Difficulties and strategies for improving English pronunciation of secondyear English major students at Thuongmai University

Difficulties and strategies for improving English pronunciation of secondyear English major students at Thuongmai University Difficulties and strategies for improving English pronunciation of secondyear English major students at Thuongmai University Difficulties and strategies for improving English pronunciation of secondyear English major students at Thuongmai University Difficulties and strategies for improving English pronunciation of secondyear English major students at Thuongmai University Difficulties and strategies for improving English pronunciation of secondyear English major students at Thuongmai University Difficulties and strategies for improving English pronunciation of secondyear English major students at Thuongmai University Difficulties and strategies for improving English pronunciation of secondyear English major students at Thuongmai University Difficulties and strategies for improving English pronunciation of secondyear English major students at Thuongmai University Difficulties and strategies for improving English pronunciation of secondyear English major students at Thuongmai University Difficulties and strategies for improving English pronunciation of secondyear English major students at Thuongmai University Difficulties and strategies for improving English pronunciation of secondyear English major students at Thuongmai University

It is easy to see how important English is all over the world Many

international companies conduct meetings in English, universities offer classes in English, and visitors and travelers all over the world use English as a popular

language English is the most commonly spoken language in the world One out of fivepeople can speak or at least understand English Among four skills in English,

speaking seem to be paid great attention of English learners However, it’s no surprise that there are loads of problems Vietnamese speakers have with English pronunciation.Therefore, to improve speaking skills in English communication, Vietnamese students should find out the difficulties in their pronunciation This study will go into the pronunciation difficulties encountered by second-year students of English faculty

at Thuongmai University

In other words, this study will explore students' difficulties with sounds that are not in the Vietnamese phonetic system Problems with written form and spoken form inconsistencies is also mentioned here Difficulty in pronunciation also comes from word stress and the influences of the local language on English learners The data fromthe survey are conducted by the second-year of English faculty at Thuongmai

University through questionnaire and audio record to collect essential information.Besides, the results of the study revealed the most applied English pronunciation improvement method among students In addition, the study also provides the

strategies for both students and teachers in terms of English pronunciation

During the progress of conducting my graduation paper, I could not complete it if

I did not have supports and guidance from our supervisor and friends, including the English second-year students surveyed

Foremost, I would like to express my deeply sincere gratitude to my advisor, Mrs Pham Thuy Giang, M.A, for her guidance and precious comments she gave throughout my research I am in the beginning of my career, I have not enough time to

do everything However, she was still tolerant of advising and clarifying all my

misunderstanding whenever I asked Without her valuable advice and support, my graduation paper would have been impossible to be done on schedule

Besides my advisor, I also want to send my thanks to our teachers in Thuongmai University who gave me the possibility to complete this thesis

Additional, I need to thank my fellow – English freshmen in Thuongmai

University Without them, I could not have overcome such times and concentrated on

my study

Last but not least, I would like to thank my family and friends for their support and encouraging me as I concentrated on writing and researching They have always played an important role in my life Without their encouragement, I would not have been able to complete this study

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS v

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS vi

CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Previous studies 2

1.3 Aims of the study 3

1.4 Research subjects 4

1.5 Scope of the study 4

1.6 Research methodology 4

1.7 Organization of the study 5

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 7

2.1 Overview of pronunciation 7

2.1.1 Definitions 7

2.1.2 The importance of pronunciation 8

2.2 Pronunciation components 9

2.2.1 Vowel sounds 9

2.2.2 Consonant sounds 11

2.2.3 Word stress 14

2.3 International Phonetic Alphabet 14

2.4 Pronunciation difficulties 15

2.4.1 Difficulties in English sounds 15

2.4.2 Inconsistencies in written and spoken form 19

2.4.3 Difficulties in word stress 19

2.4.4 Local language influences 20

2.5 Strategies for improving English pronunciation 21

2.5.2 Learning about International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) 22

2.5.3 Repetitive practice 23

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH FINDINGS 24

3.1 Situation analysis 24

3.2 Data collection instruments 24

3.2.1 The survey questionnaire 24

3.2.2 The Audio Recording 24

3.3 Data collection procedures 25

3.4 Research findings 26

3.4.1 Findings from the survey questionnaire 26

3.4.2 Findings from the audio recordings 36

3.5 Discussion 38

3.5.1 Pronunciation difficulties 38

3.5.2 Strategies for improving English pronunciation 39

CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 41

4.1 Summary of the study 41

4.2 Recommendations 41

4.2.1 Recommendations for students 41

4.2.2 Recommendations for teachers 43

4.3 Limitations of the study 45

4.4 Recommendations for further studies 46

CONCLUSION 47 REFERENCES VII APPENDICES IX

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS

Figure 2.1 Vowel sounds 9

Figure 2.2 Classification of vowel sounds 10

Figure 2.3 Consonants and vowels (Reprinted from Sound foundations 1994 by Adrian Underhill with kind permission of Macmillan Education, UK) 11

Figure 2.4 Diagram of the vocal tract 12

Figure 2.5 Classification of consonant sounds 14

Figure 2.6 The International Phonetic Alphabet 15

Figure 2.7 Examples of the 26 syllable-initial two-consonant clusters in words 18

Figure 2.8 Examples of the six syllable-initial three-consonant clusters in words 18

Chart 3.1 Hometowns of the students participating in the survey 26

Chart 3.2 Students’ assessment of importance of English skills 27

Chart 3.3 Student’s frequency of speaking English 28

Chart 3.4 Students’ assessment of difficulty level of English speaking factors 29

Chart 3.5 Students’ assessment of importance of pronunciation in speaking English.30 Chart 3.6 When students started to learn English pronunciation 31

Chart 3.7 Student’s experience in English pronunciation courses 32

Chart 3.8 Students’ difficulties in pronouncing vowels sounds 33

Table 3.1 Students’ difficulties in pronouncing English consonants 34

Table 3.2 Strategies for improving students’ pronunciation 35

Chart 3.9 Students' assessment of the most effective strategy 36

Table 3.3 The number of errors made in the reading aloud test 37

CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY

1.1 Rationale

English is the popular language in the world and the number of people around theworld using English is constantly increasing Up to now, there are more than 1.2 billion English speakers worldwide, including more than 350 million native speakers and the rest use English as a second language English is known as the international language of business, and it is true that that international trade expands every year and brings all countries in the world together

In particular, Vietnam has been a member of WTO (World Trade Organization), using English plays an essential role in period of integration, as well as in the

industrialization and modernization process of our country The importance of learningEnglish has become more growing, when most multinational companies require a certain level of English proficiency from potential workers Therefore more and more people are learning English in order to get a position in a top company

In most Vietnamese schools, besides science and social subjects, English is currently required as a compulsory subject At school, students focus on learning grammar to pass the final exam The English competency assessment of students have based mainly on the test scores on paper, including grammar and reading tasks

Meanwhile, improving speaking skill for students has not been paid much attention, lead to a large number of students attending university with poor English speaking skill

Literally, there are several factors that affect speaking English such as

vocabulary, grammar, intonation,…, etc and pronunciation is considered as the most influential one

During my observation I noticed that the difficulties in English pronunciation include four main factors Firstly, the English sound system has several sounds which Vietnamese do not have Secondly, in Vietnamese, in order to pronounce word

correctly, we just need to spell the written form of the word; meanwhile in English, it

is impossible to pronounce it by spelling the word Lastly, word stress in English is

In short, to be able to speak English correctly and fluently in order to

communicate in an effective way, learners should not ignore the pronunciation

practice In order to learn it effectively, learners should also pay attention to some of the difficulties in improving their pronunciation that they presumably encounter, as well as appropriate strategies to master English pronunciation Especially, for second-year students of Faculty of English at Thuongmai University, it is even more

important to understand it deeply

Therefore, in order to study this topic in depth, the author made a decision to conduct the research entitled: “Difficulties and strategies for improving English

pronunciation of second-year English major students at Thuongmai University” Hopefully, this study will help students understand deeply about this issues that they have not noticed before and suggest some strategies to solve the problems and help them improve their pronunciation

1.2 Previous studies

Many studies have been conducted to help learners realize the importance of English pronunciation as well as the variety of pronunciation problems they face Theyalso will be helpful references with suggested strategies that will assist students in improving the pronunciation learning and developing their own successful learning methods in order to improve their pronunciation skill There have been previous studies that address the difficulties in learning English pronunciation in order to solve those problems Thus, I would like to rely on these studies as reference materials for

my graduation paper

According to the study by Komariah (2018)- with the title: “Promblems in

pronouncing the English sounds faced by the students of SMPN 2 Halong, Banjar”, thedifficulties in English pronunciation can be caused by the absence of the sounds in their mother tongue There are some problems of learning English in Indonesia and pronunciation is one of the most difficult components in English This research utilized

a qualitative approach of contrastive analysis The information was gathered from the voices of the students who were interviewed The researcher used a technique of recording, transcribing, and analyzing The following is how the data were examined

by the researcher: 1 comparing English sounds and students’ pronunciation, 2

deciding which consonant, vowel, and diphthong the students mispronounce, 3

determining the students' difficulties in pronouncing English sounds, 4 finding out the students' difficulties in pronouncing English sounds, and 5 drawing a conclusion The participants in this study are Banjar ninth-grade students at SMPN 2 Halong

Finally, the study showed that the students of SMPN 2 Halong had trouble

pronouncing English consonant sounds (/ t /, / θ /, / ʃ /, / f /, / ʒ /, /d/), vowels (/ɒ/, /e/, /oʊ/) and diphthongs ( /eɪ/, /oʊ/, /ər /) The sound /θ/ is pronounced as /t/, /ʃ/ as /s/, /ɒ / as /u/, /oʊ/ as /aw/, /ʒ/ as /s/, while /t/, /eɪ /, /t/, /d/ and /ər/ are pronounced as they are written

The second study was researched and written by Nguyen Thi Thu Thao (2007) The title of this study is: “ Difficulties for Vietnamese when pronouncing English (Final consonants)” The purposes of this study were: offering a systematic study of the articulation of final consonants of Vietnamese-accented English Firstly, the

differences in final consonants of the two languages were considered in background research In the second part of that paper, recorded data and evaluations from native speakers were analyzed Difficulties and tendencies in informants’ final consonants and cluster pronunciation are synthesized into certain types The comprehensibility is worked in order to get a general assessment of how native-like Vietnamese speakers’ English final consonants are

Data were collected from five informants with different Vietnamese accents and English proficiency both within and outside Vietnam, and then emailed to the

researcher The results of the analyzed data were classified into three categories: single-final consonants existing in Vietnamese or close to Vietnamese, single final consonants unfamiliar to Vietnamese and final consonant clusters The assessment of native speakers was also included as part of the results

1.3 Aims of the study

This study is about to point out the difficulties in English pronunciation of second-year English majored students at Thuongmai University to help them aware of its importance In addition it also suggests some solutions to each problem for both students and teachers

1.4 Research subjects

All the related data were used to analyze for this study were gathered from Faculty of English at Thuongmai University by a survey questionnaire and audio recorded The questionnaire was distributed to 60 students at English Faculty, who were randomly selected Each informant comes from different regions, have different educational access, and different learning experiences Some of participants have had the opportunity to learn English for 6 years by studying at school or attending extra courses Besides, there is also the number of students studying English for three years

or less The questionnaire was designed to identify the students’ experiences of

learning English, specifically the difficulties in learning English pronunciation From there, author determines the most popular method they apply to themselves to improvetheir own English pronunciation difficulties

1.5 Scope of the study

There are many different difficulties that students may encounter in their

pronunciation when speaking English However, this study does not aim to cover all the issues in pronouncing English With the time limitation, this research concentrates

on the most common pronunciation difficulties of second-year English majored

students at Thuongmai University

The study was conducted on 50 second-year students of Faculty of English at Thuongmai University

The writer hopes this research will be a useful material for second-year students

of Faculty of English who concerns this issue and help them to improve their English pronunciation

1.6 Research methodology

The main instrument used in the study to collect data was an online questionnairesurvey and audio record test

1.6.1 Online questionnaire survey

Online questionnaire survey is one of the most effective instruments for

collecting data in social science It aims at identifying the attitude and difficulties of students towards English pronunciation, as well as the strategies they used to improve

their pronunciation skill This method helps author to have an objective view and provide data related to the research object.

The questions of the research are described as below:

 What are English pronunciation difficulties which English-majored

sophomores at Thuongmai University encounter?

 What are techniques/ strategies to improve English pronunciation when

studying as second-year students at English of Faculty?

Data collection:

Step 1: Identify and prepare the content of questionnaire

Step 2: Start the survey by sending the online questionnaire to second-year students and ask about their strategies for improving pronunciation

Step 3: Collect responses from the students

Step 4: Give reliable figures with charts and conclusion from the results obtained

1.6.2 Audio recording

The audio recordings were used to identify the difficulties in pronouncing

English of English-major sophomore students at Thuongmai University The text used for recording are sourced from a post at The Wisdom Post

Procedures

Step 1: Prepare the text for the audio recording

Step 2: Send the text to 5 English-majored sophomores at Thuongmai University and ask them to read the text

Step 3: Gather the results from their recording

Step 4: Analyze the recording and figure out their difficulties in pronouncing English from its results

1.7 Organization of the study

The study is divided into four following chapters:

Chapter 1: Overview of the study

This part provides an overview of the study including rationale, previous studies, aims of the study, research subjects, scope of the study, research methodology and

This chapter illustrates the theoretical background related to the issue including overview of pronunciation, the International Alphabet Phonetic, pronunciation

components, some pronunciation difficulties and some strategies for improving

English pronunciation

Chapter 3: Research findings

Relying on the data collected from the survey questionnaire and audio recording, the issues were analyzed in depth in order to provide realistic information about

difficulties in pronouncing English of second-year English Faculty students

Chapter 4: Recommendations and suggestions

In this chapter, some solutions are given for second-year English major students

to improve their English pronunciation Moreover, teachers in Faculty of English will have an additional perspective on the difficulties students face when pronouncing English in order to have effective instructions and teaching methods Limitations of the study are also included and the researcher can give some recommendations for further studies

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Overview of pronunciation

2.1.1 Definitions

English pronunciation is considered as the key for who want to be able to

communicate correctly and fluently Thus, this is an important skill that English

learners need to spend time researching and improving if they honestly want to have ability to master their English speaking skill dramatically Pronunciation of words should be learned before learning other skills, so what is pronunciation? In this

section, the definition of pronunciation will be provided to the second-year students in English of Faculty at TMU

First of all, we have the definition of pronunciation from AMEP Fact sheets by the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs

Pronunciation is defined as: “ The production of sounds that we are used to make meaning It includes attention to the particular sounds of a language (segments), aspects of speech beyond the level of the individual sounds such as intonation,

phrasing, stress, timing, rhythm (suprasegmental aspects), how the voice is projected (voice quality) and, in its broadest definition, attention to gestures and expressions thatare closely related to the way we speak a language

Or we can understand that “Pronunciation is the production of a sound system which does not interfere with communication either from the speakers’ or the listeners’viewpoint” (Paulston & Burder, 1976) Pronunciation is the way of uttering a word in

an accepted manner (Otlowski, 1998) Furthermore, Richard and Schmidt (2002) defined pronunciation as the method of producing certain sounds

Additionally, pronunciation is also put as “the way in which a language is

spoken” (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Encyclopedic, 1992, p.718) The Oxford

Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 8th (2008) makes a clear definition which is “the way

in which a language or a particular word or sound pronounced”

As we can see, definitions of pronunciation are varied, this one from Oxford Dictionary seems to be easier to understand: “Pronunciation is the way in which a

2.1.2 The importance of pronunciation

Learners with good English pronunciation are likely to be understood even if they make mistakes, whereas learners with poor pronunciation would not be

understood even if their grammar is flawless We try to judge people by the way they talk, so students with poor pronunciation can be considered to be inexperienced, uneducated, or a lack knowledge Obviously, foreigners only understand what we say when we pronounce correctly; thus, those who have good pronunciation skills will have an advantage in communicating in English As we can see, pronunciation plays a fundamental role in speaking skills but many English language learners do not pay adequate attention to and invest in English pronunciation They find that improving pronunciation is less important than other factors of English language such as

grammar, meaning of word, lexicology

In fact, it is true that other people will not understand what you say, if the word ismispronounced even though you know the spelling and meaning of the word So, if students have a desire to speak English correctly, then surely they will need to pay attention to correct pronunciation as soon as possible Additionally, with superb

pronunciation foundation, the process of acquiring new words becomes easier As a result, listening skills of students will also be significantly improved when they know the correct pronunciation of the words they hear When you pronounce correctly, you know how exactly the words are pronounced Therefore, it is very helpful for listening comprehension skills, you will listen more easily to English videos or radio, podcasts,

…etc if you know how to pronounce every single word On the contrary, you

pronounce incorrectly some words, when you hear native speakers say those words you will not understand what they are saying

In addition, when you pronounce correctly, you will create a more professional sense and listeners will have the feeling of wanting to hear what you say Especially those who work in the industry need to communicate with customers a lot, the correct pronunciation is the top priority

In short, when it comes to pronunciation, we cannot deny its importance in communication Pronunciation is considered the first impression you have when you first communicate with foreigners Easier communication with you will make your

work relationship with your partner more potential Thus, students really need to take pronunciation into account when speaking English.

2.2 Pronunciation components

2.2.1 Vowel sounds

Figure 2.1 Vowel sounds

According to Cambridge Dictionary, the definition of vowel sounds is “a speech sound produced by humans when the breath flows out through the mouth without being blocked by the teeth, tongue, or lips” Vowels are formed without any significantconstriction Vowels are derived from the Latin word vocalist, which means

"speaking," and in most languages, words and thus speech are not possible without vowels The term vowel is sometimes used to refer to both vowel sounds and the written symbols that represent them

According to Wolfram and Johnson (1981: 27), vowels take on their peculiar characteristics from changes in size and shape of the oral cavity as a whole The vowelheight dimension refers to the vertical position of the highest point of the tongue's body The vowel back ness dimension refers to the position of the highest part of the tongue's body on a horizontal scale

Classification of vowel sounds:

Figure 2.2 Classification of vowel sounds

Vowels can be classified according to three variables:

 Tongue height

High vowels: are those in the production of which the tongue is high in the mouth It is raised above its rest position E.g /i:/,/u:/

Low vowels: are those made with the tongue below its position E.g /a:/

Mid vowels: are those made with the tongue neither high nor low in the mouth E.g /e/

 Part of tongue which is raised

Front vowels: are those in the production of which the front of the tongue is the highest point E.g /i:/

Back vowels: are those in the production of which the back of the tongue is the highest point E.g /u:/

Central vowels: are those made with neither the front nor back of the tongue Thetongue is neither high nor low in the mouth E.g /ə/

 Degree of lip rounding

Rounded vowels: are those made with rounded lips The corners of the lips are brought towards each other and the lips are pushed forwards

Unrounded vowels: are those made with the lips spread The corners of the lips are moved away from each other as for a smile

Neutral vowels: are those made with the lips neither rounded nor spread

According to Celce-Murcia (2010), consonants are phonemes that are not

vowels, in other words are realized by obstruction So the airflow through the mouth isblocked at places of articulation

P Christophersen (1952), a noted phonetician defines consonants as “sounds in the production of which there is no obstruction of the air passage This obstruction is caused sometimes by another of the speech organs, and it amounts sometimes to a complete closure and all other time only to a partial one”

Classification of consonant sounds

According to Marianne, Donna and Janet (1996, p.42,43) the consonants system

is classified in terms of place and manner of articulation

Figure 2.4 Diagram of the vocal tract

According to the place of articulation, consonants are classified into 9 types:Bilabial: is the sound made with two lips pressed together or coming together E.g.: /b, p, w, m/

Labia-dental: is the sound which is produced with the lower lip touching the upper front teeth E.g /f, v/

Dental: is the sound which is produced with the tip or blade of the tongue

touching the upper front teeth E.g /θ, ð/

Alveolar: is the sound which is produced with the tip or blade of the tongue touching or approaching the alveolar ridge E.g /t, d, s, z, n, l/

Retroflex: is the sound which is produced with the tip of the tongue curling back towards the back of the alveolar ridge E.g /r/

Palate – alveolar: is the sound which is produced with the tongue tip or blade coming close to the area between the back of the alveolar ridge and the front of the hard palate E.g /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/

Palatal: is the sound which is produced with the front of the tongue coming close

to the hard palate E.g /j/

Velar: is the sound which is produced with the back of the tongue touching the soft palate E.g./k/, /g/, /ŋ /

Glottal: is the sound which is produced without the active use of the tongue and other parts of the mouth /h/

According to manner of articulation, consonants include 6 types:

Nasal: they are produced with the air-stream being stopped in the oral cavity but the soft palate is down so that the air can go out through the nose E.g /m/, /n/, /ŋ /Plosive: are the sounds which are produced with the air-stream being stopped in the oral cavity and the soft palate is raised blocking off the nasal cavity Then the two articulators come apart quickly and the air escapes through the oral tract E.g /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, /g/

Fricative: are the sounds in the production of which two articulators come close together but there is still a small opening between them so the airstream is partially obstructed and audible friction noise is produced when a stop is immediately followed

by a fricative E.g /tʃ/, /dʒ/

Lateral: is the sound which is made when the air-stream is obstructed at a point along the center of the oral tract, with incomplete closure between one or both sides of the tongue and the roof of the mouth E.g /l/

Approximant: are the sounds in the production of which two articulators come close together but without the vocal tract being narrowed to such an extent that a friction noise is produced E.g /r/, /w/, /j/

Figure 2.5 Classification of consonant sounds 2.2.3 Word stress

Definition of Word Stress by Merriam-Webster is “the manner in which stresses are distributed on the syllables of a word” According to Macmillan Dictionary, word stress is defined as “the way in which a certain part of a word is emphasized more thanothers when speaking For example, in the word ‘emphasized’ the stress falls on the first syllable, while in the word ‘example’ it falls on the second syllable”

According to British Council: “when we stress syllables in words, we use a combination of different features Experiment now with the word 'computer' Say it outloud Listen to yourself The second syllable of the three is stressed”

2.3 International Phonetic Alphabet

According to Peter Roach - Glossary, The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

“is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation of speech sounds in written form” One goal of the

International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) was to provide a unique symbol for each distinctsound in a language—that is, every sound, or phoneme, that distinguishes one word from another

Unlike Vietnamese, when learning English, we must learn about international phonetics to understand the English pronunciation, not look at the written form of the words The IPA primarily uses Roman characters Other letters are adapted from other scripts (e.g Greek) and changed to conform to Roman style Diacritics are used to

demonstrate nasalization of vowels, length, stress and tones as well as fine distinctions

in sounds

There are 44 sounds in The International Phonetic Alphabet They are divided into 2 groups: 20 vowel sounds including 12 monophthongs (single vowel sounds within a syllable), 8 diphthongs (two single vowel sounds combined within a syllable) and 24 consonants sounds

Figure 2.6 The International Phonetic Alphabet

2.4 Pronunciation difficulties

2.4.1 Difficulties in English sounds

2.4.1.1 Difficulties in vowel sounds

Vietnamese and English vowel system is more different People can recognize Vietnamese vowels by spelling, but it does not work in English In a Vietnamese word,there is only one way to pronounce a vowel, but in English, learners may get confused between tense and lax vowel pairs such as /I :/ and /ɪ/, /u:/ and /ʊ/ Vietnamese learnerscannot speak the two vowels of each pair correctly, such as words like sheep, taste, andstewed When Vietnamese people pronounce these words, English native speakers mayhear ship, text, and stood, instead

Besides, some English vowels do not exist in the Vietnamese alphabet that also creates more difficulties and problems when pronouncing such as /ɪ/ and /æ/.

The /ɪ/ sound is a Vowel sound and its technical name is the ‘Close Front Unrounded Vowel’ which also tells us about how the sound is made physically When pronouncing this sound, our tongue is close to the top and the front of the

Near-mouth Unrounded refers to our lips because they are stretched out as if we are smilingand not rounded All vowels are made through the mouth and are voiced so we vibrate our vocal chords to make the sound It is similar to the /i:/ sound, but it is shorter that

is also the reason why this sound is difficult to pronounce for students In addition, it isone of the two vowel sounds we use in English for unstressed syllables, the other one being /ə/

The /æ/ sound has a technical name: the ‘Near-Open Front Unrounded Vowel’ When pronouncing this sound, we put our tongue low and at the front of the mouth and stretch out our lips, then make a short voiced sound with the mouth open The front of the tongue is pushed further forward and is held lower in the mouth when forming the 'short a' /æ/ sound than with any other vowel sound The inside of the bottom front teeth will be touched by the tip of the tongue The tongue's body is

rounded slightly upward The jaw is lowered and the lips separated, allowing the entireoral cavity to remain open

2.4.1.2 Difficulties in consonant sounds

The /θ/ sound is called the ‘Voiceless dental fricative’ and the /ð/ sound is called the ‘Voiced dental fricative’ It means that we create friction between the tongue and top teeth These sounds are paired together since they are produced with the same mouth position They are characterized by the location of your tongue and teeth, and it

is a fricative, which is a sound created by high-pressure air movement in a narrow space in your mouth Both of these two sounds do not exist in the Vietnamese phoneticsystem and the way of pronouncing it is quite complex, leading to difficulties in

pronunciation for learners

The /ʃ/ sound is called the ‘Voiceless palato-alveolar fricative’ and the /ʒ/ sound

is called the ‘Voiced palato-alveolar fricative’ These means that you create friction through clenched teeth by directing air flow through a narrow channel formed along

the middle of the tongue These two consonants are paired together because they take the same mouth position They are fricative sounds which are produced by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the sharp edge of the teeth, and it is determined

by the shape of your tongue and the location of your teeth Because there is no

existence of these two sounds in the Vietnamese pronunciation system, Vietnamese people will reduce this sound to / s / and / z / to pronounce them

The /ʧ/ sound is called the ‘Voiceless palato- alveolar affricate’ and the /ʤ/ sound

is called the ‘Voiced palato-alveolar affricate’ It means you create friction by first obstructing airflow with your tongue and the ridge behind your teeth, then releasing it through a small gap These two sounds are paired together because they take the same mouth position They are characterized by the shape of your lips and the position of your tongue, and they are an affricate, which is a sound created by closing the air flow and then opening it by pushing air through a narrow space The narrow gap between your tongue and the ridge behind your teeth is caused by the tip of your tongue The structure of the sound formation of these two sounds is quite complicated, so learners will pronounce these two sounds as "ch" and "tr" in Vietnamese

 Consonant clusters

In linguistics, a consonant cluster is a group of consonants which have no

intervening vowel In English, for example, the groups /spl/ and /ts/ are consonant clusters in the word “splits” Consonant clusters cause challenges for students whose first language does not permit the combination of too many consonants without any need for intervening vowel sounds

There are, therefore, 26 two-consonant clusters in English: /sm/, /sn/, /st/, /sw/, /sk/, /sl/, /sp/, /sf/, /θw/, /dw/, /tw/, /θr/, /dr/, /tr/, /kw/, /kr/, /kl/, /pr/, /fr/, /br/, /gr/, /pl/, /fl/, /bl/, /gl/ and /ʃr/

Figure 2.7 Examples of the 26 syllable-initial two-consonant clusters in words

Moreover, there are only six three-consonant clusters: /spl/, /spr/, /str/, /sfr/, /skr/ and /skw/ The combination /sfr/ is extremely restricted in English Examples include sphragide /sfreɪdʒaɪd/ (a pellet of clay from the Greek island Lemnos), sphragistics /sfrəʤɪstɪks/ (the study of seals and signet rings) and sphrigosis /sfrɪʤəʊsɪs/ (over abundant growth in plants) Many of these words have Greek roots and have been introduced into the language As a result, it is arguable that the combination /sfr/ in syllable-initial position is not strictly permissible under English phonology rules

Figure 2.8 Examples of the six syllable-initial three-consonant clusters in words

 Final consonant sounds

In Pronunciation Challenges for Vietnamese Learners, Dang Duc Minh said

“Explosive endings in English are completely new phenomena for speakers of

Vietnamese Learners tend to omit the unvoiced endings or to make them all voiced For example, “mount” is often mispronounced as “moun” or “mounter,” and “park” as

“parker.” The distinguishing ending sounds of English words are another related problem for Vietnamese learners.”

According to Mr Minh, “the distinguishing ending sounds of English words are another related problem for Vietnamese learners For example, it is difficult for them

to distinguish between “sing” and “sink”, “thing” and “think,” “seats” and “seeds,” or

“ceased” and “seized” because the only difference between these pairs is the

pronunciation of the final sound, which is not a phenomenon in Vietnamese.”

“Vietnamese effort to pronounce English word-final consonants will be towards omitting, adding schwa or replacing by sounds closer to those existing in their mother-tongue ” according to Nguyen Thi Thu Thao in “Difficulties for Vietnamese when pronouncing English: Final Consonants” (2007)

2.4.2 Inconsistencies in written and spoken form

It would be much easier to pronounce English if the written form more closely resembled the spoken form Amongst the most confusing bits are silent letters – r, l, b,

h, k, n, p, s, t & w are all silent some of the time Then there are letters that can be pronounced in lots of different ways – ‘s’ can be pronounced as /z/, ‘t’ can be

pronounced in at least 5 ways, and an ‘n’ can become /m/ or /ŋ/ English contains 19 vowel sounds, but it only has 5 vowels to spell them with Because of the difficulty in recognition, it is difficult for students to pronounce a word correctly when only

reading the written form of the word without its phonetic For example, ‘good’, ‘food’ and ‘blood’ are all contain different vowel sounds (/ʊ/, /u:/ and /ʌ/) despite their same written form: “oo”

2.4.3 Difficulties in word stress

Word stress is crucial because emphasizing the incorrect syllable can lead to misunderstandings The term may be difficult to understand, or a syllable may be incorrectly stressed, causing confusion or even irritation to the listener In certain cases, emphasizing the incorrect syllable's meaning alters the meaning or form of expression

Since Vietnamese is a monosyllabic language and English is polysyllabic,

Vietnamese learners are likely to encounter word stress as an additional challenge There is no such thing as word stress in Vietnamese, while word stress is very

significant in English That is why a standard English dictionary would always tell you

as the form or part of speech changes For example, when “expert” is a noun, the stress

is on the first syllable, but when it is an adjective, the stress is on the second

The very first reason why Vietnamese learners make mistakes in word stress is the differences between the two completely different systems of stress English words can be either monosyllabic or polysyllabic whereas Vietnamese, on the other hand, is always monosyllabic (Nguyen, 2000b), Vu (1996), and many others) “Being

monosyllabic and tonal, Vietnamese is unable to express stress by tone, as in English, because this would affect existing tone.” (Swan & Smith, 1999, cited by Nguyen, 2000a) Vietnamese speakers' development of English words is highly influenced by their mother tongue, which uses tone rather than stress This explains why the older thelearners are, the more difficult it is for them to produce correct word stress or correct their errors in this field

The students' lack of understanding of word stress in English is the second

explanation for errors made by Vietnamese speakers The predominant way for

Vietnamese students to learn English is through their school classes, where teachers usually rely on the grammar-translation approach in order to help students pass high school exams and university entrance exams As a result, Vietnamese speakers are unable to accurately generate or imply the location of stress in English words

The third reason why students produce incorrect stress placement is the attributes

of the English word stress themselves Its composition, levels, and placements are veryextremely complex and unpredictable They do have rules regarding stress

placements but there are so many exceptions that many Vietnamese students find it difficult to memorize both the rules of word stress and the exceptions to any of those rules

2.4.4 Local language influences

The local language also has a big impact on English pronunciation, especially themispronounced /l/ and /n/ The cause of this mispronouncing is due to the social

communication environment formed when people were young Mispronouncing /l/ and/n/ appeared in northern Vietnam such as: Thai Binh, Ninh Binh, Vinh Phuc, Hung Yen, Hai Duong, Nam Dinh, etc When people in some localities in these provinces

pronounce words having the /l/ sound, they will often read those words with the /n/ sound instead of the /l/ sound.

Additionally, the teaching of Vietnamese at all levels has not really focused on practicing pronunciation skills for children from an early age, this leads to the

difficulty in correcting their pronunciation as they mature Moreover, the cause of L -

N mispronouncing is due to a defective sound structure For example, the tongue that

is too short or too long affects the poor pronunciation of these two consonants

2.5 Strategies for improving English pronunciation

2.5.1 Listening from foreign sources

Pronunciation plays the role of output so to get the good output we need to have quality input Hearing from mainstream sources plays an important role in our

exposure to the new language To improve English pronunciation, we need to be exposed to sources from English speaking countries through many different forms such as podcasts, videos, movies or music,etc When we listen to English sources, some sounds can be hard to tell apart such as “sleep” or “slip”, “chin” or “shin”,etc But if we can hear the differences between them, we will be able to pronounce them correctly

Harmer (2000, p.242) states, “Music is a powerful stimulus for student

engagement precisely because it speaks directly to our emotions while still allowing us

to use our brains to analyze it and its effects if we so wish.” Miyake (2004) defines that students often express their concern about their pronunciation As a result, they were afraid of making any errors when speaking, and songs can be an effective tool forlowering their affective filter (e.g., reducing stress and anxiety) and promoting

learning According to this statement, the pupils are afraid to speak because they are afraid of mispronouncing Songs are effective in the learning process, particularly in pronunciation and stress reduction when students are learning English

Prator (1957) says that “we would succeed in pronouncing words depending largely on the sharpness of your ear and your ability as an imitator” Therefore,

practicing for the ears that have a lot of contact with English giving an English

environment to contribute to the formation of language recognition and pronunciation

2.5.2 Learning about International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

There are many techniques that can be used to improve the pronunciation The most effective one is to learn about International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) As

mentioned in the previous section about the definition and structure of the IPA, it brings great benefit in recognizing and distinguishing sounds in English

Sometimes, hearing a word does not really help us pronounce it correctly

Although we have tried to imitate the speaker's pronunciation, however, we cannot pronounce correctly because we do not know the position of the tongue, or the correct mouth-shaped when pronouncing that word So if students already knew about the IPA, they could have just looked it up and seen the correct pronunciation of that word.Ideally, we should learn how to speak a language well before learning how to read and write Then, we can easily apply spelling and writing conventions to words that we already understand and know how to pronounce Almost everyone can make some pronunciation mistakes when students only encountered a word with our eyes, not with our ears When we study the International Phonetic Alphabet, our eyes will help us in our good English pronunciation As Gabriel (2014) points out in his book

“Fluent forever: How to learn any language fast and never forget it”: “We’re looking for a way to see what we’re hearing and, equally important, what we’re not hearing Our eyes are a powerful source of input If we aren’t careful, they can trick our ears into a state of inattention, and inattention can prevent us from learning the patterns we need.”

Each letter in the IPA represents more than just a symbol They are basically mini-manuals on how to position our tongue, teeth, and lips, as well as whether or not our vocal cords should be vibrating When learning the IPA, we realize that /s/ and /z/ are “minimal pair” which means that they are produced in the same “manner of

articulation” and differ only in their vibration of the vocal cords Therefore, learning the IPA symbols for the target language, we will also learn how to position your tongue, lips, and teeth in order to sound more like a native speaker

Learning the IPA for the target language will take some time and effort at first, but it will save you a lot of time and effort in the longer term Rather than having to unlearn bad pronunciation habits, the IPA assists us in developing correct

pronunciation from the start Instead of guessing or making incorrect assumptions, we will know precisely how to pronounce any word we come across.

2.5.3 Repetitive practice

The daily pronunciation practice not only helps us get used to the pronunciation

of the word but also helps us improve our ability to remember the meaning of that word Rapid learning of new words is crucial for language acquisition, and frequent exposure to spoken words enables vocabulary development ( Kimppa, 2017)

Repetition has been used and proven to be beneficial in language treatment for

children with developmental language disorders and adults suffering from aphasia after stroke or head trauma (Kempler and Goral, 2011) In particular, repetition is popular among L2 teachers and learners, at least for word learning and accurate

pronunciation, because it is beneficial and can assist language learners in achieving functional communication in everyday life (Berthier and Ralph, 2014)

Repetition is essential when learning English pronunciation Language units must

be repeated in order to be retained in long-term memory We cannot begin to speak fluently and beautifully unless we repeatedly repeat simple words and phrases

Repetition is very simple, but only if you have carefully studied the word's phonetic based on knowledge from the IPA, this practice will bring about a lasting effect