LANGUAGE INTERFERENCE ON BATAK TOBA STUDENTS IN PRONOUNCING THE ENGLISH VOWEL SOUNDS IN EFL CLASSROOM

The aim of this study is to analyze the interference on Batak Toba students in pronouncing the English vowel sounds. This study was conducted by using descriptive qualitative design. The source of this data are the students of SMP Karya Simantin which consists of 18 students. To collect the data, using tape recorder to record the subject’s pronunciation and doing interview with the teacher. There are three ways of action to analyze the data, they are data condensation, data display, and conclusion drawing/ verification. After analyzing the data, the researcher found that 27 Batak Toba students replaced the English vowels pronunciation with the batak Toba vowels pronunciation. The sounds / ɪː /, / ʊː /,/ æ /, / ɜː /,/ ɑː /,/ ɔː /,/ ɒ/ in English are respective pronounced as / ɪ /, / ʊ /, /e /, / e /,/ ʌ /,/ o /,/ o/. And for the reasons why students do interference because the students get accustomed to the pronunciation of the Batak Toba Vowels. The second reason is that the subjects have low motivation in learning to pronounce the other vowels in English but not found in Batak Toba Language.