Pronunciation Difficulties Among Junior High School Students in Cilegon: A Descriptive Study of English Phoneme Production
Keywords:
English pronunciation; phonological interference; junior high school students; error analysis; CilegonAbstract
This study describes the English pronunciation difficulties experienced by Junior High School (SMP) students in Cilegon City and the factors underlying them. The issue is significant because most students in this region carry a first-language phonological system shaped by the Banten dialect of Sundanese and by Indonesian, both of which differ considerably from English. A qualitative descriptive design was employed, with data gathered through a reading-aloud test, classroom observation, and semi-structured interviews involving eighth-grade students and English teachers from two state junior high schools. Data were analyzed using an error-analysis framework, comparing students’ pronunciation with a standard phonemic reference. The findings show that the most frequent errors occur in consonants absent from the Sundanese-Indonesian sound system (such as /θ/, /ð/, /v/, /ʒ/), reduction of final consonant clusters, diphthong simplification, and a stress pattern influenced by the learners’ native speech rhythm. The main contributing factors include first-language phonological transfer, spelling-based mispronunciation, and limited explicit pronunciation instruction in the classroom.
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