English Pronunciation Instruction in a Mixed Polish-Ukrainian Classroom: The Case of the Voiceless Interdental Fricative /Θ/

The article examines a puzzling pattern observed in English pronunciation instruction in mixed Polish-Ukrainian classrooms, whereby English voiceless interdental fricative /θ/ tends to be substituted with the labio-dental fricative /f/ by Polish learners and with the dental fricative /s/ by Ukrainian learners, even though both languages contain /f/ and /s/. The paper reports on the results of an identification task in which Polish and Ukrainian participants listened to a set of monosyllabic English-sounding nonce words containing /f/, /θ/ or /s/ and were asked to identify the consonant on the /f-θ-s/ continuum. The results demonstrate a significantly higher rate of /θ-s/ confusion for Ukrainian than for Polish subjects, which provides evidence for the perceptual motivation behind the divergent patterns of pronunciation errors found among Polish and Ukrainian learners. The author argues that the findings of the study necessitate a rethinking of the methodological approach to English pronunciation instruction in mixed Polish-Ukrainian classrooms in order to adjust the teaching methods, techniques and materials to learners’ L1 background.