Challenges facing EFL students

Many English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners face unique challenges that come from having a different L1 (first language). This article provides an overview of the main difficulties and why they occur.

Phonemic awareness: Learning the new sounds of English

One of the first challenges for any EFL learner is becoming familiar with the new sounds of English, both in listening and pronunciation.

If learners can discriminate (tell the difference) between two sounds that do not exist in their L1, they are more likely to self-correct and imitate these sounds accurately. This skill is known as phonemic awareness — the ability to hear and distinguish individual sounds.

Listening to plenty of English before speaking helps the brain become familiar with new sounds. This reduces the chance of developing poor pronunciation habits early on.

Grapheme-phoneme correspondence: Learning to read in English

Reading in English involves more than understanding the meaning of words. Learners must first develop the ability to look at a written word and attempt to pronounce it.

A phonetic language is one where the spelling of words closely matches the pronunciation. Sadly, English is not a phonetic language. For example, cough, thorough and through end with the same spelling pattern but are pronounced very differently.

However, a large proportion of words follow predictable patterns.

A grapheme is one or more letters that represent a sound. The ability to remember the sounds that each grapheme makes is called grapheme-phoneme correspondence (GPC).

Children learning to read English are taught GPC to decode the sounds of a word and then blend them together.

A common misunderstanding among EFL teachers is that once you learn the alphabet, you can now read any word.

This is not true, because although the name of the letter might include the sound, this does not tell you how the sound is produced.

And of course, learning the names of the alphabet does not teach you the sounds of graphemes with more than one letter, for instance: ch, sh, ee, ow, etc.

There are many words in English that are not phonetic. Their pronunciation must be memorised through sight recognition — remembering the pronuciation automatically instead of using the GPC process.

Without phonics, EFL learners rely solely on sight recognition. This makes reading slow and prevents them from developing intuition for pronouncing unfamiliar words. Phonics is especially important when the learner’s L1 uses a different script or alphabet.

Vowel reduction and coarticulation

Once learners understand the basic sound system of English, they encounter more advanced pronunciation features.

Vowel reduction happens when vowels in unstressed syllables change to weaker, shorter sounds. English commonly uses two reduced vowels: /ə/ (schwa) and /ɐ/.

These symbols belong to the IPA which you can read more about here.

These vowels require very little mouth movement, which makes them efficient to pronounce quickly. However, this is challenging for learners whose L1 do not have vowel reduction. When learning a new word, all syllables are often stressed for clarity. But during speech, they change.

Coarticulation refers to how speech sounds influence each other. Sounds at the beginning or end of words may change depending on the next or previous sound.

This happens because the tongue anticipates the next sound, allowing speech to be faster and more efficient.

Although coarticulation improves fluidity, it makes spoken English harder to recognise, especially since learners usually learn words spoken in isolation.

The best way to learn coarticulation is through consistent listening practice.

Phonotactics: What sound combinations are allowed?

Phonotactics are the rules within a language that determine which sounds can appear together and where they can occur in a word.

For our L1, we learn these rules implicitly. Each language has its own phonotactics, which can affect our intuition about how words are pronounced when learning a new language.

Examples in English

• English words can end with the nasal /ŋ/, such as in sing. But no English word starts with this consonant. A common Vietnamese surname is Nguyen pronounced /ŋwɪn/.

• The consonant cluster /gd/ does not exist in English, so native speakers insert a schwa when pronouncing foreign names such as the Polish city Gdańsk /ɡəˈdænsk/.

Learners may unintentionally apply the phonotactic rules of their L1 to English. The EFL learner may not be aware, but it is noticeable to native speakers.

Watch this example of a Chinese boy trying to pronounce o'clock.

The boy is learning the word o'clock /əˈklɒk/, but pronounces it as /ə'kə.lɒ.kə/.

In Mandarin, initial consonant clusters generally do not exist. The boy tries to compensate for this by splitting the /kl/ into two separate syllables, with an added schwa in the first.

Mandarin also does not allow words to end in stops (/k/, /g/, /t/, etc) which is why the boy keeps adding an extra vowel after the final /k/.

Rhythm in English: stress-timed vs. syllable-timed

English is a stress-timed language, meaning the time between stressed syllables is roughly equal.

Stressed syllables are determined by content words which are nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs.

Function words — prepositions, articles, and conjunctions — are usually unstressed and pronounced more quickly to fit in between content words.

In contrast, syllable-timed languages (such as Spanish or Mandarin) have an equal duration between each syllable.

Although it seems like a small feature of the language, the incorrect rhythm can harm intelligibility of speech. Plenty of listening practice and imitating each sentence can help you adjust to the new rhythm.

Intonation: How we convey meaning with pitch

Intonation refers to how the pitch of the voice rises and falls across an entire sentence. It plays an important role in expressing meaning, emotion, and grammatical structure.

Intonation matters because it helps the speaker convey:

• If they are asking a question or making a statement
• If their sentence is complete or incomplete
• Politeness when making requests
• Emotion and emphasis

EFL learners may transfer the intonation patterns of their L1 directly to English.

Although they may use the correct words, wrong intonation can cause confusion about intent.