A case study of word stress production in speaking performance by efl learners at a language center in ho chi minh city

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE A CASE STUDY OF WORD STRESS PRODUCTION IN SPEA

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY

UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE

A CASE STUDY OF WORD STRESS PRODUCTION IN SPEAKING PERFORMANCE BY EFL LEARNERS

AT A LANGUAGE CENTER IN HO CHI MINH CITY

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature

in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL

By

HOANG THI DOAN

Supervised by

NGUYEN THI NHU NGOC, Ph.D

HO CHI MINH CITY, DECEMBER 2022

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY

UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE

A CASE STUDY OF WORD STRESS PRODUCTION IN SPEAKING PERFORMANCE BY EFL LEARNERS

AT A LANGUAGE CENTER IN HO CHI MINH CITY

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature

in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL

By

HOANG THI DOAN

Supervised by

NGUYEN THI NHU NGOC, Ph.D

HO CHI MINH CITY, DECEMBER 2022

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY

I hereby certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled:

A CASE STUDY OF WORD STRESS PRODUCTION IN SPEAKING PERFORMANCE BY EFL LEARNERS AT A LANGUAGE CENTER

IN HO CHI MINH CITY

In terms of the statement of Requirements for the Thesis in Master’s Program issued by the Higher Degree Committee The thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other situations

Ho Chi Minh City, December 2022

HOANG THI DOAN

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that I, Hoang Thi Doan, being the candidate for the degree of Master in TESOL, accept the requirements of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original version of my thesis deposited in the library should be accessible for the purpose of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the library for the care, loan or reproduction

of the thesis

Ho Chi Minh City, December 2022

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my gratitude to those who have helped and supported me during the hard time doing my research and completing this thesis First, my deepest gratefulness goes to my respectful supervisor, Dr Nguyen Thi Nhu Ngoc, for encouraging me to continuously review literature, write up and revise my thesis and providing me with valuable feedback and precious guidance throughout the tiring stages

of doing research and thesis writing I am also grateful to Dr Tran Thi Thanh Dieu for her help during my first step to come up with the research

I am thankful for the continuous support that the management of the Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature provided when I was working on my thesis My genuine appreciation also goes to my colleagues, for all the generous and enthusiastic support and the invaluable and professional advice they have given to help me better understand the issue under investigation

Last but not least, I am very grateful to my incomparably caring and loving family for always being by my side to cheer me up when I suffered stress from my work and study Without the encouragement, support and guidance provided by those named or unlisted,

I would not have completed this Master’s Thesis

I appreciate all

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY i

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi

LIST OF TABLES vii

LIST OF FIGURES viii

ABSTRACT ix

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY 1

1.2 AIMS OF THE STUDY 3

1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 3

1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY 4

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 4

1.6 ORGANIZATION OF THE THESIS 4

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1 WORD STRESS 6

2.1.1 Definition 6

2.1.2 Features of word stress 7

2.1.3 Analysing word stress using the PRAAT application 11

2.2 SPEAKING PERFORMANCE 12

2.2.1 Definition 12

2.2.2 Oral presentation 13

2.2.3 Storytelling 14

2.2.4 Factors affecting word stress production in speaking performance 14

2.3 PREVIOUS STUDIES 16

2.4 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK 19

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 21

3.1 RESEARCH DESIGN 21

3.2 RESEARCH SITE 22

3.3 PARTICIPANTS 23

3.4 ENGLISH COURSES AND MATERIALS 24

3.5 RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS 25

3.6 PROCEDURE OF DATA COLLECTION 27

3.7 DATA ANALYSIS PROCEDURE 31

CHAPTER 4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 32

4.1 RESEARCH QUESTION 1 32

4.1.1 RESEARCH QUESTION 1A 32

4.1.2 RESEARCH QUESTION 1B 37

4.2 RESEARCH QUESTION 2 40

4.2.1 Topical knowledge 40

4.2.2 Native language/Mother tongue influence 41

4.2.3 Exposure 41

4.2.4 Planning 42

4.2.5 Time pressure 43

4.2.6 Amount of support 43

4.2.7 Motivation and concern for good pronunciation 43

4.2.8 Standard of performance/ Pressure to perform well 44

4.3 DISCUSSION 45

4.3.1 Students’ word stress production in speaking performance 45

4.3.2 Factors affecting students’ word stress production in speaking performance 46

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION 48

5.1 SUMMARY OF THE MAJOR FINDINGS 48

5.2 IMPLICATIONS 49

5.3 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY 50

5.4 RECOMMENDATIONS 50

REFERENCES 52

APPENDIX A 56

APPENDIX B 57

APPENDIX C 58

APPENDIX D 59

APPENDIX E 62

APPENDIX F 65

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

A2 level Elementary level

EFL English as a Foreign Language

ELT English language teaching

CEFR Common European framework of reference for languages HCMC Ho Chi Minh City

RP Standard pronunciation or Received Pronunciation

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Summary of features of word stress by scholars 10

Table 2.2 Extensive speaking performance tasks 13

Table 2.3 Factors affecting word stress production in speaking performance 16

Table 3.1 Students’ information 23

Table 3.2 The summary of the research procedures 30

Table 4.1 Loudness comparison of the word “admire” between RP and students’ samples 33

Table 4.2 Pitch comparison of the word “admire” between RP and students’ samples 35

Table 4.3 Duration comparison of the word “admire” between RP and students’ samples 36

Table 4.4 Loudness comparison of the word “inside” between RP and students’ samples 38

Table 4.5 Summary of the factors affecting word stress production in speaking performance 45

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1 Illustration of the frequency of the sound 8 Figure 2.2 Illustration of pitch (blue line) and loudness (yellow line) of the sound 9 Figure 2.3 Illustration of duration of the sound 10 Figure 2.4 Platform of the PRAAT application 11 Figure 2.5 The conceptual framework of the study 20

Figure 4.1 Spectrogram of pitch (blue line) and loudness (yellow line) comparison of

the word “admire” between RP (left) and student’s samples (right) 32

Figure 4.2 Spectrogram of pitch (blue line) and loudness (yellow line) comparison of

the word “person” between RP (left) and student’s samples (right) 34

Figure 4.3 Spectrogram of pitch (blue line) and loudness (yellow line) comparison of

the word “owner” between RP (left) and student’s samples (right) 39

ABSTRACT

Word stress has much been concerned in learning English as a foreign language (EFL)

As it is one of the essential factors in pronunciation, focusing on word stress helps EFL learners with intelligibility in communication This study was conducted to discover the word stress production in speaking performance of 23 EFL students at level A2 (based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) through oral presentation and storytelling - at a language center in Vietnam as well as some factors affecting their word stress production in speaking performance Using the PRAAT software, the researcher compared the student pronunciation with RP, paying particular attention to disyllabic words created by students The findings showed that, regardless

of other aspects of pronunciation, students at the language center under investigation lacked sufficient knowledge and proficiency in word stress, which led to certain word stress errors in their speaking performance Using the students’ semi-structured interviews, the researcher found out a number of factors including topical knowledge, planning, motivation, and concern for proper pronunciation, pressure when presenting, students' lack of exposure, as well as mother tongue influence, were found to have an impact on students' word stress production The results contribute to understanding of how the EFL learners produced word stress in speaking performance in forms of oral presentation and storytelling and some possible factors affecting their word stress production in speaking performance Thus, the findings help suggest some important implications for learning and teaching with respect to word stress, as well as relevant research

Keywords: word stress production, speaking performance, oral presentation, storytelling, factors affecting word stress production

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Being used for a variety of purposes in different fields, English is the most common language that students of all ages around the world are studying English has been learned for immigration to an English-speaking country, for travelling purposes or entertainment, and has been used widely as a mediating language of international business (Harmer, 2007) Obviously, the ultimate goal of learning English is for students to be able to communicate with English speakers, both native and non-native ones

Among three language areas, pronunciation is definitely an important factor in speaking

as it interferes with communication Pronunciation is associated with understandability

or intelligibility, as "pronunciation is a central factor in students' success in making themselves understood" (Avery and Ehrlich, 1992) Pronunciation is put into two categories: the segmental features (consonant and vowel sounds) and the suprasegmental ones (stress, rhythm, and intonation) (Celce-Murcia et al., 2014), so it

is important to know about and practice both segmental and suprasegmental features Both of the features work together to make pronunciation understandable to listeners (Yoshida, 2013)

Word stress is one of the suprasegmental features of pronunciation, and also a must for learners to acquire to be successful in speaking Benrabah (1997, as cited in Levis, 2018) concludes that native as listeners tend to impose their interpretation based on their “aural expectancies” relying heavily on the stress pattern produced and totally disregarding segmental information Kenworthy (1988) states experiments have demonstrated that often when a native speaker mishears a word, it is because the foreigner has put the stress in the wrong place, not because he or she mispronounced the sounds of the word Furthermore, O’Brien (2019) mentions that a number of

previous studies have demonstrated the importance of accurate lexical stress assignment in being understood (e.g., Caspers, 2010; Trofimovich and Isaacs, 2012) The experimental study by Hahn (2004) shows the importance of primary stress and its effect, not only on intelligibility, but also sociolinguistically, in terms of role relationships in discourse (as cited in Hodgetts, 2020) Sharing the same viewpoint, Yoshida (2013) said “It’s very important for learners to put the stress in the right place

If the wrong syllable is stressed, listeners may not be able to understand what word is being said.”

However, it can often be a difficult area for learners of English to master successfully and one which is problematic for teachers of pronunciation to embrace in their teaching (Field, 2005, as cited in Checklin, 2012) An investigation in Vietnam by Nguyen (2007) revealed numerous difficulties of students in English pronunciation study, including not placing stress or misplacing stress on a word syllable declared by 91% of the students It is also among the aspects of pronunciation which needs to be considered while “lacking knowledge of pronunciation is one of the factors inhibiting students’ speaking performance” (Doan, 2012) As it is crucial for both the listeners and speakers

of English to comprehend, students should pay attention to their word stress in speaking

to ensure intelligibility in communication

In the language center where the study was conducted, speaking skills are among the four skills that students need to achieve at the end of the course, so different types of speaking tasks were employed to help students practice their skills When speaking English, many EFL learners encounter certain pronunciation issues, one of which is the incorrect production of lexical stress, particularly their inability to produce stress contrasts of multisyllabic words Concerningly, the researcher discovered through informal conversations with these learners that they did not appear to be aware of the importance of lexical stress in English pronunciation

Although numerous studies have been conducted in Vietnam to investigate learners' English pronunciation ability, there has been a limited amount of research focusing on suprasegmental aspects, particularly word stress patterns (An, 2010, as cited in Tuan, 2018)

Regarding speaking performance, Brown and Abeywickrama (2019) categorize speaking performance into five types, including imitative, intensive, responsive, interactive, and extensive Such types of activities have been utilised in classroom context where students could practice using English in order to boost their communicative competence

It is the rationale for the researcher to decide to conduct the study entitled “A case study

of word stress production in speaking performance by EFL learners at a language center in Ho Chi Minh City”

1.2 AIMS OF THE STUDY

This study aims to explore students’ word stress production in extensive speaking performance in forms of oral presentation and storytelling by EFL learners at a language center in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) as well as to examine factors affecting their word

stress production in speaking performance

1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

In order to achieve the research aims, three research questions are formulated:

1 How do EFL learners produce word stress in their speaking performance?

Sub-questions: 1a How do EFL learners produce word stress in oral presentation?

1b How do EFL learners produce word stress in story-telling?

2 How do students perceive factors affecting their word stress production in speaking

performance?

1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The research focuses on discovering the production of word stress of the EFL teenage students at level A2 (elementary in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) in speaking performance at a suburban English language center

in HCMC Therefore, the study is restricted to a certain case of a number of young students at the language center under investigation Specifically, the data to be collected would be narrowed down to 23 students of two A2 classes at the center, not all of them

to be mentioned Importantly, it was noticed by the researcher that the A2 level students

at the language center under investigation made quite a lot of mistakes in word stress during their speaking performance Hence, stress production in speaking performance was taken into consideration in this study Besides, the researcher put the focus on speaking performance in forms of oral presentation and storytelling, the two speaking forms employed in the two classes during the research time

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This study is worth conducting because of the two reasons First, this study would contribute to the research on word stress production in speaking performance Though there has been quite a vast amount of research on word stress as well as speaking performance, there is limited research on word stress production of students regarding speaking performance Second, it would hope to bring some practices and experiences

of word stress production to students at the language center under investigation The outcome could be utilized to show learners whether their word stress is correct or incorrect, as well as help them be aware of word stress production not only in isolation but also in utterance In addition, the researcher and her colleagues would deeply look into the situation and help students with their learning better

1.6 ORGANIZATION OF THE THESIS

This thesis consists of six chapters as follows

Chapter 1 gives introduction to the thesis

Chapter 2 reviews relevant literature on word stress and speaking performance to supply a clearer context for addressing the research questions

Chapter 3 explains the methods that have been used for collecting and analysing data

in this study It provides details of the research site and participants, as well as the procedures used for data collection and analysis

Chapter 4 presents the results of analysis aimed at answering the three research questions These results are then discussed in relation to earlier studies on word stress and factors affecting their word stress production in speaking performance

Chapter 5 summarizes major research findings as well as the limitations, based on which it points out implications for teaching practice and further research on the topic

of word stress and speaking performance

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

The first chapter draws attention to the motivations for investigating students’ word stress production in speaking performance This chapter searches for an analytical model to address these concepts First, it starts with a discussion on word stress, its features, and a computer-based application to analyse the word stress production Second, relevant factors affecting students’ speaking performance are discussed in detail Finally, the chapter concludes by adapting a model of identifying word stress production and affecting factors in speaking performance in forms of oral presentation and storytelling

2.1 WORD STRESS

2.1.1 Definition

In English, the word stress has been a subject of extensive research in recent years and the phenomenon of stress has received considerable attention from linguists Some

scholars have provided definitions of the term word stress

Some linguists relate word stress to the prominence of sound characteristics, including length, loudness, pitch and vowel quality Celce-Murcia et al (2002) state that

“Stressed syllables are most often defined as those syllables within an utterance that are longer, louder and higher in pitch” Rogers (2000) also shares the same idea that “Stress

in English is manifested by a combination of three phonemic elements: greater loudness, higher pitch, and longer duration”

In sum, these definitions show the factors that characterize a word stress and make the stressed syllable more prominent than other syllables of a word

2.1.2 Features of word stress

Some features of word stress have been listed as the measurement criteria in many studies According to Fear et al (1995), stressed syllables contain vowels that are pronounced with higher pitch and intensity and are longer than vowels in unstressed syllables Typically, unstressed syllables contain the vowel schwa or a short form of a vowel (Cutler and Norris, 1988) In contrast, stressed syllables contain only full vowels, making stressed syllables longer than unstressed ones (Van Donselaar et al., 2005) Fry (1955) identifies word stress by duration and intensity of the vowel He claims that when the vowel is long and of high intensity, listeners agree that the vowel is strongly stressed, when it is short and of low intensity, it is judged as weakly stressed The results

of his experiments also shows that duration and intensity ratios are both cues for judgments of stress and that, in the material studied, duration ratio is a more effective cue than intensity ratio In the same vein, Dieu (2015) demonstrates the errors in English word stress made by Vietnamese learners using intensity and pitch as her criteria

Roach (2009, p.74) claims that all stressed syllables have one common characteristic, that is prominence, with four important factors: loudness, movement of pitch, length and quality He also points out that pitch and length are the strongest and most powerful factors while loudness and quality have much less effect Similarly, Hector (1999, p.8) describes four elements which produce prominence at syllable level: pitch contrast, loudness, length and quality He explains that all the four elements can play a part in making a syllable stand out over the rest, and that they do not play an equally important part In his viewpoint, the most important element is pitch contrast, as he asserts the really prominent syllables are identified when they display the most decisive of the elements producing the prominence – pitch contrast

Many other linguists share the same view on the characteristics of word stress - prominence, including three phonetic elements: greater loudness, higher pitch, and

longer duration (Deterding and Poedjosoedarmo, 1998; Rogers, 2000; Celce-Murcia et

al., 2002; Clark et al., 2007) Likewise, Hulst (2014) indicates that stress is cued by a combination of increased duration and intensity and higher fundamental frequency (pitch)

All in all, the most common features of word stress shared by many researchers are loudness (i.e intensity), pitch and duration (i.e length) In this study, these three elements of stressed syllables were examined as the judgment of word stress among the tokens

(1) Loudness

First, the loudness or intensity of sounds is correlated to amplitude Benus (2021, p.53) mentions that amplitude corresponds to the force of the excitation for the air particles: greater force corresponds to greater displacement of the particles and thus greater fluctuation of air pressure Hence, amplitude corresponds roughly to the loudness of sounds As could be seen from the below figure, two waves have the same frequency (440 Hz) but different amplitude: the left one has greater amplitude, and the resulting sound is thus louder than the right one

Figure 2.1 Illustration of the frequency of the sound

(extracted from Benus, 2021)

(2) Pitch

Second, pitch is the auditory impression created by variations in the rate of vibration of the vocal folds (Carr, 2013) In other words, articulatorily pitch depends mainly on the tension and consequent rate of vibration of the vocal folds Auditorily, it is that property

of a sound in terms of which it can be placed on a scale running from high to low (Hector, 1999) The following illustration is the waveform (top) and spectrogram (bottom) of the recording “admire” by a native speaker The pitch of a sound is indicated

by a blue line near the baseline on the spectrogram, and the yellow line corresponds to the loudness

Figure 2.2 Illustration of pitch (blue line) and loudness (yellow line) of the sound

(extracted from PRAAT)

at the bottom of the chart, together with the duration of each syllable under the spectrogram

Figure 2.3 Illustration of duration of the sound

(extracted from PRAAT)

In sum, the current study takes into consideration these following features of word stress as the criteria of word stress production In addition, word stress of disyllabic words was taken into account as it was easier for students at elementary level to recognize the difference between the two syllables, which including merely stressed

and unstressed syllables

Table 2.1 Summary of features of word stress by scholars

Celce-Murcia et al.(2002),

Quality

Intensity Duration

It can be seen that various scholars have used different terms to describe the features of word stress in English but they share similar descriptions And the current study

supports the view of most of them Thus, the three features namely loudness, pitch, and duration are used to measure the student participants’ word stress production in this thesis

2.1.3 Analysing word stress using the PRAAT application

Being the subject for several research, word stress has been examined by different ways and computer-based applications The aforementioned elements are taken into consideration for the analysis of the word stress production by the EFL learners at the language centre under scrutiny

Among a variety of computer-based applications, PRAAT appears to be the most suitable one which can manipulate different aspects of speech sounds, therefore, it is most often used by many linguists (phoneticians, phonologists, syntacticians) PRAAT

is a computer program for analysing, synthesizing, and manipulating speech It has been developed since 1992 by Paul and Weenink at the Institute of Phonetic Sciences of the University of Amsterdam Interestingly, not only is it used in linguistic explorations but

it can also be used by musicians and bio-acousticians for the analysis of sounds produced by flutes, drums, crickets, or whales

Figure 2.4 Platform of the PRAAT application

Georgaki and Psaroudakes (2014) used Praat as their platform to manipulate the data in their study because it provides an existing suite of high-quality speech analysis routines, such as pitch tracking, duration, energy (i.e intensity)

Also, Zuraiq and Sereno (2021) investigated English lexical stress cues in second language learners The recordings are digitized and analyzed using PRAAT in terms of duration, fundamental frequency, amplitude, and second formant frequency

Boersma and Heuven (2014) list numerous advantages of PRAAT as it has been used for most of the phonetic research not only because it is the most complete program available and distributed for free, but also because it comes with the finest algorithms Furthermore, for convenience, PRAAT has been designed to interface reasonably well with Matlab, SPSS, Excel, and the Klatt synthesizer

Based on the descriptions above, PRAAT is the most appropriate application to be chosen for measuring speech sounds in the current study

do their oral and verbal communication

As mentioned earlier in the Introduction, extensive speaking is among the types of speaking performance tasks that could be utilised to enhance students’ speaking competence Some scholars have defined extensive speaking as a monologue – a speech

by one person (Burns and Goh, 2012, Brown and Abeywickrama, 2019) According to Brown and Abeywickrama (2019), in this task type, students are required to give

extended monologues in the form of oral reports, summaries, or perhaps short speech Some linguists categorise extensive speaking tasks into different types as listed in Table 2.2

Table 2.2 Extensive speaking performance tasks by scholars

Burns and Goh (2012) Brown and Lee (2015)

Oral presentations

Picture-cued storytelling

Retelling a story or news event

Translation of an extended text

Telling a story Responding and sharing Sharing personal anecdotes Giving a talk

In this study, word stress production in speaking performance was investigated via oral presentation/giving a talk and storytelling In the research context, they were the two speaking activities frequently designed and applied for A2 level students in many language centers in Vietnam Thus, in the next sections, the activities of oral presentation and storytelling in EFL students’ speaking performance is reviewed in detail

2.2.2 Oral presentation

In the current study, oral presentation, talk, and speech are used as mutual substitution

As Mandel (2000) asserts, the terms "speech" and "presentation" are often used interchangeably Kazemi and Zarei (2014) define oral presentation as a short talk on a particular topic given to a seminar or a tutorial group where one (or more) students give

a talk and express their views on a topic in accordance with their readings or research

To suit the case of the study, the task for young learners should be limited to genres that they are familiar with, such as narratives and information reports (Burns and Goh, 2012) Accordingly, in this study, students delivered a short talk - oral presentation, one

of the extensive speaking tasks as listed by Brown and Abeywickrama (2019), on a familiar topic in order to examine their production of word stress in monologue This type of task is adequate for EFL teenage learners at A2 level at the center under investigation

2.2.3 Storytelling

According to Hwang et al (2016), storytelling is designed to increase involvement in learning Guha et al (2007) refer storytelling to a highly effective approach where students consciously try to communicate by utilizing narrative sentences

Storytelling has been widely used in a variety of settings and got various benefits that are well-recognized in earlier studies According to Bala (2015), storytelling may give students additional opportunities to advance in their language acquisition Students are exposed to the new language, but they are also encouraged to reason through the story's events or come up with their own conclusions based on their imagination and ingenuity For the A2 level students at the center under scrutiny, the researcher decided to employ picture-cued storytelling since it was precise and understandable for them, which also encourage them a lot in their speaking performance In the same vein with some aforementioned authors, Brown (2000) asserts that picture-cued storytelling is one of the most common techniques for eliciting oral production

2.2.4 Factors affecting word stress production in speaking performance

In order to understand students’ situation, it is necessary for the researcher to figure out factors that affect students’ speaking performance in general, and in extensive speaking

in form of oral presentation and storytelling in particular

With regards to speaking performance, Thornbury (2005, pp 25-26) categories three

important groups of factors that may affect speaking performance: (1) cognitive factors

include familiarity with the topic, familiarity with the genre, familiarity with the

interlocutors, and processing demands; (2) affective factors consist of feelings towards the topic/participants, and self-consciousness; and (3) performance factors are made up

of mode, degree of collaboration, discourse control, planning and rehearsal time, time pressure and environmental conditions He also justifies that these are not always the reasons for difficulty in speaking Likewise, pressure or tiredness may be other factors that undermine performance

Sharing some similar points of view, Nation and Newton (2020, pp 116-119) propose

different factors that can affect speaking performance: (1) topic is related to the amount

of background knowledge and vocabulary, as learners may be familiar with the content

of some topics; (2) different text types are mentioned such as monologue versus

interaction, short turns versus long turns, narrative versus non-narrative, etc.; (3)

performance condition is a crucial factor that may affect leaners’ speaking

performance, including planning, time pressure, amount of support and standard of performance

In consideration of pronunciation in general, Brown and Lee (2015, pp 375-376) list some factors within learners that affect pronunciation Native language, age, exposure, innate phonetic ability, identity and agency, motivation and concern for good pronunciation are six variables to be considered These factors emerge from the learners, so they could be assisted and instructed by teachers to deal with the aforementioned ones

In summary, some of the possible factors that may influence speaking performance in general, and pronunciation in particular (including word stress production) can be summarised in the following table

Table 2.3 Factors affecting word stress production in speaking performance

Thornbury (2005)

- speaking performance

Nation and Newton (2020) - speaking

performance

Brown and Lee (2015) -

pronunciation

Cognitive factors (familiarity with the

topic, familiarity with the genre,

familiarity with the interlocutors, and

processing demands.)

Affective factors (feelings towards the

topic/participants, and

self-consciousness)

Performance factors (mode, degree of

collaboration, discourse control,

planning and rehearsal time, time

pressure and environmental

conditions, pressure, or tiredness)

Topic Text types Performance condition (planning, time pressure, amount

of support and standard of performance)

Native language Age

Exposure Innate phonetic ability

Identity and agency Motivation and concern for good pronunciation

In combination of the factors affecting learners’ speaking performance and pronunciation as mentioned above, the current study (based on its research context and pilot interviews) explored the factors being (1) topical knowledge, (2) native language, (3) exposure, (4) planning, (5) time pressure, (6) motivation and concern for good pronunciation, (7) amount of support, and (8) standard of performance/ pressure to perform well

2.3 PREVIOUS STUDIES

Numerous studies on word stress and speaking performance have been conducted so far in the world and Vietnam

Post da Silveira (2011) studied the acquisition of English word stress by Brazilian Portuguese learners She listed four types of word stress basing on its position, which were final, penultimate, ante-penultimate and pre-antepenultimate The results show that incorrect productions typically had penultimate stress

Ingram and Nguyen (2015) conducted a study on Vietnamese learners’ acquisition of English Word Stress They inferred that native speakers produced word stress using both pitch and duration cues; and that Vietnamese learners at the elementary level produced word stress that accommodated L2 pitch and intensity targets but not timing parameters such as duration and vowel reduction

Dieu (2015) investigated English word stress errors made by Vietnamese learners, from which she proposed some solutions for them to solve the problems Three types of errors were discovered, namely rhythmic error, wrong placement of stress, and the combination of the two types She also listed different rules to identify word stress in order to help students improve their pronunciation ability and improve their communicative skills

In terms of speaking performance, there were a lot of research on this field Kazemi and Zarei (2015) studied the efficacy of topic familiarity on oral presentation – a task of extensive speaking They pointed out that topic familiarity made statistically significant contributions to effective oral productions Furthermore, oral presentation and storytelling were conducted to assess extensive speaking skill in Evalinda et al (2020) The findings showed that these types of tasks could promote students’ speaking ability Nguyen and Tran (2015) investigated students’ speaking problems and the factors affecting their speaking performance at a high school They concluded different speaking problems as well as seven factors that can affect students’ performance, including topical knowledge, listening ability, motivation to speak, teachers’ feedback during speaking activities, confidence, pressure to perform well, and time for preparation Based on the findings of the study, some recommendations were made for

both students and teachers with the hope that they could help students improve their performance in speaking classes

Tuan (2018) studied how EFL students at a language school in Vietnam's Mekong Delta assigned English lexical stress Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used in the study By comparing the participants' performance on the two tests and using a retrospective interview to further understand the findings of the statistical analyses, qualitative data were obtained Quantitative data was also gathered using the two tests

to determine whether there was a significant relationship between the participants' ability to recognize and produce English lexical stress The findings showed that although the subjects scored relatively unsatisfactorily in terms of stress when reading these phrases, they were quite efficient at recognizing stress patterns in English words The discrepancy between the participants' recognition and production of English lexical stress, in addition to lexical stress misplacement, may be caused by the participants' inconsistent production of lexical stress contrasts, their unintelligible pronunciation of

a number of three- and four-syllable words, their less automatic application of knowledge of stress in word production in some circumstances, and interference from L1

In the same vein, Ly (2021) explored the problems influencing university students’ performance in learning English speaking skills He found out some internal factors and external factors that impacted students’ speaking performance The internal factors included five components: excessive use of L1, poor listening and pronunciation, a lack

of topical knowledge and ideas, shyness and nervousness, and a fear of making mistakes and receiving criticism Furthermore, the external factors which had less influence on students' speaking performance included practicing time, topic content, IELTS-oriented speaking tests, and lecturers' support

Overall, empirical research has shown diverse findings of word stress and speaking performance, yet in isolation In the present study, students’ word stress production in speaking performance was taken into consideration

The framework is derived from the characteristics of word stress suggested by many

linguists (Celce-Murcia et al (2002), Deterding and Poedjosoedarmo (1998), Rogers

(2000), Clark et al (2007) and Hulst (2014)) Three elements which were taken into

consideration including loudness, pitch and duration accordingly Besides, eight factors

affecting students’ speaking performance concluded by Thornbury (2005), Nation and Newton (2020), Brown and Lee (2015) were adapted to develop questions for students’ interview The following conceptual framework is generated as below

Figure 2.5 The conceptual framework of the study

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY

Based on the review of different views towards synthesizing an analytical model for word stress production in speaking performance in forms of oral presentation and storytelling in Chapter 2, this chapter introduces and discusses the research design best suited to address the research questions as mentioned in Chapter 1 Chapter 3 explains the methods that have been used for conducting the research and for the analysis of the data used in this study It provides information on the research site and participants, as well as the procedures for collecting and analysing data in this study

3.1 RESEARCH DESIGN

The study aims to explore students’ word stress production in speaking performance in forms of oral presentation and storytelling The aims are translated into three research questions, which are reiterated as follows:

1 How do EFL learners produce word stress in their speaking performance?

Sub-questions: 1a How do EFL learners produce word stress in oral presentation?

1b How do EFL learners produce word stress in story-telling?

2 How do students perceive factors affecting their word stress production in speaking

performance?

To address such questions, a mixed-method research design was be made use of According to Creswell (2011 P 535), a mixed-method research design is a procedure for collecting, analyzing, and “mixing” both quantitative and qualitative methods in a single study or a series of studies to understand a research problem When one combines quantitative and qualitative data, we have a very powerful mix (Miles and Huberman, 1994, p 42, as cited in Creswell, 2011)

Quantitative data, including scores on instruments show specific figures that could be analyzed In this case, the features of the word stress production of students were

recorded and examined with the use of PRAAT, from which the results were displayed

to assess students’ word stress production

On the other hand, qualitative data, such as open-ended interviews that include the real words of study participants, provide a variety of viewpoints on the subject matter, and paint a detailed picture of the circumstances The qualitative data of this current study was collected via semi-structured interviews with the students to gain their perspectives towards the possible factors which could affect their word stress production during speaking performance

Specifically, a mixed methods case study design was employed A mixed methods case study design, according to Creswell and Plano Clarke (2018, p.116), is a type of mixed methods study in which the quantitative and qualitative data collection, results, and integration are used to provide in-depth evidence for a case(s) or develop cases for comparative analysis In this thesis, the research focused on finding out students’ performance of word stress and their perception towards affecting factors related to word stress during speaking performance Multiple cases of students in the two classes under research are described so as for the researcher to have an in-depth insight into the issue

as a part-time teacher Therefore, it was favourable for the researcher to contact the campus managers and ask for their permission to conduct the study

3.3 PARTICIPANTS

The participants selected for the study were 23 students of two classes at elementary level (level A2) of English competency at the center Convenience sampling was utilized because it was the most feasible way to collect the data, as Ary et al (2018) claimed that convenience sampling allows using students in researcher’s classes as a sample It is advantageous for the researcher to collect the data with the students as these two classes were taught by the researcher; hence it was more relevant to look at students’ performances under the same instructions

The students come from different public and private schools in suburbs HCMC Although the students were at different ages, coming from distinct schools, they had taken the placement test before they entered the course Therefore, it could be assumed that students were at the same level at the time with quite the same background When they finished the course, they were targeted to get prepared for the KET – Key English Test Examination Described by Council of Europe (2020), students at A2 level are supposed to be able to give a short, rehearsed presentation on a topic pertinent to his/her everyday life, briefly give reasons and explanations for opinions, plans and actions, cope with a limited number of straightforward follow up questions

In the two classes, there were 13 females and 10 males, aged from 12 to 15 The following table summarized the information of the students participating in the study

Table 3.1 Students’ information

Category Class C1 Class C2 Gender

The student participants can be considered almost homogeneous because they are young, aged from 12 to 15, and there is no serious unbalance in their genders In terms

of duration of learning english, only three students have been studying English for less than seven years, since they were in Grade 3 The rest of them, have been learning English for seven-ten years Thus, age, gender, and duration of learning English are not the focused variables in this study

3.4 ENGLISH COURSES AND MATERIALS

In the CEFR-based program at the language center under investigation, there are many courses which students at different levels and ages can take part in, including English courses for children, teenagers, as well as adults In addition, when students first register for a course at the center, they have to take the placement test Their papers are marked and then they are put into suitable levels of classes, which are suitable for their ages For instance, if they are teenagers, they will be categorized into levels such as beginner, elementary, pre-intermediate, and intermediate, or A1, A2, B1, and B2 respectively On

a weekly basis, there are three class meetings and each lasts one and a half hour The course lasts about six months in total Students are required to pass the final exam including four skills at the end of each course to be qualified for the next English level

In this study, the students were at elementary level (A2 level) and all of them are secondary and high school students Besides the materials for each level, each classroom was equipped with a whiteboard, a projector, air-conditioning, movable desks and chairs

The textbook used in the course was Think Level 1 A2 published by Cambridge University Press The book was written Puchta, Stranks and Lewis-Jones who are experienced educators The book contains 12 units which includes different language areas and skills in each The two tasks for speaking performance were extracted from Unit 5 and Unit 12 of the textbook (see Appendixes A and B) In Unit 5, students were requested to talk about past events, from which the task of picture-cued storytelling was designed In Unit 12, students were asked to write an essay about someone they admire, which was then transformed into an oral presentation after they had got the teacher’s correction and feedback on their writing

3.5 RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS

In order to seek the answers to the three research questions, recordings and structured interviews were employed as the research instruments

semi-First, recordings were employed as the tool to gain students’ production of word stress

during their oral presentation and storytelling Wavepad Sound Editor (a piece of

software in the computer that helps to record and process voices produced by speakers) was then used to record students’ performances As described earlier, the two assignments were composed and extracted from the textbook that students were learning (see Appendixes A and B) The first task related to a writing topic in their book – a person you admire, was targeted for students’ word stress performance in oral presentation The second one, was in accordance with a grammar point of past simple, which students had learnt before In this task, students were asked to write a story based

on the given pictures using the past simple tense, and their imagination The story then was told by the students in front of the class members

Second, semi-structured interviews were conducted as a means to gain the students’ opinion of the factors affecting their word stress production in oral presentations According to Stake (2003), interview is believed to be effective for gaining a deep understanding of a specific issue while also yielding a large amount of data in a short

period of time There are three types of interviews namely structured, semi-structured, and unstructured interviews (Dawson, 2009) In this study, the researcher utilized semi-structured interviews as the researcher could know specific information when remaining the interview flexible so that other important information could still arise

As mentioned earlier, convenience sampling was employed in this study as the researcher could take advantage of the students being instructed by the researcher According to Creswell (2011), convenience sampling is a quantitative sampling procedure in which the researcher selects participants because they are willing and available to be studied He asserted, although the researcher cannot say with confidence that the individuals are representative of the population, the sample can provide useful information for answering questions and hypotheses Due to students’ proficiency in English, the interviews were carried out in Vietnamese so that students could freely and easily express their full ideas in terms of the factors affecting their word stress production in oral presentation

All the questions were translated into Vietnamese so that students could easily grasp the point and give their correct opinions about the given situations To design semi-structured interviews, the researcher adapted factors affecting speaking performance and pronunciation from Thornbury (2005), Nation and Newton (2020), Brown and Lee (2015) The factors with equivalent interview items were described as follows

• Item 1: Student’s information

• Items 2-3: Exposure to speaking performance

• Item 4: Topical knowledge

• Item 5: Native language/Mother tongue influence

• Items 6-7: Planning, amount of support, and motivation and concern for good pronunciation

• Item 8: Standard of performance/pressure to perform well

• Item 9: Time pressure

• Item 10: Further opinions

3.6 PROCEDURE OF DATA COLLECTION

The data collection was conducted from April 25th, 2022 to May 19th, 2022 In the first phase, the researcher gave students some instructions of the preparation stages before their official presentation The preparation stages were carried out carefully so that students could easily get the point and do their tasks well, with the clarification that this task aimed at word stress production The tasks were conducted as the following procedure

The procedure for the students’ oral presentation:

• Meeting 1: The teacher introduced the presentation topic that students were about to carry out and its purpose Then the teacher gave students questions to activate their ideas about the topic, followed by instructions to prepare for their presentation The students then worked individually to note down their ideas for the questions and may complete the writing/essay

• Meeting 2: The teacher checked the students’ preparation, gave comments and feedback, and correction The students then had their complete paper corrected

• Meeting 3: The students rehearsed the presentation and then the teacher gave them some feedback and correction

• Meeting 4 and 5: The students conducted their presentation; the teacher recorded and gave them some feedback

In the next meeting, the students’ pronunciation was analysed on the PRAAT platform and shown using relevant functions and images taken in the PRAAT by the teachers so that they could understand their situations and errors in word stress production The researcher then informed students how to correct their word stress for better upcoming presentation