A study on factors affecting English pronunciation learning of Hmong students at Ham Yen High School, Ham Yen district, Tuyen Quang province

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* ĐỖ THỊ THU HẰNG A STUDY ON FACTORS AFFECTING

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

HAM YEN DISTRICT, TUYEN QUANG PROVINCE

Nghiên cứu những nhân tố ảnh hưởng đến việc học phát âm Tiếng Anh của

học sinh người H’Mông trường THPT Hàm Yên,

huyện Hàm Yên, tỉnh Tuyên Quang

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111

Hanoi, 2014

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

*********************

ĐỖ THỊ THU HẰNG

A STUDY ON FACTORS AFFECTING ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION LEARNING OF HMONG STUDENTS AT HAM YEN HIGH SCHOOL,

HAM YEN DISTRICT, TUYEN QUANG PROVINCE

Nghiên cứu những nhân tố ảnh hưởng đến việc học phát âm Tiếng Anh của

học sinh người H’Mông trường THPT Hàm Yên,

huyện Hàm Yên, tỉnh Tuyên Quang

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111

SUPERVISOR: Dr TRAN THI THU HIEN

Hanoi, 2014

DECLARATION

I hereby certify that the thesis entitled “A study on factors affecting English pronunciation learning of ethnic students in Ham Yen High School, Ham Yen District, Tuyen Quang province” is my own study in the fulfillment

of the requirement for the Degree of Master of Arts at the Faculty of Post Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies,

Vietnam National University, Hanoi

Signature

Đỗ Thị Thu Hằng

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS -***** -

I would like to express my gratitude to all who have helped me in the completion of this thesis

Firstly, I am deeply indebted to my supervisor, Dr Tran Thi Thu Hien, who has given me persistent consideration, enthusiastic encouragement, and invaluable supervision throughout the writing of the thesis

Secondly, my thanks also go to all lecturers and the staff of Faculty of Post Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their useful lectures, materials, guidance and enthusiasm during my course

Thirdly, I also thank my colleagues for their willingness to share their ideas on this study and my students for their cooperation in completing the survey questionnaires

Last but not least, I am indebted to my family and all my friends who have kindly given me assistance and encouragement Without them, this

study would have no such great motivation

ABSTRACT

Ham Yen High School is a mountainous school where most of students are ethnic They account for 63 percent of all students in the school, in which Hmong students cover 83 percent Most of them have difficulty in English pronunciation learning Until now, no research on English pronunciation learning of the ethnic learners at Ham Yen High School has been carried out

The researcher, therefore, decides to convey the research with the aim

of finding out factors affecting Hmong students’ pronunciation learning, investigating typical pronunciation errors that Hmong students often commit, and proposing possible suggestions To achieve the objectives of the current study the researcher use both qualitative and quantitative methods The data were obtained from students’ survey questionnaires, students’ test result, and teachers’ interview The data were then analyzed From the result, it can be concluded that the first language transfer, language exposure, and attitudes and motivation are among the most significant factors affecting Hmong students’ pronunciation learning

It is hoped that this thesis will be useful for teachers at Ham Yen High School to improve Hmong students’ pronunciation

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EFL: English as a Foreign Language

ESL: English as a Second Language L1: First language

L2: Second language

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS

Table 1: Hmong students' interest in learning English pronunciation Table 2: The purpose of teaching and learning pronunciation

Table 3: Students' evaluation on difficulty in learning English consonants Table4: Students’ answers for the test

Table 5: Factors affecting pronunciation learning

Table 6: Frequency of techniques used in teaching pronunciation

Table 7: The favourite techniques of learning pronunciation

Chart 1: Students’ time on English pronunciation learning

Chart 2: The language students speak at home

TABLE OF CONTENT

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS v

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale of the study 1

2 Objectives of the study 1

3 Research questions 2

4 Scope of the study 2

5 Methods of the study 2

6 Significance of the study 3

7 Design of the study 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1.1 Perceptions of pronunciation 5

1.2 Features of pronunciation 6

1.3 Factors affecting English pronunciation learning 7

1.3.1 Age 7

1.3.2 First language transfer 7

1.3.3 Personality 8

1.3.4 Language exposure 8

1.3.5 Attitude and motivation to learn 9

1.4 Hmong phonology overview 9

1.4.1 Word structure 10

1.4.2 Consonants 10

1.4.3 Tones 11

1.5 Chapter summary 11

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 12

2.1 Context of the study 12

2.2 The participants 12

2.3 Data collection instruments 13

2.3.1 The questionnaires: 13

2.3.2 Test 13

2.3.3 Interview 14

2.4 Data collection procedures 14

2.4.1 For the questionnaire 14

2.4.2 For the interview 14

2.4.3 For the test 15

2.5 Chapter summary 15

CHAPTER 3: DATA PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSIONS 16

3.1 Data analysis 16

3.1.1 The teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards teaching and learning pronunciation 16

3.1.2 Students’ pronunciation errors 18

3.1.3 Factors affecting Hmong students in pronunciation learning 21

3.1.4 Techniques used in teaching pronunciation 24

3.1.5 Students’ expectations and teachers’ recommendations to teaching and learning pronunciation 26

3.2 Findings and discussion 28

3.3 Possible suggestions 28

3.3.1 Teachers’ techniques 29

3.3.2 Motivating students to learn 31

3.3.3 Equipping facilities 31

3.4 Chapter summary 32

PART C: CONCLUSION 33

1 Major findings 33

2 Limitations of the study 35

3 Recommendations for further studies 35

REFERENCES 37 APPENDIX 1 I APPENDIX 2 VI APPENDIX 3 VII

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

It cannot be denied that English is by far the most popular language of all Nowadays, English is popular enough to be spoken at every corner of the world Therefore, teaching and learning English have become the necessity in every country Since Vietnam began its open-door policy, the English teaching and learning has strongly developed

Pronunciation is an integral part of foreign language learning since it directly affects learners' communicative competence as well as performance Limited pronunciation can decrease learners’ self-confidence and restrict social interactions in learning The current focus on communicative approaches to EFL pronunciation learning and the concern for building communication skills are renewing interest in the role that pronunciation plays in EFL learners’ overall communicative competence

Ham Yen High School is a mountainous school where most of students are ethnic They account for 63 percent of all students in the school, in which Hmong students cover 83 percent Most of them have difficulty in English pronunciation learning Until now, no research on English pronunciation learning of the ethnic learners at Ham Yen High School has been carried out The researcher, therefore, decides to convey the research with the hope that this study can help improve pronunciation learning of the students at the school in particular and similar cases at other schools in Vietnam in general

2 Objectives of the study

The inter-related aims of the study are:

- Investigating on typical pronunciation errors that Hmong students often

commit

- Finding out factors affecting English pronunciation learning of Hmong

students at Ham Yen High School

- Proposing suggestions to improve English pronunciation learning of

Hmong students at Ham Yen High School

3 Research questions

In the thesis, the following questions will be answered

i) What kinds of English pronunciation errors do Hmong students at Ham

Yen High School usually have?

ii) What are the major factors affecting English pronunciation of Hmong

students at Ham Yen High School?

iii) What should be done to improve English pronunciation of Hmong

students at Ham Yen High School?

4 Scope of the study

This study is concerned with finding factors that affect learning English pronunciation of Hmong students at Ham Yen High School All studies focusing on factors that affect the learning of other knowledge of other students at other schools are outside the scope of this study

Data collected for this thesis are mainly from Hmong learners and some teachers of English in this school

5 Methods of the study

In order to fulfill the tasks mentioned above, both qualitative and quantitative methods are selected for this study The study adopts survey research approach A survey questionnaire is designed for 55 Hmong students

at Ham Yen High School, Tuyen Quang as the main instrument to find out the factors affecting their English pronunciation learning Using survey questionnaire, the researcher is allowed to get answers from a lot of students

in a relatively short space of time Moreover, questionnaires provide lots of

data for analysis, and the more data sets, the more accurate the analysis is However, there are some problems arising when using survey questionnaires

to collect data First, the researcher use closed - ended questions, so it is difficult to allow students to expand their answers Second, survey questionnaires are impersonal; students, therefore, may be more open face to face discussions Based on these reasons, interviews have been also conducted

to get supplementary information Together with survey questionnaire and interview, a test is designed with the aim of investigating on typical pronunciation errors that ethnic students often commit

6 Significance of the study

This study hopes to make contribution to teaching English pronunciation for Hmong students at high school level in Vietnam and is expected to be useful reference material for any high school language teachers in Vietnam, especially for those who are in favor of improving their Hmong students' pronunciation in particular and other ethnic minorities in

general

7 Design of the study

The study is organized three parts as follows:

Part A-Introduction presents rationale, objectives, research questions,

scope, methods, significance, and design of the study

Part B-Development is divided into three chapters

Chapter 1 presents a review of literature and theoretical background about English pronunciation learning, its perceptions and features This chapter is concentrated on the five factors affecting English pronunciation learning Then, the chapter ends with an overview of Hmong phonology

Chapter 2 describes the context of the study, the participants, data collection instruments as well as the data collection procedures

Chapter 3 presents data analysis, findings and discussions, and possible suggestions

Part C-Conclusion provides conclusion, limitations and future research

of the study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter provides the background information about pronunciation and pronunciation learning First, some of the background information pertaining to pronunciation will be presented Then, an overview of the features of pronunciation and factors affecting English pronunciation learning will be presented Finally, this chapter will examine what is known about the Hmong language, including its origin, word structure, consonants and tones

1.1 Perceptions of pronunciation

The notion of pronunciation has been defined in many different ways

by writers Generally speaking, pronunciation is simply defined as “the way in which a word is spoken” (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Encyclopedic, 1992) or

“the way in which a word is usually pronounced” (Longman Dictionary of

Contemporary English, 1978) Christiane Dalton and Barbara Seidlhofer

(1994:3) consider pronunciation “as the production of significant sound”

They look at word in two senses First, it is used as part of a code of a particular language That is the reason why English sounds are distinguished from sounds of other languages In this sense, pronunciation can be told as the production and reception of sounds of speech Second, sound is used to achieve meaning in contexts of use Here the code combines with other factors to make communication possible In this sense pronunciation is referred with reference to acts of speaking

In this study, the concept of pronunciation can be described as “a way

of speaking a word, especially a way that is accepted or generally understood” (American Heritage Dictionary, 1992) or “may be said to conclude the sounds of the language or phonology; stress and rhythm; intonation; combination sounds; linkage of sound” (Ur, 1996)

 stress – the length, volume, and pitch applied to syllables in words and sentences

 rhythm – the beat pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables (tied with sentence stress)

 adjustments in connected speech – changes in sounds when words blend together in speech

 prominence – vocally highlighting words in speech to express meaning, new vs old information, or intent, by use of loudness, length, pitch and vowel quality

 intonation – the rise and fall of voice pitch in sentences and phrases

According to Meng et al (2009), while perceptual studies indicate that both segmental and suprasegmental features impact expert judgments on speaking proficiency, suprasegmentals have a greater effect for the overall

comprehension of the message Meng (2009:1) states, “suprasegmental features encode rich information structure that helps the listener locate emphasized words, phrase boundaries, speech acts (e.g statements, questions, continuations, etc.) as well as the speaker’s attitudes and

emotions” In Derwing and Rossiter (2002) survey of 100 ESL students, the

participants perceived segmental issues to be the crux of their pronunciation difficulties despite the fact that these features have a low functional load The participants’ awareness of suprasegmental features was limited Therefore, negative transfer of suprasegmental features can disrupt clear comprehensibility of the intended message, and the detrimental effects would naturally be greater when the L1 is more markedly different than the L2

1.3 Factors affecting English pronunciation learning

1.3.1 Age

The first, rather controversial, factor is age The debate over whether there is a critical period for language learning has been an arduous one Celce-Murcia et al (1996) and Florez (1998) examine the debate over the impact of age on pronunciation Some researchers insist that after a learner goes through puberty, lateralization of the brain occurs Lateralization, or the assigning of linguistic functions to specific brain hemispheres, results in learners‟ difficulty in acquiring and being able to produce new sounds to the extent possible by a child Other researchers argue that various sensitive periods for

language learning exist and that “adults need to re-adjust existing neural networks to accommodate new sounds” (Florez, 1998) However, in general,

research has shown that adults have more difficulty with pronunciation than children when learning a new language

1.3.2 First language transfer

A learner’s first language (L1) can have significant influence on the level of accentedness and intelligibility of the new language Negative transfer, also called interference, means that the features of the L1 are carried into the second language (L2) With differences between the two languages, negative transfer can lead to erroneous production of aspiration, rhythm, and

intonation in the new language (Florez, 1998) According to Meng et al (2009), language transfer occurs at both the segmental and suprasegmental levels, and these interference effects can become fossilized with age, creating challenges for adult L2 learners It is showed in some studies that the more differences that the native and target language have, the more difficult pronunciation of target language will be

1.3.3 Personality

Non-linguistic factors related to an individual’s personality and learning goals, attitude towards the target language, culture, native speakers, and type of motivation which are beyond the teacher’s control (Miller, 2003) all have their share in the development of pronunciation skills In addition, the degree of exposure to and use of the target language can support or impede pronunciation skills development For example, learners who are outgoing and confident and get involved in interactions with native speakers are liable

to practice their foreign language pronunciation (Avery & Ehrlich, 1992) Conversely, some learners feel uncomfortable trying out new speech rhythm and melody patterns (Miller, 2003), while others feel stupid pronouncing

“weird” sounds, and with time, they decide that it is futile and impossible to learn English pronunciation (Laroy, 1995) In this respect, Miller (2003) believes that changing – and not changing – speech patterns is affected by how much responsibility the student takes, how much the student practices outside of class, and how ready the student is

input This comprehensible input can be easily seen when visiting a quality elementary school where students interact freely in a comfortable setting Adults, on the other hand, often spend their days working in an environment without a rich source of comprehensible input Socializing often occurs with people from their linguistic group In Singer’s (2006), the most definite factor determining accurate pronunciation was the learners’ daily exposure to English

1.3.5 Attitude and motivation to learn

While a number of students might take English in school to reach their score and future professional goals, others might be feeling forced to learn English In addition, some might feel conflicted about learning a new language if they feel it will result in the eventual loss of their L1 The development of pronunciation intelligibility can be positively or negatively influenced by one’s attitude toward the new culture, its language and speakers Concurrently, personal identity issues and motivation for learning also can support or impede pronunciation (Florez, 1998) Elliott (1995) showed that a student’s motivation toward achieving the target language’s pronunciation was the principal variable in their accuracy of actual pronunciation output

We still found that the students’ motivation is of vital importance in his

or her pronunciation learning And sometimes, some students speak English when they receive others’ praise for their beautiful English, which might give them a strong sense of achievement

1.4 Hmong phonology overview

In Chang’s (2005), the basic phonological unit in Hmong is the syllable, not the word Most morphemes are monosyllabic, and most syllables have transparent meanings Words, if polymorphemic, are analytic, and for

this reason, they are sometimes called “terms”, with the morphemes themselves being called “words” Each Hmong syllable has an onset, a rime, and a tone, out of a total possible of 57 onsets, 13 rimes, and 7 tones What complexity there is in the onset is made up for in the simplicity of syllable codas, for the rimes are all zero-coda, except for two that end in [ŋ] In a language such as Hmong, it is more convenient to speak of onsets and rimes than of segments Whereas it is quite right to say that an onset such as [mpl], which represents a pre-nasalized bilabial stop with an overlapping lateral, is 3 distinct segments, the fact that such clusters are relatively few compared to the number of segments in the language persuades me to structure my analysis around onsets and rimes rather than around segments

1.4.1 Word structure

Most Hmong-Mien words are monosyllabic (Chang, 2005) They start with one or more consonants followed by a vowel and, sometimes, by a final consonant

1.4.2 Consonants

In Chang’s (2005), Hmongic languages have a large number of initial consonants, including retroflex, uvular and glottal sounds, besides the usual labial, dental/alveolar, palatal and velar Voiceless stops and affricates are more common than voiced ones Stops and affricates can be aspirated or pre-nasalized, yielding a 4-way contrast: voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated, voiceless prenasalized, and voiced Those languages that do not have voiced stops (like Hmong) may pronounce a voiceless stop with both prenasalization and aspiration yielding a slightly different 4-way contrast in which all stops are voiceless: unaspirated, unaspirated prenasalized, aspirated, aspirated prenasalized

Another interesting feature of Hmongic consonant systems is the occurrence of contrasting pairs of voiceless and voiced nasals (voiceless nasals are comparatively rare in world languages) The only permitted final consonants are the dental and velar nasals (n, ŋ) In contrast, the inventory of Mien initial consonants is smaller but more consonants are permitted in final position, including three nasals (m, n, ŋ) and three stops (p, t and glottal ʔ)

1.4.3 Tones

All Hmong-Mien languages are tonal (Chang, 2005) Many have an exceptionally large number of tonal contrasts that can reach up to eleven or twelve They serve to make lexical distinctions As well as pitch contrasts, Hmong-Mien tones may have different voice qualities like 'breathy' or 'creaky'

1.5 Chapter summary

To summarize, in this chapter, some theoretical backgrounds relating to teaching and learning pronunciation have been pointed out These are the pronunciation concepts and their features Factors relating to pronunciation teaching and learning have been also given It cannot be denied that pronunciation and teaching pronunciation is an important part to conduct in any language course

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 2.1 Context of the study

Located in northern of Tuyen Quang, Ham Yen is a mountainous district with three upper secondary schools, in which Ham Yen High School

is the leading choice of parents and students when they finish lower secondary schools The school has 34 classes and 87 teachers, and 6 classrooms equipped with projectors and LCD screens Ham Yen High School was also equipped with a lab for foreign language learning two years ago

However, teaching and learning English at Ham Yen High School have some difficulties Most of the classes are rather big, about 40 or more than 40 students in a class In addition, students hardly have opportunities to communicate with native speakers

There are 8 teachers of English at Ham Yen High School All of them are from 30 to 40 years old, in which six graduated from in-service training programs, and the other two finished their tertiary education in Foreign Language Department in Thai Nguyen University of Education All the teachers are very enthusiastic with teaching and want to improve the quality

of English teaching and learning

1287 students are studying at Ham Yen Upper Secondary School Most

of them have been learning English since they were at grade 3 Despite the fact that they have at least 7 years to study English as a compulsory subject, most of them find learning and pronouncing English difficult As a result, two thirds of them often get mark below 6 for their forty-five minute tests

2.2 The participants

Data of the study are collected from 5 teachers of English and 55 students at Ham Yen High School All of the five teachers are female and age from 30 to 40 They have been teaching English for at least 6 years, so it can

be said that all of them are experienced in teaching English They graduated from both regular and in-service training programs

55 students chosen are Hmong learners, as students from other ethnic minority groups are too few to be considered The fifty-five male and female students have been chosen randomly in which 15 students are form grade 10,

17 students are from grade 1, and the rest are from grade 12

2.3 Data collection instruments

As mentioned in the above section, to collect information and data, three instruments: questionnaire, interview and test were used

2.3.1 The questionnaires:

A survey questionnaire with closed questions was administered to collect data from 55 Hmong students at the twenty-fifth week of the second term

The questionnaire consists of 13 questions which are designed in three parts with aiming at answering the three research questions mentioned above To get this aim, the questionnaire is categorized into the following groups:

 Personal information

 Information about English pronunciation learning

 Information about English pronunciation teaching

 Students’ expectation of English pronunciation learning

In order to collect reliable data and information from the subjects, questionnaires for students were designed in Vietnamese and the students were given 25 minutes to finish their answers

2.3.2 Test

Based on the interviews of 5 teachers and the researcher’s personal experience and observation of pronunciation lessons, only sounds that ethnic

students often pronounce wrong are tested The test of 26 questions is designed for 55 students with the aim of ensuring typical pronunciation errors that students often commit There are three exercises The first one is an odd-one-out exercise The next is the exercise of writing the words basing on the given transcriptions In exercise 3, students have to give the phonetic transcriptions of the common words which they have learnt in their English programs at Ham Yen High School

2.3.3 Interview

The interview with five teachers at Ham Yen High School was conducted: one graduated from a regular university, and others graduated from in-service training programs There are seven questions proposedto get the teachers’ ideas of pronunciation teaching and learning reality, factors affecting their students’ learning of English pronunciation and some recommendations to improve learning English pronunciation at the school

2.4 Data collection procedures

2.4.1 For the questionnaire

Firstly, the designed questionnaires were distributed to 55 students at the twenty-fifth week of the second term Secondly, the students were given

25 minutes to finish their answers Students were provided with any explanation if necessary Then, the completed questionnaires were collected

by the writer herself

2.4.2 For the interview

After having been designed, the seven questions were used to interview five teachers during their 15-minute break time at the twenty-sixth week of the second term The information was taken notes at the place of the interview The result of the interview would be compared with the result of the questionnaire

2.4.3 For the test

The designed tests were distributed to students, and they are asked to

do the test is in 20 minutes The tests were collected and the results were analyzed to find out the types of students’ pronunciation errors

After having been collected, data were divided into following categories:

 The teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards teaching and learning pronunciation

 Types of errors of students in learning pronunciation

 Factors affecting Hmong students in learning pronunciation

 Techniques used in teaching pronunciation

 Students’ expectations and teachers’ recommendations to teaching and learning pronunciation

The quantitative data were presented in the form of tables while qualitative data from the interview were presented by quoting relevant responses

2.5 Chapter summary

This chapter presented context of the study, the participants, data collection instruments, and data collection procedures Three different data collection instruments were used: survey questionnaires, interviews, and tests In the next chapter, the data analysis, findings and discussions and possible suggestions for teaching and learning English pronunciation for Hmong students will be discussed

CHAPTER 3: DATA PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSIONS

This chapter presents data analysis both descriptively and interpretively

as well as discussions of the findings

(52.73%) The percentage of students who consider pronunciation as not

important only accounts for 25.45

Table 2: The purpose of teaching and learning pronunciation

To provide students with the knowledge about English

To help students to get better results in the exam 89.09%

To help students distinguish the differences between English

As can be seen from the table, most students (89.09%) agree that the purpose of learning pronunciation is to get high scores Ranked the second is the purpose of helping students to communicate better (74.55%) The percentage of students who think that learning pronunciation is to provide students with the knowledge about English language is the least (with only 18.18%)

When asked whether the teachers were interested in teaching pronunciation lessons or not, most of the respondents said that they did not like to teach pronunciation very much because of some reasons First, they had to prepare many things as teaching aids for pronunciation lessons to make their students pronounce new sounds and being active in the class Second, all classes are oversized, so they had difficulty controlling their students and organizing activities as well Third, because of being a mountainous high