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According to the results obtained during the intervention, it is
possible to conclude that there is an evident improvement in the
pronunciation of the target sounds among the majority of the participants
in the sample group after applying the pronunciation practice and
instruction.
On the contrary, the majority of the participants of the control
group did not make any progress in their pronunciation of the target
sounds; moreover, some learners had a decrease in the aspect of L2
pronunciation proficiency.
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CONCLUSIONS
The purpose of the study was to investigate the possibility of
helping Peruvian EFL learners improve the
English language consonant
sounds pronunciation influenced by the phonological interference of their
L1. The cases of phonological interference were selected and analysed in
order to perform the intervention within the context of the present
investigation.
The issue of the mother tongue influence appeared to be quite
serious to the researcher during her teaching experience in Peru. It
became obvious that most of the time the learners were not aware of the
difficulties they faced when dealing with L2 pronunciation. The negative
impact of their native language caused unintelligibility and
miscommunication during their oral discourse in English.
It seemed that the learners struggled more when pronouncing the
consonant sounds of the language. Therefore,
it became reasonable to
investigate about a real possibility to help the EFL learners cope with
their mother tongue interference over the L2 consonant sounds
pronunciation by providing them with a variety of teaching techniques.
In order to fulfill the purpose of the investigation, specific
pronunciation practice activities and instruction were applied to deal with
the phonemic difficulties that were highlighted
in this investigation as
some of the most typical ones among Peruvian learners of English.
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Thus, during the process of the investigation the following
conclusions were formulated:
1) There are nine problem cases of phonological interference
selected for the study which are either the examples of phonemic
confusion or a practice of applying L1 phonological rules to the L2 sound
pronunciation. In most cases the pronunciation problems appeared when
the learners were uninformed about the
correct sound pronunciation, its
articulation, the phonological rules of the English language, and the use
of pronunciation features in the speech.
Out of nine cases seven were examined further in the investigation
due to the results of the questionnaire.
This part of the investigation allowed the researcher to analyse the
phenomenon of phonological interference from different aspects, such as:
the reasons for the target sounds mispronunciation, the comparison of the
sound systems of L1 and L2, the comparison of the variants of the
Spanish language on the level of the sounds pronunciation and so on.
2) The use of the pronunciation practice activities and instruction,
applied in the investigation in a group of Peruvian EFL learners with the
level of proficiency A2 to B1, facilitated the
improvement of the target
L2 consonant sounds pronunciation. The results obtained at the end of
the intervention demonstrated that the majority of the participants in the
sample group made progress in improving the pronunciation of the
studied sounds, whereas, more than half of the participants of the control
group experienced a regress and the other half did not improve the skill at
all.
Therefore, the outcomes showed that the hypothesis of the
investigation was proved. The Peruvian EFL learners in the sample group
were able to improve their English
language consonant sounds
pronunciation after having been exposed to practical pronunciation
exercises and instruction focused on dealing with the highlighted in the
investigation cases of phonological interference of the mother tongue.
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The results of the intervention demonstrated that phonological
interference of the mother tongue can be successfully dealt with by
means of applying appropriate practice in the language classroom.
Teaching pronunciation should not be ignored.
3)
According to the results, the improvement in pronunciation of
the problem cases varies. Case 8 appeared to be the most difficult one for
the participants to deal with.
Moreover, there is some inconsistency in pronunciation of the
target sounds among several participants. The reason for that is time
limit. In order to achieve more stable results in the process of the English
pronunciation improvement, it is recommended
to dedicate time to the
aspect of pronunciation every class on a regular basis.
The outcomes of the intervention give incentives for further
investigation towards the improvement of pronunciation proficiency of
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