STRATEGIES TO CORRECT COMMON ERRORS IN PRONOUNCING ENGLISH FINAL CONSONANT CLUSTERS MADE BY SECONDYEAR ENGLISHMAJORED STUDENTS AT PHUONG DONG UNIVERSITY

NHỮNG CHIẾN LƯỢC SỬA CÁC LỖI THƯỜNG GẶP KHI PHÁT ÂM NHÓM PHỤ ÂM CUỐI TRONG TIẾNG ANH CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ HAI CHUYÊN TIẾNG ANH TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC PHƯƠNG ĐÔNG ( STRATEGIES TO CORRECT COMMON ERRORS IN PRONOUNCING ENGLISH FINAL CONSONANT CLUSTERS MADE BY SECONDYEAR ENGLISHMAJORED STUDENTS AT PHUONG DONG UNIVERSITY)

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

-oo0oo -NGUYỄN THỊ HẢI

STRATEGIES TO CORRECT COMMON ERRORS IN PRONOUNCING

ENGLISH FINAL CONSONANT CLUSTERS MADE BY SECOND-YEAR ENGLISH-MAJORED STUDENTS

AT PHUONG DONG UNIVERSITY

(NHỮNG CHIẾN LƯỢC SỬA CÁC LỖI THƯỜNG GẶP KHI PHÁT ÂM NHÓM PHỤ ÂM CUỐI TRONG TIẾNG ANH CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ HAI CHUYÊN

TIẾNG ANH TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC PHƯƠNG ĐÔNG)

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology

Code: 60 14 10

Hanoi – 2011

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

-oo0oo -NGUYỄN THỊ HẢI

STRATEGIES TO CORRECT COMMON ERRORS IN PRONOUNCING

ENGLISH FINAL CONSONANT CLUSTERS MADE BY SECOND-YEAR ENGLISH-MAJORED STUDENTS

AT PHUONG DONG UNIVERSITY

(NHỮNG CHIẾN LƯỢC SỬA CÁC LỖI THƯỜNG GẶP KHI PHÁT ÂM NHÓM PHỤ ÂM CUỐI TRONG TIẾNG ANH CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ HAI CHUYÊN

TIẾNG ANH TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC PHƯƠNG ĐÔNG)

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology

Code: 60 14 10 Supervisor: Nguyễn Hoàng Lan, M A

Hanoi - 2011

CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT *****

I hereby certify that this minor thesis entitled “Strategies to Correct Common Errors in Pronouncing English Final Consonant Clusters Made by Second-year English- majored Students at Phuong Dong University” is completely the result of my own

research for the Degree of Master at University of Languages and International Studies,Vietnam National University, Hanoi, and that this thesis has not been submitted for anydegree at any other university or tertiary institution

Signature:

Date:

First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, NguyenHoang Lan, M.A for her invaluable assistance, constructive criticism and encouragementwithout which my thesis would not have been accomplished

Secondly, I am thankful to all the lecturers and staff of the Post-Graduate Studies Faculty

of University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi,for their scientific knowledge, guidance and enthusiasm during my course

My sincere thanks also go to my second year students at Phuong Dong University for theircooperation, which is indispensable for the analysis and discussion in my study

Last but not least, I owe my deep thanks to my family and friends who have helped andencouraged me while I was conducting the research

NGUYEN THI HAI

This study aims at dealing with final consonant clusters errors made by the second yearEnglish-majored students in English Department, Phuong Dong University (PDU) Data wereadministered through a mid-term oral test with the participation of 30 second year studentsfrom class 509701A2 Recording students’ talk to find out common errors with final clustersthat students actually make and then observing their reading out loud the single words to seekout suitable strategies to overcome those errors are two data collection instruments Thefindings of the study indicated that the majority of the second year students tend to omit one ortwo elements of the final clusters and some of the students have some minor substitution andinsertion errors Some useful strategies are also suggested for this typical group of the secondyear students at PDU to deal with their pronunciation errors

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF TABLES, CHARTS vii

PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale of the study 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Scope of the study 2

4 Method of the study 3

5 Thesis Design 3

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1.1 English pronunciation 5

1.1.1 Standard English Pronunciation 5

1.1.2 Aspects of English pronunciation 5

1.1.2.1 Consonant sounds 6

1.1.2.2 English final consonants and consonant clusters 7

1.1.2.3 A comparison between English and Vietnamese final consonants.9 1.2 Errors 12

1.2.1 Errors vs Mistakes 12

1.2.2 Pronunciation errors 13

1.2.3 Final consonant clusters errors 13

1.3 Error correction 14

1.3.1 Definition and types of error correction 14

1.3.2 Approaches to error correction 16

1.4 Techniques to deal with final clusters 16

CHAPTER 2: AN OVERVIEW OF TEACHING AND LEARNING PRONUNCIATION AT PDU 21

2.1 The syllabus 21

2.2 The learners 22

2.3 The teachers 22

2.4 The teaching and learning conditions 22

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 24

3.1 Research questions 24

3.2 Subjects of the study 24

3.3 Data collection procedure 24

3.4 Data analysis procedure 25

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 26

4.1 Findings from recordings and discussions 26

4.1.1 Overview of the errors with final clusters of 2nd year English-majored students at PDU 26

4.1.2 Details of the errors with final clusters of 2nd year English-majored students at PDU 27

4.1.2.1 Reduction 27

4.1.2.2 Substitution 30

4.2 Findings from observation and discussions 31

4.3 Comparison of the two findings 33

4.4 Strategies to correct final clusters errors 33

PART 3: CONCLUSION 38

1 Summary of major findings 38

2 Limitations and suggestions for further study 38

REFERENCES 40 APPENDIX 1: Checklist for recording I APPENDIX 2: Findings from recordings II APPENDIX 3: Checklist for observation XIX APPENDIX 4: Findings from observation XXVI

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3: Reduction errors found in the data from recordings pp 27-28Table 4: Substitution errors found in the data from recordings p 30Table 5: Errors from students’ reading out loud the 230 errors from recordings p 31

LIST OF CHARTS

Chart 2: Comparison of two results from recordings and observation p 33

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

English has become an important demand for schooling and job opportunities in the pastfew years; however, many Vietnamese speakers do not have intelligible Englishpronunciation so as to be easily understood in direct communication with foreigners.Learners with serious pronunciation errors will certainly fail in communication Therefore,

it is very essential to research learners’ pronunciation errors, and then to seek out suitablestrategies to solve the problems

Among many pronunciation errors that learners of English as a second language are likely

to make (i.e intonation, stress, ending sounds, etc.), errors with final consonant clusterscan be considered serious because “learners’ inability to produce final consonant clusterscan lead to incomprehensibility” (Avery & Erhlich, 1992, p.55) In the same line, Celce-Murcia, Brinton & Goodwin (1996) supported that inaccurate pronunciation of consonantclusters can make English language learners’ speech difficult for native speakers tounderstand, particularly in cases where the learners use epenthesis to break up clusters oromit a consonant in a cluster (as cited in Arnold, 2009)

Serious as it might be, problems with final clusters can be considered as one typicalpronunciation error of Vietnamese learners According to an earlier research by theAustralian Government publication Asian Language Motes (1978; as cited in Pham, 2009),

“initial clusters do not cause many problems, but final clusters are found extremely hardfor Vietnamese students” Also in an article about common challenges faced byVietnamese learners, Deshayes (2005, p.6) firmly stated that “English consonant clustersgive Vietnamese learners problems not only because they do not have these consonantcombinations in their own language, but also because they produce a variety of syllabletypes”

Although final clusters errors are very common to Vietnamese learners, it seems thatteachers do not pay much attention to them Firstly, it is perhaps because the final soundsare not pronounced as clearly as other sounds in an utterance so they are less noticed byboth learners and teachers In addition, few researches have been carried out on theseparticular final clusters errors The latest and most noticeable research on this issue wasdone by Pham (2009); however, it did not analyze deeply students’ final clusters errors aswell as did not suggest particular strategies for correcting them.

Being an English teacher at Phuong Dong University (PDU), I realize that many of mystudents encounter difficulty in pronouncing English final clusters though they are able toproduce single consonants accurately For the above reasons, I would like to conduct this

research entitled “Strategies to correct errors in pronouncing English final clusters

made by second- year English-majored students at PDU”

The research hopes to find answers to the following questions:

 What are the English final cluster errors that second-year English-majored students atPDU often make?

 What are some strategies to correct those errors?

2 Aims of the study

The main aim of the study is to analyze final clusters errors in pronunciation of the year students in English Department, PDU, and then to suggest strategies to help teachersdeal with students’ final clusters problems

second-3 Scope of the study

There are many pronunciation errors that Vietnamese students are likely to make.However, within the limit of a minor thesis, this study focuses on analyzing the students’final clusters errors and proposing the strategies for correcting them

This study was implemented for a group of 30 English-major second-year students atPhuong Dong University who are working with the course book “Let’s talk 2” by LeoJones (2002).

4 Method of the study

30 English-majored second-year students from class 509701A2 were chosen to participate

in this study Recording and observation were two methods used to collect data The dataanalysis procedure included two steps In the first stage, all the speeches that the studentspresented in their mid-term oral test were recorded and used for take-home analysis Next,all the errors made by students were counted in terms of types, sounds frequency andseriousness in order to find out a list of common pronunciation errors students make withfinal clusters At the same time, tapes recorded from students were sent to a group of threeEnglish teachers to help analyze and find errors and error frequency After that, the datawere converted into tables and charts In the second stage, the results from recordinganalysis were used to design a checklist for observation process when each student wasasked to read the words individually The results collected from observation were thencompared with the results from recording analysis to prepare for the next stage wheresuitable solutions to students’ pronunciation errors with final clusters were suggested

5 Thesis Design

This thesis consists of three parts, namely Introduction, Development and Conclusion Part 1, the Introduction, presents the rationale, the aims, the scope and the method of thestudy

Part 2 is the development with four chapters Chapter 1 (Literature review) introducessome key concepts necessary for understanding this research including Standard EnglishPronunciation, English final consonants & consonant clusters, Vietnamese finalconsonants, Errors vs mistakes, Pronunciation errors and Error correction Also, it reviewssome previous studies related to the topic Chapter 2 (Setting) gives an overview of

English pronunciation teaching and learning context at PDU Chapter 3 (Methodology)demonstrates a clear and detailed plan to collect adequate and reliable data for analysisincluding the selection of subjects, research instruments, procedures of data collection aswell as procedures of data analysis Chapter 4 (Results and Discussions) mainly deals withthe findings from the recordings and observation Some discussions about these findingscan also be found in this chapter.

Part 3, the Conclusion, discusses the major findings and limitations of the research as well

as provides suggestions for further study

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, the author provides readers with the relevant literature of the study by introducing some key concepts necessary for understanding this research, as well as the review of previous studies related to the topic Some crucial concepts chosen to be clarified in this part include Standard English Pronunciation, English final consonants & consonant clusters, Vietnamese final consonants, Errors vs mistakes, Pronunciation errors and Error correction.

1.1 English pronunciation

1.1.1 Standard English Pronunciation

First of all, it is essential to define Standard English Pronunciation Standard English isdefined as “a particular dialect of English, being the only non-localized dialect of globalcurrency without significant variation, universally accepted as the appropriate educationaltarget in teaching English; which may be spoken with an unrestricted choice of accent”(Strevens, 1983, p.88, as cited in McKay, 2002, p.51) Therefore, Standard Englishpronunciation can be any dialect of English that is widely used and accepted in the world

It is common knowledge that there are two major dialects of English for internationalbroadcasts and in social and business settings: Received Pronunciation (RP) in the UnitedKingdom and General American (GA) English in the United States Vietnamese people tend tofollow RP English in which the /r/ sound is not pronounced at the end of words, so RP Englishwill be used as the criteria for analyzing students’ pronunciation in this research

1.1.2 Aspects of English pronunciation

Pronunciation is a complicated concept that involves many aspects Generally, it can bebroken into the following components: vowels, consonants, word stress, rhythm, intonation,and other aspects of connected speech (assimilation, elision, linking and intrusion) Basically,

the English sound system is studied under two main headings: segmental and suprasegmental.According to Seferoglu (2005, p.304, as cited in Abuseileek, 2007, p.4), “Segmental aspects ofthe sound system includes individual vowels and consonants, and the suprasegmental aspectcomprises words, phrases, and sentence stress, pitch contour or intonation, and rhythm”

1.1.2.1 Consonant sounds

According to Peter Roach (2000, p.19), consonants are “sounds in which there is obstruction

to the flow of air as it passes from the larynx to the lips” Specifically, consonant sounds arethe sounds in the production of which two articulators come close together so that air stream isobstructed and can not get out freely

Consonants can be described in terms of the manner of articulation, the place of articulationand voicing Kelly (2000) and Roach (2000) categorized the 24 consonants into 6 groups:

A stop cuts off airflow through either the mouth or the nose so there are oral and nasal stops.Oral stops are often called plosives: /b, p, d, t, g, k/ Nasal stops are usually called nasals: /m,

n, ŋ/ English fricatives include /f, v, θ, ð, s, z, ʃ, ʒ, h/ English approximants include /j, w, r/,and lateral /l/ Affricates can be seen as a sequence of a stop and a fricative which have thesame or similar places of articulation, and there are only two affricative sounds in English /tʃ,dʒ/

1.1.2.2 English final consonants and consonant clusters

Any consonant except h, r, w and j may be a final consonant Final consonant sounds inEnglish are listed as below:

/k/ - back, cook /tʃ/ - church, catch

/ð/ - breath, clothe /n/ - than, man

When there are two or more consonants at the end of the word (called final cluster), the terms

“pre-final” and “post-final” consonants are used

Pre- final includes: /m, n, ŋ, l, s/

Post-final includes: /s, z, t, d, θ/

 Two consonant clusters:

o Pre-final followed by a final consonant

o Consonant plus post-final

E.g.: think, important, help, health, cats, etc.

 Three consonant clusters:

o Pre-final plus final plus post-final (e.g helped, twelfth, banks, etc.)

o Final plus post-final plus post-final (e.g text, fifths, lapsed, etc.)

 Four consonant clusters:

o Most are pre-final plus final plus post-final plus post-final

e.g prompts, twelfths

o Occasionally, there is one final and three post-final consonants

e.g sixths, texts

The table below presents the consonant clusters, extracted from Pham (2009):

Table 2: Component of consonant clusters

1.1.2.3 A comparison between English and Vietnamese final consonants

English consonants are different from Vietnamese ones because “there are only six consonantsand two semi-vowels which can stand in word-final position” in Vietnamese (Nguyen, 2007,p.4) Details about Vietnamese final consonants are adopted from Doan (1999, as cited inNguyen, 2007, pp.4-7) as follows:

iii) /ŋ/: there are three allophones of this phoneme:

[ŋ͡m]: bilabialized, proceded by rounded vowels /u, o, ɔ/

vi) /k/ː this sound is produced where the letter “c”, “ch” is shown at the final position

of a syllable and it is agreed by many linguistics that this phoneme has 3 allophoneswhich appear in a complementary distribution

[k͡p]ː this ending sound is bilabialized if the consonant is preceded by roundedvowels /u, ɒ, ɔ/

tay [taːj]

dài [daːj]

As can be seen from the list above, Vietnamese final consonants just consist of nasal sounds (/m/, /n/, /ŋ/) and three unaspirated voiceless plosives (/p/, /t/, /k/) What’s more, in Vietnamesethere is only one final consonant at a time, while in English there can be up to 4 consonants atthe end of words to form consonant clusters This difference results in the fact that Englishconsonant clusters may give Vietnamese learners problems because they do not have theseconsonant combinations in their own language

1.2 Errors

1.2.1 Errors vs Mistakes

Making mistakes or errors is a natural process of learning In language learning, making errors

is an inevitable part that can not be avoided People can not learn language without firstsystematically committing errors (Dulay, Burt and Krashen, 1982, as cited in Pham, 2009)

Many researchers have made a clear distinction between errors and mistakes, such as Brown(2007), Ellis (1997), Corder (1981) or such A mistake refers to a performance error related to

a random guess or a slip of the tongue, reflecting a failure to use a known system correctly;however, an error, a noticeable deviation from the known grammar of a speaker/writer,reflects the competence of the learner (Brown, 2007, pp.257-258) In another research, in thesame line, Ellis (1997) states that errors reflect gaps in a learner’s knowledge; they occurbecause the learner does not know what the correct one is Nevertheless, mistakes reflectoccasional lapses in performance; they occur because in particular instance, the learner isunable to perform what she or he knows

In short, a mistake made by a learner when writing or speaking is caused by lack of attention,fatigue, carelessness, etc and can be self-corrected, while errors result from the learner’s

incomplete knowledge Therefore, a speaker or writer can go on saying or writing the wrongthing without knowing that he is doing it, and he can not correct by himself

1.2.2 Pronunciation errors

According to Nguyen (2007), errors in pronunciation are defined as the incompetence inlanguage and incorrect pronunciation that may affect intelligibility in communication Jenkins(2006, p.36) defines pronunciation errors as “variants of pronunciation which prevent onecommunicator from understanding the propositional content of the other’s utterances” (ascited in Nguyen, 2007) The definition given by Jenkins seems more precise when English isconsidered as a means of international communication

1.2.3 Final consonant clusters errors

Results of some studies of errors with consonant sounds can be classified into 6 types:

1 Cluster reduction This is the “deletion of one or more consonants from a target cluster

so that only a single consonant occurs at syllable margins” (Grunwell, 1987, p 217, ascited in Treiman, 1989)

2 Cluster simplification The error occurs when one/some elements of a cluster being is/are produced in a different manner from the target phoneme (Grunwell, 1987, as cited

in Treiman, 1989)

e.g green – pronounced as [gwin]; bread – pronounced as [bwed]

3 Epenthesis This is the insertion of some vowel (normally a schwa) between clusterelements (Dyson & Paden, 1983, as cited in Treiman, 1989)

e.g drive /draiv/ pronounced as [dəraiv]

4 Coalescence It occurs when the yielded pronunciation contains a new consonant

composed of features from the original consonants

e.g Swim - pronounced as [fim] It was explained that because the [+fricative] feature of/s/ cooccurs with the [+labial] feature of /w/, resulting in a labial fricative, [f] (Dyson &Paden, 1983, as cited in Treiman, 1989)

5 Omitting nasal and liquid sounds In consonant clusters consisting of pre-final + final

consonants with nasals (/n/, /m/) or liquids (/r/, /l/) as the first element, (/m, n, l, r/ + finalconsonant), nasals and liquids sounds are often omitted (Treiman, Zukowski, &Richmond-Welty, 1995)

e.g went  wet belt  bet

6 Phonetically possible spelling In representing the first consonant of a cluster, spellers

tend to spell words in an inaccurate but phonetically plausible ways (Treiman & Bourassa,2000)

e.g trap  chap It was explained that because “ch” closely resembles the sound of the

initial blend “tr” Treiman (1985) explains that this “ch” spelling reflects the release of /t/

in the context

(Treiman, 1985, as cited in Pham, 2009)

Pham (2009) finds out that the major problem with cluster ending is reduction of sounds.Deshayes (2005) and Avery & Ehrlich (1992) also agree that the omission of one or two of theconsonants is common to Vietnamese learners of English

Although the problems encountered by learners with final consonant clusters are predictable,the researcher carried out the study in order to find out the errors that Vietnamese learners atPDU actually make with final clusters and then suggest some strategies to correct them

1.3 Error correction

As mentioned above, errors are unavoidable but essential in the process of language learningbecause no errors in a lesson means no real learning has taken place However, discoveringthese errors in students’ speaking alone seems to be of no value if they are not treatedreasonably That is the reason why teachers should understand about error correction and theprinciples in correcting students’ speaking errors in general and pronunciation errors inparticular

1.3.1 Definition and types of error correction

Julian Edge (1989, p.20) defines correction as “a way of reminding students of the forms ofStandard English It should not be a kind of criticism or punishment” According to Nguyen et

al (2003), correction is known as a series of pedagogical techniques to get students to refinewhat they want to say (as cited in Nguyen, 2009, p.26)

Basing on the person who gives correction, Edge (1989) classifies error correction into threetypes: self- correction, peer- correction and teacher- correction In self-correction, teacher doesnot correct the errors for the students Instead, he elicits correction from students who areforced to think, to discover their errors, to choose an alternative word and to attempt to say itagain For this reason, Edge strongly asserts that “the best form of correction is self-correction” (1989, p 24) When the students do not know how to correct his errors, teacherscan invite other students to help out In this case, it is called Peer-correction It can keep thewhole class more involved in correction process However, peer-correction can have problems

if the two or a group of students are not in the habit of correcting each other The third type ofcorrection is called teacher- correction If neither self-correction nor peer- correction works,teachers can give more help by providing a correct way of expressing what the students want

to correct immediately or not depends on various factors such as aims, class dynamics, learner

attitude and expectations, motivation, level, and the teacher's evaluation of whether a mistake

or an error has been made

In short, there are many types of error corrections and each type has its own advantages anddisadvantages Therefore, teachers should carefully consider in advance which type ofcorrection to use in different contexts to suit their students best

1.3.2 Approaches to error correction

Since there are many types of errors, the approaches to error correction vary Doff (1988, as

cited in Hadinata, 2006) identifies three approaches to error correction practiced by teachers.The first approach is that teachers correct their students immediately when they makemistakes This approach focuses more on errors of students than on what they do correctly.This approach hampers developing fluency in English, for committing mistakes is an integralpart of any learning activity The second approach asserts that teachers should not correctstudents all the time but sometimes, depending on teaching phases Specifically, if students arepractising one particular language point, teachers insist that they say it correctly; but if they’redoing a freer activity, teachers should not correct too much The last approach stressesavoiding error correction or correcting as little as possible in order to help students expressthemselves in English without worrying too much about making mistakes

1.4 Techniques to deal with final clusters

According to Tench (1981, p.66), “problems concerning consonant clusters are usually simply

a problem of articulation” In other words, although a learner might produce the elements of acluster satisfactorily, the combination of the elements in close sequence (clusters) may prove

to be problematical This author suggests some techniques for dealing with consonant clusters,including demonstration, association and/or explanation Demonstration is usually sufficient,but the teacher must resort to association and/or explanation if it does not work The followingare some examples using the techniques ‘demonstration + explanation’ to practice clusters.For final sequences of stops such as /-pt, -kt, -bd/ (a sequence of unreleased stop + released

stop): retaining the closure of the first stop while effecting the closure of the second Forinstance, for /-pt/, the lips must remain sealed while the tongue blade rises for the alveolarclosure of /t/; for /-kt/, the back of the tongue must remain raised against the soft palate whilethe blade effects alveolar closure of /t/ For a sequence of fricatives such as /-θs/, hold thetongue in the /θ/ position and prolong the /θ/ and then, suddenly and sharply, draw the tongue

in and upwards

Deshayes highlights an approach “to identify the areas of mouth in which the sounds aremoving” to final clusters errors, and asserts that “Helping students realize the transitions thatneed to occur in their mouths will help them make the necessary adjustments” (Deshayes,

2005, p.6) She also recommends some other specific techniques such as reading aloud a list ofwords with consonant clusters, breaking down consonant clusters, adding and changingsounds gradually, for instance, “six”, “sixth”, “sixths”

Another approach to final clusters is “to simplify final consonant clusters in connected

speech” (Avery & Ehrlich, 1992, p.104) For instance, “This sweater was hand-made”, ‘hand’

is pronounced as ‘han’ without a final /d/ Simplifying the final consonant clusters through thedeletion of one or more of the consonants are very common in the speech of native speakersbut do not occur randomly For example, the final /d/ of ‘hand’ is much less frequently deleted

if the following word begins with a vowel sound as in the phrases ‘hand out’ Unlike nativespeakers, learners of English may simplify clusters inappropriately, leading tomisunderstanding Therefore, it is the task of the pronunciation teacher to introduce thesimplification strategies to students Two particular activities proposed by these two authorsare practising using two words for difficult consonant clusters, and practising consonantclusters through the addition of grammatical endings

Celce-Murcia, Brinton & Goodwin (1996) agrees that English native speakers also employsimplification strategies to make consonant clusters easier to pronounce Two simplificationstrategies they use are cluster reduction (omitting one of the consonants) and resyllabification

(breaking up a final consonant cluster when it is followed by a word beginning with a vowelsound) For the first strategy, it is usually a middle consonant that is dropped in final clusters

of three or four consonants This strategy is often used to simplify clusters created by the

addition of grammatical endings, as in the simplification of asked /æskt/ to /æst/ or facts /fækts/ to /fæks/ It is regularly employed when pronouncing fractions such as sixths (reduction of /siksθs/ to /siks/ or fifths (reduction of /fifθs/ to /fifs/) It should be noted for

students that third person singular present tense and plural endings provide importantgrammatical signals and are never left off in order to simplify a cluster For the secondstrategy, the final consonant of the cluster is moved over to the next syllable For example, inthe phrase “She moved it.”, a native speaker will usually pronounce as /ʃi.muːv.dɪt/ Theseauthors also recommend that “having students gradually build up clusters allows them to gainmastery over final clusters of three or four consonants” (Celce-Murcia, Brinton & Goodwin,

sick  six  sixth  sixths

Pham (2009) outlines strategies to overcome ending sounds errors using CommunicativeTeaching She stresses three important techniques (information gap, role-play, and tasks)usually used in communicative activities in order to get students to interact with each other,and from then improve their competence In addition, she lists some sample activities andtasks for practicing ending sounds, including brainstorming, chain stories, exaggeration, andsound picture

An example of using Communicative Teaching to deal with final clusters errors is provided byDeshayes (2005, p 6) For a less controlled communicative activity, teachers can provide

students with a calendar of the current month and have them ask each other questions such as,

“What will you do on the thirty-first?” For an information gap activity, teachers can use oradapt the calendar below: one student has a blank calendar and must interview her partner torecreate the other’s schedule

1

Hair salon

Dad’s birthday

Movie night

6 Picnic at the park

Kelly (2000, p.58) also gives some specific techniques to teach final clusters: (1) isolating theclustered sounds The word or utterance can be written on the board, in phonemic script, andstudents are asked to repeat the sounds slowly; (2) drilling; (3) tying the sounds in withfamiliar words which include the cluster and which can then be included in activities anddrills.

To sum up, there are a variety of techniques suggested for dealing with final clusters What isimportant is that teachers need to be aware of their students’ errors with final clusters and thenadapt the activities or use the techniques in order to fit their students’ level as well as the aim

of the lesson

CHAPTER 2: AN OVERVIEW OF TEACHING AND LEARNING PRONUNCIATION

45 minutes The first semester focuses on English vowels while the second one on Englishconsonants The final tests which are carried out by administrators at the end of each semesterare not included in 15 weeks’ study

‘Ship or Sheep? An intermediate pronunciation course’ by Ann Baker (1977) is used as thetextbook It is written in a simple and succinct style with clear illustrations and a variety ofactivities Most units begin with an illustration and notes on how to produce the sound to bepracticed, then minimal pairs, recognition test, word list, dialogue, stress/ intonation, andfinally conversation/group work However, it has some shortcomings Like many other books

of English pronunciation, it is written by the foreign author and for the learners of English allover the world in general, it is not written exclusively for Vietnamese or the learners ofPhuong Dong University All the sounds are presented equally; it does not concentrate on thesounds which the first-year students of Phuong Dong find difficult Moreover, there areseveral repeated exercises, and some units have too many exercises which the students do nothave enough time to practise in class Consequently, the pronunciation activities in thetextbook would be adapted to suit students’ needs and the course’s objectives

2.2 The learners

The learners are first-year students at English department, Phuong Dong University Theyhave a range of ages from 18 to 20 years old As young adults, they are very flexible, dynamic,and able to imitate the native-like accent in a relatively quick way All students have studiedEnglish for at least three years at high school, which has both positive and negative influence

on their study in college First, if their already- formed pronunciation is not good, it is ratherdifficult to correct them Second, the students’ pronunciation is considered to be poor, incomparison with the four skills: reading, writing, speaking, listening or grammar The mainreason is that little time was spent on learning pronunciation at high school What’s more, allkinds of tests and exams taken at schools were in written form, so the schoolteachers paid lessattention to teaching pronunciation than to teaching grammatical structures, reading andwriting skills

2.3 The teachers

There are over 20 teachers at the English department, Phuong Dong University They are allyoung (25-40 years old), enthusiastic, and helpful However, all of them have just graduatedfrom colleges in Vietnam, and many are not experienced in teaching pronunciation As aresult, they may encounter difficulties in dealing with students’ errors in pronunciation as well

as carrying out pronunciation activities in classroom

2.4 The teaching and learning conditions

The English department offers good and modern facilities for learning and teaching languagesuch as a language laboratory, cassette recorders, computers and projectors Besides, thenumber of students in each class is not so big, ranging from 25 to 30 students Theseconditions are very ideal for students to learn and practise pronunciation However, the lack ofnative teachers results in little chance for students to practice their pronunciation with nativespeakers

In brief, all the above-mentioned components of the course have their effects on thepronunciation, especially the pronunciation errors, of the participants of the research Thefollowing chapters will describe the methodology to find out the errors, the way to analyse thedata, find out the findings and propose strategies to correct the common errors in pronouncingEnglish final clusters made by second year English majored students at PDU.

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

3.1 Research questions

The research was carried out in the first semester of the school year 2010-2011 to find answers

to the following questions:

 What are the English final cluster errors that second-year English-majored students atPDU often make?

 What are some strategies to correct those errors?

3.2 Subjects of the study

Participants in the research are 30 second year students from class 509701A2, which waschosen randomly from the 4 second - year classes, K509, English Department, PDU All ofthem had completed the two Pronunciation courses offered to first-year students in Englishdepartment, PDU Hence, they had got not only basic ideas of pronunciation rules but alsocertain awareness of their own pronunciation problems which might have been corrected byteachers

At the time of the research, these English majored subjects, aged from 19 to 21 years old, areworking with the textbook “Let’s talk 2” by Leo Jones (2002) for speaking skill The totaltime allowed for speaking skill for the third term at university of PDU English majors is 45class hours The mid-term oral test occurs in week 8 or week 9 in each class with the samespeaking topics for K509

3.3 Data collection procedure

The data collection was divided into two steps as follows:

Stage 1: Recording

The data collection was administered through an oral test This is the mid-term oral test thatstudents had to participate to get the mid-term marks which make up 40% of the total score inthe semester During the test, each of the students was requested to present a talk about aparticular topic in about three to five minutes All what they presented was recorded with the

aid of an mp3 recorder which was placed on the table in the test room to get the best audioquality, and then used for take-home analysis to find out all their errors with final clusters

Stage 2: Observation

All the mispronounced words with final clusters collected from the recordings were then usedfor the participants to read out loud The aim of the stage is to check the hypothesis whether ornot the students have the same problems in the test and in their real speeches From this, it isexpected to suggest relevant and suitable strategies to correct the errors Therefore, the speakerhimself/ herself would read out loud the errors that he/ she made, paying attention to the finalclusters when pronouncing the words When they read, the researcher took note of anymispronounced final clusters into a checklist (For a checklist for observation, see Appendix 3)

3.4 Data analysis procedure

The data analysis procedure included two phases:

Phase 1: All information collected from the subjects during the oral test was used for analysis.

All the errors made by students were counted in terms of types, sounds frequency andseriousness The researcher then classified those types of errors and presented them in form ofcharts and tables Tape(s) recorded from the oral test were given to a group of three Englishteachers including two Vietnamese and one English for pronunciation evaluation Theevaluators, informed in advance of the purpose of the evaluation, were also given a checklist

so that the results would be more precise and suitable for the purpose of the researcher (For achecklist for recordings, see Appendix 1) After getting the result, they gave a writtenfeedback to the researcher and participated in a discussion to work out the final result Then,data were processed by using the descriptive statistics, working out the common kinds ofmistakes

Phase 2: The results from recording analysis were used to design a checklist for observation

process The results collected from observation were then compared with the results fromrecording analysis so as to suggest suitable solutions to students’ pronunciation errors withfinal clusters

CHAPTER 4: FINDNGS AND DICUSSIONS

This chapter presents findings from two sources, namely recording and observation Basing

on findings from recordings, the researcher elaborates common errors with final clusters that the second-year English-majored students at PDU actually make Also, suitable strategies to overcome those errors are suggested on the basis of the comparison between the two findings from recording and observation.

4.1 Findings from recordings and discussions

The data from recording analysis helped reveal (1) the final clusters errors that the second yearstudents in English Department, PDU often make and (2) which errors are the most commonones in their pronunciation It should be noted that the most common one was chosen owing tothe number of subjects that made the errors and the number of times they appear whenstudents presented the talk

4.1.1 Overview of the errors with final clusters of 2 nd year English-majored students at PDU

From analyzing the data collected from recordings, 230 pronunciation errors related to finalclusters was found, including 200 reduction errors and 30 substitution errors Below is thechart that shows the percentage of the two types of errors:

87%

13%

Reduction Substitution

Chart 1: Types of errors

As can be seen from the chart, reduction error (repeated 200 times) is more common thansubstitution (repeated 30 times) In other words, reduction is the major problem that thesecond year students at PDU face

Basing on the number of students who commit the errors, we can conclude that reduction error

is the most common one Of all the subjects, 100% made errors with consonant reduction (30students) and 60% (18 students) had substitution error

Interestingly, no insertion error was found in the data although this error still appeared in someprevious researches (Pham, 2009; Treiman, 1989)

4.1.2 Details of the errors with final clusters of 2 nd year English –majored students at PDU

4.1.2.1 Reduction

As mentioned in the previous part, reduction is the most common error that the 2nd yearstudents at PDU make Below is the table which demonstrates the details of reduction error ofstudents found in the data from recordings

omitted

No of subjects with errors

Repetition times

/nz/ /z/ 2 2/ndʒ/,

Table 3: Reduction errors found in the data from recordings

From the Table 3, it can be seen that the errors with final clusters /nt(s), nd(z), st/ are verycommon to the subjects The times these final clusters appeared in the subjects’ talk are alsorelatively high (/nt(s)/ - 39 times; /nd(z)/ - 43 times; /st/- 48 times ) Therefore, it should benoted for correcting In addition, some of the sounds such as /θ, dʒ/ at the end of words arereally hard for Vietnamese learners to pronounce, so subjects tend to delete them Details ofthe two types of final clusters are as followed

Considering the first case (Pre-final + Final + (Post-final)), there were two tendencies to whichthe final clusters are mispronounced basing on the pre-final consonants:

 Deleting the pre-final

 Deleting the final or post-final sounds

Firstly, when the liquid sound /l/ stands as the pre-final, it tends to be omitted This type oferror was found in 33% of the subjects (10 students)

e.g child /tʃaild/  /tʃaid/

help /help/  /hep/

film /film/  /fim/

world /wɜːld/  /wɜːd/

old /əuld/  /əud/

The consonant following /l/ is also deleted (accounting for 53%)

e.g difficult /difikəlt/  /difikəl/

health /helθ/  /hel/

else /els/  /el/

self /self/  /sel/

Secondly, when /n/, /m/, /ŋ/ - nasal sounds – stand as pre-final, the students tend to delete all

or keep the first and the last sound in a cluster while deleting the middle ones Thephenomenon was found in 100% of the subjects

environment /invairənmənt/  /invairənmən/

friends /frendz/  /fren/

think /θɪŋk/  /θɪŋ/

find /faɪnd/  /faɪn/

Thirdly, when the pre-final sound is a fricative /s/, the students tend to delete the final sounds

26 students commit this error (87%)

e.g fast /fa:st/  /fa:s/

first /fɜːst/  /fɜːs/

last /laːst/  /laːs/

past /paːst/  /paːs/

Considering the second case {Final + post-final(s)}, it is noted that the final consonant ishardly deleted while the second element of two-element clusters and third of three-elementclusters are often omitted Many students just pronounced the first consonants of the longclusters and delete all the consonants that go after them

e.g next /nekst/  /nek/ (/s/ & /t/ were deleted)