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

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ******************** NGUYỄN THỊ PHƯƠNG GRADE STUDENTS AT KIM THANH H

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-

GRADUATE STUDIES ********************

NGUYỄN THỊ PHƯƠNG

GRADE STUDENTS AT KIM THANH HIGH SCHOOL, HAI DUONG

IN THE PRONUNCIATION OF ENGLISH FRICATIVE AND

AFFRICATIVE CONSONANTS AND SOME POSSIBLE

PEDAGOGICAL SOLUTIONS.

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

MỘT SỐ GIẢI PHÁP TRONG THỰC TẾ GIẢNG DẠY.

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-

GRADUATE STUDIES ********************

NGUYỄN THỊ PHƯƠNG

GRADE STUDENTS AT KIM THANH HIGH SCHOOL, HAI DUONG

IN THE PRONUNCIATION OF ENGLISH FRICATIVE AND

AFFRIVATIVE CONSONANTS AND SOME POSSIBLE

PEDAGOGICAL SOLUTIONS.

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

MỘT SỐ GIẢI PHÁP TRONG THỰC TẾ GIẢNG DẠY.

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Supervisior: Dr Đỗ Tuấn Minh

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

Hanoi, 2017Signature

Nguyen Thi Phuong

First and foremost, I would like to express my special and sincerethanks to my supervisors, Dr Do Tuan Minh, who gave me enthusiasticinstructions, precious support and critical feedback on the construction of thestudy This has always been one of decisive factors in the completion of thisthesis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This study is to investigate practices and challenges of teachingpronunciation by two survey questionnaires, one for 200 eleventh- formstudents and the other for 6 teachers teaching English for grades 10 Classobservation and informal interview are also carried out to elicit hiddenreasons behind participants‟ answers in the questionnaires and to help theresearcher draw a vivid picture of a pronunciation lesson as well From theresults inferred in the analysis, the study suggests some feasible techniquesand activities to make pronunciation teaching and learning English fricativeand affricative sounds more effective

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LISTS OF TABLES vi

LISTS OF FIGURES vii

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale of the study 1

2 Aims of study and research questions 2

3 Significance of the study 2

4 Scope of the study 3

5 Method of the study 3

6 Design of the study 4

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1.1 Theoretical background 5

1.1.1 The description of English fricatives 6

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

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

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

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 24

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 28

3.1.Data analysis 28

3.1.1 The result collected by means of recordings 28

3.2 The result collected by means of questionnaire 33

3.2.1 Students‟ opinion on the importance of pronunciation 33

3.2.2 Students‟ purposes of learning English 34

3.2.3 Student‟s frequency in practicing English pronunciation 35

3.2.4 Students‟ knowledge of reading phonetic transcription 35

3.2.5 Causes of the students‟ mispronunciation 36

CHAPTER 4: IMPLICATIONS AND RECOMENDATION 41

4.1 Using IPA Chart 41

4.2 Making the lessons more interesting 42

4.2.1 Phonetic hangman 43

4.2.2 IPA symbol card game 43

4.2.3 Bingo 44

4.3 Equipping facilities 44

4.4 Motivating the students 45

PART C: CONCLUSION 46

1 Concluding remarks 46

2 Significance of the study 47

3 Limitations of the study 47

4 Suggestions for further studies 48

References 49

Appendix 1 I

Appendix 2 III

LISTS OF TABLES

Table 1: Vietnamese initial and final consonants 15

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

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

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

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

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

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

Table 7: Common pronunciation mistakes committed by the students 30

Table 8: Number of students producing sound omission 31

Table 9: Number of students producing sound deviation 32

Table 10: Students‟ purposes of learning English grammar 34

Table 11: Causes of the students‟ mispronunciation 38

LISTS OF FIGURES

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

the sound 5

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Figure 12 Students‟ opinion on the importance of pronunciation 34

Figure 13: Students‟ frequency in practicing English pronunciation 35

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

Figure 15: Students‟ knowledge of reading phonetic transcription 36

Figure 16: Causes of the students‟ mispronunciation 39

Figure 17: The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) 42

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

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

of the management ladder since you will find difficulty in expressing yourbrilliant ideas That is an important and needless- to- question matter in oursociety However, when observing and basing on the real teaching, theresearcher has found out that many students, otherwise most of them, feeldiscouraged towards English just because they can not, or in another word, donot know how to pronounce English words appropriately The reason isexplained by Gerald Kelly (2000) that a learner who consistentlymispronounces words can be extremely difficult for the listener to understand

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

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

to carry out a research to make the problem clear

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

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

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

“A study on mistakes commonly commited by the 10 th Grade students at Kim Thanh High School, Hai Duong in the pronunciation of English Fricative and Affricative consonants and some possible pedagogical solutions”

2 Aims of study and research questions

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

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

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

2 What are the causes of the mispronunciation?

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

3 Significance of the study

Theoretical significance: The research assists both teachers and learners

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

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

2

4 Scope of the study

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

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

Due to time constraints, the length of thesis and the researcher‟sknowledge, it is impossible for the researcher to study all the pronunciationmistakes made by students Therefore, this study only focuses on finding outthe most typical mistakes made by the 10th Grade students at Kim Thanh HighSchool, Hai Duong in the pronunciation of English Fricative and Affricativeconsonants sounds

5 Method of the study

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

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

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

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

6 Design of the study

The study consists of three parts as follows:

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

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

PART B development, consists of 3 chapters:

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

the thesis and theoretical backgrounds about general descriptions of Englishaffricative and fricative sounds

Chapter 2, the methodology underlying the research is presented It

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

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

thorough discussion of the findings of the study

PART C is conclusion including the summary of the main points

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

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

English has 24 consonant phonemes classified according to their

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

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

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

of the sound

(as achieved from

http://nlpdotnet.com/Linguistics/Phonetics/ConsonantChart.aspx )

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

1.1.1 The description of English fricatives

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

1.1.1.1 Labio- dental Fricatives :/f,v/

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1.1.1.2 Dental Fricatives: / θ, ð/

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[bri:ð] (v.).

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

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

1.1.1.3 Alveolar Fricatives: /s,z/

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

the blade of the tongue making a light contact with the alveolar ridge, and theside rims of the tongue a lose contact with the upper side teeth The air-streamescapes through the narrow groove in the center of the tongue and causesfraction between the tongue and the alveolar ridge It is a hissing sounddistributed in all major positions: at the beginning, within and at the end of a

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

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

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

corps, island, viscount.

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

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

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

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

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

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

1.1.1.4 Palato-alveolar Fricatives: /∫, ʒ/

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

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

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

is often spelt sh in words like shoe, cushion or push It can also be spelt s (e.g.

sure, sugar) or ss (e.g pressure, mission) or ci (ancient, delicious), sci

(conscious) ce (ocean), si (pension, mansion), ti (tuition, retribution) It is a variant of /∫/ in words like issue, tissue; ch: champagne, charade, moustache.

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

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

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

It is never distributed in initial position, but it can occur in medial (pleasure, treasure, measure) or final position (garage, prestige) It can be spelt either when

followed by u (visual) or i (decision), or z if followed by u (seizure) or ge

(massage, espionage).

10

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

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

1.1.1.5 Glottal Fricative : /h/

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

11

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

These are two alveo-palatal affricate phonemes in English In thearticulation of / tʃ/& /dʒ/, the soft palate is raised, the nasal resonator is shut off,obstacle to the air stream is formed by a closure made between the tip, blade, andrims of the tongue and the upper alveolar ridge and side teeth At the same time,the front of the tongue is raised towards the hard palate in readiness for thefricative release The closure is released slowly, the air escaping in a diffusemanner over the whole of the central surface of the tongue with frictionoccurring between the blade/ front region of the tongue and the alveolar/ frontpalatal section of the roof of the mouth During both stop and fricative stages, thevocal cords are wide apart for /ʃ/, but may be vibrating for all or part ofaccording to the situation of utterance / tʃ/ is voiceless but /dʒ/ is voiced withvoice from the throat (D.T Nu / VNU Journal of Science, Foreign Languages 25(2009))

Figure 11: Place and manner articulation of the sound / tʃ/& /dʒ/

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

1.2 Pronunciation errors

12

1.2.1 Errors

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

“errors of performance” which happen to native speakers due to tiredness andcarelessness and “errors of competence”, ones that reflect vividly thelearner‟s incompetent knowledge of the language that they are learning Thisnecessitates further clarification of the concept and its impact in languageacquisition

1.2.2 Errors and mistakes

In everyday speech, little distinction is drawn between the two term “error”and “mistake” However, from the linguistic perspectives, errors and mistakesstand at the two ends of language acquisition Errors, as described by

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

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

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

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

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

In Vietnamese, consonants are classified into 22 initial consonants and

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

Table 1: Vietnamese initial and final consonants

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

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

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

15

Tam( 2005) set up a research question involving the most common

pronunciation problems of the students in the English Department of the

University of Languages and International Studies To answer this question,

the data collection was carried out through an oral final examination, during

the exam, students were requested to talk about a approximately five – minute

particular topic While listening to the students talking, the researcher took

notes of the errors involving pronunciation The sounds most frequently

mispronounced by Vietnamese students in Tam‟s study are shown in the

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

It can be said that some English sounds such as affricative and fricative

ones are not common to Vietnamese This causes a lot of difficulties for

Vietnamese learners when making English sounds A few Vietnamese

researchers conducted their studies on typical mistakes and some problems

faced by learners Below are the mistakes which the writer has synthesized

from the previous studies.

- Sound pair /f/ -/v/

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

sometimes cause problems There is also a tendency to devoice /v/, especially at the ends of words /v/ was replaced with /f/ since the sound /f/ shares the same

place and manner of articulation: labio-dental fricative sounds The distinction is only on the state of the vocal cords: /v/ is a voiced sound while /f/ is a voiceless sound For example:

Phonemicstranscription

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

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

Phonemicstranscription

Thursday /θɜ:rzdeɪ/ɜ:rzdeɪ/ / t ɜ:rzdeɪ/Thieves

/θɜ:rzdeɪ/i:fz/ / ti:fz/Thunder

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

17

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

Phonemicstranscription

„ether‟

/ɜ:θɜ:rzdeɪ/ər/ /ɜ:dər/

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

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

“In mispronouncing /θ/ as /ð/, the students altered one important feature of thesound /θ/, that is, the state of the vocal cords Generally, the sound of /θ/ is

produced in the situation where the vocal cords are put at a distance when theair goes by in order to make sure that the vocal cords do not make vibration.Yet, as they attempted to articulate /θ/, they closed their vocal cords when theair passed and created vibration As a result, the sound produced by thestudents was more likely to be heard as/ð/ than as /θ/” (Tiono, 2008)

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

Ex: „birthday‟/bɜ:sdeɪ/  /bɜ:sdeɪ/

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

Ex: „monthly‟ /mʌnθɜ:rzdeɪ/li/ /mʌnli/

- Sound pair /s/- /z/

- With /s/ and /z/, the main problem comes from the omissions, which

may result from grammatical deficiencies (plural, possessive, and so on) or from a

failure to pronounce the ends of words The devoicing of final position /z/ may be

helped by lengthening the preceding vowel

Ex: parents /‟peərənts/  /'peərənt/peərənt/

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

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

Words Standard Mistakes DeviationsPhonemics

- /ʃ/ is not a particularly common sound in English or the languages of the world, but can be learned quite easily However, the learners often fail to

distinguish between a voiceless alvelo- palatal fricative / ʃ / and a voice

alveo- fricative /s/

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

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

strength Weakening may lead to a /ʃ/ substitution It‟s also reasons whylearners often make mistake in producing these sounds Moreover, in Vietnamlanguage, there is no / tʃ/& /dʒ/, so they often pronounce them as /z/ and / ć /

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Words Standard Phonemics Mistakes Deviations

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

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

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

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

According to the survey data collected in Huong‟s study( 2010), thedifficulties encountered by the second students at That Nguyen University ofAgriculture and Forestry in producing the consonant sounds //θ/&/ ð/;

/∫/&/ʒ/ ; /tʃ/ - /dʒ/ were identified as followed:

motivation to English language learning

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 Poor learning background: articulation features of the consonants under the research, teaching and learning environment inefficiency, inappropriate technique used by teachers

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 2.1 Participants and setting of the study

2.1.1 Participants

The research was conducted on 150 students grade 10 at Kim Thanhhigh school, Hai Duong These one-hundred and fifty students are studentsfrom 4 classes 10A, 10B, 10C, 10N They are chosen randomly to fulfill thesetasks All of them have studied English since they were students at primaryschools Up to now, they have had at least 7 years of learning English andbeen quite familiar with the English sounds as well as other grammaticalsystems 30 of them are chosen to join the recordings and all of them agreed

to take part in the study voluntarily and 150 respondents participated in thequestionnaire

2.1.2 Setting of the study

Located in Kim Thanh district, Hai Duong about 90 kilometres fromHanoi Capital, Vietnam, Kim Thanh High school wins its fame all overVietnam for the top 100 high school in Viet Nam The school has about 1200students selected from secondary schools all over Kim Thanh district through

an entrance exam held in June every year This is a rather competitive exam

so the students passing it are usually quite talented Most of the students findlittle difficulty with reading, vocabulary and grammar, but face lots ofproblems with listening and speaking, especially pronunciation

The school is well equipped with teaching and learning facilities It hasthree computer labs and a third of the classrooms are installed with aprojector, which is quite convenient for the application of IT in teaching.What'peərənt/s more, most of the students come from middle and high class families

so they have good chances to access information technology All of themknow how to use a computer and explore the Internet since there areInformation Technology lessons for them every week

The material used in task 1 was a list of 66 individual words containingthe fricative and affricative sounds distributed in all positions of a word(beginning, middle, final) Task 2 consists of 11 sentences with some words

in these sounds Task 3 is a text extracted from the participants‟ textbook

2.2.2 Questionnaires

The questionnaire is a widely used and useful instrument for collectingsurvey 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

The researcher chooses survey questionnaires because they are usefulways of gathering information about “affective dimensions of teaching andlearning, such as beliefs, attitudes, motivation, and preferences” (Richards andLockhart, 1994:10) and enable a researcher to collect a large amount ofinformation relatively quickly In fact, it took the researcher only one week tohand out and collect the data from survey questionnaires With this method,the researcher finds it easy to summarize the results and the participants have