The effects of teaching the schwa on elementary teenage learners english listening comprehension ma

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HOCHIMINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES & HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE THE EFFECTS OF TEACHING THE SCHWA ON ELEMENTARY TEE

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HOCHIMINH CITY

UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES & HUMANITIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE

THE EFFECTS OF TEACHING THE SCHWA

ON ELEMENTARY TEENAGE LEARNERS ’

ENGLISH LISTENING COMPREHENSION

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature

in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL

By

LA NGUYET THANH

Supervised by

TO MINH THANH, Assoc Prof Dr

HO CHI MINH CITY, OCTOBER 2O22

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc Prof Dr To Minh Thanh for all the expert guidance, tremendous support, great patience, and strong belief in me Her detailed comments and constructive recommendations put a theoretically and methodologically solid foundation for the research reported in this thesis

This study would not have been possible without the support of YOLA Language Center, where I have been working, and my fellow teachers and students The participation of the students brought valuable data for the main findings to be fulfilled Especially, I am much obliged to my Academic Manager, Ms Thuy Linh for giving me the permission to carry out the study in the center

Additional thanks go to my teammates at university and my best friends for their great help and tremendous support as well as for all the precious moments I have had with them

Last but not least, I owe my Mum a special thank for her patience, support, encouragement, and strong belief in me

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY

I hereby certify my authorship of the thesis entitled “THE EFFECTS OF TEACHING THE SCHWA ON ELEMENTARY TEENAGE LEARNERS’ ENGLISH LISTENING COMPREHENSION”

This work has not been submitted for a higher degree to any other university or institution

Ho Chi Minh City, October 10th, 2022

La Nguyet Thanh

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that I, LA NGUYET THANH, being the candidate for the degree

of Master of TESOL, accept the requirement of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the Library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the originality of my thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for the care, loan or reproduction of theses

Ho Chi Minh City, October 10th, 2022

La Nguyet Thanh

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY ii

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS x

LIST OF TABLES xi

LIST OF FIGURES xiii

ABSTRACT xiv

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background to the study 1

1.2 Aim of the study 3

1.3 Research questions and research hypotheses 3

1.4 Significance of the study 3

1.5 Scope of the study 3

1.6 Overall structure of the study 4

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1 Listening 6

2.2 Listening comprehension 7

2.2.1 Definition of listening comprehension 7

2.2.2 Role of listening comprehension in language learning 8

2.2.3 Difficulties in practicing listening for comprehension 9

2.2.3.1 Accent 9

2.2.3.2 Speed 10

2.2.3.3 Sound changes 10

2.3 The schwa 11

2.3.1 The schwa as a segmental feature 11

2.3.2 The schwa as a suprasegmental feature 12

2.3.2.1 The schwa and word stress 12

2.3.2.2 The schwa and sentence stress 13

2.3.2.3 The deletion of the schwa 14

2.3.2.4 The insertion of the schwa 16

2.3.3 Relation between the schwa and listening comprehension 16

2.3.4 Techniques in teaching the schwa 17

2.4 Previous related studies 19

2.5 Conceptual framework 23

2.6 Chapter summary 26

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 27

3.1 Research design 27

3.2 Research site 27

3.3 Participants 28

3.4 Research instruments 29

3.4.1 The pretest and the posttest 29

3.4.2 The experimental teaching 31

3.4.3 The questionnaire 31

3.4.4 Summary of the research instruments 32

3.5 Materials 33

3.6 Data collection procedure 33

3.6.1 Pilot experiment 33

3.6.2 The main study 34

3.7 Data analysis procedure 35

3.7.1 Data collected from the pretest and the posttest 35

3.7.2 Data collected from the questionnaire 36

3.8 Chapter summary 37

CHAPTER 4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 38

4.1 The results of the two tests 38

4.1.1 The normal distribution tests 38

4.1.2 The students’ results of the pretest 39

4.1.2.1 The students’ results of the pretest Part 1 39

4.1.2.2 The students’ results of the pretest Part 2 41

4.1.2.3 The students’ overall results of the pretest 43

4.1.2.4 Summary 44

4.1.3 The students’ results of the posttest 45

4.1.3.1 The students’ results of the posttest Part 1 45

4.1.3.2 The students’ results of the posttest Part 2 47

4.1.3.3 The students’ overall results of the posttest 49

4.1.3.4 Summary 50

4.1.4 The EG’ results of the pretest and posttest 51

4.1.4.1 The EG’ results of the pretest and posttest Part 1 51

4.1.4.2 The EG’ results of the pretest and posttest Part 2 52

4.1.4.3 The EG’ overall results of the pretest and posttest 54

4.1.4.4 Summary 55

4.1.5 The CG’ results of the pretest and posttest 56

4.1.5.1 The CG’ results of the pretest and posttest Part 1 56

4.1.5.2 The CG’ results of the pretest and posttest Part 2 58

4.1.5.3 The CG’ overall results of the pretest and posttest 59

4.1.5.4 Summary 60

4.2 Responses to the survey questionnaire 61

4.2.1 Responses to the students’ personal information 61

4.2.1.1 The students’ biological sex 61

4.2.1.2 The students’ years of age 61

4.2.1.3 The students’ years of learning English as a foreign language 62

4.2.1.4 Summary 62

4.2.2 Responses to the students’ background of listening comprehension 63

4.2.2.1 The students’ evaluation of the importance of listening comprehension 63

4.2.2.2 The students’ difficulties in listening comprehension 63

4.2.2.3 The students’ self-evaluation of their listening comprehension 64

4.2.2.4 The students’ participation in extra-curricular listening activities 64 4.2.2.5 Summary 65

4.2.3 The students’ attitudes towards the application of their knowledge about the schwa to their listening comprehension 66

4.2.3.1 The students’ responses to the schwa and listening comprehension 66

4.2.3.2 The students’ responses to the schwa and the words in stressed positions 67

4.2.3.3 The students’ responses to the schwa and the words in unstressed positions 68

4.2.3.4 The students’ responses to the schwa and the words in plural forms and regular past tense forms 70

4.2.3.5 Summary 71

4.3 Discussion 72

4.3.1 The effectiveness of the schwa on the elementary teenage learners’

listening comprehension 72

4.3.2 The learners’ attitudes towards the application of their knowledge of the schwa to their listening comprehension 74

4.3.3 Summary 75

4.4 Chapter summary 76

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 77

5.1 Summary of findings 77

5.1.1 The effectiveness of the schwa on the elementary teenage learners’ listening comprehension 77

5.1.2 The learners’ attitudes towards the application of their knowledge of the schwa to their listening comprehension 77

5.2 Recommendations 78

5.2.1 To the students 79

5.2.2 To the teachers 80

5.2.3 To the syllabus and the coursebook 84

5.3 Limitations of the study 85

5.4 Contribution of the current study 86

5.5 Conclusion 87

REFERENCES 89

APPENDICES 96

APPENDIX A LESSON PLAN 1 96

APPENDIX B LESSON PLAN 2 99

APPENDIX C LESSON PLAN 3 101

APPENDIX D LESSON PLAN 4 104

APPENDIX E HANDOUT FOR LESSON PLAN 1 108

APPENDIX F HANDOUT FOR LESSON PLAN 2 110

APPENDIX G HANDOUT FOR LESSON PLAN 3 111

APPENDIX H HANDOUT FOR LESSON PLAN 4 112

APPENDIX I PRETEST 113

APPENDIX J ANSWER KEY FOR PRETEST 115

APPENDIX K LISTENING TRANSCRIPT FOR PRETEST 116

APPENDIX L POSTTEST 118

APPENDIX M ANSWER KEY FOR POSTTEST 120

APPENDIX N LISTENING TRANSCRIPT FOR POSTTEST 121

APPENDIX O QUESTIONNAIRE (ENGLISH VERSION) 123

APPENDIX P QUESTIONNAIRE (VIETNAMESE VERSION) 125

APPENDIX Q LISTENING PRETEST’S RESULTS 127

APPENDIX R LISTENING POSTTEST’S RESULTS 128

KET KEY English Test

SPSS Statistical Package for the Social Sciences

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1 Summary of the experimental teaching’s sessions 31

Table 3.2 Summary of the research instruments 32

Table 3.3 The Cronbach’s alpha of the questionnaire 37

Table 4.1 The results of the normal distribution tests 39

Table 4.2 Mean ranks of the two groups’ pretest Part 1 40

Table 4.3 Descriptive statistics of the two groups’ pretest Part 1 40

Table 4.4 Mann-Whitney U test for the two groups’ pretest Part 1 40

Table 4.5 Mean ranks of the two groups’ pretest Part 2 41

Table 4.6 Descriptive statistics of the two groups’ pretest Part 2 42

Table 4.7 Mann-Whitney U test for the two groups’ pretest Part 2 42

Table 4.8 Mean ranks of the two groups’ pretest 43

Table 4.9 Descriptive statistics of the two groups’ pretest 43

Table 4.10 Mann-Whitney U test for the two groups’ pretest 44

Table 4.11 Mean ranks of the two groups’ posttest Part 1 45

Table 4.12 Descriptive statistics of the two groups’ posttest Part 1 46

Table 4.13 Mann-Whitney U test for the two groups’ posttest Part 1 46

Table 4.14 Mean ranks of the two groups’ posttest Part 2 47

Table 4.15 Descriptive statistics of the two groups’ posttest Part 2 47

Table 4.16 Mann-Whitney U test for the two groups’ posttest Part 2 48

Table 4.17 Descriptive statistics of the two groups’ posttest 49

Table 4.18 Independent samples t-test for the two groups’ posttest 50

Table 4.19 Ranks of the EG’s pretest and posttest Part 1 51

Table 4.20 Descriptive statistics of the EG’s pretest and posttest Part 1 52

Table 4.21 Wilcoxon signed-rank test for the EG’s pretest and posttest Part 1 52

Table 4.22 Ranks of the EG’s pretest and posttest Part 2 53

Table 4.23 Descriptive statistics of the EG’s pretest and posttest Part 2 53

Table 4.24 Wilcoxon signed-rank test for the EG’s pretest and posttest Part 2 54 Table 4.25 Ranks of the EG’s pretest and posttest 54

Table 4.26 Descriptive statistics of the EG’s pretest and posttest 55

Table 4.27 Wilcoxon signed-rank test for the EG’s pretest and posttest 55

Table 4.28 Ranks of the CG’s pretest and posttest Part 1 56

Table 4.29 Descriptive statistics of the CG’s pretest and posttest Part 1 57

Table 4.30 Wilcoxon signed-rank test for the CG’s pretest and posttest Part 1 57 Table 4.31 Ranks of the CG’s pretest and posttest Part 2 58

Table 4.32 Descriptive statistics of the CG’s pretest and posttest Part 2 58

Table 4.33 Wilcoxon signed-rank test for the CG’s pretest and posttest Part 2 59 Table 4.34 Ranks of the CG’s pretest and posttest 59

Table 4.35 Descriptive statistics of the CG’s pretest and posttest 60

Table 4.36 Wilcoxon signed-rank test for the CG’s pretest and posttest 60

Table 4.37 The students’ biological sex 61

Table 4.38 The students’ years of age 62

Table 4.39 The students’ years of learning English as a foreign language 62

Table 4.40 The students’ evaluation of listening comprehension 63

Table 4.41 The students’ difficulties in listening comprehension 63

Table 4.42 The students’ self-evaluation of their listening comprehension 64

Table 4.43 The students’ participation in extra-curricular listening activities 65

Table 4.44 The students’ time spent on extra-curricular listening activities 65

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1 Vowel chart (Ladefoged & Johnson, 2015) 12Figure 2.2 Conceptual framework of the study 25Figure 3.1 Data collection procedure 35Figure 4.1 Students’ responses to the statement “Mastering the schwa may help learners improve their listening comprehension” 66Figure 4.2 Students’ responses to the statement “Mastering the schwa may help learners recognize the words in stressed positions” 67Figure 4.3 Students’ responses to the statement “When recognizing the words in stressed positions, learners may know the meaning and key information these words carry” 68Figure 4.4 Students’ responses to the statement “Mastering the schwa may help learners recognize the words in unstressed positions” 69Figure 4.5 Students’ responses to the statement “Mastering the schwa may help learners recognize the reduced forms of the function words” 69Figure 4.6 Students’ responses to the statement “When recognizing the reduced forms of the words, learners may determine the full forms underlying these reduced forms” 70Figure 4.7 Students’ responses to the statement “Mastering the schwa may help learners recognize the words in plural forms and regular past tense forms” 71

ABSTRACT

Listening comprehension is a fundamental skill, as the foundation of the aural input for other language skills to develop Of three major difficulties learners usually face in listening comprehension, speed and accents are two factors learners cannot control whereas sound changes are an element learners can learn

by rules Sound changes appear in connected speech when syllable sounds become unstressed in weak forms and are usually pronounced as the schwa Hence, this thesis aimed to examine the impacts of the schwa on elementary teenage learners’ listening comprehension The thesis employed the quantitative approach with the quasi-experimental design and the participation of 60 high school students of basic English level The experimental group (EG) and the control group (CG) were formed, based on the availability of classes The EG was taught of the schwa and other schwa-related aspects in 4 weeks whereas the

CG received no treatment The tests’ results revealed a better performance in listening comprehension among the EG when compared to the CG The EG’s improvement was found in both catching key information and recognizing the words containing the schwa The questionnaire showed the positivity in attitudes

of the EG after receiving the explicit teaching of the schwa Based on the findings, the study provided some recommendations for the students and the teachers on learning and teaching the schwa and pronunciation The study paved the way for further research on integrating other aspects of pronunciation into teaching other language skills in the future

Key words: schwa, pronunciation, listening comprehension, elementary teenage learners, teaching

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter starts by providing (i) the background to the study, then sets (ii) the aim of the study, states (iii) the research questions and research hypotheses, emphasizes (iv) the significance of the study, presents (v) the scope of the study and ends with (vi) an overall structure of the whole study

1.1 Background to the study

It is accepted widely that listening is one of the most important skills in second language acquisition The previous opinion that considers foreign language acquisition as the ability to speak their target language is argumentative and has been met with mixed reactions In other words, this means that students’ main factor of speaking ability is charging with listening and for that reason, the aspect

of listening comprehension should achieve much more attention from scholars in the field Around 70% of the English we speak and hear, read and write is made

up of the 700 most common words in the language (Willis, 1996) This is equivalent to the fact that a student is assumed to understand around 70% of the native speech or conversations However, what happens in the real-life does not reflect the possibility of this hypothesis If so, the size of the vocabulary is not the key to listening compression as supposed This mission now is to unfold other listening difficulties which are beyond the aspects of vocabulary Among many suggestions presented as the causes of the invisible barriers that limit the understanding of spoken English, the researchers, such as Levis (2018), seem to agree on the idea that supra-segmental phonology, including the reduction of an unstressed vowel to the schwa, is blamed for the unintelligibility of the real speech

According to Ahn (1997), in several languages, such as Italian, Spanish, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, etc., vowels are not reduced to the schwa in any situation Besides, the reduction to the schwa is not reflected in spelling Hence, the non-native learners whose mother tongues do not have the schwa phenomenon are likely to mispronounce the unstressed English vowels as well as not recognized the words including the schwa This seems to make their pronunciation sound

stilted Similarly, Avery and Ehrlich (2013, p.65-66) assume that “the speech of your students will be more natural and easier for others to understand if they can master the use of schwa” Moreover, they it is also suggested that “ESL students, generally, have to be taught explicitly to reduce unstressed vowels to schwa” (Avery & Ehrlich, 2013, p.65) Despite its importance, the schwa is the area on which little research has been done; the schwa is rarely taught explicitly in various EFL programs in Vietnam for true beginners of English The study done for and reported in this M A thesis will examine the effectiveness of teaching the schwa on improving the learners’ listening comprehension

At the foreign language center where the researcher is a full-time teacher, elementary teenage learners are from 13 to 19 years old and have a basic level of the English language When compared to the other groups of preschoolers, grade-schoolers, and adults, these teenage learners make up the majority of the students at the center Before beginning the general English course, they all take a placement test and are then determined to be at the elementary level based on their pre-existing knowledge of English Assigned to the learners is a general English course which lasts 4 months, and the learners have two sessions each week: one with a native teacher and the other with a Vietnamese teacher During the course, the learners have opportunities to equally practice the four basic language skills: reading, writing, listening, and speaking However, the pronunciation part is not included in the syllabus as a compulsory aspect Quite often, they practice pronunciation through the act of listening and repeating the words after their teachers Hence, they are likely to know about neither the English phonemic system of sounds nor its pronunciation rules As a matter of fact, they seem to have difficulties in producing English words or short utterances correctly The majority of the learners fail to recognize the words when doing listening tasks, and their scores for listening practice tests are usually quite low This makes the researcher feel the urge to teach a small aspect of the English pronunciation — the schwa, and investigate its effects on the learners’ listening comprehension

1.2 Aim of the study

The study aims to investigate the effects of teaching the schwa on the listening comprehension of the elementary teenage learners at the foreign language center where the researcher is a full-time teacher

1.3 Research questions and research hypotheses

Below are the study’s two research questions:

(1) To what extent does the teaching of the schwa facilitate the elementary teenage learners’ listening comprehension?

(2) What are the learners’ attitudes towards the application of their knowledge

of the schwa to their listening comprehension?

In this study, the researcher tests the two following hypotheses:

(1) The learners who have learned the schwa will have higher scores in their listening tests as compared to those who have not experienced the explicit teaching of the schwa;

(2) The learners who have learned the schwa will have positive attitudes towards the application of the knowledge of the schwa to their listening comprehension

1.4 Significance of the study

The study is expected to clarify the importance of teaching the schwa through an experimental teaching Thanks to the results of the study, its researcher can draw

a conclusion of how the schwa should be applied in listening for comprehension From that, teaching the schwa can be put into practice at least at the foreign language center where the study has been done

1.5 Scope of the study

The study aims to investigate the effects of teaching the schwa on the elementary teenage learners’ English listening comprehension at a private center of English

in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam The research is carried out in six General English classes which last for 4 months In General English courses, the learners practice

4 basic skills, together with vocabulary and grammar Pronunciation is marginalized and not considered a compulsory part of the course This study introduces to the students one aspect of pronunciation – the knowledge of the schwa and how to apply it to learning English listening for comprehension The quantitative analysis of the pretests and posttests is expected to clarify whether the teaching of the schwa enhances the elementary teenage learners’ listening comprehension The quantitative data from the questionnaire is supposed to reflect the learners’ attitudes towards the application of the knowledge about the schwa to their English listening comprehension

The participants included 60 students of teenage age and elementary English level Hence, the researcher only provides basic knowledge of the schwa, including ̣word stress, sentence stress, the schwa deletion, and the schwa insertion Besides, the study’s 60 participants are all convenient samples, thus they can hardly represent the whole community of Vietnamese elementary teenage learners of English across Vietnam Despite this limitation, something can definitely be drawn from such an initial effort to improve the learners’ recognizing the schwa and listening comprehension right at the earliest step of their long process of learning English Hopefully, the study’s results may inspire some further research on the learners’ skills, both productive and receptive

1.6 Overall structure of the study

This paper is divided into five chapters Chapter 1 is the introduction as

presented here, discussing the study’s background and statement of the problem,

its aims and research questions, as well as its scope, and significance Chapter 2

presents a critical review of the related literature including learners’ listening

comprehension, the schwa, and the relation between the two elements Chapter 3

is the discussion on the methodology adopted in this study, including (i) research methodology, (ii) participants, (iii) teaching materials, (iv) research instruments,

and (v) data collection and analysis Chapter 4 presents, analyzes, and discusses

all the study’s major findings as well as the data employed to answer the study’s

research questions Chapter 5 is the combination of the study’s conclusion and

recommendations for further research

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter presents and discusses some of the key literature for constructing the theoretical base and conceptual framework of the study First comes the definition of listening Next come the aspects of listening comprehension including its definition, role, and intra-lingual difficulties due to the system of phonemes in the English language Then come the concepts related to the schwa and its characteristics Last but not least, based on the above-mentioned literature review, a conceptual framework has been established and used as the guideline for the study done and reported in this M.A thesis

2.1 Listening

Listening appears to be one of four basic language skills whenever a new language is acquired (Nunan, 2001) In the field, a lot of definitions of listening have been coined and stated:

- “The ability of one individual perceiving another via sense, aural organs, assigning a meaning to the message and comprehending it” (Steinberg,

2014, p.158);

- The internal purpose of listening lies in the understanding of conversations that are conducted by native speakers at normal speed in a spontaneous condition (Chastain, 1971; as cited in Abbas & Narjes, 2016);

- A complicated process in which listeners need to interpret information by matching what they hear in the conversations with what they have already known (Rost, 2016) When listening, listeners are supposed to (i) understand speakers’ pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary; (ii) select important information; (iii) remember it; and then (iv) relate it to sounds and meaning

It is clear that listening has been defined by various researchers In spite of its different definitions, listening is always an essential ability among English

language learners in getting to know more about the world as well as creating and maintaining effective communication

2.2 Listening comprehension

This section defines listening comprehension, describes its importance in language learning, and presents several major difficulties when practicing this skill

2.2.1 Definition of listening comprehension

Similar to listening, the term “listening comprehension” has had diverse definitions Researchers have raised two controversial views on the nature of listening comprehension: the traditional view and the alternative view For the former, its advocates assume that listeners just take in and store aural messages, exactly like the way a tape recorder functions In this way, listeners appear to be

in a passive role Some, especially Anderson and Lynch (1988), have considered the traditional view as inappropriate and inadequate In other words, they prefer the alternative view in which learners play an active role: instead of merely receiving information passively from speakers, listeners actively (1) integrate new information into their prior knowledge and experience, and then (2) interpret the whole message to reach full comprehension

Buck (2011, p.31) — another advocate of the alternative view — states that

“listening comprehension is an active process of constructing meaning and this is done by applying knowledge to the incoming sound.” The knowledge may involve different types which are linguistic and non-linguistic aspects It can be said that listening comprehension is not a single skill, and is affected by a wide range of variables, namely speakers, listeners, and spoken texts Similarly, Rost (2016) considers listening comprehension as an interactive process: listeners may understand the oral input and construct its meaning, based on a number of elements such as sound discrimination, prior knowledge and experience, grammar, stress, intonation, and other linguistic or non-linguistic clues

Researchers explain the term “listening comprehension” in various ways, depending on different kinds of learners, at different ages and different levels By saying “the listening comprehension of the elementary teenage learners,” I mean their ability to recognize the words in stressed and unstressed positions, the reduced forms of English function words when they are not stressed, plural nouns and regular past tense verb forms I would like to apply the definition of mine in this M.A thesis

2.2.2 Role of listening comprehension in language learning

According to Hedge (2019), listening comprehension is of great importance because it appears to be an invisible bridge among people in communication

“Listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the learners Without understanding input at the right level, any learning simply cannot begin” (Rost, 2016, p.141) To take part in communication activities, one must have the ability to absorb the information from speakers through listening

If he/she can only understand little or even none of what is mentioned in the conversation, no response can be produced

The less successful and effective communication between learners and native speakers due to the lack of listening comprehension is proved to be true by the fact that 50% of the time of learners in a foreign language is dedicated to listening This result comes from the research conducted by Mendelsohn (2000)

In detail, the author figures out and records in his study that listening takes up the most used communication time of learners with 40-50% whereas speaking, reading, and writing only gain 25-30%; 11-16%; and about 9% respectively That means listening takes more time than other forms of oral communication inside and outside of the classroom Along with speaking, listening comprehension is the major tool that is used frequently throughout the lessons to introduce and receive target knowledge (Peterson, 2014)

In summary, because of its obviously essential function, listening comprehension skills should have achieved much of considerable attention from both teachers and learners

2.2.3 Difficulties in practicing listening for comprehension

For the sake of effective communication, listening comprehension should not be neglected However, there still remain a huge number of English learners who have been struggling with listening comprehension This is gradually becoming

an intervening factor in their effort to maintain communication with native speakers and additionally pursue a high level of language proficiency in English

A lot of elements can be counted as potential issues that cause a decrease in listening comprehension rate (Azmi et al., 2014) The problems are categorized into three: the difficulties from speakers, the difficulties from content, and the difficulties from listeners In each branch, there exist manifold sub-categories Not taken into account, due to the study’s student subjects, are the difficulties concerning materials, conditions, or individually internal issues such as the quality of the recordings, cultural dissimilarities, unfamiliar vocabulary, inconvenience of classrooms, and lack of concentration Instead, only the ones relating directly to the English sound system or other aspects of sound itself are meant to be unearthed This section below aims to illustrate some of them

In fact, students tend to get used to the accent their teachers usually use when teaching in the classroom In the Vietnamese context, the American accent is more likely to be imitated, understood, and used by a large number of educators, which makes it a barrier for learners when they have a chance to approach a new accent, especially when they sit an exam and the audio is recorded in the British accent Besides, in reality, learners may take part in communication activities

with speakers from non-native English-speaking countries, which causes them trouble conveying and absorbing the messages of the conversations Consequently, unfamiliar accents can be blamed for the less effectiveness in listening comprehension

2.2.3.2 Speed

Another reason that makes listening tasks difficult is speed In the classroom, teachers have a tendency to speak at a slower speed if their learners are at an elementary level However, in real-life conversations, the fact that native speakers speak using their normal speed may turn out to be an insurmountable obstacle for listeners to catch target words (Brown & Yule, 1983) Moreover, when comparing listening comprehension to reading comprehension, Bloomfield

et al (2010) agree that the speed of speakers is the factor that listeners cannot control This contributes negatively to potential problems in listening comprehension that learners must practice and tackle

2.2.3.3 Sound changes

The fast speed which is depicted in the previous section can be regarded as a major cause of sound changes in native speech The faster native speakers speak, the more they make sounds change, which can be found through the phenomena

of assimilation and elision, especially in weak form Sound changes lead to a lack

of recognition of familiar vocabulary among learners even though they may see and utilize these words many times before This turns sound changes into one of the problems in listening comprehension, as Bloomfield et al (2010) and Walker (2014) express

For accents and speed, learners need time to familiarize different types of accents used all over the world and to get exposed to normal speech by native speakers Contrary to these two facets, sound changes can be learned by rules and principles When students are aware of how and when assimilation and elision occur in speech, they will be more likely to recognize and catch target information effectively Hence, sound changes should be introduced from the very beginning, even though students are studying at the elementary level

Concerning assimilation and elision, the aspect of the weak form, also known as the schwa in English, is the most basic of all This is the underlying reason for this research to be conducted

2.3 The schwa

The schwa is known as the most frequent vowel sound in the English language

(Finch, 2016; Roach, 2018) It is symbolized by the [ə] in the IPA system of the

English language and represents the vowels in unstressed syllables whose duration of pronunciation is very short

2.3.1 The schwa as a segmental feature

Segmental features are related to the vowels, the consonants, and their combinations as syllables and syllable sequences which constitute the basis of the

sound system in the English language (Celce-Murcia et al., 2014) When

depicted as a segmental feature, in most of the introductory literature on English sounds, the schwa is defined as follows (Carr & Montreuil, 2013, p.10):

(1) Voiced: the schwa is produced with vibrating vocal cords, and this is assumed to be understandable because voicing is typical for all vowels in the English language;

(2) Short: the schwa is known to be even shorter than other short vowels, owing to the sound reduction;

(3) Mid-central: the schwa is produced in the center of the oral cavity, in particular, it is “central both on the vertical and horizontal axes”;

(4) Neutral: the schwa is produced with the lax tongue and lips;

(5) Of murmured or obscured quality: the schwa requires the minimum of articulatory effort due to the characteristics of being short, lax, mid, central, and neutral

The description of the schwa is aligned with its position in the vowel phonetic chart which is shown in Figure 2.1

Figure 2.1 Vowel chart (Ladefoged & Johnson, 2015)

Looking through the aspects which the schwa possesses, a conclusion can be drawn out that the schwa and its related phenomena are natural in speech and cause a definite simplicity in articulation The special position makes it close to every other vowel and become the centering destination for the reduction of other vowels Hence, the occurrence of the schwa is essential The teaching and learning of it is a must in the language acquisition process

2.3.2 The schwa as a suprasegmental feature

The suprasegmentals, instead of dealing with single (phonemic) segments such as the vowels and consonants, are related to linguistically contrastive sound effects

In particular, suprasegmentals subsume such notions as prosody, intonation, stress, rhythm, tone of voice, and adjustments in connected speech such as

elision, assimilation, and linking (Celce-Murcia et al., 2014)

The main focus of the study lies in the relation between the schwa and listening comprehension Appear at heart of this part are only the language processes that are directly relevant to the schwa such as (1) word stress, (2) sentence stress, (3) the insertion of the schwa, and (4) the deletion of the schwa

2.3.2.1 The schwa and word stress

In the matter of stress, this situation should be looked at carefully for both the word and sentence levels Stress at the word level can be defined as the way that

a syllable is pronounced with greater force than other syllables in the same word

Hence, stressed syllables are produced by using more air from the lungs in order

to change the pitch (frequently by raising it), make the syllable louder, or make it longer (Fromkin et al., 2021) At the word level, figuring out the stressed syllables depends closely on the words’ transcription in dictionaries Besides, the English language has rules for word stress in which learners can base on word classes, the number of syllables, prefixes, and suffixes to determine where the main stress is put without the help of dictionaries These principles are presented

in a lot of conventional materials for language learning, playing a vital role in the sake of pronunciation

Stressed syllables cannot be defined as always if there are no unstressed syllables In detail, an unstressed syllable - also referred to as a weak syllable - is created with the absence of loudness, pitch change, and length (Kelly, 2018) In other words, it can also be understood that an unstressed syllable is spoken shorter and quicker, which results in the reduction of an unstressed vowel when compared to the fully pronounced vowel in a stressed syllable (Lujan, 2016) Generally, most vowels in the English language are reduced to the schwa once the reduction is connected to the absence of stress (Underhill, 2012), thus making “the schwa the most frequently occurring vowel sound in English” (Avery & Ehrlich, 2013, p.64)

2.3.2.2 The schwa and sentence stress

At the sentence level, basic rules for sentence stress should receive a closer look together with the explanation of content words and function words The former refers to the words carrying key information and meaning such as verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs (Celce-Murcia et al., 2014) While these mentioned words are the most important content words, there are a few other words that are

also key to understanding, such as (1) negatives including no, not, and never; (2) demonstrative pronouns including this, that, these, and those; and (3) question words including what, where, when, how, and why Function words, by contrast,

are necessary ones for grammar, such as auxiliary verbs, prepositions, articles, conjunctions, and pronouns Due to their importance in conveying meaning and

sense, content words are the ones to be stressed whereas function words are mostly articulated in weak forms Hence, sound reduction to the schwa happens

on function words in the stream of speech Once function words are spoken in isolation, they are still stressed and pronounced in their strong form

In short, stress at any level is the music of spoken English because stress creates rhythm, which makes English what it is today The presence or absence of stress also correlates to some extent with the presence of the schwa in phonemic transcriptions (McCully, 2012) Stress is an integral part of the language; therefore, it is unlikely to deny the popularity and significance of the schwa

2.3.2.3 The deletion of the schwa

Deletion, also known as elision, is defined as the omission of a sound or syllable when speaking In other words, by more technical language, Roach (2018, p.113) restates the nature of this language phenomenon by saying that “in certain circumstances, a phoneme may be realized as zero, or have zero realization or be deleted.” According to him, the removal of sounds usually happens in “rapid, casual speech.” When acquiring the English language, foreign learners do not necessarily learn to do the deletion However, this phenomenon is still something they should be aware of so that they can recognize the words whose specific phonemes are not actually pronounced by native speakers Various possibilities

of sound deletion might be taken into consideration In particular, in the precise pronunciation of an English word, vowels from unstressed syllables are the first to be deleted whereas the schwa is the most frequent vowel sound in the English language system As such, it is deemed that the schwa is the most likely

non-to be elided in running speech

The schwa deletion occurs frequently in natural speech due to a lot of elements Based on the data of Buckey Speech Corpus, Ryu and Hong (2013) narrow down the scope of the issue by stating only three key factors that cause the phenomenon of the schwa deletion, including (i) stress environment (pre-stress position vs post-stress position), (ii) sonority distance between two consonants encircling a schwa, and (iii) lexical frequency of the words containing a schwa

In a similar vein, Patterson et al (2003, p.45), utilizing the Switchboard Speech Corpus by Godfrey, further reveal that “the most pervasive factor was stress environment (pre-stress vs post-stress), which showed a greater frequency of schwa deletion in the post-stress environment.” The study by Patterson et al (2003) supports the research by Glowacka (2001) which investigated 321 contexts for the schwa deletion He then came to the conclusion that this sort of elision took place in 29.7% of contexts in pre-stress positions whereas 47.4% of contexts in post-stress positions

In terms of post-stress environment, Patterson et al (2003) mention that the schwa is usually deleted when it follows a stressed syllable As illustrated in the studies of Zwicky and Hooper (as cited in Song, 2013), the deletion readily

occurs when the schwa is followed by the consonant /r/, for instance: separate /ˈsepərət/, history /ˈhɪstəri/, misery /ˈmɪzəri/, camera /ˈkæmərə/, favorite /ˈfeɪvərɪt/, beverage /ˈbevərɪdʒ/, different /ˈdɪfərənt/, etc

In the matter of pre-stress environment, the schwa is frequently elided once it precedes a stressed syllable (Patterson et al., 2003) According to Roach (2018), the loss of the weak vowel, as the schwa, in the first syllable, may happen once it follows one of the initial plosives, including /p/, /t/, and /k/, as in potato /pəˈteɪtəʊ/, tomato /təˈmɑːtəʊ/, canary /kəˈneəri/, perhaps /pəˈhæps/, today /təˈdeɪ/, etc Furthermore, the other possibility of the pre-stress schwa deletion comes naturally when the weak vowel as the schwa is in front of /n/, /l/, or /r/, which turns the /n/, /l/, or /r/ into syllabic consonants The words such as tonight /təˈnaɪt/, police /pəˈliːs/, or correct /kəˈrekt/ can be treated as typical examples

As such, the deletion or the elision of sounds is one of the apparent reasons underlying the fact that words in running speech are normally not pronounced as transcribed in dictionaries and as expected by most foreign learners Specifically, the schwa-deleted words as exemplified above lead to an alteration in pronunciation, which results in the failure to recognize the sounds and catch the keywords carrying fundamental information

2.3.2.4 The insertion of the schwa

The insertion or the epenthesis of the schwa is a phenomenon in which the schwa

is inserted within an existing string of segments (Celce-Murcia et al., 2014) Even though this type of adjustment in connected speech seems not to be as common and popular as the deletion or elision of the schwa, its existence in natural speech is still unavoidable

Celce-Murcia et al (2014) primarily draw attention to the most essential sorts of the schwa insertion in specific morpho-phonological sequences, namely the regular plurals and the past tense endings This occurrence can be elaborated based on the nature of the English language The schwa insertion is for breaking

up clusters of sibilants (namely /s/, /z/, //, /ʒ/, /t/ and /dʒ/) or alveolar stops

(namely /t/ and /d/) in an attempt to make the articulation of speakers easier

For the plural endings, various words such as places /pleɪsəz/, roses /rəʊzəz /, kisses /kɪsəz/, dishes /dɪʃəz/, or buzzes /bʌzəz/, serve as typical examples

Similarly, for the regular past tense, the epenthesis of the schwa can be seen in

planted /plɑːntəd/, wanted /wɒntəd/, handed /hændəd/, needed /niːdəd/, etc As

such, being equipped with the knowledge of the schwa insertion in pronunciation, learners can recognize the words in plural forms and regular past tense forms which are usually pronounced differently in running speech

2.3.3 Relation between the schwa and listening comprehension

When mentioning the essential role of the schwa, Brown (2014) emphasizes that recognizing the words in stressed and unstressed positions and recognizing the

reduced forms of words are the two micro-skills of listening skills Additionally,

Roach (2018) concurs that language learners should not ignore weak forms, also known as the reduced forms of words This statement can be elaborated from both the native speakers’ and the language learners’ sides For the former, it is said that an all-strong form pronunciation is deemed to be unnatural and practically most native speaker tends to use weak forms when talking, instead Hence, the use of all-strong forms should be avoided by learners From the learners’ side, Roach (2018) holds the agreement that once speakers are unaware

of or unfamiliar with the use of weak forms in real-life conversations, they are more likely to find it immensely difficult and challenging to understand speakers who do use weak forms

This information sheds light on the intersection between pronunciation, especially the schwa, and listening comprehension Celce-Murcia et al (2014), thus, suggest that non-native learners need to know how to (i) discern intonation units, (ii) recognize stressed elements, (iii) interpret unstressed elements, and (iv) determine the full forms underlying the connected speech in order that they can decode what native speakers really say in the stream of speech Hence, it seems

to be impossible to ignore the tight relation between linguistic fragments such as the schwa and language skills such as the listening comprehension

2.3.4 Techniques in teaching the schwa

According to Doff (2007, p.130), teaching the schwa is similar to teaching other phonemes, as follows:

(1) Say the schwa alone clearly first, then show how the schwa is pronounced

in different words, and next get the students to repeat them;

(2) Compare and contrast the schwa with other similar sounds;

(3) Describe how the schwa is produced, using simple English or even mother tongue to assure that the students can pronounce it correctly If necessary, the teacher can make use of video clips or pictures

Concurrently, a set of techniques is also offered to teach the schwa more effectively (Celce-Murcia et al., 2014, p.8-10), that is:

(1) Listen and imitate: This technique is employed in the Direct Method The students listen to tape recorders or video recorders and repeat the words that contain the schwa In that case, they can also practice saying these words at home;

(2) Phonetic training: This technique is introduced in the Reform Movement

in which the teachers teach their students about phonetics, utilizing articulatory description, articulatory diagrams, and phonetic alphabet

(3) Visual aids: The teachers describe how to produce the schwa, using several kinds of audiovisual devices, such as sound-color charts, pictures, mirrors, rods, props, realia, etc The teachers can combine Technique (2) and (3) together to introduce the schwa to the students more vividly (4) Minimal pair drills: This technique is used in the Audiolingual Method The students practice to distinguish similar or problematic sounds, starting with word-level drills, and then continuing with sentence-level drills The teacher can use this technique when the students are taught of several sounds

(5) Contextualized minimal pairs: The students also learn to differentiate minimal pairs that their teachers present earlier in the specific context that their teacher build An example by Celce-Murcia et al (2014, p.9) is shown as follows

“Sentence stem: The blacksmith (a hits/ b heats) the horseshoe

Cued student response: a with the hammer/ b in the fire”;

(6) Tongue twisters: The students practice some tongue twisters that have the schwa and other sounds;

(7) Practice of vowel shifts and stress shifts related by affixation: This technique is more suitable for intermediate and advanced learners, rather than beginners The teacher can use it to point out the relation of the schwa and stress in polysyllabic words by (i) introducing a word, (ii) providing its phonemic transcription with the focus on the schwa, (iii) adding an affix to make a new word, and (iv) showing its phonemic transcription with the concentration on the vowel and stress shifts An example is illustrated as below (Celce-Murcia et al., 2014, p.9)

Vowel shift: photograph /ˈfəʊ.tə.ɡrɑːf/ and photography /fəˈtɒɡ.rə.fi/ Stress shift: PHOtograph /ˈfəʊ.tə.ɡrɑːf/ and phoTOgraphy /fəˈtɒɡ.rə.fi/ Sentence context: I can tell from these photographs that you are very

good at photography;

(8) Reading aloud/recitation: The teachers can employ it when teaching the schwa in its relations to stress in sentences, linking, reduced phrases, rhythm, or intonation The students are provided with passages or scripts, and then they practice reading aloud in pairs, or groups, under the teachers’ supervision;

(9) Recordings of learners’ production: The teachers can record or film the students when they deliver a speech, have a conversation, or role-play These products can be used later for feedback and evaluation

The schwa can be taught as a speech sound or in relation to other suprasegmental aspects For the former, it can be introduced and explained following the three stages by Doff (2007), in combination with some techniques by Celce-Murcia et

al (2014) such as Listen and repeat, Phonetic training, Visual aids, and Minimal pair drills For the latter, the schwa can be taught in its close connection with other suprasegmentals, such as stress, rhythm, and intonation At that time, the other techniques in the mentioned list by Celce-Murcia et al (2014) can be implemented Appropriate activities can be chosen, based on specific years of

age and levels of English among the students

2.4 Previous related studies

Before conducting this research, it is a necessity for the researcher to learn about other previous studies that have also dealt with integrating linguistic knowledge

to teaching language skills in Vietnamese context By doing so, the researcher can figure out which aspects have been already investigated and which remain unveiled so that more emphasis can be put on other proper elements

In the study of “Pronunciation teaching in tertiary EFL classes: Vietnamese teachers’ beliefs and practices”, Nguyen and Newton (2020) did not take any particular sound or linguistic phenomena into serious consideration, but described the pronunciation teaching practices of the teachers at a Vietnamese university Besides, they also focused on the beliefs of the teacher subjects regarding pronunciation teaching and the extent to which, these teachers shaped their teaching approaches in real-life A cohort of six Vietnamese EFL teachers,

including one male and five females, aged from 29 to 52, at a public university in Vietnam participated in this study They all had a master’s degree in TESOL or Applied Linguistics and had been teaching at university for 6 to 23 years Methodologically, the researchers conducted non-participant classroom observations of twelve 45-minute lessons by six teacher subjects (two lessons for each teacher), followed up by six individual interviews which were approximately 30 minutes each Based on the interview and observation, the researchers concluded that all teachers believed in the importance of suprasegmentals and concurred they should have deserved more attention in the classroom as supported in other researchers’ works (Couper, 2016, 2017; Field, 2005; Hahn, 2004; Kang et al, 2010; Wahid & Sulong, 2013) Despite this so-called belief, the teachers seemed to mainly concentrate on segmental features and teach pronunciation through error correction or corrective feedback in the forms of recasts and/ or prompts This habit was seen among a lot of teachers from other parts of the world (Darcy et al., 2012; Foote et al., 2011; Foote et al., 2016; Murphy, 2011; Wahid & Sulong, 2013) However, this remained controversial because a lack of explicit teaching caused a lack of understanding

of a target phonological feature (Foote et al., 2016) Concurrently, Nguyen and Newton (2020) also demonstrated a lack of intensive pronunciation training among the teachers as aligned with previous studies by Derwing (2018), Couper (2017), and Bai and Yuan (2019) The research by Nguyen and Newton (2020) did not mention any integration of linguistic features, especially the schwa, into teaching language skills, but it showed a holistic view of pronunciation teaching

in Vietnam

The study named “Teaching suprasegmental features in EFL classrooms in Vietnam’s context” by N T La (2020) was in the same vein of the one by Nguyen and Newton (2020) In her study, the researcher aimed to embrace the importance of teaching suprasegmentals and how several suprasegmental features, including intonation and rhythm, were taught in Vietnam’s context This was a library research; hence, the researcher only collected data from manifold previous studies and then reported the results It was depicted that EFL teachers

in Vietnam seemed to focus on segmental features Accordingly, suprasegmental features were solely taught among the English-majored students Teaching suprasegmentals, such as intonation and rhythm, was doable and proved to have

a great impact on students’ speaking skills, which was mentioned in several research In general, this study by N T La (2020) was not closely relatable to the schwa, but gave a closer look to the teaching of suprasegmental elements in Vietnam’s context, as well as re-confirmed the feasibility of teaching these features to the students

T D Tran (2020) conducted a study called “Teaching assimilations to improve listening skills for Vietnamese students” He assumed that one of the challenges restricting students from increasing their listening competencies was the recognition of phonological sound differences Hence, he aimed to raise the students’ comprehension and provide useful practices related to assimilation in hope of enhancing their listening skills in Vietnamese contexts The research was carried out quantitatively at Thu Dau Mot University, Binh Duong, Vietnam The participants involved 100 students who were taking the course on listening comprehension skills at the intermediate level of English They were divided into two groups In particular, Group A including 50 students was provided with basic assimilation rules immediately prior to the course whereas Group B also including 50 students was not equipped with the mentioned knowledge After the experimental teaching, he revealed that the treatment certainly created a huge impact on helping his students realize problematic sounds in casual colloquial connected speech Given these contributions, the study proved the possibility and effectiveness of integrating a single element of linguistics into teaching English language skills Even though this research is not directly related to the current thesis which focuses on the schwa, it stated the importance of pronunciation in paving the way for other skills to grow, thus inspiring the researcher to conduct the research on the schwa – a significant but underestimated sound for such a long time

In the research entitled “Teaching the schwa /ə/ to first-year English majors at Nông Lâm University”, N T Ho (2011) attempted to unearth problems that first-

year English majors might encounter if they failed to recognize or produce the schwa; as well as figure out the benefits that the students might gain if they were taught of the schwa The study was conducted both qualitatively and quantitatively with the participation of 62 first-year English-majored students and

5 female teachers of pronunciation at EFL-NLU The researcher employed three main instruments, that is, (i) the diagnostic and achievement tests on listening, writing, and pronunciation; (ii) the eleven-week experimental teaching among the experimental group of 31 students; and (iii) three sets of questionnaires, two for the student subjects and one for the teacher subjects In the main findings, the researcher highlighted the fundamental existence and value of the schwa in English language system and language acquisition process, especially in relation

to speaking and listening skills Based on collected data, she stated the improvement in these aforementioned skills of first-year English majors, together with positivity in their attitudes and perceptions towards the roles of learning the schwa after the explicit teaching of it in the pronunciation course Her study serves as a turning point in teaching and learning weak forms to assist language skill learning among English-majored students who were defined to be at pre-intermediate level Due to the scope of the mentioned study, she has not considered the relationship between the teaching of weak forms to the participants of other age ranges plus other levels and language skills

In the thesis named “Teaching sentence stress to the first-year English majors at Nong Lam University” by T L A Phan (2010), sentence stress appeared as the central term of the whole study The participants involved 65 first-year English majors coming from two classes of pronunciation and 3 female teachers who got

a master’s degree and had been teaching pronunciation for freshmen for at least 4 years In this thesis, mixed methods were employed with the combination of 4 instruments, including (i) the diagnostic and achievement tests on listening and speaking skills, (ii) the experimental teaching of sentence stress, (iii) the questionnaire only distributed to the student subjects, and (iv) the short interviews with the teacher subjects The study aimed to highlight the importance

of English sentence stress in enhancing the speaking and listening skills of the

first-year English majors at NLU Hence, all of the linguistic phenomena related

to stress in sentences, including the schwa, were taken into account Nevertheless, she solely placed the importance on the schwa as the most common reduced vowel sound in the English language system and as a sound frequently found in weak forms Little effort was invested into unfolding the essence of the schwa in creating stress in sentences

As illustrated above, educators may not deny the benefits that teaching pronunciation brings to students when one or some parts of it are included in the lessons to improve other skills As a segmental and suprasegmental feature, to a greater or lesser extent, the schwa is an aspect that attracts much interest from educators Nevertheless, its practicality has not been yet adequately stretched to the students of different ages and different levels, as well as has not been widely integrated into the teaching of other linguistic skills Not many studies have been done to exploit this little sound in language teaching Its feasibility remains an appealing topic and needs more effort to investigate

occurrence of sound changes in spoken language Sound changes are made up of different types and the researcher aims to choose the most common and frequent phenomenon, which is called the schwa The reason to choose the schwa lies in the theories on the schwa by Roach (2018) and the characteristics of the schwa when compared to the other vowels by Carr and Montreuil (2013)

In order to reach the objective of examining the effects of teaching the schwa on the improvement of listening comprehension among the elementary teenage learners, the researcher employs an experimental design which includes the pretest, the experimental teaching, and the posttest, based on the theories of Creswell (2021) The teaching of the schwa is designed to involve the introduction of the schwa in the phonemic chart, the schwa phenomenon (Roach, 2018), and the characteristics of the schwa (Carr & Montreuil, 2013) in the hope that the students can recognize it during listening The schwa is deemed to be the most frequent sound due to these aforementioned aspects; therefore, the researcher purposely tends to explain this sound to the students through these factors The theoretical knowledge and discussion, in their relations, are combined to create a conceptual framework which is depicted in Figure 2.2

Figure 2.2 Conceptual framework of the study

To sum up, this conceptual framework is of great importance because it serves as

a thorough guidance for the researcher to carry on the study This framework provides the researcher with the choice of the appropriate method as well as the instrumentations in the sake of consistency to the theories which lay a stable