The Impact of Phonological Interefence in Language Teaching
Misurata University, Libya
ABSTRACT
English language is one of the most important languages because it is spoken by millions of people all over the world. Most learners desire to speak the language fluently and correctly. This paper is an attempt to define the problem of the phonological interference that might face learners of English with their first language and to find solutions to avoid such interference. The hypothesis of the study is based on the assumption that learners of English interfere their sounds of their native language with the target language because these sounds might be absent in their L1. For example, they might pronounce /b/ instead of /p/. This might have a negative effect on their communication. There are many items of phonological interference. This paper is limited only to the sound pattern interference because many learners tend to have difficulties with English sounds and they are influenced by L1 sounds. So, the researcher choose only this topic to be discussed in this study. The study was conducted in the English Department, Faculty of Arts, Misurata University. The participants of this study were the second semester students. The sample of the study contained two parts: The first part was fifteen students (3 males and 12 females) randomly selected during their study in their classes for the observation. The second part was twenty students (7 males and 13 females) who were also randomly selected from the second semester to do the test. According to the results that are obtained from the study, some recommendations are given.
KEYWORDS
Phonological interference, Pronunciation, Sounds Vowels