An analysis of common errors in pronouncing english fnal three consonantclusters in connected speech made by general english learners at cleverlern language school m a

UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE AN ANALYSIS OF COMMON ERRORS IN PRONOUNCING ENGLISH FINAL THREE-CONSONANTCLUSTERS IN CONNEC

UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE

AN ANALYSIS OF COMMON ERRORS

IN PRONOUNCING ENGLISH FINAL THREE-CONSONANTCLUSTERS

IN CONNECTED SPEECH MADE BY GENERAL ENGLISH LEARNERS

AT CLEVERLEARN LANGUAGE SCHOOL

Submitted to the Department of English Linguistics and Literature

in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL

By

LÊ KIM HÒA

Supervised by Assoc Prof Dr TÔ MINH THANH

HO CHI MINH CITY, JUNE 2013

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I confidently assert that this thesis entitled ―An analysis of common errors in

pronouncing English final three-consonant clusters in connected speech made by general English learners at Cleverlearn Language School‖ is my own work

This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other institution

Ho Chi Minh City, 2013

Lê Kim Hòa

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and foremost I would like to express my deep gratitude to Assoc Prof Dr

Tô Minh Thanh, my inspiring teacher and dedicated supervisor, through whose

lectures I became more and more interested in Phonetics and Phonology, and without

whose dedication, comments, criticism and support this thesis could never have been accomplished She counseled me, corrected and accompanied me throughout its completion

Thanks to others who have helped me are (and if I have omitted any of the many, please forgive me): authorities, teachers, and students at Cleverlearn Language School (Cleverlearn for short) who have been helpful and provided me with data on which this thesis is based; Mr Kenneth, the rater, without whom much of what is written in this thesis would never have taken place and all friends who have been supportive to this thesis

Finally, I continue to be indebted to my family members, especially my parents who have given me whole-hearted encouragement and support

The responsibility for errors in fact or judgment is, of course, mine alone

ABSTRACT

Avery and Ehrlich [1995: 59] state that since Vietnamese does not have any consonant clusters, the Vietnamese have difficulties pronouncing English words with initial and final consonant clusters: ―they tend to delete one consonant of the cluster rather than insert a vowel.‖

It goes without saying that most people learn a target language first for communicative purposes; mispronouncing leads to unintelligible conversations Though, teaching pronunciation in general and consonant clusters in connected speech in particular has not been brought to considerable attention to general English learners at foreign language centers, particularly at Cleverlearn, the fact is that pronunciation is merely and implicitly taught and that the classrooms are not well-equipped enough for pronunciation teaching, as a teacher of English here, I have witnessed my students‘ problems in dealing with English final consonant clusters in isolation and connected speech as well Therefore, the study done for and reported in this M.A thesis aims at (i) determining problems of perceiving and pronouncing English final consonant clusters in connected speech that general English learners at Cleverlearn may face, (ii) discovering what possible causes of the students‘ pronunciation errors are, (iii) suggesting ways to deal with English final three-consonant clusters in connected speech; finally (iv) investigating the students‘ attitude towards the teaching techniques applied during the experimental teaching

The study first examines literature on English final consonant clusters which is served

as a conceptual framework for the study Next, it investigates problems and the current teaching and learning English final consonant clusters including the final three-consonant ones in connected speech at Cleverlearn through a questionnaire survey covering 12 teachers and approximately 40 students of two general English classes at this school and Pre-test, designed by the researcher to be Post-test as well, consisting of two parts: the listening (Part I) and the reading aloud individual words, separated sentences and short passages (Part II) which respectively evaluate the

students‘ perception and production of English final three-consonant clusters Pre-test‘s results also help to describe the current learning and teaching at Cleverlearn After that, the researcher will carry out an experimental teaching of English final three-consonant clusters on the treatment group only for six weeks, three fifteen-minute class meetings per week

Then the two groups will do Post-test towards the end of the study‘s experimental teaching to value how well Treatment group‘s students acquire English final three-consonant clusters especially in connected speech and how different the students

of Treatment group and those of Control group are after the experimental teaching is over The students‘ performance is scored by two raters: the foreign teacher-in-charge

of the two selected classes scored the recording (Part II); the researcher did the listening (Part I) Finally, the treatment students are asked to respond to Students‘ questionnaire after the experimental teaching

It is found that (i) all of the student subjects failed to deal with English final three-consonant clusters in both isolation and connected speech, (ii) English final three-consonant clusters were not explicitly taught at Cleverlearn, and the student subjects did not have much exposure to English (iii) the students‘ perception and production were improved after the experimental teaching, and (iv) the techniques applied to teach and practice English final three-consonant clusters in isolation and then in connected speech were highly appreciated by the students

Based on the findings, some conclusions and recommendations were made

CONTENTS

Statement of authorship ……… i

Acknowledgements……… ……… …… ii

Abstract ……… … iii

Contents ……… v

List of tables ……… x

List of charts ……… xiv

Abbreviations……… ……… xiv

CHAPTER 1 — INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background to the study 1

1.1.1 Teaching and learning pronunciation and final consonant clusters at Cleverlearn 1

1.1.2 Syllabus of the pre-intermediate General English course at Cleverlearn 3

1 2 Rationale for teaching English final three-consonant clusters in connected speech 5

1.3 Purpose of the study 8

1.4 Significance of the study 9

1.5 Organization of the thesis 9

1.6 Limitation of the study 9

CHAPTER 2 — LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Background theory 10

2.1.1 Linguistic notions 10

2.1.1.1 Syllables 14

2.1.1.2 Careful speech and connected speech 14

2.1.1.3 Assimilation 15

2.1.1.4 Dissimilation 17

2.1.1.5 Elision 17

2.1.1.6 Linking 19

2.1.1.7 Epenthesis 20

2.1.1.8 Metathesis 21

2.1.2 Pedagogical notions 21

2.1.2.1 Theory of pronunciation teaching and learning 21

2.1.2.2 Suggested steps in teaching English final consonant clusters 23

2.2 Background research 23

2.2.1 The Vietnamese syllable 24

2.2.2 The English syllable 26

2.2.3 A contrastive analysis of the Vietnamese and English syllable structure in the final position 26 2.2.4 Related research in English final consonant clusters 30

2.2.4.1 Influential factors 31

2.2.4.2 Common errors in pronouncing English final consonant clusters 35

2.3 Summary……… 42

CHAPTER 3 — METHODOLOGY 3.1Research questions 44

3.2 Research design… 44

3.3 Participants………… 45

3.3.1 Student subjects 45

3.3.2 Teacher subjects 45

3.3.3 Evaluators 45

3.3.4 The researcher 46

3.4 Instruments………… 46

3.4.1 Questionnaires 46

3.4.2 The interview 48

3.4.3 Class observations 48

3.4.4 Tests 49

3.5 Experimental teaching 50

3.6 Research procedure 51

3.7 Lesson plans……… 52

3.7.1 Background of developing lesson plans 52

3.7.2 Lesson plans for 18 class meetings 55

3.8 Summary………… 55

CHAPTER 4 — DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS

4.1 Results of questionnaires 56

4.1.1 Results of students‘ questionnaire before experimental teaching – Set 1 56

4.1.1.1 Students‘ gender: 56

4.1.1.2 Students‘ learning time at Cleverlearn 56

4.1.1.3 Students‘ regular class attendance 57

4.1.1.4 Students‘ participation in extra class 57

4.1.1.5 Students‘ view on the importance of pronouncing English final consonant clusters correctly 58

4.1.1.6 Students‘ previous experience in learning English final consonant clusters 58

4.1.1.7 Students‘ information on how and how often English final consonant clusters were taught at Cleverlearn 59

4.1.1.8 Students‘ own evaluation of pronouncing English final three-consonant clusters 59

4.1.1.9 Students‘ current opportunities to use English outside class 60

4.1.1.10 Summary 61

4.1.2 Results of teachers‘ questionnaires – Set 2 62

4.1.2.1 Teachers‘ age and gender 62

4.1.2.2 Teachers‘ teaching time at Cleverlearn 62

4.1.2.3 Teachers‘ opinion on teaching pronunciation 63

4.1.2.4 Teachers‘ judgment on teaching English final three-consonant clusters 64

4.1.2.5 Teachers‘ opinion on the course book 65

4.1.2.6 Teachers‘ regularity in teaching English final three-consonant clusters 65

4.1.2.7 Teachers‘ opinion on teaching aid 66

4.1.2.8 Teachers‘ previous experience in and suggestions on teaching English final consonant clusters 67 4.1.3 Results of students‘ questionnaire after experimental teaching – Set 3 69

4.1.3.1 Students‘ opinion on the exercises 69

4.1.3.2 Students‘ practicing English final consonant clusters outside class 69

4.1.3.3 Students‘ improvement after the experimental teaching 70

4.1.3.4 Positive effects on students‘ listening comprehension and verbal communication via their improvement in pronouncing English final three-consonant clusters 71

4.1.3.5 Students‘ suggestions on how English final three-consonant clusters should be taught 71

4.2 Tests' results……… 72

4.2.1 Results of Part I 73

4.2.1.1 Pre-test‘s results 73

4.2.1.2 Post-test‘s results 79

4.2.1.3 The comparison between the two groups‘ results of Post-test – Part I 83

4.2.2 Results of the recording (Part II) 84

4.2.2.1 Pre-test's results 84

4.2.2.2 Post-test's results 96

4.4 Overall summary………… 100

CHAPTER 5 — CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 5.1 Answers to the research questions 101

5.2 Recommendations……….102

5.2.1 For teachers at Cleverlearn 103

5.2.1.1 Be investigators 103

5.2.1.2 Foster students patiently 103

5.2.1.4 Guide students to learn out of class 104

5.2.1.5 Build up a good rapport with students 105

5.2.1.6 Pay more attention to training students in English final consonant clusters……… 104

5.2.2 For the administrators at Cleverlearn 106

5.2.3 For students at Cleverlearn 107

5.3 Limitations and contributions 107

5.4 Summary………108

BIBLIOGRAPHY…… 109

Appendix 1a Set 1 — Students' questionnaire (Vietnamese version) 120

Appendix 1b Set 1 — Students' questionnaire (English version) 123

Appendix 2 Set 2 — Teachers' questionnaire 126

Appendix 3a Set 3 — Students' questionnaire after the experimental teaching

(Vietnamese version) 130

Appendix 3b Set 3 — Students' questionnaire after the experimental teaching (English version) 132

Appendix 4 Pre-test and Post-test 134

Appendix 5 Answer keys of Pre-test and Post-test 138

Appendix 6 Phonemic symbols of British English consonants and vowels 143

Appendix 7 Lesson plans 144

Appendix 8 Handouts 167

Appendix 9 Answer keys for handouts 190

Appendix 10 Pilot study 199

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Syllabus of pre-intermediate General English course

Table 2 Saigonese consonants

Table 3 Vietnamese syllabic structure by Doan Thien Thuat

Table 4 Vietnamese syllabic structure by Taiwan Buffalo International [2001]

Table 5 Vietnamese syllabic structure by Ngo Nhu Binh [2005]

Table 6 Comparison of Vietnamese and English consonants in syllable-final position Table 7 Difficult English consonants and clusters for Vietnamese learners of English

Table 8 Deletion of the final /l/ in borrowing words spoken by Vietnamese learners

Table 9 Schedule for the experimental teaching

THE PILOT STUDY’S TABLES

Table 10 Students‘ gender

Table 11 Students‘ learning time at Cleverlearn

Table 12 Students‘ regular class attendance

Table 13 Students‘ participation in extra class

Table 14 Students‘ view on the importance of pronouncing English final consonant clusters correctly Table 15 Students‘ previous experience in learning English final consonant clusters

Table 16 Students‘ information on where and how to learn English final consonant clusters

Table 17 Students‘ ability to pronounce English final three-consonant clusters in individual words

Table 18 Students‘ ability to pronounce English final three-consonant clusters in separate sentences Table 19 Students‘ ability to pronounce English final three-consonant clusters in connected speech Table 20 Students‘ opportunities to speak English outside class

Table 21 Students‘ opportunities to listen to English outside class

Table 22 Teachers' age

Table 23 Teachers‘ gender

Table 24 Teachers‘ teaching time at Cleverlearn

Table 25 Teachers‘ regularity of teaching pronunciation

Table 26 Teachers‘ opinion on the ways of teaching pronunciation at Cleverlearn

Table 27 Teachers' opinion on the necessity to introduce English final three-consonant clusters Table 28 Teachers' opinion on the necessity of a good command of English three- consonant clusters Table 29 Teachers‘ opinion on the course book‘s sufficient information about

English final three-consonant clusters Table 30 Teachers‘regularity of teaching English final three-consonant clusters

Table 31 Teachers‘ opinion on sufficiency of teaching aids to teach English final

three-consonant clusters at Cleverlearn Table 32 Teachers‘ using teaching aids at Cleverlearn

Table 33 Teachers‘ difficulties teaching English final consonant clusters at Cleverlearn

Table 34 Teachers‘ suggestions of how to teach English final consonant clusters

Table 35 Pre-test mean raw score of Word list reading

Table 36 Pre-test score distribution of Word list reading

Table 37 Pre-test mean raw scores of Sentence reading

Table 38 Pre-test score distribution of Sentence reading

Table 39 Pre-test mean raw score of Passage reading

Table 40 Pre-test score distribution of Passage reading

Table 41 Percentage of students‘ error production

Table 42 Students‘ common errors in producing consonant clusters in individual words

Table 43 Students‘ common errors in producing consonant clusters in separate sentences Table 44 Students‘ common errors in producing consonant clusters in short passages

Table 45 Percentage of different types of simplification strategies for producing consonant clusters

THE MAIN STUDY’S TABLES

Table 46 Students‘ gender in Treatment group and Control group

Table 47 Students‘ learning time at Cleverlearn

Table 48 Students‘ regular class attendance

Table 49 Students‘ participation in extra class

Table 50 Students‘ view on the importance of pronouncing English final consonant clusters correctly Table 51 Students‘ previous experience in learning English final consonant clusters

Table 52 Students‘ information on where and how to learn English final consonant clusters

Table 53 Students‘ ability to pronounce English final three-consonant clusters in individual words Table 54 Students‘ ability to pronounce English final three-consonant clusters in separate sentences Table 55 Students‘ ability to pronounce English final three-consonant clusters in connected speech Table 56 Students‘ opportunities to speak English outside class

Table 57 Students‘ opportunities to listen to English outside class

Table 58 Teachers‘ age

Table 59 Teachers‘ gender

Table 60 Teachers‘ teaching time at Cleverlearn

Table 61 Teachers‘ regularity of teaching pronunciation at Cleverlearn

Table 62 Teachers‘ opinion on the ways of teaching pronunciation at Cleverlearn

Table 63 Teachers' opinion on the necessity to introduce to their students English final three-consonant clusters

Table 64 Teachers' opinion on the necessity of a good command of English three-consonant clusters Table 65 Teachers‘ opinion on the course book‘s sufficient information aboutEnglish final

three-consonant clusters

Table 66 Teachers‘ regularity of teaching English final three-consonant clusters at Cleverlearn

Table 67 Teachers‘ opinion on the ways of teaching English final three-consonant clusters Table 68 Teachers‘ opinion on sufficiency of teaching aids to teach English final

three-consonant clusters at Cleverlearn

Table 69 Teachers‘ using teaching aids at Cleverlearn

Table 70 Teachers‘ difficulties teaching English final consonant clusters at Cleverlearn

Table 71 Teachers‘ suggestions on how to teach English final consonant clusters

Table 72 Students‘ opinion on the exercises employed during the experimental teaching Table 73 Students‘ opinion on the activities employed during the experimental teaching

Table 74 Students‘ information on whether or not English final consonant clusters were practiced out of class

Table 75 Students‘ information on how often English final consonant clusters were practiced out of class Table 76 Students‘ information on whether or not their pronunciation of English final

three-consonant clusters was improved

Table 77 Students‘ levels of improvement in pronouncing English final three-consonant clusters

Table 78 Positive effects of students‘ mastering English final three-consonant

clusters on their listening comprehension and verbal communication

Table 79 Students‘ suggestions on how English final three-consonant clusters should be taught

Table 80 Students‘ results – Section 1: Identify the numbers of final consonants in individual words

Table 81 Pre-test mean raw scores – Section 1: Identify the numbers of final consonants in individual words

Table 82 Students‘ results – Section 2: Identify whether or not simplifications occur

Table 83 Pre-test mean raw scores – Section 2: Identify whether or not simplifications occur

Table 84 Students‘ results – Section 3: Discriminate pairs of given words

Table 85 Pre-test mean raw scores – Section 3: Discriminate pairs of given words

Table 87 Students‘ results – Section 4: Listen and correct mispronounced words in the given passages Table 88 Pre-test mean raw scores – Section 4: Listen and correct mispronounced

words in the given passages

Table 89 Students‘ overall score of Pre-test – Part I

Table 90 Group statistics of Pre-test – Part I

Table 91 Independent Samples T-Test of Pre-test – Part I

Table 92 Students‘ result s – Section 1: Identify the number of final consonants in individual words Table 93 Students‘ results – Section 2: Listen and identify whether or not simplifications occur

Table 94 Students‘ results – Section 3: Listen and discriminate pairs of given words

Table 95 Students‘ results – Section 4: Listen and correct mispronounced words

Table 96 Students‘ overall score of Post-test – Part I

Table 97 Group‘s statistics of Post-test – Part I

Table 98 Independent Samples T-Test of Post-test – Part I

Table 99 Pre-test mean raw scores of Word list reading

Table 100 Pre-test score distribution of Word list reading

Table 101 Pre-test mean raw scores of Sentence reading

Table 102 Pre-test score distribution of Sentence reading

Table 103 Pre-test mean raw scores of Passage reading

Table 104 Pre-test score distribution of Passage reading

Table 105 Group‘s statistics of Pre-test – Part II

Table 106 Independent Samples T-Test of Pre-test – Part II

Table 107 Percentage of errors made by students of the two groups

Table 108 Students‘ common errors in simplifying English consonant clusters

Table 109 Students‘ common errors in simplifying English consonant clusters

found in the given word list

Table 110 Students‘ common errors in simplifying English consonant clusters

found in the given separate sentences

Table 111 Students‘ common errors in simplifying English consonant clusters

found in the given short passages

Table 112 Post-test mean raw scores of Word list reading

Table 113 Post-test mean raw scores of Sentence reading

Table 114 Post-test score distribution of Passage reading

Table 115 Group‘s statistics of Post-test − Part II

Table 116 Independent Samples T-test of Post-test − Part II

LIST OF CHARTS

Chart 1 Post-test scores − Section 1: Listen and identify the numbers of final

consonants in individual words

Chart 2 Post-test scores – Section 2: Listen and identify whether or not simplifications occur Chart 3 Post-test scores – Section 3: Listen and discriminate pairs of given words Chart 4 Post-test scores – Section 4: Listen and correct mispronounced words

Chart 5 Percentage of errors made by students in Control group

Chart 6 Percentage of errors made by students in Treatment group

Chart 7 Students‘ common errors in simplifying English consonant clusters

Chart 8 Students‘ errors in omitting English consonant clusters in the given word list Chart 9 Students‘ errors in omitting English consonant clusters in the given word list Chart 10 Students‘ errors in omitting English consonant clusters in the given separate sentences Chart 11 Students‘ errors in omitting English consonant clusters in the given short passages Chart 12 Post-test score distribution of Word list reading

Chart 13 Post-test score distribution of Sentence reading

Chart 14 Post-test score distribution of Passage reading

ABBREVIATIONS

EFL English as a foreign language

ESL English as a second language

NS Native speakers of English

SC Student code (T01 means this student is from Treatment group and has

the cardinal code as 01 and likewise C01 is one from Control group and coded as 01)

RP Received Pronunciation

BBC British Broadcasting Corporation

IPA International Phonetic Alphabet

FL Foreign language

SSP The Sonority Sequencing Principle

SPSS Statistical Package for the Social Sciences

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

This chapter provides the background to the study done for and reported in this M.A thesis, offers the rationale for teaching English final three-consonant clusters in connected speech, states the purpose of the study, giving its significance as well as limitation, and finally describes the organization of the thesis

1.1 Background to the study

1.1.1 Teaching and learning pronunciation and final consonant clusters at Cleverlearn

Since ―intelligible pronunciation is one of the necessary components of oral

communication‖ [Cel-Murcia, et al., 2002: 8] and ―a learner who consistently

mispronounces a range of phonemes can be extremely difficult for a speaker from another language community to understand‖ [Kelly, 2000: 11], it goes without saying that nowadays communication plays an important role in global integration in which correct pronunciation is considered crucial Regarding the significance of communication, apparently a considerable amount of time in any ESL/EFL course should be on English pronunciation Hinofitis and Baily [1980: 124-125] reported that to

a certain proficiency standard the fault which most severely impairs the communication process in ESL/EFL learners is pronunciation, rather than vocabulary and grammar

However important it is, pronunciation training is all too often neglected or omitted from

ESL/EFL courses [Kelly, 2000: 13; Olness, 1991] or as not neglected, it not being strategically planned [Kelly, 2000: 13] Kelly figures out ―the fact that teachers tend to suffer from neglect may not due to teachers lacking interest in the subject but rather to a feeling of doubt as to how to teach it.‖ As cited in his textbook Kelly [2000: 13] states that ―many experienced teachers would admit to a lack of knowledge of the theory of pronunciation and they may therefore feel the need to improve their practical skills in pronunciation teaching.‖

Lack of opportunity to speak English actually may be another compelling reason why pronunciation is often forgotten; in the context of Vietnam, the majority of students

hardly ever have chances to use English outside class and schools place little, if any, emphasis on learning how to speak English [El-Halees, 1986] Another problem with pronunciation has to do with assessment If pronunciation is excluded from the classroom, there is little reason to include it in English language skill assessments Needless to say, students still have problems with it and among these problems is the one of English final consonant clusters

These pronunciation problems are of no exception at Cleverlearn the motto of which is

to help students speak English naturally and fluently With an enormous amount of exposure time to native teachers, it is still quite difficult to reach the set motto for in-class explicit pronunciation instruction is often ignored by native teachers of English who admit not learning at all pronunciation, including phonemic symbols, when they were at school My in-class observations allow me to come up with the fact that the native teachers have regularly corrected learners‘ errors in class, but just responding automatically due largely to English as their native language perceived via an unconscious process Above all, despite their real care for their Vietnamese students‘ improved pronunciation, the native teachers do not actually know how to help these students overcome their pronunciation problems some of which are definitely from negative language interference1

Last but not least, in-class pronunciation teaching at Cleverlearn is mechanically based

on the course book named ―American Inside Out‖ with segmental and some segmental features (included as Table 1) without any mention of consonant clusters, including those in the final position It is likely to explain that the course book is written for a global market rather than target Vietnamese learners of English, especially those of

1

When the relevant unit or structure of both languages is the same, linguistic interference can

result in correct language production called positive transfer On the contrary language interference is most often discussed as a source of errors known as negative transfer Negative

transfer occurs when speakers and writers transfer items and structures that are not the same in

both languages Generally speaking, the more similar the two languages are, and the more the learner is aware of the relation between them, the more positive transfer will occur

[http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_interference]

Cleverlearn, who really suffer from mispronouncing, and thus probably misperceiving as

well, final consonant clusters, most commonly at their level being final two-consonant or

three-consonant clusters

The fact that language teachers have not paid much attention to teaching final consonant

clusters is the conclusion drawn on the survey of approaches to teaching pronunciation

by Ames teachers [Macneiland Rogers, 1986 as quoted in Phan Thi Cam Chi‘s study]

This is reconfirmed from my own personal observations in classes of the

pre-intermediate General English course at Cleverlearn during the three months before the

experimental teaching from November 1st, 2011 to January 31st, 2012 Therefore,

teaching English final consonant clusters is essential at Cleverlearn on pursuit of its set

motto of teaching natural spoken English Within the time limit spent on this M.A

thesis, its focus is providing the student subjects with English final three-consonant

clusters

1.1.2 Syllabus of the pre-intermediate General English course at Cleverlearn

The pre-intermediate General English twenty-six week course at Cleverlearn lasts 120

hours, with three ninety-minute class meetings each week, and covers the 12 following

Anecdote: Somebody

who is important to you From filling personal information

Two people talking about names What’s in a name

Remembering names How to remember names at parties Are you a good language learner?

Brad talking about somebody who is important to him

Useful phrases: Showing interest

Tense review: looks / looks like

Question forms Family Description Names

Focus on: names

Vowel sounds /u:/; /i:/; /3:/; /@:/; /0:/

Anecdote: The best

place you have ever visited

Web posting: Spelling Linking sentences (1)

Three people talking about their home towns

Win a dream vacation for two!

Everything’s wrong here!

Emma talking about the best place she has ever visited

Useful phrases: Saying where you

are from

Countable and uncountable nouns

so / such, very / too Quantity expressions

Places in a city Adjectives to describe places Countries, nationalities Location

Focus on: like

Word stress: countries, nationalities

3

Relationships

Stories Relationships First meetings

Telling stories Telling a story: Linking sentences (2)

Walt and Betty talking about their relationship

Get Personal game show

The Hollywood director and the Native American

Revenge is sweet; Dinner by mail

Useful phrases: Things in common

Simple past and past progressive Adverbs of manner

Relationship expressions Narrative linkers ed /

ing adjectives

Focus on: get

Irregular verbs: sound groups

Anecdote: The last time

you bought somebody a gift Attitude to shopping Shopping trends and habits Description of a store

Text organization: Linking sentences (3)

What people really want for their birthday

Eddie talking about the last time he bought somebody a gift

Two men talking about shopping Men’s or women’s fashion?

The real price of fashion

Useful phrases: In a clothing store

Adverbs of frequency Verbs with two objects

Verbs followed by ing- form or to-infinitive

Simple present and present progressive

Collocations: a bunch of…, a box of…etc

Clothes and accessories

Focus on: verbs used with clothes

Sports stars Stress and laughter Description of a sports event

Text organization: Linking sentences (4)

Are you dangerously out of shape?

Tina talking about her experiences of sports at school

Advertisers discussing sports stars

16 ways to distress Laughter clubs

Useful phrases: Giving instructions

Comparative and superlatives Phrasal verbs

How + adjective / adverb: Sports

Anecdote: A person you

know with a good job

A job application Letter of inquiry Opening and closing letters

Four people talking about their careers Charlotte Dutton: from mountains to modeling

Nightmare: jobs Interview with a store owner Kim talking about her friend’s job

Useful phrases: Presenting yourself

Permission and obligation (can / have to)

Present perfect (time “up to now”) or simple past (“finished” time)

Jobs: Collocations (work) should Office

equipment

Focus on: work and job

Past participles (irregular verbs) vowel sounds

Climate change march Four people talking about why they are protesting

How green are you?

Welcome to Original Volunteers Two conversations about volunteering

Useful phrases: On the telephone

Subject questions Dynamic and stative

meanings Future forms: (be) going to and

present progressive Climate change Opinions Environmental problems and solutions

Focus on: have and have got

Word stress: words ending in tion

Training to be a geisha Andy talking about his favorite school subject

Three generations Two generations talking about changes in society

Meet the parents

A man meets his girlfriend’s parents The perfect girlfriend / boyfriend

Useful phrases: Giving your opinion

Permission and obligation (could / had to)

should and must for advice

Education and training

Focus on: words used with education

Word stress: school subjects

9

Character

Thailand

Smiling Describing character Vacations

Things and places you know Travel blog

Listing points

Using adverbs of attitude

“Smile and the world smiles with you…”

What’s in a smile?

Optimist or pessimist…?

Thailand: land of smiles

On vacation in Thailand Living in Thailand

Useful phrases: Using body idioms

Verbs followed by ing-form for and since

been Present perfect: simple and

progressive The face Character adjectives Parts of the body

Focus on: verbs + ing-form or to-infinitive

(with a change in meaning) Sentence stress

Linking words while,

My first car Patti’s dream car

Useful phrases: Idioms with food

will Future time clauses after when, if, as soon as used to

Collocations Food and cooking Cars

Focus on: words used with driving

Vowel sounds and spelling

Anecdote: A pet you

know Giving opinions

Linking: giving examples

Your attitude to animals Three people talking about animals they like / dislike

Three stories about animals People talking about their pets Many talking about their friend’s pet

Useful phrases: Polite requests

Defining relative clauses

Unreal conditionals Animals

Text organization

Prepositional phrases

Two Lauras; Worlds apart The coolest hotel in the world Curro talking about the most incredible building he’s ever seen North Pole weather forecast The Oracle

Useful phrases: Exclaiming

Past perfect Passives will and might for

future possibility

Collocations with do, get, go, have, make, and take

The weather

Focus on: collocations with do, get, go,

have, make, take

Table 1: Syllabus of the pre-intermediate General English course

As shown in Table 1, final consonant clusters are not mentioned during the course

1 2 Rationale for teaching English final three-consonant clusters in connected speech

Undoubtedly, speaking fluently requires students‘ knowledge of some aspects of connected speech to make what they say natural By comparing and contrasting Vietnamese and English syllable structures, Avery and Ehrlich [1995: 54] predict that Vietnamese learners may face difficulties pronouncing English final consonant clusters where the clusters can cover up to four segments, particularly across word boundaries in

―public‖ style of speech: it is a reality and usual use of language that all learners of English try to handle Reflecting upon my teaching experience, I have witnessed that quite often Vietnamese learners do not pronounce final single consonants let alone final consonant clusters Usually, they omit final consonant sounds or wrongly pronounce grammatical suffixes Here come to the fact that these non-native learners of English need to be made aware that mispronouncing consonant clusters almost certainly makes their speech difficult for native speakers to understand, particularly in cases where the learners use epenthesis to break up clusters or omit a consonant in a cluster [Celce-

Murcia et al., 2002] In addition, consonant clusters can include important grammatical

markers [Briton, 2000]: the three-segment final clusters in question indicate a plural

noun and a plural possessive noun, respectively in pounds and pounds’, or a verb third person singular as in sulks Therefore, teachers need to stress to their students the

stigmatizing effect of dropping morphological endings [Celce-Murcia, et al., 2002] to

avoid being considered as not proficient in English

In response to the growing interest in this field, there has been research in some countries [Arnold, 2009; Kim and Jung, 1998; Ngan Nguyen, 2008; Osburne, 1996; Sato, 1984]

In Vietnam, there is quite little research of English final consonant clusters Surprisingly

a recent research conducted on ―common speaking errors made by high school students‖ reveals that 100% participants commit errors with ending sounds [Nguyen, 2004]2; in the same vein, the research by Nguyễn Thị Phúc Hòa [1999] pointed out errors related to final consonant clusters But the above-mentioned authors did not invent any specific solutions to the problem of mispronouncing English final consonant clusters

The study done for and reported in this M.A thesis just focuses on one problematic aspect to Vietnamese learners of English: how to produce English final three-consonant clusters properly As far as studying how second language learners acquire the pronunciation of a feature non-existent in their first language is concerned [Kelly, 2000:

2

http://www.Slideshare.net/khoaanhmy/errors-1st-year-students-at-ed-…

58], consonant clusters are a common feature of English that will come up very often in

class, whether it is within an individual item of vocabulary, as in asks; find; told;

crisps… or in the combination of sounds, as in He’s taller than them /hi:z‘t0:l656n‘56m/;

as quoted from a website [http://www.tedpower.co.uk/clustersindex.html#cc16.html], good pronunciation materials need to include practice of elision and assimilation to deal with consonant clusters in connected speech because wrong dropping final consonants

can cause meaning changes of words such as pain and paint; again and against; loss and lost

The study does not cover English four-segment final consonant clusters which are not common and numerous in English; the study‘s focus is on its student subjects‘ proficiency in an area that they are most likely to encounter and have opportunities to use frequently − English three-segment final consonant clusters The researcher‘s skipping English two-segment final consonant clusters is twofold: (i) the three-segment final consonant clusters are elided to two-segment final consonant clusters in some contexts, (ii) the three-segment final consonant clusters are more problematic because the longer the clusters are the more difficult they are likely to English learners

Since it is highly problematic for any natives to deal with English complex clusters, they

do not always produce as many consonant sounds, tending to apply a number of strategies to make the consonant clusters easier to pronounce Similarly, Vietnamese learners of English tackle its consonant clusters but very often in a wrong way It is recommended that these learners should need to know when a native speaker of English would simplify a consonant cluster in connected speech

A second area of difficulty is that the spellings of FINAL CONSONANT CLUSTERS are often FALSE FRIENDS – a very poor guide to how they are pronounced within connected speech Generally speaking, English pronunciation is a little more complicated than simple differences between individual phonemes such as the vowel

sounds in pairs of words such as ship or sheep The number of tactics a learner has to

perform is far greater in connected speech involving tricky adjustments in place and

manner of articulation where there are also words containing sequences of at least three consonant phonemes either inside individual words or across word boundary Managing this juggling task can be a little easier if learners are taught to recognize ways in which speakers simplify strings of three consonants through elision and assimilation Success at the above makes connected speech more fluent to listen to and practice at this will make

it less obvious that English is not your native language3 All urge the researcher to conduct the study in order to help her students considerably familiarize themselves with the clusters in connected speech to make their speech more smooth and natural

All the above background information argues forcefully for including the explanation of and practice with English final three-consonant clusters in the above syllabus of the pre-intermediate General English course and for teaching non-native speakers how to employ native speakers‘ consonant simplification strategies Therefore, there is a need to include teaching techniques focusing on these strategies in the study‘s experiment

teaching of consonant clusters especially in connected speech

1.3 Purpose of the study

The study aims at:

1 Finding out pronunciation errors that General English learners at Cleverlearn may make in producing and perceiving English final three-consonant clusters in connected speech;

2 Identifying possible causes of the pronunciation errors;

3 Giving some recommendations and suggestions in dealing with English final three-consonant clusters in connected speech;

4 Investigating the student subjects‘ attitude towards the teaching techniques applied in the experimental teaching

3http://www.tedpower.co.uk/clustersindex.html#cc16.html

1.4 Significance of the study

The study was done and then reported in this M.A thesis focusing on an analysis of common errors in producing English final three-consonant clusters in connected speech Hopefully, the thesis‘ findings and its teaching suggestions can serve as a reference document for teaching and learning implications and further research

1.5 Organization of the thesis

This thesis consists of five followingchapters:

Chapter 1, which is the introduction, gives information on the study‘s background, rationale, purpose, significance and limitation as well as describes the organization of the thesis

Chapter 2 provides the review of literature related to relevant research on the instruction

of English final three-consonant clusters in connected speech

Chapter 3 presents the methodology applied in this study

Chapter 4 presents the results of data analysis and the study‘s findings

Chapter 5 states the study‘s conclusions and recommendations

1.6 Limitation of the study

The study was not a true experimental research, done at Cleverlearn with participation of

12 teachers of English, including 10 natives and 2 non-natives, and approximately 40 General English learners of 2 pre-intermediate classes which are intact Accordingly, the generality of the study‘s result is limited to this selected institution only However, its findings and recommendations may benefit other learners in similar situations

2.1 Background theory

2.1.1 Linguistic notions

Below are a number of key terms and concepts related to the study done for and reported

in this M.A thesis:

General English learners

General English learners are those who attend English classes for improving their ability

in daily communication in the target language Oftentimes, the course syllabus covers all the four basic language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing

Vietnamese southern learners

Vietnamese southern learners are native speakers of the southern dialect of the Vietnamese language

Southern dialect

Southern dialect of the Vietnamese language is rather different in terms of tones as well

as vowel and consonant arrangements from those implied in the speech and official spelling of the speakers of Hanoi dialect ―In one important respect, the Saigonese consonants are closer to those of the writing system than their Hanoi equivalents.‖ [Thompson, 1967: 88]

In the following table, Thompson [1967: 88] presents all the Saigonese consonants:

Labial Apical

Plain

Apical Retroflex Laminal Dorsal Glottal Fortis Stops, voiceless

Oral Stops, voiced

Table 2: Saigonese consonants

Đoàn Thiện Thuật, et al., [2009: 15-17] states that there are totally 22 consonants in the

Vietnamese language in which it is worth noting that:

/p/ is not distributed in the initial position of a syllable except some borrowings, or foreign personal and geographical names like đèn pin, patê, and Pắc Bó4 in modern

Vietnamese, which are also pronounced as đèn bim, batê, and Bắc Bó;

Though used by several coastal communities in Vietnam, /r/ is not a popular phoneme

in the Vietnamese language

For the sake of easy comparison and reference, the researcher accepts the use of Roman letters to transcribe Vietnamese consonant phonemes, following Đoàn Thiện Thuật [2009: 17]

gi

da thịt gia đình

11 /l/ l làng 22

/ʔ /

Transcribed by zero letter

Being foreign to Vietnamese learners are such English phonemes as /~/, /2/, /t~/, /d2/, /8/, and /5/, as seen above Since these phonemes do not exist in the Vietnamese language, obviously they are problematic ones

Consonants

In the production of consonants ―the flow of air is obstructed as it travels through the

mouth.‖ [Fromkin and Rodman, 1993: 198] Likewise, Finegan [1994: 34] defines

consonant sounds as those ―produced by partially or completely blocking air in its

passage from the lungs through the vocal tract.‖ Richard et al [1992: 78], on the other

hand, raise the fact that ―with some consonants, the air stream is blocked in the mouth but allowed to escape through the nose.‖

Consonant clusters

A consonant cluster can be defined in at least two ways:

 ―A sequence of two or more consonants‖ strung together initially, medially, or

finally within the same word, as the first three phonemes /str/ in straight

[Richard et al., 1992: 79];

 Abutting phonemes, either across two syllables within a word, as in the consonant

phonemes /ndl/ in endless or across word boundary, as in rain storms [Odisho, 1979]

Final consonant clusters

In this study, a final consonant cluster is operationally defined as (i) a sequence of

consonants in the final position of a word: /mz/ in streams, /nts/ in points, attempt /mpt/, etc., (ii) a sequence of consonants across word or syllable boundary: next day, hold this, groundbreaking, etc

Standard English pronunciation5

Standard English is the most preferable accent for any social setting and mainstream teaching It is said to be more neutral, easy to remember and imitate than other accents

and importantly heard on media It is stated6 that the introduction of the term

―Received Pronunciation‖ is usually credited to Daniel Jones In the first edition of the English Pronouncing Dictionary [1917], the author named the accent ―Public School Pronunciation‖, but for the second edition in 1926 he wrote ―In what follows I call it

Received Pronunciation (abbreviation RP), for want of a better term.‖ The word

―received‖ conveys its original meaning of ―accepted or approved.‖ Considered as the

standard accent of Standard English in Great Britain, RP is defined in Concise Oxford Dictionary, [1999], page xiv as ―the standard accent of English as spoken in the South of England.‖ However, the term ―Received Pronunciation‖ is considered old fashion, misleading and preferably replaced by ―BBC Pronunciation‖ because it is the accent that the most announcers and newsreaders on BBC use [Roach, 2000: 3]

Streven in Larry Smith‘s edition [1983: 88] defines Standard English as ―a particular dialect of English, being the non-localized dialect of global currency without any significant variation, universally accepted as the appropriate educational target in teaching English: which may be spoken with an unrestricted choice of accent.‖ So Standard English pronunciation can be any dialect of English that is widely used and accepted in the world It is common knowledge that there are two major varieties (or dialects) of English that command respect in their countries and elsewhere in the world:

RP in the United Kingdom and General American (GA) English in the United States They are the two main dialects for international broadcasts and in social and business settings Moreover, the accent has been most fully described and used as the basis for textbooks and pronouncing dictionaries Vietnamese language is non-rhotic (like RP English) in which the /r/ sound is not pronounced at the end of words, so it is more reasonable to choose RP English as the standard one In this study, RP English thus will

be used as the criteria for students‘ pronunciation analyzing The International Phonetic Alphabet will be used to transcribe students‘ speeches throughout the research

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2.1.1.1 Syllables

In Finch‘s definition [2000: 67-68], ―syllables are pure units of sound and as such essentially meaningless‖; ―it is not always possible to decide from the written form of

a word where syllable boundaries occur.‖

Roach [2000: 70] explicates the notion in a meaningful way: ―Syllables are usually described as the smallest unit of rhythm, consisting of a centre, also called ‗the peak‘ or

‗the nucleus‘ which has little or no obstruction to airflow and which sounds comparatively loud.‖

Preceding a centre may have one, two, or three consonants which make up the onset Syllables which consist of an onset and a nucleus are traditionally termed ―open‖, as in

go /96$/ or spray /spre1/ In case the syllable begins with a vowel as in ears /16z/ or

eyes /aàz/, we have zero onsets In another case, syllables can have up to four consonants

following the nucleus, making up the coda and such is named ―closed‖, as in cats /k`ts/

or bends /bendz/ A syllable has a zero coda when it has no consonant following the

nucleus, as in she /~i:/ or cow /kaå/ [Finch, 2000: 68]

Below are four possible English syllable types [Roach, 2000: 70-71]:

(i) A minimum syllable with a single vowel in isolation as in are /@:/;

(ii) A syllable with an onset and a zero coda as in key /ki:/;

(iii) A syllable with a coda and no onset as in ease /i:z/;

(iii) A syllable with an onset and a coda as in sat /s`t/

2.1.1.2 Careful speech and connected speech

When speaking any language carefully, one must pronounce word by word separately, slowly and carefully On the contrary, ―connected speech‖ or ―natural speech‖ [Roach, 1992]7 requires words spoken in group with fast speech Connected speech is

―a term used in LINGUISTICS to refer to spoken language when analyzed as a continuous sequence, as in normal UTTERANCES and conversations Its significance

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lies in the contrast implied with studies of linguistic UNITS seen in isolation, such as an individual sound, WORD or PHRASE, which were the subject-matter of much traditional linguistic inquiry It is now realized that important changes happen to these units when they are used in connected speech‖ [Crystal, 1991; cited in Phan Thị Lan Anh, 2010: 20] Thus there are some important changes occurring in natural speech but careful speech, i.e there are processes resulting in differences between pronouncing words in isolation and in connected speech [Roach, 2000: 138-145] and Celce-Murcia, 2002: 158] give the examples of assimilation, linking and elision with sound change in connected speech

Crowel [1991] adds that a language is first made of sounds which then constitute words and sentences; those sounds are spoken in group to make a complete utterance; words spoken in isolation and in natural speech sound differently in English Moreover, connected speech is a key to gaining a natural, smooth-flowing style of speech because people do not speak in separate words; they speak in logical connected groups of words instead; fluent speech flows with a rhythm and the words bump into each other To make speech flow smoothly, the way we pronounce the end and beginning of some words can change depending on the sounds at the beginning and end of those words These changes

are described as features of connected speech, including assimilation, dissimilation, elision,

and linking

2.1.1.3 Assimilation

In natural speech, sounds are made in group and influenced by their neighbors; they may take some of their neighbors‘ characteristics, resulting in the changing of sounds This is referred to as ―assimilation‖, also called ―co-articulation‖ by Finch [2000: 43] In more details, this phenomenon is ―the process where one segment becomes more like (or identical to) another segment or two segments become more like each other‖ [Kuiper and Allen, 1996: 70] Assimilation occurs both between and within words [Ball and

Rahilly, 1999; Celce-Murcia et al., 2002; Kelly, 2000; Roach, 2002; Underhill, 1994];

however, it occurs mostly at word boundaries and mainly affects consonant sounds

[Roach, 2002; Underhill, 1994] Though sharing the agreement that assimilation mostly

affects consonants, Celce-Murcia et al [2002: 165] assert that assimilation occurs more

in rapid, casual speech than in slow, careful speech and consists of three types: regressive (also called anticipatory), progressive (also called perseverative), and coalescent

In regressive assimilation, the preceding sound is assimilated by the following

conditioning sound Take one cup as an example: /n/ in one becomes /7/ before cup,

resulting in /w^n k^p/ changed to be /w^7 k^p/ Exemplifying the voiced final consonant

of the preceding word being devoiced to be more like the voiceless initial consonant of

the following word are expensive coat /1ks‘pens1v ‘k6åt/  /1ks‘pens1f ‘k6åt/ and

bad choice /‘b`d ‘t01s/  /‘b` ‘t01s/

―In progressive assimilation, the conditioning sound precedes and affects the following

sound‖ [Celce-Murcia et al., 2002: 60], as in:

 The /s/, /z/ alternation observed in regular plural nouns, present tense third person singular verbs or possessive nouns with the final consonant which is not hissing like /s/, /z/, /~/, /2/, /t~/, or /d2/;

 The /t/, /d/ alternation observed in regular past tense verbs with the final consonant which is not /t/ or /d/

In the two cases, the choice of either the voiced or the voiceless form of the suffix -s, the suffix -ed and the possessive marker -‘s is phonologically conditioned: the voiced /n/

determines the voiced form of the endings -s and -ed respectively in listens /‘l1s6nz/ and

listened / ‘l1s6nd/, and of the marker -‘s in the sun’s /s^nz/ rays; the voiceless /k/ conditions the voiceless form of the endings -s and -ed in works /w3:ks/ and worked /w3:kt/, and of the marker -‘s in the book’s /b$ks/ cover The described phenomenon is

also referred to as assimilation of voicing

The last type of assimilation is coalescent This occurs where two neighboring sounds influence each other to assimilate to a new different sound [Jones, 2002; Kelly, 2000; Kuiper and Allen, 1996] Oftentimes, coalescent assimilation occurs in English when an oral stop, like /t/ or /d/, and a fricative, like /s/ or /z/, is followed by the palatal sound /j/

In the first case, both /j/ and its preceding stop are palatalized to become the

alveo-palatal affricative /t~/ or /d2/; in the second case, both /j/ and its preceding fricative are linked to become the alveo-palatal fricative /~/ or /2/:

 want you /‘w4nt ju:/  /‘w4n t~u:/ or /‘w4n t~6/;

 need you /‘ni:d ju:/  /‘ni: d2u:/ or /‘ni: d26/;

 this year /‘51s ‘j16/  /51‘~16/;

 does your mother /d6z j0: ‘m^56/  /d620: ‘m^56/ or /d626 ‘m^56/

Celce-Murcia et al., [2002] share the idea and contribute two more cases: when /ts/ and

/dz/ are followed by /j/, the three-consonant clusters /tsj/ and /dzj/ respectively turn into /t~/ and /d2/:

 what’s your name /‘w4ts j0: ‘ne1m/  /‘w4 t~6 ‘ne1m/;

 he needs your help /hi: ‘ni:dz j0: ‘help/  /hi: ‘ni: d26 ‘help/

2.1.1.4 Dissimilation

Dissimilation is a phenomenon ―in which a consonant segment becomes less similar to

another segment‖ [Fromkin, et al., 2003: 306] for easier articulation and contrast This

rule applies to the sequences /f8/ and /s8/, respectively changed to /ft/ and /st/: fifth /f1f8/

 /f1ft/, sixth /s1ks8/  /s1kst/, etc However, it is rare in English and can be ignored

for pedagogical purposes [Celce-Murcia, 2002: 162]

2.1.1.5 Elision

Also termed as deletion or omission, elision refers to:

- ―The leaving out of a sound or sounds in speech‖ [Richard et al., 1992: 121];

- The disappearance of a sound [Kelly, 2000];

- The omission of a phoneme in speech which is common in casual speech styles, particularly at word boundaries [Finch, 2000];

- The process whereby sounds which would be present in the deliberate pronunciation of a word in isolation disappear or are not clearly articulated in

connected speech [Brown, 1990; Celce-Murcia et al., 2002; Hewings, 2007;

O‘Connor, 1980; Roach, 2002; Underhill, 1998; Yule, 1996]

Elision is applied to avoid pronouncing complex consonants and in some instances

to maintain a regular speech rhythm and speed when difficult consonant sounds occur together [Roach, 2002; Kelly, 2000] The most frequently elided consonants are /t/ and /d/

both inside words and across word boundaries [Brown, 1990; Celce-Murcia et al., 2002;

Finch, 2000; Kelly, 2000; Kuiper and Allen, 1996; O‘Connor, 1980; Underhill, 1994] The elision of /t/ and /d/ occurs when they are at the end of a word (in the last syllable) and

between two other consonants Kelly [2000: 110] and Celce-Murcia et al [2002: 88]

suggest some elision rules:

1 Quite often, complex consonant clusters are simplified:

 she acts like she owns the place (/`kts/ simplified to /`ks/);

 teachers use authentic texts to teach from (/teksts/ simplified to /teks/);

 George the Sixth’s throne (/s1ks8s 8r6ån/ simplified to /s1ks 8r6ån/);

2 The most common elisions in within an English consonant cluster are /t/ and /d/:

 we arrived the next day (/t/ elided between /ks/ and /d/);

 when we reached Paris we stopped for lunch

(/t/ elided between /t~/ and /p/ and between /p/ and /f/);

 we bought a lovely carved statuette (/d/ elided between /v/ and /st/)

3 The elision of /t/ and /d/ can also take place within an affricate when its stop element

is preceded by another consonant like /n/ in this case: lunchtime /‘l^nt~ ta1m/

 /‘l^n~ ta1m/, strange days /‘stre1nd2 ‘de1z/  /‘stre1n2‘de1z/, etc

4 The phoneme /t/ is a fundamental part of the negative particle not, the possibility of

its being elided makes the foreign student life more difficult Consider the negative

of can, if followed by a consonant the /t/ may easily disappear and the only

difference between the positive and the negative is a different longer vowel sound in the second:

I can speak /a1 k6n ‘spi:k/ vs I can’t speak /a1 ‘k@:n ‘spi:k/

5 Eliding in more environments and even more readily than /t/ is /d/8:

 world wild life fund /‘w3:l ‘wa1l ‘la1f ‘f^nd/;

 hurled twenty yards /‘h3:l ‘twent1 ‘j@:dz/;

 thousand points /‘8a$zn ‘p41nts/;

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 rapidly /‘r`p1l1/

6 A research on deletion of final /t/ and /d/ in BBC English finds that BBC readers quite regularly omit final /t/ and /d/ from consonant clusters at the end of a word, especially when the next word begins with a plosive, fricative or nasal This deletion

occurs regardless of whether the /t/ or /d/ is an -edsuffix or is part of the stem of the word We need to be aware that deletion of final /t/ and /d/ is common both in American English [Guy, 1980] and in British English [Fabricius, 2002; Temple, 2005] Careful enunciation of every single final /t/ and /d/ may represent an over-careful, unnatural style of pronunciation9

7 The elision of /t/ and /d/ is not completely applied In cases that the second word begins with /w, h, j, r/ and that some clusters have final /t/ or /d/ such as /nt, lt, rt,

rd/, no simplification occurs [Celce-Murcia et al., 2002]:

 east hill, blind youth, wild ride;

 plant food, felt pen, short stop, bird feeder

8 There is no omission ―when the following word begins with a vowel.‖ Instead,

―linking or resyllabification occurs‖ [Avery and Ehrlich, 1992; Celce-Murcia et al.,

2002: 163]: hand out / ‘h`nd_‘a$t/, next up /‘nekst_‘^p/, last offer /‘l`st_‘4f6/, left out /‘left_‘a$t/, etc

9 Finally, consonant clusters created by the addition of grammatical endings are not

usually simplified: canned peaches / ‘k`nd ‘pi:t~6z/, missed chances /‘m1st ‘t~`ns6z/, laughed hard / ‘l`ft ‘h@:d/, taxed me /‘t`kst mi:/, etc

2.1.1.6 Linking

To avoid choppy speech, English words in a single thought group should be smoothly

blended together [Celce-Murcia et al., 2002: 165] This phenomenon is named linking,

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―which is the connecting of the final sound of one word or syllable to the initial sound of

the next‖ [Celce-Murcia et al., 2002: 158] Among the three types of linking are

consonant-to-vowel link, vowel-to-vowel link and consonant-to-consonant link, the first and the third being the focus of this study

Consonant-to-vowel link is most common in connect speech When a word or

syllable with a final consonant is followed by a word beginning with a vowel, the consonant is produced intervocalically as though it belongs to both syllables, resulting

in watch_it / ‘w4t~1t/ or turn_it_off /‘t3:n1‘t4f/ [Avery and Erhlich, 1995; Celce-Murcia

et al., 2002; Hewings, 2007; Kelly, 2000; Kenworthy, 1992; Mortimer,1993;

O‘Connor, 1980; Tô Minh Thanh, 2008; Underhill, 1994]

Moreover, when a final consonant cluster of a word is followed by a word beginning with a vowel, the final consonant of the cluster is pronounced as part of the following

syllable as in fin_dout, lef_tout (with the unaspirated /t/) This is called

resyllabification, which does not lead to any aspiration of voiceless stops

[Celce-Murcia et al., 2002: 83]

Consonant-to-consonant link occurs when, to facilitate pronouncing consonant

clusters across word boundary, a word beginning with a consonant preceded by

another word with a final unreleased stop: keeplaughing, petdog, etc [Avery and Erhlich, 1995; Celce-Murcia et al., 2002; Lujan, 2004] To link two different stops

across word boundary, on the other hand, hold the air flow on the first one and release

it on the second: bigtime, laptop, necktie, etc In case of linking two identical stops across word boundary, the two are produced as one: goodday, whattime, toppriority, takecare, etc

2.1.1.7 Epenthesis

―Epenthesis is the insertion of a vowel or consonant segment within an existing string

of segments‖ [Celce-Murcia et al., 2002: 164] Richards et al [1992: 126] state that

epenthesis is ―the addition of a vowel or consonant at the beginning of a word or between sounds.‖ The most important types of epenthesis in English occur in certain

morpho-phonological sequences such as the endings of regular plural nouns and possessive nouns, and of third person singular present tense and regular past tense forms

(marked by -(e)s, -‘s, and -ed) The schwa /6/ is added to break up clusters of sibilants (/s/, /z/, /~/, /2/, /t~/, and /d2/) or alveolar oral stops (/t/ and /d/): places /‘ple1s6z/, teaches

/‘ti:t~6z/, judges /‘d2^d26z/ A similar kind of phonological conditioning occurs in the

case of the regular past tense morpheme to break up clusters of the two oral stops /t/ and

/d/: wanted /‘w4nt1d/, decided /d1‘sa1d1d/

2.1.1.8 Metathesis 10

Metathesis is switching the order of two phonemes and it is responsible for the most

common types of speech errors, such as children acquiring spaghetti as pasketti In some English dialects, people metathesis pronunciation of ask /æsk/ as ax /æks/ Some other

frequent English pronunciations that display metathesis are asterisk → asterix

/‘æst6r1ks/, cavalry → calvary /‘kælv6r1/, comfortable → comfterble /‘kámft6b6l/, etc

2.1.2 Pedagogical notions

2.1.2.1 Theory of pronunciation teaching and learning

The following relevant theory of pronunciation teaching by Avery and Ehrlich [1995]

and Celce-Murcia et al [2002] is mainly employed:

An intuitive-imitative approach broadly bases on the students‘ ability to listen and imitate sounds and rhythms of the target language without any explicit instruction Thus

it requires the availability of good models to listen to as such phonograph records, then tape recorders, and language labs used in the mid-twenty century as well as audio and video cassettes and compact discs more recently

An analytic-linguistic approach applies contrastive information and tools such as charts of the vocal tract, descriptions of articulators and of the target sound system, etc and other supplement aids for listening, imitation and production It explicitly instructs

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learners in sounds and rhythms of the target language This approach was developed

to complement rather than replace the intuitive-imitative approach

The Direct Method views the teaching of pronunciation as intuition and imitation, i.e students imitate a model – usually teachers or a recording – and try their best to closely approximate to the model through imitation and repetition This method was grounded on observations of children learning their first language and of children and adults learning foreign languages in non-instructional environment

The Naturalistic Method mostly exposes students to listening before any speaking Examples are Asher‘s [1977] Total Physical Response and Krashen and Terrell‘s [1983] Natural Approach Supporters contend that the initial focus on listening without any pressure to speak gives learners opportunity to internalize the target sound system when learners speak later on, their pronunciation is quite good despite their never having received explicit pronunciation instruction

The Audio-lingual Approach considers pronunciation a very initially important stage which is taught On the one hand, learners imitate and repeat right after either a teacher or a tape which records model sounds, words, or utterances On the other hand, teachers provide students with background linguistic knowledge and use visual aids to demonstrate the articulation of sounds

The Silent Way stresses pronunciation accuracy of sounds of the target language from

a very initial stage, enabling learners to sharpen their own inner criteria for accurate production In the Silent Way, learners‘ attention is focused on the performance of the sound system without having to learn the phonemic alphabet and linguistic information Teachers‘ talking time is little and they gesture for learners to follow instead This includes an elaborate system in which teachers tap out rhythmic patterns with a pointer, hold up fingers to indicate the number of syllables in a word or stress elements, or model proper positioning of the articulators by pointing to their own lips, teeth, or jaw

The Communicative Approach focuses on using language to communicate in classroom because the main purpose of language is for communication Thus there is an urgent need for teaching pronunciation, for both empirical and anecdotal evidence indicates that there is a threshold level of pronunciation for non-native speakers of English: if they fall below this threshold level, they will have oral communication problems no matter how excellent and extensive their control of English grammar and vocabulary might be

2.1.2.2 Suggested steps in teaching English final consonant clusters

Regarding English final consonant clusters, Celce-Murcia et al [2002: 85-89] suggests

some referential steps for teachers to follow:

 Present some basic information about English syllable structure;

 Raise students‘ consciousness about the possibilities for English final consonant clusters;

 Have students gradually build up clusters to gain mastery over final clusters of three or four consonants;

 Focus students‘ attention on how native speakers properly simplify final cluster configurations;

 Teach consonant sounds within words, phrases, and coherent discourse;

 Raise students‘ awareness of incorrect simplification and emphasizing on common and serious errors;

 Give students opportunities to practice the strategies themselves

As no method is a perfect one and each teacher is a markedly different artist These fundamentally altered steps should be flexibly adopted, adapted together with various extra materials and motivating techniques to achieve success

2.2 Background research

There have been theories as to why second language learners make errors in the target language [Avery and Ehrlich, 1995; Carlisle, 1997; Eckman, 1977, 1991, and

2004; McCarthy, 2002] Particularly, recent research [Flege, 1992, 1995; Flege et al.,

2006; Odlin, 1989; Rumelhart and Norman, 1978] has indicated that learners‘ mother tongue plays a very important role in their process of acquiring the English phonology

By contrasting the phonology of the Vietnamese language with that of the English language, we might predict learners‘ possible errors in this field

2.2.1 The Vietnamese syllable

There has not been much research on Vietnamese phonetics and phonology done by foreign and local linguists Actually, some previous studies on Vietnamese are controversial The issue is that which varieties should be chosen as the standard Vietnamese, or which International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)11 letters should be used to

transcribe the Vietnamese phonemic system This study exploits many sources and viewpoints, but the IPA letters used are mostly adopted from the official textbook for students of linguistic studies in Vietnam in which phonetics and phonology was written

by the Vietnamese leading phonetician named Doan Thien Thuat [Nguyen Thien Giap

et al., 2006] None of the other varieties is specially used Doan Thien Thuat et al.,

[2009: 8] state that ―the Vietnamese syllable is said to be a two-level structured unit‖: Syllable

Level 1 tone onset rhyme

Level 2 glide nucleus coda

Table 3: Vietnamese syllabic structure by Doan Thien Thuat

For example: khoảng is transcribed as /x-w-a-7-?/

- the onset, e.g /x/ represented by letters ―kh‖ in khoảng

- the glide, e.g /w/ represented by the letter ―o‖

- the nucleus, e.g /a/ represented by letter ―a‖

- the coda, e.g /7/ represented by the letters ―ng‖

- the tone, e.g Tone 4 represented by the diacritical sign ?

Some syllables have no glide, such as bàn /b-a-n-‛/; làm /l-a-m-‛/; bài /b-ai-‛/;

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International Phonetic Alphabet (abbreviated to IPA) is ―the set of symbols and diacritics that

have been officially approved by the International Phonetic Association‖ [Ladefoged, 2000: 253] The IPA is widely used by foreign language students and teachers, linguistshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics, speech pathologists and therapists, singers, actors, lexicographers, translators, etc

Some syllables have no coda, such as quả /k-w-a-?/; khoa /x-w-a-1/; to /t-0-1/; Some syllables such as ăn phonetically have an onset, that is glottal stop, but it is not represented by any signs in writing /ʔ -ă-n-1/; uống /ʔ -uo-7-’/

Among the five-above components the nucleus, the onset and the tone are compulsory; the glide and the coda are optional12 [Doan Thien Thuat et al., 2009: 6, 7]

In another way, Vietnamese is a syllable-timed language [Đinh Lê Thư and Nguyễn Văn Huệ, 1998: 33] which each syllable is short and simple and thus has syllable-timed rhythm The basic structure of the Vietnamese syllable is (C) V (C) Taiwan Buffalo International [2001] presenting the Vietnamese syllabic structure is as follows:

Initial

Tone Final (rhyme) Onset Nuclear Coda

Table 4: Vietnamese syllabic structure by Taiwan Buffalo International [2001]

Table 4 shows that initial and onset refer to two different components in a Vietnamese

syllable whereas in the English onset is of three types: the zero onset, the initial consonant, and the initial consonant clusters [Roach, 2001] Moreover, the onset is compulsory in the Vietnamese but the English language

On the other hand, the presentation of the Vietnamese syllable structure by Ngo Nhu Binh [2005: 7] is more specific and officially accepted by many Vietnamese educators: (i) the tone of each Vietnamese syllable covers the whole syllable, and (ii) only the nuclear is compulsory

Tone Initial

consonants Labialization

Nuclear vowel

Final consonant

or Semi-vowel

Table 5: Vietnamese syllabic structure by Ngo Nhu Binh [2005]

Ngo Nhu Binh [2005: 7] also states that Vietnamese syllables consist of two mandatory components: a tone and a nuclear vowel The syllable may contain two optional constituents: an initial consonant and either a final consonant or a semivowel The initial consonant may optionally be accompanied by the secondary labial articulation /w/

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The tone represented by zero diacritic is named Tone 1