ISSUES AND CHALLENGES IN TEACHING ENGLISH PHONETIC SYMBOLS AND SUGGESTIONS TO USE BLENDED-LEARNING APPROACH TO SEMESTER ONE STUDENTS IN PORT DICKSON POLYTECHNIC

AE101 Communicative English was introduced in Port Dickson Polytechnic in January 2010. It is taught for 20 consecutive weeks to semester one students of several Engineering Departments. Students are introduced to the English phonetic symbols in Unit 3: Dictionary Skills, which aims to guide them to use phonetics symbols for pronunciation and articulate words based on phonetic symbols. Based on observations and journal entries, this paper presents our experience in teaching this unit for two consecutive semesters. Challenges faced by lecturers have been identified as time constraints in delivering dense contents in Unit 3, large number of students per class, lecturers’ competency gaps, over-dependent students and lecturers' preference to stick to traditional approach in delivering the course content. Challenges experienced by both lecturers and students are students’ constraints in attending extra classes due to packed timetable and lack of ICT and internet facilities in campus. Challenges in teaching English phonetics and phonology and the decision to use ‘blended-learning’ approach to overcome the issues have been discussed and pedagogically justified as economical and flexible that can increase engagement, participation and enhance autonomous learning among students and improve content delivery by ESL lecturers.