An Investigation into Non-English Major Students’ Attitudes towards English Native Speakers’ and Non-Native Speakers’ Accents: An Example at Spark English Center

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES ---***--- NGUYỄN THỊ QUỲNH TRANG AN INVESTIGATION INTO NON-ENGLIS

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

DEPARTMENT OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES

-*** -

NGUYỄN THỊ QUỲNH TRANG

AN INVESTIGATION INTO NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS ENGLISH NATIVE SPEAKERS’ AND

NON-NATIVE SPEAKERS’ ACCENTS:

AN EXAMPLE AT SPARK ENGLISH CENTER

NGHIÊN CỨU THÁI ĐỘ CỦA SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN TIẾNG

ANH VỚI GIỌNG BẢN NGỮ VÀ PHI BẢN NGỮ:

MỘT VÍ DỤ CỤ THỂ TẠI TRUNG TÂM ANH NGỮ SPARK

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

HANOI – 2015

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

DEPARTMENT OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES

-*** -

NGUYỄN THỊ QUỲNH TRANG

AN INVESTIGATION INTO NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS ENGLISH NATIVE SPEAKERS’ AND

NON-NATIVE SPEAKERS’ ACCENTS:

AN EXAMPLE AT SPARK ENGLISH CENTER

NGHIÊN CỨU THÁI ĐỘ CỦA SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN TIẾNG

ANH VỚI GIỌNG BẢN NGỮ VÀ PHI BẢN NGỮ:

MỘT VÍ DỤ CỤ THỂ TẠI TRUNG TÂM ANH NGỮ SPARK

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Prof Dr Nguyễn Quang

HANOI – 2015

DECLARATIONS

I - Nguyễn Thị Quỳnh Trang - hereby declare that the thesis entitled “An investigation into non-English major students’ attitudes towards English native speakers’ and non-native speakers’ accents: An example at Spark English Center” is the result of my own research in the fulfillment of the

requirement for the Degree of Master of Arts at Faculty of Post Graduate Studies - University of Languages and International Studies, VNU, Hanoi and this thesis has not been submitted for any degree at any other university or

institution

Nguyễn Thị Quỳnh Trang

Hanoi, September 2015

ABSTRACT This study investigates the attitudes of non-English major students towards English native speakers’ and non-native speakers’ accents The participants are 60 Vietnamese non-English major students who are studying English at Spark English Center, Hanoi The results reveal that: (1) students are mostly able to identify the native and non-native accents However, they are not very good at recognize each variety of English; (2) the students generally rate the native accents higher than non-native ones The British English seems to be the most favourite among all the accents Remarkably, Philippine English is also highly valued; and (3) the students have positive attitudes to both native and non-native models of English

ABBREVIATIONS

AmE: American English

BrE: British English

GA: General American

InE: Indian English

JaE: Japanese-accented English

NS: Native speaker

NNS: Non-native speaker

PhE: Philippine English

SEC: Spark English Center

RP: Received Pronunciation

ViE: Vietnamese-accented English

LIST OF TABLES

Page

Table 1 Distinguishing native and non-native speakers 22

Table 2 Guessing the nationality of the speakers 23

Table 3 Mean ratings (and standard deviations) of six speakers on five traits 24

Table 4 Mean ratings of all five traits 25

Table 5 Statistics of Native speakers and Non-native speakers on five traits 25

Table 6 Independent samples t-test: Comparison between Native speakers and Non-native speakers for five traits 26

Table 7 Mean ratings and standard deviations of six speakers as models of English 27

Table 8 Statistics of Native speakers and Non-native speakers as models of English 27

Table 9 Independent samples t-test: Comparison between Native speakers and Non-native speakers for a model of English 28

Table 10 Mean ratings for Statements on the NS model of English 28

Table 11 Mean ratings for Statements on the NNS model of English 28

LIST OF FIGURES

Page

Figure 1 Kachru’s categorization of countries in which English is used 8

(from Crystal, 1997: 54) 8

Figure 2 Participants’ agreement with statement 1 29

Figure 3 Participants’ agreement with statement 2 30

Figure 4 Participants’ agreement with statement 3 31

Figure 5 Participants’ agreement with statement 4 31

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

DECLARATIONS i

ABSTRACT ii

ABBREVIATIONS iii

LIST OF TABLES iv

LIST OF FIGURES v

TABLE OF CONTENTS vi

PART A INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims and objectives of the study 3

3 Research questions 3

4 Scope of the study 3

5 Method of the study 3

6 Significance of the study 4

7 Design of the study 4

PART B DEVELOPMENT 6

CHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEW 6

1.1 What is accent? 6

1.2 Varieties of English accent 7

1.2.1 English native speakers’ accents 8

1.2.2 English non-native speakers’ accents 9

1.3 Attitudes towards accents of English 10

1.3.1 Language attitudes 10

1.3.2 Studies on attitudes towards accents of English 12

CHAPTER 2 METHODOLOGY 16

2.1 Restatement of research questions 16

2.2 Research approach 16

2.3 Context of the study 16

2.3.1 Setting of the study 16

2.3.2 Participants 17

2.4 Research materials 18

2.5 Data collection procedure 20

2.6 Methods of data analysis 20

3.1 Results 22

3.1.1 Part A: The verbal guise test 22

3.1.2 Part B: Statements with a five-point Likert scale 28

3.2 Discussion 32

3.2.1 Research question 1: How is the ability of the SEC non-English major students to identify the speakers’ accents? 32

3.2.2 Research question 2: How do the SEC non-English major students rate the varieties of native and non-native accents? 33

3.2.3 Research question 3: How do the SEC non- English major students think about NS and NNS models? 35

PART C CONCLUSION 36

1 Overall findings 36

2 Limitations of the study 37

3 Suggestions for further studies 37

REFERENCES 38 APPENDIX A – QUESTIONNAIRE I

PART A INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Nowadays, numerous studies and journals have found the paramount importance of students’ attitudes in foreign language learning and their learning achievement Students’ attitudes is considered as one of the key factors in motivating the learners to learn the language Positive attitude could facilitate language learning while negative attitude may hinder it Consequently, it is worth doing research on students’ attitudes and factors affecting such attitudes in order to enhance their learning success and achievement when teaching a foreign language

Moreover, it is undoubtful to find the importance of pronunciation in learning English When people communicate, they can use simple words, simple grammar structures, but there is no such a thing as “simple pronunciation” Good pronunciation is one of the first things that someone learns in English However, that is also one of the most difficult problems facing non-native speakers of English In relation to teaching and learning English pronunciation, questions about models for pronunciation have been raised Many non-native speakers worry about their accents when they speak English According to Anastasia Koltai (2013), many people feel that having

a pronounced mother tongue accent may mark them out as being a non-native speaker, or “they worry that their natural accented English speech is unintelligible to others” Thus, they try to learn the accents that help them sound more native In Vietnam, people seem to take it for granted that they only learn American or British English In students’ minds, American or British English have been considered to be authentic and these accents help to sound native as well as best aid them in English learning There is a story in the researcher’s pronunciation class When she asked her students which

English accent they wanted to learn, all of them chose between American and British accent However, having been asked what they knew about American

or British accent, why they liked and wanted to learn those accents, many of them could not give the teacher their answers They chose those accents just because they heard about them, they found most of English learners wanted to sound like British or American people, and the students thought those two accents were the ideal ones in learning English However, there are still many kinds of English native speakers’ accents Moreover, non-native speakers’ and local accents have also been promoted in recent literature (Kyle McGee, 2009) Thus, the researcher wonders if the students still like the ones that they chose when they have a chance to know other accents

Furthermore, there has not been any research on non-English major students’ attitudes towards English native speakers’ and non-native speakers’ accents Unlike English major students, non-English major ones do not have much knowledge about English varieties of accents The researcher would like to do a research on their attitudes to find out more about their understanding, reactions and feelings Thus, the reseacher chooses her working place – Spark English Center to be an example for the reseach in Vietnam

To conclude, the study proceeds from three main reasons, the first lies

in the decisive role of students’ attitudes in their learning success and achievement Next, among the issues in teaching and learning English pronunciation are the models for pronunciation The researcher wants to let her students have a chance to know more about English native speakers’ and non-native speakers’ accents, then sheds light on their attitudes to those different varieties of English Lastly, the researcher has found that there has not been any research on students’ attitudes towards English native speakers’ and non-native speakers’ accents at any training institutions

2 Aims and objectives of the study

The main purpose of the study is to investigate the attitudes of English major students towards English native speakers’ and non-native speakers’ accents

non-With the above aim, the objectives of this study are to:

- Test students’ accent perception ability

- Assess students’ reactions to varieties of English native and non-native accents

- Examine how students think about NS and NNS models

4 Scope of the study

The study is conducted at SEC, Hanoi Because of limited time, it only focuses on the attitudes of non-English major students towards English native speakers’ and non-native speakers’ accents The participants are students from classes at SEC

5 Method of the study

The study is carried out by some steps as follows:

First, the survey questionnaire for students is employed to find out students’ accent perception ability, reactions to varieties of native and non-native accents

Then, the data are collected, sorted and analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively to obtain realistic results

To end with, the discussion and implication will be given based on the results found from the data

6 Significance of the study

The study has been conducted with the expectation that the findings will help teachers and educators have a closer look at the need and taste of students when learning English When finding the students’ degree of awareness of varieties of English, the kind of accent they want to learn or find easy to understand, English teachers can give their students the suitable or favourite materials, which makes them have more interest when learning Exploring the students’ perceptions and opinions of different accents also helps teachers guide their students towards the specific goals The students through the learning process may choose the target accents which they like the best Then the proper materials could be used further to help students obtain these specific accents Moreover, the centers or schools can find some improvement for their teaching course books to offer different English varieties

7 Design of the study

The study consists of three main parts:

Part A, Introduction, presents the rationale of the study, the aim and objectives, the research questions, the significance, the scope, the method and the design of the study

Part B is Development that includes three chapters:

Chapter 1, Literature Review, gives an overview of previous studies on accents, discussing varieties of English and reporting work on attitudes towards accents of English

Chapter 2 is Methodology, which restates the research questions,

presents the research approach, describes the setting of the study and the participants Moreover, this chapter shows how the researcher applies the data collection instrument and her procedure of conducting the study The researcher also presents the methods to study and analyze the information collected

Chapter 3 is Results and Discussion, in which the researcher reports the main findings and discusses them in relation to previous studies

Part C is Conclusion, which summarizes all findings explored and brings out useful suggestions for the teachers to find the suitable accents to interest the non-English major students when learning English The limitations of the study and suggestions for further studies are also included in this part

PART B DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter aims to provide a theoretical basis for the study by a review of the relevant language attitude studies At first, there is a brief introduction of the concepts related to accent, varieties of English accents and language attitude studies After that, the previous studies on attitudes towards native and non-native accents are examined both in and out Vietnam

1.1 What is accent?

As defined in the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, an accent is a

“way of speaking typical of a particular group of people and especially of the natives or residents of a region” According to that, an accent is the indication

of a person’s way of speaking and is a manifest feature of speech This feature helps to determine the similarities and differences in speech between speakers

Becker (1995: 37), in terms of sociolinguistics, defines “An accent is the part of a person’s language that serves to identify the speaker’s regional origin or national/ ethnic identity no matter what language the person is speaking” It can be inferred that an accent can define people and is a means

of pointing their speech community

According to Carter & Nunan (2001), as cited in Lam (2007), an accent

is a social and/ or regional variety of a language which differs from others in pronunciation

From the above definitions, it can be drawn that accent is the way that a person or large group of people which generally grouped by a nationality or specific area speak

Although an accent can be used as a fairly reliable predictor of a speaker’s origin, it can also carry pejorative stereotypes Abercrombie (1956: 42) argues in this issue: “Accent (…) is a word which, in its popular use,

carries a stigma: speaking without an accent is considered preferable to speaking with an accent (…) The popular, pejorative, use of the word begs an important question by its assumption that an accent is something which is added to, or in some other way distorts, an accepted norm.” According to this, English is more likely to be subjected to accented speech than any other language not only because of the significant number of its speakers in the world, but also by virtue of the varieties of its accents (American, British, Indian, French, etc.) This fact will be discussed more in the following part

1.2 Varieties of English accent

From the 17th to the 21st centuries, the number of English speakers has grown from 5-7 million to 1.5 to 2 billion (Jenkins, 2003) Since then, several models for the spread of English have been created to show the position of English in the world It is widely accepted that English is now the primary lingua franca, that is, “the language used to communicate among speakers of different native languages throughout the world” (Dauer, 2005) There are many varieties of English, and it has different kinds of foreign accent

The global spread of a simplified form of English was foreseen by Follick in 1914 (Daniel, 2000) Today, his vision has been enormously surpassed: English is used as the global language - spoken in all fields which require international contact and co-operation (Crystal, 1997: 8) The global spread of English has resulted in different varieties of English For grouping the varieties of English in the world, the well-known Kachru’s three-circle model of world Englishes (1985) should be applied:

Figure 1 Kachru’s categorization of countries in which English is used

(from Crystal, 1997: 54)

(a) The Inner Circle: where English is used as a native language, which refers to the language of those who speak English as a mother tongue in countries which are historically related to English such as America, Britain or Australia

(b) The Outer Circle: where English is used as a second language English is spoken by people whose countries were once colonized mainly by Britain or America such as India, Philippines or Singapore

(c) The Expanding Circle: where English is used as a foreign language

In these countries, English is not used as the main language for communication such as China, Japan or Germany

1.2.1 English native speakers’ accents

According to Kachru’s categorization, English native speakers are from countries in the Inner Circle where English is used as a native language Their

320 – 380 million

native accents are often regarded as standard accents The two prominent standard accents are Received Pronunciation and General American Received Pronunciation (RP) is an accent at the top of an accent prestige hierarchy in Britain (Edwards, 1982) Wakelin (1977: 5) points its high position as a learning model, commenting that this accent is “usually associated with a higher social and educational background”, at least in the

UK It is also argued by Steward, Ryan and Giles (1985) that RP is the prestige accent not only in the UK, but also throughout the Anglophone world Along with RP, General American (GA) is one of the two best-described accents of English It is the prestige accent in America Though these two accents are regional ones, they are used over a wide geographical area They are not just the accents which are associated with a small area, but are used by people in many countries These accents are also the ones transcribed in dictionaries, and well-known all over the world Thus, they are seen as being suitable to teach to foreign learners of English They become the ideal models for many people from countries when learning English

1.2.2 English non-native speakers’ accents

Traditionally, native English speakers in the Kachru’s “Inner Circle” are considered to be the first, standard-providing users of the language However, this perception may not explain properly for the massive numbers

of non-native English users worldwide the impact these speakers may have toward spreading linguistic change within the language

Non-native speakers can be separated into two groups basing on Kachru’s categorization The first group is “Outer Circle” English in the countries of this circle is an institutionalized or historical language of the government or other national entity or class, for example India and other former British colonies (Kachru, 1982) The second group is “Expanding Circle”, the outermost of the Three Concentric Circles This circle includes

speakers from countries such as China, Russia, Japan, and many of Europe Moreover, as suggested by the circle’s name, it includes a rapidly increasing number of other countries where English is widespread in the media, and is a required foreign language that students have to learn when reaching secondary school

Non-native speaking populations make an incredible change about the usage of English as a world language Thus, non-native speakers’ accents are also examined more and more by many researchers According to the Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics of Crystal (1997: 3), a non-native accent is characterized as: “The cumulative auditory effect of those features

of pronunciation which identify where a person is from, regionally or socially” In this sense, a non-native accent is a perceivable unit which is noticeably differentiated from the native speaker’s way of speaking

This study will focus on both native and non-native accents of English and find out the attitudes of students towards these two kinds of accent

1.3 Attitudes towards accents of English

1.3.1 Language attitudes

Attitudes could be viewed as a tendency to respond positively or negatively towards a certain thing, idea, person, situation, etc Gardner (1995) defines attitudes as “an evaluative reaction to some referent, inferred on the basis of the individual’s beliefs or opinions about the referent” The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2001) defined attitudes as “opinions and feelings that you usually have about something” In social psychology, the concept “attitudes” has a great meaning According to Lambert (1967),

“attitude has cognitive, affective and conative components and consists of an underlying psychological predisposition to act or to influence behaviors in a certain way Attitude is linked to a person's values and beliefs and promotes

or discourages the choices made in all realms of activity, whether academic or

informal” Thus, attitudes could highly influence how individuals approach many situations in life, including foreign language learning

Crystal (1992) defines language attitudes as the feelings people have about their own language or the language of others It is essential to study language attitudes because of its substantial power On one hand, language attitudes have an influence on the development of languages As Crismore (1996) says, positive language attitudes contribute to the acceptance and growth of language variations in a speech community and it improves literacy levels On the other hand, behaviors can be influenced by attitudes (Lambert, 1967)

As argued by Episcopo (2009: 9), research on language attitudes presents several quantifiable difficulties, and designing a study that reveals precise data can be problematic First, it is nearly impossible to construct a study that is naturally interactive and conversational between subjects when there is only researcher observation or mono-directional communication Second, language attitudes are based upon numerous factors such as appearance, ethnic affiliation, cultural and social context, sociological and ethnographic background, pragmatic cues, and many others Accordingly, it is hard to evaluate one of these variables without considering all of the others Third, because of the social stereotypes and prejudices, attitudes are also uncomfortable for subjects to discuss In spite of its various methodological difficulties, the qualitative data retrieved from language attitude studies reveal interesting generalizations about a speech community’s standards and expectations

In this study, attitude is defined as awareness, reactions and opinions that non-English major students at SEC have towards varieties of English accents The researcher tries to minimize the limitation of a research about language attitudes and adapts the verbal guise technique and questionnaire to

measure participants’ attitudes most effectively

1.3.2 Studies on attitudes towards accents of English

From the first studies of Lambert and his colleagues (1967, 1960), there have been more and more studies about language attitudes, especially on the measurement of language attitudes toward varieties of English This study will mainly concentrate on reviewing the pieces of research on non-native speakers’ attitudes towards varieties of English, as the subjects on the research are Vietnamese, who are non-native ones

Alford and Strother (1990) conducted a study to capture native and non-native students’ attitudes towards regional U.S accents They showed that non-native speakers were able to detect differences between the accents, which was contradictory to research by Scales et al (2006) and Mousssu (2010), who demonstrated that English learners had difficulty in distinguishing between native and non-native accents

A study by Dalton-Puffer, Kaltenboeck, and Smit (1997) analyzed Austrian’s attitudes to varieties of English This research examined whether the varieties of English spoken influenced subjects’ judgements of accented speech, as well as analyzed how participants judged different English accents The findings clearly revealed that non-native speakers were rated lower than native speakers More specifically, preference was indicated for standard accents (particularly RP) with the Austrian accents judged to be of low status Participants also showed strong ability in identifying the country of the speakers Researchers linked the preference for the RP accent with its common use as the model for Austrian students when learning English

The study of Ladegaard (1998) which investigated the attitudes of 96 secondary and university students in Denmark showed similar results Five accents were examined including RP, GA, Cockney, General Australian, and Scottish Standard English The RP accent was selected as the most prestigious

and favoured choice as a model Students found RP and GA accents the easiest to identify

In a quantitative study by Mugler (2002), non-native speakers’ attitudes towards four different accents of English were investigated The participants were ESL learners from Fiji and other Pacific nations The findings of this study revealed that respondents only rated highly the British English accent

on status On the other hand, American English was shown to be one of the most easily recognizable accents According to the authors, British English was perceived high in status mainly due to the fact that it was regarded as a prestige accent There was also a suggestion that attitudes, cultural influence and exposure to the media could be factual reasons that made American and Australian accents receive positive attitudes by Pacific listeners

The above reviewed studies are about the attitudes of participants from the Western business world In this study, the researcher also wants to review some studies of Asian people’s attitudes

Fraser (2006) undertook a study with two groups of high school students in Japan The chosen accents in the study were from Inner Circle (England, America, and Scotland), Outer Circle (Zimbabwe), and Expanding Circle (Taiwan, Japan) countries Students were judged on their ability to identify the country of origin for each accent They also did a test on comprehension and were asked to complete a questionnaire regarding their opinions of accents While students displayed limited ability to identify Inner Circle speakers, they were generally able to identify the origin of the Japanese speaker That indicated Japanese students’ awareness of their accent In terms

of preference and prestige, the American was judged highest It was considered the most desirable goal and model for the classroom While the local Japanese accent was judged to be most familiar and most likeable, it was rarely chosen as a goal or model

The study by Kim (2007) investigated 43 Korean adults’ attitudes towards native and non-native varieties of English in relation to the perspective of English as an international language In order to examine participants’ language attitudes, this study employed both a verbal guise test

as an indirect approach and a qualitative questionnaire as a direct approach The main findings pointed out that Korean adults preferred American English

as a model for guidance and did not discriminate between native and native varieties of English They also regarded English as an international language to communicate not only with native speakers but also with non-native speakers of English, and showed positive attitudes to non-native varieties of English However, they were not well aware of varieties of English

non-Yang (2011) investigated a study on the attitudes of 30 Chinese postgraduate students toward native and non-native varieties of English In order to examine the attitudes, this study employed the verbal guise technique, in which seven varieties of English were selected for evaluation in the dimensions of status and solidarity: New York English, London English, Edinburgh English, Singapore English, Japanese English, Indian English, and Chinese English The overall findings suggested that native varieties of English were favored by Chinese respondents, especially the New York English and London English In terms of the solidarity dimension, the respondents held positive attitudes towards Chinese English Moreover, the majority of the respondents in this study were able to identify whether the speech samples were native or non-native, however, the recognition rate of each variety of English was relatively lower

In Vietnam, there are very few studies on learners’ attitudes towards varieties of English One of those is Ton and Pham’s (2010) study on Vietnamese teachers’ and students’ perceptions of global English They found

out that the students and teachers believed students used English more with non-native speakers than with native speakers outside the classroom, but British and American English tended to be the preferred models, at least in the classroom

From all of the previous studies, it can be concluded that the native accents were often preferred more than non-native ones However, in some dimensions such as solidarity, familiarity, likeableness, etc., the participants showed their positive attitudes towards non-native accents Furthermore, participants still had difficulty in distinguishing between different accents

CHAPTER 2 METHODOLOGY 2.1 Restatement of research questions

In this study, the researcher tries to acquire a deeper understanding of student attitudes towards English native speakers’ and non-native speakers’ accents by testing how they can be aware of an accent and by assessing their

reactions to varieties of English accents The first research question is “How

is the ability of the SEC non-English major students to identify the speakers’ accents?” The answer for this question gives comprehension of students’

ability to distinguish between English accents (including native and native accents), and also helps to shape the explanation for the results of the second research question, which focuses on students’ evaluation of each type

non-of English accent as related to their experience to a given accent The second

research question is “How do the SEC non-English major students rate the varieties of native and non-native accents?” After that, the third research question – “How do the SEC non- English major students think about NS and NNS models?” - is given to have a deep-rooted insight into the attitudes of

students towards native and non-native models of English

2.2 Research approach

A survey research is a study of a large group through direct study of a subset of that group Surveys are widely used to gather data at a particular point in time to describe the nature of existing conditions Survey is a quick, inexpensive and efficient way of getting information from a large group of people A survey is also proved to be a powerful tool in collecting information about the opinions, attitudes, perceptions of respondents For these reasons, the researcher believes that a survey research design will fit her purpose

2.3 Context of the study

2.3.1 Setting of the study

Spark English Center is a center in Hanoi and has operated for 2 years

The center is opened with the desire to help non-English major students improve their English level The center has English courses which are suitable for students from the beginning level to the intermediate one Pronunciation class is the basic class for students who want to learn English from the beginning or to make good preparations for later courses Then, the students can join Grammar or Communication class depending on which English respect they hope to enhance The center also has TOEIC class, in which students have chance to learn the TOEIC tips as well as practice with numerous exercises and do the free TOEIC tests Each class has from 12 to 15 students – the standard number for an ideal English class

2.3.2 Participants

The study is conducted with the participation of 60 non-English major students randomly chosen from all classes at Spark English Center To select the participants, all students of the center are numbered, then the random numbers will be generated by the computer The majority of chosen students are aged from 18 to 23 They come from different backgrounds and environments, varied from the cities to mountainous areas in Vietnam Some students are living in central Hanoi They are students from many universities

in Hanoi, mainly science students All of them have been learning English for

at least 7 years but enrolled the course with low and medium level of English proficiency This information is from the result of the English entrance test the students did when registering for the courses of the center The students share that they did not pay much attention to English subject when they were

at high school because they were partial towards scientific subjects for their entrance examination Thus, they find many English words new to them and

do not know how to read them That is why they cannot do the English exercises and use English to communicate

2.4 Research materials

To answer the research questions, the researcher adapts a verbal guise

test and the questions from the research “Korean adults’ attitudes towards varieties of English” of Kim (2007) According to Garrett, Coupland and

Williams (2003: 16), the verbal guise test is the “indirect approach” to measure how participants become aware of different accents of native and non-native varieties of English In addition, asking questions is the “direct approach” to ask participants how they assess native and non-native varieties

of English These two measures of language attitudes are evaluated independently, then compared with each other in order to understand students’ attitudes towards English native and non-native speakers’ accents

Part A of the questionnaire of this study is the verbal guise test Using the verbal guise test is the common technique to measure language attitudes, which has been applied more and more by researchers in language attitude studies It involves a series of different speakers who are recorded for the

“judges” (Yang, 2011) to make the evaluation It makes the study authentic and it is hoped to be able to investigate people’s attitudes effectively

There are six recordings representing six varieties of English being selected based on Kachru’s (1985) circles of English use: American English (AmE) and British English (BrE) in the inner circle, Philippine English (PhE) and Indian English (InE) in the outer circle, and Japanese-accented English (JaE) and Vietnamese-accented English (ViE) in the expanding circle

The audio samples for the test are taken from the website (http://accent.gmu.edu/) which has most of all accents of English for many purposes, including research ones (Weinberger, 2007) The website also presents biographical information of the speaker in each sample (Appendix B)

The accents are thought to provide a reasonable approximation of

speakers from these countries It cannot be denied that these recordings are just one example of an accent and not a model of the selected countries However, the AmE and BrE speakers are regarded as representative ones of standard American and British English The other four speakers (PhE, InE, JaE, and ViE) are recognized as fluent ones of English with non-native accents They all are considered suitable accents to measure participants’ attitudes towards varieties of English models indirectly

There are three female and three male speakers Their ages are from 21

to 69 The reading text is the same to all speakers The recordings are relatively short (average of 22 seconds) in length to avoid the participants’ tiredness which may arise due to duplicate readings The text from the audio samples is as follows:

“Please call Stella Ask her to bring these things with her from the store: Six spoons of fresh snow peas, five thick slabs of blue cheese, and maybe a snack for her brother Bob We also need a small plastic snake and a big toy frog for the kids She can scoop these things into three red bags, and we will go meet her Wednesday at the train station.”

(Weinberger, 2007)

The first and second questions in part A are multiple choice ones to test the participants’ awareness of different English accents The third and fourth questions are the differential scale for the verbal guise test Participants have

to choose numbers in the scale to rate the six accents

Part B of the questionnaire of this study contains four questions for analyses of students’ attitudes to the native and non-native speaker models Each question is presented as a statement with a five-point Likert scale of agreement

2.5 Data collection procedure

The questionnaire was translated into Vietnamese to ensure no participants misunderstood the questions

In part A of the questionnaire, participants were given instructions on how to complete the evaluation sheet in the verbal guise test They were told that there were no right or wrong answer and their attitudes were the most important when evaluating six accents They listened to six accents through the researcher’s laptop computer with outdoor speakers The six recordings were randomly arranged by the order of AmE, PhE, JaE, InE, BrE, and ViE Each recording was played twice so that participants could make sure about their choices for the three questions More time was also given between play back to fill in the questionnaires

After having done the verbal guise test, participants were given instructions on how to do part B of the questionnaire They were invited to ask questions for clarification Then participants responded to five-point Likert scale questions It took about 15 minutes to finish all the survey

2.6 Methods of data analysis

The evaluations for the five personality traits in the verbal guise test are arranged by the same criteria: 1 is the most favorable evaluation while 5 is the most unfavorable evaluation In the evaluation for good and bad model of English, 1 is for the best and 5 is for the worst Also, in the Likert scale of part B, 1 is for strong agreement and 5 is for strong disagreement The total number of participants in the whole survey is 60 and all of them complete the questionnaire with no blank answer

The data were analyzed with SPSS (version 16.0) SPSS helped to calculate mean ratings, standard deviations, percentages, etc To answer the first research question, the researcher calculated descriptive statistics to determine whether participants correctly identify the speakers’ accents and

whether the speaker is a native or non-native one To answer the second

research question, the researcher used an independent samples t-test to

compare two means which are participants’ evaluations of English native and non-native accents The last research question was answered by counting the frequency of the statistics, then calculating the percentages to see how participants think about the native and non-native models of English