PRONUNCIATION ENGLISH PROBLEM OF IBD STUDENTS

I would like to express my gratitude to all those who help me to complete my own project.

NATIONAL ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY

Faculty of International Education

Lecturer : Le Thi Thu Mai

Student : Nguyen Giang My

Class : I4P Intake Spring

Hanoi - 2010

Finally, I would like to gratefully acknowledge my deep indebtedness to my

supervisor, Miss Le This Thu Mai, who has supplied with great deal of enthusiastic assistance

in guiding me how to do a project, display the project on PowerPoint scientifically and was a great help in giving useful advice in difficult times through proofreading my project and

listening my trouble carefully

Nguyen Giang My

Content

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 4

I BACKGROUND: 4

II RATIONALE: 4

III OBJECTIVES: 5

IV SUBJECTS: 5

V METHODOLOGY: 5

1 Questionnaires: 5

2 Interviews: 5

3 Observation: 6

VI RESEARCH QUESTIONS: 6

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW 7

I OVERALL CONCEPTIONS OF PRONUNCIATION: 7

1 Definition of pronunciation: 7

2 The sound relationships of pronunciation: 7

II THE IMPORTANT ROLES OF CORRECT PRONUNCIATION 8

1 Making effective communication and good impression: 8

2 Making efficient work: 9

3 Supporting listening skill 9

CHAPTER III: MAJOR FINDINGS 10

I REAL PRONUNCIATION PROBLEM OF IBD STUDENTS: 10

1 Syllable pronunciation: 10

2 Stress: 12

3 Intonation: 12

II THE REASONS FOR THE PRONUNCIATION PROBLEM: 13

1 The dissimilarities between Vietnamese and English language: 13

2 Wrong selfstudy method: 14

3 Method of teaching: 16

4 The factor of psychology: 16

III SOLUTIONS FOR THIS PROBLEM: 16

1 Building worthy learning strategy with worthy schedule and plain targets: 16

2 Choosing suitable way of training pronunciation skill: 17

3 Invest teaching time in pronunciation: 19

CHAPTER IV: CONCLUSION 20 CHAPTER V: RECOMMENDATION - 21 - CHAPTER VI: REFERENCE - 22 -

-CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

I BACKGROUND:

In recent years, according to globalization trends and new challenges, Vietnam may have

to face lots of difficulties Thus, Vietnamese government has co-operated and establisheddiplomatic relations with 168 countries in all continents In addition, Vietnam has alsoparticipated in many large organizations such as, ASEAN, APEC, ASEM and more than 500non-governmental organizations in order to learn from countries’ experiences to help Vietnam

to develop in all aspects Another significant example is Vietnam has become the WTO’s150th member since 2007 Following these analyses, the use of English as an internationallanguage to communicate with foreign people is necessary than ever before However,learning a new language is not easy, because of many different points which are not similar tomother tongue, Vietnamese language One of the most considerable points is pronunciationwhich is noticed a lot by English learners It is the biggest challenge when using English indaily communication as well as at work or at universities, because a word is pronouncedincorrectly or wrong intonation which may lead to misunderstandings of listeners Thesesometimes bring unexpected effects or even break good relationships Therefore, the projectfocuses on problems of pronunciation

II RATIONALE:

At present, Vietnamese people are having various ways to learn English as well as manychances to approach acquainted with English The biggest advantage of English learners is thatthe government is concerning and investing in teaching English The clearest evidence is inthe education system of Vietnam, English is taught as a main subject not only at schools fromprimary schools to high schools but also at colleges and universities The government has alsomade more incentives so that private and state universities can cooperate with overseasuniversities in international education programs in English with native teachers In addition,English centers are rising more and more to satisfy of demand for studying English at all ages

in big cities Moreover, English learners can also practice and improve their English throughthe media following the development of network and technology that are supported by many

learners Hence, these can chose English channel to listen news or watch films In addition,learners could read English newspapers in Vietnam like Vietnam News or enter Englishwebsites on the Internet Nevertheless, Vietnamese learners still complain about incorrectpronunciation from colleagues, partners, and teachers Hence, I make this project with hope ofchanging a part of this situation.

to learn about 4 hours per day from Monday to Friday apart from Wednesday Also, Englishtechers at National Economics University are involved Some of them are Vietnamese teachersand the others are foreign teachers

2 Interviews:

Direct interview is used to answer three research questions and provide more detailinformation about the pronunciation of IBD students Ten 10 students were also interviewed

among of students who joined in completing the survey Besides that, 10 teachers are teachingEnglish at level 4 of NEU Among of them, five people are Vietnamese and the others areEnglish native speakers.

3 Observation:

Observation is used for answering the first questionnaire During the period of doing theproject I also try to allow 30 minutes every lesson to take notice of pronunciation mistake ofIBD students when they practice speaking in class or exchange ideas with their teachers inEnglish

VI RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

1 How is the real pronunciation problem of IBD students?

2 What are the reasons for the problem?

3 What are the solutions to students’ pronunciation skill?

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW

I OVERALL CONCEPTIONS OF PRONUNCIATION:

1 Definition of pronunciation:

According to information sources in Oxford English Dictionary (2007), pronunciation isdefinite as the way in which words are said with regard to production of sounds Pronunciationdepends a lot on the area in which people grew up and live at present, because a word can bespoken in different ways by various individual learners or groups This forms typicalpronunciation for each area in reality, which is called is dialect

2 The sound relationships of pronunciation:

Following reading reference books of teaching pronunciation such as Sheep or Ship (Baker, 2008) and How to Pronounce Correctly (Tran, 2006), it is noticeable that if English learners

want to understand pronunciation clearly, they need to know that pronunciation refers to

structure and stress of a word and intonation in speaking.

a Pronunciation and structure of a word:

First of all people, who learn pronunciation, need to catch basic sound rules of a word.The first rule is that the syllable is a part of a word; each word may include one or one moresyllables One syllable consists of a group of letters spoken at once Each syllable may haveone or many consonants but just have only a vowel Vowels are basic ingredients of a word,sometimes one vowel can stand alone to form a syllable, and the number of vowel is thesyllable having in a word

The second one is vowel and consonant pronunciation is quite complicated due todifferent pronunciations of kinds of vowels and consonants English vowels separate intosingle vowel sounds and double vowel sounds Single vowels such as “a”, “e”, “i”, “o”, “u”include short vowels that make a short sound, and long vowels that make a long sound.Double vowels are known like “ai”, “au”, “aw”, “ay”, “ea”, “ee”, “ei”, “ex”, “ey”, “ie”, “oo”,

“ou”, “ow”, “ui” Consonants are also divided into single consonants and double consonants,but single consonants comprise voiced consonant sounds and unvoiced consonant sounds

b Stress:

A word must have stress and a sentence also must have stress Hence, stress isunderstood as the force that you put on a particular of a word or a part of a sentence In otherwords, stress of a word is its syllables spoken louder and stronger than the other syllables ofthe word Therefore, stress keeps function of emphasizing and drawing attention of listeners

In common, a word has only a stress, so the word must have one syllable having one stress.However, sometimes, one word has two stresses In that case, the word exists main stressedsyllable, or primary stressed syllable and secondary stressed syllable

c Intonation:

In speaking, in order to express ideas or thoughts, people have to speak many sentences.This means that many words with different spoken stresses at the same time Furthermore,people also tend to display emotions in speaking, so pronunciation has a close relationshipwith intonation Intonation is the rise or fall of speakers’ voice to display emotions of speakersand make the speed becomes rhythmic, smooth and natural

II THE IMPORTANT ROLES OF CORRECT PRONUNCIATION

Everybody wants to be able to speak English like a native speaker, but English pronunciation

is always a big problem to English second language learners Bad English pronunciation may

confuse people even if you use advanced English grammar We can use simple words andsimple grammar structures that make people understand you but we cannot use “simplepronunciation” Therefore, pronunciation plays an important role in life Some strikingbenefits of good pronunciation can be seen clearly, as following:

1 Making effective communication and good impression:

As a person try to pronounce properly and practice everyday to make ability ofpronunciation become a reaction, so he does not have to waste time to pay attention to think ofhow to pronounce the word that he is going to say Hence, the speed of speaking a word willfaster and the communication will also be fluent and uninterrupted This helps listeners not tofeel impatient, bored, or angry due to waiting for a long time to listen from at the beginning to

at the end of the speed In addition, good pronunciation helps speakers not to need to repeattheir words They also draw all listeners’ attention on their speed because listeners catchspeakers’ points easily and do not have to struggle with guessing pronounced wordsincorrectly As the result, it is sure that listeners feel comfortable in talking and do not existmisunderstandings or tense temperature between speakers and listeners, as well.

2 Making efficient work:

First of all, proficient pronunciation becomes extremely important for candidates whoneed to experience an interviewed for their jobs This is only an opportunity to impress andplease recruited people by good communication In starting work, fluent Englishpronunciation avoids misinterpreted things with partners, saves time, keeps and makes moregood relationships Furthermore, proficient pronunciation is a useful tool to persuade partners

in negotiatations

This leads to lose good relationships because of not understanding each other As theresults, if people speak English fluently and properly in work, they will save time, keep andmake more relationships by impressing partners through their professional manner Thismakes work reach high efficiency

3 Supporting listening skill

Pronunciation can support listening because between pronunciation and listening exist amutual relationship When people usually listen to native speakers’ conversations, the ways ofnative speaker’ pronunciation impact on listeners’ organ of hearing Gradually, the organ ofhearing gets acquainted to that ways of pronunciation, which makes capacity of correctpronunciation could become a reaction without efforts, so learning pronunciation gets easier

In contrast, if people understand how pronounce words and practice to be expert, this effectsability to react and the organ of hearing Thus, people will be sensible in defining wordsspoken to get content of conversation

CHAPTER III: MAJOR FINDINGS

I REAL PRONUNCIATION PROBLEM OF IBD STUDENTS:

All students tend to be effected by the way of speaking Vietnamese, so it is hard forthem to avoid getting in problems of pronunciation This item will mention some usualmistakes which concern with syllables pronunciation, stresses and intonation to show howmany students catch these mistakes in percentages

Figure 1 : The percentage of real pronunciation of IBD students

that there are up to over 50% of students still do not get demands of low advance degree This

is the reason why the percentages of students can communicate to foreign people is very low

After analyze students’ answers in interviews and results of observations I find thatthey often miss ending syllable sound of a word, especially /z/, /s/ sounds or /k/ sound Theothers have ever caught these errors, but the level is not serious Another problem is that somestudents are lazy in practicing pronunciation and others can not distinguish differencesbetween sounds These situations lead to pronounce the sounds of English like the sounds ofVietnamese language In general, they often misinterpret /: ɔ/ into /ô/ sound, /θ/ into /th/sound and /t/ into /t/ sound in Vietnamese language Furthermore, there is no differencebetween long sounds and short sounds when students pronounce.

2 Stress:

Figure 3 : Frrequence of paying attention to pronunce

stress of words correctly of IBD students

14.29%

78.57%

alwaysoftensometimesnever

According to the survey, there are no students not paying attention to pronounce stress of

a word However, the number of students always pronounces with stress made up the lowestpercent at 7.14% Besides that, the percentage of students concerns stress in speakingsometimes and often are 78.57 % and 14.29% respectively These results show that there areover three quarter of all students not really concerning and investing time for stresspronunciation

3 Intonation:

From the data are illustrated in the chart, 57.14% of students can express 30-50% theiremotions in speaking Another striking feature is there are not any students admit that they are

able to display over 70% emotions in communication These results prove that almost all ofIBD students are not good at using intonation in communication

Figure 4 : The percentage of expression of emotions to foreign

people when speaking English of IBD students

10-30%

30-50%

50-70%

70-100%

II THE REASONS FOR THE PRONUNCIATION PROBLEM:

After analyzing results from interviews with both teachers and students and the survey Inotice that there are three main reasons of pronunciation problems

1 The dissimilarities between Vietnamese and English language:

According to Vietnamese teacher’ opinions, basically Vietnamese language is differentfrom English language because of three features, as following

a Stress and intonation:

Vietnamese language only has one syllable and monotonous rhythm These featuresinterfere with English learners, since English is the language with multiple syllables,complications of stress words, stress of sentences and raising or falling intonation.Furthermore, there are some rules to locate stress because English language exists manyexceptions This feature demands English learners have to learn stress as well as ways ofwriting words by heart In addition, rhythm in speaking can not express on any dictionaries,which force English learners to try hard in listening English native speakers’ conversation