IT Staff’s Ability Identifying Stress Patterns of English Words and Listening Comprehension Ability

Nuansri, Piyawan; Nakhornsri, Supalak; Tiwaporn , Kongsom

In English language, word stress patterns play an important role in the overall phonetic quality of speech. Word stress patterns provide useful clues for meanings and the patterns can also affect comprehension. Spoken words with correct sounds but wrong stress placements are more difficult to comprehend than words with the correct word stress but incorrect sounds. Therefore, incorrect stress may lead to misunderstanding and cause problems in listening ability. This study aims to investigate the IT staff’s ability to identify stress patterns of English words in IT documents and explore the relationship between the IT staff’s ability to identify stress patterns and their English listening comprehension ability. The sample of the study included 30 staff at an IT company. The data obtained from the word stress pattern test were analysed by mean and standard deviation to identify the most problematic patterns. The scores obtained from the word stress pattern test and the scores obtained from the listening comprehension test were analysed by Pearson’s Product Moment. The findings indicated the top five highest frequencies for word stress patterns of English words in IT documents which are correctly identified by IT staff and the problematic word stress patterns. In addition, this study illustrated the relationship between the ability to identify word stress patterns and English listening comprehension ability. The findings showed that there was a low positive correlation between ability to identify stress patterns and listening comprehension ability. Although a low correlation was reported, it was positive. This relationship can raise the staff’s awareness regarding the importance of pronunciation which is related to listening ability.

IT Staff’s Ability Identifying Stress Patterns of English Words and Listening Comprehension Ability

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