The Cruciality of Understanding and Mastering English Phonotactics of Syllable Initial and Final Consonant Clusters for Sudanese EFL Undergraduates

Abstract

This study explores the cruciality of understanding and mastering English phonotactics and phonological errors in pronouncing English words involving ICCs and FCCs and its causes for Sudanese EFL undergraduates. It is also carried out to investigate the effectiveness of methods, materials and activities used for teaching English phonotactics. The researcher adopts a mixed method to analyse the data obtained by four instruments. The first one is a test composed of 50 pseudo-words involving the three elements of ICCs and FCCs; two, three and two, three, four CCs respectively. The second tool is a word-list reading test consisting of 24 words with the same previously mentioned elements of CCs. The third one is a semi-structured interview with 6 open-ended and extended questions. The last instrument is an observation with 16 checklist items purposefully designed by taking into consideration the different variables and theoretical framework of this study. The participants of this study are EFL university instructors and students. The first instrument is undertaken by 100 fourth year students from Al-Neelain University, SUST, Almughtaribeen University and Nahda College. 60 students from the same previously mentioned institutions undertake the second instrument. To avoid subjectivity and to analyse this test, the researcher utilises a computer software program ‘Praat’ to analyse the participants’ speech. The researcher attends an hour-and-a-half lecture on phonotactics and CCs at Al-Neelain University and Nahda College with third year students to conduct the observation. The last group of participants is eight experienced EFL instructors on teaching phonology who participate in the interview from Al-Neelain University, International University of Africa, Almughtaribeen University and Nahda College. The findings reveal that Sudanese EFL undergraduates face magnitude difficulties in understanding and mastering English phonotactics of words involving ICCs and FCCs and mispronounce most of them particularly three ICCs and four FCCs. It also shows that the major causes of these mispronunciations are unrequired pause between consonant segments in one syllable, insertion of an intrusive vowel to break the string of CCs particularly in ICCs more than FCCs, deletion of consonant segments in FCCs, consonant replacement and consonant-vowel position conversion. Moreover, the findings demonstrate that teaching methods, materials and activities used in teaching the sound system of English language are not effective for improving pronunciation skills and more particularly CCs of the students and lack many principles of teaching pronunciation. Additionally, the results reveal that the participants’ failure to correctly pronounce English words is attributed to the linguistics differences between the phonotactic system of their MT language and the TL. Finally, the researcher modestly recommends that EFL students likewise instructors should be aware of the differences between their TL and MT particularly in terms of CCs. It is also highly recommended that EFL instructors should provide students with authentic audiovisual materials.