Pronunciation of english final sounds common problems and solutions among first year english major students at an giang university

AN GIANG UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES STUDENT’S NAME: NGUYEN THI NGOC NHUNG STUDENT’S ID NUMBER: DAV150472 CLASS: DH16AV UNDERGRADUATE THESIS PRONUNCIATION OF ENGLISH FINAL

AN GIANG UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

STUDENT’S NAME: NGUYEN THI NGOC NHUNG

STUDENT’S ID NUMBER: DAV150472

CLASS: DH16AV

UNDERGRADUATE THESIS PRONUNCIATION OF ENGLISH FINAL SOUNDS:

COMMON PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS AMONG FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT AN GIANG UNIVERSITY

SUPERVISOR: PHAN THI THANH HUYEN, Ph.D

AN GIANG, MAY 2019

DECLARATION



I hereby declare that the thesis titled “Pronunciation of English final sounds: Common problems and solutions among first year English major students at An Giang University” represents my own work and that it has not been previously submitted to any other university or institute in application for admission to degrees

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

After spending four years in Faculty of Foreign Languages, An Giang University, majoring in English Teacher Education, I am now going to graduate from the university It is fortunate for me in this final semester to be able to conduct this undergraduate thesis on the topic of my interest, with substantial support from individuals that I would like to sincerely express my deepest gratitude as follows First of all, I am grateful to my academic supervisor – Ms Phan Thi Thanh Huyen, for her wholehearted support and expert guidance during the time I conducted this thesis She always gave me invaluable guidance throughout this research She inspired me from the very first day of conducting this thesis and motivated me to keep up with the thesis I have learned a lot from her and I deeply would like to send her my most special thanks for all her help, motivation, and encouragement

Secondly, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to An Giang University and the Faculty of Foreign Languages for giving approval for this undergraduate research project to be conducted I would love to especially thank An Giang University and the Faculty of Foreign Languages in general and the lectures of this faculty in particular for all my knowledge and encouragement they have given me

I also wish to thank Ms Nguyen Thi Anh Nguyet, who always encourages me and stands by me I especially thank for her support and her valuable pieces of advice in both knowledge and spirit She also helped me find out the shortcomings and solve all of them during the time of conducting this thesis I am particularly grateful for a great deal of support from the freshmen at the Faculty of Foreign Language for their participation in this thesis Moreover, I would love to express my thanks to a native English teacher for helping me analyze the data the errors in the participants’ pronunciation

Last but not least, my most grateful thanks to my parents for their patience, love, empathy, and devotion I am grateful to my parents for their always standing by my side, for sharing my dreams and my passion, for encouraging me most of the time, for trusting my potential personalities, for understanding me and giving me useful

advice I would take this opportunity to thank my English teachers in secondary and high school for drawing the path for me to teach English and always inspiring me to

be successful in this major I also wish to thank my friends, who always stand there for me, help me in need and encourage my spirit and share all joy and sorrow during the time of conducting this thesis This undergraduate thesis would have been impossible without the support and encouragement from these aforementioned people

ABSTRACT

Vietnamese leaners of English as a foreign language (EFL) often have difficulties with the production of English final consonants This study deals with the common mistakes in pronouncing English final consonants, the causes, and some suitable solutions Theoretical phonological research about final consonants in both English and Vietnamese suggests that these mistakes may result from the influence of learners’ first language and context where they live and learn English To find out the answer, the mix-approach method was conducted The questionnaire, group interview, and audio recording were three instruments used to collect both quantitative and qualitative data Quantitative and qualitative data were then analyzed, and compared to draw out common mistakes and causes, and provide suitable solutions to improve the students’ pronunciation of English final consonants The findings indicated that Vietnamese EFL leaners’ effort to pronounce English word-final consonants were omitted, added sounds or replaced with sounds closer to those existing in their mother tongue It was revealed that these mistakes were caused by the number of the final consonants in a word, the lack of the sound existence in Vietnamese, the students’ confusion, and the students’ laziness or lack of attention To improve the pronunciation of English final consonants, the participants were advised to ask for support from their friends, classmates, and teachers and spend more time on self-studying Through the findings, some recommendations were suggested for the pedagogical implications and further research

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION _ iACKNOWLEDGMENT _ iiABSTRACT ivLIST OF TABLES viiLIST OF FIGURES _ viiiLIST OF ABBREVIATIONS _ ixCHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION _ 1

1.1 Rationale 1 1.2 Research aims and research questions 2 1.2.1 Research aims _ 2 1.2.2 Research questions _ 3 1.3 Significance of the study 3 1.4 Limitations _ 3 1.5 Organization of the thesis _ 4

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW _ 5

2.1 English sounds 5 2.2 English consonant sounds _ 5 2.2.1 What are English consonants and how they are produced? _ 5 2.2.2 Articulatory features 6 2.2.2.1 Voicing 6 2.2.2.2 Manners of articulation 7 2.2.2.3 Places of articulation (articulator and points of articulation) 9 2.2.3 Final consonants and consonant clusters _ 10 2.3 Vietnamese consonants and their influence on EFL learners _ 13 2.4 Common final sounds mistakes in English _ 14 2.5 Summary _ 17

CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 18

3.1 Research design 18 3.2 Participants 18 3.3 Data collection instruments _ 19 3.3.1 Questionnaire 19 3.3.2 Wordlist and text _ 20

3.4.1 Administering the questionnaire _ 21 3.4.2 Administering the audio recording _ 21 3.5 Data analysis 22 3.6 Summary _ 24

CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 25

4.1 What are common mistakes in producing English final consonants among first-year English students at An Giang University? _ 25 4.1.1 Reduction and Substitution _ 26 4.1.1.1 Mistakes with single final consonant sounds 27 4.1.1.2 Mistakes with final consonant clusters _ 29 4.1.2 Insertion 32 4.2 What possibly caused these mistakes? _ 33 4.3 Which suitable solutions can be suggested to help first-year English students at An Giang university to improve their pronunciation of English final consonants? _ 38 4.3.1 Other people’s support _ 39 4.3.2 Self-study _ 41 4.4 Summary 46

CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSIONS 47

5.1 Main findings revisited 47 5.1.1 Common mistakes in pronunciation of English final sounds _ 47 5.1.2 Possible causes of pronunciation _ 48 5.1.3 Possible solutions for improvement _ 49 5.2 Pedagogical implications _ 49 5.3 Recommendations for further research 50 5.4 Conclusion 50

REFERENCES _ 52APPENDICES _ 57APPENDIX A: QUESTIONNAIRE _ 57APPENDIX B: BẢNG HỎI _ 60APPENDIX C: WORDLIST 64APPENDIX D: READING THE PASSAGE 65APPENDIX E: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS 66

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Voiced and voiceless English consonant sounds (Yoshida, 2015) 6 Table 2 English Consonant Phonemes (Mai, 2011) _ 9 Table 3 Structure of a syllable (Nguyen, 2007) 10 Table 4 Final consonant clusters analysis 12 Table 5 Comparison of Vietnamese and English consonant sounds in Syllable-final position (Tang, 2007) 14 Table 6 The number and the percentage of first-year English major students 19 Table 7 Reliability Statistics of the pilot study 23 Table 8 Reliability Statistics of the instrument 23 Table 9 Summary of Participants’ production of final consonants _ 26 Table 10 Errors with single final consonant sounds 27 Table 11 Errors in final consonants clusters in wordlist task _ 30 Table 12 Errors in final consonants clusters in reading text task 30 Table 13 The reason why the participants made mistakes with final consonants 36

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 Overall results of the participants' production in final sounds _ 25 Figure 2 The participants’ experience in learning English _ 34 Figure 3 The participants’ experience in learning Pronunciation 34 Figure 4 The frequency of common mistakes in final consonants _ 35 Figure 5 The participants’ attendance in extra classes _ 39 Figure 6 The opinion of the participants about the effect of other people 40 Figure 7 The participants’ attendance in courses using English as a medium of instruction _ 42 Figure 8 The frequency of the participants’ attendance 42 Figure 9 The frequency of the participants’ practice producing English final

consonants at home 43 Figure 10 The opinion of the participants toward the support from the social media and the Internet _ 45

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EFL: English as a Foreign Language

ESL: English as a Second Language

C: consonant

V: vowel

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this introductory chapter is to explain the rationale for the study

In addition, the aim and research questions are also presented The next two parts discussed in depth are the significance and limitations of this thesis The organization is the final part in this chapter

1.1 Rationale

Modern science and technology develop with light speed and human being is not standing out of this trend People connect with others around the world and share everything with each other and cooperate in order to develop not only in economy but also in knowledge However, they cannot use their mother tongue to communicate According Anderson (2010), there are 6,909 distinct languages around the world and no one is able to know all of the languages That requires an international communicating mean Therefore, English is considered as one of the best choices and it becomes the third popular language in the world now (Tran, 2017) As a result, English plays that role well for many years There are more and more people are studying English now

As a developing country, Vietnam strives for better achievement and has brought English into the official education system for many years In spite of learning English at school for ten years, the Vietnamese learners faced challenges in developing appropriate English pronunciation in general and final sounds in particular (Nguyen, 2014)

Vietnamese is a non-final sound language The Vietnamese people get used to speaking without focusing on ending sounds However, English is not the same as Vietnamese In English, ending sounds play an essential role in distinguishing words If speakers talk without ending sound, listeners are easily confused As a result, the speakers and the listeners cannot achieve communicating aims (Duong, 2009)

Thank to a new policy in education, English skills are more concentrated (Nguyen

it is not a separated subject at school (Truong, 2015) Therefore, the time for pronunciation per lesson usually takes less than others Teachers do not have enough time to correct errors one by one for the students As a result, teachers and students often try their best to achieve fluency and forget the accuracy (Truong, 2015) Besides, teachers tend to ignore students’ errors in the production of sounds (Silva, 2011)

Although the time for studying English at school is limited, the students whose major is English language in some universities have more time in practicing pronunciation They have at least two courses in pronunciation They are Pronunciation 1 and 2 with 30 periods each course In Pronunciation 1, the students are taught in depth about sounds and especially final consonants Moreover, the students work in total speaking English environment and also have opportunities to study with native English teachers Thus, they have more time to practice pronunciation

However, because of both subjective and objective reasons, students in English major may keep making the same mistakes in final sounds, especially; therefore, the freshmen who just approach in depth final consonants in short time In addition, in university, most of the study time is self-studying However, the freshmen may not know the learning methods and still make many mistakes

Recognizing the importance of final consonants in studying and in daily life, I decided to find out the problems in students’ pronunciation at An Giang University and then suggest some amendments to improve their producing final consonants

1.2 Research aims and research questions

1.2.1 Research aims

This research aims to provide insights into Vietnamese EFL students’ common mistakes in pronouncing English final consonants Besides, the possible causes why the students tend to make these mistakes are also discussed Lastly, based on the common mistakes and the causes, this study suggests some suitable solutions for the students to improve their pronunciation of English final consonants

2 What possibly caused these mistakes?

3 Which suitable solutions can be suggested to help first-year English students at An Giang university to improve their pronunciation of English final consonants?

1.3 Significance of the study

Because final sounds play an important role in distinguishing words, producing final consonants well can help speakers and listeners achieve communicating aims Therefore, this research provides effective ways to improve the pronunciation of English final consonant and increase the communicating effects

Moreover, this research helps EFL teachers recognize students’ problems with final consonants They thus could design suitable activities in class and instruct learners to produce final sounds correctly Besides, this study is also a tool for educators and policymakers to recognize the importance of pronunciation in English classes and then design better activities and programs for English learning and teaching

1.4 Limitations

There are some limitations in this study First of all, this research focuses on English pronunciation in general and does not differentiate British English or American English pronunciation Secondly, this study focuses on a small group of participants in their first-year English program and other contexts at An Giang University Thus, the result cannot be generalized to all EFL learners Lastly, the participants of this research are the freshmen and the related stakeholders are not focused Therefore, the findings cannot be generalized based on the data from all

1.5 Organization of the thesis

There are five chapters in this thesis

Chapter 1 introduces the importance of English final consonants, the reason for

conducting this thesis, research aims, research questions and limitations of this study

Chapter 2 describes phonetics and phonology in general and reviews the

literature of some topics related to the study

Chapter 3 presents the methodology and methods used to collect the data and the

population of participants

Chapter 4 discusses the data analysis to answer the research questions

Chapter 5 concludes the study and provides some pedagogical implication and

suggestion for further research

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter reviews some relevant literature about sounds, final consonants in both English and Vietnamese and final consonants mistakes Moreover, final consonants and final consonant clusters are also summarized Some common mistakes are listed and reviewed in depth Each aspect includes the definition of the key terminology, examples and a brief overview of previous phonological studies

2.1 English sounds

Sound is defined as the trip of vibrations through the air or another medium and can be heard when it reaches a person’s or animal’s ear (Oxford dictionary 3rd ed., 2010) Speech sounds are the sound which is all made when the people speak

“Speech sounds are made by air moving outward from the lungs to the mouth or nose” (Avery & Ehrlich, 1992) The sake of communication is the main purpose of speech sounds which is produced by the vocal organs

There are two branches deal with English sounds They are phonetics and phonology Phonetics studies about speech sounds, their physiological production, acoustic qualities (Ladefoged, 2001); however, only the production or articulatory will be focused in this present research Phonology is the study of the pattern of sounds and how sounds function in relation to each other in language (Hickey, 2013) There are 44 sounds and they are divided into two major categories: vowels and consonants In this research, consonants, in general, and final consonants, in particular, will be discussed

2.2 English consonant sounds

2.2.1 What are English consonants and how they are produced?

Consonants are sounds with the air from the lungs outward to the mouth or nose and completely obstructed (stops: /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/), partially obstructed (lateral: /l/),

or escape with audible friction (fricatives: /f/, /v/, /θ/, /ð/, /s/,/z/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/) In producing some consonants (nasals: /m/, /n/,/ŋ/) the air is blocked in the mouth and go through the nose in nasal cavity (Richard, PLatt, & Platt, 1992) or some sounds begin as a

stop and end as a fricatives (affricates: /tʃ/, /dʒ/) Consonants include voiced and voiceless sounds

2.2.2 Articulatory features

English consonants can be judged from the three main characteristics: voicing, manner of articulation and place of articulation (Roach, 2000, Fromlin, Rodman, Collins, & Blair, 1988) Thanks to these characteristics, the consonants are distinguished both in the description and in the way they are produced

2.2.2.1 Voicing

English consonants can be voiced or voiceless (Rogers, 1990) A consonant can

be voiced sound when vocal cords come close together; however, they are not completely closing the windpipe (Nguyen, 2010) At that term, the air will go through and create vibration On the other hand, when vocal cords stay apart and the air goes through without any vibration, a voiceless sound is produced

Table 1 shows the voiced and voiceless sounds in English

Table 1 Voiced and voiceless English consonant sounds (Yoshida, 2015)

Voicing of English Consonants

Oral stop consonants

Oral stops such as [p, b, t, d, k, g] are produced if the air stream is blocked in a short time and continuously escapes from the mouth (Nguyen, 2010)

Nasal stop consonants

Nasal stops are the sounds which are blocked in the mouth and escape from the nose when the end of the soft palate is down for the air to come to the nasal cavity There are 3 nasal stops [m, n, ŋ] (Nguyen, 2010)

Fricative consonants

Fricatives are produced if the air stream meets an incomplete obstruction somewhere in the mouth because an articulator has moved close to its point of articulation, thus causing friction There are 8 fricatives in English [f, v, θ, ð, s, z, ʃ, ʒ] (Nguyen, 2010)

Lateral consonant

When the air stream is obstructed by the closure formed by the tip of the tongue firmly against the alveolar ridge, but it can still flow over on one or both sides of the tongue, thus the lateral sound produced.in English, there is 1 lateral sound [l] (Nguyen, 2010)

Affricate consonants

When the sound begins as a stop and ends as a fricative, people call it an affricate

In this process, first, the air meets a complete obstruction and then it is slowly released and escapes from the mouth with some friction There are 2 affricates [tʃ, dʒ] in English (Nguyen, 2010)

Glides or semivowels

Although final consonants can be any except glides [r,w, j, h] (Pham, 2009), data below can support for further research Because glides are produced with little or no obstruction of the air stream in the mouth and a glide is like a very quick vowel For this reason, they are sometimes called semivowels, which means “half-vowels.” They sound like vowels, but they can function as consonants (Yoshida, 2015)

2.2.2.3 Places of articulation (articulator and points of articulation)

Articulators are organs which can move to obstruct or impede the flow of the air from the lungs The tongue (tip, blade, front, back) and the lower lip are articulators (Nguyen, 2010)

The location of the active and passive articulators determines the place of articulation for a consonant In English, there are eight places of articulation (McMahon, 2002) Places of articulation are usually fixed points on the roof of the mouth, toward which are the articulators move, or against which they press (Nguyen, 2010)

The interaction of an articulator and points of articulation characterize a consonant Thus the English consonants are classified under nine descriptive names: bilabial, labiodental, interdental, apico-alveolar, postalveolar, alveolar palatal, fronto-palatal, dorso-velar, glottal

The table below summarizes all English consonants

Table 2 English Consonant Phonemes (Mai, 2011)

2.2.3 Final consonants and consonant clusters

The diagram (table 3) shows the position of consonants in a syllable

Table 3 Structure of a syllable (Nguyen, 2007)

Syllable

Onset

(initial consonants)

Nucleus (vowel)

Coda (final consonants)

“The coda is the final consonant or consonant clusters.” (Barbara & Brian, 1994)

According to Walker (2003), if there is no consonant at the end of the word, it has zero coda When a coda has one sound, it is called final consonant If coda has two

or more sounds, it can be called a consonant cluster

Consonant clusters or a sequence of two or more consonants, (Richard, Platt & Platt, 1992) occur in initial position, medial and final position of the English word However, this present research just focuses on the final position

English allows for the extinction of two or three or even four consonants for clusters in the final position (Baker & Westrup, 2003) Therefore it is widely agreed that the syllabic structure of English is (C) (C) (C) (V) (C) (C) (C) (C) Mostly, every consonant can take final position in a syllabic structure except for /h/, /w/ and /j/ (Cummins, 1998)

According to Pham (2009), final consonant sounds in English are listed as below: /p/ rips, keep, sleep

/b/ rib, nib

/t/ right, start, cat

/d/ ride,

/k/ pick, kick

/z/ these, has, was

/∫/ crash, splash, smash

/ʒ/ beige

/t∫/ church, teach

/dʒ/ bridge, encourage

/m/ lamb, room, gloom

/n/ than, man, happen

/η/ sing, spring, ceiling

/l/ pool, file, smile

Final consonant clusters are classified into two kinds, pre-final + final and final + post - final Pre-final final occurs in some situation below:

In such clusters, the consonants /t, d, k, g, t/ are called final consonants The consonants /s, z, t, d, θ/ are called post – final consonants As can be seen, post-finals are usually the segments added into the original words.

They are listed in the table below:

Table 4 Final consonant clusters analysis

Post-final 1 Post-final 2 Post-final 3

2.3 Vietnamese consonants and their influence on EFL learners

According to Nguyen and Brouha (1998), Vietnamese is a monosyllabic language

in which each syllable is equivalent to a word Nguyen (1967) also stated that there are no phonemic words containing more than one phonemic syllable in Vietnamese Moreover, this language contains not only vowels and consonants but also other distinctive features, tones, and stress There are six tones and three stress

Vietnamese has 11 vowels and 22 consonants (Nguyen & Brouha, 1998), of which /p/, /t/, /k/, /m/, n/, /ŋ/ are shared with English Because this present thesis focuses on final consonants, vowels and other aspects will not be mentioned Similar

to English, Vietnamese also has consonants in word-initial and word-final positions Some English consonants do not exist in Vietnamese The table below provides a comparison between English and Vietnamese consonants in word-final positions Word-initial positions are not discussed as they are not the focus of this thesis

Table 5 Comparison of Vietnamese and English consonant sounds in final position (Tang, 2007)

Syllable-Shared sounds in Vietnamese

and English

Consonants and consonant clusters in

word-final position in English only

-pt (slept), –ps (oops), –kt(walked) -ks (licks), –ft (laughed), – sp (lisp) -st (list), –sk (brisk), –lp (help), –lb (bulb) -lt(wilt), –ld(wild), –lk (bulk), –lf (elf) -lv (delve), –lθ (wealth), -lt∫ (belch) -ldʒ (bulge), -lm (balm), –mp (bump) -mf (triumph), –mθ (warmth), –nt (mint) -nd (wand), –nθ (tenth), –nz (lens) -nt∫ (wrench), -ndʒ (binge), - ŋk (bank) -ksθ (sixth), –kst (whisked), –lpt (helped) -mpt (bumped), -mps (bumps)

2.4 Common final sounds mistakes in English

In language learning, making mistakes is inevitable People cannot learn a language without first systematically committing errors (Dulay, Hurt & Krashen, 1982)

According to Treiman (1989), final sound mistakes can be classified into six types:

2.4.1 Reduction

This is the “deletion of one or more consonants from target clusters so that only

a single consonant occurs at syllable margins” (Grunwell, 1987: 217, as cited in

Treiman, 1989)

Vietnamese learners tend to delete the last sound in an English word because the Vietnamese consonants are not pronounced in the final position in a word

Example: cake /keɪk/ is often pronounced as /keɪ/ (delete /k/)

Moreover, research has shown that Vietnamese learners do not usually produce final consonants segments after diphthongs since most diphthongs in Vietnamese appear in open syllables (Benson 1988; Osburne, 1996; Sato, 1984) Therefore, students tend to delete the final sound following a diphthong

Example: about /əˈbaʊt/ is often pronounced as /əˈbaʊ/ (delete /t/)

2.4.2 Clusters Simplification

The error occurs when one or some elements of clusters are produced in a different manner from the target phoneme (Grunwell, 1987, as cited in Treiman, 1989)

Examples: Green /gri:n/ is often pronounced as [gwin]

Bread /bred/ is often pronounced as [bwed]

2.4.4 Coalescence

Coalescence or fusion occurs when the yielded pronunciation contains a new consonant composed of features from the original consonants

Ex: Swim /swim/ is often pronounced as [fim]

This mistake occurs because of the [+fricative] feature of /s/ co-occurs with the [+labial] feature of /w/, resulting in a labial fricative, [f] (Dyson & Paden, 1983, as cited in Treiman, 1989)

Moreover, the influence of Vietnamese phonological rules also makes Vietnamese EFL students make this error Specifically, the fusion occurs when the existence of English spelling is similar to Vietnamese spelling

Example: thank /θæŋk/ is often pronounced as /thæŋk/

Vietnamese EFL leaners tend to combine “t” and “h” into “th”, which is aspirated sound in Vietnamese and the same phoneme with unaspirated /t/ (Nguyen, & Nguyen, 2009) However, in English, “th” occurs with two different sounds /θ/ and / ð/ As a result, they pronounce this as /t/ in Vietnamese (Ha, 2005)

2.4.5 Omitting nasal and liquid sounds

In consonant clusters consisting of pre-final + final consonants with nasals (/n/, /m/) or liquids (/r/, /l/) as the first element, (/m, n, l, r/ + final consonant), nasals and liquids sounds are often omitted (Treiman, Zukowski & Welty, 1995)

Example: “went” is often pronounced as “wet”

“belt” is often pronounced as “bet”

2.4.6 Phonetically possible spelling

In representing the first consonant of clusters, spellers tend to spell words in an inaccurate but phonetically plausible way (Treiman & Bourassa, 2000)

Example: trap /træp/ is often pronounced as chap /cæp/

It was explained that because “ch” closely resembles the sound of the initial blend

“tr” /tS/ Treiman (1985) explained that this “ch” spelling reflects the release of /t/

in the context

2.5 Summary

This chapter presents a review of relevant literature Firstly, consonants are classified into categories thanks to their feature According to phonology, consonants are categorized with articulatory features Voiced and voiceless categories are classified by the vibration of vocal cords There are fifteen voiced sounds and nine voiceless sounds Based on manners of articulation, there are five types: oral stop consonants, nasal stop consonants, lateral consonant, affricate consonants and glides or semivowels Besides, consonants are also classified basing

on the places of articulation Secondly, there is a distinction between final consonants and final consonant clusters in English Next, Vietnamese consonants are also presented Lastly, the common final sound mistakes are discussed There are six common mistakes in pronouncing final consonants They are a reduction, cluster simplification, epenthesis, coalescence, omitting nasal and liquid sounds, and phonetically possible spelling After determining the common mistakes, this study goes on with designing a suitable method to address the answer of research questions

CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter describes how the research was conducted Firstly, the approached design is deployed to study the participants’ producing and learning English final consonants Secondly, the description of the research population and participants is provided Then, questionnaire, audio recording and interview questions are described as data collection instruments Finally, the process of data collection and data analysis are discussed

mix-3.1 Research design

This study is aimed to collect data about first-year English major students’ pronunciation of final consonants in English and what factors may influence their pronunciation Because the data about the factors can influence their pronunciation and common mistakes in their pronunciation, the descriptive study was carried out and the mix-approach method is used in this thesis

In this study, quantitative data were collected By a questionnaire with two sections were delivered to English major freshmen at An Giang University

Qualitative data about the common mistakes and suitable solutions to improve their pronunciation of English final consonants were collected by audio record and interview Audio recording was given to 9 random participants from 3 classes of the first-year students Then, a group semi-structured interview was conducted with 9 students who were chosen randomly from 3 classes and different from the participants of the audio recording

3.2 Participants

Although the population of this study was 169 the first-year students in the Faculty of Foreign Languages at An Giang University, this study was conducted with 100 participants It could be explained by some reasons below

First of all, the researcher did not find all the student in their classes She went to classes to deliver the questionnaire; however, some students were absent Therefore,

it was impossible to collect questionnaire from 169 students in limited time

Secondly, it was realized that some students reserved their study result, interrupted their own studying or dropped out from university As a result, only 100 students were available at the time the data collection was carried out in this study

100 freshmen were invited to take part in this As shown in table 6, 80 % of the participants was female while 20% was male In general, there were more females than males Besides, they were English majors at An Giang University 100% of the students used Vietnamese as their first language

Table 6 The number and the percentage of first-year English major students

The questionnaire focuses on students’ experience in learning English (4 items), learning English pronunciation (2 items), and students’ learning pronunciation methods (1 item)

Prior to administering, the questionnaire underwent many changes It was read and corrected by the supervisor who had experience in ESL teaching Finally, in the main scheme students were asked to complete the questionnaire in the classroom

To ensure the reliability of student’s responses the research, the researcher gave clear instructions in Vietnamese in class before delivering the questionnaire

3.3.2 Wordlist and text

The participants were asked to read aloud a word list and a text (Appendix C and D), which help the researcher to find out the common mistakes in practice and generate some suitable solutions for each kind of mistake More than that, the reading task was considered to be less formal than the wordlist task (Nguyen, 2008) Before recording, to make sure that the participants knew all the sounds, the researcher suggested that the participants should look them up in a dictionary in advance

In the word list, the production of final consonants was evaluated The wordlist contained 40 words focusing on sounds as /t/, /ʧ/, /z/, /s/, /ʃ/, /v/, /f/, /ld/, /p/, /b/, /ŋ/, /m/, /n/, l/, /k/, and /vz/ These final sounds were selected because, as mentioned in chapter 2, Vietnamese people usually mispronounced or ignored them Therefore, based on a word list and a text designed by Nguyen (2007), the researcher adapted them to be more suitable with An Giang University students because in the wordlist

of Nguyen (2007), /f/ and /ʤ/ were not available

The text was 167 words in length and some sounds appeared in the wordlist were tasked again in long sentences and the effect of the context to compare the findings between wordlist and text The participants were asked to read the text with the normal reading speed at the time of recording Their reading was audio recorded All of them were recorded using specialized tools (smartphone as a tool to record, microphone and laptop)

3.3.3 Interview questions

A group interview was conducted to collect details and confirm the analyzed results in audio-recording part Thanks to the personal information in questionnaire, nine informants were invited for interview The group interview method was used because the participants answered the interview questions at the same time and they could help each other to answer fully and without overlap The interview consisted

of five questions The first question asked the participants about the opinion toward the accuracy of pronouncing English final consonants in communication The second question was conducted to collect data about their awareness of their own problems of pronouncing English final consonants The third questions could help the researcher confirm the sounds and the systematic mistakes found in audio recording section The next question was designed to help the participants review their own problems basing on general information from the third question Because

in the second question, the participants listed their problem without lack of some sounds The last question asked the participants about their learning pronunciation methods

3.4 Procedures

3.4.1 Administering the questionnaire

Initially, the questionnaire was translated into Vietnamese and administered to 20 EFL sophomores at An Giang University These students were chosen randomly and the data collected in the questionnaire were checked for its reality with SPSS After piloted, the questionnaire was directly delivered and administered to a total

of 100 freshmen majoring in English in the Faculty of Foreign Languages at An Giang University The students were provided with information about the study and how to fill in the questionnaire It was also stated in this part that all of the information from the participants was used for study only and kept confidential No problems appeared during the administration of the study It took approximately 5-

7 minutes for the students to complete it

3.4.2 Administering the audio recording

The manifestation of the errors in producing final sounds may depend on learners’ language proficiency The lower levels of learners have, the more inaccurate production rate is (Nguyen, 2008) Therefore, the participants for this part were chosen randomly in order that the domination of levels could not impact on the result Nine participants were selected randomly from 3 classes of the first-year

were any words that they were not sure how to produce or did not know, then they could look them up in a dictionary for the phonetic transcription Each audio recording lasted about 3 minutes for both reading wordlist and text The audio recordings were continuously transcript and analyzed in charts and tables The schedules for audio recording were decided by the participants at their convenience

In the end, the researcher sent the participants sincere thanks for their contribution

to the thesis

3.4.3 Administering the group interview

Finally, the group interview was designed to confirm the findings from the recording analysis and collect data about suitable solutions which could help the students to improve their pronunciation of English final consonants Nine other participants were randomly invited to take part in The participants were different from the participants of audio recording because they could confirm as an objective and generalized role with the problems The schedules for interview were decided

audio-by the participants for their convenience; therefore, they could join in at the same time Thus, the participants provided the data without overlap and also supported to the answer for each other During interview time, the researcher both recorded and wrote down the responses immediately The interview lasted approximately 30 minutes In the end, the researcher sent sincere thanks to the participants for their support in the study

Table 7 Reliability Statistics of the pilot study

Alpha

Cronbach’s Alpha Based on Standardized Items

N of Items

Then, the data collected from the questionnaire were typed on an online survey, Survey Monkey, to analyze into charts and tables All of the questions were described in diagrams and analyzed to find out the participants’ habit in learning pronunciation Some suitable solutions were also mentioned in this questionnaire to answer the third research question

The audio recordings of the wordlist and text were sent to a native speaker who has been working in the faculty of Foreign Languages to point out and count the number of the mistakes in the final positions of a word This native speaker was from New York, the USA She graduated from Michigan University with two majors, International studies about global environment and health and Russian language and culture Besides, she has worked as a teacher teaching English at An Giang University since 2016 Thanks to the experience in studying at the university and in teaching English as a foreign language for Vietnamese learners, she was able to

Finally, the results from the group interview were described by charts and analyzed based on the number and the percentages of the participants

3.6 Summary

This chapter has provided the methodology of this study In data collection, both quantitative and qualitative methods were used In the quantitative stage, printed copies of the questionnaire were delivered to the participants after the validity of the pilot study was validated The audio-recording and a group semi-structured interview were conducted for qualitative data The participants were asked to read a text and audio recorded and then transcribed to find out the answer Then, the group interview was conducted The researcher had more evidence to confirm the findings from the audio-recording analysis about the common mistakes Thus, some suggestions were made in order to help students improve their pronunciation in general and final consonants production in particular

CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

This chapter analyzes and synthesizes data from all sources: the questionnaire, group interview, and audio recordings The result section is guided by the research questions, which address three main aspects: (i) common mistakes the first-year English major students at An Giang University usually make, (ii) the reasons why they usually make these mistakes and (iii) some suitable solutions which can be suggested for them to improve producing English final consonants

4.1 What are common mistakes in producing English final consonants among first-year English students at An Giang University?

The figure 1 below illustrates the participants’ overall production, categorized by total words and word modification It is clear that the percentage of modification was low because reading text is considered less formal (Nguyen, 2008) and the participants could pay more attention than interview or speaking However, because

in this thesis, the participants were allowed to pay more attention to final consonants, that results could be accepted Besides, there was also variation between 2 tasks, with the higher percentage of expected production evident in the reading (61%) and the less high one in the wordlist (45%) It can be explained that the words designed

in the text (167 words) is more than in the wordlist (40 words) Moreover, in the text, words without final consonants also occurred, therefore, the participants could produce them better

Firstly, when looking at the transcription, errors can be classified into 3 categories:

- Reduction (omitting the final consonant or one element of clusters)

- Insertion (Inserting a consonant to the ending sound)

- Substitution (Replace the target consonants/clusters by a phonetically similar to Vietnamese sounds)

Table 7 shows the mistakes the participants made Among the 372 mistakes, the reduction errors made up 31.5% in the wordlist task while 41.5% in reading text Moreover, the participants also added more segments in their production both in wordlist task and in reading text task Specifically, there were 13 mistakes (17.8%)

in wordlist and 59 (19.7%) in reading text In addition, the participants changed some features of final consonants and made them more similar to Vietnamese sounds In the wordlist task, such mistakes occurred with 50.7% and in the reading text 38.8%

Table 9 Summary of Participants’ production of final consonants

4.1.1 Reduction and Substitution

In order to make a clear and deep analysis, participants’ final sounds are classified into 2 categories:

- Single consonant sound (one consonant as the coda)

- Consonant clusters (two or more consonants form as a cluster)

4.1.1.1 Mistakes with single final consonant sounds

Among 24 consonants sound, the three /w/, /j/, /h/ can never be the final consonants The others can occur in various situations The table below presents the errors which participants made both in reading wordlist and text tasks

Table 10 Errors with single final consonant sounds