Jurnal Budaya FIB UB Pronunciation Difficulties of EFL Learners in Indonesia: A Literature Study

Vol. 1 No. 2, November 2020, pp 7-13 https://jurnalbudaya.ub.ac.id

PRONUNCIATION DIFFICULTIES OF EFL LEARNERS

IN INDONESIA: A LITERATURE STUDY
Alifa Camilia Fadillah1
1
Faculty of Cultural Studies, Universitas Brawijaya, Malang, Indonesia

E-mail: fadillahalifa@gmail.com

Abstract
As a lingua franca, English has become a prominent language to learn outside English-spoken countries. Especially in
Indonesia, English slowly takes over the social life of Indonesian citizens and now serves several significant purposes,
including within educational setting. Yet, within educational setting the burden to learn English become a challenging part for
EFL learners in Indonesia, as they face several difficulties regarding the pronunciation of English words. Therefore, this paper
serves as a pilot literature study to examine the research surrounding English pronunciation by EFL learners all over
Indonesia. From 8 research papers compiled, it is found that there are three significant aspects that can be drawn out: 1)
English vowels and consonants shift by EFL learners, 2) factors influencing Indonesian EFL learners’ pronunciation, and 3)
the instruments and media used by Indonesian researchers to monitor the pronunciation. It shows that indeed there are vowels
and consonants shift when EFL learners try to pronounce English words, and the factors that affect their pronunciation
includes their mother tongue influence, the exposure of target language, and lastly their biological factor such as their ear
perception. It is also revealed that there are not much of instruments used by Indonesian researchers to monitor the
pronunciation of either research participants or native speakers of English within the scope of their research. There are only
two papers that use Speechnote and Praat as their instruments, and other researchers rely on their own perception when
monitoring the English sounds.

Keywords: pronunciation difficulties, EFL learners, vowels and consonant shift, instruments, Speechnote, Praat

Abstrak

Sebagai lingua franca, bahasa Inggris telah menjadi bahasa yang paling menonjol untuk dipelajari oleh masyarakat yang tidak
menggunakan bahasa Inggris sebagai bahasa utamanya. Contohnya, pengaruh bahasa Inggris di Indonesia sudah menjalar ke
berbagai aspek kehidupan masyarakat dan memiliki berbagai peran khusus, termasuk perannya di ranah pendidikan.
Meskipun begitu, para pelajar EFL (English as a foreign language) di Indonesia masih merasa kesulitan dalam mempelajari
bahasa Inggris, utamanya ketika dihadapkan dengan pengucapan kata-kata berbahasa Inggris. Maka dari itu, studi literatur ini
bertujuan untuk mengobservasi penelitian-penelitian yang meneliti pengucapan kata-kata bahasa Inggris oleh pelajar EFL di
seluruh Indonesia. Dari 8 penelitian yang dikumpulkan, ada tiga aspek penting yang mendasari penelitian-penelitian tersebut,
antara lain: 1) pergeseran suara vokal dan konsonan bahasa Inggris oleh pelajar EFL, 2) faktor-faktor yang mempengaruhi
akuratnya pengucapan para pelajar EFL Indonesia, dan 3) instrumen atau media yang dipakai oleh para peneliti Indonesia
untuk memonitor akurasi pengucapan. Dari observasi, ditemukan bahwa memang ada pergeseran suara vokal dan konsonan
ketika para pelajar EFL dites pengucapannya. Pengaruh bahasa ibu, paparan bahasa target, dan faktor biologis seperti persepsi
telinga menjadi faktor-faktor yang mempengaruhi akurasi pengucapan para pelajar yang diteliti. Terakhir, ditemukan juga
bahwa tidak banyak instrumen dan media yang digunakan untuk memonitor akurasi pengucapan dalam penelitian-penelitian
ini. Hanya ada dua penelitian yang menggunakan Speechnote dan Praat sebagai instrumennya, sedangkan peneliti lainnya
menggunakan persepsi mereka sendiri ketika memonitor pelafalan kata-kata berbahasa Inggris.

Kata kunci: kesulitan pengucapan, pelajar EFL, pergeseran vokal dan konsonan, instrument, Speechnote, Praat

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Jurnal Budaya, Vol. 1 No. 2, December 2020, pp 7-13
1. Introduction
English as the world’s lingua franca has influenced
the development of many countries especially those which
are not originally English-speaking countries. In Indonesia,
English becomes one of the most used and learned languages
after Dutch, Arabic, German, French, Japanese, and Chinese,
but unlike its neighboring countries such as Singapore,
Malaysia, and Philippines who use English as their main
administrative and business language (which makes English
as their official language), the government of Indonesia
regards English as an additional or foreign language (Lauder,
2008). Though, as time goes by, English slowly takes over
the social life of Indonesian citizens and now serves several
significant purposes, i.e., for international communication, a
medium to scientific knowledge and technology
development, a source of vocabulary for global expansion
and modernization of Indonesian, and lastly a medium for
recognizing native speakers of English, their language,
culture, and history to broaden one’s knowledge of the world
(Lauder, 2008). Gunantar (2015) also argues that aside from
its international significance, English has already penetrated
to Indonesian citizen’s daily life and becomes part of their
communication, although its use is limited towards several
domains only, such as politics, business, tourism, and media
(Lowenberg, 1991; Lauder, 2008). Looking from educational
perspective, English has also long become one of the
compulsory subjects which are introduced pretty early to
students of elementary to higher degree institutions, not to
mention the expansive emergences of English courses as well
as formal schools which uses English as the main language
(Lauder, 2008; Lie, 2017).
Because of its official status as a foreign language, and the
fact that English is only spoken by a small-scale population,
Indonesian people are having difficulties learning English if
not from scratch, and throughout its history in Indonesian
education, English has been taught without first learning
about its phonological and phonetic system. English teachers
rarely teach their students English vowels and consonants,
and drill them with pronouncing words without knowing the
sound construction of that specific word, making it difficult
for Indonesians EFL learners to differentiate sounds as it
keeps on changing depending on who pronounces it. Thus,
research and experiments on EFL learners’ pronunciation are
being actively executed everywhere in Indonesia to figure
out which vowels and consonants that EFL learners find
pretty challenging to pronounce.
This study then aims to compile and group those research
and experiments which have been implemented by teachers
and other researchers in various areas of Indonesia into three
parts as follows: 1) English vowels and consonants shift by
EFL learners, 2) mother tongue influences, and 3)
instruments used by Indonesian researchers to determine the
Fadillah
correct pronunciation of English words. This study covers
not only research around Java but also other parts of
Indonesia such as Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Sumatra, and one
research conducted in Timor Leste for comparison. The
timespan of all these studies is from 2007 to the latest 2019.
It will include the shifted vowel and consonants, the
influence of research participants’ mother tongue, and the
kind of instruments used by researchers to monitor the
pronunciation of each word.
2. Literature Review
2.1 Received Pronunciation (RP), Standard English, and
World Englishes
There have certainly been numerous studies investigating
the pronunciation difficulties of EFL learners all over the
world, as it is long deemed for EFL learners to learn how to
pronounce English words as accurately as possible to the so-
called Received Pronunciation (RP). Earlier in history, RP
was the most posh pronunciation an upper class would use—
it was the most prestigious accent of English and only upper
class society would use it as they got the privilege to receive
education from their early childhood (Holmes, 2013).
Although it started as social accent, it became prominent as
the time went by because BBC promoted it for decades. It is
used to cover a speaker’s regional origin back in the day
(Holmes, 2013). Holmes uses an accent triangle illustrated
by Peter Trudgill in 1983 to depict the position of RP within
the English society.
Figure 1. Social and regional accent variation
Source: Holmes, 2013 from Peter Trudgill (1983)
Sociolinguistics. Penguin: London. Page 42. Copyright ©
Peter Trudgill, 1974, 1983, 1995, 2000.
Yet, because of the discrepancies and all, RP receives
negative backlash and it is no longer the spotlight. Then
comes Standard English—a more accommodating dialect and
it allows for various grammatical changes unlike RP
(Holmes, 2013). If RP is only exclusive to English society,
standard English comprises a lot of accents and varies in
distinction. There are US standard English, South African
standard English, and Australian English, which are all
Jurnal Budaya, Vol. 1 No. 2, December 2020, pp 7-13
different from British standard English and of course, RP
(Holmes, 2013). Just like RP, Standard English is spoken by
the educated ones, and it is normally taught in schools and
becomes the standard parameter of non-native speakers of
English (Holmes, 2013; Wardhaugh & Fuller, 2015). In
Indonesia, there was once an unspoken rule of teaching only
standard British English to students from every level of
education using only standard British English pronunciation,
but now, Indonesian teachers are often found back and forth
from standard British English to standard American English,
even Australian standard pronunciation. This leads to internal
confusion among Indonesian students as to which standard
English that they can use—because teachers rely heavily on
the standard pronunciation of different regions than teaching
the students the phonetic and phonological structure of
English itself. Wardhaugh & Fuller (2015) argue that indeed
standard English yields so much power that it gives pressure
to the local dialects who are strongly affected by it.
Though receiving pressure from the standardized forms of
English, local dialects of English keep on striving—mainly
around Southeast Asia where some countries officially use
English as their official language. Singapore, Malaysia,
Hong Kong, India, and many African countries assimilate
English with their own distinctive linguistic features to
develop their own English dialect to serve as a language of
communication for wider purpose (Holmes, 2013). This
linguistic phenomenon is covered under the term ‘World
Englishes’ or ‘New Englishes’ to explain the range of
different varieties of English by multilingual countries.
Holmes (2013) gives a short example of Singlish, or
Singaporean-English dialect, which is a very informal variety
of English spoken by Singaporean. The distinction can be
seen from the stress patterns, assimilated vocabulary and
grammatical features from local language, and semantic
concepts. The notable example of Singlish which is relatively
often spoken is the final tag lah, which is short for ‘it’s up to
you, I don’t mind’. Holmes also notices the same stress
pattern in Indian English in the form of final tag kya meaning
‘right?’. It can be concluded that many World Englishes have
the shortened form of tag questions to emphasize their
sentences, and it is indeed a unique phenomenon within the
development of English language outside the Western
countries.
2.1 Factors affecting pronunciation difficulties
From RP, standard English, and World Englishes, we can
see that indeed English plays an important role in
international communication, that it is able to affect many
countries to incorporate English into their daily lives.
Although many countries develop their own English dialects,
like what Singaporeans do, to have insufficient and
unintelligible English pronunciation will result in unpleasant
situation and lead to misunderstanding (Zhang, 2009). That
is why EFL learners everywhere around the world, especially
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in the country where English is not officially part of the
country’s language and stays foreign, pronunciation is very
significant. It is no doubt that they face many difficulties,
and many researchers have done decades of research to
figure out what factors influence these learners when it
comes to foreign language pronunciation, especially English.
There are roughly two factors affecting native-like
pronunciations by foreign language learners, namely internal
factors and external factors (Zhang, 2009; Gilakjani, 2012;
Szalkowska-Kim, 2014).
According to Zhang (2009), internal features that
influence someone’s perception of foreign pronunciation
involves biological factors such as age, ear perception, brain,
and aptitude. There are also other factors that involves
individual differences such as individual’s personality,
attitude, motivation, identity, and individual efforts as well as
goal setting (Zhang, 2009; Szalkowska-Kim, 2014). The
orthography of someone’s native language can also be
included in the internal factor (Szalkowska-Kim, 2014).
Gilakjani (2012) also includes attitude as the one important
factor that influence someone’s pronunciation of foreign
language.
As for the external factors, Zhang (2009) and Gilakjani
(2012) state that someone’s native language, exposure of the
target language, educational factors, and foreign language
instruction also play important role in determining
someone’s fluency of pronouncing foreign words. Although
they are categorized as external influences, it does not make
them any less significant than the internal ones. Take, for
instance, the influence of exposing the target language to an
individual. When an individual is exposed with many
materials of English, for example, he/she can have bigger
chance to pronounce English words accurately than others.
When they are aware of phonetic and phonological rules of
English, they are able to imitate native-like pronunciation,
making them a comprehensible speaker of English as clear
pronunciation is important in communication (Gilakjani,
2012). What EFL learners need to remember is that there is
no such thing as ‘perfect’ pronunciation—as long as they are
aware of ‘intelligible pronunciation, then they succeed in
making other people understand what is being spoken in a
natural setting (Gilakjani, 2012).
3. Method
For this literature study, I collected 8 research papers in
the time frame of 2007 to the latest 2019. All these research
are conducted in various areas of Indonesia from Sumatra,
Kalimantan, Java, and Sulawesi, and one study conducted at
Timor Leste for a comparison.
There is one exception to a study conducted in Sumatera.
Almost all of the papers I compiled feature native speakers of
particular local language, but in his study, Donal (2016)
invited many participants whose mother language vary, even
Jurnal Budaya, Vol. 1 No. 2, December 2020, pp 7-13
though they were students of the same university. The detail
will follow later in the next chapter.
After collecting the data, I reviewed them by putting
them into a framework which would allow me to understand
each of the paper better. The framework consists of:
- Title
- Author (Year)
- Keywords
- Objective(s)
- Methodology
- Results
- Arguments
- Recommendations
This framework is beneficial for a literature study as it
gives me a whole view of the papers without having to go
back and forth when analysing the contents. Afterwards, the
analysis of the papers would be divided into three categories,
which is the shift of English vowels and consonants by EFL
learners, the factors influencing Indonesian EFL learner’s
pronunciation, and the instruments used by the researchers to
monitor the pronunciation of English words.
4. Results and Discussion
4.1 English vowel and consonant shift by EFL learners
Before we move further to the analysis, firstly, it is important
to divide this subchapter into two categories to make it easier
for us to look at the shifts one by one. This subchapter will
be separated into two: vowel shifts and consonant shifts.
4.1.1 Vowel shift
In 2007, Andi-Pallawa and Alam conducted a study in
Tadulako University, Sulawesi, comparing phonetic features
of Indonesian and English by recording English Department
students’ pronunciation of English words. Andi-Pallawa and
Alam tried to see how vowels and consonants pronounced by
Indonesian EFL learners by figuring out their ability to
pronounce English words and describing the difficulties in
form of phonetic features. They found out that there are
indeed vowels that are hardly pronounced because they do
not exist in Indonesian sound system, such as /æ/ and /ʌ/.
The phonetic features of /æ/ and /ʌ/ illustrated by Andi-
Pallawa and Alam can be seen as follows:
Phonetic features of /æ/:
ENGLISH INDONESIAN
Low: + which can be seen from the word ‘eight’ where the standard
Front: + Nothing
Rounded: - The same case goes to the phoneme /ɒ/ where it is often
Phonetic features of /ʌ/:
ENGLISH INDONESIA
Low: + pronounced it as [uften]. Such errors can be only described
Front: + Nothing
Rounded: - next subchapter, because Banjarese vowel system is not
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Although, in reality English vowels and Indonesian
vowels have different phoneme positions if combined into
words. For example, phoneme /u/ in English is rarely found
in initial position, only in medial and final position, but in
Indonesian /u/ appears often in initial position as well as
medial and final position. On the other hand, even though
there is phoneme /ə/ in Indonesian vowel chart, it cannot be
found in final position of any Indonesian words, but it does
appear in English final position.
A study conducted by Laila (2012) also reveals that there
are shifts happening between English vowels when
pronounced by Indonesian EFL learners. Inviting Javanese
ESL students in Surakarta in tertiary level, she compared RP
to the pronunciation of ESL students and observed the
intelligibility of the pronunciation further by utilizing native
speakers of English or foreign speakers of English to listen to
the recording of ESL students and compare their
pronunciation to the ESL students’ pronunciation. The
results show that the shift of vowel sounds can be described
in the course of tongue height movement, the expressiveness,
and in interference. She finds out that there is indeed
lowering of phoneme [e] into [ε] as in the words behave or
make; and phoneme [e] into [a] as in the words away and
betray. There is also heightening of phoneme [a] into [ε] as
in the words nine and five; and phoneme [I] into [i] as in the
words forty and beauty.
An honorary mention of Tilman’s (2015) study
conducted in Timor Leste is quite significant for this paper.
She compared formants (F1 and F2) of participants’
pronunciation to the native speaker’s pronunciation and
found out that there is indeed different quality of front vowel
pronounced by native speaker of English and EFL learners of
Timor Lorosa’e National University. As Portuguese language
does not have phoneme /I/ and /æ/ as opposed to English’s
front vowels /i/, /I/, /ε/, and /æ/, the participants of that study
found it hard to pronounce the more diverse variation of
English front vowels. Mother language interference and
Tilman’s approach of comparing formants will be discussed
later in the next subchapters.
Komariah (2018) contributed to the academia by
conducting a study of pronunciation difficulties faced by
students of SMPN 2 Halong in Banjar. She recorded her
students’ pronunciation, transcribed and analysed the
recordings until she concluded that the most difficult vowels
to pronounce are /ɒ/ and /e/. /e/ is often mispronounced as /i/,
pronunciation is /eit/ but the students pronounced it as [i:g].
mispronounced, as can be seen from the word ‘often’ where
the standard pronunciation is [ˈɒf.tə n] but the students
as the product of L1 influence, which will be explained in the
Jurnal Budaya, Vol. 1 No. 2, December 2020, pp 7-13
aware of the either of the phonemes mentioned above, as
they only have three vowels /a/, /i/, and /u/.
Falahuddin, Saleh, and Fitriati (2019) observed the
influence of L1 dialect, in this case Mid-East Sundanese
dialect in the pronunciation of English among English
Department students of Universitas Majalengka in West Java.
By recording the pronunciation and analysing them, they
found that most English vowels can be easily pronounced by
the participants, but some students were evaluated to
improperly pronounce [ɔ:], [u:], [i:] and [a:]. They tended to
remove the length feature of the vowels and shortly
pronounce them as [ʌ], [e], [ʊ], and [ɪ] respectively. Yet,
there is one vowel that the students could not pronounce
correctly at all, which is [æ], and almost all of them replaced
it with [e].
Moving on to diphthongs, Laila (2012) also investigated
students’ pronunciation quality of diphthongs where she
argued that there is a reduction of nucleus strength in gliding
in diphthong, leading to no gliding movement at all when
students pronounced any of the English diphthongs. For
instance, phoneme [au] shifts to [ɔ] as in the words applause
and because; phoneme [əu] shifts to [o] as in the words no,
go, and so; and lastly phoneme [ou] shifts into [ɔ] as in the
word mountain.
A specific study investigating diphthongs quality can also
be observed through a study conducted by Donal (2016)
where he invited 35 students of Universitas Pasir Pengairan
in Riau Province. These students are of diverse ethnic and
possess different mother tongues, such as Malay, Batak, Java,
Sunda, and Minang, but the result of the study shows that
students tend to have difficulties pronouncing diphthongs [аυ]
and rather easy pronouncing diphthong [ɔɪ]. Nonetheless, the
students pronounced almost all the diphthongs by shifting
them into monophthongs. For instance, diphthong [ɪə] would
be pronounced as [e] or [i:], and diphthong [eɪ] would be
pronounced as [i] rather than the original pronunciation.
However, there is a slight difference on the pronunciation
of diphthong /eɪ/ if we compare Donal’s study with
Komariah’s (2018). According to Komariah’s investigation,
diphthong /eɪ/ would be pronounced as [ai]. In addition,
diphthong /oʊ/ would be pronounced as [aw] by the
participants in Komariah’s study. This slight difference may
be the product of mother tongue influences that blanket the
pronunciation of participants of both studies, but one thing
for sure, the pronunciation of English diphthongs by
Indonesian EFL learners in both studies does shift to a
different quality.
A study conducted by Falahuddin, Saleh, and Fitriati
(2019) observed that there are three diphthongs were easily
and properly pronounced by Mid-East Sundanese
participants, namely [aɪ], [eə], and [ɔɪ]. Yet, the participants
improperly pronounced diphthong [ɪə], [аυ], and [υə] and
shifted them into [ə], [e], [υ], and [ɪ]. Diphthong [əυ] was
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pronounced [ɔ:] and diphthong [eɪ] was pronounced [e]. A
few parts of this study is in conjunction with Donal’s study
where Indonesian EFL learners tend to hardly pronounce
diphthong [аυ] but rather easier when pronouncing [ɔɪ]. It
can also be concluded that when Indonesian EFL learners
could not pronounce diphthong, they tended to shift it to
monophthongs to make it easier for them to pronounce the
words even though they knew that it was not the proper
pronunciation, as Indonesian and almost all Indonesian’s
vernaculars’ vowel system do not recognize diphthongs.
4.1.2 Consonant shift
From the papers I conducted I found that there are only
four papers out of eight that cover consonant shift as well as
vowel shift. A study conducted by Andi-Pallawa and Alam
(2007) reveals that according to their phonetic features /b, d,
g, z, s, ʧ, ʤ/ do not exist in the final positions of the word of
Indonesian but do occur in the final positions of English. In
addition, phoneme /p, t, k/ are never aspirated in Indonesian
words wherever they occur, and this is a different case
compared to English consonant system, where /p, t, k/ are
aspirated when occurs in the initial position. EFL learners are
often ignored this important feature, resulting in non-
aspirated /p, t, k/ pronunciation. Andi-Pallawa and Alam also
noticed that /r/ is never pronounced clearly in English, but in
Indonesian /r/ is always articulated clearly wherever it occurs.
A study conducted by Laila (2012) reveals that there is a
tendency of shifting which can be observed through voicing,
the retractness of tongue, and points to place the articulation.
For instance, voiced phoneme [z] changes into voiceless [s]
as in the word please and clause. Laila also argued that the
other reason of decreasing the voicing feature of a phoneme
can be due to the trend of pronouncing the sound similar to
its phoneme. EFL learners also often omitted the
pronunciation of phoneme [s], [d], and [ ] when appeared in
clusters to simplify the pronunciation. It also appeared that
Indonesian EFL learners found it difficult to produce flap
sound [R] and changed it into [t] instead, as there is no flap
sound in the Indonesian sound system.
In addition, Komariah (2018) also added more
challenging consonants that EFL learners found hard to
pronounce to the list, such as /t/, / /, /ʃ/, /-t/, /f/, /ʒ /, /-d/.
Phoneme /f/ can be difficult for Banjarese EFL learners to
pronounce because they tend to refer to the written form of
the words rather than referring to the RP, thus they shifted it
to /g/ because they have such perception towards the English
words. It is also difficult for the EFL learners to pronounce
/t/ and /d/ when they are in final position and belong to
cluster consonants at the same time. As a result, they
mispronounced the phonemes and omitted them most of the
time.
Falahuddin, Saleh and Fitriati (2019) updated the status
of English consonants among Indonesian EFL learners by
stating that there are 17 consonants that were pronounced
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correctly and properly by the participants of the study, On the other hand, Donal (2016) mentions another aspect
namely [b], [c], [d], [g], [h], [j], [k], [l], [m], [n], [ʤ], [t], [r],
aside from the influence of mother tongue, namely the lack
[w], [ŋ], [ʃ], and [p]. In conjunction with Komariah’s and of knowledge about English sound system. Indeed exposing
Laila’s study, phonemes [ ], [ð] and [ʧ] were pronounced EFL learners to English is another challenging task to do, but
improperly, and it seems that indeed fricatives and affricates by giving EFL learners chance to learn more about English
are quite challenging to Indonesian EFL learners. When sound system, their pronunciation will get better undoubtedly
pronouncing the three phonemes, the participants tended to (Zhang, 2009). This is in conjunction with Ramasari’s (2017)
replace them with [c], [d], [t], or [s], which are still in study where she mentions about this exposure situation
correspondence with [ ], [ð] and [ʧ] because they are still influencing EFL learners’ pronunciation. At some point also,
within the same place of articulation. lecturer and students could influence each other’s
4.2 Factors influencing Indonesian EFL learner’s pronunciation, that is why instructors of foreign languages
pronunciation need to give their students comprehensive exposure so that
In a plain sight, it is clear that the one significant factor the students can have a better view of the language that they
that influences EFL learners to mispronounce English vowels are learning (Gilakjani, 2012).
and consonants is their mother tongues. This is in In addition to that, Nurjanah, Mulyadi, and
conjunction with Szalkowska-Kim’s statement that the Wijayatiningsih (2019) reveals another important factor that
succession of EFL learner’s pronunciation of L2 are largely can influences someone’s perceptions of English sounds,
ascribed to their ability to set aside the phonological features which is their ears. They argues that EFL learners’ ears can
of their mother tongues or L1 to minimize negative transfer be one of the factors to their fluent pronunciation of English
from L1 to L2 (2012). Almost all papers I conducted for this words. This can be supported by Zhang’s (2009) study where
study proved that indeed mother tongues play a great role in s/he mentions that ear perception is included in the internal
the accurate pronunciation of English vowels and consonants. factors that affect someone’s pronunciation of L2 words.
Indonesia consists of big and small islands where in every S/he reveals that while ear perception is a factor that is
islands we can encounter many vernaculars spoken by the always ignored by many people, it actually plays a big role in
natives. For example, Javanese people have their own perceiving sounds as good ear capacity can differentiate
variations of Javanese language, and it is also the same case sounds easily and accurately. Those who have good ear
to Sundanese and other ethnics of Indonesia, where they have perception also possess bigger chance of imitating different
various vernaculars that influence their pronunciation when sounds a lot better than those who does not, thus making
they are faced with foreign languages. Aside from the their pronunciation more native-like than any EFL learners.
influence of Indonesian as the national and official language, 4.3 Instruments or media to monitor EFL learners’
vernaculars or local languages cannot be ignored when it pronunciations
comes to pronunciations. So far, Indonesian researchers rely on their own
For instances, in Laila’s (2012) study, she mentions that perception of English sounds when monitoring their
indeed EFL learners whose mother tongue is Javanese were participants’ pronunciations. Out of 8 papers, there are only
influenced by the Javanese sound system which owns no flap two which used specific applications or instruments to
sound, therefore they found it difficult to produce it. monitor the accuracy of their participants’ pronunciations.
Javanese EFL learners also tended to pronounce English Tilman (2015) used Praat to identify the pronunciation of the
words in lenis, as they could be uncertain of pronouncing research participants by comparing the value of formants (F1
specific sounds that required them to operate their speech and F2) of native speakers of Portuguese and native speaker
organs into a certain position, such as moving the lower jaw of English which is taken from UCLA website. Praat itself is
during differentiating the production of vowel sounds of a software that allows us to look at the vowel quality out of
English. Tilman (2015) also argues that there is always individual’s pronunciation. Up until now, it is rare to find
tendency towards pronouncing L2 with L1 phonological researchers who use Praat to analyse vowel sounds, as
structure as a form of language interference that blocks EFL operating Praat needs extensive exercise and training.
learners to pronounce English sounds accurately and Another study conducted by Nurjanah, Mulyadi, and
properly. To support this, Komariah (2018) notices that Wijayatiningsih (2019) used Speechnote as the instruments
pronunciation errors can also be caused by the absence of to monitor the accurate pronunciation of English words.
sound in their mother tongue, making EFL learners to shift There is not much to say about the application itself in the
the sounds into the nearest neighbouring sound that they can paper, but it is surely that Speechnote can be an instrument to
find in their mother tongue’s sound system. For example, test the accuracy of the pronunciation of individuals. They
English phoneme / / will shift to /t/ as Indonesian sound suggests that Speechnote can be used extensively inside the
system does not have such phoneme. classroom for students to learn how to pronounce English
words properly and accurately.

12
Jurnal Budaya, Vol. 1 No. 2, December 2020, pp 7-13
5. Conclusion
From the total eight papers compiled in this literature
study, we have seen how Indonesian EFL learners are
challenged to pronounce English words as accurately and
properly as possible but facing many difficulties in the
process. There are many vowels as well as consonants that
EFL learners are having difficulties pronouncing, therefore
forcing them to shift to the easier version of phoneme they
can perceive. Of course, there are some factors influencing
this phenomenon, namely the influence of mother tongue, the
exposure of target language, and the biological factors such
as ear perception. All of these factors contribute to
someone’s accurate pronunciation of English words—
therefore without eliminating these factors the chance of
imitating native-like pronunciation is smaller. This paper
also covers the instruments or media used by Indonesian
researchers to monitor their research subject’s pronunciation.
Turns out most of them rely on their own perception of
English sounds, and only two papers actually feature the
application of software such as Praat and Speechnote to
identify pronunciations. One possible reason to the lack of
instruments used by researchers to monitor pronunciations
may be their unfamiliarity of Praat and Speechnote as
valuable and helpful research instruments to help them
identify sounds and compare them.
Although only a literature study, this paper wants to shed
lights in the evolution of Indonesian EFL learner’s English
pronunciation in which the experiments were carried out by
several teachers, instructors, and researchers throughout the
years. Studies focusing on pronunciation have been
flourishing to find out what causes pronunciation disparity
between languages and therefore come out with a solution to
bridge these differences. However, it should be kept in mind
that to solve this problem, students need a language
instructor’s assistance, because without proper approach, the
factors underlying pronunciation difficulties will not be
sorted out. By possessing a certain degree of knowledge
about English pronunciation as well as understanding of
specific instruments to aid the students, such as Praat,
Speechnote, and alike, instructors can help lessening the gap
between L1 and L2 pronunciation so that students are able to
pronounce English words as identical as the standard.
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