Teaching Students Pronunciation Skills through Tongue Twister Exercises

This study discusses about the teaching of English pronunciation practices to the students of Early Childhood Education Study Program of Faculty of Teacher Training and Education of Universitas Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa. This study was qualitative research which carried out in the learning of the English Education for Early Childhood subject of Early Childhood Education Study Program of Faculty of Teacher Training and Education of Universitas Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa. The researchers chose tongue twisters as the material used to train students' ability to pronounce their vocabularies in English. The result shows that tongue twister exercises can improve their English vocabulary pronunciation skill; and their abilities to pronounce every vocabulary will be stored in the child's memory and become the main standard in the next learning process.


Introduction
Students of early childhood education are prepared to be the teachers of early childhood students or kindergarten. They are prepared with knowledge and skills about how to manage and handle the teaching and learning processes of the very young people.
They learn many kinds of subject related to the cognitive, affective and psychomotor development of the young children. They also learn the theories about how children learn a language become the basic knowledge they need in teaching the children to learn a foreign language such as English and Arabic.
One of the compulsory subjects that One of the subjects that are compulsory courses that students must take in semester IV based on the applicable curriculum in Early Childhood Education In learning this subject, it is hoped that students will be able to practice various kinds of English learning activities for early childhood through word games in English, singing children's songs in English, storytelling or storytelling in English, using computer or smartphone applications for language learning. English, and so on. Every student who will take or take this course is assumed to have sufficient knowledge and English skills, namely being able to pronounce every English vocabulary well, understand English grammar well in general, be able to sing English songs with pronunciation, intonation and proper emphasis, etc., so that you can easily follow the material given in this course. In addition, they are also expected to be a model for using English that is good for early childhood students when they become educators in the future and what they say and say their students will follow and imitate.
Based on the results of the researchers' observations of the fourth semester students of early childhood education for the 2017/2018 academic year who took the English language education course for early childhood, the researchers identified several problems that these students still have, including: 1) most students are not used to it. and not able to read English text well; 2) some students still pronounce English vocabulary by following the spelling of the word; 3) most students still have difficulty pronouncing vocabulary that has sound elements that they rarely find in their native language, namely Indonesian, such as sounds /tj/, /sh/, /th/ sounds /t/ in past vocabulary or with the ending -ed; 4) most students are unable to identify the words they read in English, and so on.
Based on the results of the initial  (Shin & Crandall, 2013).
Previous studies on second language learning state that there is a "critical period" or "sensitive period", namely the period before puberty in which children can acquire foreign language skills just like a native speaker. This view assumes that childhood is an easier time than adults who are often frustrated when they are unable to master a foreign language (Shin & Crandall, 2013).

There are a lot of differences in what
five-year-olds and ten-year-olds learn according to Scott. In relation to language learning he states that they can use language skills well before they realize it. This means that they acquire these language skills well even without realizing it. They are competent users of their native language so they basically know the rules of grammar (Scott & Ytereberg, 1990 (Thornburry, 2002).

Method
This research was a qualitative study which tried to describe qualitatively the Based on the identification results of the problems faced by students as described in the introduction above, the researchers chose tongue twisters as the material us ed to train students' ability to pronounce the vocabulary in English they were learning.

Result
After knowing the problems faced by most students in learning English, especially the difficulties they face when pronouncing vocabulary in English, researchers compile a learning plan that can overcome these problems. Using references from the British Council website, the researchers organized the following learning activities.

Tongue Twister (listening activities)
Researchers asked students to access After being confident in their abilities, each student came to the front of the class and practiced reading some of the phrases they had memorized in front of the class.

Recording & Evaluating the Expressions
This stage is expected to document the results obtained by students after listening and practicing tongue twisters, in addition to being a tool to evaluate their respective abilities. Each student is given the opportunity to repeat the recording until they are sure of their results.

Uploading the Best Recording
Every student who has completed their recordings can upload them via the Edmodo group. These results can make it easier for researchers to collect and analyze the recorded data so that they can find out the increase in students' ability to pronounce English words. A prospective teacher of early childhood education has greater demands in making the initial foundation for the learning of their students. In accordance with the nature of children as the best imitators Early Childhood teachers must become good models that their students will imitate. Their ability to pronounce every vocabulary they introduce will be stored in the child's memory and become the main standard in the next learning process. For this reason, the ability to pronounce English vocabulary correctly will make them an appropriate English learning model for their students.