Các lỗi phát âm tiếng anh thường gặp của sinh viên năm thứ nhất trường cao đẳng kinh tế tài chính thái nguyên

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGESNGUYEN HUONG QUYNH PROBLEMS OF ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION FACED BY FIRST YEAR STUDENTS AT THAI NGUYEN COLLEGE OF ECONOMICS AND FINANCE Các lỗ

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

NGUYEN HUONG QUYNH

PROBLEMS OF ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION FACED BY FIRST YEAR STUDENTS AT THAI NGUYEN COLLEGE OF ECONOMICS AND

FINANCE (Các lỗi phát âm tiếng anh thường gặp của sinh viên năm thứ nhất trường

Cao đẳng kinh tế Tài chính Thái Nguyên)

M.A THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201

THAI NGUYEN – 2018

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

NGUYEN HUONG QUYNH

PROBLEMS OF ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION FACED BY FIRST YEAR STUDENTS AT THAI NGUYEN COLLEGE OF ECONOMICS AND

FINANCE (Các lỗi phát âm tiếng anh thường gặp của sinh viên năm thứ nhất trường

Cao đẳng kinh tế Tài chính Thái Nguyên)

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

NGUYEN HUONG QUYNH

PROBLEMS OF ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION FACED BY FIRST YEAR STUDENTS AT THAI NGUYEN COLLEGE OF ECONOMICS AND

FINANCE (Các lỗi phát âm tiếng anh thường gặp của sinh viên năm thứ nhất trường

Cao đẳng kinh tế Tài chính Thái Nguyên)

THAI NGUYEN – 2018

DECLARATION -***** -

first year students at Thai Nguyen College of Economics and Finance” is my own

study in the fulfillment of the requirement for the Degree of Master of Arts at ForeignLanguage Faculty, Thai Nguyen University

Signature:

Nguyen Huong Quynh

Thai Nguyen, 2018

I would like to, first of all, express my deepest thanks to my supervisor, MrsNguyen Thi Viet Nga, for her valuable instructions, criticism, comments, correctionsand her kind encouragement during the development of this study

I also wish to express my deep gratitude to the five teachers: Mrs Bui NgocMai, Mrs Ha Le Mai, Mrs Le Thi Xuan, Mrs Vuong Thi Thu Huyen and MrsNguyen Thi Huyen Phuong for their assistances and invaluable contribution in thestudy and especially for their comments and suggestions in the data collectionprocedures

My appreciation and gratitude are also extended to 100 student participants,including ten student interviewees and five teacher interviewees, who are nowworking and studying at the Thai Nguyen College of Economics and Finance for theirenthusiastic help in the data collection procedure and for their support

Last but not least, I would like to convey my thanks to my family, all of myfriends who encouraged me to take this task and to many others who have assisted.Without these support and assistance, the implementation of this study would havenot been possible

This is an investigation into the pronunciation errors faced by first year students

of non-English majors, Thai Nguyen College of Economics and Finance The thesis

is designed as a case study to take a closer look at the students’ errors, the causes ofthe problem and their perception of pronunciation problems Data were collectedrandomly from 60 students from two different classes through face-to-face interviewand paper questionnaire The findings in the study indicated that a ma jority oflearners have had experiences learning the language for at least eight yearscontinuously and some of the major areas that posed challenging for them includeerrors with ending sounds, long vowels and intonation The causes of the issue asanalyzed from the

interview and paper questionnaires mainly come from learners’ perceptionpronunciation errors as well as their attitudes and motivation toward pronunciationtraining Pronunciation problems of learners were also resulted from the lack ofteaching facilities and the amount of time for drilling pronunciation on class asindicated in the interview with teacher participants

At the end of the paper, suggestions were proposed to help overcome theproblem These findings will hopefully be useful for t hose who are interested in thetopic and for further research

LIST OF CHARTS

Table: General information 18 Figure 1: Pronunciation difficulties……….….………18 Figure 2: Causes of pronunciation errors……….….20

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii

ABSTRACT ii

LIST OF CHARTS iv

Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale for the study 1

1.2 Aims of the study 3

1.3 Research questions 3

1.4 Significance of the study 4

1.5 Scope of the study 4

1.6 Design of the study 4

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Pronunciation in English 5

2.2 Common pronunciation problems of Vietnamese learners of English 6

2.3 Factors affecting learners’ pronunciation learning 6

2.3.1 Differences between Vietnamese and English sound system 8

2.3.2 Interference of learners’ native language 10

2.3.3 Sound inconsistency in English 11

2.4 Differences in perception between teachers and students 11

2.4.1 Teachers’ perception of learners’ errors 11

2.4.2 Students perception of learning 12

2.5 Review of Related Studies 13

Chapter 3 METHODOLOGY 15

3.1 Participants 15

3.2 Instruments and procedures 15

3.2.1 Survey Questionnaires 15

3.2.2 Interview 16

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 18

4.1 Results 18

4.1.1 Questionnaires 18

4.1.2 Interviews 22

4.2 Discussion 27

4.2.1 Discussion of results 27

4.2.2 Suggestion for improvement 32

Chapter 5: CONCLUSION 36

5.1 Recapitulation 36

5.2 Limitation of the study 38

5.3 Pedagogical implication 40

REFERENCES 41 APPENDICES I

Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale for the study

In recent years, according to Scheuer (2007:17) English is now a dominantlanguage spoken by more than a billion people in the world and it is a shared means ofcommunication among speakers of different backgrounds Likewise, since the time ofintegration from 1986, the language is now popularly spoken as a second language inVietnam Understanding the importance of pronunciation in the teaching and learning

of English, a lot of attention from educational institutions has been paid to this aspect

of the language Moreover, English is a compulsory subject at all levels of educationfrom primary school to tertiary level, yet the number of students who successfullyconquer the language is still limited

The Ministry of Education have organized lots of workshops at colleges in whichpartner universities are invited to share and exchange teaching experiences andmaterials as well as advanced teaching methods for enhancing teachers’ capacity andimprove the teaching and learning of English There have been 3 re-editions of theschool’s English text book They focus on developing students’ over skills instead of

a great focus on grammar and reading like it used to be A large percentage of themmake mistake with pronunciation There are some English pronunciation errors thatlearners as a second language often make such as: linking sounds, intonation, word andsentence stress, long vowel sounds and short vowel sounds, etc Therefore, learnersneed an English speaking environment to practice and get exposed to the language Inorder to be good at English pronunciation, learners not only need to work hard atschool, but they also need to spend time self-studying apart from class time At allschool levels, the teaching hours for pronunciation are rather limited If learners onlyrely on in-class lessons, the chance of achieving success in pronunciation might beless

The main goal of teaching pronunciation is to ensure that students will beunderstood by listeners If they cannot produce native-like accent, they need to, atleast, speak the kind of universal English that native speakers understand or get theidea of what is meant from the speech (Harmer 1991 : 25)

Accurate pronunciation, on the other hand, is a different stage of study because

weakness then they will know how and where to improve themselves If speakers are

to be understood clearly, precise pronunciation is needed as errors in pronunciationmay lead to misunderstanding and eventually a breakdown in communication, which

is the worst thing in any context (Walker 2008) Having a good competence ofEnglish pronunciation help speakers to easily convey the message to the targetaudience that he wishes to address and the aims of communication are achieved

In order to be good at English pronunciation, learners not only need to workhard at school, but they also need to spend time self -studying apart from class time

At all school levels, the teaching hours for pronunciation are rather limited thus iflearners only rely on in-class lessons, the chance of achieving success inpronunciation might be less

Learners from different backgrounds and cultures meet different types ofproblems with pronunciation Typically, Vietnamese students who study English as asecond language have their own problems There have been previous studiesconducted on the pronunciation errors regarding final sound clusters by Ha (2005) andanother one by Tang (2007) on pronunciation errors in general for students at ThaiNguyen College of Economics and Finance of Vietnam However the researcherwishes to investigate the pronunciation problems faced by students at Thai NguyenCollege of Economics and Finance, where she has had a short time working as ateacher of English, in an attempt to help the institution be aware of the issues thattheir students are facing so as to timely develop measures to overcome them

There are a number of factors that affect the teaching and learning of alanguage Each learner has a different view about the importance of pronunciationand hence develops different attitudes and ways of acquiring this aspect of thelanguage Students who are studying English at Thai Nguyen College of Economicsand Finance mainly come from mountainous regions in the northern part of thecountry, where they had to study in disadvantaged conditions This can be one of thefacto rs that negatively affect their acquisition of a foreign language as they enteruniversity education Their learning background and the motivation for learning aredifferent from that of students who originate from urban or developed regions Hence,the study tries to explore how motivation and attitudes towards learning as well as

acquisition of English pronunciation.

Up to present, there have not any studies on pronunciation problems within thescope Only studies on speaking and writing improvement were carried out within thescale of Thai Nguyen College of Economics and Finance students in general, whichappear to have failed to highlight the main p roblems faced by first year students atThai Nguyen College of Economics and Finance Thus, it was a great motivation forthe author to choose this topic for research

1.2 Aims of the study

This is an investigation into the pronunciation errors faced by first year students

of English subject at Thai Nguyen College of Economics and Finance The thesis aims

to take a closer look at the students’ errors, the causes of the problem and theirperception of pronunciation problems Moreover, suggestions were proposed to helpovercome the issue

1.3 Research questions

The present study seeks to answer the following three questions in an attempt toinvestigate teachers’ perception of their learners’ errors with English pronunciation aswell as students’ self-assessment regarding pronunciation problems at Thai NguyenCollege of Economics and Finance

1 What are pronunciation problems faced by first year English-subject students atThai Nguyen College of Economics and Finance?

2 What are the factors leading to the problems?

3 What should teachers, students and the institution do to help improve thesituation?

These questions are constructed to help the researcher investigate thepronunciation difficulties met by students at the selected institution, where theproblems originate and how it affects learners in their studies From there, measurescan be taken to make the teaching and learning at the school more effective Each ofthe proposed questions will be addressed in the analysis and discussion section of theresearch paper

1.4 Significance of the study

The study collects data from both teachers’ and students’ side to have an overall

learners at Thai Nguyen College of Economics and Finance have to acknowledge theirown problems and difficulties with pronunciation so that they can find ways toimprove their weaknesses The self-perception of errors in combination with teachers’feedback hopefully will help them improve the current drawbacks in the teaching andlearning of English pronunciation This study will help students grow awareness ofpronunciation problems that they might have not noticed before and raise somesuggestion for the improvement of the problems.

1.5 Scope of the study

There are many students who have problems and difficulties with Englishpronunciation at Thai Nguyen College of Economics and Finance However, thisresearch focuses on students who are now learning English in their first year Thisresearch includes 60 students who are selected randomly from five classes and fivelecturers who are teaching English for first year students

1.6 Design of the study

This study consists of five chapters:

Chapter 1: Introduction: presents rationale, aims, research questions, significance,

scope and design of the study

Chapter 2: Literature review: consists of five parts which reviews the theory of

pronunciation and related studies

Chapter 3: Methodology: provides the methods that the researcher uses in the paper Chapter 4: Findings and discussion: Analysis and gives some suggestions for the

teachers to teachEnglish pronunciation with view to help students improve their pronunciation

Chapter 5: Conclusion: Summarizes all the key issues as well as the limitations of the

study and makes suggestions for further research

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Pronunciation in English

Of many aspects in language learning that cause difficulties for learners, thepronunciation of another sound system is one of the most noticeable contributingfactors Learners’ first language (L1) is most likely to influence their progress (Avery.

& Ehrlich, (1992)) In their paper, Avery, & Ehrlich states that a learner’s mothertongue greatly affects not only his ability to produce a sound but also his listeningcompetence in learning English Pronunciation plays such an important part inlanguage learning and teaching that without a good competence of this aspect,

communication indelibility becomes severely affected (James, C 1998).

John, D (1998) indicated that pronunciation is the way a word sounds when it

is spoken The phonetic transcription of a word explains its pronunciation Thepronunciation of words will also depend on a speaker's accent and theirunderstanding of certain articulation rules of the language In some languages, theuse of phonetic symbols, such as umlauts, allows the speakers to acknowledge thatthe words they need to speak require certain sounds

Tran (2008: 22) dictated that the last goal of English learner is that they canunderstand and speak English as well as native English speakers However, toachieve the goal, learners have to find out the pronunciation problems and solvethem The language which has its own features in pronunciation: word stress andsentence stress, intonation with rising and falling, word linking in connected speech.Therefore, English learners only can speak a sort of universally acceptable Englishand they can not speak the language as well as the American or British

According to Beech (1993: 55), English pronunciation is unpredictable.Moreover, English is a multi-syllabic language with complex features of intonation,ending sounds and stress.The study of the sound system in English language isEnglish phonology

2.2 Common pronunciation problems of Vietnamese learners of English

George (1972: 36) defines an error as an unwanted form, specially a form which

particular course designer and teachers do not want The views show that while

learners are accumulating the new knowledge in order to use the languages, making errors is unavoidable.

Nguyen (2007) shows that pronunciation errors can be defined as theinaccuracies in pronunciation which may affect the intelligibility in communication.According to Jenkins (2006: 36) pronunciation errors are variants ofpronunciation which prevent a communicator from understanding the propositional

content of the other’s utterances.

Ha (2005) points out that there are 3 areas of English pronunciation that areespecially more prominent than the others namely sound emission, sound confusionand the redundancy of sounds

According to Richards (1971), the causes of pronunciation problems can beclassified into two categories: performance errors, caused by fatigue and inattention,and competence errors resulting from lack of knowledge of the rules of the langu age.Tang (2007) indicates in the results of his study that most Vietnamese beginnerlearners of English pronounce words with an extra /s/ or /z/ at the end or even at themiddle position of words like “habit” becomes /'hæsbit/ or /'hæbits/.Thismispronunciation might possibly cause misunderstanding for listeners as in Englishthe addition of a certain element can actually form a completely new word

In another study, Nguyen (2007) makes clear that pronouncing final consonants

is among the most popular problems faced by Vietnamese learners of English Lin C(2014) has a shared opinion with Nguyen (2007) on the issue in the study entitled

“Understanding Pronunciation Variations Facing ESL Students”

2.3 Factors affecting learners’ pronunciation learning

When it comes to pronunciation difficulties, a number of linguists (E.g Nunan,Yule, Swan; Smith, 2001) have conducted studies on several factors concerning theissue

In one theory, Avery and Ehrlich (1997) indicates that pronunciationdifficulties and errors experienced by learners of English are chiefly caused by 4factors namely biological, socio-cultural, personality and linguistic factors Amongthese, biological factor, often referred to as critical period hypothesis, implies the agewhen a learner starts to learn pronunciation The study claims that children learning

pronunciation almost always have native-like pronunciation pattern while adultsalmost always experience more obstacles and get influenced by the foreign accent.The theory explains that the difference between adult learners and children lies in thematuration of the brain However, it is still a debatable theory as there are numberlessadult learners who still achieve native-like English pronunciation even when theybegin learning from a very later age.

Socio-cultural factor is another one that was taken into consideration The twolinguists, Avery and Ehrlich (1997), believe that the level of similarity betweenlearners’ native language and his second language in terms of cultural backgroundhas great impact on how well a person perceive the language The more similaritiesthere are between a learner’s first and second language, the easier they are to acquirebetter pronunciation of that second or foreign language This is one of the factors thatforeign language teachers should pay attention to and beware of the way this inwhich socio-cultural factors affect their learners Vietnamese and English do notderive from the same language family, thus the great gap between the two culturesmay affect the acquisition of native-like pronunciation patterns of the Englishlanguage

Also according to Avery and Ehrlich (1997), the distinctive features of alearner’s personality also bear positive or negative impact on his foreign languagelearning ability In terms of pronunciation, learners who are extroverted, confident,and willing to socialize might have more chance of practicing pronunciation thusimproving themselves and overcoming the language barrier, whereas learners withnegative attitudes towards learning, people who are less confident, or introverted maynot have as much chance to improve their pronunciation thus they are less successful

in achieving as good pronunciation as their counterpart It is suggested that teachersshould pay attention to the personality of their learners so as to find ways ofencouraging and motivating them to learn instead of forcing them to do the thingthey do not enjoy

The other element to be considered is linguistic factors Learners’ mothertongue plays a crucial role in language learning In their study, Avery and Ehrlich(1997) make clear that learners’ native language can, to a certain extent, determine

the nature of a foreign accent Learners transfer their native sounds into the learning

of second

language Each language possesses its own pronunciation traits such as a distinctivesound inventory, the way sounds combine together to form words, as well asintonation patterns and stress Therefore, native language transference may affect alearner’s pronunciation ability in a range of areas Avery and Ehrlich (1997) indicatethat the way English is pronounced is greatly dependent on the proper placement andmovement of the speech organs Learners whose native language is not English find

it difficult to make the sounds like that of native speaker of English as their speechorgans are not trained or exercised in the way required to produce a sound in English,making it challenging for them to learn the pronunciation of a completely newlanguage

Another suggestion of factors influencing the acquisition of Englishpronunciation is that of Ladefoged (2001) and Carter & Nunan (2001) They claimthat some of the most prominent aspects of language that cause problems for mostlearners of English include sound system differences between the native languageand target language, the interference of learners’ native language and soundinconsistency in English

Following is an analysis of the major factors that affect Vietnamese learners ofEnglish in acquiring native-like pronunciation based on studies of Ha (2005) andTang (2007) on the field

2.3.1 Differences between Vietnamese and English sound system

Ellis (1997) indicated that learners might find some features of the language he

is learning easy while other features pose challenging to them The elements that theycan cope well with are the ones that exist in their native language; others are alien tothem Hence, the problems faced by Vietnamese learners learning English originatefrom the differences between the two languages

Vietnamese and English are the two contrasting languages as they derive fromtwo separate origins; one is West Germanic language ( Baugh, Albert and Cable,Thomas 2002), the other belongs to Austro Asiatic family (Nguyen, (2009)).Therefore, the sound system and pronunciation patterns between the two areobviously separate

In addition, Ngo (2005: 39) states that there are only six conso nants and twosemi-vowels which can stand in word-final position in the sound system ofVietnamese Vietnamese vowels are listed in Nguyen et al (2006), stating there arethirteen monotones and three diphthongs i, e, ε, ɤ, ɤˇ, a, ɯ, ă, u, o, ɔ, ɔˇ, εˇ, ie, ɯɤ,

uo The important vowels that usually decide the pronunciation of final consonantsare rounded /u, ɔ, o/ and front /i, e, ε / Therefore, it is easy to recognize that finalconsonants in Vietnamese consist of only nasal consonants /m, n, ɳ/ and threevoiceless and unaspirated plosives /p/, /t/, /k/ The great differences betweenstudents’

mother tongue and the target language, English cause a great deal of trouble toVietnamese students in achieving the correct pronunciation of any foreign languagewith a wide range of final consonants and clusters In addition, English is thelanguage that has many final sounds, most of which are unfamiliar with Vietnamesestudents Its consonant clusters with two, three or even four consonants arechallenging for t heir linguistic acquisition

Ha (2005) states that Vietnamese learners of English often use the pre -existingsounds in their native language to pronounce English words (E.g: road is articulated

as “rốt” instead of /roud/)

According to Ha (2005), Vietnamese is a language that contains only sixconsonants (p, t, k, m, n, and ng) that stand at the final position of words and all ofwhich also appear in the sound system of the English language However, there areover fifty vowels, consonants and diphthongs that can be seen at the final position of

an English word making it problematic for learners to master the entire list of sounds

in order to produce speech accurately (Tang (2007))

In another study by Tang (2007), he points out that the great differencesbetween Vietnamese and English hinder students pronunciation’s learning as thereare unfamiliar sounds to them The two typical sounds mentioned by the researcherare θ and ð These two particular sounds do not exist in their language thus theirorgans of speech are not accustomed to articulating words beginning or ending withthese sounds Instead, they substitute words with these sounds by /s/ or /z/ such as

“think”

is pronounced as “sink” or “this” becomes “zis”

In a research, Cruttenden, A (2001) states that the English language contains 24consonants as well as 20 vowels, a total of 44 phonemes, those learners need to know

in mastering English pronunciation In contrast, Vietnamese language contains only

39 phonemes (23 consonants and 16 vowels)

In order to produce a sound, learners need to place the speech organs in theprecise position to utter the correct pronunciation of the sound With sounds that donot appear in the learners’ language, they will cause difficulties for speakers

2.3.2 Interference of learners’ native language

Language transfer can be considered as the influence of learners’ nativelanguage knowledge in the learning of a foreign or second language L1 interferencecan not only be in the learning of writing or reading but also very apparent inspeaking because it involves direct reception of language When a learner does nothave sufficient understanding or practice of the language he is learning, effects ofL1 on his speaking in general and pronunciation in particular become clearer

According to Rod Ellis (1999) language transfer has an important role inlanguage learning When there are differences between a learner’s native languageand second language, his existing knowledge of L1 would greatly, if not negatively,interfere with the learning of L2; and in the case where his mother tongue and L2 hasshared features, the L1 will certainly make learning L2 easier

For such a long time L1 transference has been the major focus of linguists whostudy whether this aspect of learning has the most serious impact on a learner’spronunciation achievement (Ellis 2003) Language transference contains two types:positive transference and negative transference Transference is regarded as positivewhen a learner can apply the rules and patterns of his native language to the learning

of the target language with ease This means that when positive transference occurs,learners find it easy to adapt his current knowledge of the native language into theacquisition process of a second language to archive English native-like accent or anative speaker would consider acceptable (Ellis 2003)

Negative transference is the one that occurs when the learner has applied his L1language knowledge into the acquisition of L2 but with difficulties or errors Thismeans existing knowledge of L1 hinders L2 learning It is easy to notice that

Vietnamese beginner learners of English pronounce “think” as /sink/ or “thanks” as/sæŋks/ This is because the sound /θ/ is not present in the learner’s language andtherefore he has to use the semi-equivalent sound to attempt the sound This type oferror is considered as negative transfer.

The interference of L1 in learning a second language is often r egarded by manylinguists and scholars such as Nunan, D., O’Connor and Yule as language transfer.The omission and or reduction of the final syllable clusters of learners may lead tomispronunciation of certain words (Ha, 2005, p 1) The influence of lear ners’ firstlanguage to the learning of a second language significantly affect the accuracy oftheir sounds production of the target language i.e the pronunciation patterns andspeaking habits formed by a learner’s first language affects the way he pronou ncewords of the second language Brown (2000) claims that when there areconflicts between a

learner’s L1 and L2, learners are more likely to struggle with pronunciation

2.3.3 Sound inconsistency in English

A prominent issue faced by language learners in general and Vietnameselearners learning English in particular is the various pronunciation patterns of avowel in English i.e some vowels have more than one pronunciation pattern (Ha2005))

It is not easy to know all the different utterances of a vowel since there is nospecific rule about the use of these vowels the sound /i/ for example can be producedfrom many different vowels including hit /hit/, cheat / /tʃi:t/, cosy /'kouzi/, women

/wimin/, surface /'sə:fis/ In this case, the sound /i/, /ea/, /y/, /e/, /a/, /o/ all can be

pronounced as /i/ in certain circumstances and they are unpredictable A learner mustlearn the words individually so as to pronounce the sounds correctly; those who donot have adequate knowledge of these exceptions or special cas es are much morelikely to mispronounce words

2.4 Differences in perception between teachers and students

2.4.1 Teachers’ perception of learners’ errors

Mistakes and errors play an important role in language learning Besides, errorcorrection also is very important in language teaching Therefore, language teachers

need to have sets of criteria and principles to assist them with error assessment(James, C 1998).

Ferris also points out that the perception of what learners struggle most is ofgreat importance to teachers as this factor directly affects the effectiveness of astudent Moreover, having a good understanding of each student’s problems enablesthe teachers to employ appropriate techniques or teaching materials for their learners.There are many factors that affect teachers’ view on errors of their learners.Salem (2004) points out two most important elements affecting the views of teachers

on students’ error:

- The teacher’s first language: whether the teacher’s native language is English

or the same as learners’ native language

- The teacher’s teaching context: the level of student he/she is teaching –beginner, elementary of intermediate

In a study, Davies (1983) indicates that English native and non -native teachershave different views and attitudes towards learners’ error and error correctionstrategies English native teachers tend to more lenient, whereas non-native teachershave a more strict policy to students’ problems

Well (2005) indicates that each language element is separately taught, that is theduration of lessons on reading, writing, vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar areunequally divided Teachers perceive that pronunciation should be taught at a higherlever rather than from the beginning, therefore it is of less emphasis in class

Well (2005) suggests that teachers should emphasize areas of difficulty tolearners so that they can achieve successful communication in practical context ofcommunication

In a research, Nunan (1987) asserts that the mismatch between teachers’ andlearners’ expectations is one of the greatest hindrances to the teaching and learningprocess Therefore it is essential that teachers take time to find out about theirstudents to improve the quality of teaching The expectations should be practical i.e.they need to be consistent with the current capacity of the students Whenexpectations are too high for learners, they may discourage students to prog ress

2.4.2 Students’ perception of learning

The success of a language learner depends greatly on his or her attitudes towardslearning (Ellis (1999)) When there is a mismatch between the teachers’ belief and

their students’ need, the effectiveness of language teaching and learning is notachieved It is important that learners’ perspective on learning be prioritized andtaken into consideration so that teachers can figure out ways to deal with his way orpreference of learning Nunan (1993) indicates that a teacher in an ESL/EFL settingshould know what his students’ interests are and the approach in which he wants tolearn.

In a study carried out by Savignon and Wang (2003), 74 first -year students inVietnam were studied on their attitudes and self -assessment of the importance ofclassroom practices Other than grammar and other skills, the results from thequestionnaire findings suggested that most learners feel the time spent forpronunciation is insufficient

For most beginner learners of English, it is a challenging task for them to assessthemselves especially in the case of pronunciation Compared to other elements ofthe English language like reading, grammar or vocabulary, learners can assessthemselves through readily available keys or guide, whereas self-assessment withone’s pronunciation competence is of great difficulty as they are used to the waythe pronounce sounds or produce speeches They perceive the way they speak isaccurate therefore what they perceive does not help them much with languagedevelopment except when they receive assistance and guidance on pronunciation(Harris, 1997))

2.5 Review of Related Studies

Tran (2008) carried out a study concerning final pronunciation in her

research under the title “The characteristics of English pronunciation difficult for

Vietnamese” The paper pointed out some major factors that affect Vietnamese

students’ pronunciation habit Vietnamese words are often spoken by native speakerswith a elision of final sounds This does not often change the meaning of the word.However, in English, words can change meaning based on the final sound of a word.English learners may have difficulty learning to pronounce the final sounds of words.When speaking Vietnamese, word endings tend to be said quickly without muchthought given to correct pronunciation It is clearly shown that those sounds inVietnamese are not aspirated, while in English, every ending sound is pronounced

(maximum 4) at the end of a word at the same time, whereas Vietnamese has only one(Tran, (2008)).

Another study which was carried out with a similar topic is that of Salem entitled

“Teacher Differences in Perception of Student Error ” The study investigates the

factors that influence the teaching and learning of the English language The authorpoints out some problems of teachers’ perception towards students’ errors andproposes some solutions for improvement of the issues encountered

Elkhair Muhammad Idriss Hassan (2014 ) with title “Pronunciation Problems: A

Case Study of English Language Students at Sudan University of Science and Technology” This study investigates the problems in English pronunciation

experienced by learners whose first language is Sudanese Spoken Arabic In otherwords to find the problematic sounds and the factors that cause these problems Thenfind some techniques that help the Sudanese Students of English improve theirpronunciation

Omer Elshekh Hago (2015): “The Pronunciation Problems Faced by Saudi EFL

Learners at Secondary Schools” This study investigates the difficulties of English

pronunciation encountered by Saudi secondary school learners when pronouncingEnglish consonants It also aims to shed light on the area of English consonant clusterssystem The instruments used for collecting data and information included werequestionnaires, classroom observations and document collections The results showthat the participants had difficulties to pronounce eleven consonant sounds Theresults also demonstrate that a great number of the participants, unintentionally insert

a vowel sound in English syllable to break up consonant clusters This study providessome useful pedagogical implications to prevent and cure E nglish pronunciationproblems

Up to present, there have not any studies on pronunciation problems at ThaiNguyen College of Economics and Finance Therefore, it was a great motivation forthe author to choose this topic for research, I would like to investigate thepronunciation problems faced by students at Thai Nguyen College of Economics andFinance This helps the institution be aware of the issues that their students are facing

so as to timely develop measures to overcome them

3.1 Participants

Chapter 3 METHODOLOGY

Participants of this study included five lecturers who are now teaching Englishfor first year students of English subject at Thai Nguyen College of Economic andFinance,

60 students from five classes of first year English learners at Thai Nguyen College ofEconomic and Finance The student participants from the five classes were selected on

designed by the researcher so as to explore students’ attitudes towards learningEnglish pronunciation, their own perception of pronunciation errors, and theirdifficulties in learning English pronunciation and their preferred types of learning.Firstly, the student’s information is the most important in this section such astheir sex, age, years of studying English, their average scores in the last semester, andtheir judgment of the importance of pronunciation Because students have spent at leastthree or more years studying English before they continue with their major subjects,their grades on the pronunciation and oral proficiency subjects may be evidence of howthey performed, thus the author had a grasp of participants’ foundationofpronunciation Therefore, the researcher identified the background of their study andtheir foundation of language learning by these pieces of information

Secondly, the researcher focused on exploiting information relating to students’self-assessments If students find challenging or confusing, they have to circle or markthese sounds There is a list of 44 English sounds provided in which participants circlethe sounds which they perceive to be of their difficulty

In the closed questions, students are asked to tick one or more options that are

down their individual opinions on the difficulties they meet in learning Englishpronunciation as well as their perception of pronunciation errors.The questionnairesare all in English, however they are not students majoring in English Yet, languageused is quite simple and familiar so that students could easily understand and feelcomfortable to express their thoughts.

Respondents can choose to write down their names into the paper After finishing

of the processing procedures, the questionnaire papers and other types of hard copydata were kept by the researcher The information provided by the informants will not

be shared with any other person for any other purpose without his or her priorpermission

3.2.2 Interview

Interview is said to be suitable as a research instrument for needs analysis,program evaluation, individual case studies and mini-surveys According to Nunan,(1992), oral interview has been used widely as a research tool in applied linguistic bysecond language acquisition (cited in Nunan, 1992: 149) In addition, interviewshave been used to investigate linguistic variation, conversation analysis,communication (Nunan, 1992: 149) Lastly, interview is useful for collecting in-depth information Thus, this tool was chosen to look for in-depth information for theresearch

Before the interview, the researcher gave each respondent, including teacherrespondents and students an acceptance note which asks the participants to read Theresearcher informed that the interview would be recorded in order that the researchercould collect the data and then analyze During their speech, the researcher used atape-recorder to record the information, with their prior consent Each interview lastsfrom twenty five to thirty minutes depending on the length of answer and the opinion

of each respondent

In the interview stage, the number of respondents who took part in the interviewprocess that were asked to give information or opinion on a f ixed set of questions.There were 8 questions in total in which the first question looks into the amount oftime they spend for drilling their students’ pronunciation , the kinds of activities theyemploy, their assessment of the learners’ pronunciation competence, the difficulties

met by learners, the approach that they used for students to improve the obstacles,and their further suggestion for the teaching and learning of English pronunciation.

Because it was too time-consuming to conduct an interview with all individualparticipants, the researcher, on a random basis, selected 10 out of 60 studentrespondents to be involved in the interview stage There were also 8 questions for theparticipants in the interview They were asked to give response to questions related

to the amount of time they allocate for pronunciation practice, their attitude towardsthe learning of pronunciation, their opinion on the effectiveness of in -class lessons orpronunciation-related activities, the source in which they use to exploit materials forlearning pronunciation, their self-assessment of the errors or difficulties that theymake, and finally the strategies they employed to overcome the presented obstacles.After the data had been collected for processing, all the related personalinformation in soft copy form of the participants, the audio recordings was keptsecret on the researcher’s personal computer The data would not be used for anyother purposes other than for the present research only

In order to find problems of English pronunciation faced by the first yearstudents, research had to base on questionnaire to explore students’ attitudes towardslearning English pronunciation, their own perception of pronunciation errors, andtheir difficulties in learning English pronunciation and their preferred types oflearning Especially, after the audio recordings in the interview, researcher wouldlisten again and analyze English pronunciation errors faced by first year students

4.1 Results

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION