VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ LOAN USING ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION WEBSITES TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ PRONUNCIATION: AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT AT AN ENGLISH CENTER IN HANOI Sử dụng trang web dạy phát âm tiếng Anh để cải thiện khả năng phát âm của học sinh: nghiên cứu hành động tại một trung tâm Anh ngữ ở Hà Nội M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 8140231.01 Hanoi, 2018 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ LOAN USING ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION WEBSITES TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ PRONUNCIATION: AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT AT AN ENGLISH CENTER IN HANOI Sử dụng trang web dạy phát âm tiếng Anh để cải thiện khả năng phát âm của học sinh: nghiên cứu hành động tại một trung tâm Anh ngữ ở Hà Nội M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 8140231.01 Supervisor : Huỳnh Anh Tuấn, PhD Hanoi, 2018 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research has been accomplished with the support and encouragement of many people. Hence, I hereby would like to express my appreciation to all of them. In the first place, I would like to express my deepest thanks to my supervisor, Huỳnh Anh Tuấn, PhD for his valuable assistance and guidance throughout my research. Also, I am greatly indebted to all professors and staffs of the Faculty of Post- Graduate Studies for their meaningful lessons and precious support thanks to which I was able to overcome obstacles during the time my research was carried out. Besides, I would like to give my whole-hearted thanks to the manager and students in class Movers 6 in the center for their enthusiastic participation in my research. Without their help, I would not have been able to complete this paper. Last but not least, I owe a great debt of gratitude to my beloved family whose support and encouragement have always been a great deal of motivation that has helped me to overcome all problems to complete my thesis . Hanoi, Nguyễn Thị Loan i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT This study investigated the potential role of pronunciation websites as a means to improve students‘ competence in pronunciation. The research aimed to figure out whether the use of pronunciation instruction websites could help improve students‘ pronunciation and to identify students‘ attitude towards using these websites as well as the selected activities. In order to accomplish these purposes, 15 students of class Movers 6 at an English center in Hanoi were selected to participate in the study. All the students came from the same linguistic background and they shared the same teacher and teaching contents. Three data collection instruments were employed, namely pre-test/post-tests, questionnaire and class observation. After 3 months, the post-test and a questionnaire were administered. The analysis of the data collected revealed that the students made progress in pronunciation by using pronunciation websites in teaching and learning pronunciation. Results from the questionnaires and observation also reflected a completely positive attitude of students towards the use of these websites, and students claimed that the selected activities helped them have more fun and motivation in learning pronunciation. On this basis, useful implications for teachers‘ preparation, classroom practices and future research were proposed. ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . iii LIST OF FIGURES, TABLES AND CHARTS . Statement of the problem and rationale of the study . Aims and objectives of the study . Scope of the study . Significance of the study. Organizations of the study . Definition of pronunciation . The importance of pronunciation . Pronunciation in language teaching . Pronunciation as an aspect of communicative competence . Approaches to teaching pronunciation . Intuitive- imitative approach . Analytic- linguistic approach . Bottom-up approach . Top-down approach . Elements of pronunciation teaching . Consonant and vowel sounds . Ideas on pronunciation teaching and learning . 11 iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Theoretical background of technology and websites application in language teaching . Advantages and disadvantages of using pronunciation websites in pronunciation teaching and learning . Summary of previous studies and the gap to carry the current research . The context of the study. Definition of action research . Types of action research . Individual teacher research . Collaborative action research model . The school wide action research . Action research model . The reasons of choosing action research for this study . A framework for change and improvement . A framework for a participative small scale study that can be evaluated . The potential pitfalls of doing action research . The participants of the study. Data collection instruments . Pre-test and post-test . The research stages . 31 PRE-INTERVENTION STAGE . Identifying the problem . 32 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Matching the symbols and the words (Appendix 5- Worksheet 1) . Minimal pair bingo (Appendix 5- Worksheet 3) . The tongue twisters game . Odd one out (Appendix 5- Worksheet 4) . 36 POST-INTERVENTION STAGE . RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS. The improvement of students‘ pronunciation by using the pronunciation instruction websites in teaching and learning pronunciation . Scores of pre-test and post-test . Pre-test and post-test analysis . The students‘ attitude towards the use of pronunciation instruction websites for improving pronunciation . The students‘ feelings about the activities applied to improve their pronunciation through pronunciation instruction using websites . Major findings of the research . Error! Bookmark not defined. Limitations of the study . Suggestions for further study . I v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF FIGURES, TABLES AND CHARTS Figure 1. Simple action research model . Detailed action research model . 24 Table 1: Scores of pre-test and post-test . 39 Chart 1: Overall mean score of students‘ pre-test and post-test . 40 Table 2: The percentage of students‘ scores . 41 Chart 2: Scores of students‘ pre-test and post-test . 41 Table 3: The results of students‘ questionnaire answers. 44 Table 4: Students‘ evaluation of class activities . 45 Table 5: Students‘ answer about their favourite activity used in the lessons . 46 vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Statement of the problem and rationale of the study The last few decades have seen phenomenal growth in the demand for English. It is now thought to be one of the crucial features for people‘s success in not only academic life but also in people‘s casual life. In Vietnam, English has become increasingly important not only as a mean of global communication but also as bridge to mankind‘s knowledge. Most of Vietnamese try to master English in order to communicate, gain knowledge and get better chances for their life. Vietnamese children learn English quite early because their parents believe that the younger they are, the better they learn English. To meet the demand of society, there are a lot of English centers for children opened in Hanoi- the capital of Vietnam. English teachers always try to apply new methods and materials to help their students improve English. Besides course books and other written resources, technology integrated language teaching provides a lot of materials for language learners as well. Websites might be regarded as online teaching tools which can be very effective resources both for learners and teachers. After teaching at some English centers in Hanoi for 3 years and teaching the students as participants in this study for 5 months, the researcher notices the poor pronunciation with incorrect word stress of many students. Though they seem not to have problems with grammar, fluency or ideas, they have difficulties in pronouncing certain consonants, vowels and similar sounds in English. Besides, words and sentences are usually produced with wrong stress pattern or no stress at all. The researcher has taken this matter into consideration a lot. The students seem not eager to learn pronunciation and feel difficult to correct their mistakes. Meanwhile, most of them are really into surfing the Internet on computers or mobile phone to play games or watch films every day, which inspires the researcher the 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com idea of using websites for pronunciation instruction. The websites include not only standard video clips that guide students to pronounce English sounds but they also provide a wide range of exercises, games, quizzes and activities with pictures and other illustrations, which are believed to attract the children. Besides, using websites to study English pronunciation can give students chances to listen again and practice the words, phrases, sentences at home. So far, there are some studies which have been conducted to discover the effectiveness of using technology in teaching English in general and in pronunciation aspect in particular. For example, Nguyen Thi Kim Dung (2014) found out the challenges the teacher encountered in applying IT (MS Powerpoint) in teaching medical vocabulary terms to the second year students at Thanh Hoa medical college as well as provide suggestions to enhance effective utilization of MS Powerpoint here. Besides, Tran Thi Tuyet Mai (2010) in other context, at Duy Tien C high school, worked on the effectiveness of using English traditional songs to improve students‘ pronunciation. With the similar aspect, another study conducted named ―A study on using multimedia for teaching pronunciation to pre- intermediate students in Crazy Ones English center” (Trieu Ngoc Tuan, 2015) showed a variety of using multimedia and assessing their impacts in teaching pronunciation. Actually, those studies were conducted with the participants who are high school and college students, have a long time to learn English and pronunciation as well. Differently, the researcher would like to work on children aged from 8-10 at different English center where the researcher is working with the objective to enhance the students‘ pronunciation by using some websites; with these subjects, it is more concrete than the previous studies. Aims and objectives of the study This research aims at using websites to motivate 8-10 year- old children in improving pronunciation at the chosen English center. According to the aim, the researcher points out some main objectives as below: - Investigating how students in class Movers 6 at the English center improve 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com their pronunciation after using the pronunciation instruction websites in teaching and learning pronunciation - Identifying class Movers 6 students‘ attitude towards the use of pronunciation websites for improving pronunciation - Finding out class Movers 6 students‘ feelings about the activities applied to improve their pronunciation through using these websites 3. Research questions In a nutshell, the researcher is going to answer three following questions: 1. To what extent does using pronunciation instruction websites in teaching and learning pronunciation contribute to the improvement of’ pronunciation of the students in class Movers 6 at the English center? 2. What is the attitude of the students in class Movers 6 at the English center towards the use of pronunciation instruction websites for improving pronunciation? 3. What do the students in class Movers 6 at the English center think about the activities applied to improve their pronunciation through using these websites? 4. Scope of the study There are many problems in Vietnamese children‘s English learning that they can be listed such as grammar, vocabulary, four basic skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing); however, it can be seen that learning to speak is very essential. Obviously, we cannot communicate with one another without speech. What‘s more, there are certainly various aspects of pronunciation such as vowels and consonants, stress, intonation, rhythm, assimilation, elision, linking, tones etc.; however, due to the limitation of time as well as the scope of this paper, the research deals with only two aspects of pronunciation: consonants and vowels and word stress.
Luận văn thạc sĩ: Sử dụng trang web phát âm tiếng Anh để cải thiện khả năng phát âm của học sinh
Luận văn thạc sĩ VNU ULIS nghiên cứu sử dụng website phát âm tiếng Anh để cải thiện kỹ năng phát âm cho sinh viên tại trung tâm tiếng Anh ở Hà Nội.
Phí lưu trữ
30 PointMục lục chi tiết
THÔNG TIN CHI TIẾT
Tác giả: Nguyễn Thị Loan
Người hướng dẫn: Huỳnh Anh Tuấn, PhD
Trường học: Vietnam National University, Hanoi University Of Languages And International Studies
Chuyên ngành: English Teaching Methodology
Đề tài: Using English Pronunciation Websites To Improve Students’ Pronunciation: An Action Research Project At An English Center In Hanoi
Loại tài liệu: minor programme thesis
Năm xuất bản: 2018
Địa điểm: Hanoi
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