Pronunciation of Regular Past Tense Verb Endings: Knowledge and Application

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the knowledge and application of regular past tense ed verb endings, namely the correct pronunciation capabilities Japanese university students have of this inflectional morpheme. Students attending a Japanese university, studying English as a Foreign Language (EFL), were invited to participate in the study. After signing consent forms, students orally recorded their individual readings of 30 short sentences in a CALL (computer assisted language learning) classroom. Subsequently, the same past tense verbs were sorted by writing them into three phonetic columns. The sample included 41 students. Self-reported English language proficiency ranges from Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) scores were between 415-665, the average score was 511. The longest stay in an English-speaking country reported was one year. In total, across all ability groups, the students were able to pronounce the regular past tense verb endings correctly more often when reading them aloud than they could sort the same verbs correctly by writing them into the three labelled columns. The correlation coefficient between the total score for the correct pronunciation and the total score for the correct written sorting under phonetic symbols for the word have values of less than 5%. The correlation coefficients were: /d/ 0.3425, /t/ 0.3371, and /Id/0.2210. There was no link between being able to understand the correct pronunciation of each word (phonetic symbols) and being able to pronounce it correctly. That is to say, there was no connection between the two variables. Japanese university students have pronunciation challenges, including a lack of tools for -ed morpheme endings. The students had the ability to pronounce the inflectional morphemes correctly more often when reading a short five-word sentence aloud than they had the knowledge of the rule of how to form the pronunciation of the ed endings. Future research should focus on innovative ways to engage language students in activities to apply regular tense ed verb endings. A short but effective way to teach the phonetic rules is also recommended.