Improving intonation for first year students an action research at international institute of technology and management

This study is a collaborative action research investigation to develop intonation and communicative quality for first year students at International Institute of Technology and Managemen

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI UNIVERSITY - *** -

Vu thi huong

Improving intonation for first year students

An action research at International

Institute of Technology and Management

SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN TESOL

SUPERVISOR: Pham Hong Thuy, M.A

Hanoi September, 2009

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I certify that the minor thesis entitled “Improving intonation for first year students

- An action research at International Institute of Technology and Management”

and submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in TESOL is the result of my work, except where otherwise acknowledged, and that this minor thesis or any part of the same has not been submitted for a higher degree to any other university or institution

The research reported in this thesis was approved by Hanoi University

Signed:

Dated:

I am greatly indebted to Ms Nguyen Thai Ha, Ms Nguyen Nguyet Minh, Ms Nguyen Thanh Huyen and all my teachers for their help during my two year time studying at the Department of Post-graduate Studies

I would like to take this opportunity to express my indebtness to Dr Nguyen Van Dai, Head of Department of Post graduate studies, and the whole staff for invaluable assistance and considerateness

My sincere thanks go to my colleagues and my students at International Institute of Technology and Management for their kind assistance, enthusiastic participation during the time I collected data for the study

Finally, I heart-felt gratitude goes to my parents, my husband and my daughter for their endless love and great encouragement throughout the study

ABSTRACT

English has been a vehicle for international communication in most aspects of society The demand for communication in English has been increasing rapidly in many countries generally and in Vietnam particularly Vietnamese learners, however, normally find it very difficult to understand native English speaking people and speak English with intonation like them This fact motivates many teachers to find more effective methods to help learners gain more competence with good intonation in speaking English

This study is a collaborative action research investigation to develop intonation and communicative quality for first year students at International Institute of Technology and Management (IITM) This study investigated how intonation training influenced the first year students’ intonation for better communicative quality at IITM The subjects of the study were two English teachers and 22 students of IITM

It drew upon data collected in an intonation training course and evaluated students’ progress after the treatment in the study The initial data was collected from the results

of a questionnaire for students and the pre-test The post-test and the follow-up interview were conducted to collect the post data for subsequent quantitative and qualitative analysis on students’ communicative progress

The findings from the study have pointed out that firstly, intonation played a predominant role in English communication Secondly, in the period of more than two months, students could significantly improve three aspects of intonation in terms of stress, rhythm and tone And this improvement would have a positive effect on students’ English speaking Thirdly, the students showed a high awareness of using intonation in their communication and interest in learning intonation

With the findings from the study, the researcher intends that the data will be useful for teachers of English who are interested in teaching intonation

Table of Contents

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

Table of Contents iv

List of abbreviations vii

List of tables and figures viii

Chapter 1: Introduction 1

1.1 Background to the study and statement of the problem 1

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 3

1.3 Scope of the study 3

1.4 Significance of the study 4

1.5 Outline of the thesis 4

Chapter 2: Literature Review 6

2.1 Intonation in language learning 6

2.1.1 Definition of intonation 6

2.1.2 Importance of intonation in second language (L2) learning 7

2.2 Intonation functions 9

2.3 Motivated description of Intonation 11

2.3.1 Stress 11

2.3.2 Rhythm 14

2.3.3 Tone 17

2.4 Summary of the chapter 2 20

Chapter 3: Methodology 21

3.1 Research Questions 21

3.2 Description of the participants 21

3.2.1 Teacher participants 21

3.2.2 Student participants 22

3.3 Research methodology: An action research 22

3.3.1 Definitions of action research 22

3.3.2 Justification 23

3.3.3 Process of action research 24

3.4 Action research process applied in the study 25

3.4.1 Identifying a problem 25

3.4.2 Collecting data 25

3.4.3 Analyzing data 25

3.4.4 Planning action 25

3.4.5 Implementing the action plan 26

3.4.6 Collecting post-data 28

3.4.7 Analyzing post data 28

3.5 Description of the data collection instruments 29

3.5.1 Questionnaire for students 29

3.5.2 Follow-up interview 30

3.5.3 Tests 31

3.6 Summary 33

Chapter 4: The Results and discussion 34

4.1 Initial data 34

4.1.1 Data drawn from the questionnaire 34

4.1.2 Data drawn from the pre-test 37

4.2 Discovered problems and causes 40

4.3 Action plan 42

4.3.1 Aim of the action plan 42

4.3.2 Action plan procedures 42

4.4 Post data 43

4.4.1 Data drawn from the follow-up interview 43

4.4.2 Data drawn from by the post-test 45

4.5 Action Research Evaluation 49

4.5.1 Comparisons 49

4.5.2 Summary 53

4.6 Discussion 53

Chapter 5: Recommendations and conclusion 56

5.1 Recommendations 56

5.1.1 Major findings 56

5.1.2 Implications for the application of intonation training 57

5.1.3 Limitations and suggestions for further research 58

5.2 Conclusion 59

References 61

Appendixes 66

Appendix 1: Questionnaire for students 66

Appendix 2: Questionnaire for students (Vietnamese version) 69

Appendix 3: The raw data of questionnaire 72

Appendix 4: The pre-test 74

Appendix 5: Follow- up interview 77

Appendix 6: Follow- up interview (Vietnamese version) 78

Appendix 7: The raw data of Follow- up interview 79

Appendix 8: The post-test 80

Appendix 9: The raw data of the pre-test and post-test 83

Appendix 10: Result analysis instrument 84

Appendix 11: lesson plans 85

List of abbreviations

B.A Bachelor of Arts

CELTA Certificate of English Language Teaching Adults

EFL English as a Foreign Language

ESP English for special purposes

TESOL Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages

VUSTA Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Association

% Percent

List of tables and figures

Table 2.1 Characteristics of stressed and unstressed syllables in English

Table 3.1 Lessons for 10 weeks

Table 4.1 Students’ general opinions on intonation

Table 4.2 Students’ opinions on teaching and learning intonation in the class in

the previous semester Table 4.3 Results of the pre-test

Table 4.4 Results of the pre-test’s section 1

Table 4.5 Results of the pre-test’s section 2

Table 4.6 Results of the pre-test’s section 3

Table 4.7 Results of the pre-test’s section 4

Table 4.8 Students’ opinions of the intonation training course

Table 4.9 Results of the post-test

Table 4.10 Results of the post-test’s section 1

Table 4.11 Results of the post-test’s section 2

Table 4.12 Results of the post-test’s section 3

Table 4.13 Results of the post-test’s section 4

Table 4.14 Difference between the pre-test and post-test

Table 4.15 Mean score of overall class intonation improvement

Table 4.16 Detailed pre-test and post-test results of intonation improvement

Figure 3.1 Action Research Cycle

Figure 4.1 Results of the pre-test

Figure 4.2 Results of the post-test

Figure 4.3 Difference between the pre-test and post-test’s mean scores

Figure 4.4 Mean scores of overall class intonation improvement

Chapter 1: Introduction

This chapter includes five parts The first part will be the background to the study and statement of the problem followed by the aims and objectives of the study in part 2 The followings are part 3 and 4, which specify the scope and the significance of the thesis respectively At last, the chapter ends with the outline of the study

1.1 Background to the study and statement of the problem

Nowadays in the trend of modernization and globalization, communicating in English has been getting more attention from learners of English with a deep hope to master this language Of the four language skills, speaking is generally considered the most important to learn And among aspects of speaking skill, pronunciation and intonation are of difficulty and importance to learners Crystal stated that the way we say something can be just as important in conveying a message as the words we use to say

it Intonation choices made by speakers carry linguistic information and the various elements of intonation are considered to perform a variety of functions In the case of non-native English speakers, how much does intonation contribute to successful communication? Roach suggested that reports of miscommunication are overestimated, and that when nonstandard English creates misunderstanding or causes offence, the root of the problem is found to be intonation (1991: 168)

In Vietnam, many English learners usually give much misunderstanding to listeners in English communication and they usually find it difficult to make themselves understood when speaking English Students at International Institute of Technology and Management also have many obstacles in English communication and one of the severe obstacles is using intonation in speaking English

International Institute of Technology and Management (IITM), which belongs to Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Association (VUSTA), trains technicians

of Information Technology (IT) Foreseeing IT students have to use a great deal of English for special purposes and communication, IITM has been trying to build up their students’ English foundation from the earliest days there through an English program The English program at IITM is a mandatory module and conducted by English Language Department (known as ELD) It can be said to be stressed in the study course It is 390 periods long including 300 periods of general English (GE) and

90 periods of English for special purposes (ESP) At IITM, English is taught in four terms with Lifelines series by Tom Hutchinson (1997) used as the course books for

GE and Infotech by Santiago and Remacha Esteras (2001) as the course book for ESP

In the first two semesters, students learn Lifelines Elementary consisting of fourteen units in 180 periods (90 periods in the first semester and another 90 periods in the second semester) In the third semester, students learn the first seven units of Lifelines Pre – Intermediate in 60 periods and fifteen units of Infortech in 45 periods Students learn the rest of seven units of Lifelines Pre – Intermediate in 60 periods and the last fifteen units of Infortech in 45 periods in the fourth semester As indicated, GE is the core point in English teaching and learning at IITM especially in the first two semesters when students study only one book – Lifeline Elementary Consequently, this would be the best time for teachers of English to help students to build up their language skills especially speaking and listening ones

The English program has been delivered by a team of 8 Vietnamese academic staffs, some of whom have participated in short training courses abroad on account of implementation of cooperation in technology training between IITM and other foreign universities in Australia, Canada and Germany In training exchange, the institute invites some foreign professors to give lectures to Vietnamese students at IITM The lectures are delivered in English by foreign professors As a result, students are required to read learning materials in English for the technology lectures and to exchange their ideas with the professors in English Besides, after each technology training, opportunities to study overseas come up with students at IITM through an exam of IT and English Qualified students with an acceptable score will get a scholarship to study in Australia and Germany It can be understandable that besides good level of ESP, students should have good speaking and listening skills for understanding and being understood in English communication to meet the requirements of scholarship as well as to build up friendly relationship with foreign teachers These things can be more easily obtained if students can express themselves well and use good intonation to show their appropriate attitude, opinions and feelings

in different cases

As mentioned in the above parts, students need to improve general English for better English communication if they hope to obtain the scholarship to study abroad and to use English in the real life to serve their targets Of many aspects of English in communication, pronunciation and intonation have been one of the top concerns to many teachers of English at IITM since their students seem not to have any concepts

of using correct sounds and appropriate intonation in specific cases in English It is

clearly shown from observation that most students, especially the first year students at IITM are shy and afraid of speaking English communication If they are forced to speak by teachers in English lessons, their speaking does not seem smooth and sounds monotonous When they speak one sentence, every word in the sentence is stressed and chopped up Moreover, they do not have a habit of using intonation patterns in speaking They use only one intonation pattern which is neither falling nor rising for every kind of sentences Some foreigners once talking to students at IITM stated that the students’ English speaking appears to be argument

The real unpleasant facts lead to the assumption that the students especially the first year students lack much intonation knowledge and practice This hinders their language skills and barrier their relationship with foreign teachers through English communication The researcher’s task here is how to help the first year students at IITM improve their intonation for better communicative quality

With interest in how to help first year students improve their intonation, the researcher determined to modify an intonation training course in the second semester for the first year students in an action research In this action research, the researcher’s understandable ambition is that she can provide basic intonation training to help the first year students to express their ideas better in speaking English and to have more pleasant conversations in communication It is also hoped that the study will be able to serve as a reference for teachers of English and useful for those who are hugely fond

of teaching pronunciation in general and intonation in particular

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

The study aims at improving the first year students’ intonation for better communicative quality To obtain the aim, two objectives are set up First objective is identifying the students’ problems and their causes The second one is giving an intonation training course to the students

1.3 Scope of the study

Due to the limit of the researcher’s time, and other conditions, this study can not cover all the aspects that the teachers and students at IITM faced in process of improving the first year students’ intonation Therefore, the writer can only mention some aspects related to the process The study limits itself to an examination into the improvement

of twenty two first year students’ intonation in class K5A at IITM after a period of ten

weeks with an intonation training course The result of the study is only generalized for the first year students at the target institute

1.4 Significance of the study

It is hoped that the investigation into the effects of modified intonation training in English lessons would help to identify the better way to improve first year students’ intonation and this would also help them overcome the difficulties of expressing their attitude, feel confident, get involved and keep their face in communication Then the study will provide first year students at IITM with incentive scheme to learn and practice intonation effectively in a short time I believe that the students at my institute will benefit greatly from this study on account of the hard efforts to investigate the matter and the willingness to change the current situation for the better With enthusiasm, I also desire to share teaching experience and materials through intonation training with other teachers at universities for perspective English teaching quality

1.5 Outline of the thesis

The study is divided into six main chapters under the headings: Introduction, Literature review, Methodology, Results and Discussion, and Recommendations and Conclusion

Chapter 1, Introduction, provides the background and reasons for the study In this

chapter, the aims and objectives, the scope, the significance, and the outline of the thesis are also presented

Chapter 2, Literature review, consists of three sections Section 1 presents intonation

in language learning Section 2 mentions intonation’s functions Section 3 gives a motivated description of intonation introducing intonation components (stress, rhythm, tone)

Chapter 3, Methodology, provides readers with the definitions, characteristics, process

of the action research It also aims to present the detailed description of the subjects and the data collection instruments, and the procedure of the study

Chapter 4, Results and discussion, is divided into six sections as follows: initial data,

discovered problems and causes, action plan, post data collected during the experimental teaching, evaluation of the action research and discussion on the results collected in the chapter

Chapter 5, Recommendations and conclusion, provides readers with implications

taken from major findings of the experiment Then there will be some recommendations, some limitations of the study and a few suggestions for further study At the end of the thesis, there will be the final conclusion

Chapter 2: Literature Review

In this chapter, the researcher will present three main sections In the first section, the working definition of intonation will be mentioned Next, the roles of intonation in language learning will be discussed Section 2 also aims to present the intonation functions In the third section, there will be a motivated description of intonation in terms of formal intonation components

2.1 Intonation in language learning

In this section, definition of intonation and roles of intonation in second language learning will be presented

2.1.1 Definition of intonation

Intonation is the melody of speech In studying intonation we study how the pitch of the voice rises and falls, and how speakers use this pitch variation to convey linguistic and pragmatic meaning It also involves the study of the rhythm of speech and the study of how the interplay of accented, stressed and unstressed syllables functions as a framework onto which the intonation patterns are attached

If we had no intonation, our speech would be – in the literal sense of the word – monotonous Either it would all remain on one pitch throughout, or every utterance would employ exactly the same stereotyped tune at all times But speakers do neither

of those things: they make the pitch of their voice rise, fall, jump and swoop, in all sorts of different ways Even the most boring speaker has access to a considerable repertoire of tone (intonation patterns) – though maybe some speakers are better than others at exploiting this Lively speakers typically make good use of the wide repertoire of possible intonation patterns that English offers

In linguistics, over the last twenty five years, the study of intonation has enjoyed a solid revival, and great strides have been made in both the theory and measurement of intonation A cogent overview of what a theory of intonation should contain is provided by‘t Hart et al (1990):

…intonation can be approached from a variety of angles, all of which are equally indispensable if one wishes ultimately to understand how speech melody functions in human communication…

Gibert, J (1993) defined intonation is a term often used interchangeably with several other terms, in particular prosody and suprasegmentals Intonation is often referred to

in everyday language as speech melody or sentence melody, terms that focus on pitch variations and modulations Cruttenden seems to equate intonation specifically with pitch movement (1986: 9) while Coulthard has identified it with prosody in general (1992: 96), which would therefore include pitch movement but also loudness, length, speed, and even voice quality Pitch, however, is the common thread running through most descriptions

Cruttenden describes pitch as the perceptual correlate of fundamental frequency, which is the continuous variation in the sounds we perceive as a result of the vibration

of the vocal cords Intonation, then, can be narrowly described as the movements or variations in pitch to which we attach familiar labels describing levels (e.g high/low) and tones (e.g falling/rising), etc Cruttenden adds another important component is the phenomenon called prominence, which is the tendency for speakers to makes some syllables more noticeable than others This is accomplished by pronouncing them louder and longer, by assigning them a different pitch, or by articulating the phonemes (especially the vowel) more distinctly (Roach, 1991: 86) Prominence is also sometimes referred to as emphasis, focus, main stress, nucleus or tonic accent

In general, intonation, which is clearly presented as interplay of stress, rhythm and tone, carries the speaker’s meaning, attitude and feeling Therefore, for better communicative quality, learners of English should at least have awareness of intonation or its roles in communication

2.1.2 Importance of intonation in second language (L2) learning

The relationship between intonation form and function has been recognized from very early times to show its importance in communication Pike (1972: 56) states the communicative import of intonation very vividly in the following words:

Actually, we often react more violently to the intonational meanings than to the lexical ones; if a man’s tone of voice belies his words, we immediately assume that the intonation more faithfully reflects his true linguistic intentions

Pike (1972: 56) comments further on the communicative importance of intonation in the following words:

If one says something insulting, but smiles in face and voice, the utterance may

be a great compliment; but if one says something very complimentary, but with

an intonation of contempt, the result is an insult

Also commenting on the communicative importance of intonation, Gimson (1980: 264) describes changes in it as ‘the most efficient means of rendering prominent for a listener, those parts of an utterance on which the speaker wishes to concentrate attention’

Pike (1972: 59) warns on the dangers inherent in such ‘definitions of meanings’ of contours, asserting that there is hardly anything like a question or statement intonation contours That writer narrates his experience further in the following words:

Specifically, it was a marked surprise to me to find that there are many different contours which can be used on questions, and that for any contour used on a question, I could usually find the same one used on a statement; likewise, for all – or nearly all – contours used on statements, I found the same ones used on questions (p 59)

O’Conner and Arnold set out to describe all intonation choices as interactively meaningful, asserting that a major function of intonation is to express ‘the speaker’s attitude to the situation in which he is placed’ (1973:2) They describe the significance of the rise-fall in relation to a number of exemplificatory sentences In (1), B is said to be ‘quietly impressed, perhaps awed’ whereas in (2), B is thought to

be expressing a ‘challenging’ or ‘censorious’ attitude:

1 A: Have you heard about Pat? B: Yes!

1 A: Why don’t you like it? B: I do

In other examples this very same tone choice is said to convey that the speaker is impressed favorably or unfavorably by something not totally expected, complacent, self- satisfied or smug

Labov and Fanshel imply that a search for systematic relationships is misguided when they suggest that the lack of clarity or discreteness in national signals is not ‘an unfortunate limitation of this channel, but an essential and important aspect of it’ (1977:46)

In fact the intonation system of English constitutes the most important and complex part of English prosody By combining different pitch levels (= unchanging pitch heights) and contours (= sequences of levels, changing pitch shapes) we express a range of intonational meanings: breaking the utterance into chunks, perhaps distinguishing between clause types (such as statement vs question), focusing on some parts of the utterance and not on others, indicating which part of our message is

background information and which is foreground, signaling our attitude to what we are saying

Some of this intonational meaning is shown in writing, through the use of punctuation, but most of it is not This is why spoken English, as spoken by native speakers, is richer in information content than written English This is also why some non-native speakers, not being attuned to English intonation and what it means, may fail to catch

a substantial part of the overall meaning of something spoken by a native speaker

We often complain, ‘It’s not what you said, it’s the way that you said it’, meaning that your words when written down appear innocuous – yet when spoken aloud they were offensive or insensitive The same words in the same grammatical constructions may have different pragmatic effects This is because they may differ in intonation, and perhaps also in other, paralinguistic, features (e.g huskiness, breathiness, whisper, nasality, special voice qualities)

In the case of non-native English speakers, intonation does contribute to successful communication Roach suggests that reports of miscommunication are overestimated due to lack of intonation in spoken English Furthermore, Jenkins, in arguing what is important and peripheral in intonation for nonnative speakers interacting with each other in EFL situations, says that mistakes of prominence or “nuclear stress” are one category of phonological error which can cause breakdowns in communication (2002: 87)

In short, good use of intonation is regarded as a useful tool in conveying the speaker’s meaning and attitude and avoiding misunderstanding in communication, which will easily lead to success of the speaker’s English speaking

2.2 Intonation functions

Native speakers of English exploit intonation patterns in many subtle ways that are not obvious at first sight If a person speaks English as a second or foreign language, these uses of intonation may have no parallel in his mother language This can lead to a breakdown in communication when a native speaker is interacting with a non native speaker In a conversational situation, many non native speakers may fail to understand some or all of the parts the native speaker’s message that is conveyed by intonation patterns The native speaker, unaware both of his own use of intonation and

of the non-native’s failure to pick up on it, wrongly assume that the message has been

fully understood Later, it becomes clear that the message has not been fully understood, and neither participant in the conversation knows why

It may well be the case that English makes more elaborate use of intonation to signal meaning than do most other languages This is a further reason why it should not be neglected by learners and teachers of English as a foreign language To improve intonation, learners may first find out the functions on intonation in English language

Following Roach (1991) and Thompson (1995), we can categorize these functions into four groups

• Linguistic form-based: With grammatical function, intonation helps identify grammatical structure in speech, rather as punctuation does in writing Intonation is used to mark the beginning and end of grammatical units such

as clause and sentence (the democratize function) We do this by tonality

We also use intonation to distinguish clause types, such as questions, statement and to disambiguate various grammatically ambiguous structures (the syntactic function) We do this mainly by tone

• Attitudinal or Interpersonal function The most obvious role of intonation is

to express our attitudes and emotions and to show shock or surprise, pleasure

or anger, interest or boredom, seriousness or sarcasm, and many others We

do this by tone

• Accentual (also called focusing or informational) function Intonation helps

to show what information in an utterance is new and what is already known

We use it to bring some parts of the message into focus, and leave other parts out of focus; to emphasize or highlight some parts and not others We

do this by tonicity and by the placement of other accents This is one of the most important functions of English intonation, and perhaps the function most readily taught in the EFL classroom We combine accentuation with the choice of tone to present some longer stretches of the message as constituting the foreground of the picture we paint, while leaving other stretches as background

• Conversation management-related function Intonation helps to show ability

of conversation management of the speaker He can ask someone to repeat something, or to show strong disagreement or agreement in conversation

Often two or more of these categories are combined into a single focus, e.g attitudinal and grammatical (“showing interest and surprise in reply questions”) or accentual, conversation management and interpersonal (“correcting politely”)

Being well aware of functions of intonation, the learner may try to use it in communication to effectively address their ideas and meanings to listeners

2.3 Motivated description of Intonation

Intonation proposes a simple and flexible system with a small and finite number of choices, among which are the formal components Brazil identifies He stated intonation helps speakers show how each of their utterances is related to other utterances and to the discourse as a whole Moreover, all intonation choices are tied to the context in which they occur In terms of suprasegmental aspects, stress, rhythm, and tone create the ‘music’ of a language and are as important as the sounds of the language Stress, rhythm and tone help tell the listener what is important in the sentence and how the speaker feels about it The following section will present detailed description of stress, rhythm and tone known as formal components of intonation

2.3.1 Stress

In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables There are word stress and sentence stress

• Word stress in English

To understand word stress, it helps to understand syllables Every word is made from syllables Each word has one, two, three or more syllables In English, a syllable has

as its center as a vowel, which can be preceded and/or followed by consonants As normal, one syllable words have word stress with the only syllable of the word In two syllable words, there is only one stressed syllable which should sound longer and louder than the others Gilbert (1993) stated that in every word with two syllables, one vowel will be stressed (long and clear) The other vowel is usually schwa In words with three or more syllables, one vowel will get the main stress, some vowels may get

a little stress and some vowels may be reduced (schwa)

In English, the length of the stressed syllable is very important It means stressed syllables are almost always longer than unstressed syllables Stressed syllables are also

often pronounced on a higher pitch (a higher note) than unstressed syllables The chart below is made to help students understand how stressed syllables differ from unstressed ones in the three features: loudness, length and pitch and to introduce the characteristics of stressed and unstressed syllables in English

Stressed syllables loud long full high

Unstressed syllables quiet short reduced low

Table 2.1: Characteristics of stressed and unstressed syllables in English

Each feature is indispensable in the production of word rhythm in English Stressed syllables are not only louder but also longer and higher-pitched than unstressed syllables Also vowels in unstressed syllables are reduced so as to make the syllables shorter Students need to know these characteristics to be able to produce stress correctly Besides, students can use this chart to examine which characteristic(s) they

do not produce in saying English words with more than one syllable It makes students aware of these characteristics as well as identifying their problems in the production of word stress

• Sentence stress in English

Sentence stress is known as prominence or emphasis in suprasegmental aspects Prominence refers to the highlighted element within a given intonation unit Prominence usually falls on the stressed syllable of the most important word in the intonation unit Prominence most often falls on verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs

Prominence and grammatical category

Prominence typically falls on content words and not on function words Content words can be nouns, main verbs, adjectives, possessive pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, interrogatives, negative contractions, adverbs and adverbial particles Function words can be articles, auxiliary verbs, personal pronouns, possessive adjectives demonstrative adjectives, prepositions, conjunctions Take the below sentence as an example

My cat eats fish and she likes to hunt mice in the garden

The underlined words are emphasized for being the content words in the sentence

Prominence typically signals new information, information the speaker wishes to emphasize, and parallel, contrasting elements within an utterance In English, changing which word is stressed can change the meaning of a word and give different information of the same sentence In this case, the content word is called the focus word

(a) It’s a beautiful girl

(b) It’s a beautiful girl

In (a), the underlined word ‘beautiful’ is stressed so a suitable response to this sentence can be ‘yes, very beautiful’ or ‘no, ugly’ In (b), the stressed word is ‘girl’ so

a suitable response can be ‘no, woman’ or ‘no, lady’

In general, helping learners of English to imitate and have awareness of stress (stressed, unstressed syllables, prominence and focus) is effective to make them obtain natural accent and have good rhythm mentioned in the next section

Focus and its function

In the field of stress, focus is also considered as one component In linguistics, focus is

a concept in linguistic theory that deals with how information in one phrase relates to information that has come before Focus has been analyzed in a variety of ways by linguists Historically, there have been two main approaches to focus – the generative

approach and the functional approach In the generative approach, the term focus is

used to refer to words or expressions that are either prosodically or syntactically prominent, generally because they introduce “new” information In the functional

approach, the term focus is used to refer to words or expressions that establish

coherence in the text or conversation

Focus directly affects the semantics, or meaning, of a sentence Different ways of pronouncing the sentence affects the meaning, or, what the speaker intends to convey Focus distinguishes one interpretation of a sentence from other interpretations of the same sentence that do not differ in word order, but may differ in the way in which the words are taken to relate to each other To see the effects of focus on meaning, consider the following examples:

(1) John only introduced Bill to SUE

In (1), accent is placed on Sue There are two readings of (1) - broad focus shown in (2) and narrow focus shown in (3) as follows:

(2) John only [introduced Bill to SUE]

(3) John only introduced Bill to [SUE]

The meaning of (2) can be summarized as the only thing John did is introducing Bill

to Sue The meaning of (3) can be summarized as the only person to whom John introduced Bill is Sue

In both (2) and (3), focus is associated with the focus sensitive expression only This is

known as association with focus The class of focus sensitive expressions in which

focus can be associated with includes exclusives (only, just) non-scalar additives (merely, too) scalar additives (also, even), particularizes (in particular, for example),

intensifiers, quantificational adverbs, quantificational determiners, sentential connectives, emotives, counterfactuals, superlatives, negation and generics

2.3.2 Rhythm

As a matter of fact, English speakers sometimes find it difficult to speak or read one sentence with only one breath It seems to be more difficult if they have to face up with compound and complex sentences The answer is they need some interval in speaking the sentence But where to pause and how to pause in the sentence should be

a good question When we speak English, we do not pause between every word Words are pronounced in phrases that express a thought For example, in the sentence

I left in the morning

Most speakers will pronounce ‘I left’ as one ‘thought group’ and ‘in the morning’ as the other

Lane, L (1993) defined that rhythm is created by the combination of stress, length and timing, and the grouping of words together in phrases or sentences In Dauer’s

Accurate English (1993), rhythm is stated:

When we speak naturally, words are parts of phrases and longer sentences What

we hear is a sequence of syllables in time, like notes in music The time relationships among syllables make up the rhythm of language (p 83)

In his opinion, rhythm, actually, is timing patterns among syllables However, the timing patterns are not the same in all languages There are, particularly, two opposite

types of rhythm in languages: stress-timed and syllable-timed According to Mackay (1985), stress-timed rhythm is determined by stressed syllables, which occur at regular intervals of time, with an uneven and changing number of unstressed syllables between them; syllable-timed rhythm is based on the total number of syllables since each syllable takes approximately the same amount of time English, with an alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables, is obviously stress-timed We can use the following illustration to show the stress timed rhythm in English

English: Stress-timed Rhythm

Pronunciation is important

● ●

(Modified from Prator and Robinett’s fourth edition of Manual of American English

Pronunciation, 1985) In the above illustration, the English rhythm is composed of

adults (stressed syllables) and children (unstressed syllables), which suggests that English has different syllable length and weight

• Word Rhythm in English

English words can be composed of one or more syllables In all words of two or more syllables, one syllable (stressed syllable) is stronger than the others (unstressed syllables) in the same word A stressed syllable is louder, longer, clearer, and higher pitched than unstressed syllables Thus, the combination of stressed and unstressed syllables helps to create the word rhythm in English, which displays an alternate change in strength, length, and pitch of syllables

Common Problems in Word Rhythm

Not knowing the importance of syllable stress in English, many learners of English tend to ignore stress patterns of English words They randomly put stress in any one of the syllables in a word, and sometimes such a stress mistake can cause its meaning changed For example, a student once said, “The movie I saw yesterday was TERrific.” In the word “terrific,” he put the stress on the first syllable, rather than the second one; therefore, what we heard was not “terRIfic” but “TERrified,” for we listeners usually get the meaning of a word based on its stress pattern Another common problem that learners have with English word rhythm is that they tend to give each syllable almost the same strength, length, and pitch They seem not to know how

to weaken and reduce unstressed syllables A very good example is the word

“CHOcolate.” Many learners can say “CHO CO LATE”

• Sentence Rhythm in English

Just as most words have stressed and unstressed syllables, and so do sentences Sentence rhythm, like word rhythm, is created by an alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables For example:

Pronunciation He’s at the station

In the above example, the rhythm of the sentence is exactly the same as the rhythm of the word (the second and fourth syllables are the stress) From this point of view, it seems that students equipped with the ability of producing good word rhythm should

be able to get good sentence rhythm This may not be true Why? When students learn

to speak English sentences, in particular longer sentences, they immediately face another problem besides the problems with word rhythm To have good sentence rhythm, they not only need to make a clear difference between stressed and unstressed syllables, but should also know how to group syllables together into larger units (Dauer, 1993, p.95)

Common Problems in Sentence Rhythm

The two important features of sentence rhythm, stress and syllables grouping, causes much difficulty to many learners of English In Vietnam, when speaking English sentences, many learners stress almost every word, very much like what they do in Vietnamese Often times, their speech is full of choppy words, and each word seems to have almost the same weight and length Grant (1993) reminds learners that “if you have a tendency to stress every word and syllable equally, you might sound abrupt, angry, adamant, or impatient without intending to” (p 98) On the other hand, if you fail to show which words are stressed or unstressed, the listener will probably have difficulty understanding the meaning of the sentence due to the lack of clear stressed words

Without proper stress in a sentence, the meaning is impaired As Browne and Huckin (1987) has pointed out, “It is precisely such overuse and misuse of stress that produces the foreign-sounding speech rhythms that make speech comprehension difficult” (p.54)

Another common problem with sentence rhythm is that they tend to pronounce words separately, and that they randomly pause wherever they want, especially when they are

asked to read aloud a longer sentence where there is very few punctuation to help them out Many of them simply do not have the idea that grouping syllables (thought group) appropriately makes listeners easier to catch a small unit of message in ongoing speech Again, this tendency may be caused by their mother tongue, Vietnamese, which does not need linking, or caused by written words, which are separated in print Failure to do appropriate pausing and linking in English makes the speech sounds choppy and unclear

In short, finding and practice with stressed syllables and thought groups to pause and link appropriately in a sentence will help learners achieve natural voice in communication and furthermore express their meanings effectively and finally limit their mother tongue language intonation’ influence in speaking for better communicative quality

2.3.3 Tone (Intonation patterns)

Tone is the music of the language, the patterns of high and low notes which occur in speech Intonation or tone shows the emotional state and attitude of the speaker Although certain intonation patterns are commonly used with particular sentence types, any of these can be changed to show the speaker’s feeling or attitude

In linguistics, tone is the variation of pitch when speaking Tone and stress are two main elements of linguistic prosody Intonation patterns are perhaps the most important

of a good accent Often we hear someone speaking with perfect grammar, and perfect formation of the sounds of English but with a little something that gives them away as not being a native speaker Intonation – the rise and fall of pitch in our voices – plays a crucial role in how we express meaning

Lane, L (1993) suggested that the tone you use will also affect your listener’s attitude toward you The linguist Gumperz reported a well known study about intonation He studied some women from India who were working in a British cafeteria The cafeteria customers complained that the Indian women were rude to them, and the Indian workers complained that the British customers were discriminating against them Gumperz discovered that the Indian women were using their native Hindi intonation patterns in English When the Indian asked the customers if they wanted, for example, gravy on their potatoes, they used a falling intonation, which is normal in Hindi questions

Gravy?

To the British, this question sounded very rude, as if the workers did not care whether the customers wanted gravy or not In English, the correct intonation in this situation would be a rising intonation

You are going (Statement)

You are going? (Question)

English has a number of intonation patterns which add conventionalized meanings to the utterance: question, statement, surprise, disbelief, sarcasm, teasing

A unit of speech bounded by pauses has movement, of music and rhythm, associated with the pitch of voice This certain pattern of voice movement is called tone A tone is

a certain pattern, not an arbitrary one, because it is meaningful in discourse By means

of tones, speakers signal whether to refer, proclaim, agree, disagree, question or hesitate, or indicate completion and continuation of turn-taking, in speech

In general, there are four types of tone (intonation) like fall tone, low-rise tone, rise tone and fall-rise tone

high-Fall (a falling tone)

A falling tone is by far the most common used tone of all It signals a sense of finality, completion, belief in the content of the utterance, and so on A speaker, by choosing a falling tone, also indicates to the addressee that that is all he has to say, and offers a chance (turn-taking) to the addressee to comment on, agree or disagree with, or add to his utterance These sentences are example The falling tone is with capitalized letters This sentence shows consequences of his unacceptable behavior

I’ll re port you to the HEAD master

I’ve spoken with the CLEA ner

Questions that begin with wh-questions are generally pronounced with a falling tone:

Where is the PEN cil?

Imperative statements have a falling tone

Go and see a DOC tor

Requests or orders have a falling tone too

Please sit DOWN

Exclamations:

Watch OUT!

Yes/No questions and tag questions seeking or expecting confirmation

You like it, DON’T you? b) YES

Here it is used when it is sure that the answer is yes

Have you MET him? b) YES

Low Rise (A Rising Tone)

This tone is used in genuine Yes/No questions where the speaker is sure that he does not know the answer, and that the addressee knows the answer Such Yes/No questions are uttered with a rising tone For instance, consider the following question uttered with a rising tone, the answer of which could be any of the three options:

Isn’t he NICE?

i) Yes ii) No iii) I don’t know

Compare the above example with the following example, which is uttered with a falling tone, and which can only have one appropriate answer in the context:

Isn’t he NICE

YES

Other examples which are uttered with a rising tone are:

Do you want some COF fee?

Do you take CREAM in your coffee?

High Rise (A Rising Tone)

If the tonic stress is uttered with extra pitch height, as in the following intonation units,

we may think that the speaker is asking for a repetition or clarification, or indicating disbelief Take the following sentences as examples:

• I’m taking up TAxidermy this autumn b) Taking up WHAT? (clarification)

• She passed her DRIving test b) She PASSED? (disbelief)

Fall Rise

Fall-rise signals dependency, continuity, and non-finality It generally occurs in sentence non-final intonation units Consider the followings in which the former of the intonation units are uttered with a fall-rise tone (the slash indicates a pause):

Private enter PRISE / is always EF ficient

A quick tour of the CI ty / would be NICE

Pre Sum ably / he thinks he CAN

Usually / he comes on SUN day

The normal intonation contours for questions in English use:

Final rising pitch for a Yes/No question

Are you coming today?

Final falling pitch for a Wh-question

When are you coming? Where are you going?

Using a different pattern typically adds something extra to the question E.g., falling intonation on a Yes/No question can be interpreted as abruptness Rising intonation on

a Wh-question can imply surprise or that you didn’t hear the answer the first time and asked to have it repeated So tone choice depends on the speaker’s different purposes

2.4 Summary of the chapter 2

This chapter has presented the theoretical background relevant to definitions of intonation and the importance of intonation in L2 learning It also introduced intonation functions and description of intonation in order to allow learners to cope more easily real discourse with a suitable intonation This chapter has also discussed three formal components of intonation which are necessarily concerned by leaners to improve their intonation with the purpose of showing their feelings, attitudes or meanings in English communication

Chapter 3: Methodology

This chapter consists of six main sections First, the research questions will be stated Second, there will be the different author’s definitions, some characteristics and process of an action research model Third, there will be introduction of action research procedures applied in the study The description of the data collection instruments will be presented in section four In section five, the description of the subjects who took part in the experiment as participants will be given The summary of the chapter will be addressed in the last section

3.1 Research Questions

This action research aims at answering the following questions:

• What intonation problems do the first year students at IITM have and the causes of the problems?

• Does the intonation training course improve intonation for the first year students at IITM?

3.2 Description of the participants

The subjects of this study are 22 students of class K5A at International Institute of Technology and Management (IITM) and a native English speaking teacher and a Vietnamese teacher

3.2.1 Teacher participants

Two teachers took part in this study

The first teacher is an English woman teacher invited to evaluate the students’ stress, rhythm and tone in the pre-test and post-test She has been working as a teacher of English in Language Link Vietnam, Dai Co Viet office for over 5 years She holds a CELTA certificate which certifies a native English speaking teacher with sufficient teaching methodology to teach adults English globally Her big care is helping Vietnamese students to improve their pronunciation, especially intonation to increase communicative quality With her marking, the results of students drawn from the pre-test and post-test are more objective and reliable

The second teacher is the researcher herself who taught the selected class of 22 students in 15 weeks She is qualified to teaching career with a B.A in English and she has been teaching English for nearly eight years and working as an English teacher at

IITM for over five years She is currently taking a master course in TESOL at Hanoi University

3.2.2 Student participants

22 non-English major first year students including 7 male students and 15 female ones

in class K5A at IITM took part in the study (in the pre-test, post-test, questionnaire and follow-up interview) The students were selected for the class in the treatment based on two criteria: first of all, they voluntarily registered the treatment and took part in the questionnaire with acceptable answers to the questionnaire The researcher divided them into three groups on the basis of their English scores of the pre-test result (total score = 79 points) Group 1 called weak group includes the student getting 10-30 points out of 79 points Group 2 called average group consists of the students obtaining between 31 and 46 out of 79 points Group 3 called quite good group comprises the students achieving 47-53 out of 79 points

Their age ranges from 18 to 20 years old They come from many provinces in Vietnam All of the students have learnt English for seven years or more before entering the institute Besides, they learnt 90 periods of English in the previous semester In this semester, they also have 90 periods of English at IITM

3.3 Research methodology: An action research

Some research methods are offered to be used in the field of applied linguistics such as experimental method, case study In this thesis, action research was selected as the research methodology for its outstanding advantages presented after definitions of action research

3.3.1 Definitions of action research

There are many definitions of action research that have been proposed over the last forty years, some of them can be summarized as follow “Action research is a small scale intervention in the functioning of the real world and a close examination of the effects of such intervention” (Burn, 1990 p30, cited in Cohen and Manion 1994:186) Kemmis and McTaggart (1988:162) defined action research as a form of self reflective enquiry undertaken by participants who are simultaneously members of the context in which the researcher takes place in order to improve the rationality and justice of their own practices

McNiff and Whitehead’s claim (2005:1) about action research has motivated and supported the idea

Action research is a common-sense approach to personal and professional development that enables practitioners everywhere to investigate and evaluate their work, and to create their own theories of practice

In addition, Whitehead (1989) and McNiff (1993) assert that action research constitutes a look at the questions in the class of things which disturb us and tries to find out the solution The teacher’s position is not only as teacher but also as researcher (Stenhouse, 1983) The teacher can develop professional competence as well as improve students’ learning through action research (McNiff, 2003)

The major aim of the action research is to identify ‘problematic’ situation or issues that participants consider worth investigating and to undertake practical interventions

in order to bring about informed changes in practice

3.3.2 Justification

The main focus of this study was on whether the intonation training course improved learners’ intonation and communicative quality I wanted to know the problems of intonation students have and how to help them improve their intonation I chose action research as the methodology in this study with the following reasons

First, an action research enables teachers to identify problems within a specific situation (Nunan, 1993) in their daily work

Second, it helps gather information about the ways the teachers’ particular educational setting operates (Mills, 2001) in order to analyze and to make sufficient decision on the ways future practices would be

Third, the action research allows the teachers to understand classroom teaching and learning (Kemmis and McTaggart, 1988; Allwright and Bailey, 1991; Richard and Lockhard, 1994) and subsequently improve how they teach, and how well their students study (Mills, 2000 cited in Creswell, 2002, p.603) and then bring about the change in practice

Many researchers developed various action research models In this study, I selected

Mc Bride and Sckotak’s model (1989) on account of its efficiency and dynamic The model is presented in the next section

3.3.3 Process of action research

In discussion of the processes of action research, Burns (1999; cited in McNiff, 1988) stressed that the model of action research should be flexible and different combinations of researchers in different situations will need to make their own interpretations of what are appropriate processes for circumstances of the research

Burn (1999:35) in his Australian studies, considered the action research process as a sequence of cycles which consists of eleven phrases: Exploring; identifying; planning; collecting data; analyzing/reflecting; hypothesizing; intervening; observing; reporting; writing and presenting However, in the scope of my thesis and according to the aims

of my study, Mc Bride and Sckotak’s action research model is employed According to McBride and Sckotak, an action research has a number of steps or phrases which progress as spiraling and evolving process Procedures of Mc Bride and Sckotak’s action research will be demonstrated in the following figure adapted from Somekh in

Mc Bride and Sckotak (1989)

Figure 3.1: Action Research Cycle (Somekh in Mc Bride and Sckotak, 1989)

The understandable argument for employing this model for the research is its steps are clear and the procedure is easier to follow than other procedures mentioned by different researchers (e.g Nunan, 1993; Halliday, 1994; Burn, 1999)

The detailed information about what was done in each of the four steps of the model is described in the further sections

3.4 Action research process applied in the study

Based on the seven stages in Somekh in McBride and Sckotak’s original model, the steps adopted and conducted by the researcher in the action research are presented as follows

3.4.1 Identifying a problem (week 1 - 2)

The researcher started to teach class K5A English in the second semester of the academic year 2008-2009 From teaching experience, observation and discussion with the students and the former teacher teaching them in the first semester, the researcher found and assumed that one of the students’ biggest problems is lack of intonation use

in speaking English (This was discussed in details in the statement of the problem)

3.4.2 Collecting data (week 3)

A questionnaire for students was employed to affirm the students’ problems (see section 3.5.1) and discover the causes of the problem and make an action plan to help improve students’ intonation

A pre-test on intonation in terms of stress, rhythm and tones was used to find out proof

to the assumptions made in section 1.1 and report the students’ problems of intonation

in details

3.4.3 Analyzing data (week 4)

The information collected from the questionnaire, the pre-test was analyzed to form a hypothesis (See section 4.2)

3.4.4 Planning action (week 5)

Based on the literature review and results collected from the questionnaire and test, the solution taken in the study was to modify an intonation training course to improve the students’ intonation More details will be described in section 4.3

pre-3.4.5 Implementing the action plan (week 6 – 15)

The action plan was implemented for 10 weeks with the participation of the researcher – teacher and 22 students in class K5A at IITM The teacher taught as schedule in the second semester, the academic year 2008-2009 (2 lessons a week, 3 periods each lesson) Each period lasted 45 minutes In each lesson, the teacher spared 30 minutes

to teach intonation

- Choosing the intonation materials: The researcher used unit 4 in Chapter 1 and

Chapter 3 ‘intonation’ in the book ‘Focus on pronunciation’ and four units (from unit 10 to unit 13) in ‘Clear speech’ to teach in the treatment ‘Focus on pronunciation’ by Linda Lane and ‘Clear speech’ by Judy B Gibert have been considered to be effective for intonation knowledge and practice by giving a great deal of principles and practice on pronunciation especially intonation The books give students the tools, tips, and techniques to help them speak English clearly and accurately The variety of activities and accessible style makes learning fun Clear explanations and diagrams make the text easy to use In the context of the class, the students had just finished the first seven units of the course book Lifelines elementary, the researcher chose easy and simple parts in the units to teach as well as made some changes of examples to make sure that the intonation materials were suitable for the students’ level of proficiency The list of lessons for ten weeks is presented in Table 3.1 below

Week Lesson

1 Lesson 1: Overview of intonation with three main aspects (stress, rhythm and tone)

Lesson 2: Introduction of stress: word stress and sentence stress

2 Lesson 3: Word stress patterns (introduction of 3 rules of word stress)

Lesson 4: Word stress patterns (introduction of more 4 rules of word stress) with practice

3 Lesson 5: Introduction of sentence stress (emphasis patterns)

Lesson 6: Basic sentence stress pattern: Content words

4 Lesson 7: Basic sentence stress pattern: Structure words

Lesson 8: Introduction of focus: pitch pattern used for it

5 Lesson 9: Focus of structure words (and, or, can not, auxiliaries)

Lesson 10: Focus of structure words (prepositions, pronouns, checking information).

6 Lesson 11: Introduction of rhythm: thought groups (number, a series of items)

Lesson 12: Thought groups to express different meanings

7 Lesson 13: Introduction of tone and different kinds of sentences

Lesson 14: Falling tone

8 Lesson 15: Rising tone

Lesson 16: Drop – rise tone

9 Lesson 17: Mixed tone

Lesson 18: Practice conversations of mixed intonation: stress, rhythm, tone (Some situation are given)

10 Lesson 19: Revision The follow-up interview is given

Lesson 20: The post-test is carried out

Table 3.1: Lessons for 10 weeks

- Handing out the materials: The materials with rules and exercises of intonation

were distributed to the students in each lesson

- Following up activities: In order to encourage the students and draw their

attention to intonation, the researcher decided to give some types of activities such as pre-teaching intonation and guessing activities in each lesson

The two following activities are described as following up activities in a sample lesson plan (See Appendix 11, lesson plan 3)

Activity 1: To begin the lesson, the teacher gave an activity of connecting words with

group work The purpose of the activity was to draw the students’ attention to two syllable words

The teacher divided the class into groups of 5 or 6 students and gave instructions to the activity (See Appendix 11) and set the time for the activity Next, the members of each group worked together to do the activity as instructed Finally, the teacher collected the result of each group and gave the feedback

Activity 4: The purpose of the activity was to ask the students to give prediction which

is an essential element for brainstorming This activity made the students ‘think ahead’, ‘to hypothesize’ or ‘to predict’ what the rule of word stress is

First, the students were paired and given some words on the board Then the teacher gave the instruction to the activity (See Appendix 11) After that each two pairs were grouped together to compare what they had done Finally, teacher gave the feedback

The other activities in this lesson were continued based on the time allocated and instructions given

3.4.6 Collecting post-data (week 15)

A post-test on intonation and a follow-up interview were employed to find out if the intonation training course helped to improve the students’ intonation The collected data was analyzed in the last week

3.4.7 Analyzing post data (week 16)

The action research was evaluated based on the results drawn from the post-test and the follow-up interview known as post data From the findings of the action research evaluation, some recommendation and suggestions for further research were given

3.5 Description of the data collection instruments

With the purpose to collect data the researcher used a combination of three instruments: Questionnaire, Follow-up interview and Tests to guarantee the objectiveness of the data According to Wajnryb (1992) and Byrne (1987), this multi-method approach is to ensure a clearer insight into different levels of analysis and that the result of one method can help to develop or inform other methods Description of each of these is presented in the following sections

3.5.1 Questionnaire for students

3.5.1.1 Justification for the use of questionnaire

Questionnaire was selected as a data collection instrument since it helps to obtain information about different kinds of issues that is relatively easy to analyze (Brown, 1994; Wallace, 1998; and Richards, 2001) Moreover, questionnaire can enable a teacher to collect a large amount of information relatively quickly in a short time at a very low cost Most importantly, questionnaire gives the student-informant an opportunity to express their opinions and needs without fear either to be embarrassed

or to speak their mind Because the confidentiality is ensured by not mentioning student’s names, the student-informant is more likely to give impartial answers

A questionnaire consisting of 10 questions divided into 2 parts was designed to discover causes of the students’ problems The questionnaire was written in both English and Vietnamese to ensure that the students could understand the questions correctly and give relevant answers

3.5.1.2 Detailed description for the use of questionnaire

In order to obtain valid information, the questionnaire consists of 10 questions, aiming

to gather information about the causes of the students’ problems and investigate the real teaching and learning intonation of the class in the first semester

There are two parts in the questionnaire Part 1 is designed to collect the students’ general opinions on intonation and part 2 aims at exploring the fact of teaching and learning intonation in the students’ class in the previous semester as another teacher of English in ELD taught them English in the semester

There are six questions in part 1 (from question 1 to question 6) Question 1 asks the students’ opinions about what they feel about the importance of intonation in speaking English Question 2 asks if the students have poor intonation in speaking English

Question 3 explores the causes of students’ poor intonation in their own opinion Question 4 aims at asking students their opinions on the factors influencing their intonation’s improvement Question 5 is designed to clarify students’ opinions on what

is useful for them to improve intonation Exploring students’ wants to improve intonation is the aim of question 6

Four questions from question 7 to question 10 are included in part 2 of the questionnaire Question 7 asks the students about the frequency of their teacher intonation teaching in the class Question 8 investigates how often their teacher helped them to correct their intonation in speaking Question 9 is used to discover how often their teacher asked the students to practice intonation in the class Question 10 asked about the students’ interest in the section of intonation in their textbook

This questionnaire was distributed to 22 students in class K5A in week 3 just after the first two weeks the teacher - researcher taught the class in the second semester and found the problems of the students in class The questionnaire was completed by the students and handed in the researcher in the same week The results of the questionnaire are presented in Appendix 3 and in 4.1.1 The analyses of the raw data findings were done through the SPSS program

3.5.2 Follow-up interview

3.5.2.1 Justification for the use of follow-up interview

Besides questionnaires, a follow up interview was conducted and focused on the students’ general opinions of the intonation training after the treatment was given The researcher selected follow-up interview as a data collection instrument as it is relatively easy to analyze More importantly, follow-up interview gives the students an opportunity to express their own opinions or reasons for their answers A follow-up interview including 4 questions to collect the students’ general opinions of the intonation training course was designed The follow-up interview was carried out in both Vietnamese and English

3.5.2.2 Detailed description for the use of follow-up interview

The follow-up interview was designed with the purpose to collect general opinions and feelings of the subjects about the intonation training course after having taken part in the 2.5 month treatment

The follow-up interview consists of 4 questions, aiming at gather information about the students’ interest, feelings and needs after the treatment

Question 1 asks the students’ opinions whether they like the intonation training or not and the students have to give the reason for their answer Question 2 discovers which aspect of intonation (stress, rhythm and tone) the students feel to get most progress Question 3 aims at asking students if their self-confidence in English speaking increases after the treatment Question 4 explores the students’ further needs for stress, rhythm or tone

22 students in class K5A participated in the interview The interview took place in the tenth week of the treatment The teacher-researcher interviewed each student in the class to get his or her answers and also collect more information when the students provided reasons for their answers The researcher took note of the answers and presented the results of the follow-up interview in Appendix 7 and in 4.4.1 The next section will be about the description of tests as a data collection instrument

3.5.3 Tests

Tests play an important role in research and sometimes they can be used as the main data collection instrument

3.5.3.1 Justification for the use of tests

In this study, tests were chosen as one of the instruments for collecting data because they enable a teacher to evaluate one item with high objectiveness In addition, tests commonly are used for obtaining the data in educational research studies If they can

be done, it greatly reduces the effort required to prepare for data collection

Two tests (the pre-test and post-test) were designed to test students’ intonation in terms of stress, rhythm and tone Each test is divided into four parts and is written in English How to do the tests should be carefully explained by the researcher before she distributes them to the students

3.5.3.2 Detailed description for the use of tests

3.5.3.2.1 The pre-test

The pre-test was designed to check the students’ problems of intonation in terms of stress, rhythm and tone It was constructed with four parts The items in the test were taken from the book ‘Clear speech’ by Judy B.Gilbert