The spread of English in the world has resulted in a new demographic

distribution of the language as well of its growth in terms of new uses and users.
One consequence of this is that nearly a quarter of the world’s population or
between 1.2 and 1.5 billion people have some level of fluency in English, and this
figure is growing steadily (Crystal, 2003). Consequently, it can be seen throughout
the globe that non-native speakers of English now outnumber native speakers.
However, the qualities of English these non-native speakers have are still
questionable, and the most common problem about their proficiency is on
pronunciation. Pronunciation problem that is basically caused by the divergences in
the phonology of the non-native speakers‟ (NNS) original or native language can be
further divided into a few respective areas.

The very first highlighted problem area is intonation. The lacking of good
intonation skills among non-native speakers can cause an equally devastating effect
on the communication and thus can make conversation uncomfortable and
unpleasant for the listeners. Intonation passes on linguistic information as well as
playing a key role in regulating a conversation. Also, intonation is crucial since it
acts as reflecting factors such as physical state, age, gender, psychological state
and sociolinguistic membership of an English speaker (Dalton and Seidlhofer,
1994). Often the use of inappropriate intonation among non-native speakers (NNS)
may give rise to different kind of misunderstandings. For example, the relatively flat
and low intonation of German learners of English may make them sound “bleak,
dogmatic or pedantic”, and as a result, listeners may consider them
uncompromising and self-opinionated (Trim, 1988). This example illustrates that a
pronunciation problem based on intonation may lead to ill-founded stereotypes to a
particular national or linguistic groups.

To overcome intonation problem among non-native speakers, they need have

knowledge about the paralinguistic vocal features of English intonation. These vocal
features which comprises of pitch, loudness, resonance, quality and flexibility need
to be understood. With that, a complete intonation skill can be understood by the
speakers. At the same time, NNS have to listen to as much spoken English as
possible from audio visual learning aids or from the native speakers, and always be
aware of where the voice rises and falls. It is vital for speakers to convey the
appropriate attitude and feelings while speaking as this plays crucial part in having a
good English intonation. For example, when delivering a public speaking about the
awareness of nature in front of audience, the speaker needs to speak loudly in a
convincing and passionate tone so that the messages can be effectively conveyed.

Non-native speakers often have pronunciation problem in the area of stress.

In English phonology, stress is extremely important as it carries a great deal of
information. Stress exists both in word and sentence levels, and it reflects the focus
of message in speaking as well as other information about the speaker’s intention.
Non-native speakers most commonly commit error in putting the emphasis on the
wrong syllables or on the wrong words. In words of more than one syllable, one
syllable will be more heavily stressed than the others, so that those sounds jump out
to the listener. For example, in the word “biology‟ stress is supposedly to be put on
“ol” and not on “bi” because the syllable that is stressed is said to carry the primary
stress. This condition becomes a problem as when the word stress pattern is
changed, many native English speakers will not able to comprehend what is being
said and it leads disruption in communication and delivery of messages.

There are many ways on how problem in word and sentence stress can be
overcome. The most efficient way is to always refer to dictionary as this is the best
way to know where the stress falls on long words. Every word in the dictionary is
completely equipped with their phonetic symbols. Continuous practice by repeating
the words using its respective stress can be helpful as it helps speakers to be
familiar with the correct pronunciation of every word. Indeed, flipping the thick
dictionary and taking it everywhere as our “best friend‟ can be a bit tedious, but
aren’t practice makes perfect? In the fast-forward technology era today, electronic
dictionary comes handy and even equipped with the audio pronunciation. Therefore,
the problem with stress can be handled easier if the technology is used wisely.

Rhythm is another problem area that arises among non-native speakers.

Observation to NNS of English over a number of years concludes that perhaps the
most widely encountered difficulty among foreign speakers of English is rhythm.
Speech rhythm in English is a way of describing the regularity of certain language
elements in speech that are perceptually similar such as the sequences of stressed
syllables (Carr, 2008). Abercrombie (1967) argues that linguistic rhythm is based on
the isochrony of either syllables, or stress intervals, for all human language.

Languages around the world have been suggested to be grouped into three
categories based on rhythm characteristics, including stress-timed (English, German
and Russian), syllable-timed (Italian, French and Spanish) and mora-timed
(Japanese). Hereby, the non-native speakers from syllable-timed and mora-timed
languages are most likely to face problem with English rhythm.

For instance, Vietnamese is described as a syllable-timed language and this

nature means that native Vietnamese speakers can be expected to have difficulty
acquiring appropriate English rhythm patterns (Nguyen, 1970). English and
Vietnamese are different in their prosodic system, with the fact that Vietnamese, as
atonal language, has no system of word stress. As an example, “We have ham for
dinner” has no unstressed syllable between the target stressed syllables “have” and
“ham”; the inter stress interval is one. On the other hand, “We are having some ham
for dinner” has two unstressed syllables between the target stresses, with an inter
stress interval of three. Native Vietnamese speakers are expected to show different
speech rhythm in the shortening of the initial stressed vowel and reduction, or
compression, of unstressed syllables with increasing numbers of unstressed syllable
in the inter stress interval.

As it is quite difficult for non-native speakers to completely grab the correct

pronunciation of English, some non-native countries have taken the initiative to
import English teachers from native countries to teach English not only to the
students but also to the local teachers. The action taken by countries such as
Japan, Sri Lanka and Malaysia is proven helpful in a way that the ideal role model of
English speakers. These English native teachers will provide a nature of correct
English speaking thus helping the NNS to get used to the right pronunciation in term
of rhythm, stress and others. The power of originality carried by the native English
teachers is important to get rid of false security among NNS that they sometimes do
not realise mistakes they make in speaking English.

People throughout the world have realised the importance of English for their
bright future and self-development. Therefore, to be competent and proficient
English speakers, NNS need to make some efforts in overcoming the problems in
speaking especially pronunciation. In the rapidly growth ICT era today, information
and knowledge spread really fast and they can be gained easily within our fingertips.

Abercombie, D. (1967). Elements of General Phonetics. Chicago: Aldine.

Carr, P. (2008). A Glossary of Phonology. Edinburg: Edinburg University Press.

Crystal, D. (2003). English As A Global Language. 2nd Ed. Cambridge:

CambridgeUniversity Press.
Dalton, C. & Seidlhofer, B. (1994). Pronunciation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Nguyen, D. L. (1970). A contrastive phonological analysis of English and

Vietnamese.Pacific Linguistics Series, no. 8. Canberra: Australian National
University.

Trim, J. L. M. (1988). Some contrastive intonated features of British English and

German. In J. Klegaf and D. Nehls (eds.)Essays on the English language and
applied linguistics on the occasion of Gerhard Nickel‟s 60th Birthday.
Heidelberg:Julius Groos, 235-49.