Being aware of the importance of pronunciation, as a researcher and also a teacher I would like to carry out this research: “An investigation into the reality of teaching and learning pr
Trang 1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents page
TABLE OF CONTENTS 1
LIST OF TABLES 4
LIST OF CHARTS 5
ABSTRACT 7
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 8
1.1 Research background 8
1.2 Purposes of the study 10
1.3 Scope of the study 10
1.4 Research questions 11
1.5 Significance of the study 11
1.6 Structure of the study 11
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 12
2.1 Introduction 12
2.2 Background of pronunciation teaching 12
2.3 Current perspectives on teaching and learning pronunciation 14
2.4 Factors affecting pronunciation learning 17
2.4.1Native language 17
2.4.2 Age 18
2.4.3 Experience in studying English 19
2.4.4 Phonetic ability 20
2.4.5 Attitude and identity 20
2.4.6 Motivation and concern for good pronunciation 21
2.5 Contradictory principles 21
2.5.1 Nativeness principle 21
2.5.2 Intelligibility principle 22
2.6 Sound systems: English and Vietnamese 23
2.6.1 Consonants 24
2.6.2 Vowels 26
Trang 22.6.3 Stress 27
2.6.4 Rhythm 28
2.6.5 Intonation 30
2.7 Previous studies related to the studies 31
2.8 Summary 33
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 34
3.1 Introduction 34
3.2 Research approaches 34
3.3 Participants 35
3.4 Data collecting instruments 36
3.4.1 Close –ended questionnaire 36
3.4.2 Interviews 37
3.5 Data analysis 37
3.6 Procedure 38
3.6.1 Piloting the questionnaires 38
3.6.2 Administering the questionnaires 38
3.6.3 Interviewing participants 39
3.6.4 Analyzing collected data 39
3.6.5 Summary 39
CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 40
4.1 Introduction 40
4.2 The reliability statistics of data collected from questionnaires 40
4.3.1 Teachers‟ perceptions of teaching English pronunciation at high school 41
4.3.2 Teachers‟ perceptions of student‟s difficulties in learning pronunciation 48
4.3.3 Teachers‟ dealing with teaching pronunciation 58
4.3.4 Students‟ perceptions of learning English pronunciation at high school 60
4.3.5 Students‟ perceptions of their difficulties in learning pronunciation 66
4.3.6 Teachers‟ dealing with teaching pronunciation 75
4.4 Summary 78
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS 79
5.1 Summary of the main findings 79
5.1.1 Teachers‟ and students‟ perceptions of teaching and learning pronunciation in some high schools in Hue City 79
5.1.2 Difficulties faced by students in learning pronunciation 79
Trang 35.1.3 Teachers‟ dealing with teaching pronunciation 80
5.2 Implications 80
5.2.1 For teachers 81
5.2.2 For policy makers 84
5.2.3 For students 84
5.3 Limitations of the study 85
5.4 Recommendations for further study 85
REFERENCES 87 APPENDICES
Trang 4LIST OF ABRREVIATIONS
EFL: ENGLISH AS FOREIGN LANGUAGE
ESL: ENGLISH AS SECOND LANGUAGE
NNSs: NON NATIVE SPEAKERS
L2: SECOND LANGUAGE
SPSS: STATISTICAL PACKAGE FOR THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
LIST OF TABLES
Table 3.6.1: The reliability statistics of data collected from piloting the two sets
of questionnaires 38
Table 4.1: The reliability of the two sets of questionnaires 40
Table 4.2: Whole mean score of teachers‟ perceptions of teaching pronunciation 41
Table 4.3: Means score of teachers‟ perceptions of teaching pronunciation 42
Table 4.8: Mean score of teachers‟ perceptions of students‟ difficulties in learning pronunciation 48
Table 4.9: Mean score of teachers‟ perception of students‟ difficulties in pronouncing consonants 49
Table 4.12: Mean score of the students‟ difficulties in pronouncing vowels 52
Table 4.14: Mean score of students‟ difficulties in stress 53
Table 4.15: Mean score of students‟ difficulties in rhythm 54
Table 4.16: Mean score of students‟ difficulties in intonation 56
Table 4.17: Mean score of students‟ difficulties in time 57
Table 4.18: Mean score of the students‟ problem with class size 57
Table 4.19: Mean score of the ways teachers encourage students to learn pronunciation 58
Table 4.20: Whole mean score of teachers‟ ways of encouragement 59
Table 4.21: Mean score of teachers‟ methods of improving students‟ pronunciation
60
Trang 5Table 4.22: Whole mean score of teachers‟ methods of improving students‟
pronunciation 60
Table 4.23: Whole mean score of students‟ perception of learning pronunciation 61
Table 4.24: Mean score of students‟ perception of learning English pronunciation at high school 61
Table 4.29: Whole mean score of students‟ difficulties in learning pronunciation 65
Table 4.30: Mean score of students‟ difficulties in consonants 67
Table 4.31: The mean score of students‟ difficulties in vowels 69
Table 4.33: Mean score students‟ difficulties in stress 71
Table 4.34: The mean score of students‟ difficulties in rhythm 72
Table 4.35: The mean score of students‟ difficulties in intonation 73
Table 4.36: The mean score of students‟ difficulties in time 74
Table 4.37: Mean score of the students‟ problem with class size 74
Table 4.38: Mean score of the ways teachers encourage students to learn pronunciation 76
Table 4.39: The whole mean score of teachers‟ ways of encouragement 76
Table 4.40: Mean score of teachers‟ methods of improving students‟ pronunciation 77
Table 4.41: The whole mean score of teachers‟ methods of improving students‟ pronunciation 78
LIST OF CHARTS Chart 4.4.Percentage of teachers‟ perception of the importance of teaching pronunciation 42
Chart4.5 Percentage of teachers‟ perception of the benefits of teaching pronunciation 44
Chart 4.6 Teachers‟ perception of the purpose of teaching pronunciation 45
Chart4.7 Percentage of teachers‟ perceptions of their interest in teaching pronunciation 47
Chart 4.10.Problems in pronouncing final voiceless & voiced stop consonants 50
Chart 4.11 Mispronouncing or even omitting the final consonant clusters 50
Trang 6Chart4.13 Percentage of students‟ confusion between long and short vowels 52 Chart 4.25 Percentage of students‟ perceptions of the importance of learning pronunciation 62 Chart4.26 Percentage of students‟ perceptions of the benefits of learning pronunciation 63 Chart4.27 Percentage of students‟ perceptions of the purpose of learning pronunciation 64 Chart 4.28 Percentage of students‟ perceptions of their interest in learning pronunciation 65 Chart 4.32 Percentage of students‟ problem in distinguishing between long and short vowels 70
Trang 7of their strong perceptions of the importance and the benefits of teaching and learning pronunciation, they still showed their less interest in teaching and learning
it However, it is noticeable that obtaining reasonable pronunciation is the purpose
of most teachers and students
The findings also indicate that both teachers and students shared the same view that students really had problem with consonants and vowels Stress, rhythm and intonation are also aspects of pronunciation that students had to confront with when learning pronunciation Regarding the teachers‟ ways of teaching pronunciation, the results show that teachers used positively different methods to encourage students to learn pronunciations as well as the methods teachers applied
to help them improve their pronunciation
On the basis of the findings, some suggestions were made for teachers, students and policy makers
Trang 8CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Research background
Nowadays, along with the trend of globalization, English has become an international language Even now English is the world‟s primary vehicle for storming and transmitting information More and more countries consider English
as a useful tool to communicate successfully with the world outside The realization
of the importance of English highlights the necessity of Vietnam to have its people become better equipped with English performance As a result, teaching English has become a compulsory subject at schools for many years Most learners today have
to learn English very early in their life Being regarded as a key to open the door to the future, good English skills are criteria for people who want to pursue their studies to higher level or search a scholarship for studying abroad Therefore, learning English has become a tendency to most people, especially, young people However, to achieve successful communication with native speakers, learners today not only have to master knowledge of linguistic competence but also have a good communicative competence Hence, according to Hayati (2008), it should be kept in mind that the main objective of the English class is to make the students capable of communicating in the language; accordingly, all efforts should be put on reinforcing communicative competence rather than linguistic competence Nevertheless, dealing with how to improve speaking skills, learners face the problem of pronunciation Learners need to have an intelligible pronunciation because Morley (1999) indicates that limited pronunciation skills can undermine learner‟s self confidence, restrict social interactions, and negatively influence estimations of a speaker‟s credibility and abilities Fraser (2000) considers pronunciation as most critical oral communication skill He explains that with good pronunciation, a speaker is intelligible despite other errors; with poor pronunciation a speaker can be very difficult to understand, despite accuracy in other areas Hence, intelligent pronunciation is an essential component of communication competence (Morley, 1991: 488) As a result, students often cite pronunciation as being very important
Trang 9priority for them (Willing, 1998, as cited in Fraser, 2000) However, pronunciation
is also the aspect of language that is most difficult to acquire
In Vietnam, despite realizing the importance of pronunciation, Vietnamese students still cannot acquire correct English pronunciation According to Fraser (2000), some people with “an ear for language” can “pick up” pronunciation effectively, the others may require a special training Unfortunately, the reality is that in most English courses, pronunciation is the aspect on which least time is spent In Vietnam, although many students are very good at vocabulary and grammar, listeners find it very hard to understand Vietnamese‟s speech The reason
is that most of them cannot pronounce English words and sentences correctly They often pronounce them with equal stress, flat intonation and no rhythm at all Some students even do not know how to form certain sounds in English Therefore, it is impossible for them to have genuine production of sounds and sentences Moreover, studies by Brown (1992), Claire (1993), Fraser (2000) and Yates (2001) indicated that many teachers tend to avoid dealing with pronunciation because they lack confidence, skills and knowledge Indeed, there are some reasons for teacher‟s lack
of confidence, because many of them receive a little training in how to teach pronunciation, even if they have, their methods of teaching pronunciation are less than ideally effective In addition, in Vietnam teachers have to face with the large classes with more than forty students It means that teachers hardly have enough time to pay attention and give correction to every student‟ speaking performance in general and pronunciation in particular As a result, students are unable to identify their weak aspects Hence, teaching and learning English pronunciation has become the most serious challenge facing both teachers and students
Until now, like in most of high schools in Vietnam, although both teachers and students in some high schools in Hue city have tried their best to teach and learn pronunciation effectively, the results have been far from satisfaction Obviously, pronunciation plays an important part in the successful communication
It is clear that an individual‟s speech tells a listener far more than the way one is dressed, the car one drives or the hairstyle one wears (Derwing, 2003)
Trang 10Being aware of the importance of pronunciation, as a researcher and also a teacher I would like to carry out this research: “An investigation into the reality of teaching and learning pronunciation in grade 10 in some high schools in Hue city” with the hope that through this research we will understand more about the present situation of teaching and learning pronunciation in grade 10 in some high schools in Hue city, the problems teachers and students face as well as suggested solutions for these problems with the aim of improving students at grade 10 English pronunciation
1.2 Purposes of the study
This study aims to investigate the reality of teaching and learning pronunciation to students in grade 10 in some high schools in Hue city Specifically,
- To study how teachers deal with teaching pronunciation
- To suggest some suggestions for the problems that teachers and students have to face in teaching and learning pronunciation
1.3 Scope of the study
This research will focus on the reality of teaching and learning pronunciation
in grade 10 in some high schools in Hue city There is a wide range of aspects of teaching and learning pronunciation However, in this research, the researcher just focus on the teachers‟ and students‟ perceptions of teaching and learning English pronunciation, the problems that teachers and students face in the process of teaching and learning, the ways teachers deal with teaching pronunciation as well as the suggested solutions to the problems that both teachers and students meet in the teaching and learning pronunciation
Trang 111.4 Research questions
1 What is the perception of the teachers and students of the teaching and learning pronunciation?
2 What difficulties do students meet in learning pronunciation?
3 How do teachers deal with teaching pronunciation?
1.5 Significance of the study
Even though there are a lot of researches into the problems as well as difficulties that learners face in learning pronunciation, it is surprising that there is not much investigation into the reality of teaching and learning pronunciation Therefore, this research hopes to provide an insight into the reality of teaching and learning pronunciation The result of this study is expected to contribute to the teaching and learning pronunciation In theory, it hopes to find out the perceptions
of teachers and students on teaching and learning pronunciation, the difficulties that teachers and students meet in teaching and learning pronunciation as well as the methods teachers use to treat pronunciation teaching In application, it is hoped that the implications of the study will be useful to improve the teaching and learning pronunciation in grade 10 in some high schools in Hue city
1.6 Structure of the study
Apart from the Table of contents, References and Appendices, this research paper consists of fives chapters as follows:
Chapter 1 briefly introduces general information of the research consisting of background, research purposes; research questions, scope and the significance of the study
Chapter 2 presents and summarizes the theoretical background of the research Chapter 3 presents the information related to the methods used in the research such
as methodology, participants, procedures of the research and data collection
Chapter 4 includes the analysis of data collected during the research from both teachers and students
Chapter 5 summarizes the results of the study, and gives some pedagogical implications, limitations of this study and suggestions for further research
Trang 12CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
“An individual‟s speech tells a listener far more than the way one is dressed, the car one drives or the hairstyle one wears.”
(Derwing, 2003:78)
2.1 Introduction
This chapter firstly provides the background of teaching pronunciation and current perspectives on teaching and learning pronunciation Secondly, the factors affecting pronunciation learning is presented Thirdly, this chapter also mentions the Contradictory principles Fourthly, a comparison and contrast of the sound systems between English and Vietnamese is also included in this chapter Finally, some previous studies related to the research are also presented
2.2 Background of pronunciation teaching
So far, pronunciation teaching is a prominent factor in foreign language teaching Nevertheless, the historical perspective of pronunciation teaching witnessed different opinions about the role of pronunciation in language teaching and how best to teach it In the Grammar Translation method and reading based approaches, pronunciation was considered as almost irrelevant Therefore, pronunciation was seldom taught or often neglected by most teachers As a result, at that time, learners are considered to be “deaf and dumb” in the target language Students of foreign languages in those days seemed to have difficulties to produce correct pronunciation In the Direct method, pronunciation was very important; however, the methodology was primitive This method argued that only native or near native speakers of the target language was the ideal teacher presenting pronunciation deductively and correcting through modeling Thus, it also required learners to achieve native - like pronunciation However, this was an unrealistic requirement for most learners In the Audio Lingual method, learners spent hours in class or in the language lab listening to and repeating sound and sound that serve to distinguish words from others In this method, the construction was focused on the mastery of those segmentals through discrimination and production of the target sounds viva drills consisting minimal pairs However, despite the great time and
Trang 13effort made to achieve this goal, the results were often dissatisfied Therefore, although this method had its own merits, it was proved to be rather ineffective with adult learners According to Wrong (1993, as cited in Moryer, 1999), the most relevant features of pronunciation such as: stress, rhythm, adjustment/ reductions, logical stress, intonation play a greater role in English communication rather than individual sounds themselves Hence, in order to achieve the purpose of real communication, it is better to teach features of suprasegmentals than just focus on individual sound There is a fact that, some learners are very good at distinguishing individual vowels and consonants in given words but their communication soon breaks down due to the lack of suprasegmentals awareness In other words, the focus on individual sound is just the first step in learning to speak and understand English
Since the late 1960s and early 1970s, there was a belief that native like pronunciation could not be totally taught anyway During these years, there was a question about the role of pronunciation in the ESL/EFL curriculum and whether the programs or instructional methods were effective or not Nevertheless, pronunciation programs were just “viewed as meaningless non communicative and exercise gambits” (Morley 1991:485-6) Moreover, one study also concluded that
“Little relationship between teaching pronunciation in class room and attained proficiency in pronunciation; the strongest factors found to affect pronunciation seem to have little to do with classroom activities” (Suter, 1976:233-53; Prucell and Suter, 1980: 271-87)
However, with the emergence of communicative approach which holds that oral communication is the primary use of language, the prominence of pronunciation has been stressed Obviously, it is impossible to achieve a native accent as some studies suggested Therefore, in the light of communicative language teaching (CLT), there has been a shift from the goal of perfect pronunciation to the goal of intelligible pronunciation With the goal of intelligible pronunciation, it requires students to develop spoken English that is easy to
Trang 14understand and allow them to express their positive images as speakers of a foreign language
2.3 Current perspectives on teaching and learning pronunciation
With the change in views about language learning and teaching, there has been a prominent shift with strong emphasis from the teachers and teaching to the learners and learning In parallel to this shift, there has been a move from specific linguistic competencies to broader communicative competencies emerged as goals for teachers and students (Morley, 1991:481-520 as cited in Hiʂmanolğu 2006:104) Therefore, the need for the integration of pronunciation with oral communication, a change of emphasis from segmentals to suprasegmentals, more emphasis on individual learner needs, meaningful task-based practices, development of new teacher strategies for the teaching, and introducing peer correction and group interaction were emphasized within the field of pronunciation teaching (Castillo, 1991:4) There is a fact that many teachers today seem to focus on segmentals than suprasegmentals The reason is that research has viewed that the teaching of segmental phonemes is not enough for intelligibility Therefore, during the past 25 years, pronunciation teachers have emphasized suprasegmentals than segmentals in promoting intelligibility (Avery & Ehlrich, 1992, Morley, 1991) According to Morley (1991: 488), “Intelligible is an essential component of communication competence” For that reason, teachers should incorporate pronunciation into their courses and motivate students to do well in them However, to really involve students into learning pronunciation effectively, teachers have to understand learners‟ needs, their goals of studying pronunciation as well as consider whether their teaching methodologies of pronunciation are effective or not Although many researches have supported the teaching suprasegmentals, Kenjin (2000) and Levis (1999) indicated that the importance of suprasegmentals for communication in English as an international language is uncertain Moreover, it is also by no means that all suprasegmentals are not equally learnable For example, Pennington and Ellis (2000) found that although some elements of intonation such as nuclear stress, appear to be learnable, other elements such as pitch movement marking boundaries
Trang 15and the intonation of sentence tags, are not Therefore, they suggest that teachers need to have a more nuanced approach
Gilbert (1984:1) stated that skill of pronunciation and listening comprehension are interdependent: “if they cannot hear well, they are cut off from the language… If they cannot be understood easily, they are cut off from the conversation with native speakers” Noteboom (1983: 183-94) also suggested that speech production is affected by speech perception; the hearer becomes an important factor in communication discourse As a result, currently, there is a tendency to integrate pronunciation with communicative activities in which students are given situations to listening and speaking By listening to the authentic record tapes frequently, students can imitate sounds easily and pronounce them exactly in communication with native speakers This will help them avoid misleading in communication as well as hurt the feeling of the native speakers
According to Hiʂmanolğu (2006), the impact of discipline of psychology can
be seen as a current trend in pronunciation teaching Since pronunciation is very sensitive to the emotional factor and that its nature is strongly related to students‟ ego, identity and the level of self confidence, new trend in teaching pronunciation put a strong emphasis on the affective domain of learning to counterbalance the traditional focus placed exclusively on intellectual learning Therefore, ideal learning happens when students are physically relaxed, emotionally calm, and mentally alert (Hiʂmanolğu, 2006) Obviously, when students are forced to learn under pressure they will be nervous and tired Since, they are afraid that if they mispronounce some words, they will receive a negative attitude from teachers or the laughing from their friends As a result, they are reluctant to participate in learning process Thus, so as to avoid this problem, teachers have to create a comfortable and friendly atmosphere in pronunciation class In other words, establishing a non threatening student- friendly environment has become a main concern of modern pronunciation instruction (Hiʂmanolğu, 2006)
Hiʂmanolğu (2006) also stated that in recent years, the idea of approaching pronunciation from different modalities (i.e auditory, visual, kinesthetic, and
Trang 16tactile) has become very popular in the field of foreign language teaching Thus, according to him, the teacher who follows this idea should employ a multi medal method in the pronunciation class That is every sound process should be taught as a totally: visual + auditory + kinesthetic + tactile This means that this way of teaching pronunciation will motivate all kinds of learners into the pronunciation class It also gives learners a chance to strengthen their lesser modalities As a result, all kinds of learners can participate into pronunciation class and pronunciation can be learned effectively
Recently, many innovative pronunciation teachers attempt to move towards autonomous pronunciation learning The reason is that because of the limited time
at class, students do not have many chances to ask their teachers for help in real life context Therefore, Hiʂmanolğu (2006) suggested that students should be stimulated
to come to a stage where they can make their own decision about their own pronunciation learning If they can do that, they are really actively involved in their own learning For example, if the teachers teach the students how to transcribe words by using phonetic symbols, students can become autonomous to some extent
in that they may look up their monolingual dictionaries when not knowing how to pronounce the word in the target language (Hiʂmanolğu, 2006) Because teachers hardly have enough time to pay attention to individual‟s pronunciation, the students‟ autonomous pronunciation learning may play a significant role in improving their pronunciation Therefore, the more autonomous students are, the more successful their pronunciation is Moreover, it is also teachers‟ responsibility
to motivate their students to become autonomous learners
Briefly, until now, there have been many new trends in teaching and learning pronunciation Although no trend is really perfect in improving teaching and learning pronunciation process, each trend has its own benefit Hence, in order to achieve an intelligible pronunciation, both teachers and students have to incorporate different kinds of the new trends into the teaching and learning pronunciation process
Trang 172.4 Factors affecting pronunciation learning
2.4.1 Native language
It is often said that people learning to speak a foreign language often make
“mistakes” in pronunciation The main cause of this problem is because no two languages have the same sound systems, or phonologies, and the features of the phonology of one‟s first language tend to be carried over into one‟s pronunciation
of the second Therefore, we can see this clearly from the fact that speakers of English are easy to recognize Vietnamese accents, Chinese accents, Japanese accents, etc For example, we are easy to distinguish the difference between Vietnamese “accent” and French “accent” in English because the Vietnamese
“accent” consists of the features of phonology of Vietnamese carried out into Vietnamese‟ pronunciation of English and the French‟s “accent” consists of the features of phonology of French carried out into Frenchman‟s pronunciation of English Hence, Kenworhty (1987) stated that the native language is the most influential factor in accounting for students‟ pronunciation, especially foreign accent That is if the students are familiar with the sound system of their native language, they will be able to effectively diagnose their own difficulties According
to Avery and Ehrlich (1992), the sound system of the native language influences students‟ pronunciation of English in at least three ways First of all, learners may have difficulties when they meet sounds in English that are not part of the sound inventory of the learners‟ native language According to these two linguists, the pronunciation of sounds depends on the proper use of the musculature in the mouth That is why adult learners find it difficult to produce new sounds because they have never exercised their mouths in the particular way required to produce certain English sounds The second way that the sound system of the native language influences students‟ pronunciation of English is because the rules for combining sounds into words are different in the learner‟s native language Learners may meet this type of difficulty when they learn a particular sound that is part of the inventory
of both English and the native language Thirdly, in the same line, Senel (2006) also indicated that interference or negative transfer from the first language is likely to
Trang 18cause errors in aspiration, intonation, rhythm and melody in the target language This problem can occur when the rules for combining the sounds in forms of syllables are different in two languages This means that the more differences between the two languages there are more difficulties the students have to cope with pronunciation However, Kenworthy (1987) suggested that many first and second language carryovers can be overcome through a focused awareness and effort on the learners‟ part
2.4.2 Age
One of the problems that cause a lot of debates among researchers is the relationship between the age and second language learning According to Thompson and Gaddes (2005), those of us who teach English as a second language to adults might be tempted to avoid teaching pronunciation since the Critical Period Hypothesis suggested that adults will not be able to achieve native-like fluency Thus, it is assumed that it is virtually impossible or at least highly unlikely to reach this level of attainment However, Miller (2004) indicated that this assumption ignores the fact that there are many individuals who have achieved native - like ability in second language Because according to him, beside the age, there are many factors that affect learning a second language, including aptitude, time available to study and motivation Furthermore, in spite of the debate about whether adults are capable of acquiring an accent - free command of a second language, most researchers generally agree that the vast majority of adults who learn a second language will speak with an accent (Scovel, 1998, 2000) In a comprehensive review of the critical period literature, Long (1990) suggested that nearly all individuals who start learning after the age of 12 have a detectable accent “A native
- like accent is impossible unless first exposure is quite early, probably before 6 in many individuals and by about 12 in the remainder” (p.266) However, we need to see that this does not mean that no individual is capable of acquiring accent free capabilities Bongaerts, van Summeren, Planken and Schills (1997) identified some exceptional Dutch speakers of English who started to learn the language after puberty There have been also other reports of individuals who successfully
Trang 19required an accent- free command of their L2 (e.g.,Ioup, Boustagi, EI Tigi & Moselle, 1994) Although recent research studies have shown that some adults have
a remarkable facility to produce a second language learned after puberty without a detectable accent, such learners are few and far between and that foreign accents in general are very hard to avoid for most NNSs (see, Moyer, 1999) Until now, there
is no trusted evidence relating to the relationship between age and a person‟s ability
to pronounce a new language Even if the age factor is a problem, nothing can be done for the learners It is the learners‟ choice when to start learning a foreign language and therefore, virtually impossible for teachers to interfere
2.4.3 Experience in studying English
Fraser (2000) emphasized that some people with “an ear for language” can
“pick up” pronunciation effectively However, the reality is that the number of people with “an ear for language” is few and far between Therefore, to have good English pronunciation, it requires hard practice and a special training for most learners In other words, lacking of opportunity to practice English seems to be the prominent factor that prevents learners from advancing in English pronunciation Several studies comparing the pronunciation accuracy of people living in English speaking country and those who did not revealed that learners who did not live in English speaking country have difficulty in mastering English pronunciation For instance, Siriwisut (1994) and Serttikul (2005) indicated that language experience had an effect on pronunciation ability According to these two researchers language experience means the opportunities to use English language in daily lives Therefore, they indicate that students with poor pronunciation could be considered
as less experienced and had more language transfer problem than students with good pronunciation It may be true that people who live in the country where the target language is spoken and is surrounded by English-speaking environment may have some advantages over some who do not It means that they will have more language experience than those who do not However, the success in learning English also depends on students‟ ability and exposure Khankhien (2010) stated that it was not enough to help students improve speaking skill by just teaching them
Trang 20a conversation or a dialogue Likewise, Brown (1992) suggested that students could pronounce well if they spent time on pronunciation with full attention and interest Hence, teachers‟ responsibility not only creates more situations in which students have many opportunities to practice English but also motivates students to make them attend class with full interest
2.4.4 Phonetic ability
According to Brown (1992), phonetic ability is sometimes called phonetic coding ability There is a fact that some people have better listening skill than the others Thus, they are able to discriminate between the two sounds more accurately than the others and able to imitate sound better However, the number of learners with that ability is relatively rare The others may have more problems and find it difficult to be able to realize specific sounds If the "English" sound is not clearly received, the brain of the learner converts it into the closest sound in their native language (Dalton, 1997) Otlowski (1998) citing Gilbert (1984) believed that, "If they cannot hear English well, they are cut off from the language… If they cannot
be understood easily, they are cut off from conversation with native speakers” However, learners‟ pronunciation ability may be improved by putting efforts and concentration on those sounds (Khamkhien, 2010) Therefore, most learners need to have special teaching and training Teachers should offer them variety of exercises such as imitating, drilling, or distinguishing sounds so that learners can improve their phonetic ability
2.4.5 Attitude and identity
Another factor that influences acquirement and improvement of pronunciation of the target language is the attitude toward speakers of that target language and the extent in which one identified his identify with those speakers Brown (1992) pointed out that students with a positive attitude toward the people who spoke the target language were likely to learn pronunciation effectively The reason for that is when students have a positive attitude to speakers of the target language they are motivated to know more about the language, the culture of those speakers of the target language They are not worried about losing their identity or
Trang 21emerging the second identity of the target language in them Moreover, Murcia et al (2000) indicated that the attitude toward the target culture, personal identity issues and motivation for learning could all support or impeded pronunciation skill development On the contrary, students with a negative attitude
Celce-to the target language may feel shy and reluctant Celce-to participate inCelce-to classroom activities This reduces their opportunities to practice and make full use of phonological activities Therefore, that is teacher‟s responsibility to increase students‟ positive attitude toward the target language by giving them vivid information about that language‟s culture, or making use of authentic materials to make the lessons more interesting
2.4.6 Motivation and concern for good pronunciation
According Dӧrney (2001), motivation is a driving force encouraging learners
to pursue a course of action, initiating the learning, and finally sustaining the learning process In other words, the learner‟s motivation can be regarded as the most important factor deciding the success or failure of learning a second language
or foreign language If learners have high motivation, they are willing to improve their ability as well as confront difficulties in learning by themselves On the other hand, learners with low motivation may be reluctant to participate into class activities If they do not see the value of their pronunciation, they are not motivated
to do well Therefore, the more motivation the learners have, the more success they will get in learning language as a second language or foreign language in general and pronunciation in particular
2.5 Contradictory principles
2.5.1 Nativeness principle
The nativeness principle holds the belief that it is possible and desirable for non native speaker to achieve a native - like pronunciation accent in foreign language According to Lenneberg (1967) and Scovel (1995), the inactiveness principle was the prominent paradigm in pronunciation teaching before the 1960s, but its influence was rapidly diminished by research showing that inactiveness in pronunciation appeared to be biologically conditioned to occur before adulthood
Trang 22Therefore, the goal of achieving a native - like pronunciation seems to be unrealistic burden for both teachers and learners of a foreign language Many researchers studied the relationship between the age and the ability to achieve native - like pronunciation have come to a conclusion that it is impossible for adult learners to achieve native - like pronunciation For example, Long (1990) suggested that nearly all individuals who start learning after the age of 12 have a detectable accent In fact, very few adult learners actually achieve native - like pronunciation in foreign language Factors such as motivation, amount of first language use, pronunciation training are positively correlated with more native like pronunciation but none of these factors seem to overcome the effect of age (Flege & Frieda ,1995; Morley, 1999) According to Levis (2005), in spite of an overwhelming amount of evidence against the nativeness principle, it still affects pronunciation teaching Many speakers of foreign language try their best to eliminate their foreign accent by the right combination between motivation and special techniques The reason might be the fact that accent plays the role of a goalkeeper (Bourdieu, 1991: cited in Glomek and Jordan, 2005) and “speaking with a foreign accent identifies the other as a member of an out group and is likely to evoke negative stereotype” (Bresnahan et al., 2002: as cited in Momenian, 2011) Therefore, to be successful in communication as well as in their jobs in the target speech community, learners need to put away their first language accents However, this goal seems to be so difficult to achieve for most learners, except for few learners
2.5.2 Intelligibility principle
The intelligibility principle holds that learners simply need to be understandable According to Munro and Derwing (1999), the intelligibility principle recognizes that the communication is remarkably successful when foreign accents are noticeable or even strong, that there is no clear correlation between accent and understanding, and that certain types of pronunciation errors may have a disproportionate role in impairing comprehensibility According to Levis (2005), the intelligibility principle implies that different features have different effects on understanding Therefore, he suggests that instruction should focus on those
Trang 23features that are almost helpful for understanding and should deemphasize those that are relatively unhelpful That is because a focus on suprasegmentals leads to better and quicker speaker intelligibility than a focus on segmentals (Avery & Ehrlich, 1992)
With the decline of nativeness principle that is an unrealistic goal for most non native learners, especially, adult learners, the intelligibility principle comes into being and becomes more popular The reason is that acquiring native - like accent was no longer recommended by EFL/EIL professionals nor was it at one with learner‟s physical and psychological needs (Momenian, 2011) Moreover, since the kind of context which non native speakers engaged in interaction was an international one (Jennkin 1998, 2000, 2002) and in international contexts it is non native speakers than native speakers/ non native speaker who communicate with each other the most (Lin at al., 2002) In other words, while it is impossible to get a native- like accent, achieving an intelligible pronunciation seems to be the goal of most non native speakers today
2.6 Sound systems: English and Vietnamese
There is a fact that people who learn a foreign language often make
“mistake” in pronunciation The reason behind this problem is that no two languages have the same sound systems or phonologies Moreover, learners often bring the features of their first language into their pronunciation of the second In other words, the more different the two languages are, the more difficulties learners will meet in learning pronunciation of the second language As a result, the mother tongue can influence learners‟ acquisition in second language in both transference and interference While transference means the similarities between the phonetic and phonemic systems of the first and the second language can facilitate the acquisition of pronunciation, interference means the differences between the two languages can hinder the process of achieving target pronunciation So, to investigate the reality of teaching and learning pronunciation in grade 10 in some high schools in Hue city, it is necessary to conduct a contrastive analysis on the similarities and differences between the two languages Basing on this analysis we
Trang 24can see what difficulties Vietnamese students often meet in the process of pronunciation acquisition Moreover, by comparing the languages, teachers can try
to adjust their methods of teaching in an effective way rather than focus only on attempt to deal with student‟s pronunciation as a whole The contrastive analysis will compare the following categories:
2.6.1 Consonants
According to the Vietnamese phonetician, Đoàn Thiện Thuật (1997), there are 30 consonants in Vietnamese, including 22 initial consonants and 8 final consonants Unlike English, Vietnamese do not have any medial consonants They are described in terms of place of articulation and manner of articulation There are
8 final consonants, including 6 consonants /p, t, k, m, n, ŋ/ which can also occur at the beginning of the words with the exception of /p/ and two semi-consonants /w, j/ English has 24 consonants classified according to place of articulation and manner
of words, Vietnamese and English share the following consonant sounds:/p, d, k, m,
n, f, v, s, z, h, l/, the r flap in “utter” and y in “yard” At the end of the words (syllable – final), Vietnamese and English share the following sounds: /p, t, k, m, n, ŋ/
Although Vietnamese and English share certain sounds, there are also some specific consonant sounds of each language For example, in English there are some consonants which do not exist in Vietnamese language such as t∫, dʒ, θ, ʃ, j, w…For
Trang 25example,/ w/ in “waiter”,/t/ in “teach”, /g/ in “girl”, /t∫/ in “chicken”, /θ/ in “thing”, / ð/ in “these”… However, it is likely that the most well known consonant sounds specific to English which are very difficult for second language learners include the English “r‟, “soft th” as in “thing” and “hard th” as in “this” (Tang, 2007) The English interdental fricative pair /θ, ð/ are among the most problem sounds for Vietnamese learners In Vietnamese we also have voiceless alveolar aspirated stop /th/ which is often used by Vietnamese learners to substitute for English /θ/ They
do not pay their attention to put the tip of their tongue between the teeth when producing English /θ/ Similarity, the sound /ð/ is also mispronounced as /d/ in Vietnamese Hence, it is the responsibilities of teachers to show their students the differences between these sounds The bilabial voiceless stop /p/ is important in English because it can occur in all positions While in Vietnamese, it only occurs in final position and initially in some loan words, Vietnamese learners are not very good at pronouncing it because they often mix it up with its voiced partner /b/ which is more familiar in Vietnamese Normally, it is an allophone of the initial /b/
It results in failing to pronounce English initial and medial /p/ of Vietnamese learners They often mispronounced /b/ as /p/.It should be noted that /p, k/ are unaspirated in Vietnamese (Dinh & Nguyen, 1998, as cited in Tang: 2007) and may sound “b” and “g” to an English speaker Moreover, in Vietnamese, syllable /p, t, k/ are unreleased or “held in” whereas these sounds may be released in English Therefore, students often fail to aspirate the voiceless stops /p/, /t/, and /k/ at the beginning of a word For example, “plot”, “tot” and “cot” may sound like “blot”,
“dot” and “got”
In addition to single consonants, Vietnamese learners also have problems with consonant clusters that are specific to English While Vietnamese has no consonant clusters, English has consonant clusters in three positions The initial consonant clusters such as: “cry”, “thread”, “try”,” “strike”, and so on The medial consonant clusters such as: “basket”, “cluster”, “unlike”, and so on The final consonant clusters such as: “told”, “sent”, “student” As a result, Vietnamese learners have difficulty in pronouncing consonants in sequence Hence, they will try
Trang 26to “break up” a consonant cluster by inserting a vowel between the consonants such
as “pǝray” for “pray” or simply drop the second or third consonant such as: “tol” for
“told” As Honey (1987: 240) put it succinctly “Many English consonant clusters are not found in Vietnamese, which gives rise to mistakes The most prevalent is the omission of interconsonantals: „abtrak‟ for abstract; „kaptn‟ for capstan Final s, when following a consonant, is frequently omitted too.”
Final consonant clusters also involve grammatical problems in addition to phonological one That is “s-ending” in plural nouns, the third singular personal verbs (Simple Present tense) and “ed-ending‟ in regular past verbs and regular past participles Vietnamese learners often pronounce “s-ending” as /s/ and “ed-ending”
as /ɪd/ but in fact English is different and is not always pronounced like that The main reason for this is that in Vietnamese, there is no concept of the voiced consonants and voiceless consonants This requires that teachers have to pay special attention to consonant clusters
2.6.2 Vowels
According to Đoàn Thiện Thuật (1997) Vietnamese has 13 single vowels, including 10 long vowels and 3 short vowels Long vowels are i, e, ɛ, a, ă, ɔ, o, ɤ, u, ɯ; short vowels are ɛ (anh ách), ɔ (ong óc), ɤ (tân, thân) In addition to single vowels, Vietnamese has three diphthongs They are ie, ɯə and uo Vietnamese has more long vowels and less short vowels than English However, the total number of vowels, including single vowels, diphthongs and triphthongs English is far more than those in Vietnamese English has 25 vowels, while Vietnamese has only sixteen Both Vietnamese and English share three single vowels: / i / as in “sit”, /e/
as in “egg” and /u/ as in “would.” Apart from these shared sounds, Vietnamese contains five additional single vowels, /e/ as in lê “pear,” /ɯ/ as in tư “private,” /ɤ/
as in mơ “dream,” /ɤ / as in ấm “warm” and /ɑ/ as in năm “year”; and three true diphthongs (Dinh & Nguyen, 1998 as cited in Tang 2007): /ie/ as in biển “sea,” /uo/
as in cuốn “roll” and /ɯɤ/ as in ướt “wet.” The vowel sounds specific to Standard American English include three single vowels: /ɪ/ in “kid,” /ʌ/ in “cut,” and unstressed /ǝ/ in “attack” (Tang, 2007) In addition, English has two rhotacized (r-
Trang 27rounding) vowels /ɝ/ in “bird” and its unstressed counterpart /ɚ/ in “thunder” There are five English-specific diphthongs: /oʊ/ as in “oh,” /aʊ/ as in “cow,” /ai/ as
in “eye,” /oɪ/ as in “boy,” and /eɪ/ as in “bake”; as well as four vowel combinations: /aɪæ/ as in “Diana,” /ieɪ/ as in “pronunciation,” /ioʊ/ as in “stereo,” and /oʊeɪ/ as in
“oasis” (Harris, 1994)
Another difficulty that Vietnamese learners meet in learning English is that English has triphthongs while Vietnamese does not have this kind of vowel The five triphthongs in English are:
ei + ə= eiə mayor , player
ai + ə = aiə liar, fire
ɔi + ə = ɔiə loyal, royal
əʊ +ə= əʊə lower, mower
aʊ + ə = aʊə flower, hour
Triphthongs cause difficulty for learners of English because they are pronounced quickly so learners cannot distinguish them easily
When pronouncing diphthongs in English, Vietnamese learners tend to emphasize on the first vowel which causes “foreign accent” (Lê, 2004: 88) or they just pronounce the first vowel in the diphthongs and do not pronounce the second vowel in the diphthongs That leads to the fact that many foreigners may find hard
to understand what Vietnamese is speaking
The "long" and "short" features of vowels may also cause some difficulty in both English and Vietnamese For example, Vietnamese learners often meet difficulty in distinguish the long and short vowels such as: /i:/ vs /I/ as in “peak” and “pick” ; /ei/ vs /e/ as in “bait” and “bet”; /u:/ vs /ʊ / as in “pool” and “pull”
2.6.3 Stress
Vietnamese learners need to bear in mind that all long words in English have one syllable which bears the main stress of the word while other syllables are weaker or un-stressed The accurate pronunciation of word stress is a very important feature of English speech because a stress error is particularly damaging to communication (Gilbert, 2008: 5) However, learners tend to ignore the stress when
Trang 28they learn vocabulary Brown (1990) [10], puts it this way:
The stress pattern of a polysyllabic word is a very important identifying feature of the word We store words under stress patterns and we find it difficult to interpret an utterance in which a word is pronounced with the wrong stress pattern – we begin to “look up” possible words under this wrong stress pattern (1990:51)
Native speakers often rely on patterns of stress to identify the words and phrases they hear to understand the message of speakers Learners who fail to recognize the right stress of the word will lead to the wrong pronunciation of this word As a result, listeners will have considerable difficulty recognizing the words The more frequently the speaker misused stress, the more effort the listeners have to make to understand what she/he is saying This is also the reason why their conversations soon break-down than they expected To overcome this problem, Vietnamese learners need to remember the main tress of all long words in English Therefore, according to Brown (1997: 52), “The ability to identify stressed syllables and make intelligent guesses about the content of the message from this information
is absolutely essential” Unfortunately, learners tend to ignore stress patterns when they learn vocabulary Furthermore, it is quite difficult for learners to remember the stress of all long words in English because the rules of stress placement in words in English are complex To determine which syllable receives stress, learners need to check a good dictionary or their teachers have to provide the transcription of each word for them However, this is not an ideal way because the limited time of teachers at class Moreover, some learners are quite lazy or they are busy with many other subjects at school Hence, to remember the stress of long words in English, it requires the patience and great efforts of both learners and their teachers
2.6.4 Rhythm
To many Vietnamese learners, the term “rhythm” is still quite strange to them The reason is that when studying English at class their teachers rarely pay attention to or even ignore it We need to know that there are two types of rhythm: stress-timed rhythm and syllable - timed rhythm In stress- time rhythm, there is a
Trang 29regular occurrence of stressed syllables Consequently, the unstressed syllables are uttered quickly or eaten up According to Kenworthy (1987:112), “rhythm is characterized by the alternation of strong and weak syllables” This regular occurrence of stressed syllables gives English its characteristic lucid rhythm On the other hand, in syllable-timed rhythm there is a regular time interval between each syllable It means that an equal time interval is observed between two syllables The basic unit of English rhythm is syllable However, “while the number of syllables in
a word is usually obvious to the native speaker of English, learners accustomed to different phonological rules may not hear the syllable division in the same way” ( Gilbert, 2008: 8) If listeners cannot recognize the word they hear, they cannot understand the message of the speaker As a result, the communication soon breaks down Therefore, in order to be able to speak intelligible English and to be able to comprehend what is being spoken learners need to be aware of the various aspects
of the English rhythm If the wrong words are stressed in a sentence or if all words are pronounced with the same length or loudness, the speech will be difficult to understand Like Indian, Vietnamese is a syllable - time rhythm Therefore, now we can understand why Vietnamese learners speak English in different way While they speak English, they pronounce all syllables whether stressed or unstressed with a same amount of time Therefore, in order to be able to speak intelligible English and
to be able to comprehend what is being spoken learners need to be aware of the various aspects of the English rhythm In order to master English rhythm, teachers must help students to understand that it is very essential for them to know which words are stressed and which words are not stressed
Words that have the most stress in English are called content words Content words are usually the nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and pronouns (demonstrative, possessive, reflexive, and interrogative) These words are important
to express the main meaning of the sentence On the contrary, Function words are those words that are weaker and shorter They include auxiliary verbs, prepositions, conjunctions, determiners, and possessive adjectives These words are less important in expressing the meaning of the sentence
Trang 30However, within a limited time at class, it seems impossible for the teachers
to spend much time at class in practicing rhythm for students
2.6.5 Intonation
Like Chinese, Vietnamese is a tone language: every word has associated with a particular “tone of voice” Hence, Vietnamese use tones as phonemes since a change in tones indicates a change in meaning For example, “ba” “father” and “bà”
“grandmother” are two distinct words that only differ in tone, the level( không dấu) tone and rising (dấu sắc) tone According to Nguyen (2007), there are six tones of the northern Vietnamese dialect: level (không dấu), falling (huyền), creaky (ngã), dipping – rising (hỏi), rising (sắc) and constricted (nặng) However, in the southern dialect creaky (ngã) and dipping - rising (hỏi) are both produced as dipping –rising (hỏi) Hence, there are only five tones produced in southern region
English has “tone” too (called intonation patterns) but they are associated with the whole sentences, not with single words According to Kelly (2000: 86), intonation refers to the way the voice goes up and down in pitch when we are speaking This is a way that helps speakers to express their own information and new information and draw listeners‟ attention to that piece of information that is new Learners have to be aware of the fact that despite how correct their grammar
is, their wrong intonation may cause misinterpretation to the listeners In addition, one sentence‟s meaning can be altered by different types of intonation a speaker uses Thus, in English, intonation plays a very important role in changing the meaning of a sentence With different intonation, the meaning of an utterance can change differently
For example:
A: What does he do?
B: Doctor (with a falling tone)
A: Doctor? (With a rising tone)
However, Vietnamese are not familiar with this, so they often pay little attention to intonation, which plays a very important role in English language This leads to the fact that Vietnamese students often get a lot of difficulty in getting the
Trang 31right messages of the speakers Moreover, when speaking English, they often give utterances produced incorrectly, when they need to give a falling tune, they may give a rising one or vice versa That is why intonation can be seen a serious problem for Vietnamese learners of English Therefore, Vietnamese learners of English must
be taught to associate tones with sentences, and not words In other words, learners should be taught how to achieve sensible intonation so as not to let it interfere with the meaning of what they really want to say
2.7 Previous studies related to the studies
In fact, there are several researches on Vietnamese learners‟ problems and difficulties in learning pronunciation For example, “The difficulties for Vietnamese when pronouncing English: final consonants” by Nguyen, (2007) proved that English word final consonants are not pronounced in a native like way by Vietnamese speakers The study took a closer look at the differences in Vietnamese and English consonants which led to the difficulties of Vietnamese in pronouncing English final consonants like native speakers The study showed that difficulties of Vietnamese speakers in English final consonants mostly result in:
i) omitting the ending sounds that are too foreign and difficult for them especially those who contain semi- vowels before consonants
ii) Reducing or removing the final consonants toward their first language like /s, l, z, f, l, m, n… / to single unaspirated /p, t, k/ or nasal or semi- vowels
iii) Adding schwa in final cluster
Recently, an article named Common pronunciation problems of Vietnamese learners of English, by Ha (2005) pointed out the two main problems in pronunciation of Vietnamese learners; that is sound omission and sound confusion
The study by Dao (2007) found out Vietnamese learners‟ problems in pronouncing six sounds basing on their articulatory description, in other words articulatory phonetics and the causes of the problems / dʒ, θ, ∫, ʒ, t∫, δ / which believed to impede Vietnamese learners much from speaking
Another similar study was carried out by Duong (2011) to investigate the errors in pronunciation ending sounds made by students at Phu Xuan University
Trang 32This study attempted to identify the problems relating to final consonant sounds and sound liking that the tenth- form students in Quang Nam encounter when listening and speaking in English The study indicated that English final consonants sounds and sound linking were really difficult for them to perform Therefore, some suggestions for effective pronunciation strategies were put forward to help students get over the problems
Additionally, Dinh (2011) conducted a study to investigate English minimal pairs of consonants experienced by the tenth form students at some high schools in Hue city The findings of the study revealed that the tenth form students made some types of errors: non –aspiration of voiceless stops at initial position, non devoicing
of voiced stop at initial and final position, non releasing of consonants at final /position, additional of the word final /s/ to every English words not ending in /s/ and inattention to the length of vowels followed by final voiced and voiceless consonants Actually, they did not basically understand the articulation of English and Vietnamese consonants As a result, they found it embarrassing to perceive as well as produce English minimal pairs of consonants
Another research, “Vietnamese EFL learners‟ Difficulties with English Consonants”, was conducted by Luu (2011) to examine the most problematic English consonants facing the students at Hung Vuong University The results from the study showed that students had the most difficulty in pronouncing the English Fricative /∫/, /ʒ/ and the affricate / t∫/ and /dʒ/ among the English consonants surveyed
Hoang (1965) emphasized that teachers of English should understand the sound system and other phonological features of both English and Vietnamese so that they can help their learners operate their speech organs easily and properly In reality, possible difficulties in the Vietnamese learners‟ pronunciation not only come from some special features of English but also create by their first language habits Therefore, teacher should try to find out common problems that their students may get and then apply suitable and useful techniques to their teaching
Trang 33Although, there are many researches focusing on the difficulties Vietnamese students meet in learning pronunciation, few researches pay attention to the reality
of the teaching and learning pronunciation Therefore, this research is carried out to find out that beside the difficulties that students meet in learning pronunciation due
to the differences in sound system between two languages, there are also more factors that affect students‟ learning pronunciation such as time, class size
to fill this gap
As a teacher of English, I want to conduct a study on reality of teaching and learning pronunciation in grade 10 in some high schools in Hue city to discover the real difficulties of students in these schools in learning English pronunciation
Trang 34CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 3.1 Introduction
This chapter describes information of the research methodology The design combines both qualitative and quantitative methods to collect data Moreover, the participants of the study, the procedures of doing the research and data analysis are all presented in detail in this chapter
3.2 Research approaches
According to Condelli and Wrigley (1999:1) “The best research design is a mixed method design that integrates qualitative and quantitative research” In the same line with it, “a combination of quantitative designs and qualitative designs might bring out the best of both approaches while neutralizing the shortcomings and biases inherent in each paradigm” (Dornyei, 2001:78-96) According to Ary, Jacobs, Soresen and Razavieh (2010:599), the goal of a mixed methods research is
“to combine both approaches in creative ways that utilize the strengths of each within a single study By mixing methods in ways that minimize weaknesses or ensure that the weaknesses of one approach do not overlap significantly with the weaknesses of another, the study is strengthened” Hence, this research combined the qualitative and quantitative methods as a main method for investigating In addition to qualitative method used for interviews whose information was quoted and analyzed quantitatively, and presented in charts and tables, quantitative method with the support from Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS version 17.0) was utilized Descriptive statistics including frequencies, means and percentages were also carried out in order to reflect the perceptions of teachers and students of teaching and learning pronunciations as well as difficulties students meet in learning pronunciation in some high school in Hue city Questionnaires and interviews are the data collection methods used to help the researcher get information about the themes related to the research
Trang 353.3 Participants
In order to assess the reality of teaching and learning pronunciation in grade
10 in some high schools in Hue city, 100 students selected from three high schools
in Hue city ( Quoc Hoc, Hai Ba Trung and Nguyen Hue high schools) were the participants in this study One hundred students from three high schools in Hue city helped the researcher reflect more insight the reality of teaching and learning pronunciation in Hue city These participants may be of the same age but they are different in the English level and motivation Thus, ten students from these 100 students were chosen to participate in interviews All of them were at grade 10who have been learning English for more than 4 years There are many reasons making the researcher choose these grade 10 students to be the participants of the study Firstly, most of sound problems students meet in pronunciation are taught at grade
10 For example final consonant clusters, voiced and voiceless stop consonants, long and short vowels, ect Therefore, it was easy for the researcher to collect the reliable data from the 10 students Secondly, students at grade 10 have more free time to help the researcher to collect the data than students at grade 11 and 12 who are busy with many subjects and important examinations
In addition, 20 teachers of English from these three high schools in Hue were involved in the study Most teachers who were involved in this study had more than
10 years of teaching and they were both male and female In order to get more insight to the investigated phenomenon, 10 teachers were invited to take part in the interview
To make the participants feel free and comfortable to give their opinions and reflection, the researcher informed them in advance that their identities would be kept secret and the information collected from them would serves for the research purposes only All the information from the participants will be reflected honestly in the findings and discussion chapter of the study
Trang 363.4 Data collecting instruments
3.4.1 Close – ended questionnaire
The researcher chooses the questionnaires as the main instrument because of two reasons The first reason is that within the limited time, questionnaire is the best way to collect data quickly and cheaply (Bell, 1987:76) The second reason is that it
is easy to deliver questionnaires to participants and get back much information from
a large number of 100 participants However, besides the advantages of close - ended questionnaire, Lawson (2006, as cited in Levis, 1999) pointed out some disadvantages such as limited information, requiring more skills and work to prepare, and items subject to misinterpretation Thus, the use of questionnaires may
be an essential step, but it probably will not be a sufficient step in documenting work for the purposes of quality research project, follow – up interviews will be required as proposed by Worldatwork team (2007) There were two versions of questionnaires One was used for teachers of English and the other for English students The questionnaires were designed in the form of a five- point scale checklist The scale expands from 1- indicating “strongly disagree” to 5 - indicating
“strongly agree” The participants were asked to respond their degree of agreement
on the statements given The version for students was translated into Vietnamese to ensure that all students at different levels can understand and complete the questionnaires as the purpose of the researcher Two sets of the questionnaires were developed into three main categories The first category included 4 items aiming to examine the perceptions of teachers and students on the teaching and learning pronunciation In order to know more about the reality of teaching and learning pronunciation in grade 10 in these high schools in Hue city, the second category included 20 items investigating the problems that students meet in learning pronunciation The third category consisted of 9 items aiming to explore how teachers deal with the teaching pronunciation
Trang 37The perceptions of teachers and students
of teaching and learning pronunciation
10 minutes each Because of the purpose of the interviews, most interview questions were written based on the questionnaires In the students‟ interviews, depending on the different English level of interviewees, the interviewer used both English and Vietnamese or only English during the interview to make sure that all interviewees felt relaxed and comfortable to respond to all questions However, only English was used in the teachers‟ interviews Teacher interviewees were asked what methods they used to deal with teaching pronunciation and whether these methods were effective in teaching pronunciation or not Then, the results from the interviews was translated and paraphrased from Vietnamese into English The data collected from the interviews helped the researcher get more comprehensive and deep information that was useful to reflect the reality of teaching and learning pronunciation
3.5 Data analysis
In this study, the data collected from questionnaires were fed into the computer and then analyzed in terms of frequency and percentage by using SPSS Moreover, qualitative information from the interviews was used to give a deep insight of the investigated phenomenon Charts, tables were also used to present the results of the data
Trang 38The results collected in the data were used to reflect the reality of teaching and learning pronunciation in grade 10 in some high schools in Hue city
3.6 Procedure
The research was carried out in the following steps:
(1) Piloting the questionnaires and interviews
(2) Administering the questionnaires
(3) Interviewing participants
(4) Analyzing collected data
(5) Synthesizing data
3.6.1 Piloting the questionnaires
Two pilot versions of the questionnaires were handed out to 20 students and
10 teachers from three high schools in Hue city to check the reliability of the questionnaires and each item included The reliability coefficient of students and teachers questionnaire was respectively α = 740 and α = 745 The results showed that the data collected would be highly reliable
Table 3.6.1 The reliability statistics of data collected from piloting the two sets
of questionnaires
3.6.2 Administering the questionnaires
For students at grade 10, the researcher gave careful instructions on each item of the questionnaire before participants began to answer the questionnaire in order that the collected data would be clean and reliable With some difficult and abstract items in the questionnaire, the researcher explained them carefully for students to make sure that all participants could understand the questionnaire clearly
Number of cases Number of items Cronbach’s alpha
Teachers
Students
10 33 .740
20 33 .745
Trang 39The questionnaires for teachers were also handed out to teachers directly With this group of participants, there was no need to give any explanation
3.6.3 Interviewing participants
Ten students and ten teachers were invited to conduct the structure interviews The researcher only used English for interviewing English teacher Nevertheless, in order to obtain detailed and insightful data, the researcher used both English and Vietnamese depending on students‟ level Interviews were done with individual participants and conducted face to face Participants‟ feedback, detailed comments and opinions were audio - taped and taken note
3.6.4 Analyzing collected data
Data collected from questionnaires were coded and processed using Statistic Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software The results were shown in tables and charts
Basing on the results getting from quantitative analysis, the information getting from interviews, the researcher would give some suggestions for problems that students meet in learning pronunciation
3.5 Summary
This chapter presents approaches the researcher applies in collecting data such as: questionnaire, interviews This chapter also presents the procedure of the research and analyzes the collected data
Trang 40CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 Introduction
The previous chapter presented the research methodology of the study This chapter discusses the findings Data were gathered from the questionnaires for teachers and students and interviews The collected data are interpreted and presented in tables and charts The chapter begins with presenting data regarding the perceptions of teachers and students of teaching and learning pronunciation Then the difficulties that students meet in learning pronunciation as well as the ways teachers deal with teaching pronunciation are also discussed
4.2 The reliability statistics of data collected from questionnaires
After two versions of questionnaires had been piloted with ten teachers who had similar backgrounds to prospective respondents in the main study and 20 students from three high schools in Hue city, 20 questionnaires for teachers were distributed to 20 teachers and 100 questionnaires for students were handed to hundred students at grade 10of three high schools in Hue city The data collected from the questionnaires were checked and analyzed by means of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 17.0 to test the reliability and frequency The reliability coefficient of questionnaires on teachers and students were α = 770 and α
= 775 (see Appendix 5 and Appendix 6) The results revealed that the questionnaires for both teachers and students on the reality of teaching and learning pronunciation at grade 10 in some high schools in Hue city were highly reliable
Table 4.1 The reliability of the two sets of questionnaires
Reliability of teachers’ questionnaires Reliability of students’ questionnaires