VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES POSTGRADUATE DEPARTMENT LÊ THỊ PHƢƠNG MAI AN INVESTIGATION INTO PHUONG DONG PREINTERMEDIATE ENGLISH STUDENTS’ PROBLEM OF SPEECH INCOMPREHENSIBILITY CAUSED BY IMPROPER TONE UNIT SEGMENTING Tìm hiểu lối diễn đạt khó hiểu phân chia đoạn phát âm khơng hợp lí sinh viên tiếng Anh trình độ tiền trung cấp trƣờng Đại Học Phƣơng Đông MA Minor Thesis Field: English Methodology Code: 60.14.10 HANOI- 2009 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES POSTGRADUATE DEPARTMENT LÊ THỊ PHƢƠNG MAI AN INVESTIGATION INTO PHUONG DONG PREINTERMEDIATE ENGLISH STUDENTS’ PROBLEM OF SPEECH INCOMPREHENSIBILITY CAUSED BY IMPROPER TONE UNIT SEGMENTING Tìm hiểu lối diễn đạt khó hiểu phân chia đoạn phát âm khơng hợp lí sinh viên tiếng Anh trình độ tiền trung cấp trƣờng Đại Học Phƣơng Đông MA Minor Thesis Field: English Methodology Code: 60.14.10 Supervisor: Nguyễn Bách Thảo, MA TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION………………………………………………………… i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT…………………………………………………………… ii ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………………… iii TABLE OF CONTENTS……………………………………………………………… iv LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES……………………………………….………… vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS…………………………………………… viii PART A: INTRODUCTION….………………………………………… I Rationale…………………………………………………………………… II Aims of the study…………………………………………………………… III Scope of the study…………………………………………………………… IV Methods of the study………………………………………………………… V Design of the study………………………………………………………… PART B: DEVELOPMENT……………………………………………………………4 I LITERATURE REVIEW………………………………………….…… I.1 Definition of tone unit………………………………………… .4 I.1.1 Different terms denoting a tone unit……………………… I.1.2 Concept of tone unit and its phonological components………………… I.1.3 Grammatical and Contextual characteristics of tone unit……………… I.2 Kinds of tone units… ……………………………………………………… I.3 Communicative function of tone units………………………………………11 I.4 Non-native learners’ problems with tone unit segmentation…………… 12 II THE STUDY……………………………………………………………… 14 Chapter 1: Investigating students’ problem of speech incomprehensibility in relation to improper tone unit segmenting…………… 15 CONTEXT OF THE STUDY………………………………… 15 DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURE……………………….……… 15 The subjects………………………… 15 The instruments……………………………………………………….… 16 Oral test…………………………………………………………….… 16 Transcription and peer-evaluation of oral presentations……………… 16 Questionnaires and interviews…………………………… 16 DATA ANALYSIS……………………………………………….……… 17 Identifying the relation between students’ incomprehensible speech and their improper tone unit segmenting………………………………………  17 Findings from oral tests, peer-evaluation and transcripts of students’ conversations and talks…………………………………………… ……17  Seeking Findings from the first part of the questionnaires and interviews … … 19 causes of the students’ problem of improper segmentation………………………… …………………………………… tone unit 22  Findings of teachers’ observation……………………………… …… 22  Findings of the second part of the questionnaires and interviews……… 23 DISCUSSION OF THE DATA………………………………………… 28 Chapter 2: Suggested solutions to the targeted students’ problem of improper tone unit segmentation……………………………………… 2.1 Enhancing teachers’ knowledge and awareness of 31 tone segmenting……………………………………………………………… 31 2.2 2.2.1 Adjusting the teaching and learning procedure………… 31 Improving students’ level of proficiency and self-reliance……………31 unit 2.2.2 Taking advantage of speaking tasks for training tone unit segmentation………………………………………………………… 32 2.2.3 Perceiving native speakers’ ways of segmenting tone unit using tape scripts…………………………………………………………… 2.2.4 Providing students with knowledge of intonational principles of tone units adopting awareness-raising approach………………………… 2.2.5 2.3 33 35 Using peer and group-correction facilitated by visual aids………… 36 Adjusting the teaching curriculum and the materials…………………37 2.3.1 Improving the teaching curriculum……………………………………37 2.3.2 Supplying more materials…………………………………………… 37 PART C: CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………… 39 REFERENCES………………………………………………………………………… I Questionnaire for students…………………………………………………………… V Questionnaire for teachers………………………………………………………… VII Peer-check evaluation sheet………………………………………………………… X LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES Chart 1: Difficulties the audiences had in understanding the speaker Chart 2: Listeners’ misunderstanding partners’ speech by frequency Chart 3: Teachers’ judgment on the audiences’ understanding of speakers’ speech Chart 4: Knowledge of intonation vs pronunciation Chart 5: Places of students’ pauses Chart 6: Formal instruction on tone unit segmentation given previously Chart 7: Effectiveness of teachers’ lessons on tone units Table 1: Possible reasons of incomprehensible speech on the speaker’s part Table 2: Ways students did to make a good speech Table 3: Ways of improving speech’s comprehensibility 2.2.2 Taking advantage of speaking tasks for training tone unit segmentation………………………………………………………… 32 2.2.3 Perceiving native speakers’ ways of segmenting tone unit using tape scripts…………………………………………………………… 2.2.4 Providing students with knowledge of intonational principles of tone units adopting awareness-raising approach………………………… 2.2.5 2.3 33 35 Using peer and group-correction facilitated by visual aids………… 36 Adjusting the teaching curriculum and the materials…………………37 2.3.1 Improving the teaching curriculum……………………………………37 2.3.2 Supplying more materials…………………………………………… 37 PART C: CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………… 39 REFERENCES………………………………………………………………………… I Questionnaire for students…………………………………………………………… V Questionnaire for teachers………………………………………………………… VII Peer-check evaluation sheet………………………………………………………… X LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES Chart 1: Difficulties the audiences had in understanding the speaker Chart 2: Listeners’ misunderstanding partners’ speech by frequency Chart 3: Teachers’ judgment on the audiences’ understanding of speakers’ speech Chart 4: Knowledge of intonation vs pronunciation Chart 5: Places of students’ pauses Chart 6: Formal instruction on tone unit segmentation given previously Chart 7: Effectiveness of teachers’ lessons on tone units Table 1: Possible reasons of incomprehensible speech on the speaker’s part Table 2: Ways students did to make a good speech Table 3: Ways of improving speech’s comprehensibility Table 4: Reasons for problems of improper tone unit segmenting Table 5: Reasons for teachers’ failure in teaching tone unit segmentation LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFL: English as a foreign language MA Master of Arts PART A: INTRODUCTION I Rationale Nowadays English is so popular that it becomes a prerequisite means of regional and international communication Most of these interactions, which play as a stimulus for global socio-economic relations and knowledge perception, are carried out orally Therefore, spoken English language as well as the comprehensibility of speech is of ultimate importance In deed, as stated by Richards, J.C (2006): “The worldwide demand for English has created an enormous demand for quality language teaching and language teaching materials and resources Learners set themselves demanding goals They want to be able to master English to a high level of accuracy and fluency” However, when mastering English, a lot of learners have difficulty in delivering comprehensible speech because of their problems with tone unit segmenting In spite of the fact that constant effort has been exhorted to renovate methods of teaching and learning English intonation to the non-native, the achieved pedagogical measures are not practical and specific enough to be utilized in all non-native environments This hardship has not only been experienced by Vietnamese learners but also by non-native speakers from other countries such as China, Korea, Singapore, Spain… ( Hewings 1995; Goh 2001, Pickering 2001, Tao 2007) Over decades, researchers on English intonation of the non-native focused on contrastive analysis between native and non-native‟s preference of tone unit boundary, proposed the concepts of tone unit and discussed its role in communication with a light weight on feasible strategies to deal with the matter Despite the fact that various studies on non-native problems of tone unit segmenting are detected, Vietnamese researches about such important issue are hardly found As the case in a number of Vietnam universities, many students of English major at Phuong Dong University have troubles in dividing tone units in conversations, oral presentations, reports and even in reading aloud activity Recently, I have been in charge of two groups of preintermediate students in their second year and I have found that they have great difficulty in tone unit segmentation and often fail to make themselves understood, especially in natural speech Nonetheless, teachers as well as students not realize the fundamental reasons for the situation They generally blame it on learners‟ low level of proficiency As a result, the same circumstance remains with the students in the coming terms when they‟re required to make longer and more eloquent speech Hence, it is time for Vietnamese teachers of English to concern about this significant aspect to work out suitable solutions to the learners‟ problems in tone unit dividing II Aims of the study As a matter of fact, the objective of teaching English in the global era is not all about traditional English grammar Educators now focus much on comprehensibility in social communication In addition, the communicative and discourse function of intonation has been remarkably highlighted (Celce-Murcia 1996; Jenkins 2004; Brazil 1985, 1997; Roach 2000, ext from Tao 2007) Therefore, the segmentation of intonation units, one of crucial factors deciding the meaning of speech, turns out to be quite necessary in learning and teaching English Thus, I determine to investigate into my students‟ problem of improper tone unit segmenting and aim at working out some basic solutions to the problem Hence, this thesis is not only useful to my own Vietnamese students but also to whoever meet the same problems and share similar concern III Scope of the study As stated before, the research mainly concentrates on improper intonation unit segmentation problem, leading to speech incomprehensibility of pre-intermediate English majored students at Phuong Dong University Regarding the markers of tone unit segmenting, the study narrows down to pausing since it is linear and the most popular in the talk of the students IV Methods of the study With regard to the methodology, in the process of data collection, I used some instruments namely oral tests (conversations and reading aloud), questionnaires, interviews, observation of students‟ oral presentations, recording and note-taking Therefore, I mainly used qualitative method for data analysis and this is a survey research along with error analysis as I worked on the issues basing on the findings from questionnaires as well as interviews of six teachers and three groups of students (categorized according to level of proficiency) in two classes of 40 students, combining with the results of the observation, peer-evaluation and transcriptions Finally, from these particular data, I will work out the causes of difficulties and mistakes of Vietnamese students in tone unit segmenting and come up with relevant implications V Design of the study As for the design, the study comprises of three main parts: First, the introduction clarifies the rationale, the aims, the scope, the method and the design of the study Second, the development includes two sections Section I reviews the previous studies on key concepts and theoretical background of tone units, tone unit segmentation of the non-natives and claims two research questions Section II is the study, the first chapter of which presents the results of the survey, observation and transcripts as well as the discussion of the findings The second chapter proposes some basic solutions to the problems caused by ... PHUONG DONG PREINTERMEDIATE ENGLISH STUDENTS’ PROBLEM OF SPEECH INCOMPREHENSIBILITY CAUSED BY IMPROPER TONE UNIT SEGMENTING Tìm hiểu lối diễn đạt khó hiểu phân chia đoạn phát âm khơng hợp lí sinh viên. .. hiểu phân chia đoạn phát âm khơng hợp lí sinh viên tiếng Anh trình độ tiền trung cấp trƣờng Đại Học Phƣơng Đông MA Minor Thesis Field: English Methodology Code: 60.14.10 Supervisor: Nguyễn Bách Thảo,... of pre-intermediate English majored students at Phuong Dong University Regarding the markers of tone unit segmenting, the study narrows down to pausing since it is linear and the most popular