Philippine E-Journals

Articulatory Phonetic Drills: Tools in Enhancing the Pronunciation among High School Students

Aida M. Udto

 

Abstract:

This study focused on vowels particularly the front vowel, central vowel, back vowels and the diphthongs. The study aimed to assess the phonetic capacities of the students leading to the creation of an aritculatory phonetic drill on vowels and diphthongs. It sought to help the Grade 8 students, as respondents of this study to improve their oral communication and reading comprehension skills to become competitive learners. Findings revealed that the respondents should have enough speech oral drills on English language for them to be able to know the distinction of the sounds of both languages to avoid inaccuracy. Aside from this, the language teachers should allocate time to teach pronunciation lessons to help students be more exposed to the language and diagnose the students’ oral language proficiency level to know which aspects of speech sounds that the students need to improve. The study recommends among others, that the school head also has a role where he/she can implement and organize pronunciation skills programs to enhance students’ oral proficiency as this will also lead to improved reading ability and comprehension among students. Another aid that a school can do is to let the students be exposed to a speech laboratory since it is where the students can model proper pronunciation of sounds. In case of unavailability of a speech laboratory, the teachers may provide audio lessons on the Standard English pronunciation. When these things are done, the problem that most of the language teachers’ encounter can be aided leading to the total development and improvement of each and individual learner.