Luận văn thạc sĩ VNU ULIS a study on the effects of using phoneme grapheme correspondence method on sound recognition ability of efl 10th grade students at quoc oai high school and their attitudes

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ THƠM A STUDY ON THE EFFECTS OF USING PHONEME-GRAPHEME C

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ THƠM

A STUDY ON THE EFFECTS OF USING PHONEME-GRAPHEME CORRESPONDENCE METHOD ON SOUND RECOGNITION

SCHOOL AND THEIR ATTITUDES (Nghiên cứu hiệu quả của việc áp dụng phương pháp liên hệ giữa chữ viết và phát âm tới khả năng nhận biết âm tương ứng trong tiếng Anh của học sinh lớp 10 THPT Quốc Oai và thái độ của học sinh đối với

phương pháp này)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Hanoi, 2016

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ THƠM

A STUDY ON THE EFFECTS OF USING PHONEME-GRAPHEME CORRESPONDENCE METHOD ON SOUND RECOGNITION

SCHOOL AND THEIR ATTITUDES (Nghiên cứu hiệu quả của việc áp dụng phương pháp liên hệ giữa chữ viết và phát âm tới khả năng nhận biết âm tương ứng trong tiếng Anh của học sinh lớp 10 THPT Quốc Oai và thái độ của học sinh đối với

phương pháp này)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Nguyễn Đức Hoạt, Ph.D

Hanoi, 2016

DECLARATION

I hereby certify that the thesis entitled “A Study on the Effects of Using

-Grade Students at Quoc Oai High School and Their Attitudes” is entirely the result

of my own research in the fulfillment of the requirement for the Degree of Master of Arts at the Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, and that this thesis has not been submitted for any other degrees

Hà nội,2016

Nguyen Thi Thom

Secondly, my thanks also go to all lecturers and the staff of Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their useful lectures, materials, guidance and enthusiasm during

my course

A special thank would also go to all the students at Quoc Oai high school who took part in the research Without their participation and cooperation, I would not be able to complete this research paper

Last but not least, my deep appreciation and gratitude to my beloved family, especially

my parents, my husband and my little daughter for their encouragement, inspiration and unconditional love, which enormously helped me towards the completion of my research

Furthermore, students show positive attitudes towards this method

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Declaration i

Acknowledgements ii

Abstract iii

Table of contents iv

List of tables vii

List of figures viii

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale and statement of the problem 1

1.2 Aims of the study 2

1.3 Research questions 2

1.4 Significance of the study 2

1.5 Scope of the study 3

1.6 Research method 3

1.7 Organization of the study 3

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Theoretical Background 5

2.1.1 Definition of “pronunciation” 5

2.1.2 Role of pronunciation in language learning 6

2.1.3 Approaches to teaching pronunciation 7

2.1.3.1 The intuitive-imitative approach 8

2.1.3.2 The analytic-linguistic approach 8

2.1.4 Techniques of testing pronunciation 9

2.1.5 Definition of “Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence” 10

2.1.6 Vietnamese – English sound systems 12

2.1.7 Definition of “attitude” 13

2.1.8 The role of attitude in second language learning 13

2.2 Previous research works and the need for this study 14

CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY

3.1 Research design: Quasi-experimental 15

3.2 Setting of the study 16

3.2.1 Background 16

3.2.2 Population of the study 16

3.2.3 Sample of the study 17

3.3 Data collection instruments 18

3.3.1 Document research 18

3.3.2 Questionnaire 20

3.3.3 Pre and post tests and test validity 21

3.4 Data collection procedure 23

3.5 Data analysis methods 24

CHAPTER FOUR: RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 Research findings 25

4.1.1 The students’ sound recognition ability 25

4.1.1.1 Calculation between two mean scores and standard deviations 25

4.1.1.2 Test of significance 26

4.1.2 Students’ attitudes towards Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence method 28 4.1.2.1 Part I: Students’ perceptions on sound recognition 28

4.1.2.2 Part II: Students’ attitudes towards Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence method 29

4.2 Discussion 32

4.3 Summary of the main findings 33

CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSIONS, LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 5.1 Conclusions 34

5.2 Limitations and suggestions for further study 34

5.3 Suggestions for teachers and students 35

5.3.1 For the teachers 35

5.3.2 For the students 35

REFERENCES 37

APPENDICES

APPENDIX I (a): The sample of the lesson plan for the conventional method I APPENDIX I (b): The sample of the lesson plan for the Phoneme-Grapheme

Correspondence method II APPENDIX II (a): QUESTIONNAIRE (English) IV APPENDIX II (b): BẢNG CÂU HỎI (Vietnamese) VI APPENDIX III (a): Pre-test .VIII APPENDIX III (b): Post-test IX APPENDIX IV: Correlation reliability of the test .X APPENDIX V (a): Test results of the experimental group XI APPENDIX V (b): Test results of the control group .XIII

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1 Non-randomized control-group pretest posttest design 15

Table 3.2 T-test: The pre-test mean scores of the experiment group and the control group 17

Table 3.3 The conventional method 19

Table 3.4 The Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence method 19

Table 3.5 Specifications of the pre-test 22

Table 3.6 Teaching procedure 23

Table 4.1 The pre-test and post-test mean scores and standard deviation of students‟ scores in the experimental group and the control group 25

Table 4.2 t-Test: The post-test mean scores of the experiment group and the control group 27

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1.1 Features of English Pronunciation 6 Figure 4.1 The pre-test and post-test mean scores of the experiment group and the control group 26 Figure 4.2 Students‟ perceptions on sound recognition 28 Figure 4.3 Students‟ general perceptions about Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence method 29 Figure 4.4 Students‟ feelings when being taught with Phoneme-Grapheme

Correspondence method 30 Figure 4.5 Students‟ beliefs on the effects of Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence method 31 Figure 4.6 Students‟ expectation of the use of Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence method 32

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

This initial chapter will introduce the rationale, the aims and the research questions, the significance of the study, together with the scope and methodology applied in the study More importantly, the clearest organization of the research is also given in this chapter

1.1 Rationale and statement of the problem

It can be said that English, an effective means of international communication, has become firmly established as the second language in Vietnam, overwhelming French and Chinese Especially, joining the World Trade Organization has helped Vietnam attract a considerable number of foreign businesses; the government thus has attached importance to teaching and learning English for communicative purposes To communicate effectively, accurate pronunciation is one of requirements students need

to fulfil Pronouncing incorrectly can result in communication breakdown Being aware of the importance of pronunciation in communication, the authors of the new English textbook for high-school students added pronunciation part in each unit, beside lessons on grammar, four English macro skills, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing

Pronunciation parts in new English 10 textbook are about vowels and consonants

After one year teaching English 10 at Quoc Oai high school, the researcher found out that 10th-grade students had difficulties in recognizing English sounds because in Vietnamese, each sound is represented by one word; whereas, each English sound can

be represented by a number of letters They don‟t know when a letter or a combination

of letters is pronounced as this sound and when as another sound As a result, when doing phonetic exercises, they usually guess the answers With the conventional teaching techniques, teachers introduce phonemes with their phonetic symbols, describe how to make these sounds, give some examples and then let students practice some sentences with these sounds With that teaching method, students can pronounce

a new word only when its phonetic transcription is provided and it is quite difficult to guess the pronunciation of a new word

Due to the importance of pronunciation in communication and the poor sound recognition ability of students, the researcher decided to introduce Phoneme-

Grapheme Correspondence method to students The present study, “A Study on the Effects of Using Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence Method on Sound

Attitudes”, is an attempt to examine whether using Phoneme-Grapheme

Correspondence method leads to better sound recognition ability compared to the conventional method or not Furthermore, the study aimed to find out the students‟

attitudes towards using this method

1.2 Aims of the study

This study aims to:

- investigate the effects of using Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence Method on sound recognition ability of 10th-grade students at Quoc Oai high school;

- find out students‟ attitudes towards using this method

1.3 Research questions

The study aims at answering the following questions:

- To what extent does Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence method help to improve sound recognition ability of 10th-grade students at Quoc Oai High

School?

- What are the students‟ attitudes towards Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence

method?

1.4 Significance of the study

This study provides an insight into the effects of using Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondences method on EFL high-school students‟ sound recognition ability as well as their attitudes towards using this method It is hoped that the results of this research can be regarded as a source of reference for educational administrators to make adjustments to the content of pronunciation part In addition, the findings can help teachers consider whether to use Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondences method to teach pronunciation Moreover, this study will be much beneficial to students who wonder if using Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondences method to improve their pronunciation ability Lastly, this paper will serve as a good reference for those who

want to have a clearer view of applying Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondences method

1.5 Scope of the study

The research was carried out on the 10th-grade students at Quoc Oai high school Due

to time constraints, the research was limited to investigating the effects of Grapheme Correspondence method on the students‟ English vowel sound recognition ability Other aspects of English pronunciation such as dipthongs, consonants, intonation would not be investigated

Phoneme-1.6 Research method

The method used in this study is quasi-experimental research According to Arikunto (2002, as cited in Hidayat, 2014), experimental research is the way to find a causal relationship (relationship clause) between the two factors that are deliberately caused

by the researcher by reducing or setting aside other factors that interfere; therefore, this kind of research is suitable for this study, in which the effects of using Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence method on students‟ sound recognition ability are investigated

1.7 Organization of the study

The study is divided into five chapters as follows:

Chapter one, INTRODUCTION, introduces the rationale for the research, the aims,

the research questions, the significance of the study, the scope of the study, the research method, and the organization of the study

Chapter two, LITERATURE REVIEW, reviews the literature relevant to the study

This chapter starts with theoretical issues on pronunciation, respectively the definition, the role of pronunciation in language learning, approaches to teaching pronunciation and techniques of testing pronunciation In this chapter, the researcher also mentions the definition of Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence and points out the differences between English and Vietnamese in terms of sound systems The definition of attitude

as well as the role of attitude in second language learning are also mentioned in this

chapter Last but not least, the previous research works on this issue and the need for this study are also included

Chapter three, METHODOLOGY, describes in detail the research methodology The

research design is shown, followed by an introduction of the settings of the research It also presents instruments employed in this paper to collect the data, namely questionnaires, and pronunciation tests In addition, this chapter is comprised of data collection procedures and data analysis methods

Chapter four, RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION, presents the results and

discussions of the collected data

Chapter five, CONCLUSIONS, LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS, provides the

conclusions, as well as presents limitations of the research It also makes suggestions for further research in the same field and suggestions for teachers and students

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter provides readers with the relevant literature of the study by presenting some key concepts which are necessary to understand the issues mentioned in the paper more clearly, as well as the review of the previous studies related to the topic of the paper

2.1 Theoretical Background

2.1.1 Definition of “pronunciation”

The notion of “pronunciation” has been defined by a number of scholars Oxford Advanced Learner‟s English Dictionary gives an easy-to-understand definition that pronunciation is “the way in which a language or a particular word or sound is pronounced” Trask (1996) also provided a similar definition that “pronunciation” is

“the manner in which speech sounds, especially connected sequences, are articulated

by individual speakers or by speakers generally” (p 291) Both definitions clearly point out that pronunciation is a way of producing language, word or sound However, Kristina et al (2006, as cited in Pratiwi, 2010) added an element when defining this term According to them, pronunciation entails not only the production but also the reception of speech sounds and the achievement of the meaning Murphy (2003) shared the same idea and gave a convincing explanation that

Though most of us think in terms of speech production, the Longman Dictionary of

Applied Linguistics emphasizes “the way sounds are perceived by the hearer” to define

pronunciation (Richards, Platt, and Weber, 1992, p 296) An emphasis on hearers‟

perceptions is especially relevant How we pronounce words, phrases, and sentences communicates to others considerable information about who we are, and what we are like, as people

(p 112)

In conclusion, pronunciation is the way to pronounce an intelligible speech sound

Regarding the features that constitute the production of sounds in English, Gilakjani (2012) stated that pronunciation is comprised of features at two levels, namely segmental (micro) one and supra-segmental (macro) one He also provided a clear illustration as in the following Figure

Figure 1.1 Features of English Pronunciation

Gilakjani (2012:120)

In the curriculum of the textbook English 10 (basic), segmental features are the major focus for pronunciation teaching However, in the limitation of this study, only single vowel sounds in English are researched

2.1.2 Role of pronunciation in language learning

According to Kelly (2000), it is crucial that a language learner have a good pronunciation of that language No matter how well non-native speakers control grammar and vocabulary of that language, they will not be able to communicate orally

if their pronunciation is not comprehensible

Firstly, one of the factors that have strong influence on speaking ability is pronunciation Speakers will fail to get their message across if they mispronounce a number of words, which may result in breakdown in communication

On the other hand, listening ability will become worse on account of bad pronunciation When a learner has already stuck to the wrong way of pronouncing particular speech sounds, it is unlikely for him/her to recognize the authentic pronunciation of native speakers

Wong (1993) also pointed out that pronunciation has a relationship with grammar on the grounds that the former can convey grammatical information thanks to rhythm and intonation

As indicated above, it can be concluded that like grammar and vocabulary, pronunciation is of great importance for language learning Acquiring good pronunciation is very helpful for those who are learning foreign languages

The place of pronunciation teaching in the ESL/EFL classroom has changed dramatically in various language teaching methods According to Prator and Celce-

Murcia (1979, as cited in To Thu Huong, et al, 2011), in the grammar-translation

method, very little or no attention is given to pronunciation; as a result, learners became “deaf and dumb” in the target language In another method, namely the audio-lingual method, great importance is attached to pronunciation from the beginning;

whereas, in spite of the great time and effort made to achieve native-like pronunciation, the results were often dissatisfied Nowadays, when the dominant teaching method is the communicative language teaching, whose goal is to enable

learners to be “communicatively competent” (Celce-Murcia et al, 1995, as cited in To Thu Huong, et al, 2011: 29), pronunciation becomes more and more crucial Accurate

pronunciation is regarded as a must for language learner to communicate successfully

As a result, teachers should pay more attention to teaching pronunciation In contrast,

in many language courses, the teaching of pronunciation was neglected on account of a theory that teaching pronunciation in the classroom had little influence on pronunciation proficiency (Suter & Purcell, 1980, as cited in Varasarin, 2007) Both teachers and learners tended to take grammar and vocabulary precedence over pronunciation for granted Fortunately, these days, that belief has not been popular;

teaching and learning pronunciation has undergone a considerable change to become

an indispensable element completing not only communication competence but discourse, sociolinguistics and strategic competence as well (Morley, 1994, as cited in

Khoa Anh Viet, et al, 2010)

2.1.3 Approaches to teaching pronunciation

In the history of foreign language teaching, Kelly (1969, as cited in Khoa Anh Viet, et

al, 2010) regarded pronunciation as “the Cinderella of language teaching” He pointed

out that the research of grammar and vocabulary had been paid much more attention than that of pronunciation Not until the early 20th century was teaching pronunciation researched systematically

In the field of modern language teaching, there exist two general approaches to the teaching of pronunciation, namely intuitive-imitative approach and analytic-linguistic

approach (Celce-Murcia, et al, 1996) 2.1.3.1 The intuitive-imitative approach

The intuitive-imitative approach depends on the “learners‟ ability to listen to and imitate the rhythms and sounds of the target language without the intervention of any

explicit information” (Celce-Murcia, et al, 1996: 2) This means that the teacher‟s

turning on and rewinding a cassette player (or any other instrument) play an important role in the teaching of pronunciation, and the main activities in the class are listening and repeating Of course, in order to do this, the supply of authentic materials as well

as recording devices to use is a must during the lesson The teacher is not responsible for explaining how to form or produce a specific sound Learners do their main task of listening and imitating, and it is expected that they will gradually gain pronunciation competence

Jones and Evans (1995, as cited in Nguyen Thi Mo, 2008) suggested that this approach

be adopted at the beginning of teaching pronunciation for the following reasons

„Firstly, it constitutes a more holistic approach in which, from the outset, different elements of pronunciation are seen as integrated Secondly, it gives students a chance

to experience pronunciation on intuitive and communicative levels before moving on

to a more analytical exploration of specific elements of phonology Finally, work in voice quality can help students to improve their image when they speak English, and thus increase their confidence‟ (p 8)

2.1.3.2 The analytic-linguistic approach

In contrast, the analytic-linguistic approach “utilizes information and tools such as a phonetic alphabet, articulator descriptions, charts of the vocal apparatus and other aids

to supplement listening, imitation, and production” (Celce-Murcia, et al, 1996: 2) This

approach directly provides information for learners and turns their attention to the rhythms and sounds of the target language In this approach, learners are given clear explanations about how to form particular sounds of the target language

Of the two approaches mentioned above, it is very difficult to regard which one as the better one because each approach treats pronunciation teaching in another way

Choosing which approach depends on specific teaching contexts and level of learners

In this study, the researcher applied the Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence method

to help students recognize sounds from letters of the words It can be said that this method is a part of analyzing sounds; therefore, it belongs to the analytic-linguistic approach

2.1.4 Techniques of testing pronunciation

In the article “Techniques of testing pronunciation”, Ahmed (2007) gave a classification of pronunciation tests but in a broader way According to him, there are two kinds to test learners‟ pronunciation proficiency, namely sound production tests and sound recognition ones

Sound production tests

According to Ahmed (2007), “sound production is the testing of pupil‟s ability to distinguish between contrastive sounds but it does not mean testing his ability to pronounce English accurately.” (p 16)

Sound production tests are composed of scored interviews, highly structured speech samples and paper-and-pencil tests of pronunciation (Ahmed, 2007: 17)

Sound recognition tests

Ahmed (2007) stated that teachers can use some techniques, such as sound to phonemic symbols, minimal pairs of words, and sound to pictures to test their students‟ ability to recognize the sound segments (p 20)

Celce-Murcia, et al (1996) said that testing pronunciation has been given little

attention One reason for that issue is that “pronunciation involves not only the

application of relevant rules (e.g., when –s endings are pronounced /s/, /z/, or /ɪz/; or when word-internal palatalization of stops and fricatives occurs) but also perception and production” (p 341) These authors also mentioned three techniques which can be employed to evaluate pronunciation

The first technique, Diagnostic evaluation, is composed of diagnosing perception and

diagnosing production in the classroom This kind of technique can serve as a means

of determining a learner‟s level of pronunciation proficiency, which is usually useful

when teachers want to determine whether a learner can undertake a certain task or place a learner in the class which is suitable for his level of pronunciation proficiency

With this technique, learners will do such exercises as distinguishing vowels / consonants or identifying word stress

The second technique is called Ongoing evaluation with feedback The purposes of

this technique are to enable teachers to determine the progress students are making to make any changes in their curriculum or methodology if necessary as well as to give feedback on learners‟ progress There are two forms of this technique, namely self-monitoring and correction

Classroom testing is also a popular kind of evaluating pronunciation proficiency This

assessment can be carried out in different period of time during the pronunciation course to evaluate the progress learners make in a specific issue which has just been taught Like the first technique, classroom testing includes perception test and production test

In high schools in Vietnam, students‟ pronunciation is usually assessed with sound recognition paper-tests These tests focus on the students‟ ability to recognize the sound segments or word stress The most popular kind of pronunciation tests is in form

of multiple choice in which there are four options in each question Regarding phonetic part, students are asked to find the word whose underlined part is pronounced differently from that of the others

2.1.5 Definition of “Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence”

To have a better understanding of this term, at first, it is necessary to be aware of the elements that constitute this correspondence, namely grapheme and phoneme

A phoneme refers to a linguistic unit within the spoken language Phonemes can

represent a group of sounds or one single unit of speech which constructs a single

abstract unit opposed to a physical unit (Yonas et al, 1981) According to John and

Nancy (2011), a phoneme “does not carry meaning on its own, but different phonemes alter the meaning of a word.” (p 350) For example, if we change the first phoneme in

the word wall from /w/ to /t/, the meaning of the word, as well as its part of speech,

changes completely

A grapheme is the physical representation of a phoneme presented in written or

printed format (John & Nancy, 2011) In English, a grapheme may be a single letter or

a combination of letters For example, in the word book, the grapheme b represents the phoneme /b/, oo for /ʊ/ and k for /k/

Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence is “the relationship between a grapheme and

the phoneme(s) it represents.” (John & Nancy, 2011:350) For example, the grapheme s represents the phoneme /s/ in the word sea and the phoneme /ʃ/ in the word sugar This

correspondence is often referred to as a knowledge of the alphabetic principle and is defined as distinctive graphical representation of letters used to symbolize each

phoneme or speech sound in oral language (Yonas et al, 1981)

Daria and Alan (1996) stated that Learning the Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondences necessary to begin to phonetically decode words involves at least three distinct skills: the ability to (a) recognize and distinguish between letters, (b) process phonological information, and (c) associate specific letters with specific sounds (p 259)

According to Adams (1994), “phonics is the system of teaching reading that builds on the alphabetic principle, a system of which a central component is the teaching of correspondences between letter or groups of letters and their pronunciations” (p.50);

therefore, Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence is a vital constituent of phonics method in particular and in pronunciation learning in general

Regarding the advantages of learning phonics, many studies of the National Reading Panel (as cited in Johnson, 2011) found out that this method improved students‟ word-reading ability Beginning readers learning reading through phonics would have phonemic awareness and showed an increased ability to sound out words with regular spelling Moreover, phonics can give a starting point to improve students‟ spelling ability because they can use phonics instructions to break down a word in their mind when they prepare to write it (Pancare, 2011) Davis (2011) also concluded that phonics helped students become more familiar with syllable structure For example, students will be aware that a closed syllable will end in a consonant and have a short vowel, while an open syllable will end in a vowel that makes a long sound Lastly, phonics provides students a useful tool to recognize and sound out unfamiliar words, therefore helping build students‟ confidence (Pancare, 2011)

On the contrary, there exist some disadvantages of phonics method Firstly, a study

conducted by Marsha et al (2003, as cited in Johnson, 2011) gave a conclusion that an

overemphasis on phonics could have a negative impact on students‟ understanding words as well as texts Thanks to phonics method, students were able to correctly pronounce words but had no idea what those words or the text itself meant

2.1.6 Vietnamese – English sound systems

It is obvious that almost all learners have problems in learning a foreign language In this case, many of English foreign learners have difficulties in pronunciation learning process on account of some factors In the book “Teaching English pronunciation”, Kenworthy (1987) pointed out that there were six factors that had influence on one‟s pronunciation learning, namely native language, age, amount of exposure, phonetic ability, attitude and identity, and motivation and concern for good pronunciation

As a result, it can be said that mother tongue is an important factor in learning to pronounce a foreign language Avery and Ehrlich (1992) claimed that “the nature of a foreign accent is determined to a large extent by a learner‟s native language” (p xv)

They also gave a clear explanation of how the sound system of the native language influences learners‟ pronunciation of a foreign language First of all, learners may have trouble when they encounter sounds in English that are not part of the sound inventory

of the learners‟ native language Secondly, learners will find it difficult when the rules for combining sounds into words are different in their native language Lastly, learners can transfer the patterns of stress and intonation, which determine the overall rhythm and melody of a language from the native language into the second language In brief, the more different the native language and the foreign one are, the more difficult it is for learners to learn pronunciation

For many Vietnamese students, learning English pronunciation is considered to be hard work One of the reasons for that matter is that there are a lot of differences in sound system between Vietnamese and English Among those differences is that “the Vietnamese alphabet is phonetic, with a one-to-one correspondence of sound to letter

or letter combination” (Center for Applied Linguistics, 1981:2) while in English, this correspondence can be “one-to-many” (Trevor, 2013: 210) Take the following grapheme “a” as an illustration: it can be pronounced as /æ/ in “back”, /e/ in “many” or

/ǝ/ in “arrive” and so on To solve this problem, some linguists proposed a list of Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence rules to help learners who study English as a foreign language, especially those at beginner level

2.1.7 Definition of “attitude”

Ajzan (1988) stated that attitude is “a disposition to respond favorably or unfavorably

to an object, person, institution, or event” (p 3) According to Allport (1954), “an attitude is a mental and neural state of readiness, organized through experience, exerting as directive or dynamic influence upon the individual‟s response to all objects and situations with which it is related” (p 45) Wenden (1991, as cited in Atef & Munir, 2009:33) gave a broader definition of the concept “attitudes” He states that the term “attitudes” includes three components

namely, cognitive, affective and behavioural A cognitive component is comprised of the beliefs and ideas or opinions about the object of the attitude The affective one is

made up of the feelings and emotions that one has towards an object, 'likes' or

'dislikes', 'with' or 'against' Finally, the behavioural component refers to one's

consisting actions or behavioural intentions, indicating the expectation of future behavior towards an object

To sum up, attitude is a mental and neural state, expressing the individual‟s responses

to an object, a person, a thing or an event

The questionnaire for this study deals with on all of the three components of attitude It related to students‟ perceptions of sound recognition as well as their feelings and beliefs of phoneme-grapheme correspondence method It also helped to find out students‟ expectations of the use of this new method in the future

2.1.8 The role of attitude in second language learning

Attitudes and learning go hand in hand According to Ismet (2005), attitude is one of

“the determinants of success in EFL learning” (p 29)

In fact, attitudes play an important role in students‟ second language learning

Depending on the learners‟ attitudes, learning language can be a source of enrichment

or a sourse of resentment (Lightbrown & Spada, 1999) Positive attitudes towards second language is beneficial to second language learners because positive attitudes

help to create motivation to achieve success in acquiring that language (Holmes, 1992:345); whereas, negative attitudes towards the foreign language and group, which often comes from stereotypes, can impede the learning of that language (Brown, 2000)

From the studies into learners‟ attitudes to second language learning, it can be concluded that learners‟ attitudes are of importance in second language acquisition Consequently, second language teachers need to take learners‟ attitudes into consideration

2.2 Previous research works and the need for this study

There have been a small number of researchers conducting research into Grapheme Correspondence up to now

Phoneme-Christensen and Bowey (2005) carried out a research to compare the efficacy of two decoding skill-based programs, namely explicit orthographic and grapheme-phoneme correspondence, to an implicit phonics program They drew out the conclusion that children in the grapheme-phoneme correspondence program consistently spelled transfer words better than children in the implicit phonics one; moreover, the former consistently read words more quickly than the latter

After doing a research into the effects of computer-assisted Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence training in the deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children, Mentzer (et al., 2013) concluded that for some DHH children, phonological processing skills were boosted relatively more by Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence training

However, no other research, to the best of the researcher‟s knowledge, has attempted

to find out the effects of using Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence on EFL high school students‟ sound recognition ability

CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY

In the following part, the researcher provides a detailed description of the research methodology Details of the research design, the settings, the instruments employed in this paper, the procedures of data collection and data analysis are given below

3.1 Research design: Quasi-experimental

The current study adopts the quasi-experimental research design, which is specifically known as pretest-posttest non-equivalent group design Concerning this kind of research, Singh and Bajpai (2008) described that “this design is often used in classroom experiments when experimental and control groups are such naturally assembled groups as intact classes, which may be similar” (p 284) The researcher did the real-time experiment for the present study, where it was difficult to use randomization for the selection of samples for experimentation; as a result, the researcher took the help of the quasi-experimental design study instead of true-experimental one

To carry out the study, two classes which the researcher was in charge of teaching English were selected One class was assigned to serve as an experimental group (Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence method) and the other class as a control group (conventional method) The experimental design of the present study is presented as follows

Gain scores would be compared and subjected to a test of significance of the difference between two means

In this study, the researcher used an experimental research; therefore, variables need to

be taken into consideration Variables are defined as “the conditions or characteristics that the experimenter manipulates, controls, or observes” (Singh & Bajpai, 2008:266)

There exist two types of variables, namely independent and dependent variables The independent variable of this study is the use of Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence method; the dependent variable the students‟ achievement in sound recognition ability, which is indicated in their score of the tests

3.2 Setting of the study

3.2.2 Population of the study

According to Best and Kahn (1995), population is any group of individuals that has one or more characteristics in common that are of interest to the researcher The population of the study consists of all 10th-grade students at Quoc Oai high school in the academic year of 2015-2016

The 10th-grade students at Quoc Oai high school studied English formally for seven years in primary and junior high school When attending high school, they faced up with a lot of problems in the new English learning style in high school, which requires not only vocabulary, grammar, four skills but pronunciation as well As a result,

teachers needed to help them to get acquainted with the new learning style and make progress

Taking their language competence into consideration, their English proficiency levels were reportedly at the pre-intermediate level; moreover, most of them seemed interested in learning English and quite hard-working

3.2.3 Sample of the study

William (1999) defined sampling as “the process of selecting units (such as people and organizations) from a population of interest so that by studying the sample, you can fairly generalize your result to the population from which the units are chosen” (p 41)

In this study, the researcher chose two intact classes 10A7 and 10A8 as sample of the study The students participating in the study are 75 non-English major students at the age of 15

To carry out the experiment, class 10A7 was randomly assigned to serve as a control group (38 students) while class 10A8 as an experimental group (37 students)

To check whether these two groups were at the same level of English proficiency or not, the researcher used their results in the pre-test and t-test calculation

The Experimental Group The Control Group

From the statistics, it can be seen that the critical one-tail value is 1.667 The obtained

t value is 1.169; therefore, the t value is lower than the critical value (1.169 < 1.667)

From this result, the researcher could draw a conclusion that there was no significant difference between mean scores of pre-test between the experimental group and the control group These two groups were considered to have equivalent proficiency in English

Besides, the researcher was in charge of teaching English for students in these two classes, which made it more convenient to conduct the research

Moreover, to ensure that extraneous variables which could affect the result of the study were controlled, the researcher took some following steps

The first step was related to the control of Hawthorne Effect There is a tendency that there will be differences if the students are aware that they are in an experiment As a result, the researcher did not inform the students in the experimental group of the new teaching method, which made them believe that they were having their normal lessons

Secondly, the researcher ensured that students were not allowed to discuss with their partners in both pre-test and post-test The students did the tests on their own, not asking others

3.3 Data collection instruments

In this research, the researcher used various techniques to collect the quantitative data

The techniques of collecting dated used were questionnaire and pronunciation tests

Both instruments were finished in class In detail, the techniques of collecting data are

as follows:

3.3.1 Document research

For each lesson, the researcher prepared a lesson plan The vowels the researcher taught in the lessons were selected from English 10 textbook Each lesson plan was designed for use in teaching a class for 15 minutes The samples of the lesson plans for the conventional method (with repetition drills) and the phoneme-grapheme correspondence method appeared as Appendices I (a) and (b) respectively

The conventional lessons followed the typical pattern used by teachers in the school, with an introduction to the sounds, description of how to pronounce them Then students listened to the teacher and repeated some words consisting of those sounds

Finally, students were asked to practice some sentences including the target sounds

The following Table provided an example of a lesson with the conventional method of teaching pronunciation

 Listen and repeat

 Practice these sentences

1 Is he coming to the cinema?

2 We‟ll miss the beginning of the film

3 Is it an interesting film, Jim?

4 The beans and the meat were quite cheap

5 He‟s going to leave here for the Green Mountains

6 Would you like to have meat, peas and cheese?

Table 3.3 The conventional method

The new method, the Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence method, as an example shown in Table 3.4, was used in this research This method aimed at helping students recognize sounds more easily based on the Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence rules

The researcher spent 15 minutes to teach pronunciation part as in the curriculum The teacher-researcher started the lesson with the new method by introducing the sounds, describing how to pronounce them, and then providing them some common Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence rules of those sounds Students also had opportunities to practice pronouncing words which were examples of each Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence rule Lastly, students did some exercises related to these sounds

1 Circle all the /i:/ sounds and underline all the /ɪ/ sounds

office people pizza please repeat six

Table 3.4 The Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence method

The Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence rules used in this method are taken from the

book English Pronunciation in use – Elementary by Marks (2007) In my opinion, this

book is very suitable for students to learn pronunciation at early steps

3.3.2 Questionnaire

According to Gillham (2000), questionnaire is regarded as the most appropriate research instrument for gathering information concerning the attitudes of the respondents because of the three following reasons Firstly, as the respondents want to remain anonymous, information from questionnaire can be confidential It is hoped that people will undoubtedly feel freer in an anonymous style of responding Secondly,

a questionnaire is easy to administer, enabling the researcher to survey a large number

of respondents Thirdly, the respondents can complete the questionnaire whenever it is suitable to them

Seliger and Shohamy (1989) claimed that a questionnaire is a common instrument to collect data on such unobservable phenomena as attitude, motivation and self-concept

In this study, to gather data for the second research question, the researcher decided to deliver a questionnaire to students in the experimental group after they had finished the post-test The questionnaire which consists of two parts was adapted from the questionnaire designed by Le Thi Thuy Dung (2013) concerning students‟ attitudes towards timed-reading activity

Part I includes two statements to investigate students‟ general perception of sound recognition ability

Part II is about students‟ attitudes towards Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence method This part is composed of 3 sections

In section 1, there are 3 statements to find out how students feel when they are taught with Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence method

Section 2 helps the researcher collect information about student‟s beliefs in the effects

of using Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence method

Section 3 is students‟ expectation of the use of Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence method in the future

In this questionnaire, there are closed questions scored on a Likert scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) so that the responses could readily be quantified and analyzed

Due to students‟ low level of English proficiency, the questionnaire distributed to

students was written in Vietnamese (See Appendices II (a) and (b))

3.3.3 Pre and post tests and test validity

The quantitative data was collected by using pre and post tests, each of which is comprised of 20 items (See Appendices III (a) and (b) respectively)

During the research program, the participants were asked to do two pronunciation tests: pretest (before the treatment took place) and posttest (after the treatment took place) The pre-post test design helps the researcher make inference on the effects of the treatment by looking at the difference between the pre-test and post-test results

The test items were used for both pretest and posttest; however, the items were reshuffled during the posttest

The test items were taken from exercises in the book English Pronunciation in use – Elementary by Marks (2007) It is the book that the Phoneme-Grapheme

Correspondence rules used in this method are taken from

In pre and post tests, students were required to choose the correct phonemic symbols for the underlined part of the given words

Validity of the tests

Hatch and Farhady (1982) stated that “validity is the extent to which an instrument really measures the objective to be measured and suitable with the criteria” (p 250) A test can be considered to be valid if it can precisely measure the quality of the test

There are four types of validity: face validity, content validity, construct validity and empirical or criterion-related validity In this study, to measure whether the test has good validity or not, the researcher used content validity

Content validity is regarded as “the extent to which the test measures a representative sample of the subject matter content” (Hatch & Farhady, 1982:251) It is intended to know whether the test items well reflect what will be covered The test items used in this study were adapted from the materials that had been taught to the students in the

experimental group; consequently, they contain a representative sample of the course

The composition of the pre-test items was shown in the following table

Table 3.5 Specifications of the pre-test

Reliability of the tests

According to Shohamy (1985), reliability refers to whether the test is consistent in its score and gives us an indication of how accurate the test scores are A test is considered to be reliable when the score gained by the examinees is constant whenever and by whomever the test is conducted To determine the reliability of this instrument,

a trial testing of the instrument was done using a sample of 25 10th-grade students in class 10A12 at Quoc Oai high school

The internal consistency reliability estimate was determined using split-half technique

Firstly, the researcher assigned odd numbered items to one half of the test and even numbered items to the other Therefore, each half consisted of 10 items

Secondly, the correlation of scores between the two halves was calculated by using the Pearson r formula In Excel, the calculated r of 0.68 was obtained (See Appendix IV) Lastly, the researcher used Spearman-Brown formula to test the reliability for the total test: