The Students’ Perspective on The Use of Iqra’ Method In Pronunciation and Phonetics Course

Abstract

This study aims to identify whether the students can read IPA symbol before attending Pronunciation and Phonetics course. This study adopted a mixed method approach in which the questionnaire consisting of close ended and open-ended questions was used to collect the data. The subjects in this study were 117 first semester students of University of Muhammadiyah Surakarta in the academic year in 2019. The analysis consisted of diagram analysis and data analysis with following the stages; by understanding the data; selecting themes; clarifying data and drawing conclusions. The responses from the open-ended questionnaire showed the following results: Iqra’ method was perceived as an effective method to improve pronunciation and favored by students; there were suggestions proposed by students to improve Iqra’ method and there were few students still having difficulties in understanding English pronunciation.