The Factors of English Words Mispronunciation Encountered by EFL Students

Abstract

EFL learners in many levels of education, such as kindergarten to university, encountered English mispronunciation. Pronunciation is crucial in speaking, considering major mispronunciation can affect different interpretations. The purpose of this study was to reveal the factors of EFL students’ mispronunciation, despite they are already in the fourth semester. Additionally, this study aimed to acknowledge the EFL students’ strategies to correct their English pronunciation. This study used qualitative descriptive as the research design. The subject of the study was five students in their fourth semester at the English Education Department at the University of Islam Malang. The participants were recommended by the lecturer based on their low performance in English Debate class. To gather the data, this study used interviews as the instrument. As many as ten questions were asked to the students, along with other questions that had appeared during the interview. The findings indicated that lack of motivation, lack of vocabulary, speaking anxiety, and mother tongue interference are the factors of the mispronunciation of English words encountered by EFL students. And for the strategies that the subjects used to improve their pronunciation are listening to English songs and watching English movies, using TikTok and YouTube, and checking their pronunciation in Google Translate. This study reveals a new strategy to improve the EFL students’ mispronunciation which is corrective feedback from the lecturer and their peers. Keywords: English Mispronunciation, Factors of Mispronunciation, Students’ Strategies