Luận văn improving english pronunciation for vietnamese adult learners at elementary level articulatory phonetics

VLETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOL UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES KACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDLES Tes nboboooebsokk TẠ PHƯƠNG L, IMPROVING ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION F

VLETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOL

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

KACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDLES

Tes nboboooebsokk

TẠ PHƯƠNG L,

IMPROVING ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION FOR VIETNAMESE

ADULT LEARNERS AT ELEMENTARY LEVEL —

ARTICULATORY PHONETICS

CẢI THIỆN KỸ NĂNG PHÁT ÂM TIẾNG ANH CHO HỌC VIÊN

VIỆT NAM Ở TRÌNH ĐỘ CƠ BẢN THÔNG QUA VIỆC

DIEU CIIÏNH BỘ PHẬN CÁU THÀNH ÂM

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 60140111

HANOI - 2017

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, ITANOT

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STLDIES

PERE EE EEE EE EERE

TA PHUONG LIEN

IMPROVING ENGLISIT PRONUNCIATION FOR VIETNAMESE

ADULT LEARNERS AT ELEMENTARY LEVEL —

ARTICULATORY PHONETICS

CAI THIEN KY NANG PHAT AM TIENG ANH CHO HOC VIEN

VIET NAM Ở TRÌNH ĐỘ CƠ BẢN THÔNG QUA VIỆC

DIEU CHINH BO PHAN CAU AM

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME TIIESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Dr Ha Cam Tam

TIANOI - 2017

DECLARATION

T hereby declare that Gus thesis “Improving English pronunciation for Vietnamese adult learners at clomentary level — Articulatory phonetic” is my own work and effort has not been submitted anywhere for any purpose In addition, the contributions of my colleagues and students are mvolved Other sources of information have been used and acknowledged 1 cede copyright of the thesis in

favor of Post-graduate Department — Vietnam National University

Llanoi, 2017

Signature

Tạ Phương Liên

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This thesis would not be fulfilled without the help of many people, and I would like to show my heartfell thanks to everyone who has taught me, mspired me,

challenged me, and supported me throughout the realization of this thesis

1 would like to express my deepest thanks to my supervisor, Dr La Cam Tam, for her whole-hearted assistance, encouragement as well as profound guidance she gave me while T was doing my research,

My gratiluds also gous to all (he instructors in my M.A course and stalls al the Faculty of Postgraduate Studies, the University of Languages and International Studies, Viemmam National University of Ilanoi whose support and consideration

have enabled me te pursue the course

Tam also very grateful to my colleagues for their valuable help and students

of Step Up English center for their willingness to participate in the research Without their assist, this thesis could not be fulfilled

Last but not least, I owe my sincere thanks to my family and my kind-hearted

classmates who are always by my side and encourage me to complete this study.

ABSTRACT

Ihe present study was intended to check the effectiveness of articulatory phonetic instructions on improving the English consonant pronunciation of 10 adult learners at the level of elementary of an “Step Up” English center Initially, an entry test was canied out to investigate the remarkable errors made by the subjects regarding consonant sounds Then, they received the conventional classroom

instructions on pronuncialion skills which were based on articulatory phonetics

During the course, the subjects were examined 4 times in total to see the studying progress After 7 weeks, a final test was implemented to evaluate the participants’ pronungialion aflor reeviving the instructions Since this suudy focused on the pronunciation, all the tests were in the form of oral test which requires audio- recording as a crucial instrument to collect the data Apart from that, observation was another Lool to oblain the data as the subjects practiced with their partners The findings from the research revealed that articulatory phonetics did have positive effects on the English consonant pronunciation of elementary adull Isarners al Slep

Up, however, there still existed some lumitations which were hardly avoidable

Suggestions were also given with the hope that the next researcher could overcome

the limited issues to conduct a more successful research.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Declaration

Acknowledgements

Table of contenits co

List of tables and figures

PART ƠÔNE INTRODUCTION cà nen he ue

1 Rationale

2 Aims of the study

Scope of the study w.eesssanseunssesuaeseeetensnneienesnaeianeiin neuen re

Research questions

3

4

5 Method of the stuđy ác nà HH nnH002.1011 12 are

6 Design oŸ the SIUÿ cọ tọn HnH HH0 n.0mH0020.1011 12 reerre

PART TWO DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER ONE LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1, Approaches to promunciation teaching ssssstsessietineeneeeiseenesseivtesennese 1.2 Phonetics and Phonology

1.4.2 The marmer of articulation

1.4.3, English consonants .asscssssesneescentsnsnneioinssnaeinetnioesnaensieintanses

1.4.4 Phonological rules

1.5 Aclion research,

CHAPTBR 1WO MHLHODOLOOY uc Hee

2.1 Setting of the snidv

iv

2.1.1, Stop Up English center

3.2.1 Informants’ promunciation ability

3.2.2 Factors contributing to the development of the informants’ s pronunciation competence

PART TIRDE CONCLUSION

3 Linitations oŸ the sEUỔÿ on cọ H0 1011 1eeeree

4 Suggestions for further shuđ cọ, 00.101 1e re

REFERENCES

AAPPENDLIX 1: ENTRY THBH ì.ieeeiieoierieieoe APPENDIX 2: MINI — TEST

APPENDIX 3: MATERIALS FOR OBSERVATION,

AAPPENDLX 4: FINAL THST ccc cccccceees nee ieseneesnestiesaeenenneerieesseeneesseerssenesssens APPENDIX 5: LESSON PLAN

vi

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Kigure 1: The organs of speech

Table 1: English consonants

Figure 2: Sounds of speech animation application

‘Table 2; Teaching plans

Table 3.1: Mispronunciation across the subjects in teaching observation

Table 3.2: Mispromunciation across the subjects in mini-tests

'Table 3.3: Mispronunciation across the subjects in final test

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION

The chapter plays as an introduction part of the study which presents an overview of Ihe research report including rationale, aims, seope, research questions, methods and design of the study

1 Rationale of the study

During the period of globalization, nations have been coming closer to each

other more than ever In this process the need of expressing and exchanging ideas

bas given Huglish an excellent opportunity to claim its vital role in every communication attempt Vietam, in order to develop the national economy,

industries or in any area, has Lo blend into the global commurncalion and meet is requirements However, in fact, adults who are directly involved in the mfluence of

globalization tend to have many difficulties in communicating with foreigners due

lo their limited speaking and Tistenmg skills, Ina certain prolicieney standard, the fault which diminishes the communication process in EEL/HSL learners severely is

pronunciation, rather than vocabulary or grammar (Hinofitis & Baily, 1980,

pp.124-125) Pronunciation errors were suggested as the decisive element which causes the communication breakdowns according to Derwing Munro and Weibe

(1998, p.107) as cited in Derwing and Mumro (2005) and Jenkins (2000) In the

related issuc, Fraser (2000) states that apart from other sub-skills which involve

vocabulary, grammar, pragmatics and so on, the most crucial element is pronunciation It is confirmed that with good pronunciation, the message between

interlocutors is much easier to understand and in the case the speaker and/or the

listener has poor pronunciation, it is very difficult for them to understand each other

despite accuracy in other areas Hence, the pronunciation should be paid sufficient

allenlion since il is the aspeet (hal affects how the speaker is judged by the others

Pronunciation is an integral part of foreign language leaming, since it directly

affects the leamers' communicalive competence as well as performance Thus,

limited pronunciation might decrease leamers’ self-confidence and adverscly affect speaker’s communicative skills, Vietnam, in this context, with the purpose of

communicating wilh foraigners cfleotively, speaking and listening skills are

strongly focused, but the pronunciation has not been paid sufficient attention in many years Llowever, the process of teaching and leaming pronunciation recently has been changing Indeed, il is bemg integrated into the textbook of schools and tertiary colleges widely Moreover, since private educational institutions nationwide acknowledge the importance of prommeiation teaching and leaming, it has been

designed and adapting as an independent course which mainly focuses on

segmentals and suprasegmentals Step Up English Center is not an exception,

prommeiation course is the program in which forty-four sounds of English are

deeply focused on amd 1L 1s suitable for students and adult learncrs who are al the

level of elementary due to its contents and feasibility ‘he course is mainly

allocated to help learners acknowledge the differences between English and

Vietnamese sounds, and know how to use the articulaters properly in the process of” making the intelligible sounds

Tn the process of acquiring the second language, it is found out that learners eucounter ä Íew problems conecrning to some certain forcign sounds which de not exist in the first language They seem confused about how to use and control their articulators lo produce the proper sounds as well as lo pronounce intelligibly The situation is urged and needed strategies to help learners to overcome such problems, which leads the author to the thought of making a research on “Improving linglish

pronunciation for Vietnamese adult learners at elementary level”

2, Aims of the study

The study aims al

- Vinding the typical errors that Vietnamese adult leamers at the elementary

level often makes regarding pronunciation in a particular context

- Uneovering the impact of articulatory phonetics instructions on adult

learners’ pronunciation

3, Scope of the study

The research focused on the pronunciation problems in terms of consonants made by ten adull learners al Step Up English conter, and their Rnghsh are at

rey

elementary level The remarkable errors will be figured out after implementing the entry test ‘The teaching methods applied in the research was articulatory phonetics

4 Research questions

What are the remarkable errors in consonant pronunciation that adult leamners

in Step Up English center have and how lo improve Gunn?

5 Methods of the study

The method employed in this study 1s an Action Research followed the model of Kemmis and Me Taggart (1988) which is composed of four phases

+ Planning: a problem or issue is identified and a plan of action is developed to bring about improvements in specific areas of the research context

- Action: the plan is to put into action over an agree period of time

+ Observation: the effects of the action are observed and data are collected

- Reflection: the effets of the action are evaluated become the basis for further cycles of research

6 Design of the study

The stndy consists of three main parts as follows:

- Part one: Introduction This part discussed the rationale of the study, aims, scope, research questions and methods and design of the study

- Part two: Development

+ Chapter 1: Literature review This chapter provides the theoretical

knowledge relevant to the field under investigated A brief introduction of

segmental and suprasegmental teaching will be presented Laler, English

phonetics and phonology will be stated Articulatory phonetics will be the

main issue which is following by the phonological rules And the final part is

the theory of action research

+ Chapter 2: Methodology ‘his chapter describes the setting of the study, the participants, research methods, inswuments te collect data

+ Chapter 3: Findings and discussion Findings and analysis of the research are provided in response to the research question

- Part three: Conclusion This part summarizes the findings of the action research, pedagogical implications, limitations and offers suggestions for

further research.

PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT CTIAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter 1s devoted to the presentation of the theorelival issues related to

the study Firstly, a brief of pronunciation teaching trends will be presented Later,

some basic concepts including phonetics, phonology and articulatory phonelics will

be given English consonant part will be the next issue and the final pat is the action research model which will be applied in this study

1.1 Approaches to pronunciation teaching

Pronunciation teaching consists of two parts named segmentals (vowels and consonant sounds) and suprasegmentals or prosody (i.e., stress, rhythms, intonation, etc.) (Morley, 1991) and the question of which part should be taught first in the

pronuneiation class still has not been answered With this controversial idea, several

scholars and linguistics suggested two ways of teaching pronunciation: bottom-up and lop-down approach (Dalton and Seidhofer, 1994), Perminglon (1989)

In bottom-up method, it begins with the production of individual vowels and

consonants and intonation will be mentioned later It is assumed that if the

segmentals are laught first, the suprascgmental will take care of themselves (Daltorr and Seidhofer, 1994: 69-70) ‘his approach has been considered as traditional way

since its structure is parallel with grammar and lexical teaching method On the

other band, being more relevant lo communicative perspeutives, in top-down method, the segmemals ae followed by the suprasegmental features which are considered as the main trend in pronunciation teaching (Celce-Murcia, 2001) Indeed, over the last 25 years, suprascgmentals are bemg emphasized in pronunciation teaching and leaming (Morley, 1991) Anderson Lsieh and Koehler (1988) as cited in Field (2005) stated in their findings that suprasegmentals might be the main factor adversely affecting comprehension rather than segmentals So far, language teachers are strongly encouraged to prioritize the prosodic features in

pronunciation teaching and leaming Nevertheless, according to McNemey and

Mendelsohn (1992: 186) as ciled in Celec-Murcia (1996-10), suprasegientals

should he focused first and foremost for the short-term promumciation course instead

of segmentals, but the authors did not mention which level of learners should be suitable for such method As it is said before, the subject in this study is adult

learners whose level is clemenlary — the [rst slage in Ihe process of acquiring foreign language and it is also said that the initial step in learning Knelish speech

should be focused on individual vowel and consonant sounds (Yule, Ioffman and

Damico, 1987 as cited in Shankar, 2010) Additionally, Saito (2007:20) firmly

emphasized the significance of sound awareness In his assumption, the messages in communication might still be conveyed even speakers make mistake of prosodic

features, however, if certain sounds such as in minimal pairs are mispronounced, iL

might cause the misunderstanding between interlooutors and lead to communication

disruption later Shared the ideas of Riney (2005), Saito also points out that in her

study, phonetics is (heir major medium to evahmite studenis’ speaking abilily and

individual sounds is the core that should be focused mostly He further stated that

segmentals should be prioritized in teaching English prommeiation in the case of

Japan — a nation (hat local dialect is a dominant language Likewise, in Vietnam, English is still the foreign language which in fact is not used on daily basis, learners

do not have many chances to praclice English m the real-hfe situalions So, it is believed that segmental features would be suitable for teaching pronunciation in

Vietnamese context due to the similarity of predominant mother tongue between

Vietnam and Japan Moreover, the in the context of this study, the subjects are at

the level of elementary are assumed to be suitable with segmental teaching,

1.2 Phonetics and Phonology

1.2.1 Phonetics

Phonetics is a study of human speech sounds which is concemed with various aspects relevant to the physical characteristics of sounds Typically, (1) physiological production is the main concem of the Articulalory phonetics area — the study of the production of speoch sounds by the attioulators and vocal tract by

the speaker (2) Acoustic properties, the major characteristic of Acoustic phonetics,

deals with the transtnisston of speech sounds from the speaker to the hstener (3)

Auditory perception, relevant to the process of reception and perception of speech

sounds by the listener is the remarkable feature of the study Auditory phonetics

“tip” and “dip” differ only in their initial sound, “cab” and “cap” differ only in their

final sound Tn general, il can be said thal when talking about how phonemes function in language, and the relationships among the different phonemes when,

in other words, it is studied the abstract side of the sonnds of language, it is studied

arelated but different subject that it is called phonology (Roach, 2010)

Regarding the phonemes, it camot be excluded the allophones notion

Aunallophone is one of a sel of multiple possible spoken sounds (or phones) or signs

used to pronounce a single phonome in a paiticular language For example, |p"| (as

in “pot”) and [p’] (as in “speak”) are allophones for the phoneme /p/ in Linglish It

also can be said that allophones are the concept when a phoneme is conditioned by

the sounds around it or by its position in the word That is also the reason why

students should be aware of some certain allophone rules in order to have an

intelligibly pronunciation Nevertheless, before investigating in more details about allophone rules, it is necessary to figure out the articulatory phonetics concept since this study aims at finding how articulatory phonetics teaching and leaming influences on Isarners’ pronunciation skills For thal reason, articulatory phonetics will be presented as the following part

physically produced Speech organs or articulators (as shown in Figure 1) included lips, teeth, tongue, alveolar ridge (the bony ridge behind the upper teeth), hard palate (the bony dome constituting the roof of the mouth), velum, or soft palate (the

soft tissue immediately behind the tongue; when raised, it forces all air through the mouth; lowered, it allows air through the nose), uvula (the soft appendage hanging

from the velum), pharynx (the back wall of the throat behind the tongue), larynx

(containing the vocal cords) and glottis (the part of the throat that contains the vocal

cords and the narrow opening between them)

l

Figure 1 The organs of speech

According to Dalton and Seidhofer (1994, pp.128-129), the knowledge of the

sound productions (phonetics) and the imperative sounds in relevant languages

(phonology) should be taught clearly and explicitly Regarding the phonetics area,

awareness-building activities are used to help leamers acknowledge the articulation

as well as the movements of articulators in the process of making English sounds

Catford (1987, p.99) emphasized the significance of “precisely teaching” of

students’ vocal organs in the process of producing the intelligible sounds

Nevertheless, Kenworthy (1987, p.69) also reminds teachers and students that perceiving directions about what to do with articulators is completely strange and

weird to people Hence, in her book, she stated that there are some postures and

movements of the vocal cords that learners could easily recognize and control

Contact between the tongue and the roof of the mauth: whether the tip of the tongue

is touching a part of the roof of the mouth, or whether the back of the tongue is

{Kenworth, 1987; Dalton & Seidhofer, 1989)

The fimdamental issues above is suitable for the teaching and learning

context of the study whose subjects are adult fearners with the level of elementary

By showing them the diagrams of lips shapes, the tongue movements and the combinations with other speech organs, learner might aware of the way how to control their articulators and pronounce English more inteligibly aflerwards

In the view of phonetics, in fact, both foreign consonants and vowels might

render Janguage learners confused bul in lens of leamimg and leaching

pronunciation, consenants are often paid more attention than vowels, Indeed, one of the reasons why leamers pronounce unintelligibly is the way they put their tongue

not in the right place, the shape of lips or other speech organs combinations they

make incorrectly causing the misunderstanding between interlocutors Moreover, articulatory phonetics is much relevant to place and manner of articulations which is

referred fairly in consonants comprehension rather than vowels Hence, in the scope

of this study, the author will focus on the consonants issues and its main features will be discussed later

1.4 English Consonants

Consonant is a specch sound that is articulated with complete or partial

closure of the air stream by a constriction of the speech organs According to

Richard (1997), a consonant is (he sound where the aw strcam [rom the lurygs is

completely blocked (STOP), or partially blocked (LATERAL) or where the opening

is so narrow that the air escapes with audible fiction (FRICATIVE) Another kind

of consonants (NASALS) the air stream is blocked in the mouth but allowed to

escape through the nose

Consonanls are formed by inlerrupling, restricting or diverting The airllow im many ways ‘They can be divided into different kinds in accordance with three categories, ie the degree of vocal cord vibration, the place and the manner of

articulation In terms of vibration of vocal cords, if certain consonants involve,

which will be called voiced and the others are voiceless (Kelly, 2000, pp.5-7)

1.4.1 The place of articulation

The place of articulation focuses on Ihe interachion between articulalors It defines both the area of the oral-pharyngeal vocal tract where the constriction is

made and the part of the tongue used to form the constriction Consonants in terms

of this classification are bilabial, labio-dental, denial, alveolar, palato-alveolar,

palatal, velar and glottal (Kelly, 2000)

Bilabials: are the sounds made by using the upper lips and the

lower lips pressed togelher or coming together

Labio-dentals: are the sounds made by using the lower lip and the

upper front teeth

Dentals: are the sounds made by using the tip or the blade of the

tongue touching the upper teeth

Alveolars: are the sounds made by using the tip or the blade of the

tongue touching or approaching the alveolar ridge

Palato-alveolars: are the sounds made by using the tip or the blade of the

tongue coming close to the area between the back of the

alveolar ridge and the front of the hard palate

Palatal: is the sound made by using the front of the tongue

coming close to the hard palate Velars: are the sounds made by using the back of the tongue

touching the soft palate

Glotlals: are the sounds which are produced wilhoul the active

use of the tongue and other parts of the mouth.

1.4.2 The manner of articulation

he manner of articulation refers to the interaction between the articulator’s acl in the way thal (he air is lemporarily trapped, and then suddenly released Consonants classified based on the manners of articulation are plosive, fricative, affricate, nasal, lateral and approximant (Kelly, 2000)

Plosive: a complete closure which is made somewhere in the

voval tract, and the soft palate is raised Air pressure inoreases behind the closure, and is then released

“explosively”

lricative: a continuant sound made by two articulators coming

close together but there is still a small opening between

Affricative a complete closure which is started by a plosive and

immediately lollowed by a frivative The soll palate is

also raised Au pressure increases behind the closure,

and is then released more slowly than in plosives

Nasal a closure is made by the lips, or by the tongue agamst

the palate, the soft palate is lowered, and air escapes

through the nose

Lateral a pattial closure is made when the air-stream is

obstructed at a point along the center of the oral tract,

with incomplete closure between one or both sides of the tongue and the roof of the mouth,

Approximant: a frictionless continuant in the production of which two

arliculators come close Logether but without the vocal

tract being narrowed to such an extent that a friction

noise is produced

1.4.3 The degree of vocal cord vibration

Voicing is also one of the main categories when describing consonants ‘The

vooal folds may be held against each other at just the right tension so that the air

flowing past them from the lungs will cause them to vibrate against each other The process is called voicing Sounds that are made with vocal fold vibration are said to

be voiced

Sound made without vocal fold vibration are said to be voiceless ‘There are several pairs of sounds in English which differ only in voicing that is, the two sounds have identical places and manners of articulation, but one has vocal fold vibration and the other does not, for instance: /p, b / or /k, g/ ‘The table below

showed the English consonants in terms of the three characteristics

PLAGE, MANNER |VOKENG mu, tests | morona! Avsosr | Pots | vider | itl

Imowledge in order to help students aware of the phonetic issues in the real

conversations

Allophones, as mentioned above, are phonetic variants of a phoneme in a language, which do not make any changes of the word meaning Yet, they play orucial roles making the conversation smoothly and intelligibly Therefore, students should be provided this part of the knowledge to have a better pronunciation competence Since this study focuses on the fricative, affricative and initial clusters,

the students would be perceived the relevant allophones rules which were based on

Ladefoged (2001, p.56)

- Obstruent — stop and fricatives — classified as voiced (', d, 3, v, 4, 3) are voiced through only a small part of the articulation when they occur at the end of an uiterance (as /v/ m “try to improve”) or before a voiceless sound

(as /d! in “add neo”)

- Voiced stops and affricates b, d, z, d3/ are voiceless when syllable mitial, except when mmediately preceded by a voiced sound

- The approximant Av, r, j, V are a least partially voiceless when they occur after initial /y, t, k/ Hg: pray, cute, class

- Foiceless stops ‘p, t, k/ are not aspirated after is at the beginning of a

LS Action research

Action research is a popular research method in the current development of society Many well-known scholars have a number of different ideas regarding the aclion rescarch

According to Nunan, D (1992, p.18), action research is “a descriptive case study of a particular classroom, proups of learners or even a single leamer counts as

action research if it is initiated by a question, is supported by data and interpretation, and is carried out by a practitioner investigating aspects of his or her

own context and situations” This definition shows that in order te carry oul an

action research, the teacher must be a practitioner who must identify the problem that her/his class encounter, and then cary out a plan to solve the problem

Another definition given by Kemmis & McTaggart (1982): “action research

can be defined as a combination of ‘action’ and ‘research’ Action research puts

ideas into practice for self-improvement and increasing knowledge about cumculum, teaching and learung The ultimate result is improvermert in what happens in the classroom and school” In other words, the research or the teacher

must do the research — find out what the problem of the class and then take an achon lo overcome such difficulties

“Action research is a strategy for teacher to make changes and develop

professionally by reflecting on their own everyday teaching” (Wallace, 1998: 16)

Wallace believed thal via action research conducled by teachers, they will become

expert gradually in their teaching area Although each expert has their own

defimtion about action research, iL can be concluded that action research is cared

out with the aim of solving the practical problems in a classroom which will be suitable for this study

In this study, the methodology of the research will follow the model of

Kemmis and Mc Taggart (1988) which is composed of four phases:

- Planning: a problem or issue is identified and a plan of action is developed in

order to bring about improvements in specific areas of the research context

- Action: the plan is to put into action over an agree period of time

- Observation: the effects of the action are observed and data are collected

- Reflection the effecis of the action are evalualed become the basis for

further cycles of research.

CHAPTER TWO: METHODOLOGY

This chapter provides a detailed discussion of methodological design of the study including: the selting of the shudy, participants, rescarch methods and research

instruments

2.1, Setting of the study

2.1.1 Step Up English center

The research project was conducted in Step Up Linglish Center which was founded in 2011 and is specialized with Pronunciation, Communication and TOEIC

course Being a teacher al Step Up, the

carcher has been working there since

2014 and her specialization is teaching Promunciation

2.1.2 Pronunciation course

The pronunciation course is designed for begitmers as well as learners at Ihe

elementary level The duration for the course was 1] weeks, 2 lessons for each week and 2 hours for each lesson which included the entry test and the final test (the first and the final session in the course were uscd to exam and evaluate students’

pronunciation competences) ‘I'he schedule of the course will be implemented as the

followings: Ihe first 7 weeks are about consonants, 2 weeks later are for vowels and

the rest are for suprasegmental features as Stress, Linking & Elision and Intonation Llowever, because this study is focused on the consonant issues only, so the

duration for the research will be conducted within the first, 7 weeks of the course

Studying about the consonant, the leamers will be taught how to use their articulators in order to pronounce the intelligible consonant sounds

Articulatory phonetics teaching will be the major theme for the whole stage

of teaching and learning consonants Hach session, students were taught from two to four sounds, usually the pair of voiced and voiceless sounds The teacher gave the articulatory descriptions of cach sound first, helped learners to control their articulators to produce intelligible sounds Students had time to practice by

themselves and teacher corrected the mistakes for each of them if necessary

The syllabus that the teacher used simullancously are “Pronumeialion im Use”, elementary level by Jonathan Marks (2007) and “Pronunciation Workshop

Training Program” by Panl S Gruber, MS, CCC — SIP" (2005) Although

“Pronunciation in Use” were for British accent while the latter was for American

accent, the research chose the two material for two reasons: first, the theoretical

descriptions about the phonology, articulatory phonetics or the related orthography

in the “Pronunciation in Use” were quite explicit and easy to understand but for the

practicing, “Pronunciation workshop” had a number of practical benefits The

syllabus included the visual description regarding how to use the tongue, shape of

the lips and other articulators performed by the author himself The contents in the tutorial videos were firmly related with the syllabus, the teacher used the videos as a

supplementary material in order to explain the sound production mechanism, In

addition, to minimize the abstract notions, the teacher used a website published by

the University of Iowa, USA showing the lively animation of oral anatomy and it thoroughly played a crucial role m the whole course

Figure 2 Sounds of speech animation application

The American sounds were illustrated apparently in this website in both

‘animation with sound’ and ‘step-by-step description’, examples and a visual model

were attached either It is said that in the process of acquiring the foreign language regarding articulatory phonetics, experiencing the visual materials are easy to

approach rather than reading the theories only Other supporting activities like:

games or songs were also included to boost up the quality of teaching and learning

2.2 Participants

here were 10 participants in the group under study ‘hey were aged from

19 to 30 and the English was al elementary level Seven of them were students

from different universities in Ha Noi in which major subjects at thei school were not related to the Inglish language while the rest was working people who

sometimes had to use Fnglish to work with their foreign colleagues These

informants were coded as from Al to A10 and they could be called as the false

beginners — the learners have already studied some English in the past, mostly at

school for a sumber of years since English is an obligatory subject in the

Vietnamese educational system from the elementary to the tertiary level Although

these learners have usually had some contact with English since their school years,

bul [eel that they have litle command of the language and therefore want to begin

“from the top”

Pronunciation is the first stage in their process of acquiring English which

will be the fundamental for further study After Promumeialion course, depending on each learner’s purpose, s/he might be willing to improve the oral or literal skills but

no maller which skill ihey want lo enhance, pronunciation is the very first initial step that any language leamers should master beforchand

2.3 Research methods

2.3.1 Problem identification

Problems were identified by conducting the entry test Hach of the student was requested to take an oral test with the teacher in a separated room It took about

15 minutes for each student to be examined and received the feedback from the

teacher ‘ask (see appendix 1) in the entry test was reading out loud a passage which might help the researcher assess the learners’ pronunciation competence in

general The pa sage was Laken from the syllabus of the course and the video scripis

of the passage was uscd as the standard tool for the analysis of the students’ performance Student’ reading was recorded and then compared to the model

pallens,

The purpose of the reading, passage was to find out students’ common mistake in producing individual sounds and the results had shown that the subjects

had difficulties in fricative as in /0, 6, J, 3/ and affricative sounds /tf, d3/ Some

cases of clusters in the entry test as “student”, “from”, “study”, “problem”,

“private”, “spend”, “studying”, “speak” were mispronounced by some of the subjects

2.3.2 Planning

The research was carried out within seven weeks in total There were two pronunciation sessions for cach week Each session lasted lwo hours The rescarch

also included the entry test and final test which were conducted at the begiming and

al the end of the course Four mini tesis were also added Lo check students’ progress Each mini test was conducted after every two sessions The researcher

chose clusters as the matter which was under investigated in mini tests since the scarcity of practicing time in class

1 1 Pronunciation - Brief introduction regarding the purposes and

introduction aims of he course

& Entry test — - Entry test: each student was requested to

check individually with teacher in a separated room The task was reading oul loud.a passage taken from the text book of the course

bo Sounds: #/, 17 - Helped stadents how to be able to pronounce

the target sounds

- Words: “read, carrot, car, write; lion, golden, pull’,

= Sentences: “Brown is very rich; Clara is clever but Tula is a litle silly”

- Cluster introduction: students were given 18

examples of consonant combined wilh the /t/

sound For example “bring, break, cry, create; draw, drive; free

- Exercise practice: students were requested to

praclice 8 sotitenices related to the 6 slucied sounds and 2 consonant cluster groups

(appendix 3)

tà 3 Sounds: fw/_- Helped students how Lo be able to pronounce

AL fey Clusters: /kr/,

AV, fox’, /gU

Mini-test 1 fast, fur’, (EU,

Je, I3k/, /spi,

sư

the target sounds and clusters

- Words: “will, away, kick, ago, create, cream, clock, clap, great, green, globe, glad”

- Sontences: “Kate will make a cake for Mike,

Go to get my glasses”

- Exercise practice: (appendix 3)

- Students were provided a handout with clusters related to consoremis they had learned

in the previous sessions with the sound /1/, /V/ Hach issue had 6 words and 2 sentences Kor example, “cry cream, grade, group”, “The cradle has cracked, Great hopes make great man” (see more in appendix 2)

- ‘The cluster group “s + stop” was also under investigation with he samme nanbor of words and sentences (appendix 2) For example,

“school, seore, sky”, “You shouldn't wear a long scarf when siding: Ile goes to school by seooter” (see more in appendix 2),

Sounds: /s/, fal

entances: “T saw a small snake in the sea,

“Buzz” is sounds of bees”

- Exercise practice: (appendix 3)

Sounds: / {8

- Exercise practice: (appendix 3)

+ Sentences: “This thrilling novel was based on

the series: “Game of throne”; Thirty-three is bigger than three; Can you eat spinach salad

with a spoon? She was reading bedtime story

- Helped students how Lo be able to pronounce

the target sounds and clusters

- Words: “five, symphony, voice, oven,

mission, dish, vision, beige”

- Semtences: “ive funny frogs were fighting;

Sharon shouldn't wash her shoes im the

showers”

- A listening drill with the content of minimal pairs was applied to help students distinguish the sound /{/ and /s/ 8 pairs of words in which Jsi and if/ were in initial, middle and end of words presented Students were asked to listen

to the video lwice and then checked by the

teacher: /mes/-/mef/, /sair/ - /foir/, /su:/- 4u:/, /sip/ - /ÍIp/, /fast/ - /fift/,

/gœs/ - igœ[[, !gAst/ - /gAƒt/, /si:p!

— /fixp/ (the material were taken from “The sound of American English” by Rachell English)

- Fxcreise practice: (apporidix 3)

- Words: “mom, not, thank”

- Scuteuces: “Mom made me move; Naney needs a needle and some noodle”

- Exercise practice: (appendix 3)

- Words: “freeze, fraction, sport, spend, spilt”

- Sentences: “Fruil are free on Friday; Flashed

cards is an effective way to study new words; Axe there speed limits in Spain?; She likes to put lots of spices on top of the spaghetti” (see more in appendix 2)

Clusters; /pr/, ipl, Abe’, Pole,

> Helped students how lo be able to pronounce the target sounds and clusters

- Words: “pen, April, golden, invade, please,

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Arf, apf, is brillant, blue, tree, space, slick”

- Sentences: “Pal put purple paint in the pool,

Tom and Tim are twins”

- Exercise practice: (appendix 3)

Sounds: stf/, sal, fil, An

- Helped students how to be able to pronounce the targel sounds and cluslers

- Words: “cheese, teacher, job, cage, yogurt,

hometown”

- Scnteuces: “Which child put chalk on the teacher’s chair?, Ginger wanted to arrange to send her higgage to Japan”

- Exercise practice: (appendix 3)

from the Sun; Most students often stay up late;

Ts bard lo sce stars in the slorm” (soe more in appendix 2)

Final test - In the test, there were six cases of the sound

466 “Shings, wilh (appeared two limes), Ihank, everything”; nine cases of the sound /&/: “other

(appeared two times), theso, the, they (appeared four times), then”, seven cases of the sound /S/:

“British (appeared four times), patient, shop (appeared two times)”, three cases of the sound

// “change, cappuccino, chocolate”; four

of cluster group: “consonant — -1/-1": six cases

of cluster group “s + slop” Since there were Ho cases related to the sound /3/, the leacher added four sentences including that sound in the test (appendix 4)

2.3.3 Actions

Table 2 Teaching plans

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In the phase of action, the planning was put into practice The teacher used

articulatory phonetics instructions to teach pronunciation in seven weeks During

those severt weeks, order of steps in every session was the samc The specilie order

was described as follows:

Tirstly, the target sounds of the session were given The teacher instructed smidents how to use articulators to produce the sounds properly For example, in session 6, the target sounds were /€/ and /8/ ‘Ihe instructions were: the tongue tip made light contact with the hack of the top, front teeth and the soft palate were

raised When producing /@/, the air could be pushed through the gap belween the

tongue tip and the front teeth, which created audible frictional turbulence While /8/ was voiced, there was no clear air forced coming out from the mouth as /0/ sound —

diagrams, videos, games and songs were applied im some sessions For example, in

session 2, to help students to pronounce the word “girl”, the teacher played a music video named “Kiss the girl” In the video, the singer showed her mouth position

very clearly, so the students could understand more easily

Finally, in the last 15 minute of each lesson, the teacher gave a handout containing nine sentences of six studied sounds and two groups of clusters Student

worked in pairs, each student in each pair took turn to read ont loud the contents

During their practice, the teacher noted down each student’s errors and mistakes

The students were checked by each other and the teacher only corrected the errors

for the part of knowledge that they had been taught, others the teacher have not

miry and final test, [our for rmm-t

the same method: informants were asked to checked individually with the teacher in

a separated room While the informant read out loud, the teacher checked, noted

down the errors and recorded the data by using audio recorder It took approximately about 10 minutes for the informant to finish the task After that, teacher spent aboul 7 minutes to explained the errors for the student

Since the study focused on the 3 pairs of sounds and initial consonant clusters The following, section will give a detailed description about the articulatory phonetic instructions applied in the course:

2.3.3.1 Fricatives /0, ð/

Students were requested to stick the tongue out between the teeth and

shghtly bite down The only contacting: point belween the tongue and the front teeth

must be the tip of the tongue, then blew the air friction and maintained the status for

awhile The trick was “holding the sound for a long time”, it helped leamers get

familiar with putting the tongue out of the mouth, which was ullerly different, [rom

the Vietnamese sounds students must avoid touching the roof of the mouth with the

front or center of the tongue For example, thank /Sank/ Instead of pronouncing the

6! and coming to the latier sound right away, students should produce aud maintain

a long air friction in about five seconds before coming to the vowel Actions for producing the sound /8/ were the same, the only different thing was the vocal cords wore vibrated when producing that sound

2.3.3.2 Fricatives /J, 3/

The tongue tip pointed upwards towards the roof of the mouth but not touched iL The air wes forved to push oul through the gap belween the Longue and

the teeth, which created audible frictional turbulence The lips should be rounded

/a} had the same production pattern The vocal cords were vibrated which made the

sonnd was voiced while the former was voiceless

2.3.3.3 Alfricativcs /tf, d3/

The front of the tongue contacted the alveolar ridge building up an obstruction to the air to come out The lips slightly come forward Air pressure built

up behind the obstruction was released by Towering the tenygue and il was followed

by frictional noise which associated with fricative portion of the sound Teacher

gave each student a thin card put in front of their mouth In the process of producing

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the sound, if the card was moved by the air friction, the sound was made accurately

The way to make the sound /dg/ was the same as /A/ but the vocal cords were

vibrated

2.3.3.4 Initial consonant clusters

Initial consonant clusters under investigated in this study were the two big groups: (1) “consonant + -1/-1” and (2): “s + stop”

Regarding the cluster group (1), the students were told to decrease the strength of the former consonant, arliculation and quickly move lo the latter one The dogrce of the strongth of the latter consonant must be remained or even exaggerated a little

About cluster group (2) The quick glide from the /s/ to the stop was used to But it was noticed that the stop in this cluster was an unaspirated sound Kor example, “speak” /spi:k/, /p’ was a stop which was aspirated strongly in the initial

and final position, however, when it was the sound after the initial /s/ in a cluster,

the stop must be unaspirated So the word “speak” should be pronounced as [sp°:k]

In session 2, in the part of consonant cluster introduction, the teacher gave students a manber of cluster werds including the cluster “tr” as im “ree” To pronounce the cluster, a trick was applicd as following: teacher changed the transcription [tri:] into [t[ri:] It now contained three parts as (a): Af’, (bỳ: 4/ and (e}:

Ad Firstly, students were requested to aspirate Af/ strongly Tn order lo ease the situation, the subjects were taught that to produce the Af/ sound, the method was the

same as the one to produce the sound 4g/ in Vietnamese but with a strong ar

friction When students got used to pronounce the strong aspiration /L/, in the nex

stage, the students wore taught to pronounce (a) less strongly but they had to glide

to articulate (b) strongly and clearly It should be liked [tfr] And then they just added (c) with the combination By this trick, the students could pronounce the /t/

clearly which was thoroughly different with the sounds in northern Vietnam This

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also helped them to pronounce the /t{/ sound more intelligibly right in the begimaing,

of the course

Cluster “dr” as in “dream” had the same pattern However, it was fine if it

could be pronounced as [drim] or [d3ri:m] ‘The teacher introduced that as the reference for the students

2.4, Research instruments

The most significant instrument to collect the data in this research was tests Concerning the mini-tests, they were designed with the same structure ‘There were six words and two sentences for each cluster Normally it were six clusters and the group (2) was always being examined Students had one or two minutes to have a quick look al the handout and were checked right after Final test was quile differen

as the task was reading out loud a passage taken from the reference book of the

course tamed “English File” (3% edition), elementary level The passage was

chosen with the reason: it contained a large number of imtal consonant clusters

which was suitable for checking the informants’ pronunciation on this area It also

ticluded the most of the studisd sounds excopl the sound /3/ Tn thal casc, the

research added four sentences including the largel sound to have the data [or analysis later

More specifically, to collect and analyze the data in the entry test, final test

and olher mini-tosts previsely, audio-recording was used TL was barely possible to

remember all the information and data retrieved from the research so the researcher

chose audio-recording as a supportive tool to collect the data Data analysis in this

study relied on the pronunciation abilily of cach informant so the quality of dala needed high precision Moreover, it was believed using audio-recording was more

effective rather than using video-recording because the “hand-held” for a lang Lime

to record the data was quite inconvenient (Wallace, 2001, p.107) Students sometimes had a bad reaction while being filmed which might influence the nature

of the research This caused the maccurate results of the data Like any kind of

recording, audio-recording helped the research to store the “alive” data which

means that it was always available for the researcher whenever she wanted to access the data,

Observation was another tool to collect the data im the whole research

However, it was utilized strongly in the practicing time students were practicing

six sentences including the six studied sounds and three sentences for the two

chisters groups (two for each issue in “consonant | -r/-I", and one for “s | stop”) in

the last 15 minutes in each session There was an observation sheet for each of students, and the teacher observed and noted down all the errors and mistakes made

by them:

To do these above techniques, note-taking was certainly used to

acknowledge the leamers’ studying process Although audio-recording was a worth

look to collec! the data, to case the analysis, instant note-lakmg played a significant

role to help the researcher remind the crucial feature And in the final phase of the

research, the data were easily generated to see the studying development of the

subjects

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