Helping Turkish EFL Learners with the Pronunciation of Four General British Vowels

The paper presents a contrastive analysis of Turkish and English with respect to their vowel systems and orthography. The author then focuses on effective ways to teach four General British (GB) vowels, /i : /, / ɪ /, / ʊ /, and /u : /, to twenty Turkish university students of English as a Foreign Language. The paper presents a practical approach to teaching the perception and production of the four vowels through a set of classroom activities. As practice shows, Turkish students experience difficulties in the recognition and pronunciation of the observed vowels, which can be mitigated using the described activities.


Teaching Pronunciation
Jim Scrivener suggests that although grammar is taught through language skills such as reading, writing, and speaking, there is more to language teaching than this (2011,24). He analyses a sentence such as 'Pass me the book' under five main categories: The stress is probably on book, but also possible (with different meanings) on pass or me.
The word me has a weak vowel sound. Lexical The meaning of the individual words or groups of words Although not a direct transparent answer to the request, we can still draw a meaning from this reply. The word it, referring to the book, helps us to make a connection to the request. Assuming that Mary has put it in her bag is intended as a genuine response to the request; it may suggest a reason why the book cannot be passed. In order to fully understand the meaning, we would need to know more about the situational context and more about the surrounding conversation. (Scrivener 2011, 25) As the table above suggests, language teaching starts with the study of sounds. Therefore, language teachers should start teaching language with phonology or, specifically, with pronunciation. To put it differently, pronunciation plays a crucial role in language teaching to convey the meaning besides grammar and lexis. This is mainly because successful communication requires good pronunciation. As Gerald Kelly states, "a learner who consistently mispronounces a range of phonemes can be extremely difficult for a speaker from another language community to understand" (2000,11). For example, when a learner says chip in a situation such as a market where they should have said cheap, the wrong articulation of a phoneme can lead to a misunderstanding.
Although crucial, there is a paradox in teaching pronunciation in the language classrooms. While teachers may not be interested in the subject, language learners are usually interested in improving their pronunciation skills because they are aware of the fact that pronunciation is important for them to communicate better. In order to provide the learners with pronunciation practice they need, teachers need to improve their teaching skills. As Kelly states "many experienced teachers would admit to a lack of knowledge of the theory of pronunciation and they may therefore feel the need to improve their practical skills in pronunciation teaching" (2000,13). He further argues that "teachers of pronunciation need: • a good grounding in theoretical knowledge • practical classroom skills • access to good ideas for classroom activities" (2000,13).
Language teachers should have enough technical knowledge and there should be a shift from reactive to proactive teaching of pronunciation. Instead of only responding to errors that students make in the classroom, pronunciation instruction should be carefully planned just like grammar and lexis lessons. One way to achieve this is to focus on a specific area of pronunciation and make a careful lesson plan in which "a particular feature of pronunciation is isolated and practised for its own sake, forming the main focus of a lesson period" (Kelly 2000, 14).
Another reason why teachers do not integrate pronunciation practice into their classes is that they do not have enough knowledge about pronunciation. As Scrivener contends, "pronunciation can be an overlooked area of language teaching, partly because teachers themselves may feel more uncertain about it than about grammar or lexis, worried that they do not have enough technical knowledge to help students appropriately" (2011,271). Besides, there is a misconception that in time learners can master the pronunciation by themselves and that pronunciation does not require the same attention as grammar or lexis. However, if there is a careful lesson planning, the results may be quite rewarding.
In countries like Turkey where English is learnt as a foreign language, teaching pronunciation is not easy. Listening and speaking skills are not included in the nationwide foreign language exam, YDS. Hence, pronunciation is neglected in favour of grammar and vocabulary, and learners are not given the opportunity to test their proficiency in listening and speaking.

Turkish and General British Vowel Systems
As Cruttenden states, when compared to other languages, including Greek, Hindi, Japanese, and Spanish, all of which have just five vowels, English is more problematic because "[i]n whatever way the vowels of English are counted (i.e. even counting some or all of the diphthongs as sequences of short vowel plus semivowel (= consonant)), the English system is one of the less common and more complex types" (2014, 109). Not surprisingly, most foreign learners have difficulty in attaining the vowel system of English, especially with /i: i/, /e a ʌ/, /ɒ a: ɔ:/, /u: ʊ/. Turkish learners also have difficulty with the production of these vowels because of the difference between Turkish and English vowel systems.
In their analysis of the Turkish language system, Aslı Göksel and Celia Kerslake argue that "Turkish has a very symmetrical vocalic system, consisting of the eight vowels /a/, /e/, ('ı'), /i/, /o/, /oe/ ('ö'), /u/, /y/ ('ü') […]. These vowels differ from each other in terms of the height of the tongue, the roundedness of the lips and the frontness of the tongue", as can be seen in Table 2 below (2005,9).  (Göksel and Kerslake 2005, 9) In contrast to Turkish, English has forty-four phonemes consisting of twenty vowels and twenty-four consonants, which are further divided into two categories as voiced and voiceless (Cruttenden 2014). Vowel sounds are all voiced, and they are either single vowels -twelve monophthongs -or a combination of two vowels -eight diphthongs. The twelve monophthongs are outlined in Table 3 below. In terms of their vowel systems, Turkish and English differ substantially. Twentynine phonemes in Turkish are represented by twenty-nine letters, while forty-four English phonemes are represented by only twenty-six letters. As Khalilzadeh states, "[e]very Turkish vowel has only one pronunciation, e.g. the vowel /u/ is pronounced with the features: (+high, + round, +back), none of the features changes because of the phonetic environment", while in English "the same vowel may sound differently in different words, e.g. the pronunciation of /u/ in the words: bus, surrender, busy, occur, pure" (2014, 12). Therefore, Turkish learners tend to pronounce English words as combinations of (Turkish) sounds represented by the letters in their spelling. From a related perspective, Kelly asserts that "the lack of a simple correspondence between the spelling system and the pronunciation system in English tends to cause problems for learners in that it can lead them to initially or repeatedly misspell words and mispronounce them" (2000,125). When considering the relationship between English and Turkish, Rogerson-Revell explains that "although Turkish uses essentially the same alphabet as English, its orthographic system, which employs to a large extent one-to-one letter-sound correspondence, can cause interference with English pronunciation" (2011,289).
This difficulty is greater for the learners of phonetic languages in which spelling and pronunciation are similar, such as Italian, Spanish and Turkish (see Marks and Bowen (2012, 33) for a list of some common sound-spelling relationships). Komar's study (2017) of Slovene also shows that orthography can influence the production of GB vowels by foreign language learners.
However, with regard to Turkish, not only the pronunciation but also the number of phonemes is different. Khalilzadeh (2014, 11) highlights this difference by saying that The main cause of pronunciation problems of Turks in English is the differences between the vowel systems of the two languages, both due to the difference in number and the way the vowels are pronounced. In Turkish, there is only one vowel type, i.e. monophthong, while there are three types of vowels in English: monophthong, diphthong and triphthong. The number of vowels (monophthongs) in Turkish is 8, while there are 12 vowels (monophthongs) in English. In English, there are long, mid and short vowels whereas all Turkish vowels are short.
Therefore, Turkish learners may have problems in pronouncing many words in English that include vowels which are non-existent in Turkish. The difference in vowel systems of Turkish and English leads to a problem in the pronunciation of four monophthongs. Lewis states that although there are some exceptions, "[a]s a rule, Turkish vowels are short; i, for example, ordinarily has the sound heard in English bit (/i/), not that heard in machine (/i:/)" (1992,5). Therefore, Turkish learners of English tend to pronounce these vowels with difficulty. For example, they may confuse sheep /ʃi:p/ and ship /ʃɪp/ or pool /pu:l/ and pull /pʊl/. Joanne Kenworthy similarly asserts that "the /ɪ/ -/i:/ contrast ('pit -Pete') is troublesome.
[Turkish] learners will use / i:/ for both vowels […]. The /ʊ/ -/u:/ ('full -fool') contrast is [also] problematic [for Turkish learners of English because they] will tend to use a vowel which is close to / uː/ for both vowels" (1987,158). However, in most cases, Turkish learners of English will pronounce long vowels /i:/ and /u:/ as /ɪ/ and /ʊ/. From a related perspective, Ian Thompson identifies two problematic vowel sounds of English for Turkish learners, i. e. /i:/ and /u:/ and makes a comparative analysis of these errors: /i:/ as in key is often pronounced like the diphthong /ıə/, or in a closed syllable as /ı/the Italian error in reverse: /kıə/ for key; kip for keep. The Turkish word giy contains a good approximation to English /i:/". [Moreover], /u:/ tends to become /ʊə/ when final and /ʊ/ in closed syllables: /dʊə/ for do; 'pullink' for both pooling and pulling. Turkish speakers are able to pronounce the sound successfully after /j/, as in few. (2001,215) In the same vein, Pamela Rogerson-Revell states that "[learners have] difficulty distinguishing tense versus lax vowels (e.g. 'bit' vs 'beat') and [there is also] /u:/ and /ʊ/ confusion" (2011,289). Such perception issues have been observed in other languages as well, and they point to the close relationship between perception and production of foreign language phonemes (e.g. Stopar 2019). Kelly highlights the pronunciation difficulties related to the above vowels which speakers of some languages, including Turkish, may face when speaking English. They are summarised in Table 4. Turkish learners of English also have difficulties with the pronunciation of borrowed words. They tend to hear and pronounce the sounds of English according to the sounds of Turkish. Wells explains that "when we encounter a foreign language, our natural tendency is to hear it in terms of the sounds of our own language. We actually perceive it rather differently from the way native speakers do" (1999,118). This is especially true for the pronunciation of borrowed or loanwords -words taken from one language and used in another. Turkish has borrowed many words from English and modified them, so they fit its own sound system. As a rule, Turkish vowels are short. The word illegal /ɪˈli:ɡəl/ is written as illegal but pronounced as /ɪllegʌl/ in Turkish. Similarly, English has borrowed the word kebap /kebʌp/ from Turkish. However, the word is written as kebab and pronounced as /kɪˈbaeb/ in English. In this context, Beel and Felder contend that "the significant number of consonants and vowels which occur in English […] do not occur in Turkish. Consequently, as English loanwords are adopted into the Turkish vocabulary, phonological adjustments must be made in order to compensate for the additional English phone[me]s that are foreign to the native speaker of Turkish" (2013, n.p.).
This paper focuses on four GB vowels that were explored in an EFL classroom setting. They are as follows: Close Front Vowel /i:/: Cruttenden explains that in articulating the long GB vowel /i:/ "the front of the tongue is raised to a height slightly below and behind the front close position; the lips are spread; the tongue is tense, with the side rims making a firm contact with the upper molars". He further states that "[/i:/] is often noticeably diphthongised, especially in final positions" (2014, 111). The /i:/ vowel is found in many words such as bead, cheese, keep, key, pea, people, piece, police, scene, sea, seat, quay. Cruttenden argues that this vowel is not difficult for foreign learners, but he suggests that they should avoid exaggeration while producing the vowel as it may sound artificial, and try not to confuse it with /ı/.
Close-mid Vowel /ɪ/: Cruttenden explains that the vowel /ɪ/ "is pronounced with a part of the tongue nearer to centre than to front raised just above the close-mid position; the lips are loosely spread; the tongue is lax (compared with the tension for /i:/), with the side rims making a light contact with the upper molars" (2014, 113). The short GB vowel /ɪ/ is used in many words such as big, busy, hit, it, minute, mountain, rhythm, sausage, sick, sieve, wishes, women. For foreign learners, Cruttenden suggests that they should be careful with the difference between /ɪ/ and /i:/.
Close-mid Vowel /ʊ/: According to Cruttenden (2014, 130) the short GB vowel /ʊ/ "is pronounced with a part of the tongue nearer to centre than to back raised just above the close-mid position; it has, therefore, a symmetrical back relationship with the front vowel /ı/; the tongue is laxly held (compared with the tenser /u:/), no firm contact being made between the tongue and the upper molars". The most common examples for this vowel are book, foot, full, good, look, pull, push, put, should, wolf, woman, would. Just as the vowels / ɪ / and /i:/ tend to be confused by some learners, so can /ʊ/ and /u:/. This paper aims to present how to teach the above GB vowels to Turkish learners by raising their awareness of the differences between Turkish and English in terms of their phonetic structures. To achieve this goal, a set of classroom activities was devised that aimed to improve the pronunciation of the four targeted GB vowels. The activities aim to address some specific problems that can be identified in Turkish language classrooms, including a lack of effective pronunciation activities, insufficient focus on the vowel systems of Turkish and English, and the influence of loanwords on foreign language pronunciation.

Students and Their Background
The activities described in the sections below were used in a class of twenty students at the Faculty of Health Sciences (Başkent University, Ankara, Turkey) with a similar background in foreign language instruction: in order to enrol in their BA programme, the students had to pass the national university entrance exam. Their ages ranged from 18 to 22; 17 were female and three were male. They were taking English classes four hours a week. They had not been familiarised with the international phonetic alphabet (IPA) and its symbols for GB phonemes before taking the course, which is representative of the inefficiency of pronunciation activities carried out in Turkish education system.

Procedures and Activities
The teacher relied on visual, kinaesthetic and auditory techniques that had the aim of raising the students' awareness of the importance of pronunciation and correcting their pronunciation of the targeted vowels.
During the recognition phase, the teacher first presented a phonemic chart. Starting from the layout of the chart, the teacher modelled the monophthongs focusing on four high vowels /i:/, /ɪ/, /ʊ/, /u:/, and asked students to listen to and distinguish between the sounds. The teacher also relied on affective characteristics such as enthusiasm, encouragement and humour. Kelly's (2000, 38) techniques were used to make the teaching of vowel sounds more memorable and enjoyable for learners.
To address the issues related to the differentiation of long and short vowels, the teacher used the similarity between the /ʊ/ and 'gorilla sound' (U-U-U-U) and the / u:/ and the 'gossip sound' in Turkish (uuuUUUuuu); see Figure 1 below.

Sound Suggestion
/i:/ -sheep A 'smiling' sound. Smile widely, make and hold the sound. Demonstrate that it is a 'long' sound. /ɪ/ -ship Make the sound, make it obviously short. If necessary, contrast it with /i:/.
/ʊ/ -book A short sound. Exaggerate the forward position of your lips. One way into this sound is to ask students what noise a gorilla makes. /u:/ -boot Make and hold the sound. Use a rising then falling intonation, as if you have heard something surprising, or some interesting gossip (uuUUuu). Demonstrate that it is a 'long' sound. After the recognition phase, the teacher pointed to one of the four vowels and asked students to produce the sound in groups, pairs or individually. The teacher also asked individual students to do the same for their classmates.
At this stage rhyming sentences can also be used to make the sounds easier to remember. Some such examples can be found in Hancock's work (2003, 20, 22, 44): /i:/: Steve keeps the cheese in the freezer /ɪ/: Alex's lettuces tasted like cabbages /ʊ/: That cook couldn't cook if he didn't look at a cook book /u:/: Sue knew too few new tunes on the flute While working with the described groups, the teacher also focused on the perception of the targeted sounds by using a minimal pair activity, which can be effective when practising new or problematic sounds. The teacher read one word from each pair and learners chose the word they thought they had heard. Some minimal pairs for the relevant vowels are presented in Figure 2 below.
Since simply saying the correct answers aloud might feel monotonous, the teacher gave the students small cards in two different colours, and they were asked to raise the one representing the uttered phoneme.
Similar to the use of cards to mark different sounds, a sound maze game (Figure 3) was also used to appeal to the different learning styles of the students. In this case, the activity focused on the /i:/ sound and involved group work. The teacher divided the class into groups; each group included both weak and strong learners, so that weaker students had the opportunity to get information from the stronger ones and improve their knowledge of pronunciation. The aim of the activity is to travel through the maze by identifying the correct vowel in the listed words. Figure 3. The Sound Maze activity (a fragment taken from Hancock's photocopiable (1995, 56)).
An activity similar to the one above can also be devised using short texts. In our case, the students in the participating class were presented with one of Hancock's task sheets (see Figure 4) and asked to do the task individually. The students then compared their answers with those of their partners, while the teacher gave them feedback.
Listen to your teacher. Which underlined words have the /u:/ sound?
I studied English at school in London last summer. I was there for two months: May and June. English is famous for bad food and weather, but I thought the food was good. The pub lunches were very nice. But it's true about the weather. Too much rain for me! (Hancock 2003, 45)
Finally, the teacher used drilling and repetition activities in the class in order to help students with the pronunciation of loanwords from English. According to Marks and Bowen (2012, 64), using loanwords or "bilingual minimal pairs" is a good way to discover the differences between L1 and L2. Accordingly, the teacher showed some bilingual English-Turkish pairs to students and pronounced them. Learners tried to identify whether the teacher was pronouncing the word in their mother tongue or in English by using the previously mentioned cards in two different colours, which brought along a dynamic variety. The pairs are presented in Figure 5 below.

Discussion and Conclusions
The activities and procedures presented in this work have the basic aim of raising students' awareness of pronunciation and improving both their perception and production of FL sounds. With this in mind, a set of pronunciation teaching activities was devised and used to focus on teaching four GB vowels -/i:/, /ɪ/, /ʊ/, /u:/ -to a group of Turkish university students of English.
The above vowels were identified as problematic based on a prior analysis and comparison of English and Turkish vowel systems. It was established that the sets of phonemes in the two languages differ in quality and quantity, and that the one-toone letter-sound correspondence observed for Turkish may confuse Turkish learners of English as a foreign language. The theoretical assumptions were confirmed in practice by working on both the production and perception of the vowels.
Throughout the course, it was observed that Turkish university students were generally not aware of the difference between Turkish and English in terms of their phonetic structures. Although most of the students were familiar with learning vocabulary and grammar, they were not used to instruction in phonetics and phonology since pronunciation is often neglected in the classroom in favour of grammar-and vocabulary-centred activities.
In the course of completing the activities described in the previous section, it was confirmed that Turkish students tend to confuse the pairs of targeted vowels and frequently use /ɪ/ instead of /i:/, and /ʊ/ instead of /u:/. Evidently, one of the most important reasons for such confusion is the lack of /i:/ and /u:/ in the Turkish vowel system, but it should be noted again that the students had not had any targeted instruction in pronunciation before taking this course.
Considering the above factors, the teacher also focused on several affective strategies. It was concluded that using anecdotes, analogies from daily experiences, and videos helped the Turkish university students in becoming more involved in the learning process. Consequently, they became more aware of the characteristics of the GB vowel system, which also paved the way for their better pronunciation of English sounds.
This paper offers some practical solutions to specific problems related to pronunciation in the hope that they may be of help to other teachers of English as a foreign language. There is no need to shy away from teaching pronunciation. As Hancock points out: "teaching pronunciation can be interesting, playful and a real joy. You can use games, puzzles, rhymes and raps, drama and pair-works. It can be challenging, but it doesn't have to be frightening. You may find that pronunciation becomes the part of your lessons that the learners look forward to most." (2019, n.p).
The key is to plan carefully and have an enjoyable lesson for both teachers and students alike.