Difficulties facing English language students at Al Balqa Applied University in English pronunciation

Atika Ismael, Dana Mahadin, Am

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the pronunciation problems that undergraduate students at Al-Balqa Applied University face with different English consonant sounds. The paper provides an introduction on pronunciation, consonant sounds in English and Arabic and the reasons that lead to these errors. All the participants in the study are EFL learners and they have never been to any English speaking country .The students are from English major and they belong to different areas in Jordan. The problematic sounds are: /p/, /f/, /f1/, / /, /z/, /v/, /s/, /3/, the cluster /gz/ and /'{/. Finally, the paper attempts to provide some suggestions and methods that could help students, teachers and learners of English as a second language improve their pronunciation.