An investigation into Phuong Dong pre-intermediate English students'''' problem of speech incomprehensibility caused by improper tone unit segmenting

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES POSTGRADUATE DEPARTMENT LÊ THỊ PHƯƠNG MAI AN INVESTIGATION INTO PHUONG DONG PRE- INTERMEDIATE ENGLISH STUDENTS’ PROBLEM

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES POSTGRADUATE DEPARTMENT

LÊ THỊ PHƯƠNG MAI

AN INVESTIGATION INTO PHUONG DONG PRE- INTERMEDIATE ENGLISH STUDENTS’ PROBLEM

OF SPEECH INCOMPREHENSIBILITY CAUSED BY

IMPROPER TONE UNIT SEGMENTING

Tìm hiểu lối diễn đạt khó hiểu do phân chia đoạn phát âm không hợp lí của sinh viên tiếng Anh trình

độ tiền trung cấp ở trường Đại Học Phương Đông

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES POSTGRADUATE DEPARTMENT

LÊ THỊ PHƯƠNG MAI

AN INVESTIGATION INTO PHUONG DONG PRE- INTERMEDIATE ENGLISH STUDENTS’ PROBLEM

OF SPEECH INCOMPREHENSIBILITY CAUSED BY

IMPROPER TONE UNIT SEGMENTING

Tìm hiểu lối diễn đạt khó hiểu do phân chia đoạn phát âm không hợp lí của sinh viên tiếng Anh trình

độ tiền trung cấp ở trường Đại Học Phương Đông

MA Minor Thesis

Field: English Methodology

Code: 60.14.10 Supervisor: Nguyễn Bách Thảo, MA

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION……… i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT……… ii

ABSTRACT……… iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS……… iv

LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES……….………… vii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS……… viii

PART A: INTRODUCTION….……… 1

I Rationale……… 1

II Aims of the study……… 2

III Scope of the study……… 2

IV Methods of the study……… 3

V Design of the study……… 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT………4

I LITERATURE REVIEW……….…… 4

I.1 Definition of tone unit……… 4

I.1.1 Different terms denoting a tone unit……… 4

I.1.2 Concept of tone unit and its phonological components……… 5

I.1.3 Grammatical and Contextual characteristics of tone unit……… 7

I.2 Kinds of tone units… ……… 9

I.3 Communicative function of tone units……… 11

I.4 Non-native learners’ problems with tone unit segmentation……… 12

II THE STUDY……… 14

Chapter 1: Investigating students’ problem of speech incomprehensibility in relation to improper tone unit segmenting……… 15

CONTEXT OF THE STUDY……… 15

DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURE……….……… 15

The subjects……… 15

The instruments……….… 16

Oral test……….… 16

Transcription and peer-evaluation of oral presentations……… 16

Questionnaires and interviews……… 16

DATA ANALYSIS……….……… 17

Identifying the relation between students’ incomprehensible speech and their improper tone unit segmenting……… 17

 Findings from oral tests, peer-evaluation and transcripts of students’ conversations and talks……… ……17

 Findings from the first part of the questionnaires and interviews … … 19

Seeking causes of the students’ problem of improper tone unit segmentation……… ……… 22

 Findings of teachers’ observation……… …… 22

 Findings of the second part of the questionnaires and interviews……… 23

DISCUSSION OF THE DATA……… 28

Chapter 2: Suggested solutions to the targeted students’ problem of improper tone unit segmentation……… 31

2.1 Enhancing teachers’ knowledge and awareness of tone unit segmenting……… 31

2.2 Adjusting the teaching and learning procedure………… 31

2.2.1 Improving students’ level of proficiency and self-reliance……… 31

2.2.2 Taking advantage of speaking tasks for training tone unit

segmentation……… 32

2.2.3 Perceiving native speakers’ ways of segmenting tone unit using tape scripts……… 33

2.2.4 Providing students with knowledge of intonational principles of tone units adopting awareness-raising approach……… 35

2.2.5 Using peer and group-correction facilitated by visual aids………… 36

2.3 Adjusting the teaching curriculum and the materials………37

2.3.1 Improving the teaching curriculum………37

2.3.2 Supplying more materials……… 37

PART C: CONCLUSION……… 39

REFERENCES……… I

Questionnaire for students……… V

Questionnaire for teachers……… VII

Peer-check evaluation sheet……… X

LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES

Chart 1: Difficulties the audiences had in understanding the speaker

Chart 2: Listeners’ misunderstanding partners’ speech by frequency

Chart 3: Teachers’ judgment on the audiences’ understanding of speakers’ speech

Chart 4: Knowledge of intonation vs pronunciation

Chart 5: Places of students’ pauses

Chart 6: Formal instruction on tone unit segmentation given previously

Chart 7: Effectiveness of teachers’ lessons on tone units

Table 1: Possible reasons of incomprehensible speech on the speaker’s part

Table 2: Ways students did to make a good speech

Table 3: Ways of improving speech’s comprehensibility

2.2.2 Taking advantage of speaking tasks for training tone unit

segmentation……… 32

2.2.3 Perceiving native speakers’ ways of segmenting tone unit using tape scripts……… 33

2.2.4 Providing students with knowledge of intonational principles of tone units adopting awareness-raising approach……… 35

2.2.5 Using peer and group-correction facilitated by visual aids………… 36

2.3 Adjusting the teaching curriculum and the materials………37

2.3.1 Improving the teaching curriculum………37

2.3.2 Supplying more materials……… 37

PART C: CONCLUSION……… 39

REFERENCES……… I

Questionnaire for students……… V

Questionnaire for teachers……… VII

Peer-check evaluation sheet……… X

LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES

Chart 1: Difficulties the audiences had in understanding the speaker

Chart 2: Listeners’ misunderstanding partners’ speech by frequency

Chart 3: Teachers’ judgment on the audiences’ understanding of speakers’ speech

Chart 4: Knowledge of intonation vs pronunciation

Chart 5: Places of students’ pauses

Chart 6: Formal instruction on tone unit segmentation given previously

Chart 7: Effectiveness of teachers’ lessons on tone units

Table 1: Possible reasons of incomprehensible speech on the speaker’s part

Table 2: Ways students did to make a good speech

Table 3: Ways of improving speech’s comprehensibility

Table 4: Reasons for problems of improper tone unit segmenting

Table 5: Reasons for teachers’ failure in teaching tone unit segmentation

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EFL: English as a foreign language

MA Master of Arts

PART A: INTRODUCTION

I Rationale

Nowadays English is so popular that it becomes a prerequisite means of regional and international communication Most of these interactions, which play as a stimulus for global socio-economic relations and knowledge perception, are carried out orally Therefore, spoken English language as well as the comprehensibility of speech is of ultimate importance In deed, as

stated by Richards, J.C (2006): “The worldwide demand for English has created an enormous demand for quality language teaching and language teaching materials and resources Learners set themselves demanding goals They want to be able to master English to a high level of accuracy and fluency” However, when mastering English, a lot of learners have difficulty in delivering comprehensible speech because of their problems with tone unit segmenting In spite

of the fact that constant effort has been exhorted to renovate methods of teaching and learning English intonation to the non-native, the achieved pedagogical measures are not practical and specific enough to be utilized in all non-native environments This hardship has not only been experienced by Vietnamese learners but also by non-native speakers from other countries such as China, Korea, Singapore, Spain… ( Hewings 1995; Goh 2001, Pickering 2001, Tao 2007) Over decades, researchers on English intonation of the non-native focused on contrastive analysis between native and non-native‟s preference of tone unit boundary, proposed the concepts of tone unit and discussed its role in communication with a light weight on feasible strategies to deal with the matter Despite the fact that various studies on non-native problems of tone unit segmenting are detected, Vietnamese researches about such important issue are hardly found

As the case in a number of Vietnam universities, many students of English major at Phuong Dong University have troubles in dividing tone units in conversations, oral presentations, reports and even in reading aloud activity Recently, I have been in charge of two groups of pre-intermediate students in their second year and I have found that they have great difficulty in tone unit segmentation and often fail to make themselves understood, especially in natural speech Nonetheless, teachers as well as students do not realize the fundamental reasons for the situation They generally blame it on learners‟ low level of proficiency As a result, the same circumstance remains with the students in the coming terms when they‟re required to make longer and more eloquent speech Hence, it is time for Vietnamese teachers of English to concern about this significant aspect to work out suitable solutions to the learners‟ problems in tone unit dividing

II Aims of the study

As a matter of fact, the objective of teaching English in the global era is not all about traditional English grammar Educators now focus much on comprehensibility in social communication In addition, the communicative and discourse function of intonation has been remarkably highlighted (Celce-Murcia 1996; Jenkins 2004; Brazil 1985, 1997; Roach 2000, ext from Tao 2007) Therefore, the segmentation of intonation units, one of crucial factors deciding

the meaning of speech, turns out to be quite necessary in learning and teaching English Thus, I determine to investigate into my students‟ problem of improper tone unit segmenting and aim at working out some basic solutions to the problem Hence, this thesis is not only useful to my own Vietnamese students but also to whoever meet the same problems and share similar concern

III Scope of the study

As stated before, the research mainly concentrates on improper intonation unit segmentation problem, leading to speech incomprehensibility of pre-intermediate English majored students at Phuong Dong University Regarding the markers of tone unit segmenting, the study narrows down to pausing since it is linear and the most popular in the talk of the students

IV Methods of the study

With regard to the methodology, in the process of data collection, I used some instruments namely oral tests (conversations and reading aloud), questionnaires, interviews, observation of students‟ oral presentations, recording and note-taking Therefore, I mainly used qualitative method for data analysis and this is a survey research along with error analysis as I worked on the issues basing on the findings from questionnaires as well as interviews of six teachers and three groups of students (categorized according to level of proficiency) in two classes of 40 students, combining with the results of the observation, peer-evaluation and transcriptions Finally, from these particular data, I will work out the causes of difficulties and mistakes of Vietnamese students in tone unit segmenting and come up with relevant implications

V Design of the study

As for the design, the study comprises of three main parts:

First, the introduction clarifies the rationale, the aims, the scope, the method and the design of the study Second, the development includes two sections Section I reviews the previous studies on key concepts and theoretical background of tone units, tone unit segmentation

of the non-natives and claims two research questions Section II is the study, the first chapter of which presents the results of the survey, observation and transcripts as well as the discussion of the findings The second chapter proposes some basic solutions to the problems caused by

improper tone unit segmenting encountered by Phuong Dong pre-intermediate English learners Finally, the last part of the paper is the conclusion containing the summary of main arguments, the conclusion, the limitation of the study and some suggestions for further research

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

I LITERATURE REVIEW

In this part, I am going to mention the definition of tone unit; its components, characteristics and function in communication The research, therefore, will present a variety of views on tone unit‟s boundary and types of tone units in spontaneous speech Furthermore, tone unit choice is also driven by the interactive context which demands the involvement of discourse intonation and communicative function of tone units Last but not least, the rest of the section will review important grounding materials of some common tone unit segmenting problems experienced by non-native speakers

I.1 Definition of tone unit

I.1.1 Different terms denoting a tone unit

There are many names which are synonymous with the term „tone unit‟ Before actually defining the concept „tone unit‟, it might be useful to identify this prosodic stretch by mentioning the identical terms adopted by different experts following various approaches

It has long been recognized that spoken language organizes itself in segments of speech This segmented stretch mainly relates to tone or intonation, and has therefore been termed „tone group‟, „intonation group‟, „tone unit‟, „intonation(al) phrase‟, intonation unit‟, or the like ( e.g Beckman & Pierrehumbert 1986; Halliday 1989; Selkirk 1984; Chafe 1994; Cruttenden 1997; Brazil 1997; Hirst & Di Cristo 1998; Halliday 2004) Whatever terms or approach is taken, it seems that there is a wide consensus that the intonation unit encapsulates a functional, coherent segmental unit, be it syntactic, semantic and informational

In deed, in natural speech, utterances are produced in chunks This chunk has been identified variously as „tone unit‟, „breath group‟, „intonation group‟ and „intonation unit‟ The study adopts the term „tone unit‟ (Crystal, 1969) because it reveals the internal structure of the segment

As regards the markers of tone units, this utterance chunk is often accompanied by prosodic features, such as initial pitch reset, final vowel lengthening, initial or post pauses, and steady declination in pitch over time (Cruttenden 1997, Hirst&Di Cristo 1998)

I.1.2 Concept of tone unit and its phonological components

According to Chafe (1987), a tone unit is a prosodic unit in natural discourse, which is defined as any speech segment that falls into a single coherent contour, and is sometimes separated by pauses at the beginning and the end In addition, as for Timkova‟s explanation (2001), phonologically, each tone unit comprises only one nucleus, the most prominent syllable

of the individual tone groups And stress placement plays the most important role in the development of the melody contours

For example, the expression: //Give him a hand with that// is a good illustration of a complete melody contour “hand” is the head or the most prominent syllable of this tone unit

marked by two slashes // at the two ends

(http://www.ling.ohio-state.edu/research/phonetics/E_ToBI/ToBI/ToBI.2.html)

Alharbi(2004) when denoting the internal criteria of a tone unit, supposed that “each intonation group is made up minimally of a syllable, which carries a pitch movement of some sort (a glide or a jump)” The active change of pitch, which is referred to by Crystal as 'nucleus' and by Halliday as „tonic,‟ is a mandatory element of an intonation group The presence of the nucleus is identified on two grounds Physically, the nucleus takes the form of an observable change of fundamental frequency (pitch), i.e., the change in the rate of vibration of the vocal cords Functionally, in each intonation group there is one and only one peak of prominence in the form of a major pitch change In Brazil‟s view point, each tone unit has either one or two syllables that a hearer can recognize as being in some sense more emphatic than others…He added: “ At first sight, the distribution of prominent syllables is determined by the lexis and grammar of the utterance” After that, from the analysis of recorded samples, he pointed out that

“the speaker has a freedom to vary the number of prominent syllables.”(1997:7-8)

For example, the passage below shows the freedom of choosing prominent syllables without much consideration of grammar or lexical basis:

//we HAVE to reMEMber//THAT//they‟re reQUIRED/by adMINistrative PRACtice//to TAKE these deCISions//on PAper//AND//MOST OFten// when they GET these decision//on WRONG//it‟s beCAUSE// they HAVEn‟t had the opporTUNity//of TALKing//FACE to FACE//WITH the CLAIMant//and REALly FINDing//the FACTS// (Brazil 1997, 8)

Tench( 1996) gave his definition of neutral tonality or tone unit system To him, each neutral tone unit “contains one piece of information-as the speaker perceives it…the subject represents the theme-what the message is about; the predicate represents the rheme-what the

message actually is.” For instance, the syntax of : //A dog is a man’s best friend// : tells us what the theme is, i.e the subject of the clause, a dog; and then tells what the actual message is, i.e the predicate, is a man’s best friend( the „rhemme‟) ( Tench 1996, 32) He also commented: “the

concept…is a very useful starting-point It embraces a very important point: the functional equivalence of intonation unit, clause and unit of information, linking up phonology with grammar and semantics.”

Furthermore, in many other researches, it is a common consensus that tone unit is the smallest block of meaningful speech, which is comparable to smallest syntactic units Therefore, tone units have both syntactic and functional structures Iwasaki (1993), a Japanese researcher,

drew attention to the multi-faces of tone units Now that syntactically, tone units may correspond

to a clause, phrase, or lexical item Functionally, they express ideational content, textural coherence, interpersonal concerns, and other aspects of communication

I.1.3 Grammatical and contextual characteristics of tone unit

I.1.3.1 Grammatical aspect of tone units

According to Brazil (1997), tone unit segmenting is first decided with a view to grammatical basis In deed, many studies which investigated the relation between grammar or syntax and tone unit concluded that the preliminary foundation of tone unit was its structure or grammatical characteristics marked by punctuation or syntactical boundary in written form and

by pauses and other phonological realizations in spoken form

Tench( 1996) proposed a quite sufficient background of tone units with reference to

different linguistic characteristics Cases of tone unit segmenting presented in his book: “The

Intonation Systems of English” were classified according to information value and linguistic

features Most of these linguistic means of dividing tone units were linguistic functions of the units within the discourse For examples, tone units may be quite short in case of lists, tags, apposition, adjuncts…and quite long in case of main clauses

Also, about the tone unit boundary, many research findings show that clauses are most basic and popular unit associating with tone units Halliday (1989) whose work has had a significant impact on wide linguistic circles promoted the use of the clause as the basic unit of spoken language Also, in a well-known paper, Chafe (1987: 38) concluded: “The clause appears

to be the prototypical intonation unit type, from which most other types are derived, or are derivations” From Chafe‟s findings, clauses and substantive tone units coincide by 60% (Chafe 1994), the question was raised concerning the centrality of the clause in the study of spoken language Several studies took a similar path of exploration, basing on the premise that the tone unit is the basic unit of conversational language, checking the constituency of tone units in terms

of clauses and NPs and mapping clauses into tone units These studies covered a range of languages: English; Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Finish, Wardaman (Australian), Sasak (Western Astronesian) (Iwasaki & Tao 1993; Croft 1995; Tao 1996; Helasvuo 2001; Matsumoto 2003; Croft 2005) It seems that most authors are happy with the notion of clause as a valid category for the study of spontaneous, conversational language, either in its most expanded

structure or in a reduced form, such as the predicate and its core arguments (Croft 1995; 2005; Helasvuo 2001; cf Du Bois 1987 for the strategy of preferred argument structure) Tench (1996) reviewed from Tench(1990:41-43) and Quirk( 1964) that in one count, 916 tone units, out of 1,880 in the whole data, correspond to complete clauses-almost over 50 percent

On the other hand, having worked on the data whose subjects were Asian speakers, Tao and Iwasaki (1993) have found that natural speeches of Mandarin and Japanese speakers of English contained a relatively large number of tone units consisting of Noun Phrases Furthermore, from many thorough researches, Tench (1996) gave a full picture of those cases where intonation do not coincide with whole clauses by defining the concept: “marked tonality”

as any case that does not correspond to neutral tonality, occurs either when two (or more) clauses fit into a single tone unit, or when-and this is much more frequently the case-two (or more) tone units are needed to cover a single clause

I.1.3.2 Contextual aspect of tone units

In theory, tone unit is defined mechanically according to its structure or functions However, in natural continuous speech, tone units are manageable chunks, which have a lot of variables influenced considerably by the context among speakers and listeners The factors of context can be the shared knowledge, the new information, the intention, the background and even the relation of the interlocutors within the surrounding environment Therefore, tone unit would not be fully recognized without considering its contextual basis According to Brazil (1994), each tone unit represents a further increment of shared contextual understanding along the stream of speech and embodies moment-by-moment and ongoing functional choices regarding that language deemed most salient In other words, tone unit division depends much on the grammatical, phonological foundation and finally decided by the contextual facet of the interactive speech The choice of tone units as phrases, clauses, sentences or smaller units reflects the given or new information, the environment and the characteristics of the interlocutors rather than driven by forms, structures and punctuations This is termed context-specific choices (Brazil, 1994)

A concluding remark

From the above definitions and analysis, a tone unit can be understood as a smallest meaningful block of speech, the basic prosodic-syntactical unit of language in its spoken medium

(Amir, Varod & Izre‟el, nd) Syntactically, it may be equivalent to a contextually pmeaningful lexical item, phrase or clause which in turn communicates an event or a meaning Even though most researchers approved that clause was the most frequent unit associated with tone unit, the choices of clauses or phrases as tone unit segments can be variable depending on the interlocutors‟ characteristics and their intention

I.2 Kinds of tone units

There are some kinds of tone units which are considered to be the basic units of discourse Chafe (1994) distinguishes between fragmentary, substantive, and regulatory tone units Fragmentary tone units are those that have not come to a successful end Fragmentary units are precisely that: false starts or units cut off by another speaker Substantive tone units are those that convey ideas and events, states or referents It is in substantive intonation units that the role

of consciousness is most apparent in that the cognitive processes that mark givenness, newness and accessibility have their domain (Chafe 1994, pp 63-64) Regulatory tone units are those whose function is the regulation of information flow or interaction between speakers Regulatory units are of four types: (a) textual, e.g., “and then” and “well”; (b) interactional, e.g., “mhm” and

“you know”; (c) cognitive, e.g., “let me see,” and “oh”; and (d) validational, e.g., “maybe” and “I think”… Broderick (2001)

Broderick (2001) gave us some examples from his transcriptions:

Fragmentary Tone Unit , Regulatory ToneUnit, Substantive Tone Unit

a 0:02.6 Wéll.( Regulatory)

b 0:02.7 I‟ve got twò things plánned for you.(substantive)

c 0:04.8 this mórning,

d 0:05.4 .(0.3) Úm -(fragmentary)

e 0:06.2 (0.5) While we are wàiting for the óthers,

f 0:08.0 in càse they dó come,

g 0:09.0 tell me whàt you‟re going to do this wéekend

h 0:10.5 …(3.0) It‟s alrèady stárting now

j 0:15.0 .(1.0) Wátcha gonna do,

k 0:16.8 (0.7) Do you have any pláns?

Likewise, according to some materials, for American English, three major categories of transitional continuity have been suggested via tone units, mainly suggesting interaction between the interlocutors: terminal, continuing and appeal These are categorized in terms of discourse structure and information structure

Tench (1996) clarifies two main types of tone units which are neutral tone units and marked tone units A neutral tone unit is equivalent to a clause, expressing a complete piece of information while a marked tone unit is smaller or bigger than a clause, expressing a special intention of the speaker

For example (Tench 1996, 34-40):

Neutral tone units: //I am going into town this morning//

Marked tone units: //I am going into town// this morning//

//The man dressed in black//(then stood up)

//The man//dressed in black//(then stood up)

And as mentioned before, the major perceptual and acoustic cues of boundary recognition for realizing these types of tone units are: final lengthening, initial rush, pitch reset and pause ( Cruttenden 1997, Hirst&Di Cristo 1998)

I.3 Communicative function of tone units

Discussing the communicative functions of tone unit, Joseph Sung Park from the University of California (2000) proposed that tone unit could be used as an interactional resource, which participants used in meeting their interactional needs Similarly, Ford, Fox and Thompson (1996) and Selting (2000) showed that tone units played a crucial role in turn-taking in conversation by projecting turn completion through prosody Brazil‟s study of tone unit also emphasized the communicative value of tone unit as he pointed out that each tone unit in the stream of speech was the understanding and communicative choices of interlocutors within shared context timed moment by moment, without being fixed by factors of grammar or formulaic patterns (Brazil 1997)

Providing us with a good illustration, Brown (1977: 88), observed that the difference between restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses which denote the new and old information may be marked by tone group division in slow, formal speech

Pike (1972: 56) stated the communicative importance of intonation very vividly in the following words:

Actually, we often react more violently to the intonational meanings than to the lexical ones; if a man’s tone of voice belies his words, we immediately assume that the intonation more faithfully reflects his true linguistic intentions

Also commenting on the communicative importance of intonation and tone units, Gimson

(1980: 264) described changes in intonation as “the most efficient means of rendering prominent

for a listener, those parts of an utterance on which the speaker wishes to concentrate attention”

I.4 Non-native learners’ problems with tone unit segmentation

For non-native speakers, intonation is a great challenge as they are not familiar with the intonational system and partially because they do not have many chances to communicate with the natives This is also because of transference of the mother tongue (Timkova‟(2000)) Therefore, when cross-cultural communication occurs, they often fail to gain success For example, the Slovak learners sound monotonous and produce very long utterance without any turn of intonation As regards Asian speakers like the Thai, Japanese and Chinese, their misuse of tone unit cause them a lot of problems According to Tao( 2007), local learners of medium level face huge difficulty in dividing tone units, which leads to misunderstanding and communication failure since what they say are not comprehensible to listeners For instance, Chinese learners use phrasal tone units more often and they pause too frequently and do not pause at appropriate junctures For example: I was speaking to//him on the//phone yesterday In deed, Gilbert (1987) showed that pausing in different places could make a change in meaning as it caused ambiguity:

Ex: Who is stupid?

1 Afred said//the boss is stupid

2 Afred//said the boss//is stupid

Not surprisingly, the intonation of non-native English poses serious intelligibility problems to native speakers of the language, as reported by Tiffen (1974) on Nigerian English and Bansal (1976) on Indian English Bansal(1976) reveals the misuse of sentence stress and intonation in Indian English:

“The sentence stress in Indian English is not always in accordance with the normal RP

pattern and the characteristic rhythm is not maintained The division of speech into sense groups and tone groups is sometimes faulty, and pauses are made at wrong places The

location of the intonation nucleus is not always at the place where it would be in normal English The rising tone sometimes used at the end of statements must sound unusual to the RP-speaking listeners”

Furthermore, the above researchers have found that the reasons behind this inappropriateness of tone unit segmenting are learners‟ low level and the lack of materials and official researches about the area Atoye (2004), while reviewing researches on intonation problems of Nigerian speakers of English, came to a concluding remark that, intonation-a part of supra-segmental features is exclusive from English classroom and scientific research Tao (2007) and Atoye(2004) also criticized the application of structural English teaching methods instead of communicative ones in giving lectures on phonology Wang (2003) stated that the difficulties of Chinese students in intonation acquisition were worsened by the thought that intonation was not

as practical as writing and reading because learners only communicated in English classroom In addition, Wang found that the teaching materials and teachers‟ knowledge of intonation were not sufficient for delivering intonational lessons

Likewise, a lot of Vietnamese learners of English encounter the same problems However, there is a lack of practical implications to solve these students‟ comprehensible problem caused

by improper tone unit segmentation Thus, this study is carried out to find the answer to two research questions:

1 Is there a relation between Phuong Dong pre-intermediate students’ improper tone unit segmenting and their speech incomprehensibility?

2 What are the solutions to the targeted students’ problem of improper tone unit segmenting in order to improve their speech comprehensibility?

II THE STUDY

This part describes the context of the study, reveals the data collection procedure as well as the results of data analysis process, which identifies the students‟ incomprehensibility problem caused by improper tone unit segmenting Then, the causes of students‟ improper tone unit

segmentation are investigated Finally, it proposes some practical solutions to the matters basing

on the findings of the study

CHAPTER 1 INVESTIGATING STUDENTS’ PROBLEM OF SPEECH INCOMPREHENSIBILITY IN

RELATION TO IMPROPER TONE UNIT SEGMENTING

1.1 CONTEXT OF THE STUDY

The research was carried out in a non-native English environment where students hardly had chances to communicate with native speakers to adopt a native-like intonation However, pronunciation, since 2008, has been paid much attention to and started as an independent course

besides other courses on speaking skills in our English department The students participated in the study were of pre-intermediate level of English proficiency and they were quite active and interested in speaking English though their intonation was not always intelligible to listeners Partly because students had problem with pausing in speech, due to the lack of intercultural interaction and some other causes, students did not realize the problems, so they could not find feasible measures to deal with their difficulties Hence, the investigation into these Vietnamese students‟ incomprehensible speech problem relating to tone unit segmentation and causes of improper tone unit segmenting, marked by pauses, is really necessary and useful to improve their communicative competence, which is the ultimate objective of our English course

1.2 DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURE

is hardly focused These students are categorized into 3 groups based on their marks

Due to the small scope of the research, only six teachers get involved in the survey They are teachers of English responsible for giving lessons on four basic skills to the targeted students

Of these 6 teachers, one is male and five are female Three of them have MA degree

1.2.2 The instruments

1.2.2.1 Oral test

The first instrument of the research is oral tests (with reading aloud activity), during which the students were working in pairs to make conversations and small talks Finally, one student read aloud a passage and the other translated into Vietnamese the main ideas of the reading Two examiners took note and gave assessment

1.2.2.2 Transcription and peer-evaluation of oral presentations

Another instrument is observation of students‟ presentations through oral assignment and group-work Various topics were distributed randomly to the students and they were required to

make at least a 5 –minute talk in groups of four Teachers recorded, took notes and other students

in the audiences gave comments, questions and feedback on peer evaluation sheets The sheets

were collected at the end of the lesson as valuable data for the research

1.2.2.3 Questionnaires and interviews

As mentioned in the introduction, the main method applied is a survey with questionnaires delivered to students and teachers Most of the questions were formatted to enable the teachers and students to express their own view The questionnaire designed for the teachers consists of 7 questions It aims at seeking information on the teaching method, materials for English speaking skill development, their observation and opinions on the relation between students‟ tone unit segmentation and speech comprehensibility and especially, their suggestions

to deal with the problems in the teaching-learning process The questions were emailed to teachers to ensure that they had time to think and these teachers were then interviewed for further information after they returned the questionnaire

The questionnaire for students also consists of 8 questions, which served as a tool for investigation into students‟ speaking opportunities, their perception of their problems in tone unit segmenting as well as their expectation in terms of making comprehensible speech in English Students of the two classes are categorized into three groups basing on the results of the first year In order to give time for these students to answer the question, one period (45 minutes) is spent on this activity The questionnaires for three groups of students were specially marked for the purpose of sorting out the replies later Furthermore, some volunteers were then invited for after-class interview

1.3 DATA ANALYSIS

1.3.1 Identifying the relation between students’ incomprehensible speech and their

improper tone unit segmenting

Findings from oral tests, peer-evaluation sheets and transcripts of students’

conversations and talks

According to teachers‟ notes of the oral test, peer-evaluation sheets and the transcripts, there was a big difference in terms of tone unit segmentation between reading activity and natural speech like conversations and presentations For conversations and oral presentations, students

paused more often and caused more misunderstanding Clauses were popular for reading aloud yet phrases and shorter fragments were used in conversations and especially small talks

With regard to class activities without preparation, more incomprehensible speeches were found as students had to think and express new ideas at the same time For these activities, students often paused inappropriately and then had to repeat when they found the audiences could not understand them The habit of repetition was not good since more explanation sometimes made the matters complicated and less interesting

Here are some examples from transcriptions of oral test and oral presentations:

S: “//In regard to the problem of environment pollution //should be considered// very seriously because of its effect//, that is the environmental //pollution// or polluted environment…”

The first tone unit should have been finished after the word “environment” in stead of after “pollution”

Other cases when students had to repeat to make their speech understood:

S:…… “//I love// my father most Of all members// in my neighbourhood and relatives,//

he is tallest, most educational// and richest.// However, he is kind-hearted,// calm// and modest//

I mean he is tallest//, richest and best in comparison with //other people around // I love him most………

S:………“//Thanks to computer revolution,// our life seem// more comfortable //and less

stressful for computers //can do for us many things.// Yes, we are less stressful// or under less

For example: in group-work conversations or presentations, students spoke in Vietnamese

to explain what they failed to speak clearly in English:

“//When living// in the city,// many disadvantages// appear to be honest I// do not like

living there// much.// tức là thật ra không thích thôi”

Other illustrations are:

“//Although anti-social crimes are increasing available// punishment by government// is

not proved to be// effective enough.// những hình phạt đang dùng thì không hiệu quả lắm

Therefore, public concern// for this matter is more serious// dân tình thực sự thấy lo ngại…

“//Many people think that// being famous brings about// many disadvantageous To me,//

I think this view// is not fair because many famous people// are happy and rich.// theo quan điểm của riêng tớ thì tớ không thấy như vậy, tớ có thể đưa ra dẫn chứng…

In general, a lot of students had problems with pauses in dividing speech and some of them used Vietnamese or repeated what had been said to make clear Hence, regardless of other factors, improper pauses might one of the causes leading to students‟ incomprehensibility and then they had to resort to repetition and mother tongue for clarification

Findings from of the first part of the questionnaires and interviews

Students’ first two questions:

According to the answers of the first question for students, two thirds of the students (30/40) asked admitted that their audience often or sometimes found their speech

incomprehensible

Chart 1: Difficulties the audience had in understanding the speaker

Source: Question 1 for students

Similarly, basing on the reply to question 2-misunderstanding of partners’ saying, among

these students, 75% stated that they often or occasionally misunderstood partners‟ questions and answers

Chart 2: Listeners’ misunderstanding their partners’ speech by frequency

Source: Question 2 for students

Moreover, when being interviewed about the reasons for such problem, most students said that incomprehensible speech could be resulted from the fact that the presenters did not really understand what they intended to speak or they just read from slides so quickly without caring about their pauses

Teachers’ first three questions

As for teachers‟ answers to the first question concerning their dissatisfaction about students‟ speeches, almost all of the teachers (5/6) dissatisfied with their student‟s comprehensibility even though nearly all of them (5/6), when being interviewed later, found most satisfied with students‟ presentation content submitted in hard copies The interviews also reveal that the teachers often gave better marks at the beginning and then made some adjustments at the end of the speaking tasks since they usually found it hard to understand the examples or analysis given by the students during their talks At this stage, students concentrated on the expression of ideas without paying much attention to the way they were speaking or pausing

Always 0%

Often 50%

Sometimes 25%

Rarely 15%

Other 10%

Therefore, for question 2 asking teachers to judge how much the audience understand the speakers‟ speech, nearly half of these teachers (40%) chose “a little”, 30% chose “almost none” and the rest of them(30%) chose “some” None of them supposed that the listeners understood “a lot” of the speech

Chart 3: Teachers’ judgment on the audiences’ understanding of speakers’ speech

Source: Question 2 for teachers

Additionally, as observed from table 1 below, considering the replies of teachers for question 3 asking why students made intelligible speech, more than half of them agreed that most

of the audience had difficulties in understanding the speech and supposed that speakers‟ inappropriate pause might be one of the major causes

Table 1: Possible reasons for incomprehensible speech on the speaker’s part

Possible reasons for incomprehensible speech Number of choice (of teachers)

Speakers did not really understand the content 3