MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------------ DUONG THI NGOC LOAN AN INVESTIGATION INTO ERRORS IN PRONOUNCING ENDING SOUNDS MADE BY STUDENTS AT PHU XUAN UNIVERSITY FIELD OF STUDY: THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 60.10 MA THESIS IN EDUCATION SUPERVISOR: NGU THIEN HUNG, PH.D HUE, 2011 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby acknowledge that this study is mine. The data and findings discussed in the thesis are true, used with permission from associates and have not been published elsewhere. Author Duong Thi Ngoc Loan i Acknowledgements Firstly, I am greatly indebted to my supervisor, Ph.D Ngu Thien Hung, for his professional guidance and support. Without his help, this thesis would be far from reaching this present standard.
Second, I am very grateful to Dr. Truong Vien, for his valuable suggestions and guidance in choosing the topic. Third, I would like to express my sincere thanks to participating teachers at Hue College of Foreign languages and students at Phu Xuan University, for their helps during the time I carried out this study. Last, but not least, I wish to express my deep thanks to my own small beloved family, parents and friends for all their support and encouragements, helping me overcome the difficulties during the time I was working on this thesis.
ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Contents Pages STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP .ii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iii LIST OF TABLES. vi LIST OF FIGURES.vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS. ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION.
Background of the Research. Structure of the thesis .3 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. Background to the pronunciation teaching. Definitions of key terms and concepts.
Definition of consonant sounds. Errors and mistakes. Concept of errors and mistakes. The difference between an error and a mistake.
Previous studies related to the research. Background to English final consonant sounds. Background on Vietnamese final consonant sounds. A contrastive analysis of English and Vietnamese final consonant sounds.30 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY AND PROCEDURES.
Subject selection and description. Method of data collection. The diagnostic test. Validity and reliability .42 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION.
Result of data analysis. Data collected from students‟ questionnaires. Data collected from students‟ diagnostic test .1 common mistakes made by first year students (when pronouncing and perceiving words with final sounds in minimal pairs and phrases as well as in conversation using linking sounds) .54 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS. Teaching activities and further application in the classroom .1 Teaching activities have been so used far by teacher‟s teaching pronunciation, especially when they deal with of the English final consonants sounds .2 Recommendation for further teaching activities.
Limitations and suggestions for further research .1 Limitations of the study .2 Suggestions for further research. 79 v LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1 Articulatory Representation of English consonant.2 Vietnamese final consonant sounds distribution .3 Phonemes stated by Vietnamese letters.4 Vietnamese final consonant sounds. The students responding to the questionnaire. Problems of the English final consonant sounds revealed by the first year students‟ performance .1 Information about students‟ background.
Students‟ perception towards the learning and practicing of pronunciation at Phu Xuan University .3 Students‟ perception towards the teaching of pronunciation at Phu Xuan University. Students‟ problems in listening and speaking English .5 Student‟s listening and speaking problems related to consonant sounds. Students‟ difficulties in practising pronunciation due to various factors. Students‟ knowledge about the English final consonant sounds and linking sounds .8 Students‟ difficulties in pronouncing final consonant sounds and linking sounds.
Students‟ pronunciation in speech. Students‟ information about the mini test. 52 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1 Internal structure of a syllable “cat” .2: Internal structure of the word “drowned”.1 The Polderbit Sound Recorder .2 The Polderbit Sound Editor .1 The demonstration of the minimal pair “cash – catch” made by the native English speakers as compared with the first year students at Phu Xuan University.1 The demonstration of the minimal pair “advice – advise” made by the native English speakers was compared with the first year students at Phu Xuan University.2 The demonstration of the minimal pair “puss – push” made by native English speakers was compared with first year students at Phu Xuan University .3 The demonstration of the minimal pair “cash –catch” made by native English speakers was compared with the first year students at Phu Xuan University .4 The demonstration of the minimal pair “heath – heat” made by native English speakers was compared with the first year students at Phu Xuan University .5 The demonstration of the phrase “drink a cup of tea” made by native English speakers was compared with the first year students at Phu Xuan University.6 The demonstration of the phrase “the class of 9” made by the native English speaker was compared with first year students at Phu Xuan University.7 The demonstration of the sentence in the conversation “There is not a doctor available. They‟re all busy.” made by the native English speaker was compared with first year students at Phu Xuan University.
60 vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS - List of abbreviations: C : Consonant, Coda L1 : First language L2 : Second language N : Nucleus O : Onset R : Rhyme V : Vowel - List of symbols: : Syllable viii ABSTRACT This study attempts firstly to identify the problems relating to final consonant sounds and sound linking that the tenth-form students in Quang Nam encounter when listening and speaking in English, and secondly, to suggest some teaching activities to help them overcome those problems. It is also carried out basing on the contrastive analysis between English and Vietnamese final consonant sounds to generate some hypotheses of Vietnamese students‟ difficulties in listening as well as speaking. These hypotheses were tested from the students‟ actual pronunciation performance in the diagnostic tests and the questionnaire to get the practical data. The data were analysized in the light of a descriptive, qualitative and quantitative research.
The study indicates that English final consonant sounds and sound linking are really difficult for them to perform. Therefore, some suggestions for the effective pronunciation strategies are put forward to help students get over the problems. ix CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1. Overview This chapter firstly presents the rationale of the study in which the background of the research and the reasons for it are mentioned.
In addition, the research aims, questions, scope, its significance and the structure of the thesis are also given. Background of the Research It is widely known that the prime objective of learning a foreign language is to be able to communicate with a person whose language is not one‟s mother tongue. One problem which often arises, however, is how and to what extent we can carry on a conversation in foreign languages successfully regardless of the duration. Very often, we find that our language competence falls too short of native speakers‟ level as far as communication is concerned and that our efforts have not always been fully rewarded as expected.
Apart from common problems which might seriously hamper the process of communication such as the shortage of necessary vocabulary and a poor knowledge of grammar rules, a bad pronunciation is also one of the main causes of one‟s failure. Since English pronunciation is reputed for being difficult in comparison with other languages, it should never been neglected as far as learning and teaching are concerned. In another word, people must not lighten its role if their principal aim in learning English is to talk to foreigners intelligibly and to be understood by them. From my own experience and observation, I find that most students, particularly those of the Department of English, Phu xuan University, where I have been teaching English, do not know how to pronounce the English ending sounds 1 correctly.
Although these play an important role in the English language, students are either ignorant of the needed pronunciation rules or do not pay enough attention to this problem. Therefore, most of them fail to perceive the English final sounds and to pronounce them accurately in their speech. In fact, students are able to recognize the sounds easily when the words in phrases and sentences better when they are said separately. When they are said in a rapid connected speech in which sounds are linked together, however, it is difficult for them to perceive.
Thus, they have a great number of difficulties in connected speech. For students, their errors in pronouncing ending sounds are probably caused by the differences in the pronunciation of the two languages. In English, for example, the final consonant sounds are pronounced clearly to distinguish the different meanings of words. On the contrary, in Vietnamese the final consonant sounds do not function in the same way.
As an English teacher, I would like to conduct this research to suggest some effective ways to help Vietnamese learners in general and the students at Phu Xuan University in particular to develop their ability in pronouncing English sounds more accurately and fluently. Therefore, it is essential to carry out an investigation of errors in pronouncing the ending sounds made by the students at Phu Xuan University. The proposed study is aiming to investigate how students perceive and produce the English final consonant sounds in words, phrases, sentences and extended discourses. Based on the findings, possible solutions will be suggested to help students overcome their limitations.
Research aims This study will be carried out for the following purposes: - To discover more about the patterns of errors in pronouncing ending sounds made by the first year students at Phu Xuan University. - To make the first year students be aware of the correct pronunciation of the ending sounds by recognizing and correcting their errors themselves. Research questions As far as the aims of this study are concerned, the following research questions are taken into consideration: 1. What are the ending sounds errors that first year students are likely to make? 2.
What causes these problems? 3. What should teachers do to help students to overcome these errors? 1. Research Scope The research will examine the errors in pronouncing ending sounds made by the students at Phu Xuan University. However, due to the limited time and resources, the investigation will be restricted to the first year students studying at Phu Xuan University only.
Research Significance As mentioned in the research aims, the project‟s goal is to provide information based on which suggestions can be offered with a view to improving students‟ pronunciation ability. By doing the research, I can personally enhance my knowledge as well as teaching skill. Hopefully, the suggestions can also benefit the teachers, the trainers and the colleagues interested in speaking. Structure of the thesis The thesis consists of five chapters as follows: In chapter 1, “Introduction”, we present the rationale of the research in which the background of the research and the reasons for the research are mentioned.
In addition to the aims of the research, the research questions, scope, significance, and the structure of the thesis are also mentioned. Chapter 2 is devoted to the literature review in which many theoretical backgrounds related to the study on the errors and differences between English and Vietnamese ending sounds are carefully presented. 3 Next, the third chapter “Methodology” is concerned of such issues as participants who are the population that the study focuses on, the procedures of the research and instruments for data collection as well as explanations for the author‟s use of those instruments in the research. Chapter 4, “Findings and Discussion”, describes the result of actual performing pronunciation drawn from the data collected to define what the common errors in pronouncing ending sounds that first year students at Phu Xuan University are likely to make.
In this chapter, the data collected will be analyzed to answer the research questions. Then, a discussion is conducted based on the data collected in the study.