Using Shadowing Technique in Teaching English Pronunciation to Seventh Grade Students
*Septyani Wulandari1, Mukrim1, Hastini1, Zarkiani Hasyim1
Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Fakultas Keguruan dan Ilmu Pendidikan, Universitas Tadulako, Indonesia1
*e-mail: septyaniwulandari82@gmail.com
Abstract - The objective of the study is to find out the effectiveness of the shadowing technique in teaching the English pronunciation to grade seven students of SMP Negeri 1 Mepanga in the academic year 2022/2023. The population of this pre-experimental research was grade seven students of SMP Negeri 1 Mepanga which consisted of 32 students of the VII B class chosen by using purposive sampling technique. The data were collected by using a pronunciation test conducted before and after the treatment, or pre-test and post-test. The data was analyzed by using simple statistics. The result shows that there was a significant improvement of the students’ pronunciation.
It was proved by the result of the t-counted (16.67) which was greater than the t-table (1.696) in the significance degree, (0.05). The conclusion of this research indicated that the shadowing technique is effective and provides a significant effect to develop the student’s pronunciation.
Keywords: Shadowing Technique, Teaching English Pronunciation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22487/jbot.v2i2.3063
INTRODUCTION
Pronunciation is to produce sounds in speaking. In English, pronunciation is important because it can make the speaker's message easy to understand by a listener.
Pronunciation is the way of uttering a word in an accepted manner [1]. Furthermore, defines pronunciation as the procedure of producing specific sounds. Based on the statement, pronunciation is the way how to produce sounds clearly to make other people is easy to understand what we say [2].
Based on the teacher of SMP Negeri 1 Mepanga, pronunciation is one of the elements of the English language that is assessed in the school curriculum.
Therefore, pronunciation is one of the components in English speaking skill that must be mastered. After observing and getting some information at SMP Negeri 1 Mepanga, the researcher found that the students have not been able to pronounce words in English correctly such as the sound of each word, intonation, and word stress. The sound of every word they say has not been pronounced correctly because of the influence of the mother tongue and the fact that English is their second language. While in the syllabus, they are required to be able to pronounce and use words in English including intonation, word stress, and the sound of each word properly and correctly. Therefore, sound training in
every English word really needs to be learned by students from an early age. Based on these problems the researcher conducting research by attempting to use a shadowing technique that could effective in teaching English pronunciation.
There are many techniques to enhance student English pronunciation. One of them is the shadowing technique. Shadowing is a technique that is a bit more like repetition. Because of the similarity in western cultures, where repetitive training with the audio- lingual method. Shadows can be said to be an improved audio-lingual method. In the audio-lingual method, teachers ask students to repeat the words they say, but in this activity, the students will be slightly inhibited in listening because when performing the repetition of the audio, the students may lose their attention due to the delay time. The difference between repetition and shadowing is repetition technique, to a certain level, can distract the learners to pay attention to reproduction as much attention is diverted by pronunciation memorization both at the word and sentence level and text readings. On the other hand, the shadowing method allows participants to use sentence lines without wasting their effort on short-term memory and reading texts. In Japan, it is a popular but somewhat controversial technique for training simultaneous
interpreters [3]. This technique has students listen to the speaker's example and then repeat what they have learned. The students are expected to imitate the speaker as closely as possible in a short time. Thus, researcher intrigued to do this study.
Based on the statements above, the researcher decided to using Shadowing Technique in English class, especially in teaching English pronunciation by merging the technique in a teaching-learning process to see whether this technique is effective in teach students’
English pronunciation or not.
METHOD
The type of this research is an experimental research. This research used a pre experimental research by conducting an experimental group only, there is no control group. The researcher used a design as proposed by Arikunto below:
Tabel 1. Research Design [4]
Group Pre-test Treatment Post-test
Experimental O1 X O2
This research conducted a pretest before giving treatment to identification students’ prior knowledge in English pronunciation. After giving pre-test, this research applied Shadowing Technique as a treatment on experimental group. Finally, after giving the treatment, the experimental group was given a post-test to know the effectiveness of Shadowing Technique.
The population of this research is grade seven students of SMP Negeri 1 Mepanga. This research applied purposive sampling when choosing the sample.
Purposive sampling is a sampling method based on certain criteria (considerations) from members of the
population [5]. Thus, by following the suggestions of the teacher, the researcher chose class VII B as the sample. According to the teacher, the focus of this research using shadowing technique to get students out of the problem. This research instrument of data collection was tests which are pre-test and post-test.
Then, this research gave a score and calculated the result of the test.
Tabel 2. Pronunciation Rubric [6]
Criteria Symbol Score
Correct 1
Incorrect/mispronounce interdental fricative consonant sound
✘ 0
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
The results of this research are analyzed statistically using some formulas adapted from Arikunto [4]. In presenting data, this research analyzed the data taken from pretest and posttest that have been given to experimental group. The data were gained to find out the significant improvement of students English Pronunciation after being taught using the Shadowing Technique to grade seven students at SMP Negeri 1 Mepanga. Further, the researcher elaborates on the pretest and posttest results on the following table:
Table 3. The Result of Pretest and Posttest Experimental group Pretest Posttest
Mean 28.62 60.62
N 32 32
Mean Deviation 32
Square Deviation 3656
Significance 0.05
In conducting this research, the researcher focused on teaching English pronunciation using the shadowing technique. And also, the researcher only focused on interdental consonant /ð/ and /θ/ sounds. When
discussing sounds, it also discussed segmental features.
The sounds are part of the segmental feature. However, because the test used in this research was in the form of sentences, so it is also discussed the supra-segmental feature. Because when pronouncing the word and the
word consists of more than one syllable of course it is talking about stress. And when talking about the word in a sentence it is also talking about the linking and the intonation. Therefore, supra-segmental features correlate with segmental features. The technique of data collection was systematically done before the analysis and conclusion were made. They were pre-test and post- test that have been mentioned and explained in the research method. The students were very cooperative following every step of the shadowing technique and were active in the classroom while the treatment. So, this research has run smoothly and has had a positive impact on students' English pronunciation.
Before conducting the treatment, the researcher provided a pretest to measure the student’s English pronunciation. The researcher spread out the sentence list sheets for the pretest and ordered the students one by one to pronounce 20 sentences. Afterward, the researcher checked and gave a score for the student’s English pronunciation while pronouncing words that contained the interdental consonant sounds immediately after hearing their voice. Before they went one by one in front of the researcher, they listened to the instruction. The instructions were for them to read and pronounce the sentences as competently as they could without fear of whether it was right or wrong. After the instruction, they were afraid of making mistakes and asked to practice the sentences first because of nervous.
Although the pre-test contained some familiar words, the students were too afraid of making mistakes.
So, the researcher gave them 10 minutes for practicing.
And then, the students read the given sentences list sheet. But the result of the pre-test, only a few students were correct in pronouncing interdental consonant sounds. Almost all students do not know how to pronounce the interdental consonants /ð/ and /θ/ sounds.
When doing the pre-test, the students who have good pronunciation were easier to sound the interdental consonant /ð/ sound than /θ/ sound. However, students who have poor pronunciation are confused and often
make mistakes when pronouncing the two interdental consonant sounds.
Before the researcher applied the shadowing technique to the students. It can be seen that the students do not know how to produce interdental consonant sounds correctly. For example, when students tried to pronounce interdental /ð/ sounds, they did not pronounce them correctly. Many of them change it and tend to pronounce it with the /d/ sound. For example, for the word “those,” the correct pronunciation is /ðoʊz/
but they pronounced it as /doʊs/. And when the students tried to produce the interdental /θ/ sound, many of them change it and tend to pronounce it with the /t/ sound instead. For example, for the word "thoughtful" the correct pronunciation is /ˈθɔtfəl/ but they pronounced it as /tɔgtfʊl/. Then the researcher guided the students on how to use the shadowing technique to practice their pronunciation in pronouncing interdental consonant sounds and applied the shadowing technique for 6 meetings.
At the first meeting, after giving the pre-test the researcher explained the shadowing technique, interdental consonant sounds, and the correct position of mouth to pronounce the interdental consonant sounds before giving the material. Before starting the activity, the researcher explained the steps of the shadowing technique to the students. First, listen to audio related to the topic. Next, the researcher asks the students to pay attention to the audio. After paying attention to the audio, the students were directed to repeat the words spoken from the audio. In this step, the researcher directs the students to repeat words from the audio hoping that students can immediately practice the repetitions smoothly and correctly. Last but not least, repeat the steps until the students can follow the speaker correctly at almost the same time. Last, suppose there are still students who have not been able to practice pronunciation correctly. In that case, the steps repeat several times until the students can pronounce the sounds correctly.
Next, the researcher guided the students to get the correct position to pronounce the interdental consonant sounds by showing them the way. First, how to pronounce /ɵ/ by placing the tongue between the upper front teeth and the lower front teeth while pronouncing the letter s. Second, how to pronounce /ð/ by placing the tongue between the upper front teeth and the lower front teeth while pronouncing the letter z. And then, the researcher played audio with sound on and asked them to shadow as closely as possible chorally together by following the guided mouth position already taught.
This activity was repeated three times with the sound on and then repeated one time with the sound off. The students looked nervous and shy even though they did well in shadowing, but their pronunciation was not satisfactory yet.
At the next meeting, the students could enjoy the learning process and they felt more relaxed. They seemed to be interested and happily take part in the activities. The reason was that the technique was very simple and easy to follow. It was shown by their willingness to do what the researcher asked them to do.
The researcher also got the result of the pre-test so that the researcher found out how many students had good and poor pronunciation. The researcher gave more attention to the students because almost all of them had poor pronunciation and asked them to repeat more than three times. The students repeated immediately after the researcher so they got the right pronunciation. The researcher asked the students not only to repeat the words but also to practice the sounds.
At the 3rd, 4th, and 5th meetings they already had good improvement in the pronunciation of words. In these meetings, the students have already remembered and are getting used to the interdental sounds. So, they can speak them confidently without the teacher's guidance. It is just that they are still confused about which one is to pronounce voicelessly or voiced between the sounds /ð/ and /θ/. So, at the 6th meeting, they were already familiar, comfortable, and feel easy
pronouncing English words with the shadowing technique, especially in pronouncing interdental consonant sounds. After the last meeting, the researcher gave them a post-test.
After conducting the treatment, the researcher held the post-test to find out the enhancement of the students in pronunciation after giving the treatment by applying the shadowing technique. The result of applying this technique was that students knew how to pronounce interdental consonant sounds correctly. Most of the students had an enhancement in pronouncing the sounds. They can pronounce the sounds properly. For example, for the word ‘thoughtful’, before the treatment, the students pronounce it /tɔgtfʊl/, but after the treatment, they pronounce it /ˈθɔtfəl/.
Most of the students were able to increase their scores. Regarding the result of the pre-test and post-test, there is significant progress in students' scores. And it is easy for them to pronounce the interdental /ð/ sound compared to the /θ/ sound when the researcher applied the shadowing technique. It can be seen in the results of the pre-test, that the total score of students who pronounced the /ð/ sound was higher than the /θ/ sound.
However, the results of the post-test showed that the total score of students in pronouncing the /θ/ sound increased. And the results were higher than the total score of /ð/ sounds. The difference in the total scores of students in pronouncing the interdental consonant sounds is only slightly different. It can be concluded that the implementation of the shadowing technique is very effective to enhance students’ English pronunciation of consonant /ð/ and /θ/ sounds. Effective here means that there is significant progress in the student's scores from pre-test to post-test. So, the researcher is not using the passing grade score (70) as the standard of how effective the technique is. However, the researcher assumes that if the English teacher keeps using this technique, it can also increase the student's score to pass the passing grade score.
The shadowing technique is an effective technique for practicing pronunciation and making students active in pronouncing and communicating in English. The researcher agreed with this statement because the results of her research also showed the effectiveness of this technique was able to improve the pronunciation to pronounce new words that they don't know yet [7]. And asserts the shadowing technique is suitable for regular EFL classrooms, where the emphasis is on speaking fluency development. The researcher also agrees with this statement that the shadowing technique has a very positive impact on the pronunciation and speaking fluency of EFL learners [8].
CONCLUSION
After discussing and analyzing the data in the previous chapter, the researcher concludes that using the shadowing technique was effective in teaching English pronunciation to the grade seven students at SMP Negeri 1 Mepanga. It is proven by the result of the t-counted (16.67) which is higher than the t-table (1.696). Furthermore, the shadowing technique is effective and provides a significant effect to develop the student’s English pronunciation.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Alhamdulillaahirabbil’alaamiin, the researchers give all praises to the almighty God, Allah SWT, for all blessing, mercy, health, and opportunity given to us, so that we are able to complete this research. The researcher also thanks to all of the lecturers of English Education Study Program that cannot be mentioned one by one. Next, we would like to express our deepest thanks and appreciation to our family. The researchers also do not forget to thank to the students from grade seven at SMP Negeri 1 Mepanga who have participated in our research.
REFERENCES
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[6] Juliardi, D., Susilawati, E., & Bunau, E. (2019). An analysis of students’pronunciation mastery of dental fricative and alveolar plosive sounds. Jurnal Pendidikan dan Pembelajaran Khatulistiwa, 8(11).
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