Abstrak
Sadad D Alfonso, 231916, Pronunciation Difficulties of EFL Undergraduate Students (A Qualitative Case Study on Segmental Difficulties), Skripsi, Universitas Islam Negeri Sjech M. Djamil Djambek Bukittinggi, 2026. Pronunciation is an essential component of English oral communication because it influences intelligibility and communicative effectiveness. However, Indonesian EFL learners frequently experience pronunciation difficulties due to differences between the English and Indonesian phonological systems. This study aimed (1) to identify the segmental pronunciation difficulties experienced by EFL undergraduate students and (2) to explain the factors underlying those difficulties from the perspective of first language (L1) phonological interference. This research employed a qualitative case study design involving five undergraduate students of the English Education Study Program at UIN Sjech M. Djamil Djambek Bukittinggi selected through purposive sampling. The data were collected through audio-recorded word list readings and analyzed using IPA-based phonetic transcription and error analysis. The findings revealed four categories of segmental pronunciation difficulties: vowel confusion, consonant substitution, final consonant deletion, and diphthong reduction. Vowel confusion was the most dominant difficulty, accounting for 46.5% of the total errors, particularly in the contrasts /æ/–/ɛ/ and /iː/–/ɪ/. Consonant substitution, mainly involving /θ/→/t/ and /v/→/f/, was the second most frequent error, followed by final consonant deletion, while diphthong reduction occurred only rarely. The findings indicate that most pronunciation errors were influenced by L1 phonological interference, as English sounds that do not exist in the Indonesian phonological system were often replaced by the closest native-language equivalents. The study concludes that vowel confusion represents the greatest segmental challenge for the participants and suggests that pronunciation instruction should place greater emphasis on English vowel contrasts alongside consonant production.