Using Language Learning Strategies in Pronunciation Training for Non-English Major Students

The purpose of this action research is to improve student’s pronunciation performance, especially in terms of English vowel sounds, through a pronunciation training program.. With the d

Using Language Learning Strategies in

Pronunciation Training for Non-English

Major Students Kết hợp sử dụng các chiến lược học tập ngôn ngữ cùng với huấn luyện phát âm cho sinh viên

không chuyên Anh Nguyễn Ngân Hà Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ Luận văn Thạc sĩ Chuyên ngành: Phương pháp giảng dạy tiếng Anh; Mã số: 60 14 10

Người hướng dẫn khoa học: Ph.D Dương Đức Minh

Năm bảo vệ: 2013

Abstract The purpose of this action research is to improve student’s pronunciation

performance, especially in terms of English vowel sounds, through a pronunciation training program There were 20 non-English majored students from Hanoi University of Science, VNU participating in this program During 10 weeks, students were provided with explanation on English vowel production as well as the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese vowel systems before practicing these sounds with the support of Dickerson’s Covert Rehearsal Model The data were collected from three questionnaires, two tests - the pre-test and post-test and reflective reports from students The analysis of collected data proved that after the training program, students gained certain improvement in their pronunciation performance The number of errors in pronouncing vowels decreased; nevertheless, some sounds remained problematic with learners By studying the mistakes, the researcher found that the relationship between L1 and L2 exists and L1 influenced negatively on the L2 pronunciation acquisition of students

in this study Besides, the use of various pronunciation learning strategies was shown to be useful for students’ learning of pronunciation, especially the social strategy group (as classified by Oxford (1990) and Peterson (2000))

Keywords Phương pháp giảng dạy; Tiếng Anh

Content

1 INTRODUCTION

a Problem statement and rationale for the study

Whether English is learnt as a second language or a foreign language, pronunciation should

be paid adequate attention by both teachers and learners since an English learner with a limited pronunciation performance may lose his self-confidence in social interactions, which “negatively affects estimations of a speaker’s credibility and abilities” (Gilakjani, 2012, p 119) In other words, learners with good English pronunciation tend to be understood despite their frequent grammatical mistakes in the speech On the other hand, good knowledge of English grammar is not

an insurance of intelligibility, meaning “how much of the speech is actually understood by interlocutors” (Munro, 2011, p.9)

Even though pronunciation is said to be able to acquire naturally (Krashen, 1985), pronunciation instruction has been proved to bring students chances to enhance their intelligibility and comprehensibility which are influential factors of their communicative competence (Prator,

1971, Morley, 1991 as cited in Darcy, Ewert, &Lidster, 2012) According to Harmer (2007), students can overcome difficult sounds by understanding how they are produced while teachers may support their learning of pronunciation by making them aware of their mispronunciation (Kenworthy, 1987) In short, pronunciation instruction plays an important role in helping learners acquire knowledge, raising their awareness and improving skills that support the enhancement of intelligibility

With profound influence of the development of English as an international language, Vietnamese schools are providing students with English as one of the core subjects at school In big cities, children even can learn English before they start their primary school (Ha, 2005) However, it is problematic that “many Vietnamese speakers can speak English, but only a few have intelligible English pronunciation” (Ha, 2005, p.1) As observed, students in Hanoi University of Science (HUS) share the same problem They long to speak English accurately and fluently but for some reasons, English becomes too challenging for them and they are too shy to speak English With the desire to help my students first improve their pronunciation skills and then consolidate their self-confidence in using English so that the fear of making mistakes or being blamed will no longer be their obsession, I decide to conduct an action search in which I will

provide my HUS students with frequent pronunciation training combining with pronunciation learning strategies

b Research questions

The study is expected to find answers for the following research questions:

1 Are there any problems of learners when producing English vowel sounds? If yes, what are they?

2 To what extent does pronunciation training enhance students’ pronunciation performance?

3 What are students’ perceptions of the effectiveness and usefulness of the training?

c Importance of the study

First and foremost, with the pronunciation training program, the researcher expects to bring positive changes in students’ pronunciation performance, especially the production of English vowels Hence, those who benefit directly from this study are students participating in the research After this training, students do not only gain essential knowledge about English pronunciation but also build up useful learning strategies for themselves to improve their skills Moreover, it is hoped that students’ confidence and autonomy will be developed

Secondly, the findings from this research can be valuable evidence about the relationship of pronunciation learning strategies and learners’ outcomes, besides showing contribution of explicit instruction on pronunciation to the improvement of learners The results of this study might also be

a significant reference for other teachers and researchers that share the same concerned field in their practice of teaching English

2 METHODOLOGY

a Rationale for action research design

Action research is defined as “a process in which participants examine their own educational practice systematically and carefully, using the techniques of research” (Ferrance,

2000, p.1) This definition raised two key points of action research features First, action research

is participatory, which means that the researcher conducts an investigation on his/her own teaching practice, not others’ Second, Ferrance (2000) shares the same viewpoint with Kemmis and McTaggart (1992) who claim that action research differs from everyday actions of teachers at the point that action research is “more systematic and collaborative in collecting evidence” (as cited in Cohen, Manion& Morrison, 2005, p.227)

It was the nature of action research that prevailed the researcher who is also a teacher having specific problems in teaching pronunciation upon conducting this study The first reason comes from the wide range of educational areas where action research can be implemented

According to Cohen et al (2005), this type of research may be used in discovering a new teaching

method, improving one’s methods of continuous assessment, continuing professional development

of teachers, encouraging students’ motivation towards learning, etc By collecting sufficient evidences, the researcher could identify students’ problems in performing English pronunciation This study should have been a survey research if the work had stopped at this phase However, the researcher wished to improve the situation after thoroughly understanding what she was facing Hence, the very nature of what the teacher or the research was trying to do is problem-solving, not only problem-identifying Moreover, with the official investigation into students’ learning conditions and problems with pronunciation, together with the profound reading of the related issues in the literature, the researcher developed a practical plan to improve the teaching situation Hence, this work was not solely daily problem-solving but as what O’Brien (1998) stated, it was action research where the researcher has a systematic study on the problem with theoretical consideration before taking intervention

b Participants

This research was conducted in a class with 20 students In order to understand more about her students, the researcher delivered a questionnaire to investigate students’ attitude towards learning pronunciation and their awareness of the problems that they had during their learning before the training started

In terms of knowledge about English vowel system, through the questionnaire, fifteen out

of twenty students admitted that they could not remember all sounds and their symbols There were only four of them able to give precise answers while the percentage of students identified more than 80% of vowel sounds correctly was just under 50% Particularly, five among 20 students could remember only three to five symbols of vowel sounds

In terms of problems in learning and practicing English pronunciation, the vast

majority of participants stated that they could not identify their pronunciation mistakes while speaking In addition, many students (13 out of 20) were pessimistic about their pronunciation when emphasizing that they found it difficult to pronounce sounds correctly The same number of

students realized the influence of Vietnamese sounds while producing English sounds Especially, none of students were satisfied with their pronunciation performance at that time However, despite existing problems, they admitted that they had never spent time practicing English pronunciation regularly Luckily, every student recognized the necessity of enhancing their pronunciation skills This need may be turned into students’ motivation in learning

3 FINDINGS

a Research question 1: Are there any problems of learners when producing English vowel sounds? If yes, what are they?

Problematic sounds that most students made can be divided into two main groups The first group includes incorrect sounds due to the tendency of replacing an English vowel with another in Vietnamese The second group consists of mispronounced letters caused by using incorrect sound for its representing letter in English

Group 1: Incorrect pronunciation of sounds resulting from the replacing an English vowel with

another in Vietnamese

As a matter of fact that the vowel / æ / does not exist in Vietnamese, students who could not pronounce the sound correctly tended to replace it with the sound /e/ that is the common vowel

of Vietnamese and English languages Another problematic sound was /ʌ/ in words “ sun” or

“son” /sʌn/, “ wonderful” /ˈwʌndəfl/ and “some” /sʌm/ It is interesting to note that not every word with this sound was mispronounced, for example, the word “sun” or “son” and “some” However, students failed to pronounce the vowel /ʌ/ when it was in the word “wonderful” and changed it into the sound /uə̯ / (the representing letters are “uô” in Vietnamese”)

A very common problem appeared in the recorded speech by most of the students in this study is the mispronunciation of the sounds /əʊ/ and /ə/ Despite the fact that the sound /əʊ/ does exist in the Vietnamese vowel system, almost all students participating in this research pronounced the letter “o” in “home” or “most” as /o/ (represented by the letter “ô” in Vietnamese) Nevertheless, they could correctly pronounce the word “cold” The similar replacement happened with the sound /ə/ represented by the letter “o” as in “European” In this case, the pronunciation of this word changed into /ˌjʊəroˈpiːən/

Moreover, as in the case of the word “home”, when it appeared many times in the tests, students also had the similar problem with the sound /əʊ/ This means that the wrong pronunciation may become a habit of learners when they are not noticed about the mistake

Group 2:Mispronounced letters caused by using the wrong sound for its representing letter in

English

* Problems with letter “a”

When pronouncing the word “Pacific” in the text of the two tests, students could not decide which is the correct way to pronounce it and many incorrect ways of pronouncing this letter were observed The exact sound for the letter “a” in this case is /ə/ as the stress falls on the second syllable However, 13 out of 20 students in the pre-test failed to make it right 9 out of these students used the sound /a/ (represented by letter “a” in Vietnamese) to apply for the letter In the meantime, 3 students pronounced it as /eɪ/ which is one of the sound represented by “a” in English like in “make” or “cake” Especially, there was a student pronouncing “a” as /e/ which may not very common in English

* Problems with letter “i”

In English, “i” can represent a variety of sounds such as /ɪ/ in “fish”, “film”, “him”, /i:/ in

“police” or /aɪ/ in “find”, “bike”, “wide”, etc Therefore, it was easy to understand why the students in this study confused when deciding whether to choose /ɪ/ or /aɪ/ to pronounce the letter

in the tests After all, they put /ɪ/ for “i” instead of /aɪ/ or vice versa For example, letter “i” in

“wine”, “lifestyle” or “nightlife” should be pronounced as /aɪ/ but about 5 to 6 students used /ɪ/ wrongly In contrast, more than half of students pronounced the word “liberal” incorrectly as they thought /aɪ/ was the right sound

* Problems with letter “e”

With this letter, the most frequently-mispronounced words are “incredible” /ɪnˈkredəbl/ and

“valley” /ˈvæli/ Regarding the pronunciation of “incredible”, the first letter “e” was pronounced as /ɪ/ instead of /e/ by one-third of students in the pre-test This number reduced to three students in the post-test Letter “e” in “valley” was mispronounced as /ei/ by 70% of students (equal to 14 students) in the pre-test and 8 students in the post-test

b Research question 2: To what extent does pronunciation training enhance students’ pronunciation performance?

The answer to this question is based on the comparison of the scores of the pre-test and post-test The T-test had been used to analyze the results of the two tests It suggests that after the training course, students gained a significant improvement in their vowel sound production In other words, students became more aware of their problems and managed to produce English vowels more

c Research question 3: What are students’ perceptions of the effectiveness and usefulness of the training?

On the one hand, many students stated that the training provided them with skills and knowledge of English vowels so their pronunciation developed quickly On the other hand, students admitted that their improvement in English vowel pronunciation was not so clear Some students put that gaining development in pronunciation was of great importance for him/her as he/she could better their listening skill if he/she had correct pronunciation Nevertheless, there

were also students not finding much development in pronunciation after the training

In most of the reflective reports, students reflected that the teacher’s instruction on pronouncing vowel sounds in class brought a lot of benefits for them Firstly, they could pronounce the sound more correctly thanks to knowing how to produce it Secondly, students found it more interesting and motivated when they were learning how to articulate a sound correctly

Besides comments on in-class training, students also expressed their viewpoints about their practice progress with Covert Rehearsal Model The most-appreciated aspect of this model was that students had chances to hear their voice, share the recording of their voice in class and receive feedbacks from the teachers and other classmate According to them, learning from mistakes is a

beneficial way of improve English pronunciation

4 DISCUSSION

a The necessity of explicit English pronunciation instruction

The findings of this study provide strong support for including explicit English pronunciation explanation in the teaching syllabus Appreciation from students on the pronunciation instruction suggests that they can benefit from the formal teaching of English vowels The profits that students can gain from pronunciation lessons are not only the knowledge

of how to produce the correct sounds but also the raising of their awareness

b The awareness of contrasts between English and Vietnamese sound system

The analysis of students’ problematic sounds in the pre-test and post-test have once again proved the relationship between L1 and L2 According to Odlin (1989, as cited in Ly, 2007) and Celce-Murcia, et al (1996), the influence of L1 on L2 can be reflected in the phenomenon that L2 learners tend to replace an L2 sound that does not exist in their L1 with an L1 similar sound In this study, the tendency of replacing an English vowel with another Vietnamese sound was one of the causes for students’ mispronunciation Therefore, when teaching English pronunciation, the teacher should notice students about the possible influence of their native language on the pronunciation of English sounds Moreover, the teacher can study more thoroughly on the problems which are caused by the negative transfer of L1 to L2 This can help him/her understand the root of students’ mispronunciation due to the impact of L1

c The notice of the relationship between English spelling and sound systems

Each language has its own feature and so does English However, some of its features can actually cause difficulties for learners (Kelly, 2001) In this study, the trouble arose from the mismatch between English spelling and sounds In English, one sound can be represented by many letters and one letter may have different ways of pronunciation Therefore, there might be confusion of students in selecting the correct pronunciation for a letter Some special features of the English spelling and sound systems should be informed to students so that they will not be surprised when observing a rule the different from their native language

5 CONCLUSION

The study was aimed at investigating whether the pronunciation training program could support students in learning English vowels or not and to what extent First of all, some major types of students’ problems in pronouncing English vowels have been identified The most common problems fall into two groups The first group includes mispronounced sounds due to

students’ wrong replacement of English vowel sounds with other Vietnamese vowels The second group reveals students’ confusion in pronouncing a representing letter correctly due to some special features of English language As an English letter has several sounds to represent, Vietnamese students encounter difficulties in selecting accurate pronunciation Secondly, analyzed data from the two tests as well as the reflective reports have proved that the training program helped students improve their pronunciation of English vowel sounds However, its usefulness was not always clear In general, students made fewer mistakes in pronouncing words but there were some problems that still remained after the training

Studies on the use of learning strategies in pronunciation still remain very few More attention to this field should be encouraged as teaching and learning pronunciation are of great importance in supporting other practical skills in English Further research can be done with the same framework of the pronunciation training program in this study to re-examine the actual benefit of formal instructions of English sounds and the Covert Rehearsal Model Those studies can continue working with consonants or other elements of English suprasegmentals

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