The Use of Linguistics in Teaching Pronunciation to Saudi Students

Abstract

Linguists see that the knowledge of linguistics، especially، phonology، would help teachers a lot overcome most of their students' problems in pronunciation. The present study aims at investigating this fact in one hand and the difficulties that the Saudi students have in pronunciation on the other. Data were collected by means of questionnaire. Three language institutes in Buraydah، Saudi Arabia were involved in this study. Sixty-seven students were asked through a questionnaire. The findings indicate that teachers with background knowledge of linguistics would help their students overcome most of their pronunciation problems. Along with the students' answers، the results also show that sounds، whether vowels or consonants، which do not exist in Arabic are difficult for Saudi students. Some alternative solutions from the linguistics point of view will be proposed in this paper too. Therefore، it is hoped that this study will focus on the learners’ views in one hand and the researcher's experience on the other