The effects of mother tongue on english majored students of department of foreign languages at ha tinh university in learning speaking skill

The aim is to know how the mother tongue affects to Vietnamesestudents in general and HaTinh students in particular and propose solutions tohelp the students to overcome difficulties rel

The topic of this study is “The effects of mother tongue on English majoredstudents of Department of Foreign Languages at Ha Tinh University in learningspeaking skill” The aim is to know how the mother tongue affects to Vietnamesestudents in general and HaTinh students in particular and propose solutions tohelp the students to overcome difficulties relate to mother tongue issue as well astake full advantage of benefits of mother tongue when learning speaking skill.Mother tongue largely refers to not only the language one learns from one’smother but also the speaker’s dominant and home language It’s also called nativelanguage This study was conducted to find whether mother tongue interferences

in second-language learning, and if so; whether it affects the learners’performance in speaking skill Data collection tool included a questionnaire bywhich participants were asked to rate the questions and tick-circle or write in thecorrect blank The questionnaire was based on quantitative approaches with thehelp of 4-point Likert-scale questions and one open-ended question at the lastpart The participants of the study were 50 students of Department of ForeignLanguages at Ha Tinh University.They are first-year students Their mothertongue was Vietnamese, and they knew English as a foreign language.Thequestionnaire shows that mother tongue interferes with second languagelearning in some way In English language, the most challenging part werepronunciation and grammar, while the most difficult and influenced skills wasspeaking The results indicated the interference of mother tongue in almost allaspects

I would like to send sincere thanks for teachers of Vietnam University ofcommerce especially in the teachers of English faculty during all the time wasschool Thank for creating convenient and efficient learning environment for allstudents Especially, I would like to express my deepest appreciation to myadvisory teacher Bich Hong Nguyen, for her passionate enthusiasm and insightfulguidance that she was given me in the process of doing my thesis She is alwayswilling to answer every question of mine and help me to find the most effectiveways to complete my tasks successfully

Secondly, I am deeply grateful to teachers and students in Department ofForeign Languages at Ha Tinh University for cooperating and helping me at alltime, creating good conditions for me to complete my study

Although only my name is written on this researching paper, I know I myselfwould be impossible to make it without help of contributors

During the process of doing my thesis, although i was careful, mistake isunavoidable thing, i hope that teachers can sympathize with us In addition,because of the limitation of theoretical level and practical experience, I lookforward to receiving recommendations from teachers so that i can improve myknowledge

I sincerely thank you!

Student

Nguyen Th Minh Anhị Minh Anh

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS v

CHAPTER 1 : OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1

1.1 RATIONALE 1

1.2 PREVIOUS STUDIES 3

1.2.1 International studies 3

1.2.2 National studies 4

1.3 AIMS OF THE STUDY 6

1.4 RESEARCH SUBJECTS 6

1.5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY 7

1.6 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 7

CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 8

2.1 THEORIES OF SPEAKING SKILL 8

2.1.1 Definition of speaking skill 8

2.1.2 The importance of speaking skill 8

2.1.2 Characteristics of speaking skill 10

2.1.3 The difficulties students encounter in learning speaking skill 10

2.2 GENERAL THEORIES OF MOTHER TONGUE EFFECTS ON LEARNING SPEAKING SECOND LANGUAGE 12

2.2.1 Definition of mother tongue 12

2.2.2 Effects of mother tongue on learning speaking skill 13

2.2.4 Definition of second language 15

2.3 VIETNAMESE EFFECTS ON LEARNING SPEAKING ENGLISH 15

2.3.1 Characteristic of Vietnamese 15

2.3.2 Characteristics of English 16

2.3.3 Main differences between Vietnamese and English 17

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH FINDING 20

3.1 Findings from the questionnaire 20

3.2 Findings from the interviews 24

3.2.1 Result from interviews students 24

3.2.2 Results from interview with teacher 27

3.3 General conclusion of research 27

CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATION AND SUGGESTIONS 31

4.1 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR TEACHER IN TEACHING SPEAKING ENGLISH AND GET RID OF MOTHER TONGUE INTERFERENCE 31

4.1.1 Changing teaching method 31

4.1.2 Help students get a Better Understanding of Cultural Differences 31

4.1.3 Make Comparison between L1 and L2 32

4.1.4 Recommend some specific activities 33

4.2 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR STUDENTS, ENGLISH LEARNERS 34

4.2.1 Learning vocabulary 34

4.2.2 Listening 35

4.2.2 Self- talking 36

4.2.3 Focusing on practicing English sounds 37

4.2.4 Practicing 37

CONCLUSION 38

REFERENCES 39

Appendix 40

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS

Chart1: The interference of mother tongue in the languages skills 21

Chart 2 : Students’ opinion about the level of difficult of English sounds 22

Chart 3 : Reasons of student's mistakes with English sounds 23

Table 1 : Common errors found in the research 28

CHAPTER 1 : OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY

1.1 RATIONALE

Language is our primary source of communication It's the method throughwhich we share our ideas and thoughts with others Some people even say thatlanguage is what separates us from animals and makes us human There arethousands of languages in this world Countries have their own nationallanguages in addition to a variety of local languages spoken and understood bytheir people in different regions Some languages are spoken by millions ofpeople, others by only a few thousand

In the trend of global integration, English is one of the most important tools

in communication and business of people English is also essential to the field ofeducation In many countries, children are taught and encouraged to learnEnglish as a second language Even in countries where it is not an officiallanguage The same as any country in the world, Vietnam is developing English asinevitable demand English learners nowadays can not count on the fingers of onehand and we can only count on the fingers people who do not learn English There

is a fact that about 1,500,000,000 people in the world speak English, whileanother 1,000,000,000 are still learning English.Therefore, English is considered

as a crucial tool to approach to the world’s advantageous opportunities If peopleare able to communicate in English, they can connect themselves to the world.More importantly, the purpose of using English in diplomacy, trade, science andtechnology and so on is also another obvious proof of its significant role

Vietnam is not an exception; as a developing country, Vietnam currently has

a urgent need for the international language English to attract foreign investment

as well as promote the economy, especially we have joined many organizationssuch as APECT, WTO, ASIAN and many other international groups English,previously included in the curriculum from the first year of middle school, is nowofficially taught for children from six years old To this point, it is essential forVietnamese students to learn English because if they have a good understanding

and communication skill in English, it is more likely that they might have manycommunication chances to find a high-quality job as well as communicate withpeople from different nations all over the world Although English has become animportant demand for schooling and job opportunities, Vietnamese peoplecannot pronounce English property Like some others languages, Vietnamese hassome aspects that keep native learners from pronouncing English like nativespeaker, one of them is mother tongue effect When it comes to learning English:speaking, listening, reading and writing are 4 basic skills While the three otherskills are prominent in obtaining a wholesome English competence, speaking skill

is always regarded as one of the most important skills It goes without saying that,

in terms of learning any language, the central purpose of every learner mainly is

to communicate Thus, it is undeniable that speaking skill should be made priorityfor English learners because it seems that if they are productive communicators,there will be a high possibility for them to get settled and well-paid jobs.However, to master this skill is still an issue for almost students in Vietnam It's

no secret that Vietnamese students struggle with speaking English Like manyother Asian countries, Vietnamese people begin their English education veryearly at school, yet they find themselves helpless when it comes to speakingEnglish Words do not come out Many Vietnamese students do have the words,they either heard them or read them but they can't say them At HaTinhUniversity, for instance, a large number of students encounter many difficultieswith their speaking skills such as lack of motivation and environment, fear ofspeaking, fear of making mistakes, language transfer issues and so on

In these difficulties mention above, mother tongue issue or languagetransfer is named as one of the main reasons that affects significantly to learningEnglish process in general and to learning speaking English in particular Thereare some significant differences between Vietnamese and English, not only inlanguage but also in many aspects such as culture and habit and so on, therefore

it leads to some difficulties for student when learning speaking The studentsusually keep quiet in speaking lessons; they mind speaking English There are

many students who have good knowledge of grammar which works wonderfully

at reading and writing exercises but they can not express themselves in English.What is more, in real-life situations, students find it hard to communicate withEnglish speaking people; it is hard for them to response spontaneously andnaturally Certainly, there are many reasons for this If those difficulties are notfound out and no solutions can be given, the speaking classes cannot besuccessful and students will be fed up with learning English if they find itworthless to study the subject It is easy to see the fact that students still havesome mistakes related to mother tongue such as : wrong pronunciation , wordorder, word meaning, word expression and so on People sometimeunderestimate the importance of effects of mother tongue which makes mistakesprolong and difficult to correct Once a person speaks a language in a wrong wayover a long period of time, he or she will always speak it wrong, it becomes ahabit, a nasty habit, like smoking or drinking As a result of this, students seem tosolve the problem related to mother tongue or language transfer

All of the above reasons have inspired me to do the research on “The effects

of mother tongue on English majored students of Department of ForeignLanguages at Ha Tinh University in learning speaking skill” with the hope to make

a small contribution to the quality of teaching and learning speaking skills ofVietnamese Hopefully, this graduation paper might be useful for anyone who isinterested in speaking skill

1.2 PREVIOUS STUDIES

1.2.1 International studies

Mother tongue interference can be seen as a transfer that affects learningboth negatively and positively There are some studies about this topic howeverthe results still have some differences and have not united together

Learners of English often expect to be able to speak that language like anative speaker However, they encounter many factors to gain their desire One ofthe common factors that they find difficult is the pronunciation of another soundsystem Learners find that their mother tongue influences their pronunciation of

English Avery and Ehrich argued that, "the native language affects both theability to produce English sounds and the ability to hear sounds" (Avery andEhrich, XV)

According to Mede, Tutal, Ayaz, Çalışır and Akın (2014) there is highprobability of cross-linguistic influence in second language acquisition and thisinfluence may cause some errors, which are caused by negative transfer.Manrique (2013) stated that mispronunciation and grammatical errors are themost common types of interference between the mother tongue and the targetlanguage Furthermore, according to Maros, Kim and Salehuddin (2007),omission and the use of wrong forms are the two most common types of errors inall categories; although not all the errors are due to mother tongue interference, alarge number of errors identified in the use of determiners, subject verbagreement ‘’be’’ reflected the interference of mother tongue Additionally, Cartes(20050) explained the subject with an enhanced disclosure and listed some othererrors like semantic, syntactic, morphological, spelling, vocabulary mistakes andalso phonological errors Additionally, Ashari and Munir (2015) advocated thatthe interference occurred in sixteen terms of grammatical errors Thegrammatical interference involved word order, number, countability, personalpronouns, genitive and possessive pronouns, it and there, past time, to be, non–finite forms, modal auxiliary verbs, active and passive, negatives, complexsentences, range and choice of vocabulary, transfer, and confusions However,they claimed that the interference occurred because students did not receiveinput that facilitated them to speak It also occurred because of the lack ofstudents’ knowledge in second language acquisition Nevertheless, there aredissenters who thought that mother tongue not always interferes but also helplearners in second language learning For instance Bhela (1999) indicated thatadopting L1 structures in L2 texts provide convenience to second languagelearners while understanding the whole text Moreover, according to Cole (1998),monolingual English language classes can benefit from appropriate use of L1 soL1 may be used from introductory to upper-intermediate levels on a decreasing

scale but in lower levels, translating individuals words, explaining grammar useand facilitating complex instructions, since it can save time and anguish especiallyfor mature learners Finally, Kavaliauskiene (2009) expressed different results.First, all the learners customarily rely on their mother tongue in learning Englishand also the students’ autonomously generated back-translation activities helpraise learners’ awareness of differences between English and the mother tongue,and facilitate linguistic development

1.2.2 National studies

In Vietnam, there are some studies about the topic “Mother tongue effects”and have had some remarkable results in finding out effects of Vietnamese onlearning English or other languages However, most of them still inherit theresults of international previous studies

Vo Thi Kieu Oanh, a English teacher of Vo Nguyen Giap high schoolconducted a study about “ Positive effects of mother tongue and languages inteaching foreign languages” ( 2016) In this research, she study about the positivetransfer and positive effects of mother tongue in learning second languages throughexamples about the similarities between Vietnamese and English, Vietnamese andFrench in terms of grammar, speech act, structure of sentence, passive voice inVietnamese and English, etc

A English teacher of Hung Vuong University, Nguyen Thi To Loan alsostudied about “native language interference in the writing of english major fir st –year students of foreign language department, Hung Vuong University” Thisstudy aimed to analyse and describe features of L1 interference in the writing by

46 first-year English-major students who enrolled in the Writing course insemester 1 at Foreign Language Department – Hung Vuong University Threelevels of L1 interference, namely lexis, syntax and discourse, were analyzed fromsamples of the students’ writing in three types: writing a friendly letter, narrativeand describing people and discussed by considering two approaches: contrastiveanalysis, and error analysis It was found that literal translation of Vietnamesewords into English mainly represented features of L1 lexical interference in the

students’ written English Moreover, structural borrowing from Vietnameselanguage such as word order, subject-verb agreement, and coherence indicatedfeatures of L1 syntactic interference In addition, levels of language style andVietnamese cultural knowledge in written discourse presented features of L1discourse interference Moreover, the level of interference differs in each specifictype of writing Six main causes were also pointed out by teachers and students.They were lacking of vocabulary, translating from Vietnamese into English habit

of students, differences between Vietnamese and English, using Vietnamese toteach English of teachers, lacking opportunity to speak English

Ph.D Nguyen Huy Ky ( 2015) of Hanoi University conducted a study “Theinfluence of Vietnamese on English acquisition and use by the Hanoians” whichpointed out the common problems of Hanoians in learning English because ofVietnamese effects and some particular problems that Hanoians have to copewith

Ha Tam Cam ( 2005) wrote “Common pronunciation problems ofVietnamese learners of English” This study was the foundation and reference formany linguistics when study about pronunciation problems

1.3 AIMS OF THE STUDY

Learning a new language when the mother tongue system has beencompleted is not an easy task Learners of English often expect to be able to speakthat language like a native speaker However, they encounter many factors to gaintheir desire One of the common factors that they find difficult is thepronunciation of another sound system Learners find that their mother tongueinfluences their pronunciation of English

Nowadays, there are lots of articles about mother tongue interference andeach of them reveals different aspects of the subject Therefore, this study wasdone to clarify the issue

The present study aimed at finding the answers of the following questions:

1 What are negative and positive effects of mother tongue on learningspeaking skill?

2 How does Vietnamese affect to English majored students of Department

of Foreign Languages at Ha Tinh University in learning speaking English ?

3 How can students overcome difficulties and make use of advantages ofmother tongue in learning speaking skill ?

1.4 RESEARCH SUBJECTS

In terms of learning English, there might be many problems related not only

to speaking skills but also to other skills learners might usually confront.However, due to limitation of time, knowledge and other shortages, it isimpossible to deal with difficulties of all skills In regarding to this, the study will

be focused on speaking skill only

In addition, with my personal experiences as an English learner for a longtime, i found out that mother tongue affects to speaking skill more than otherskills When learning a new language, leaners always focus much on practicingspeaking, correcting pronunciation, and trying to have accent like native speaker This research will find out, points out the factors that influence the mothertongue, specifically Vietnamese, to English speaking, as well as awareness oflearners, to help both teachers and students can control the negative effects andadjust the learning and teaching more effective and reasonable

1.5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The participants involved in this research are 50 English majored students

of Ha Tinh University The participants are all freshmen so that they can giveobjective opinions to have their problems found out Most of them have neverbeen exposed to speaking a basically.Their mother tongue was same ( Vietnamese) and they knew English as a foreign language

1.6 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The methodology of the present study was based on quantitative The datacollection tool as a questionnaire was designed to identify the probableinterference of the mother tongue in second language learning, and to evaluatethe participants’ views and it aimed at revealing in which language areas and howmuch mother tongue interference occurred in language learning

The questionnaire was implemented throughout a week with participants intheir free time The data were analyzed by calculating and estimating the answerswith regard to the frequency adverbs used in the Likert-scale questionnaire Thecharts were prepared so that they reflected the percentages of the responsesgiven to each item All numbers were indicated in percentages

Implementing some direct interviews with students and teachers to knowmore clearly about their opinion which makes the study become more practicaland reliable

CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

2.1 THEORIES OF SPEAKING SKILL

2.1.1 Definition of speaking skill

There are a lot of definitions of the word “speaking” that have beensuggested by the researchers in language learning In Webster New WorldDictionary, speaking is to say words orally, to communicate as by talking, to make

a request, and to make a speech (Nunan, 1995) According to Chaney (1998),speaking is the process of making and sharing meaning by using verbal and non-verbal symbols in different contexts Brown (1994) and Burns and Joyce (1997)defined speaking as an interactive process of making meaning that includesproducing, receiving, and processing information Bygate (1987) definedspeaking as the production of auditory signals to produce different verbalresponses in listeners It is regarded as combining sounds systematically to formmeaningful sentences Eckard and Kearny (1981), Florez (1999), Howarth(2001), and Abd El Fattah Torky (2006) defined speaking as a two–way processincluding a true communication of opinions, information, or emotions This top-down view regards the spoken texts as the collaboration between two or morepersons in the shared time and the shared context

2.1.2 The importance of speaking skill

Language is a tool for communication We communicate with others, toexpress our ideas and to know others’ ideas as well

God gives us two eyes to input skills of reading to come out with writingskills, and give us two ears to input listening skills to come out with speakingskills So we have double ability for reception (read and listen) to come out withperfect production (write and speak) Speaking skills are regarded a veryimportant and unique skill, it is the first output of any language and the only skillwhich you need partners to practice, you can listen to audio resource alone, youcan read a book alone, you can write a letter alone, but you can’t speak alone, youneed someone to speak to Speaking skill depends on the first skill “listening”

Speaking is regarded a very important skill, however many students lack it It isthe basis of culture as we all know; but it is infinitely more than that; it is thebasis of business No salesman can sell anything unless he can explain the merits

of his good in effective English among people Without speech we cannotcommunicate with one another The importance of speaking skills, hence isenormous for the learners of any language Without speech, a language is reduced

to a mere script The use of language is an activity which takes place within theconfines of our community We use language in a variety of situations It is hard todescribe a thing without speech, if we don’t use language to express our mean orpurpose to do something, it might be distorted or difficult to get Thus, speaking isalways considered the most crucial action of human being There might be noother effective way to communicate than speaking

The four basic skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing are allconnected It is essential to be proficient in all of these skills to be a competentcommunicator However, it is worth mentioning that speaking skill tends to helpthe learners benefit more with some specific advantages Speaking in a second offoreign language has often viewed as the play most demanding of the four skills.Speaking is the most important skill because it is one of the abilities that isneeded to perform a conversation English speaking is not an easy task becausespeakers should know many significant components like pronunciation,grammar, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension Learners should have enoughEnglish speaking ability in order to communicate easily and effectively with otherpeople On the other hand, speaking plays an utmost important role among thefour language skills since it helps to identify who knows or does not know alanguage The significance of speaking is indicated with the integration of theother language skills Speaking helps learners develop their vocabulary andgrammar skills and then better their writing skill Students can express theiremotions, ideas; say stories; request; talk, discuss, and show the various functions

of language According to Pattison (1992), when people mention knowing orlearning a language, they mean being able to speak the language When talking

about the role of speaking, Bygate (1987) claims that: “It is the vehicle of socialsolidarity, of social ranking, of professional advancement and of business” Toomany language learners “ mastering the art of speaking is the single mostimportant aspect of learning a second language, and success is measured in term

of ability to carry out a conversation in the language The ability to expressthoughts, emotions, and so on

2.1.2 Characteristics of speaking skill

According to Mazouzi (2013), learners’ activities should be designed based

on an equivalence between fluency and accuracy achievement Both fluency andaccuracy are important elements of communicative approach The firstcharacteristic of speaking performance is fluency and it is the main aim ofstudents in learning speaking skill According to Hughes (2002), fluency is thelearners’ ability to speak in understandable way in order not to break downcommunication because listeners may lose their interest Hedge (2000)expressed that fluency is the ability to answer coherently by connecting thewords and phrases, pronouncing the sounds clearly, and using stress andintonation The second characteristic of speaking performance is accuracy.Learners should be fluent in learning a foreign language Learners should payenough attention to the exactness and the completeness of language form whenspeaking such as focusing on grammatical structures, vocabulary, andpronunciation (Mazouzi, 2013) According to Thornbury (2005), learners’ correctuse of grammatical structures requires the length and complexity of theutterances and the well-structured clauses To gain accuracy in terms ofvocabulary means to select suitable words in the suitable contexts Learnerssometimes apply similar words or expressions in various contexts which do notmean similar things So learners should be able to use words and expressionscorrectly Thornbury (2005) declared that pronunciation is the lowest level ofknowledge learners typically pay attention to it In order to speak Englishlanguage accurately, learners should master phonological rules and they should

be aware of the various sounds and their pronunciations Learners should also

know the stress, intonation, and pitch All of these elements help learners speakthe English language easily and effectively.

2.1.3 The difficulties students encounter in learning speaking skill

In carrying out speaking, students face some difficulties; one of them isabout the language its self In fact, most of students get difficulties to speak eventhough they have a lot of vocabulary and have written them well When it comes

to speaking, students might confront a variety of difficulties Hetrakul (1995)stated that the first cause that makes the students’ speaking English difficult isthat the environment does not support the students to speak English frequently.The environment here means the people outside the class Those people maythink that the students just want to show off when they speak English for dailyconversations The response that the students get makes them loose their self-confidence to improve their speaking

The second cause is problem with grammar Hetrakul said that grammar isalso very important for students when learning speaking skills; many studentsare quite confused with words usage If they want to master English, it isnecessary for them to use grammar appropriately so that they can producemeaningful sentences

Some learners also lack the motivation to speak English The studentsusually keep quiet in speaking lessons; they mind speaking English They do notsee a real need to learn or speak English

In a study, Ur (1996) pointed out 3 main problems:

1 Inhibition, speaking requires real-time exposure to an audience

Learners always try to speak their mother tongue in the classroom thanspeak English They are afraid of making mistakes then somehow they would beteased or laughed by their classmates They are ashamed of the other students’attention towards themselves

2 Nothing to say It is very common for every learner.They always

complain that they cannot think of any idea Although they notice theimportance of English, they still have no clear motivation to speak at classroom It

is hard for them to express themselves even when being asked to do so Learnerscomplain that they cannot remember anything to say and they do not have anymotivation to express themselves Learners often have nothing to say probablybecause their teachers had selected a topic that is not appropriate for them orthey do have enough information about It it is very difficult for learners toanswer when their teachers ask them to tell things in a foreign language becausethey have little opinions about what to say, which vocabulary to apply, or how touse grammar accurately.

3 Mother-tongue use Many learners are too shy to use English in front ofthe class They tend to prefer using mother tongue than English because they donot have to spend much time to think When some learners share the samemother-tongue, they try to use it in the speaking class because it is very easy forthem (Tuan & Mai, 2015) According to Harmer (1991), there are some reasonswhy learners use mother-tongue in their speaking classes The first reason is thatwhen teachers ask their learners to talk about a topic that they do not haveenough knowledge, they will try to use their language The second reason is thatthe application of mother-tongue is very natural for learners to use If teachers donot urge their learners to talk in English, learners will automatically use their firstlanguage to explain something to their classmates The final reason refers to thefact that if teachers regularly use their learners’ mother language, their learnerswill feel comfortable to do so in their speaking class Furthermore, all the othersubjects are in mother tongue, and English is seen as an academic subject only,which means exposure to the English language is insufficient, similarly toVietnamese students when they have to learn almost subjects in Vietnamese As amatter of fact, this problem should be prioritized to solve

There are some difficulties pointed out by linguistics Those barriers seemcommon for every English learner However, due to limitation of time, knowledgeand other shortages, it is impossible to deal with all difficulties In regarding tothis, the study will be focused on mother tongue effects only

2.2 GENERAL THEORIES OF MOTHER TONGUE EFFECTS ON LEARNINGSPEAKING SECOND LANGUAGE

2.2.1 Definition of mother tongue

There are several definitions of the term “mother tongue” When you werestill a very young child, you began acquiring at least one language — whatlinguists call your L1 — probably without thinking much about it, and with verylittle conscious effort or awareness Mother tongue or Native language, the firstwhich is normally acquired by human being in early childhood throughinteraction with other member of his own native speakers This can also be calledprimary language, it is one’s first language of interaction The first languagelearned by a baby is his or her mother tongue It is the language which he or shelistens to from his or her birth

A first language, native language or mother/father tongue (also known

as arterial language or L1) is a language that a person has been exposed to frombirth or within the critical period In some countries, the term nativelanguage or mother tongue refers to the language of one's ethnic group ratherthan one's first language Children brought up speaking more than one languagecan have more than one native language, and be bilingual or multilingual Thefirst language of a child is part of the personal, social and culturalidentity Another impact of the first language is that it brings about the reflectionand learning of successful social patterns of acting and speaking It is basicallyresponsible for differentiating the linguistic competence of acting

Bloch (n.d.) quoted a definition of mother tongue as: “A mother tongue isthe language the child can speak fluently before going to school It is the language

in which the child can operate confidently in all domains relevant to the child’slife It may or may not be the language spoken by both parents In this sense thebilingual child has two mother tongues”

Sometimes, the term "mother tongue" or "mother language" is used for thelanguage that a person learned as a child at home (usually from their parents)

Children growing up in bilingual homes can, according to this definition, havemore than one mother tongue or native language.

One of the more widely accepted definitions of native speakers is that theywere born in a particular country raised to speak the language of that countryduring the critical period of their development, The person qualifies as a "nativespeaker" of a language by being born and immersed in the language during youth,

in a family in which the adults shared a similar language experience as thechild Native speakers are considered to be an authority on their given languagebecause of their natural acquisition process regarding the language, as opposed

to having learned the language later in life That is achieved by personalinteraction with the language and speakers of the language Native speakers willnot necessarily be knowledgeable about every grammatical rule of the language,but they will have good "intuition" of the rules through their experience with thelanguage

2.2.2 Effects of mother tongue on learning speaking skill

The term transfer in language learning is defined by Odlin (1989) as “theinfluence resulting from similarities and differences between the target languageand any other languages that have been previously acquired”.Basically, languagetransfer could be scientifically classified as positive, negative One’s nativelanguage plays a vital role in second language acquisition, and the mother tonguetransfer is an unavoidable phenomenon in the second language learning Thus, as

a Vietnamese learner, they should take full advantages of the positive transfer ofmother tongue and take measures to reduce its negative effects in Englishlearning

2.2.2.1 Positive effects of mother tongue on learning speaking skill

Positive transfer may occur when both the native language and the targetlanguage have similar forms It also means the use of prior items to assist thecomprehension of the second language It refers to any contributory effects on theacquisition of second language, based on the similarities between the firstlanguage and second language That is to say, a previous knowledge is

appropriately applied to the learning task When the first language and thesecond language share the same rules and patterns or have something in commonespecially sounds or borrow words, the positive transfer will contribute to theacquisition of target language and make the learning easier to learn speaking Forexample, Vietnamese and Chinese have some same sound words becauseVietnamese borrows some words of Chinese therefore Vietnamese study Chineseeasier than other languages Another example is English and French share thesame alphabet, sometimes use similar grammatical structures and have severalwords in common According to the FSI study, a native English speaker needsbetween 23 and 24 weeks and 575-600 class hours on average to achievelanguage proficiency in French These evidences prove that positive transfer canhelp learners master speaking skill quicker.

2.2.2.2 Negative effects of mother tongue on learning speaking skill

The negative transfer is also called interference of the first language.Especially, it refers to the fact that the use of native language rules will lead toerror forms in the target language According to behaviorists, negative transfercan damage, hinder and delay the acquisition of second language There are manydifferences between the mother tongue and English So, the learners try toimpress their mother tongue on English Sometimes the knowledge of mothertongue becomes a stumbling block in learning English For example, becauseVietnamese and English belong to different language systems, the differences ofthem certainly influence the acquisition of English Many linguists argue that theeffects of negative transfer of Vietnamese outweigh than the positive transfer.Negative transfer can be found at all levels of language structure A case for thatcan be found at the phonetic level, which a speaker’s foreign accent occurs in theprocess of foreign language learning It can be explained by that Vietnameselearners are restricted by geographical dialect In addition, Vietnamese learnersoften make mistakes in the collocation of words For instance, maybe somestudents tend to say “look TV” rather than “watch TV” And the negative transferexists at syntactical level, textual level and cultural level as well Furthermore, it is

easy to find out that Vietnamese learners encounter great difficulties in learningEnglish pronunciation for several reasons Firstly, the English sound system hasseveral sounds foreign to Vietnamese speakers Secondly, the way Englishspeakers pronounce the ending sounds is completely different from the onedeeply rooted in Vietnamese speakers, making it more difficult for them toachieve appropriate English pronunciation In conclusion, negative transfer ofmother tongue can lead to some errors and may create barrier that hamperlearners learning speaking second language.

2.2.4 Definition of second language

By contrast with mother tongue, Foreign language are any languages otherthan the native language or mother tongue When the child learns the mothertongue his mind is a clean slate But at the time of his learning a foreign language,

he has already learnt his mother tongue In this regard , Robert Paul says “When

we learn our first language, we face the universe directly and learn to clothe itwith speech, when we learn a second language, we tend to know the universethrough the language already known” A second language is usually learnt and notacquired through interaction with others The additional language is called asecond language (L2), even though it may actually be the third, fourth, or tenth to

be acquired It is also commonly called a target language (TL), which refers to anylanguage that is the aim or goal of learning

2.3 VIETNAMESE EFFECTS ON LEARNING SPEAKING ENGLISH

a hundred year (1985 - 1954) Examples of words transliterated from French

are s mi ơ mi (from French word chemise, meaning shirt), búp bê (from French word poupée, meaning doll)

It is generally described as having three dialects: Hanoi in the North, Ho ChiMinh in the South, and Hue in the center The three dialects are mostly mutuallyintelligible, though Hue is said to be difficult for speakers of the other two dialects

to understand The northern speech is marked by sharpness, or choppiness, withgreater attention to the precise distinction of tones The southern speech, inaddition to certain uniform differences from northern speech in thepronunciation of consonants, does not distinguish between the “hoi” and “nga”tones; and, it is felt by some to sound more laconic and musical The speech of theCenter, on the other hand, is often described as being heavy because of itsemphasis on low tones

Vietnamese uses the Latin alphabet, with additional diacritics to indicatetones The Vietnamese Alphabet is closely related to the English Alphabet, but

with additional letters such as ă or ơ mi.

Vietnamese is an “isolating” language The vast majority of words are onesyllable long, and they tend not to change form much for cases, tenses orgrammatical agreement This means that Vietnamese speakers tend to breakEnglish speech up into syllable units, often separated by glottal stops The breathpattern is thus very different from that of native English speakers

Vietnamese is a tone language It has six tones, which are part of the lexicalidentity of a given word To make things even more complex, the tones are notpurely pitch contours, but include variable glottal settings The same underlyingletters with different diacritics produce different words: different in both

pronuncation and meaning For example, the word ma means ghosts while the word má means mother.

Vietnamese language is monosyllabic The fact that Vietnamese words onlyhave one vowel makes them known as monosyllabic: having only one vowel ineach word This monosyllabic nature of Vietnamese words make theirpronunciations rather short compared to English words

2.3.2 Characteristics of English

English is a dominant language which becomes more and more common allover the world

The phonetics and phonology of the English language differ from one dialect

to another, usually without interfering with mutual communication Phonologicalvariation affects the inventory of phonemes ( speech sounds that distinguishmeaning), and phonetic variation is differences in pronunciation of thephonemes

Most English dialects share the same 24 consonant phonemes

The pronunciation of vowels varies a great deal between dialects and is one

of the most detectable aspects of a speaker's accent

Stress plays an important role in English Certain syllables are stressed,while others are unstressed Stress is a combination of duration, intensity, vowelquality, and sometimes changes in pitch Stressed syllables are pronouncedlonger and louder than unstressed syllables, and vowels in unstressed syllablesare frequently reduced while vowels in stressed syllables are not Some words,

primarily short function words but also some modal verbs such as can, have weak

and strong forms depending on whether they occur in stressed or non-stressedposition within a sentence

Stress in English is phonemic, and some pairs of words are distinguished by

stress For instance, the word contract is stressed on the first syllable

(/ k ntrækt/ˈkɒntrækt/ ɒntrækt/ ) when used as a noun, but on the last syllable (/k n trækt/ənˈtrækt/ ˈkɒntrækt/ ) formost meanings when used as a verb Here stress is connected to vowel reduction:

in the noun "contract" the first syllable is stressed and has the unreduced vowel //

ɒntrækt/ , but in the verb "contract" the first syllable is unstressed and its vowel isreduced to / /ənˈtrækt/ Stress is also used to distinguish between words and phrases, sothat a compound word receives a single stress unit, but the corresponding phrasehas two

In terms of rhythm, English is generally described as a timed language, meaning that the amount of time between stressed syllablestends to be equal Stressed syllables are pronounced longer, but unstressed

stress-syllables (stress-syllables between stresses) are shortened Vowels in unstressedsyllables are shortened as well, and vowel shortening causes changes in vowelquality: vowel reduction.

2.3.3 Main differences between Vietnamese and English

The Vietnamese language is phonologically monosyllabic Each word – short

or long – is implosively articulated as one syllable On the contrary, the Englishlanguage is highly polysyllabic An English word may have as short as one letter,

as “I” [ai] or as long as 14 letters – indecipherable – or more, as

“antidisestablishmentarianism.”

Vietnamese has six tones whose order as found in alphabetized dictionaries

is as follows: unmarked, high rising, low falling, low rising, high broken and lowbroken These tonal marks play a crucial part in denoting the meaning of a word.Changing the mark significantly changes the meaning While English doesn’t havesix tones like Vietnamese but English pronunciation depend much on stress andintonation Vietnamese is implosively articulated; whereas English is highlyexplosive

Vietnamese does not have any inflectional forms like –ed, –ing, and theplural –s –es and so forth, of English Vietnamese learning English fail to add an

“s” or “es” to the verb in third person or the “ed” to a regular verb to indicate pasttense Vietnamese language does not have verb conjugation That’s why timephrase plays a crucial part in an utterance or a sentence For instance: English:

“The meeting will be here at 03:00 pm tomorrow.” Vietnamese: ‘Three o’clocktomorrow there will be a meeting here.” Introducing a time phrase brings thelistener to the set scenario 3 of an event: “Yesterday afternoon at this place, has adog race very interesting” is exactly what is written in Vietnamese for an Englishsentence, which should be: “There was an interesting dog race at this placeyesterday afternoon

Except for cardinal numbers, which always appear before a noun, all otherVietnamese modifiers follow the head-noun they modify The following examplesshow how the modifiers of the two languages mirror Oppositely, English head

nouns are at the end of a noun phrase Let’s compare the two noun phrasestructures and find out how much they mirror For example :

Nhà m i màu tr ngới ắng New white house

In summary, it is obvious that no matter how fluent Vietnamese peoplespeak English, they more or less take a bit of Vietnamese accent and cannot bepure like native speakers The main reason is that once learners have missed thecritical period of language learning, a foreign language learning can not be asrelaxed and natural as a mother tongue learning, so that phonetics must benegatively affected by the pronunciation and rules of mother tongue From theperspective of English pronunciation, English is a kind of intonation languagewhich mainly relies on intonation to distinguish its semantics, butVietnamesebelongs to a tone language that distinguishes the semantics through its tones.Therefore, both of the two languages above differ in the number and combination

of phonemes greatly Some English phonemes are not existed in Vietnamese andvice versa, which makes Vietnamese students tend to find similar sounds Consequently, Vietnamese learners have been reported to make phonetic errorsleading to incomprehensible speech in English In addition, English grammar alsodiffers from Vietnamese’s therefore students sometime make mistake related togrammar

Besides these factors, there are many others like topological patterns, suchEnglish direct locution and Vietnamese circular locution This hampersVietnamese learners to correctly express their ideas or pronounce English words.These differences affect English learning of Vietnamese too much However, inthis paper, we just focus on the differences between Vietnamese and English interms of phonetic and phonology which related to pronunciation