Babkina, V. (2018). Phonological interference of mother tongue over the English

participants were Spanish speaking students (as spoken in Mexico), 
learning English as a second language. The objective of the study was to 
evaluate the impact of instruction in phonetic and phonemic distinction in 
sounds both on overall pronunciation and individual target English 
phonemes and allophones.
After the data were collected by means of tape recording, seven 
English language consonant phonemes were selected as problematic for 
native Spanish speakers. The phonemes for the instruction were the 
following: 
-
Voiceless alveolar plosive /t/ as “ten”; 
-
Voiced alveolar plosive /d/ as “den”; 
-
Voiced labiodental fricative /v/ as in “vase”; 
-
Voiced alveolar fricative /z/ as in ”zoo”; 
-
Voiced interdental fricative /ð/ as in “there”; 
-
Voiceless interdental fricative /θ/ as in “think”; 
-
Voiceless post alveolar fricative /ʃ/ as in “shoe”; 
2
Chen, H.Y. and Goswami J.S. (2010): “The Impact of Instruction in Phonetic and 
Phonemic Distinctions in Sounds on the Pronunciation of Spanish-speaking ESL 
learners”. 
MEXTESOL Journal
, 34 (1): 29-39.

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11 
To achieve the purpose of the investigation the researchers applied 
verbal instruction about the place and manner of articulation of the target 
sounds. They also used computer assisted instruction, handouts, 
PowerPoint presentations, pronunciation exercises/ activities/ games in 
the classroom with an experimental group.
The results of the mentioned investigation demonstrated positive 
effect after the instruction on the English language sound pronunciation 
among Spanish speaking high school students was used. The 
performance score confirmed the significant improvement of the overall 
pronunciation of the target sounds in the experimental group after the 
post-test. As for the individual sounds, such segments as /v/, /z/, and /ð/ 
showed the best range of progress. On the other hand, such sounds as /ʃ/ 
and /θ/ were the most difficult to improve. All in all, the participant in the 
experimental group indisputably benefitted from the instruction on the 
English language sound pronunciation.
Thus, it is important to state that the researchers demonstrated that 
after certain instruction was applied in the classroom, the learners 
improved their L2 sound pronunciation and, moreover, became aware of 
the importance of being intelligible during communication.
The author of the given investigation considered the mentioned 
study to be valuable and applicable to the context of EFL learning in 
Peru. It specifies the pronunciation issues on the segmental level that 
Spanish-speaking English language learners have. Moreover, the study 
discusses the importance of helping the learners by means of instruction 
to overcome pronunciation difficulties caused by their mother tongue. As 
for Peruvian EFL learners, most of the time they do not receive feedback 
pronunciation wise on how their speech sounds in English and on the 
way they pronounce the English sounds. It is natural to the EFL learners 
to transfer the manner of the sounds pronunciation from their mother 
tongue to L2 and it is a teacher´s task to demonstrate linguistically 
significant phonemes and allophones in the second language to their 
students. Additionally, in some cases EFL teachers themselves need 
necessary pronunciation training to be able to assist students in the 
process of the L2 sounds proficiency improvement.

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12 
The sounds selected as problem cases in the research obviously 
cause difficulty for Spanish-speaking learners. However, in the author´s 
opinion, Chen, H.Y. and Goswami J.S. did not mention other cases of 
phonological interference among Spanish-speaking L2 learners that 
usually result in misunderstanding during the process of communication. 
For instance, such cases as replacing a voiced consonant sound with an 
unvoiced at the end of a word, replacing the palatal semi-vowel / glide /j/ 
with palato-alveolar fricative /ʒ/ or palato-alveolar affricate /dʒ/ in 
utterance/word -initial position and some other examples that were not 
mentioned in the study.
To sum up, the research about the impact of instruction on the 
pronunciation of the English language consonant sounds among Spanish-
speaking learners in some way inspired the author of the given paper in 
the process of her investigation. It confirmed the message about the 
importance of providing the learners information about L2 intelligible 
sound pronunciation. Moreover, the author took notice of the strategy 
used in the discussed research about how to organize and apply the 
pronunciation instruction in the classroom. Materials and resources, 
however, briefly described in the mentioned paper, helped the author to 
structure the search, selection and the use of the materials in a certain 
way. The connection of the mentioned research with the given 
investigation is related to the analysis of the pronunciation of the 
consonant sounds /v/, /z/, /ð/, /θ/, /ʃ/. The author of the present paper 
included these segments in her investigation, as well as some other cases 
of phonological interference of the Spanish language of Peruvian variant.
The second research about the influence of a mother tongue on the 
learners´ English language pronunciation is called “Pronunciation 
problems: A case study of English language students at Sudan University 
of Science and Technology”, by Elkhair Muhammad Idriss Hassan 
performed at Sudan University of Science and Technology in 2014
3
.
3
Idriss Hassan, E. M. (2014): 
“
Pronunciation Problems: A Case Study of English 
Language Students at Sudan University of Science and Technology”.