A study on mistakes commonly commited by the 10th grade students at kim thanh high school, hai duong in the pronunciation of english fricative and affricative consonants and some possible pedagogical solutions

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES ******************** NGUYỄN THỊ PHƯƠNG A STUDY ON MISTAKES COMMON

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

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

NGUYỄN THỊ PHƯƠNG

A STUDY ON MISTAKES COMMONLY COMMITED BY THE 10 th GRADE STUDENTS AT KIM THANH HIGH SCHOOL, HAI DUONG IN

THE PRONUNCIATION OF ENGLISH FRICATIVE AND

AFFRICATIVE CONSONANTS AND SOME POSSIBLE

PEDAGOGICAL SOLUTIONS

NGHIÊN CỨU LỖI PHÁT ÂM THƯỜNG GẶP LIÊN QUAN TỚI ÂM SÁT VÀ TẮC SÁT TRONG TIẾNG ANH CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 10 TRƯỜNG TRUNG HỌC PHỔ THÔNG KIM THÀNH, HẢI DƯƠNG,

VÀ MỘT SỐ GIẢI PHÁP TRONG THỰC TẾ GIẢNG DẠY

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

HANOI - 2017

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

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

NGUYỄN THỊ PHƯƠNG

A STUDY ON MISTAKES COMMONLY COMMITED BY THE 10 th GRADE STUDENTS AT KIM THANH HIGH SCHOOL, HAI DUONG IN

THE PRONUNCIATION OF ENGLISH FRICATIVE AND

AFFRIVATIVE CONSONANTS AND SOME POSSIBLE

PEDAGOGICAL SOLUTIONS

NGHIÊN CỨU LỖI PHÁT ÂM THƯỜNG GẶP LIÊN QUAN TỚI ÂM SÁT VÀ TẮC SÁT TRONG TIẾNG ANH CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 10 TRƯỜNG TRUNG HỌC PHỔ THÔNG KIM THÀNH, HẢI DƯƠNG,

VÀ MỘT SỐ GIẢI PHÁP TRONG THỰC TẾ GIẢNG DẠY

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Supervisior: Dr Đỗ Tuấn Minh

HANOI - 2017

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DECLARATION

I, Nguyen Thi Phuong, hereby certify that my thesis submitted for the Faculty of Post- Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, apart from the help recognized, is my own work The substance of this thesis has not, wholly or in part, been summited for a degree to any other formal course of study

Hanoi, 2017 Signature

Nguyen Thi Phuong

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to express my special and sincere thanks to my supervisors, Dr Do Tuan Minh, who gave me enthusiastic instructions, precious support and critical feedback on the construction of the study This has always been one of decisive factors in the completion of this thesis

Second, I also express my profound gratitude to all doctors, lectures and staff members of the Faculty of Postgraduate Studies, University of Foreign Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their valuable lectures and useful advice that are a great help to fulfill the study

Next, I would like to send my deep sense of thanks to the teachers and the 10th grade students at Kim Thanh High School, Hai Duong for their cooperation and the valuable information they provided in my research field

Furthermore, I would like to send my heartfelt gratitude to my family and all of my friends who have great source of endless care and support

Last but not least, I am also thankful to many writers whose important ideas and notions are exploited and developed in the study

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ABSTRACT

In the light of communication oriented language teaching, pronunciation is affirmed to be as vital as other fields of language such as grammar and vocabulary However, the teaching and learning pronunciation situation at Kim Thanh High School, Hai Duong is somehow troublesome

This minor thesis aims at identifying the most common mistakes when producing English affricative and fricative sounds by the 10th grade students

at Kim Thanh High School, as well as investigating the main causes of these mistakes and the possible pedagogical solutions to assist them correct their mistakes

This study is to investigate practices and challenges of teaching pronunciation by two survey questionnaires, one for 200 eleventh- form students and the other for 6 teachers teaching English for grades 10 Class observation and informal interview are also carried out to elicit hidden reasons behind participants‟ answers in the questionnaires and to help the researcher draw a vivid picture of a pronunciation lesson as well From the results inferred in the analysis, the study suggests some feasible techniques and activities to make pronunciation teaching and learning English fricative and affricative sounds more effective

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LISTS OF TABLES vi

LISTS OF FIGURES vii

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale of the study 1

2 Aims of study and research questions 2

3 Significance of the study 2

4 Scope of the study 3

5 Method of the study 3

6 Design of the study 4

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1.1 Theoretical background 5

1.1.1 The description of English fricatives 6

1.1.2 The description of English affricates / tʃ/& /dʒ/ 12

1.3 Some similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese consonants in terms of affricatives and fricatives 14

1.4 Review of previous studies related to the research area of the thesis 15

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 24

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 28

3.1.Data analysis 28

3.1.1 The result collected by means of recordings 28

3.2 The result collected by means of questionnaire 33

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3.2.1 Students‟ opinion on the importance of pronunciation 33

3.2.2 Students‟ purposes of learning English 34

3.2.3 Student‟s frequency in practicing English pronunciation 35

3.2.4 Students‟ knowledge of reading phonetic transcription 35

3.2.5 Causes of the students‟ mispronunciation 36

CHAPTER 4: IMPLICATIONS AND RECOMENDATION 41

4.1 Using IPA Chart 41

4.2 Making the lessons more interesting 42

4.2.1 Phonetic hangman 43

4.2.2 IPA symbol card game 43

4.2.3 Bingo 44

4.3 Equipping facilities 44

4.4 Motivating the students 45

PART C: CONCLUSION 46

1 Concluding remarks 46

2 Significance of the study 47

3 Limitations of the study 47

4 Suggestions for further studies 48

References 49 Appendix 1 I Appendix 2 III

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LISTS OF TABLES

Table 1: Vietnamese initial and final consonants 15

Table 2: Sounds mispronounced by Vietnamese students (Tam,2007) 16

Table 3: Mistakes in producing the sounds /f/ and /v/ 17

Table 4.1: Mistakes in producing the sounds/θ/ -/ð / 17

Table 4.2: Mistakes in producing the sounds/θ/ -/ð / (2) 18

Table 5: Mistakes in producing the sounds /ʃ/ -/ ʒ/ 19

Table 6: Mistakes in producing the sounds /tʃ/ - /dʒ/ 21

Table 7: Common pronunciation mistakes committed by the students 30

Table 8: Number of students producing sound omission 31

Table 9: Number of students producing sound deviation 32

Table 10: Students‟ purposes of learning English grammar 34

Table 11: Causes of the students‟ mispronunciation 38

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LISTS OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Consonant chart according to Place and Manner of articulation of

the sound 5

Figure 2: Place and manner articulation of the sound /f/ 6

Figure 3: Place and manner articulation of the sound /v/ 7

Figure 4: Place and manner articulation of the sound / θ / 7

Figure 5: Place and manner articulation of the sound / ð / 8

Figure 6: Place and manner articulation of the sound / s / 9

Figure 7: Place and manner articulation of the sound / z / 9

Figure 8: Place and manner articulation of the sound / ∫ / 10

Figure 9: Place and manner articulation of the sound / ʒ / 11

Figure 10: Place and manner articulation of the sound / h / 11

Figure 12 Students‟ opinion on the importance of pronunciation 34

Figure 13: Students‟ frequency in practicing English pronunciation 35

Figure 14: Students‟ response to the pronunciation course attendance 36

Figure 15: Students‟ knowledge of reading phonetic transcription 36

Figure 16: Causes of the students‟ mispronunciation 39

Figure 17: The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) 42

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PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

When discussing the role of English language in current society, it is believed that a guy can get promotion in the management ladder only if he can speak English fluently If your English is poor, even though you may have well- qualified qualifications, and brilliant brain and can come up with brilliant business ideas, you may still find yourself languishing at the bottom

of the management ladder since you will find difficulty in expressing your brilliant ideas That is an important and needless- to- question matter in our society However, when observing and basing on the real teaching, the researcher has found out that many students, otherwise most of them, feel discouraged towards English just because they can not, or in another word, do not know how to pronounce English words appropriately The reason is explained by Gerald Kelly (2000) that a learner who consistently mispronounces words can be extremely difficult for the listener to understand

In the way round, the situation will also become very frustrating for himself/ herself even though he/ she has very good knowledge of grammar and vocabulary

Therefore, in the English book for students in high school, pronunciation lessons are designed with the hope of giving both teachers and learners some basic cues of English pronunciation matters The reality of teaching pronunciation in general, and teaching pronunciation for students of grade 10 at Kim Thanh high school in particular, however, seems not to be as ideal as hoped From the real experience in teaching, the researcher attempts

to carry out a research to make the problem clear

In this study, the researcher has presented a brief description of some features of English affricate and fricative consonants as well as the mistakes

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made by Vietnamese stdents when producing them On the foundation of these mistakes, some solutions are suggested to mitigate the problems

Briefly, all of the problems mentioned above have studied further on “A

Thanh High School, Hai Duong in the pronunciation of English Fricative and Affricative consonants and some possible pedagogical solutions”

2 Aims of study and research questions

This study was conducted with an aim of investigating the most common mistakes when producing English affricative and fricative sounds by the 10th grade students at Kim Thanh high school and providing some strategies to help students avoid mispronunciation

In order to fulfil these aims, the study focuses on answering the research questions:

1 What are the most common mistakes related to English affricative and fricative sounds the 10th grade students at Kim Thanh high school often make?

2 What are the causes of the mispronunciation?

3 What are the possible pedagogical solutions to help students correct these mistakes?

3 Significance of the study

Theoretical significance: The research assists both teachers and learners

to review phonological characteristics and articulation of the sounds It is a solid foundation in teaching and learning English pronunciation

Practical significance: The study identifies students‟ mistakes in producing affricative and fricative sounds in English and supplies English teachers with the understanding and practical view to have pedagogical suitable solutions to these kinds of established mistakes

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4 Scope of the study

As can be seen, the English sound system consists of forty-four phonemes; twenty-four consonants, twelve pure vowels and eight diphthongs Generally, Vietnamese often have difficulties in producing some of these sounds in a proper way due to some reasons

It is necessary to make a distinction between errors and mistakes Mistakes are what the researchers referred to as performance errors (the learners know the system but fail to use it) while the errors are a result of one systematic competence (the learners‟ system is incorrect).( Richards, Platt and Platt.H,1992) According to Jame (1998), an error cannot be self-corrected while mistakes can be self- corrected if the deviation is pointed out to the speaker

Due to time constraints, the length of thesis and the researcher‟s knowledge, it is impossible for the researcher to study all the pronunciation mistakes made by students Therefore, this study only focuses on finding out the most typical mistakes made by the 10th Grade students at Kim Thanh High School, Hai Duong in the pronunciation of English Fricative and Affricative consonants sounds

5 Method of the study

The study is designed to use both qualitative and quantitative methods Besides, many resources such as books, magazines, articles, newspapers and some sources on the internet have been read by the researcher

In order to gain the most reliable results, the quantitative data will be collected through two survey questionnaires One survey questionnaire is for

200 students from classes of two different groups: English- gifted and English- non- gifted in grade 10 at Kim Thanh high school and the other survey is for 6 teachers teaching English for grades 10 during the time they

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took part in the survey The data, then, will be processed and analyzed to yield conclusions for the study

6 Design of the study

The study consists of three parts as follows:

PART A is the introduction, which provides an overview of the study

with specific reference to the rationale, the aims, the scope and the structural organization of the thesis

PART B development, consists of 3 chapters:

Chapter 1 presents review of previous studies related to the research of

the thesis and theoretical backgrounds about general descriptions of English affricative and fricative sounds

Chapter 2, the methodology underlying the research is presented It

presents the subject of the study, the instruments used to collect the data and the procedure of the data collection

Chapter 3 is devoted to a detailed description of data analysis and a

thorough discussion of the findings of the study

PART C is conclusion including the summary of the main points

presented in the thesis and concluding remarks The limitations of the study and some recommendations for further research are also discussed in this

chapter

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Theoretical background

English has 24 consonant phonemes classified according to their

respective point of articulation, manner of articulation, voiced or voiceless

They are distinguished from each other by the distinctive features characterized by the three-way distinction listed above The consonants in English are patterned amazingly in pairs (except for the nasals) voiced/ voiceless

Figure 1: Consonant chart according to Place and Manner of articulation

of the sound

(as achieved from

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From the table above, according to Manner of Articulation, it‟s clearly that English fricatives consist of 4 minimal pairs: /f/ &/v/;/s/&/z/;/θ/&/ ð/; /∫/&/ʒ/ and /h/ sound while English affricate include one pair : / tʃ/& /dʒ/

1.1.1 The description of English fricatives

Fricative is defined, according to Tam Ha Cam (2005), as consonants with the characteristic that when they are produced, air escapes through a small passage and makes a hissing sound They are continuant consonants, as you can continue making them without interruption as long as you have enough air in your lungs

1.1.1.1 Labio- dental Fricatives :/f,v/

/f/ is a labio-dental, voiceless, fortis consonant It is produced by

pressing the lower lip against the upper teeth and forcing the air out between

them The sound can be spelt f - as in fine, flare, fringe, feud, loaf, stifle, ff -

as in effort, snuff, ph - as in physics, graph, or even gh - as in enough, tough

Figure 2: Place and manner articulation of the sound /f/

(as achieved from http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/english /frameset.html )

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/v/ is the voiced, lenis pair of [f] with which it shares the place (labio-

dental) and manner (fricative) of articulation E.g leaf / leaves, wife/wives,

of Derivational affixes can also voice the final consonant: life/liven

Figure 3: Place and manner articulation of the sound /v/

(as achieved from http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/english

/frameset.html

1.1.1.2 Dental Fricatives: / θ, ð/

θ/ is an interdental, voiceless, fortis fricative It occurs in word-initial,

medial and final position It is produced with the tip of the tongue between the teeth, the air escaping through the passage in between The sound is rendered

graphically by h- thin, method, path The sound often occurs in clusters

difficult to pronounce: eighths [eıtθs], depths [depθs], lengths [leŋθs]

Figure 4: Place and manner articulation of the sound / θ /

(as achieved from http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/english /frameset.html

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/ð/ is the voiced pair of [θ] being an interdental, voiced, lenis fricative

In initial position it is only distributed in grammatical words such as

demonstratives: this, that, these, those, there; articles: the; adverbs: thus It

occurs freely in medial position: brother, bother, rather, heathen In final

position it often represents the voicing of [θ] in plurals like mouths [mauðz],

wreaths [ri:ðz] which may prove difficult to pronounce, or in derived words

like bath [ba: θ] (noun)/bathe [beıð] (verb) or breath [breθ] (n.)/ breathe

[bri:ð] (v.)

Figure 5: Place and manner articulation of the sound / ð /

(as achieved from http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/english /frameset.html

1.1.1.3 Alveolar Fricatives: /s,z/

/s/ is an alveolar, voiceless, fortis fricative, produced with the tip and

the blade of the tongue making a light contact with the alveolar ridge, and the side rims of the tongue a lose contact with the upper side teeth The air- stream escapes through the narrow groove in the center of the tongue and causes fraction between the tongue and the alveolar ridge It is a hissing sound distributed in all major positions: at the beginning, within and at the end of a

word It is spelt s, ss or c in front of e, i or y: e.g sour, say, hiss, assign,

ceiling, cellar, cigarette, precise, cypress, bicycle Sometimes the spelling can

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be sce, sci or scy (e.g science, scent, scene, scythe) s is silent in words like

corps, island, viscount

Figure 6: Place and manner articulation of the sound / s /

(as achieved from http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/english

/frameset.html /z/ is the voiced, lenis, alveolar fricative that corresponds to the

voiceless /s/.It plays a important role in English as it is one of the main allomorphs of the plural morpheme (distributed after a voiced consonant or a vowel) Like its voiceless counterpart, /z/ is a hissing sound, produced with a high-pitched friction

Figure 7: Place and manner articulation of the sound / z /

(as achieved from http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/english

/frameset.html

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/∫/ is an alveopalatal, voiceless, fortis fricative consonant The blade of

the tongue is raised against the region behind the alveolar ridge and the air is forced out through a groove a little wider than in the case of /s/, its more

fronted counterpart /∫/ is distributed in all three main positions in the word It

is often spelt sh in words like shoe, cushion or push It can also be spelt s (e.g sure, sugar) or ss (e.g pressure, mission) or ci (ancient, delicious), sci (conscious) ce (ocean), si (pension, mansion), ti (tuition, retribution) It

is a variant of /∫/ in words like issue, tissue; ch: champagne, charade,

moustache

Figure 8: Place and manner articulation of the sound / ∫ /

(as achieved from http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/english /frameset.html

ʒ/ is the voiced counterpart of /∫/ It is an alveopalatal, voiced, lenis

fricative It is never distributed in initial position, but it can occur in medial

(pleasure, treasure, measure) or final position (garage, prestige) It can be

spelt either when followed by u (visual) or i (decision), or z if followed by u

(seizure) or ge (massage, espionage)

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(as achieved from http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/english /frameset.html

1.1.1.5 Glottal Fricative : /h/

/h/ is a glottal fricative in English, a voiceless, fortis sound produced by

letting the air pass freely through the mouth during expiration /h/ freely

occurs in initial position in English: home, hiss, hut However, in a small

number of words the sound /h/ is dropped in both in initial and medial position: hour, heir, honor, honest, vehicle, annihilate The verb having /h/ is

also silent in final position in the interjection ah or in words like shah

Figure 10: Place and manner articulation of the sound / h /

(as achieved from http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/english

/frameset.html)

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1.1.2 The description of English affricates / tʃ/& /dʒ/

These are two alveo-palatal affricate phonemes in English In the articulation of / tʃ/& /dʒ/, the soft palate is raised, the nasal resonator is shut off, obstacle to the air stream is formed by a closure made between the tip, blade, and rims of the tongue and the upper alveolar ridge and side teeth At the same time, the front of the tongue is raised towards the hard palate in readiness for the fricative release The closure is released slowly, the air escaping in a diffuse manner over the whole of the central surface of the tongue with friction occurring between the blade/ front region

of the tongue and the alveolar/ front palatal section of the roof of the mouth During both stop and fricative stages, the vocal cords are wide apart for /ʃ/, but may be vibrating for all or part of according to the situation of utterance / tʃ/ is voiceless but /dʒ/ is voiced with voice from the throat (D.T Nu / VNU Journal of Science, Foreign Languages 25 (2009))

(as achieved from http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/english

/frameset.html

1.2 Pronunciation errors

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1.2.1 Errors

Errors making proves to be an unavoidable part in the process of learning a language (Bui Thi Binh, 2011) The following discussion of the term “error” sheds light on further analyses of the pronunciation problems facing Vietnamese learners of English and conclusion of this paper Linguists around the world have put forwards various definitions of errors in language acquisition Among them, Ellis (1997 cited in Bhela, 1999) stood out as to assert that “errors reflect gaps in the learners‟ knowledge; they occur because the learners does not know what is correct” (p 2) In congruent with this definition, Dulay et al (1982) considered errors “the systematic deviations due to the learner‟s still developing knowledge of the second language rule system” Eckman (1981) went further to emphasize that error, though inevitable and necessary in the course of language acquisition, exert both positive and negative impacts on language learners‟ progress in mastering the language It is therefore necessary that errors should be carefully examined and brought into perspective with a view to facilitating the process of language learning Corder (1981), however, classified errors into two types,

“errors of performance” which happen to native speakers due to tiredness and carelessness and “errors of competence”, ones that reflect vividly the learner‟s incompetent knowledge of the language that they are learning This necessitates further clarification of the concept and its impact in language acquisition

1.2.2 Errors and mistakes

In everyday speech, little distinction is drawn between the two term

“error” and “mistake” However, from the linguistic perspectives, errors and mistakes stand at the two ends of language acquisition Errors, as described by

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Dulay et al, (1982) and other linguists are “parts of conversation or composition that deviate from some selected norm of mature language performance” (p 138), which are indispensably occurring due to inadequate language competence at the initial stage of language learning, (Coder, 1981) Mistakes, on the other hand, are defined by Richard (1974) as of little importance to language learning and of non-systematic occurrence Torrijos (2009) had his own way of distinguishing errors and mistakes: “errors should

be classified into two types, one that do not reflect a defect in the knowledge

of language –errors of performance or mistakes– and those who reveal the underlying knowledge of the language to date –errors of competence” (p 150) Or as Corder (1967 cited in Ngo Phuong Anh, 2009 p.2) makes it,

“mistakes are akin to slips of the tongue” while “an error is systematic and often not recognized by learners as an error” Thus, it can be concluded that errors in language learning are often associated with failures due to incompetence and should be minimized On thoroughly understanding the nature of errors, their distinction from mistakes, and the generally insufficient awareness of English learners regarding errors in the learning process, their causes, as well as their negative effects on language acquisition, it is important that research be conducted in this area so that preventable errors can be avoided, teaching methods could be better tailored (Torrijos, 2009), thereby, facilitating the process of language learning and avoid the carrying of persistent errors to the advanced stage of language acquisition

1.3 Some similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese consonants in terms of affricatives and fricatives

In Vietnamese, consonants are classified into 22 initial consonants and

6 final consonants according to the positions of the consonants in a word

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Table 1: Vietnamese initial and final consonants

From the English consonants chart & Vietnamese consonants, in the initial consonant system, most Vietnamese sounds are not much different from English sounds in term of pronunciation Both consonant systems have fricatives /f/,/v/,/s/,/ʃ/, /ʒ/.However, there is no affricative sound system in Vietnamese In addition, Vietnamese fricative sounds are found in the initial position of a word, but the final consonants are never mentioned While English consonants are often heard and pronounced in three positions: initial, middle and final position (except /ʒ/, which is rarely found in the initial position)

1.4 Review of previous studies related to the research area of the thesis

There have been many researches dealing with the mistakes and difficulties made by learners when pronouncing English sounds

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Tam( 2005) set up a research question involving the most common pronunciation problems of the students in the English Department of the University of Languages and International Studies To answer this question, the data collection was carried out through an oral final examination, during the exam, students were requested to talk about a approximately five – minute particular topic While listening to the students talking, the researcher took notes of the errors involving pronunciation The sounds most frequently mispronounced by Vietnamese students in Tam‟s study are shown in the following table:

Table 2: Sounds mispronounced by Vietnamese students (Tam,2007)

It can be said that some English sounds such as affricative and fricative ones are not common to Vietnamese This causes a lot of difficulties for Vietnamese learners when making English sounds A few Vietnamese researchers conducted their studies on typical mistakes and some problems

faced by learners Below are the mistakes which the writer has synthesized from the previous studies

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- Sound pair /f/ -/v/

- /f/ is not a problem sound for most of the students but /v/ may

sometimes cause problems There is also a tendency to devoice /v/, especially

at the ends of words /v/ was replaced with /f/ since the sound /f/ shares the same place and manner of articulation: labio-dental fricative sounds The distinction is only on the state of the vocal cords: /v/ is a voiced sound while /f/ is a voiceless sound For example:

Words Standard

Phonemics transcription

Mistakes

groves serve give

/ɡɪf/

Table 3: Mistakes in producing the sounds /f/ and /v/

- Sound pair /θ/ -/ð /

The problems with /θ/ -/ ð / are many and varied

- A dentalized [t] occurs when there is insufficient breath support

Words Standard

Phonemics transcription

Mistakes

Thursday Thieves Thunder Worthy

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- Since /ð/ and /d/ share the one identical characteristic, that is, voiced; /ð/ as a voiced dental fricative was being replaced with /d/ In term of /θ/, with insufficient airflow, a dentalized /d/ will occur

Words Standard

Phonemics transcription

Table 4.2: Mistakes in producing the sounds/θ/ -/ð / (2)

- The third deviation happened when the students replaced /θ/ with /ð/

“In mispronouncing /θ/ as /ð/, the students altered one important feature of the sound /θ/, that is, the state of the vocal cords Generally, the sound of /θ/ is produced in the situation where the vocal cords are put at a distance when the air goes by in order to make sure that the vocal cords do not make vibration Yet, as they attempted to articulate /θ/, they closed their vocal cords when the air passed and created vibration As a result, the sound produced by the students was more likely to be heard as/ð/ than as /θ/” (Tiono, 2008)

Ex: „there‟ / ð er//θer/,

„writing‟ /rɪ ð ɪŋ//rɪθɪŋ/

- Another deviation done by the students was the substitution of /θ/ with /s/ which could be found in the medial position only

Ex: „birthday‟/bɜ:sdeɪ/  /bɜ:sdeɪ/

- Devoicing may also be a common problem since English orthography uses the letters "th" for both /θ/ and /ð/

Ex: „monthly‟ /mʌnθli//mʌnli/

- On the whole, there were some basic deviations made by the students

in articulating /ʒ/: the replacement of /ʒ/ with /d/, /s/, /j/, /t∫/, /∫/, /dʒ/, and /Ø/

Words Standard

Phonemics transcription

/ru:/

ʒ dʒ

ʒ d ʒs

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- /ʃ/ is not a particularly common sound in English or the languages of the world, but can be learned quite easily However, the learners often fail to distinguish between a voiceless alvelo- palatal fricative / ʃ / and a voice

alveo- fricative /s/

Ex: She /ʃi: / is often pronounced incorrectly as /si:/ in sea The same mistakes occur with nation, intonation, should, shut, push, share, finish, astonish, etc

- Glottal /h/

/h/ is a voiceless glottal fricative It is simply a stream of air from the larynx directed through the open mouth It is not found in word-final position in English words /h/ is not generally a problem sound, but some learners may use a voiceless velar fricative /x/, as a substitution

- Sound pair /tʃ/ - /dʒ/

- /tʃ/ and /d3/ are affricate sounds, which you produce by blocking off the breath-stream between the tongue and gum ridge, for a stop and a fricative The overall strength of production is important for /tʃ/ because

weakening leads to a /ʃ/ substitution

/ dʒ/ is less tense than /tʃ/, but it is still made with considerable

strength Weakening may lead to a /ʃ/ substitution It‟s also reasons why

learners often make mistake in producing these sounds Moreover, in Vietnam language, there is no / tʃ/& /dʒ/, so they often pronounce them as /z/ and / ć /

To nutshell, to have a brief, specific, logic and general look, Tam Ha Cam (2005) grouped these mistakes into three main types: Sound omission, sound confusion and sound redundancy The most common errors were sound omission in which omission of ending sound were more frequent Simply, Vietnamese do not have to pronounce the ending sounds, so these mistakes are avoidable The author also emphasized that “the habit of “swallowing “the ending sound in the mother tongue is in fact a negative transference that inhibits the pronunciation of ending sounds in target language”( Tam H.C., 2005) Secondly, regarding the second type of mistakes, some Vietnamese learners find it difficult in distinguishing fricative and affricative sounds and they often produce them interchangeably which makes their speech hard to understand Finally, sound redundancy is also a problem, which many students make mistakes They always tend to over pronounce the ending sounds /s/ or/z/ at the end of any words or sometimes in the middle of the words like “hobby”- /hozbi/

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Similarly, Hanh(2007) affirmed that the way the learners produced the sounds /θ/&/ð/; /∫/&/ʒ/, /dʒ/ was different from the native speakers by either making the sounds softer or harder Almost learners had difficulties in producing the sound /dʒ/ especially when it is in the final position , the sound /θ/ in every position

In addition to the studies above, Hoa(2007) confirmed that the Vietnamese learners in her study did have difficulty when pronouncing some English sounds such as /θ/&/ ð/; /∫/&/ʒ/ as revealed in the data collected and analyzed especially in the findings of the recorded tapes Their difficulty was that they could not produce these sounds correctly Through the questionnaire and the interviews, some causes were explored such as pronouncing the sound according to the way the students heard them, imitating the teachers‟ and friends‟ pronunciations To improve the pronunciation of the learners, Suggested methods were given such as recording, listening and repeating Also, the learners should be informed about the similaries and differences between the English and Vietnamese For example, self practice is a piece of useful advice the students should pay much attention to

According to the survey data collected in Huong‟s study( 2010), the difficulties encountered by the second students at That Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry in producing the consonant sounds //θ/&/ ð/; /∫/&/ʒ/ ; /tʃ/ - /dʒ/ were identified as followed:

 Low pronunciation ability

 Inadequate drills and practice: passive ways of learning and low motivation to English language learning

 Mother tongue interference

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 Poor learning background: articulation features of the consonants under the research, teaching and learning environment inefficiency,

inappropriate technique used by teachers

 Inadequate perceptions of mistakes

Tuan (2010, 2011) carried out two researches on pronunciation:

“Teaching English discrete sounds through minimal pairs” (2010) and

“Vietnamese EFL learners‟ difficulties with English consonants” (2011) Data collected from the survey reveals that the students had most difficulty in producing the English fricatives /∫/&/ʒ/ and affricatives /tʃ/ - /dʒ/ among the English consonants surveyed The learners have a tendency to substitute Vietnamese sounds for the English sounds

To sum up, the above researches have revealed the most typical pronunciation mistakes, especially regarding the sounds of fricatives and affricatives, made by Vietnamese learners of English In addition, some studies also investigated the problems and causes to lead to these mistakes and solutions are suggested to help their pronunciation ability