A STUDY ON COMMON MISTAKES MADE BY VIETNAMESE BEGINNERS OF ENGLISH IN PRONOUNCING AND POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

LÊ NGỌC HÂNA STUDY ON COMMON MISTAKES MADE BY VIETNAMESE BEGINNERS OF ENGLISH IN PRONOUNCING AND POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS Nghiên cứu về những lỗi thường gặp của học viên người Việt khi phát âm

LÊ NGỌC HÂN

A STUDY ON COMMON MISTAKES MADE BY VIETNAMESE BEGINNERS OF ENGLISH IN PRONOUNCING AND POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

(Nghiên cứu về những lỗi thường gặp của học viên người Việt khi phát âm

các phụ âm tiếng Anh và cách khắc phục khả hữu)

M.A Minor Thesis Major: English Linguistics Code: 602215

SUPERVISOR: Assoc.Pro.Vo Dai Quang (PhD)

Bacninh, August 2011

On conducting this research, I would like to thank my supervisor Assoc.Pro.Vo DaiQuang (PhD) for his helpful lectures on Principles of Phonetics and Phonology,suggestion, crucial advice, constructive and critical comments without which thisresearch would not have been sucessfully completed

Also, thanks are sent to my former course mates’research for providing me with suchinformative reference for my thesis

Last but not least, the whole-hearted thanks and debts of gratitude are reserved for

my parents, beloved siblings, friends, students and especially my beloved who hasloved, cared and stood by my side through any joyful as well as depressing moments

in my life

BacNinh, Octorber ,2011

Le Ngoc Han

It is undeniable that English has become the most popular foreign language inVietnam nowadays Nevertheless, among millions of people speaking English inVietnam, there are many people who make mistakes in pronunciation This paper isfocused on the mistakes made by Vietnamese beginners of English whenpronouncing the six English sounds θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ, ʤ, ʧ Causes for the mistakes andsome tentative suggestions to mitigate the problem are then discussed The mistakesare identified in terms of both wrong manner of articulation and wrong place ofarticulation of the sounds It is argued that the mistakes can be explained in terms ofinadequate knowledge of the articulation of the sounds and, more importantly, theinterference of the mother tongue Suggestions for effective ways to overcome thedifficulty include careful instructions in how to pronounce the sounds, comparativeand contrastive analysis of the phonetic features of the sounds in English and theequivalents in Vietnamese, and emphasis on drills and practice

Table of contents

Acknowledgements i

Abstract ii

Table of contents .

iii List of figures v

Chapter one: Introduction 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 1

1.2.1 Aims 1

1.2.2 Objectives 1

1.2.3 Research questions 2

1.3 Scope of the study 2

1.4 Organization of the study 2

Chapter two : Literature Review 4

2.1 Theoretical Background 4

2.1.1 The role of pronounciation in language teaching 4

2.1.2 Factors affecting pronunciation learning 4

2.1.2.1 The native language 4

2.1.2.2 The age factor 5

2.1.2.3 Pronunciation ability 5

2.1.2.4 Motivation and concern for good pronunciation 5

2.1.3 Articulatory phonetics 6

2.1.4 Consonants 11

2.1.4.1 General description of English consonants 11

2.1.4.2 Articulatory features of θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ, ʤ, ʧ 12

2.1.4.2.1 Articulatory features of /θ, δ / aθ, δ /θ, δ / a and /θ, δ / aʃ, ʒ /θ, δ / a 13

2.1.4.2.2 Articulatory features of /θ, δ / aʤ, ʧ/θ, δ / a 13

2.1.5 Mistakes in language learning 13

2.1.5.1 Mistakes in language learning 13

2.1.5.2 Types of mistakes 14

2.1.5.3 Possible causes of mistakes in language learning 16

2.1.5.3.1 The interference of the mother tongue 16

2.1.5.3 2 Causes other than interference by first language 17

2.2 Previous works 18

Chapter three: Methodology 20

3.1 Survey research 20

3.1.1 Steps for conducting a survey research 21

3.1.1.1 Defining a population 21

3.1.1.2 Sampling 21

3.1.1.3 Methods of collecting survey data 21

3.1.1.4 Data analysis 22

3.2 Techniques employed in this thesis 22

3.2.1 Data collection instruments 22

3.2.1.1 Tape recording 23

3.2.1.2 Questionnaire 23

3.2.1.3 Interview 24

3.2.2 Methods of data analysis 24

3.3 Procedure 25

3.4 Summary 25

Chapter four: Findings and discussions 26

4 1 Findings from tape recording 26

4.2 Findings and discussions from the questionnaire 27

4.2.1 Students’ attitude towards pronunciation 28

4.2.2 Students’ perceptions of their frequency of pronunciation mistakes 29 4.2.3 Students’ perceptions of the causes of those mistakes 29

4.2.4 Students’ self-treatment to overcome those mistakes 31

4.2.5 Reflection on teachers’ methods used to help students to overcome those mistakes 33

4.3 Findings from the interviews 34

4.4 Summary 35

Chapter five: Conclusion 36

5.1 Recapitulation 36

5.2 Concluding remarks 36

5.3 Pedagogical Implications 38

5.4 Suggestions for further research 39

Appendices……… ……… vi

Survey questionnaire……….vi

Exercises for tape recording……… ix

Interview sheet……… x

References……… xi

List of figures

Figure 1: English consonants 12

Figure 2: Common mistakes found in data……….25

Figure 3: Students’ attitude towards pronunciation 28

Figure 4: Students’ perception of their frequency of pronunciation mistakes 29

Figure 5 : Students’ perceptions of causes of those mistakes 30

Figure 6: Students’ self-treatment to overcome those mistakes 31

Figure 7: Reflection on teachers’ methods 33

Chapter one: Introduction

1.1 Rationale

English, the most popular foreign language in Vietnam, has been taught from the earlyage (at the age of 7 or even younger) in most of schools and universities throughout thecountry as a compulsory subject Thus, many Vietnamese, especially the young people,can speak English; however, not many of them “have intelligible English pronunciation

so that they can be understood easily in direct communication with foreigners” It is theexact fact happening in Bac Ninh Specialized High School Over many years ofteaching English in this school, the writer of the study has observed that there are quite

a number of students who frequently make mistakes with English sounds Being fullyaware of the necessity of correcting mistakes for students as well as Vietnameselearners of English, the writer of this paper decided to conduct the study entitled “Astudy on common mistakes made by Vietnamese beginners of English in pronouncing

θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ, ʤ, ʧ and possible solutions” It is hoped that this study will contribute to thegoal of enhancing students’ performance in teaching and learning foreign language

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

1.2.1 Aims

The research aims at:

- improving students’ pronunciation of the six English consonants θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ, ʤ, ʧ

- providing English teachers with a reference for the pronunciation of θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ,

ʤ, ʧ

1.2.2 Objectives

To achieve these aims, the following objectives are set forth as tasks of the study:

- identify Vietnamese learners’ common mistakes in pronouncing θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ, ʤ, ʧ

- find out causes of mistakes made by Vietnamese learners in pronouncing θ, δ, ʃ,

ʒ, ʤ, ʧ

- find out solutions to make teaching and learning process better so that mistakes

in pronouncing θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ, ʤ, ʧ can be avoided

Question 2: What are the causes of those mistakes?

Question 3: What are possible solutions to those mistakes?

1.3 Scope of the study

In English there are twenty six consonants which are divided into groups according tothe place, manner of articulation and degree of voicing.Vietnamese learners do havemistakes in pronouncing the English consonants However, due to the limited time andthe scale of the minor thesis we only concentrate on common mistakes made by 30students who are studying English as major field in Bac Ninh Specialized High School

in pronouncing “θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ, ʤ, ʧ” and causes of those mistakes as well as possiblesolutions to eliminate them These collected mistakes are considered as the commonones made by Vietnamese learners

1.4 Organization of the study

To achieve the aims of the study, this paper is divided into five chapters

Chapter one “Introduction” includes the reasons of choosing the thesis, the aims, theobjectives, the scope, research questions and the organization of the study

Chapter two “Literature Review” is devoted to the presentation of the theoreticalbackground relevant to the research Firstly, the review of pronunciation as well asfactors affecting pronunciation learning are introduced Then the literature related tomistakes is given It includes the notion of mistakes in language learning, types ofmistakes and the main causes of mistakes Lastly, articulatory features of the sixconsonnants are mentioned

Chapter three “Methodology” describes in detail the research methodology whichcomprises the principles based on which the study is carried out It also presentstechniques employed in this thesis, namely questionnaire, tape recording and interview.

Chapter four “Findings and discussions” presents the findings and discussions from thedata analysis

Chapter five “Conclusion” deals with recapulation, concluding marks, implication withthe recommendations for correcting mistakes in pronouncing the six consonnants,suggestions for teaching in order to prevent and eliminate these mistakes

Chapter two : Literature Review

2.1 Theoretical Background

2.1.1 The role of pronounciation in language teaching

Sound is the core of the language so that is the reason why when teaching a languagethe first thing the teachers should do is to let the leaners have chances to explore thesounds of that language Moreover, communicative approach is considered as the majorlanguage teaching in the twenty first century as what the leaners really need aftergraduating is that they can communicate successfully in their work and their life That

is the reason why pronunciation teaching has been paid more and more attention by allthe teachers Some years ago, pronounciation used to be taught along with other skillsbut at the present pronounciation courses are provided at any universities where English

is taught as the major subject

2.1.2 Factors affecting pronunciation learning

There are many major factors affecting the learners’pronunciation such as: the nativelanguage, the age factor, pronunciation ability as well as motivation and concern forgood pronunciation

2.1.2.1 The native language

The native language plays an important role in learning to pronounce English as it isclearly seen that a foreign accent is influenced by some of the sound characteristics ofthe learner’s native language These can be used to distinguish between the nativespeakers and nonnative speakers (untrained as well as trained speakers) Due to the role

of native language, there has been a great deal of research on the differences betweensound systems of English and other languages in terms of sound systems as well asproblems, difficulties the learners face when studying English

According to Kenworthy, J(1992:4): “To put it very crudely, the more difficulties thereare, the more difficulties the learners will have in pronouncing English”

2.1.2.2 The age factor

It is commonly assumed that people can pronounce a foreign language like a native ifthey start learning it as a child and vice versus This leads to a question that whetherthere is an age-related limit on the mastery of pronunciation There have been manystudies on this quesion and the results are conflicting because these studies haveassessed pronunciation in different ways Besides, it is extremely difficult to controlother factors which may be involved such as ability, motivation or opportunity to useand to hear the language

2.1.2.3 Pronunciation ability

It is common view that some people have a “a better ear” for foreign languages thanothers and this has been demonstrated in some research that some people are able todiscriminate between two sounds better than others and or are able to mimic soundsmore accurately However, every human being has this basic ability ; if they did notthey would not have learned the sounds of native language More inerestingly, there is aquesion whether certain types of learners, poor discriminators and good discriminators,benefit from different types of training

One study has shown that those with good phonetic abilities benefit frompronounciation drill, tasks in which particular sounds are heard and the learner has toimitate again and again Their innate abilities enable them to exploit all theopportunities to compare what they are doing with the model presented “Poordiscriminators” do not seem to benefit from drills very much In fact, drills seem tocause their attempts to stabilise before they reach an accurate production of a sound Itcan be assumed that learners have the basic equipment and provide a variety of tasks sothat something will suit the needs and abilities of each learner

2.1.2.4 Motivation and concern for good pronunciation

It cannot be defined that motivation is an important factor which determines thepeople’s participation in every activity especially in language teaching Motivationmakes people more active in learning The more motivated the people are, the greaterthe cognitive process is Gardner (1985:10) defined “Motivation is the present contextrefers to the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal of learning plus

favourabe attitudes towards learning the language” A key issue in Gardner’smotivation theory is the relationship between motivation and orientation (goal) Thus,

in his view, “motivation” refers to a kind of central metal “engine” or “energy-centre”that subsumes effort, want/will and task enjoyment However, they are internal factorsnot external factors Motivation is affected by both internal and external factors

According to Ellis (1997:75), learners’attitude and effective states constitue thelearners’ effort degree when learning an L2 belong to “motivation”

The same point of view can be found in the definition given by Little Wood “In secondlanguage learning as in every other filed of human learning, motivation is crucial forcewhich determines whether a learner embarks on a task at all, how much energy hedevotes to it, and how long he perseveres it It is a complex phenomenon and includesmany components: the individual’s drive, need for achievement and success, curiosity,desire for stimulation and new experience and so on” (Little Wood, 1998:53)

In fact, motivation is without question, the most complex and challenging issue facingteachers today (Scheidecker & Freeman)

Some learners seem to be more concerned about their pronunciation than others Thisconcern is often expressed in statements about how “bad” the pronunciation is and inrequest for correction-both blanket requests and frequent pauses during speech used tosolicit comments on the accuracy of pronunciation It may even be reflected in areluctance to speak Moreover, the desire to do well is a kind of “achievementmotivation” Conversely, if you do not care about a particular task or do not see thevalue of it, you won’t be motivated to do well Learners may also be unconcernedbecause they simply are not aware that the way they speak is resulting in difficulty,irritation or misunderstanding for the listeners

There are several factors which may affect pronunciation accuracy leading to commonmistakes in pronunciation in process of studying English

2.1.3 Articulatory phonetics

Articulatory phonetics, one of the three main branches of phonetics, is the study of theorgans of speech and their use in producing speech sounds The term “organs ofspeech” refers to those parts of the human body that are concerned in various ways withthe production of speech A lot of them are only secondarily concerned with the

productions of speech- their primary functions have to do with eating, chewing, andswallowing food, and respiration Those parts of the body below (not the lungs) belong

to the vocal tract The vocal tract is divided into the supra-glottal and the sub-glottaltract

Clark and Yallop use two features to describe the manner of articulation ofconsonants: constriction and articulation The degree of constriction decreasesfrom total closure via partial constriction to a fully open vowel like manner.Articulation divides into dynamic and stable Altogether, there are sevenrecognized manners of articulation : stop, fricative, approximant, nasal, flap, tapand trill.

The manners of articulation are described as followed:

Stop a complete closure at any point in the

vocal tract and sudden release of theclosure

Fricative potentially stable articulation produced

by a constriction in the vocal tract that

is narrow enough to create a turbulent

Approximant potentially stable articulation in which

the constriction is normally greaterthan in a vowel but not great enough toproduce turbulence at the point ofconstriction

Nasal stoppage at some point in the oral

cavity, velum is lowered to allowairflow through the nasal cavity, stablearticulation

brief occlusion in the vocal tract, asingle deliberate movement to create aclosure, equivalent to a very short stop

brief occlusion in the vocal tract, onearticulator strikes the other in passingnot so much to create a brief closurebut more as the incidental effect of thearticulatory gesture

vibration of any articulator, a series ofvibrations

The place of articulation defines both the area of the oral-pharyngeal vocal tractwhere the constriction is made and the part of the tongue used for the constriction.This gives us the following places of articulation:

 Bilabial: the two lips

 Dental: the tongue lip or (usually) the tongue blade with the upper teeth

 Alveolar: the tongue blade or (usually) the tongue tip with the alveolar ridge

 Palatal: the tongue body and the hard palate

 Velar: the tongue body and the soft palate

 Uvular: between the back of the tongue and the uvula (which hangs down inthe back of the mouth)

 Pharyngeal: between the root of the tongue and the back of the throat (thepharynx)

 Glottal: This isn’t strictly a place of articulation Glottal sounds are made inthe larynx

(Davenport & Hannahs, 1998: 99)

Voicing is also one of the main categories that consonants have to base on whenbeing described The vocal folds may be held against each other at just the righttension so that the air flowing past them from the lungs will cause them to vibrateagainst each other This process is called voicing Sounds that are made with vocalfold vibration are said to be voiced Sounds made without vocal vibration are said to

be voiceless There are several pairs of sounds in English which differ only invoicing- that is, the two sounds have identical places and manners of articulation, butone has vocal fold vibration and the other doesn’t The six chosen consonants aresuch exact examples in pairs, /θ, δ /; /ʃ, ʒ /; / ʤ, ʧ /

2.1.4 Consonants

2.1.4.1 General description of English consonants

From a phonetic point of view, consonants are articulated in one of two rays: eitherthere is a closing movement of one of the vocal organs, forming such a narrowconstriction that it is possible to hear the sound of the air passing through; or theclosing movement is complete, giving a total blockage The closing movement mayinvolve lips, tongue, or throat, but in each case the overall effect is very different fromthe relatively open and unimpeded articulation found in vowels (Crystal, 2003:192) Inarticulatory phonetics, a consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized

by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence

Consonants, actually, are sounds made with closed or nearly articulations As aconsequence, they tend to break up the stream up speech, defining a perceptual and

articulatory edge, or margin, for a unit (word or syllable in a word) that includes one or

more vowels Consonants can be divided into different kinds in accordance with three

categories, i.e., the degree of vocal cord vibration, the place of articulation and the

manner of articulation

Most dialects of English have about 24 distinctive (phonemic) consonant sounds

divided according to three different categories: voicing, place and manner of

articulation

2.1.4.2 Articulatory features of θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ, ʤ, ʧ

The sounds θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ, ʤ, ʧ can be called in different terms: fricatives/ affricatives if

basing on the manner of articulation ; dental sounds /θ, δ /, post- (palato) alveolar sound

/ʃ, ʒ, ʤ, ʧ/ if basing on the place of articulation /θ, ʃ, ʧ/ are strong and long fiction

sounds; the others are weak and short ones They are similar at this point but different

at another point due to their own characteristics in the language, thus it is much easier

to take them into consideration in pairs, that is /θ, δ / ; /ʃ, ʒ /; / ʤ, ʧ /

2.1.4.2.1 Articulatory features of /θ, δ / aθ, δ /θ, δ / a and /θ, δ / aʃ, ʒ /θ, δ / a

According to the manner of articulation, Katamba (1996 : 121) descibes FRICATIVE;the articulators are brought very close together leaving only a very narrow channelthrough which the air squeezes on its ways out, producing turbulence in the process,such as /f,v, θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ /

Kelly (2000: 35) provided the detailed descriptions of consonants in his books

including dental sounds /θ, δ / (as in think, the, bath, bathe, mathematics, father) “The

toungue tip makes light contact with the back of the top, front teeth Or, tongue tip mayprotrute between upper and lower teeth The soft palate is raised / θ / is unvoiced and

fortis./ δ / is voiced and lenis.”

Also, he wrote “/ʃ, ʒ / (as in she, fish, beige, nation, measure) are post-alveolar

sounds But when pronouncing them, the tongue blade makes light contact with thealvealar ridge, and the front of the tongue is raised / ʃ / is unvoiced and fortis /ʒ / isvoiced and lenis It also devoiced at the end of the word /ʒ / does not occur as an initialsound in English, and is rare as a final sound.”

2.1.4.2.2 Articulatory features of /ʤ, ʧ/

Cruttenden (2001: 9) gives the description of affricative : a complete closure at somepoint in the mouth, behind which the air pressure builds up ; the separation of theorgans is compared with that of a plosive, so that more extended friction is acharacteristic second element of the sound English has only two affricatives, thevoiceless palato-aveolar /ʧ/ and its counterpart /ʤ/

/ ʤ, ʧ / (as in church, judge, nature, larger) are also palato-aveolar sounds The

tongue tip, blade and rims close against the alveolar ridge and side teeth The front ofthe tongue is raised , and when the air is released, there is audible friction The softpalate is also raised /ʧ/ is unvoiced and fortis /ʤ/ is voiced and lenis /ʤ/ is voiced atthe end of a word

2.1.5 Mistakes in language learning

2.1.5.1 Mistakes in language learning

Mistakes are said to be unsystematic in nature and correctable when attention is drawn

to its producers Mistakes are caused by temporary lapses of memory, confusion, and

carelessness and so on According to Adrian (1994: 131), the term “mistake” is used torefer to something that at that moment is not acceptable He suggested that “it couldturn out to be either a slip or an error” The mistake is a “slip” when the learner alreadyhas the inner criteria for self-correction but isn’t applying them at the moment, perhapsbecause her attention is elsewhere, or perhaps at the moment she is not recalling thecriteria, though she might recognize them At some level she already knows what isrequired for correctness By “error” he meant that the learner does not have the criteriafor correctness This is something new that she cannot work out for herself.Furthermore, many people only pay attention to “the what”, i.e what is conveyed, not

“the how” i.e the way words are said, nor the stress and intonation of the sentence.Regardless of the distortion of some fricatives and affricates in pronunciation, in manyEnglish classes in Vietnam, teaching focuses on ideas (what), but very little or almost

no attention is paid to the way (how) the ideas are expressed orally This negativeattitude towards pronunciation mistakes more or less indulges people withpronunciation mistakes, thus degrades the standard of English in Vietnam.Nevertheless, recently, there has been some improvement in learning English with alittle bit more focus on pronunciation, stress and intonation in some English traininginstitutions in Vietnam, ranging from secondary schools and evening English centers totertiary educational institutions such as colleges and universities of foreign languages

As a result, a bit more phonetic drills and practice are included in English teachingprograms as well as in examinations now

2.1.5.2 Types of mistakes

According to Adrian (1994: 133), mistake is “error” when the learner does not yet havethe criteria for correctness This is something new that she cannot work out for herself.There have been different ways to classify errors because researchers look at errorsdifferently

Hendrickson (1980: 206) divided errors into 2 types: local errors and global errorsbecause he focused on the influence of errors on the sense of a sentence or an utterance.According to him, the global errors not the local ones could make the sentenceambiguous or senseless Duley, Burt and Krashen (1982: 53) classified errors relating

to their observable characteristics For them there are 4 types of errors, namelyomission, addition, misformation and misordering.

Abbot (1980:82) divided errors into competence errors and performance errors Thecompetence errors consists of transfer, intralingual and induced Performance errorsinclude errors of processing problems and errors of communication strategies

Pham Dang Binh (2003), in his PhD thesis dissertation on Vietnamese students’ errors,classifies errors into two main types: common errors and typical errors Common errorsare those which are committed by any second language learners when learning thesame target language even when they come from different countries These errorsnormally appear at the beginning of the learning process and consist of competenceerrors with errors in phonology, vocabulary and grammar and performance errors withintralingual and interlingual errors Errors that are typical of certain groups of learnerswho speak the same first language or live in the same culture are called typical errors.Those errors include two main types: interlingual errors and culture interference errors Richards (1984:19-27) distinguishes three main major types of errors: interlingualerrors, intralingual errors and developmental errors Interlingual errors result fromlanguage transfer, that is, which is caused by the learner’s native language

However, with their classifications, they showed very little concern about error typesand did not reflect the process of making errors and causes of errors made by learners

as well

Ha Cam Tam (2005: 9-10) in her science article believes that the main problems inpronunciation of Vietnamese learners are sound omission, sound confusion and soundredundancy According to her, they are the most frequent errors of Vietnamese learners.The author finds the classifications by Ha Cam Tam (2005) by far the most appropriatefor her research She believes almost Vietnamese beginners of English tend to producepronunciation mistakes of the following types:

2.1.5.3 Possible causes of mistakes in language learning

2.1.5.3.1 The interference of the mother tongue

The notion of the first language interference is understood as negative transfer from thefirst language to the target language, it is the way of learning new habits in hindered bythe previous learnt ones Lado (1957: 3) claims that “mistakes are originated in thelearners’ disposition to transfer forms and meanings, and the distribution of forms andmeanings of their native language and culture to the foreign language and culture”(1957: 1) Myles (2002:20) considers transfer an important cognitive factor is related towriting mistakes The study of transfer involves the study of errors (negative transfer),facilitation (positive transfer), avoidance of the target language forms, and their over-use (Ellis, 1994: 12) Corder (1967:8) observed that language learners make hypothesesabout the language they are learning , tried to compare it with their native language,then came to the conclusion that errors in foreign language reflected the first language’sfeatures Later in 1978 he recasted interference as learners’ reliance on the firstlanguage as their strategy of communication, which means learners use literaltranslation as a learning strategy to overcome their ignorance

Why do language learners apply their native language in second language acquisition?The answer lies in four major factors Firstly, it is the performance pressure In classroom settings, the clearners may be forced to perform tasks they do not want or theirlinguistic competences fail to meet; therefore, they may fall back on the language mostfamiliar to them that is their mother tongue Windowson (1990:13) realized that whenlearners write under pressure, they may rely on systematic resources from their nativelanguage for the achievement and synthesis of meaning Secondly, the limited foreignlanguage environment also contributes to mistakes in language learning The lack ofnatural linguistic inputs with native speakers results in learners’ resource on theirlanguage Moreover, language tasks assigned for the learners have a significance affect

on their verbal production Among these tasks, translation is said to “increase theforeign language learners’ reliance on first language structures ” (Dulay et al., 1982:110) Lastly, Dulay et al (1982) considered the monitor as “an important factorassociated with the learners’ use of foreign language acquisition” (1982: 110) Learnerstend to think in the first language and attempt to put the idea in the target language

Thus, the first language interference takes place because of four factors : performanceand the monitor use.

Myle (2002:186) defined the above four factors as social factors affecting writing inforeign language These factors are closely related to learners’ attitudes, motivation andgoals “Research based on direct and indirect measures generally shows that learnerswith positive attitudes Motivation, concrete goals will have attitude reinforced if theyexperience success Likewise, learners’ negaive attitudes may be strengthened by lack

of success or by failure” (2002: 2) He concluded that learners’ negative attitudes,motivations and goals can explain why some foreign language writers perform betterthan others

2.1.5.3 2 Causes other than interference by first language

Causes independent of the first language include :overgeneralization, false conceptshypothesized , incomplete application of rules, cross association and fossilization

Overgeneralization : According to Jakobovist (1969: 152), overgeneralization is the

application of previous available strategies in new situations Richard (1974: 64) andLittlewood (1980:23) defined the term “intra-lingual interference” Littlewood(1980:25) suggests that overgeneralization and transfer have the same strategy; thedifference is the employment of knowledge of the foreign language in the former and ofthe first language in the latter

False conceptualization: Learners’ faulty understanding of distinctions of target

language items leads to false conceptualization, Richard (1971) blames poorpresentation or presentation based on constrative approach for the confusion

Incomplete application of rules: Richard (1971) noted down two factors leading toincomplete application of rules as the rules as the use of question in classroom aselicitation techniques and learners’ interest in communication which helps them toachieve efficient communication without a mastery of the target language rules

Cross association: The notion of cross association is proposed by George (1972:74) It

is different from overgeneralization in the way that interference does not come from theprior learning items, but from the adverse direction George (1972:74) wrote “cross-association is the phenomenon of mutual interference between partially learned items,neither being inhibited but one or both being affected by the other”

Fossilization : “Fossilization is refered to a phenomenon that takes place as a learner

internalizes an incorrect form” (Brown et al., 1987:186) This is believed to exist inadolescents and adults’ pronunciation, and also manifests in some syntactic structures

or vocabularies a learner uses.Three factors contribute to this phenomenon: mothertongue influence, communication needs, and teachers’ feedback

Sometimes it is difficult to decide exactly which process is applied in a certain error.Littlewood (1980: 29) concluded that many processes might operate stimultaneouslyand reinforce each other in causing the learners to produce errors

2.2 Previous works

As mentioned above, there have been a great deal of notable works aboutpronounciation issues and pronounciation teaching ones but some of them express thewriters’ concern about pronounciation problems especially the learners’ difficulties inpronouncing English sounds However, it can be confirmed that Avery & Ehlrich(1992:67) are the two first people mentioning problems Vietnamese learners may facewith when studying English “As the sound systems of English and Vietnamese differgreatly, Vietnamese speakers can have quite serve pronounciation problems”

In their works, the most common problem for the Vietnamese learners have is theproblem with the words with final consonants including voiceless stop consonants

/p/,/k/,/t/ , fricative consonants , /f/,/v/, /θ/ as in “truth” For example, in Vietnamese the

voiceless stop consonants /p/, /t/ and /k/ can stand at the final position of the word butthey are not released in the final position and much shorter than their Englishequivalents A word “beat” may sound like “bee” Moreover, in Vietnamese there are

no fricatives at the word-final position, Vietnamese speakers may not produce fricatives

at the end of the words The word “pass” can be pronounced as “pa” They also havefound out the Vietnamese difficulty in pronouncing the sound /θ/ and /δ/, they oftenproduce a heavily aspirated stop in stead of /θ/ in the word “think” This probablybased on the orthographic system of Vietnamese, where the letter combination/th/represents a heavily aspirated /t/ They will usually sustitute a /b/ or an /f/ for /p/ Theword “put” may sound like “foot”

Recently, an article named Common pronunciation problems of Vietnamese learners of

pronunciation of Vietnamese learners, namely sound omission, sound confusion andsound redundancy However, many previous studies found in books, linguisticmagazines or on the Internet are only about general pronunciation problems of wideissues, none of them specifies in certain consonants that most impede Vietnameselearners from communication and common mistakes in English pronunciation For thisreason, the research is carried out to find out the common mistakes made by thestudents studying in Bac Ninh Specialized High School in pronouncing some Englishconsonants and improve their pronunciation