THE CONTRIBUTION OF PHONETICS COURSES IN DEVELOPING STUDENTS' PRONUNCIATION Case Study: Second Year Students at the Department of English, Biskra University

Abstract

The present study deals with the contribution of phonetics courses in developing students’ pronunciation in the Department of English at the University of Biskra. In fact, Students learn English, but they face problems in pronouncing English correctly. This study tackles the issue of teaching pronunciation and its status among students and teachers. This study aims at determining the extent to which phonetics courses can contribute in developing students’ pronunciation correctly. The objective of this study is to help teachers of phonetics to diagnose the problems faced by students in learning pronunciation and to suggest solutions in order to improve the teaching of pronunciation in the Department of English at Biskra University, and to make students aware of all pronunciation difficulties that hinder their learning of English as FL. To achieve the above objective, questionnaires for both students and teachers of phonetics were designed. We administrated the questionnaires to ninety-eight students of second year and to six teachers of phonetics. The questionnaires aim at collecting different opinions and ideas of students and experiences of teachers of phonetics. The analysis of data collected showed that phonetics courses contribute highly in developing students’ pronunciation. However both teachers of phonetics and students argued that the time devoted to teaching phonetics is not enough. They are aware of the importance of teaching pronunciation, but they lack many pedagogical tools such as language laboratories. We also found out that the students need more practice rather than take theoretical courses, and teachers need more training in teaching pronunciation and using the suitable pedagogical aids to evaluate their students’ pronunciation.