Malaysia consists of citizens stands from various types of races.

Most

citizens in this country that is Malays speak Malay as their mother tongue language while there are also other races such as Chinese who speaks Mandarin as their mother tongue and India who speaks Tamil for their language. From that, the government stated that they want Malaysian citizens to learn and practice English as second language. This can be seen from a program that has been done by the Ministry of Education Malaysia which is to Elevate Malay Language and strengthen English Language or rather called as MBMMBI. The ultimate goal of non native English speakers is to attain native like fluency. They want themselves not to be compared with the native speakers, for English learners as second languages, they did not want to be compared to an English native speakers such as the British and the Americans. However, for many learners, this has become a problem for them in term of pronunciation where English native speakers can identify non-native speakers of their language through their accents. There is a large number of non-native English speakers believes that the main difficulty in learning the English language is from its pronunciation and consider it as the main problem in term of communication. According to Fries (1945), the main problem in learning a new language is not the vocabulary but it is instead the mastery of the sound system, which is to understand the stream of speech and to hear distinctive sound features. Pronunciation is important to avoid

misunderstandings when communicating. It is seen as a prerequisite for the development of speaking skill (Celce-Murcia & Goodwin, 1991). According to Microsoft Encarta 2007, pronunciation means the way in which a sound, word, or language is articulated, especially in conforming to an accepted standard. According to Hinofotis and Bailey (1981, as cited by Celce-Murcia and Goodwin, 1991), one will not be able to communicate orally with bad pronunciation of words. There are two factors that will be focused on. The three factors are mother tongue influenced, personality and For language learners, it is no problem or difficulty in producing words and pronounces words that in the learners own language. This is because in the learners mind, all the time there is only one linguistic system that the learner were exposed that is the learner own language or rather called mother tongue language. From

there, the learner was easily adapted to it. However, when learning the second language that is different from the learner native language, there is a major difference and gap in both languages that makes them clash to each other and give difficulty to the learners to learn the second language. For example, Malay people where Malay language is the native language and learn and practice English as second language. In some way, there will be some influenced from the native language when learning second language. There is no little doubt that phonetics and phonology of native language are powerful influences on second language pronunciation Odlin (1989: 112). Kharma and Hajjaj (1989) stated that there are two major difficulties that had to be faced by learners of English. Most of the test subjects are students from west Asia and South East Asia. Both Kharma and Hajjaj have presented with two problematic issues as far as consonant are concerned. confused by learners such as First, certain pairs are
// and // as in chair and share; /v/ and /f/ as in

fast and vast; /p/ and /b/ as in pin and bin; /s/ and // as in sin and thin. Second, learners insert a short vowel to break down the long consonant clusters to pronounce them as in /s_pr__/ for spring(Kharma & Hajjaj,1989: 14).

According to Cook (1992), he stated that native language influences can be seen in the second language learners mind. Their knowledge about the second language is connected with their second language. For example, word such as correct. For Malaysian, they pronounce it based on their native language influences where cor is their subject and rect is their predicate. The way the said it is really based on the sound of the word spelled that is /korekt/ while the real way to pronounce it is /krekt/. This is supported by Avery and Erlich (1992) where they said that where learners transfer their native language sound pattern into the second language and this is caused the foreign accents. There can be heard the mispronunciation of words by non-native speakers. According to them, this is influenced by three factors that is first, when there is a sound in the target language, which is absent from the learners native sound inventory, or vice versa, learners may not be able to produce or perceive the sound. Second is when combining words in to sound. For example phonotatics and rules are different in the learners native language from the targeted language. This is because the rules of language are

varying from each other. Thirdly, since the rhythm and melody of a language is determine its pattern of stress and intonation, learners may transfer those intonations to the targeted language. Learners personality, learning goals, attitudes towards the second language and culture of both language, all have their own roles in improving pronunciation skills of the learners. Furthermore, the amount of exposure and use of second language by learners also influences the development of pronunciation skills. Avery and Erlich (1992) said that learners who are confident and had a conversation with the native user of the language that they are learning are liable steps to practice their pronunciation skills. There are some learners who will be uncomfortable to learn to pronounce new speech rhythm and melody pattern and some of them feel weird to learn new things. Then it is impossible for them to learn English pronunciation. According to Miller (2000), he stated that between the changing and not changing speech pattern and pronunciation are affected by how much the responsibility and commitment the learners of the language take and how much the effort that they have given to the language outside the class. For conclusion, it is shown that there are some difficulties on some non-native speakers to learn English and what can be seen from it is mostly from the way of pronunciation of the English words by these learners. Although there are some pronunciation problem between Malaysian learners of English, there are some suggestion that can done to fill the loop hole that have been left from this problem. The first suggestion is to practice the sound and symbols of the International Phonetics Alphabets Charts. This is because each alphabet in this charts contain specific sound for each other. By knowing each sound for each alphabet, this can help to improve the way to pronounce the words in English correctly and when compared to the native speakers of English, they cannot differentiate the pronunciation. The next suggestion that can be done is to introduce the syllable pattern of the mother tongue language, after that, when learning English as second languages, teachers can take action by introducing the English language syllable pattern from short to the long one. This is done to make the students of English language to know how to separate and differentiate each language syllable pattern from their Mother

tongue language and English language and also make a comparison between both language in term of syllable pattern and sound pattern and also make them get used to both of them. Also, schools and Ministry of Education also should take action by teaching phonetics since primary school. This action can make the students to much easier adapt to English language and make the language be around their environment. This is because with that, children at the early stage can pronounce English words better then when they are grow up, their skills in pronunciation will kept improving with the help of teaching phonetic during since their primary school till their graduate at the high school.

References. Al-Saidat, Emad M. (2010): Phonological Analysis of English Phonotactics: A Case Study of Arab Learners of English Avery, P. & Ehrlich, S. (1992):Teaching American English pronunciation. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. Cook, V. J. (1992): Evidence for multi-competence. Language Learning, 42,4, 557591. Miller, S. (2000): Looking at progress in a pronunciation class. TESOL Matters, 10,2. Dr Mariam Mohammed Nor, Abdul Halim Ibrahim, Rjentharan Shubbiah, (2008): HBEL3303 Linguistic and Language Teaching. Selangor: Meteor Doc Sdn Bhd. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet