Error Analysis Of Efl Students’ Pronunciation Of The Letter “o”

Résumé: Pronunciation accuracy is a problem faced by most of the students in their learning of foreign languages. The aim of this study is twofold. First, it aims at identifying, analyzing and describing the errors that EFL students at the department of English (Larbi Ben M'hidi University) make when pronouncing the English letter "O" in context. Second, it aims to compare the performance, and hence the rate of errors of first and third year students when pronouncing the letter in question. Our ultimate goal is to raise teachers' awareness of the errors made by EFL learners when pronouncing this letter, so that they consider remediating them and lay more focus and allocate more time to pronunciation teaching. In this study, it is hypothesized that there is a clear deficit in the pronunciation of both first and third year students of the letter "O". It is also hypothesized that there is a difference between first and third year students in pronouncing this letter, third year being better in their performance. Through error analysis, a comparative and descriptive method is used as a way to figure out any difference between first and third year students' pronunciations of the letter in question. The fieldwork is conducted following a descriptive comparative method with the use of a voice recording technique to collect oral data. The study confirmed that there is a lack of mastery in the pronunciation of the letter "O" in both groups, mainly due to interference and overgeneralization. The findings of this research also confirmed that there is a significant difference between the two levels involved in this study in the pronunciation of the targeted letter; third year students performed better than first year students.

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