EFL Thai Learners and Errors Found
in the Sounds of English
Background of the problem
Up to now, many researches on teaching English to Thai students have been done in various aspects of the language. Although English is required in the academic curriculum of the country, starting from elementary school up to undergraduate level, most students still find it difficult to master. While four basic skills are taught at the same time, the emphasis seems to be put only on grammatical structure and reading. The problems the students are facing, consequently, are speaking and listening.
As a teacher of English, I realize that the problems arise from the fact that the students are not exposed to the environment of the target language. Most English classes in Thai schools are conducted in Thai. Even in lots of universities, teachers cannot avoid using Grammar-Translation method in teaching. One reason is that they are accustomed to the same methodology through which they were taught in their own school years. The other reason is the enormous size of the classes. Let’s take a look at the case of Foundation English Courses in most Thai universities. It is almost impossible for teachers to handle more than forty-five or fifty students by using Direct Method or Communicative Approach. That is why the students have few chances to practice listening and speaking. Upon the exams, they are systematically tested, but on grammar rules and reading only. Some schools have adopted communicative English textbooks, and that provides students with more chances to study everyday English, in a form of dialogues or conversations. However, what they do is to memorize the sentence patterns and vocabulary. It is not surprising that most students can hardly speak English in spite of having studied the language for years. Mispronunciations are prevalent. And the least developed skills of listening and speaking lead to problems in practical use, and without doubt, pronunciation is included, all of which are quite important for communicative purposes.
Considering the fact mentioned, it is interesting to look at the phonological differences between English and Thai, kinds of mistakes normally found among Thai students’ pronunciation, causes of the errors, and possible solutions to the whole problem.