English Pronunciation (for Malaysians)

There are some specific areas of English pronunciation that can be problematic for Malaysians.

A short workshop on English Pronunciation for Malaysians can be found here (on the Kuala Terengganu Fellows 2012 site).

However, one specific problem has been observed when songs are taught to children:

In Bahasa Malaysia the final consonant (especially if it is a plosive such as /p/, /t/, or /k/) is not generally pronounced, being rendered instead as a glottal stop /ʔ/. That's fine in BM, causing no confusion, but it doesn't come across clearly when carried over into English pronunciation.

Here is an example of a song where the absence of final consonants makes it sound strange.

Here is the song:
Alive Alert Awake (to the tune of "If You're Happy and You Know It")

I'm alive, alert, awake, enthusiastic

I'm alive, alert, awake, enthusiastic

I'm alive, alert, awake,

I'm awake, alert, alive,

I'm alive, alert, awake, enthusiastic!

When sung with the BM-style pronunciation it says this:

I  ala, aler, awa, en-tu-si-asti ...

(Also notice that it should be "en-thu-si-as-tic".)
Now that is not going to help our little Malaysian darlings to speak English clearly, is it?

The SOLUTION!
It's true that native speakers of English don't always pronounce the final consonant clearly either, BUT if the next word starts with a vowel, then the consonant is stuck in front of it. So our song is pronounced like this:

I'  m-ali  v-aler  t-awa  k-en-thu-si-a-stick

We still need to make the effort to put the final /k/ on enthusiastic.
It might look a bit silly, but the pronunciation will be much clearer. Really!