A STUDY ON USING PHONICS METHOD IN TEACHING PRONUNCIATION TO THE BEGINNERS OF ENGLISH AT TIENGANH123 ENGLISH CENTER

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOIUNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES ---***---LƯƠNG THỊ HOÀI PHƯƠNG A STUDY ON USING PHONICS METHOD IN

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

-*** -LƯƠNG THỊ HOÀI PHƯƠNG

A STUDY ON USING PHONICS METHOD IN TEACHING PRONUNCIATION TO THE BEGINNERS OF ENGLISH AT

TIENGANH123 ENGLISH CENTER

(NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ SỬ DỤNG PHƯƠNG PHÁP GHÉP VẦN TRONG VIỆC DẠY PHÁT ÂM CHO NGƯỜI MỚI BẮT ĐẦU HỌC TIẾNG ANH TẠI TRUNG TÂM TIẾNG ANH 123)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

HA NOI, 2015

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

-*** -LƯƠNG THỊ HOÀI PHƯƠNG

A STUDY ON USING PHONICS METHOD IN TEACHING PRONUNCIATION TO THE BEGINNERS OF ENGLISH AT

TIENGANH123 ENGLISH CENTER

(NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ SỬ DỤNG PHƯƠNG PHÁP GHÉP VẦN TRONG VIỆC DẠY PHÁT ÂM CHO NGƯỜI MỚI BẮT ĐẦU HỌC TIẾNG ANH TẠI TRUNG TÂM TIẾNG ANH 123)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Dr Hà Cẩm Tâm

HA NOI, 2015

Hanoi, 2015

Luong Thi Hoai Phuong

The purpose of this study is to explore whether using phonics to teachpronunciation can help English beginners better at pronunciation It has two foci.One is to investigate whether phonics method can help English better inpronunciation or not The other is to identify the situation when the phonicsinstruction is implemented in the classroom This study employed a qualitative andquantitative approach in which it primarily relied on the use of action research.Eighteen students from English123 center participated in the study The findings ofthe current study revealed that phonics instruction has positive effect on Englishbeginners in leaning pronunciation; however, it is still problematic Even thoughPhonics could help students pronounce consonant well, most of students feelconfused with pronouncing the vowels and diphthongs The reason is that there aretoo many spelling rules for each sound to remember

I would like to express my most sincere gratitude to my respectable supervisor,

Dr Ha Cam Tam, for her restless and sympathetic encouragements, valuable advice and patient guidance until the completion of this study.

My sincere thanks also go to my dear colleagues at Tienganh123 English Center for all their help, support and encouragement when I encountered difficulties.

I wish to acknowledge my thankfulness to the pronunciation class for their enthusiastic participation in this project.

Finally, I am deeply indebted to my beloved parents, my siblings and my graduate friends for their sacrifice, encouragement and care

post-TABLE OF CONTENTS

Certification of originality i

Abstract ii

Acknowledgement iii

Table of contents iv

Tables vi

Figuresv vii

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1.Rationale 1

2 Research hypothesis 2

3.Aim of the study 2

4.Significance of the study 2

5.Scope of the study 3

6.Methodology of the study 3

7.Organization of the study 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 Phonetics 4

1.2 English phonetics 5

1.3 Phonics 7

1.3.1 Definitions of phonics 7

1.3.2 Review of previous studies 10

1.4 Action research 11

1.4.1 Definitions of action research 11

1.4.2 Steps of action research 12

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY 13

2.1 The setting of the study 13

2.2 Research design 13

2.2.1 Participants 13

2.2.2 Data collection instruments 13

2.2.3 Data collection procedure 15

2.3 Data analysis and discussion 18

2.3.1 Observation 19

2.3.2 Reflection 22

PARTC: CONCLUSION 24

1.Major findings 24

2.Implications 24

3.Limitations of the study 25

4.Suggestion for further studies 25

REFERENCES 26 APPENDICES

Appendix A: Pre-test I Appendix B: Test 1 II Appendix C: Test 2 III Appendix D: Test 3 IV Appendix E: Test 4 V Appendix F: Post-test VI Appendix G: Lesson plan sample VII

Tables 1: English consonant sounds……….7

Table 2: Comparison of Phonics and Phonetics………7

Table 3: Comparison of Phonics and Phonetics………8

Table 4: Examples of spelling rules in phonics instruction ………17

Table 5: Examples of list of words without initial consonants………18

Figures 1: English vowel sounds……… 7Figure 2: Comparison of the mean scores of four regular tests……….………… 22Figure 3: Comparison between the mean scores of Pre-test and Post-test……… 23

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Pronunciation instruction is important factor in foreign language teaching Assounds play a crucial role in communication, foreign language teachers mustattribute proper importance to teaching pronunciation in their classes It is evidentthat communication is a mutual relationship between the speaker and hearer Thismeans that one must comprehend what he/she hears in the target language and mustproduce the sounds of the language he/she must trying to learn accurately Unless

he has sufficient knowledge of the sounds of the target language, he can neitherencode a message to anybody nor decode the message sent by another person bylearning the sounds of the target language within his mother tongue Therefore,pronunciation instruction is of great importance for successful oral communication

to take place since it is an important ingredient of the communicative competence.(Hismanoglu, 2006) Hamers (2007) identifies the importance of pronunciationinstruction as “Pronunciation teaching not only makes students aware of differentsounds and some features, but can also improve their speaking immeasurably”(p.248) Celce-Murca, Brinton, and Goodwin (1996) claim that none-nativespeakers of English need to achieve a “threshold level of pronunciation” to beunderstood and minimize oral communication problems (p.3) Pronunciation needs

to be taught and deserves more attention in a language course

However, without a systematic syllabus, many students have difficulties in singleword pronunciation Even though some students have learned English for yearsbefore they enter junior high school, they were unable to read orally and spell outmost of the words Very often, when teacher asked them to read words or sentences,they just closed their mouths and kept silence

There have been many approaches to teach English pronunciation discussed andelaborated worldwide, and these include whole language, phonetic symbols andcomputer assisted programs Yet there is no research that has been taken in Vietnam

to assess the effectiveness of using phonics in helping students to learn Englishpronunciation This action research project begins to address this need.

Since English is a universal language that has been widely used, learning Englishbecomes a globalized trend Due to this reason, students in Vietnam started learningEnglish at an early age However, after a long English learning period, manystudents still have difficulties in communicating in English and show less proficientEnglish competence and performance that led to a miscommunication in English

As Hung (2004) indicated, this situation was caused by their inability to pronouncewords, namely, a failure in understanding the correlation between letters and sounds

it stands for, and hence, resulted in students’ failure in understanding the text oreven no intention to understand the text This problem revealed that Englishteaching and learning in Vietnam has put much more emphasis on grammar andvocabulary that the way to communicate Thus, a lack of basic ability in accuratepronunciation was common for students In order to explore better solutions forthese problems, it is necessary for teachers to come to an approach to better students

in learning English, especially pronouncing English words

2 Research hypothesis

In the present study, I hypothesized that students can pronounce words better with

the help of phonics instruction

3 Aims of the study

The aim of the study is to find out whether student can develop their ability ofpronunciation with the help of phonics instruction

4 The significance of the study

This study is hoped to bring some benefits to both teachers and students as follows:

It may stimulate teachers to employ a new method for teaching Englishpronunciation

It may stimulate students and help them to improve the pronunciation ability

5 The scope of the study

As could be seen from the title of the study, this paper investigates the use ofphonics instruction in teaching English pronunciation At the same time, the studyonly concentrates on English learners at elementary level Furthermore, the studywas conducted at an English learning center

6 Methodology of the study

The action research approach was employed in this study In addition the tests were

given to find out in-depth data about students’ progress and ability of pronouncingwords

7 Organization of the study

This study is divided three parts which discuss the following matters:

Part A: Introduction presents a brief introduction of the rationale, the aims, scope,

significance, method and organization of the study

Part B: Development

Chapter 1: Literature Review provides the theoretical knowledge and results from

the recent studies for the issues relevant to the field under investigated Firstphonetics and English phonetics were reviewed Second, previous studied related tophonics instruction will be reported

Chapter 2: The study is composed of three sections First, the setting of the study

including the context and participants will be described Next, the model of actionresearch in this study is provided Finally, the data analysis and discussion arepresented

Part C: Conclusion summarizes the major findings, the implications and presents

the limitations of the study, and suggestions for further studies

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter was partitioned into four main parts First, the phonetics was explored.Second, the English phonetics was reviewed Third, phonics instructions and the use

of phonics instruction were shown Finally, the review of action research waspresented

1.1 Phonetics

Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of sounds of humanspeech It’s concerned with human noises by which the thought is actualized orgiven audible shape: the nature of these noises, their combinations, and theirfunctions in relation to the meaning Phonetics is subdivided into practical andtheoretical Practical or normative phonetics studies the substance, the material form

of phonetic phenomena in relation to meaning Theoretical phonetics is mainlyconcerned with the functioning of phonetic units in the language Theoreticalphonetics regards phonetic phenomena synchronically without any special attentionpaid to the historical development of English

According to Carr, Philip (2003), phonetics provides objective ways of describingand analyzing the range of sounds humans use in their languages More specifically,articulatory phonetics identifies precisely which speech organs and muscles areinvolved in producing the different sounds of the world’s languages Those soundsare then transmitted from the speaker to the hearer, and acoustic and auditoryphonetics focus on the physics of speech as it travels through the air in the form ofsound waves, and the effect those waves have on a hearer’s ears and brain Itfollows that phonetics has strong associations with anatomy, physiology, physicsand neurology (McMahon, 2002)

Three traditional branches of the subject are generally recognized:

 Articulatory phonetics is the study of the way speech sounds are made by vocalorgans It studies the way in which the air is set in motion, the movements of the

speech organs and the coordination of these movements in the production of singlesounds and trains of sounds.

 Acoustic phonetics studies the physical properties of speech sound, astransmitted between the speaker’s mouth and the listener’s ear

 Auditory phonetics studies the perceptual response to speech sounds, asmediated by ear, auditory nerve and brain Its interests lie more in sensation ofhearing, which is brain activity, than in the psychological working of the ear or thenervous activity between the ear and the brain The means by which wediscriminate sounds – quality, sensations of pitch, loudness, length, are relevanthere

Phonetics is the study of how speech sounds are made, transmitted, and received,i.e phonetics is the study of all possible speech sounds The human vocal apparatuscan produce a wide range of sounds, but only a small number of them are used in alanguage to construct all of its words and utterance

1.2 English phonetics

In English, there is no on-to-one relation between the system of writing and thesystem of pronunciation The alphabet which is used to write English has 26 lettersbut in (Standard British) English there are approximately 44 speech soundsincluding 12 vowels, 8 diphthongs and 24 consonant sounds

1 2.1 English vowel sounds

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English “ah!” [a:],pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure atany point above the glottis According to Roach (2000:10), vowels are “sounds inthe production of which there is no obstruction to the flow of air as it passes fromthe larynx to the lips”

According to English phonetics and phonology, vowel was defined asbelow:“Vowel is a speech sound in which the air stream from the lung is notblocked in any way in the mouth or throat and which is usually pronounced with thevibration of the vocal cords.”

Here under is the vowel chart:

Figure 1: Vowel sounds chart

A diphthong, literally "two sounds" or "two tones", also known as a gliding vowel,refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable.Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tonguemoves during the pronunciation of the vowel

1.2.2 Consonant sounds

According to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Encyclopedic (1992:192), consonantsare “speech sounds made by completely or partly stopping the flow of air breathedout through the mouth” In Wikipedia Dictionary, it is said that “the number ofconsonants in the world’s languages is much greater than the number of consonantletters in any one alphabet” In English phonetics and phonology (Roach, 2000:10),the term consonant can be defined as “sounds in which there is obstruction to theflow of air as it passes the larynx to the lips” One more collected definition fromthe lectures: The production of sounds, consonant was defined as: “Consonantsounds are the sounds, in the production of which one articulator moves towardsanother or two articulators come together obstructing the air stream and the airstream can’t get out freely.”

According to Marianne, Donna and Janet (1996:42,43), the consonants system wasclassified according to place and manner of articulation

According to the slide shared by Goodwin (2006), place of articulation was defined

as “the location of the obstruction of the air stream in the articulation of consonants

It describes the point at which the articulators actually touch or at their closest.” Here under is the chart of classification of English consonant sounds

Table 1: English consonant sounds

1.3 Phonics

1.3.1 Definitions of phonics

Phonics, conventionally defined as correspondent relationships between letter andsounds It is a method to develop reading ability in English speaking countries.(Chou, 2010)

What is the difference between phonics and phonetics? Dictionary.com has thefollowing entries:

A method of teaching elementary

reading and spelling based on the

phonetic interpretation of ordinary

spelling

The branch of linguistics that dealswith speech and their production,combination, description andrepresentation by written symbols.The system of sounds of a particularlanguage

Table 2: Comparison of Phonics and Phonetics

(The American Heritage Dictionary of the English language)

Phonics Phonetics

The science of sounds: acoustics

A method of teaching beginners to

read and pronounce words by learning

the phonetic value of letters, letter

groups and especially syllables

A study and systematic classification

of sounds made in spoken utterance.The practical application of thisscience to language study

The system of speech sounds of alanguage and a group of language

Table 3: Comparison of Phonics and Phonetics

(Merriam –Webster Medical dictionary)

There are different points of view on phonics Some regard phonics as a kind ofrelationship between information about or association with letters and sounds, someregard phonics as one of the teaching methods and some others relate phonics toreading instruction (Hung, 2004) As Durkin (1993), phonics refers to a “body” ofinformation about connections between letters and speech sounds which aredesigned to help readers figure out the pronunciation of words unknown in theirwritten form

Different from this view, Richard, Platt (1998) pointed out that phonics is a method

of teaching children to read Children are taught to recognize the relationshipbetween letters and sounds They are taught the sounds which the letters of thealphabet represent, and then try to build up the sound of a new or unfamiliar word.Besides, Adams (1990) considered that phonics is the instruction to help childrenunderstand letter and sound correspondences in alphabetic language Throughunderstanding and internalizing the correspondences, children recognize the printedwords in their oral vocabulary by sounding them out and discover the relationshipbetween speech patterns and spelling patterns In other words, phonics developsbeginners’ capability to generalize the rules of letter-sound correspondences so thatthey may be equipped with the skills to produce the pronunciation of unseen words(Groff, 1989; Stuart, 1995) Thus, phonics aims to help children promptly recognizefamiliar words and correctly decode those unfamiliar ones (Armbruster & Osborn,

only to teach children not only sound out words, but to recognize words effortlesslyand automatically in order to transfer their attention to the meaning of the text.Phonics instruction teaches students to understand and learn the relationshipbetween the letters (graphemes) of written language and the individual sounds(phonemes) of spoken language It also teaches children how to use theserelationships to read and write words accurately (Armbruster, Lehr, & Osborn, 2000) The main goal of phonics instruction is for students to learn and use the alphabeticprinciple –the understanding that there are systematic and predictable relationshipsbetween written letters and spoken sounds (Armbruster, Lehr, & Osborn, 2000).This principle helps greatly on children’s ability to read words, both in isolation and

in reading passages Adam (1990) also claimed that phonics is instruction intended

to help children understand the fundamental alphabetic nature of English writingsystem and through that understanding, to internalize the correspondences betweenfrequent spelling patterns and the speech patterns In another study with Taiwanesestudents, Shen (2003) states that EFL learners should have phonics instruction todevelop their phonemic awareness efficiently; which will lead to successfulautomaticity in word recognition

Phonics instruction provides students with adequate alphabetic rules to chooseamong a set of possible candidate sounds, the correct pronunciation of the word(Rogers, 1985) With the corresponding letter-sound knowledge in mind, studentsare ready to venture in the authentic word hunt As they apply their alphabetic rules

to test on the words that are of irregular form, although they may not be completelycorrect in the first place, they have accessed to match the decoded phonologicalinformation of the words to their known-word repertoire (Hu & Kai, 2000) Themore student venture in decoding unfamiliar words, the more trial and errorexperiences facilitate them to establish the repertoire of word-specific, irregularorthographic representation (Hu & Kai, 2000) When it comes to foreign learning, aclear and understandable pronunciation plays a crucial role of a succesfulcommunication that helps speakers understand and be understood( Goodwin, 2001)

However, as far as foreign language learning is concerned, learning the ability ofpronunciation had long been ignored till recent decades After 1980s, with the trend

of the communicative approach, comprehensible pronunciation has become an aim

in ESL and EFL classroom, focusing on fluent communication and clear expression(Brown, 2007) Besides, since 1990s, pronunciation has been emphasized in thefield of English learning and teaching (ELT) (Celce-Murcia, Brinton & Goodwin, 2007)

1.3.2 Review of previous studies

In the past few decades, research on teaching pronunciation through phoneticsymbols focused on comparing the effectiveness between phonics and phoneticsymbols The results of these studies are different

Some researches show that teaching pronunciation through phonics is moreeffective (Huang, 2002; Hung, 1998) Fifth graders in Hung’s (1998) the phonicsgroup performed significantly better than those in the K.K group in the oralpronunciation test The phonics group also showed more positive results regardingtheir attitude and interest in learning English On the same track, Huang (2002)investigated whether or not junior high school students could be trained to fostertheir phonological awareness through phonics instruction The results indicate thatPhonics instruction has positive effects on first-year junior high school students’acquisition of phonological awareness of first- year junior students Om the otherhand, some studies showed that the K.K phonetic system is more effective in terms

of pronunciation learning and instruction (Chu, 2006; Hsieh, 2009; Liu, 2009).However, some studies show that there are no significant differences betweenlearners’ pronunciation performance, regardless of phonics or K.K phonetic systeminstruction (Hsu, 2003) Most studies show that leaner’s benefit from thecombination of both types of instruction (Chung, 2011; Hsu, 2000; Lin, 2001) Lin(2001) explored the efficacy of phonics in teaching pronunciation to Chinese EFLadult learners Results from the tests revealed that the phonics approach as well asthe combination of phonics and the phonetic method was found to have a significant

investigated the functions and application of phonics and phonetic symbols inEnglish leaning and teaching The result indicated that phonics and phoneticsymbols are only two assisting tools and methods in pronunciation teaching Themain teaching and learning method of English word pronunciation was throughdirect imitation and practice.

In contrast to the positive result from phonics instruction, some studies show thatteaching pronunciation through phonetic symbols is more efficient Chu (2005)compared the effectiveness of teaching English phonics and phonetics symbols onword pronunciation The result indicated that student receiving phonic symbolsinstruction outperformed those who received phonics instruction

In summary, the results vary among different comparative studies on the effectsbetween phonics instruction and phonetic symbol instruction Some show thatphonics instruction is more effective than phonetic symbol teaching Some foundthat there are no differences between these two methods Some suggest that phonicsand phonetic symbols are both excellent tools in assisting young learners learningEnglish pronunciation In contrast, some other studies show that a phonetic symbolteaching is more effective than phonics instruction

In Viet Nam, the phonetic symbol instruction has been a popular method used inteaching pronunciation Lately, phonics instruction is applied to teach in someschools Hence, in order to assist English teacher in Vietnam, it is necessary toinvestigate teaching English pronunciation through phonics instruction

1.4 Action research

1.4.1 Definitions of action research

Action research is a very popular research method in the current development ofsociety However, different researchers have different ideas about what an actionresearch is According to Nunan, D (1992:18), a very famous researcher in the field

of education, “A descriptive case study of a particular classroom, group of learners,

or even a single learner counts as action research if it is initiated by a question, issupported by data and interpretation, and is carried out by a practitioner

investigating aspects of his or her own context and situations” This definitionshows that in order to carry out an action research, the teacher must be a practitioner.She must identify the problem, and then carry out her plan to solve the problem.

Another definition given in Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching andApplied Linguistics (2002:8) is that “Action research is teacher-initiated classroomresearch that seeks to increase the teacher’s understanding of classroom teachingand learning and to bring about improvements in classroom practices” In otherwords, action research aims to help teachers to improve their teaching and students’learning in any aspects that they realize in their work

Tsui (1993) stated that “Action research is a very effective way of helping teachers

to reflect on their teaching and to come up with their own alternatives to improvetheir practices” This is a very simple but detailed definition about action research.Through all the definitions above, it can be concluded that action research is carriedout with the aim of solving practical problems in a classroom It mainly focuses onthe actions of both teachers and students

1.4.2 Steps to conduct an action research

According to Nunan (1992:19), there are seven steps to conduct and action researchincluding initiation, preliminary investigation, hypothesis, intervention, evaluation,dissemination and follow-up However, in this research, the researcher follows theaction research model of Kemmis and Mc Taggart (1988), which is composed offour phases:

1 Planning: a problem or issue is identified and a plan of action is developed inorder to bring about improvements in specific areas of the research context

2 Action: the plan is to put into action over an agree period of time

3 Observation: the effects of the action are observed and data are collected

4 Reflection: the effects of the action are evaluated become the basis for further cycles ofresearch

CHAPTER II: THE STUDY

This chapter presents a detailed description of process carrying out this study First,the setting of the study is given Second, the research design is provided Thirdly,the data analysis and discussion including 2 phases: action, observation anddiscussion are presented

2.1 The setting of the study

The study was conducted at TiengAnh 123 English center which offers training in avariety of English courses The researchers surveyed learners who were studying inpronunciation class The learners were mainly university students along with someemployees in several companies in Hanoi They voluntarily paid tuition fee to takethe course The outstanding advantage of the target training was the keen interest ofthese learners in English Most of them were very studious and purposeful instudying the pronunciation course

2.2 Research design

2.2.1 Participants

The study was carried out in the English 123 center in Hanoi The implementation

of the research was carried out from June, 6th to July, 19th 2014

The subjects of the research were eighteen students at English 123 center in Hanoiincluding 10 females and 8 males They were at the age range of 19 to 26 Theywere assumed to be at the beginner level of English proficiency

2.2.2 Data collection instruments

According to action research approach, data collection instruments are included inthe phase of planning The following part will present the phase of planning clearly.The research was carried out within four weeks in total There were twopronunciation sessions for each week Each session lasted ninety minutes In thephase of planning, teacher prepared lesson plans for each session and six oral tests

to check students’ progress during the pronunciation course