Những nhân tố ảnh hưởng đến việc học phát âm tiếng anh của sinh viên dân tộc thiểu số ở trường cao đẳng cộng đồng lai châu m a thesis

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES  PHÙNG THỊ THANH NGA FACTORS AFFECTING ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



PHÙNG THỊ THANH NGA

FACTORS AFFECTING ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION

LEARNING OF ETHNIC MINORITY STUDENTS AT LAI CHAU

COMMUNITY COLLEGE

Những nhân tố ảnh hưởng đến việc học phát âm Tiếng Anh

của sinh viên dân tộc thiểu số ở trường cao đẳng cộng đồng Lai Châu

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01

Hanoi - 2018

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



PHÙNG THỊ THANH NGA

FACTORS AFFECTING ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION

LEARNING OF ETHNIC MINORITY STUDENTS AT LAI CHAU

COMMUNITY COLLEGE

Những nhân tố ảnh hưởng đến việc học phát âm Tiếng Anh

của sinh viên dân tộc thiểu số ở trường cao đẳng cộng đồng Lai Châu

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01

Supervisor: Dr TRAN THI THU HIEN

Hanoi - 2018

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DECLARATION

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report

entitled ―Factors affecting English pronunciation learning of ethnic minority

students at Lai Chau Community College.” (Những nhân tố ảnh hưởng đến việc

học phát âm Tiếng Anh của sinh viên dân tộc thiểu số ở trường Cao đẳng Cộng đồng Lai Châu) submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of

Master of Arts at the Faculty of Post Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi Except where the reference is indicated, no other person‘s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis

Signature

Phung Thi Thanh Nga

Secondly, a special word of thanks goes to all the lecturers and the staffs of Faculty of Post Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their useful lectures, materials, guidance and enthusiasm during my course

Thirdly, I also thank my colleagues for their willingness to share their ideas

on this study and my students for their cooperation in completing the survey questionnaires

Last but not least, I am indebted to my family and all my friends who have kindly given me assistance and encouragement Without them, this study would

have no such great motivation

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ABSTRACT

Pronunciation plays a very important part in learning English but it is a big problem for most of ethnic minority students at Lai Chau Community College, the only college in Lai Chau province where more than 90% of students are ethnic Most of them have difficulties in English pronunciation learning Until now, no research on English pronunciation learning of the ethnic learners at Lai Chau Community College has been carried out

The researcher, therefore, decides to convey the research with the aim of finding out factors affecting ethnic minority students‘ pronunciation learning, investigating typical pronunciation errors that ethnic minority students often commit, and proposing possible solutions To achieve the objectives of the study, the author used both qualitative and quantitative methods The data were obtained from students‘ survey questionnaires, students‘ test results, and teachers‘ interview Basing on the results, the author has pointed out common errors as well as main factors affecting English pronunciation of ethnic minority students at Lai Chau Community College Besides, the author also implies some suggestions for teaching and learning English pronunciation for ethnic minority students at this

college

It is hoped that this thesis will be useful for teachers and students not only at Lai Chau Community College but also at other colleges

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CVC: Consonant-vowel-consonant EFL: English as a Foreign Language ESL: English as a Second Language IPA: International Phonetic Alphabet

NNSs: Non-native speakers

LCCC: Lai Chau Community College

SLA: Second language acquisition

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1: Information of students‘ participants

Table 2.2: Information of teachers‘ participants

Table 3.1: Teachers‘ view on students‘ difficulties in pronouncing vowel sounds Table 3.2: Teachers‘ view on students‘ difficulties in pronouncing consonant sounds Table 3.3: Students‘ evaluation on difficulty in learning English consonants

Table 3.4: The test‘s results on students‘ vowel and consonant sounds

Table 3.5: The test‘s results on students‘ word stress

Table 3.6: Student‘s age, ability and education level

Table 3.7: Students‘ interest in learning English pronunciation

Table 3.8: Factors affecting English pronunciation learning from students‘ views Table 3.9: Techniques used in English lessons from students‘ view

Table 3.10: Activities and techniques of teachers in pronunciation lessons

Table 3.11: Students‘ expectations in English lessons

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TABLE OF CONTENT

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv

LIST OF TABLES v

TABLE OF CONTENT vi

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale of the study 1

2 The objectives of the research 1

3 Research questions 2

4 Scope of the study 2

5 Methods of the study 2

6 Significance of the study 3

7 Design of the study 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 Review of previous studies 4

1.1.1 Previous studies overseas ……….4

1.1.2 Previous studies in Vietnam ……….5

1.2 Review of theoretical background 6

1.2.1 Perception of pronunciation ……….6

1.2.2 Features of pronunciation 6

1.2.3 Factors affecting English pronunciation learning ……… 11

1.2.4 English pronunciation errors ……… 20

1.2.5 Common English pronunciation problems of Vietnamese learners ……… 22

1.2.6 Overview of difficulties for learning English of ethnic minority students in Vietnam ………23

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1.3 Chapter summary 24

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 25

2.1 Research setting 25

2.2 Research approaches 26

2.3 Research participants 26

2.4 Data collection instrument 27

2.4.1 The questionnaire ……… 27

2.4 2 The interview ………27

2.4.3 The test ……… 27

2.5 Data collection procedures and analysis 28

2.5.1 For the questionnaire ……… 28

2.5.2 For the interview ………28

2.5.3 For the test ……….29

2.6 Chapter summary 29

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 30

3.1 Data analysis 30

3.1.1 Students‘ common errors ……… 30

3.1.2 Factors affecting students‘ pronunciation ……… 34

3.1.3 Techniques used to teach the English pronunciation ……….37

3.1.4 Teachers‘ recommendations on teaching and students‘ expectations on learning English pronunciation ……… 38

3.2 Discussion 39

3.2.1 Typical English pronunciation errors ……….40

3.2.2 Factors affecting students‘ English pronunciation learning ……… 41

3.3 Possible solutions for improving students’ English pronunciation 42

3.3.1 For teachers ………42

3.3.2 For students ………44

3.3.3 For managers ……… 45

3.4 Chapter summary 46

PART C: CONCLUSION 47

1 Recapitulation 47

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2 Concluding remarks 47

2.1 Typical English pronunciation errors made by ethnic students at LCCC 47 2.2 Factors affecting English pronunciation of ethnic minority students at LCCC? 48

2.3 Solutions to improve English pronunciation of ethnic minority students at LCCC ……… 48

3 Limitations of the study 49

4 Recommendations for further studies 49

REFERENCES 50 APPENDICES I APPENDIX 1 I APPENDIX 2 VII APPENDIX 3 VIII

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PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

Nowadays, English is an important foreign language in the world since it links people in many fields: science, technology, business, communication, education, etc and thus, a great number of people study it That is the reason why teaching and learning English have become the necessity and importance in every country

Pronunciation plays a vital part of foreign language learning because it directly affects learners' communicative competence as well as performance Since, limited pronunciation skills can decrease learners‘ self-confidence, restrict social interactions, and negatively affect estimations of a speaker‘s credibility and abilities As Morley states, ―intelligible pronunciation is an essential component of communicative competence‖ (Morley, 1991: 513) This consideration suggests that teaching pronunciation is crucial to help the students develop the skills that are necessary to communicate in the target language Besides, Harmer also claims:

―pronunciation teaching not only makes students aware of different sounds and sound features (and what these mean), but can also improve their speaking immeasurably‖ and consequently ―help them achieve the goal of improved comprehension and intelligibility‖ (Harmer, 2001: 183) Therefore, Kelly believes that ―pronunciation work can, and should, be planned‖ (Kelly, 2000: 13)

Lai Chau Community College is a mountainous college in the North-West of Viet Nam where most of students are ethnic minority They account for more than

90 percent of all students in the college Most of them find studying English pronunciation difficult Until now, no research on English pronunciation learning of ethnic minority students at LCCC has been carried out Hence, the researcher decides to convey the research with the hope that this study can help find out the factors affecting English pronunciation and improving pronunciation learning of ethnic minority students at LCCC

2 The objectives of the research

The main objectives of this research are:

4 Scope of the study

This study focuses on finding out factors that affect learning English pronunciation of ethnic minority students at LCCC The data collected for this thesis are mainly from 85 ethnic minority students and three teachers of English at LCCC

5 Methods of the study

Both qualitative and quantitative methods are chosen for this study in order

to achieve the tasks mentioned above A survey questionnaire is designed for 85 ethnic minority students at LCCC; this is considered as the main instrument to find out the factors affecting their English pronunciation learning Furthermore, questionnaires provide lots of data for analysis, and the more data sets, the more accurate the analysis is Besides, interviews to three teachers have been also conducted to get supplementary information Especially, together with survey questionnaire and interview, a test is designed with the aim of investigating on typical pronunciation errors that ethnic minority students at LCCC often commit

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6 Significance of the study

This study hopes to make concentration on teaching English pronunciation for ethnic minority students at LCCC Next, findings of the study could be shared among teachers of English to improve English pronunciation skill for ethnic minority students and the quality of teaching and learning in the coming years Especially, the findings could be used as a data base for further study

7 Design of the study

The study is organized three parts as follows:

Part A, INTRODUCTION, presents rationale, objectives, research questions,

scope, methods, significance, and design of the study

Part B, DEVELOPMENT, includes three main chapters:

Chapter 1, LITERATURE REVIEW, presents a review of literature and theoretical background about English pronunciation learning, its perceptions and features This chapter is concentrated on eight factors affecting English pronunciation learning

Chapter 2, METHODOLOGY, describes the context of the study, the participants, data collection instruments and the data collection procedures

Chapter 3, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION, gives a detailed presentation of data and detailed description of data analysis This focuses on presenting, analyzing and discussing the results obtained from the study based on the survey questionnaire, interview questions and test Besides, the chapter also presents some discussion and interpretations of the findings of the study, and then gives possible suggestions for the teachers and the students in teaching and learning pronunciation

at LCCC

Part C, CONCLUSION, provides conclusion, limitations and suggestions for future research

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

In this section, previously conducted research in the detail fields of pronunciation will be presented and discussed This must be done in order to place the thesis in the context relevant to the research which will be conducted Furthermore, it will provide the readers with some basic knowledge of the background and present state of this field of research

1.1 Review of previous studies

Various researches on the English pronunciation are abundant however the factors affecting the English pronunciation learning of ethnic minority students are somewhat limited

1.1.1 Previous studies overseas

Pronunciation has been seen as the Cinderella of language teaching due to its complexity (Kelly, 1969) It is believed that only few learners can ever attain native-like pronunciation in the foreign language, especially those who learn to speak a second language after puberty (Lenneberg, 1967) Research in pronunciation is a hot issue in second language acquisition (SLA), and a great of researchers attempted to find the affecting factors for pronunciation Among these studies, some studies focus on the learning age‘s affecting for SLA (Harley, 1986; Mackay, Flege, & Imai, 2006), some studies addressed the length of residence in the target language country (Flege, Bohn,

& Jang, 1997; Flege & Liu, 2001), and other studies focus on the frequency

of using the second language( L2) (Flege, Mackay, & Meador, 1999)

Kenworthy (1987) listed the factors that affecting native-like pronunciation These variables include native language, age, exposure, innate phonetic ability, identity and language ego, motivation, and concern for good pronunciation Incontestably, it is not easy to give an intact list for affecting factors in pronunciation

Kaihua Li ( 2013) reported how different modes of basic education, culture may influence the English learning situations facing ethnic minority students who belong to the same ethnic group shape However, the amount of

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participants are only 17 students That may not express correctly the problems of

learning English pronunciation

Tesi di Laurea(2015) discussed the teaching of English pronunciation in primary schools in Italy The thesis pointed out the importance of pronunciation, the factors that affect the learning of pronunciation, the characteristics of young learners, the difficulties that Italian learners may have and the situation regarding English language teaching in primary schools in Italy

St Paul, Minnesota (2012) reported the factors that influence English pronunciation of native Vietnamese speakers The results of this thesis are very useful however the thesis doesn‘t mention on the English pronunciation learning of ethnic minority people

Besides the above thesis, a large number of minor thesis also mentioned on the factors, the problems, instructions and suggestions for learning English pronunciation

As we know, different research method and different research context result in different findings However, we recognized that there are many factors affecting pronunciation These factors may be changeable or unchangeable, may be explicit or implicit, and may be internal or external However, the factors affecting the English pronunciation learning of ethnic minority students in Vietnam has not mentioned yet

1.1.2 Previous studies in Vietnam

pronouncing the English final consonants

Le Ngoc Han (2011) studied on common mistakes made by Vietnamese beginners of English in pronouncing /θ/, /δ/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /ʤ/, /ʧ/ and possible solutions The thesis makes clear the barriers that Vietnamese people pronounce /θ/, /δ/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /ʤ/, /ʧ/ then gives the necessary suggestions

Do Thi Thu Hang (2014) pointed out factors affecting English pronunciation learning of H‘mong ethnic students in Ham Yen High School, Ham Yen District, Tuyen Quang province The results of the thesis are very useful but they only mentioned on H‘mong ethnic minority students

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Compared to those previous studies, this study will also give general information of pronunciation with its main features and common factors affecting English learning Besides, the study will provide general overview of common mistakes of Vietnamese people as well as some main barriers of ethnic minority people to learn English From that, the author will analysis the documents collected from Lai Chau Community College, give the main factors affecting English pronunciation learning of ethnic minority students at this college and give the best solutions

1.2 Review of theoretical background

1.2.1 Perception of pronunciation

There are several definitions of pronunciation Generally speaking,

pronunciation is simply defined as ―the way in which a word is spoken‖ (Oxford Advanced Learner‘s Encyclopedic, 1992) or ―the way in which a word is usually pronounced‖ (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, 1978)

―Pronunciation is the way in which a word or a language is spoken”(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronunciation) This may refer to generally

agreed-upon sequences of sounds used in speaking a given word or language in a specific dialect ("correct pronunciation"), or simply the way a particular individual speaks a word or language A word can be spoken in different ways by various individuals or groups, depending on many factors, such as: the duration of the cultural exposure of their childhood, the location of their current residence, speech,

their ethnic group, their social class, or their education‖

In this study, the concept of pronunciation can be described as ―a way of speaking a word, especially a way that is accepted or generally understood‖ (American Heritage Dictionary, 1992) or ―may be said to conclude the sounds of the language or phonology; stress and rhythm; intonation; combination sounds; linkage of sound‖ (Ur, 1996)

1.2.2 Features of pronunciation

As English increasingly becomes the language used for international communication, it is vital that speakers of English, whether they are native or non-native speakers, are able to exchange meaning effectively In fact, in

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recent discussions of English-language teaching, the unrealistic idea that

learners should sound and speak like native speakers is fast disappearing (Burns,

• Interpretability (the listener is able to understand the purpose of what is said)

For example, a speaker might say ―It‘s hot today‖ as ―IS ho day‖

This is unlikely to be intelligible because of inaccurate sound, stress and

intonation patterns As a result, a listener would not find the speaker

comprehensible, because meaning is not available Because the speaker is

incomprehensible, the listener would also not be able to interpret the utterance as

an indirect request to open the window Clear pronunciation is essential in

spoken communication Even where learners produce minor inaccuracies in

vocabulary and grammar, they are more likely to communicate effectively when

they have good pronunciation and intonation (Burns, 2003) According to Burns

(2003), the various features that make up the production of sounds in English are

illustrated in figure 1.1

Figure 1.1: Various Features of English Pronunciation

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As the figure above illustrates, pronunciation involves features at:

• The segmental (micro) level

• The supra-segmental (macro) level

In former ESL approaches, segmental features were the major focus for pronunciation teaching (for example, minimal pairs such as ship/sheep) While these features are important, more recent research has shown that when teaching focuses on supra-segmental features, learners‘ intelligibility is greatly enhanced It is important, therefore, to provide activities at both levels (Burns, 2003)

a Suprasegmental features

Suprasegmental features relate to sounds at the macro level Advances in research have developed descriptions of the suprasegmental features of speech extending across whole stretches of language Unlike languages such as Vietnamese or Mandarin which are tonal, English is stress-timed and syllable-timed (for example, WHAT‘s his addRESS?) Jenkins (2002) emphasizes that effective communicative pronunciation competence can be achieved more through improving supra-segmental production in preference to segmentals Linking, intonation and stress are important features for effective pronunciation at the suprasegmental level (Burns, 2003)

* Linking

Linking refers to the way the last sound of one word is joined to the first sound of the next word To produce connected speech, we run words together to link consonant to vowel, consonant to consonant, and vowel to vowel We also shorten some sounds and leave others out altogether

• consonant to vowel an Australian animal

• consonant to consonant next week; seven months

• vowel to vowel Some sounds such as r, w and j (y) are inserted to link adjacent words ending and beginning with a vowel: where (r ) are you?; you (w ) ought to; Saturday (y ) evening

• sounds that are shortened When words begin with an unstressed sound they are often pronounced as a short schwa ( ) sound:

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when do they arrive?; five o’clock

• sounds that are left out Some sounds are so short that they virtually

disappear (become elided): does ( h)e like soccer?

* Intonation

Intonation can be thought of as the melody of the language – the way the voice goes up and down according to the context and meanings of the communication For example, note the differences in:

• Can you take the shirt? (rising pitch) – request

• Can you take the shirt? (falling pitch) – command

* Word stress

Word stress relates to the prominence given to certain words in an utterance These focus words are stressed (made long and loud) to convey:

• the overall rhythm of the utterance

• the most meaningful part of the utterance

At the meaning level, some words are given more prominence than others to foreground which meaning is important For example, compare:

• Can YOU take the shirt? (not someone else)

• Can you take the SHIRT! (not the trousers)

Recent approaches to teaching pronunciation in computer-based contexts follow the communicative approach in teaching pronunciation Harmer (1993) stresses the need for making sure that students can always be understood and say what they want to say They need to master good pronunciation, not perfect accents That is, emphasis should be on suprasegmental features of pronunciation, not segmental aspects, to help learners acquire communicative competence (Seferoglu, 2005) Bott (2005) asserts that, in recent years, increasing attention has been placed on providing pronunciation instruction that meets the communicative needs of non-native speakers (NNSs) of English

Empirical research and pronunciation materials‘ writers suggest that teaching suprasegmentals before segmentals to intermediate and advanced NNSs could be more beneficial in a shorter period of time (p.5) Seferoglu (2005) aimed to find

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out whether integrating accent reduction software in advanced English language classes at the university level results in improvements in students‘ pronunciation at the segmental and suprasegmental levels, finding that the experimental group that followed instruction which integrated the use of accent reduction software in a multimedia language laboratory outperformed the control group which followed traditional instruction Based on the results of this study, it was found that technology has a lot to offer in pronunciation learning, and EFL learners may be provided with exposure and practice, interaction opportunities in the target language through specifically designed software programs Cheng (1998) reported that teachers should choose meaningful material to be used as models for practicing pronunciation aspects such

as stress Morley (1991) also recommended giving detailed attention to segmental features of pronunciation and their functions in interactive discourse and stressed their application in communicative approaches to pronunciation learning and teaching

supra-b Segmental features

According to Seferoglu (2005), segmental aspects of the sound system include individual vowels and consonants Because segmental phonology is relatively more easily explained and taught than the supra-segmental features (Coniam, 2002), some studies focus on studying segmental phonology in preference

to suprasegmental features Segmental features relate to sounds at the micro level

They include specific sounds within words (for example, /l/ as in lamp, /r/ as in ramp, /æ/ as in hat) The sound systems of consonants, vowels or their

combinations are called phonemes Phonemes are sounds that, when pronounced incorrectly, can change the meaning of the word (Burns, 2003) Compare the changes of meaning in:

pet - pat lamp - ramp about - abort Consonant sounds can be voiced (a part of the mouth is closed and the air

behind it is released suddenly - for example, /v/ as in van, /b/ as in bun) – or

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unvoiced (air is pushed through a narrow part of the mouth – for example, /f /as in fan, /θ/ as in thin) Vowel sounds are articulated as single sounds They can be short (for example, /e/ as in let) or long (/a:/ as in cart) Diphthongs are two vowel sounds put together (for example, /ei/as in Kate) (Burns, 2003)

1.2.3 Factors affecting English pronunciation learning

A lot of linguistics researchers have studied on factors affecting English pronunciation learning However, in this section, the researcher mentions some of the important factors that affect the learning of pronunciation They are as follows:

* Mother tongue

Avery and Ehrlich (1992) claim that the sound pattern of the learner‘s first language is transferred into the second language and is likely to cause foreign accents The mispronunciations of words by nonnative speakers reflect the influence

of the sounds, rules, stress, and intonation of their native language For example, nonnative speakers‘ production of English rhythm was investigated in several studies (Wenk, 1985; Mochizuki-Sudo, Kiritani, 1991) These researchers concluded that the transfer from the learners‘ native language influenced their production of English-like stress alternation across a phrase In this respect, Avery and Ehrlich (1992) point out that the sound system of the native language can influence the learners‘ pronunciation of a target language in at least three ways First, when there is a sound in the target language which is absent from the learners‘ native sound inventory, or vice versa, learners may not be able to produce or even perceive the sound(s) Second, when the rules of combining sounds into words are different in the learners‘ mother tongue from those of the target language, they cause problems for learners because these rules are language specific as they vary from one language to another Thirdly, since the rhythm and melody of a language determine its patterns of stress and intonation, learners may transfer these patterns into the target language In summary, while there are other factors that influence the learner‘s L2 pronunciation acquisition (Graham, 1994), the factors reviewed above may help ESL/EFL teachers consider what learners from different backgrounds are likely to face when learning English as a second language These factors would enable the teachers to identify the difficulties in the pronunciation of the target

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language experienced by non-native speakers in order to help them overcome their foreign accent and consequently improve their pronunciation In addition, they would also enable teachers to provide efficient pronunciation instruction and design their teaching methodology according to students‘ needs

* Age

An additional factor that affects the pronunciation is age The debate over the impact of age on language acquisition and specifically on pronunciation is varied Celce-Murcia et al (1996) and Florez (1998) explore the impact of age on pronunciation Some researchers argue that, after puberty, lateralization (the assigning of linguistic functions to the different brain hemisphere) is completed and adults‘ ability to distinguish and produce native-like sounds is more limited than children Others argue that various sensitive periods for language learning exist and that ―adults need to readjust existing neural networks to accommodate new sounds‖ (Florez, 1998, :1) Many scholars nominate children to acquire accent very quickly and are better than adults in learning English Considering the age of the children as a major factor in the process of language acquisition; which means, younger learners are much better than adults in acquiring a new language (Abello-Contesse, 2009) He indicated that according to the learners‘ age, they vary in acquiring language skills However many still asking the question; Why is it that younger learners are better to learn the foreign language? The only significant reason is that, younger learners are able to learn the sound system more effectively, while the learning process of adult learners may be more likely to be hindered because of their age (Zhang and Yin, 2009)

* Personality

Learner‘s personality also affects the acquisition in native-like pronunciation Generally speaking, individual personality relates to extraversion and introversion The consensus seems that extroversive characteristic plays a positive role on learning native-like pronunciation learning but introversive does not

Learners who are sociable, courageous, talkative, and like to make friends and join groups, tend to express themselves and take part in every

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activities actively Therefore, they have more opportunities to use the target language and improve their pronunciation Contrarily, a typical introvert as someone who is very shy, quiet, like to stay alone, introspective, and like reading books more than talking with people, cannot find any opportunities to speaking in the target language and practice their pronunciation The different personality leads to the different learning style Compare with extroverted learners, introverted learners are afraid of making mistakes, losing face, feeling nervous when speaking in front of others, feeling uncomfortable in their first attempt at speech in English, and afraid of failure, laughter and ridicule In addition, young learners like to perform themselves in front of others, and speaking out their mind without shying However, with getting maturation, learners become more and more sensitive and do not want to perform themselves in front of others It is also an important reason that young learners acquire a second language quickly than adults

* Attitude, motivation and identity

Pronunciation is also affected by learners‘ learning identity and attitudes ―The strongly determine the accuracy of learners‘ pronunciation are

a person‘s ‗sense of identity‘ and feelings of ―group affiliation‖ (Buranavityawut, 2000) Each learner brings different attitude for the target language and the target language community, and it can support or hinder pronunciation skills development If a learner has some prejudices or a negative attitude to the target language and community, it will bring bad influence for his/her language learning For example, some people do not believe that it is necessary to learn a second language, and they think language learning will influence the learners‘ cultural development in a negative way, and their culture will be imposed on the target language community Contrarily, if a learner has a positive attitudes and opened-mind for the target language or target culture, it will promote his/her pronunciation development easily and accurately and more have a native-like accent As Cenoz and Garcia Lecumberri (1999) pointed out, ―in many cases, speakers tend to adopt more or less successfully the pronunciation they value as more positive

It is remarkable that some factors such as intelligence, aptitude, and confidence have much contribution to the formation of motivation For example, to motivate the less intelligent learners will be more difficult than those learners who have better intelligent because these learners cannot appeal

self-to their needs

Typically, there is intimate relation between motivation with and attitude According to Gardner and Lambert (1972), motivation can be divided into two basic types, which are instrumental and integrative motivation The former relates to the utilitarian gains, such as getting a better job, going to a good university, passing an exam The latter involves positive attitudes toward the target language and target language community, or wants to become a member of the target language community Gardner and MacIntyre (1991) claimed that instrumental motivation and integrative motivation can promote language learning

Therefore, if the learner has highly motivation to have a better pronunciation, they will become more eager to take part in the activities and pay more attention to discriminate the sounds of the target language, and grasp any opportunities for using the target language

* Language differences

Munro and Derwing (1999) observed that even heavily accented speech is sometimes intelligible and that prosodic errors (i.e., errors in stress, intonation, and rhythm) appear to affect intelligibility more than do phonetic errors (i.e., errors in single sounds) For this reason, pronunciation research and teaching focus both on the sounds of language (vowels and consonants) and on supra-segmental features—

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that is, vocal effects that extend over more than one sound—such as stress, sentence and word intonation, and speech rhythm (Crystal, 2003; Munro & Derwing, 1999) Languages have been classified as either stress timed or syllable timed In stress-timed languages (e.g., British and American English, German, Dutch, Thai),

―stressed syllables fall at regular intervals throughout an utterance‖ (Crystal, 2003,

p 245), and rhythm is organized according to regularity in the timing of the stressed syllables That is, the time between stressed syllables is equal because unstressed syllables are spoken more quickly and vowel reduction occurs For example, the

sentence ―Tom runs fast‖ is made up of three stressed syllables, as indicated by the letters in boldface The sentence ―Meredith can run fast‖ is made up of six

syllables, but only three of them are stressed The unstressed syllables -e-, -dith, and can are spoken quickly and vowel reduction occurs, so the time between the

stressed syllables tends to be equal, and both sentences take approximately the same amount of time to say In syllable-timed languages (e.g., some nonnative varieties

of English, such as Singapore and Malaysian English, and languages such as Tamil, Spanish, and French), syllables are said to be equal in timing (Crystal, 2003) All syllables are nearly equally stressed, vowel reduction does not occur, and all syllables appear to take the same amount of time to utter

Recent phonetic research has shown that languages cannot be strictly classified as syllable timed or stress timed A more accurate description is that they are stress based or syllable based; that is, they are not completely in one category or the other, but tend to have more stress-timed or syllable-timed features (Low, 2006) Stress-based rhythm is achieved through the presence of reduced vowels for unstressed syllables in a sentence Function words (e.g., articles, helping verbs, prepositions) typically have reduced vowels instead of full ones, and the reduced vowel version is known as a weak form For example, in the sentence ―Bob can swim‖, the words Bob and swim have the major stress, and can, which is unstressed, is pronounced [kin], its weak form The distinction between stress- and syllable-based languages is important, especially if an adult English language learner speaks a first language that is different rhythmically from stress-based British or American English An understanding of whether a learner‘s first language

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is stress based or syllable based will help a teacher plan appropriate pronunciation exercises In examining the role of stress ―the degree of force used in producing a syllable‖ (Crystal, 2003, p 435) in intelligibility, Field (2005) asked trained listeners to transcribe recorded material when the variables of word stress and vowel quality were manipulated He determined that when word stress is erroneously shifted to an unstressed syllable, without a change in vowel quality, utterances are significantly less intelligible than when only vowel quality is manipulated Native and nonnative English speakers responded similarly when judging the intelligibility of words with misplaced word stress O‘Brien (2004) reported the results of research on the importance of stress, intonation, and rhythm for a native-like accent in German Native speakers of German were asked to rate American university students reading aloud in German It was found that the native speakers focused more on stress, intonation, and rhythm than on individual sounds when rating speech samples as native-like Implications of this research for classroom instruction are that teachers need to spend time teaching learners the rules for word stress, intonation, and rhythm in English, as well as focusing on individual sounds that may be difficult for the learners in their classes

* Prior pronunciation instruction

Foreign language instruction generally focuses on four main areas of development: listening, speaking reading and writing Foreign language curricular emphasize pronunciation in the first year of study as it introduces the target language‘s alphabet and sound system, but rarely continues this focus past the introductory level Lack of emphasis on pronunciation development may be due to a general lack of fervor on the part of the second language acquisition researchers, second language teachers and students, that pronunciation of a second language is not very important (Elliot, 1995) Pennington (1994) maintains that pronunciation which is typically viewed as a component of linguistic rather than conversational fluency, is often regarded with little importance in

a communicatively oriented classroom (Elliot, 1995)

According to Elliot (1995), teachers tend to view pronunciation as the least useful of the basic language skills and therefore they generally sacrifice teaching

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pronunciation in order to spend valuable class time on other areas of language Or maybe, teachers feel justified neglecting pronunciation believing that for adult foreign language learners, it is more difficult to attain target language pronunciation skills than other facets of second language acquisition Teachers just

do not have the background or tools to properly teach pronunciation and therefore

it is disregarded (Elliot, 1995) Teachers have taught what they thought was pronunciation via repetition drills on both a discrete word or phrase level, or give the students the rules of pronunciation like the vowel in a CVC pattern, when given

an e at the end, says its name For example, when an e is added to the word ―bit‖ (CVC) the pronunciation of the ―short i‖, becomes long and therefore ―say its name‖ This type of instruction is meant to help students with decoding words for the purpose of reading rather than pronunciation

For example, students are rarely given information about the differences between fricatives and non-fricative continuants, or the subtleties between the trilled or flapped /r/ between Spanish and English (Elliot, 1995) This particular information is often left up to the students to attain on their own Researchers have explored the question of whether explicit instruction helps these second language learners Such studies have generated inconsistent results Suter (1976) reported an insignificant relationship between formal pronunciation and students‘ pronunciation of English as a Second Language (Elliot, 1995) The adults are able to achieve near native fluency and it can be developed in a relatively short time without serious disruption to the second language teaching program with adequate pronunciation instruction (Elliot, 1995) It is necessary to note at this point that even though there seems to be quite a contradiction in the range of results presented, the diversity of those results may be due to the differing designs of the particular experiments

Some pronunciation studies focus specifically on the instruction of segmental Derwing, Munro and Wiebe (1997) conducted research in which ESL learners who had been studying for an average of ten years, participated in a speaking improvement course that focused on the supra-segmental features of pronunciation (e.g stress, rhythm, intonation) Thirty-seven native listeners

supra-18

transcribed speech samples (true/false sentences) taken at the beginning of a week course in order to assess the learners‘ intelligibility Each sample was rated in order of comprehensibility and degree of accentedness In the end, there was

12-a signific12-ant improvement in the intelligibility, 12-and better r12-atings over time of comprehensibility and accentedness They showed that 30 language learners could alter their pronunciation in a reading task (Derwing & Rossiter, 2003)

* Educational level

Educational system is an implicit but indispensable factor for L2 learning It is affected by national social politics, economy development, and national traditions If the country implements positive educational politics or creates a good learning environment for language learning, it will be good for learners‘ language learning Good educational conditions can provide more opportunities for learners to contact the target language or the target language community It seems that if a learner lives a non- English speaking country,

it will be no advantage for him/her, because learners do not have opportunity

to use the target language in a real environment, since except their classrooms and they only be exposed to focused-listening On the one hand, School should provide space or conditions for students to practice On the other hand, teachers should encourage students to speak and create opportunities for students to practice As Celce-Murcia, Brinton, and Goodwin (1996) points out, in EFL settings, especially those where students have little opportunity to surround themselves with native input in the target language, the burden will fall more on the teacher to provide an adequate model of the target language, and to ascertain that students have opportunities outside of class (e.g., in language-laboratory or learning-center environments) to experience samples of the authentic oral discourse of native speakers; similarly, it will fall to teachers

to encourage out-of-class conversational use of the target language (p.17)

However, many EFL/EFL teachers think pronunciation is too complicated and difficult to teach, and ignore the importance of teaching students with good pronunciation Here, we have to mention about teacher‘s accent As we know, the students‘ pronunciation mostly depends on teacher‘s pronunciation and seen

Children of immigrants may be given as an example Since these children start their second language learning process in the target language speaking environment, they have more advantages than the children who try to learn the target language in their motherlands because there are differences between the language using and learning Relates the factor to learners‘ age, it seems that if young children are exposed to more than one language before the age of puberty, they seem to acquire all languages equally well since it has been claimed that children are better at language learning than adults

However, it does not simply mean that learners who live in the target language country will have good native-like pronunciation On the one hand, the key point is whether the learners grasp every opportunity using the target language and take full advantage of the environment If the learners have been living in an English-speaking country, then the learners will have many opportunities to listen to and to use English since they will be surrounded by the English speaking environment In addition, it‘s very important that they have the desire to associate with native speakers and get to know the new culture and customs

On the other hand, it should be bear in mind that there are many people who live in an English speaking country, but spend much time within a non-English speaking environment or stick to their native-speaking group even though they are in English speaking country For this reason, it is not merely

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exposure that matters, but how the learners respond to the opportunities Senel (2006) stated that, exposure can be a contributory factor, but it cannot be a whole and necessary factor for the development of pronunciation If a learner is aware of the necessity of being exposed to the target language, she/he should make use of its opportunities If the learner does that, she/he will be more successful in case of improving his/her pronunciation (p 115)

1.2.4 English pronunciation errors

a Definition of error

According to Hornby, error is something done wrong or condition of being wrong in beliefs or conduct The term error also means the faulty side of learners‘ speech or writing Error in speech or writing as second or foreign language learners

is regards as showing faulty or incomplete learning

Error is different from mistakes Therefore, it is crucial to make a distinction between them in order to analyze learners‘ language in proper perspective Error is deviation from student structure since the learners has not completely mastered the rules of the language they learned He also states that the mistakes are structural deviation, which occurs because the learners cannot determine the choice of expression in proper accordance the situation

A mistake refers to a performance error that s either a random guess or a

―slip‖, in that it is a failure to utilize a known system correctly An error is a noticeable deviation from the adult grammar or nature speaker, reflecting the interlanguage competence of the learner

Errors cannot be apart from sound production from the pronunciation It caused the differences with the correct pronunciation when the learners pronounce some words However, error is important tool in the process of learning and teaching Knowing the students errors makes the teacher possible to determine areas that need reinforcement in pronunciation teaching Moreover, it is also important for the learners to become aware of the differences between their native language and second language during the learning process Therefore, errors should by analyzed in order to know how the learner acquire the language rules

b Error analysis:

Making error is a natural phenomenon in language learning acquisition, but errors need to be corrected Studying about errors made by the learners is important for the teachers because they will understand on their learners‘ language acquisition

by knowing and analyzing the learners‘ errors

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Besides, studying learners‘ errors serves two major purposes: first, it provides data from which inferences about the nature of the language learning process can be made Second, it indicates to teachers and curriculum developers which is the part of the target language students have most difficulty producing correctly and which error types detract most from a learners‘ ability to communicate effectively

The fact that learners do make errors, and these errors can be observed, analyzed and classified is called error analysis There are some steps of analyzing error, they are:

* Identifying errors: the first step in analyzing errors is to identify errors In this

case, we have to compare the sentences learners produce with what seem to be the normal or correct pronunciation in the target language, which correspond with them

* Describing errors: once at all the errors have been identified, they can be

described and classified into types or categories

* Explaining errors: trying to explain why errors occur

* Error evaluation: where the purpose of the error analysis is to help learners learn

an L2, there is a need to evaluate errors Some errors can be considered more serious that others because they are more likely to interfere with the intelligibility of what someone says

c The types of errors

There are four taxonomies of errors Each of them is classified into several categories errors

* Linguistic category taxonomy: The errors are classified according to the

linguistic component, using linguistic terms, namely phonology, morphology, syntax, semantic

* Surface strategy taxonomy

- Omission: Omission is characterized by the absence of one more elements,

which are needed in a phrase or a sentence construction For example, the word

‗test‘ [test] is pronounced as [tes]

- Addition: Addition is characterized by the presence of one or more

elements that are not needed For example, the word ‗car‘ [ka:] is pronounced as [kΛr]

- Misformation: Misformation is characterized by the use the wrong form of

elements in a phrase or a sentence For example is when the learner pronounced the word ‗thin‘ [ðin] as [tin]

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- Misordering: Misordering is characterized by the incorrect placement or

order of one more language elements in a phrase or a sentence For example, the word ‗ask‘ [a:sk] is pronounced as [a:ks]

* Comparative category taxonomy: There are two categories of errors, as follows:

- Interlingual error: The errors are caused by negative transfer or

interference of the learner‘s mother tongue in the language

- Intralingual error: The errors are caused by interference within the target

language itself

* Communicative Effect Category Taxonomy: It consists of two categories They

are as follows:

- Local errors: Local errors are caused by the omission of one or more

language elements in a sentence construction, which disturb the process of communication An awkward sentence is usually the result of this kind or errors

- Global errors: Global errors are the errors, which cause the entire message

conveyed not to be understandable for readers or listeners

1.2.5 Common English pronunciation problems of Vietnamese learners

Ha Cam Tam (2002) states some common English pronunciation problems

of Vietnamese learners They are very useful and practical According her results, there were some main types of errors The first one is the omission of ending sounds Secondly, these sounds /ʃ/, /ʤ/, /ʧ/ at final position were replaced by /s/ Then the sounds /s/, /z/, /ʤ/, /t/, /l/, /k/, /ks/, /v/ were most frequently omitted at all position Next, the most frequent errors of sound confusion are /t/, /tr/, /ʧ/, /ʃ/, /ʤ/, /s/, /θ/ It is interesting to find that several learners mispronounced /t/ and produced /ʧ/ instead Finally, ―sound redundancy‖ seems to indicate that several learners tend to over pronounce the ending sounds, thus adding /s/ or /z/ at the end of any words or sometimes in the middle of the words as in the case of hobby, many pronounced it as /hɔzbi/

Nguyen Tien Dung (2015) points out the complications of vowels, particularly between tense and lax vowels in English can be tough to learn In addition, the differences between consonant positions, consonant clusters, word and tones lead Vietnamese students of English to meet a large number of difficulties

In the paper reported in 3rd International Conference on Economics, Social Science, Arts, Education and Management Engineering (ESSAEME 2017), Yan Zhao states that language learning cannot be separated from language environment

A good one can provide the necessary access to language learning and the opportunity to develop language skills Most minority students live in mountainous areas with limited transportation, little contact with the outside world, hard life and little knowledge exchange During their growth, dialect is chosen to be used in daily communication Traffic difficulties in remote mountain areas set up obstacles and block communications with the outside world Some children in the mountains even

do not understand their national language Minority students in junior school, high school, have already learned English courses, but their parents, relatives and friends almost never heard what English is Learning English in such an environment affects the efficiency of learning Without language environment, it is impossible to learn English well, because language environment is essential for human beings to acquire language Due to the relatively backward economy and culture in ethnic minority areas, they have little opportunities to access to English, thus minority language becomes a dominant language in the region and is used in a variety of communications

In addition, special household production, productivity and production relations work as a unit resulting in the disregard of the education in ethnic minority areas Many people regard education as an investment without any return, so

of the national culture This closed cultural system has a strong degree of repulsion

to foreign cultures

It can be said that English is the third language of ethnic minority students They can get more difficulties than Vietnamese (King people) to learn English because of factors of cultures, mother tongue, age, attitude and so on To make clear the factors affecting the English pronunciation learning of ethnic minority students, this thesis will focus on ethnic minority students at Lai Chau Community College which has over 90% of ethnic minority people

1.3 Chapter summary

To summarize, in this chapter, some previous researches relating to learning and teaching English pronunciation have been mentioned Besides, some theoretical backgrounds relating to teaching and learning pronunciation have also been pointed out These are the pronunciation concepts and its features Factors and difficulties relating to pronunciation teaching and learning have been also given Especially, an overview on difficulties to learn English pronunciation of ethnic students has been presented In the next chapter, the methods and techniques are used to do the research will be showed

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CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

This chapter describes the research methodology used for the whole study

2.1 Research setting

Lai Chau Community College is chosen as context of the study because it is

the author‘s working place Besides, it is the only college of Lai Chau and under the management of the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs so it is developing vocational training programs In this college, there are 58 teachers, 700 students including five teacher training classes and 10 vocational training classes The ethnic minority students count over 90% and they are Dao, Thai, Mong, Lu, Si

La, Cong, Mang, Ha Nhi, Giay and Hoa ethnic minority Although the classrooms are equipped with radio, projectors and LCD screens, 2 labs for foreign language learning and 4 teachers of English with Bachelor degree or Master degree, students are not good at English Three groups of Si La, Cong, Mang count lower rate A lot

of them can-not speak Vietnamese fluently They started learning English from secondary school but they do not use English to communicate with each other

Besides, the course books they learn at the college are New Headway elementary

speaking, reading and writing in English lessons, their learning time is too limited

have opportunities to communicate with native speakers In fact, the teachers mostly use Vietnamese to teach, explain and communicate with students in English class

In some cases, teachers speak in English, their students cannot understand It can be said that English is a compulsory subject in the college and students study it to pass the exam, not to communicative or other purpose As the results, their English ability is not good enough and they have not got many motivations to study English

In order to achieve the aims and objectives of the study, the process of doing this research has come through three major stages Writing the thesis proposal was the very first stage in the process After proposal with draft outline having been approved, a survey questionnaire, interview questions and test for the first students

of LCCC and material selection from different sources relating to main topic of the thesis were implemented To gather only useful materials, this second stage was a

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long process to classify all the needed data The last stage started from the late September to late January for analyzing and discussing the result from the data collection This was also the time when the thesis was completed both in form and

content

2.2 Research approaches

This study is a quantitative and qualitative research In the early phases, qualitative method is applied It involves collecting quantitative information, gathering mass of raw data from different powerful sources In the last phases, quantitative method is employed to count and classify features and construct statistical models and figures to explain what is observed on errors of ethnic minority students to learn English pronunciation

2.3 Research participants

Data of the study are collected from three teachers of English and 85 students

of the first year of the second term at LCCC All of the teachers are female and age from 30 to 40 They have been teaching English for at least 6 years, so it can be said that all of them are experienced in teaching English 85 male and female students have been randomly chosen in which 25 female students major in preschool teacher training, 30 male and female ones in primary teacher training, and 30 male and female ones in vocational training (those students mostly graduate from secondary schools)

Table 2.1: Information of students’ participants