Students’ Perceptions toward Non-Native English Speaker Teacher
(NNEST) in Teaching Pronunciation
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Tirza Agata 112011045
ENGLISH TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAM
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
Students’ Perceptions toward Non-Native English Speaker Teacher
(NNEST) in Teaching Pronunciation
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Tirza Agata 112011045
ENGLISH TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAM
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
COPYRIGHT STATEMENT
his thesis contains no such material as has been submitted for examination in any course or
opyright@ 2015. Tirza Agata and Elisabet Titik Murtisari, M. TransStud.,Ph.D
ll rights reserved. No part of this thesis may be reproduced by any means without the
irza Agata T
accepted for the fulfillment of any degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and my belief, this contains no material previously published or written by any other person except where due reference is made in the text.
C
A
permission of at least one of the copyright owners or the English Department, Faculty of Language and Literature, SatyaWacana University, Salatiga.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INSIDE COVER PAGE...i
THE Participants...10
DIS APPROVAL PAGE...ii
COPYRIGHT STATEMENT...iii
PUBLICATION AGREEMENT DECLARATION...iv
TABLE OF CONTENT...v
LIST OF FIGURES...vi
ABSTRACT...1
INTRODUCTION...1
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK...3
Definition Perception...3
Definition of NEST and NNEST...4
Strengths and Weaknesses of NNEST and NEST...5
Teaching Pronunciation and its aspect...8
STUDY...10
Context of the study...10
Data Collection Instrument...11
Data Collection Procedure...12
Data Analysis Procedure...12
CUSSION...13
Students’ perceptions toward NNEST : Non-teaching aspects...13
a. Students’ comfortable feeling in their pronunciation class...13
b. NNESTs’ knowledge of students’ needs and difficulties...14
c. NNESTs’ experiences in learning pronunciation as their second language...16
d. NNESTs’ encouragement to the students in learning pronunciaton...17
e. NNEST is a good model in English pronunciation...18
f. NNESTs influence students’ English pronunciation ability...19
a. The use of audio visual aids ( PPT, video, pictures, audio recording) in teaching
pronunciation class...20
b. Pronunciation aspects that NNEST teach in the classroom...22
c. Students’ pronunciation teacher preference...25
CONCLUSION...26
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT...30
REFERENCES...31
LIST OF FIGURES
FIGURE 1 Students’ comfortable feeling in their pronunciation class ...13
FIGURE 5
FIGURE 2 NNESTs’ knowledge of students’ needs and difficulties ...15 FIGURE 3 NNESTs’ experiences in learning pronunciation as their second
language ...16 FIGURE 4 NNESTs’ encouragement to the students in learning pronunciaton..17 NNEST is a good model in English pronunciation ...18 FIGURE 6 NNESTs influence students’ English pronunciation ability ...20 FIGURE 7 The use of ausio visual aids ( PPT, video, pictures, audio recording)
Students’ Perceptions toward Non-Native English Speaker Teacher (NNEST) in Teaching Pronunciation
Tirza Agata
ABSTRACT
In teaching pronunciation, Native English Speaker Teachers (NESTs) have been commonly believed more superior than NNEST, mainly because of their L1 background knowledge as native speakers. Many previous studies about NNEST have compared the traits of NEST and NNEST in teaching speaking. The previous studies, however, have also indicated positive results toward NNEST in teaching speaking in terms of students’ attitudes, perceptions, and achievements. Thus, further explorations focusing on NNEST and pronunciation are still relevant to be done. Related to this, the present study aims to find out students’ perceptions toward NNEST in teaching pronunciation in an EFL context. This study applies a survey research design using a questionnaire. The research participants are 126 first-year-students of the English Language Education Program of Faculty of Language and Literature, Satya Wacana Christian University, Central Java, Indonesia. Considering the teaching and non-teaching aspects, the result of this study reveals that NNEST can be considered as good as NEST in teaching pronunciation. Interestingly, it is also found that the EFL students prefer NNEST to NEST to teach them pronunciation because of the non-teaching aspects that the students experienced in the classroom.
Key words: NNEST, NEST, Pronunciation, Students’ perceptions
INTRODUCTION
In order to communicate well in the target language learned, speaking skill
is one of the “productive skills” that a language learner needs to master (Harmer
2007: 265). In speaking skill, there are many aspects to learn. One of the most
significant ones is pronunciation. This aspect is important because by
pronouncing a word correctly, the speaker can be well understood (Harmer 2007).
Harmer (2007) believed that “pronunciation can improve students’ speaking
immeasurably” (p. 248). In addition, by learning pronunciation, students will be
aware of different sounds, especially the ones that have grammatical elements,
such as -ed and -s word endings.
The dispute on who is better in teaching English whether it is Native
English speaker teachers (NESTs) or Non Native English speaker teachers
(NNESTs) has been discussed by many researchers. It is commonly believed that
NESTs are better English teacher especially in teaching speaking skills. However,
in a previous study about the effect of Native and Non native English Language
teachers on secondary students’ achievement in speaking skills, Omar
Al-Nawarsy (2012) finds that there is no statically significant difference between the
mean scores of the native (teacher) group and non native (teacher) group in the
speaking test, in which one of the aspects assessed is pronunciation.
Many people assume that NESTs are better English teachers than NNESTs
in teaching pronunciation. The scholars believed that for English pronunciation
they prefer Native English Speaker as their model (Duong & Walkinshaw 2012;
Mahboob 2004, cited in Medgyes, 2013: 37). However, in a previous study about
NNEST self perceptions’ toward their pronunciation, Sarikaya (2013)
demonstrates that considering their degree and experiences, NNESTs feel
comfortable with their own pronunciation. Another study was conducted by Kang
(2010) who examined which ESL learners’ perspectives of pronunciation studies
in the inner circle countries. This study focused on students’ expectations of their
pronunciation lessons and their attitudes toward instructors’ accent varieties in the
environment of speaking English in New Zealand (NZ) and North America (US).
The study finds out that the students have positive attitude toward their
pronunciation instructor and the students do not expect their pronunciation to be
native-like.
To fill the research gap of NNEST in teaching pronunciation, I conduct a
study about students’ perceptions toward NNEST in teaching pronunciation in an
EFL context. For this purpose, 126 first-year students of English Language
Education Program at Faculty of Language and Literature (FLL) were selected as
the participants because they had the experience taking Pronunciation Practice
course in their first semester, of which the pronunciation teachers were all
NNETs. This study mainly concerns on answering the research question: what are
students’ perceptions toward NNEST in teaching pronunciation? For further
implication, the study may help educational institutions consider employing
NNEST as pronunciation teachers and NNESTs to be more confident in teaching
pronunciation.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
This section will discuss about perception, the definitions of NESTs and
NNESTs, including their strengths and weaknesses in relation to teaching
pronunciation and the definition of pronunciation as well as its aspects.
Definition of Perception
The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English defines “perception”
as “the way you think about something and your idea of what it is like” (n.p). This
relates to the personal opinion about something. Blake and Sekuler (2006) add
that “perception puts in contact with the world we live in; it shapes our knowledge
of that world,...” (p.1). Relating this idea to the students’ perception, the “world”
can refer to the environment of the pronunciation class; in that, by joining the
class, students can shape their knowledge about pronunciation with the help from
their teacher. In other word, perception is about how we see or our opinion on
things.
Definition of NESTs and NNESTs
The notion of native English speakers can be defined differently. One
definition is from Medgyes (2001) said that a native English speaker “is
traditionally defined as someone who speaks English as his or her native
language, also called mother tongue, first language, or L1”(p.430). Based on this
definition, we can say that a non-native English speaker is an individual whose
first language is not English. Hence, the research participants in this study are
non-native English speakers because English is not their first language; moreover,
it is used as their foreign language.
Based on the definition of the native English speaker, we can see what a
non-native English Teacher is. A non-native speaker teacher is a teacher who uses
English not as his/her main language, and it could be their second language
(Al-Nawrasy 2013). Another view comes from Medgyes (2001), who defines NNEST
as “a teacher who speaks the same native language as his or her students” (p.433).
In this study, the Indonesian English teachers are said to be NNEST because their
students are also Indonesian, having the same native language (Indonesian), and
English is not their first language but it is their foreign language.
Strengths and weaknesses of NNEST and NEST
According to some scholars, there are several strengths of NNESTs, such
as they can communicate more effectively with the students because they have the
same socio-cultural background and they also understand more of the needs and
difficulties of their students in learning English because the teachers share the
same mother tongue and learning experiences with the students (Medyes 1994,
Moussu 2006, Ma 2012, Kiczkowiak 2014). Hence, understanding the students’
difficulties and needs through NNEST’s own experience is surely an essential
strength since it can help the teachers to predict and solve problems that may
occur during the teaching and learning process. This idea is supported by Yoshida
(2015) who stated “typically NNESTs understand students and predict problems”
(n.p). Moreover, by understanding the students’ difficulties and needs, it can be
said that the NNESTs have a good empathy. As Low (2014) advocated “NNESTs
were ranked highly on their empathy factor” (p.139). Thus, their empathy
probably can make the students feel comfortable and motivate them to be better in
learning the target language.
Another strength is NNEST are well trained. As cited by Kirkpatrick
(2006) from Korean advertisement for his article, one of the criteria that NNEST
should have when they want to teach English is by having TESOL certificate.
Other support is from Lee (2004) who said that “the higher proficiency is, the
more understandable the speaker is” (cited in Al-Nawrasy, 2013, p.252). From
here, it can also be said that the non-native English teachers hired as NNEST are
not just ordinary language teachers. They must have the necessary certificate and
training to teach English pronunciation. Thus, it has become one of the apparent
strengths that NNEST must have; in that, they considerably have the sufficient
knowledge and skills to teach English pronunciation well.
Apart from the strengths, Ma (2012) also discussed about the weakness of
NNEST, she believes that NNESTs have a linguistic weakness; in that, their
English proficiency is limited and it causes a low self-confidence. Because of all
the weakness of NNEST, they tend to focus more on the course book (Ma 2012,
Koksal 2006). Therefore, NNEST be able to really explore their materials and
choose to stick on their handbook.
On the other hand, Native English Speaker Teachers (NESTs) have their
own strengths. One of the advantages that NESTs have is they are better language
models because English is their mother tongue (Yoshida 2015; Ma 2012;
Lasagabaster & Sierras 2002). In terms of speaking, the participants of In terms of
speaking, the participants of the two previous studies also think that native
English teachers are the resources of ‘authentic’ English. From here, having
English as their first language enables NEST to be a good model of pronunciation.
Further, there is also another strength suggested by Liu and Zhang (2007)
who believe that Native Speaker Teachers’ (NSTs) have various methods in
teaching English. It means that NESTs try to explore the materials and get out
from the text books. They can give other materials and add some materials from
their knowledge. In other words, with the L1 knowledge that NESTs have, it
becomes easier for them to explore and even “play” with English in developing
materials and teaching.
Despite the evident strengths, NESTs also have a weakness in teaching
pronunciation. Kirkpatrick (2010) and Modiano (1999) suggest that NEST’s
phonology proficiency may not be intelligible considering their local variety of
English with a strong regional accent. With different English accents that NESTs
have, there can be differences in pronunciation. Thus, it can make the students
confused how to pronounce a word. Related to this aspect, NNESTs, on the other
hand, can choose the standard English they want, either American or British
English, as their accent (Karakas, 2012). Here, NNESTs considerably have a more
flexibility in terms of English accents. Therefore, it can be said that it becomes
easier for the students to understand NNEST speaking.
From the discussions above, it can be concluded that NNEST and NEST
have their own strengths and weaknesses in teaching pronunciation. The strong
points of NNEST are they can communicate more effectively with the students
and understand students’ needs and difficulties, while the weakness is that
NNEST tend to be more focused on the course book. On the other side, the
strengths of NEST are English is their first language that enables them to be the
model of English pronunciation, and they can explore the materials and get out
from the text book; whereas the weak point of NEST is their regional accents
sometimes make the students hard to understand their pronunciation.
Teaching pronunciation and its aspects
According to AMEP (Adult Migrant English Program) research centre
(2002), pronunciation is “the production of sounds that we use to make meaning”
(p.1). Teaching pronunciation is important since the learners usually make
pronunciation errors and can cause misunderstandings in communication with
other (Kelly 2000).
Some aspects of pronunciation which are important for the intelligibility
in communication, are such as; intonation, stress, and rhythm. The first one is
intonation, which The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (Longman
2011) defines as “the way in which the level of your voice changes in order to add
meaning to what you are saying”. Thus, when we ask question we add our level of
our voice at the end of the sentence, for example: do I look confuse? From that we
can understand that the speaker asks a question. That is why intonation is very
important. As Oladipupo & Akinjobi (2010) says, “intonation is an important
phenomenon in language to have strong effect on communication” (p.1). This is
also supported by AMEP (Adult Migrant English Program) research centre
(2002), saying that intonation is important to know speaker’s meaning (p.2). It
means that from intonation we can distinguish whether the speaker asks question,
or the speaker is angry, sarcastic, sad, etc.
The second aspect is stress, which AMEP defines as “the prominence
given to certain syllables within words, and to certain syllables or words within
utterances and signaled by volume, force, pitches change, and syllable length”
(p.1). Therefore, stress is used when we pronounce a syllable with more emphasis
than the other syllables. For example, in the word banana and Canada, the stress is in the ‘a’ syllable.
The last aspect is rhythm. According to Elemental English (2014), rhythm is
“the musicality of English-the ups and downs and the connected speech and
the linking of words, which together change how we say sentences” (n.p.).
Rhythm also helps the speaker to be understood while they are speaking. For
example, while someone link the words say it, the interlocutor will understand
that the speaker asks to ‘say it’.
The above aspects are what a teacher generally needs to teach to the
students in a pronunciation class. Moreover, while teaching pronunciation,
teachers need to pay attention on several things related to teaching. As Yoshida
(2015) advocated that a good pronunciation model is a teacher who can show and
produce the sound, even they can teach all of the aspects in pronunciation, such as
intonation, stress, etc (n.p.).
From the explanations above about NEST and NNEST, the strengths and
the weaknesses of them, pronunciation aspects, and what the teacher need while
teaching pronunciation are all related to teaching pronunciation. If we combine
them, it will help the students who are majoring English to decide their preference
upon pronunciation English teachers.
THE STUDY
Context of the study
This study attempts to find out students’ perception toward NNEST in
teaching pronunciation in an EFL context. This study was conducted in the
Faculty of Language and Literature, Satya Wacana Christian University. In this
faculty, there were six parallel classes of Pronunciation Practice course. The
course is a pre-requisite course that focusses on English pronunciation theories
and practices. The classes were taught by four NNESTs and one of them became
the coordinator of the course. The course used American English pronunciation
materials, which were mainly taken from “Clear Speech”, an American English
pronunciation handbook written by Judy Gilbert (2005). To support the teaching,
the teachers sometimes used native speaker audio recordings. Nevertheless, they
also needed to use their own pronunciation especially when emphasizing
pronunciation examples and evaluating the students through quizzes. Two of the
teachers had their masters in the English inner circle countries (US and UK), but
they still have a distinctive non-native accent, like the rest of the teacher.
Participants
The participants of this study are 126 first-year-students of the English
Language Education Program of the Faculty and Language and Literature, Satya
Wacana Christian University, Central Java, Indonesia. The first year students
were chosen because they were the only student batch having the experience of
taking the Pronunciation Practice course, a newly-offered course focussing on
English pronunctiation in the study program. In this course, the students were
taught about pronunciation aspects, such as rhythm, intonation, sound, and stress.
They also learned how to produce some English words correctly. Based on the
schedule that they chose, they were grouped into six classes. Each group consisted
of about 16 students.
Data Collection Instrument
A set of questions of close ended questionnaire was used for this study.
The questionnaires were distributed to all of first year students of English
Language Program, Satya Wacana Christian University which consisted of 126
students. The questionnaires were expected to return 80% from all the total
participants, which were 100 questionnaires. The student participants took a
pronunciation class in the first semester. The 126 participants were requested to
give their perceptions by responding to 13 questions. The first part of the
questionnaire asked for demographical information of the students. The second
part contained 13 question items which consisted of four answer options:
“strongly agree”, “agree”, “disagree”, and “strongly disagree”. This questionnaire
asked about the perceptions of participants toward Non Native English speaker
teachers for English teacher education. The questionnaire was adapted from
Alseweed’s (2012) questionnaire about “University Students’ Perceptions of the
Influence of Native and Non-native Teachers“. The questionnaires were used to
gather information from the participants to get their opinions and ideas about
NNEST in teaching pronunciation. Since the participants were all first year
students with different English proficiency levels, the questionnaire used
Indonesian.
Data Collection Procedure
First, the data was piloted and revised. After that the data were collected
by distributing the questionnaires to the first year students of English Language
Education Program students which took place during the second semester of the
academic year 2014/2015. The last, the results of the questionnaire were analyzed
to answer the research question.
Data Analysis Procedure
For the data analysis, the quantitative data from the questionnaire were
analyzed using non-parametric-descriptive statistics. The students responses were
converted into scores with the criteria: one for “strongly disagree”, two for
“disagree”, three for “agree” and four for “strongly disagree” and examined in
terms of their frequencies. After that, the total score will be presented in some
charts. Then, the result will be discussed related to the theoretical framework of
the study. Finally, conclusions will be drawn based on the findings and
discussions.
DISCUSSION
I divide these findings into two categories. The first one is students’
perceptions toward NNESTs related to the non-teaching aspects, and the second
part is about their perceptions toward NNESTs related to the teaching aspects.
Students’ perceptions toward NNEST: Non-teaching aspects
This section discusses students’ perceptions toward non-teaching aspects
in the classroom.
a. Students’ comfortable feeling in their pronunciation class
Figure 1 below shows the percentage of the data collected from the
questionnaire about their comfortable feeling when the pronunciation teacher was
a NNEST.
FIGURE 1
Students’ comfortable feeling in the classroom
0% 1%
75%
24%
Strongly disagree
Q1
Agree Strongly agree Disagree
The finding shows that 99% or almost all of the participants responded
positively, in which 75% students agreed and 24 % strongly agreed toward Q1
that they felt comfortable and safe when being taught pronunciation by a NNEST.
However, there was one student who disagreed with the Q1. However, there was
one student who disagreed with the Q1. It indicates that almost all of the students
It has been discussed in the previous section that NNEST is a teacher who uses
English not as his/her first language (Al-nawrasy 2013), in this context English is
NNEST’s foreign language, or a teacher who has the same first language with the
students (Medyes 2001). Related to this, having the same first language
background would make the students comfortable and less anxious to interact
with the teacher. For example, if they have difficulties, the participants may not
hesitate to ask questions because they know the teacher would understand them,
especially when they need to ask questions or tell about their problems in learning
pronunciation using their first language.
b. NNEST’s knowledge of students’ needs and difficulties in the pronunciation
class.
In figure 2, the diagram shows the data collected from the questionnaire
question number 2 and 3 about students’ perceptions toward NNEST’s empathy.
The second question specifically asks about NNEST’s awareness toward students’
needs and the third question is about NNEST’s understanding toward students
difficulties in learning pronunciation.
FIGURRE 2
NNEST’’s empathyy to the studdent
According
the statem
of their ne
teachers’ u
eed in learn
understandi
d 31% stro
chose ‘stron
he above fin
in terms of t
Yosidha’s
” (n.p.). Thi
knowing an
s, they coul
ronunciation
s empathy c
nd understa
ld help thei
n.
d students’ p
ciation. The
difficulties
d. There is
ee.
onstrate the
ledge of the
5) that “NN
can be their
anding thei
ir students t
% 4%
Q3
68% 65%
s agreed and
perception t
e responses
s in learning
only 2% o
students’ o
eir needs and
NESTs unde
r strong poin
ir students
to learn the
d 30% stron
toward NNE
to the Q3 w
g pronuncia
of the partic
overwhelmin
d difficultie
erstand lear
nt to teach p
including
e target lang
30% 31%
ng favor tow
es. This idea
rners and pr
c. NNEST
aire about s
pronunciatio
nces in learn
owing diag
nciation as t
hows the
h affect the
d language
ected from
s experienc
ir teaching
m the
ces in
to be
FIGURRE 3
NNESTT’s experiennces in learrning pronunciation aas their second languaage
S
he data gat
However, a
chose “stro
view abou
ation. This r
rning pronu
s and needs
0%
Strongly disag
thered show
almost all of
ongly agree
ut the affe
result echoe
f the student
e”, were som
ect of NNE
es some sch
xperience s
1994; Mous
3
64%
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% of the st
ts, which co
mewhat po
EST’s exp
holars’ state
so that they
ssu 2006; M
tudents disa
onsist of 64
sitive to Q4
periences in
ements that
y can unde
Ma 2012; Ki
agreed with
% chose “a
4 that aske
n their lea
In other w
words, the s
be also ev
ds is surely
ation. Since
their exper
plain the m
strong point
vident in th
y importan
e NNEST
riences in l
aterial bette
t of NNEST
his study. U
nt in teach
knows the
ng the stud
uding in te
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agement to t
the figure s
eptions towa
lass.
the students
shows the
ard the mot
s in learning
data collec
tivation that
g pronunciat
cted from th
t they got f
NNEEST’s encoouragementt to the studdents in leaarning pronnunciation
Th
pronounce
students a
he responses
e words bet
agreed and
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Strongly disa
s to the Q6
tter are also
39 % of the
o evidently
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that the
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NNEST’s
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ents disagre
ate the stud
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shida (2015
hus, from he
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also be assu
nciation te
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low shows
d NNEST is
n English pr
the data
s as a good
ronunciation
collected o
model in En n
of the ques
nglish pron
stionnaire
nunciation. about
FIGURRE 5
NNESST is a goodd model in English pronunciation.
Fro
a positive
model. Ac
students c
very inter
om the diag
view towa
ccording to
chose ‘stron
resting beca
0%
Strongly disa
gram above
ards Q7 whi
the data, 7
ngly agree’
ause it is c
ich was abo
1% of the s
with the qu
contrary wit
5
71%
24%%
majority of
out NNEST
students cho
uestion give
th the prev
the student
Ts as Englis
ose ‘agree’,
er, this findi
studies found that for English pronunciation the students prefer Native English
Speaker as their model (Duong & Walkinshaw 2012; Mahboob 2004, cited in
Medgyes, 2013: 37). Although, 5% of the students also thought that NEST is a
good model of English pronunciation, but in this context, NNEST as a good
model is more preferable. The reason is probably as Yoshida (2015) advocated
that a good pronunciation model is a teacher who can show and produce the
sound, even they can teach all of the aspects in pronunciation, such as intonation,
stress, etc (n.p.). In the FLL context, the NNESTs are the teachers who have the
sufficient knowledge of English pronunciation and hold a Master’s degree in
English. Related to this, most of the student participants thus perceived their
NNESTs qualified as a good pronunciation model because the teachers were able
to produce and show how to make the sounds and also teach the aspects of the
pronunciation.
f. NNESTs influence students’ English pronunciation ability
Figure 6 shows the data collected from the questionnaire about students’
perception toward the improvement of students’ ability in English pronunciation
after taking NNEST pronunciation class.
FIGURRE 6
NNESTs innfluence sttudents’ Ennglish pronnunciation aability
Fro
positively
pronuncia
statement.
strongly d
which me
om the data
to the Q
ation class, a
. Only 2%
disagree. Th
eans that th
the FLL con
g sufficient
o the stude
ation ability.
8 that they
as many as
of the stu
his indicate
e teacher h
ntext, The N
t knowledge
ents unders
.
ns toward N
visual aids (
ss.
can see tha
y can have
e in English
stand it we
at the majori
e better ab
em agreed
ell and eve
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bility after
or strongly
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n the pronu
ht the stude
d teachers fo
STs can exp
entually can
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d no one c
unciation ab
nts success
for pronunci
plain the ma
n improve
NNEST: Teaching asppects
20
Th
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T
he diagram b
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GURE 7 T, video, pic nciation clas
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and also au
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he diagram
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d intonation
ects that NN
below show
s toward pro
n which are
NEST teach
ws the data
onunciation
taught by N
h in the class
a collected
n aspects, su
NNEST.
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uch as rhyth
estionnaire
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FIGURRE 8
Pronunciaation aspectts that NNEEST teach in the classsroom
0% ord stress
Related to Q8 which asked students’ opinion about their NNEST who
teach them how to pronounce words using correct rhythm, the result shows that
96% of the students agreed and strongly agreed with the question. However,
there are 4% of the students’ who disagreed. Seeing from the definition of
rhythm which is “the musicality of English- the ups and downs and the
connected speech and the linking words, which together, changes we say
sentence” (Elemental English, 2014) and the result above, I can say that NNEST
in FLL can teach the students how to apply the rhythm which includes connected
speech and linking words clearly.
Referring to Q10 which asked students’ view about their NNEST who
teach them the use of word stress while pronouncing some words, the result shows
that 47% of the students chose ‘strongly agree’ and 52% of the students chose
‘agree’ with the question. Unexpectedly, only 1% of the students chose ‘disagree’.
Therefore, it can be said that their NNEST successfully teach them how to use
word stress correctly. In other words, as AMEP states “stress refers to the
prominence given to certain syllables within words, and to certain syllables or
words within utterances”. It is signaled by volume, force, and pitches change and
syllable length” (p.1) means that the students understand when they put the stress
appropriately in a word.
As we can see from Q11 that asked students’ perceptions toward their
NNEST who teach them how to use correct sounds while pronouncing words, the
data indicates that 98% of the students agreed and strongly agreed with the
question. It clearly seen that most of them are positive to the question. Hence, it
can be concluded that their NNEST helped the students to understand how to
pronounce some words using correct sound.
Related to 12 which students perceive their NNEST who teach them how
to produce some words using correct intonation, the result indicates that 3% of the
students chose ‘disagree’ and most of them which is 98% chose ‘agree’ and
‘strongly agree’. As Oladipupo & Akinjobi (2010) believe that intonation has a
big role in communication. Thus, I could say the students can understand how to
use intonation correctly.
From the explanation above, I could say that more than 95% of the
participants are somewhat positive to each statement. In other words, almost all of
the participants who have taken NNEST pronunciation class felt their NNEST
could teach rhythm, word stress, sounds and intonation well. Based on Yoshida’s
(2015) idea that one of the criteria for a being good pronunciation teacher is
he/she can teach pronunciation aspects such as rhythm, intonation, sound, and
word stress. Therefore, it can be said that NNESTs in FLL are good pronunciation
teachers. Seeing the result that majority of the students understood each aspect
well, it somehow proves that the NNESTs were well trained especially in this
teaching pronunciation and its aspects. It is also supported by Kirkpatrick (2006)
who advocated that one of the criteria that NNEST should have when they want to
teach English is by having TESOL certificate. Therefore, before NNEST teach
English, they have had TESOL certificate, and have graduated from at least
bachelor degree of TESOL. Hence, NNEST can teach the students the aspects of
pronunciation correctly and clearly.
c. Student
the data sh
between NE
EST if they
T or NEST)
ted of que
y have chanc
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FIGURRE 9
Students’ proonunciationn teacher ppreference (NNEST orr NEST)
Th
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r teacher) ar
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n Medgyes 2
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ers in
2013:
data shows that the students preferred NNEST to NESTs in teaching
pronunciation. The reason seems to have been because of the non-teaching aspects
that the students got in the classroom, such as comfortable feeling and teachers’
understanding. It is also possible if the students may have some intuition that
standard English is more on grammar not in accent (Trudgill, 1999). Hence,
Learners do not to be able to sounds like native speakers to be able to
communicate effectively.
CONCLUSION
The idea of whether NESTs or NNESTs as the better teachers in teaching
English pronunciation is still considerably a hot dispute. In order to shed more
light on this issue, this study aimed at knowing the English major students’
perceptions toward NNEST in teaching pronunciation, as well as further helping
teachers to have a clearer picture of main issues in teaching pronunciation.
Based on the findings, from 100 students of English Teacher Education
Program in Satya Wacana Christian University, NNESTs were also considered
good in teaching pronunciation. It was proved from the students’ average scores
of their perception toward NNEST in pronunciation class. The average score
result of the preference scale was more than 3 out of 4, which indicates they
relatively had positive perceptions to NNESTs in teaching pronunciation.
Furthermore, the speaking area is normally considered as a strong point of
NESTs. In terms of non-teaching aspects, the study showed that NNESTs can be
considered as good as NESTs. In term of non-teaching aspects, according to the
students’ perceptions, the NNESTs made most of the students feel comfortable in
the classroom and understood the students’ needs and difficulties. Moreover, they
also believed the NNEST’s English educational background, experiences in
learning English pronunciation, and their first language (Indonesian) background
helped them to explain better. Thus, it was no surprise that the students also saw
their NNEST could be a good learning model for the students to learn English
pronunciation. Eventually, as experienced by the students at the end of the
semester, the NNEST strengths as mentioned before have been perceived to make
the students get better ability in English pronunciation.
In terms of teaching aspects, it was found that the NNEST’s creativity
determined their use of other sources and audio visual aids (PPT, video, pictures,
and recordings) to help them teaching pronunciation. Further, based on the
findings, almost all of the students thought that NNEST know to teach them the
aspects of pronunciation, such as rhythm, word stress, sound and intonation
clearly, as seen from the average score of the students’ response in the
questionnaire were noticeably positive ( more than 3 out of 4). Therefore, the
students felt that they could get good improvement in English pronunciation after
taking the NNESTs’ class. The most interesting finding was students’ statements
that if the students had a chance to get another pronunciation class, most of them
would choose a NNEST as their pronunciation teacher. In brief, it proved that the
EFL students perceived that in teaching English pronunciation, NNESTs were
considered as good as NESTs.
This study, however, have limitations. First, since the study only used
questionnaire as the instrument of the data collection, the information data cannot
show the whole picture of the students’ perceptions toward NNESTs in teaching
pronunciation. Secondly, the limitation of the study concerns the students’
background knowledge. Since the student participants were all still first-year
students with limited knowledge and experience in learning English
pronunciation, different results and perceptions may have been acquired if the
participants of the study had been from the other older batches who had more
background English knowledge and experience of being taught by both NNESTs
and NESTs.
Further, referring to the limitations above, there are some implications of
this study. For further studies, it is suggested for other researchers interested in
this study area to also apply different types of research instruments to gather the
data, in addition to using a questionnaire, so that a deeper elaboration of students’
perception toward NNESTs in teaching English pronunciation will be obtained.
Next, having more students from different batches as the participants is also
recommended to gain a bigger picture of the matter.
This study also offers several practical implications. The first one is for
educational institutions that concern in teaching English, they should not hesitate
to employ non-native English speaker teachers for teaching pronunciation because
in some teaching and non-teaching aspects, NNEST are considerably as good as
NEST in teaching pronunciation. The second one is for NNEST; the results of the
study can expectantly help NNESTs to understand better about their position in
teaching pronunciation. In that, being a pronunciation teacher is not necessarily
specialized for native speakers. It is acceptable for NNESTs to teach English
pronunciation as long as they can fulfill the required criteria needed in teaching
pronunciation such as what Yosidha (2015) stated that a good pronunciation
model is a teacher who can show and produce the sound, even they can teach all
of the aspects in pronunciation, such as intonation, stress, etc.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
First of all I would like to thank my saviour Jesus Christ for always
blessing and strengthening me to complete my thesis. My deep gratitude goes to
my thesis supervisor ibu Elisabet Titik Murtisari who expertly guided me with her
patience and kindness to finish my thesis. I also would like to express my sincere
appreciation to my thesis examiner Ibu Victoria Usadya P. for her time to examine
my thesis. I also would like to thank my wali studi, Ibu Maria Eko who always
supports me.
My appreciation also extends to JPK4 who is absolutely very helpful and
always supports and reminds me to do my best in this thesis. I also would like to
thank my super mom and my grandmothers for their prayer, support, and
suggestion. I would also like to extend my gratitude to my boyfriend for his
support and understanding which I mostly spend my time for this thesis.
This thesis would also not have been completed without the help and
supports from many people. I also would like to thank Venda, Thatha, Monic,
Ventha, Amel and Ernest who helped me collecting and counting the data.
Finally, I am particularly grateful to my best friends who always cheer me up
Dora, Gaby, and especially Elbi who kindly helped me checking the grammar
errors in my thesis and who usually accompanied me in the library while doing
this thesis.
REFERENCES
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Al-Nawrasy, O. (2013). The effect of native and nonnative English language
teachers on secondary students’ achievement in speaking skills. Jordan
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Alseweed, M. A. (2012). University students’ perceptions of the influence of
native and non-native teachers. Canadian Center of Science and Education
5(12), 42-53.
Blake, R., & Sekuler, R. (2006). Perception. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Elemental English. (2014). Stress and rhythm in American English pronunciation.
Retrieved November 2, 2014, from
http://www.elementalenglish.com/rhythm-in-speech/
Gilbert, J. B. (2005). Clear Speech (3rd ed.). New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Harmer, J. (2007). The practice of English language teaching. Essex, England:
Pearson Education Limited.
Intonation [Def. 1]. (n.d.). Longman online dictionary. In Longman Dictionary of
Contemporary English. Retrieved February, 2015, from
http://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/perception.
Kang, O. (2010). ESL learners’ attitudes toward pronunciation instruction and
varieties of English. In J. Levis & K. LeVelle (Eds.), Proceedings of the 1st
Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching Conference, Iowa State University, Sept. 2009. (pp. 105-118), Ames, IA: Iowa State
University.
Karakas, A. (2012). Foreign accent problem of non-native teachers of English,
Humanising Language Teaching, 5. n.p.
Kelly, G. (2000). How to teach pronunciation. London: Longman.
Kiczkowiak, M. (2014). Is it always preferable to employ only native English
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Kirkpatrick, A. (2006, January 20). No experiences necessary? The guardian, n.p.
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teacher’s attitudes, teaching skills assessment and performance. Asian EFL
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Low, E. (2014). Pronunciation for English as an international language: from
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Olandipupo, R.O.,& Akinjobi, A.A. (2010). Intonation and attitude in Nigerian
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Appendix 1
NIM :
Saya adalah mahasiswa angkatan 2011 PBI, FBS, UKSW, yang sedang
mengerjakan tugas akhir tentang pandangan mahasiswa terhadap dosen bukan
penutur asli (NNEST- Non Native English Speaker Teacher) dalam mengajar
kelas pronunciation.Kuesioner ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui persepsi Anda tentang NNEST dalam mengajar kelas pronunciation. Kuesioner ini adalah untuk
kepentingan penelitian, untuk itu mohon diisi dengan objektif dang lengkap.
Kuesioner ini terdiri dari 13 pertanyaan dengan 4 pilihan jawaban :
• Sangat tidak setuju • Tidak setuju
• Setuju • Sangat setuju
Berilah tanda centang (√) pada kolom yang Anda pilih.
No Pernyataan Sangat tidak
setuju
Tidak setuju
Setuju Sangat setuju 1. Saya merasa nyaman diajar
pronunciation oleh NNEST . 2. Saya merasa NNEST mengetahui
kebutuhan saya dalam mempelajari pronunciation.
3. Saya merasa NNEST mengetahui kesulitan saya dalam mempelajari pronunciation.
4. Saya merasa pengalaman belajar pengucapan Bahasa Inggris sebagai bahasa kedua NNEST membantu mereka menjelaskan lebih baik. 5. Saya merasa NNEST menggunakan
audio visual (PPT, video, gambar, rekaman audio) untuk mengajar pronunciation.
6. Saya merasa NNEST mendukung saya untuk dapat lebih baik dalam
melafalkan sebuah kata dalam bahasa inggris.
7. Menurut saya NNEST dapat menjadi contoh yang baik dalam English Pronunciation.
8. Saya merasa kemampuan English pronunciation saya semakin baik dengan diajar NNEST.
9. Menurut saya NNEST menunjukan cara mengucapkan berbagai bunyi dengan rhythm yang benar.
e.g. say it,cry out.
10. Menurut saya NNEST menunjukan cara mengucapkan berbagai bunyi dengan Word stress yang benar. e.g.
banana, canada.
11. Menurut saya NNEST menunjukan cara mengucapkan kata dengan bunyi yang benar. e.g. snake : /s/ ( voiceless sound), amazing : /z/ ( voiced sound ).
12. Saya merasa NNEST memberikan contoh cara melafalkan kata dalam bahasa inggris dengan Intonasi yang benar. e.g.
You look confused
Do I look confused?
13. Jika ada pilihan kelas pronunciation diajar oleh NNEST dan NEST ( Native English Speaker Teacher) saya akan memilih untuk mengambil kelas NNEST.
Jika Anda bersedia dihubungi lebih lanjut untuk melakukan wawancara berkenaan dengan kuesioner ini, mohon isi data dibawah ini.
Email :
Nomor HP :
Terima Kasih ☺