Developing Pronunciation Teaching Materials for the Practice of Diphthongs in North American English

Abstract

The issue of vowel length has always been a cause of confusion for non-native learners of English. Diphthongs are accepted as long vowels as well. In terms of length, diphthongs resemble long vowels in many features just because both of them are vowel sounds, yet there are certain audibly noticeable differences between them. For example, in most diphthongs, the first vowel is much longer and stronger than the second one because it bears the primary stress phoneme in many respects. The process of pronunciation by moving from one vowel sound to another is called gliding, and hence another name for diphthong is the term gliding vowel. The fact of the matter is that all diphthongs are long vowels, but not all long vowels are diphthongs. It is at this junction that a great majority of non-native English majors get confused: diphthongs are vowels that change throughout their pronunciation because each of them starts as one vowel and end as another. The primary aim of this study is to analyze the diphthongs in broad transcriptions in the phonemic structure of English vocabulary items. Additionally, some new and special production and recognition exercise types on English diphthongs are designed in this study so as to promote their awareness by Turkish English learners of English. It is hoped that these exercise types may help them master these tricky sounds quickly in terms of articulation, pronunciation, and spelling skills.