Arabic-Speaking EFL Learners’ Pronunciation of British English Vowels: A Production-Based Study

The present study investigated the production of British English (BrE) vowels by Yemeni-Arabic learners English. Specifically, most problematic BrE for those were explored in relation to Lados’ (1957) contrastive analysis hypothesis (CAH) and Flege’s (1995) Speech Learning Model (SLM). Sixty-seven Yemeni EFL at different proficiency levels completed a questionnaire, which mainly how difficult are them, vowel test, measured learners’ accuracy vowels. Overall, results revealed that encountered some difficulties when pronouncing vowels, but their rates increased as grow. It was found same /e/, /ɒ/, /eə/, /ɔ:/, /ʊ/ & /u:/, be inaccurately produced sounds all levels. subtle differences between might have caused problems. Findings also showed L1 from easier produce, this is congruent with SLM.