The effect of using pronunciation games as a reinforcement in teaching English sound system on the sound discrimination proficiency of the first year students of SMU

Based on the 1994 English Curriculum for SMU, language components (grammar, vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation) should also be given attention in class although they are only as a support to the language skills in order to reach a successful language learning. So, it can be said that pronunciation also has an important role in class. This is due to the fact that having a comfortably intelligible pronunciation is a great contributor to a student's proficiency in English. However, in fact, the writer fins out that most SMU students still have poor pronunciation since there is no techniques used by teachers in class to teach pronunciation in an easy and interesting way. Therefore, the students still cannot have a comfortably intelligible pronunciation because they never get an ear training (pronunciation teaching) to distinguish the English sound system which is the first step to have a comfortably intelligible pronunciation. In line with the fact, the writer would like to suggest the use of pronunciation games as a reinforcement in teaching English sound system. Furthermore, she conducts a study in order to obtain statistically proved data which will provide a point of consideration whether the suggested pronunciation games can really make the students to be able to distinguish the English sound system. The statement of the problem put forth in this study is : "Do the students who get pronunciation games as a means of reinforcement in teaching English sound system get better (higher) scores in their sound discrimination proficiency than those who do not get pronunciation games as a means of reinforcement in teaching English sound system ?". The suggestion of using games (pronunciation games) as a means of reinforcement towards the teaching of English sound system is based on Kusumawidjaja's (1978 : 15) opinion. She says that games as a reinforcement in learning may be used to reinforce sound (English sound). This argument leads the writer to the idea that actually pronunciation games is good to be applied to reinforce the students in training their ears so that the students can distinguish the English sound system. Through careful selection and preparation, the pronunciation games can be considered as a good means of improving the students' ability in distinguishing the English sound system. The use of games may also be a wonderful way in breaking the routine classroom drills; in this case the drills in English sound system (Dobson, 1970 : 9, as quoted by Tanone, 1996 : 19). In order to get the relevant data for supporting this study, the writer conducts an experimental research. The writer takes the first year students of SMU Kristen Petra 3 Surabaya of the school year 1998 - 1999, as the population of the study. While for the sample, the writer takes two classes as the experimental and control groups. The drills are given firstly to both groups with the same teaching procedures and materials. Then, the treatments (pronunciation games) are given four times only to the experimental group while the control group do a self - working instead of playing the pronunciation games. In addition, to find out the effect of using pronunciation games on the students' ability in distinguishing English sound system, the writer uses a set of pronunciation test i.e. in the form of listening which consists of fifty items. This test is administered once to each group as the post- test. The scores obtained by the sample students in the post - test are compared and then analyzed using the t - test. The results show that the students in the experimental group has better (higher) scores than those obtain by the students in the control group. In other words, the teaching of English sound system by using pronunciation games gives better effect on the students' ability in distinguishing the English sound system. In short, the finding of this study leads to the conclusion that the pronunciation games can be applied as a means of teaching English sound system to the SMU students. However, the writer hopes that this study can give a contribution to the English Language Teaching especially in teaching English sound system in an easy and interesting way. Moreover, the writer also realizes that this study is far from being perfect. Therefore, she expects further research of this study conducted by other people using a better research design (non - participant experimenter), with more treatments, a wider selection of drill materials and pronunciation games, and a wider subject for achieving more complete and valid results