Teaching English Pronunciation and Listening Skills

The purpose of this research is to explore the effects of systematic teaching English pronunciation and listening in English. Focusing on phonemes and words in pairs and sentences, the sound systems of the English and Korean languages are dealt with in conjunction with the test data. This paper first discusses the systemic, or primary interference and the habitual, or secondary interference that hinder comprehension of certain English sounds. Second, the analysis of input and output test data on the contrasting vowels and consonants shows statistic significance in terms of the probability (p value) of t-test. Third, the comparative data by means of percentile of right answers on contrasting vowel and consonant sounds expound the different sound systems of the English and Korean languages. With this data, problems in pronunciation of and listening to English, and the factors that may cause these problems are analyzed so that they can be used as a guideline for a systematic approach in teaching English learners, thus leading to more satisfactory performance.