A COMPARATIVE INVESTIGATION OF THE ARTICULATION OF ENGLISH FRICATIVES BY TEACHERS AND STUDENTS: A STUDY ON SELECTED SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN KADUNA METROPOLIS

A COMPARATIVE INVESTIGATION OF THE ARTICULATION OF ENGLISH FRICATIVES BY TEACHERS AND STUDENTS: A STUDY ON SELECTED SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN KADUNA METROPOLIS

Abstract:

 English language pronunciations in ESL are a problem to both the teachers and the students. The study made a comparative investigation of the English fricatives by teachers and students of Senior Secondary School in Kaduna metropolis. Some of the English fricatives do not exist in the first language of the teachers and students, and a researcher being a teacher noticed a great variance in the articulations of the English phonemes by teachers and students in their spoken English. The various English fricatives (labio-dental, dental, and alveolar, palatal alveolar and glottal) were looked into, to investigate the difference in the teacher’s articulation of the nine fricative phonemes. A test was designed, of individual words, ten (10) sentences and a reading passage with fricatives in the initial, medial and final position to assess their articulations in the various environments. Fifty (50) students and twenty (20) teachers were sampled and each was presented with the task of articulating ninety (90) fricatives in different positions of the words.

 Descriptive analysis and comparison of two population proportions were used. The findings show that the wrong articulations of the fricatives by teachers and students are often the replacement of the voiceless with the voiced phonemes of the same fricative. The voiced dental fricative / ð / is often replaced by the voiceless alveolar plosive /t/, the voiceless palatal alveolar fricative is replaced by voiceless palatal alveolar affricative /t/ and voiced alveolar fricative /􀀀/. The wrong articulations of the fricatives by the teachers and students were the same except the students have a greater percentage of wrong articulations. Finally, learning of oral English should be made compulsory in all the teachers training programmes and pronunciation should be given emphasis in the teaching and learning of English at all levels of education.