The Correlation Between Students’ Pronunciation Ability and Their Speaking Performance at The Sixth Semester of English Language Education Study Program of Uin Mataram

Abstract

One of the most important abilities in learning English is speaking, which helps students express ideas effectively in academic and daily life situations. However, many students still have difficulty with speaking, especially in the aspect of pronunciation that impacts the clarity and intelligibility of their speech. Therefore, this study was designed to find out the association between students’ pronunciation skill and students’ speaking performance of the sixth semester students of the English Language Education Study Program of UIN Mataram. This study used a quantitative correlational research approach. The research subjects were 35 students. The data were acquired using a pronunciation exam and a speaking performance test. The data acquired were analysed using descriptive analysis and were subjected to normality and Pearson product moment correlation tests using IBM SPSS Statistics. The results showed that the mean score of pronunciation ability was 74.09 and the mean score of speaking performance was 77.17. The normality test also showed that the data were normally distributed. The Pearson Product Moment association analysis indicated that there was a high positive and statistically significant association between pronunciation skill and speaking performance (r = 0.736, p = 0.000 < 0.05). These results imply that pupils who had more accurate pronunciation were likely to have superior speaking performance. Therefore, the pronunciation can be taken as the crucial aspect to improve the students’ speaking skill. The study shows that English lecturers should pay more attention to pronunciation practice in speaking training to help students improve their oral communication abilities..