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An Investigation of The Pronunciation Problems of English Words Containing Silent Plosive Sounds among The Jordanian EFL Learners

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This study investigates the pronunciation problems of English words containing silent plosive sounds experienced by Jordanian EFL learners. The corpus is designed to investigate the existence of the pronunciation problem of silent plosive sounds among Jordanian EFL learners, examine the influence of the interference of the mother language on the pronunciation of the silent plosive sounds, and demonstrate the teachers’ perspectives to overcome the pronunciation problems among the Jordanian EFL learners. The subjects for the study were thirty participants; twenty-five students from Irbid National University and five lecturers from the same university and from Jerash Private University. To analyse the data, the current qualitative study employed thematic analysis approach. The instruments used to generate data for this study were audio-visual material (recording) and interview (semi-structured interview). The findings of the study revealed that the Jordanian EFL learners had pronunciation problems with English words containing silent plosive sounds. The study concluded that factors such as shyness, motivation, lack of exposure to the target language, ways of teaching, complicity of the English language pronunciation, lack of effective activities, untrained teachers, and interference of the mother language militate against the Jordanian EFL learner’s competence in English language pronunciation.
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