Cambodian learners of English as a foreign language are prone to struggle with certain specific aspects of pronunciation and grammar, due to lack of equivalent features in the Khmer language. There are other more general problems to overcome when using Western-oriented study materials due to cultural differences. I will describe the specific difficulties I have experienced here.
Like learners from other Asian countries, Cambodian learners struggle to produce certain sounds. The main difficulties are with fricative consonants (those that are pronounced by forcing air between two parts of the mouth, for example the bottom lip and teeth). The /ʃ/ sound (sh as in sheep) does not exist in the Khmer language and so learners will tend to produce /s/ instead. Likewise, they will be unfamiliar with the sounds /θ/ and /ð/ (soft and hard th as in thing and this) and tend to pronounce them as /t/ and /d/ respectively. The /v/ sound also causes trouble, and Cambodian learners will tend to produce /w/ instead. Finally the /ʒ/ (as in television) is hard for the learners to produce.
In addition to individual phonemes causing general pronunciation problems, final consonants or clusters of consonants tend to cause difficulty. For example, learners generally don't have a problem pronouncing /ʧ/ at the start of a word (like the ch in cheese) but will have trouble with it at the end of a word (such as beach). This is due to a feature of the Khmer language, where the final consonant in a word is only partially articulated (similar to British English 'dropping' of the final /t/ in words such as beat). As a result, learners may not fully pronounce final consonants, or may drop them altogether.
The other main area of difficulty with pronunciation is linking between syllables. Cambodian learners tend to define each individual syllable quite sharply, leading to a staccato pronunciation. For example, the Cambodian learner's natural inclination will be to pronounce 'going' as /gəʊ ɪŋ/ rather than /gəʊwɪŋ/. In addition, the English language's variable and sometimes sing-song intonation can sound strange to the learners who are used to a narrower range of modulation.
English grammar poses a particular problem to Cambodian learners, much like speakers of other Asian languages whose structure is completely different from that of English. Many features of English and other European languages simply have no equivalent in the Khmer language. For example, there are no definite or indefinite articles; verbs do not conjugate according to gender or number; tenses are indicated by context or by adding time words; and there are no plural forms for nouns. Subject pronouns can be omitted if the context makes it clear who the subject is, and possession is generally indicated by using the personal pronoun after the noun. As a result, a sentence such as "Yesterday stay house I" would be grammatically correct if translated word-to-word back into the Khmer language. In writing, the final 's' is often omitted from plurals, possessives and third-person singular verbs; however it is hard to know whether this stems from pronunciation difficulties or grammar difficulties. Learners may alternatively hypercorrect by adding 's' where it is not needed.
Apart from pronunciation and grammar, there can be difficulties when trying to use Western-oriented study materials with Cambodian learners. The most obvious problem is that the material in Oxford/Cambridge textbooks is often culturally irrelevant, dealing with topics or situations which are completely alien. The material in certain textbooks assumes prior knowledge about historical figures or events which are only widely known to a Western student base, so a pre-lesson explanation needs to be done before the material can actually be used. What we might assume is 'general knowledge' may be completely new to the learners. This may be because Cambodian society is fairly insular and does not have a strong 'reading culture'. As another result of this, learners may find it very challenging to read fiction or longer texts.
To conclude, Cambodian learners understandably have various different types of difficulty with the English language. However, awareness of the problem is part of the solution, and the problems can be successfully overcome with care and attention on the part of both teacher and student.
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