Luận văn thạc sĩ VNU ULIS an investigation into the problems faced by the teachers and students in teaching and learning english pronunciation at a high school for ethnic minorities in vietnam forestry university

***************** NGÔ THỊ THANH AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE PROBLEMS FACED BY THE TEACHERS AND STUDENTS IN TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION AT A HIGH SCHOOL FOR ETHNIC MINORIT

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NGÔ THỊ THANH

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE PROBLEMS FACED BY THE TEACHERS AND STUDENTS IN TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION AT A HIGH SCHOOL FOR ETHNIC

MINORITIES IN VIETNAM FORESTRY UNIVERSITY:

A Survey Research

(Tìm hiểu về các vấn đề mà giáo viên và học sinh trường THPT- Dân tộc Nội trú Đại học Lâm nghiệp gặp phải trong việc dạy và học phát

âm Tiếng Anh: Nghiên cứu điều tra )

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 601410

Hanoi, 2011

FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES

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NGÔ THỊ THANH

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE PROBLEMS FACED BY THE TEACHERS AND STUDENTS IN TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION AT A HIGH SCHOOL FOR ETHNIC

MINORITIES IN VIETNAM FORESTRY UNIVERSITY:

A Survey Research

(Tìm hiểu về các vấn đề mà giáo viên và học sinh trường THPT- Dân tộc Nội trú Đại học Lâm nghiệp gặp phải trong việc dạy và học phát

âm Tiếng Anh: Nghiên cứu điều tra )

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 601410

Supervisor: LÂM PHÚC HÂN M.A

Hanoi, 2011

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……… i

ABSTRACT……… ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS……… iii

List of abbreviation………v

List of table……… vi

PART A: INTRODUCTION ………1

1.1 Rationale of the study ………1

1.2 Aims of the study……… 2

1.3 Research questions……… 2

1.4 Scope of the study……… 2

1.5 Methods of the study……… 3

1.6 Significance of the study……… 3

1.7 Design of the study……… 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW ………5

1.1 English ending sounds……… ……….5

1.2 Vietnamese ending sounds………… ……… 7

1.3 Teaching pronunciation……….9

1.3.1 Approaches in teaching pronunciation……… …9

1.3.2 Techniques and activities ……… ……10

1.4 Factors affecting learning pronunciation……… ………….12

1.5 Teachers’ and students’ problems in teaching and learning pronunciation 13

CHAPTER TWO: METHODOLOGY OF THE STUDY……… 16

2.1 Description of the setting ……… ……….16

2.1.1 Description of the school ……… 16

2.1.2 Description of the course ……… 16

2.2 Subjects……… 16

2.3 Research instruments ……… ………17

2.4 Data collection procedures ……….19

CHAPTER THREE: PRESENTATION OF THE DATA ……… 20

3.1 Survey questionnaires ………20 3.1.1 Teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards teaching and learning

3.1.3 Pronunciation teaching and learning time… …… ………21

3.1.4 Teachers and students’ problems in teaching and learning pronunciation 3.1.5 Teachers’ and students’ problems in teaching and learning specific aspects of pronunciation……….……….22

3.1.6 Classroom approaches, techniques and activities used by teachers … 24

3.1.7 Students’ expectations and teachers’ recommendations to teaching and learning pronuncia………24

3.2 Classroom observations ……… 26

3.2.1 Teaching materials and curriculum ……… ……….26

3.2.2 Students’ activities and their mistakes in producing ending sounds… 26

3.2.3 Teachers’ approaches and techniques used in teaching pronunciation 27

4.3 Interviews and discussions……… 29

CHAPTER FOUR: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 Research question 1……….31

4.2 Research question two……… 32

4.2.1 Teachers problems in teaching pronunciation ……… …….32

4.2.2 Students’ problems learning pronunciation……… 34

4.3 Research question 3……… 35

4.3.1 Phonetic training……… ………36

4.3.2 Drilling……… ……… 36

4.3.3 Listening and imitating……….……… 36

4.3.4 Reading aloud…… ……… 37

4.3.5 Combining of techniques … ……… 37

PART C: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 1 summary of the findings ……… 38

2 limitations and recommendations for further study… ……….38

3 Conclusion……….………39

REREFENCES……… 40 APPENDICES ……… I Appendix 1: Survey questionnaire for teachers……… ….I Appendix 2: Survey questionnaire for students……….IV Appendix 3: Classroom observation sheet……… VII

1 EMs: Ethnic Minorities……… ………ii

2 EMS: Ethnic minority students……….……ii

3 EmsHS: High school for Ethnic minorities……… ii

4 ESL: English as the second language……… ii

5 L1: The first language……… ii

6 L2: The second language……… ii

7 VFL: Vietnamese as the first language……….ii

8 VFU: Forestry University of Vietsnam……… ………… ii

Table 1 Teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards teaching and

Table 2 Teachers’ evaluation about students’ pronunciation level 19 Table 3 Teachers’ and students’ time on pronunciation 19 Table 4 Teachers’ and students’ problems in teaching teaching and

Table 5 Teachers’ and students’ evaluation about the difficulty in

pronouncing elements of English syllables 20 Table 6 Students’ problems in pronouncing word-final consonants 21 Table 7 Teachers’ activities in pronunciation lessons 21 Table 8 Teachers’ suggestions and Students’ expectations in teaching

Table 9 Teachers’ choice of techniques used in teaching

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study

Nowadays, with the rapid pace of integration and globalization, English becomes a golden key to open the door of many fields such as commerce, communication, science and technology throughout the world Therefore, to meet the demand of the society, it is very necessary to teach English in schools at all levels And the highest target is to get well in communication If one wants to get successful in communication, he must be good at pronunciation: “a threehold level of pronunciation in English such that if a given non-native speaker's pronunciation falls below this level, he or she will not be able to communicate orally no matter how good his or her control of English grammar and vocabulary might be”

(Celce-Murcia, 1987:5)

In the field of language teaching, the role of pronunciation has varied widely from having virtually no role in the grammar-translation method to being the central focus in the audio-lingual method where emphasis is on the traditional notions of pronunciation, minimal pairs, drills and short conversations The growing emphasis on communicative approaches for the teaching of English has placed higher demands for correct pronunciation Despite this fact,

at the upper-secondary school level in Vietnam, in language teaching and learning, compared with vocabulary, grammar and language skills, pronunciation has so far been paid less attention to In the official textbooks used for teaching English at high school level, there are a few exercises for pronunciation practice To make the matter worse, all important English exams at schools as well as the entrance exam to universities are always in written form so most teachers as well as students have little motivation to teach and to learn pronunciation As

a result, students are often shy and not self-confident to speak in English And that is the reason why the effectiveness of teaching pronunciation still remains one of the most extremely problematic subjects in the field of language teaching

Coping with this pressing fact, as a language teacher teaching English at EMsHS, I want

to raise these questions: What is the present situation of teaching and learning pronunciation of English at my school? What are typical problems that teachers and students have in teaching and learning pronunciation? What are proper methods that can be used to teach pronunciation?

What should teachers do to teach pronunciation effectively? And, how should teachers make students become interested in learning pronunciation? The answers to these questions will help language teachers improve their students‟ pronunciation as well as help them make progress in effective communication For the above reasons, I decided to carry out the study entitled: “An investigation into problems faced by the teachers and students in teaching and learning pronunciation at EMsHS in VFU”

1.2 Aims of the study

The main purpose of this study is to discover the reality of teaching and learning pronunciation at EMsHS, especially to find out typical problems that teachers and students often have in pronunciation lessons The findings of this research will hopefully help students

at high school become well aware of their systematic errors and it can also help the English teachers make feasible solutions to overcome those problems so as to improve their students‟

pronunciation

1.3 Research questions

The above aims of the study can be realized by answering the following research questions:

(1) What is the present situation of teaching and learning pronunciation at EMsHS?

(2) What are typical problems that the teachers and EMS often have in pronunciation lessons?

(3) What teaching techniques can be used to improve teaching pronunciation for EMS at high school level?

1.4 Scope of the study

As an investigation, this study focuses on the reality of teaching and learning one aspect

of English pronunciation: problems in pronouncing the ending sounds of the 11th form EMS at VFU The subjects of the study are 50 11th form EM students who are familiar with learning pronunciation for five years Moreover, ending sounds are taught with major aspects are consonants in the pronunciation lessons introduced in the official textbook Scope of the study

is limited to the ending sounds as it is only conducted on the 11th form students, other characteristics of English pronunciation would not be deeply investigated

1.5 Methods of the study

In order to fulfill the tasks mentioned above, both qualitative and quantitative methods are selected for this case study

1.6 Instruments of the study

The study involves in the following instruments: survey questionnaires, classroom observations and interviews Data is collected through two stages; in the first stage: the survey questionnaires were delivered to both teachers and students to investigate the reality of teaching and learning pronunciation at the school Then, some classroom observations were taken; and interviews with some English teachers were conducted to get supplementary information in the second stage After that, the results obtained from questionnaires, observations and interviews have been discussed and analyzed with a hope for providing language teachers with some feasible teaching techniques to work successfully with their students

1.7 Significance of the study

This study not only hopes to make contribution to teaching pronunciation at high school level in Vietnam Forestry University and the result of the study is considered to be useful teachers and students at the school Thus, this study will be an interesting reference material for any high school language teachers in Vietnam, especially for those who are in favor of improving their EM students' pronunciation It will also help teachers and students identify their own problems and self- improve in teaching and learning pronunciation

1.8 Design of the study

This paper consists of three main parts

Part A is the INTRODUCTION including the rationales, the aims, the scope, the research questions, the methods, the instruments and the design of the study It expresses the reason why the author decided to choose this investiagion, the methods and the instruments for the fulfillment of the study

Part B “ DEVELOPMENT” is the development of the study, which consists of four chapters

Chapter one is the LITERATURE REVIEW It starts with theoretical issues on English pronunciation concepts, some specific features of pronunciation both in English and Vietnamese (as English ending sounds; Vietnamese ending sounds), as well as approaches, techniques and activities used in teaching pronunciation It also covers such factors affecting learning pronunciation as students‟ motivation, other subjective and objective factors and students‟ role Problems in teaching and learning pronunciation are in the last part of the LITERATURE REVIEW

Chapter two is the METHODS OF THE STUDY This chapter starts with the description

of the setting and the participants It also presents how data was collected through the research instruments and research procedures

Chapter three is the PRESENTATION OF THE DATA, in which a summary of the results and a general narrative description is provided

Chapter four is the ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF THE DATA, in which collected data is analysed and findings are explained

Part C is the CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS This part consists of a summary of the major findings of the study, some limitations and recommendations for further study and conclusion lastly presented

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter provides readers with the relevant literature of the study by introducing some key concepts necessary for the best understanding of this research, as well as the review

of previous studies related to the topic There are some most crucial concepts chosen to be clarified in this part as: English ending sounds, Vietnamese ending sounds, teaching pronunciation, factors affecting learning pronunciation and teachers‟ and students‟ problems

in teaching and learning pronunciation

1.1 English ending sounds

To ESL learners, the term "ending sounds" is familiar as it refers to those ultimate sounds in a word More precisely it refers to the consonant sound(s) as the word can end with one or more consonant sounds (consonant clusters) Thus "ending sounds" in English pronunciation can be defined as those consonant sounds which appear at the very end

of words They are also called Codas: "The coda is the final consonant or consonant cluster"

(Barbara A.H and Brian B, 1997)

Yule (2006:47) also wrote “ The basic structure of the kind of syllable found in English words […] is shown in the accompanying diagram”:

According to Cummins (1998), almost every English consonant appears word-finally,

except for /h/, /w/, and /j/ Rachael (2003) also shared this point and said that there can be

up to four consonants in a coda:

 If there are no consonants at the end of the word, it has a zero coda

 A single consonant is called the final consonant Any consonant except h, r, w and j

may be a final coda, for example:

/p/ - rips, keep, sleep /b/ - rib, nib

/t/ - right, start, cat /d/ - ride,

/k/ - pick, kick /g/ - pig, big /f/ - leaf, chief /v/ - leave, nạve, /θ/ - earth, wreath /ð/ - wreathe, breathe

/s/ - this, miss, /z/ - these, has, was /∫/ - crash, splash, smash

/t∫/ - church, teach

/m/ - lamb, room, gloom /n/ - than, man, happen /η/ - sing, spring, ceiling /l/ - pool, file, smile

When there are two or more consonants standing at the end of the word, the terms "pre-final"

and "post-final" consonants are used Pre-final includes: /m/ /n/, /η/, /l/, /s/ Post-final includes: /s/, /z/, /t/, /d/, /θ/

 Two consonant clusters

- Pre-final m n, η, l, s followed by a final consonant

- Consonant plus post-final s, z, t, d, θ (e.g: „help, bank, edge, belt, blind, books, six etc)

 Three consonant clusters

- Pre-final plus final plus post-final (e.g: helped, banks, bonds, twelfth)

- Final plus post-final plus post final s, z, t, d, θ (e.g: fifths, next, lapsed)

 Four consonant clusters

- Most are pre-final plus final plus post final plus post-final e.g: twelfths, prompt so

Occasionally there is one final and three post final consonants e.g: sixths, texts

It‟s obviously to see that English has a lot of complicated consonant cluster, as listed above, which combining two, three and even four consonants together in the onset and coda Thus, Yule (2006: 48) commented it as “ quite unusual for languages to have consonant clusters of this type”

For pronouncing English consonants both at onset or coda “to the extent that phonetics

is part of an exact scientific discipline” (Ladefoged, 2001: 56), nineteen rules were also listed which might require learners of English rough effort to be adequate (Ladefoged, 2001: 57-60)

Yule (2006: 48), however, suggested that “It is also noticeable in English that large consonant clusters are frequently reduced in casual conversational speech” Therefore, it is easily to understand and see that Vietnamese speaker of English often omit the English ending sounds

or it is pronounced incorrectly by the beginning learners The following reviews of Vietnamese ending sounds will explain more precisely about this idea

1.2 Vietnamese ending sounds

According Ngo (2005), Vietnamese syllable structure is shown as below

In this table, the tone of each Vietnamese syllable covers the whole syllable and only

the nuclear vowel is compulsory, which is shared by Doan Thien Thuat (Nguyen et al., 2006)

and officially accepted by Vietnamese educators

In Vietnamese, the number of codas available is just limited to a certain portion

According to Nguyen (2007), there are only six consonants and two semi-vowels which can stand in word-final position; however, the important vowels that usually decide the pronunciation of final consonants are rounded /u, 0, o/ and front /i, e, E</

The following examples are taken from the Vietnamese dictionary (Hoàng, 2000)

i) /m/: in words like

em [Em] ( I, younger sister/ brother), nghiêm [Niem] ( strict)

ii) /n/: in words like

ăn [a<n] ( eat), làm [lam] (do), phiên [fien] (turn)

iii) /N/: there are 3 allophones of this phoneme:

[Nm] : blabialised, proceded by rounded vowels /u, 0, o/

xong [s0Nm] (finish) súng [suNm] (gun) không [xoNm] ( no, not)

[J]: corresponding to letters "nh", proceded by front vowels /i, e, E</

bệnh [be J ] (sick) tình [ti J ] (love) nhanh [ J E<J] (fast)

[N]: other cases

tặng [ta<N] (give gifts) thiêng [tʰieN] (supernatural) chuộng [cuoN] (favourite)

iv) /p/: with no air released after pronunciation, in words like:

úp [up] (up-side-down) Pháp [fap] (France) tiếp [tiep] (continue)

v)/t/: in English, [t] ending is pronounced both [t] and [?], but in Vietnamese it is always pronounced shortly and sharply without aspiration such as:

giết [ziet](kill) ghét [gEt] (hate)

vi)/k/: this sound is produced where the letter "c", "ch" is shown at the final position of a syllable and it is agreed by many linguists that this phoneme has three allophones which appeared in a complementary distribution

 [kp] this ending sound is bilabialisted if the consonant is preceded by rounded vowels /u, 0, o/

ngọc [N0<kp] (pearl), cốc [kokp] (cup), nhục [Jukp] (insulted)

 [c]: preceded by front vowels /i, e, E</, performed by letters "ch"

nghịch [Nic] (naughty), lệch [lec](askew), sách [SE<c] (book)

 [k]: elsewhere

Nhác [Jak] (lazy), bực [bMk] (angry), nhiếc [Jiek] (shout)

vii) /u^/ or /w/: this final semi-vowel only appears in forms of letters "u" or "o" which follows vowels to make diphthongs or triphthongs, for example:

đau [dau^] (hurt), vào [va:u^] (enter), đều [deu^] (both, alike, equal)

viii) /i^/ or /j/: appears in forms of "i" or "y" and is preceded by vowels to make diphthongs

and triphthongs: tay [tai^] (hand), dài [ja:i^](long) in which [a:] is longer, open and back

Although the two later sounds are not final consonants, they have certain influence to the production of errors with final codas From the list above, it is easy to see that Vietnamese final consonant sounds just consist of nasal sounds (/m/, /n/, /N/) and three plosive /p/, /t/, /k/;

however, they are voiceless and unaspiratedly It is plain to see that they are different from those in English phonetics, which are clearly aspirated Added to this, the /N/ sound in Vietnamese seems to be similar to /s/ in English excluded that /N/ is sometimes bilabialized

Also, it must be noticed that in Vietnamese, there only stand one final consonant at a time;

when in English there can be up to four consonants in onset and coda The limited codas as well as non- cluster of Vietnamese make many difficulties for Vietnamese people in properly pronouncing English language with a wide range of final consonants and clusters

1.3 Teaching pronunciation 1.3.1 Teaching pronunciation 1.3.1.1 Approaches in teaching pronunciation

In the book “Teaching pronunciation” (Celce-Murcia M., et al., 1996: 2), the authors point out two general approaches to the teaching of pronunciation in the modern time, namely intuitive-imitative approach and analytic-linguistic approach

An 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” This means the teaching of pronunciation depends largely on the teacher‟s turning on and rewinding a cassette player (or another instrument), and the main activities in the class are listening and repeating In this approach, the teacher has no responsibility to explain how sounds are formed or produced and the learners do their main task of listening and imitating, and it is expected that learners will gradually gain pronunciation competence

Meanwhile, an 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 M., et al., 1996: 2) In this approach, learners are given explanation as well as training on how to form particular sounds

of the target language Between these two approaches, there is no scale on whether which one

is better Hence, teachers are determiners to choose which approach to apply into teaching and that must be appropriate to the level of learners However, to do well with these two approaches, it is a need for both teachers and learners have to fulfill knowledge of articulator system such as consonants, vowels, stress, and intonation, etc In this study, the author considers the use of both approaches to obtain the best effect in teaching and learning pronunciation

1.3.1.2 Techniques and activities

Pronunciation is never an end in itself, thus to receive expected result in teaching and learning pronunciation, teachers have made use of a great deal of techniques It may be taught

in isolation or in combination with language skills of speaking, listening, reading or writing

The followings are some common techniques supported by Kelly (2000:16); and Celce (Celce

et al., 1996:8):

Drilling:

One of the main ways in which pronunciation is practiced in the classroom is through drilling In its most basic form, drilling simply involves the teacher saying a word or a structure, and getting class to repeat it

 Listening and imitating

The pronunciation of the target language is provided by the teacher or tape recorders, language labs, etc students are to listen to a sequence of sounds or sentences and repeat it

 Phonetic chaining:

This technique makes use of articulator descriptions, articulator diagrams and a phonetic alphabet Learners are provided with basic theoretical knowledge about how sounds are formed They are also aided by the teacher to make genuine sound production

 Minimal pair drills:

These relate to Minimal pair drills words which differ from each other only one

phoneme Normally, students are allowed to listen to the tape and distinguish between the two sounds This type of activities is particularly useful to teach sounds which causes difficulties for learners or sounds that are mismatched

 Contextualized minimal pair:

In this technique, the teacher establishes the setting and present key vocabulary; students are then trained to respond to a sentence stem with the appropriate meaningful response When minimal pair drills seem a bit boring and too theoretical with separated sounds, the contextualization seems to be more useful because it is more practical

 Tongue Twisters:

This technique rooted from speech correction strategies for native speakers When other techniques look serious and sometimes put learners under pressure, tongue twisters provide a more delighting way to learn pronunciation Sounds which are difficult to differentiate are put together to make meaningful sentences

 Reading aloud

Students are provided with a passage or scripts and then read aloud, focusing on stress, timing and intonation This activity is often done with texts such as poems, rhymes, song lyrics, etc

 Recording of learners’ production

This technique can use audio-tape, video-tapes of rehearsed and spontaneous speeches, free conversations, and role plays It needs the feedbacks of teachers as well as self-evaluation

 Practice of vowel shifts and stress shifts related by affixation:

Base on rule of generative phonology, used with intermediate or advanced learners The teachers point out the rule-based nature of vowel and stress shifts in etymologically related words to raise awareness; sentences and short texts that contain both number of a pair may be provide as oral practice material such as: PHOtograph And phoTOgraphy

1.4 Factors affecting learning pronunciation

According to Joane Kenworthy (1987), there are many factors affecting learning pronunciation, including the native language, the age factor, the amount of exposure, phonetic ability, attitude and identity

The native language: it is inevitable that learners‟ native language has a great impact

on their ability of pronouncing English For example, Vietnamese learners have many difficulties in pronouncing English consonant clusters because English consonant clusters are unusuals for them as they do not have this type of consonants in their native language Also, some English consonants are pronounced different from Vietnamese such as, in Vietnamese

/p/, /t/, /k/ are uaspirated voiceless plosives but in English they are clearly aspirated (see 1.1,

1.2 in this chapter for futher example)

The age factor: it is often assumed that the younger a person starts learning a foreign

language, the better he is good at pronouncing it and he has a greater chance of having a native-like accent This point of view can be seen clearly in Krashen (2004), acquisition and learning are two ways to develop language competence; however, acquisition and learning are different processes in which the former is a subconscious process, similar to the way children acquire their L1 while the later is a conscious process, related to knowing certain rules about a

language (grammar, syntax…) It means that younger learners will have more time and chance

to acquire the L2 and they are less influenced by the L1 in comparison with older learners in pronunciation

The amount of exposure: people who live in the country where the target language is

spoken and is surrounded by an English-speaking environment may have some advantages over some who do not It is a matter of cause that a person lives in an English speaking environment will do better than whom not

Phonetic ability: researches have shown that some people naturally have a “better ear”

for a foreign language than others This point refers to personal properties of an individual

That means each person owns his or her strong point or weak point in acquiring and learning a foreign language

Attitude and identity: results from many studies have shown that learners who have a

positive attitude towards speakers of a foreign language tend to have a more native-like pronunciation

However, older learners may well speak with an accent because they want to keep their L1 identity, and the language input for adults is different from that for children because they rarely get access to the same quantity and quality of language input that children receive in play setting

1.5 Teachers’ and students’ problems in teaching and learning pronunciation

Both teachers and students encounter various problems in the process of teaching and

learning pronunciation These problems do not only arise from the nature of pronunciation itself, but from various subjective and objective factors In the light of the previous and current studies, the followings are some major problems that teachers and learners face in teaching and learning pronunciation:

The nature of pronunciation

According to Nunan (1992), the problem of acquiring the phonology of a second or a foreign language presents a formidable challenge to any theory of second language acquisition In teaching and learning pronunciation, the biggest problem that most of the English teachers and students complain come from nature of pronunciation English

pronunciation itself contains so many complicated factors and invisible rules According to Ladefoged (2001:57-60), nineteen rules were listed for pronouncing English consonants which might require learners rough effort to be adequate For example, rules of pronouncing “s” and

“es” when single verbs are formed for the third person at present simple tense, and they are applied the same for plural nouns Or, the rules of pronouncing regular verbs and so on

In the light of this problem, Doff A (1988) listed some common problems that learners often make when they speak English The first is difficulties in pronouncing sounds which do not exist in the students‟ own language, e.g: /θ/ does not exist in Vietnamese, so Vietnamese learners find it difficult to pronounce words with /θ/ as month, 50th , bath; or Vietnamese does not have /b/, /d/, /g/, /f/, /ð/, /z/, /l/… and /s/ at the end of words but in

English, for examples: lab, sod, bag, laugh, love, kiss, buzz, ash, rouge, ball and so on The second is the problems with similar sounds that often cause learners‟ confusion such as b vs p,

d vs t, sh vs s as in these pairs of words: pop- bop, crab-cap, brush- bus, doll-toll The third

is difficulties in pronouncing consonant clusters Students seem to have a tendency to omit all

final sounds, e.g in these words help, bank, next, texts, months are pronounced respectively by

Vietnamese as /hep/, /bæn/,/ /nek/, /tek/, /mon/

Class setting

A lot of problems in teaching and learning pronunciation come from class setting such

as classroom size, quality of the teaching staff, teaching and learning equipment Firstly, a large class causes difficulty in teaching pronunciation At high schools in Vietnam, on average, there are over 50 students per class With such a high student-teacher ratio, it is impossible to make sure that the teacher could carry out and control successfully teaching techniques and activities, and the learner is not able to listen and receive what the teacher is saying The quality of teaching staff is also a big problem Most teachers of English are non-native speakers, and a few of them can have a native-like pronunciation So, the language input that students receive every day is from non-native people As a result, it is impossible for

students to achieve perfect pronunciation

Teaching model

According to Kelly (2000), in the past, the model of teaching English pronunciation was “received pronunciation”, the pronunciation of people in the southwest England Today, there are a vast number of English languages such as, American English, Australian English, etc Thus, teachers must consider to choose what models to be better used in their cases In fact, each teacher cannot often produce a “perfect” accent without being affected by his or her native language This fact often causes problems for both teachers and students in teaching and learning pronunciation Actually, the number of teachers who do not feel confident with their own voice is not small and students sometimes do not know what input language is perfect to receive

Intelligibility

Beside factors from the nature of pronunciation, class setting, etc, teaching and learning pronunciation involves in its own problem that Kenworthy (1987) calls it as

“intelligibility” He defines “intelligibility” as “being understood by a listener at a given time

in a given situation” This means that intelligibility is affected by a number of factors: the speaker, the listener, the time, and the situation This also means that teaching and learning pronunciation depends on many factors, causing many problems for both teachers and students

In conclusion, in this chapter, the writer attempts to present some theoretical backgrounds which point out the differences in the way of pronouncing final sounds between English and Vietnamese Besides, factors and problems related to pronunciation teaching and learning and approaches, techniques and activities used in teaching pronunciation have been also reviewed It cannot be denied that pronunciation and teaching pronunciation is an important part to conduct in any language course It is even more important for those who are

or will be teachers of the target language Methods of teaching pronunciation are various and different for each element of pronunciation Therefore, in this writing the author tried to cover these following issues: What are the attitudes of teachers and learners towards teaching and learning pronunciation? What are typical problems that teachers and learners have in teaching and learning pronunciation? What techniques should be used to teach pronunciation effectively? And these questions will be discussed in next chapters of the study

CHAPTER 2: METHODS OF THE STUDY

This chapter starts with the description of the setting that consists of description of the school, the course and the subject Then, research instruments of the study are presented to tell what research methods were adapted for the study, what instruments were used and how the data were collected

2.1 Description of the setting 2.1.1 Description of the school

To get the aims of this study, the author chose EmsHS at VFU as a case to carry out the investigation

Located in VFU, EMsHS has been known as one of the leading choices for EM students those mostly live in mountainous and isolated areas where learning conditions are unequipped and hard At the school in VFU, EM students are paid for everything by the State

Each year, the school enrolls more than one hundred freshmen Due to the condition of VFU, half the number of EM students study in the morning and the other half have lessons in the afternoon The classrooms are larger enough for more than 50 students to study in and equipped with lights and fan that make sure all students are warm in winters and cool in summers However, they are not supported with any teaching aids

2.1.2 Description of the course

At school, all students have to study English as one of the compulsory subjects

During the process of learning English, students use three English textbooks (English 10, English 11, English 12) focusing on four skills including reading, speaking, listening, writing and language focus section A language focus lesson comprises two major parts: pronunciation and grammar At grade 10th, students only learn some vowels and simple consonants as

/b,p,d,t,s,z,f,v,g,k,θ,ð,/ At grade 11th, students continue to study complex consonant clusters

as /kl,gl,gr,kw,sp,st,sk,r,spl,spr,str,skr,skwt,/ And at grade 12th, students start to be familiar with stress and intonation exercises In this study final consonants are major aspects of pronunciation which are chosen for investigation because the majority of the subjects are the

11th form EM students

2.2 Subjects

The subjects of this study comprised 10 teachers and fifty 11th-form EMS All English teachers were invited to participate in this study They are from 27 to 60 years old, and have been teaching English for at least more than 2 years They graduated from both regular and in-service training With those teachers who have taught English for many years (more than 25 years) they have had teaching experience, but have not been well trained They mainly graduated from colleges, even in-service training With younger teachers, they graduated from very different universities: state and non-state universities They are full of motivation, but lack of teaching experience Particularly, in VF University, teachers of English may teach at two levels: university and high school Therefore, the author only selected 10 teachers for the study because these teachers often teach at high school level In general, these teachers are good at teaching grammar and do not feel confident to deal with speaking, listening, and pronunciation lessons because there is no teaching aids or equipments to help them Thus, they often much focus their lesson on grammar more than on other skills One more feature should be described about these teachers that they are hard working At class, they usually have to try as much as they could to shorten the big gap between the language input of the textbook and their students‟ background knowledge

The class that the researcher chose for the investigation consists of fifty 11th form EM students They are all EM students 20% of the students are Mông, Tày accounts for 17%, Mường and Dao are the same with 13% for each, Thái and Nùng are also equal and just take a number of 5% and the last number of 26% consists of some other ethnic minorities as Cao Lan, Hà Nhì, Thổ, Pà Thẻn, Khơ Mú, Pu Péo, Vân Kiều etc It is the fact that most of the students learn Vietnamese as L1 and English as L2, besides their mother tongue All of the students have been learning English for 5 years However, their English competence is low, especially in pronunciation Most students do not feel confident to speak and express their ideas in English in class though they have been getting similar with the teaching and studying methods, the conditions and the teaching environment

Teacher questionnaire (Appendix 1): one survey questionnaire with 10 questions was

designed for the teachers to get their ideas of pronunciation teaching and learning reality, problems faced by both themselves and their students and some recommendations to improve learning pronunciation reality at school To get this aim, the questionnaire is categorized into the following groups:

 Teachers‟ attitude towards present situation of teaching and learning pronunciation at EMsHS;

 Approaches, techniques and classroom activities used by teachers in teaching pronunciation;

 Problems faced by teachers in teaching pronunciation; and

 Teachers‟ recommendations of techniques to improve students‟ pronunciation

Student questionnaire (Appendix 2): another survey questionnaire with 10 questions was

designed for students including the following categories:

 Students‟ attitude towards learning pronunciation, especially final sounds;

 Students‟ problems in learning pronunciation; and

 Students‟ expectations in learning pronunciation

In-depth classroom observations (Appendix 3): Six informal classroom observations

during regular classroom sessions were used as an additional data source The observations were carried out for two weeks during the course of the study to get more practical information about teachers‟ and students‟ attitudes towards teaching and learning pronunciation, and difficulties as well as techniques used in pronunciation lessons During the

process of observations, the author using observation sheet to focus on some aspects taking in class as:

 Teaching and learning materials used in class;

 Students‟ activities and their errors in producing pronunciation; and

 Teachers‟ approaches and techniques used in teaching pronunciation

Interviews and discussions (Appendix 4): the interviews with teachers were carried out in

the second stage during the first semester of the school year 2011-2012 After collecting data from the survey questionnaires and classroom observations, the author used the post interview

in order to get the in-depth discussion about techniques used to improve students‟

pronunciation Because it is too difficult for the researcher to conduct long interviews with all the teachers, the researcher randomly selected 5 out of 10 teachers for interviews They were willing to express deeply their opinions, and ideas about teaching techniques

2.4 Data collection procedures

The study was divided into two stages The first stage was conducted in the second semester of the school year 2010-2011 (from May to June in 2010) and the other was at the beginning of the first semester of the school year 2011-2012 (during September, 2011)

In the first stage, two sets of questionnaires were given to the teachers and the students who agreed to participate in the research, then observations were carried out Meanwhile, interviews were done in the second stage of the study After two days, the questionnaires were collected The information from these questionnaires were then summarized and presented in the form of statistics After two weeks, the researcher was agreed for her observations in six English lessons, which consists of one in reading, one in listening, two

in speaking and two in language focus periods At each session, the researcher used the observation sheet to take notes on what happened when the teachers and students taught and learned pronunciation Finally, when the information from the survey questionnaires and classroom observations were collected and analyzed, structured interviews were carried out

The data collected from three different resources were read through to obtain a sense of the overall data They were then analyzed both descriptively and interpretatively The initial

sorting-out process was writing findings in the form of reflective notes and summaries of field notes The information was then displayed in forms of tables and figures while qualitative data from the open-ended questionnaire items, classroom observation transcription and interviews were presented by quoting relevant responses from the respondents

CHAPTER 3: PRESENTATION OF THE DATA

In this chapter, the information from collected data was presented in accordance with the category of data collection instruments

3.1 Survey questionnaires 3.1.1 Teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards teaching and learning pronunciation

Assuming that the consideration of the teachers‟ and students‟ attitude towards teaching and learning pronunciation would be beneficial to the research, at the outset, these factors were surveyed The results of 50% of the teachers‟ attitude and 40% of the students‟ towards grammar, as shown in the table below, reflect that grammar is the most concerning aspect in teaching and learning English at EMsHS Surprisingly, only 10% of the teachers think that pronunciation is the most necessary for their students They always pay much attention, time and energy on grammar In contrast, teaching and learning pronunciation as well as developing listening, speaking or reading skills do not receive enough attention to

Table 1: Teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards teaching and learning pronunciation

Attitudes Aspects of English

Teachers‟ attitude (%) Students‟ attitude (%)

3.1.2 Students’ pronunciation level

From table 2, we can see the reality of students‟ level in pronunciation at EMsHS Being asked about this, all the teachers said that their students‟ pronunciation is not good 60%

teachers said their students‟ level is under average; 30% of the teachers chose average level;

only 10% of the teachers ranked it above average and none of the teachers evaluated it good or excellent

Table 2: Teachers’ evaluation of Students’ pronunciation level

Students‟ level of pronunciation Teachers‟ evaluation

3.1.3 Pronunciation teaching and learning time

Table 3 presents the periods of time that teachers and students spent on teaching and learning pronunciation Unsurprisingly, teachers and students shared the same ideas with the fact that a little of time was spent on pronunciation 90% of the teachers and 70% of the students said they did not have much time to spend on pronunciation in one teaching session (45 minutes); 10% of the teachers and 20% of the students spent less than 20 minutes on pronunciation in one session None of the teachers and only 10% of the students spent more than 20 minutes on pronunciation

The overall results indicate that the reality of teaching and learning pronunciation at EM high school is not positive at all Although both teachers and students are very optimistic towards teaching and learning pronunciation, students‟ level is not good as well as time spent

on teaching pronunciation is limited during one normal teaching session

Table 3: Teachers’ and Students’ time on teaching and learning pronunciation

3.1.4 Teachers’ and students’ problems in teaching and learning pronunciation Table 4: Teachers’ and students’ problems in teaching and learning pronunciation

competence in pronunciation was too low and 30% of the students also agreed with this idea

Besides, 30% of the teachers and also the same rate of the students shared the point that they did not have enough time to spend on pronunciation Class setting is the following factor that 20% teachers chose and 30% of the students thought it really problem The final factor affected on teaching and learning pronunciation that both teachers and students selected is students‟ motivation (20% of the teachers and 10% of the students respectively)

3.1.5 Teachers’ and students’ problems in teaching and learning specific aspects of pronunciation

Table 5: Teachers’ and students’ evaluation about the difficulties in pronouncing elements of English syllables: