DIPHTHONGS: PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS FOR NON-NATIVE SPEAKERS OF SAURASHTRA REGION

Abstract

Across the globe, there are lots of people who speak English as it is regarded as the language for International communication. English language education is to provide learners with the capabilities to understand the language and the ability to both write and speak it. If learners are not able to speak English, this aim has not been fully achieved. Thus, it is necessary to study this issue in order to discover if people indeed have problems with speaking, and if they do what kind of problems and why. Of course, not all learners struggle with speaking. As English is the medium of instruction and reception of information; Saurashtra regions students find difficulty to pronounce the diphthong sounds. Not only with diphthong sounds; but also many students mispronounced the word with pure vowels. This paper primarily focuses on the problems of learners to produce the diphthong sounds. Students studying in Rajkot region have varied dialects. With this variety they pronounce the words as they have heard since school days. Based on the findings, this paper concluded that factors such as Interference, age, environment and the differences in the sound system in the two languages, inconsistency of English sounds and spelling militate against the students of Saurashtra Region and not in competence in pronunciation.