Analyzing the Difficulties Encountered by Sudanese Arabic Native Speakers in Pronouncing English Consonant Clusters: A Case Study of English Teaching Staff at Some Sudanese Universities

Abstract

This study aimed at investigating the difficulty of pronouncing English consonant clusters encountered by universities teaching staff of English who are Sudanese native speakers of Arabic (SNSA). The researcher assumed that there are difficulties of pronouncing English clusters among SNSA learners of EFL. The study followed descriptive analytical method in order to elaborate and analyze the cause of the problem via statistical analysis of the gathered data. To obtain the necessary data for the study, the researchers designed a diagnostic test consisting of some phrases / sentences that confined to the research questions and hypotheses, to be audio-recorded. Accordingly after the necessary data were collected, the data were statistically calculated and computed by means of percentage. Based on the analysis and the results obtained, the study reveals that there is difficulty among SNSA, learners of English as foreign language in pronouncing English consonant clusters especially at initial and medial ones.