VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES **************** NGÔ THU HUYỀN POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEMS COMMONLY ENCOUNTERED BY STUDENTS AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY IN PRONOUNCING THE ENGLISH AFFRICATIVE CONSONANTS NHỮNG GIẢI PHÁP KHẢ HỮU CHO NHỮNG VẤN ĐỀ MÀ SINH VIÊN TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC BÁCH KHOA HÀ NỘI THƯỜNG GẶP PHẢI KHI PHÁT ÂM CÁC ÂM TẮC XÁT CỦA TIẾNG ANH M.A Minor Thesis Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15 MA course: 18 Hanoi – 2011 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES **************** NGÔ THU HUYỀN POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEMS COMMONLY ENCOUNTERED BY STUDENTS AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY IN PRONOUNCING THE ENGLISH AFFRICATIVE CONSONANTS NHỮNG GIẢI PHÁP KHẢ HỮU CHO NHỮNG VẤN ĐỀ MÀ SINH VIÊN TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC BÁCH KHOA HÀ NỘI THƯỜNG GẶP PHẢI KHI PHÁT ÂM CÁC ÂM TẮC XÁT CỦA TIẾNG ANH M.A Minor Thesis Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15 MA course: 18 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Võ Đại Quang Hanoi – 2011 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF FIGURES, CHARTS AND TABLES vii ABBREVIATIONS viii PART 1: INTRODUCTION Error! Bookmark not defined 1.1 Rationale Error! Bookmark not defined 1.2 Aims and Objectives of the study 1.3 Research questions 1.4 Scope of the study 1.5 Significance of the study 1.6 Design of the study PART 2: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Theoretical Background 1.1.1 The role of pronunciation in EFL teaching 1.1.2 Factors affecting pronunciation learning 1.1.3 Consonants in English and Vietnamese 1.1.3.1 English consonants 1.1.3.2 Vietnamese consonants 1.1.3.3 Learners’ problems with consonant sounds 1.1.4 Affricative sounds 10 1.1.4.1 Definition 10 v 1.1.4.2 The description of affricates 11 1.1.4.3 Learners’ problems with affricates 12 1.2 Previous works 15 1.3 Summary of the chapter 16 Chapter 2: Methodology 17 2.1 Survey reseach 17 2.1.1 Definition 17 2.1.2 Steps in conducting a survey research 17 2.2 Techniques employed in the research 18 2.2.1 Data collection 18 2.2.1.1 Questionnaire 18 2.2.1.2 Tape recording 19 2.2.2 Data analysis 20 2.3 Procedures for the study 20 2.4 Summary of the chapter 20 Chapter 3: Findings and Discussion 21 3.1 Findings 21 3.1.1 Findings from the questionnaire 21 3.3.2 Findings from the tape recording 27 3.2 Discussion 29 3.3 Summary of the chapter 30 Chapter 4: Possible sollusions to the problems identified 31 4.1 Giving regular practice 31 4.2 Improving teaching techniques 31 4.3 Supplying supplementary exercises 34 vi 4.4 Summary of the chapter 36 PART 3: CONCLUSION 37 Recapitulation 37 Conclusion remarks 37 Limitations and suggestions for further research 38 REFERENCES 39 APPENDIX I APPENDIX V APPENDIX VI vii LIST OF FIGURES, CHARTS AND TABLES FIGURES: Fig 1: The position of the tongue in the production of /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ 11 Figs 2&3: Section of stop phase of /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ 12 CHART: Chart 1: The sounds that students find most difficult/ easiest to pronounce 26 TABLES: Table 1: English consonants Table 2: Vietnamese initial consonants Table 3: Vietnamese final consonants Table 4: Manner and place of articulation of sounds /dʒ/, /z/ and /s/ 13 Table 5: Manner and place of articulation of sounds /tʃ/and Vietnamese /c/ 14 Table 6: Summary of Sample Profile 21 Table 7: Students’ attitude towards pronunciation 22 Table 8: Students’ learning habit and teachers’ response to students’ mistakes 23 Table 9: Students’ pronunciation difficulties in general 24 Table 10: The sounds that students find most difficult/ easiest to pronounce 25 Table 11: Student’s choices of correct sounds 26 Table 12: The result of the recording process 26 viii ABBREVIATIONS CLT : Communicative Language Teaching EFL : English as a Foreign Language ELT : English Language Teaching ESP : English for Specific Purposes HUT : Hanoi University of Technology IT : Information Technology N-Power : Networking Power (Bach Khoa-Npower International Information Technology Education System) M.A : Master of Arts VNU : Vietnam National University PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale Three prominent factors that develop four language skills are vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation In the light of CLT, accurate pronunciation is a must for broadening communicative competencies This leads to the fact that the need for the integration of pronunciation with oral communication is clearly realized This is the reason why teaching pronunciation is considered a really crucial job in teaching EFL Despite realizing this importance, pronunciation is the most ignored aspect in the EFL classes According to Celce Murcia (2007:2), “grammar and vocabulary have been much better understood by most language teachers than pronunciation” This fact shows that pronunciation is viewed as difficult for both students and teachers to prepare and master They take little concern to it Hardly they spend time learning or practicing English pronunciation Consequently, many students often make mistakes in articulating English sounds and they find it difficult to get accurate pronunciation This fact posts the question of how to change the attitude of students and teachers towards pronunciation The above- mentioned matters are really true to the English teaching and learning situation at N-Power, HUT where a lot of students have troubles with pronunciation, especially with the English sounds In the scope of this minor thesis, the researcher does not have an ambition to find out all the sounds causing problems for students but a particular pair of English sounds - affricates - which challenge students when they are dealing with the system of English sounds Once the difficulties are found out, solutions to the problems can be worked out with the hope that it can help to improve students‟ pronunciation 1.2 Aims and Objectives of the study 1.2.1 Aims of the study From the fact of existing limitations for students when dealing with pronunciation, with the hope of bringing about a small contribution to this aspect, the study aims to:  Provide the students sounds /tʃ/and /dʒ/ with basic knowledge of English affricative  Help the students be able to pronounce English affricates accurately  Help the teachers improve their pronunciation teaching techniques at HUT 1.2.2 Objectives of the study The objectives are set as follows:  To find out the difficulties students meet when pronouncing affricative sounds /tʃ/ and /dʒ/  To state the causes of these difficulties  To give out some possible solutions to the problems identified 1.3 Research questions The objectives mentioned above are elaborated into the following research questions (1) What difficulties students have in dealing with affricative sounds? (2) What are the causes of those difficulties? (3) What are the possible solutions to the stated problems? 1.4 Scope of the study The study was carried out on only the first-year students at N-Power, HUT Due to time constraint and the scope of a minor thesis, only affricates - two complex consonant sounds - which cause difficulties for students are taken into consideration It also focuses on finding out some problems when students pronounce these sounds and working out some possible solutions 1.5 Significance of the study The study is designed to investigate students‟ difficulties when pronouncing the English affricates and suggest some solutions to solve the problems Thus, it helps to raise students‟ awareness of improving pronunciation learning More significantly, it offers the pedagogical implications for further applications of teaching pronunciation in the classroom 1.6 Design of the study The research is presented as follows: The first part is the introduction, which presents an overview of the study with the rationale for conducting the research, the aims, the objectives and the research questions It also states the research scope as well as stresses its significance and outlines the content of the study The second part is the development of the study, which is divided into chapters: - Chapter 1: Literature review - provides the theoretical background and some previous work - Chapter 2: Methodology - reports the methodology and the methods used in the research including the instruments and the procedures for data collection as well as the data analysis applied in the study - Chapter 3: Findings and discussion - reveals some major findings basing on which the discussion is produced - Chapter 4: Possible solutions – offers some useful suggestions to problems identified The last part is the conclusion of the study, which summarizes the major points presented in the thesis, offers concluding remarks on the objectives and points out the limitations as well as provides some suggestions for further studies 35 Exercise – Dialogue Read the dialogue aloud with a partner Pay attention to the pronunciation of sounds in the boldfaced words George Churchill Jerry: Just outside this village there‟s a very dangerous bridge John: Yes Charlie told me two jeeps crashed there in January Did you hear how it happened? Jerry: Well, George Churchill was driving the larger jeep He was driving very dangerously John: George Churchill Do I know George Churchill? Jerry: Yes, I think you He‟s manager of the travel agency in Bridgeport John: Oh, yes I remember George He‟s always telling jokes Well, was anybody injured? Jerry: Oh, yes The other jeep went over the edge of the bridge, and two children and another passenger were badly injured John: Were both jeeps damaged? Jerry: Oh, yes John: And what happened to George? Jerry: George? He‟s telling jokes in jail now, I suppose! Exercise – Final sound - Pronounce the following words, pay attention to the ending sounds Manage, which, change, speech, much, bridge, age, church, match, catch, large, reach, teach, garage, edge, watch, lunch, garbage, cage, charge - Classify the ending sounds into correct categories: /tʃ/ or /dʒ/ Exercise Crossword Complete the crossword Every answer has the sound /tʃ/ or /dʒ/ E 10 C H 36 Clues Across: Famous English prime minister I put butter and ……… on my bread You get jam out of a ……… You‟ll get fat if you eat too much ……… olate The past tense of choose is ……… An open room on the outside of a house is a ……… ch Down: A hen is a female ………… Could you get me the book on the top shelf I‟m not tall enough to ……… it George‟s jeep was ……… than the other jeep This book belongs to Jock It‟s ……… book George Churchill was driving a ………… Tell me a funny j …….k 10 This isn‟t …………a difficult puzzle 4.4 Summary of the chapter This chapter has made some suggestions to reduce difficulties that the students at NPower, HUT encounter when learning pronunciation It is really not easy to overcome these difficulties, thus, in order to improve pronunciation, students must work very hard and have appropriate learning methods Besides, they must be flexible and adaptable to improve pronunciation skill PART 3: CONCLUSION Recapitulation It can be seen that this study gives the answers for students who have the weakness when pronouncing English sounds, especially two English affricative sounds In order to draw a clear picture helping students overcome their difficulties with English affricates, the major issues presented in the thesis are: Part – Introduction - gives the basic information about the reason, the scope as well as 37 the purpose of conducting the research Part – Development - divided into four chapters: Chapter provides an overview of the theoretical background on which this research bases on Chapter points out the methodology used in the thesis such as data collection and data analysis Chapter presents the findings and discussion of the study Chapter gives solutions to the problems identified in the previous chapter Part – Conclusion - summarizes the study, points out the limitations and provides some suggestions for further studies Conclusion remarks 2.1 Conclusion remarks on objective The difficulties students meet when pronouncing affricative sounds /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ are: - Do not put enough strong air force to the process of producing these sounds - Confuse /tʃ/ as Vietnamese /c/, and /dʒ/ as /z/ or /ʒ/ - Drop /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ at the final position 2.2 Conclusion remarks on objective The second objective of the study states the causes of these difficulties The most prominent obstacles among these are: - Absence of sounds due to no affricates in Vietnamese - No stress of word-final consonants in Vietnamese - Lack of practice - Ineffective teaching techniques - Lack of supplementary exercises 2.3 Conclusion remarks on objective 38 The last objective concerns about some possible solutions for improvement including: - Giving regular practice - Improving teaching techniques - Supplying supplementary exercises Overall, this study emphasizes the most immediate solutions to the problems hindering students from improving their pronunciation, especially two complicated sounds: affricates It is hoped that what have been discussed in the study might be helpful to both the teachers and students in teaching and learning English pronunciation Limitations and suggestions for further study Despite some positive findings, the study exposes some limitations Firstly, the limited number of participants might not enhance the generalization of the findings Future studies on more participants are recommended in order to get more evidence Furthermore, because the results were found on the samples of the first year students at HUT, whose English level can be rated as pre-intermediate and intermediate, they cannot be generalized to all levels and subjects Future research might be conducted with students at other levels of English proficiency or institutions to generate more general ideas Thirdly, the findings may not reflect all the difficulties that students face in learning English pronunciation In terms of interference, there are not only the issues of sounds but also other aspects such as stress, rhythm, intonation and aspects of connected speech that further studies should investigate It is hoped that from the findings and limitations of the study, further research would be conducted in helping to improve English pronunciation situation in general REFERENCES Vietnamese Đoàn Thiện Thuật (2003), Ngữ âm Tiếng Việt, Nxb Đại học Quốc Gia, Hà Nội Bùi Minh Toán, Đặng Thị Lanh (2006), Tiếng Việt Đại Cương – Ngữ âm, Nxb Đại học Sư phạm, Hà Nội English 39 Ann Baker (2006), Ship or sheep? - An intermediate pronunciation course, Cambridge Avery, P & Ehrlich, S (1992), Teaching American English pronunciation, Oxford University Press, New York Brown, D.H (2001), Teaching by Principles: An interactive approach to Language Pedagory, Pearson Education ESL Brown, J.D & Rodgers, T.S (2002), Doing Second Language Reasearch, OUP Celce-Murcia, N., Brinton, M D & Goodwin, J M (1996), Teaching Pronunciation, A reference for teachers of English to speakers of other languages, New York Crunttenden A (2001), Gimson‟s Pronunciation of English, Arnold, London Dornyei, Z (2003), Questionnaire in Second Language Research Constraction, Administration and processing, Lawvrence 10 Fritz Scheuren, (2004), What is a survey, p.9 11 Johnson, D.M (1992), Approaches to Research in Second Language Learning, Longman, London 12 Kelly G (2000), How to Teach Pronunciation, Longman, England 13 Kenworthy, J (1987), Teaching English pronunciation, Longman, New York 14 O‟Connor J.D (1980), Better English Pronunciation, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 15 Linda Lane (1993), Focus on pronunciation – principles and practice for effective communication, Longman 16 Müfit ŞENEL (2006), Suggestions for Beautifying the Pronunciation of EFL Learners in Turkey, Vol.2, No.1 17 Pennington M.C (1996), Phonology in English Language Teaching: An International Approach, Longman, Harlow 18 Vo Dai Quang, (2006), Lectures on principles of phonetics and phonology, Hanoi 19 Salant, P and D A Dillman, (1994), How to conduct your own survey 40 20 Nguyen Thi Thu Thao, (2007), difficulties for Vietnamese when pronouncing English Final consonants 21 Ha Cam Tam, (2002), English phonetics and phonology, Hanoi 22 Webster, (1985), Webster‟s ninth new collegiate dictionary I I APPENDIX Questionnaire for students We are trying to find out possible solutions to the problems commonly encountered by students in pronouncing the English affricative consonants Please help us by filling in the questionnaire Your answer depends on your point of view and your practices in pronunciation Please give your opinions sincerely as only this will guarantee the success of the investigation Thank you very much for your help SECTION 1: Sample Profile Age: Gender: Male  Female   Elementary  Lower Intermediate Level of English proficiency  Intermediate  Upper Intermediate  Advanced SECTION 2: Questionnaire Answer the given question by circling the letter which is best representative of your answer Attitude towards English pronunciation: Question 1: How important is pronunciation you think? A very important B quite important C important II D unimportant Question 2: What are your purposes of learning English pronunciation? A pass the exam B communicate well C for a good job in the future D approximate a native Pronunciation learning: Question 3: When you look up new words in the dictionary, what you often do? A look at its meaning only B look at its pronunciation and meaning, then pronounce it in mind C look at its pronunciation and meaning, then pronounce it aloud Question 4: How your teachers respond to your pronunciation mistakes? A repeat the word after teacher B teach the way to pronounce the word again C give the reason why you make mistakes D ask you to repeat that word again and again until you can pronounce it correctly E ignore Pronunciation difficulties: Question 5: What make pronunciation difficult to you? A There are sounds and phonetic rules that not exist in Vietnamese B I don’t know how to read phonetic transcription C I don’t have chance to speak English to English people D My local dialect affects me badly Question 6: Which are the difficulties that you often get when studying pronunciation in your class? III A little practice in the class B teachers’ methodology in teaching pronunciation: boring and repeating C poor learning condition D no materials to practice at home E large class size Question 7: You have difficulties in pronouncing …? A English vowels B English consonants C Both English consonants and vowels Question 8: What are the difficulties you often get when learning English consonants? A pronounce the similar sounds B pronounce words in sentences or dialogues C pronounce individual sounds D pronounce word-final consonants Difficulties with affricates: Question 9: Which sound is the most difficult you think? A /s/ D /ʒ/ B /z/ E /tʃ/ C /ʃ/ F /dʒ/ Question 10: How is the bold letters in the following words pronounced? IV Letters Sounds A individual /individʒʊəl/ B C D / individʊəl/ / indiviʒʊəl/ / indivizʊəl/ generous /’dʒenərəs/ /’genərəs/ /’zenərəs/ /’ʒenərəs/ question /kwestʃə n/ /kwesʃə n/ /kwestə n/ /kwestsə n/ Thank you very much for your help! APPENDIX V Exercises for tape recording Read aloud these sounds and these words a /tʃ/ A chair C future E watch B children D natural F lunch A judge C education E college B joke D agency F age b /dʒ/ Read aloud these words A orange juice C which chapter E large chair B orange juice D which chapter F large chair Read aloud these sentences A I’d like some chops for the lunch B I’d like some chops for the lunch C This village has a very dangerous bridge D This village has a very dangerous bridge E How cheap the jeep is! F How cheap the jeep is! Thank you very much for your help! APPENDIX Suggestions for teachers and answers for exercises Exercise - Sound descriptions Suggestions for teachers: VI - Get students to this exercise individually, in pairs or in groups - Get students to practice the target sounds following the right description Key: a, c, d Exercise - Dialogue Suggestion for teachers: - Get students to this exercise in pairs - Get students to practice the sounds /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ on its own and in some certain words once or twice before they exercise - Pay attention to students’ pronunciation of affricative sounds /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ - Play the recording of the dialogue for students to listen and check their pronunciation Key: The sounds /tʃ/and /dʒ/ are highlighted in bold letters in the dialogue Exercise – Ending sounds Suggestion for teachers: - Get students to work individually or in pairs - Get students to practice articulating the words from the phonetic transcriptions first - Play the CD for students to check or read aloud the words if you have no CD - Get students to practice the words after the CD or the teacher Key: a Word- final /tʃ/: which, speech, much, church, match, catch, reach, teach, watch, lunch b Word- final /dʒ/: manage, change, bridge, age, large, garage, edge, garbage, cage, charge Exercise - Crosswords Suggestion for teachers: - Get students to this exercise in groups or in whole class - Explain the difficult words to students when the puzzle is completed - Get students to practice the target sounds in clue words Key: Across: Down: Churchill Chicken jam reach jar larger VII choc(olate) Jock’s chose jeep por(ch) (j)ok(e) 10 such Thank you for evaluating AnyBizSoft PDF Merger! To remove this page, please register your program! Go to Purchase Now>> AnyBizSoft PDF Merger  Merge multiple PDF files into one  Select page range of PDF to merge  Select specific page(s) to merge  Extract page(s) from different PDF files and merge into one ... PROBLEMS COMMONLY ENCOUNTERED BY STUDENTS AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY IN PRONOUNCING THE ENGLISH AFFRICATIVE CONSONANTS NHỮNG GIẢI PHÁP KHẢ HỮU CHO NHỮNG VẤN ĐỀ MÀ SINH VIÊN TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC BÁCH... students We are trying to find out possible solutions to the problems commonly encountered by students in pronouncing the English affricative consonants Please help us by filling in the questionnaire... of the tongue moves towards the hard palate c The tongue moves back to release the air d The soft palate is raised and the nasal resonator is shut off e The air is blocked at the centre of the