Luận văn possible solutions to the problems commonly encountered by students at hanoi university of technology in pronouncing the english affricative consonants

Table 6 Summary of Sample Profils Table 7: Stndouts’ altitude lowards prommciatian, Table 8: Students’ learning habit and teachers” response to students” mistakes ‘Table 9: Students”

YUSTNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOL UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

stele sesh sf a ape sf fee tee ste ae ae

NGO THU HUYEN

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEMS COMMONLY

ENCOUNTERED BY STUDENTS AT IIANOI UNIVERSITY OF

‘TECHNOLOGY LN PRONOUNCING THE ENGLISH

AKKFRICATIVE CONSONANTS

NHUNG GIAT PHAP KHA HOU CHO NHUNG VAN DE MA SINH VIEN TRƯỜNG DAl HOC BACH KHOA HÀ NỘI THƯỜNG GẶP PHÙ KHI

PHÁT AM CAC AM TAC XAT CUA TIENG ANH

M.A Minor Thesis

Field: English Linguistics

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOL

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE

HAMARAMR ROKER EH

LDLES:

NGO THU WUYEN

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEMS COMMONLY

ENCOUNTERED BY STUDENTS AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF

TECIINOLOGY IN PRONOUNCING THE ENGLISIL

AFFRICATIVE CONSONANTS

NHỮNG GIẢI PHÁP KHẢ HỮU CHO NHŨNG VĂN DE MA SINH VIEN

TRƯỜNG DAI HOC BACH KHOA HA NOI THUONG GAP PHA! KHIT

PHÁT AM CAC AM TAC XAT CUA TIENG ANE

M.A Minor Thesis

Ficld: English Linguistics

Code: 60 22 15

MA course: 18 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Vo Dai Quang

1.1.1 The role of pronunciation in EEL teaching sessed

1.1.3 Consonants in English and Vietnamese .0 cscusesssiseseetaeiasiansein 6

1.1.4.2 The description of afiricates 11 1.1.4.3 Learners” problems with affricafes co cieiereeieeeeeoeeee LÍ

Chapter 3: Findings and Discussion

3.1.1 Findings Erom the gueslionnaits seneniereirerororaroeoeo 21

Chapter 4: Possible sollusions to the problems identified

3 Limitations and suggestions for further rescarcl 38 REFERENCES

LIST OF FIGURES, CHARTS AND TABLES

FIGURES:

Tig 1: The position of the tongue in the production of ‘tf? and /ds/

Figs 2&3: Section of stop phase of /tJ/ and /ds/

CHART:

Chart I: The sounds that students find most difficult’ easiest to pronounce

TABLES:

Table 1: English consonanfs

Table 2: Vietnamese initial consonants

Table 3: Victnamese final consonants

Table 4: Manner and place of articulation of sounds /d8/, /2/ and /8/

Table 5: Manner and place of articulation of sounds /t{/and Viernamese /c/

Table 6 Summary of Sample Profils

Table 7: Stndouts’ altitude lowards prommciatian,

Table 8: Students’ learning habit and teachers” response to students” mistakes

‘Table 9: Students” pronunciation difficulties in general

‘Table 10: ‘The sounds that students find most difficult/ easiest to pronounce

‘Table 11: Student’s choives of correct sounds

‘Table 12: ‘The result of the recording process

bà 8

i & ip

English Language Teaching English for Specific Purposes Hanoi University of Technology Information Technology

Networking Power (Bach Khoa-Npower Intemational Information

‘Technology Lducation System)

Master of Arts

‘Vietnam National University

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

Three prominent factors that devclop four language skills arc vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation In the light of CLT, accurate pronunciation is a must for broadening communicative competencies This teads to the fact that the need for the integration of pronunciation with oral communication is clearly realized, This is the reason why teaching, pronunciation is considered a really crucial job in teaching EFL,

Despite realizing this importance, pronunciation is the most ignored aspect in the EFL classes, According to Celee Murcia (2007:2), “grammar and vocabulary have been nusch

better understood by most language teachers than pronunciation” This fact shows thal

pronunciation is viewed as difticult for both students and teachers to prepare and master They take little concern to it ITardly do they spend time learning or practicing English

pronunciation Consequently, many students often make mistakes in articulating English

sounds and they find it difficult to get accurate pronmeciation This fact posts the question

of how to change the attitude of students and teachers towards pronunciation

‘The above- mentioned matters are really true to the English teaching and learning silustion at N-Power, HUT where a lol of students have troubles wilh pronunciation,

especially with the English sounds In the scope of this minor thesis, the rescarcher docs

not have an ambition to find out all the sounds causing problems for students but a

particular pair of English sounds - afiiicales - which challenge students whan they are dealing with the system of English sounds Once the difficulties are found out, solutions to the problems can be worked out with the hope that it can help to improve students’ pronunciation

1.2 Aims and Objectives of the study

1.2.1 Aims of the study

From the fact of existing limitations for students when dealing with pronmnciation, with the hope of bringing about # small contribution to this aspoet, the study aims Le

* Provide the students with basic knowledge of English afiticative

sounds /tf/and /ds/

© Help the students be able to pronounce English affticates accurately

© Lelp the teachers improve their promunciation teaching techniques at LIUT

1.2.2 Objectives of the study

‘rhe objectives are set as follows:

© To find oul the difficultics students moct wh:n pronouncing affiicative

sounds /t{/ and /d3/

«To state the causes of these difficulties

© To give out some possible solutions to the problems identified

1.3 Research questions

“rhe objectives mentioned above are elaborated into the following research questions

(1) What difficulties do students have in dealing with affficative sounds?

(2) What are the causes of those difficulties?

@) What are the possible solutions to the stated problems?

1.4 Scope of the study

The study was carried out on only the first-year students at N-Power, HUT Due to time constraint and the scope ofa minor thesis, only affiicates - two complex consonant sounds + which cause difficulties for students are Laken into consideration It also focuses on findmg out some problems when students pronounce these sounds and working out some possible solutions

1.5 Significance of the study

‘The study is designed to investigate students’ difficulties when pronouncing the English afiricates and suggest some solutions to solve the problems ‘Thus, it helps to raise sindenis’ awareness of improving; pronunciation learning More significantly, il offers the pedagogical implications for futher applications of teaching pronunciation in the classroom.

1.6 Design of the study

“The research is presented as follows

‘The first part is the introduction, which presents an overview of the study with the

“The second part is the development of the study, which is divided info 4 chapters:

- Chapter 1: Literature review - provides the theoretical background and some previous work

- Chapter 2: Methodology - reports the methodology and the methods used in the research inchuting the instrumonis and the procedures for dala cotlection as well as the data analysis applied in the study

- Chapter 3: Findings and discussion - reveals some major findings basing on which the discussion is produced

- Chapter 4: Possible solutions — offers some useful suggestions to problems identified

The last part is the conclusion of the study, which summarzes the major points presented

in the thesis, offers concluding remarks on the objectives and points out the limitations as well as provides some suggestions for further studies

PART 2; DEVELOPMENT

Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Theoretical Background

1.1.1 The role of pronunciation in EFL teaching

Pronunciation teaching should be paid more consideration by teachers since it occupies a

communication, Since pronunciation is se important, te:

should be paid enough attention to, This idea is also shared by Stevick : “prorerciation is

ching and learning pronmnciation

the primary medium through which we bring our use of language to the attention of other people” (1978, quoted in Permingion, 1996.2) There are slill several researchers carrying out studies on the role of teaching pronunciation in EFL such as Haycraft (1971), Kenworthy (1987), Brown (1991), Pennington (1996), etc

It can be seen clearly that, the ebcts of promunciation on the successful communication are so significant thal teaching pronunciation is desorvedty pnt in high pasition in leaching

language Thersfore, teaching prommeiation hes been taken into account for many ycars due to the changes in the purpose of foreign language learning in general and English in particular Learners take English courses for succassfill communication in their work and

lives so they want to achicve native-like pronunciation

1.1.2, Factors affecting pronunciation learning

There are # lot of researche

Ludying on factors that may affect students” promneialion

In Teaching English Pronunciation, Kenworthy (1987) indicates six categories that atfect pronunciation learning: (1) native language, (2) age, (3) amount of exposure, (4) phonetic

ability, (5) attitude and identity, and (6) motivation and concern for good pronunciation

tripfly sunnruai The Native Language

The differences between Ihe sound systems of English and other languages arc compared

by a lol of roscarchers Kenworthy, J (192: 4), sialcd that: “7o put it very aridely, the more differences there are, the more difficulties the learners will have in pronouncing English.” Since the “foreign accent” is easy to identify, leamers” native language impacts grcatly on their ability of pronouncing English Take the casc of the countrics having the Latin writing systems like English, the pronunciation process is much easier in comparison with those having hieroglyphic languages

The age factor

It is offen said that younger people can learn pronunciation better than the older ones However, there have been a lot of rescarches showing the opposite results Oyama (1976) conducted a research proving that the younger a person was when he started leaming English, the more native-like was his accent Whereas, Snow and Hoefhagel-Hohle’s sindy (1975) showed that the groups of oldor Toarnors had highr nehiovemert im pronouncing words than the younger ones

Amount of exposure

It’s obviously that people suzrounded by English will have more chance to speak English than who don’t live in English-speaking environment ‘Thus, many researchers have pointed oul thz arnount of expasure Lo the Lirgel language as ona of the factors that affect proumeciation accuracy (Celec-Murcia, Brinlon, & Goadwin, 1996, Kenworthy, 1987; Suter, 1976) An adequate model of the target language in and outside of classroom is

Altitude and identity

Kenworthy (1987) states that the more people have positive feelings when speak the target language, the more accuracy Ihey gel The study also indicates hal such fectings relate highly to integrative motivation, explaining that learners are willing to identity

Motivation and concern

Motivation plays an important role in Jearning prommnciation When learners pay enough attention to their pronunciation, they will improve their speaking so as to reach the point

of pronunciation compelence Tn (his case, Ieachers’ concern also takes 4 part in learners” success Thus, Kenworthy (1987)stressss that a concern on the part of the teacher can instill a similar concern among the learners

In short, there are some major factors that affect pronunciation acquisition Teachers of foreign language should bs awars of these when teaching pronunciation

1.1.3, Consonants in English and Vietnamese

1.1.3.1 English consonants

‘There are 24 consonants in the English consonant system, among which /t{/ and /d3/ are alveo-palatal affticates,

Table 1: English consonants

Manner of | Voice Place of articulation

articulation

Labial | Labio- | Inter- | Alveolar | Alveo- | Velar | Glottal

dental | dental palatal

In Vietnamese, consonants are classified into 22 initial consonants and 6 final consonants

according to the positions of the consonant in a word In the initial consonant system,

most sounds are not much different fiom English sounds in terms of pronunciation

However, unlike the English consonant system, there is no afiticate in Vietnamese

Table 2: Viemamese initial consonants

Table 3: Vietnamese final consonants

Place of articulation Velar Labial Alveolar

Manner of articulation

1.1.3.3 Learners’ problems with consonant sounds due to differences between English and Vietnamese

Because of major differences between English and Vietnamese sound syslems, Vietnamese speakers can have some pronunciation problems with vowels, consonants, stress and intonation However, due to limitation of time and of the study, | only focus on

in Vietnamese and vice versa According to Doan Thien Thnal, these following English

sounds are absent in Vietnamese

‘Thus, those consenants are often confused with litile the same sounds for instance: /d3/

in genius /'d3i‘nies/ is confused with /z/, /0/ in dun /0in/ is confused with Vietnamese /t/, / j/ in yard is confused with /2/

Secondly, in English, some phonemes seem to be represented by identical letters but different in promunciation, for example, “ch” in chemist is transcribed as /k/, “ch” in cherry is pronounced as /t}? Whereas, a letter is often represented by the same phoneme

in Vietnamese

Thirdly, unlike Fnglish, Vietamese does not have consonant clusters af all, Although some orthographic combinations of letters in Vietnamese look like consonant cluster such as; th, ch, ng, ngh, nh, tr, ph, in fact they represent only simpls consonants phonologically such as ng /y/, ph /, ctc Moamwhile, English has many scquunces of consonants including the initial such as “spread” /spred/ and the final such as “mixed” /mikst/, This feature trings lots of difficulties for Vietnamese learners As a result, Vietnamese students oflen delete enc or more than one consonamls in a consowanl cluster so thet it will he easier for them to produce the sound,

Fourthly, in Vietnamese, the consonants are not stressed at the final position of a word while English consonants arc oflen heard and pronounced im tuce positions: initial, medial and final, except /3/, which is rarely found in the inifial position That is why

‘Vietnamese students often omit these consonants at the end of the sounds such as might /nait/ is pronounced as /nai/, wine /wainy is produced as ‘wai, ete

Fiithly, generally, words are clearly separated from each other in Vietnamese, but in

English, words arc linked when they are speeded up For instance, not af all inotato?1/

All inall, the above differences give clcar reasons why our students often make mistakes when they face to English sound systems ‘Teachers of English should pay attention to these problems when teaching pronunciation

1.1.4 Affricative sounds

According to O’Conner’s, (1980: 24): “There are nvo good reasons for beginning with

consonants rather tem vowels First, consonants contribute more to making English

understood than vowels do Second, consonanis are generally made by a definite

interference of the vacal organs with the air stream, and so are easy to describe and

understand” Thal is the reason for the wriler lo mention English consoranis in the study Two of 24 consonant sounds in English considered complex are the affticates /t{/ and

éd3/ ‘These affticates are post- alveolar sounds in which 4[/ is unvoiced and fortis; /d3/ is voiced and Tenis

Giving the deGnition of the afficates is necessary for making a clear description of these

sounds

Among many definitions about affticates, Cruttenden’s is considered a clear onc He

defines: “The term ‘affricate’ denotes a concept which is primarily of phonetic

importance Any plasive whose release stage is performed in such a wey that considerable

Priction occurs approximately at the paint where the plosive stop is made, may be called

‘affricative’” (Crattenden, 2001; 171),

1.1.4.2 The description of affricates

There are three basic characteristics in the description of affticative sounds:

Place of articulation (where in the mouth, the airstream is obstructed)

In the production of afiricates, the soft palate is raised and the nasal resonator shut off, the

obstacle to the airstream is formed by a closure made between the tip, blade, and the rims

of the tongue and the upper alveolar ridge and side teeth The place of articulation of

affficates is illustrated in figure 1

Fig 1: The position of the tongue in the production of /t// and /ds/

Manner of articulation (the way in which the airstream is obstructed)

As Cruttendence’s description, in order to pronounce /t{/ and /d3/, the front of the tongue

is raised towards the hard palate in readiness for the fricative release The closure is released slowly, the air escaping in a diffuse manner over the whole of the central surface

of the tongue with friction occurring between the blade of the tongue and the alveolar

(Cruttendence, 2001: 176).

12

Fig 2: Section of stop phase of /tf;da/ Fig 3: Section of stop phase of It/, d/

Degrees of voicing (whether there is vibration of the vocal cords)

Voiceless sounds are made without the vibration of vocal cords while voiced sounds are

the one produced with the vibration of vocal cords In the case of affticative sounds,

during both stop and fiicative stages, the vocal folds are wide apart for /t{/, but may be vibrating for all or part of /43/ according to the situation in the utterance Therefore, /t//

is unvoiced and /d3/ is voiced

1.1.4.3 Learners’ problems with affricates

Sound confusion

Many Vietnamese learners make mistakes in pronouncing the above mentioned

consonants, They often confuse these sounds with other sounds Therefore, the confusing

sounds are classified into 2 pairs:

1 13) - [zl or Is!

+ [tf - Vietnamese/e/

The confusion of these sounds is due to some reasons:

(1) The mother tongue influence

(2) Failure in distinguishing the differences

(3) Inadequate practice

Comparing the 2 above-mentioned sound pairs

Saund pair /dỗi - /2 or /sf

Owing lo no affricates in the Viclnamese consonant syslcm so many Victnamesc speakers

of Pinglish find it difficult to pronounce /43/, for which they have to make great effort to place their tongue af the point to make a plosive /d/ then quickly move their tongue a little back to take a fricalive /5/ They often change /d6/ into ‘ef ar Sử, Thus, judge /45Ađ5/ 1s pronounced /zaz/ or /zas/ Mistakes can also be found in the pronunciation of orange,

damage, village, January, bridge, etc

Table 4: Manner and place of articulation of sounds /da, ff and és!

Sound Voice Manner of articulation Place of articulation

,dã“ voiced Affiicatc alvco-palatal

ish voiceless Fricative alveolar

When making a mistake, speakers can’t smake /d5/ palatal and voiced, As discussed above, /8/ and /z/ are pronounced differently from /d3/, whose production starts with a plosive stop sound and finishes with a fticative sound Furst the tongue touches the ridge of the upper front teeth for /d/, but instead of releasing quickly for a plosive sound like //, the

tip of the Longue moves (further back than thal, for 22 to the plave for the frivalive /5/ The roundness of the fips also depends on the surrounding sounds

Sound pair /([/- Vietnamese /c/

According (o Iho table af Piemamese consonants, tof is produced by the contact of the blade of the tongue against the ftont part of hard palate, voiceless and aspirated, while the

Tingtish /Lf/ is produced as a palato-atveolar consonant and voic:

a little bit The confusion is indicated in the table below

with the longue rolls

Table 5: Manner and place of articulation of sounds I\{! and fet

Sound Voice Manner of articulation Place of articulation

When making a mistake, speakers fail to make ‘tJ alvcolar and afitieate, but instcad, they make il plosive stop Like /da/, AU! is produced begining with a plosive stop sound and finishing with a fticative sound, First the tongue touches the ridge of the upper fiont teeth for /t, then instead of releasing quickly for a plosive sound like /t/, the tip of the tongue

moves (further back than that for /S2 to the place for the iiieative /[7, Vietnamese leamers

of English often mispronounee /f/ like Vietnamese /e/, which is a voiceless palatal stop and which is produced with the blade of the longue touching the hard palate This sormd can be found both in initial and final positions, og cho, chung, chi, ote Therslore, English /t{/ in chop is incorrectly pronounced like Vietnamese /c/ in chop Mistakes can also be found in the pronunciation of cheap, change, church, etc

Vietnamese students tend to make these sounds similar to the ones of their native

language, for example, they pronounce /f/ as ify in Vistnames mong and io/ in Vietnamese cho, ete,

It’s supposed that, the effective way to help leamers to overcome this is to help them practice as much as possibie

Spelling and pronunciation differences

'The reason for calling Vietnamese a “phonetic” language is its high level correspondence belwean spelling and pronunciation, Tn Viemamese, there is no case in which a Teller represents more than one sound However, “English can have more than one sound value

So there is not always a strict one-to-one correspondence between sound and letter”

(Kenworthy, 1987: 94) and “the retutionship

complex in English” (Kelly, 2000: 122)

1 spelling and pronuncialion is more

Apart from some sounds represented by a single Icttor as ‘im’, /n’, /v/, many sounds can be

roprescnted by more Ulan one letter or combination of letters Among these sounds, AY &

1.2, Previous works

There have been many rescarches on Victnamesc Icarncrs’ difficultics in English pronunciation so far but only some of them refer to English sounds, especially consonant sounds, Avery and Fhrlich (1992) are the two authors who sladied on the facing problems Vietnamese speakers often meet when they study English, According to their opinion: “As the sound systems of English and Vietnamese differ greatly, Vietnamese speakers can have quite sevoro pronunciation problems.” The most common problems challenging

‘Vietnamese learners mentioned in thei: work are the omission and confusion of the final consonants, Lior instance, Vietnamese often drop afiticative sounds in the final position because there are no Vietnamese afificates at the word-final posifion, thus orange is often pronounced as /orin’ or teavh is oflcn sounded as AL

In the ressarch named “difficulties for Vietmmmese when pronouncing English; Final Consonants”, Nguyzn Thi ‘hu Thao stated that Vietnamese speakers are not pronounced

English word-final consonants in a native-like way Instead, they try to pronounce these sounds hy adding sehwa, replacing by sounds closers to these or ©

m omilting thờ sounds,

The poblems Vietnamese speskers eneomlrriug when pronouneing English sounds, especially the consonant sounds, have been concerned by many researchers, However, they only study the pronmeiation problems in board aspects, Due to the fact, this research focuses on only Iwo English allticales which arc considered as some of tho most challenging sounds

1.3, Sumumary of the chapter

It is surely that pronunciation is one of the most vital factors that govem language teaching and learning following CLT method In order to stress on the significance of pronunciation, in this chapter the anthor focuses on giving brief literature review of Engtish prorumciation tcaching such as rote of pronunciation in ELT, factors thal affect pronunciation acquisition, learners’ difficulties mm learning English consonants and an overview of afiticative sounds and problems that Vietnamese leamers often face when pronouneing these sounds following with the overview of previous works on this aspect The chapter's purposes are to find out the most common difliculties with the English afiticates encountered by Vietnamese siudents so as to find the solutions to the mentioned probleins

Chapter 2: methodology

from respondents’ thoughts and behaviors using questionnaires and/or statistical surveys

In the 1930s and 1940s, this method was pioneered by sociologist Paul Lazarsfeld “The purpose of a survey is to Icarn about characteristics of an entire group of intcrest (a population) by examining a subset of that group (a sample).” (Johnson, 1922:113)

2.1.2 Steps In conducting a survey research

In the process to conduct a swvey research, the researcher nmust highly care about how the research will be fulfilled ‘There are a lot of steps involved in the process such as: pointing out the purpase of the study; detining the tescarch questions; choosing the population, drawing a sample from the population; determining the data collection methods, developing instruments: gathering data: and analyzing data Ilereinaffer, some concepts related are made clzar

a Population

Johnson defined population as follows: “Population is the entire group of entities or persons lo which the resulls of a study arc intended to apply.” Gohnson, Approaches to Research in Second Language Learning, p.110) Adding to the meaning of the concept, Webster also stated: “A population is a group of individual persons, objects, or items fom which samples arc taken for mcasuement for cxample a population of presidents or proféssors, books or students.” (Webster, 1985)

» Sampling

A sample is a finite part of a statistical population whose propertics sro siudiod to gain information about the whole (Webster, Webster’s ninth new collegiate dictionary, 1985) Sampling is the act, process, or technique of selecting a suitable sample, or a roprescrtative part of a population for the purpose of detsnmining parameters or

characteristics of the whole population (Salant, P and D A Dillman, How to conduct

2.2, Techniques emplayed in the research

+ Questionnaire for students

+ Tape tecovting for students

Each instrument has its own purpose:

2.2.1.1 Questiennaire

Questionnaires are commonly used in ELT research because they have many significant advantages, such as less pressure on infornunls, not under pressure of interview bias and analysis of answer is straightforward,

There are three types of data: behavioral deals with people’s actions, life-styles, habits and personal history; fzetual includes demographic characteristics (e.g age, gender and rac:), residential location, marital and soeiosconorri status, Jevel of education, ratigion and occupation, as well as any other background; attitudinal relates to attitudes, opinions, beliefs, interests and values

Types a; estionnaire items

* Close- ended questionnaire items

According to Domey (2003), close-ended questionnaire items include five types: rating

seales; multiple-choice item

yanking order items; mamucrie:

* Open ended questionnaire items

Open ended questionnaires can be classified in four forms: specific open questions, clarification questions, sentence completion ilems and shorl- answers questions

Questionnaires can save researchers’ time, effort as well as financial resources since they are easy to conduct and the time requirement is also shorter than other forms

However, there are some drawbacks of questionnaires The respondenls taking part in the process can be unreliable and unmotivated There is little, even no opportunity to correct the respondents” mistakes

estionnaire doyed in the research

* Aims of the questionnaire

In this study, the questionnaire was designed to investigate the difficultics students encountering in pronouncing the English afficates and help to find out the causes of these challenges Tn ordsr to get the best resulls, the questionnaires are tailored with ten questions to clarity the students’ attitude towards English prouunciation (questions 1-2); pronunciation fearing situation (questions 3-4); pronunciation difficulties (questions 5-2);

difficulties with affticates (questions 9-10)

* Selection of participants

‘rhere are 88 first-year students at N-Power, HUT participating in the survey All of sindonts taking part in thơ rossarch lave studied English al loast far threo ycars all high schools Thus, they’ve got chance to get used with English

2.2.1.2, Tape recording

Tape recording is considered as an effective tool in teaching, pronunciation It also helps teachers evaluate students’ abilities to pronounce foreign languages in order to find out the solutions to the existing problems which challenge students

There are three parts to the process The first part asks students to read the individual sounds and words aloud, In part two, students pronounec the sounds in some phrases, The last one orders students to read some sentences including the sounds considering,

20

2.2.2 Data analysis

With two useful data instruments named tape recording and questionnaire, ail the dala needed to malyze the main Thcus of this study were collected The research is done

by both qualitative and quantitative methods:

- Qualitative analysis: Analyzed the students’ recording

- Quantitative analysis: Analysed the resulls of the quostiermaire

It’s hoped that the data analysis would lead to valuable findings

2.3, Procedures for the study

‘The survey questionnaire was distributed to 88 first-year students at N-Power, HUT The purpose and different terms of the questionnaire were explained betore the disuibulion During the completion process of the questionnaire, the teacher helped the respondents understand all parts, Students were informed thal the information they gave would be kept confidential and be used for research purposes only It took students fiffzen minntes to answer all the questions All the questionnaires were retumed fiom participants, representing a response rate of 100% They were all valid and subsequently used for data analysis, At the same time, tape recording process was conducted with ten students randomby chosen fram the throc classes by asking thom to read the seunds /d8/ and fif/

(appearing in some words, some phrases and some sentences) loudly to find out the mistakes taking wilh these sounds, Responses were analyzed following procedures for both qualitative and quantitative analysis,

2.4, Summary of the chapter

‘This chaptor prosơnls the definition as wall as the conducting steps of a survey tescurch in the light of which the study is carried out, Furthermore, it also refers to two techniques employed in this minor thesis, questionnaire and tape recording including the aims of the techniques Finally, (he two last paris point oul, the methods of anelying data as well as the procedures of collecting data