LV ENGLISH FINAL CONSONANT SOUNDS EXPERIENCED BY THE TENTH FORM STUDENTS IN QUANG NAM PROVINCE

As a result, students at high schools in Quang Nam experience big problems in their pronunciation in terms of stress, intonation, rhythm, sound linking, vowels, diphthongs, and consonant

Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 RATIONALE

One of the most important objectives of learners of English is to speak English accurately and fluently Most English learners try to speak as much like native speakers as possible so that they can not only easily understand what the native are saying but also be easily understood In fact, it is very difficult for them

to know how to produce the language in a perfect way Practising English pronunciation can help improve our listening and speaking skills

Learners of English in general and students at high school in Quang Nam province in particular must try their best to develop good English pronunciation It may be theorized that not many teachers at high school have paid due attention to teaching pronunciation yet Another factor may be that the students in Quang Nam speak English with the local accent In her research “The Coronal – Velar relationship in Vietnamese Dialects”, Pham Thi Hoa (1997) pointed out:

Quang Nam speakers often try to standardize their dialects when they have to

communicate with people from the other dialects Children usually “read” in

the standardize dialect, which they are taught in school as an educational

policy (Cu et al: 1977), but “speak” in their dialects at home [33, p.69]

That makes them difficult to produce sounds in English, simply in this

example: cab – cap They are incapable of distinguishing between voiced and

voiceless sounds of stops, fricatives, affricates, in particular, as well as the consonant sounds at the final position in general As a result, students at high schools in Quang Nam experience big problems in their pronunciation in terms of stress, intonation, rhythm, sound linking, vowels, diphthongs, and consonants as well

Moreover, the tenth-form students have learned the new Tieng Anh 10 textbook in this school year Four language skills, namely, listening, speaking, reading, and writing should be integratedly developed and a pronunciation part mentioned goes through in each unit of the textbook In other words, students should be helped to develop both receptive and productive skills My proposed research project is intended to identify effective ways to help students, particularly, high school students in Quang Nam province to develop their ability in pronouncing English sounds more accurately With my knowledge from the M.A course and teaching experience in many years, I attempt to make an investigation into the problems or difficulties that the tenth-form students in Quang Nam may experience

in pronouncing English final consonant sounds

1.1.1 Theoretical background

Although final sounds play a crucial role in the English language, not many Vietnamese learners of English are aware of this Therefore most students fail to

perceive English final sounds and to pronounce them accurately in their speech

When the words in phrases and sentences are said separately, students can recognize the sounds quite easily However, when they are said in a rapid connected speech in which sounds are linked together, it is not easy for students to perceive Therefore, students are likely to encounter a great number of difficulties in connected speech The difficulties in English pronunciation for Vietnamese speakers are probably caused by the differences in the pronunciation of the two languages In English, final consonant sounds are pronounced clearly to distinguish meanings of words On the contrary, in Vietnamese, final consonant sounds do not function in the same way

1.1.2 Practical background

Performing the English final consonant sounds is not easy for Vietnamese students of English in general and students at high schools in Quang Nam in particular From my teaching experience in many years, I have noticed that most of

the students do not pay attention to the released final sounds In English, final consonants, however, are the codas of the syllable that help learners recognize and understand the meaning even in their connected speech Correct pronunciation of the English final consonants and sound linking is a requirement for the learners if they are to understand other people and to be understood in English communication The proposed study is aimed to investigate how school students perceive and produce English final consonant sounds in words, phrases, sentences and extended discourses Based on the findings, possible solutions will be suggested to help students overcome their limitations

1.2 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

• To confirm the findings of previous studies done by other researchers

• To identify the likely problems experienced by the tenth-form students at high schools in Quang Nam

• To help the students develop their ability to perceive and to perform English final sounds and linking sounds accurately To offer some suggestions to make students be aware of how to pronounce the final sounds accurately and to link

the final sounds in connected speech in an appropriate way as well

1.3 AIMS, OBJECTIVES AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The objectives of the study are:

● to identify how students perceive and produce English final consonant sounds

● to suggest some implications for teaching the problematic final consonant sounds

3 How can the teachers help students to overcome these difficulties?

1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This study will examine the English final consonant sounds experienced in listening and speaking However, due to the limited time and resources, the investigation will be restricted to the tenth-form students studying at some high schools in Quang Nam, and to the final consonant sounds in three concrete ways:

● The final consonant sounds at the end of the utterance or sentence;

● The final consonant sounds preceding the word beginning with a vowel;

● The final consonant sounds preceding the word beginning with a consonant

1.5 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

The study is presented in five chapters as follow:

Chapter one, “Introduction”, includes the rationale, significance of the study,

aim, objectives, and research questions, the scope of the study, and organization of the study

Chapter Two, “Literature Review”, is an overview of previous studies on

vowels, diphthongs, English stops and linking sounds The theoretical knowledge consists of the final consonant characteristics in articulatory and acoustic approach mentioned and a contrastive analysis in English and Vietnamese final consonants The aspects of connected speech are also presented

Chapter Three, “Method and Procedure”, presents the hypotheses, research

method and procedure of data collection and analysis

Chapter Four, “Results and Discussions”, describes the results of actual

performing pronunciation drawn from the data collected to define what the common errors and the problems in pronunciation that tenth-form students at high schools in Quang Nam may experience are

Chapter Five, “Conclusion and Recommendations”, the conclusion is drawn

from the study and some implications for practical solutions is given out There have also been some limitations and unsolved problems

1.6 DEFINITION OF TERMS

1.6.1 Definitions of consonant sounds

There are many definitions of consonants:

- A consonant is a speech sound made by completely or partly stopping the flow of air being breathed out through the mouth [21, p.263]

- A speech sound that is not a vowel, involved or characterized by harmony,

a letter of the alphabet standing for a spoken consonant [49]

- A consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture sufficient to cause audible turbulence, at once or more points along the vocal tract [50]

- A consonant is a sound formed by the occlusion or near occlusion of the breath stream Consonants differ from the vowels by the audible friction with which

by they are produced [9, p.17]

- A consonant is a speech sound where the airstream from the lung is completely blocked (STOP), partially blocked (LATERAL) or where the opening is

so narrow that the air escapes with audible friction (FRICATIVE) With some consonants (NASALS) the airstream is blocked in the mouth but allowed to escape through the nose

With the other group of speech sounds, the VOWELS, the air from the lung is not blocked

There are a number of cases where the distinction is not clear-cut, such as /j/ at the

beginning of the English word yes where there is only very slight friction, and

linguists have sometimes called these semi-vowels or semi-consonants [35, p.78]

Among these definitions I like the definition in the Longman dictionary by Richards et al, (1993) best because of its clearness This definition helps the learners know and distinguish kinds of consonants in English There are twenty-four consonantal phonemes which are classified according to their places of articulation and manners of articulation

1.6.2 Errors and mistakes

1.6.2.1 What is an error?

- An error is the use of a linguistic item in a way which a fluent or native speaker of the language regards as showing faulty or incomplete learning [35, p.127]

Productive errors are those which occur in the language learner's utterances; and receptive or interpretive errors are those which result in the listener's misunderstanding of the speaker's intentions Competence in a language can be regarded as composed of productive competence and receptive competence These two competencies do not develop at the same rate It is not uncommon to hear people say that they understand a language better than they can speak it, or vice versa

1.6.2.2 What is a mistake?

- A mistake made by a learner when writing or speaking and which is caused

by lack of attention, fatigue, carelessness or some other aspect of PERFORMAMCE [35, P.127]

1.6.2.3 The difference between an error and a mistake

According to Richards et al, (1993) there is a distinction between an error and a mistake An error is made by a learner who has incomplete knowledge A

mistake is made by a learner when writing or speaking and which is caused by lack

of attention, fatigue, carelessness, or some other aspect of performance

“In the study of second and foreign language learning, errors have been studied to discover the processes learners make use of in learning and using a language.” [35, p.127]

1.6.3 Error analysis

According to Richards et al, (1993) error analysis is the study and analysis

of the errors made by second language learners

Error analysis may be carried out in order to:

a identify strategies which learners use in language learning

b try to identify the causes of learner errors

c obtain information on common difficulties in language learning, as an

aid to teaching or in the preparation of teaching materials [35,p 127]

1.6.6 Sound production

Sound production is the process of producing sounds - the production of sound as a meaningful phenomenon It deals with experimental and theoretical work about how complex sounds are processed by the human speaking system [53]

Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVEW

This chapter reviews the literature related to my study The first part is a description of the prior research The second part is the description of the English and Vietnamese sound systems to help the students understand more clearly about the final sounds The last one reviews the background of pronunciation teaching

2.1 PRIOR RESEARCH ON THE TOPIC

Books on phonetics and phonology have been written by many famous

linguistists in English as well as in Vietnamese “Pronunciation Contrasts in English” was written by Nelsens (1973) Minimal pairs of consonants or vowels are

clearly discussed This book helps teachers of English teach pronunciation in distinguishing the words that confuse the students when they listen to or say something “An Introduction to the Pronunciation of English” by Gimson, A.C (1975) clearly describes English consonants and deals with phonetic developments and variants in terms of transcription of vowels as well as consonants, especially the descriptive consonants of acoustic features “Ngữ Âm Tiếng Việt” by Đoàn Thiện Thuật (1980) describes the sound system of Vietnamese consisting of vowels and consonants and some rules of final sound distribution

There has been a great deal of research on the interference between the first language and the second language in many languages Lado (1957) presented the contrastive analysis approach, especially the second chapter in his book “Linguistic Across Cultures”, how to compare two-sound systems which provide useful information on many aspects to consider when comparing the sound systems of two languages

In recent years, a great deal of research on English pronunciation has been carried out by students and post-students of English Contrastive analysis of

different aspects of pronunciation between English and Vietnamese has been shown such as Vietnamese learners of English with assimilation, elision and linkage problems by Huỳnh, A.T (1992) and Nguyễn, H.H (1992) They found the students’ mistakes and difficulties and gave the solution to help them overcome these obstacles Common pronunciation mistakes in stress, strong and weak forms and linking sounds by Huỳnh, N.H and Lê, M.P (1999) concluded that Vietnamese students had great difficulties in recognizing native sounds and even misunderstanding the meaning of utterances For example: “It’s an aim” might be heard as “It’s a name.” [22, p 45]

Other studies are about the English vowel sounds experienced by the first year students of English at Danang University, Master thesis by Nguyễn, K.D.H (2001), English diphthongs in Quang Ngai learners’ discourse, Master thesis by Bùi, T.T (2004) They investigated the phenomena that the learners encounter and gave the suggestions to help them in learning English

“English stops in Vietnamese students’ discourse of English in Danang University”, Graduation paper by Tạ, T.G (2002) was carried out based on the contrastive analysis between English and Vietnamese stops, identified the problems students encounter when performing the English stops and some suggestions for the effective pronunciation teaching were also mentioned to help students go over the problems “A research on the pronunciation of inflectional endings in English by the eleventh-form students in Danang city”, Graduation paper by Nguyễn, T.T (2006) was about to identify the problems encountered by students when they perform English inflectional endings especially in connected speech and to suggest some teaching activities to help them improve their pronunciation in particular and their performance of inflectional endings in spoken discourse

However, these studies did not tackle the problems of pronunciation of the final consonant sounds by Vietnamese students and did not offer solutions for problems related to connected speech in listening and speaking skills either In an attempt to fill this gap, this study is designed to explore this problem In this study,

Vietnamese is chosen as language 1 (L1) and English chosen is language 2 (L2) to make it easy to do the research

2.2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

2.2.1 Background to English final consonant sounds

- A consonant is a speech sound made by completely or partly stopping the flow of air being breathed out through the mouth [21, p 263]

- What is a final consonant?

A final consonant is a speech sound that occurs at the end of a linguistic unit, and the airstream from the lung is completely blocked (STOPS) e.g [p, t, k, b, d, ] , partially blocked (LATERAL) e.g [l] or where the opening is so narrow that the air escapes with audible friction (FRICATIVES) e.g [f, , s, , v, , z, ] With some consonants (NASALS) e.g [m, n, ] the airstream is blocked in the mouth but allowed to escape through the nose

In English, consonant sounds are usually distributed in three positions: initial, medial and final These are about twenty-one consonant sounds distributed at final position They are [p, b, t, d, k, , f, v, , , s, z, , , t , d , m, n, , l, r] Peter Roach (1999) pointed out that the plosives in final position, [b, d, ] normally have little voicing and [p, t, k] are, of course, voiceless The plosion following the release of [p, t, k] and [b, d, ] is very weak and often not audible According to O’connor (1980), [ ] is one of the final sounds that seldom appears in the final

position of the word There are only a few words ending with [ ] such as rouge

[ru ], beige [bei ], garage [ r ], barrage [b r ]

a English stops/ plosives

According to Roach, P., (1999), in English there are six stop consonants: [p,

t, k, b, d, ] occurring at the end of the word The glottal stop [ ] occurs frequently but it is less importance because it is an alternative pronunciation of [p, t, or k] in a certain contexts The stops have different places of articulation:

-[p] and [b] are bilabial, the lips are pressed together

-[t] and [d] are alveolar; the tongue blade is pressed against the alveolar ridge

-[k] and [ ] are velar; the back of the tongue is pressed against the area where the hard palate ends and the soft palate begins

All six stops occur at the beginning of a word, between other sounds and at the end of a word The difference between [p, t, k] and [b, d, ] at final position is primarily the fact that vowels preceding [p, t, k] are much shorter The shortening effect of [p, t, k] is most noticeable when the vowel is one of the long vowels or diphthongs, Roach, P (1999)

b English fricatives

There are eight English fricative consonants [f, v, , , s, z, , ] appearing

at the final of the word The fricative sounds are produced by narrowing the speech tract and letting the air out The air escapes through a small passage and makes a hissing sound With the exception of glottal [h], each place of articulation has a pair

of phonemes, one fortis and one lenis They have different places of articulation:

- [f] and [v] are labial, lower lip is contact with the upper teeth

- [ ] and [ ] are interdental fricatives They are described as if the tongue was actually placed between the teeth In fact, the tongue is normally placed inside the teeth, with the tip touching the inside of the lower front teeth and the blade touching the inside of the upper teeth The air escapes through the gaps between the tongue and the teeth

- [s] and [z] are alveolar fricatives They are at the same place of articulation

as [t] and [d] The air escapes through a narrow passage along the centre of the tongue, and the sound produced is comparatively intense

- [ ] and [ ] are alveopalatal fricatives, which can be taken to mean that their place of articulation is partly palatal, partly alveolar The tongue is in contact with an area slightly further back than that for [s] and [z] If you make [s], then [ ], you should be able to feel your tongue move backwards The air escapes through a

passage along the centre of the tongue, as in [s] and [z], but the passage is a little

wider

c English affricates

English has two affricate alveopalatal: [t ] and [d ] ending of the word They begin as plosives and end as fricatives It is usually said that the plosive and the following fricative must be made with the same articulators, the plosive and fricative must be homorganic As with the plosives and most of the fricatives, we have a fortis/ lenis pair, the voicing characteristics are the same as for these other consonants [t ] is slightly aspirated in the positions where [p, t, k] are aspirated, but not strongly enough for it to be necessary for foreign learners to give much attention to it [t ] and [d ] often have rounded lips

d English nasals

English nasal consonants are [m, n, ] The basic characteristic of a nasal consonant is that the air escapes through the nose In nasal consonants, the air does not pass through the mouth; it is prevented by a complete closure in the mouth at some point Place of articulation of [m] and [n] are simple, straightforward consonants with distributions like the plosives [p, b] and [t, d] But [ ] is a different matter, it is the same as that of [k, ] [m] is labial nasal, [n] is alveolar nasal, and [ ]

is velar nasal All of them are in the final words

f English retroflex

The alveolar retroflex [r] in English is produced by the curved shape tongue with the tip pointing towards the hard palate at the back of the alveolar ridge, the front low and the back rather high The tongue-tip is not close enough to the palate

to cause friction The lips are rather rounded, especially when [r] is at the beginning

of words It is also in the middle and at the final of the word

Table 2.1 Articulatory Representation of English consonant

Place of articulation Labial Interdental Alveolar Alveopalatal Velar Glottal Manner of Glottal

2.2.2 Background to Vietnamese final consonant sounds

According to Lanh, D.T, Toan, B.M, and Tinh, L.H (2001), there are nine final consonant sounds in Vietnamese They are three voiceless stop sounds [p, t, k] and three voiced nasal sounds [m, n, ], two semi-vowels and zero sound Depending on the place of articulation, there are three pairs with contrast feature sounds (voiceless - voiced) such as a pair of labial [p - m]; a pair of alveolar [t - n];

a pair of velar [k - ] Depending on the manner of articulation, there are two contrast groups of consonants basing on the criteria: voiceless stops [p, t, k]; and voiced nasals [m, n, ]

Like English, the Vietnamese final sounds are also consonants and vowels To the open syllables, without final sounds, it is said that these syllables have zero final sounds These final consonant sounds consist of [p, m, t, n, k, ] Among minimal coda pairs, the pair [ ] and [c] are variants of [ ] and [k]

semi-[p]: labial stop, voiceless, only at final position, unreleased, the letter “p”, for

examples: tấp nập, mập mạp…

[t]: alveolar stop, voiceless, unreleased, at the final position, the letter “t”, for

[n]: nasal, alveolar, voiced, unreleased at the final position, the letter “n”, for

examples: ăn năn, ân cần…

[ ]: nasal, velar, voiced, unreleased at the final position, the letter “ng, nh”,

for examples: trang trọng, rạng sáng, mình, bánh…

Table 2.2 [3, p.129] shows the distribution of Vietnamese final consonant sounds below:

Table2.2 Vietnamese final consonant sounds distribution

Place of articulation Manner of articulation

Labial Alveolar Velar

These phonemes are stated by Vietnamese letters in Table 2.3 [3, p.131]

Table 2.3 Phonemes stated by Vietnamese letters

2.2.3.1 Syllable structures in English and Vietnamese

a Syllable structure in English

According to Richards, et al (1993), syllable is a unit in speech which is often longer than one sound and smaller than a whole word Most syllables contain

a vowel, some words like trouble [tr̚bl] and listen [lisn] are considered having two

syllables, with the final syllable consisting only of the last consonant These consonants that sound like syllables are often referred to as “syllabic consonants” [l] and [n] are by far the most syllabic consonants, especially in southern British

English A syllable can be divided into three parts: the beginning, called the onset, the central part, called the nucleus or peak, the end, called the coda

According to Wikipedia, a syllable (σ) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds It is typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often

a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically consonants) Syllables are often considered the phonological “building blocks” of words They can influence the rhythm of a language, its prosody, its poetic meter, its stress patterns, etc

A word that consists of a single syllable is called a monosyllable like “car”

(such a word is monosyllabic), while a word consisting of two syllables like

“monkey” is called a disyllable (such a word is disyllabic) A word consisting of three syllables like “indigent” is called a trisyllable (the adjective form is trisyllabic) A word consisting of more than three syllables like “intelligence” is

called a polysyllable (and could be described as polysyllabic), although this term is

often used to describe words of two syllables or more The general structure of a

syllable consists of the following segments: onset (O) and rhyme (R) Rhyme consists of nucleus (N) and coda (C) Figure 2.1 shows the structure of the

monosyllabic English word “cat”

σ (Syllable)

O (Onset) R(Rhyme) N(Nucleus) C (Coda)

C V C

k t

Figure 2.1 Internal structure of a syllable “cat”

Generally, every syllable requires a nucleus Onsets are extremely common, and some languages require all syllables to have an onset (That is, a CVC syllable

like cat is possible, but a VC syllable such as at is not.) A coda-less syllable of the

form V, CV, CCV, etc is called an open syllable, while a syllable that has a coda (VC, CVC, CVCC, etc.) is called a closed syllable On the other hand, the Onset,

Peak and Coda may each further branch into two C- or V-constituents respectively Then we speak about branching or complex Onsets etc Figure 2.2 of English syllable “drowned” [dra nd] is an example in which all three elements branch:

Figure 2.2: Internal structure of the word “drowned”

b Syllable structure in Vietnamese

Đoàn Thiện Thuật (1980) points out that in Vietnamese a syllable has a structure of two levels: level 1 consists of a tone, an onset and a rhyme, level 2 is the rhyme that comprises a glide, a vowel, and a coda as figure 2.3 below:

σ (Syllable)

Level 1: Tone Onset Rhyme

Level 2: Glide Vowel Coda

Figure 2.3 Vietnamese syllable The final consonant sounds are the distinctive features listed below by Đoàn Thiện

Thuật (1980):

1 The plosive and sonorant criteria distinguished by the coda: “sắp” with

“sắm” and “sáu”; “cắt” with “cắn” and “cây” This criterion is a

distinction of the coda The stops: [p, t, k] and sonorant [m, n, , u, i]

2 The nasal and non-nasal criteria distinguished by the coda: “sắm” with

“sáu”, “cắn” with “cây” Among the sonorant codas divided are nasal

sounds [m, n, ] and non-nasal sound [u, i]

3 The labial and tongue criteria distinguished by the coda such as labial

sounds [p, m, u ] and the tongue sounds [t, k, n, ,i]

4 Among these tongue sounds, there is a contrast between the tip tongue

and the upper tongue The tip tongue sounds are [t, n] and the upper

tongue sounds are [k, ] [4, p.244]

Clearly speaking, the four distinctive criteria Thuat (1980) mentioned mean

that Vietnamese language has nine final consonant sounds including one zero

phoneme, two semi-vowels and six consonants So, the sound [ ] is a variant of [ ]

and [c] is a variant of [k] They are presented in the following Table 2.4 [4, p.126]

Table 2.4 Vietnamese final consonant sounds

Alveolar Place of articulation

Nasal m n Sonorant

In English as well as Vietnamese, the codas play a crucial role in writing

because they distinguish the meaning of the word For examples, in English the

word “rib” is different from “rip”, in Vietnamese, the word “càn” is different from

“cành” The codas in English are pronounced clearly when spoken to the listeners

to avoid misunderstanding, but in Vietnamese, the codas are not pronounced as clearly as English All of the Vietnamese codas are unreleased/ closed consonants Cao Xuân Hạo (1998) studied that in a syllable structure, the final consonant sound plays an important role, therefore, it is different from the initial consonant sound and it is also a direct element of the syllable

2.2.3.2 Linking sounds in English and Vietnamese

a Linking sounds in English

Sound linking is one of the four aspects of connected speech It is often difficult to understand English speakers when they link sounds together, that is to say, they are talking at normal speed

When we say a sentence in English, we join or link words together Because

of this linking, the words in a sentence do not always sound the same as when we say them individually Linking sound is very important for listening or speaking in English If we are able to recognize and use linking sounds, we will understand other people more easily and vice verse It is sometimes very difficult to know

where words finish and the next word begins For example, “pets enter” sounds the same as “pet center” because the consonant [s] could be at the end of the first word

or at the start of the second word Some phrases on the left column and the phrases

on the right column have the same sound

stopped aching stop taking

called Annie call Danny clocks tops clock stops missed a night Mr Knight

[18, p.84]

One reason for this is that the pronunciation of some words is different when they are said on their own, English speakers always link sounds together as the following ways:

(1) consonant > vowel

When a word ending with a consonant sound, we often move the consonant sound

to the next word beginning with a vowel sound For example in the sentence: “Can I have a bit of egg?”

We write it like this: “Can I have a bit of egg?”

We say it like this: [kə na h və b tə ve ] ?

R-linking is the phenomenon based on the fact, by default, in the Standard British

English, [r] in syllable final position is not pronounced, e.g car [k ] R-linking takes place when a syllable ends with one of the following vowel sounds [ , , , ə] or any of the diphthongs that finish with a schwa, e.g [eə, ə, ə], and

the next syllable starts with any vowel sound For example, “Here are all the books.”

We write it like this: “Here are all the books.”

We say it like this: [heə r r l ə b kz]

(2) consonant > consonant

When one word ends with a consonant sound and the next word begins with a consonant sound, the first consonant sound is often changed There are some common changes that take place in the pronunciation of certain word-final

consonants in connected speech This relates to assimilation, a coarticulatory

process by which a sound segment is influenced and changes to become more like its neighboring sound There are three types of assimilation

(a) Progressive assimilation

Progressive assimilation is a coarticulation process by which the change the sound segment is brought about by the preceding sound.

Regressive assimilation is coarticulation process by which the change of a segment

is brought about by the following sound

(A B)

B’

- Labialization:

● [t] [p] before [p, b, m] e.g [ æt pen] (careful/ slow speech)

[ æp pen] (casual/ rapid speech)

In the sound sequence [ æt pen], the alveolar [t] is labialized by the following bilabial [p] and becomes bilabial [p]

● [d] [b] before [p, b, m] e.g [ d bai] (careful/ slow speech)

[ b bai] (casual/ rapid speech)

● [n] [m] before [p, b, m] e.g [ ̚n men] (careful/ slow speech)

[ ̚m men] (casual/ rapid speech)

- Velarization

● [t] [k] before [k, ], e.g [ æt l] (careful/ slow speech)

[ æk l] (casual/ rapid speech)

In the sound sequence [ æt l], the alveolar [t] is veolarized by the following velar [ ] and becomes velar [k]

● [d] [ ] before [k, ], e.g [ d l] (careful/ slow speech)

[ l] (casual/ rapid speech)

● [n] [ ] before [k, ], [ ri n k ] (careful/ slow speech)

[ ri k ] (casual/ rapid speech)

- Nasalisation

● [d] [n/m] before [n/m], e.g [ d n t] (careful/ slow speech)

[ n n t] (casual/ rapid speech)

In the sound sequence [ d n t] the stop [d] is nasalized by the following nasal

[n]

● [v] [m] before [m], e.g [ v mi ] (careful/ slow speech)

[ m mi ] (casual/ rapid speech)

(c) Mutual assimilation/ Coalescence

Mutual assimilation (Coalescence) is a coarticulation process by which a

new segment will be made (A B)

When one word ends with a vowel sound and the next word begins with a vowel

sound, a transition sound which resembles either a [w] as “win” or [j] as in “yes” is

inserted between two vowel sounds according to the rules:

+ [w] is added if the vowel at the end of the first word has a rounded lip position such as [u , ə , a ] E.g Let’s go into the next room./ How old is she?

+ [j] is added if the vowel at the end of the first word has a lip spreading such

as [i , , a , e , ] E.g I always enjoy a lovely ice cream

b. Linking sounds in Vietnamese

The Vietnamese language is a kind of monosyllabic language The boundary between the syllables is very clearly separated As the result of this, there is no sound linking in Vietnamese However, there is assimilation in Vietnamese According to Cao Xuân Hạo (1998), in Vietnamese a syllable is also a morpheme or

a word that has a fixed structure and each element has its own function to form a syllable The final consonant sounds are never apart from themselves to link to the initial of the following word If we use the linking sound between two words, we shall have a new word having different meaning For example:

ôm ai ≠ ô mai một ổ ≠ mộ tổ các anh ≠ cá canh xem ô tô ≠ xe mô tô bón em ≠ bó nem đang ôn ≠ đa ngôn quát ầm ≠ quá tầm phát hành ≠ phá thành

[Adapted from Cao Xuân Hạo, (1998) pp.26-27]

Mai Ngọc Chừ, Vũ Đức Nghiệu, Hoàng Trọng Phiến (1991) claim that there

are some phenomena of changing sounds in Vietnamese such as accommodation, assimilation, and dissimilation

- Accommodation is a phenomenon of one in two sounds changing

suitably with the next sound For example, [t] is an unrounded consonant

When it goes with rounded vowels [u], [o], it is affected by the rounded

vowels, e.g “tu”, “tô” [k] is a velar stop consonant When it goes with

the front vowels [i], [e], it is also pulled toward the front, e.g [kỳ], [kể]

When the consonants [ ], [k] go with the front vowels, they are pulled up

the front and become [ ], [c], e.g “chinh chích”, bềnh bệch”, “sành

sạch”

- Assimilation in Vietnamese usually falls into the tone For examples,

“năm mười” “năm mươi” or “muôn vạn” “muôn vàn”

- Dissimilation in Vietnamese occurs in the reduplicative and follows

some tight rules: (1) [p] [m]; (2) [t] [n]; (3) [k] [ ]

Rules Examples

[p]

[m]

đẹp đẹp, chiếp chiếp, xốp xốp, sụp sụp đèm đẹp, chiêm chiếp, xôm xốp, sùm sụp [t]

[n]

một một, rét rét, nhạt nhạt,bợt bợt mồn một, ren rét, nhàn nhạt, bờn bợt [k]

[ ]

khác khác, tức tức, xịch xịch, cạch cạch khang khác, tưng tức, xình xịch, cành cạch

It also occurs in the tone, some examples: chậm chậm chầm chậm;

đậm đậm đầm đậm; túng túng tung túng; đỏ đỏ đo đỏ

[7, p.p135,137]

2.3 BACKGROUND TO THE PRONUNCIATION TEACHING

To be able to speak and listen in a second language, language learners need

to have both linguistic and sociolinguistic competence, Celce-Murcia, Brinton & Goodwin (1996) People from many different language backgrounds can acquire a near-native pronunciation in English

One of the most important purposes of pronunciation teaching is to eradicate the traces of foreign accent (L2) through pronunciation drills In other words, teaching of pronunciation is to help learners to develop their abilities in the pronunciation similar to native speakers in the second language In the past, the grammar-translation method was used to teach foreign languages, therefore, pronunciation was almost neglected and rarely taught Nowadays, the methods of teaching and learning foreign language in communicative approach enable learners

to communicate more fluently than accurately and master the necessary information Therefore, pronunciation is an inevitable component in developing listening and speaking skills There is no doubt that all learners, teachers or even methodologists recognize the importance of pronunciation and how to teach and what to teach in an effective way like other aspects of language teaching According

to Dr Helen Fraser (2001), the communicative approach of teaching pronunciation follows in four ways:

1 teaches material which is useful for real communication outside

classroom

2 order of teaching is based on what is most important to listeners in

communication

3 learners are taught to think of speech as communication and pay

attention to needs of listener

4 focus on good communication between teachers and learners about

pronunciation itself [15, p 11]

Since the communicative approach was used in teaching language, the teaching of pronunciation has been an integral part of leaning and teaching language Peter Avery and Susan Erhlich (1995) showed that the sound system of native language can be influenced to learners’ pronunciation of English:

We will point out that neither of the views is completely accurate by

considering biological, social cultural, personality, and linguistic factors

which are known to affect the acquisition of the sound system of a

second language This will lead to the understanding that while practice

in pronunciation may not make perfect, ignoring pronunciation can

totally be a great disservice to the ESL students [10, p.1]

In addition to this, teacher’s role is very important for learners The teachers help them to perceive the sounds in terms of their native language and guide them

to imitate the new sounds The teachers must have been aware of the students’ pronunciation difficulties to help them to improve speaking or listening skills The important aspects of the teacher’s role in pronunciation teaching are mentioned by Kenworthy, J (1992) in three ways for good pronunciation:

(a) We can persuade learners of the importance of good pronunciation

for ease of communication

(b) We can continually emphasize that a “native-like” accent will not be

imposed as a goal (Intelligibility and communicative efficiency are the only realistic goals They can be achieved as much, if not more,

by the way the teacher reacts and the stance he or she adopts as by merely making statements.)

(c) We can demonstrate concern for learners’ pronunciation and their

The great majority of learners will have a very practical purpose for

learning English and will derive no particular benefit from acquiring a

native-like pronunciation [23, p 3]

For nonnative speakers of English, teaching pronunciation should be taught Much of the concern about teaching pronunciation has centered on the exact pronunciation of vowel and consonant sounds However, if the goal of teaching learners is to enable them to communicate in English, we can see that communicative effectiveness depends not only on the pronunciation of these vowel and consonant sounds but on being intelligible speakers Being able to use the

rhythm and intonation of English will enable speakers to be much more intelligible than being able to pronounce vowels and consonants perfectly While it is not unusual for teachers who are not native speakers of English to feel apprehensive about teaching pronunciation, this apprehension can be diminished and eliminated Becoming educated about teaching pronunciation in its broader scope can make a big difference in a teacher’s feeling of confidence In addition, nonnative speakers

of English typically have an advantage over native speakers in that they can learn to perceive and manipulate rhythm and intonation more easily than native speakers, for whom these are unconscious features, Wrong (1993)

What form of accent in teaching English pronunciation is taught as model to learners of English? According to Doff, A (1995) “The model for pronunciation is

“received pronunciation” (RP) or standard educated English as spoken in southern Britain” or BBC pronunciation is the best choice because of its prevalence in course books It is clear that teaching pronunciation may cause many problems to the learners Doff, A (1995) points out some common problems that are likely to occur:

- Difficulty in pronouncing sounds which do not exist in the student’s

own language,

- Confusion of similar sounds

- Use of simple vowels instead of diphthongs

- Difficulty in pronouncing consonant cluster

- Tendency to give all syllables equal stress, and a “flat” intonation [14,

p.113]

Another aspect of teaching pronunciation is that the teachers should pay more attention to the accuracy and then the fluency Tench, P.(1993) claims that the main aim of teaching English pronunciation is “the degree of accuracy and fluency which is appropriate to the level of intelligibility that the teacher has set for his learners” [38, p.42] Accuracy is very important for learners to listen to or speak to someone, in the same way as fluency is Lack of fluency like lack of accuracy can

place quite a strain on the listener “Fluent pronunciation is the smooth joining of the phonemes and larger elements at an acceptable speed of delivery.” [38, p.62]

2.4 CHAPTER REVIEW

This chapter reviews prior research, background to the pronunciation teaching as well as theoretical backgrounds related to the study Although there were many books and study of pronunciation field, each book and each study has special and colourful characteristics There is a summary of the main points of the pronunciation teaching The teaching of pronunciation has played a crucial role in learning and teaching language since the communicative approach was applied The basic foundation of phonetic and phonology knowledge helps the learners to acquire new language more easily Once learners want to master a new language, they need

to have well-equipped knowledge of pronunciation This makes teachers of English

pay much attention to teaching pronunciation

Chapter 3 METHOD AND PROCEDURE

This chapter describes the research design and research methods carried out

in the study It firstly presents the research design telling the procedure to the study Method and procedure describe the steps done and the piloting test Following this is

a description of the population and sample Data collection and data analysis are also presented in this chapter

3.1 RESEARCH DESIGN

This study is a descriptive, quantitative and qualitative study

The study starts with a contrastive analysis between English and Vietnamese final consonants to generate the hypotheses as the prediction of pronunciation of

students at high schools in Quang Nam

The survey and test were then carried out to identify evidence to test the

generated hypotheses

The hypotheses that were analyzed are about the identification of the pronunciation mistakes of English final consonant sounds

3.2 HYPOTHESES

The hypotheses of this study can be central to my investigation

● The Vietnamese students at high schools may fail to perceive as well as pronounce English final sounds

● They may fail to pronounce final linking sounds

● They may fail to pronounce the variants of devoicing of the final consonant sounds

3.3 METHOD AND PROCEDURE

● The first step of this research was to select the relevant documents, books, thesis and studies in English and Vietnamese languages related to the topic

● The second step is to read and make a primary contrastive analysis between English final consonant sounds and Vietnamese ones concerning the inventory of phonemes and syllable structures in these two languages

● The third step is to compare the similarities and differences of final consonant sounds between English and Vietnamese pronunciation

● The fourth step is to generate hypotheses about the errors and problems that the tenth-form students in Quang Nam province may experience in pronouncing English

● The fifth one is to collect data from tenth-form students in the high schools

in different areas of Quang Nam This consists of three stages conducted as follows:

- Firstly, twenty students were invited to take part in the piloting test with the questionnaire The questionnaire included the questions about their background information, the interests and attitude towards learning and practicing English pronunciation and some obstacles in it The aim of doing the piloting test is to see how the survey questionnaire works, and if there are any adjustments to be made before the actual large scale survey to take place

- Secondly, I had five periods of classroom observation in five different high schools and one hundred and fifty sets of questionnaires were delivered to students after that

- Finally, thirty students chosen from three high schools in three areas of Quang Nam as informants were asked to read or say the words, phrases, conversation that contain problematic sounds and linking sounds Their pronunciation was recorded and transcribed for the data analysis

● The data analysis is expected to make clear the evidence about the errors and problems that were mentioned in the hypotheses They were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively for testing the hypotheses

After making a pilot study for twenty students about the questionnaire, the researcher had a reliable result that evaluates the students’ learning English The

results reflected the students’ true knowledge of learning English Appendix A

summarizes the real information

3.4 DESCRIPTON OF POPULATION AND SAMPLE

3.4.1 Description of population

These subjects involved in the research are the tenth-form students studying

at five high schools in Quang Nam They are Trần Quý Cáp (school A) and Nguyễn Trãi (school B) in Hội An, Nguyễn Duy Hiệu in Điện Bàn (school C), Tiểu La in Thăng Bình (school D), Trần Cao Vân in Tam Kỳ (school E) These subjects were selected for the study according to the following criteria:

- Most tenth-form students that evaluated learned the innovation education program of English subject by Ministry of Education and Training All of them have acquired certain knowledge of English

- The tenth-form students must be aware of the importance of pronunciation

in listening and speaking, especially, the students’ recognition about their pronunciation mistakes and avoid potential errors

3.4.2 The sample

The questionnaire was distributed to 150 students in five different high schools The recordings and diagnostic tests were carried out to a sample of thirty students As mentioned above, the population from which the sample was drawn was the tenth-form students both male and female chosen at convenience in three different high schools among them of different areas in Quang Nam province The coverage of the students has learned English since primary school

3.5 METHOD OF DATA COLLECTION

There were two kinds of measurement instruments used for the data collection: questionnaire and diagnostic tests

The questionnaire was distributed to the population of one hundred and fifty students in five high schools mentioned above To facilitate the survey, the researcher explained all the questions given to students and gave the Vietnamese version so that they would not get the confusion from the instructions in the questionnaire The students were allotted some time to make their decision on choosing the suitable answers provided or give the feedback to open-ended

questions (See Appendix B: A SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS)

Table 3.1 The students responding to the questionnaire

School E 30 25 Total 150 136

The diagnostic test contained two main parts The first part was designed for testing the students’ actual performance of producing the final consonants that consisted of three separate sections Section one contained 15 minimal pairs listed with the different final sounds Section two contained 10 phrases read by students using the linking sounds Section three was a conversation spoken by groups All of

them were taken from “Sound English” and “Ship or Sheep” books The procedure

of word, phrase and conversation selection is reliable for inventory of containing sounds in problem for the tenth-form students For each section of the diagnostic test for sound production, the students were asked to read aloud the words, phrases and a conversation so that the researcher could record easily The researcher gave the feedback from the tape with native speakers’ voice as soon as they finished checking again what they had done

The second part consisted of two sections designed for testing students’ perception of the final consonants Section one was twenty sentences; each of them has a minimal pair of words aiming at students’ recognition the right word Section two is a conversation as the same as the one in the sound production to help students check again their listening abilities Thirty students as representative informants of three different high schools in Quang Nam province were chosen at

convenience and at the same level to conduct the diagnostic test (See Appendix C:

DIAGNOSTIC TEST)

There were also some talks between the researcher and some teachers of English at high schools about the experience of teaching pronunciation From the talks, the researcher knew more about the methods that teachers usually applied when teaching pronunciation The problems issued in the diagnostic test are presented in Table 3.2

Table 3.2 Problems of English final consonant sounds by tenth-form students’

performance

Problems Members context

Labial fricative [f, v] final Interdental fricative [ , ] final Alveolar fricative [s, z] final Alveopalatal fricative [ , ] final Alveopalatal affricate [t , d ] final

3.6 DATA COLLECTION

The data collection was carried out employing the subjects described above The questionnaire was delivered to 150 students in five high schools mentioned in the beginning of March, 2007 However, there were about 136 students responding

in the questionnaire In the same period of time, the diagnostic test was administered in the middle of March The diagnostic test was cooperated enthusiastically between the researcher and the students The investigation was carried out in four stages:

Stage 1: The students were asked to pronounce the words in the word list after having three minutes to read through it and then complete the checklist The researcher recorded one by one then asked them to listen to the tape with native voice to check again what they had pronounced

Stage 2: Students were asked to read the phrases in the phrase list after having five minutes to read through and complete the phrase checklist The researcher recorded and gave the feedback as like as the word list

Stage 3: Students were divided into small groups, each group consisting of four, and practised orally a conversation using linking sounds

Stage 4: The students were asked to listen to the tape and choose the words they heard for the separated sentences and use the linking signs for the conversation That was also the aim of the feedback in the practice of conversation

The diagnostic test was all tape recorded The recording made it possible for the students’ performance to be transcribed and collected with the version by the English model tape as the baseline data The software “Goldwave” was used to measure the students’ production The test was completed at the end of March,

2007

3.7 DATA ANALYSIS

Data analysis was carried out using the procedure of tallying frequencies, recording the results, presenting the data in frequency and percentage distribution tables, and analyzing and interpreting the data

3.7.1 General evaluation

The first part of the survey was carried out aiming at the students’ recognition of the important final consonant sounds and linking sounds The researcher got the information about the current situation of the students’ pronunciation of English at some high schools in Quang Nam The data collected in this part were counted and analysed to yield both qualitative and quantitative information about their background and length of their English study, their attention and interest in learning as well as their practice of English The data collected from the students were interpreted with their attitude to the pronunciation practice and the difficulties in pronunciation of English Besides, the information was analyzed to show the evidence of the teachers’ roles in teaching and learning English pronunciation

The second part of the survey was carried out to gather the information from the students’ actual performance of pronunciation in English, consisting two sections The first section of this task concerned with the detecting of pronunciation mistakes in the students’ actual production sounds in minimal pairs, in phrases and

in conversation There were many kinds of mistakes in students’ actual pronunciation about the vowels, diphthongs, initial consonants, etc…I only focused

on the final consonant sounds and linking sounds The others were ignored for the assumption Most of the students failed to pronounce the final sounds This led to

misunderstanding when they communicated The students’ actual pronunciation mistakes were compared with the standard sounds in the tape Referring to the observation, the demonstration of the pronunciation mistakes was analyzed by using the computer software “Goldwave” to support my decision on the students’ errors Figure 3.1 below illustrates this

Native speakers’ pronunciation of the minimal pair “wash – watch”

Students’ pronunciation of the minimal pair “wash – watch”

Figure 3.1 The demonstration of the minimal pair “wash – watch” made by native

English speaker as compared with a Quang Nam tenth-form student

The second section was to get the information from the students’ actual perception sounds in sentences by realizing the words and the linking sounds that they heard The identification of the mistakes was the recognition in the phonetic features of the final consonant sounds for minimal pairs and linking sounds for conversation The students’ pronunciation was tallied in tables The results of it give insights into the students’ knowledge of pronouncing the final consonant sounds and linking sounds

3.7.2 Group classification

For the convenience of the judgment after surveying, the data collected from the diagnostic test were categorized and put into three sub-groups of three high schools group A (Trần Quý Cáp), group B (Nguyễn Trãi), and group C (Nguyễn

Duy Hiệu), each group consists of ten students Three groups were compared with one another

3.8 VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY

The data was done with 136 enthusiastic and cooperative students taking part

in the questionnaire survey represented a larger population of five high schools and thirty students in three high schools in performing their pronunciation productive and perceptive skills Although the questionnaire and the recording revealed the students’ potential pronunciation problems, the results from them could not be evaluated to a wide range of students at all high schools in Quang Nam province The selection of the limited informants made the researcher unsatisfactory about establishing the sample representation I also failed to get information about the students’ actual performance in free talks that could provide us with more reliable empirical evidence to find out various kinds of pronunciation errors However, I found out the mistakes in final consonant sounds and linking sounds in their pronunciation productive and perceptive skills through the survey It is a practical problem that many students at high schools encountered

3.9 CHAPTER REVIEW

In this chapter I described the research design and methods for the study including the hypotheses, a presentation of the methodology and procedure, a description of population, data collection and a discussion of data analysis The study is central on some hypotheses pointed out The combination of descriptive, quantitative and qualitative was used to generate and analyse the data The method

of data collection was carried out by using survey methods such as questionnaire, diagnostic tests, and class observation The diagnostic tests were held in groups to record the sound production and to test their sound perception The adoption of many methods was carried out to ensure the validity and reliability of data The students were very enthusiastic to take part in the survey

Chapter 4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

In this chapter, the results of the piloting test to twenty students chosen randomly were analysised to make the questionnaire more complete before being used in large scale The results of the statistical analysis are presented basing on the questions and hypotheses relating to the objectives mentioned in Chapter one The current situation of students’ pronunciation at some high schools in Quang Nam, their learning and actual performance of English are also demonstrated in detail through the information collected from questionnaires and diagnostic test

4.1 RESULT PRESENTATION