Luận văn hiết kế bài tập bổ trợ dạy phụ Âm tắc xát dựa trên giáo trình english pronunciation in use của mark hancock cho sinh viên năm thứ nhất chuyên anh tại trường cđsp lạng sơn

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES ate ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ PHẠM THANH MAI DESIGNING SUPPLEMENTARY EX

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HA NOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

ate

ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ PHẠM THANH MAI

DESIGNING SUPPLEMENTARY EXERCISES

IN TEACHING AFFRICATIVE SOUNDS THROUGH THE BOOK “ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION IN USE”

BY MARK HANCOCK TO THE FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH MAJOR

STUDENTS AT LANG SON TEACHERS’ TRAINING COLLEGE

THIET KE BAI TAP BO TRG DAY PHU AM TAC XAT DUA TREN GIAO TRINH

“ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION IN USE” CUA MARK HANCOCK CHO SINH VIEN NAM

THU NHAT CHUYEN ANH TAI TRUONG CDSP LANG SON

(M.A MINOR THESIS)

Field: English Methodology

Code: 60 14 10

Supervisor: Dr Dương Thị Nụ

Hanoi, 2010

Scope of the study

5 Methods of the study

6, Design of the study

Parl B DEVELOPMENT

Chapter I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

1.1 Teaching pronunciation "—

1.1.1, Importance of teaching pronunciation in KL teaching

1.1.1 Problems in teaching pronunciation

1.2 Affiricalive sounds

1.2.1, Definition 1.2.2, Description of affiicative sounds 1.2.3 Leamers’ problems with affricates

1.2.3.1 Distribution! Absence of sounds

1.3.1 What is Materials Evaluation

1.3.2 Criteria for Materials Evaluation

viii

1.3.2.3 Criteria by Hutchinson & Walters "1 12 1.3.3 Types of Evaluation TH rerrrrerrrrrrrrrerrreiie 13

Chapter I: THE STUDY .cseccsseccssteesreeseeesereise etter 17

3.1.3, Activities and exercises ào enoeirererieneoes 3U

3.2 Proposed supplementary exercises

3.3 Suggestions for teachers and answer key " "—

Part C CONCLUSION

1 Conclusion 39

VNU

ULIS:

LIST OF ABBREVIATION

English Foreign Language

Information Conumunication Technology

Lang Son Teachers’ training College Master of Arts

Overhead Projector Presentation, Practice, Production

Received Pronunciation Viet Nam National University

University of Language & Intemational Studies

LIST OF FIGURES, CHARTS AND TABLES

‘The position of the tongue in the production of /ƒ7 and /dz/

Section of stop phase of Af, d3/

Frequency students dealt with pronunciation at high school Students’ exposurs of spoken English in class

Students’ views on the importance of pronunciation

Students’ purposes of pronunciation

Frequency of sludents* prommeiation practice Methods of students’ promunciation practice

‘The ways students de exercises Students? ability in reading phonemic transcription Students? ability in writing phonenue transcription

‘The sounds students find the most difficult’ the easiest to pronounce

Possible final clusters with affticative sounds Students’ difficulties in speaking inglish

Students’ evaluation lo the cumrcni eoursebook

Table 4: Student’s choices of correct sounds

Despite the importance of pronunciation and teaching pronunciation to EFL students, this aspect is Icss taken into consideration and takes much of teachers’ ignorance in the EFL classes - an idea shared by Kelly (1996) who dubs pronunciation the “Cinderella” area of

forcigm language (oaching This fuel affects students! learting and they lake Hills concer for

pronunciation Consequently, many students have poor nowledge of this aspect They often

make mistakes in articulating Linglish sounds and they find it difficult to capture correct prommeiation

The above- mentioned matters are really true to the English teaching and Icaming

situation in Lang Son teachers’ training college (LSTC) Many English major students have

trouble with pronunciation, especially wilh the English sounds As a resull, there are various

problems arising to the students Firstly, because of the differences between sound systems of

English and Vietnamese, some [nglish sounds do not exist in Vietnamese and vice versa and thus many students do not know how to correctly pronounce some certain sounds such as /6/, /B/, /1/, [85f Mf 75f and some other vowels Secondly, “each sound of English is

represented by mare ikan one wrilten letter or by sequences of letters” and “any letter of

English represents more than one sound, or it may not represent any sound ar afl” (Paul,

1991:5) for example /t[/ in chip, future, watch : /d3/ in jam, general, age, fridge or ig/ in

giggle, /5/ ingigolo, /d3/ ingiani ., the confusion among some sounds dy, 2/, “¥ or / Jf, is! frequently happens to these students who can scarcely be able to clearly distinguish these sounds from others

It's belicved that this problematic issue results from teachers’ ignoranec and the fact that they wonder what and how to teach ‘he teachers entirely depend on the course book and there is almost no creation or supplemenlary exercises for students’ practice, Tiesides, the teachers sometimes find it really difficult to apply the exercises in order to help students with pronunciation practice These crucial factors restriet students to improve their knowledge of

pronunciation

To solve the problem, some rescarchers have designed pronunciation syllabuses for

their own colleges In LSI'C, the book “Pronunciation in Use” written by Mark Hancock 1s

used as course book, Tlowever, there are orily 45 periods of the whole caurse for thts subject

30 it is impossible to cover all the features of pronunciation From the fact that the students’

“inaccurate of a phoneme can lead to misunderstanding” (G Kelly, 2006: 11) and that sound

is considered as the core of language, the system of English sounds is chosen as prior part prescnted to students But the system of English sound exposes problems to students as stated above, Therefore, the researcher decides to choose a particular pair of English sounds - affticales - which challenge students when they are dealing with Ihe system of English sounds in order to make an attempt to design the supplementary exercises for these consonants with the hope that it can help improve students” pronunciation, bring about the teachers”

2 Aims of the study

From the faet of teaching and leamme pronunciation in EFL classes, there apparently exist limitations for both teachers and learners when dealing with this aspect, With the hope of bringing shout » stall contribution to the maller of leaching and learning promaneiation in her own situation of researcher’s, the study aims to:

- Address a particular pair of Linglish sounds: ‘Ihe affticates

- Make some contrastive analysis of English and Viemamese consonant sounds,

+ Find oul the diffieultics studonts mool whon pronomcing affticative sounds Aff and fils)

- Evaluate the course book “ English Pronunciation in Use” in terms of a single section

“Letters and sounds”

+ Propose a cerlain number of exercises on affiieate sounds for the frst - year English major students at LSTC

3 Research questions

To target the aims of the study, the following research questions are addressed:

(1) What ditticulties do students have in dealing with aflticative sounds?

(2) How suitable is the system of English sound in the course book “English Pronunciation in Use” for English major students at LSTC?

(3) What are supplementary exercises for afticative sounds?

4 Scope of the study

Obviously, prommeiation covers different features: sogmenlals (individual sounds) and suprasegmentals ( intonation and stress) We must bear in mind that the sounds are considered

as the preliminary enquiry in teaching and learning pronunciation and they are also concemed

in teaching other aspect like vocabulary or teaching spcaking skill However, the rescarcher does not have ambition to include the whole English sound system because it is a really time- consuming and complex matter Otherwise, the researcher would like lo take only alfticates - two complex consonant sounds - which cause difficulties for students to do a different job from the previous researchers": design the supplementary exercises with the hope that it could

be not only an improvement in reality of teaching and learning pronunciation but also the sample to design exercises for teaching other sounds in the situation of LSTC and of teachers" whe are concemed with the same situation,

5 Methods of the study

The researcher, in this study, applies both quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze the data which are collected by means of questionnaire to both teachers and students

in LSTC and the interviews to the Leachers only i order to explore the aims of the study

help LVL learners” practice is used Additionally, method of document analysis is also employed to fulfill the sturly

6 Design of the study

The study comprises three main parts, together with appendices:

Part A is treated as the Introduction of the study addressing rationale, aims of the study, the research questions, scope, method as well as design of the study

Part B is considered as the main content of ths study Tt consists of three chapters

Chapter I reviews sheoretical buckyrowsd relating to the importance and problems of teaching and learning pronunciation, Besides, all about afiticatives sounds is also mentioned such as the description of affticatives and learners’ problems with these sounds The third scction in this chapter refers to Matcrial Evaluation Material adaptation is elcarly displayed in

Part B

DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

1.1 Teaching pronunciation

With the rise of conmumicative approach in language leaching, pronunciation has so far occupied a considerable place in EFL classes as it has direct influence on learners’ communicative competence as well as performance to a substantial extent ‘herefore, it would

bo a mistake if there is ne montion of various issues relating to leaching pronunciation to

foreign language learners

1.1.1 Importance of teaching pronunciation in EFL teaching

Among the different subjects in English language teaching, pronunciation is

considered as an important component since it is “a primary medium for communication of

information about ourselves as individual and ax representatives of different groups”

(Ponmmgton, 1996:2) This idea is also shared by Slevick (1978, qnoted in Pennington, 1996-2): * promuviation is the primary medium through which we bring our use of language

to the attention of other people”

It is a common vicw that correct promumeiation is necessary for a spcaker to

communicate A leamer who consistently mispronounces a range of phonemes can be extremely difficull for a speaker from another language community 1a understand (Kelly,

2006:11) The consequence in which a learners of foreign language 1s not understood when

they articulate something make his process of learning meaningless I'tms, according to Kelly (2006), it can be “very frustrating far the learner wha may have a good command af grammar

and lexis but have difficulty in understanding and being understood by a native speaker.”

Apparently, the effects of pronunciation on the successfiil learning output are so significant thal teaching protuncialion is deservedly put in high position in leaching language

Hence, for many recent years, teaching pronunciation has been taken into account due to the

changes in the purpose of foreign language learning in general and English in particular

several researches carried om by Llayeraft (1971), Kenworthy (1987), Brown (1991),

Pennington (1996), Kelly (2000), have apprecialed the role of teaching promuneiation in

EFL teaching because of different reasons However, the author of ths thesis highly agrees

with Kelly - an expert at teaching pronunciation - who ascertains the importance of teaching

pronunciation as follows: “4 consideration of lewners’ pronunciation errors und of how these

can inhibit successful communication ts a useful basis on which to assess why it is important

to deal with pronunciation in the classroom” (Kally, 2000-11)

1.1.2 Problems in teaching pronunciation

In spite of the importance of pronunciation and teaching pronunciation to EFL

teaching, pronunciation is not paid attention by most of teachers, it is not thought to be

equated to grammar and vocabulary and it takes teachers and students’ ignorance

It is the fact that there are many problems arising in pronunciation teaching depending

on different Leaching silualions However, lwo key problems with pronunciation teaching

seem to be true to all situations Firstly, it tends to be neglected Secondly, when it is not

neglected, it tends to be reactive to a particular problem that has a risen in the classroom rather (han being stratzgically plamed (Kelly, 2000: 13)

To paraphrase the two key problems mentioned above, Kelly (2000: 13) has come into

a paradox: “The fact that promsnciatian tends to suffer from neglect may not be due ta teachers lacking intevest in the subject but rather to a feeling of doubt as to how to teach it

Many experienced teachers would admit 10 a lack of knowledge of the theory of prommeiation

and they may therefore feel the need to improve their practical skills in pronunciation teaching.” This author also points ont an absurdily that while prommeiation is a subject

bringing about the enthusiasm and benefit as it helps learners with better pronunciation, they

spend little concern learning this aspect and “their concern with grammar and vocabulary tends to take precedence.” Tle concludes this paradox with a stalement: “So, paradoxically,

even though both teachers and learners are keen onthe subject, it ix often neglected”

(Kelly, 2000: 13)

To summarize, the fact that the teachers wonder what and how to teach pronunciation

to their students is a noticeable problem because it is a determining factor towards the pronunciation learning output ‘Therefore, good ideas for classroom activities such as

suggested excreises, activiti sks, methods or approaches of izaching are considered as valuable resources for teachers to apply in their pronunciation teaching from which they can create the interesting and effective lessons of pronunciation

1.2 Affricative sounds

Although, English vowels exposure difficulties to Vietnamese learners, the researcher

has reasons lo mention English consonants since, according lo O’Conner’s, (1980: 24) “There

are hwo good reasons for beziminy with consonunis rather than vowels First, consonaris contribute more ta making English understood than vowels do Second, consonants are generally made by a definite interference of the vocal organs with the air stream, and so are

easy to describe and understaru?”

Among 24 consonant sounds in English, there are only 2 complex ones- affficates-

imcluding /{[/ as in chug ‘tfag/ and /dg/ as in jug ‘dgag/ ‘These afiticates are post- alveolar sounds in which /t{/ is unvoiced and fortis; /43/ is voiced and lenis

In order to make a clear deseription of these sounds, it is neccssary to give the

definition of Affricates

1.2.1 Definition

In this study, the author really appreciates Cruttenden’s definition He detines: “The

term ‘affricate’ denotes a cancept which is primarily of phonetic importance Any plosive whose release stage is performed in such a way that considerable friction occurs

affricative’ "(Cruttenden, 2001: 171) ‘Yo reach this definition, only 2 English sounds /t[/

and /d3/ are satisfactory

1.2.2 Description of Affricative sounds

Inthe descnpuon of affricalive sounds, the aulhor is willing to refer to three basic

characteristics:

the tongue and the upper alveolar ridge and side teeth Figure 1 illustrates the place of

articulation of affficates

Fig I: The position of the tongue in the production of It{/, and /d/

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

As Cruttendence’s description (2001: 176), in order to articulate /tf/ 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

Fig 2,3: Section of stop phase of /t{/, /dx/

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

Generally, voiceless sounds are mads without the vibration of vocal cords whereas voice sounds are the one produced with the vibration of vocal cords In the case of afflicative sounds, during both stop and fticative stages, the vocal folds are wide apart for /1[/, but may be vibraung for all or part of /ds/ according to the situation in the utterance, Thus, /1[/ is unvoiced and /ds/ is voiced

1.2.3, Learners' problems with affricates

1.2.3.1 Distribution/ Absence af sounds

‘As stated above, affticatss /1[ / & / dg / are two complex sounds in English They are complex in the way that they are sounds, in the progress of articulating, starting as stop

consonants and endiny Ñicalives

However, Vietmamese consonant system, according to Doan Thién Thuật (2003;153),

comprises three main categories of sounds: stops, nasal (sonants) and fricatives ‘his is an

indication that the Vietnamese consorantal mventory docs nol contain Lhe same consonants as

its English counterpart Particularly, the afficates do not exist in Vietnamese languages

Naturally, the manner of articulation of stops and fricatives is quite differ from that of

affricatives which Victnamesc speakers find it uncasy and unfamiliar to pronounce Instead,

they tend to make these sounds similar to the ones of their native language (such as they pronounce /t[/ as /t/ in vue & /¢/ in chua

Kelly (2000:58) supposes: “Sometimes the difficulties may be due to the absence of a

by Avery and Ehrlich as following: “ Difficulties may arise when a learner encounters sounds

in Linglish that are not part of the sound inventory of the learner’s native language” and “ the

pronunciation of sounds depends on the proper use of the musculature in the mouth Thus

aduit learners may be unable to produce new sounds because they have never exercised their

nrouth in particular way required ta pronounce certain English sounds” (Avery & Ebrlich,

1997: xv)

Tlence, the effective way to help learners to overcome this may be to help them practice as much as possible

1.2.3.2, Spelling pronunciation

Vietnamese is ons of so-called ‘phonetic’ languages as it has a high level

there is no case in which

correspondence between spelling and pronunciation In Vietnam

a letter represents more than one sound, In comparison with Vietnamese “ 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 relationship between spelling and

pronunciation is more complex in English” (Kelly, 2000: 122)

Beside some sounds represcnisd by a singts Totter as (a, A, Ai, Av, Av/, meny sounds

is why the teachers should help learners get to grip with a different way of thinking about the relationship between written amd spoken language

1.2.3.3, Syllable types

Lê Van Ly (1948:37, quoted in Doan Thién ‘'hmat, 2003:85) comes into conclusion

thai ø Viebmmmese syllable usually bas a mmximmmm o[ Imee phonem

C(consonant)Vdvowel)C in which the vowel is always present, but there can be absence of initial or Bnal consonant or both of them

In contrast, the syllable lypes such as CCVC, CCVCC, CCCVCC are very popular

in English This is an indication that “consonant clusters are a common feature of English, they will come up very often in class”, but “ Speakers of other Lis will also bring habits across into English, or find particular clusters difficult” (Kelly, 2000:58).Thus, the neitlers of clusters should be taken into consideration in teaching English pronunciation to non-native

speakers

11

However, when dealing with this, it is unavoidable to address / if / a ý đý / two affricales -which arc often included in consonant clusters, especially, final clusters and thase clusters are usually considered as the difficult ones The following table illustrates the possible final clusters in linglish which contain affticates

in dealing with consonant clusters which they find difficult to pronounce What about

Vietnamese learners? According to Avery & Ehrlich (1997:59), “in pronouncing English

words with mitial or final consonant clusters, Cantonese and Viemumese speakers tend to

delete one of ihe consonants of the cluster rather than mseri «a vowel” to make the word

conform to the pattern of the native languages of the learners By this way, our learners get used to pronouncing the word French us / fre instead of /frent{f and also other words

Therefore, to solve this problematic area, an ESL teacher “should focus on chuster

simplifications that are inappropriate to English” because “Unlike native speakers, learners of English may simplify consonant clusters inappropriately, leading io misunderstanding or

incomprehensibility"( Avery & Ehrlich, 1997-60)

1.3 Materials Evaluation

To choose one amongst 4 great deal of books as a coursebook for a particular situation

in teaching and learning is quite a difficult job because there always exist differences in different contexts ‘[herefore, in the light of Brown’s view, an evaluation of materials is

In the framework of this sind

clearness and intelligibility He detin

measuring the value jor potential value) of a set of learning materials It involves making Judgemenis about the effect of the maierials on the people using them” (Tomlinson, 2003: 14)

1.3.2 Criteria for Materials Evaluation

When taking an svaluation, the evaluator must follow any particular criteria, basing on

of the criteria for evaluation are not similarly introduced by different scholars, This section exposes two inventories of criteria introduced by B Tomlinson and IIutchinson & Walters

thế ilenw or he puxpases he/she wants lo focus on Nonetheless, the ehed

1.3.2.1 Crileria by Brian Tamlinsan

It’s worthy including in this part the criteria for materials evaluation which tries to measure some or all of the following:

- the appeal of the materials to the learners;

- the credibility of'the materials to the leamers, teachers and administrators;

- the validity of the materials (ie is what the teach worth teaching?),

~ the rcliability of the materials (i.c would they have the same cffect with different proups

of target learners?);

- the ability of the matorials Lo interest Ihe learners and teachers;

- the ability of the materials to motivate the leamers;

- the values of the materials in terms of short-term learning (important, for example, for performance on tests andl cxarninalions);

- the values of the materials in terms of long-term Icaming ( of both language and of communication skills);

lưarners` porccplion of the valuc of the materials,

- the teachers’ perception of the value of the materials,

- the assistance given to the teachers in terms of preparation, delivery and assessment;

- the flexibility of the matcrials (¢.g,, the extont to whielt iL is easy for a teacher to adapl the

materials to suit a particular context);

- the contribution made by the materials to teacher development,

- the match with administrative requirements (e.g., standardization across classes, coverage of'a syllabus, preparation for an examination),

(B Tomlinson, 2003.14)

It is the fact that, in different context, the evaluations are not the same as “the needs,

abjectives, backgrounds and preferred stvles of the participants will differ from context to

context”."Yo carry out an evaluation, the criteria are obligatory basis on which the evaluators

depend fo come Lo end

1, 3.2.2 Criteria by Hutchinson & Waters

In comparison with Tomlinson’s checklist, [Iutchinson & Waters introduce fewer

criteria onc of which, although a bit different, scem te be more comprehensive and cach

criterion can cover one or more than one criterion in the ‘’omlinson’s

By this way, Hulchinson & Walors (1993) suggest the criteria for matsrials evaluation

as: audience, the aims, the content, the methodology, and some other criteria such as price or availability,

In conclusion, applying which criteria for evaluating materials is much dependent on

the cvaluator’s purposc This study, under the purpose of adapting courscbook by designing

supplementary exercise, would employ some of criteria suggested by lomlinson to make

matzrial evaluation,

1.3.3 Types of Evaluation

While ‘Tomlinson (2003) reveals three types of Materials evaluation as pre-use

evaluation, whilst-use cvaluation and posl-use evaluation which seem lo be equivalent to

prcliminary, formative and summative cvaluation respectively, Millan & Selumacher (1993)

provide two main types of evaluation named formative and summative, ‘Vhese types differ

recommendations for change

Summative evaluation occurs at the end of a programme’s natural term or cycle The goal is to

make an ultimate judgement about the prograrnme’s worth, whether it has succeeded in

meeting its objectives or not I'ypically the outcome of a summative evaluation is a formal

report to be used in large-scale decisions such as whether to continue finding the programme

or nal

Because “in fact, most evaluations represent a combination of formative and

summative” and the motivation for evaluation is both “to decide whether or not our current

practice (programme) is doing wha it should”, and “to bring about imovation or changes in

those practices”, the author tends to make the evaluation in terms of the combination of these two types

1.4 Materials adaptation

In order to provide teaching and learning processes with better results, pedagogical

innovations must be implemented and adapted according to local condition, the strengths of

the individual teachers and students, the objectives, the learners’ need .Thus, in order to

bring about good classes, the classroom teachers “will still have to adapt the materials either

consciously or subconscionsly” even when she “selects the hook, knows every student in the class well and is using materials designed specifically for the context they are in” (Islam & Mares, quoted in ‘omlinson, 2003:86) ‘hat is why classroom materials need to be adapted to

refleet needs within particular leaching context, current understanding of second language

acquisition and good teaching practices (Tomlinson, 2003:100)

Pedagogically, adaptation is a process of matching and its purpose is to maximize the

appropriatoncss of leaching materials in conlext, by changing somo of the internal

characteristics of a coursebook or a set of materials to better suit our particular situation

1.4.1, Reasons for adaptatien

Although there are several reasons for adapting materials in order to make them as accessible and useful to learners as possible, these reasons have varied and changed as the field has developed and views on limguage acquisition and leaching practice have become better informed by research and experlenoe

15

MeDonengh and Shaw (1993) make a list of reasons for adapting unsystematic

approach to grammar presentation, and it seems to be quite a bit of overlap with Cunningsworth’s reasons (1995) However, the adaptation is appropriate when materials are not ideal in:

Methods (eg, an exercise may be too mechanical, lacking in meaning too complicated)

Language conlent (¢.g., thore may be loo much emphasis on grammar your studenls Ieam quickly or not cnough emphasis on what they find difficulty

Subject matter (e.g„ topic may not be interesting to students or they may be outdated

or not authentic enough)

Balance of skills (¢.g., there may be too much emphasis on skills in the written language or skills in the spoken language, ot there may not be enough on integrating skills)

may need to be omitted or changed)

Image (a coursebook may projec! an unfiiendly image through poor layout, low quality visuals, ete.)

(islam & Mares, quoted in Tomlinson, 2003:88) From all above reasons, iL ean he confirmed thal nialcrials adaptation plays an intsgral and necessary role in any teaching processes in which materials are not always ideal in all

items used for every context

1.4.2 Objectives for adaptation

According to McDonough & Shaw (1995, quoted in Tomlinson, 2003;89), a teacher,

by adapting classroom materials, may hope to achieve the following objectives in order to

allzin grealer appropriacy from materials:

Personalize Individualize Localize

Modernize Apparently, adapting classroom materials need to have clear objectives since these objectives “will help guide the choice of adaptation techniques as well as help decide the appropriate content or language choice” (Lomlinson, 2003:89)

1.4.3 Techniques for adaptation

Adapting materials is carried out as soon as a gap between pubhsh teaching materials and the needs and objectives of classroom is recognized In order to adapt materials for a particular situation in an effective way, the teacher needs to employ certain techniques that she finds suitable amongst the different ones Lomlinson (2003: 91) quotes a list of popular tschniques, offered by McDonough & Shaw (1993) and Cunningsworth (1995), which includes: Adding; extending and expanding

Deleting; subtracting and abridging Simplifying

Reordering Replacing material

or lo “fi? a

Some or all af these techniques may he used when adapting malcriaks be

specific class, However, which techniques are employed bases on the teacher’s decision at the time she realizes which items of the materials should be adapted to meet her class objectives more clascly

In summary, adaptation is a crucial job that the rescarcher needs to cmploy to break the

mismatch between the materials and the learners’ needs and the classroom ‘s objectives alike

All about theoretical background of malorials adaptation is a really procieus resour tor the researcher to apply as basis to reach the goal of the study

CHAPTER IL THE STUDY

It is the fact that, HFL teaching in general and pronunciation teaching in particular is

not always the same in different contexts due lo differences of local conditions, Isachers, students, syllabuses, aims, requirements The information horoafler is aboul the cortairr context related to teaching and learning reality in LSTC

2.2.1 The current situation of English teaching and learning at LS TC

In comparison with other 7 departments at LSTC, the Department of Forcign languages was latest opened, So far, it has experienced 13 years of training and supplying lgachers of Fnglish for most of primary and junior high schools in Lang Son province, especially for the schools far from the central city

Right fom the early stage, the teaching staff included only 7 teachers, most of whom

(6 teachers) were trained in in-service training courses ‘lime goes by, the Department has

improved both its quanlily and quality More teachers wrơ cmploycd and thers have been significant changes in various aspeets of teaching English as foreign language in terms of the

most of them are Tot passive recipients of information Nonetheless, the expected output is taken into consideration since students are not often successful in spoken commmunication

‘This results ftom various causes ‘The shortage of teaching materials and the reference sources bring about the limitations in teaching job ‘Therefore, the teachers usually have to prepare Iheir own [caching materials and sometimes it is mot inleresting cnough to the students Furthermore, the lack of the training courses or seminars on English and English teaching methods makes it difficult for the teachers to share the ideas or learn ftom the others The teaching and Icaning facilitics for environment of forcign languages arc not suitably

taken care of ‘here is ne available room with OHP Once the teacher wants to apply ICT in

tgaching to make Ihe lessons tore interesting and effective, she has Lo ask the adrministratars

before and it is admitted only when she has a laptop and the equipment is not occupied This

is an indication that there are not free chances for the teachers to show their efforts as well as

to equip themselves with necessary skills in the teaching and for the students to absorh language in the good ways

2.2.2 Teachers

2.2.2.1 Description

Department of Foreign Language at LSTC has duty of teaching two languages: English and Chinese with the participation of 19 teachers in which there are 15 teachers of Linglish aged from 24 10 46, With the enthusiasrr and zagomess iu improving knowledge of language and teaching competenec, 4 teachers have finished courses of M.A in Vietnam, two others are

studying for M.A degree in Australia and one teacher is taking the same course at LLIS-

VNU, Hanoi, Two loachars wore trained in in-servics training cour

and they now have P.G certificates The rest are young and have less than 3 years of teaching expenence These teachers are trying their best to eam their M.A degrees in the next few years

Al work, the Leaching staff is a close knit commumily Teachers lake much interest int their job and the classroom observations are usually held to share the ideas and learn from each other

However, le are always complaining aboul the lack of reliable reference books

or supplementary materials that they can apply m the situation of EFL teaching at LSTC

= teachers’ views towards the importance of teaching pronunciation to students,

especially to major students at LSTC

+ Teachers’ atlilude to and thoir difficulties im teaching pronunciation

- The teachers” evaluation of the current coursebook

- Teachers’ expectation of supplementary exercises applied in teaching pronunciation

to their students

When being asked about the importance of teaching pronunciation, 100% (8) of

teachers thought that prormneiation and teaching pronunciation was important, but the degrees

of the importance were nol the same under ths different teachers’ viows 5 (62.5 %) leachers

appreciated the importance of teaching promuneiation ( 3: very importam; 2: quite important},

as according to them, LI'L is being taught in the light of communicative approach in which prommeiation plays @ crucial role Moreover, these five teachers believed that teaching pronunciation becomes more important when it is taught to teacher- students since it has much influence on speaking and listening as well as vocabulary teaching, Other three teachers

students can sometimes be

supposed thal prommeialion was not very important becau

understood when they pronounced incorreetly Therefore, in their opinion, pronunciation can

be ranked the third ta grammar and vocabulary but they have no explanation for Kenworthy’s

ideas: “Learners who plan to become teachers of English will want to approxiniate a native

accent” (Kenworthy, 1987: 3) Through the teachers’ answers for the importance of

pronunciation and teaching promneiation, it is concluded that pronunciation is an aspect that

is nol always highly evaluated by all teachers

Talking about the attitude to the job of teaching pronmneiation, 4 teachers who have

never done this job said that they did not want to be appointed to teach pronunciation and they

gave three reasons Firstly, they did not know how to teach this aspect Secondly, their

grounding in theoretical knowledge of pronunciation is not good enough for them to be confident in teaching this subject Thirdly, they do not really want to spend time, energy,

money improving and practicing the knowledge of pronunciation as it takes a very small

proportion of the whole course 50% (4) of the interviewees who have experienced pronunciation teaching said that they do not want to continue to teach pronunciation although

they might have better lessons in the next time Understandably, it was difficult for them to be

successful as well as to have interesting pronunciation lessons These four teachers were also the ones who talked about the difficulties they had in their job It was unsurprised that all of

them (4/4) considered the lack of necessary and adaptable supplementary materials as the main problem They almost had no reference sources to access to good ideas for classroom, In

addition to the coursebook, they sometimes download exercises from the websites’

http://www englisch-hilfen.de/en/complex_tests/simple_past1/index.php and

http:/wwwSoundofenglish, but, in their opinion, the exercises were not interesting and

suitable enough to students in their own context And the work of collecting, choosing or

designing is really complicated for them

With regard to teachers’ evaluation of the coursebook, only three interviewees who

have dealt with the coursebook had brief evaluation as following: Generally, the current

coursebook is more interesting than the former one “Ship or Sheep” by Ann Paker, 1997, CUP

in terms of content, design, structure of lessons in clearly separated parts However, it is quite

difficult for the teachers to follow the suggestion of the book “ It is better if you balance the

work that you do from the three sections: first, do a unit from Section A, then a unit from Section B, then a unit from Section C, then a unit from Section A, and so on.” ( Mark Hancock,

2003: 5) since this subject takes only 45 periods (each lasts 45 minutes) of the whole course so only Part A Letters and sounds and some of Part B Syllable, words and sentences are

addressed Another thing is that the system of vowels and that of consonants are introduced

alternatively so that it is a bit difficult for the teachers to present the sounds systematically ie

first the vowels and then the consonants as they were used to Besides, the book is written to

nome native Jeamers of Tinglish all over the world so it creates difficulties for learners at LSTC to catch the knowledge fiom it because most of them are minorities, Furthermore, the book is also written for the purpose of self- study, all exercises have keys at the end of the

book It sometimes makes the students passive and teachers have doubt about their students’

amiswets Lo exer Ss

That is why all teachers, especially those who were dealing with the coursebook showed much desire for a particular syllabus of pronunciation and supplementary exercises for their pronunciation teaching

2.2.3, Learners

2.2.3.1 Description

English major students at LSTC are trained to become teachers of Enghsh at primary and junior schools in Lang Son province They all come from different parts in Lang Son province, 80 percent of them were minorities, aged ftom 18 to 23 They have leamt English for at lcast 3 years at their high schools but many of them were not good at English before

they come to LSC All these students fell the umiversity entrance examinations Some of

ther come from rernats ar sas amd they aro nol proficiont in standard Victnamesc lmgnage

At present, all students states that they need English for their future work as teachers of English so they hope that they can get, from their teachers not only the good knowledge of English bat also the various interesting mothods of teaching English To these students,

ondary school and they must spond a long time getting

In general, students try to Jearn with purposes of gaining a certificate in order to get the job of teaching English in the fisture because there seem to be no other choices or chances for then in this place

2.2.3.2 Learner analysis

Two questionnaires were delivered to 88 first - year English major students who had just

finished 45 pariods of prouuncialion to discover all information about thoir prormmciation learning During the time students fulfilled the questionnaires, the researcher was available tơ

pronunciation as well as their pronunciation learning The purposes of exploring students?

ideas about teaching methods and current material are shown from question 8 to question 12

Question 1 is intended to conduct a check on the frequency that students had dealt with

pronunciation at their high schools

always usually sometimes rarely never

Chart 1: Frequency students dealt with pronunciation at high school

The fiequency that students learned pronunciation at high schools is one of

determinant affecting their background knowledge of pronunciation before taking a course at

LSTC Unfortunately, no students (nobody always and usually) had many chances to deal with

this aspect The fact that 19.32%(17) students sometimes studied pronunciation, more than

half of students (55.68%) rarely dealt with it, especially, 25%(22) had never learnt it resulted

in their pronunciation mistakes and poor knowledge of English pronunciation, And correcting

their well-established is not a simple activity Therefore, pronunciation must be represented

right from the beginning of the course and the teachers need to have strategies to motivate

students in lessons,

Question 2 aimed to identify the chances students expressed their spoken English to their

teachers and friends By this way, how students pronounced the English words was easily

identified From the researcher’s own experience as a teacher of English at LSTC, students almost had no chances to express their spoken English except in classroom However, as

illustrated as in Chart 2, students expose very little spoken English (42%: sometimes, 28.5%:

23

rarely) these students might have answers only when they were required by the teachers,

together with 2.3% (2) who never spoke in class One of the reasons for this may be due to

their bad pronunciation so question 3 was targeted

always usually T1Sometimes Orarely

mnever

Chart 2: Students’ exposure of spoken English in class

Question 3 was designed to find out how much promunciation influenced on students speaking skill

Difficulties Number of students | Percentage

Table 2: Students’ difficulties in speaking English

From the statistic in Table 2, it is easy to see that, in addition to vocabulary (75%),

incorrect pronunciation takes quite a large proportion (64.8%) of students’ difficulties in

speaking English In fact, all three criteria: /ack of vocabulary, poor grammar knowledge,

incorrect pronunciation are causes of the lack of confidence However, to students at LSTC,

they had not much exposure of spoken English because many of them found that they owned

bad pronunciation Apparently, incorrect makes students worry if they can be understood by

teachers or friends and scarcely do they express themselves Therefore, EFL settings at LSTC

should have suitable room and strategies for pronunciation teaching in order to equip students

with adequate communication competence in the role of teachers of English

Question 4 addressed levels of importance students find about pronunciation to their course

26.20% [very important

quite important important

Iaunimportant 53.40%

Chart 3: Students’ views on the importance of pronunciation Although, pronunciation was less taken into account than grammar and vocabulary,

students had appreciated its importance While only 17% (15) of students denied the role of

pronunciation, 83% ( 73) confirmed that this aspect was important Among them, 3.4% (3)

found pronunciation very important, 26.2% (23)supposed it was quite important This is

understandable due to the fact that even when the non-native speakers’ vocabulary and

grammar are excellent, if their pronunciation falls below a certain threshold level, they are

unable to communicate efficiently and effectively Furthermore, these students are trained to

become teachers of English so the knowledge of pronunciation is really necessary to them

Question 5 discovered students’ purpose of learning pronunciation

1 passing examination

2 communicating well

3 acquiring a near-native pronunciation of English

4 teaching English in the future