A study on ending sounds mistakes of english majored students at thuongmai university and suggestions for improvement

First, the frameworkof the study was formed mainly from the researcher's perceptions about theimportance of English ending sounds and the possible problems related to the places of artic

THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY ENGLISH FACULTY

ENGLISH-SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT

Supervisor: Student:Vu Thi Thanh HoaBui Thi Lan AnhClass:

K52N2Student Code: 16D170222

HANOI - 2020

Four chapters of the thesis are to serve for this purpose First, the framework

of the study was formed mainly from the researcher's perceptions about theimportance of English ending sounds and the possible problems related to the places

of articulation of English consonants Detailed records on the subjects' mistakeswhile they read English texts and quantitative analyzing process lead to someinteresting findings

Typically, one-third of the counted ending sounds were missed pronouncing

by the subjects On term of gender, there is hardly any correlation between makingmistake habits and different sexes Additionally, speed of producing spoken Englishdoes not seem have much account on making mistakes behaviors Finally, takingpart in some other extra classes, which also implies having more practice withformal instructions, may lessen pronunciation mistakes in ending sounds

I would like to express my gratitude to sophomore of English majors atThuongmai University for their warm co-operation during the time I collected dataand information for my research, especially students from K52N2 for theirparticipation and comments in order to complete the survey questionnaire.

Finally, I take this opportunity to express my indebtedness to my friends whoalways stand by me and give me their supports to accomplish this study

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES v

CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1

1.1.Rationale 1

1.2 Previous studies 2

1.3 Aims of the study 2

1.4 Scope of the study 2

1.5 Research methodology 3

1.6 Organization of the study 3

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Pronunciation 6

2.1.1 Definition 6

2.1.2 The importance of pronunciation 7

2.2 Ending sounds 8

2.2.1 Grammar meaning 8

2.2.2 The importance of ending sound 8

2.3 Type of English’s ending sound 8

2.3.1 Plural nouns 8

2.3.2.Verb-ed 9

2.3.3 Contractions 10

2.3.4 Possessives 11

2.3.5 Clusters 11

2.3.6 Ending sound’s place of articulation 12

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH FINDINGS 17

3.1 Design of the questionnaire 17

3.2 Findings and discussion 17

3.2.1 Data analysis 18

CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATION AND SUGGESTION 26

4.1 Suggestions to accurately pronounce 6 common ending sounds /dʒ/, /ʒ/, /ð/, /θ/, /tʃ/, /ʃ/ 26

4.2 Suggested solutions to avoid ending sound errors and have good pronunciation 30

4.2.1 Suggested tips 30

4.2.2 Games and exercises 31

4.2.3 Good books for pronunciation 34

4.2.4 English songs 36

CONCLUSION 37

APPENDIX 1

REFERENCE 4

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Graph 1: The most favorite skill of second year English majors students 18

Chart 6 : Student’s reasons for difficulties when pronouncing ending

sounds

23

CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY

1.1.Rationale

In the face of the trend of integration and globalization, English is consideredthe most popular language in the world when nearly 60 countries use English as themain language and nearly 60 countries use English as the second language.Therefore, English plays a very important role in the current period of integration.Four English skills are vital for every English learner of all ages However, learnersseem to focus on reading and writing rather than speaking They spend a lot of time

on learning grammar for weekly test and examination , meanwhile they are quiteafraid of speaking English Why don’t people speak English fluently? They maybespend much time on practising speaking English or they do not have Englishcommunication environment Besides, many people are weak on grammar, theylack vocabulary and feel so shy when communicating in English

In fact, there are various factors that effect on speaking English such asintonation, grammar, linking, rhythm, context and so on … and pronunciation isconsidered the most important one During my speaking periods in class, there are avariety of students who get trouble with pronunciation like I do, especially Englishbeginners After a long time of observing and investigation, ending sounds seem to

be the most common pronunciation mistake at Thuongmai University

As can be seen, If students want to speak English correctly and fluently, theyneed to pay attention to pronunciation Vietnamese is a kind of language which donot use ending sounds while those play a vital role in English pronunciation.Therefore, ending sounds has become main problem of students of Faculty ofEnglish Commerce at Vietnam University of Commerce

In short, so as to study this problem in depth and solve it, I give the research

entitled “ A study on ending sounds mistakes of English-majored students at Thuongmai University and suggestions for improvement” Hopefully, this study

will help students understand deeply about the issues that they have not noticedbefore and suggest some solutions to solve the problems and support them improvetheir pronunciation

1.2 Previous studies

a) Ha Cam Tam, Common pronunciation problems of Vietnamese learners ofEnglish: This report addresses some of the phonetic errors that students make inpronunciation of some English consonants The data is collected from question andanswer questions and then analyzed with reference to the pronunciation principles

in English to give explanations about errors The study’s goal is to providesuggestions to help students improve their pronunciation At the same time, theauthor also proposed some recommendations in selecting students from thebeginning to ensure there are good teachers for future generations

b) Pham Cam Chi, Errors 1st year students at E.D., HULIS, VNU make

with ending sounds and strategies to overcome using communicative

Teaching: This research aims to analyze ending sounds errors in pronunciation

of Vietnamese first year students in HULIS, VNU to raise awareness of their

1.3 Aims of the study

This study help students of Faculty of English Commerce at VietnamUniversity of Commerce realize their ending sound errors It also supports studentshave awareness of pronunciation problems and give some suggestions to deal withtheir ending sound errors This study will focus on two issues This study is dividedinto two parts: the most common English ending sound errors and some solutionsfor their pronunciation problems

1.4 Scope of the study

There are many mistakes of English pronunciation that students of Faculty ofEnglish Commerce at Vietnam University of Commerce must encounter whenspeaking However, this study will not cover all problems in pronunciation andthere are so many different material resources that they need to spend much time tostudy Therefore, this research will focus on the most common pronunciationmistakes is ending sounds I will concentrate on common ending sound mistakesfrom survey questionnaire chosen by student of K52N2 class of Faculty of EnglishCommerce at Thuongmai University This study carried out from 2016 to 2017 Ihopes this study will be a useful material for every student who concern this issueand help to get rid of their pronunciation mistakes

1.5 Research methodology

This study use questionnaire As you know, A questionnaire is a researchinstrument that consists of a set of questions or other types of prompts that aims tocollect information from a respondent A research questionnaire is typically a mix

of close-ended questions and open-ended questions Open-ended, long-formquestions offer the respondent the ability to elaborate on their thoughts

Therefore, my questionnaire is designed to find out your attitude andawareness toward importance of pronunciation in English speaking as well as somecommon pronunciation mistakes that you have to face when speaking English in

class Your answers will be collected and used for my research with title: “ A study

on ending sounds mistakes of English-majored students at Thuongmai University and suggestions for improvement”.

In this study, I used non-empirical methods which draw on personalobservations, reflection on current events, and my experience

1.6 Organization of the study

This study consists of four chapters:

Chapter 1: Introduction

In this chapter, rationale, previous studies, aims, scope and researchmethodology and organization of the study were provided to introduce and tobecome basis for next chapters

Chapter 2: Literature review

This part will consist of two parts:

Part 1: Overview of research

1.1 Research by international publications

Part 2: Theoretical background

This part provides the definition of English pronunciation, its importance andsome opinions of pronunciation errors The study of the most commonpronunciation mistake: ending sound errors

Chapter 3: Research findings

Basing on the data collection from survey questionnaire, the issues will beanalyzed in depth in order to provide realistic information about ending soundmistakes of first year English majors

Chapter 4: Recommendations and suggestions

This chapter is about some suggestions to avoid student’s pronunciationproblems which are mentioned above and solutions in order to help students havegood pronunciation

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter deals with the theoretical background relating to English endingsound errors Students can consolidate their knowledge and understand theproblems deeper with the definition, importance, error of pronunciation, particularlyending sounds

Part 1: Overview of research

Richards (1971) said that there are two different kinds of errors: performanceerrors, caused by, such as fatigue and inattention, and competence errors resultingfrom a lack of knowledge of the rules of the language

In other research, Ellis (1997) acknowledges that errors reflect gaps in alearner’s knowledge; they occur because the learner does not know what the correctone is However, mistakes reflect occasional lapses in performance; they occurbecause, in a particular instance, the learner is unable to perform what she or heknows (Ellis, 1997)

In the previous research on ending sound errors by Pham Cam Chi (Errors 1styear students at E.D, Hulis), the classifications of ending sound errors were givenout according to Treiman (1989) They are: Cluster reduction, ClusterSimplification, Epenthesis, Coalescence, Omitting nasal and liquid sounds andphonetically possible spelling

Part 2: Theoretical background

Nowadays, there has been little research concerning providing informationabout the students pronunciation mistake-making habits However, the content of avariety of pronunciation textbooks confirms the fact that ending sounds are essential

in English

This part includes some opinions of the professionals about English's endingsounds to supply direction for the study Handcock (2004: 60), demonstrated that “it

is important to pronounce the final consonants" A typical article studied aboutcontractions, a part of ending sounds also state that “contractions are very common

in spoken English” According to another researcher, Brazil (2006) pointed out thatpronouncing English's cluster was difficult for some These sources help me seekout the common mistakes in the pronunciation of sophomore English students atThuongmai University and then propose solutions to support students to improvetheir pronunciation

It is the researcher's intention to debate the importance of ending sounds Thenext part of section categorizes types of English's ending sounds and describesconventional places of articulation associated with ending sounds The description

of these parts, frames the study's investigation direction and to some extents,establishes the importance of the study

2.1 Pronunciation

2.1.1 Definition

“Pronunciation means how we say the words” according to Cambridgedictionary Most people speak the dialect of standard English with an accent thatbelongs to the part of the country they come from or live in Learners of BritishEnglish commonly hear RP (received pronunciation), which is an accent often used

on the BBC and other news media and in some course materials for languagelearners, but it is also common to listen to a lot of regional accents of English fromacross the world

How we use spoken stress and rhythm is also an important part ofpronunciation For example, it is important to know which syllables in a word arestressed and how different patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables arepronounced There are also common patterns of intonation in English which enable

us to give special emphasis to particular words, phrases and sentences

In the AMEP Fact sheets that have been funded by the Department ofImmigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs through the AMEP SpecialProject Research Program, the pronunciation was defined as: “The production ofsounds that we use to make meaning It includes attention to the particular sounds of

a language (segments), aspects of speech beyond the level of the individual sound,such as intonation, phrasing, stress, timing, rhythm (suprasegmental aspects), howthe voice is projected (voice quality) and, in its broadest definition, attention togestures and expressions that are closely related to the way we speak a language.Each of these aspects of pronunciation is briefly outlined below, and references forfurther study are suggested?.”

Besides, the pronunciation was also put as “the way in which a language isspoken” (Oxford Advance Learner’s Encyclopedic, 1992:718) The OxfordAdvanced Learner’s Dictionary, 8th end (2008) makes clear pronunciation is “theway in which a language or a particular word or sound pronounced”

There are a variety of different definitions of pronunciation, this one fromOxford Dictionary seems to be easier to understand: “ pronunciation is the way inwhich a word is pronounced”

2.1.2 The importance of pronunciation

As mentioned above, pronunciation plays an essential role in speaking Manypeople show a disregard for pronunciation when speaking English, especiallystudents Though pronunciation is considered as the most vital factor in English,many people still take further notice of word meanings The others can notunderstand if you pronounced wrong Therefore, so as to speak English correctly,

we attach special importance to pronunciation Besides, the right pronunciation canalso learn new vocabulary fast Pronouncing words are often a part of memorizingthem in second-language learning, so gaining a strong, basic foundation in correctpronunciation early on will support us learn English effectively

According to AMP Fact sheets of AMP Research Centre, “learners with goodpronunciation in English are more likely to be understood even if they make errors

in other areas, whereas learners whose pronunciation is difficult to understand willnot be understood, even if their grammar is perfect” and “Yet many adult learnersfind pronunciation one of the most difficult aspects of English to acquire, and needexplicit help from the teacher (Morley 1994; Fraser 2000) Surveys of students need

to consistently show that our learners feel the need for pronunciation work in class(egg Willing 1989) Thus some sort of pronunciation work in class is essential” From Higgs Graph of Learner Needs, pronunciation is something that is veryimportant to beginners It helps them to feel more comfortable when speaking.Obliviously, no one can deny the importance of pronunciation It is considered asone of the most significant factors in English speaking Hence, students should takepronunciation into account in order to have good speaking

2.2 Ending sounds

2.2.1 Grammar meaning

Ending sounds are the grammatical items and parts of the statement whichmake the speech clear and persuadable Grammatically, plural forms, possessive,ton of tenses of verbs, etc , for the most part, merely need an addition of endingsounds Awareness of grammar or the structure of language can result in moreefficient speaking Pronouncing without ending sounds, we may supersede pluralform of a noun or possessives, etc

2.2.2 The importance of ending sound

Ending sounds contribute to the meaning of words Pronunciation, a part ofwhich are ending sounds makes one's speech comprehensible In other words,ending sounds play a crucial part which provides the word completed meaning.Generally speaking, ending sounds help the discriminate meaning of words such asdistinguishing words which have nearly the same sounds A few examples can betaken to demonstrate this point:

Ex: Cell /sel/ and Sell /sel/

Hour /aʊər/ and Our /aʊər/

Being badly aware of this may cause unintelligibility to listeners That is, thestandard of the speaker's delivery, with which meaning is thoroughly covered,partially depends on the control of manufacturing ending sounds Students, who donot realize this essential role of ending sounds can lapse into incomprehensiblespeeches, thus fail to fulfill spoken communicated by English

2.3 Type of English’s ending sound

2.3.1 Plural nouns

Here are some examples of plural forms in English:

Ex: cat – cats

Ex: World /wɜːld/ sounds like word /wɜːd/

The researcher gives the rules of pronunciation for regular plurals in manyEnglish books, shortly like the following:

Use the /s/ sound to pronounce the plural if the noun ends in an unvoicedconsonant sound: /f/, /k/, /p/, /t/, /θ /

Use the syllable /ɪz/ sound to pronounce if ends with one of these sounds:/s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /dʒ/, /tʃ/, / j/.

Ex: talked /tɔːkt/ pronounce /tɔːk/

Here are the rules of pronunciation of past tense verbs ending sounds:

If a word ends in one of these (voiced) sounds: /b, m, n, j, 1, ŋ, g, r, v, z/ andall vowel sounds, pronounce "ed" as /d/

I'll >> I will/I shall

I'd >> I would I should/I had

We’re >> we are

she's >> she has/she is

Ex: I'd like to watch TV (I would like to watch TV )

I'd completed my homework since 5p.m (She had finished when I arrived.)

2.3.3.2 Negative Contractions

Here are the common negative contractions:

Can't >> cannot, can not

Mightn't >> might not

Shouldn't should not

Won't >> will not

Aren't >> are not

Isn’t >> is not

Ex: your father is a doctor, isn’t he?

Especially, in tag questions, am not being contracted to aren't,

Ex: I am a doctor, aren’t I?

Possessives are forms that we use to show possessions and relationshipsbetween things and people It is created by adding an apostrophe and "s" or only anapostrophe

Ex: A boy's cat is sleeping on the floor

A girls' bicycle has broken

Generally, learners often do not pronounce possessive (s)

Ex: mother's dress /ˈmʌð.əz ˌdres/>> mother dress /ˈmʌð.əˌdres/

This may difficulties for Vietnamese students who are not used

to pronouncing words with consonant endings

Ex: First /ˈfɜːst/ >> /ˈfɜːt/

2.3.6 Ending sound’s place of articulation

Figure 1: Diagram of the vocal tract showing the places of articulation

To produce a correct sound, in general, and an ending sound, in particular, thespeaker has to place his organs of articulation in proper positions Also, the manner

of pushing or keeping the air must be in a good control

Ending sounds' places of articulation is an important aspect of the production

of ending sounds Here are types of ending sounds' places of articulation:

• Bilabial: /p, b, m/

Bilabial consonants occur when you block/constrict airflow out of the mouth

by bringing your lips together

Figure 2: Paces of bilabial

Ex : help, crab, mom

• Labio-dental: /f, v/

Labio-dental consonants occur when you block/constrict airflow by curlingyour lower lip back and raising it to touch your upper row of teeth

Ex: chief, love

The alveolar ridge is where your teeth meet your gums

You create Alveolar consonants when you raise your tongue to the alveolarridge to block or constrict airflow

Figure 5: Paces of alveolar

Ex: paint, bad, sun…

• Polato-alveolar: / ʃ, tʃ, ʒ, dʒ/

When you retract your tongue back just a bit from the alveolar ridge, thesounds change enough to be recognized as distinct consonants

So post-alveolar consonants are those that occur when the tongue blocks

or constricts airflow at the point just beyond the alveolar ridge

Figure 6: Paces of post-alveolar

Ex: watch, wish, change

Figure 7: Paces of velar

Ex: took, bug, going…

Learning a new language means to learn some new places of articulation inthat language Difficulties often occur when learners of English fail to locate theirorgans in those places of articulation From this perspective, the researcher conductsthe investigation in which pronunciation mistakes are counted based on differentconventional places of articulation in English

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH FINDINGS

In this chapter, student’s ending sound mistakes will be given out and a surveyquestionnaire are conducted in order to collect information and data for theresearch First of all, the researcher will present purposes and design of the surveyquestionnaire Then, student’s pronunciation mistakes in reality also are analysed byresult from the survey questionnaire

3.1 Design of the questionnaire