Arab World English Journal (January 2016) Theses / Dissertations (ID 153)
Name of researcher : Shrowg Mohammad Al-Homaidhi
Title of the thesis/dissertation : An Investigation into the Perception and Production of English Vowels by Saudi Female EFL Students from COLT at IMSIU.
Subject/major: Linguistics
University name, department name : Al-Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University
College of Languages and Translation , Department of English Language and Literature
Degree : Master of Arts in Linguistics
Year of award: 2015
Name of your supervisor: Dr. Mohammad S. Al-Alam
Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate the perception and production of English vowels by Saudi female EFL students majoring in English at Al-Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University. The data was collected from 39 students forming two groups. The first group included 20 students from levels 1 and 2, and the other group included 19 students from levels 6 and 7. This study started by obtaining students’ information about their experience with English, testing their ability to perceive and pronounce English vowels. The perception test included nineteen minimal pairs with differences in the vowels only: for instance, bet versus bit. The items of the production test included the twenty vowels of English used in familiar words. The processing of the results was executed on SPSS to obtain the percentage of correct and incorrect responses from both groups in the perception and production tests. To find the correlation between production and perception, an independent-samples t-test was performed to find out if the difference between the two groups was significant or not. A paired-samples t-test was performed for each group to find if the difference between the perception and production of vowels was significant or not. The findings of the study showed that there were no significant differences at level (p > 0.05) between the two groups, on the one hand, and between production and perception of each group, on the other hand. In other words, the results showed that the perception was correlated with production. This correlation means that good pronunciation is usually preceded by good perception. The researcher made some recommendations and gave some pedagogical suggestions regarding the enhancement of the perception and production of English vowels.
Keywords: English vowels, L1 interference, Monosyllabic words, Perception , Production
Note: Citing this thesis, please use :
Al-Homaidhi, Shrowg Mohammad. (2015). An Investigation into the Perception and Production of English Vowels by Saudi Female EFL Students from COLT at IMSIU( Master’s Thesis).
Retrieved from( Arab World English Journal Database. (ID Number: 153, January 2016).
http://www.awej.org/images/Theseanddissertation/ShrowgMohammadAl-Homaidhi/shrowgalhomaidhi.pdf