A study on the reality of teaching and learning English pronunciation skills to the 11th graders at Kien An high school =Nghiên cứu thực trạng dạy và học kỹ năn

NGUYỄN THỊ THÙY LINH A STUDY ON THE REALITY OF TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION SKILLS TO THE 11TH GRADERS AT KIEN AN HIGH SCHOOL Nghiên cứu thực trạng dạy và học kỹ năng

NGUYỄN THỊ THÙY LINH

A STUDY ON THE REALITY OF TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH

PRONUNCIATION SKILLS TO THE 11TH GRADERS

AT KIEN AN HIGH SCHOOL

(Nghiên cứu thực trạng dạy và học kỹ năng phát âm tiếng Anh đối với học sinh lớp 11 tại trường trung học phổ thông Kiến An)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 601410

Hanoi, 2012

NGUYỄN THỊ THÙY LINH

A STUDY ON THE REALITY OF TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH

PRONUNCIATION SKILLS TO THE 11TH GRADERS

AT KIEN AN HIGH SCHOOL

(Nghiên cứu thực trạng dạy và học kỹ năng phát âm tiếng Anh đối với học sinh lớp 11 tại trường trung học phổ thông Kiến An)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 601410 Supervisor: NGUYỄN THỊ NGỌC QUỲNH, PhD

Hanoi, 2012

1 Rationale of the study 2

2 Aims of the study 3

3 Research questions 3

4 Scope of the study 4

5 Methods of the study 4

6 Design of the study 4

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 6

CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

1 Definitions of pronunciation 6

2 Features of pronunciation 6

3 Pronunciation teaching 9

3.1 The importance of pronunciation teaching 8

3.2 The teacher' s role in pronunciation teaching 9

3.3 Approaches, techniques and activities in pronunciation teaching 12

3.3.1 Approaches 12

3.3.2 Techniques and activities 14

4 Pronunciation learning 16

4.1 Factors affecting pronunciation learning 16

4.2 The student's role in pronunciation learning 18

5 Common problems in pronunciation teaching and learning 18

CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY 20

1 An overview of current situation of teaching and learning speaking skills 20

at Kien An high school 20

1.1 The school 20

1.2 The course 20

2 The study 20

2.1 Research methods 20

2.1.1 Survey questionnaires 20

2.3 Research questions 22

CHAPTER III: FINDINGS 23

1 Teachers' and students' background 23

2 Teachers' problems in teaching pronunciation 25

3 Students' problems in learning pronunciation 29

4 Students' expectation and teachers' recommendation in teaching and learning pronunciation 31

CHAPTER IV: RECOMMENDATIONS 38

1 Increasing time for teaching and learning pronunciation 38

2 Teaching pronunciation rules 38

3 Resetting class size 39

4 Applying various techniques appropriately and flexibly 39

5 Designing pronunciation tests 40

PART C: CONCLUSION 40

1 Conclusions 41

2 Limitations 43

3 Recommendations for further study 44 REFERENCES I APPENDIX 1 III SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE (FOR TEACHERS) III APPENDIX 2 VII SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE (FOR STUDENTS) VII APPENDIX 3 XI CLASSROOM OBSERVATION SHEET XI APPENDIX 4 XI INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR TEACHERS XI

LIST OF FIGURES

Chart 1: Students' background

Chart 2: Students' experience

Chart 3: Teachers' problems in teaching pronunciation

Chart 4: Teachers' problems in teaching stress and intonation

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

Nowadays, no one can deny that English has become more and more important as a global language crossing many international boundaries Moreover, English is a golden key to open the door of many fields such as economics, commerce, tourism, communication, science and technology In order to meet the demand of the society, a large number of students in most countries around the word in general and in Vietnam in particular are being required to learn English through compulsory programs in schools and universities The highest target when learning any foreign language is to use that language fluently and appropriately in oral communication One cannot achieve that goal if he is not good at speaking skills, especially pronunciation skills Because knowing grammar and vocabulary are important but useless if one is unable to pronoun those structures or words correctly (Celce – Murcia, 1987)

It can be said that the role of pronunciation in the field of language teaching has varied widely from having virtually no role in the grammar-translation method to being the main focus in the audio-lingual method where emphasis is on the traditional notions of pronunciation, minimal pairs, drills and short conversations (Castillo, 1990:3) This requires the more correct pronunciation from learners However, at many schools in Vietnam, compared with other skills such as reading, writing or grammar and vocabulary, speaking skills in general as well as pronunciation skills in particular has been paid less attention to In the past, there was no place for pronunciation in English textbook In recent years, English textbook for high school students has been designed for not only grammar and vocabulary but also pronunciation Nevertheless, the part for pronunciation is still limited and

there is no exercise for pronunciation practice On the other hand, no oral test

is designed during the process of learning English at school to evaluate students' speaking proficiency This leads to students' lack of motivation in learning pronunciation as well as other speaking skills Therefore, speaking English fluently and pronouncing English correctly is still a big problem to most of Vietnamese students

In terms of my experiences of teaching English at Kien An high school,

I found that there are rather many worrying problems in the reality of teaching and learning speaking skills, especially pronunciation, at my school However, what are those problems in detail? And what are the suitable solutions to those issues? These burning questions urge me to carry out the

study, namely "A study on the reality of teaching and learning English

answering the questions above in order to distribute partly to improving the quality of teaching and learning pronunciation at Kien An school

2 Aims of the study

The study is aimed at the following points:

 Identifying the problems in teaching and learning pronunciation with which teachers and students at Kien An high school confront

 Making some suggestions for English language teachers at Kien An high school with hope that those suggested solutions would be useful for them

to enable their students to learn pronunciation effectively in particular and to communicate in English in general

3 Research questions

To reach the aims of the study, the three following research question are

addressed:

 Question 1: What are problems teachers at Kien An high school have

to face in teaching pronunciation?

 Question 2: What are problems students at Kien An high school have

to face in learning pronunciation?

 Question 3: What should be done to help students make progress with

their pronunciation skills?

4 Scope of the study

A study on the ways to discover the reality of teaching and learning speaking skills at a high school is quite broad, therefore the researcher would like to pay much attention to a brief of current situation of teaching and learning pronunciation skill to the 11th graders at Kien An high school From that, the difficulties in teaching and learning pronunciation of teachers and students will be identified and some feasible solutions will be suggested to help the students to master pronunciation in English This is also the limitation of the minor thesis

5 Methods of the study

To fulfill the aims of the study, both quantitative and qualitative methods are used for this case study

The data serving the research analysis and findings are collected by the following instruments:

- Questionnaire for teachers

- Questionnaire for students

- Classroom observations

- Interviews

6 Design of the paper

This minor thesis is divided into three main parts

Part A, Introduction, presents the rationale, the aims, the research

questions, the scope, the methods and the design of the study

Part B, Development, consists of three chapters as follows:

- Chapter I, Literature Review, presents the various concepts

most relevant to the research topic

- Chapter II, Methodology, describes an overview of the context

of investigation, the participants and the instruments

- Chapter III, Findings, analyzes the collected data to answer the

research questions

- Chapter IV, Recommendations, suggests some solutions in

teaching and learning pronunciation at Kien An high school

Part C, Conclusion, addresses the key issues in the study, summarizes

some shortcomings revealed during the process of the completing the study

and offers some ideas for a further study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

1 Definitions of pronunciation

Pronunciation is a linguistic notion defined in many different ways In

"the way in which a language or a particular word or sound is pronounced" The concept of pronunciation is also described as "a way of speaking a word,

especially a way that is accepted or generally understood" in American

Heritage Dictionary (1992)

In the book "A course in language teaching: Practice and Theory"

published in 1996, Ur states that pronunciation is "the sounds of the language

or phonology, stress and rhythm, intonation, combination sounds, linkage of sound" Dalton and Seidlhofer (1994) consider pronunciation "as the product

of significant sound in two senses" In the first sense, these two writers

explain that sound is used "as part of code of a particular language" That is

the reason why English sounds are distinguished from sounds of other

languages Therefore, pronunciation in this sense can be talked about "as the

production and reception of sounds of speech" In the second sense,

pronunciation can be talked about "with reference to acts of speaking" because the authors clarify that sound is used "to achieve meaning in contexts

of use" and "here the code combines with other factors to make communication possible"

2 Features of pronunciation

According to Kelly (2000), main features of pronunciation can be presented as the following diagram:

Features of pronunciation

Phonemes

Suprasegmental features

Voiced

Unvoiced

Single Vowels

As can be seen from the above diagram, pronunciation includes phonemes and suprasegmental features, in which consonants and vowels are two main parts of phonemes meanwhile intonation and stress belong to suprasegmental On the other hand, pronunciation is a broad subject with the boundaries of various items such as consonants, vowels, stress and intonation

In the scope of this study, the two pronunciation features, stress and intonation, are focused and deeply investigated

Quirk & Greenbaum (1973) state that "stress is the prominence with

one part of a word or longer utterance is distinguished from the other parts"

It can also be said that stress is the relative degree of force used by a speaker

on the various syllables he is uttering

Kelly (2000) considers intonation as an important part "that most

teachers have to deal with when teaching connected speech" It refers to the

way the voice "go up and down in pitch" when we are speaking Intonation

plays an important role in helping speaker express his opinions and understand others' thought and meaning

To sum up, pronunciation includes various sub-items listed above such

as consonants, vowels, intonation and stress Paying attention to pronunciation features, especially stress and intonation, and master them is one of the ways to help language teachers and learners succeed in teaching and learning pronunciation in particular and speaking skills in general

3 Pronunciation teaching

3.1 The importance of pronunciation teaching

It can be said that, in English language, it is pronunciation that is considered as the first and most important factor native speakers notice during conversations Mastering grammar and vocabulary is good and important, too

However, it is useless if the speaker is unable to produce those structures and words correctly Even when a simplest word is mispronounced, it can prevent the speaker from communicating effectively in English Kelly (2000: 11)

confirms that "a learner who constantly mispronounces a range of phonemes

can be extremely difficult for a speaker from another language community to understand A consideration of learners' pronunciation errors and of how these can inhibit successful communication is a useful basic on which to assess why it is important to deal with pronunciation in the class" Therefore

pronunciation teaching should be considered as an important and significant part in teaching and learning English

Sharing the same opinion with Kelly, Hewings (2004:11) indicates that

"difficulties with pronunciation might mean that students fail to get their

message across, even when the correct words are being used, or they might fail to understand what is said to them" The inaccuracy in using stress and

intonation cause errors in pronunciation which may lead to misunderstanding

in communication Thus, achieving pronunciation which is good enough for learners to be always understood should be one of the main goals of foreign language learners

In "How to teach Pronunciation" (2000), Kelly states that pronunciation involves far more than individual sounds including word stress, sentence stress, intonation and word liking, all of which have influence on the sound of spoken English The more chances teachers offer to students so that they can expose themselves to the sounds of English and the more attention teachers pay to teaching correct pronunciation to students, the more success students gain in learning speaking Harmer (2001: 183) also argue convincingly that thanks to pronunciation teaching, learners not only become aware of different sounds and different features, but also improve their speaking considerably

He claims that "concentrating on sounds, showing where they are made in the

mouth, making students aware of where words should be stressed – all these things give them extra information about spoken English and help them achieve the goal of improved comprehension and intelligibility"

3.2 The teacher' s role in pronunciation teaching

The reality of teaching pronunciation to English as Foreign Language learners in many countries in the world points out that there are problems arising in the classroom such as grammar and vocabulary are often given precedence over pronunciation by both teachers and students although they understand the importance of pronunciation, which Kelly (2000:1) call

"paradox" Whilst Kenworthy (1987) states that learners who are learning pronunciation of a foreign language may sometimes not be able to realize whether they "got it right", comprehend correctly or not In order to deal with this problem, it must be understood that the role of the teacher is significant in the process of teaching pronunciation According to Kenworthy (1987), in the process of teaching English pronunciation, the teacher take responsibility for the following:

 Helping learners hear

One of the important tasks of the teacher is to help learner perceive

sounds "Teachers need to check that their students are hearing sounds

according to the appropriate categories and help them develop new categories if necessary." (Kenworthy, 1987:1)

 Helping learners make sounds

It cannot be negated that there are some sounds in English which do not exist in several other languages Thus, learners may get into difficulties when

imitating the new sounds Things become easier if the teacher give them some hints which may help them to produce new sounds correctly

 Providing feedback

As being referred to above, in the process of learning pronunciation, students themselves may not be able to realize whether made mistakes or not Therefore the teacher must provide them with information about their performance to help them be aware of how they learn and what they need to improve their pronunciation

 Pointing out what's going on

It can be said that because speaking is for most parts unconsciously controlled, learners may sometimes make mistakes in producing sounds or putting stress, which may lead to misunderstanding in communication In these cases, the teacher needs to identify what students should pay attention to and what work on

 Establishing priorities

It is worth emphasizing the fact that native-like pronunciation may be a goal

only for some, not for all learners According to Kenworthy (1987:3), "for the

majority of learners a far more reasonable goal is to be comfortably intelligible" Learners, therefore, need a guide telling them about what aspects

they had better master, what aspects they do not need to be "perfect" like native speakers Because native pronunciation is an inappropriate aim for most learners, teachers and students should learn to satisfy with an acceptably good level of the aspects which are not really too important

 Devising activities

Because learning pronunciation is complex, the teacher must consider what types of exercises and activities will be helpful and bring learners the best result In devising activities for learning pronunciation, the teacher also

think about certain activities suitable for the learning styles and approaches of some learners better than others

 Assessing progress

One of the important roles of the teacher in pronunciation teaching is to assess progress Assessing progress is actually a type of feedback Most of learners find it difficult to assess their own progress, so the teacher must provide them accurate information Tests and marks at appropriate times may serve as a strong motivation for learners in the progress of learning

3.3 Approaches, techniques and activities in pronunciation teaching 3.3.1 Approaches

According to Celce – Murcia, Briton and Goodwin (1996, Teaching

Pronunciation), there are two general approaches to the teaching of

pronunciation

 Intuitive – imitative approach

An intuitive – imitative approach appearing before the late 19th century is occasionally supplemented by the teachers' impressionistic observation about

sounds based on orthography (Kelly, 1969) This approach "depends on the

learners' ability to listen to and to imitate the rhythms and sounds of the target language without the intervention of any explicit information" (Celce –

Murcia, et al., 1996:2) It means, with this approach, the teaching of pronunciation mostly depends on how many times the teacher turns on the cassette or CD player while the main activities in the class are listening and repeating The teacher do not have to take responsibility for explaining how sounds are formed or produced The learners do their main task of listening and imitating With an intuitive – imitative approach, it is expected that learners gradually achieve pronunciation competence

 Analytic – linguistic approach

The second approach in pronunciation teaching is analytic – linguistic

This approach "utilizes information and tool such as a phonetic alphabet,

articulator descriptions, charts of the vocal apparatus and other aids to supplement listening, imitation, and production" (Celce – Murcia, et al.,

1996:2) Analytic – linguistic approach explicitly informs the learners of and focuses attention on the sounds and rhythms of the target language It cannot

be said that, between intuitive – imitative and analytic – linguistic, which approach is better The analytic – linguistic approach was developed to complement rather than to replace the intuitive – imitative approach, which was typically retained as the practice phase used in tandem with the phonetic information Therefore, choosing to apply which approach into pronunciation teaching depends on teachers themselves and learners' level

Apart from the two common approaches above, Pennington (1996) and Dalton - Seidlhofer (1994) also mention Bottom-up Approach and Top-down Approach

 Bottom-up Approach

Bottom – up Approach has close relationship with accuracy which should be focused from the very beginning of a course Learners are taught with the smallest and most concrete unit elements in pronunciation The teacher goes from individual consonants and vowels to more abstract segments such as intonation

 Top-down Approach

Top-down Approach gets the idea of contextualized sounds in connected speech The teacher goes from the biggest elements to the smallest ones of pronunciation: from intonation or contextualized sounds to individual sounds

3.3.2 Techniques and activities

It is no doubt that making pronunciation lessons effective and fun by using variety of techniques and activities is what the teachers want and need

to do According Chomsky - Halle (1968), Celce – Murcia (1996), Kelly (2000), et al., the following common techniques will become helpful and effective when the teachers use them appropriately and flexibly in the class

 Listen and imitate

The teacher provides learners with the pronunciation of the target language pronounced by teacher him/herself or tape recorders or language labs, etc., then asks learners to listen to sounds and repeat them

 Drilling

Drilling is one of the main ways to teach pronunciation With this technique, the teacher speaks a word or a structure in model, then has learners repeat it Through this basic form, pronunciation is practiced easily in the class

 Phonetic training

Articulator description, articulator diagram as well as the phonetic alphabet are applied in this technique because learners are provided with basic theoretical knowledge about how sounds are formed and also helped by the teacher to produce correct sounds

 Chaining

According to Kelly, this technique can be used for sentences which

prove difficult for students to pronounce, either because they are long, or because they include difficult words and sounds The teacher is to isolate certain parts of the sentences and then modeling them separately for students

to repeat Step by step, students build the sentence up until it is completed

The sentence can be drilled and built up from the start (front-chaining) or from the end (back-chaining)

 Minimal pairs

In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, which differ in only one phonological element Using minimal pair drills means the teacher ask learners to listen to the tape and distinguish between the two sounds by presenting them This activity is considered as a particularly useful technique to teach sounds causing difficulties for learners

 Contextualized minimal pairs

Using this technique means the teacher establishes the setting and presents key vocabulary Learners are then trained to respond to a sentence stem with the appropriate meaningful response

 Reading aloud/Recitation

The teacher provides learners with a passage or script, then asks them to read aloud, focusing on stress, timing and intonation This technique is usually implemented with genres which are intended to be spoken, such as speeches, poems, plays, and dialogues

 Recordings of learners' production

Audio-tapes, video - tapes of rehearsed as well as spontaneous speeches, free conversations, and role plays are used in this technique Feedback from the teacher and peer or self-evaluation is necessary after subsequent playback

 Tongue twisters

This is a technique from speech correction strategies for native speakers Sounds in tongue twister drills which are difficult to differentiate are put together to make meaningful sentences This type of drills is not easy but a

more delighting way to practice pronunciation

 Practice of vowel shifts and stress shifts related by affixation

According to Celce – Murcia (1996:10), this is "a technique based on

rules of generative phonology (Chomsky and Halle 1968) used with intermediate or advanced learners The teacher points out the rule-based nature of vowel and stress shifts in etymologically related words to raise awareness; sentences and short texts that contain both members of a pair may

be provided as oral practice material:

Vowel shift: mime /ai/ mimic /i/

Sentence context: Street mimes often mimic the gestures of passersby Stress shift: PHOtograph phoTOgraphy

Sentence context: I can tell from these photographs that you are very good at photography."

4 Pronunciation learning

4.1 Factors affecting pronunciation learning

Kenworthy (1987:4, as cited in Nunan 1991) points out the following factors that affect the learning of pronunciation

 The native language

The native language is an important factor in learning to pronounce The more differences there are between the native and the target language, the more difficulties will be encountered by the learners When a particular sound does not exist in the mother tongue, the learners tend to substitute it by the nearest equivalent from their native language Therefore it cannot be denied

that the native language of learners has an impact on their pronunciation in the target language

 The age factor

It is commonly assumed that the age factor has a great influence on pronunciation The earlier a learner starts to learn a target language, the more native-like pronunciation he or she achieves

 Amount of exposure

Another factor is the amount of exposure to English the learners receive

It means learners who live in the country where the target language is spoken

or are surrounded by an target language – speaking environment have some

advantages over those who do not

 Phonetic ability

It is generally assumed that some people have a better ability to hear foreign languages than others This skill has been variously termed "phonetic coding ability", "aptitude for oral mimicry" or "auditory discrimination ability"

 Attitude and identity

Many studies of attitude in language learning has shown that learners who show positive feelings towards the speakers of the new language tend to develop more accurate, native-like accents

 Motivation

For some learners pronunciation is more important than for others The learners who consider pronunciation to be an important part of their English learning are usually eager to be corrected and concern about how good or bad

their pronunciation is This factor should not be neglected as it is considered

to be one of the most important factors affecting pronunciation learning

4.2 The student's role in pronunciation learning

The learner's role plays an important part in learning any subject in general as well as in English pronunciation in particular It means a learner has to take his or her own responsibility and be willing to learn When learners really pay attention to their pronunciation, they will become more cautious about their speaking, which helps them build up their own good pronunciation gradually In teaching and learning pronunciation, besides the help from the teacher, self-correction is also good for learners to find and make correction to their pronunciation mistakes themselves

5 Common problems in pronunciation teaching and learning

It is known that teaching and learning pronunciation involves a variety

of challenges which both teachers and learners cannot overcome successfully

if they do not really have a deep understanding of these problems The difficulties in pronunciation lessons arise not only from the nature of pronunciation itself, but also from other various subjective and objective factors In the light of the previous and current studies, several major problems both teachers and students often encounter in the pronunciation classes are mentioned as follows:

 The nature of pronunciations

As mentioned above, mother tongue is a factor which has a great influence on pronunciation learning of a foreign language Nunan (1991) states that the problems of acquiring the phonology of the second language presents formidable challenge to any theory of second language acquisition The more differences there are between the native and the target language, the

more difficulties will be encountered by the learners Furthermore, English pronunciation itself contains a great number of complicated factors and rules, which causes difficulties for learners of English in general and Vietnamese learners of English in particular In more details, Doff (1998) points out some common problems learners often get into when learning pronunciation

or speaking English such as difficulty in pronouncing sounds which do not exist in the students’ own language; confusion of similar sounds; difficulty in pronouncing consonant clusters; and tendency to give all syllables equal stress and “flat” intonation

 Class setting

According to some researchers coming from Asian countries such as Vietnam, Thailand, Korean, China, Bangladesh etc., a large number of problems in pronunciation teaching and learning arise from class setting It is easily seen that in many English classes of state high school education system, classroom size is too large, on average with over 50 students per class Moreover, the classroom condition is poor and the quality of teaching staff is also a problem All the issues above partly cause challenges for teachers and students in teaching and learning pronunciation

In summary, this chapter has so far conceptualized the discussion of the issues and aspects concerning the topic of the study It has mentioned definitions and features of pronunciation as well as issues involving pronunciation teaching and learning In the next chapter, the current situation

of Kien An high school where the data are collected and the methodology of the research under the light of the above discussed theories are being presented

CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY

1 An overview of current situation of teaching and learning speaking skills at Kien An high school

1.1 The school

Founded in 1959, located in Kien An district, Hai Phong city, Kien An high school has been know as one of the leading choices of parents and students living in Kien An district and some suburbs nearby when they finish the secondary school It has 36 classes with over 90 teachers of different subjects and about 1650 students of three grades: 10, 11 and 12 On the average, there are 42 to 50 students in a class

1.2 The course

At Kien An high school, English is taught as a compulsory subject with three or four classes a week During three years of learning English at school, students use three English textbooks (English 10, English 11 and English 12) focusing on four skills including listening, speaking, reading, writing and language focus part Of those skills, most of students are not good at speaking, especially pronunciation, although they have studied English before

at primary and secondary school In the textbook, pronunciation part is designed to be found in the language focus part and generally taught within 5

to 7 minutes in a 45 minute period It means, after a year of learning English with 16 lessons, each student spends only about an hour and a half on average

to learn pronunciation in class

2 The study

2.1 Research methods

This study was carried out in the form of survey questionnaires, interviews and classroom observations

2.1.1 Survey questionnaires

In order to collect reliable data, two sets of questionnaires were designed: one for teachers, one for students

Teacher questionnaire (Appendix 1) with 11 items was designed to get

teachers' ideas of pronunciation teaching and learning reality, problems faced

by their students and some recommendations to improve learning speaking reality, especially pronunciation reality at school Therefore, the teacher questionnaire is divided into some main parts as follows:

- Teachers' background information;

- Teachers' attitude towards present situation of teaching and learning pronunciation at Kien An high school;

- Problems faced by teachers in teaching pronunciation;

- Teachers' recommendations of techniques to improve students' pronunciation

Student questionnaire (Appendix 2) is another survey questionnaire

with 12 items tending to the following categories:

- Students' background information;

- Students' attitude towards learning speaking, especially learning pronunciation;

- Students' problems in learning pronunciation;

- Students' expectations in learning pronunciation

2.1.2 Classroom observations

Besides the questionnaires, classroom observation is also the main instrument used to collect more information about the reality of teaching and learning English speaking skills for the study The researcher observed the two classes, 11B7 and 11B11, taught by two English language teachers with

different abilities During the process of observations, some aspects taking in class were focused on as follows:

- Teaching and learning materials used in class;

- Students' activities and their mistakes in producing pronunciation;

- Teachers' approaches and techniques used in teaching pronunciation This instrument would be used again after some solutions for the reality

of teaching and learning pronunciation to grade 11th at Kien An high school was recommended, in order to confirm the effectiveness of this study

2.1.3 Interviews

After collecting data from the survey questionnaires and classroom observations, the researcher carried out an interview in Vietnamese and in the form of an informal conversation between the author and 5 teachers selected randomly The aim of the interview is to get the in-depth discussion about techniques used to improve students' pronunciation All teachers were willing

to express their opinions and ideas about this issue

99 students were from the two classes, 11B7 and 11B11 Most students from 11B7 have better English proficiency than those from 11B11 However,

in each class, they are not the same at English proficiency level in general and speaking competence in particular These students come mainly from city and towns, just partly from rural areas Only some of them are good in speaking classes while the rest remain rather passive and quiet

2.3 Research questions

To find out the challenges of teaching and learning English speaking skills to 11th graders and the best solutions to the situation, the questions guiding the study mainly focus on the following issues:

 Question 1: What are worrying problems teachers at Kien An high

school have to face in teaching pronunciation?

 Question 2: What are worrying problems students at Kien An high

school have to face in learning pronunciation?

 Question 3: What should be done to help students make progress with

their pronunciation skills?

In summary, this chapter has an overall description of the study: the teaching and learning situation at Kien An high school, the research methods, the participants and the research questions The next chapter will analyze the data collected from the survey questionnaires, classroom observations and interviews with those participants in Kien An school context

CHAPTER III: FINDINGS

This chapter aims at the analysis of data collection The data of the questionnaires, class observations and interviews will be presented and analyzed Then the findings of the research will be clarified

1 Teachers' and students' background

 Teachers' background

According to the questionnaire for teachers, teachers graduated from University of Languages and International Studies – Vietnam National University, Hanoi and Hai Phong University They are from 27 to 41 years old and have been teaching English for 3 to 16 years More than half have over 10 - year - experience, the rest have less than 10 years About 64% of the teachers confirmed their speaking skill becomes better while over 36% said it stays the same

 Students' background

From rural areas From cities

getting acquainted with English when they were at primary school However, they had very few chances to communicate with native speakers More than 86% said that they had never spoken English outside the classroom Only 4% could sometimes speak the target language to foreigners

2 Teachers' problems in teaching pronunciation

 Teachers' lack of motivation in teaching pronunciation

The result from the questionnaire reflects that grammar is the most concerning aspect in teaching English at Kien An high school Surprisingly, only about 9% of the teachers think that pronunciation is the most necessary for their students They pay much attention on grammar In contrast, teaching pronunciation as well as developing listening and speaking skills do not receive enough attention to It is this negative attitude towards pronunciation teaching that is one of the difficulties the teachers have to overcome if they want to succeed in helping their students to be good at pronunciation

 Limited pronunciation teaching time

According to the data from the questionnaire, teachers spend time teaching pronunciation at least more than 30 minutes a week About 64% of the teachers teach pronunciation for 30 minutes to 60 minutes and over 36% for more than one hour These data would be great numbers if it were time on pronunciation for one class in a week In fact, it is time for all the classes of which a teacher is in charge, however At Kien An high school, an English teacher has to be responsible for 3 to 4 classes It means on average, she spends just from 7 to 12 minutes per week on teaching pronunciation for a class It is not a positive indication

 Insufficient teaching materials

As observed in 7 classes, the only material used for teaching and

learning pronunciation was the textbook English 11 (Vietnamese education publisher) In 5 classes, the teachers used cassettes to teach words in Pronunciation part, while in the two other ones, the teachers modeled the sounds by pronouncing themselves to instruct their students However, all the teachers hardly spent time checking students' pronunciation in all observed classes They explained that there are many things to teach and train in one period, especially in vocabulary and grammar part, because vocabulary and grammar are useful for tests and examinations In short, it can be said that teaching materials the teachers used to teach pronunciation is rather poor

 Teachers' methods

As a reality at Kien An high school, pronunciation are taught at the beginning of the last lesson of each unit Besides this short time, the teachers often teach pronunciation in other lessons, especially in speaking class or through teaching vocabulary However, most of the teachers only make correction to students' pronunciation in the scale of lexis when the students make mistakes in producing their speech This correction, nevertheless, does not occur so often because of lacking time and chances for students to speak

in class

As observed in 7 classes, most of the teachers moved around the class while the activities were taking place Only few of them stood still in front of the class waiting for their students' answers During classroom activities, few teachers paid attention to low proficiency students, even some mistakes of students in producing stress and intonation were skipped Most of them were busy with trying to finish all the tasks of the lessons presented in the textbook They spent much time on presentation but less on practice and correction

As seen in all observed classes, the main technique used to teach

pronunciation was listening and imitating The technique listening and