The mispronunciation of English plosives by Jordanian EFL learners

Abstract EN

Jordanian students learning English experience some difficulties with pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary.

In pronunciation, more specifically, they appear to have problems pronouncing consonant sounds that are nonexistant in the Arabic sound inventory, such as /p/.

There is a tendency among these speakers to replace the nonexistant sounds by phonetically similar sounds from their native inventory.

In the same line of thought, this study aims at identifying the errors made by Jordanians (students of English) at Yarmouk University, namely the mispronunciation of /p, b/, /t,d/ , /p,b/, in order to (i) identify this error (ii) determine and analyze the causes or the sources of this error, and (iii) try to find out efficient ‘Error Correction Aids’ to teach these difficult sounds to these students in particular, and to Jordanian learners of English in general.