Difficulties in teaching and learning pronunciation in language focus periods english 12 and some solutions

LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLESTable 1: Pronunciation components and activities in each unit Table 2: The purpose of teaching and learning pronunciation Table 3: Techniques used in the present

Vietnam national university, hanoi University of languages and international studies Faculty of post graduate studies

HOÀNG THỊ HẢI LÝ

DIFFICULTIES IN TEACHING AND LEARNING PRONUNCIATION IN LANGUAGE FOCUS PERIODS – ENGLISH 12 AND SOME SOLUTIONS

(KHÓ KHĂN TRONG DẠY VÀ HỌC NGỮ ÂM TRONG CÁC TIẾT DẠY

“LANGUAGE FOCUS” SÁCH GIÁO KHOA TIẾNG ANH 12 VÀ MỘT SỐ GIẢI

Vietnam national university, hanoi University of languages and international studies

Faculty of post graduate studies

HOÀNG THỊ HẢI LÝ

DIFFICULTIES IN TEACHING AND LEARNING PRONUNCIATION

IN LANGUAGE FOCUS PERIODS – ENGLISH 12 AND SOME

SOLUTIONS

(KHÓ KHĂN TRONG DẠY VÀ HỌC NGỮ ÂM TRONG CÁC TIẾT DẠY

“LANGUAGE FOCUS” SÁCH GIÁO KHOA TIẾNG ANH 12 VÀ MỘT

SỐ GIẢI PHÁP) M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field: Methodology Code: 601410

SUPERVISOR: HOÀNG THỊ XUÂN HOA, Ph.D

Hanoi, 8 - 2010

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Declaration……… i

Acknowledgements……… ii

Abstract……… iii

Table of contents……… iv

List of charts and tables……… ……… vi

PART 1: INTRODUCTION……… ……… 1 1. Rationale of the study……… ……… 1

2 Aim of the study………

1 3 Research questions………

……… 2

4 Methods of the study………

……… 2

5 Scope of the study ………

……… 2

6 Significance of the study……… ………

2 7 Design of the study………

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT………

Chapter 1: Theoretical background ………

1.1 Definition of pronunciation.………

1.2 The importance of teaching pronunciation ………

1.3 The teacher‟s roles and student‟s roles in teaching and learning pronunciation… 1.4 The pronunciation components.………

1.5 Factors affecting pronunciation learning.………

1.6 Differences between English and Vietnamese………

1.7 Techniques of teaching pronunciation.………

1.8 Summary………

Chapter 2: The study………

2.1 An overview of the situation of teaching and learning English at Thang Long Upper Secondary School.……….……….………

2.1.3 The textbook………

2.2 Research questions………

2.3 Research methodology………

2.3.1 The subjects of the study………

2.3.2 Methods and procedures………

2.4 Data analysis process………

2.5 Summary………

Chapter 3: Data analysis and discussions ……….……….

3.1 Data analysis and discussions……… ………

3.1.1 The teachers and students‟ attitudes towards teaching and learning pronunciation 3.1.2 The levels of difficulties in teaching and learning pronunciation………

3.1.3 The causes of the difficulties in teaching and learning pronunciation…………

3.1.4 The techniques used in each stage of teaching pronunciation………

3.2 Summary……… ………

Chapter 4: Some suggested techniques for teaching pronunciation in “Language Focus Periods” – English 12 ……… ………

PART 3: CONCLUSION……… ………

1 Conclusions of the study………

2 Limitations of the study……….39

3 Suggestions for further study.………

…… 39

References………

Appendices………

LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES

Table 1: Pronunciation components and activities in each unit

Table 2: The purpose of teaching and learning pronunciation

Table 3: Techniques used in the presentation stage Table 4:

Techniques used in the practice stage

Table 5: Techniques used in the production stage

Table 6: The favorite techniques of teaching and learning pronunciation in each stage

Chart 1: The role of pronunciation in teaching and learning English

Chart 2: The role of each pronunciation component in English 12

Chart 3: The attraction of teaching and learning pronunciation

Chart 4: The attraction of each pronunciation component in English 12

Chart 5: The levels of difficulties in teaching and learning pronunciation

Chart 6: The levels of difficulties of each pronunciation component in English 12Chart 7: The causes of the difficulties in teaching and learning pronunciation

Chart 8: The causes of the difficulties in teaching and learning pronunciation in English 12

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1 RATIONALE OF THE STUDY

Nowadays, with the rapid pace of integration and globalization, English becomes agolden key to open the door of many fields such as commerce, communication, science andtechnology throughout the world Therefore, to meet the demand of the society, it is verynecessary to teach English in schools of all levels

One of the most important goals of learning a foreign language is to communicatewhile oral communication of human beings bases on sounds If people do not pronouncecorrectly they will have many difficulties in exchanging ideas or sometimes it may lead to thecommunication breakdown

Up to now, at upper-secondary school level, in language teaching and learning,pronunciation is paid less attention compared with vocabulary, grammar and language skills.This is because of number reasons: First, the textbooks (English 10 - 11 - 12) have fewexercises for pronunciation practice Second, all important English exams at schools as well

as the entrance exam to universities are always in written form so most teachers as well asstudents have little motivation to teach and to learn pronunciation As a result, students areoften shy and unconfident to speak in English

So, what are the difficulties in teaching and learning? How to find suitable methods toteach pronunciation? What should teachers do to teach pronunciation effectively? How shouldteachers make students become interested in learning pronunciation? They are burningquestions for many teachers of English The answers to these questions will help teachersimprove students‟ pronunciation knowledge and help them to make progress in

communication For the above reasons, I decide to investigate “Difficulties in teaching and learning Pronunciation in Language Focus periods – English 12 and some solutions”

2 AIMS OF THE STUDY

This study mainly focused on the difficulties in teaching and learning pronunciation

in Language Focus periods – English 12 and solutions to help them overcome thesedifficulties In order to achieve this aim, some objectives are posed for exploration as

The research tries to answer the following questions:

1 What are the attitudes of teachers and students towards teaching and learning pronunciation?

2 What are the difficulties and the causes in teaching and learning

pronunciation in Language focus periods – English 12?

3 How are pronunciation components taught at Thang Long upper secondary school?

In order to fulfill the tasks as mentioned above, a certain data about the attitudes of teachersand students as well as the difficulties and causes of difficulties in teaching and learningpronunciation at Thang Long Upper Secondary School were collected and analyzed Tocollect data for the research, a survey questionnaire were delivered to 7 teachers and 100grade 12 students at Thang Long Upper Secondary School Some observation and interviewswith some teachers and students were also conducted for supplementary information Afterthat, the results obtained from questionnaires and observation were discussed then someuseful pronunciation teaching techniques were recommended

5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

There are a number of difficulties in teaching and learning English at upper –

secondary school However, as this study is concerned with teaching and learning

pronunciation in Language focus periods – English 12

6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This study hopes to make contribution to teaching pronunciation at upper secondary schooland the result of the study is considered to be useful for teachers and students at school Sothis study will be an interesting reference material for any upper secondary teachers inVietnam especially for those who are in favor of improving their students' pronunciation Thisresearch will help teachers and students identify their difficulties in teaching and learningpronunciation and self- improve their pronunciation

7 DESIGN OF THE STUDY

The study starts with the first part as an INTRODUCTION to the rationale, the aims,the significance of the study, the research questions, the method, the scope and the design ofthe study

The next part provides the DEVELOPMENT of the thesis with 4 chapters

Chapter 1 presents the theoretical background with definition of pronunciation; the importance

of teaching pronunciation; the teacher's and student's roles in teaching pronunciation; thepronunciation components, factors affecting pronunciation learning, and some techniques ofteaching pronunciation

Chapter 2, chapter 3 constitutes the body of the study Chapter 2 is the study of the thesis with

an overview on situation of teaching and learning English at Thang Long high school, researchquestions, and research methodology and data analysis process Chapter 3 presents dataanalysis and discussions

Chapter 4 suggests some techniques for teaching pronunciation in “Language Focus Periods”

– English 12.

Part 3 is the CONCLUSION provides the summary of the thesis, limitations and some suggestions for further study

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Definition of pronunciation

The notion of "pronunciation" has been defined in different ways by many writers Ur(1996: 47) defines that "The concept of "pronunciation" may be said to include sounds of thelanguage or phonology; stress and rhythm; intonation; combination of sounds; linkage of

In this paper, the author has no intention of pointing out which definition ofpronunciation is the most precise but she only wishes to find an appropriate definitionfacilitating the understanding of pronunciation in language study Therefore, the definition ofpronunciation proposed by Ur (1996) is adopted

1.2 The importance of teaching and learning pronunciation

“A learner who constantly mispronounces a range of phonemes can be extremelydifficult for a speaker from another language community to understand A consideration oflearners‟ pronunciation errors and of how these can inhibit successful communication is auseful basis on which to assess why it is important to deal with pronunciation in the class”.Gerald Kelly (2000:11)

While saying about why it is important to teach pronunciation, Martin Hewings (2004:10)adds “Difficulties with pronunciation might mean that students fail to get their message across,even when the correct words are being used, or they might fail to understand what is said to

them.”

Sound is the core of the language so that is the reason why when teaching a language thefirst thing the teachers should do is to let the learners have chances to explore to the sounds ofthat language Moreover, communicative approach is considered as the major languageteaching in the twenty first century as what the learners really need after graduating is that theycan communicate successfully in their work and their life That is the reason whypronunciation teaching has been paid more and more attention by all the teachers

Pronunciation is as important as any other aspects of language like syntax andvocabulary Speech is much more than pronunciation of course, but speech is impossiblewithout it Correct pronunciation, in fact, is considered to be a prerequisite to develop thespeaking skill That is why teaching pronunciation should occupy an important place in thestudy of any language

1.3 The teacher’s roles and student’s roles in teaching and learning pronunciation

Because of the importance of teaching pronunciation mentioned above, teachers play akey role in teaching and learning pronunciation Many authors share this idea and they all giveout the similar roles of teacher's and students' in pronunciation practice However, in this study,the literature of Kenworthy (1987: 1-2) about the teacher's role was chosen The roles of theteacher and students can be derived in the following parts

1.3.1 The teacher's roles in teaching pronunciation

1.3.1.1 Helping students hear and perceive the model as exactly as possible

Students often have a strong tendency to hear the sounds of English in terms of thesounds of their native language The teacher needs to check that their students are hearingsounds according to the appropriate categories and help them to develop new categories ifnecessary

1.3.1.2 Helping students make sounds intelligible

Some sounds of English do not occur in Vietnamese Therefore, the teacher has to givesome hints which help them to produce the new sounds intelligibly

1.3.1.3 Providing students with feedback of their pronunciation

Students need to be told how they are doing as sometimes they themselves cannot tell

if they have pronounced correctly The teacher must provide them feedback about theirperformance

1.3.1.4 Pointing out what is going on

It is important for students to know what to pay attention to and what to work on.Because speaking is for the most part unconsciously controlled, students may miss somethingimportant For example, they may not realize that when a particular word is stressed or said in

a different way this can affect the message that is sent to the listener Teachers need to makestudents aware of the potential of sounds - the resources available to them for sending spokenmessages

1.3.1.7 Assessing progress

It is difficult for students to assess their own progress so teachers must provide theinformation about progress It is often a crucial factor in maintaining motivation

1.3.2 The student's roles in learning pronunciation

In teaching a foreign language in general, and in teaching pronunciation in particular,what ever the teacher does, the learner's improvement and prospects of change are minimal ifthe learners take no action and do not try to monitor their own efforts What all learners arerequired to do in pronunciation learning is response But it is not as simple as that Ultimate

success in pronunciation will surely depend on learners' attitude and how much attempt thelearner puts into In other words, the most decisive factor of improving pronunciation is thelearner's willingness to take responsibility for his/her learning process

In addition, students also have some following roles: Firstly, they have to perceive themodel as exactly as they can If cannot acquire it, they will not be able to pronounce the modelcorrectly Students need to respond as much and as well as they can to the recognition, withrepetition activities because "practice makes perfect" Finally, students should correction oftheir pronunciation mistakes

1.4 The pronunciation components

1.4.1 Gerald Kelly’s ideas about pronunciation components

According to Colin Mortimer (1985), elements of teaching pronunciation are weakforms, clusters, linking - up, contractions and stress time Linda Grant (1993) provided a morecomprehensive and authentic elements of teaching She organized the teaching elements fromsounds to syllables and words, to sentences and finally to discourse-segments According to

Gerald Kelly (2000: 1), teaching pronunciation includes: phonemes, vowels, consonants, stress, intonation, other aspects of connected speech and spelling.

Phonemes are the different sounds within a language Although there are slight differences in

how individuals articulate sounds, we can still describe reasonably accurately how each sound

is produced

Vowels are articulated when a voiced airstreams is shaped using the tongue and lips to modify

the overall shape of the mouth English speakers generally use twelve pure vowels and eight

Consonants are formed by interrupting, restricting or diverting the airflow in a variety of

ways There are three ways of describing the consonant sounds: the manner of articulation, theplace of articulation and the force of articulation

Word stress: Try saying the following words to yourself: qualify, banana, understand All of

them have three identifiable syllables, and one of the syllables in each word will sound louder

than the others: so, we get QUAlify, baNAna, and underSTAND The syllables indicated in

capitals are the stressed syllables Each stressed syllable, in a word in isolation, also have achange in the pitch, or the level of the speaker‟s voice and the vowel sound in that syllable islengthened

Sentence stress: In spoken English, there are various ways in which a speaker gives the

listener information about the relative importance of different parts of the massage One ofthese ways is to put stress on the words that carry the most information This is usually calledthe sentence stress

Intonation: The term intonation refers to the way the voice goes up and down in pitch when

we are speaking It is a fundamental part of the way we express our own thoughts and itenables us to understand those of others It is an aspect of language that we are very sensitive

to, but mostly at an unconscious level We perceive intonation, understand it and use it withouthaving to examine the intricacies of everything we say or hear

Other aspects of connected speed and spelling include assimilation, elision, linking and

intrusion, juncture, contractions

1.5 Factors affecting pronunciation learning

There are many factors affecting the learners' pronunciation According to Kenworthy(1987:4-9), factors such as the native language, the age factor, amount of exposure, phoneticability, attitude and identity, motivation and concern for good pronunciation have greatinfluence on Pronunciation learning

1.5.1 The native language.

The native language plays an important role in learning to pronounce English as it isclearly seen that a foreign accent is influenced by some of the sound characteristics of thelearner's native language These can be used to distinguish between the native speakers andnon native speakers (untrained as well as trained speakers) Due to the role of native language,there has been a great deal of research on the differences between sound systems of Englishand other languages in terms of sound system as well as problems, difficulties the learners facewhen studying English According to Kenworthy, (1992: 4): "To put it very crudely, the moredifferences there are, the more difficulties the learners will have in pronouncing English.”

1.5.2 The age factor

It is commonly assumed that people can pronounce a foreign language like a native ifthey start learning it as a child and vice versa even though the adults have a good knowledge

of English or they live in the countries where the language is a native one This leads to aquestion that whether there is an age-related limit on the mastery of pronunciation There havebeen many studies on this question and the results are conflicting because these studies haveassessed pronunciation in different ways and it is extremely difficult to control other factorswhich may be involved such as ability, motivation or opportunity to use and to hear thelanguage

1.5.3 Amount of exposure

Another factor is the amount of exposure to English the learner receives Some peopleview this as a matter of whether the learner is living in an English-speaking country or not.This means that the learner surrounded by English will have more advantages than who is notliving in an English-speaking environment However, it is difficult to get an accurate picture ofhow much exposure to English a learner has received, and of what kind Moreover, it is notmerely exposure that matters, but how the learners respond to the opportunities to listen anduse English Based on some recent studies, it seems that amount of exposure is not a necessaryfactor but a contributory factor for the development of pronunciation skills

1.5.4 Phonetic ability

Researchers demonstrate that some people are able to mimic sounds more accurately

than others These abilities are innate, so this factor seems to be out of the teacher's control.What the teacher can do is to investigate the abilities of the learners and provide a variety oftasks so that something will suit the needs and ability of each learner.

1.5.5 Attitudes and identity

It has been claimed that factors such as a person‟s „sense of identity‟ and feelings of

„group affiliation‟ are strong determiners of the acquisition of accurate pronunciation of aforeign language In many studies of attitude and motivation in language learning, it has beenshown that those learners who show positive feelings towards the speakers of the newlanguage tend to develop more accurate, native-like accents

1.5.6 Motivation and concern for good pronunciation

It cannot be denied that motivation is an important factor which determines the people'sparticipation in every activity especially in language learning Motivation makes people moreactive in learning The more motivated the people are, the greater the cognitive process is Thelearner's attitude towards the language they are learning or going to learn also affects theprocess of learning pronunciation Their positive attitudes will help students a lot in learningthis language, including learning it s pronunciation

1.6 Differences between English and Vietnamese

There are a number of books discussing this matter In this study, Doan Thien Thuat

(2003), Nguyen Thien Giap (1997), Ha Cam Tam (2005), O'Connor (1967), McNeil, D (1987),

Hinst and Cristo, (1998) have been adopted The main differences between English andVietnamese pronunciation presented hereafter:

Three out of seven short English vowels are absent in Vietnamese Vietnamese doesnot have vowel contrasts (minimal pairs) which means there is not discrimination between theshort and long This is really a matter to Vietnamese students because they cannot pronouncesome words correctly without looking at its pronunciation transcription in the dictionary

1.6.3 Consonants

English has 24 consonants but there are only 22 in Vietnamese There are somephonemes in English but not in Vietnamese and vice versa In Vietnamese, a letter is oftenrepresented by the same phoneme In English, some phonemes seem to be represented byidentical letters but different pronunciation Vietnamese in general is spoken with a staccatodelivery Syllables and words are not linked together as in English but are clearly separatedfrom each other Especially final consonant clusters cause the greatest difficulties forVietnamese students

1.6.4 Stress

Vietnamese is a basically monosyllabic language Unlike English - a polysyllabiclanguage, most Vietnamese words have only one syllable And unstressed syllable do notoccur in Vietnamese Even in compound nouns, each syllable has its own distinctive tone This

is the reason why stress within words does not exist in Vietnamese

1.6.5 Intonation

There are six tones in Vietnamese: level tone, falling lone (grave), rising tone (acute),broken tone (till), dot, and low-rising These ones are lexical; they change the meaning ofwords, just as changing one of the segmental phonemes (consonants and vowels) in Englishcan change the meaning of a word

In English, on the other hand, intonation plays a much greater part A statement can bemade into question by using intonation without changing the word order, which is notpossible in Vietnamese

That is the reason why Vietnamese learners, while studying English, do not pay much attention to learning English intonation, as they are not aware of the importance of

using correct intonation.

In conclusion, Vietnamese and English sound systems are different A teacher ofEnglish should take all these differences into consideration in order to make the learning andthe teaching process more effective

1.7 Techniques of teaching pronunciation

1.7.1 Presentation stage: This is the stage that teachers present the instruction to the lesson.

It is an important stage The purpose of this stage is to help students acquire newpronunciation knowledge This can be achieved through using suitable techniques as followed:

- Using real situation

- Listing relative rules

- Using visual aids

1.7.2 Practice stage: Practice is seen as the frequency device to create familiarity and

confidence with the new language, and a measuring stick for accuracy This stage is typicallydivided into two sections: controlled and freer practice There are many techniques forstudents to practice pronunciation components Students need to practice both speaking andwriting so we have techniques for both oral practice and written practice:

- Listening and repeating individual words

- Listening and repeating phrases

- Listening and repeating sentences

- Listening and repeating conversation

- Odd one out (multiple choice)

- Imitating a series of words, phrases or sentences which have the same

pronunciation

pattern

- Grouping words, phrases or sentences

- Transcribing phonetically words, phrases, sentence or conversation

- Doing the listening exercises

1.7.3 Production stage: This stage is seen as the culmination of the language learning

process, whereby the learners have become independent users of the language rather than students of the language We also have some techniques for this stage such as:

It can not be denied that pronunciation and teaching pronunciation is an important part

to conduct in any language course It is even more important for those who are or will beteachers of the language Methods of teaching pronunciation are various with differentelements of pronunciation What are the attitudes of teachers and learners towards teachingand learning pronunciation? Do the teachers and learners have any difficulties in teaching andlearning while there are many factors affecting pronunciation learning process and differencesbetween English and Vietnamese? What techniques should be used to teach pronunciation?These questions will be discussed in the next chapters of the study

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY 2.1 An overview of the situation of teaching and learning English at Thang Long Upper Secondary School.

2.1.1 Learners

There are about 500 students of grade 12 in my school Most of the students have learntEnglish for at least 7 years, since they were at grade 6 Some of them have learnt English sincethey were in primary school Two thirds of them learn English as a compulsory subject Somelearn English to get scholarship to study abroad The others study English more deeply to takethe exam to university In general, the majority of the students like learning English and have agood general knowledge of English Many students are capable of speaking English fluently

As a result, 10% gets mark 9 to 10, 30% gets mark 8 to 9, 55% gets mark 6 to 8, and 5% getsmark 5 to 6, 0% gets mark below 5 Some students get high mark in IELTS and TOFEL examand have scholarship to study abroad

However, teaching and learning English at Thang Long Upper Secondary School havesome difficulties Most of the classes are rather big in comparison with an ordinary class for aclass of English, about 40 students Furthermore, there is not any lab room for studying aforeign language In addition to that, students hardly have opportunities to communicate withnative speakers

2.1.2 Teachers

There are 10 teachers of English in Thang Long Upper Secondary School Fiveteachers are from 40 to 50 years old; one studied English at Teacher Training University ofRussia, four teachers taught Russian originally, and then changed to English Five teachers arefrom 25 to 35 years old, one has just finished an MA course, two are following MA course,and the other two teachers have just graduated from Hanoi national university All the teachersare very enthusiastic with teaching and want to improve the quality of English teaching andlearning

2.1.3 The textbook

We have been using the text book - English 12 for two years There are many changes in this

new text book in comparison with the old text book This text book has four lessons focus on

four skills such as Reading, Speaking, Listening and Writing Especially, Pronunciation is also

introduced in this text book However, it is only one small part in the Language Focus lessons

About 10 to 15 minutes are spent for Pronunciation in each unit There are 16 units in the text

book and they focus on eight components of Pronunciation: Grammatical endings, Stress,

Weak and strong forms, Contractions, Rhythm, Elision, Linking and Intonation (See appendix

5) There are two main activities of practicing: Listen and repeat individual words and Practice

reading sentences Following is the table of contents of the pronunciation components and

activities in each unit:

Table 1: Pronunciation components and activities in each unit

Pronunciation components

syllables

conjunctions and prepositions

Unit 7 Strong and weak forms of auxiliaries

All the pronunciation components in English 12 are very important and necessary for

students to produce actual speech However, during the teaching and learning process, bothteachers and students face up with many difficulties How can they overcome the difficulties?Some questions have been proposed to solve these problems

2.2 Research questions

As stated in 3 in the introduction, the study aims to seek answers to the following questions:

1 What are the attitudes of teachers and students towards teaching and learning pronunciation?

2 What are the difficulties and the causes in teaching and learning

pronunciation in Language focus periods – English 12?

3 How are pronunciation components taught at Thang Long upper secondary school?

2.3 Research methodology

The author will describe the subjects of the study, which consists of 7 teachers and 100students of grade 12 The data collection instruments will be presented The study procedurewill then be described The preliminary results will be dicussed

2.3.1 The subjects of the study

2.3.1.1 The teacher subjects

The subjects of the study are seven (out of ten) teachers of English who have beenteaching English 12 (The rest three teachers are two teachers who have not taught English 12yet and the author) All of them are experienced in teaching English 12 They age from 30 to

46 One of whom studied English at Teacher training University of Russia, four teacherstaught Russian originally, and then changed to English one has just finished an MA course, one

is following MA course

2 3.1.2 The learner subjects

One hundred students among 500 students of grade 12 were chosen randomly Thereare 14 classes with 10 classes of group A and 4 classes of group D In each class, 7 studentswith unequal level of English were chosen Three have mark from 8 to 10, three have mark

from 6 to 8 and one has mark below 6 Their purposes of learning English are different Twothirds of them learn English as a compulsory subject Some learn English to get scholarship tostudy abroad The others study English more deeply to take the exam to university They areall 18 years old Among them, 70% are female and 30% are male.

2.3.2 Methods and procedures

As mentioned in the above section, to collect information and data, three instruments:questionnaire, interview and observation were used All the subjects were informed of thepurpose of the study and willing to help the researcher to fulfill the author's task

The study was conducted in three steps as follows:

Firstly, the questionnaires were administered to 100 students of grade 12 and 7teachers The questionnaire consists of 13 questions Five first questions are aimed at findingout the attitudes of teachers and learners towards the teaching and learning pronunciation Thenext four questions are aimed at finding out the levels of difficulties in teaching and learningpronunciation and the causes of difficulties The four last questions are aimed at finding outthe frequency of using different techniques and activities in teaching and learningpronunciation In order to collect reliable data and information from the subjects,questionnaires for students were designed in Vietnamese and the students were given 45minutes to finish their answers The teachers were given 30 minutes to finish their answers.Both teachers and students were given any explanation if necessary The completedquestionnaires were collected by the writer herself

Secondly, in order to supplement the validity of the information obtained from thequestionnaire, the interview with the teachers and students was carried There are threequestions in the interview The first question is about the attitude of the teachers and learnerstowards the teaching and learning pronunciation The second question is about the causes ofdifficulties The third question is the favorite activities in teaching and learning pronunciation.Two teachers (one teacher taught Russian originally, one teacher has just finished an M.Acourse) and 14 students (one student in each class was chosen randomly in 14 differentclasses, six have mark from 8 to 10, six have mark from 6 to 8, two

have mark below 6) were invited to the interview The questions for students were inVietnamese This was to guarantee the truthfulness of the information because most ofstudents are not good enough at English to reply in English The teachers and students wereinterviewed and information was taken notes at the place of the interview

Thirdly, the information obtained from the questionnaires and interview, however,might be subjective and biased The class observation was conducted (with 7 pronunciationlessons of 7 teachers) in order to gather further information and to witness the reality in whichthe teachers used techniques in the pronunciation teaching process Then, the result of theobservation would be compared with the result of the questionnaire The author acted as a non-participant observer and made notes of the classroom procedures These notes were thentranscribed and analyzed to evaluate pronunciation teaching in the classroom The authorattended 7 pronunciation lessons during three weeks and each lesson lasted 15 minutes

2.4 Data analysis process

Data collected from three different sources were categorized into (a) teachers andstudents' attitudes towards pronunciation learning and teaching at Thang Long uppersecondary school, (b) the difficulties and the causes in teaching and learning pronunciation(c)the ways of using different techniques in teaching pronunciation The data werecategorized this way is easy for the author to find the answers for the research questions Thequantitative data were presented in the form of charts while qualitative data from the interviewand class observation were presented by quoting relevant responses from the respondents

2.5 Summary

This chapter presented the overview on situation of teaching and learning Englishgrammar at Thang Long upper secondary school, the research questions, the researchmethodology and instruments of data collection The author used three different instruments:two survey questionnaires, interview and class observation with the purpose of achievingtriangulation and more reliable, valid data In the next chapter, chapter 3, the author willpresent the data analysis, discussion and the implications for teaching and learning Englishpronunciation in English 12

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DICUSSIONS

This chapter presents data analysis both descriptively and interpretively as well asdiscussions of the findings This chapter also gives the answers to the three research questions

of the thesis

3.1 Data analysis and discussions

3.1.1 The teachers and students’ attitudes towards teaching and learning pronunciation 3.1.1.1 Questionnaires

TEACHERS

60%

Very important Important

Chart 1: The role of pronunciation in teaching and learning English

It can be seen clearly from chart 1 that there is a high level of agreement about thesignificance of pronunciation in teaching and learning English All teachers and students agreethat pronunciation is very important and important in teaching and learning English.Remarkably, none of the teachers and students thinks that teaching and learning pronunciationunimportant It means that pronunciation should be taught and learnt

Chart 2: The role of each pronunciation component in English 12

Discussing the importance of each pronunciation component in English 12, most of the

components are very important and important Remarkably, all the teachers and students

consider that stress is very important and important (with 86% teachers and 80% students say

very important and 14% teachers and 20% students say important None of them says stress is

unimportant Ranked the second is intonation, no teacher and only 6 students are neutral with

it, the rest say it is very important and important

Table 2: The purpose of teaching and learning pronunciation PURPOSES

To help students to communicate better

To provide students with the knowledge about

English and Vietnamese

Others: (Please specify)

It is obvious that there is a similarity between thepurpose of teaching and learning pronunciation All the teachers (100%) agree that teaching

pronunciation is to help students to communicate better and the most purpose of learningpronunciation is also to communicate better 43% of the teachers and 48% of the students thinkthat teaching and learning pronunciation is to get better results in the exam

TEACHERS

29%

Interesting Neutral Not very interesting

Chart 3: The attraction of teaching and learning pronunciation

The chart shows that there is a strong agreement of the teachers and students about theattraction of teaching and learning pronunciation All the teachers (100%) and almost all thestudents (91%) find teaching and learning pronunciation very interesting and interesting Only9% of the students are neutral with it Nobody considers it as not very interesting or notinteresting We can see that the attitudes of teachers and students towards teaching andlearning pronunciation are positive

TEACHERS

Rhythm

Elision

Very interesting Interesting Neutral

Chart 4: The attraction of each pronunciation component in English 12

Most of teachers and students agree that pronunciation components in English 12 arevery interesting and interesting There is a small number of teachers and students are neutralwith it The same with the above question, nobody finds it not very interesting and notinteresting Particularly, stress and intonation are the components which are considered as veryinteresting and interesting by all of the teachers and students In comparison with the answerfor the importance of pronunciation components, stress and intonation is the first choice Sothat both teachers and students pay more attention to these two components As a result, theyfind them very interesting and interesting

3.1.1.2 Interview

When asked whether the students found the pronunciation lessons in English 12interesting or not, most of respondents said that they like to learn pronunciation in English 12but they did not like the pronunciation lessons in English 12 very much because of somereasons First, they felt stressed because they had to follow the teachers‟ requirements Theydid not have chance to practice speaking They learnt pronunciation very passively Some ofthem kept silent during the lesson Second, they found it difficult to remember all the thingsthey had learnt Partly because there are too many rules, mainly because they do not have morechance to practice them Third, practice activities in the text are so boring There are the

same activities through 16 units.

3.1.1.3 Summary

From the questionnaire and interview, we see that almost all the teachers and studentshave positive attitudes towards teaching and learning pronunciation They are all aware of theimportance of pronunciation and find them interesting Their purpose of teaching and learningpronunciation is to communicate better

3.1.2 The levels difficulties in teaching and learning pronunciation

Chart 5: The levels of difficulties in teaching and learning pronunciation

It is easy to realize that almost all of the teachers (86%) and students (88%) agree thatlearning pronunciation is difficult and very difficult They think there are too many rules for

each pronunciation component so it is hard for teachers and students to teach and learnpronunciation Teachers have to know how to teach to help students learn pronunciationeffectively They have to decide what should be taught and what should not to create acomfortable learning environment.

100 80 60 40 20

1 Gra Stre We Con Rhyt Elisi Link Into

mm ss ak tract hm on ing nati

Very difficult Difficult Neutral

Difficult Neutral

Chart 6: The levels of difficulties of each pronunciation component in English 12

It is indicated in the chart that most of the pronunciation components are difficult and very difficult for both teachers and students as what has been said in the above question –

3.1.2.2 Interview

When teachers were asked whether they found it difficult to teach pronunciation inLanguage Focus periods – English 12 or not, they answered that they find it difficult to teachpronunciation lessons in English 12 because of some reasons There are too many relativerules and the time for each lesson is too short Especially, the practice lessons in the textbookare too boring and monotonous In addition to that, the number of students per each class is toocrowded for a language learning class It is difficult to control pronunciation practice for all thestudents

3.1.2.3 Summary

Most of the teachers and students find teaching and learning pronunciation difficult Toovercome the difficulties, we need to find out their causes There are both internal and externalcauses The causes may rise from the teachers and students themselves The causes may risefrom the circumstance of teaching and learning English 12

3.1.3 The causes of the difficulties in teaching and learning Pronunciation

3.1.3.1 Questionnaire

TEACHERS

differences E

-V

Chart 7: The causes of the difficulties in teaching and learning pronunciation

It is clear that almost teachers and students agree that these factors have influence on theteaching and learning pronunciation process However, the levels of the effects are different.Most of teachers and students (more than 50%) strongly agree that amount of exposure is one

of the most main causes of difficulties in teaching and learning pronunciation All of them

believe that if a learner is „surrounded‟ by English and this constant exposure should affectpronunciation skills People who speak English more often at school or at work will have

better pronunciation skills than those who do not Attitudes and motivation also have strongagreement If a learner has good attitudes and motivation towards learning pronunciation, hewill try to learn it more As a result, he will have better pronunciation One of the causes whichhave great influence in teaching and learning pronunciation is the differences between Englishand Vietnamese There are some sounds in English that Vietnamese does not have, whichmakes it difficult for the Vietnamese to pronounce like native speakers Especially, there arefew teachers and students paying much attention to age and phonetic ability Maybe they thinkthat it is never too late to learn and everyone has ability to learn Pronunciation well.

1009080706050

40

3020100

time

lessons the

practice

many

STUDENTS

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20

10 0

time

lessons the

practice

many

Chart 8: Causes of the difficulties in teaching and learning pronunciation in English 12

The finding shows that, nearly all the teachers (86%) and students (90%) agree that one

of the main causes of difficulty in teaching and learning pronunciation in English 12 is thetime for each lesson is too short The time for each lesson is so short that teachers do not haveenough time to list the main rules and practice them While there are too many relative rulesfor students to remember (86% teachers and 96% students) In addition to that, referencebooks for pronunciation are not as available as those for other language skills such as reading,listening and writing Remarkably, all the teachers (100%) and students (100%) agree thatpractice activities in the book are so boring and monotonous 86% teachers and 92% studentsstrongly agree with this cause There are only two kinds of practice activities through unit 1 tounit 16 This explains why many students find the lessons not interesting enough In addition

to that, there are some teachers and students say that the teaching techniques are not attractive