USING SOFTWARE TO IMPROVE FIRST YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS’ PRONUNCIATION AN ACTION RESEARCH AT HONG DUC UNIVERSITY

1 PART I INTRODUCTION Rationale of the study In the last decades, the general goals of teaching have primed the effective use of the spoken language to establish successful communication That is why there has been a steady growth in the attention to the magnitude of speaking and pronunciation teaching This fact has brought about an emergent debate about models, goals and particularly, the methodology used for speaking and pronunciation teaching A number of research studies have dealt with pronunciation teaching and problems students face in English pronunciation The research findings have revealed that pronunciation frequently interferes with communication As a matter of fact, communication may break down when people pronounce incorrectly Moreover, learners with good pronunciation are usually more proficient speakers and more successful language learners than those with poor pronunciation Since I started teaching at Hong Duc University, I have taught speaking and pronunciation to first-year English majors many times I have always been trying my best to help my students pronounce better However, I have had many frustrations because my students always have many mistakes in their pronunciation I have been investigating into the reasons for this, and I have found that my students, most of whom are from rural areas in the province, only learned grammar and never focused on pronunciation at secondary school Moreover, they did not have much access to native speakers’ pronunciation For non-English majors at other departments of Hong Duc University, they are required to have intelligible pronunciation English majors at Foreign Department, however, must go far beyond the intelligibility to the point that they should sound like or nearly like native speakers because they will become teachers of English and their pronunciation will affect many generations to come That is the reason why first-year English majors’ weak pronunciation has been a matter of serious concern among us Due to the importance of pronunciation in language learning and the poor pronunciation of first-year English majors at Hong Duc university, I decided to introduce some changes into my speaking and pronunciation course for first-year English majors with the hope to improve their pronunciation That was the reason why I conducted this study “Using software to improve first-year English majors’ pronunciation: An action research at Hong Duc University”, which tried to exploit the software programs available in my speaking and pronunciation lessons with an aim to improve first-year English majors’ pronunciation Purposes of the study The purpose of this study is to improve English pronunciation for first-year English majors at Hong Duc University Specifically, it has three purposes as follows: - To identify students’ most common mistakes in their English pronunciation - To exploit the software program, namely Pronunciation Power as an intervention in pronunciation lessons to improve students’ pronunciation - To justify the effectiveness of using pronunciation software in teaching English pronunciation to first-year English majors Research questions Regarding the importance of pronunciation teaching, purpose of the research and statement of the problem, this study is accomplished to find the answer to the question ‘How effectively is software exploited to improve first-year English majors’ pronunciation at Hong Duc university?’ Specifically, the study addressed the following three research questions: * What are the students’ most common problems regarding their English pronunciation? * Is Pronunciation Power effective in teaching first-year English majors’ pronunciation? * If yes, how effective is it? Scope of the study The study concentrates on improving first-year English majors at Hong Duc University by using the pronunciation software named Pronunciation Power Within its scope, the research was aimed at justifying the effectiveness of using this software program in teaching English pronunciation to first-year English majors at Hong Duc university Methods of the study This study is conducted as an action research because it is aimed at improving first-year English majors’ pronunciation In order to get data, a combination of different instruments, namely class observation, informal interviews and audio-recording, is used The data collected from the observation and interviews will be analyzed by qualitative method, and the data collected through the tape scripts will be analyzed by quantitative method Significance of the study Even though there have been numerous studies on pronunciation teaching, few investigations into the use of software in teaching pronunciation are conducted This research provides an insight into the effectiveness of applying pronunciation software to the teaching of pronunciation to first-year English majors The results of the study will, therefore, be much beneficial to both teachers who are considering whether to exploit software programs in their English pronunciation lessons and students who are interested in using software programs to improve their English pronunciation Design of the study The study consists of three main parts as follows The first part deals with rationale, purposes, research questions, scope, methods and design of the study The second part contains three chapters, in which chapter reviews the literature focusing on the theoretical basis related to teaching pronunciation and using CALL programs in language learning and teaching, chapter presents a detailed description of the research methodology, and chapter discusses the findings of the study The final part summarizes all the main ideas expressed throughout the research, provides pedagogical implications and suggests further research orientations PART II DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Role of pronunciation in language learning According to Levis and Grant (2002: 13), most language teachers agree that “Intelligible pronunciation is vital to successful communication” and most students see “pronunciation as an important part of learning to speak ” Sifakis and Sougari (2005) states that pronunciation is crucial to language learning because of two reasons First, it helps make communication in a certain setting among NNSs or between NNSs and NSs possible This is performed by speakers’ use of intelligible sounds and prosodic features together with other aspects of language such as grammar, discourse, dialect and so forth Second, pronunciation contributes to the establishment of their socio-cultural identity (pp.469 – 470) Kelly (2000: 11) also believes that it is vital for a language learner to have a good pronunciation of that language Learners may have acquired a considerable amount of grammar and vocabulary, but still fail to communicate effectively due to their poor pronunciation Pronunciation plays a vital role in learners’ speaking ability Only when a learner is competent in pronunciation can his speaking skills be acclaimed Kelly continues to emphasize that mispronunciation of sounds and misuse of prosodic features are responsible for the listeners’ failure to be comprehended and to interpret what the speaker means, which leads to the disappointment of the speaker Furthermore, Stevick (1978) justifies that pronunciation is a primary medium for communication of information through which we bring our use of language to the attention of other people and the teaching of pronunciation should therefore be given priority in a language class According to Murphy (1991), given that most courses emphasize general oral communication over pronunciation, teachers must seek creative ways to integrate pronunciation into speakingoriented classes in a manner clearly related to the oral communication goals of the course He also adds that pronunciation instruction needs to be integrated with broader level communicative activities in which speakers and listeners engage in meaning communication It is obvious in my situation as a teacher of English that students’ weak pronunciation has negative effect on their ability to express themselves and their ability to listen to others, especially to native speakers Speakers with wrong pronunciation find it difficult to make themselves understood by the teacher and other students, which makes them embarrassed and hesitant to continue speaking Moreover, when a learner has already stuck to the wrong way of pronouncing a particular word, phrase or sentence, (s)he is unlikely to recognize the authentic pronunciation by a native speaker and fail to interpret what the speaker means Therefore, it can be concluded that pronunciation play an essential role in learning a foreign language because it is intelligible pronunciation that make communication possible and even if a speaker uses the right words with the right structure but without correct or intelligible pronunciation, s(he) is likely to cause misunderstanding, communication interruption, or even communication breakdown 1.2 Aspects of pronunciation teaching As regards what teaching pronunciation involves, Ur (1996:47) claims that “the concept of “pronunciation” may be said to include: - the sounds of the language, or phonology, - stress and rhythm - intonation.” Martin Hewings in his book Pronunciation Practice Activities presents that the following elements should be included in the English pronunciation teaching: - Segmental features with more focus on consonants, consonant clusters and vowel length - Suprasegmental features consisting of word stress, tonic words, weak and strong forms, connected speech and tone (pp.15 – 16) 1.2.1 Vowel sounds Celce-Murcia, M., Brinton, D., and Goodwn, J (1996) defines vowels as “sounds in which there is continual vibration of the vocal cords and the air stream is allowed to escape from the mouth in an obstructed manner, without any interruption.” According to Roach (1998), vowels are “sounds in the production of which there is no obstruction to the flow of air as it passes the larynx to the lips.” Vowels can be classified in terms of: - the height of the bulk of the tongue in the mouth - the front/back position of the tongue in the mouth.- the degree of lip-rounding - the length of vowels The classification can be shown in the following diagram: Diagram English vowels 1.2.2 Consonant sounds According to Kelly G, (2003:24), “consonants are formed by interrupting, restricting or diverting the airflow in a variety of ways.” Roach (1998) define consonants as “sounds in which there is obstruction to the flow of air as it passes the larynx to the lips.” Consonants are classified according to: - the manner of articulation - the place of articulation - the force of articulation The classification of English consonants can be shown in the following table: Table English consonants 1.2.3 Word stress Avery and Ehrlich’s (1992) state that word stress involves making vowels longer and louder Randolph Quirk and Sidney Greenbaun (1973:450) defines stress as the prominence with which one part of a word or of a longer utterance is distinguished from other parts According to Pennington, stress has at least three prosodic features, which are duration (or length), intensity (or loudness) and pitch (or fundamental frequency) Word stress is closely related to intelligibility because when a word is said with incorrect stress pattern, the listener may spend time searching for the word in the wrong stress category A stress pattern mistake can, therefore, cause a great deal of confusion That is the reason why Kelly (2000) emphasizes that it would be practical to base our teaching principle on a twolevel division (stressed or unstressed) 1.2.4 Sentence stress According to Avery and Ehrlich (1992), in a particular sentence, one content word receives greater stress than all others, which is referred as the major sentence stress In most cases, the major sentence stress falls on the last content word within a sentence However, there are also cases in which the major sentence stress will not fall on the final content word of the sentence It depends on the speakers who decide which word in their speech they want to give more or less prominence A word may be given less weight because it has been said already, or it may be given more weight because the speaker want to highlight it The use of incorrect stress in English can make it difficult for listeners to identify the meaning of the sentence Kenworthy (1987) demonstrates that there is a great deal of evidence that native speakers rely very much on the stress pattern of words when they are listening, and that when a native speaker mishears a word, it is because the foreigner has put the stress in the wrong place, not because he or she mispronounced the sounds of the word 10 1.2.5 Rhythm Kenworthy (1987:30) claims that rhythm is a product of word stress and the way in which important items are foregrounded through their occurrence on a strong beat, and unimportant items are backgrounded by their occurrence on a weak beat Dalton and Seidlhofer (1994) also give the similar description of rhythm concentrating on the contrast between stress and unstress, which states that “utterances are continuous strings of syllables, the stressed syllables provides the foreground and the unstressed ones the backgrounds.” English has a stress-timed rhythm, in which stressed syllables recur at equal intervals of time but unstressed syllables are unequally spaced in time The amount of time it takes to say a sentence depends on the number of syllables that receive stress, not on the total number of syllables This should be distinguished from syllable-timed rhythm like Vietnamese, in which all the syllables recur at equal intervals of time, stressed or unstressed, so that Vietnamese students can avoid the interference of their mother tongue in the target language 1.2.6 Intonation According to Kelly (2000), intonation refers to the way the voice goes up and down in pitch when we are speaking He also claims that “it is a fundamental part of the way we express our own thoughts and it enables us to understand those of others.” Four basic tunes of English are as follows: - The falling tune (the glide-down) - The first rising tune (the glide-up) - The second rising tune (the take-off) - The falling-rising tune Intonation has the function as the expression of speaker’s attitude and purpose in saying something such as greeting you, telling you something, asking you, ordering you, pleading 30 explained and recapitulated using explicit instructions Finally, the students reviewed and practiced using the personal computers with the help of the teacher 3.3 Findings from the post-test At the end of the semester, the post-test was conducted to discover whether the students had made any improvement in their pronunciation The posttest is similar to the pre-test in structure (see appendix) Students’ pronunciation was also recorded for analyzing and comparing with the pretest results 3.3.1 English sounds The result of the students’ pronunciation of English sounds in the posttest was compared with that in the pretest as follows: Table Comparison of the students’ pronunciation of English sounds in the pretest and posttest Kind of Mistakes Pretest No of Posttest Percentage students No of Percentage students Producing long and short vowel pairs 26 87% 27% identically Pronouncing /æ/ like /e/ or / / 25 83% 14 47% Omitting final consonant clusters 26 87% 13 43% Producing / / like ‘th’ and /ð/ like ‘d’ 24 80% 17% Having wrong pronunciation with /t / 20 67% 20% Having wrong pronunciation with / / 17 57% 17% Having wrong pronunciation with /d / 16 53% 27% Having wrong pronunciation with / / 16 53% 27% 31 In general, the figures in the table show that the number of students making mistakes with individual sounds significantly decreases after the intervention While 26 students (accounting for 87%) failed to distinguish long and short vowel pairs in the pretest, only students (accounting for 27%) had this problem in the posttest The sounds / / and /ð/ also seems manageable for the students when the number of students making mistake with these sounds sharply decreases from 80% to 17% Moreover, the sounds /t / and / / also witnessed a positive change in the students’ pronunciation 20% of the total number made mistake with the sound /t / and 17% with the sound / / in the posttest in comparison with 67% and 57% respectively in the pretest However, the sound /d / and / / seem more difficult for these students because little improvement was made Among 16 students who made mistake with these sounds in the pretest, only could make progress while the other kept their initial wrong pronunciation It appears that the sound /æ/ is the most problematic for the students After the intervention, 47% of the students could not make any improvement with this sound They still produced this sound like /e/ or / / Final consonant clusters are also the problematic issue 43% of the students kept omitting final consonants when speaking My informal interviews with these students showed that they knew they had to pronounce final consonants in English and they could it when pronouncing individual words but they just missed in speaking or reading long passages In short, it can be concluded that the intervention has some positive effects on improving students’ pronunciation of English sounds Students made great progress with the distinction between long and short vowel pairs Their pronunciation of the sound / /, /ð/, /t /, and / / also significantly improved Nevertheless, little improvement is found for the pronunciation of the sound /æ/ and final consonant clusters 3.3.2 Stress 32 Different from the pretest which consists only sentences with important words, the posttest includes sentences with two or more than two important words Students’ performance in the posttest regarding stress on important words is shown in the following table Table 10 Students’ stress on important words Sentences Model oOoooO oooOOooOoo oOooOoOoO oOoOo OoOO ooOoooOoOo Ooooo Number of 25 19 20 24 28 18 29 correctness Percentage 83% 63% 67% 80% 93% 60% 97% The figures in table 10 show that the longer the sentences are, the fewer correct responses there are Sentence and 6, which are the longest sentences, received the least correct answers, only 19 for sentence and 18 for sentence (accounting for 63% and 60% respectively) Whereas, sentence 7, a short and simple one, got 29 correct responses which made up 97% of the total Whatever, the number of correctness increases considerably in comparison with that in the pretest in which the highest number of correctness is only 11 (accounting for 37%) Table 11 below describes students’ performance regarding stress on corrective words Table 11 Students’ stress on corrective words Sentence Model oooooooOooOoooOo ooooOooooooooOoOo oooOoooOoOooo oooOoooooOO Number of 19 23 21 25 correctness Percentage 63% 77% 70% 83% 33 When compared with the result in the pretest, it came to me as a surprise that students’ performance regarding stress on corrective words in the posttest was remarkably better The number of students who could put the right stress on corrective words increases dramatically The highest number of correctness in the posttest is 25 (83%) for sentence in comparison with (23%) in the pretest For the other sentences, the number of correctness is also quite high with 23 for sentence 2, 21 for sentence and 19 for sentence which account for 77%, 70 and 63% respectively My teaching diary shows that students found the rule to put stress on corrective words easy to remember They did not perform well in the pretest just because they had not been taught the rule before 3.3.3 Rhythm and thought groups Chart shows the comparison between the students’ performance in the pretest and posttest regarding rhythm and thought groups Chart Rhythm and thought groups 30 N o o f s t u d e n ts 25 20 pretest posttest 15 10 misplaced stress misplaced pauses more pauses than less pauses than model model syllable-timed rhythm It seems that rhythm is rather difficult for the students to master because the number of students who made mistakes did not decrease much in the posttest In terms of misplaced stress, the number falls from 21 to 15 which means that only students achieved progress For misplaced pauses, 17 students still made mistake in the posttest in comparison with 24 in the 34 pretest The other two also witnessed students’ little improvement with 11 students using more pauses and 13 using less pauses than required as compared with corresponsive 15 and 17 in the pretest Moreover, only students managed to abandon their syllable-timed rhythm It can be said that students’ performance of rhythm gained the least improvement among the aspects of pronunciation being taught during the semester 3.3.4 Intonation The result of the students’ intonation of statements, yes-no questions, wh-questions, polite requests and suggestions is reported in table 12 Table 12 Students’ intonation of statements, yes-no questions, wh-questions, polite requests and suggestions Sentence No of correct patterns 30 27 25 26 22 27 26 Percentage 100% 90% 83% 87% 73% 90% 87% Model As the researcher had expected, the students performed strikingly well in this part 30 students (100%) could produce sentence 1, which is a statement, with the right pattern This is explainable because up to 25 students (83%) could pronounce a statement correctly in the pretest Futhermore, sentence 2, a wh-question and sentence 6, a suggestion both received 27 correct patterns which made up 90% For yes-no question –sentence and suggestion in the form of yes-no question - sentence 7, the students also made progress with 25 correct patterns for the former and 26 for the latter in comparison with 16 and 14 respectively in the pretest However, making a polite request seems more difficult than the others with the least correct patterns, 11 in the pretest and 22 in the posttest One more finding is that the students were more likely to produce falling tune correctly than rising tune All in all, the students’ intonation of statements, yes-no questions, wh-questions, polite requests and suggestions has greatly improved at the end of the research program 35 As regards the students’ intonation of lists, the result is in the following table Table 13 Students’ intonation of lists Sentence No of correct patterns 25 28 28 27 26 Percentage 83% 93% 93% 90% 87% Model Beyond the researcher’s expectation, the students have made excellent progress in pronouncing lists For sentences with two items in the list such as sentence and 3, almost all students could speak with the right patterns (28 for both sentences) while only 15 could in the pretest For other sentences with more than two items in the list, the number of correct patterns is also considerably high (from 25 to 27 correct patterns) in comparison with that in the pretest (from to 13 correct patterns) The unchanged thing is that the longer the list is, the more difficult it seems for the students That is why sentence with the longest list received the least correct patterns 3.4.5 Linking The students’ performance of linking in the posttest is shown in table 14 below Table 14 Students’ performance of word linking Sentence No of correct 25 26 24 25 26 83% 87% 80% 83% 87% patterns Percentage The figures in the table shows that the students could perform much better in the posttest than in the pretest The highest number of correct responses in the posttest is 26 in comparison with 36 14 in the pretest However, the teacher’s observation showed that although the students could link the sounds together, their speech is not natural and they often stopped to think when they started to produce the linking Therefore, it can be concluded from all the above findings that the students’ intonation regarding statements, yes-no questions, wh-questions, polite requests, suggestions, lists, old and new information has experienced significant improvement after the researcher’s intervention In summary, the following conclusions are drawn from the data collected in the posttest To start with, the students have actually made recognizable progress with English sounds, especially the distinction between long and short vowel pairs, and the sounds / /, /ð/, /t /, / / However, little improvement is seen for the sound /æ/ and final consonant clusters Moreover, the students’ performance of stress has also greatly improved After training of stress in association with parts of speech, students’ awareness of stress on important words has been raised to a much higher level However, longer sentences with more stressed words still seem to make students confused Also, the training of stress on corrective words has helped students to make impressive improvement in their performance As regards English rhythm, it seems to be the most difficult aspects to be mastered Students gained the least improvement because they misplaced stress, misplaced pauses or produced with syllable-timed rhythm Finally, on the part of intonation, statements and wh-questions received the most correct patterns This is understandable because they are most common in everyday language and the falling tune at the end of the sentence is familiar, so easier for the students to produce than the rising tune The students’ intonation of lists and old information also remarkably improved at the end of the research program What seems to be the most difficult for the students to make progress is the polite request with the least improvement Teaching diary points out that the students use the rising tune but not as polite as it needs 37 All in all, as a result of the intervention, the students’ pronunciation has considerably improved The teacher’s observation also shows that students could speak more naturally with more accurate sounds, appropriate stress, and intonation though rhythm needs more training and practice for better performance The results of the study support the view by Stenson, Downing, Smith, & Smith (1992) that the use of software with visual displays of language learner speech and the opportunity to visually and aurally compare output to that of a native speaker can improve target language pronunciation Furthermore, the findings of this study fairly corresponds with the assumption Derwing, Munrol and Wiebe (1998) have made, that is, explicit instruction is essential in teaching pronunciation Explicitly teaching learners about the features of pronunciation will help them master the features faster than letting them pick up the features through exposure to the language, particularly in a foreign language context Therefore, it is necessary for ESL teachers to draw learners’ awareness to these features and to provide them with explicit training On the other hand, the results of the study are also consistent with the findings in my related investigations (Levis, 2005; Saito, 2007) that segmental should be taught prior to suprasegmental features This result does not mean that students not have the ability to perceive the suprasegmental features at the initial stage, but that they need to have basic understanding of sounds before moving into the more complicated issue of prosody 3.4 Further findings from the teacher’s observation and informal interview with students The teacher’ observation during class hours and informal interviews with the students during breaks were conducted as supplementary instruments in order to find out how students learnt pronunciation with the help of software, how they evaluated the new way of using the 38 software to present pronunciation lessons, and how useful they thought it was The findings are as follows Firstly, the students held the new way of teaching pronunciation in high regard They acknowledged that the use of software in teaching and learning pronunciation did a great help in improving their pronunciation The audible sounds accompanied by visual illustrations (a side and a front view) of real-time articulatory movements for the production of the sounds really helped them master the way to pronounce difficult sounds and distinguish similar sounds The function that the Speech Analysis offers the user a look at graphic representations of the sound utterance as a waveform helped the students a lot in evaluating their pronunciation accuracy by comparing their waveform of the sound with that of the instructor Secondly, during the class hour with the exploitation of software, the students were highlymotivated They took part in the lesson actively and enthusiastically All the students held a positive attitude towards using software in pronunciation lessons The informal interviews with the students revealed that the reasons for their high motivation consisted of the their interest in the new learning environment and authentic input, opportunity to learn at their own pace, and vivid images and sounds However, using the software Pronunciation Power in teaching pronunciation also reveals some disadvantages At the beginning of the project, the students complained about some difficulties which are mainly related to technical issues such as being unfamiliar with some computer functions, or being unable to run the software However, these problems were easily solved by the teacher’s instructions 39 PART III CONCLUSION Summary So far, this study has answered the three research questions what the students’ most common problems regarding their English pronunciation are, whether Pronunciation Power is effective in teaching first-year English majors’ pronunciation and how effective it is An action research project has been conducted in a speaking and pronunciation course in the first semester for the 30 first-year English majors of Foreign Language Department at Hong Duc University The project involved exploiting the computer software entitled Pronunciation Power to provide students with explicit instruction on English sounds, word stress, sentence stress and rhythm, intonation and relevant exercises for them to practice The instruments used for obtaining the data consisted of a pretest at the beginning and a posttest at the end of the semester, classroom observations, and informal interviews with students The researcher’s initial investigation and the pretest results showed that the students’ difficulties concerns long and short vowel pair distinction, and the sounds that not exist in Vietnamese such as /æ/, / /, /ð/, /t /, / /, /d /, and / / Furthermore, stress, rhythm and intonation are also the students’ weaknesses The intervention took place from week to week 14 of the semester The findings from the posttest results, teacher’s observation and informal interview with students showed that the intervention helps improve English pronunciation for first-year English majors at Hong Duc University Pedagogical implication The findings of the study implicate that - CALL software packages should be integrated in teaching and learning English pronunciation in order to increase the quality of EFL education as well as to keep along with the present teaching trend in the world 40 - Technical investment for English teaching and learning should be paid more attention For the time being, there is only a LAB room which is fully equipped with computers at Hong Duc university More classrooms like this one should be installed so that all the English majors of Foreign Language Department have opportunity to learn English in a new learning environment - During the first lessons with the application of CALL software packages, the students could face some difficulties with the computers The teacher should take this into consideration before using the software and be ready to give the needy students timely support - This study can be used as a reference source for teachers, learners and those interested in using software programs in teaching and learning English pronunciation Limitations of the study Although the study has some beneficial contributions to the pronunciation teaching and learning, it still has some limitations as follows First, as an action research with its typical characteristic defined as ‘situational’, this study is prone to lack generalization The intervention has worked quite successfully in the researcher’s class but may not be applied to other classes in other contexts This research, therefore, has unavoidable limited application Furthermore, since the researcher could not control all the variables and constructs during the research project, the question whether software can improve students’ pronunciation is still not absolutely answered Students’ improvement may result from other factors such as their high motivation, time devotion, learning from other classes or self-learning, ect… Last but not least, the size of the study is rather small with only 30 first-year English major students This number is not enough to have a full understanding of pronunciation difficulties that first-year English majors encounter 41 Suggestions for further research The study has opened some directions for future research (1) After the study has been conducted to first-year English majors at Hong Duc university, it should be conducted to other first-year English majors at other universities as well Then the effectiveness of using the software Pronunciation Power in teaching English pronunciation will be more accurately evaluated (2) Beside the software Pronunciation Power, there exists other software packages used to teach English in general and pronunciation in particular 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Language, Learning & Technology 5(1), 166–201 Retrieved January 10, 2010, from http://llt.msu.edu/vol5num1/wood/default.html Zhao, Y (2003) Recent developments in technology and language learning: A literature review and meta-analysis CALICO Journal, 21(1), 7–27 ... Due to the importance of pronunciation in language learning and the poor pronunciation of first- year English majors at Hong Duc university, I decided to introduce some changes into my speaking and... majors’ pronunciation: An action research at Hong Duc University? ??, which tried to exploit the software programs available in my speaking and pronunciation lessons with an aim to improve first- year English. .. and pronunciation course for first- year English majors with the hope to improve their pronunciation That was the reason why I conducted this study ? ?Using software to improve first- year English majors’