Tieng anh THPT mai van ket THCSTHPT thong nhat yên dinh

CONTENTS CONTENTS I.REASONS FOR CHOOSING THE STUDY II.CONTENT 1.The theoretical basis of English sounds .2 2.The reality of the study 2.1.The reality 2.2.The results in researching the reality 3.Methodology 3.1.Demonstrating .7 3.2.Distinguishing 3.3.Drilling 3.4.Dictation 3.5 Playing games 10 3.6.Showing a sound diagram 12 3.7.Minimal pairs .14 3.8.Showing a sound video .14 3.9.Analyzing the links between the spelling and the pronunciation 15 4.Results 18 III.CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 19 1.Conclusion 19 2.Recommendations 19 XÁC NHẬN CỦA 20 Thanh Hóa, ngày 15 tháng năm 2015 20 IV.REFERENCES 21 I REASONS FOR CHOOSING THE STUDY It is common knowledge that English has become an international language and in Vietnam especially, it is nowadays considered crucial to job-seekers and scholarship hunters, as well as pursuers of higher education Thus, more and more students are taking international tests such as TOEFL and IELTS to find educational opportunities at overseas universities, and the TOEIC certificate is presently required by many Vietnamese universities and a necessary condition for graduation It is not just the matter of compulsory document that counts; a great number of Vietnamese people are learning how to better communication in English because the 21st century is the era of globalization, in which English is the common language for most interactions, as stated by James (2001): “English is the language of globalization, of international business, politics… It is the language of science, aviation, entertainment, radio and diplomacy…” Besides academic purposes, English has also voiced its parts in the daily life of Vietnamese people Investors become more and more interested in the young market of Vietnam, and the number of tourists to Vietnamese cities is increasing every year These really call for the use of English as a means of major business transaction and even small trades; therefore, waiters in big cities of Vietnam, such as Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, or Da Nang, now need English to get a good job as well Along with the development trend of the times, English is considered as an indispensable bridge in the process of globalization today So more and more people learn and use English as an informal language The ultimate purpose and core of the teaching and learning of English is that students can use it as an effective means of communication However, the use of informal English effectively or not largely depends on the accuracy in pronunciation of the participants who communicate because phonetics plays an important role to help others understand what we mean and vice versa Pronunciation is always a considerable obstacle for students Although pronunciation is introduced in textbooks, many students not pronounce correctly The environment of teaching and learning phonetics in schools creates few opportunities for students to practice pronunciation skills and this subject has been taught monotonously, given orally and traditionally It is not used with technical means in sound practice and not combined with English skills such as listening, speaking Especially, the majority of students not thoroughly understand the characteristics of the sound structure, the differences between English and Vietnamese They are also untrained and corrected to mispronunciation opportunely As a result, their mother tongue continues to impact negatively on the effectiveness of their communication in English It is time for the teaching and learning of English phonetics in schools to be given due attention Therefore, I am writing this article to survey the problems that students need effective methods of teaching English sounds II CONTENT The theoretical basis of English sounds Phonetics is a wide-ranging field, and it does not necessarily have a direct connection with the study of language itself While the phonetic disciplines can be studied independently of one another, they are clearly connected: speech organ move to produce sounds, which travel in sound waves, which are received by the ears and transmitted to the brain If phonetics deals with the physical reality of speech sounds, then phonology, on the other hand, is primarily concerned with how we interpret and systemize sounds Phonology deals with system and pattern of the sounds which exist within particular languages The study of phonology of English looks at the vowels, consonants and suprasegmental features of the language Within the discipline of phonology, when we talk about vowels and consonants we are referring to the different sounds we make when speaking, and not the vowel and consonant letters we refer to when talking about spelling Pronunciation refers to the way in which we make the sound of words To pronounce words, we push air from our lungs up through our throat and vocal chords, through our mouth, past our tongue and out between our teeth and lips (Sometimes air also travels through our nose) To change the sound that we are making, we mainly use the muscles of our mouth, tongue and lips to control the shape of our mouth and the flow of air If we can control the shape of our mouth and the flow of air correctly, then our pronunciation is clearer and other people understand us more easily Speakers of different languages tend to develop different muscles of the mouth for pronunciation When we speak a foreign language, our muscles may not be well developed for that language, and we will find pronunciation more difficult By practicing the foreign language pronunciation, our muscles develop and pronunciation improves Sounds in features of pronunciation Phonemes Consonants Voiced Unvoiced Suprasegmental features Vowels Single vowels Short Intonation Diphthongs Word stress Stress Sentence stress Long Sounds may be voiced or unvoiced (voiceless) Voiced sounds occur when the vocal cords in the larynx are vibrated It is easy to tell whether a sound is voiced or not by placing one or two fingers on your Adam’s apple If you are producing a voiced sound, you will feel vibration; if you are producing an unvoiced sound, you will not The set of phonemes consists of two categories: vowel sounds and consonants sounds However, these not necessarily correspond to the vowels and consonants we are familiar with in the alphabet Vowel sounds are all voiced, and may be single (like /e/, as in let), or combination, involving a movement from one vowel sound to another (like /ei/, as in late); such combinations are known as diphthongs An additional term used is triphthongs which describes the combination of three vowel sounds (like /aʊə/ in our or power) Single vowel sounds may be short (like /i/, as in hit) or long (like /i:/, as in heat) The symbol /:/ denotes a long sound Consonants sounds may be voiced or unvoiced It is possible to identify many pairs of consonants which are essentially the same except for the element of voicing (for instance /f/, as in fan, and /v/, as in van) The articulation of phonemes The articulation of vowels Vowels are produced when the airstream is voiced through the vibration of the vocal cords in the larynx, and then shaped using the tongue and the lips to modify the overall shape of the mouth The position of the tongue is a useful reference point for describing the differences between vowel sounds, and these are summarized in the following diagram - “Close”, “Mid” and “Open” refer to the distance between the tongue and the roof of the mouth - “Front”, “Centre” and “Back” and their corresponding “vertical” lines refer to the part of the tongue - The position of each phoneme represents the height of the tongue, and also the part of the tongue which is (however relatively) raised The articulation of consonants Consonants, as mentioned earlier, can be voiced or unvoiced The articulation of /p/ or /b/ is effectively the same, the only difference being that the latter is voiced and the former is unvoiced As the relative force involved in producing /p/ is greater than that used to produce /b/, the terms fortis (strong) and lenis (weak) are sometimes used Voicing, manner and place of articulation: (Unvoiced phonemes are in bold and voiced one left) Pronunciation and spelling English is not phonetic In English, there are 21 consonants letters, making 24 sounds, and vowel letters, making 20 sounds Many consonant letters have one main sound associated with them, such as “b”, “d”, “f”, “h”, “j” Admittedly these letters can be silent in certain words, but this tends to only happen when they are immediately preceded or followed by another consonant in the same syllable; compare, for example, the silence of “n” in “autumn” and its pronunciation in “autumnal” Letters that are related to a number of different sounds tends to have primary associations, and other less common ones For example, “s” has the primary sound value of /s/ as in “gets”, but will have the secondary pronunciation of /z/ as in “has” Similar observations can be made in relation to vowels The reality of the study 2.1 The reality Currently, most students in Vietnam learn to pronounce English traditionally They learn words, then they just know how to pronounce the words they learn In classroom, teachers often get students to remember the pronunciation by reading in unison several times This method requires students to remember too much, but students still not pronounce correctly, especially when they have new words Moreover, there are some problems in pronunciation teaching Firstly, it tends to be neglected Secondly, when it is not neglected, it tends to be reactive to a particular problem that has arisen in the classroom rather than being strategically planned When writing in English, we use vowel and 21 consonant letters When speaking English we typically use 20 different vowel sounds (including 12 diphthongs), and 24 consonant sounds In some languages, Vietnamese, for example, there is essentially one-toone relationship between spelling and pronunciation, and there will be (with the occasional exception) the same number of phonemes used in Vietnamese as there are letters in the alphabets Many English sounds not exist in Vietnamese and English words are not pronounced as they are spelt It means that sounds not always tally with words The lack of a one-to-one relationship between spelling and pronunciation in English, while by no means being unique, presents students with many problems This can lead students to initially and repeatedly misspell words and mispronounce them Students, for instance, tend to try and give a sound value to every letter in an English word, leading to pronunciations like /wælked/ for “walked” Consonant cluster (consonant sounds which occur together, as in “matchbox” /ˈmætʃbɒks/) can provide many difficulties for students, particularly when the cluster in question is not possible in Vietnamese English words can have up to three consonants together at the beginning (as in “screen” /skriːn/ or “splash” /splæʃ/ and up to four at the end (as in “sixths” /sɪksθs/ or “glimpsed” /glimpst/) Most students have a bad habit of pronouncing English words Students often pronounce /sịt tây/ to “stay”, /ờ wây/ to “away” or “đây” to “day”… Students often confuse the sounds /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ Some of them even cannot make the sound /ʒ/ at the end of words containing this sound, for example “college”, “village”, “large” … Students are not familiar with the pronunciation /s/ in the words such as “yesterday”, “thirsty”, “sister” And sometimes they produce the sound /s/ at the end of the words not containing the sound /s/.This makes the listener does not understand what they say Many of them cannot distinguish the sounds /p/, /b/ and /f/ in words as “put”, “book”, “physics” The length of short and long vowels (the long vowel phonemes being followed by the lengthening symbol /:/) causes many difficulties in pronunciation to many students For example, consider the sound /i/ in the word “bit” /bit/ and /i:/ in “beat” /bi:t/ This mispronunciation happens to many students, although the pronunciation and pronunciation symbols are taught in sequence and systematically in each English unit of high school curriculum Errors in pronunciation are partly because many teachers not focus on pronunciation, partly because students think the pronunciation is not necessary and they not know how to manipulate into practice 2.2 The results in researching the reality I set the objectives of 44 students from class 11A1 for my research Initially, I found that most of my students had little interest in lessons with pronunciation because they are afraid and lazy to pronounce They could not distinguish the sounds in the lessons Then they forget how to recognize the sounds they had learned As a result, they did not achieve the outcome that they were expected as follows: In a pre-test Pronunciation (5 questions) Students with 5/5 correct answers Students with 4/5 correct answers Students with 3/5 correct answers Students with 2/5 correct answers Students with 1/5 correct answers Students with 0/5 correct answers Raw count Percentage 22 15 0% 2% 4.5% 9% 81% 3.5% Methodology In order to fulfill the aims of this study and come up with the answers to the research questions mentioned above, the following methods are employed to carry out the study 3.1 Demonstrating We are very worried about the wet vest - Why don’t we have an ‘h’ in ‘why’, ‘where’, ‘when’, ‘what’ and ‘white’? Well, there’s a ‘w’ in ‘who’, ‘whose’, ‘whole’ and write when the meaning is right Vvv est Www est wet /vet wine /vine wheel/veal went/vent west /vest wary/vary whale/veil we’re /veer while/vile wow /vow Vanity drives away wisdom The valet parked the wet van The villain advised his wives Vigor help you win Wise women keep away from vices 3.2 Distinguishing 3.2.1 One sound from another wow/vow cot/cart shift/sift 3.2.2 Long vowels from short vowels Pit/pert/pet/pat/pot/putt/put/peat/port/part 3.2.3 Voiced sounds from voiceless sounds bit/pit vile/file gap/cap 3.2.4 Plosives from fricatives tick/thick cop/shop pin/fin 3.2.5 Same letters – many sounds thorough church ant bough machine assign cough chaos ale enough arm 3.2.6 Same sounds – many letters chaos cent occasion cancel lake sent lick assent liquor scent 3.2.7 Short or long Ship Ship Ship Ship Sheep Sheep Ship Sheep Hit Hit Hit Heat Hit Hit Heat Hit It Eat It It Eat It It It Eat Pull Pool Pool Pull Pull Pool Pull Pull Pull Pool Cot Cot Cot Caught Caught Cot Cot Cot I saw a big ship I saw a big sheep What is Das favourite food? What is Shiv’s pet dish? 3.3 Drilling One of the main ways in which pronunciation is practiced in the classroom is through drilling In its most basic form, drilling simply involves the teacher saying a word and getting the class to repeat it Drilling aims to help students achieve better pronunciation of language items, and help them to remember new items Snakes Bees Hiss Buzz For example, the teacher can ask student to tap the table when they hear /z/ sound: - trace, trays, place, plays, knees, ice, eyes, grace, graze, hiss, his sink zip suspense sip trays suppress trace raze zero race peas Xerox peace rise zenith rice sincere zing zinc success - A Zambian visited us in December We organized an excursion to the zoo to spend some time together His niece spotted there a zebra, a chimpanzee and some snakes 3.4 Dictation 3.4.1 Homophones Homophones are words which have the same pronunciation, but have different spellings In the case of homophones, students listen to a sentence and have to choose which from a printed list of words in front of them is the word with the correct spelling for a particular word they heard in the sentence Classroom work can also be done which concentrates on the properties or effects of particular letters when they appear in words, and work out some rules maybe For example: sea/see piece/peace flower/flour pull/pool so/sew/sow bear/bare throne/thrown he’ll/heal/heel bread/bred caught/court board/bored rose/rows sword/soared Steel/steal bite/byte groan/grown mist/missed mind/mined cereal/serial which/witch tire/tyre weather/whether site/sight be/b/bee scent/sent/sent here/hear road/rowed allowed/aloud some/sum heard/herd sawed/sword none/nun soul/sole would/wood root/route 3.4.2 Homophones, dictation band/ banned right/write one/won sun/son nose/knows sell/cell past/passed knot/not flu/flew 3.4.3 Homophone game sawed/sword four/tore so/sew/sow allowed/aloud bored/board groan/grown sent/scent/cent flower/flour - The teacher can read aloud a homophone and ask students to write on board both version - The teacher can give the list of homophones and dictate sentences with blanks 3.4.4 Repetition This will be the first and most common method of teaching sound specific pronunciation in English You say the target sound and have your students repeat it after you If you are teaching a long word with multiple syllables, start with the final syllable of the word and have your class repeat it Then add the penultimate syllable and say the two together having your class repeat after you Work backwards in this manner until your students are able to pronounce the entire word correctly fade/fed air/ear cup/cop sale/sell hair/here rub/rob laid/led fast/first luck/lock paste/pest far/fur bus/boss late/let cart/curt toy/tore fare/fear lark/lurk coin/corn pair/peer barn/burn boil/ball tear/fear dug/dog boy/bore 3.5 Playing games 3.5.1 Guessing sounds - Mouth a sound silent, then let students guess the sound from the shape of your mouth - Divide the board into two, then write one phonemic symbol or a word on either side (seat/sit; vine/wine; sat/set ) - Mouth more words and after students have guessed it right, write on the board - Students work in pairs and test each other 3.5.2 Phonetic hangman - It’s a funny game to help students understand that phonetic script is made of symbol, not letters - Students produce sounds, teacher produces symbols - Think of a word and its phonetic script - Draw on the board an appropriate number of spaces (“birthday” for example) - Teacher asks students to give sounds they think are in the word - Teacher writes the corresponding symbol in the space - Teacher maintains the score on the hangman 3.5.3 Tongue twisters Not only are tongue twisters a challenge to your students’ pronunciation abilities, but they add an element of fun to the classroom that can help your students relax and therefore free them to be more daring in their attempts at English 10 e.g She sells sea shells on the sea shore A proper copper coffee cup Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers Where’s the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked? A big black bug bit a bid black bear Around the rugged rocks, the rugged rascal ran The teacher asks if students have any tongue twisters in any language and try repeating to create laughter • Tongue twister game - The teacher divides the class into teams of about people - Then ask students to write his/her first name on a sheet of paper - Ask them to pass the paper to the person on the right - Write an answer to question - His/ Her answer must begin with the first sound in the person’s name e.g Bob – bought a bike - Pass around until all questions are answered - Read all the tongue twisters aloud (Question 1: What did she/he do? Where When Why?) - Some examples before they begin: Babu bought a bike in Bapatta on his birthday because he was bored Saraswati sang a song at the seaside on the sixth of September because she saw some sunshine Lingaiah laughed in the launderette at lunch because he lost his laundry 3.5.4 Rhyming pair game - Distribute cards with words written on them to groups of students - Teacher asks each group to spread all their cards face down - Each student turns over cards at a time - The two words are read out loud - Group listens and decides if the words are being rhymed - If the two word rhyme, the student keeps the cards - When cards exhaust, the one with the most cards win Word pairs for examples: town/noun turn/earn through/low square/air paw/store some/thumb lake/break house/mouse die/cry wheat/sheet This can also be played with homophone pairs: some/sum threw/through so/sew pair/pear right/write have/hair 11 3.5.5 Phonemic word search In this activity, students search a grid for ‘hidden’ words, but the words written phonemically Words may appear horizontally, vertically, diagonally and also in reverse The following sample is a ‘vegetable’ grid (The words hidden in the grid are “sweetcorn”, “cauliflower”, sprout”, “carrot”, “potato”, “pea”, “tomato”, “cabbage”, “turnip”, “bean”) 3.5.6 Sound chain This game is useful for working on initial clusters of two or more consonants Starting with a given word (which can be suggested either by the teacher ore by the first student in the chain), students think of a word which includes, in its own cluster, one of the sounds which appears in the previous word For example: green brick blue play flower friend 3.5.7 Phonemic bingo Teacher makes some bingo cards with a good range of phonemic vowel symbols on each one Each one should have the same number of sounds on it For example: To play the game, students are given a card each The sounds are called out one by one, and students cross off or cover up the ones they have on their cards Calling out words instead of sounds, then students then have to work out whether or not the words contain vowels which match any on their cards Teachers could also ask students to write another example word on their cards as they cross sounds off The ‘caller’ would have to allow time for this When a student has filled up her card, she shouts ‘Bingo’ and their card is checked 3.6 Showing a sound diagram If you are using phonetic symbols to help you teach the pronunciation of sounds, a diagram of where each English sound is produced can be eye opening for your students When students know which area of the mouth in which they should be making their sounds, they may have an easier time distinguishing between similar sounds because they are produced in different areas of the mouth 12 /i:/ /ɒ/ /ɜː/ /ai/ /i/ /æ/ /ɔː/ /u:/ /ə/ /d/ /e/ /aʊ/ /əʊ/ /ei/ /eə/ /p/ /ʊ/ /a:/ /ɔi/ /iə/ /ʌ/ /b/ /k/ /ʊə/ /t/ /g/ 13 /ʃ/ /s/ /z/ /ʒ / /f/ /dʒ/ /h/ /tʃ/ /θ/ /r/ /v/ /n/ /w/ /j/ /m/ /l/ 3.7 Minimal pairs Minimal pairs are a great way to focus pronunciation on just one sound A minimal pair is two words that vary in only one sound For example, rat and rate are minimal pairs because only the vowel sound differs between the two words Additional minimal pairs are pin and pen, dim and dime, and bat and pat The teacher can use minimal pairs to help students with their pronunciation by focusing on one particular sound In addition to the pronunciation benefits, students will also expand their vocabularies when the teacher teaches minimal pairs Students might also listen to a succession of words, and decided how many times a particular sound is heard How many times you hear /ei/? Underline each one you hear pepper paper letter later pen pain wet wait get gate late let 3.8 Showing a sound video Integrating videos into sound teaching lessons creates enticing visuals and a special interative environment in the classroom Teaching English sounds through videos also allows teachers to be creative when designing language lessons One of the most powerful ways that video can be integrated into courses is for visual representation they provide for students on otherwise abstract concepts 14 The videos I introduce here (from the website: bbclearningenglish.com) in my study are presented by Alex Bellem Alex has an undergraduate degree in Arabic and Turkish She followed this with an MA in (Theoretical) Linguistics at University College London (UCL) and a PhD in Linguistics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) where she focused on Arabic phonology and phonetics She's also a CELTA-qualified English language teacher and spent a few years teaching English as a Foreign Language At the time these videos were made in early 2008 Alex was lecturing part-time in the Linguistics Department at SOAS and was working as a Pronunciation Linguist in the BBC's Pronunciation Unit Each video including some activities mentioned above such as repetition, minimal pair, comparing to another sounds …, which helps students have more concrete understanding and effective practice of sounds 3.9 Analyzing the links between the spelling and the pronunciation 3.9.1 Consonants have one sound association Letter Sound Examples b /b/ beach, cabbage, cab d /d/ do, oddity, cod f /f/ for, coffee, off h /h/ hello, behind j /j/ judge, major k /k/ kick, making, take l /l/ leg, hello, poll m /m/ me, coming, plum n /n/ no, any, plain r /r/ run, carrot s /s/ sit, missing, kiss t /t/ tub, butter, but v /v/ very, having, brave w /w/ we, towards z /z/ zebra, lizard, maze 3.9.2 Letters appear in spellings where they are not actually pronounced Letter Silent in b subtle, doubt, climb c scissors, scene, muscle d Wednesday, sandwich, handkerchief g gnaw, ought, long h hour, what, ought k know, knee l talk, half, could n autumn, column p psychology, pneumonia, cupboard, receipt r car, more, core, bother 15 s island, aisle t listen, whistle, often w write, wrong, two, answer, yellow 3.9.3 Consonants can be pronounced in different ways Letter Alternative pronunciations c /k/ as in cat; /s/ when followed by e, i, y as in cent, cinema, cycle; /ʃ/ before certain suffixes as in delicious, prejudicial g /g/ as in go; /dʒ/ when followed by e, i, y as in gentle, gin, gym (of course there are some exceptions as in get, give and girl); /ʒ/ in certain originally borrowed words as prestige, mirage s /s/ as in sun, sleep, loss, eats, sleeps; /z/ when between two vowels as present, losing or at the end of a word, after a voiced sound as hands; /ʃ/ between a consonant and a following i as in mansion, pension; /ʒ/ between two vowels as vision, measure t /t/ cat, too; /ʃ/ when followed by a letter i in many suffixed words as information, substantial, ambitious;/tʃ/ in words ending in –ure (picture, furniture) and when followed by the sound /u:/ (Tuesday, tumor) x /ks/ fix, mix, mixture; /gz/ between vowels as exam, exact; /z/ at the beginning of words like xylophone, xenophobe y /j/ at the beginning of words: yes, yellow; /i/ between consonants as gym, bicycle; /i:/ at the end of words as city, busy; /ai/ in short words (why, my) and in stressed final syllables (apply, deny) or in words ending in –fy (satisfy, horrify) and in gynaecology, psychology and related words; helps forms diphthongs as in boy, buy, obey… 3.9.4 Double consonants Letters Sounds cc /ks/ when followed by e or i as success, accident /tʃ/ in borrowed Italian words as cappuccino gg /dʒ/ when followed by e or i as suggest, exaggerate ss /ʃ/ when followed by –ion (passion, permission) and –ure (pressure) zz /ts/ in some borrowed Italian words as pizza, mozzarella 3.9.5 Diagraphs are two letters which represent one sound in a word Letters Sounds ck /k/ as in pick, kick, pickle ch /tʃ/ as in chip, change; /k/ character, technique; /ʃ/ machine gh /g/ ghost, ghastly; /f/ tough, cough; Silent in ought, though ng /ŋ / as in sing, thing, singing ph /f/ as in phone, photograph, graphology qu /kw/ as in queen, quiz, antiquated; /k/ in words ending in –que 16 (antique, oblique) or at the beginning of some borrowed words (quiche) sh /ʃ/ ship, sheep, cash, fashion tch /tʃ/ watch, catch, matching th /θ/ theater, bath; /ð/ then, brother, bathe wh /w/ what, where, anywhere; /h/ who, whole 3.9.6 The basic menu of vowel letters Letters Pronounced as a /æ/ cat, hat, fat /a:/ before some two-consonant letter combinations as in bath, grass (but not bank, mass) e /e/ let, met, set i /i/ sit, lit, kit o /ɒ/ hot, got, lot (o is pronounced as /a:/ in American English) u /ʌ/ cut, bus, cup 3.9.7 Vowel digraphs/ other combinations Letters Sounds /ei/ train, rain ea /i:/ in dream, neat; /ei/ in break, great; /e/ in dead, ready; /ɜː/ in learn, heard; /eə/ in bear, tear (v); /iə/ near, tear (n); /a:/ in heart, hearth ee /i:/ tree, need; /i/ weak form as in been ei /i:/ seize, either, receive; /ai/ height, either; /ei/ eight, reign ie /ai/ die, pie, cried; /i:/ piece, believe; /e/ friend; /iə/ pierce, fierce oa /əʊ/ coat, goal, approach; /ɔː/ abroad, board ou /əʊ/ soul, shoulder; /u:/ soup, routine; /aʊ/ house, spout; /ʌ/ double, trouble, tough; /ɒ/ cough; /ɔː/ bought, nought ue /u:/ blue, due, sue; /ju:/ sue, value, queue ui /u:/ fruit, suit, juice; /i/ building, biscuit; /ai/ guide au /ɔː/ daughter, cause (/a:/ in American English); /a:/ aunt, laugh (/æ/ in A.E); /ɒ/ because, claustrophobia (/a:/ in A.E) eu /u:/ or /ju:/ neutral, neuter; /jɔː/ or /jʊə/ Europe, neurosis, neuralgic oi /ɔi/ coin, join, disappoint oo /u:/ food, boot; /ʌ/ blood, flood; /ʊ/ book, foot aw /ɔː/ jaw, flaw (/a:/ in A E) ay /ei/ today, way, say ew /u:/ or /ju:/ new, knew, threw; /əʊ/ sew ey /i:/ key; /ei/ obey ow /əʊ/ own, thrown; /aʊ/ town, crown oy /ɔi/ toy, boy, enjoy 17 3.9.8 Modifiers and preservatives Certain letters modify or preserve other sounds within a word The “e effect” At the end of a one-syllable word, a final e can make the preceding vowel “say its name”: fat/ fate, scent/ scene, bit/bite, not/note, cut/cute (Exceptions to this rule, however, include some very common words, many endings in -ve, -me and -ne: have, live, move, above, some, come, none, gone) A final –le can the same: tab/ table, lad/ladle The effect is sometimes preserved even if the e from the root form is no longer present and the end of the word has been changed: complete/completion, smile/ smiling The “y effect” This can be similar to e effect: lad/lady, tin/ tiny “Double-consonant When a consonant is double, the “e effect” is lost: blockers” fat/fatter, bit/ bitten The “y effect” is lost too: mummy, daddy, as is the “le effect”: knob, noble, nobble “Extra-consonant A similar effect is noticed if an extra different blockers” consonant is added: produce/ production, described/ description The “r effect” r can modify a preceding vowel sound: cat/ cart, pat/ part The “w effect” w can change a preceding vowel (hot/ how, lot/low) and a subsequent vowel (work, war, world) The “l effect” l within a word can also change vowel quality (bad/ bald, cod/ cold), as can a double -l (compare the vowel sound in pile and pill) It can also “sneak in” changing the vowel sound but keeping quiet: half, calm In lessons of teaching sounds, the teacher should combine many methods, simultaneously helps students realize the links between spelling and pronunciation For instance, when teaching the sounds /f/ and /v/ in the part E Language Focus, Pronunciation Unit 13, English 10, the teacher can help students know that the sound /f/ may be pronounced from the letters “f”, “ph” or even “gh” e.g fan, photograph, Stephen, enough and the sound /v/ from “v” and even “ph”, e.g van, Stephen Results In a post-test Raw count Percentage Pronunciation (5 questions) 18 Students with 5/5 correct answers Students with 4/5 correct answers Students with 3/5 correct answers Students with 2/5 correct answers Students with 1/5 correct answers Students with 0/5 correct answers 13 27 29.5% 61% 2.5% 4.5% 2.5% 0% The satisfactory outcome realized by successfully answering the research questions again reinforces the undeniable fact that the subject students have problems in pronunciation due to the lack of sound knowledge and that under the sound instruction of the teacher, they can troubleshoot those problems III CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS Conclusion Above is my very little experience for helping students improve their pronunciation Teaching pronunciation is a problem that does not have any standards, and rules of pronunciation in English is not much and certainly complex I look forward to more ideas and suggestions Recommendations Having access to a new set of textbooks and directly teaching students from grades 10, 11 and 12 in the past years, I have some recommendations as follow with the hope that there will be more suitable changes for: - Besides most of the content of the textbooks are good, it is necessary to have more exercises for pronunciation in each corresponding part - Teacher books should provide general knowledge of pronunciation in the corresponding request to the grammar and pronunciation and the knowledge needs specificity and accuracy - Multimedia should be used so that students can have an opportunity to be exposed to authentic and native voices, which will little by little help them develop a feeling for the language - Instruct students to self-study to improve their pronunciation “Practice makes perfect” is necessary for English learners, so the teacher needs to encourage them to practice at home through his/ her guidance - The administrators should consider organizing annual speaking or eloquent competitions in order for the students to have a playground to express themselves, through which the teacher can reflect on his/her work and make timely changes Also, the students’ peers are expected to develop an awareness of learning English not only to take written exams but to communicate orally - The administrators can guide the teachers’ more focus on spoken skills and work toward bettering the students’ use of the language, which targets the knowledge of the language alone 19 XÁC NHẬN CỦA THỦ TRƯỞNG ĐƠN VỊ Thanh Hóa, ngày 15 tháng năm 2015 CAM KẾT KHÔNG COPY Vũ Văn Thành Mai Văn Kết 20 IV REFERENCES Avery, P., & Ehrlich, S (1995) Teaching American English Pronunciation Oxford: Oxford University Press Widmayer, S., & Gray, H (2010) Tips for pronunciation activities Retrieved June 23rd, 2013 from http://www.soundsofenglish.org/tips.htm O’Connor, J D (1986) Better English Pronunciation (2nd ed.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Kelly, G (2000) How to teach pronunciation London: Pearson Hancock, M (2004) English pronunciation in use Ho Chi Minh City: HCMC Publishing House English Phonetics and Phonology: A practice course, Roach, P (2002), Cambridge University Press Third edition Ship or Sheep, Ann Baker, (1981), Cambridge University Press 21 22 ... sound to another (like /ei/, as in late); such combinations are known as diphthongs An additional term used is triphthongs which describes the combination of three vowel sounds (like /aʊə/ in... went/vent west /vest wary/vary whale/veil we’re /veer while/vile wow /vow Vanity drives away wisdom The valet parked the wet van The villain advised his wives Vigor help you win Wise women keep away... knowledge of the language alone 19 XÁC NHẬN CỦA THỦ TRƯỞNG ĐƠN VỊ Thanh Hóa, ngày 15 tháng năm 2015 CAM KẾT KHÔNG COPY Vũ Văn Thành Mai Văn Kết 20 IV REFERENCES Avery, P., & Ehrlich, S (1995) Teaching