of Education should have been presented in the light of ‘lan-
only linger around the L1 influence on L2 but also about the guage across the curriculum’ where all teachers, irrespec-
age at which they begin their pronunciation lessons. By pu- tive of their teaching subject will correct student-teachers’
berty age, all the wrong pronunciation skills would not only mispronunciations. However, this raises the concern about
be learnt but well adopted by the individual. This will make whether subject teachers in general and language teachers in
‘change’ difficult for such an individual at that puberty age. particular have intelligible pronunciation skills or ability to
It may be more helpful for L2 learners of English language to correct others.
resort to English pronunciation training at an early age. This
is very vital considering Celce-Murcia, Brinton and Good-
METHOD
win’s (1996) view on pronunciation; to them, “ There is a
threshold level of pronunciation of non -native speakers of The researcher used the qualitative research design in this
English, If they fall below this threshold level, they will have study. This research design was selected due to its advan-
oral communication problems no matter how excellent and tage of giving detailed and comprehensive information. The
extensive their control of English grammar and vocabulary non-probability sampling method; specifically, the purpo-
might be. There is therefore the need for student-teachers sive sampling method was used to sample respondents due
of pre-service training institutions to make conscious effort to the fact that the researcher believed those respondents
to overcome the challenge of the influence of the L1 on L2 could provide the needed information to help make the re-
and attain the threshold level of English pronunciation which search a successful one. This section discusses setting and
Celce-Murcia et al (1996) made reference to. The influence participants, data collection and data analyses.
of L1 on L2 can be very challenging to the teacher as well
as to the student. In reference to Chinese students, Hsiang- Setting and Participants
Pao, Chuen-Yn and Chi-Fen, (1994) addressed the problem
of ‘dropping final consonants’ while students are speaking. The Wesley College of Education is one of the Training
In Chinese, there is no consonant + vowel + consonant stuc- Colleges in Ghana located at Tafo, Kumasi in the Ashanti
ture(CVC structure); consonants would never appear at the region. It was established by the Methodist Church in 1918.
end of the word. This is quite different from English. Influ- During the season of the study, (2012/2013 Academic year),
enced by Chinese, (Influence of L1 on L2), students omit fi- Wesley College of Education, as an institution comprised
nal consonants while speaking and this results in semantic 69 teaching staff including the Principal and two (2) Vice
misunderstanding amongst communicators. They adopted Principals, seventy-one (71) non-teaching staff, and eight
activities that helped to alert students to final consonants and hundred and eighty–five students (885) students (consisting
regulate their English language habits in putting final conso- of two hundred and ninety–nine (299) first year students;
nants at the end of words or sentences (in speech). There is two hundred and ninety five (295) second year students; and
obviously the need to improve one’s pronunciation irrespec- two hundred and ninety–one (291) third year students). The
tive of the Influence of L1 on L2. third year students were out stationed on their off–campus
teaching practice, where teachers go to their various villages
to supervise their teaching. Thus, it was only first and sec-
Pronunciation and the Curriculum ond year students as well as some teaching and non–teach-
Robertson (2002:10 cited Morley 1991:496) that “students ing staff members who live on Wesley College of Education
can be expected to do well in pronunciation of English if campus. The community was guided by a pattern of life from
the pronunciation class is taken out of a ‘meaningless isola- dawn to dusk especially with regard to the students. They
tion’ and becomes an integral part of the oral communication attend devotion, breakfast, lunch and supper together, among
class.” The main purpose of pronunciation is for communi- other college functions. This is the reason why communica-
cation; thus, if the curriculum and teaching is made so prac- tion is paramount in the college. Besides, teachers and stu-
tical that the use of pronunciation is realized in the classroom dents also communicate during class hours and obviously,
irrespective of the subject under study, obviously it will go a students communicate a great deal amongst themselves and
long way to improve the communication between the teacher pronunciation is vital in all these communications. The av-
and the student and education for that matter. On the con- erage number of students in many of the classrooms is thir-
trary, the times allocated to the topics on the course outlines ty (30). With regard to the class number, teachers are more
of pre-service training institution, Wesley College of Edu- likely to give better attention to all students when the class
cation may not be sufficient to go the extra mile and make number is less. There is a library in the college though there
room for pronunciation teaching. is the need for a bigger one. There is also an Information and
Before this, Robertson (2002:4) had indicated in his Communication Technology (ICT) laboratory in the college.
work, the inclusion of pronunciation in government school There is a language laboratory which is solely used by the
curriculum, as one of the ways he thinks could improve pro- French department in the college; due to this, the place is
nunciation. Teaching pronunciation should not be a study called ‘the French lab’ and not ‘the language lab’.
with a status comparable to Physics, History or English sub- Data was obtained through observation and interviews.
ject, but should be studied as a fundamental aspect of the em- Three teachers and twenty students of Wesley College of
bodiments of the English subject. Preferably, pronunciation Education, Kumasi, Ghana, were sampled for the research
teaching in pre-service training institution, Wesley College work. The teachers who were interviewed were those who
40 IJALEL 7(6):37-47
taught English language in the institution and the students (Guest 2012). It does so by examining themes within the data
as well offered English language as a course and could pro- (Braun & Clarke, 2006). It is worth mentioning that coding
vide the researcher with the needed information. Out of the is a primary process in developing themes (Guest & Mac-
nine (9) teachers of English, three (3) were sampled and Queen, 2012). This is done by recognizing vital points in the
used for the research work. Out of a student population of data and noting it to explain it further. In other words, coding
885 students twenty (20) students (ten first year students and is the systematic way of organizing and gaining meaningful
ten second year students) were selected for the focus group parts of data as it relates to the research question. And that
interviews. The third year students were not selected since is basically how the researcher analyzed the data. The data
they do not reside on campus because they were on an out was presented through the narrative logic approach. Due to
program. the fact that the researcher recorded and transcribed the in-
terviews, the data was clearly available to be analyzed. The
Researcher chose the thematic analysis due to its advantages
Data Collection
among which include the “flexibility it allows researchers”
Since the Researcher used observation and interviews, it (Braun et al 2006), to address several human concepts of
has been explained below, how each instrument was used to knowledge; and it as well helps interpret themes supported
gather data to contribute to the success of this research. by data (Guest 2012). All this was done considering the find-
ings of the observation as well.
Observation
The researcher used the complete observation method in this FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
study. This was to ensure that the teachers give off their nat- In the presentation of data, it is worth noting that the exact
ural output and do not pretend. The observations were done words of interviewees have been quoted (italicized) in order
before the interviews. The researcher observed the compre- to reflect the exact views on some pronunciation problems in
hension lessons of each of the three teachers of English six their presentations.
times. The information taken during the first two observa- The following were found to be the problems related to
tions of each teacher was not analyzed. This was to avoid the teaching of English pronunciation in the institution:
noting pretentious behavior on the part of the teachers due to
nervousness or anxiety. However, the last four observations
Poor Foundation at the Basic Level
out of the six observations of each teacher were used for this
research work. Though initially the teachers were a bit hes- Indeed the students of pre-service training institutions grew
itant for fear of being judged, they later accepted willingly and schooled through the basic level till the stage they find
upon the assurance the researcher gave them of their securi- themselves. Thus, upon admitting that they have pronunci-
ty. The findings of the observation are presented along with ation problems, one cause that was identified is the fact that
that of the interview thematically. they had poor foundation at the basic level. One student said:
“There should be good trained personnel to start the training
so that they could get up with it.” The student believed that
Interview if he/she had had a good training at the basic level it would
In organizing the interviews, the three teachers of English have helped her.
were interviewed individually at different times and place Poor foundation of pronunciation training of individu-
as chosen by the respondents. Twenty students (ten (10) first als at the basic level obviously contributes to problems of
year students were interviewed as a group as well as ten (10) English pronunciation teaching and learning. Agreeing with
second year students (also in a focus group). The researcher Higgs et al (1982) a beginner learner of English language
however incorporated the information of the first and second must be taught pronunciation. Pronunciation must be taught
year students since they were similar. The semi-structured at the basic level of education. It is therefore obvious that
interview format was adopted. Each of the interviews took a there may be problems when this is overlooked or not prop-
period of about forty - five (45) minutes. The researcher used erly done. When this basic need is overlooked, it will result
the interviews due to its advantages which include the fact in having grown –ups with poor pronunciations that will in
that it is purposeful, conversational and answers research turn influence other young people and society negatively.
questions, Owu – Ewie (2011). In other words, interviews Another aspect of the interview revealed that the teachers
provide opportunity for the respondent to give more informa- acknowledge that students of Wesley College of Education
tion to help make the research successful. The observations have pronunciation problems. A Teacher said:
were noted and the interviews were recorded and transcribed Exactly! They have problems with er pronunciation.
to support the presentation of information in the study. And for me, the problem stems from the fact that, when
they were in basic school, even through the S.H.S. and
what not, many of them were not taken through pronun-
Data Analyses ciation, correct pronunciation.
The Researcher used the thematic method in analyzing the There is every indication that there is little attention on
data through categorization and coding. Thematic analysis pronunciation at the basic level as well, though it could be a
is commonly used in qualitative research in analyzing data suggestion for future research. This is because the students
Problems Related to the Teaching of English Pronunciation in Pre-service Institutions: A Study
at the Wesley College of Education, Kumasi, Ghana 41
admitted that if they had had a good basic training they would And this made her mates laugh at her. Another student said,
have been better. Moreover, the personal experience of one It’s good to be corrected but at times how, how it is done
of the teachers who was interviewed and recounted that his it is make, it is, that’s they complicative the whole thing so I
basic school teacher could not teach him the correct pronun- will say the teachers should also come down for us/ɛs/. And
ciation of the word ‘meadow’ makes this point so true. during correction will be because we are grown ups and if
you embarrass me and how you will say it will make me em-
barrassed. So how they correct us should be in a nice way.
Less Opportunity for Students to have their
The students’ responses quoted above agree with Robert-
Mispronunciations Corrected
son (2002:13) that students valued pronunciation as a vital
Due to the fact that pronunciation is not conspicuously part of part of their instruction and wanted more correction on their
the course outline of Wesley College of Education, Teachers mispronunciation both within and outside the classroom.
of English sometimes teach pronunciations only when stu- The researcher agrees with Robertson (2002) that error cor-
dents make mispronunciations of English Language. A teach- rection is a team effort, so the teachers as well as the stu-
er said: “Yes I do, I do. Emm, a lot; because, when, anytime dents must cooperate in achieving this. Whereas the teachers
students mispronounce a word, I take time to correct them. correct students without humiliating them, the students must
I make them go into the dictionary to see how the word is pro- also have the humility to accept corrections. In this context,
nounced and I teach them how the words are transcribed”. the student-teachers must learn not to laugh at others for
The researcher agrees with Robertson (2002:6 citing their errors but should encourage one another to build up
Dash 2002) that when very few students have the opportu- their knowledge holistically. It is the teacher’s ‘overall re-
nity to talk in class; there is little opportunity for students sponsibility’ to correct student’s error, and that must be done
to have their mispronunciations corrected. During the obser- properly.
vation for example, only few students had the opportunity
to contribute in class. Eventually, only a student had her
mispronunciation corrected. The student mispronounced the How often other Subject Teachers Correct Students’
word ‘awesome’ as/ausʌm/and the teacher of English cor- Mispronunciations
rected that it should be pronounced as/ɔ:səm/. For other mis- The rather destructing problem is the issue of ‘language
pronunciations, colleague students only laughed and teased. across the curriculum’; where all teachers should get in-
As far as classes continue to be teacher-centered, there will volved in improving pronunciation rather than only tutors of
be less opportunity for students to have their mispronuncia- English. Students appreciated the fact that it is only tutors of
tions corrected by teachers of English. How often teachers of English who sometimes correct their mispronunciation and
English correct students’ mispronunciations is not sufficient. not other subject tutors. A student had this to say: “It is hardly
done but I think with the English tutors they try that but with
the Science and Mathematics tutors they just forget them”
Mode of correcting Students’ Mispronunciations:
Since the Mathematics and Science teachers were partic-
The problem surrounding correcting students’ mispronun- ularly accused of not usually correcting students’ mispronun-
ciation is the mode of correction. During the observation, ciation, the researcher informally inquired of a mathematics
the researcher observed that students laughed at individuals teacher if she corrects students’ mispronunciations. She had
who mispronounced words. In addition, when teachers of this to say: “Occasionally, especially if it is a mathemati-
English on few occasions prompted students about their mis- cal term, but if it is not, I hardly look at that” Again, upon
pronunciations other students laughed. Though all the three asking a Physics and Chemistry teacher, he said that he sel-
Teachers of English indicated that they correct students’ mis- dom corrects students’ mispronunciation. At times he looks
pronunciations, students expressed their problem of embar- out for the facts and not the pronunciation. At times too he
rassment due to how Teachers of English correct them, when may just not want to embarrass the person, he added. From
they do. One student said: the answers the mathematics and science teachers gave, it is
When we are doing comprehension; like they they do evident that other subject teachers of Wesley College of Ed-
when we pronounce the thing. But the way they will ucation hardly correct students’ English mispronunciations.
correct you ‘no’, they will say ‘say it again’ (laughs) This does not help the students to attain the threshold level of
they will say ‘say it again’/egein/but you think it was the pronunciation which Celce – Murcia et al (1996) postulate.
right pronunciation, say it again, but at times you feel
embarrassed to like, say it again. And even when they
say the right word because you are embarrassed you Poor Example from Some Tutors
will not listen to what they say. Another problem of pronunciation regarding pronunciation
During the observation, the researcher observed that teaching is the fact that students indicated that some tutors
teachers of English hardly correct students’ mispronuncia- themselves do not know how to pronounce words correctly
tions but whenever they did, members of the class laughed and thus cannot teach the students good pronunciation. One
at the individual who had committed the pronunciation error. student said this: “Some of the teachers too, they also they
In the situation of the student who mispronounced the word don’t know how to pronounce some of the words.” Another
‘awesome’, the teacher of English exclaimed: “What!” After student agreed to this and said “Sure, Sure”.
which she corrected the student to pronounce it as/ɔ:səm/. During the observation, the researcher observed some
42 IJALEL 7(6):37-47
mispronunciations from tutors. There were instances where a word ‘a meadow’ which he used to pronounce as/amɛdu/(a
a tutor mispronounced the word ‘that’ /ðæt/as/da: t/. Anoth- Ghanaian Akan name of a male) at his basic level of educa-
er mispronounced the word college /kɔlidʒ/as/kʌleidʒ/. The tion, only to get to a higher level to learn that it was/mi: dəʊ/
gravity of the problem lies in the fact that, it is tutors of En- (According to the tutor). Interestingly, after the interview,
glish who were observed and thus making such errors. This the researcher checked the dictionary only to learn that the
confirms that indeed some tutors also do have pronunciation word ‘meadow’ which the teacher pronounced as/mi: dəʊ/
problems. It implies that there is a great need to improve the is pronounced/mɛdəʊ/. Below is a part of the experience the
teaching and learning of pronunciation even on the part of teacher shared:
the tutors of English as well as other subject teachers. …One example I have is ‘one man and his dog went to
It is like a cycle. For several years now, tutors with poor mow a meadow’ That word there ‘a meadow’ we used
pronunciation have been handling students, right from early to pronounce it ‘amadu’(a Ghanaian Akan name of a
school days until the highest level of education. It is however male)/a: mɛdʊ/... So when I saw the first part of the
not surprising if students frankly indicate that some teach- structure ‘One man and his dog went to mow ‘a mead-
ers do not even know how to pronounce words correctly. ow’ then ‘a meadow’/mi: dəʊ/So I came back, I went to
Practically, students have admitted that they have pronunci- the dictionary and found out the meaning of meadow.
ation problems; in a year or two, they will become teachers It was when the tutor got to an older level that he realized
to younger ones, still pronouncing words wrongly and their he had been using the wrong word right from childhood. If his
students (pupils) pick up from them. Those students (some) teachers had taught the pronunciation well, he would not have
tend to become teachers and the tradition of teachers using had such an experience. From the statement of the tutor of En-
poor pronunciation goes on. And this ‘dark cycle’ as the re- glish above, one can tell that, the tutor checked the dictionary
searcher terms it, will not cease until pronunciation teaching with the interest of discovering the meaning of the word and
is addressed appropriately. The students shared their expe- not how it is pronounced. This does not show a good exam-
riences with the researcher showing lack of knowledge of ple for students to emulate. The researcher agrees with Ashby
good pronunciation on the part of teachers. A student said: (1995:2) that teachers need a good grasp of all that goes into
“Sometimes when you get a word wrong (w’ehu?-an Akan pronunciation not only knowledge about phonetics.
word meaning ‘do you see’?) and you ask/ɛyi/a teacher how
to pronounce it, they will tell you that it’s an assignment, go Influence of L1 on L2
and find it yourself.” Another student said: “.that you should
Since Yule (1996:191) postulated that L1 is acquired and L2 is
consult your dictionary and it shouldn’t be that way.”
learned, it seems more difficult for Wesley College students
To add to that, another student gave another example of
to develop L2 pronunciations appropriately. L1 influence on
an instance where a teacher corrected him, not to pronounce L2 as a strong factor of less intelligible pronunciation as was
the word ‘issues’ as /iʃjiu: s/ but as /isju: s/. deduced from the interviews. A student said:
The other time I thought emm!, I had been saying issues/ It’s like being born in Africa here, specifically in Gha-
iʃjiu: s/from basic school through my senior high school na here, we have certain tribes and every tribe has its
till date but the other time I was talking to a master and own dialect. And because of that, it’s like we are being
I said, did the issue/iʃjiu:/and he said ‘hei!, what are trained that way. Our pronunciations are different so it
you saying? It was there that the master taught me. They becomes difficult when you are being introduced to a
told me that it was/isju:/and I felt embarrassed because different language altogether. Learning it is not easy.
there were a lot of my friends over there so it feels really This reflects the difficulty L2 learners of English usually
bad when you are being corrected. face based on the fact that the system of the target language
The tutor who made this correction lacks the knowledge may be almost entirely different from their mother tongue.
about the difference between British accents and American Probably, there is more difficulty in learning language than
one. Otherwise, he/she could have rather prompted the stu- acquiring it. A tutor gave practical explanation to the mother
dent about the different accents since both pronunciations tongue (MT) influence:
are correct. It is evident in this example that some of the I will also look at mother tongue influence, that’s MT
tutors lack the knowledge of the different pronunciations of influence, and err in our mother/mʌdʌ/tongue, the way
the British and American accents of the English Language. words are pronounced, when we look at the, even the
One other example which depicts lack of knowledge on structure when you have in most African languages, the
the part of tutors and thus expresses the fact that they are consonant vowel consonant structure and in English you
more likely to give poor example to students is a statement look at err a group of consonantal clusters before a single
made by a tutor of English during the interview: “English is vowel is introduced. For example in the word ‘strength’
a stressed timed language but our local languages are most- – there is only a single vowel. But most of the African lan-
ly syllabic timed languages” The truth is, English Language guages do not behave like that. So, speakers of, or learn-
is also syllabic. This all points to the fact that tutors in gener- ers of English try as much as possible to insert a vowel in
al and tutors of English in particular also do some knowledge the middle of consonantal clusters and this is one of the
on pronunciation. and thus sometimes give poor examples causes of poor pronunciation among our students.
to students. In addition to that, the researcher also had an The example the tutor gave above expresses the fact that
instance where a tutor of English shared an experience about because the L1 of the L2 learner of English involves con-
Problems Related to the Teaching of English Pronunciation in Pre-service Institutions: A Study
at the Wesley College of Education, Kumasi, Ghana 43
sonant vowel consonant (CVC) such as ‘mɛda’ in Akan (A In one comprehension lesson the researcher observed that
Ghanaian language which means ‘I will sleep’) the learner the teacher corrected a student’s mispronunciations only
has the tendency of inserting vowels within consonants of once. Students of Wesley College of Education have less
the target language (English language) which may have con- intelligible pronunciation which was confirmed through the
sonantal clusters such as the example he gave – ‘strength’. observations and interviews.
In the tutor’s statement above, it was evident that he suffers Many students and tutors admitted that pronunciation is
from the problem of L1 influence on L2. Particularly, he pro- not very much taught as part of the course outline. About
nounced the word mother/mʌðə/as/mʌdʌ/due to the fact that two out of ten students remembered and said they are taught
phonologically, the sound/ð/is not part of the sounds of his vowel sounds and consonants in their phonetics class. One
mother tongue and thus naturally finds a substitute for that student said:
as the sound/d/. By this problem, the researcher agrees with Only vowel sounds and consonant sounds. They just
Jahan (2011 citing Nunan 1991) that the influence of L1 on L2 give us few examples like how/eyi/like/a/will be in this
is a big problem which needs to be dealt with from different word and that’s all, they don’t teach us how words are
points of views. This is because even a tutor of English who pronounced…That’s all that they do; for you to describe
is aware of this pronunciation issue still has a problem with it.
pronunciations of English. This emphasizes the fact that pro- Tutors confirmed that indeed apart from about three
nunciation must be given the necessary attention and train- topics: Vowels, Consonants and minimal pairs, there is no
ing of teachers in this regard should not be left out. other aspect of the course outlines that is allocated for pro-
A student confirmed their challenge and said: nunciation teaching. This finding is in line with the view of
Honestly, we are having a lot of problems pronouncing Underhill (2010) that pronunciation has been neglected as
such words. As a matter of fact, English Language is not compared to the other aspects of language, and it must be
our mother tongue we are just trying to learn it from our included and integrated in the language learning as a whole.
colonial masters. And I don’t think we can be perfect Earlier, a student indicated that, in teaching the phonetics,
and as good/gu: d/as our colonial masters. the tutors focus on the description of sounds not the pronun-
The problem of the influence of L1 on L2 keeps reflect- ciations. Interestingly, it was realized that students do not
ing in the statements of the tutors of English and students. even know all that go into pronunciation teaching. It was
In the statement the student made above, he mispronounced evident in their statements that some thought pronunciation
the word ‘good’/gʊd/as/gu: d/. The researcher agrees with teaching was limited to word repetition and for that reason it
Olenka (2009), that it is very difficult to achieve native-like
was not necessary to include it in the course outline. A stu-
pronunciation in any language. Perhaps this buttresses the
dent said: “Like, they should include it in the syllabus in
point a student made above indicating that he does not think
English One whole topic for pronunciation in English so that
that we can be perfect as the colonial masters. In spite of that,
we get time to learn most of the words and how they are be-
it is very necessary for the L2 learner of English to produce
ing pronounced.” Another student replied:
the English sounds correctly, such that one can comprehend.
I will, I will ok I will agree but I will disagree with him
Though difficult, it is necessary to possess a ‘comfortably
because we are matured how are we going to include
intelligible pronunciation’ Robertson (2002:11citing Ken-
emm! word pronunciation in our, at our level? You know
worthy 1996);
some teachers may see this to be unnecessary. If this
should be implemented, it should be done before getting
Pronunciation is Conspicuously not Part of the Course to this place.
Program In any case it is a fact that pronunciation teaching is not
The researcher agrees with Robertson (2002:8citing Morley limited to learning only how words are pronounced. A tutor
1991:488) that one needs to possess intelligible pronuncia- of English indicated that it was necessary to include pronun-
tion to become competent in communication. It is thus vital ciation teaching in the course program of Wesley College
to address problems that may relate to the teaching of pronun- of Education. He said: “Of course … that is the area that
ciation since through intelligible pronunciation one is able to is needed critically, because the students are going out to
communicate confidently and successfully, and the relation- teach. And how do you teach other children when your pro-
ship between a teacher and students involve communication. nunciation is very weak.” Another thought it should not be
To enhance this communication it is essential to teach pro- taught in isolation. Yet another Tutor said “why not”, ex-
nunciation. When less intelligible pronunciation negatively pressing that the oral aspect of the language is as important
affects the communication process between the tutor and his/ as the written aspect. The major problem therefore is that,
her students it is very likely to have a consequence on their pronunciation is not even included in the course program of
academic performance. Through the observation as well Wesley College of Education. Though vowels, consonants
as the interviews, it came to light that pronunciation is not and minimal pairs are a part in teaching pronunciation, the
very much taught at Wesley College of Education; however, researcher agrees with Ashby (1995) that phonetics cannot
teachers of English sometimes do correct students’ mispro- remedy the pronunciation problems of students. This implies
nunciations though the mode of correction is another issue. that pronunciation must be included in the course outlines of
During the observation, the researcher noticed that even tu- Wesley College of Education and not just phonetics; stress
tors of English hardly correct students’ mispronunciations. intonation and more should be included. In this era where the
44 IJALEL 7(6):37-47
Colleges of Education in Ghana are undergoing a transmis- ed, electronically recorded books. There are some books
sion to full tertiary educational level through T-TEL (Trans- that are recorded. They can get …the American accent-
forming Teacher Education and Learning) program, some of ed, the Caribbean accents in all the collection.
these loop holes in the curriculum must be looked at. Agree-
ing with Robertson (2002:4) the inclusion of pronunciation
Lack of reading on the Part of Students
in government school curriculum could improve pronuncia-
tion. To him, teaching pronunciation should not be a study It was revealed that lack of reading causes poor pronuncia-
with a status comparable to Physics, History or English sub- tion. When a student was asked how reading could solve the
ject, but should be studied as a fundamental aspect of the em- problem of poor pronunciation, he had this to say:
bodiments of the English subject. Preferably, pronunciation May be if you come across a long word and you try to
teaching in pre-service training institution, Wesley College break it into syllables or go to find – in dictionaries they
of Education should have been presented in the light of ‘lan- have break it into phonetic pronunciations – so you go
guage across the curriculum’ where all teachers, irrespective to find it in the dictionary and see how it is pronounced
of their teaching subject will correct student-teachers’ mis- in the dictionary.
pronunciations. Although the view point of the student is plausible, the
fundamental problem associated with the assertion lies in the
lack of skill to read and interpret transcription of words in
Lack of Equipment dictionaries. A teacher said this during the interview:
One more relevant problem of pronunciation teaching iden- … and then when you also look at er, related to the lack
tified is lack of equipment. Given that pronunciation is con- of exposure, you see that many of our students pick up
spicuously not part of the course program, it is not surprising the dictionary, and they cannot really identify the sounds
that it was indicated that there was no equipment in aiding in, yes. So that even though the pronunciation guide has
English pronunciation teaching. Paramount amongst the been offered adequately in the dictionary, they still can-
equipment indicated to be absent is an ‘English language not articulate the sounds and therefore it’s not meaning-
laboratory’. There were no other equipment in aiding teach- ful to them… they are not reading, do you understand?
ing and learning of English pronunciation. Interestingly, one As far as students have not been well trained in pronun-
of the tutorss of English who had been in the institution for ciation, this point is not practical; since it implies that even
about twenty (20) years indicated that there used to be an En- if students liked reading they could not possibly check the
glish language laboratory in the institution (Wesley College pronunciation of difficult words from the dictionary. In prin-
of Education): ciple, however, lack of reading is one of the problems as-
… But as far back as 1950s there was a nice language sociated with pronunciation teaching as deduced from the
lab at Wesley College… Yes, which er other schools research.
around like St. Louis, Akrokerri, Offinso, Mampong
came to utilize. But even currently there is no language
Environmental Influence
lab in any teacher training college in Ghana. So it looks
like in terms of language development, we are retro- Environmental influence is one of the problems associated
gressing. with the teaching of English Pronunciation at Wesley College
If indeed this assertion is true then, it shows retrogression of Education. A tutor of English acknowledged that environ-
in our language development since the English language lab- mental influence is a factor. He implied that the media was a
oratory which other Training Colleges utilized several years major problem; that is, the kind of pronunciations made by
ago is no more. All the tutors of English requested an En- the media. The media is a major communication channel in
glish language laboratory. The fact is that there is a language real life situation. Many people listen to the news or several
laboratory in the institution stereotyped to be for only the other programs presented through the media in general, be it
French laboratory (probably because it was funded by the the television, radio, or internet. It is assumed that the pro-
French) and thus called the ‘French lab’. nunciations expressed through the media are correct, since
The situation is such that only French students have French media men and women are specially trained. Thus, members
lessons there as arranged by the administration through time of society in general pick words which are mispronounced
tables. Thus the administration of Wesley College of Educa- and adopt them, once a media person has been using it.
tion must be involved to curb the issue of ‘language laborato- The media is a major cause and contributor to the problem
ry’ since a good language laboratory should be able to serve of poor pronunciation of people in general and of students in
the purpose for all the languages being taught in the institu- particular. This is a problem of pronunciation teaching since
tion. Apart from, a good language laboratory, tutors indicated it adds to the work of the tutor who will have to make extra
that other equipment such as e lectronic dictionaries, electronic effort to curb students’ poor pronunciation. He said this:
books, and personal computers with pronunciation software A lot of the FM stations, if you listen to the way they
programs could be provided as equipment of pronunciation speak the language, it’s very horrible. And our students
teaching. Even cell phones could be used in the classroom to are tuning to these stations all the time; so they take
enhance pronunciation teaching. A tutor said this: particular DJ’s and how they pronounce words; and,
…PC’s with Cambridge Dictionary because we have they also want to speak like them.
one with Audio…And we have some on the net…record- Another teacher indicated that one of the environmental
Problems Related to the Teaching of English Pronunciation in Pre-service Institutions: A Study
at the Wesley College of Education, Kumasi, Ghana 45
causes of poor pronunciation is the wrong example given by and I get it wrong they they will even use to tease you
people that society expect should know better such as parlia- (laughing) and even call you as your name that you have
mentarians, lawyers, teachers. He had this to say: get the word wrong.” In the above statement, a student
… in Ghana here, you realize that people who are, you indicated that he does not like speaking English because
know, learned, popular scholars still pronounce words when he commits an error, the colleagues laugh and call
wrongly. And, and I think that that has also been a caus- him names. This is a reason many of the students gave to
ative factor to wrong pronunciation in the system; be- explain why they do not like speaking English. This does
cause if they realize that teachers, politicians, lawyers, not help to promote English pronunciation teaching. An-
…many many people who are known to be versed in the other student said:
language pronounce words wrongly, then probably peo- I love speaking English when am in campus but when I
ple have come to accept… go home I don’t speak because of the illiterates, they will
It is not out of place to realize that some people of re- be saying you you you let me say, you you you are guy
spectable positions still pronounce words wrongly. This is guy.(all laugh) They will be making fun of you that you
due to the existence of the ‘dark cycle’ as the researcher this guy you like speaking English. He just want to show
terms it. The ‘dark cycle’, in my view, is the process where that he is the only one who has been to school before. So
the basic level pupil who never gets well trained in pronun- when I go to the house I don’t like speaking English.
ciation grows through all the levels of education (still not This implies that it is not only literate colleagues who dis-
getting any proper training in pronunciation) and eventually courage others from speaking English language but illiterate
becomes an example in society for other younger persons to colleagues also discourage others from speaking the English
look up to. Since students look up to some people of certain language as expressed in the example above. When students
respectable positions, wrong pronunciations from such per- are discouraged from speaking the English language it poses
sons may easily influence those young ones negatively. as a problem of English pronunciation teaching. The student
may not be encouraged to speak the language and stands to
lose a chance of being corrected to improve his/her pronun-
Imitation of Peers
ciation.
Again a tutor explained pointing out that peer imitation is
another problem related to pronunciation teaching. This is a
situation where students imitate their friends. The tutor had CONCLUSION
this to say: In sum, as the aim of the study, the researcher found the
Yes, they imitate their friends. Peer group. Because it problems related to the teaching of English pronunciation
seems that some of the students they, think that those represented diagrammatically as Figure 1 below:
who came from certain schools have a class, so when Deducing from the problems of pronunciation teaching
they tend to pronounce them anyway they pick from the pre-service training institution, Wesley College of Edu-
them. Others do not know at all. They don’t know how to cation, the researcher suggested the following to remedy the
pronounce certain words. problems:
Obviously, even if picking words, just from people of • Pronunciation should be well taught from the basic level
high status become a problem of negative influence due to of education.
the ‘dark cycle’ how much more imitation of colleague stu- • Inclusion of ‘English pronunciation teaching’ in the
dents? It is obvious that peer imitation may act as a terrible course program: T-TEL should factor this in their fo-
and rapid catalyst of less intelligible pronunciation among cus of building up the colleges of education into well
young students. groomed full tertiary institutions.
• Pronunciation should be made compulsory for all stu-
dents.
Discouragement from Mates
• Better methods of teaching should be employed.
One other factor that poses as a problem of teaching of En- • Provision of equipment; especially, the “French lab”
glish pronunciation is discouragement from friends. This is as it is called should be upgrade to a standard lan-
a very sensitive point that goes a long way to affect the indi- guage laboratory which will function indeed as a lan-
vidual. The students indicated a number of challenges they guage laboratory and not only that of one language
encounter from colleagues which discourages them from (French or English or Ghanaian Language). Technolo-
speaking the English language. gies such as electronic books and more, should not be
As far as English pronunciation is concerned, the more overlooked.
you speak the better your pronunciation among other fac- • Establishment of campus FM: Where pronunciation
tors. This is because one tends to get used to the correct program will be held for the benefit of all students. In
way of pronouncing words and sentences since you may that context, the caliber of personalities who hold the
be corrected to become a better speaker. Unfortunately, pronunciation program must be competent.
the students expressed the reverse; here are some of the • Utilization of findings of academic research works.
answers they gave to the question of whether they liked • Education on the need for intelligible English pronun-
speaking English or not. A student said: “Mm ok, for me ciation teaching and learning: As far as pronunciation
I will say no; because, err when am speaking the English continues to be underplayed, it may never get the im-
46 IJALEL 7(6):37-47