A study on the pronunciation errors of some english consonants made by grade 10 students at giao thuy high school, nam dinh

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES ************************ NGUYỄN VĂN HÙNG A STUDY ON THE PRONUN

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

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

NGUYỄN VĂN HÙNG

A STUDY ON THE PRONUNCIATION ERRORS OF SOME ENGLISH CONSONANTS MADE BY GRADE 10 STUDENTS

AT GIAO THUY HIGH SCHOOL, NAM DINH

Nghiên cứu về lỗi phát âm một vài phụ âm tiếng Anh mà học sinh lớp 10 trường THPT Giao Thủy, Nam Định thường mắc phải

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Hanoi - 2016

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

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

NGUYỄN VĂN HÙNG

A STUDY ON THE PRONUNCIATION ERRORS OF SOME ENGLISH CONSONANTS MADE BY GRADE 10 STUDENTS

AT GIAO THUY HIGH SCHOOL, NAM DINH

Nghiên cứu về lỗi phát âm một vài phụ âm tiếng Anh mà học sinh lớp 10 trường THPT Giao Thủy, Nam Định thường mắc phải

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Prof Dr Hoàng Văn Vân

Hanoi - 2016

CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT

I certify that the thesis entitled “a study on the pronunciation errors of some

English consonants made by grade 10 students at Giao Thuy High School, Nam

Dinh” is entirely my own work for the degree of Master of Arts at University of

Languages and International Studies – Vietnam National University, Hanoi I have provided fully documented references to the work of others This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in

any university

Hanoi,2016

Nguyễn Văn Hùng

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Prof

Dr Hoang Van Van for his valuable guidance and kind encouragement during the development of this study

I also wish to express my sincere thanks to a foreign teacher and also my friend: Miss Oliver Violet Katherine Hermione from the United Kingdom who is working at Sydney International English Language Institute in Nam Dinh for her assistance on the recordings and especially for her valuable comments and suggestions in the data collection procedures

My thanks are also extended to my students and my colleagues studying and working at Giao Thuy High School for their enthusiastic help and my colleagues there for their encouragement and support

Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family for the sacrifice they devoted to the fulfillment to this academic work

ABSTRACT

This study aims at identifying the most common errors of grade 10 students

at Giao Thuy High School when they pronounce English single consonants The study was conducted by recording the participants’ pronunciation of words and sentences containing the intended sounds The words and the sentences are taken

from the textbook Tiếng Anh 10 by Hoang Van Van et al (2006/2015) The students

were asked to read the words and the sentences aloud for recording Then with the help from an English native teacher, the recordings were listened and analyzed for errors using articulatory phonetics as the framework for analysis From the results, some pedagogical suggestions are offered to improve the English pronunciation of ten graders at GiaoThuy High School

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims of the study 1

3 Scope of the study 1

4 Research questions 2

5 Methods of the study 2

6 Organization of the study 2

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 English pronunciation 4

1.2 Phonetics 4

1.3 Articulatory phonetics 5

1.4 English consonants 6

1.5 Errors and mistakes 11

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 15

2.1 The informants of the study 15

2.2 Research method 15

2.2.1 Data collection instrument 15

2.2.2 Data collection procedures 19

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 20

3.1 Findings and discussions 20

3.1.1 Findings 20

3.1.2 Discussions……… ……25

3.2 Some possible solutions to those errors 32

PART C: CONCLUSION 37

1 Summary 37

2 Pedagogical implication 37

3 Limitation and suggestion for further research 38

REFERENCES 39

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURE

Figure: The speech organs of articulators

Table 1: Consonants in English

Table 2: Consonants classified according to place of articulation Table 3: Consonants classified according to manner of articulation Table 4: Students’ pronunciation errors on 24 single consonants Table 5: Error percentage on each consonant sound

Table 6: Errors in pronouncing consonant /θ/

Table 7: Errors in pronouncing consonant /ð/

Table 8: Errors in pronouncing consonant /ʤ/

Table 9: Errors in pronouncing consonant /t/

Table 10: Errors in pronouncing consonant /ʃ/

Table 11: Errors in pronouncing consonant /f/

Table 12: Errors in pronouncing consonant /tʃ/

Table 13: Errors in pronouncing consonant /s/

Table 14: Errors in pronouncing consonant /d/

Table 15: Errors in pronouncing consonant /p/

Table 16: Errors in pronouncing consonant /ʒ/

Table 17: Errors in pronouncing consonant /l/

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Nowadays English has become an international means of communication,

an important and compulsory subject in high schools in Vietnam However, teaching English in my hometown still faces a number of difficulties, especially, how to improve pronunciation for students is a big question for teachers in my school Although many foreigners have commented “many Vietnamese can speak English, but only a few of them have intelligible English pronunciation.” In other words, their communication in English is not always successful due to their poor pronunciation or mispronunciation Of all causes, pronunciation errors of English consonants can be considered the most common to Vietnamese students

At present I am teaching English to students in a high school in Nam Dinh province I realize that they frequently make errors when they pronounce English sounds, especially English consonants It is, therefore, very necessary to identify and help students correct those errors as soon as possible With the hope that this study will contribute to improving students’ pronunciation of English consonants, I

decided to conduct the study “a study on the pronunciation errors of some

English consonants made by grade 10 students at Giao Thuy High School, Nam Dinh”

2 Aims of the study

The aims of the study are:

- to identify the most common pronunciation errors of consonants made by ten graders at Giao Thuy High School

- to offer some solutions to help students improve their pronunciation of English consonants

3 Scope of the study

During the process of acquiring English, students often come up against a number of problems in pronunciation such as consonants, vowels, stress, intonation, rhythm, linking, elision, and so on However, in this minor thesis I just focus on

identifying the most common errors of single consonants that students at Giao Thuy High School, Nam Dinh frequently make Based on the findings, some solutions are suggested to improve my students’ pronunciation

4 Research questions

Question 1: What are the most common pronunciation errors of consonants

made by ten graders at Giao Thuy Upper Secondary School?

Question 2: What are possible solutions to those errors?

5 Methods of the study and research instrument

 In order to fulfil the aims as set above, the study uses two main methods:

- Quantitative method: to find out the most common pronunciation errors

- Error analysis: to analyze the errors collected and to give some possible solutions to those errors

 Since the study attempts to find out pronunciation errors of English consonants

that students at Giao Thuy High School, Nam Dinh often make, recording the participants’ pronunciations of prepared scripts is considered the main research instrument in this study

6 Organization of the study

This study is structured into three main parts:

INTRODUCTION, DEVELOPMENT, and CONCLUSION

PART A: INTRODUCTION – states the reasons of choosing the topic of the study,

the aims, research questions, the scope, the methods and the organization of the study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT – consists of two chapters

Chapter 1 – LITERATURE REVIEW – presents the theoretical background of the research and introduces some basic concepts of phonetics, articulatory phonetics, consonants and pronunciation errors that are relevant to the research

Chapter 2 – METHODOLOY – states the methods employed in the study, research questions, data collection instrument and research procedures, methodology used for data collection, and description of the participants

Chapter 3 – FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS – presents and discusses the findings obtained from the data analysed

PART C: CONCLUSION – provides a summary of the major findings of the study;

points out the limitations of the study; and make some suggestions for further studies

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter provides some basic phonetic concepts to bring a common view of the matter studied Then it will present an overview of the English consonant system and examines some key terms relevant to the study

1.1 English pronunciation

In order to have an insight into the study, it is necessary to understand the term pronunciation It is generally understood that pronunciation refers to the production of sounds that humans use to make sense Generally, it includes segmental and suprasegmental aspects Segmental features are the particular sounds

of a language (segments) while suprasegmental features are aspects of speech beyond the level of the individual sound such as intonation, phrasing, stress, timing, rhythm These are different aspects of pronunciation but all work in combination when we speak Regarding the combination of segmental and suprasegmental features in pronunciation, Jenkins and Setter (2005: 1) provide a clearer definition

of pronunciation:

“Pronunciation involves the production and perception of segmental (sounds), both alone and in the stream of speech, where they undergo number of modifications and interact with suprasegmental (prosodic) features, particularly stress and intonation”

1.2 Phonetics

"Phonetics first of all divides, or segments, concrete utterances into individual speech sounds It is therefore exclusively concerned with parole or performance Phonetics can then be divided into three distinct phases: (1) articulatory phonetics, (2) acoustic phonetics, and (3) auditory phonetics" (Skandera

& Burleigh, 2005: 3)

Phonetics is a natural science that studies speech sounds or phones (concrete but unlimited in number): the way in which they are produced (uttered, articulated), the way in which they are perceived, their physical characteristics, etc

There are three main areas of phonetics: articulatory phonetics, acoustic phonetics, auditory phonetics

(Extracted from the lecture notes of Dr Nguyễn Huy Kỷ) Phonology is the study or description of the distinctive sound units (phonemes) of a language and their relationship to one another It involves studying

a language to determine its distinctive sounds and to establish a set of rules that describe the set of changes that take place in these sounds when they occur in different relationships with other sounds The subject of phonology includes the following areas:

- Study of the phonemic system

- Phoneme sequences and syllable structure

- Suprasegmental phonology (stress, intonation)

As my study takes the Vietnamese learners' problems in pronouncing English consonants into considerations, the review of articulatory phonetics and its features seem to be of direct relevance

1.3 Articulatory phonetics

Articulatory phonetics, one of the three main branches of phonetics, is the study of the organs of speech and their use in producing speech sounds The term 'organs of speech' refers to those parts of the human body that are concerned in various ways with the production of speech A lot of them are only secondarily concerned with the production of speech – their primary functions have to do with eating, chewing, and swallowing food, and respiration Those parts of the body below (not the lungs) belong to the vocal tract

The vocal tract is divided into the supraglottal and the subglottal tract

according to Davenport and Hannahs (1998) as shown in Figure 1

Figure: The speech organs of articulators

Articulatory phonetics deals with the major aspects of speech production They are the air stream mechanism, the state of vocal cords, the state of velum, the place and the manner of articulation (Davenport & Hannahs, 1998) On the other hand, as this study focuses on consonants, particularly on some common consonants that students often make errors in pronunciation, the manner and the place of articulation and voicing, the three main features of consonants, are also discussed

1.4 English consonants

1.4.1 General description of consonants

From the phonetic point of view, consonants are articulated in one of two ways: either there is a closing movement of one of the vocal organs, forming such a narrow constriction that it is possible to hear the sound of the air passing through; or the closing movement is complete, giving a total blockage The closing movement may involve lips, tongue, or throat, but in each case the overall effect is very different from the relatively open and unimpeded articulation found in vowels (Crystal, 2003) In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a sound in spoken

language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence

Consonants, actually, are sounds made with closed or nearly closed articulations As a consequence, they tend to break up the stream up speech, defining a perceptual and articulatory edge, or margin, for a unit (word or syllable

in a word) that includes one or more vowels

According to Roach (1983), English has twenty-four consonants: p, b, t, d,

k, ɡ, tʃ, dʒ, m, n, ŋ, f, v, θ, ð, s, z, ʃ, ʒ, r, j, w, l, h These 24 consonants are divided into different kinds in accordance with three categories, i.e., the degree of vocal cord vibration, the place of articulation and the manner of articulation

1.4.2 Classification of English consonants

Most dialects of English have about 24 distinctive (phonemic) consonant sounds divided according to three different criteria: voicing, place of articulation and manner of articulation Details of these are provided in Table 1

Sounds that are bold are voiced

Table 1: Consonants in English

In order to form consonants, the air-stream through the vocal cords must be obstructed in some way Therefore, consonants can be classified according to 3 types

According to voicing: (what vocal cords are doing)

a Voiced consonants: are produced when the vocal cords are vibrating

e.g: b, d, g, v,  , z, r, ʒ, dʒ, m, n, ŋ , l, w, j

b Voiceless consonants: are produced when the vocal cords are not vibrating

e.g: p, t, k, f, θ, s, ʃ, h, tʃ

According to place of articulation:

(Where the constriction of airflow takes place)

1 Bilabials: are the sounds made with the two lips pressed together or coming

together They include /b/ - /p/ - /m/- /w/

2 Labiodentals: are the sounds which are produced with the lower lip touching the

upper front teeth They consist of /f/ - /v/

3 Dentals/ interdentals: are the sounds which are produced with the tip or blade of

the tongue touching the upper front teeth They comprise /ð/, /θ/

4 Alveolars: are the sounds which are produced with the tip or blade of the tongue

touching or approaching the alveolar ridge They are composed of /t/ - /d/ - /s/ - /z/ - /n/ - /l/

5 Alveo-palatals/Post-alveolar: are the sounds which the front of the tongue

moves toward the area between alveolar ridge and hard palate They include /ʃ/- /  / - /tʃ/ - /dʒ/ - /r/

6 Palatal: is the sound which is produced with the front of the tongue coming close

to the hard palate It is /j/

7 Velars: are the sounds which are produced with the back of the tongue touching

the soft palate They comprise /k/ - /g/- /ŋ/

8 Glottals: are the sounds which are produced without the active use of the tongue

and other parts of the mouth They are /h/ - //

The places of articulation of English consonants are provided in Table 2

Alveolar

Alveolar ridge + tongue (Tongue at or near the ridge behind the upper front teeth)

t, d, n

Palato –alveolar Join of hard palate & alveolar ridge +

tongue

ʃ, ʒ, tʃ

Table 2: Consonants classified according to the place of articulation

According to the manner of articulation

1 Stops: are the sounds in the production of which there is a complete closure of

the articulators involved so that the air-stream can’t escape through the mouth There are two kinds of stops:

a Oral stops (Plosives): are the sounds which are produced with the air-stream

being stopped in the oral cavity and the soft palate is raised blocking off the nasal cavity Then the two articulators come apart quickly and the air escapes through

the oral tract They are /p/ - /d/ - /k/

b Nasal stops (Nasals): they are produced with the air-stream being stopped in the

oral cavity but the soft palate is down so that the air can go out through the nose They are: /m/ - /n/ - /ŋ/

2 Fricatives: are the sounds in the production of which two articulators come close

together but there is still a small opening between them so the air-stream is partially obstructed and an audible friction noise (a hissing sound) is produced They are /ʃ/ - /f/ - /ʒ/.

3 Affricates: are the sounds which are produced when a stop is immediately

followed by a fricative They are /tʃ/ - /dʒ/.

4 Lateral: is the sound which is made when the air-stream is obstructed at a point

along the centre of the oral tract, with incomplete closure between one or both sides of the tongue and the roof of the mouth It is /l/

5 Approximants: are the sounds in the production of which two articulators come

close together but without the vocal tract being narrowed to such an extent that a friction noise is produced It is /j/

The places of articulation of English consonants are provided in Table 3

Table 3: Consonants classified according to the manner of articulation

1.5 Errors and mistakes

According to Ancker (2000), making mistakes or errors is a natural process of learning and must be considered as partofcognition In language learning, making errors is an inevitable part that cannot be avoided People cannot learn a language without first systematically committing errors

Oral

Stop

Nasal

Complete closure in the mouth, air

1.5.1 Errors

There have been different definitions of errors given by linguists Ellis (1994) views errors as follows: “An error can be defined as a deviation from the norms of the target language” However, what are the norms of the target language is not an easy question An utterance which serves as the norm of educated Zambian English may not be the norm of British or American English

Another definition of an error given by Dulay et al (1982) is that “Error is the

flawed side of learner speech and writing, those parts of conversation or composition that deviate from some selected norm”

In brief, an error is generally something that is repeated again and again Language students can make errors because they do not understand the rules of grammar, phonetics and they make errors systematically

1.5.3 Types of errors

According to Adrian (1994: 133), mistake is “error” when the learner does not yet have the criteria for correctness This is something new that she cannot work out for herself There have been different ways to classify errors because researchers look at errors differently

Hendrickson (1980: 206) divided errors into 2 types: local errors and global errors because he focused on the influence of errors on the sense of a sentence or an utterance According to him, global errors not local ones could make the sentence

ambiguous or senseless Duley et al (1982: 53) classified errors relating to their observable characteristics For them there are 4 types of errors, namely omission, addition, misformation and misordering

Abbot (1980: 82) divided errors into competence errors and performance errors Competence errors consist of transfer, interlingual and induced Performance errors include errors of processing problems and errors of communication strategies

Pham Dang Binh (2003), in his PhD thesis on Vietnamese students’ errors, classified errors into two main types: common errors and typical errors Common errors are those which are committed by any second language learners when learning the same target language even when they come from different countries These errors normally appear at the beginning of the learning process and consist of competence errors with errors in phonology, vocabulary and grammar and performance errors with intralingual and interlingual errors Errors that are typical

of certain groups of learners who speak the same first language or live in the same culture are called typical errors Those errors include two main types: interlingual errors and culture interference errors

Richards (1984: 19-27) distinguishes three main major types of errors: interlingual errors, intralingual errors and developmental errors Interlingual errors result from language transfer, that is, which is caused by the learners’ native language

However, with their classifications, they showed very little concern about error types and did not reflect the process of making errors and causes of errors made by learners as well

Ha Cam Tam (2005: 9-10) conducted a research involving the most common pronunciation problems of the students in the English Department of the university

of Languages and International Studies According to her, the most frequent errors

of Vietnamese learners in pronunciation are sound omission, sound confusion and sound redundancy

1.5.4 Causes of errors in language learning

A variety of factors have been investigated to account for the problems related to English pronunciation faced to foreign learners Considered the most

influential factor, mother tongue inference has been studied thoroughly As shown

by Kenworthy (1988), Rivers and Temperly (1978), and Chan and Li (2000) learners’ native language plays an important role in their acquisition In terms of English sounds, it was emphasized by two latter researchers that “English sounds which have no counterpart in the native language will at first be difficult for students to distinguish” (p.162)

To sum up, the above studies have revealed the most typical pronunciation errors made by Vietnamese learners of English But no research has ever been carried out to look at school students’ pronunciation errors of English consonants This partly explains why in this study an attempt is made to find out the most common errors in consonant pronunciation of my ten-grade students at Giao Thuy Upper Secondary School, Nam Dinh province

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

This chapter is concerned with the research design It will first provide some information about the informants of the study Then it will present the research method, data collection instrument, data collection procedure

2.1 The informants of the study

The informants of this study are 15 students chosen randomly from three classes

of grade 10 at Giao Thuy Upper Secondary School (10A1, 10A2, 10B8) Among the 15 students, 13 are females and 2 are males Participants have been learning English for 8 years (from grade 3 to grade 10) and are using the same textbook

Tiếng Anh 10 by Hoang Van Van et al (2006/2015) Besides, all of participants are

learners in classes which are taught by the researcher So it was convenient for the researcher to carry out the study

Before recording their pronunciation, the researcher did not put any pressure on informants such as marks, comments or criticisms so that they were willing to take part in the study which aimed at investigating their common errors in consonant pronunciation

One foreign teacher also helped to the research with the collecting of data for the study

2.2 Research method

2.2.1 Data collection instrument

Recording informants’ pronunciation

Recording is undoubtedly the most common instrument for collection spoken data because it has the obvious advantage of preserving the entire verbal part for later analysis Moreover, the writer can stop and play back some parts to see and get the data more clearly and exactly These are the reasons why recording is utilized to collect the data for students’ consonant errors on pronunciation

The task was designed to record the students’ pronunciation based on the

data extracted from the textbook Tiếng Anh 10 Students were asked to read aloud

single words and sentences that contained all twenty four single consonants scattering in different positions of words: initial, middle and final These scripts were taken from seven units: from Unit 11 to Unit 16 of the textbook The researcher intentionally arranged the words and sentences by places of articulation

as presented in Roach (1983): bilabial (/b/-/p/-/m/-/w/) labiodental ( /f/& /v/)

dental/interdental ( /θ/&/ð/)alveolar( /t/-/d/-/s/-/z/-/n/-/l/)  alveopalatal

/ post-alveolar (/ʃ/-/ʒ/-/tʃ/-/dʒ/-/r/) palatal (/j/)  velar (/k/-/g/-/ŋ/) This arrangement aimed to help the researcher to identify students’ errors more easily with logical data

The researcher prepared a table of 24 single words containing all single consonants and 15 students coded by numbers from No 1 (S1) to No 15 (S15) Certainly, each word included more than one consonant, but the author only focused

on one single consonant in each word to know whether they made errors or not

While listening to the recording, the researcher put a cross (x) in the blank for the error the students made Errors were counted manually and quantified for analysis and discussion (for more details, please see Table 5)

The words that contain English consonants for students to read aloud are presented in Table 3

Table 3 Words that contain 24 English consonants