Suggested solutions to the challenges in teaching dental and alveo palatal fricative consonants at bách việt college

This paper focuses on identifying common pronunciation mistakes made by English-majored juniors of Faculty of Foreign Language at Bách Việt College in producing dental and alveo-palatal

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOIUNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

Các giải pháp gợi ý cho việc dạy phụ âm xát gồm âm răng và

âm ngạc lợi Trường Cao Đẳng Bách Việt

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111

Hanoi, 2015

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOIUNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

Các giải pháp gợi ý cho việc dạy phụ âm xát gồm âm răng và

âm ngạc lợi Trường Cao Đẳng Bách Việt

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111

SUPERVISOR: PHAN THẾ HƯNG, Ph.D

Hanoi, 2015

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor – Dr Phan Thế Hưng for his precious time and effort to provide thoughtful comments, expertise and encouragement that helped me to overcome all the obstacles I had faced during the research

I am also very appreciative of the help of students from CDAV7 (Bách Việt College) Their great cooperation provided me useful data to complete my analyzing and findings

Importantly, I would like to thank my mother for her everlasting support Her love has helped me to overcome many difficulties during my period of studies away from home

Last but not least, I wish to thank my friends and my classmates for their enthusiasm and encouragement during my research

ABSTRACT English has become one of the most popular foreign languages learnt in Vietnam today However, Vietnamese students have failed to learn it appropriately That prevents the learners from achieving comprehensible pronunciation This paper focuses on identifying common pronunciation mistakes made by English-majored juniors of Faculty of Foreign Language at Bách Việt College in producing dental and alveo-palatal fricative consonants With the center of attention on the four English sounds /θ/, /ð/, /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ the study also attempts to give reasons for explaining why learners often make such mistakes The main result demonstrates that more than half of the juniors have problems with those consonants These problems include sound omission and sound confusion To help students improve their pronunciation of these sounds, a number of recommendations are discussed in the last chapter

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii

LIST OF TABLES viii

LIST OF FIGURES viii

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims and Objectives of the study 2

3 Research questions 2

4 Scope of the study 2

5 Methods 3

6 Design of the study 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1 1 Consonants 5

1.1.1 Definition of consonants 5

1.1.2 Classification of English consonants 7

1.1.3 Contrasting English and Vietnamese consonants 8

1.2 Dental and Alveo-palatal fricative consonants 10

1.2.1 Sound description 10

1.2.2 Common types of pronunciation mistakes made by Vietnamese learners 13 1.2.3 Suggested techniques for teaching dental and alveo-palatal fricative consonants sounds 14

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 17

2.1 Participants and setting of the study 17

2.1.1 Participants 17

2.1.2 Setting of the study 17

2.2 Instruments 17

2.2.1 Questionnaires (see Appendix 1) 17

2.2.2 Interviews (see Appendix 3) 18

2.2.3 Observation (see Appendix 5) 19

2.3 Data collection procedures 19

2.3.1 Data collection from questionnaires 19

2.3.2 Data collection from interviews and observation 20

2.4 Data analysis procedures 20

2.4.1 Editing data 20

2.4.2 Coding data 21

2.4.3 Analyzing data 21

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 22

3.1 Findings 22

3.1.1 Results of the questionnaires 22

3.1.2 Results of interviews and observation 30

3.2 Discussion 32

3.2.1 How are English-majored juniors instructed to pronounce /θ/, /ð/, /ʃ/ and /ʒ/? 32

3.2.2 How are English-majored aware of the ways to produce /θ/, /ð/, /ʃ/ and /ʒ/? 32

3.2.3 The types of mistakes English-majored juniors often made when pronouncing /θ/, /ð/, /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ 33

3.3 Pedagogical implications 34

3.3.1 Useful techniques for teaching dental and alveo-palatal fricative sounds 34

3.3.2 Useful books for teaching dental and alveo-palatal fricative sounds 35

PART C: CONCLUSION 37

1 Conclusions of the study 37

3 Suggestions for further study 38 REFERENCES 40 APPENDIX 1: QUESTIONNAIRE I

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1.1 24 English consonant phonemes 6

Table 1.2 Classification of English consonants 8

Table 1.3 Classification of Vietnamese consonants 9

Table 1.4 Example of minimal pairs 15

Table 3.1 Common mistakes made by English-majored juniors when pronouncing 30

Table 3.2 Reasons for sound confusion among English-majored juniors 31

LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1 Production of the sound /θ/ 6

Figure 1.2 The position of the tongue in the production of /θ/ and /ð/ 11

Figure 1.3 The obstruction of the airstream in the production of /θ/ and /ð/ and the state of the vocal cords 11

Figure 1.4 The position of the tongue in the production of /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ 12

Figure 1.5 The obstruction of the airstream in the production of /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ and the state of the vocal cords 13

Figure 1.6 Example of phonological description 15

Figure 3.1 The appreciation of the instruction on the production of /θ/, /ð/, /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ 22 Figure 3.2 Understanding of place of articulation of/ θ/ and /ð/ 23

Figure 3.3 Understanding of place of articulation of /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ 24

Figure 3.4 Understanding of manner of articulation of /θ/, /ð/, /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ 25

Figure 3.5 Understanding of voicing of dental sounds /θ/ and /ð/ 26

Figure 3.6 Understanding of voicing of alveo-palatal sounds /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ 26

Figure 3.7 The proportion of English-majored juniors admitting to having problems with 27 θ/, /ð/, /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ 27

Figure 3.8 The proportion of FFL’s junior’s omitting /θ/, /ð/, /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ 28

Figure 3.9 The proportion of FFL’s juniors confusing /θ/, /ð/, /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ 29

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

In an ever-changing world, English has become increasingly important as it has become the leading international language and the bridge which connects people from different countries

‘By the end of the twentieth century, English was already well on its way to becoming a genuine lingua franca, that is the language used widely for communication between people who do not share the same first (or even second language).’ (Harmer, 2001, p.13)

To be successful in such type of communication, it is important for learners

to have good knowledge of English, with a special focus on listening and speaking skills However, learning pronunciation seems to be the most difficult to most English learners O’Connor (1981, p.25) suggests that English consonants are more difficult for learners to acquire than English vowels Specifically, his statement matches the reality at Bách Việt College (BVC) From the researcher’s observation, many juniors of the Faculty of Foreign Languages (FFL) at BVC seem to find it difficult to pronounce English consonants, especially those belong to dental (/θ/ and /ð/) and alveo-palatal fricative consonants (/ʃ/ and /ʒ/) The main problems with these include sound omission and sound confusion The four sounds are confusing

to English-majored juniors in general, and to the researcher in particular As a learner of English, the researcher also makes mistakes when attempting to produce these four sounds For this reason, the researcher has studied many materials about common pronunciation mistakes made by Vietnamese learners It was found that most of the researchers considered dental and alveo-palatal fricative consonants as the common pronunciation mistakes of Vietnamese learners The writer agrees with the following authors on this point: Cook (1989), Avery & Ehrlich (1992), Ha (2005) and Duong (2008)

Since dental and alveo-palatal fricative consonant sounds are so difficult for Vietnamese learners in general, along with English-majored juniors at BVC, it is something worth studying For this reason, the researcher has chosen to do research

on these sounds

2 Aims and Objectives of the study

The aim of this study is to identify pronunciation problems concentrating on the dental and alveo-palatal fricative consonants Specifically, its focal point is on finding the types of mistakes English-majored juniors of FFL often make when pronouncing the four sounds /θ/, /ð/, /ʃ/ and /ʒ/. The study will also provide reasons to explain why learners often make such mistakes From this, some recommendations will be identified to help teachers recognize the problem and learners improve their pronunciation with these consonants

3 Research questions

The research generally aims at investigating English fricative consonants most misperceived and mispronounced by Vietnamese students The main focus of the thesis is to answer the following research questions:

Question 1: How are English-majored juniors of FFL in BVC instructed to pronounce dental and alveo-palatal fricative consonants?

Question 2: How are they aware of the ways to produce dental and palatal fricative consonants?

alveo-Question 3: What types of pronunciation mistakes do they often make when pronouncing the four sounds /θ, ð, ʃ, ʒ/ and the reasons for that?

4 Scope of the study

The study aims at identifying common pronunciation mistakes made by Vietnamese learners when producing dental and alveo-palatal fricative consonants

Therefore, the subjects of the study involve a number of English-majored juniors in FFL at BVC To ensure the validity and reliability of the research, three main instruments are used in this thesis including questionnaires, interview and observation

5 Methods

The study aims at investigating the pronunciation problems of majored juniors in FFL at BVC Currently, those students are divided into 2 groups – CDAV7A and CDAV7B These students would provide the sample study range for the research 100 English-majored juniors were randomly chosen to get involved

English-in the research for several reasons The researcher chose those students because of two reasons

First of all, most of these students had taken a course in phonetics and phonology in their second year of study For this reason, they have already had some general knowledge about dental and alveo-palatal fricative consonants of English This will help investigate the ways their teachers approached teaching these consonants This approach also enabled the researcher to find the answer to one of the research questions: ‘How are English-majored juniors of FFL in BVC instructed to pronounce dental and alveo-palatal fricative consonants?’

Secondly, the number of students in CDAV7 class is quite large This provided the writer with a wide sample study range This can help to ensure the validity and reliability of the research

To ensure the validity and reliability of the research, the three instruments have been chosen including questionnaires, interview and observation This part is

explained carefully in the Data Collection Instrument of Chapter 2

6 Design of the study

The thesis is presented in three parts

Part A states the rationale for the study, the aims of the study, the methods and provides the design of the thesis

Part B includes three chapters Chapter 1, Literature Review, presents the view of English and Vietnamese fricative consonant systems in comparison Chapter 2 focuses on the research methodology employed in the thesis, including the presentation of the research questions, participants, instruments and the data collection procedures Chapter 3 presents the data analysis

Part C presents the conclusion of the study Some suggestions for teaching techniques to limit L1 interference and improve English consonant teaching and learning that can be applied at BVC are also included in this chapter In addition, the researcher presents limitations while doing this research

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

Table 1.1 24 English consonant phonemes

In terms of sounds, ‘consonants are formed by interrupting, restricting or diverting the airflow in a variety of ways’ (Kelly, 2000, p.47) In other words, consonants involve a narrowing in the mouth which prevents the air from passing freely and results in some obstruction of the airstream This obstruction gives the consonants their distinctive characteristics See the image given below to know how the sound /θ/ is produced

Figure 1.1 Production of the sound /θ/

1.1.2 Classification of English consonants

English consonants are classified according to three characteristics: place of articulation (where the sound is made), manner of articulation (how the airflow is obstructed), and voicing (whether the vocal cords are vibrating) Among the twenty-four consonants of English, there are two consonants which are not classified in terms of either place of articulation or manner of articulation These consonants are also known as ‘semi-vowels’ or ‘glides’ which include /w/ and /y/

Regarding place of articulation, there are six places in the mouth where the airstream is obstructed to form consonant sounds These include bilabial, labio-dental, dental, alveolar, alveo-palatal, velar, and glottal

Regarding manner of articulation, there are several basic ways that the airstream can be obstructed: stops, affricates, fricatives, nasals, retroflex, lateral and semi-vowel

In terms of voicing, there are two types of consonants: voiced and unvoiced (voiceless) Sounds that are made with the vocal cords vibrating are voiced and those without a vibration of the vocal cords are voiceless All of the stops, fricatives and affricates come in voiced/voiceless pairs while the nasals, lateral and semi-vowels are all voiced

Below is a chart (Table 1.2) that classifies English consonants according to their place of articulation, manner of articulation and voicing This type of chart can

be found in most books on classification of English sounds

Table 1.2 Classification of English consonants 1.1.3 Contrasting English and Vietnamese consonants

According to Honey (1989, p.240), the Vietnamese consonant system is very different from that of English In order to see the differences between the two systems, it is useful to look at the Vietnamese consonant sounds

1

There have been two different classifications of /w/ in terms of place of articulation In agreement with

Avery & Erhlich (1992), Rogers (2000) decided that /w/ is both bilabial and velar since it is observed that the lips are rounded and the back of the tongue is raised.

Stop vcls /p/ /t/ /ʈ/ /c/ /k/

Stop vd /b/ /d/

Table 1.3 Classification of Vietnamese consonants

As can be seen from the table above, there are some distinctive differences between English and Vietnamese consonant systems

Firstly, Vietnamese consonants have different sound patterns from that of English Most English consonant sounds can occur at initial, medial and final positions of words This is especially different from the Vietnamese language According to Thompson (1965), only six Vietnamese consonants which include /p/, /m/, /t/, /n/, /k/, and /ɲ/ can occur at the final positions Moreover, none of the Vietnamese consonants can occur at the medial positions since all Vietnamese words are monosyllabic (Teaching English to Speakers of Vietnamese, 1981, p.5) This has created a number of problems for Vietnamese learners to pronounce consonant sounds when they occur in medial and final positions of words

Secondly, English consonant sounds are said to occur and be clearly heard either in initial, medial and final positions (except /ʒ/, which is hardly found in initial position Final consonant sounds in Vietnamese, however, are never released and much shorter than their English equivalents (Avery & Ehrlich, 1992, p.153) For this reason, Vietnamese learners often omit sounds when they occur at the end

Thirdly, the affricate and dental sounds do not exist in the Vietnamese consonant system This means it is impossible to find the four sounds /tʃ/, /dʒ/, /θ/and /ð/ in the Vietnamese language Therefore, learners are often confused by how

to move their mouth to produce these sounds

Finally, there are alveo-palatal consonants (ᶴ and ʐ) in Vietnamese, which are equivalent to the sounds /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ in English However, these sounds are not used

by a large numbers of people in the whole country, especially those from Hanoi and its neighboring areas (Duong, 2008, p.44) For this reason, pronunciation of /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ sounds is likely to be difficult for Vietnamese learners of English

The four mentioned salient differences between English and Vietnamese consonants have accounted for numerous pronunciation mistakes made by Vietnamese learners Types of pronunciation mistakes will be categorized in the next part of this chapter

1.2 Dental and Alveo-palatal fricative consonants

1.2.1 Sound description

1.2.1.1 Description of dental sounds /θ/ and /ð/

Regarding place of articulation, dental sounds are produced with the tip of the tongue and the teeth In order to understand how these sounds are formed, pronounce the words ‘thin’ and ‘this’ The first consonant sounds of these words are produced with the tip of the tongue placed between the teeth or just behind the teeth (see Figure 2) The airstream going through this place is obstructed and the sound is made

In terms of manner of articulation, dental sounds are produced when the airstream is partly obstructed Pronounce the words ‘thin’ and ‘this’ again, paying attention to the way the airstream is released The /θ/ and /ð/sounds are made when

the airstream is blown out between the top teeth and the tongue, resulting in some friction in the airflow (see Figure 1.2)

In terms of voicing, the /θ/ sound is voiceless since it is made with no vibration of the vocal cords In contrast, the /ð/ sound is voiced since it is made with the vocal cords vibrating (see also Figure 1.3)

Figure 1.2 The position of the tongue in the production of /θ/ and /ð/

Figure 1.3 The obstruction of the airstream in the production of /θ/ and /ð/ and the

state of the vocal cords 1.2.1.2 Description of alveo-palatal sounds /ʃ/ and /ʒ/

Regarding place of articulation, alveo-palatal fricative consonant sounds are produced with the blade of the tongue and the hard palate To understand how these sounds are formed, pronounce the words ‘wish’ and ‘beige’ The final consonant sounds of these words are produced with the blade of the tongue approaching the hard palate, just behind the tooth ridge (see Figure 1.4) The airstream goes through this area is obstructed and the sound is formed

In terms of manner of articulation, the way alveo-palatal fricative sounds produced is precisely the same as the dental sounds since they belong to fricatives Pronounce the words ‘wish’ and ‘beige’ again; concentrating on the way the airstream is released There should be some friction in the airflow when the airstream is trying to escape from the mouth (see Figure 1.5)

In terms of voicing, the alveo-palatal fricative consonant sounds come in voiced/ voiceless pairs The /ʃ/ sound is voiced while the /ʒ/ sound is voiceless (see also figure 1.5)

Figure 1.4 The position of the tongue in the production of / ʃ/ and /ʒ/

Figure 1.5 The obstruction of the airstream in the production of /ʃ/ and / ʒ/ and the

state of the vocal cords

1.2.2 Common types of pronunciation mistakes made by Vietnamese learners

Some research has found that there are two main types of mistakes that Vietnamese learners often make when producing consonant sounds, especially those belonging to dental and alveo-palatal fricative These mistakes include sound omission and sound confusion

Sound omission is one of the most common problems for Vietnamese learners, especially when sounds occur at medial and final positions Osburne (1996, p.164-181) has found that Vietnamese learners of English often delete consonant sounds, typically single syllable-final fricatives To clarify this point, Avery & Ehrich (1992, p.154) states Vietnamese speakers may omit fricatives at the middle and end of words since fricatives do not occur in word-medial and final position in Vietnamese For instance, when pronouncing word-final fricative consonants /θ/ as in ‘bath’, /ð/ as in ‘bathe’, /ʃ/ as in ‘rush’ and /ʒ/ as in

‘garage’, Vietnamese learners may sound like ‘ba_’, ‘ba_’, ‘ru_’, and ‘gara_’ The reason for this is because Vietnamese consonant sounds do not occur at medial

position and are never produced or heard at the end of words Vietnamese learners are therefore not in a habit of pronouncing dental and alveo-palatal fricative consonants when they occur at those two positions

Another serious pronunciation mistake made by Vietnamese learners is sound confusion Ha (2005, p.35-46) has analyzed common mispronunciation of sounds and come to the conclusion that Vietnamese learners frequently confused the sound /θ/ with /tʰ/, /ʃ/ with /z/, and /ʒ/ with /f/ In short, Vietnamese learners of English often confuse dental and alveo-palatal consonant sounds with alveolar sounds (/s/, /t/, /d/, /z/, /tʰ/) and labiodental sound (/f/) This may be due to the unfamiliarity of Vietnamese speakers towards dental and alveo-palatal fricative consonant sounds or their laziness in producing these sounds

1.2.3 Suggested techniques for teaching dental and alveo-palatal fricative consonants sounds

Linguists have provided an inventory of techniques used in the teaching of pronunciation in general, and dental and alveo-palatal fricative consonant sounds in particular Some suggested techniques include imitation, phonological description, and the combination of imitation and phonological description

Imitation is to listen to the way others talk, and then make exactly the same sounds in the same way (Moulton, 1970, p.49) This technique is also called minimal pairs in teaching The teacher says a word containing the sounds expected

to teach Students listen and imitate the sounds they have heard Thus, they make the same sounds in the same way as that of the teacher For instance, the teacher says the words ‘thin’ and ‘this’ and then have students imitate the dental sounds at the beginning of the words The teacher can also have students mimic the alveo-palatal fricative consonant sounds by saying the words ‘wish’ and ‘beige’ Imitation

is not only about mimicking every sound, but also every tone of voice, every mannerism, and even every gesture (Moulton, 1970, p.49) It is believed to be one

of the most efficient techniques for teaching dental and alveo-palatal fricative

consonant sounds This technique is applied in Sound English, for example, here is

the exercise 2 of Unit 9 in this book

of how the sounds are made by demonstration, drawing pictures of the mouth and lips or explaining where the sounds are produced (Harmer, 2001, p.250) For instance, the teacher can use the pictures in figure 2 and 3 shown in this chapter to teach the dental sounds The pictures demonstrate the state of the vocal cords, the position of the tongue and the obstruction of the airstream in the production of /θ/ and /ð/ The pictures may also help students to develop an awareness of the distinction between the sounds /θ/ and /ð/, which might sound similar to them Using phonological description does not only help to inform students how the sounds are made, but also explains what mistake has occurred and why it has happened (Harmer, 2001, p.251) This should help the teacher correct students’

pronunciation The example below also from Sound English will demonstrate this

technique

Figure 1.6 Example of phonological description

The last technique to be mentioned is the combination of imitation and phonological description Since both methods are highly effective, they should be used at the same time in teaching the pronunciation of dental and alveo-fricative consonant sounds intellectually

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 2.1 Participants and setting of the study

2.1.1 Participants

The study aims at investigating the pronunciation problems of majored juniors of FFL in BVC Currently, those students are divided into 2 groups – CDAV7A and CDAV7B These students would provide the sample study range for the researcher 100 English-majored juniors were randomly chosen to get involved in the research for several reasons

English-First of all, most of these students had taken a course in phonetics and phonology in their second year of study For this reason, they have already had some general knowledge about dental and alveo-palatal fricative consonants of English This will help the writer to investigate the ways their teachers approached teaching these consonants This approach also enabled the researcher to find the answer to one of the research questions: ‘How are English-majored juniors of FFL

in BVC instructed to pronounce dental and alveo-palatal fricative consonants?’

Secondly, the number of students in CDAV7 class is quite large This provided the researcher with a wide sample study range This can help to ensure the validity and reliability of the research

2.1.2 Setting of the study

The study took place during the second term of the school year (2013-2014) The time to investigate lasted from March to June of 2014 Usually, there are around 50 students in the class The tables in the classes are fixed and traditional, so the students find hard to present or go to the board to do the exercises

2.2 Instruments

To ensure the validity and reliability of the research, the three following instruments have been chosen

2.2.1 Questionnaires (see Appendix 1)

The questionnaire is a widely used and useful instrument for collecting survey information, and often being comparatively straightforward to analyze

(Wilson and McLean, 1994) For this reason, the questionnaire was selected to help the researcher collect necessary information for analysis

There are several types of question and response modes in questionnaires, including dichotomous, multiple choice, rank orderings, rating scales, and opened questions (Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2000, p.248) Among these types, multiple choice and open-ended questions are preferred The reasons for this are mentioned

as followed:

Firstly, multiple choice questions are quick to complete and straightforward

to code (Wilson and McLean, 1994, p.21) The use of this instrument, therefore, would save a lot of time and is rather convenient

Secondly, open-ended questions provide respondents with an opportunity to express themselves freely, resulting in a variety of information (Kumar, 1996, p.118) This allows the writer to better access any problems the participants might have with dental and alveo-palatal fricative consonant sounds

Finally, multiple choice and opened-ended questions do not involve face interaction between respondents and researcher (Kumar, 1996, p.114) This offers greater anonymity which encourages greater honesty

face-to-2.2.2 Interviews (see Appendix 3)

A structured interview process was chosen for this research for several reasons

Firstly, interviews have a higher response rate than other instruments (Oppenheim, 1992, p.81) In an interview, moreover, the respondent becomes more involved and motivated to answer the questions Information is therefore considered

to have greater value

Secondly, interview is a useful instrument for collecting in-depth information (Kumar, 1996, p.115) To be able to identify the common pronunciation mistakes made by English-majored juniors, it is important to have face-to-face interaction between participants and the researcher Interviews allow the researcher to carry out this task

Finally, structured interviews provide the researcher with quantitative information from a range of questions (Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2000, p.272) This can help the researcher to analyze data rapidly

2.2.3 Observation (see Appendix 5)

Observation provides the researcher with an opportunity to look at what is taking place in real situations rather than accepting second hand information (Patton, 1990, p.203-5) This method enables the researcher to collect ‘live’ data for the research The purpose of using this instrument is to observe the way the participants pronounce dental and alveo-palatal fricative consonant sounds Data collected this way may be used to explain any pronunciation mistakes the participants might have made during the interview

There are various kinds of observation, and the one chosen in this research is very structured A structured observation is said to be very systematic This, therefore, allows the researcher to take notes easily and quickly

2.3 Data collection procedures

The data collection procedure was divided into two stages

2.3.1 Data collection from questionnaires

The questionnaire was used at this stage to find out the ways majored juniors in FFL are instructed to learn dental and alveo-palatal fricative consonant sounds The questionnaire was also to examine whether the students are aware of the ways the four English sounds /θ/, /ð/, /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ are pronounced and how they pronounce them Questionnaires were delivered to 100 juniors in CDAV7A and CDAV7B The questionnaires were then collected on the same day

English-so that a higher percentage might be returned The topic and the purpose of the research were given at the beginning of the questionnaires so that the participants knew the reasons why the research was being carried out In addition, they could brainstorm necessary knowledge relating to the topic to complete the questionnaire The participants were offered the choice of providing their name at the top of the questionnaire or they could remain anonymous Each question was simply written

but carefully explained so that the participants could respond to the questionnaires without any ambiguity

2.3.2 Data collection from interviews and observation

Structured interviews and structured observations were carried out at this stage to check if the data collected from the questionnaires was correct Specifically, the questions in the interview were designed in the hope of identifying the pronunciation mistakes made by English-majored juniors when pronouncing the dental and alveo-palatal fricative consonants Twenty students who completed the questionnaire were chosen to be interviewed In the interview, the participants were asked to read out aloud some pairs of words, phrases and short sentences containing dental and alveo-palatal fricative consonants The researcher at that time was in charge of observing the way the participants produced the sounds, including place

of articulation, manner of articulation and voicing The researcher also took necessary notes for later analysis and discussion

2.4 Data analysis procedures

After being collected, the data was then processed through three stages listed below

2.4.1 Editing data

First of all, the contents of the data was checked to identify and minimize,

as far as possible, errors, incompleteness, misclassification and gaps in the information obtained (Kumar, 1996, p.200) Specifically, the data from the questionnaire was checked for completeness and internal consistency Any questionnaire that was found to be incomplete and inconsistent was discarded from the study Similarly, data from the interview and observation was checked to recognize if the researcher forgot to record a response or wrongly classify a response Data edition is said to be important as it confirms the quality of the data Thus, it ensures the validity and reliability of the research

2.4.2 Coding data

The second step in data analysis procedure is coding The process of converting information into numerical values for computer analysis is called coding (Kumar, 1996, p.203) In this thesis, the data collected from the questionnaires was input into a computer For each question, the same answers of different participants were counted and converted into percentages for analysis Similarly, the data collected from the interview and observation was also coded again for analysis 2.4.3 Analyzing data

After coding the data, it was then analyzed According to Kumar (1996, p.221), coded data can be analyzed manually or with the help of a computer Since the number of participants in this research was quite large, it was considered to be more efficient to analyze the data with the help of a computer After analysis, the data was then displayed graphically so that readers can easily understand the statistics found from this the research

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 3.1 Findings

This chapter shows and discusses the results of the research conducted in class CDAV7A and CDAV7B There will be three main parts to this chapter The first part is regarding the results from the questionnaires, interviews and observation for three research questions The second part is discussion regarding the results found from these research instruments The last part the researcher gives pedagogical implications

3.1.1 Results of the questionnaires

3.1.1.1 How are English-majored juniors instructed to pronounce dental and aveo-palatal fricative consonants?

Figure 3.1 The appreciation of the instruction on the production of /θ/, /ð/, / ʃ/ and / ʒ/