3.3.1. The responses to the questionnaire
(i) Difficulties experienced by learners
a. Stress/rhythm/intonation: These were all mentioned as major areas of
difficulty. Tone patterns, vowel reduction, use of `marked' utterance-stress
to foreground sign cant information, word-stress, unstressed syllables,
weak forms (i.e. unstressed whole words), and thus the overall rhythm of connected speech, were highlighted as problem areas. This is particularly interesting, as many pronunciation materials have tended to focus primarily on segmental features, whereas all of the above are either in themselves suprasegmental features, or are directly related to suprasegmental phenomena. It raises the question of whether these features cause difficulty because they are inherently difficult to teach or learn, or whether they are areas of difficulty because relatively few published materials offer activities to practice these aspects.
b. Perceiving and producing problematic sounds: Listening was mentioned by
several respondents as a difficulty: the learners' difficulty in perceiving sounds which do not exist in their MT, and their confusion of similar sounds.
Linked to this was learners' difficulty in producing unfamiliar sounds.
c. Correspondence between pronunciation and written forms: One respondent commented that getting learners to rationalize the differences between
a stream of speech and the printed word was a major difficulty.