An investigation into the teaching and learning of intonation to the 9th grade students at a secondary school in thai binh province

All of these motivated me to conduct this research “An investigation into the teaching and learning of intonation to the 9 th grade students at a secondary school in Thai Binh province”

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

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

NGUYỄN THỊ DIỄM

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF

SCHOOL IN THAI BINH PROVINCE

(Nghiên cứu điều tra về việc dạy và học ngữ điệu đối với học sinh khối 9

ở một trường cấp 2 tại tỉnh Thái Bình)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Major: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

HANOI – 2017

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

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

NGUYỄN THỊ DIỄM

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF

SCHOOL IN THAI BINH PROVINCE (Nghiên cứu điều tra về việc dạy và học ngữ điệu đối với học sinh khối 9

ở một trường cấp 2 tại tỉnh Thái Bình)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Major: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Võ Đại Quang

HANOI – 2017

DECLARATION

I, Nguyen Thi Diem, hereby certify that my thesis submitted to the Faculty of Post- Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, apart from the help recognized, is my own work Documented references have been fully provided I have not submitted this thesis for assessment

in any other training institutions

Hanoi, 2017

Nguyễn Thị Diễm

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and foremost, I would like to express my special and sincere thanks to

my supervisor, Assoc Prof Dr Vo Dai Quang, 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, lecturers 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 me for the fulfilment of the thesis

Next, I would like to send my deep sense of thanks to the teachers and 100 students at the 9th grade at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School, Thai Binh 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 ideas are useful hints for the development of this thesis

TABLE OF CONTENT

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENT iv

ABBREVIATIONS vi

LIST OF FIGURES vii

LIST OF TABLES viii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims of the research 2

1.3 Research questions 2

1.4 Scope of the research 2

1.5 Significance of the research 3

1.6 Structure of the research 3

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

2.1 Review of theoretical background 4

2.1.1 General description of English intonation 4

2.1.2 Intonation in different types of English questions 7

2.2 Review of previous studies 11

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 15

3.1 Research questions 15

3.2 The participants of the study 15

3.3 Research method 15

3.4 Data-related issues 16

3.4.1 Data collection instruments 16

3.4.2 Data analysis techniques 17

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 18

4.1 Objectives of teaching and learning intonation 18

4.2 Report on the results collected in survey questionnaires 18

4.2.1 Summary of respondents participating in the research 18

4.3.2 Students‟ perception on intonation teaching by teachers at English lessons 19

4.2.3 Students‟ perception on finding out teachers intonation mistakes and use of

intonation as one of the important assessment criteria in examinations 24

4.2.4 Students‟ perception on materials and means of support that are currently applied for teaching intonation 28

4.2.5 Students‟ opinions of their commonly committed intonation mistakes in speaking lessons 33

4.3 The possible solutions to intonation teaching problems 34

4.3.1 Teaching intonation on the level of accuracy 35

4.3.2 Teaching intonation on the level of fluency 36

4.3.3 Organizing training courses for English teachers 37

4.3.4 Investing more suitable facilities 38

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 39

5.1 Recapitulation 39

5.2 Concluding remarks 39

5.2.1 Concluding remarks on the first objective 39

5.2.2 Concluding remarks on the second objective 39

5.2.3 Concluding remarks on the third objective 40

5.3 Limitations and suggestion for the further studies 40

REFERENCES 41 APPENDIX 1 I

STUDENTS I APPENDIX 2 IN-DEPTH INTERVIEW WITH GROUP LEADER OF ENGLISH GROUP AT 9 TH GRADE V APPENDIX 3 IN-DEPTH INTERVIEW WITH ENGLISH TEACHER AT

9 TH GRADE VI

ABBREVIATIONS

LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: One question pronounced with different intonation patterns (Ladefoged,

Figure 4: Example of a Wh-question

Figure 5: Students‟ perception on intonation teaching by teachers at English

lessons

Figure 6: Students‟ perception on finding out teachers‟ intonation mistakes

Figure 7: Students‟ perception about materials and means of support that are

currently applied for teaching intonation

LIST OF TABLES

Table 4.1: Students‟ perception on intonation teaching by teachers at English lessons 19Table 4.2: Results of Methods of teaching intonation at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School 22Table 4.3: Students‟ perception on finding out teachers‟ intonation mistakes and use

of intonation as one of the important assessment criteria in examinations 24Table 4.4: Results of Methods of assessing intonation in Pham Huy Quang Secondary School 27Table 4.5: Students‟ perception on materials and means of support that are currently applied for teaching intonation 28Table 4.6: Results of materials and means of support in Pham Huy Quang Secondary School 31

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

In recent years, English has been widely used in Vietnam It has become a compulsory subject at school Theoretically, there has been a remarkable change in methods of teaching and learning English However, in fact, teaching and learning English at the secondary school don‟t prove their own real competence Teaching and learning English only focus on grammar and vocabulary with an aim at getting the high scores in examinations For instance, in speaking lesson, teachers seem not

to focus on teaching some significant factors such as rhythms, phonetics and intonation…

Individually, I first became interested in intonation of English language after

my first year at university At one of the seminars, I completely misunderstood a question that a native speaker asked because of the difference in intonation The other students and I did not recognize that was said as a question and nodded our head as we might respond to a statement we did not understand even though we were getting the gist of the conversation The teacher stopped all conversation and let us know that this is a big problem for English – speaking learners This sparked

my interest in intonation in different types of questions Since then, intonation and how it relates to miscommunication is an area I have focused on in teaching Because intonation pattern differences could hinder students‟ lives outside the classroom in various ways such as making friends, meeting needs, and job advancement

All of these motivated me to conduct this research “An investigation into the

teaching and learning of intonation to the 9 th grade students at a secondary school in Thai Binh province”, which will go into details of intonation mistakes in

different types of English questions of the 9th grade students at Pham Huy Quang School and then recommend solutions in order to mitigate the problems

1.2 Aims of the research

The specific aims of the study are:

- To investigate the most common mistakes committed when using intonation

in different types of English questions by the 9 th grade students at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School, Thai Binh

- To identify the causes of students’ problems when using intonation in different types of English questions

- To recommend possible solutions to their intonation mistakes

- What are possible solutions to their intonation mistakes?

1.4 Scope of the research

The research was conducted on the 9th grade students at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School, Thai Binh Regarding its scope, the research focused on finding out the most typical mistakes which the 9th grade students at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School, Thai Binh commonly commit when using intonation in different types of English questions Hence, the research results cannot be true to all Vietnamese learners That is to say, the study works well only for teachers and learners who are teaching and learning at such schools with similar English syllabus

or education training or for the ones who are concerned

Moreover, due to both limited time and experience, this study only mentions the mistakes in using intonation in different types of English questions Any attempt to study English intonation mistakes on other aspects, such as statement sentences intonation…, is beyond the scope of this thesis

1.5 Significance of the research

This research provides an insight into the teaching and learning of intonation

to the 9th grade students at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School, Thai Binh Furthermore, the research results would be used as useful references for English teachers while they teach intonation to their students not only in Pham Huy Quang School but also in other schools

1.6 Structure of the research

The research consists of 5 chapters as follow:

Chapter 1 is the INRODUCTION, which provides an overview of the

research with specific information about rationale, aim and objectives of the research, the research questions, the scope and structure of the research

Chapter 2 is the LITERATURE REVIEW, which presents a review of

theoretical background about using intonation in different types of English question and a review of previous studies related to the research

Chapter 3 is the METHODOLOGY, which gives a detailed discussion of

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

Chapter 4 is the FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION, which is a detail

description of data analysis and a discussion of the findings of the study

Chapter 5 is the CONCLUSION, which includes the recapitulation 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

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Review of theoretical background

2.1.1 General description of English intonation

2.1.1.1 Definition of intonation

Intonation is a part of prosody and it often cooperates with other prosodic features such as duration and amplitude in order to convey or supplement meaning (Haan, J 2002) Nevertheless, pitch, or, in acoustic terms, fundamental frequency (F0) is usually assumed to be the main correlation to intonation (Bolinger, 1986, Cruttenden, 1986, Beckman, 1995b) Stress is also an integral part of intonation In the present thesis, intonation will be defined as the meaningful variation of pitch in the course of an utterance (Haan J., 2002)

Do Tien Thang in “Vietnamese Intonation” defined that “Intonation is the phenomenon of language that is made up of the action of the acoustical features in certain allomorph in the sentences Intonation makes the sentence realized and becomes the unit of communication" [3, 59] Brazil (1997) stated that “one of the traditional concepts of intonation is variation in the pitch of the voice and proposed

an innovative approach to production and reception of speech called Discourse Intonation theory”

In all languages, intonation is used as a means of expressing semantic and emotionally stylistic differences of an utterance Intonation may be presented as raised or lowered pitch that in an expression usually means a completed or uncompleted idea, question or statement Prosodic features, such as a tone and a pitch, can distinguish important ideas from less important ones and can show a speakers‟ personality and attitude towards what he/she is saying The pragmatic role

of intonation can be potent in conveying the speakers‟ intention with speech acts (Searle 1969) Speech acts can be loosely described as actions of speaking whereby the speaker sends a message to a hearer with an intention

2.1.1.2 Types of intonation

Ladd (1980) presents five major intonations, while Levis (1999) divides intonation into three categories However, according to majority of authors, intonation in English is divided into two key types such as raising intonation and falling intonation

+ The raising intonation is symbolized as

+The falling intonation is symbolized as

However in daily communication, there are many types of sub-intonations in order to exactly express the speakers‟ different viewpoints such as low fall, high wide fall, high narrow fall, low rise, high wide rise, high narrow rise, rise – fall, fall – rise, rise – fall – rise The England in Australia even uses 13 different sub-intonations in their daily communication

In the English questions, two types of intonation of raising and falling intonation are used widely Looking at the following examples:

We can conclude that for the “Wh-question” questions, the end of the sentence must fall intonation and for Question-No question, the end of the sentence must raise intonation

2.1.1.3 The importance of Intonation

The phrase people often use to illustrate the importance of intonation is, “It‟s not what you said, it‟s how you said it!” The “how you said it” refers to the pitch level, accent, length, or intonation contour – all aspects of suprasegmentals – of

what was said Suprasegmentals can carry meaning not found in individual sound segments Segmentals are individual phones whereas suprasegmentals operate above the level of the segmentals The pitch level, accent, or intonation contour of words or a whole phrase sometimes carries more pragmatic meaning than just words as written These suprasegmental features express intent, emotion, and inquisitiveness and as such are a critical component of language competence and proficiency

Each intonation group has a typical pitch contour which changes in predictable ways, for example when emphasis is added Intonation can provide attitudinal meaning in English and other languages (Cruttenden, 1986, p.14) The example in Figure 1 illustrates two different intonation contours for the same words, each conveying a different attitude toward what is being said Native speakers of American English can interpret differing intonation patterns to convey slight or great differences in meaning

Figure 1: One question pronounced with different intonation patterns (Ladefoged, 2006,p 120)

Above are examples of how English speakers may pronounce the same question with different intonation patterns The top intonation contour is a falling

contour and is considered more neutral The bottom contour, which is considered more argumentative has two rising phrases, the second having a large pitch increase (Ladefoged, 2006, p 120)

Given that intonation contours can distinguish attitude or pragmatic force, intonation functions importantly in cross cultural communication “A failure to make full 6 use of English prosodic features has crucial consequences in NS/NNS [native speaker/non-native-speaker] oral interaction” (Clennell, 1997, p 118) Overall, more native-like intonation will help non-native speakers have their intentions perceived more accurately in conversation

2.1.2 Intonation in different types of English questions

2.1.2.1 Intonation in Yes- No questions

The unmarked English contour for yes-no questions has a final rise as is the

case for many intonational languages (Cruttenden, 1986, p.163) Pierrehumbert

(1980, p 16, 262) describes yes-no questions in English with more detail, as having

a rise-plateau-rise She shows an F0 pattern which is commonly used on yes-no

questions The pitch accent is low, then the contour rises, makes a plateau, and then rises again to a high tone Pierrehumbert also cited Sag and Liberman (1975) and

Rando (1980) as describing yes-no questions as having a rise-plateau-rise

configuration when there is enough distance from the pitch accent to the end of utterance for this to occur We see this rise-plateaurise in the question if the contour

is long enough, but what I am looking for to determine if an utterance is target-like

is the final rise at the boundary tone This is sufficient to distinguish an utterance

from being native-like Figure 2 illustrates the unmarked contour for yes-no

questions (Pierrehumbert & Hirschberg, 1990)

Figure 2: Illustration of an unmarked yes-no question (Pierrehumbert &

Hirschberg, p.273)

The intonation contour in Figure 2 shows a low pitch accent on the first syllable

of “vitamins” and the contour rising from there to a final high tone Figure 3, below,

shows another example of the yes-no question, this time with the rise-plateau-rise

Figure 3: Illustration of rise-plateau-rise in the contour (Pierrehumbert &

Hirschberg,p.274)

In Figure 3 the boundary tone is far enough from the final pitch accent to allow for the rise-plateau-rise in the contour This contour shows a low pitch accent

on “good” and a rise-plateau-rise from there (Pierrehumbert, 1980)

Although there are grammatical structures that align with such intonation

contours to indicate interrogatives such as English aux + S + V (Do you like apples?), speakers (and especially English language learners) don‟t have to use these grammatical forms to make yes-no questions and can rely on high rise of the

boundary tone of unmarked intonation contours to express that action This can be typical of beginning language learners (Pienemann, 1998) (2) A: You work full time (with high rising pitch at the end) B: yes In example (2) the language learner does not use grammar to form a question by using the auxiliary verb „do‟ and moving the subject after the verb The question is in statement form and the final rise in intonation indicates that it is a question For this study I looked at fully

formed syntactic yes-no questions as well as those that were indicated by intonation

alone such as in example (2)

2.1.2.2 Intonation in Wh- questions

In contrast to yes-no questions, wh-questions in English, also known as

information questions, have the same unmarked falling contour as declaratives Pike (1956) describes the general tendency of question contours to be falling and refers

to them as the “chief contour” (pp 168-169) Wh-questions in English have also

been 12 described more specifically as having a final falling tone (Couper-Kuhlen,

1996 citing Armstrong/Ward, 1931) Pierrehumbert & Hirshberg also described

wh-questions this way stating that “the H* L-L% tune used with simple declaratives is

also frequently used with wh-questions” (1990, p 284)

Cruttenden (p.165) cites Bolinger (1978) and Ultan (1978) in describing

whquestions “Falls are the dominant pattern for question-word interrogatives in contrast to the rises associated with yes-no questions.” The following example

(Figure 4) shows a rise to the stressed syllable of the focus word and then a fall

including a low boundary tone This is an unmarked question contour for

wh-questions in English

Figure 4: Example of a Wh-question

After looking at the unmarked intonation contours for questions in English

we will look at unmarked intonation contours in Russian and some information on how they differ

2.1.2.3 Intonation in Tag questions

Intonation in English tag questions has been investigated by many linguists such as McCawley (1988), Huddleston and Pullum (2002), and Ladd (1988) Tag questions are usually punctuated with question marks, but sometimes they are not meant as questions In most cases the speaker wants to confirm something and, as a result, the falling pattern is used If the speaker does not know something or is not sure, he uses the rising pattern Ladd (1981) describes two types of tag questions in English He defines them in terms of nuclear and post-nuclear tags instead of

“rising” and “falling” In other words, a context and an intonation play an extremely important role Pitch contours are the clue to knowing what someone is really asking when they ask a tag question The examples of nuclear and post-nuclear tags

are presented below It should be mentioned that the term anchor means the

declarative part of a tag question (Ladd, 1981) The falling intonation is used to

seek acknowledgment that the anchor is true, entreating a strong bias for an answer that confirms the anchor Ladd (1981) associates it with nuclear tags, whereas rising intonation in tag questions asks for confirmation of the anchor, at the same time expressing uncertainty Ladd (1981) associates it with post-nuclear tags

Example: A: Julie wouldn’t do it that way

B: Well, Julie isn’t here, /is she (falling intonation pattern)

Example: A: Perhaps, Mary could do it

B: Mary isn’t here, /is she (rising intonation pattern)

Tag questions convey varying degrees of bias depending on the direction of the pitch over the tag Falling intonation over the tag, for example, conveys a strong bias toward the proposition expressed by the anchor Rising intonation, on the other hand, normally conveys some doubt or uncertainty by the speaker regarding the truth of the anchor and is therefore associated with a weak bias Intuitively, falling

intonation tag questions ask for acknowledgement of the anchor from the addressee,

while rising intonation tag questions ask for confirmation (Rando, 1980; Huddleston and Pullum, 2002) When tags are used in their most frequent function, – that is, seeking confirmation or making a point, – they also have rising-falling intonation The risingfalling pattern is definitely the more frequently occurring contour for tag questions in English However, the same tag question can have different intonation and different meaning depending on the context According to Dart (1982), in English speech, a pause between the statement and the tag question

is very normal Thus, tag questions in English can have rising or falling intonation patterns, depending on a situation and person‟s interest in continuing or finishing a

conversation

2.2 Review of previous studies

So far, there have been a quite number of studies about Vietnamese‟s mistakes in using intonation They are the valuable references for further researches, especially, for this thesis

Tran Thi Thanh Dieu (2015) studied about “A case study of solutions to some intonation mistakes made by Vietnamese students – a phonetic experimental research” This study focuses on the importance of combining phonological

knowledge with rhythm, melody and syntax rules in teaching English intonation affected by stress for Vietnamese students, verified by Experimental Phonetics The hypothesis is that the English Rhythmic patterns and melodic aspect will help students to identify their intonation mistakes and change from negative to positive attitude towards practicing intonation melodically affected by stress The final target

is to improve Vietnamese students‟ pronunciation skill as well as catching the main idea in the conversation in order to have successful communication in English To solve this problem, the author carried out with 90 Vietnamese students in two universities namely University of Social Sciences and Humanities and Ho Chi Minh City Open University The study gave seven common intonation mistakes such as mistake of rhythmic pattern, mistake of tonic syllable identification, mistake of rhythm and tonic syllable identification, mistake of intonation pattern, mistake of rhythmic and intonation pattern, mistake of tonic syllable identification and intonation patter and mistake of rhythm, tonic syllable identification and intonation patterns

In the study of “Contrastive Analysis of English and Persian Intonation Patterns: An Error Analysis Study on Iranian Undergraduate EFL Students” of Mojtaba Eghlidi (2016), the author highlighted importance of intonation pattern In particular, intonation patterns play a significant role in successful direct communication i.e speaking in the target language Some language learners generalize their native language patterns while speaking target language, in other words, they make some pronunciation errors In the present study, firstly, intonation patterns of English and Persian have been analyzed and discussed contrastively Secondly, an error analysis study of intonation patterns on Iranian undergraduate EFL students carried out In order to collect data the voices of thirty Iranian undergraduate EFL students while reading aloud an authentic English text have

been recorded Then their errors while using English intonation patterns have been identified The results confirmed the predictions and showed that the subjects erred

in using rise-fall pattern in the sentences containing two clauses more than other patterns; whereas they did not err while applying rise intonation

According to Claudia Pesce (2014) in “Do Your ESL Students Make These Stress and Intonation Mistakes?, the author identified two most common mistakes

of intonation namely no rising pitch and using the wrong pitch Therefore, he recommended some suggestions such as Yes/No questions have the rising pitch towards the end; questions that begin with wh-words have a falling intonation; statements have a falling intonation; question tags may have either depending on the intention of the speaker; questions tags that are comments or observations have a falling intonation while questions tags used to check information or express uncertainty have a rising intonation; using rising intonation to express surprise and using falling intonation to express sarcasm or disbelief

Koichi Kumaki (2003) studied about “A study of English intonation in high school textbook in Japan” The study stated that teaching intonation is usually neglected in teaching English at high school and upper secondary school in Japan Therefore, the study attempted to find out which intonation features are commonly taught and how they are treated in the context of TEFL at high school in Japan The results pointed out the main intonation approaches, especially discourse intonation and the intonation treatment in the authorized English textbooks largely takes the grammatical approach rather than attitudinal or discourse, and the teachers‟ view on intonation treatment is almost in line with that of the textbooks, though they rarely teach intonation in lessons

Obviously, there are many problems in relation to teaching and learning of intonation for students at secondary school and high school I hope that these are useful references to develop my topic in this thesis

2.3 Summary

All the theoretical background of the research was presented in this chapter with the purpose of giving a general view to readers to get information about English intonation, intonation in different types of English question, and some studies on related topics It was believed that the 9th grade students participating in this study would struggle with the intonation in different types of English questions The next chapter will present the research methodology

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 Research questions

The study was carried out to address the following three questions:

- What are the intonation mistakes commonly committed by the 9 th grade students at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School, Thai Binh?

- What are the causes of students’ problems when using intonation in different types of English questions?

- What are possible solutions to their intonation mistakes?

3.2 The participants of the study

The study was conducted with the participation of 100 students around 14 years old (64 males, 36 females) in two classes 9G and 9H at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School These two classes with 100 learners were selected randomly from a population of 7 classes with 362 students of the basic program They were mixed-ability classes in which some students had limited proficiency in English The students had low intrinsic and extrinsic motivation for learning English Besides, the study has in-depth review with two teachers who are leader of English group and English teacher at 9th grade They were reminded that the data gathered would not be utilized for any assessment purposes and that personal details would

be kept confidential

3.3 Research method

In order to find out common intonation mistakes that the 9th grade students at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School, Thai Binh commit, I use two methods of qualitative and quantitative methods for gathering data The data is collected from two sources: secondary data and primary data (questionnaires and in-depth interview) Based on these data, the current mistakes commonly committed by the

9th grade students at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School, Thai Binh in using intonation in different types of English questions would be identified, analyzed and assessed in order to find out the limitations And then the solutions and

recommendations would have been proposed for overcoming the mistakes commonly committed by the 9th grade students at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School, Thai Binh in using intonation in different types of English questions

3.4 Data-related issues

In addition, I collected from a wide range of sources, which were published (called secondary data), such as Internet databases, former research studies and so forth in order to help me set up my own questionnaires and theoretical background

of developing the thesis The information was collection from Internet (other relevant websites, news and publishes) and from journals (general information related to mistakes commonly committed by students in using intonation; information of students talking about intonation use and information of intonation provided by the news or reporters or media in general)

3.4.1 Data collection instruments

Questionnaires are the main instrument For the purposes of the study, I delivered questionnaires to 100 9th grade students at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School, Thai Binh (Appendix 1) These were used for three main purposes namely finding out students‟ attitudes towards intonation mistakes in different types of English questions; getting their opinions on the causes of their mistakes, getting to know reality in the classes and materials and means of support of teaching intonation and exploring students‟ expectation towards their teachers in intonation classes

The questionnaires designed consisted of the following parts:

Part 1: Introduction of the survey purpose and commitment terms

Part 2: General information (name, class, habits,…)

Part 3: Main body of the survey consisting of the specific multiple – choice

questions in accordance with using intonation Accordingly the author will collect and give conclusion and solutions to enhance mistakes in using intonation of the 9thgrade students at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School, Thai Binh

Part 4: Open questions are designed to collect students‟ detailed feedbacks about

3.4.2 Data analysis techniques

The data which was collected was pre-processed using the Microsoft Excel for Microsoft Professional Windows XP and create many useful and effective charts, diagrams and pies that support the my analysis and discussion

The data was analyzed to find out mistakes commonly committed by the the

9th grade students at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School, Thai Binh in using intonation in different types of English questions and some suggested solutions and then, I did utilize to analyze and discuss mistakes commonly committed by the the

9th grade students at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School, Thai Binh in using intonation in different types of English questions and some suggested solutions

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 Objectives of teaching and learning intonation

Intonation that needs to be mentioned is one of the important factors in

speaking lessons Intonation is not defined as a specific subject at Secondary and High Schools Here are some typical objectives set forth the teaching of intonation:

- Understanding principles of intonation in different types of English

questions such as tag questions, WH-question or Yes-No question

- Practicing accurately and correctly intonation in different types of English questions

- Using intonation in general and intonation in different types of English questions in particular

- Building good intonation for students as a good foundation in the higher education

4.2 Report on the results collected in survey questionnaires

4.2.1 Summary of respondents participating in the research

The survey was carried out with 100 9th students at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School All students were supportive and totally 100 respondents are the final and successful ones of the survey

The questionnaire includes 10 questions for measuring 03 independent variables and 03 questions for measuring 03 dependent variables 3 independent variables are: “Methods of teaching intonation (TI)” includes 04 items from TI1 to TI4; “Methods of assessing intonation (AI)” consists of 03 items from AI1 to AI3 and “Materials and means of support (MS)” includes of 03 items from MS1 to MS3

03 dependent variables are “Methods of teaching intonation”, “Methods of assessing intonation” and “Materials and means of support”, the rating scale from 1

to 5 (1: completely disagree, 2: disagree, 3: neutral, 4: agree and 5: completely agree)

For the question in Part 1: General information, 100% of respondents are at

grade 9 at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School When being asked “Do you like

English subject?” there are 75 respondents or 75% with “Yes” answer and the rest

of 25 9th grade students said that they don‟t love English subject Obviously most of

9th grade students in this school have good awareness of importance of English subject and they are fond of this subject

4.3.2 Students’ perception on intonation teaching by teachers at English lessons

Table 4.1: Students’ perception on intonation teaching by teachers at English

lessons