Teaching English Stressed Syllable Using Musical Pattern Technique

ABSTRACT:The right placement of stress on the English words is a main concern in EFL speech intelligibility training. If a word in English has more than one syllable (polysyllabic words), one of the syllables is stressed. It is very important for the EFL learners who have drastically different system in their L1 (Indonesian) put stress in the right place. If the wrong place syllable is stressed, listeners may not be able to understand what word is being said. Therefore, the present study explored the effect of musical pattern technique on the learning of English stressed syllable. Musical pattern technique is defined in the context of the study as impressionistic patterns which are acoustically similar to stressed syllable patterns. There were 50 IndonesianEFL learners at Senior High School participated in this study. The technique was used to teach stress patterns of two syllable in English words. This study was conducted in the form of experimental study with the design one group pretest posttest. After statistical calculation, and right-hand hypothesis test, the value of t-count -34.37 and t-table 1.67 with a level of error of 5%, the value t-count fell down on the Ha acceptance area (Ho was rejected). So, it could be concluded that the musical pattern technique was effective. The findings are interpreted to have professional and pedagogical competences for EFL teachers. KEYWORDS:English stressed syllable, Indonesian EFL learners, musical pattern technique