Improving Students’ Skill Pronunciation Through the Drilling Method at Catholic Saint Francis Xavier Junior High School, Tarakan

Abstract

Indonesia is a multilingual country with over 700 regional languages, reflecting its high linguistic diversity and influencing the learning process in schools, including English learning in Tarakan, North Kalimantan. Students generally have a strong local dialect background, so first language transfer often affects speaking skills, particularly in pronunciation, word stress, fluency, and confidence. This study aims to analyze the effectiveness of the drill method in reducing local dialect interference on students' English pronunciation. The study used a Classroom Action Research (CAR) design involving 22 students from Saint Francis Xavier Catholic Junior High School in Tarakan as participants. Data were obtained through pronunciation tests conducted before (pretest) and after (posttest) the implementation of the drill method, which focused on repeated pronunciation practice to improve the accuracy of English sound articulation. The results showed that the implementation of the drill method had a positive impact on students' pronunciation skills. Before the implementation, most students still had difficulty pronouncing English words correctly due to their tendency to use the phonological patterns of the local dialect. After participating in a series of exercises, students' pronunciation skills significantly improved, as indicated by an increase in the average score from 66.59 in the pretest to 82.32 in the posttest. Furthermore, the highest score in the posttest was 85, while the lowest was 71, indicating a uniform increase in ability among participants. Repeated exercises also helped students become more familiar with English sounds and pronunciation patterns and increased their confidence when speaking. Based on these findings, it can be concluded that the drill method is effective in reducing local dialect interference on students' English pronunciation, thus it can be one of the learning strategies that supports improving pronunciation accuracy in the context of learning English as a foreign language.