The role of basic pronunciation knowledge in the teaching and learning of english at information technology college ho chi minh city

STATEMENT OF THE OWNERSHIPI certify that this the sis entitled: " The Rol e of Ba sic Pronun ciation Knowted g«ill Teaching Ialld Learn illg of English at Information Technology College

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNVERSITY· HO CHI MINH C ITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

* * *

THE ROLE OF BASIC PROtlUtiCIATIOti KtiOWLEDCi

Itl THE TEACHltlG AtiD LEARtlltiG OF EtlGLlSH

AT ItiFORMATIOti TECHtiOLOGY COLLEGE

HO CHI MltlH CITY

A thesis submitte d in a partial fulfillmentof the requirements

for the de gree of Master of Arts (T ESOL)

Submi tted by HA THA NH BICH LOAN

STATEMENT OF THE OWNERSHIP

I certify that this the sis entitled: " The Rol e of Ba sic Pronun ciation Knowted g«ill Teaching

Ialld Learn illg of English at Information Technology College - Yo Chi Millh Cit y ' _ ' _

I would first like to grate fully acknowle dge the generousassista nce give n to

me by my thesis supervisor,Mr Nguyen Huynh Oat,M.A., over the peri od of

re se arching and writing of thisthesis He gave me goodquestionstohelp me think

throu gh my problems and proofre ad my chapters

I would particularly like tothank Ms.Nguyen Thi Thanh Tam ,whohelp ed

me for the software of phonet ic symbols and provided me some invalu abl e mater ials

for re feren ce

My since res t thank s are for Ms Nguyen Thi NgocThu,with whom I have had

the opportunity todiscusspronun ciation, andall the stude nts participating in the

study for their coope ra tion

Finally, I wish tothank myhusband ,Que ,forall hishelp andenco urage me nt

Ha Thanh Bich Loan

Everyo ne agrees that le arn ers of different mother tongues have differentpronunciation proble ms Pronu nciation problem s of Vie tnam ese le arn ers have beenclarified by rese arch; howe ve r, very little rese arch has be en done to det e rmine

le a rners' concerns, ne eds and motivation for improvingthe ir pronunciation,whichis

the ke y to de fine w hat and h ow to te ach or instruct Thus, the aim of this study is to

ascertain the need s of the learn ers and to investigate their concern and moti vation

toward s improv ing pronun ciation

A questionnaire was adm inistere d to collec t the data from 110 stude nts at

Informati on Techn ologyColle ge - Ho Chi Minh City.Statistical analyses showthat

the stude nts are aware of the importance or role of pronunciation in ora l

communica tion and have a strong desire to improve their pronun ciation Besides,

altho ugh most of them have le arned English since they were in grade six atseconda ry schoo l, they have man y pronunci ation problem s that are due to their lack

ofbasic knowled ge of pronuncia tionand little practice The results alsosugges t that

the y prefer bein g dep end ent on the ir teacher in le arn ing and improving the ir

pronu nciati on The majority of the stude nts have instrumen tal motivation andpositive attitudes toward sle arnin g English

CHAPTER2:BACK GROUNDTO THE STUDY _.•.•.•.•.•._.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•._ 10

2.1DESCRIPTIONOFTHE ENGLISHSYLLA BUS

2 1.2 English te aching and le arn ing at ITC 11

C HAPTE R 3: LIT ERATURE REVIEW • • •.•.• •.•.•.•.•.•.•.• 13

3.I I Th. e Importance 0f pronunciat ion .InoraIcommumcatio n' 1

3.1? P.- ronunciation acq uismon .1

3.2 PREVIOUS STUDIES ABOUT PRONUNCIATION TEACHING

3.2.1 The goalof good pronunciation :Intelli gibility 23

3.2.2.3 Vietn ame se spea ke rs' types of errors 2

3.2.2.4The sources of Vietnamese learners' errors:

Differen ce sbet ween two systemsof phone mes 293.2.3 The importance of comparingandcontras ting Ll and L2 31

3.2.4 Contrastive analysis of syllable structures bet ween

3.2.6 Correcting pronunciation mistakes 543.2.7 The role ofself evaluation and self-monitoring 5

Chapter 5: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS _._._._._._ _._._._ •.•.-._._ 67

5.1.1.1The fre que ncy ofha vin g pronunciati on p roblemsin oral communicati on 6

5.1.2THESTUDENTS ' OPINIONS ABOUTIMPROVEMENTOF PRONUNCIATION 7

5.1.2.1The stude nts' self-assessment

5.1.2.2 The stude nts ' ne eds tole arn basic knowledge aboutpronunciati on 715.1.2.3 The stude nts' reason sforlearningEngli sh 725.1.2.4 The students ' conce rn for pronunciati on 7

Chapter 6: IMPLICAnONS AND RECOMMEND ATIONS .•.•.•.•.•.• 79

APPEN DIX 2 Questionna ire (in Eng lish translat ion) V

APPEN DIX 3 Som e useful websites for learningand practicingEng lish

APPEND IX 4 A copyofsometypicalunitsfrom

theb ok "E n li s h pr onunciation i n u se " IX

LIST OF TABLES

Tabl e 3.1 Vi etnamese s pe akers' ty pes of e rrors 2 8

Table 3.9 S yllable boundaries of En glish and Vi etnames e 38

Table 3.10 A c ompa r ison of En glish stress and Vi etname se ton e 40

Table 5.1 Fr equen cy o f havin g pronun ciation problems

Influ ence o f pr onunciation on listening and sp eaking 72

Need to learn ba sic kn ow ledge o f En glish p ronun ciati on 73 The student s' c hoice about th e wa y to i mp rove th eir pronun ciati on 74

Camb ridge Univer sityPress

Inform ati on TechnologyColle ge

English as a Foreign Language

English Language Teaching

Englishas a Second Langua ge

HoChi Minh City

Inform ation Technology

First Language / mothertongue

Foreign / SecondLanguage

Oxford University Press

the Te aching of English toSpeakers ofOther Languages

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

The study reported in this thesis aims at finding a solution for improv ing

pronuncia tion of the stude nts at Inform at ion Technology Colle ge (lTC) - HoChi Minh City This introdu ction pre sents (1) the problem that the thesisattempts to solve, (2) objectives of the study, (3) research questions, (4)

rese ar ch methodology , (5) hypoth eses (6) variabl es and the ir ope ra tiona l

de finitions, (7) significa nce of the resear ch, (8) de finitions of terms, (9) scope

of the re se ar ch ,and (10) orga niza tionof the thesis

1.1 The Problem

"Pro nunc iat ion is difficult for me I don 't know how to pronounce a ne w

word correctly I can't read the phoneti c tran scripti on in English dictionaries

Sometim es, I can hard ly recognize a familiar word when I he ar it from a

te acher, a casse tte tap e, or a foreigne r Also, Iam not usuall y understood whe n

I say be cause of my wrong pronunciation For example , I used to pronounce/gri:Uinsteadof /greit/forg reat, "said many non-m ajors ofEnglish at ITC

In fact, from the years of English tea ching in Ho Chi Minh City, thewrite r found that many non-major stude nts ofEnglish atcolleges or universities

ofte n hav e obsta cles in pronun ciati on when they spea k English As Duncan

Wilson (British Coun cil' s Director in Ho Chi Minh City) stated on the Thanh

Nien newspap er (Nove mbe r 13, 2004, p.7): "Vie tnamese people usuall y have

difficulties speaking English, espec ia lly pronunciation Despite of your good

capac ity of vocabulary and gra mma r, if your pronun ciati on is h ad , it will beimpossible for your listen ersto understand what you me an "

Students at ITC are not exce ption Most of them want to overcomepronunciation probl ems so that they canget intelligible pronunciation, which is

understood by speake rs of English from different countries in the world.Howe ver, how do the y d while their basic knowled ge of pronunciation orphoneti c knowl ed ge has a large hole which is the outcome oflittle atte ntion topronunciati on from high school

Actuall y, people cannot build a house if ther e is no a stable base ;likewi se, without basic knowled ge of pronun ciation, learn ers will understandand imitate onlv those word s that are familiar to them Otherw ise , with newword s the y may have difficultie s pronouncing them because they do not knowhow topronoun ce correctlyand where to put the stress on the word s Moreove r,they cannot self- teach when they need , since his 'instructor' - the dictionarywith phonetic tran scripti on, which is a use ful tool for reference ,does not help

The p roblem here is that although most the first - year stude nts at ITChad 7 years of leanin g English at seconda ry school and high school, they havemany proble ms with pronun ciati on, which are so basic like sounds, and stress;

in addition, rhythm and intonation are something ve ry strange to them This

me an s that pronun ciati on has seeme d to be ignored seriously at secondaryschoo l and high schoo l That is the rat ional e lead ing to this study, whichatte mpts to mak e pronun ciation tre ated more properl y

1.2 The Objectivesof the Study

" P hon e t i c k ow ledge i s s o n ece s sar y fo r o reign l anguage t eaching a nd learn ing I f th e t each er

h a s go od kn o wledge about t hi s s ub jec t and t hc l e arner a lso h as bas ic co nce pts abo ut i t eaching a nd

l e arning of pro nunciation wi ll be m ore effe ct ive T he r e a son i s t hat th e l earn er d oe s n ot o nly imit ate

n ati ve s pe a k e rs' pro nunciatio n but a ls o l earn i t co nsci o usly b y co ntra s ting th e a rticulati o o f bot h t he foreig n l an guage and h i s mo ther to ngue "

M ai Ng oc Ch u e t al ( 2000 : 75)

In the light of this quotation and with the re ality in which the stude nts atITC have obstacles in listening and speaking English as well as difficulties

usin g English diction arie s forself-instructio nofpronunciation,the objectives ofthis study will be:

(I) analy zing need s for le arnin g basic knowledge ofpronun ciati on ofthe

stude ntsat lTC, and

(2) making suggestions about what and how to teach in order to he lp the

stude nts improve theirpronun ciation effective ly

To these objectives, an investigation about the stude nts' needs, concern,

and motivati on toward s le arn ing basic knowled ge ofpronun ciation was carried

out The re sult s ofthis inve stigation will be presented and discussed in chapters

a) Do the stude nts ofte n have probl em swith their pronunciati on ?

b) Do theyhave conce rn about pronu nciation ?

1.4 Re search Methodology

The study uses structura l phonetics with the TESOL approaches to

teaching English pronun ciation The purpose ofthe thesis istoprov e that thestude nts have a vital ne ed to learn basicknowl edge ofpronunciation The

evidence will be collec te d from the answe rsof 110stude ntsat ITC to 1

que stions in the que stionn aire that is abo ut:

(1) the stude nts' pronun ciation problems(2)theirawarenessofthe importance ofpronun ciation(3) thei rconcern about pronuncia tion

(4) the ir reasons tolearn English(motiva tion)

Re search method s

This is a study based on qualitative method using survey questionnaire

The qua ntitative techniques employed in this study are aimed at a full analysis

ofthe descriptive data relatedto stude ntneeds and motivation towards le arn ingbasicknowl ed ge ofpronuncia tion

1.5 Hypotheses

I The stude ntsat ITC lack basic knowled ge of pronunciati on

2 The yhave conce rn for good pronunciation

3 Theyhave needsand motivation towards improvingtheir

pronunciation

1.6 Variables and operational definitions of the Hypotheses

Pronun ciation

Concern

Moti vati on

sounds, stress, rhythm , andintonation

Care about pronunciation and desire to doit well

extrinsic moti vati on: (from the learner himsel f)intrinsic motivat ion : (from the classroom )

1.7 Significance of the Research

The re sults of the study will pract ically contribute to te ach ing and

learning English with communicativ e approach, at the same time ; recomm end

stra tegies for building the stude nts the base forself-instruction

Once students have basic knowledge of pronunciation, they will be self

-co nfident in speaking and listen ing as well as they can be gradua ll y

indep endent of theirtea chers to self-instructand improve their pronuncia tion

1.8 Definitions of Terms

articulation :the production ofspeechsounds in the mouth and throat In

de scribing and analyzing speech sounds, a distinction is mad e be tween

the mann e r of articulationand the place of articulation

coda, nucleus , onset , peak :in syllable structure,a syllabic can be dividedinto three parts:

the beginning, calle d the onset

the centra l part ,call ed the nucleusor peak

the end, called the coda

For example, in the English word bed, /bed/, /bl would be theonset, l eithe nucleus andIdl the coda

contrastive analysi s : the compari son of the linguistic syste ms of twolan guage s, for example the sound syste m or the gra mma tica l system Contrastive ana lysis is based on the following assumptions:

the main difficulti es in le arning a new language are cause d byinterferen ce from the first lan gua ge

the se difficult ie s can be predi ctedby contras tive ana lysis teachin g materi al s can make use of contras tive ana lysis toreduce effec tsofinterfe ren ce

intrin sic motivation : motivati on ste mming from fac tors inside theclassroom, which hav e an importa nt effect on the stude nts who arealready in some way extrinsica Ily motivat ed These factors consist of

physical conditions in the classroom, methods used by the teacher, the

teacher himself, and the stude nts' success in their learn ing (Ha rmer,

1991)

interference : interferenc e (or ne gativ e transfer) is the use of a native

language pattern or rule which leads to an error or inappropriate form in

the target language (Richards et al 1992)

intelligibility: intell igibility means bein g understood by a listen er at a

give n time in a given situation So, it is the same as 'under stand ab ility'(Ke nworthy, 1987)

motivation :the factorsthat determine a person' sdesire todo something

suprasegmentasl : suprasegme ntalsare those of speech production which

involve more than a single segme nt Stress, rhythm, and intonation areall suprasegmental features

syllable : in English, a syllable is a word or part of a word that has one

vowe l sound It may also have one or more consonant sounds Forexample, ag o has two syllables The first syllable is just one vowel

sound The second syllable is a consonant sound followed by a vowe l

sound Another example is the word end. It has one syllable It has one

vowe l followedb twoconsonants (Ha ncock,2004)

tone language: a tone langu age is a language in whichthe meaning ofa

word dep end s on the tone used when pronouncing it For example,Mandarin Chinese, a tone language, makes a distinction betwe en fourdifferent tone s:

rn a(high leveltone )

rna (high rising tone )

'mothe r'

'he mp'

rn a (fall -rise )

rn a(highfalling tone )

'horse'

'scold'Other tone languages are spoke n in Vie tnam ,Thailand,We st Africa,and

Central Ameri ca (Richards et a f / 992)

1.9 The Scope of the Research

Limitation

The study has been done at Ho Chi Minh City Information Te chnology

Colle ge (lTC) with 110first-yearstude nts, whoare non-m ajors ofEnglish

Delimitation :

Due to the nature of this study and the research methods of data

collec tion, gene ra liza tions and recommend ations will be limited to Information

Technology College The particular composition of the sample ofthe stude nts

participat ing in the study may also limitthe gene ralizabilityof the re sults.Therecommenda tions from this study may, howe ver , be ben eficial to others in

similarsituations

1.10 Organization of the thesis:

The conte ntofthis the sis includes six main chapters:

Chapter 1analyses the problem andstates the aim of the study

Cha pte r 2 de scribe s the background to the study with the information

about the English syllabus for lTC' s stude nts and about te aching and learn ing

English here

Chapter 3 presentsa review of the literatu rerelevant to this study

Chapter 4 de scribe s the meth odology employed in the study This

chapter focuse s on the research questions, a presentation of research de sign,

and a description of the subjects, instruments,and data colle ction procedure s

Chapter 5 is about the r esearch find ings. This chapter analyses

re spon se s to surve y questionnaires from the stude nts at ITC and pre sent s

findings from the data analysis

Chapter 6draw s out the impli cations from the findings and make s somerecommendati ons for w hat and h ow to teach in order to improve

pronunciation ability of the studentsat ITC

CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

The issuesdiscussed in thisthesis cannot be separatedfrom the

back ground info rmation about(\) the sylla bus for Englishsubjectand (2) re cen t

te aching and le arning Eng lishatI'I'C,

2.1 Description of the English syllabus for students at ITC

2.1.1 A brief description

The stude nts at ITC are majors of Information Techn ology such asInformati cs, Elec tro nics, and Communication English is a compulsory subjecthere There are two course books ofEnglish: (I) New Ameri can Stream line (byBernard Ha rtly and Pet er Vine y, 1994, OUP) and (2) Basic English forComputing (by Eric H Genning and John Me, Ewan, 2003, OUP) The re arefive terms for English in which thre e first ones are for genera l English (NewAmerican Streaml ine as their course book), and the othe r two terms are forEnglis h for specific purposes (Basic English for Computing) Ineach term, thestuden ts ha ve to pass two exams: mid-term test and end-of-te rm test Eachexam has two te sts: ora l te st and writing te st which is about vocabulary,gra mmar, re ading, and struc tures The rate of marks for these two tests is 5:5(ora l te st tak es 50 % and writing test also tak es 50%) For the first -yearstude nts, teachers exa mine their spe aking skill on the first day ofthe course inorde r to de fine their stre ngths as well as weakn esses to find suitab leapproache s to fitting their ability The subjects in this study are the first-yea rstudents The time the y participate d in the study was the first days of English

course at this schoo l

2.1.2.Englishteachingand learningat fTC

With the purpose of assessme nt based on ora l test and writing te st, inclassroo m, be side s learn ing skills like listening,readin g, writing,gramma r, andvocabulary, the stude nts are encouraged to spea k English as much as possible The amount of first -year stude nts in each class is about 50, for that reason,activities in the classroom , espec ially tasks for spea king, are orga nized ingroups of about five stude nts Howe ver, many stude nts have problem s withpronun ciat iondue totheirlack ofbasicknowledge ofpronunciation,i.e they donot know how to pronounce new words, and whe re toput stress o those words,

and more importa ntly, phoneti c tran scription in English dictionaries ismean ingle ss to them because they d not understand phonemi c symbols.The y

can pronoun ce only familiar words, whe re as with new words as wellas old butdifficult words they seem to be fearful ofpronouncing As a result, the y ha vemany obstacles inspeaking,andof course in listen ing

Although the stude nts at ITC are usually instructed pronun ciation,

teachers only give the phonet ic transcription on the boa rd model pronunciation

of new word s whichappea r ineach unit in the course book.The stude ntscopythe phoneti c transcription mechan ically and imitatethe teacher' spronun ciation

Consequently,their pronunciation stopatonly wordstheir teache rhasprovided.The stude nts are not instructed basic knowledge about sounds (especially thesounds that are difficult for Vietn am ese stude nts), phonemi c symbols, rulesforputting stress, and howtouse basic pattern s of intonation (yes/no questions,wh-questions, etc.)

2.2 SUMMARY

Chapt e r 2 hasdescribed the Englishsyllabus for studen ts at ITC as well

as English te achin g and learn ing he re This study hopes to find out a suitable

solutio n for imp roving the students' pronuncia tion in order to contrib ute to

de vel opm ent of their spea king and listenin g skills or their communicative

compe te nce

CHAPTER 3: LITERATURE REVIEW

Chapt er 2 has described the background to the study Cha pter 3 will

re view the literatu re that is rel e vant to the aim of this study There are two

main parts in this cha pter: (I) theoreti cal background for teaching and learnin g

pronunciation and (2) pre vious studies rel ated to this study These two parts

help (a) establish the basis for designin g the content of survey questionn aire ,

and (b) help decide w hat to teach and h ow to teach in orde r to me et the

stude nts' need s to improve pronun ciation

3.1 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND TO THE RESEARCH

3.1.1 The importance of pronunciation in oral communication

© Macmillan Publishe r Limited 1981

What i s pronun ciation ?

According to a definition fro m Ame rica n Heritage Dictionar y (1992),'pronuncia tion' isa way ofspeaking a word, espec iallya way that is accepted or

gene ra lly un derstood. Re se ar ch ha s also shown that a thr eshoLd L eveL oj

pr onunciation in English such that ifa give n non-nati ve spe aker' s pronunciati on

fall sbel ow thisle vel, he or she will not be able to communica te orally no matter

how good his or her contro lofEnglis hgra mmarand vocabulary might be (Celce Murcia , 198 7)'

-Th e importance ofpronunciation

Nowad ays, with the process of globa liza tion takin g place faster than

ever, the demand of communica tion among pe ople from all over the worl d is

vita l Communicati on can be in form of read ing - writing or of listen ing

-speaking Internat ional comm unica tion, of course, ne ed s a language that plays

a role ofpro toco l for excha nging inform ati on so that everyo ne can un d er stand

and be und erstood easily Until now , English has been such a case - aninte rnati on al lan guage.As a result,English hasbecome ane ed that anyo ne who

wants to comm unicate internat ionally must le arn it Linguists classify English

based on le arn er' s ne ed : if peopl e le arn English for getting along with a

communi ty where everybod y speaks Eng lish, in that case Eng lish is calle d

English as a second language (ESL) On the othe r hand , if pe ople live in an

enviro nment where English is not me an s of daily communica tion, English is

considered as a fore ign langu age (EFL)

I Cite d in Otl ows ki , M (http : /it e s lj o rg/Arti cl e s/O tl owski-Pro nun ciati o n html )

Everyone agrees that the ultimate purpose of learning a foreign language

is to communicate In communica tion, people excha nge inform ation indifferent form s: writing, speaking, and using body gestures or signs, etc., but inall of these forms, people most ofte n use writing and spe aking In daily life ,oral communication or spoken language seems to be used more than writtenone Ineve ry daily activity - at home, atschool,and at work,etc., people spea k

in orde r to express their thoughts, ideas, and convey information Speakin gmakes the time of giving and receiving information become much shorter thanwriting Speaking can be dire ct (face to face) or indir ect (via table telephones,

mobile phone s or two-way radios) As for the former (direc t speaking), the

listen er can get the meaning of the information based on the sounds of speechthat the spe a ke r pronounces In addition, the movem ents of the spea ke r's

mouth , lips, tongu e, eyes, head, and hands can help the listen er understand

easily what the spe ake rsays Howe ver, incase of conversations on the phones,the listen er completely bases on the so unds the speake r talks In this case,almost of meaning of a conve rsation is identified through o nly sounds of

speec h Ther efore ,wheth er or not the spe a ke r isunderstood ;or vice ver sa, thelistener perceives what the spea ke r want s to convey dep ends a lot on both the

speake r's and listener'spronunci ati on

This implies that the importance of pronunciati on in oral communication

is obvious On the part of the listener,a good example for thisis a real story o

the Tuoi Tre new spape r (August 6, 2005, page 9): The main character in this

story is a man whose name isTrinh Thanh Lam, a Vietnamese person In 1997,

he became an Information Techn ology (IT) employee in Intel Group in

Vietnam be cau se of his good knowl edge about IT His dail y job in Intel

Compan y was to recei ve calls from his chief- a foreigne r whose lang uage is

English - and from othe r fore ign compa nies Such calls were his phobia (a

stro ng fear), for his Englis h was not good One day, his chief phoned him and

aske d him to buy his chief some table clothes from Hoi Antourist zone, but he

percei ved that info rma tion like this: his chief aske d him to buy some table

clocks And he , of course, did exac tly what h under stood: h bought some

tabl e clocks(!)

By contrast, on the part of the spe ake r, one of the subjects in Vitan ova's

and Miller' s study (2002)2sta ted: As poor pronun ciation is one ofthe biggest

obsta cles to communica te with othe rs in USA, I felt depressed for I can't

express my ide ascle arl y."

From the above true stories, it is possible to assert that pronun ciatio

plays a very important role in oral communica tion Actua lly, there have been

man y embarrassing situations that mak e the speake r himsel fmisund e rstood andvice versa he cannot understand as a listen er , so the re must be somet hingwrong with his speakingandlistening Although there mayb man y re asons for

this,misp ronun ciat ion iscompl etel y possible Actuall y, Ken t (200I) alsoasserts

that in situa tio ns wher e continua l mispronun ciat ion occurs, understandin g I S

certainlylost,that is,thatoral communicati on isnot successful

More ov er, te achers of Engli sh (both native and non-nativ e English

spe a ke rs) in Vietnam ofte n ha ve a gene ra l rem ark abo ut their stude nts like this:

2 hn p : ll ilc sl j or g /Art i clesN ilan ova - Pronun cialion hlml

Man y an EFL learner has good knowled ge of English language (they canread

books and write essays in English), but they have difficulties when talk ing to

othe r speake rs of English They find it hard to understand what foreig ne rs say

and difficulttomake them understood inspoke nEnglish

It is clear that good pronun ciation results in better understand ing, and

mispronun ciation may le ad to failure in communication For that reason,

acquisition of good pronunciation is a pr erequisite for gaining communicative

compe te nce

3.1.2 Pronunciation acquisition

As said by Harm er (1991), competent users ofa language (who include

both nat ive and non-nati ve speake rs) know how to recognize and produce a

ran ge of so unds, know whe re toplace the st ress in words and phrases and know

what different i ntonation tunes me an and h ow to use them Howe ver, native

speakers (NS) have much more adva ntages of acquiring pronunciation

compe te nce than non-native speakers (NNS).This is because NS live in their

language enviro nme nt, which is the ir mother tongue , and they acquire it

subconsciously - thatis they do not need to learn aspects of pronunciation like

sounds, stress and intonation.Otherwi se ,NNSor learners of a forei gn language

have to expe rie nce of learnin g it; as a result, they usually have difficulties in

the ir proce ss of acquiring the target language pronunciation due to both

objective and subjec tive rea sons The objective causes refer to factors tha t

people cannot cha nge such as mother tongue , age, innate phoneti c ability,

wherea s the othe r ones are what pe ople canchange: need , attitude , motivation

and conce rn towards pronunciation In othe r words, acquisition of the targe t

pronun ciation of a foreign language le arne rdep en ds on different factors, which

have certa in influen ce on his or herproce ss of learningpronun ciation

3.1.3 Factorsthat affect pronunciation acquisition

The re are man y differ ent factors affecting the proce ss of fore ign

language le arn ing;howe ver, according to Ken worthy (1987), there are six main

factors: (1) the mother tongue , (2) learn e r' s age, (3) amount of exposure, (4)

phoneti c ability, (5) le arner' s attitude, and(6) motivation and conce rn for good

pronunciati on

3.1.3.1 Mother tongue

The literatur e on language learningshows that in the process oflearnin g

a foreign language , learner' s mothe r tongue or native langua ge always has

certain interferen ce for acquiring the target language Actually, the learn er

usuall y has habits of using prev ious experie nce that he has had with his first

language in orde r to fa c ilitate the second language learnin g process This

process is called tran sf er. According to Brown (1980), ther e are two kinds of

transfer: (I) Positive transfer, which refe rs to correc tly applying a previo us

perform a nce to ben efit the learning task, and (2) negative transfer , whichoccurs when the pre vious per forman ce disrupts the performance on a second

task The latter is often called with a term: interference - "the inter fer ingaffects of the nati ve language on the target language" Brown (1980: 85) In

fore ign lan guage learn ing, interferen ce is viewed as a language barrier that a

learn er hasto overcome to obtain fluen cy and accuracyin the target language

Kenworth y' s findings' of rese arch about differen ce sbetween LI and L2,which help to predi ct learne rs' probl ems and difficult ie s caused by theinte rfe re nce of L1, show that in gene ra l learners' problem s are not only theindividu al sounds, but also combina tions of sounds and features suchas rhythmand intona tion The reason isthat the features that are ab sent in L 1ofte n mak elearn ers embarrassed and they percei ve those features uncomfortabl y As aresult, the y beh a ve with anattitude of "avoiding"4; i.e., the y man age to avoidusing a feature in L2b tryingtoreplac e that feature with othe rone existingintheir L1 In othe r words, that feature of L2 has been turned into the L1- likefeature, and the irpronun ciation errors may ste mfrom here

3 1.3.2 Age

The rela tionship be tween le arn ers' age and the irpotential forsuccess inL2 lan guage acq uisition is referred to in the liter ature on foreign languagelearn ing as one of the most important factors contributing to acquiring an L2.Actua lly, at each lev el of age, le arn ers acquire L2 differ entl y; for instance,

childre n (aged 3 to 10) learn and acquire an L2 easier than adults (aged 18 to60)5 be cau se the ir learn ing proce ss is subco nscious In othe r words, "adults

rare ly get assess to the same quantity and qualit y of language input thatchildre n re cei ve in play settings" (Lightbrow n and Spada, 1999 :67 ) As forpronunciation , man y studies ha ve proven that adult learn er s seem to learnpronunciation hard er than childre n do; i.e., "age determine s the accuracy of a

J Ke nworthy J (1987) T eaching E ngli s h Pron unciati on Lo ngma n Gro up UK Li mited H ong Kong

4 B rown D (1980) P rinciple s of Lang uage Lea rning a nd Teac hing P rentice H all I nc T he USA

"Lig htbrow n, P a nd S pada N ( 1999) H ow La nguages are l earn ed OUP H ong Ko ng.

le arn e r' s pronuncia tio n.t'" For example, the younge r a pe rson is, the bette r h

or she wil1 be ataccura te pe rception of the soundsof new language s [Werke r et

al 1981 (cite d in Kenworth y, 1987:6 ») Howe ve r, adult le arn er s also ha ve the irown advantage , i.e "they are able to use their cognitive abilities to improvethrou gh self-mo nitoring and self-co rrection" (Thompson and Gadd es, 2005:I ),and thisisthe adva ntage "that adultspossess butchildre n do not " (p.5)

3 1.3.3 Amount of E xposure to Englisb

It refe rs to a matt e r of whether the le arn er is living in a Engspeaking country or not Rese ar ch has shown that ifthe le arn er is 'surro unde d'

lish-b English, this consta nt exposure will affect his or her pronun ciation skills;in

contras t, if he or she is not living in an English-speakin g environme nt, thenthere is no such adva ntage As matt er of fact, le arn er s of EFL in LI

environme nt usually have difficulti es pronoun cing English becau se the y d nothave opportunity tob athein the environmentoftargetlan guage That isbesidesthe time for practicing English in classroom with the ir te achers of Engl ish andclassmat e s,the y rarel y communica te in English outside the classroom since thelan gu age used in their community ismainl y their mother tongue Yet,the resultfrom Kenworthy ' s re se ar ch (1987) confirms that the amount of exposure,thou gh clearly a co ntributory f acto r, is not as important as how the le arn errespond s to the o pportunities to l isten to and u se English This implies that inthe enviro nme nt of L1 if le arn er s are provided as many opportunities aspossible to listen to correct English and spea k it re gularl y, the ir pronunciat ionwill also be improved effec tive ly

6 S Krashe n's st udy cited in Ke nworthy (1987)

3 1.3.41nnate phoneti c ability

Accordi ng to (Brown, 1994 ), innate phoneti c ability is ofte n referred to

as ha ving an "ear" of lan guage , that is, some people man ifest pronunciationphoneti c coding ability that othe rs do not But in re ality, learnin g stra tegy

aware ne ss of lea rne r' s own limitations combined with a conscious focus on

d oing some thing will compensa te for those limitations As a result, ifpronunciati on seems to be difficult for some stude nts, the y should not bedisapp oint ed becau se with some effort and conce ntration, the y can overcomesuchanobstacle toimprove their compe tence

3 1.3.5 Leam er 's Attitudes

"In man y studies of attitude and motivation in lan guage learn ing,findingsha ve shown that those learn ers who show positive feelings toward s thespeake rs of the ne w lan guage tend to de velop more accura te accents"(Ke nwor thy, 1987:8).Othe rwise ,with negati ve attitudes toward s pronun ciat ion,the stude nts will have difficultie s overcoming obstacles in thei r learningprocess For that reason, the teacher' s role is to make them change the irnegative attitudes "by crea ting a positive attitude tothe target lan guage and itsspeake rs" (Harmer, 1991 :4) Inother word s, the teacher should be "supportiveand enco uraging" tohis or her stude nts so that they vie w lan guage learnin g asone of the irinteres ts

3.1.3.6 Learner 's motivation

Motivation is some thing that stimulates people to do the ir work moreeffective ly; furthe rmore, it can help the m maintain their stre ngth of will in

orde r that the y can get to the ir destinati on without being discouraged due to

frus tra tions or barriers on their way Learn ing a forei gn lan guage , like wise

require s learne rs to have le arnin g motivat ion so that the y d not lose heart

when ha vingdifficul tiesin the process ofle arn ing anL2, at the same time , they

may be more enthusias tic topart icipat e in learnin g as wellas self-instruc tion

In the literatu re on motivation , there are two types of motivation:

ex trinsic motivat ion and intr insic motivation E xtrinsic moti vation ex ists i n the

learn ers themsel ve s, that is, stude nts le arn a foreign language because the y

ha ve an idea of some thing tha t the y wish to achieve Extrinsic motivation,according to Gardner and Lambe rt (1972)8, it is classified into two types: ( I)

int egrative m otivation and (2) in strum ental motiva tion The former re fe rs to

lan guage le arning for personal growthandcultura lenrichme nt, the latte r refers

to lan guage le arning for more imme diate or practical goals such as getting a

be tter job, position,orstatus.Research has shown that thesetype s ofmotivation

are rel ated to success in L2learn ing Indeed , LightbrownandSpada (1999: 163)

assert: "Those le arn ers who want to learn tend to d bett e r than those who

don 't "

Otherwise ,intrinsic motivation re ferstowhat happ en s in the classroo m,

which is rela ted to ph ysical co nditions, m ethods of te aching , t he t eacher, li nd

R As cite d i n L ightbrown P a nd Spada N, ( 1999) H ow La nguage s a re l earn ed OUP H ong Ko n g.

l earner's s uccess' , Lightbrow n and Spada (1999) also agree that the principa lway that te achers can influen ce le arn ers' motivation isb makin gclassrooms a

supportive environme nt in which stude nts are stimulated, engaged inactivities which are appropriate to their age , i nterests, etc., and, mostimport antly, where stude nts can experie nce success.These factors in turn cancontribute topositive motivat ion ,leadingto grea ter success

On the part ofpronunciation ,the desire to achieve good pronun ciation is

pronun ciation Once a person doe snot c are about pronunciati on or does notseethe value of it, he or she will not be m otivated to do well" (Ke nworthy, 1987).Howe ver, some le arn ersmaybe uncon cern ed since the y are not aware that theway the y speak is makin g the listener misund er stand or understand difficultly.Similarly ,ifa te acher whopayslittle or no atte ntion tomatte rs ofpronunciationwill probabl y induce a com placent (self-sa tisfie d) attitude in learn er s, i.e theymay say 'My accent is OK'10. This seems to mean that tea che rs should make

communica tion

Addition ally, the r eason t o l earn the target language also has an effec t

on learn e rs ' motivati on In fact, "if the speaker's only reason to learn thesecond lan guage is externa l pressure , intern al motivation may be minimal andgen eral attitudes toward s learn ing may be ne gative" (Lightbow n and Spada,

1999: 56)

9 H armer, J (199 1) T he Prac tice of E nglish La nguage Teachi ng Long man Gro up UK Limi ted

' 0 Kc northy , J ( 1987: 9)

3.2PREVIOUS STUDIES ABOUT PRONUNCIATION TEACHING ANDLEARNING

Before the study isexecuted,it is esse ntial tolook back thepre vious

studie sabout pronunciation teaching and learningin orde r todefinewhat has

been re search ed and what needstobe studied more inorde r to English

teach ing and le arning in Vietnam ingene ra landin the contex tofITC in

particularmore and more progressive

Intelligibility

Accord ing to the Oxford Re feren ce Dictionary (1992) , English is the

principal languag e of Great Britain, the USA, Ireland, Australi a, and many

othe r countries There are some 300 million native spea ke rs, and it is the

medium of communication for man y million more in all parts of the world

English is now a med ium of intern ational communicat ion and rank s as the

world ' s unofficial lingua fran ca, a lan guage used by speake rs whose nati ve

languages are different This points out that the need of non-nativ e spe a kers for

ora l communica tion with nati ve -speakers (English, American, Austra lian, etc.)

seem to be less than with othe r non-n a tive speakers such as Chinese (a country

with the most people in the world ),Russian , German,Spanish, Holland ,Japan,

Korea,Thailand, Indonesia, etc Asa result ,the purpose oflearning English in

general and learning pronun ciation in particular is for global communication,

but not just for communica ting with native spea kers of English That is that

reachin g a nati ve accent for pronunciati on is not nec essary any longer, instea d

an accent that is a cceptabl e and e asy for othe rs (both nati ve and non-n at ive

spe ake rsof English)t o und erstand Kenworth y (1987) name sthiskind ofaccent

is intelligibility and she gives a simple definition: "Inte lligibility is be ingunderstood by a listen er ata given time in a givensituation" (page 13) Thus,

inte lligible pronun ciation is seen as an essentialcompone ntof communicative

compete nce (Morley, 1991)II

In othe r word s, while a native accent is difficult for adult le arn ers to

obtain, intelli gible pronun ciat ion is a r eachable go al thatdoes not de-m otivatethem in theirle arnin gprocess

Howev er, for adult learners, it is not easy to gam intelligiblepronunciation since , as menti oned above (3 I.3 1), the first factor affecting

learning a forei gn lan gua ge is learners' mother tongue (or Ll).Therefore, theinterferen ce of their L I intolearn inga new langua ge isi nevitable.

3.2.2 The interference of mother tongue

'Inte rfe re nce' is, as Richards et al (1992:205) defines, "the use of a

native -lan guage pattern or rule which le ads to ane rr o ror inapp ropriate form in

the target language " In le arn ing English in gene ral and pronun ciation in

part icular , erro rs made by differe nt groups of learners are diffe re nt This

depends on what the ir first language or mother tongue is It me ans tha t each

language has parti cular differenc es andsimilarities to anothe r,so in learnin g a

whereas studentswith the same Ll ofte n make types ofsimilarerro rs

II In O tlowsky M 1 998

3.2.2.1 Typesof Errorsabout Pronunciation

In the literature on pronuncia tion errors, in gene ral, there art: three

common type s, which are related to all aspec ts of pronun ciation, mainl y,

sounds, stress, rhythm, and intona tion In each type, there are differen t s

ub-types as follows:

Firstly,as for sounds ,the mostpopular errors are

- Le arn er s have difficultie s pronouncing the sounds that are abse nt In

their first lan guage , for that re ason, theytry to substitute them with the sounds

that are nearl y similarfrom their first lan guage

- Le arn ers are confuse d in distinguishing two similarsoundsin the target

language , especially, vowels As a result, they pronounce them the same For

instance ,they find it difficult to discriminate the sound pairII/ and I i :/ in 'sit'

and 'seat'

- Le arn ers have trouble pronouncing consonant clusters due to /10

cl usters in their mother tongue, Vietn ame se for example, so they usually omit

one or two conso nants, e.g., they pronounce /prtrj' in stea d of /sprrrj' for'spring'

- The y mismatch spelling and sound Because thei r first language is

writte n phonet icall y or phonemi cally, they expect a regular corres ponde nce

betwe en sound and lett er or sound and spelling Unexpectedly , English has

many exceptions,e.g with the soundlu :/, there are different forms inspelling

such as t o, t oo, sh oe , cl ue th rew , t hrough. Inaddition tothis, "s pelling do es /101

g ive an y i ndication of wo rd st ress"(Lane, 1993:69), i.e learners findit difficult

tore cogni ze and pronounce new words correc tly

Se condly, for errors about s tress, they ofte n misplace stress o a mult

i-syllable word, whichcan cause seriouseffec tso inte lligibility

Thirdl y, for rhythm ,they use unn atu ralrhythm, or do not use it

Fina lly, they use m onotone s peec h They use flatintonation

Howe ver, to help learn ers overcome these errors, i is nece ssary to de fine therootor source of errors Thisisbecau sethe teacher canseetheir weaknesses as

wellas stre ngths to findsuitablecontentand approach toteaching and learnin g

3.2.2.2 The Sources of Errors

"Pro nunciation problem s have many sources While some problem s can

be traced to the d ifferences betw een the le arner ' s first language and English,

othe rs have different sources " (Lane, 1993:69)

In fact, be sides the influen ce of learne r's mother tongue or native

language on her proce ss of learning and acquiring the target language , o ther

causes l 2are that

(I) Le arn er s fear making mistake s, so they are not comfortable whe n

using or le arning a new pronunciation; for example, they ofte n say: 'I don't

want to say if1can' tsay it perfectly.'13

(2) The y speak more quickly than the y are able to while 'fast speech

almos tgua rantees pronun ciation mistak es'14; as a result, sounds may be lost or

mispronounced

(3) The y are ner vous or shy in spea king a foreign language , there fore

they speak with unstressed syllables

12 La ne , L , 1993

13 Ke nwo rthy J 1 987

" La ne L 1 993

3.2.2.3 VietnameseSpeakers'Types of Errors

Accordingto Baker (1982), Vietname se spe akersofte n have commonerrors as

follows:

* In rea lit y, this list of Baker ' s I S i n suffi cient (the wri t er of this thesi

Types of e rro rs Vie tna mese s neake r

D iphthongs - drop the fina l consonant s which are after

these diph th ongs:

- 1z1is pronounced1s1in final position

- co nfu se1sIwith 1t1in final position

- confuse1fIw ith 1 pIin final po si tion

- confuse1bI w ith 1P1in final position

- 1d1is pronounced1 t in final p s ition

- co nfuse1I/with1n1in final position

- 1rImay be pronounced1z1

- 1d31(jam) is pronounced1 3 (televi s ion)

- confuse1tfIwith 1 t or1J1especia lly in final position

- confuse1rIwith1s1or 1 t

I nton a tion - hardly use intonati on when sncakina

St ress a nd r hythm - Sound s s t acca to**

- Joining words

.

** See Baker ( 1982)