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

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

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES ************************

NGUYỄN VĂN HÙNG

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

AT GIAO THUY HIGH SCHOOL, NAM DINH

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

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES ************************

NGUYỄN VĂN HÙNG

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

AT GIAO THUY HIGH SCHOOL, NAM DINH

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

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Prof Dr Hoàng Văn Vân

CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT

I certify that the thesis entitled “a study on the pronunciation errors of someEnglish consonants made by grade 10 students at Giao Thuy High School, NamDinh” is entirely my own work for the degree of Master of Arts at University ofLanguages and International Studies – Vietnam National University, Hanoi I haveprovided fully documented references to the work of others This thesis contains nomaterial which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma inany university

Hanoi,2016

Nguyễn Văn Hùng

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims of the study 1

3 Scope of the study 1

4 Research questions 2

5 Methods of the study 2

6 Organization of the study 2

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 English pronunciation 4

1.2 Phonetics 4

1.3 Articulatory phonetics 5

1.4 English consonants 6

1.5 Errors and mistakes 11

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 15

2.1 The informants of the study 15

2.2 Research method 15

2.2.1 Data collection instrument 15

2.2.2 Data collection procedures 19

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 20

3.1 Findings and discussions 20

3.1.1 Findings 20

3.1.2 Discussions……… ……25

3.2 Some possible solutions to those errors 32

PART C: CONCLUSION 37

1 Summary 37

2 Pedagogical implication 37

3 Limitation and suggestion for further research 38

REFERENCES 39

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURE

Figure: The speech organs of articulators

Table 1: Consonants in English

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

Table 6: Errors in pronouncing consonant /θ/

Table 7: Errors in pronouncing consonant /ð/

Table 8: Errors in pronouncing consonant /ʤ/

Table 9: Errors in pronouncing consonant /t/

Table 10: Errors in pronouncing consonant /ʃ/

Table 11: Errors in pronouncing consonant /f/

Table 12: Errors in pronouncing consonant /tʃ/

Table 13: Errors in pronouncing consonant /s/

Table 14: Errors in pronouncing consonant /d/

Table 15: Errors in pronouncing consonant /p/

Table 16: Errors in pronouncing consonant /ʒ/

Table 17: Errors in pronouncing consonant /l/

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Nowadays English has become an international means of communication,

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

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

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

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

2 Aims of the study

The aims of the study are:

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

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

English consonants

3 Scope of the study

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

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

4 Research questions

Question 1: What are the most common pronunciation errors of consonants made by ten graders at Giao Thuy Upper Secondary School? Question 2: What

are possible solutions to those errors?

5 Methods of the study and research instrument

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

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

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

 Since the study attempts to find out pronunciation errors of English consonantsthat students at Giao Thuy High School, Nam Dinh often make, recording theparticipants’ pronunciations of prepared scripts is considered the main researchinstrument in this study

6 Organization of the study

This study is structured into three main parts:

INTRODUCTION, DEVELOPMENT, and CONCLUSION

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

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

PART B: DEVELOPMENT – consists of two chapters.

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

Chapter 2 – METHODOLOY – states the methods employed in the study, researchquestions, data collection instrument and research procedures, methodology used

Chapter 3 – FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS – presents and discusses the findingsobtained from the data analysed.

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

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

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

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

1.1 English pronunciation

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

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

of pronunciation:

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

1.2 Phonetics

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

& Burleigh, 2005: 3)

Phonetics is a natural science that studies speech sounds or phones (concretebut unlimited in number): the way in which they are produced (uttered, articulated),

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

(Extracted from the lecture notes of Dr Nguyễn Huy Kỷ) Phonology is the study

or description of the distinctive sound units (phonemes) of a language and their

relationship to one another It involves studying a language to determine itsdistinctive sounds and to establish a set of rules that describe the set of changes thattake place in these sounds when they occur in different relationships with other

sounds The subject of phonology includes thefollowing areas:

- Study of the phonemic system

- Phoneme sequences and syllable structure

- Suprasegmental phonology (stress, intonation)

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

1.3 Articulatory phonetics

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

The vocal tract is divided into the supraglottal and the subglottal tractaccording to Davenport and Hannahs (1998) as shown in Figure 1

Figure: The speech organs of articulators

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

1.4 English consonants

1.4.1 General description of consonants

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

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

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

in a word) that includes one or more vowels

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

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

1.4.2 Classification of English consonants

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

Stop Fricative Affricative Nasal Liquid glide

Sounds that are bold are voiced

Table 1: Consonants in English

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

According to voicing: (what vocal cords are doing)

a Voiced consonants: are produced when the vocal cords are vibrating e.g: b,

d, g, v, , z, r, ʒ, dʒ, m, n, ŋ , l, w, j

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

e.g: p, t, k, f, θ, s, ʃ, h, tʃ

According to place of articulation:

(Where the constriction of airflow takes place)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- /l/

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

moves toward the area between alveolar ridge and hard palate They include /

ʃ/-/  / - /tʃ/ - /dʒ/ - /r/.

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

to the hard palate It is /j/

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

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

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

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

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

Alveolar ridge + tongueAlveolar (Tongue at or near the ridge behind t, d, n

the upper front teeth)

Palato –alveolar Join of hard palate & alveolar ridge + ʃ, ʒ, tʃ

tongue

j

Table 2: Consonants classified according to the place of articulation

According to the manner of articulation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

together but there is still a small opening between them so the air-stream is partiallyobstructed and an audible friction noise (a hissing sound) is produced

They are /ʃ/ - /f/ - /ʒ/.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Movement of Articulators Examples

escapes through nose

Fricative Narrowing, resulting in audible friction ʃ, f, ʒ

Closure in centre of mouth, air escapes

Slight narrowing, not enough to causeApproximant

Table 3: Consonants classified according to the manner of

articulation 1.5 Errors and mistakes

According to Ancker (2000), making mistakes or errors is a natural process oflearning and must be considered as part of cognition In language learning, makingerrors is an inevitable part that cannot be avoided People cannot learn a languagewithout first systematically committing errors

1.5.1 Errors

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

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

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

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

1.5.3 Types of errors

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

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

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

Abbot (1980: 82) divided errors into competence errors and performanceerrors Competence errors consist of transfer, interlingual and induced Performanceerrors include errors of processing problems and errors of communicationstrategies.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1.5.4 Causes of errors in language learning

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

13

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

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

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

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

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

2.1 The informants of the study

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

of grade 10 at Giao Thuy Upper Secondary School (10A1, 10A2, 10B8) Among the

15 students, 13 are females and 2 are males Participants have been learning English

for 8 years (from grade 3 to grade 10) and are using the same textbook Tiếng Anh

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

classes which are taught by the researcher So it was convenient for the researcher

to carry out the study

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

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

2.2 Research method

2.2.1 Data collection instrument

Recording informants’ pronunciation

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

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

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

single words and sentences that contained all twenty four single consonantsscattering in different positions of words: initial, middle and final These scriptswere taken from seven units: from Unit 11 to Unit 16 of the textbook Theresearcher intentionally arranged the words and sentences by places of articulation

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

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

/ post-alveolar (/ʃ/-/ʒ/-/tʃ/-/dʒ/-/r/) palatal (/j/)  velar (/k/-/g/-/ŋ/) This

arrangement aimed to help the researcher to identify students’ errors more easilywith logical data

The researcher prepared a table of 24 single words containing all singleconsonants and 15 students coded by numbers from No 1 (S1) to No 15 (S15).Certainly, each word included more than one consonant, but the author only focused onone single consonant in each word to know whether they made errors or not

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

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

Table 3 Words that contain 24 English consonants

7 nose /nəʊz/ 19 Lunch /ˈlʌntʃ/

The sentences that contain 24 English consonants are presented in Table 4

In these sentences each consonant appears at least 4 times The sounds in point are

in bold

Table 4 Sentences that contain 24 English consonants

1 Pat buys Bill a big pad of paper /pæt baɪz bɪl ə bɪɡ pæd əv ˈpeɪpə/

2 A black bee is picking some pollen /ə blæk biː ɪz ˈpɪkɪŋ səm ˈpɒlən/

3 I remember meeting him on a nice /ˈaɪ rɪˈmembə ˈmiːtɪŋ hɪm ɒn ə

summer afternoon

naɪs ˈsʌmər ˌɑːftəˈnuːn/

4 We went for a walk in the woods /wi ˈwent fər ə wɔːk ɪn ðə wʊdz nɪə

near the railway

think he is like my brother.

ˈθɪŋk hi z ˈlaɪk maɪ ˈbrʌðə/

17

9 It’s exactly twenty- two minutes to /ɪts ɪɡˈzæktli ˈtwenti ˈtuː ˈmɪnɪts tə

ten

ten/

10 They stayed at home and played /ðeɪ steɪd ət həʊm ənd ˈpleɪd

cards with the children

14 Laura is a really pretty librarian in /ˈlɔː.rə iz ə ˈrɪəli ˈprɪti laɪˈbreərɪən

the public library

ɪn ðə ˈpʌblɪk ˈlaɪbrəri/

15 A massage can be a good measure to /ə ˈmæsɑːʒ kən bi ə ɡʊd ˈmeʒə tə

help you relax