Tegalnese accent and English consonant sounds: paraphrased exploration and understanding of interference

The purpose of this research is to analyze Tegalnese accent interference in students’ pronouncing English consonant sounds, to determine the most difficult English consonant sounds for Tegalnese students to pronounce, and to identify the factors that caused strong accent in students’ pronouncing English consonant sounds. Qualitative descriptive method was used by the researchers. The participants of this research were 20 fourth-semester students majoring in the English education program at Universitas Pancasakti Tegal in the academic year 2023/2024. The pronunciation test, questionnaire and interview were used to collect the data. The pronunciation test of 24-consonant was carried out through a record player. The questionnaire on a 12-item Likert scale is based on 3 categories. While the interview was conducted through 5 open-ended questions. The results showed that Tegalnese students of English Education encountered difficulties in pronouncing 4 consonant sounds /δ, d, t, v/. Three characteristics have been identified as limiting Tegalnese students’ capacity to learn English pronunciation: exposure, motivation, and indirect communication of a high context culture. It is challenging to exclude the Tegalnese accent of «ngapak» from the pronunciation of the English consonants, and the five consonants are interfered with the Tegalnese accent, namely the consonants; /b/, /d/, /g/, /dʒ/, and /ð/. In short, Tegalnese accent continues to hinder students’ ability to appropriately pronounce English consonants. English teachers are suggested to utilize several pedagogical strategies for overcoming interference to avoid the inaccurate pronounciation.