‘Hypothesis Testing of Cochran’s Q Test and z- test on 10 most frequently mispronounced words of Mewari ESL Learners in Rajasthan’ by Asif Iqbal

Abstract

Mispronunciation of English words is a common problem among second language learners and this paper highlights the common problems that students face be it in terms of phonemic awareness or the feeling of inferiority. This paper is part of the interdisciplinary research study that was carried out on fifty commonly mispronounced words in region of Mewar i.e. Bhilwara, Rajsamand, Chittaurgarh and Udaipur. It identifies the ten most mispronounced words in the region of Mewar gender-wise, region-wise and further looks into the frequency of mispronunciations of second language learners in Mewar. It also provides insight into problems of language acquisition by Indian second language learners in their day to day lives.

Introduction

Hypothesis testing or significance testing is a method for testing a claim or hypothesis about a parameter in a population using data gathered in a sample. In this paper we will discuss some hypothesis by determining the likelihood that a sample statistic could have been selected if the hypothesis regarding the population parameter were true.

According to Rajasthan Pre-Engineering Test RPET-2012, conducted by Board of Technical Education, Government of Rajasthan, the Mewar region had a total number of 18 government approved and private engineering colleges in 2012. The total student intake capacity of government and private engineering colleges was not more than 6616. A total of number 1102 respondents comprising of 698 males and 404 females were selected were selected randomly to fill out Questionnaire 1 and 2. Finally they were asked to select the 10 most mispronounced words in Mewar from a compiled list of fifty frequently mispronounced words. (Table 1.1)

Student Intake Capacity, Sample size and respondents in Mewar (Rajasthan)

 (Table 1.1) Student Intake Capacity, Sample size and respondents in Mewar (Rajasthan)

In order to deduce the 10 most frequently mispronounced words with respect to male and female mispronunciations in each of the four districts an effective online sample size calculator by Creative Research Systems for sample surveys was used to determine the sample size of the population in order to get the desired results that reflected the target population as precisely as needed in the research and measure the outcome with a 95% confidence level and 5 % confidence interval or margin of error.   

Finally the raw data collected was fed into Microsoft Excel 2007 to analyze the outcome of such an experiment. Certain words tend to have a very high frequency of mispronunciation among second language learners due to their spelling, lack of phonemic knowledge or poor acquaintance with the English sounds while other words have a very low frequency of mispronunciation.

1. Research Techniques

There are two separate techniques used for explaining the objectives of research:

1. PRAAT Analysis
2. Data Analysis

Under data analysis, the percentage method is used to find out the top ten mispronounced word, on the basis of district-wise and overall Mewar region study. From this list of top ten words in each district, further filtration was done for the top three words. The same process is repeated for showing the proportion of difference of the mispronunciation of words among the gender in the Mewar region. The result of the study is supported by setting a hypothesis and then using Cochran’s Q test and Z-test for authentication.

The null hypothesis (H₀) states that there is no difference in the population. The opposing hypothesis is the alternative hypothesis (H1), which asserts a particular difference in the population. The test statistic used is Cochran’s Q test and Z-test.

As the data set is nominal with more than two variables which are dependent on the binary response: success (1) versus failure (0) Cochran’s Q test was used to measure variables on the same individual or on matched individuals. In the research this test is used for the district-wise and overall study of Mewar region. A z-test is any statistical test for which the distribution of the test statistic under the null hypothesis can be approximated by a normal distribution. In the research this test is used for the difference of proportion in the words between the genders.

For feedback purposes, the assessment form also included a section where the assessor could note down the problems for each aspect. Speakers were evaluated with reference to each of the seven parameters outlined in the rating scale. An advanced PRAAT speech analysis software was used to determine the cause of mispronunciation of the speakers with respect to spectrum, intensity, pitch, formant, and map the differences between the native speaker and Mewari speaker.

1.2 Aims of the Research: To ascertain

1. What are the top 10 mispronounced words for Mewar i.e. Bhilwara, Chittaurgarh, Rajsamand and Udaipur?
2. Among the top 10 what are the most common mispronounced words and least common mispronounced words in Mewar region?
3. Do residents and non residents of Mewar i.e. Bhilwara, Chittaurgarh, Rajsamand and Udaipur have the same mispronunciations?
4. What are the top 10 overall mispronounced words in Mewar?
5. What are the top 10 gender wise mispronounced words in Mewar region i.e. Bhilwara, Chittaurgarh, Rajsamand and Udaipur?
6. Among the top 10 what are the most common gender wise mispronounced words in Mewar region i.e. Bhilwara, Chittaurgarh, Rajsamand and Udaipur?
7. Does L1 (First language) affect the pronunciation of words in English?
8. How can language labs help students overcome their problem sounds in English?
9. How can language researchers and ELT benefit from such a study?

1.3  Top 10 mispronounced words in district (Bhilwara)

The top 10 mispronounced words in district Bhilwara are (yacht-141), (tortoise-137), (chauffeur-135), (salmon-123), (Wednesday-103), (ewe-102), (wear-98), (bowl-94), (jewellery-93) and (bathe-92) respectively. (Fig. 1.1)

(Fig. 1.1) Top ten mispronounced words in district Bhilwara (Rajasthan)

1.4 Top 10 Gender wise mispronounced words in district (Bhilwara)

The top 10 gender-wise mispronounced words in district Bhilwara are ‘all’ (males=45, females=21), ‘chauffeur’ (males=70, females= 65), ‘debt’(males=46, females=45), ‘ewe’- (males=35, females= 67), ‘lion’- (males=35, females=40), ‘salmon’- (males=66, females=57), ‘suite’ – (males=53, females=28), ‘sword’- (males=40, females=33), ‘yacht’- (males=74, females=67), and ‘zoology’ – (males=64, females=18) respectively. (Fig. 1.2)

(Fig. 1.2) Top ten gender-wise mispronounced words in Bhilwara (Rajasthan)

1.4 Top 10 mispronounced words in district (Chittaurgarh)

The top 10 mispronounced words in district Chittaurgarh are (yacht-66), (ewe-62), (chauffeur-51), (school-51), (bowl-46), (sorry-45), (salmon-43), (bald-38), (debt-37), and (suite-37) respectively. (Fig. 1.3)

(Fig. 1.3) Top ten mispronounced words in district Chittaurgarh (Rajasthan)

1.5  Top 10 Gender wise mispronounced words in district (Chittaurgarh)

The top 10 gender-wise mispronounced words in district Chittaurgarh are ‘all’- (males 25, females 0), ‘chauffeur’- (males 36, females 15), ‘debt’- (males 33, females 4), ‘ewe’- (males 43, females 19), ‘lion’- (males 33, females 0), ‘salmon’- (males 24, females 19), ‘suite’ – (males 33, females 4), ‘sword’- (males 31, females 0), ‘yacht’- (males 51, females 15), and ‘zoology’ – (males 28, females 0) respectively. (Fig. 5.1.4)

(Fig. 5.1.4) Top ten gender-wise mispronounced words in Chittaurgarh (Rajasthan)

Top 10 mispronounced words in district (Rajsamand)

The top 10 mispronounced words for district Rajsamand are (ewe-64), (school-64), (film-59), (lion-58), (all-56), (chauffeur-54), (yacht-53), (salmon-52), (debt-51), and (suite-48) respectively. (Fig. 5.1.5)

(Fig. 5.1.5) Top ten mispronounced words in district Rajsamand (Rajasthan)

Top 10 Gender wise mispronounced words in district (Rajsamand)

The top 10 ten gender-wise mispronounced words in district Rajsamand are ‘all’- (males 36, females 20), ‘chauffeur’- (males 15, females 39), ‘debt’- (males 20, females 31), ‘ewe’- (males 35, females 29), ‘lion’- (males 24, females 34), ‘salmon’- (males 20, females 32), ‘suite’ – (males 31, females 17), ‘sword’- (males 16, females 24), ‘yacht’- (males 31, females 22), and ‘zoology’ – (males 23, females 10) respectively. (Fig. 5.1.6)

(Fig. 5.1.6) Top ten gender-wise mispronounced words in Rajsamand (Rajasthan)

Top 10 mispronounced words in district (Udaipur)

The top 10 mispronounced words for district Udaipur are (chauffeur-131), (yacht-115), (all-104), (ewe-88), (shoe-77), (sword-77), (debt-74), (zoo-72), (salmon-69), and (law-62) respectively. (Fig. 5.1.7)

(Fig. 5.1.7) Top ten mispronounced words in district Udaipur (Rajasthan)

Top 10 Gender wise mispronounced words in district (Udaipur)

The top 10 gender-wise mispronounced words in district Udaipur are ‘all’- (males 35, females 69), ‘chauffeur’- (males 40, females 91), ‘debt’- (males 28, females 46), ‘ewe’- (males 20, females 68), ‘lion’- (males 20, females 01), ‘salmon’- (males 24, females 45), ‘suite’ – (males 36, females 25), ‘sword’- (males 31, females 46), ‘yacht’- (males 47, females 68), and ‘zoology’ – (males 31, females 14) respectively. (Fig. 5.1.8)

(Fig. 5.1.8) Top ten gender-wise mispronounced words in district Udaipur (Rajasthan)

Top 10 mispronounced words in Mewar (Non-residents)

The top mispronounced words in Mewar (Non-residents) are (chauffeur-127), (ewe-123), (all-121), (yacht-120), (zoology-120), (lion-111), (school-108), (sword-101), (film-94), and (bathe-93) respectively. (Fig. 5.1.9)

(Fig. 5.1.9) Top ten mispronounced words in Mewar (Non-residents)

5.1.10 Top 10 overall mispronounced words in Mewar (Rajasthan)

The top ten overall mispronounced words in Mewar are (chauffeur=45.19%), (yacht=44.92%), (ewe=39.84%), (salmon=34.03%), (all=33.76%), (debt=31.40%), (sword=29.22%), (zoology=27.95%), (suite=22.95%), and lion=27.31%) respectively.

Thus we can now safely conclude that except for ‘suite’ and ‘zoology’ all words are mispronounced differently. (Fig. 5.1.9)

(Fig. 5.1.9) Top 10 overall mispronounced words in Mewar (Rajasthan)

The method of ranking has been used in (Table 5.1) and (Table 5.2) to find out the most frequent mispronounced words among the top ten words. The first four categories show the top 10 mispronounced words of each district of Mewar (i.e. Bhilwara, Rajsamand, Chittaurgarh and Udaipur) and the fifth category also show mispronounced words for respondents who do not belong to Mewar but are there for academic purpose i.e. (non-residents). Now each row has been assigned a number in the sixth column which denotes the rank of the word in the respective districts. (Table 5.1) 

 (Table 1.2) Top ten mispronounced words in districts of Mewar

(Table 1.2) is derived from (Table 1.3) against which each word and their rank is written according to their district. The last column shows the mispronounced word occurring in all five categories. This filters down the top ten most mispronounced words to top three mispronounced words in Mewar region.in  i.e. ‘chauffeur’, ‘ewe’ and ‘yacht’.

WORDS	BHILWARA	RAJSAMAND	CHITTAURGARH	UDAIPUR	NON RESIDENTS	HOW MANY DISTRICTS?
chauffeur	3	6	3	1	1	5
ewe	6	1	2	4	2	5
yacht	1	7	1	2	4	5
salmon	4	8	7	9		4
all		5		3	3	3
debt		9	9	7		3
school		2	4		7	3
bathe	10				10	2
bowl	8		5			2
film		3			9	2
lion		4			6	2
suite		10	10			2
sword				6	8	2
bald			8			1
jewellery	9					1
law				10		1
shoe				5		1
sorry			6			1
tortoise	2					1
wear	7					1
Wednesday	5					1
zoo				8		1
Zoology					5	1

(Table 1.3) Top ten ranking of mispronounced words in all districts of Mewar

Therefore, it can now be safely concluded that among the top 10 mispronounced words in Mewar for all the five categories are different except for ‘chauffeur’, ‘ewe’, ‘yacht. The least mispronounced words in the region according to (Table 5.2) are ‘bald’, ‘jewellery’, ‘law’, ‘shoe’, ‘sorry’, ‘tortoise’, ‘wear’, ‘Wednesday’, ‘zoo’, and ‘zoology’.

Hypotheses Testing for Top 10 Mispronounced words using Cochran’s Q Test

Here the hypothesis is set to judge the behaviour of the mispronunciation across all words in Mewar region. We set Cochran’s Q test.        

H₀   : The behaviour of mis-pronunciation across all words is same

H₁   : The behaviour of mis-pronunciation across all words is not same.

	Test Statistics
N		1102
Cochran’s Q		2.912E3a
Df		49
Asymp. Sig.		0
	a. 0 is treated as a success.

 

 

 

 

(Table 5.3) Hypothesis Testing of Top 10 mispronounced words using Cochran Q test

Therefore, null hypothesis is rejected because the level of significance is less than (<0.05). This concludes that the behaviour of mispronunciation across all words in Mewar region is not the same.

Top 10 Gender wise mispronounced words in Mewar (Residents)

The top 10 gender-wise  mispronounced words in Mewar according number of respondents are ‘all’- (males 251, females 121), ‘chauffeur’- (males 245, females 253), ‘debt’- (males 186, females 160), ‘ewe’- (males 236, females 203), ‘lion’- (males 173, females 128), ‘salmon’- (males 196, females 179), ‘suite’ – (males 222, females 86), ‘sword’- (males 184, females 138), ‘yacht’- (males 286, females 209), and ‘zoology’ – (males 233, females 75) respectively. (Fig. 5.1.11)

(Fig. 5.1.11) Top ten Gender-wise mispronounced words in Mewar (Residents)

Top 10 Gender wise mispronounced words in Mewar (Non-residents)

The top 10 gender-wise  mispronounced words in Mewar (non residents) according to number of respondents are ‘all’- (males 110, females 11), ‘chauffeur’- (males 84, females 43), ‘debt’- (males 59, females 34), ‘ewe’- (males 103, females 20), ‘lion’- (males 58, females 53), ‘salmon’- (males 62, females 26), ‘suite’ – (males 69, females 12), ‘sword’- (males 66, females 35), ‘yacht’- (males 83, females 37), and ‘zoology’ – (males 87, females 33) respectively. (Fig. 5.1.12)

(Fig. 5.1.12) Top 10 Gender-wise mispronounced words in Mewar (Non-residents)

Therefore, it can be safely concluded that among the top ten gender-wise  mispronounced words for residents of Mewar, males tend to have a lower rate of mispronunciation than females for all words except ‘lion’, ‘salmon’, ‘yacht’ and ‘zoology’.

In contrast, among the top ten gender-wise mispronounced words for non-residents of Mewar, males tend to have a higher rate of mispronunciation for all words.

Hypothesis Testing of Top 10 mispronounced words using z-test

A z-test is the most common method used to test the hypothesis about a population mean when the population variance is known. The z statistic formula is the sample mean minus the population mean stated in the null hypothesis, divided by the standard error of the mean. To make a decision we compare the obtained value to the critical value.

The hypothesis is set as follows

H₀ : The behaviour of mispronunciation of words is same across the gender

H₁ : The behaviour of mispronunciation of words is not same across the gender

 (Table 5.4) Top 10 Gender-wise Mispronounced words in Mewar

 (Table 5.5) Percentage within Gender for Mispronounced words in Mewar

 (Table 5.6) Hypothesis Testing for Gender-wise mispronounced words using Z test

In the above (Table 5.4) shows the tabulation of gender-wise top ten words. (Table 5.5) shows the calculation of percentage within the gender and (Table 5.6) shows the result of the testing. The null hypothesis is accepted or rejected based on the following condition If (Absolute calculated value>1.96) H₀ is rejected otherwise it is accepted.

As alternate hypothesis is taken for the cases where null hypothesis is rejected, therefore we can now safely conclude that among the top ten male-female mispronounced words in Mewar, ‘chauffeur’ (-5.86362), ‘debt’ (-2.22259), ‘ewe’ (-3.05437), ‘salmon’ (-2.93089), ‘suite’ (2.314235) and ‘zoology’ (3.10392) are the words where the behaviour of mispronunciation is not same across the gender.

However, there are a number of issues that we need to take into consideration in interpreting and generalising the results of this study. First of all, it not possible to record all respondents and decide on a single model as students come from diverse backgrounds and have been exposed to different varieties of spoken English as second language based on their socio-economic background. Also students may become conscious about their recording and they tend to deviate from the original native pronunciation. Students having access to language labs could have other motivating factors for the efficiency while those who don’t or are not familiar with its use could never understand the difference of standard pronunciation. 

However, this research work demonstrates how words are frequently mispronounced in an ESL classroom and whether the pattern of behaviour of mispronunciation across all words is the same or not in each district.  A humble effort has been made to find out the top 10 most mispronounced words in each district of Mewar i.e. (Bhilwara, Chittaurgarh, Rajsamand and Udaipur). ELT research is still in its nascent stage in India and a lot of research work needs to be carried out with respect to language learning in Indian context. Second language acquisition is a primary concern for language learners who are region specific and come from diverse socio-economic backgrounds. As progressive governments in the world advocate multilingualism, the demand for learning multiple languages has grown leading to better employability skills.

As the National Knowledge Commission Report on curriculum reform in the Higher Education says:

“The current curriculum should be modified to provide greater flexibility, inter-disciplinary perspective and choice of electives. The focus in the teaching/learning process should be on integrating skills such as problem solving and logical reasoning, process orientation, learning ability, English communication and programming fundamentals. Industry participation to discuss real-life case studies should be encouraged. Laboratory courses must be revamped to develop a healthy attitude towards experimental work”…(89)

To conclude, English can no longer be taken as a foreign language but rather a need based language to communicate with the world. Better language learning facilities, efficient teachers and good infrastructure are the key to mastery of good communication skills in the target language.

References

Iqbal, Asif. “Mispronunciations of Rajasthani ESL Learners in Mewar.” ELT Voices – India 2.April (2011): 17–24. Print.

Iqbal, Asif and Nupur Tandon. “Innovative Language Teaching Techniques and Learning Methodologies for Classroom Activities in Secondary Schools of Rajasthan.” Interfacing ELT with Culture & Technology. Ed. Pushp Lata, Devika, & Gajendra Singh Chauhan. Jain Brothers. 2012. 25–32. Print.

—. “Mispronunciations of ESL Learners in English Classrooms: Error Frequency & Analysis.” ELT Voices – India 2.4 (2012): 2–15. Print.

Krishnalalitha. K. A. “English Language Teaching in Developing Countries Error Analysis and Remedial Teaching Methods – An Overview.” Language in India 10.January (2010): 169–174. Print.

Krishnaveni, R. “Some Aspects of Teaching-Learning English as a Second Language.” Language in India 10.May (2010): 131–159. Print.

Wells, J C. “Pronunciation Research by Written Questionnaire.” n. pag. Print.

Goyal, Sangeeta. “Learning Achievements in India: A Study of Primary Education in Rajasthan.” 2007: 1–43. Print.

Graddol, David. English Next. Plymouth: Latimer Trend & Company Ltd, 2006. Print.

—. English Next India. The English Company UK Ltd, 2010. Print.

—. The Future of English? The Englis. London, 2000. Print.

Pitroda, Sam. Report to the Nation 2006-2009 National Knowledge Commission. New Delhi, 2009.

About the Author

Mr. Asif Iqbal is working as Principal, Global Indian International School, Jodhpur. He has a Masters in English Literature and is a recipient of University Gold Medal from Rabindra Bharati University, Calcutta. He has been teaching English at secondary and tertiary level (UG) for more than a decade. He has recently submitted his research thesis on “Mispronunciations of ESL Learners in Mewar: A Case study in Language Lab” at MNIT, Jaipur.