STUDENTS’ PRONUNCIATION IMPROVEMENT BY COMPUTER ASSISTED PRONUNCIATION TEACHING (CAPT)

Abstract

Pronunciation is one of the most important aspects of English, especially in English lessons. Innovative pronunciation instruction helps students understand and avoid conversational mistakes. Teaching pronunciation can be applied by simple methods, one of them is using Computer Assisted Pronunciation Teaching (CAPT) as the creative and innovative software. This research is focused on 1) the describing the implementation of students’ pronunciation by Computer Assisted Pronunciation (CAPT), 2) identifying whether Computer Assisted Pronunciation (CAPT) improve student’s pronunciation. The method applied in this research is descriptive qualitative in nature and the data are from the English students in the Buleleng Regency. The subjects of this research are 40 English students in the Buleleng Regency. The students received an eight-week pronunciation instruction, in which the students were presented model utterances and corresponding pitch contours of target word and then practiced pronunciation of target words with computer assisted pronunciation software. The results of the research showed that the students had a significant level of progress effectively and the exercises of the software were helpful for them. The goal is to help students manage their own good pronunciation. This should be trained and practiced not only in the classroom, but also in everyday life to avoid misunderstandings when they speak with either natives or others.