DICTATION AND ITS BENEFITS FOR TEACHING PRONUNCIATION TO EFL VIETNAMESE COLLEGE STUDENTS

VINH UNIVERSITYNGUYEN THI NGOC THAO DICTATION AND ITS BENEFITS FOR TEACHING PRONUNCIATION TO EFL VIETNAMESE COLLEGE STUDENTS Major: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.01.11 MASTE

VINH UNIVERSITY

NGUYEN THI NGOC THAO

DICTATION AND ITS BENEFITS

FOR TEACHING PRONUNCIATION

TO EFL VIETNAMESE COLLEGE STUDENTS

Major: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 60.14.01.11

MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION

Supervisor: Dr Tran Thi Ngoc Yen

Nghe An, 2017

Dictation is a teaching technique which has been proved effective at all levels ofEFL instruction This study, in the first place, explored the impact of dictationactivities on EFL Vietnamese college students’ pronunciation The study alsoaimed to determine the role of frequency in using dictation activities to achieveoptimal results An experiment was conducted among three groups of collegestudents The control group did not receive do any dictation activities while onetreatment group had one and the other had two dictation sessions a week Afterthe treatment, the three groups had the post-test, which was designed to evaluatetheir pronunciation Two comparisons were made: a comparison between theaverage total scores of the control groups and the two treatment groups, and acomparison between the average total scores of the first and the secondtreatment groups It was found that both treatment groups outperformed thecontrol group, but the treatment group that had two dictation sessions a weekachieved better results than the other treatment group Based on these results, therelationship between more frequent dictation and better pronunciationcompetence was consolidated

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Tran ThiNgoc Yen, lecturer of Faculty of English, Vinh University, for her enthusiasticinstructions, careful guidance, invaluable advice and encouragement from thefirst draft till the completed thesis

I am also grateful to my lecturers at Faculty of English, Vinh University, for alltheir kind guide and help

I also wish to thank my colleagues and students at Long An Teacher TrainingCollege for all their help to finish the study

My special thank also go to my family who have been interminably encouragingand facilitating me to fulfill this assignment

TABLE OF CONTENTS

IST OF CHARTS

Chart 4.1: Result description of the General test - the Control classChart 4.2: Result description of the General test - the Treatment classA

Chart 4.3: Result description of the General test - the Treatment classB

Chart 4.4: Pre-test results of the control class

Chart 4.5: Pre-test results of the treatment class A

Chart 4.6: Pre-test results of the treatment class B

Chart 4.7: Post-test result of the control class

Chart 4.8: Post-test result of the treatment class A

Chart 4.9: Post-test result of the treatment class B

Chart 4.10: Result description for the pre-test and post-test of the control

class and the treatment class AChart 4.11: Comparison the means of the pre- test and post-test for the

control class and the treatment class AChart 4.12: Result description of the pre-test and post-test for the treatment

class A and the treatment class BChart 4.13: Comparison the means of the pre- test and post-test for the

treatment class A and the treatment class B

LIST OF TABLES

Table 4.1: The test result of the previous semester (before thetreatment time)

Table 4.2: The test result of the pre-test

Table 4.3: Mean scores on pre-test of the control class and thetreatment classes

Table 4.4: The result of the post-test

Table 4.5: Mean scores on post-test of the control class and thetreatment classes

Table 4.6: Mean and standard deviations of participants’ pronunciation

increases (post-test minus pre-test) for the control class and thetreatment class A

Table 4.7: Mean and standard deviations of participants’ pronunciation

increases (post-test minus pre-test) for the treatment class A andthe treatment class B

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Introduction

Language is a means of communication and English has become a language forglobal communication these days Richards (1991) stated that it is a medium forinternational commerce, industry, communication and a source of scientific andtechnological advancement Its role in the academic world cannot beoveremphasized In Viet Nam educational system, English language has beentreated as one of the compulsory subjects And Vietnamese students now arestudying English also for their own communicative skills The growingemphasis on communicative approaches for the teaching of English has placedhigher needs for correct pronunciation, especially with English majored students

at a ‘teachers training’ college Current pedagogical thinking and research onpronunciation reveals that intelligible pronunciation is a very essentialcomponent of communicative competence Pronunciation is definitelythe biggest thing that people notice when you are speaking English

Vietnamese students encounter many difficulties when they learn to pronounceEnglish sounds The pronunciation of another sound system is really a factor thatthey find difficult In Vietnamese, a letter is often represented by the samephoneme (except /r/, /ng, ngh/, /k/ (c,k) While in English, the same letter mayrepresent different sounds or each English sound has more than just one

pronunciation For example, in Received Pronunciation, the letter ‘a’ has many different pronunciations, including /æ/ as in trap, bat; /ɑː/ as in ask (BrE), bath (BrE); /eɪ/ as in face, famous; and /eə/ as in care, parent It also can be pronounced /ɔː/ as in all or it can be used as schwa If the learners have no

knowledge about this inconsistency, this will lead to unintelligiblepronunciation

As one of the oldest language teaching activities, dictation has been neglected

by teachers For them, the word ‘dictation’ is synonymous with ‘old-fashioned’and ‘teacher-centred’ In fact, with a number of studies and commentaries,dictation is regarded as a supportive learning technique It is thought thatdictation can help develop all language skills, that is, grammar, oralcommunication, listening comprehension, especially pronunciation

First year students at Long An teachers training college have to complete theEnglish courses with the course book “American English File” by CliveOxenden, Christina Latham-Koenig and Paul Seligson (Oxford, 2008) From myown observation and experiences, my students who were confident in theirknowledge of Grammar had serious problems in pronunciation Because of theirpoor pronunciation, they usually felt unconfident when communicating as well

as get difficulty in Listening and Speaking They thought that it was no worthlearning and boring of learning pronunciation In order to improve my students’pronunciation, I chose to conduct a study on ‘Dictation and its benefits forteaching pronunciation to EFL Vietnamese college students’

1.2 Rationale

Teaching pronunciation involves a variety of challenges Teachers often find thatthey do not have enough time in class to give proper attention to this aspect ofEnglish instruction Drilling sounds over and over again (e.g., minimal pairwork) often leads to discouraging results, and discouraged students and teachersend up wanting to avoid pronunciation altogether Moreover, most of thestudents were convinced that English pronunciation was exceptionally difficultand their affective links with their mother tongue are normally positive andstrong

The use of dictation as a valuable language teaching and learning technique hasgone through a long history and has been used for centuries all over the world

Research has shown that dictation can help students improve different aspects oftheir language proficiency as Davis and Rinvolucri (2002) explained that

“Dictation provides activities suitable for a wide range of levels and ages,example texts for many activities, opportunities for students to create their owntexts, and a variety of suggested correction techniques” It is surprising thatdespite all the benefits, dictation is not widely used in teaching English becausesome linguists/teachers consider it teacher-centered and old-fashioned

This study was written for my improvement of teaching English pronunciation

As a teacher of English, I wish to re-introduce dictation as a beneficial languageteaching and learning device and to suggest ways for using it in an effective andinteresting manner in order to for EFL Vietnamese college students to achieveintelligible pronunciation

1.3 Aims of the study

The aim of the thesis is to explore dictation and its benefits for teaching

pronunciation to EFL Vietnamese college students

1.4 Research questions

The thesis is designed to answer the two following research questions:

- What is the impact, if there is any, of dictation activities on EFL Vietnamesecollege students’ pronunciation?

- How often should dictation activities be used in order for EFL Vietnamesecollege students to achieve optimal results?

1.5 Scope of the study

There are a large number of definitions about pronunciation In this thesis,

pronunciation is defined as ‘a way of speaking a word, especially a way that is

accepted or generally understood’ (American Heritage Dictionary, 3rd, 1992) It

is also the scope of the study

In addition, this thesis was aimed at doing research among adult learners Younglearners were not included in this research.

1.6 Thesis design

The thesis is divided into five chapters:

Chapter 1 is an introduction to the whole thesis It includes the rationale of thestudy, aims of the study, research questions, scope of the study and thesis design

of the study

Chapter 2 is about literature review This chapter consists of five parts Itpresents the definition and role of pronunciation in communication Factorsaffecting pronunciation learning, common pronunciation problems met byVietnamese learners of English and methods to teach English pronunciation arealso included in this chapter The next part of the chapter is about assessing EFLpronunciation ability, definition of dictation, history of dictation across foreignlanguage methodologies, characteristics of dictation as well as different types ofdictation and the use of dictation in teaching English pronunciation

Chapter 3 describes the methodology of the research which consists of researchquestions, participants, materials and procedure

Chapter 4, Findings and Discussions, gives a detailed presentation of the effects

of dictation on the participants’ pronunciation and the role of frequency The lastpart of the chapter includes the discussion of the results and findings

Chapter 5 is the conclusion of the research It presents summary of the findings,conclusions, limitations of the study and suggestions for further research

In the last part of the thesis, references and appendices are given in order toassure that the study is really valid

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Pronunciation

2.1.1 Definition

Pronunciation is one of the most important things that students have to master inorder to communicate appropriately and fluently It refers to the production ofsounds that we use to make meaning Pronunciation is also the act or manner ofpronouncing words; utterance of speech, a way of speaking a word, especially away that is accepted or generally understood

The notion of pronunciation has been defined in many different ways by writers.According to the Oxford Learners Dictionaries, 8th (2008), pronunciation is theway in which a language or a particular word or sound is pronounced Wikipediastated that pronunciation is “the way a word or a language is spoken, or themanner in which someone utters a word”

For Ur (2001) and Richard (2002), pronunciation is the sound of the language.Pronunciation is also defined as ‘a way of speaking a word, especially a waythat is accepted or generally understood’ (American Heritage Dictionary, 3rd,1992)

And as Cobbett stated in A Grammar of the English Language in a Series of

Letters: Intended for the Use of Schools and of Young Persons in General, but More Especially for the Use of Soldiers, Sailors, Apprentices, and Plough-Boys,

1831, “pronunciation is learned as birds learn to chirp and sing”

2.1.2 Role of pronunciation in communication

Pennington in 1996 found out that the most important part of learning a secondlanguage rests on pronunciation Pronunciation is the foundation of speaking.According to Yong (2004), English, both written and spoken, has been accepted

as the ascendant means of communication for most of the world but somemisunderstandings have been caused by inappropriate pronunciation Learners

with intelligible pronunciation in English are more likely to be understood even

if they make errors in other areas Good pronunciation can make thecommunication easier and more relaxed and thus more successful (Dan, 2006).Almost all learners rate pronunciation as priority (Willing, 1993) and what willhelp them most is plenty of authentic conversation practice, an area in whichthey need more guidance (Burns & Joyce, 1997)

When we talk to people in the real life, our pronunciation is the first thing theynotice during a conversation In everyday communication, just a limitedvocabulary is needed, not complicated words And the fact is that yourpronunciation will be noticed right away only for the first few words.Pronouncing the words correctly is better than knowing a lot of vocabularieswith unintelligible pronunciation Unlike the other skills, pronunciation strikesthe listener directly in the face (the ears, to be more precise) According toCelce-Murcia et al, pronunciation plays a very important role in communicativecompetence Pronunciation is as important as any other aspects of foreignlanguage learning Pronunciation is an aspect of verbal communication whichmakes the communication more attractive and effective To have success incommunicating with others, it is recommended that you have goodpronunciation in general and good foreign language pronunciation in particular.Pronunciation instruction is of great importance for successful oralcommunication to take place since it is an important ingredient of thecommunicative competence (Hismanoglu, 2006)

2.1.3 English pronunciation

One of the most difficult things about learning English is using the correctEnglish pronunciation Most people speak the dialect of standard English with

an accent that belongs to the part of the country they come from or live in

Learners of British English commonly hear RP (Received Pronunciation),

which is an accent often used on the BBC and other news media and in somecourse materials for language learners, but it is also common to hear a variety

of regional accents of English from across the world There are two widely

understood accents of English: General American (GenAm) and Received

Pronunciation (RP), spoken in Britain If you speak General American or

Received Pronunciation, you will be understood by native and non-native

speakers of English from all parts of the world These two accents are used ontelevision, in movies and in English teaching materials

According to Wikipedia, Received Pronunciation is the accent of StandardEnglish in the United Kingdom and is defined in the Concise Oxford EnglishDictionary as "the standard accent of English as spoken in the south ofEngland", although it can be heard from native speakers throughout England andWales

General American English Pronunciation (GAEP) is a kind of standardpronunciation found in American dictionaries such as the MerriamWebster General American is an umbrella variety of American English(Wikipedia) In this research, all the tests are conducted in American English asthe course books “American English File” by Oxenden, Latham-Koenig andSeligson (Oxford, 1996) are based on General American

Although RP is a minority English pronunciation, it was for historical reasonsselected as a prescriptive model of English in teaching materials Those

historical reasons are changing, and it is now better to treat RP as a point of

reference and not as a preferred pronunciation target Certainly RP has

widespread intelligibility, but so do many other accents

2.2 Teaching and learning English pronunciation

2.2.1 Factors affecting pronunciation learning

The role of pronunciation in the different schools of language teaching hasvaried widely from having virtually no role in the grammar-translation method

to being the main focus in the audio-lingual method where emphasis is on thetraditional notions of pronunciation, minimal pairs, drills and shortconversations (Castillo, 1990) Morley (1991) insisted that it is necessary toteach English pronunciation in the ESL or EFL classroom However, according

to Wong (1993), in the United States, many students and teachers believe thatspending time on pronunciation is useless because it would be difficult, if notimpossible for students to hear differences, for instance, between ship and sheep

In Thailand, Wei and Zhou (2002) found out that English pronunciation issimply ignored in the curriculum of some universities

Scarcella & Oxford (1994) concluded that “Pronunciation should be taught in allsecond language classes through a variety of activities” However, mostlanguage teachers do not have useful strategies for teaching pronunciation, andthey do not know what strategies are appropriate when they meet a specificproblem “We are comfortable teaching reading, writing, listening and to adegree, general oral skills, but when it comes to pronunciation we often lack thebasic knowledge of articulatory phonetics (not difficult to acquire) to offer ourstudents anything more than rudimentary (and often unhelpful) advice such as,

‘it sounds like this: “uuuh’ (Dalton, 2002)

According to Nunan (2003), the background of teaching pronunciation, as well

as the place of pronunciation teaching in the ESL/EFL classroom, has undergonesome dramatic changes over the past 50 years The teaching of pronunciationhas depreciated in comparison with the four basic skills in English Morley(1991) pointed out that 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s was golden time for

pronunciation teaching as pronunciation was viewed as an important component

of English language teaching curricula in audio-lingual methodology Asproposed by Nunan (2003), in this stage, the main orientation was "Listencarefully and repeat what I say" With Audio-Lingual method, "pronunciation istaught from the beginning, often by students working in language laboratories

on discriminating between members of minimal pairs"(Larsen-Freeman, 2000).However, there were some manifestations of changes in the late 1960s into the1980s when a large number of questions were raised about pronunciation in theESL curriculum (Richards and Rodgers, 1986): whether the focus of theprograms and the instructional methods were effective or not The orientation inthis stage from Nunan (2003): "Let's analyze these sounds closely to figure outhow to pronounce them clearly" Then it seemed there was a growing interest inrevisiting the pronunciation component of the ESL curriculum for adults thatbegan in the mid -1980s and into the 1990s "Let's start using these sounds inactivities as soon as we can while I provide cues and feedback on how wellyou're doing" was the orientation in this stage also proposed by Nunan (2003).With a shift from specific linguistic competencies to broader communicativecompetencies as goals for both the teacher and the learner (Morley, 1991), theneed for the integration of pronunciation with oral communication is clearlyrealized

In the late 1980's, there was a re-concentration on pronunciation (Morley, 1991).After 1980's, L2 pronunciation, gained new meaning because of its fruitfulness

to a broad group of international people in both ESL and EFL settings(Anderson-Hsieh, 1989; Brown, 1991; Shimamune & Smith, 1995; Derwing &

Munro, 2005; Gatbonton, 2005) Many of the learners in this stage were

immigrant residents, refugees, students, etc., who demanded for L2

pronunciation learning for finding jobs Because of the need for international

communication, new perspectives on pronunciation teaching and learning

emerged (Haslam, 2010) In the 90's, the focus of pronunciation was on

communicative meaning, meaningful practice, and the uniqueness of eachindividual ESL learner Pronunciation was viewed as an important part ofcommunication (Morley, 1991) Changing outlooks on language learning andteaching have influenced a move shifted from the teacher playing the key role inthe learning process to the student performing that role (Pica, 1994; Oxford,2003)

According to Harmer (2001), pronunciation teaching not only makes studentsaware of different sound and sound features but also improve their speakingimmeasurably At the present time, the increasing demand for globalcompetence and international communication and collaboration makes attainingproficiency in a second or foreign language more prominent and this proficiencyshould cover not merely vocabulary and grammar, but good pronunciation aswell (Lord, 2008)

All students can do well in learning the pronunciation of a foreign language ifthe teacher and student participate together in the total learning process Successcan be achieved if each has set, respectively, individual teaching and learninggoals Gilbert (1984) believes the skills of listening comprehension andpronunciation is interdependent: 'If they cannot hear English well, they are cutoff from the language If they cannot be understood easily, they are cut off fromconversation with native speakers.'

As non-native speakers, we sometimes made mistakes in pronouncing words.There are many major factors affecting the learners’ pronunciation The nativelanguage plays an important role in learning to pronounce English There hasbeen a great deal of research on the differences between sound systems ofEnglish and other languages in terms of sound systems According to Kenworthy

(1987), “to put it very crudely, the more difficulties there are the moredifficulties the learners will have in pronouncing English” Many studiesindicated that the greater the input of target language was and the higher the rate

of target language use was the closer learners’ pronunciation was to that ofnative speakers (Munro, 1993; Flege et al., 1997, Derwing, 2008)

About age of acquisition, the relationship between a learner's age and his/herpotential for success in second language acquisition is the subject of much livelydebate The Critical Period Hypothesis suggests that there is a time in humandevelopment when the brain is predisposed for success in languagelearning There have been many studies on the question that whether there is anage-related limit on the mastery of pronunciation and the results are conflictingbecause these studies have assessed pronunciation in different ways Bongaerts

et al (1995) emphasizes, adult-learners can achieve native-like pronunciationperformance thanks to specific pronunciation training, large amount of L2 input,high motivation and appropriate learning context

The role of attitudes and motivation in second language learning has beenstudied The overall findings show that positive attitudes and motivation arerelated to success in second language learning Crookes and Schmidt (1991)pointed to several areas where educational research has reported increased levels

of motivation for students in relation to pedagogical practices such as motivatingstudents into the lesson, varying the activities, tasks and materials and using co-operative rather than competitive goals According to Moyer (1999), highmotivation for achieving a set goal in learning L2 pronunciation can account forlearners’ success in gaining a good pronunciation or a native-like accent

Another factor is the amount and type of prior instructions The learners can usetheir previous knowledge to improve the pronunciation with accurate sounds andstress The amount and type of prior pronunciation instruction of the learners

should be taken in consideration, so that their pronunciation problems could berecognized and solved soon (Celce-Murcia et al., 2010).

The very important factor is that approaches to the teaching of pronunciationhave changed throughout the recent history of language teaching There aredifferent approaches of pronunciation teaching such as bottom-up and top-downapproach by Dalton (2003); Intuitive-Imitative and analytic-linguistic approach

by Celce-Murcia (1996); Communicative approach or integrated approach bylater researchers As most teachers do not have useful strategies or techniquesfor teaching EFL pronunciation and as they do not know what strategies areappropriate when they meet a specific problem, they simply avoid pronunciationinstruction in the classroom

The pronunciation of any one learner might be affected by a combination ofthese factors The key is to be aware of their existence so that they may beconsidered in creating realistic and effective pronunciation goals anddevelopment plans for the learners

2.2.2 Common pronunciation problems met by Vietnamese learners of English

Vietnamese native speakers have to deal with many obstacles to learn Englishpronunciation There have been quite a number of studies about the difficultiesVietnamese learners face in pronouncing English consonants and clusters As thefirst conclusion from Ha (2005), after the analysis were collected through threeexams with the total of fifty one students, there were three main types of errorsfound in the data and the most common error was sound omission in comparisonwith sound confusion and sound redundancy However, in research done by Ha(2005), a point to note is that her studies focused on learners from the North ofVietnam According to the Center of Applied Linguistics (Neumann, 2007),taking final consonants into consideration, for example, /t/ and /d/ at word-

finally are commonly confused with /t/ and /d/ everywhere, whereas /p/ sound in/ pɒp/ NAmE /pɑːp/ pop is often mispronounced as /bɒp/ NAmE /bɑːp/ Bob bySouthern people and /ʃ/ sound in /puʃ/ push becomes /pus/ puss by northerners.

Ha (2005) with another research from Tang (2007) showed that the Englishlanguage has a number of consonants, especially final consonants and clustersthat do not exist in Vietnamese rather than vice versa As a result, pronouncingEnglish final consonants and consonant clusters properly is one of the mostdifficult things that learners have to face from the very beginning

According to Osburne (1996) in an analysis of a case study from her subject - aVietnamese native speaker who came to the United States in 1972: "In additional

to cluster reduction, optional deletion of single syllable-final consonants,especially fricatives, which is attested for Vietnamese L1 speakers was found",and "Consonants omitted, however, were always final consonants not permitted

by Vietnamese (for example /l/ in control, /z/ in because)"

The process of learning a new language is the one of gaining a new habitsystem, in which the habits of using the mother tongue affects languagelearning Interference is a kind of special errors that Vietnamese learners meetbecause of their habits or natural effects from the mother tongue – Vietnamese –into the target language – English The language produced by foreign learners isunavoidably influenced by the mother tongue of the leaners For example, with

the words mind, Vietnamese learners easily mispronounce as /mɪnd/ like the sound /i/ in Vietnamese Another example is the word ginger which is

mispronounced /ˈgɪngə(r)/ like the sound /g/ in Vietnamese Learners shouldperceive that the spelling of an English word doesn’t really tell them how topronounce it It’s incredibly easy to make pronunciation mistakes, which can

become bad habits That’s why learners should always check the pronunciationrather than guess it The learners have to learn not just spellings, but alsopronunciations and cannot use spellings as a shortcut for pronunciation.

Another problem is about silent letter Silent letter is a letter that in a particularword does not correspond to any sound in the word's pronunciation Silentletters create problems for both native and non-native speakers of a language, asthey make it more difficult to guess the spellings of spoken words There are 20letters from 26 letters in English words that potential to be silent The silentletters are generally the letters that do not correspond to the other sound in the

words For example, the letter [h] in the words exhausted /ɪɡˈzɔːstɪd/ or the words hour /ˈaʊər/.

From the above examples, we see that the mother tongue has a great effect onthe English language produced by learners Gillette (1994), Graham (1994),Pennington (1994), Celce-Murcia, Brinton and Goodwin (1996) agree that thelearner's first language influences the pronunciation of the target language.According to Swan and Smith (1987), mother tongue interference appears inmany aspects of language, especially pronunciation Although pronunciationconsists of many aspects, in this thesis, only sound is focused on

In conclusion, it can be concluded that Vietnamese learners have a tendency tomove strange English ending sounds towards similar sounds which exist in theirfirst language; omit the sounds that are too difficult for them; reduce finalclusters; and pronounce English words in the same way they behave withVietnamese spelling These may cause some problems for communication withnative speakers and other proficient speakers of the English language

2.2.3 Methods to teach English pronunciation

Research has shown and current pedagogical thinking on pronunciationmaintains that 'intelligible pronunciation is an essential component ofcommunication competence' (Morley, 1991:513) Teacher must then setachievable goals that are applicable and suitable for the needs of the student.The growing emphasis on communicative approaches for the teaching ofEnglish has placed higher demands for correct pronunciation Without adequatepronunciation skills, the learner’s ability to communicate is severely limited.Morley believes that not attending to a student’s pronunciation needs, ‘is anabrogation of professional responsibility’ (1991: 489)

Fraser (1999) added that in the inquiry for effective teaching, it is worthintegrating carefully the nature of the difficulties that may be encountered.Learners also need motivation and time to really practice pronunciation It isworth spending class time discussing with learners their own ideas about what isinvolved in learning pronunciation

Teachers should pay attention to the development of self-correction techniquesand self-monitoring strategies It is critical that the teacher help to developstrategies which will allow the learner to self-correct and self-monitor byfocusing on motivation, explanations, practice and feedback Learners shouldunderstand why accuracy of oral production is important

In particular, English teachers should use many different kinds of practice tohelp learners improve their pronunciation Teaching English pronunciation is achallenging task with different objectives at each level

The first method was conducted is minimal pair drills This is a pair ofutterance-usually short- which differs in meaning, but which are exactly alike insound except in one point The students are to pronounce pairs of words which

differ in pronunciation only in one respect, such as bid /bɪd/ - big /bɪg/, andsound /saund/ - round /raund/ (Deterding and Pudjosoedarmo, 1998).

Teachers can use a series of isolated sentences These have concentration of thesound to be practiced, but they are not sentences frequently used in everydayconversation, Fangzhi (1998) For example: /ʊ/

"You should look at some good cookery books."

"You wouldn’t ‘put your foot in it’.” (Ship or sheep?, Ann Baker, 2008)

Tongue twisters are very useful Playing with words is particularly useful for thestudents who have unique pronunciation problems

Ball (2003) gives examples of tongue twisters The tongue twister, "She sellsseashells by the seashore," is based on a song written by Terry Sullivan

“She sells seashells by the seashore

The shells she sells are surely seashells

So if she sells shells on the seashore

I’m sure she sells seashore shells.”

“If a dog chews shoes, whose shoes does he choose?”

Fangzhi (1998) concluded in his study that the practices above are good forintroducing English sound to beginners and also good for building a strong basicpronunciation These pronunciation practices might be succeeded in helpingstudents to improve pronunciation but not in sequence Students who are trained

in these ways tend to make more pronunciation errors when speakingspontaneously.

Celce Murcia, et.al (1996) introduced two approaches that can be applied inhelping students' pronunciation improvement The first one is an intuitive-imitative approach It talks about the students' ability to listen to and imitatesounds of a target language He/she also can make imitate the pronunciation ofother people in television, radio, songs, and so forth The second approach,according to Celce Murcia, is an analytic-linguistic approach which recognizesthe importance of intervention of pronunciation in language acquisition Usingthis approach, teacher is to identify students' problem in pronouncing the foreignlanguage by providing pedagogical aids

Besides, Nunan (2003) also pointed out other teaching strategies to teachpronunciation Openness to change is a strategy in which teachers ask learners todiscuss problem areas that are faced It is important to build learner's self-confidence and attend their emotional needs as a non-native speaker Anotherone is contextualized minimal pairs It means teaching pronunciation bydistinguishing between specifically targeted sounds, stress patterns, or intonationpatterns through the use of minimal pairs Next, gadgets and props is a strategy

in which learners are to analyze the words on their own, and to practice sayingwords by using their tools in coordination with their pronunciation stresssyllables For Nunan (2003), slow motion speaking allows learners to view close

up, and to imitate, the teacher's way of producing specific sounds in context.With tracking strategy, language's learner are not being asked to repeat after therecorded voice, but to try to say the words presented in the transcript concurrentwith the voices they are listening to The last strategy as Nunan suggested is

techniques from drama and theater arts Popular plays and screenplays can beinteresting sources of pronunciation work.

In order to be success in teaching pronunciation, Otlowski (1998) suggested thatpronunciation should be integrated into other subjects orienting tocommunicative competence than linguistic skill Morley (1991) also pointed outthat listening comprehension and pronunciation have close relationship.According to Morley (1991), intelligible pronunciation is seen as essentialcomponent of communicative competence

2.3 Assessing EFL pronunciation ability

In pronunciation teaching, it is very common to see some learners who havebetter pronunciation skills than others Pronunciation ability is shaped depending

on several factors and the results of the studies which have conducted so farshow that pronunciation ability is not dependent on only one factor Dealingwith one factor independently by omitting the others doesn't give healthy results.All factors are connected and affect each other and they may have an influence

on pronunciation ability as a consequence According to Baker & Haslam(2013), motivation takes its source from higher aptitude and learners who havehigh motivation and aptitude make use of pronunciation more frequently.Obviously, pronunciation is tested globally in different types of conversationalexchange, interview, reading aloud, etc., that go on in the classroom

Normally, audio recorder will be used as a means of assessing students’pronunciation ability through their voice recordings After being assessed by anexpert, learners know their mistakes in order to improve

There are a large numbers of effects on pronunciation achievement, but theamount of their contribution varies according to learners' needs, their exposuretime to the target language, their learning context, and their future goals

However, language learners don't have to achieve native-like proficiency inpronunciation Accurate pronunciation which will make the intelligible isdesired since English is now lingua franca.

Teachers play an important role in achieving pronunciation ability In order toavoid difficulty and boredom which pronunciation is linked to, teachers shouldbring a variety of activities which appeal to students from different intelligenttypes into their classrooms (Thompson, Taylor, & Gray, 2001)

2.4 Dictation

2.4.1 Definition of dictation

Dictation has been a feature of language classrooms for hundreds of years It is ateaching technique which has proved effective at all levels of instruction.According to the Cambridge English Dictionary, ‘dictation’ is a test in which apiece of writing is dictated to students learning a foreign language, to test theirability to hear and write the language correctly The teachers dictate a word,phrase or sentence and the students write it down In Oxford AdvancedLearner’s Dictionary (1995:190), dictation means “being dictated to: passagethat is dictated”

In another statement about dictation, Oller (1979) stated that: “Dictation is a taskwhich requires the processing of temporally constrained sequences of material inthe language, divided up the stream of speech and then refers down what isheard requires understanding the meaning of the material”

Richards and Schmidt (2002) have demarcated dictation as a technique used inboth language teaching and language testing in which a passage is read aloud tostudents or test takers, with pauses during which they must try to write downwhat they have heard as accurately as possible Davis and Rinvolucri (2002)have also defined dictation as decoding sounds in aural input and then recodingthem in writing

From the definition above, we may come to a conclusion that dictation is anactivity that a learner transcribes word(s), phrase(s), sentence(s) or passage(s)that he/she hears.

2.4.2 History of dictation across foreign language methodologies

The traditional view of dictation has the teacher reading or reciting words,sentences or a passage in some set pattern in order for students to recreate it inwriting It is clear that with traditional form, dictation was claimed as ‘boring’and ‘teacher-centered’ as well as did not include any claim to improve

pronunciation In his interesting and enlightening book, Twenty-Five Centuries

of Language Teaching, Kelly tells us that dictation was used in the early Middle

Ages when pedagogical resources were limited and was used in the Grammar –Translation method Dictation was also used for teaching the sounds andspellings in the traditional Direct Method Dictation is seen by many teachers assomewhat old-fashioned, a relic of the grammar-translation method thatdominated language teaching (Kidd, 1992), until the last couple of decades ofthe 20th century when dictation is regaining its former popularity "Mention theword 'dictation' to the majority of practicing teachers, and the reaction is likely

to be a grimace and a rejection of an 'old-fashioned' activity that runs counter tocommunicative language teaching" (Morris, 1983)

In the past, dictation was widely known as a testing device, but this idea waslater claimed that since the words and their order are given, it does not test eithervocabulary or word order (Lado, 1961) In 1985, Stansfield stated hisdisagreement about using dictation as a test of foreign language proficiency due

to its strong association with the Grammar Translation Method

However, Valette (1964) argued that practice with dictation can help studentslearn the language Moreover, Morris (1983) also concluded that dictation is atechnique which can be used both as a testing technique and, more importantly,

as a learning activity which helps students develop their accuracy in listeningand writing and reinforces structure and vocabulary knowledge (p 121) Rahimi(2008) also came to a conclusion that the use of dictation as a language teachingtechnique improves learners' language proficiency Rinvolucri and Davis (1988),

in their book Dictation, proposed some interesting variations of dictation that

included activities to improve the pronunciation of the person dictating – inthese cases - the students, who were the alternatives to the teacher When theteacher gives up the dictating to students, correct pronunciation is developedinstead of spelling and grammar

2.4.3 Characteristics of dictation

Dictation can be described as a technique where the learners receive somespoken input, hold this in their memory for a short time, and then write whatthey heard

Dictation was firstly associated with the Grammar Translation

Method and was neglected with the dominance of Audio Lingual

Method in the 1960s However, it regained popularity later because

a) it highly correlates with tests of overall language proficiency

and b) it tests language as a whole as opposed to testing language

components in isolation (Afsharrad & Sadeghi Benis, 2014, p.

2204)

Dictation as a device in both testing and teaching has been controversial in thearea of SLA (Afsharrad & Sadeghi Benis, 2014) Using dictation as aninstrument to measure general language proficiency has been popular forcenturies (Farhady & Malekpour, 1997) Oller (1972), have even claimed thatdictation is more reliable and more valid than any other types of traditionalmethods of testing language proficiency

According to Kavaliauskienė & Darginavičienė (2009), “Dictation can helpdevelop all language skills, that is, grammar, oral communication,pronunciation, and listening comprehension” Afsharrad and Benis (2014)strictly believe that improving learners' ability in taking dictation improves theirlanguage proficiency.

Farhady and Malekpour (1997) stated that dictation is believed to be ademanding test in which multiple linguistic components as well as languageskills are measured instantaneously It activates the learners' internalizedexpectancy grammar and yields considerable information concerning one'soverall language proficiency It also meets the criteria of pragmatic testsprovided that the materials are selected from natural context with appropriatelength to tap the learners' short-term memory

Zhiqian (1989) summarizes the characteristics of dictation as a techniqueserving both the teacher and the students efficiently as follows:

*Dictation can be used with a class of any size

*Dictation ensures attentive listening When the students are doing adictation, their attention will totally be focused on the exercises

*Dictation gives the students a chance to get practice in the sort of notetaking that many courses require

*Dictation requires the students to make the transfer from the spoken towritten language

*Dictation, if properly varied, can provide practice in listeningcomprehension, vocabulary building, increasing reading speed andcomprehension, as well as elementary aspects of hand-writing, punctuation,spelling, and composition formation

2.4.4 Types of dictation

2.4.4.1 Running dictation

This is one of the most popular types of dictation It generates a lot ofexcitement and encourages whole class participation A running dictation getsstudents out of their seats and can be used in a variety of contexts

Before the teacher begins, he/she creates a text that contains words which he/shehas taught the pronunciation of and others which are similar Then, the teachersticks the text on the board or outside the classroom Teacher divides thestudents into pairs, one is the ‘reader’ and one is the ‘writer’ The ‘reader’ runs

to the text, reads the sentence(s), remember it, runs back and tells the ‘writer’.The ‘writer’ writes what the ‘reader’ says without other helps from spelling,recording or taking pictures The teacher should set up the time for the task.When the time is up, the students give the text to the teacher to compare with theoriginal text

Another way is that the teacher can divide the class into groups of between threeand five students and there will be one runner, one runner and one or moreobservers The teacher should use an interesting story or topic for the text Theteacher should also follow the task with a feedback session on the pronunciationand highlight any words that gave students a lot of trouble, and comment on theoverall quality of the pronunciation

One of the important things is that if there are many students in the class, itmight be best to tape two copies of the text so students aren’t running over eachother At the same time, all of the runners go to the text and remember as much

of it as they can without writing anything down The runners are not allowed towrite anything but may only give oral directions to the recorder The runnermakes as many trips as necessary to the text until they are sure it is perfect Analternative to this activity is after the runner dictates one line to the recorder, thestudents switch roles

2.4.4.2 Picture dictation

This activity helps students practice speaking by describing a picture andlistening by drawing the picture described to them as well as helps to improvestudents’ pronunciation

The class is divided into pairs and the pairs sit back to back with their partner Inpairs, one student faces the image and the other with blank paper and pencil Thestudent who can see the picture describes the image to his or her partner, whowill draw the image according to his/her partner’s instructions The teacher hasthe students compare their picture to the original This is a self-motivatedactivity and it is more student-centered than simply listening to the teacher.Before class, teacher comes up with a set of instructions to have students draw apicture Use similar words so students need to listen carefully in order to draw acorrect picture For example, a good instruction would be, “There is a spider onthe wall.” The teacher can repeat the word “spider” so that students may hearand remember the way to pronounce the word with the vowel sound /aɪ / instead

of /iː/ as affective links with their mother tongue of the letter ‘i’ in the word

‘spider’ In class, be sure each student has a pencil and a blank sheet of paper.Teacher can also find simple pictures of parks, classrooms, airports, or otherscenes on the internet to print out and give to students to complete with teacher’instructions Once teacher have given all the instructions, have students comparepictures with their neighbor to see if they match Teacher can have students readthe instructions back based on their pictures while he/she draws what they say

on the board or on a transparency copy and see if all students’ pictures matchwhat teacher has on the board

2.4.4.3 Minimal Pairs dictation

Minimal pairs not only help students have a good pronunciation but alsodistinguish specific sounds by practicing them Minimal pairs are useful in theclassroom when looking at the pronunciation of certain words and sounds

The teacher reads out minimal pairs in a particular order and the students writethem down Or the students could have the words already written down and youcould instruct them to put marks, numbers, colors, etc on particular words asyou read.

Another way is that the students prepare two cards or two pieces of thick paper.The teacher have students hold one sign in each hand as they listen to theteacher or a chosen student say a pair of words When the teacher or their friendsays a pair of words, students should show up the “same” sign if the target sound

is the same and the “different” sign if the target sound is different

Sometimes, teacher writes the minimal pairs on the board in a table or in twocolumns Teacher drills the pronunciation around the class Then teacher dictatesfour of the words, but tell the students they only need to write the number of thecolumn, not the word If in the first column there are four words: cut, but, uncle,fun and there are also four words in the second column: cat, bat, ankle, fan So,

if teacher says "cut, but, ankle, fun" the students should write "1,1,2,1" Then thestudents work in pairs - one dictates the words, the other says which number

In other case, students work in groups of 3-4 Teacher puts a few minimal pairs

on slips of paper (one word per paper) and gives a set to each group Then theteacher calls out a word and the students race to grab the correct word Teacherkeeps calling until there's none left, after that gets the students working withintheir groups One student calls out the words, the others grab the word he/shesaid It is important to encourage lots of competition to keep them motivated

A very exciting activity for this kind of dictation is that teacher puts the tablewith minimal pairs on the board The teacher assigns each sound an action Forexample, the sound /e/ could be "stand up", and the sound /eɪ/ could be "sitdown" Then teacher calls out the words, and the students should perform the

action The last student to do the correct action becomes 'caller' and calls out thenext word.

2.4.4.4 Cloze dictation

Cloze dictation is very essential in that it is the basic skill needed in learning anysubjects It is a thinking activity which involves comprehension strategies ofthe listener to gain knowledge Particularly the ability to discriminatesounds, identify main idea, and listen for detailed information The technique ofCloze Dictation is given in the traditional style of reading the passage threetimes, the first time at a normal speaking speed with the students only listening

to get the general meaning of the passage, the second time slowly enough for thestudents to fill in the blank, presenting the passage in word groupings or

“chunks”, the third time at normal speed, but allowing pauses between sentences

to allow the students to fill in any words or to correct any errors they perceivedfrom the second reading The phrasing in giving the dictation is connoted in thepassage with slashes Doing this technique, English listening will be moremeaningful if students are more highly engaged

After selecting a short text for dictation, the teacher deletes any words she wants

to work on, for example, articles or prepositions The students work in pairs withdifferent deleted words from the text Then, the students are given copies of theprepared passage and are required to complete the blanks The one student readhis/her text while the other listen and fill in the blanks and vice versa

Teacher will give each pair one copy of “Dictation A” and one copy of

“Dictation B” One student should take one paper and should not show theirpaper to their partner The student with “Dictation A” should slowly read theirparagraph to their partner as their partner writes down exactly what they say.They may ask their partner to speak slowly or repeat something, but they maynot ask for spelling or clarification When the paragraph is finished, the student

with “Dictation B” should slowly read their paragraph to their partner as theirpartner writes down exactly what they say When both students are finishedwriting, the students should each read what they wrote down to their partner.The partner should correct what was written Students should chat about whatthe errors were and why they think they were made Was it because the studentsaid the word incorrectly or because the student did not understand the word thatwas said?

2.4.4.5 Musical dictation

One of the main reasons that teachers do not use more dictation is that it is sounpopular with students Students get bored very quickly Lyric dictations tosongs are great ways for students to practice Melody and rhythm of songs help

to maintain the natural rhythm and stress of speech which can be easily lost bydictating sentences at a slow pace

Music and songs can be the essential tools to increase the learners’ motivationand decrease their anxiety using music and songs could change a mood or create

an atmosphere (Marphy, 2002) How much of the song should students berequired to take down as dictation? This depends on the goals of the class andthe time available For dictation of a full song, short, slow songs are usuallybest

Song dictations do not always require that the students write down all of thewords of the song Instead a partial song dictation can be carried out The mostcommon use of this is the cloze where certain words of the song are blanked out,and the students have to listen and fill them in If desired, these words can be of

a particular lexical or grammatical type In the example below, the verbs areblanked out If you ask students to predict the words before listening, top-downprocesses will be involved in addition to the usual focus of dictation on bottom-

up processes

Song dictation can be a fun way of bringing dictation to life Songs are one ofthe language resources that almost all students love, and you may find that songdictation becomes a hobby for some of your students as they realize that theycan now figure out the words of their favorite songs.

The teacher prepares a song-lyrics worksheet by deleting 8-10 phrases from asong and replacing them with blanks for writing The teacher then numbers the

phrases in random order (that is, not in the order in which they appear in the

song) and post them on the walls around the room Next, the teacher divides thestudents into small groups (or pairs), and distribute the worksheet Play the songonce; students follow along on their worksheets One student from each group(the messenger) gets up, finds a phrase on the wall, memorizes it, and recites it

to the group members, who write the phrase down on their own paper (not in theblanks on the worksheet) The messenger continues going to the wall,memorizing phrases one at a time, and reciting them to the group until all thephrases are dictated (Students can take turns being messenger.) When thedictation activity is complete, write the phrases on the board or project them on

a screen so that students can check their writing Finally, the teacher plays thesong a few times while students fill in the blanks with the missing phrases

The best videos to do are the ones where teacher can first play the video withoutsubtitles, and when students have finished their dictation, teacher can directthem to the video with subtitles An alternative to this is allowing students topick their own videos and then having a partner watch the video and check theirwork

2.4.5 The use of dictation in teaching English pronunciation

The most prominent teaching method today is Communicative LanguageTeaching It emphasizes that the main purpose of language teaching is to helpstudents learn to communicate To do this, they need intelligible pronunciation

Traditionally, dictation is not necessarily ineffective in the English classroom.Richards and Rodgers (1986), as well as Moy (1986), point out thatpronunciation played a signal part in the Direct Method, conceived at the end ofthe 19th century Pronunciation was central to the Audio-lingual Method in the1950s and 1960s (Moy, 1986), and to both the Oral Approach and the SilentWay2 in the 1960s and 1970s (Richards and Rodgers, 1986; Moy, 1986) Therevised versions move the objectives from spelling and grammar to development

of correct pronunciation

Davis and Rinvolucri, in their book Dictation (1988), propose some interesting

variations on the traditional methods of dictation As a starting point, they posethe question, 'Who dictates?' and answer their own question by offeringalternatives to the teacher One alternative is to have students dictating to eachother, in which case the dictation becomes a pair or group activity Thus theobjectives of such a dictation activity would include improving thepronunciation of the person dictating as well as honing the receptive skills of thelistener/writer To further focus the activity, the teacher could decide on aparticular pronunciation point and design an activity to practice it When theteacher gives up the dictating to students, the objectives shift away from spellingand grammar and towards development of correct pronunciation and the activitytends to be more communicative As a whole it also becomes student-centeredwith the students doing everything except the actual preparation A number ofpronunciation problems may be addressed effectively, and preparation isrelatively fast and simple In spite of some drawbacks, dictation can be said to

be a good choice when teaching English pronunciation

Dictation is also considered to be easily designed and conducted in variousstages of a lesson In my experience, dictations help to put pronunciationactivities in a positive and interesting light Dictation can be adapted to any level

and can accommodate most class sizes While it is nearly impossible tocompletely eliminate an accent, it is possible to reduce it and increaseunderstandability Doing so takes practice, practice, and more practice.

When we get students to work in small groups with each person in the groupdictating a section of the text to the rest of the group, this encourages thelearners to listen to each other, highlights the importance of clear pronunciation.When offering alternatives to the teacher, students dictate to each other in pair orgroup activity The objectives of such a dictation activity would includeimproving the pronunciation of the person dictating With musical or songdictation, when students remember the song, they will remember the grammar,the vocabulary, and the pronunciation

The use of dictation as a valuable language teaching and learning technique hasgone through a long history and has been used for centuries all over the world

3.1 Research questions

The thesis is designed to answer the two following research questions:

- What is the impact, if there is any, of dictation activities on EFL Vietnamesecollege students’ pronunciation?

- How often should dictation activities be used in order for EFL Vietnamesecollege students to achieve optimal results?

3.2 Participants

The study was conducted on the K40 classes (non-English major) with about 40students per class Almost the students come from rural areas and to be honest,they have never had a chance to contact with foreigners Resources of referencebooks at the college are also limited All of the factors make the quality oflearning English in general and learning English pronunciation in specific quitepoor

+Tests were given to the students, including pre-test at the beginning of the term(measure the students’ competence), and post-dictation activities test (check howmuch is the improvement) In the pre-test and post-test, each student read aloud

40 words which were the same for both tests These 40 words were selected inthe course-book

+Different types of dictation were employed for students’ engrossment Eachtype of dictation activity has its own influence to the learners’ pronunciationcompetence

+Most of the dictation activities were recorded in order to make sure that thestudents were familiar with the recording process If the students feltembarrassed when recording for the tests, the accuracy of the tests would beaffected The recording then was sent to an expert to check and analyseaccording to American

CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 Results and findings

4.1.1 The effects of dictation on the participants’ pronunciation

4.1.1.1 The results of the General English (General Test)

With the approval from my supervisor, the results of the General Test for all thethree classes including one control and two treatment classes were based on themarks scored on English subject in the previous semester The result wascollected from the Department of Testing and Quality Assurance

Based on the course and the test policy of the school, only writing tests wereconducted Amazingly, the test results were satisfactory with the expectedoutcome The three classes were at the same level of English

Table 4.1: The test result of the previous semester (before the treatment time)

Based on the results of the tests in the previous semester, it can be presumed thatthe English level of the participants is almost equivalent.

Chart 4.1: Result description of the General test - the Control class

Chart 4.2: Result description of the General test - the Treatment class A