1.

 The number of year that students had learned

English.
The first question in the survey questionnaire deals with the
number of year that BE freshmen at NEU had learned English.
The result can be seen in the figure below.

The number of year that students have learned English

4%

23%
20%
Less than 4 years
5 - 8 years
9 -12 years
More than 12 years

53%

Figure 1. The number of year that students have learned English

From the figure 1, what is clear that more than a half of the
respondents had learned English for 9-12. Next came the
percentage of students who had studied English for more than
12 years (23%) and for 5-8 years (20%). Among one hunred
students that took part in the survey, only four of students who
had studied English for less than 4 years. This results might be
explained for the differences in students’ English learning
condition. Although most of them have the opportunity to
approach English early, from kindergarten or elementary
school, there are a small amount of students who start to learn
English from secondary school. Additionally, there are also
some students who begin learning English in grade nine or
grade ten. Therefore, some difficulties may occur in students’
learning process. These problems also affected student’s
English pronunciation, which would be referred to in the next
part of the research.

2. Students’ self-evaluation of their English

pronunciation
In this question, students were asked to evaluate their English
pronunciation using the scale from 1 to 5 (1 - Not so good, 2 -
Somewhat good, 3 – Good, 4 – Very good, and 5 – Extremely
good). The result is shown in the figure below.
Students' evaluation of their English pronunciation.
50 47
45
40
36
35
30
25
20
15
10 8
4 5
5
0
Not so good Somewhat good Good Very good Extremely good

Votes
Figure 2. Students' evaluation of their English pronunciation.
 In this figure, it can be seen that the percentage of students
who said that their pronunciation was good ranked first with
47%. Next came the percentage of students that had ‘very
good’ level of pronunciation. Interestingly, only 4 and 8 people
evaluated their English pronunciation as ‘not so good’ and
‘somewhat good’ respectively. Additionally, only 5 out of 100
thought that their pronunciation was extremely good. This
result can be explained by the lack of clarification in each level
which may cause confusion for the respondents. Moreover,
students might not feel confident of themselves so the result
might not reflect their pronunciation level clearly.

3. Students’ perspective about the importance of good

pronunciation.

Students’ perspective about the importance of good

pronunciation
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Not so important Somewhat Important Very important Extremely important
important

Votes
Figure 3. Students’ perspective about the importance of good pronunciation

Students’ opinion about the importance of having good English

pronunciation are showed by using the scale from 1 to 5 (1 -
Not so important, 2 - Somewhat important, 3 – Important, 4 –
Very important, and 5 – Extremely important). The result is
shown in the figure 3. Overall, the students were aware of the
importance of pronunciation for learning English, especially its
function in speaking English. Specifically, the percentage of
students who thought that good pronunciation were extremely
important accounts for the highest percentage (40%). This was
followed by over one third of the respondents choosing the
‘very important’ level. This is probaly due to the fact that
correct English pronunciation help you express what you want
to say to others without creating any confusion. Meanwhile,
only 17 out of 100 students rated having good English
pronunciation as somewhat important. Interestingly, very few
people thought that good pronunciation is somewhat important
(5%) and not so important (1%) in speaking English. To explain
this result, there are many factors needed to acchieve good
speaking skills other than good pronunciation such as voice
power, confidence, etc.; therefore, having good pronunciation
might not be the priority factor to have good speaking skills.

4. Students’ opinions about influences of mother tongue

on their English pronunciation
 
Student's opinion about the infl uence of mother tongue
Positive Negative Both positive and negative

6%

19%

75%

Figure 4. Student's opinion about the influence of mother tounge

The figure shows the student’s points of view about influences

of mother tongue on their English pronunciation whether it’s
positive, negative or both. From the pie chart, it can be seen
that the percentage of students who rated the influences as
both positive and negative influence accounts for three – fourth
of the votes. In the second place was the percentage of the
responders who said that mother tongue had negative
influences on their pronunciation (19%). Interestingly, six out of
one hundred participants thought that the influences were
positive. Since mother tongue plays a big role in helping people
pronouce a word correctly and incorrectly, it is clear that the
influences are both negative and positive. Students choosing
‘negative’ might not aware of the positive influences and vice-
versa.