The difficulties encountered by EFL Learners at the Suprasegmental level (stress and intonation): Case of second year EFL students at the University of Tlemcen

Abstract

EFL students face many difficulties in learning English especially at the level of the suprasegmental features, these features namely, stress and intonation, are taught in the modules of Phonetics and oral expressions. In fact, this study aims mainly to find the difficulties EFL learners face at the level of stress and intonation, it tries to investigate the reasons behind those difficulties. This research is divided into two chapters moving from theory to practice to test the hypotheses concerning the difficulties of EFL learners. To reach this aim, two questionnaires were used to gather the necessary data to be analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. The results obtained confirmed that teachers incorporate stress and intonation in both modules Oral Expressions and Phonetics and students find difficulties in learning the rules of both stress and intonation this is why teachers try to incorporate stress and intonation in their teaching. Eventually, it looks for suggestions for better learning/ teaching experience.