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IMPROVING STUDENTS PRONUNCIATION THROUGH TONGUE TWISTER

TO THE EIGHT GRADERS OF SMP MUHAMMADIYAH PAGARALAM


1. Background Of Study
Nowadays, English has become one of the most important elements of
communication which cannot be separated in daily activities in the life of
globalization. When students learn an English language, they also learn the
language skills and the language components. There are many kinds of subject in
teaching and learning english, one of the basic language skill is speaking.

Speaking is an interactive process which consist of producing systematic
verbal utterances to convey meaning (Brown, 1994:48) and according to Burn &
Joyce (1997:163), an utterance seen in terms of its propositions (meanings) and
functions. Mastering the art of speaking is the single most important aspect of
learning a second language and success is measured in terms of the ability to carry
out a conversation in the language. The interaction in communication will not run
smoothly if the speaker doesnt have the speaking ability. pronunciation item
tend to incorporate context and meaning. On speaking test, Pronunciation
becomes important when it interferes with communication (Harold 1983:58). In
brief, Speaking ability is described as the ability to express oneself in life
situation, or the ability to report acts or situation in precise words, or the ability to
converse, or to express a sequence of ideas fluently (Virginia Tech, 2000:1). In
speaking, we must give attention to how the way we speech the word.

In speaking, there are four language elements namely: Structure, Vocabulary,
Pronunciation and Spelling. Those elements are through in order to develop the
student skill in the language learning especially in speaking. One of those
language components that is important and should be mastered by the students is
pronunciation. Mispronounced in English word can create misunderstanding and
miscommunication. However, teaching pronunciation is very difficult because not
any people can pronounce exactly alike. It does not matter how good a learners
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vocabulary or grammar is if no one can understand them when they speak.
(Lynda yates & Beth Zielinski, 2009:11)

The specific characteristic of English learners who categorized as good and
successful oral skill developer is those good pronunciation accent. A good
pronunciation accent suggested is a accent of pronunciation that sound like native
speakers. Therefore, it is necessary for english learners to have a good
pronunciation to support them to be a good speakers. Teacher of English as a
foreign language should be sensitive in viewing and overcoming such problems
above.

Pronunciation is an oral utterance or speaking, pronouncing of a word
especially with reference to a standard for the purpose of communicating
meaningfully. It is important for ESL teachers to assist their students with
pronunciation practice, but books can often difficult to decipher and cause
confusion (Lauren Osowski, 2012:4).

Realizing this problem, the students need to focus in one speaking
component. In this case, pronunciation is chosen as one phenomenon in English.

One of the media that the researcher is going to use is tongue twister. Tongue
twister is a phrase or sentence which is difficult to articulate without hesitation.
Lauren Osowski (2012:4) who explains that tongue twister is fun way to teach
pronunciation they can be very challenging as well as motivating to young
children in EFL classroom. The aims of this study are to describe the
implementation of tongue twisters for the teaching of pronunciation for the eighth
graders and to describe the students responses toward implementation of tongue
twisters for the teaching of pronunciation for the eighth graders. The researcher
conducts this study in order to give some inputs to the teacher and students in the
process of the teaching of pronunciation through tongue twister.

Based on the explanation above the researcher would like to take a class
action research under the title of Improving the Students Pronunciation
Through Tongue Twister
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2. Problem Of Study
Based on the background above, the writer formulates the research question
as follow:
1. How is the improvement of the students pronunciation of English through
tongue twister?
2. Is the use of tongue twisters strategy effective to increase the students
speaking accuracy?

3. Objective of the Study
The objective of study are as follow:
1. to find out the improvement of students pronunciation of english through
tongue twister
2. to find out whether the use of tongue twisters strategy effective to increase the
students speaking accuracy

4. Significance of the study
The writer hopes the result of this study gives advantages to increase teaching
and learning strategies in English process especially for Pronunciation
development. He hopes that using tongue twister could be applied by teacher of
English to motivated students to learn especially pronunciation to increase their
achievement in English

5. Limitation of study
This study is limited on application of tongue twister in improving the
students pronunciation, focused on the students Th Consonants.

6. Hypothesis of Study
Hypothesis is a temporary answer to the research question. According to
Sugiono (2006:69), hypothesis is the interim assumption or the interim answer of
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the formulation of research which need the data to examine the correctness of that
assumption. From this study writer proposes two hypotheses, namely:
1. Null Hypothesis (Ho). There is no significant difference to the students who
are taught pronunciation by using tongue twister for eighth graders student of
SMP Muhammadiyah Pagar Alam
2. Alternative Hypothesis (Ha). There is significant difference to the students
who are taught pronunciation by using tongue twister for eighth graders
student of SMP Muhammadiyah Pagar Alam