An investigation into phonology problems encounter by beginner students in TOEIC listening section = Nghiên cứu những vấn đề về âm vị học mà học sinh trình độ sơ cấp gặp phải trong phần nghe TOEIC

This study is conducted to investigate some phonology problems that hinder students‟ success in TOEIC listening section.. The data was collected through the survey questionnaires of 30 s

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

Nghiên cứu những vấn đề về âm vị học mà học sinh trình độ sơ cấp gặp phải

trong phần nghe TOEIC

M.A MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY

CODE: 60140111

Hanoi, 2014

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

Nghiên cứu những vấn đề về âm vị học mà học sinh trình độ sơ cấp gặp phải

trong phần nghe TOEIC

M.A MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY

CODE: 60140111 SUPERVISOR: PHẠM HỮU ĐỨC, Ph.D

Hanoi, 2014

DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP

I, Võ Thiên An, hereby declare that the thesis entitled “An investigation into

phonology problems encountered by beginner students in TOEIC listening section”

and the work presented in it is entirely my own Where I have consulted the work of others, this is always clearly stated

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to all my lecturers at the Faculty of Post-graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi whose support and considerations have enabled me to pursue the course

I would like to express my deepest thank to Mr Phạm Hữu Đức, Ph.D, my supervisor, for his instructive suggestions and valuable comments on the writing of this thesis Without his help and generous encouragement, this minor thesis would not have been accomplished

I am also thankful to Mr Vĩnh Huy, M.A, Ms Chung Thị Thanh Loan, the employees and all my students from class TOEIC 300.21 and TOEIC 300.22 of Go Ahead center for their whole-hearted assistance in this study

I also owe my sincere gratitude to Mr Vũ Minh Ngọc, M.A, my uncle Mr Nguyễn Diệu and my cousin Ms Nguyễn Diệu Minh who spent time to share their useful ideas for my thesis

Last my thanks would go to my beloved family, my friends and my boyfriend for their loving consideration as well as their share in listening to me and helping me to work out my problems during the difficult course of the minor thesis

ABSTRACT

The score of TOEIC test in listening and reading reflects the proficiency of using English to communicate with native and non- native speakers of learners In the recent years, Vietnamese students have considered TOEIC as a key to find a good job, get promotion or study abroad however they still find it difficult to be good at listening section in TOEIC because of some linguistic obstacles This study is conducted to investigate some phonology problems that hinder students‟ success in TOEIC listening section The data was collected through the survey questionnaires of 30 students and the interview of 2 teachers at a center in order to find out students‟ phonology

problems in TOEIC listening section as well as the solutions for these problems

Key words: TOEIC listening section, phonology problems, beginner students,

solutions.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS viii

LIST OF TABLES ix

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale: 1

2 Aims and Objectives of the study: 2

3 Research questions: 2

4 Scope of the study 3

5 Method of the study 3

6 Organization of the study 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1.1 English listening and its importance 5

1.1.1 Theoretical background of listening and listening comprehension 5

1.1.2 The importance of listening 7

1.2 TOEIC listening section: 7

1.3 Phonetics & Phonology in English listening 8

1.3.1 Definition of phonetics & phonology 8

1.3.2 Role of phonetics & phonology in Listening 8

1.3.3 Listening Comprehension Obstacles regarding to Phonetics & Phonology 10 1.4 Phonetic & Phonology problems students may encounter in TOEIC listening section: 11

1.4.1 Sounds 11

1.4.2 Accent 12

1.4.3 Stress 13

1.4.4 Intonation 14

1.4.5 Connected speech 15

1.4.5.1 Weak forms 16

1.4.5.2 Reduced forms 17

1.4.5.3 Linking of words (liaison) 18

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 20

2.1 Setting of the study and participants 20

2.1.1 Setting of the study 20

2.1.2 Participants 20

2.2 Data Collection 20

2.2.1 Data Collection Instruments 20

2.2.2 Data collection procedures 21

2.2.3 Data analysis procedure 21

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 23

3.1 Findings from the questionnaire: 23

3.1.1 Students‟ evaluation of their listening ability: 23

3.1.2 Students‟ evaluation of the importance of English listening skill 23

3.1.3 Students‟ evaluation of the difficulties of TOEIC listening section: 24

3.1.4 Students‟ frequency of having phonetic & phonology problems in TOEIC listening section 25

3.1.4.1 Students‟ problem with same and similar sounds 26

3.1.4.2 Students‟ problem with variety of accents 26

3.1.4.3 Students‟ problem with stress 27

3.1.4.4 Students‟ problem with intonation of the speakers 27

3.1.4.5 Students‟ problem with weak forms 28

3.1.4.6 Students‟ problem with reduced forms 28

3.1.4.7 Students‟ problem with linking of words 28

3.2 Findings from the interview: 29

3.2.1 Students‟ opinion about their reasons of problems 29

3.2.2 Teachers‟ interview 29

3.2.2.1 Teachers‟ opinion toward their students‟ problem with same and similar sounds 30

3.2.2.2 Teachers‟ opinion toward their students‟ problem with accent 30

3.2.2.3 Teachers‟ opinion toward their students‟ problem with stress 31

3.2.2.4 Teachers‟ opinion toward their students‟ problem with intonation 31

3.2.2.5 Teachers‟ opinion toward their students‟ problem with weak forms 31

3.2.2.6 Teachers‟ opinion toward their students‟ problem with reduced forms 32 3.2.2.7 Teachers‟ opinion toward their students‟ problem with linking of words 32

3.2.2.8 Teachers‟ explanations for the main reasons for students‟ problems 33

3.2.2.9 Some strategies to help students to deal with phonology problems in listening suggested by the interviewed teachers 33

3.3 Pedagogical implications: 34

3.3.1 Techniques to help students distinguish same or similar sounds 34

3.3.1.1 Distinguish minimal pairs 34

3.3.1.2 Missing words 36

3.3.2 Techniques to help students get familiar with accents, linking of words and reduced forms 36

3.3.3 Techniques to help students get familiar with stress and intonation 37

3.3.3.1 Rubber band practice with nonsense syllables 37

3.3.3.2 Building up an intonation sentences: 38

PART C: CONCLUSION 39

1 Conclusions of the study: 39

2 Limitations of the study: 40

3 Suggestions for the study: 40

REFERENCE 41 APPENDIX 1 I APPENDIX 2 II APPENDIX 3 III

DEFINITION OF TERMS

Listening: An ability to identify and understand others‟ speech

TOEIC test: An assessment of proficiency in English language which is used by both

native and non-native speakers in the global workplace

Phonology: The study of sound systems

Accent: A distinctive way of pronouncing a language, especially one associated with a

particular country, area, or social class

Stress: Emphasis given to a particular syllable or word in speech, typically through a

combination of relatively greater loudness, higher pitch, and longer duration

Intonation: The rise and fall of the voice in speaking

Connected speech: Sandhi-variation or reduced forms

Weak forms: Unstressed syllables

Reduced forms: The changes of pronunciation in adjacent words of sounds in spoken

language

Linking of words: The connection between the final sound of one word and the initial

sound of the next one

Phonology awareness: The ability to attend to the phonological or sound structure of

language as distinct from its meaning

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

TOEIC: Test of English for International Communication TOEFL: Test of English as a Foreign Language

IELTS: International English Language Testing System

ESL: English as a Second Language

NAE: North American English

HCM city: Ho Chi Minh city

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Students‟ evaluation of their listening ability 23 Table 2: Students‟ evaluation of the importance of English listening skill 23 Table 3: Students‟ evaluation of the difficulties of TOEIC listening section 24

Table 4: Students‟ frequency of having phonology problems in TOEIC listening 25

In the recent years, studying and teaching English in Vietnam are more and more developed The appearances of international English tests like TOEFL, IELTS and TOEIC really help Vietnamese students to approach the development of the world Among international English tests, TOEIC is applied in many universities, colleges and English centers in Vietnam Although TOEIC is very popular with many people all over the world, Vietnamese students still have to face with many problems in studying, especially the listening section in TOEIC

As an ESL teacher at a center in Binh Thanh district in Ho Chi Minh City, my duty includes teaching the TOEIC for students After more than three years of teaching,

I have found that students here have to encounter with some difficulties in listening such as the lack of vocabulary, the speakers‟ pronunciation, the linking of words, the intonation and the speed of native speakers The cause of these problems comes from their habits of studying English at high school Firstly, at high school, the English studying curriculum focuses more on reading and grammar, and students rarely

approach to listening and speaking skills Secondly, at young age, English in their awareness is not as important as other subjects so they concern more on mathematic, physics and chemistry Lastly, the English they studied at high school primarily concentrates on British English of which the pronunciation, accent, liaison, intonation, vocabulary and grammar are sometimes different from what they learn and prepare for TOEIC tests

For these reasons, I would like to conduct my research “AN INVESTIGATION INTO PHONOLOGY PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED BY BEGINNER STUDENTS

IN TOEIC LISTENING SECTION” My thesis will seek the phonetic and phonological difficulties that students meet in TOEIC listening process in order to find out some techniques to improve their listening ability

2 Aims and Objectives of the study:

My study is conducted with these main purposes:

- To explore the students‟ perceptions of the TOEIC listening test

- To investigate what phonology problems beginner students meet in the TOEIC listening process

- To suggest some suitable activities to help students overcome them

3 Research questions:

The research is conducted to answer 2 following questions:

1 What are the students‟ attitudes and perceptions to TOEIC listening section?

2 What phonology problems do beginner students meet in the TOEIC listening process?

4 Scope of the study

This study focuses on some phonology problems that beginner students at the center in Binh Thanh district often meet in TOEIC listening section These problems will be identified through the result of the questionnaire and the interview The researcher also suggests some useful techniques and solutions for these ones

5 Method of the study

This study is a case study which used the interview and the survey questionnaire

to collect data The questionnaire was designed to find out the students‟ attitudes toward the listening TOEIC section and their difficulties regarding to phonetics & phonology in their listening process Besides, this study also contained the interview from students and teachers in order to ensure the validity and the reliability of the data

6 Organization of the study

To achieve the aims of the study, this paper is divided into three main parts They are INTRODUCTION, DEVELOPMENT, and CONCLUSION

INTRODUCTION includes the reasons of choosing the thesis, the aims, the scope, the research questions, the methods and the organization of the study

DEVELOPMENT consists 3 chapters Chapter 1 presents the theoretical background relevant to the research Firstly, some basic concepts of phonetics, phonology, listening and the TOEIC listening test are introduced Then, the phonology problems that hinder students in TOEIC listening section are also presented Chapter 2

is the research methodology In this chapter, I will introduce the subject of the study, the instruments used to collect data and the procedure of data collection Chapter 3 presents data analysis and discussion The data will be analyzed through two instruments: questionnaire and the student and teacher interview I also interpret the

findings Some techniques and activities are also suggested to help teachers and students to overcome phonology difficulties in TOEIC listening section

The last part which is the summary of the findings is CONCLUSION This part also includes the limitations of the study as well as some recommendations for further study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 English listening and its importance

1.1.1 Theoretical background of listening and listening comprehension

When discussing „Listening as comprehension‟ in his book, Richards (2008:3) indicates that listening comprehension is the traditional thought of the listening nature

He points out “in most methodology manuals listening and listening comprehension are synonymous” He explains this point of view based on “ the main function of listening in second language learning is to facilitate understanding of spoken discourse.”

There are many definitions of listening with variable viewpoints have been suggested by scholars for years Vygotsky (1962) as cited in Kuo (2009) states his own

ideas about listening that listening is considered as the first intake that “involves thoughts delivered to human‟s mind through speech” in order to gain the language

output and listening comprehension Lynch & Mendelsohn (2002) ensure that in the past listening was considered as a passive process that our ears just received information and the listener passively registered the massage However, they also give

a new point of view of listening at present, they think that now listening is as an active process and good listeners are active when listening like native speakers

Bentley & Bacon (1996) also defined listening as an active process during which the listener constructs meaning from oral input Purdy (1997:8) has the same

idea as Bentley & Bacon by giving a definition of listening, "the active and dynamic process of attending, perceiving, interpreting, remembering, and responding to the

expressed (verbal and nonverbal), needs, concerns, and information offered by other human beings" Having the same idea, Thomlison (1984) indicates that listening is an

ability to identify and understand others‟ speech This process includes understanding speakers‟ accent or pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and meaning comprehension

An able listener has ability to do all four things simultaneously Whereas, Underwood

(1989:1) simply defines listening as "the activity of paying attention to and trying to get meaning from something we hear"

Some researchers state that listening comprehension is considered as a channel for comprehensible input (Krashen, 1985) and as an important aspect of interlanguage communication in language acquisition (Swain, 1985) Hasan (2000:138) also

emphasizes the role of listening comprehension as “listening comprehension provides the right conditions for language acquisition and development of other language skills” Talk about listening comprehension, Murphy (1991:56) described it as an

“interactive, interpretive process in which listeners engage in a dynamic construction

of meaning”

Listening comprehension is regarded as a complex, interactive process in which listeners are involved in a dynamic construction of meaning Listeners understand the oral input from sound discrimination, prior knowledge of vocabulary, grammatical structures, stress and intonation, as well as other use linguistic, paralinguistic, or even non-linguistic clues in contextual utterance (Rost, 2002) Vandergrift also defines listening comprehension as

“a complex active process in which the listener must discriminate between sounds, understand vocabulary and grammatical structure, interpret stress and intonation, retain what was gathered in all the above and interpret it with the immediate as well as the larger sociocultural context of the utterance” (Vandergrift,

1999: 168)

1.1.2 The importance of listening

Wolvin & Coakley (1988) states that listening comes before speaking, reading and writing and it is the first skill developed Feyten (1991) also emphasizes the importance of listening in communication by giving specific data in his research He points out in the four skills, listening provides the largest percentage (more than 45%)

of our total communicative competence, followed by speaking (30%), reading (16%), and writing (9%) Goh (2000) thinks listening is the primary means by which incoming

ideas and information are taken in Brett (1997: 39) also states that "listening is a key language skill It has a vital role in the language acquisition process" Vandergrift

(2007) emphasizes the importance of listening as the heart of language learning and the important skill to develop second language acquisition Rost (2002) also indicates that the ability of learners to use listening as a means of acquisition is a key difference between more successful and less successful acquirers Besides, Rost states that progress in listening will provide a foundation for development of other language skills Harmer (2007) also shares the same opinion with Rost According to Hammer, listening is not alone in its process; it also contains and supports the other skills Moreover, he confirms that listening skill can help student to improve pronunciation, intonation and the sounds of not only individual words but also those which go together in connected speech

1.2 TOEIC listening section:

TOEIC test is an assessment of proficiency in English language which is used

by both native and non-native speakers in the global workplace TOEIC test is

considered as “a worldwide standard in assessment of international English use.”

(Schedl, 2010: 1)

In the English listening section of TOEIC test students will have the chance to show how well they understand spoken English This section of the TOEIC test

includes 4 parts: Picture description, questions and responses, short conversation and short talk (Byrne & Taylor, 2007:1-7)

1.3 Phonetics & Phonology in English listening

1.3.1 Definition of phonetics & phonology

Phonetics and phonology are the abstract issues of linguistics Many scholars give different definition of phonology for ages, but in general, they have the same

opinion that “phonology is the study of sound systems” or “the study of how speech sounds structure and function in languages”, (Hyman, 1975:2) Hyman also

distinguish clearly between phonetics and phonology According to him, phonetics is about how the sounds are made and their acoustic properties Phonology is about how these sounds convey the meaning Forel & Puskás also agree with Hyman by citing the Vikner‟s definition in their book about Phonetics and Phonology:

“Phonetics is concerned with how sounds are produced; transmitted and perceived (we will only look at the production of sounds) Phonology is concerned with how sounds function in relation to each other in a language In other words, phonetics is about sounds of language, phonology about sound systems of language Phonetics is a descriptive tool necessary to the study of the phonological aspects of a language.”(Vikner (1986) as cited in Forel & Puskás , 2005:3)

In Dictionary of Phonetics and Phonology of Trask (1996: 275), phonology is

also defined as “the branch of linguistics dealing with the relations among speech sounds in particular languages and in languages generally, and contrasting with phonetics.”

1.3.2 Role of phonetics & phonology in Listening

Many researchers find that pronunciation, phonetic and phonology have an important role in students‟ communication ability According to Vandergrift (2007),

Rost (2002), listening involves many simultaneous processes on different levels together with a combination of linguistic (e.g., phonological, lexical, syntactic, semantic, or pragmatic knowledge) and non-linguistic knowledge (e.g., knowledge of the context, topic, or general knowledge of the world) Bacon (1989) also states that a listener needs to have knowledge about major components of the language such as phonology, lexicon, syntax, semantics, and text structure

In the research in 1998, Berne pointed out some facts about listening comprehension in which there is a fact related to the relationship between phonology and listening comprehension of learners She states that lower- proficiency L2 students attend to phonology or semantics cues, whereas higher proficiency L2 students attend

to semantics cues

Habibi et al (2013) judge in communication competence, the ability to hear words correctly is even more difficult than to say them correctly In order to understand and be understood by the others, we have to have the knowledge and use of the language‟s pronunciation According to them, the terms pronunciation and phonetics are often used interchangeably and phonology is a study of sounds which mostly analyses the function of sounds in communication They also suggest students focus on individual sounds‟ pronunciation in order to distinguish individual words in listening comprehension Besides, understanding rhythm or intonation is really helpful for students to perceive longer utterances and decide on the most essential information Brown, Currie & Kenworthy (1980) admit that the tone of the speakers can transmit meaning that why they have researched a variety of aspects of intonation; the vocal elements are the neutral patterns of basic stress, rhythm and intonation The nuances of meaning can be transmitted by changes in tone quality, rate, rhythm, stress and many other features Stahr (2009) also agrees that teachers should pay attention to the rhythmic cues such as stress and intonation because they are very important even in

fast speech where the phoneme may be missing Therefore, he suggests students to focus on the phonological features of the vocabulary in order to indentify the word or the phrase in spoken form Celce-Murica (1996) insists there should be a close link between pronunciation and listening comprehension because communication competence requires the knowledge of sounds, intonation, stress pattern and how speech is organized She also lists four crucial elements to decode speech of native

speakers that are „Discerning intonation units‟, „Recognizing stressed elements‟,

„Interpreting unstressed elements‟, „Determining the full forms underlying reduced speech‟

1.3.3 Listening Comprehension Obstacles regarding to Phonetics & Phonology

Chiang & Dunkel (1992) claim that phonological features and background knowledge is the factor that affects listening comprehension process of students

According to White (1998) as cited in Gonzalez &Vargas (2009), listening requires some sub skills such as recognizing individual sound, discriminating between sounds, identifying reduced forms in fast speech, identifying stressed syllables, identifying stressed words in utterances, recognizing intonation patterns in listening comprehension Shelton (2008) states that in listening comprehension process, people may encounter different accents or pronunciation, unfamiliar lexical items and syntactic structures, competing background noise and make a conscious effort to not be distracted while listening In order to understand the meaning of the given message, listeners must deal with these problems nearly simultaneously

Brown (2001:252) finds out eight factors that affect the listening comprehension process related to phonetics & phonology includes: Clustering, Redundancy, Reduced Forms, Performance variables, Colloquial language, Rate of delivery, Stress, Rhythm, and Intonation and Interaction

Jia & Fu (2011) mentions some common listening obstacles in which there are some problems regard to phonology such as wrong pronunciation, misunderstanding of intonation and unknowing about the phonetic phenomena They cites ideas of Wong (1993) that phonetics knowledge, pronunciation and intonation severely hinders student‟s improvement in listening ability For the phonetic phenomena, Jia & Fu also explain that native English speakers speak very fast and using a lot of stressed syllables, liaison and contractions that might prevent students from understand what is spoken

Cauldwell (1996) explained that the problems with „speed‟ of speaking are related to difficulties in understanding reduced forms, distinguishing word boundaries and recognition of non prominent words

1.4 Phonetic & Phonology problems students may encounter in TOEIC listening section:

1.4.1 Sounds

According Jia & Fu (2011) sounds are not only the direct means in listening and listening but also the basic component and element of language They also mention good listening comprehension requires good pronunciation because inaccurate pronunciation can impact the students‟ understanding

Talking about students‟ problem in listening, Ur (2007) points out the students cannot realize English sounds in listening accurately because some of sounds do not exist in their own language For example, there are some sounds that do not exist in Vietnamese such as the sound / / as in „thank‟, or /ð/ in „this‟ Besides, Goh (2000) recognizes students have problems on distinguishing of familiar words Although students were familiar with some words, they could not remember the meaning of the words immediately

The answer choices in TOEIC listening section often contain words or phrases

of which sounds are often the same or similar in the listening text This phenomenon makes students often feel a little confused during the listening process For example,

“walking” and “working” are two words that Vietnamese students often confused with because these two words sound quite similar with them Besides, listening to homophones like “two”, “to” or “too” is really a big challenge for beginners

1.4.2 Accent

Derwing & Munro (2005:383) consider accent as a “normal consequence of second language learning” in which listeners can know how different the accent of the

speaker from of the first language community is

Schedl (2010) points out the Classic TOEIC listening included only standard American accents However, TOEIC test is a test of international English and the design team proposed varying the accents used in the listening Therefore, the TOEIC listening test reflects the varieties of Standard English Therefore, Trew (2007) advises students to get familiar with the different native accents because the TOEIC listening section often includes American, Canadian, British and Australian Speakers

The problem that Vietnamese students often deal is dialect such as the American accent or others because they rarely study all of them at high school The English which Vietnamese students often study at high school mainly concentrate on British English in both vocabulary and pronunciation

Gomez (2012) points out some main differences between British English and American English in pronunciation in his study include: rhetoric accent, differences in vowel pronunciation, for example, the changes of diphthong /əʊ/, vowels /ɔ/, /æ/, and /ju:/ and differences in pronouncing consonant with the typical example is the flapping /t/

Although American accent is just a part of Standard English, Vietnamese students often feel stressed when listening to texts with American accents For example: The course book “Very easy TOEIC” contains some sentences with the flapping /t/ such as “They‟re fighting”, “He is writing” Although the structure and meaning of two sentences are simple, students feel hard to distinguish between

“They‟re fighting” and “They‟re finding” or “He is writing” and “He is riding”

1.4.3 Stress

Buck (2001) states that speakers stress what they think are important, and take additional stress for the most important words which contain the core meaning Singer(2012) discovers that Vietnamese is a syllable- timed language, where as English is a stress- timed language In syllable-timed language, all the syllables take roughly the same amount of time to say In stress-timed language, syllables are lengthened and reduced according to whether or not they are stressed It is very hard for speakers of syllable-timed languages to get the hang of stress-timing, so this feature will persist, strengthening the staccato rhythm of Vietnamese English

Beside the stressed syllable in a word, English also has sentence stress or prominence which also occurs in TOEIC listening Prominence is the outstanding makes listeners pay attention to a word more than others in context by making the accented syllables (Celce- Murcia et al: 2002) The word we place stress in English sentence is very important because it affects the meaning of the whole sentences For example:

A: What did you like the movie?

B: It was pretty good (I liked it)

It was pretty good (I did not like it much)

Vietnamese students are rarely concerned with the sentence stress therefore it is

a little hard for them to recognize the key word of a sentence in order to choose the correct answer

1.4.4 Intonation

Intonation is also related to the structure and meaning of the text because

“intonation indicates clausal boundaries, questions, and when it is appropriate for the listeners to respond.” (Buck, 2001) According Kelly (2007), intonation is simply the

way the voice goes up and down in pitch when a person is speaking

When talking about the function of intonation, Roach (1991:195) states that intonation can help listeners understand the content which a speaker conveys more easily According to him, the function of intonation can be seen as four aspects:

i) „Attitudinal function’- a special kind of “meaning” that is the emotions and

attitudes of the speakers

ii) „Accentual function’- produce the effect of stress by placing “the tonic

stress on a particular syllable marks out the word” which is the most important in the

tone unit

iii) „Grammatical function’- help the learners recognize the grammar and

syntactic structure such as: “the placement between phrases, clauses or sentences, the different between questions and statements and the use of grammatical subordination”

iv) „Discourse function’- signal the “new” and “given” information, suggest

sort of contrast or link, and expected response to the listeners

Nghia (2008) made a research on intonation, and cited some ideas from the study of Celce-Murcia (2002) to illustrate for the difference in intonation of English and Vietnamese As cited in his research, English is an intonational language while

Vietnamese is a tonal language In English, the change of intonation also changes the meaning of the sentences For example, Wh-question often has final falling intonation whereas Yes/No question often has final rising intonation Because of the importance

of intonation in spoken language, Vietnamese students should aware of it in order to recognize the type of questions in part 2- questions and responses in TOEIC listening section so that they can guess the correct answer

Aquil (2012:169, 170) finds that “Sandhi-variations are the phonological modifications such as assimilation, contraction, liaison and elision.”He also collects

the opinions of Brown &Yule (1983); Field (2003); Koster (1987); Ur (1984) and states that because of the phonological changes, learners may have problems when recognizing the learned words because they are not familiar with the sound of the words in connected speech Moreover, connected speech occurs in real time so that learners do not have enough time to look up the words‟ meaning in their memory when processing connected speech

According to Henrichsen (1984), the appearance of reduced forms in listening input can make the ESL learners get more difficulties in listening comprehension by decreasing the word recognition ability Celce- Murcia et al (2010: 163) also admit

that connected speech is really a phenomenon that “words are not pronounced in isolation but run together.”

Brown (2001) as cited in Gonzalez & Vargas (2009) comments that there are different types of reduced forms such as Phonological, for example, /djeetyet/ for “did you eat yet?”; Morphological, for example, “I‟ll”; Syntactic, for example, “when will you be back? Tomorrow, maybe” and Pragmatic, for example, a phone rings in a house, then child answer and says: Mom! Phone In my research, I just focus on the phonological reduced forms and some aspects of connected speech that are the liaison

or the linking of words, reduced forms and weak forms

1.4.5.1 Weak forms

An aspect of connected speech that regards to stress is strong forms and weak forms Strong and weak syllables can be understood as stressed and unstressed syllable According to Roach (1991:96), strong syllable contains one of the vowel phonemes except the sound /ə/ Weak syllable have four types of peak:

i) The vowel /ə/ (“schwa”)

ii) A close front unrounded vowel in the general area of / i:/ and / ɪ/

iii) A close back rounded vowel in the general area of /u:/ and / ʊ/

iv) A syllabic consonant

Roach (1991) also explains the reasons why learners should learn how to use weak forms First, strong forms are unnatural and foreign-sounding with most native English speakers Second, all native English speakers use weak forms in speaking except for emphasizing something, so learners should learn them in order to understand what they hear Roach also points out function words such as auxiliary verbs, prepositions, conjunctions, etc have both strong forms and weak forms but they are more often pronounced in their weak forms

Mortimer (1985:4) considers weak forms as an important role in both speech

production and reception by stating that “a good practical grasp of the weak forms of English is essential to good pronunciation and listening comprehension”

Laoubi (2010) cites the opinions from Lynch (2009) that weak form is treated as

an aspect of connected speech that really is a challenge for learners in listening comprehension Moreover, the weak form occurs everywhere in conversation or in discourse and it makes listening comprehension more difficult by making words go unnoticeable so that learners fail to recognize them

have to  hafta

has to  hasta

Trew (2007) observes that the conversations used in TOEIC or in the real world are natural conversation in which the sound of words is dramatically different from words spoken in isolation and the researcher also gives some examples such as “going to” and “gonna”, “want to” and “wanna” Trew explains the reason why students have problem with this situation is that students may have had teachers who prevent them from exposure to natural language because it represented of slang or „lazy‟ English

1.4.5.3 Linking of words (liaison)

Liaison or linking and intrusive R are special cases of juncture which refers to

“the relationship between one sound and the sounds that immediately precede and follow it.” Roach (1991: 157) Celce- Murcia (2010: 166) also defines linking as the

connecting of the final sound of a word or syllables to the initial sound of the next Brown (2006) indicates that linking often occurs between vowels and vowels, consonants and vowels and consonants and consonants

Tench (2003:16) explains clearly types of liaison in his research The most famous case is the linking „r‟ In most English accent, the sound „r‟ is not pronounced

if the initial sound of the next word is a consonant but if the next word begins with a vowel, the „r‟ sound will be pronounced For example, “far away” /fɑːr əw eɪ / or “here

in Britain” /hɪər in Brɪtn/ Besides, He also mentions linking between vowel and vowel

If the final sound of word is / i:, i, eɪ, aɪ, ɔɪ /, the speaker will add /j/ when connecting with the initial vowel of the next word; for example, “see off” /si: j ɒf/ If a word ends with / u:, u, aʊ, əʊ /, we will add /w/ to create the linking with the next initial vowel word such as “no idea” /nəʊ w aɪdɪə/ Celce-Murcia et al (2010) (as cited in Kodera, 2012) calls this type of linking as the junctural /j/ glide and the junctural /w/ glide