A Contrastive Analysis Of Professional Titles In Legal Systems In English And Vietnamese.pdf

Output file 1 Vietnam national university, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THI ̣v©n anh Common mistakes made by 10 grade students at me[.]

1 Vietnam national university, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THI ̣ v©n anh Common mistakes made by 10-grade students at me linh high school in producing English vowel and consonant sounds (Những lỗi phỉ biÕn cđa häc sinh khèi 10 tr-êng THPT Mª Linh việc phát âm nguyên âm phơ ©m TiÕng Anh) M.A MINOR THESIS Major: English Teaching Methodology Code : 60 14 10 HANOI, 9/2011 Vietnam national university, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES Ngun THỊ v©n anh Common mistakes made by 10-grade students at me linh high school in producing English vowel and consonant sounds (Những lỗi phổ biến häc sinh khèi 10 tr-êng THPT Mª Linh viƯc phát âm nguyên âm phụ âm Tiếng Anh) M.A MINOR THESIS Major: English Teaching Methodology Code : 60 14 10 Supervisor: KIM văn tất, M.A HANOI, 9/2011 TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION……………………………………………………………………………i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS …………………………………………………….………….ii ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………… iii TABLE OF CONTENTS………………………………………………………………… iv LIST OF TABLES………………………………………………………………… vii PART I: INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………1 Rationale of the study……………………………………………………………….1 The aims of the study…………………………………… ………………… Research questions…………………………………………………………… .2 The scope of the study…………………………………………………….……… Research method……………………………………………………………………3 Organization of the study………………………………………………………… PART II: DEVELOPMENT ………………………………………………….………….4 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW …………………………………… …………4 1.1 Phonetics and phonology ……………………………………………….………4 1.1.1 English vowels…………………………………………………………… 1.1.2 English consonants…………………………………………………… .8 1.2 The main differences between English and Vietnamese sounds …… ………….11 1.2.1 Consonants ……………………………………………………………… 11 1.2.2 Vowels …………………………………………………………… 12 1.3 The importance of teaching and learning pronunciation …………………………12 1.4 Review of previous research ……………………………………………… 13 CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY…………………………………………………………….15 2.1 Context of the study ……………………………………………………… 15 2.1.1 Teaching staff and teaching methods …………………………………… 15 2.1.2 Students and their background …………………………………………….15 2.1.3 The teaching materials and facilities……………………………………….16 2.2 Research questions …………………………………… ………………… 17 2.3 The subjects ……………………………………… ……………… 18 2.4 Data collection instruments ………………………………………………………18 2.4.1 Class observations …………………………………….………………… 18 2.4.2 Questionnaire …………………………………………………………… 18 2.5 Data collection procedures………………………………………………… 18 2.6 Data analysis process …………………………………………………………… 19 2.7 Summary……………………………………………………………………………20 CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ……………………………………….21 3.1 Classroom observation and discussion ………… 21 3.2 Findings and discussion from the questionnaire …………………………………24 3.2.1 Findings about the students’ attitudes towards pronunciation……………… 24 3.2.2 Findings about the common problems with English sounds and the main causes………………………………………………………………………………………25 3.2.2.1 Findings about the common problems with English sounds…………25 3.2.2.2 The causes of consonant and vowel mistakes……………… 26 3.2.3 The solutions to the problems……………………………………………… 27 3.2.3.1 Students’ self correction…………………………………………… 27 3.2.3.2 Teachers’ methods in teaching pronunciation……………………… 28 3.2.3.3 Students’ expectation from their teachers’ methods in teaching pronunciation …………………………………………………………………………….29 CHAPTER 4: SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS FOR 10TH GRADE STUDENTS AT ME LINH HIGH SCHOOL TO PRODUCE ENGLISH SOUNDS CORRECTLY……………………………………………………………………………31 4.1 Using visual aids………………………………………………………………31 4.2 Solutions for English sounds practice …… …………………………………31 4.2.1 Drilling (Listen and repeat)…………………………………………….32 4.2.2 Tongue twisters……………………………………………………… 32 4.2.3 Do the listening exercises:…………………………………………… 33 4.2.4 Playing games: …………………………………………………………34 4.2.4.1 Pronunciation maze…………………………………………….34 4.2.4.2 Bingo………………………………………………………… 35 PART III: CONCLUSION …………………………………………… ………………38 Conclusions …………… …………….……………………………………………38 Limitations and suggestions for further study ……………………….……… 38 REFERENCES ……………………………………………………… ………… 40 APPENDICES……………………………………………………………………… I LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Figure 1: Diagram of Vowels Figure 2: Consonants in the English language Table 1: Pronunciation matters mentioned in Tieng Anh 10 Table 2: students’ attitude toward pronunciation Table3: students’ opinion on the level of difficulties of English vowels Table4: students’ opinion on the level of difficulties of English consonants Table5: Causes of students’ mistakes in producing English sounds Table 6: Students’ opinions about their self- correction Table 7: Teaching English pronunciation methods Table 8: Students’ expectation from their teachers’ methods in teaching pronunciation PART ONE: INTRODUCTION Rationale of the study 10 In the process of integration and globalization, English is rapidly becoming an indispensable instrument in community communication It is being used world-wide as the main language in business, trading, communication, etc Therefore, more and more people learn English as foreign language and wish to be able to master it as native speakers However, learners cannot success in studying English without mastering English pronunciation because pronunciation is one of the most important components of a language It is really very important for learners to have communication of the target language as correct possible right from the start There have been a great deal of notable works about pronunciation and pronunciation teaching since the dawn of language teaching such as ones written by, Gimson (1962), Kenworthy (1987), Avery &Ehrlich (1992), Jerkins (2000) However, few studies have been done on common mistakes in pronouncing English sounds alone The most popular one is the study by Avery &Ahrlich (1992) in which the problems of selected language group are discussed In their work they have confirmed that ―Vietnamese speakers not experience too much difficulty with the English vowels‖ In reality, Vietnamese learners often mispronounce the sound / æ / and /e/ Moreover, their explanations about the problems which Vietnamese learners have with English consonants are not really appropriate It is said that Vietnamese learners have not so many difficulties when producing English sounds because English and Vietnamese have the same Latin alphabets However, there is a big difference in the phonetics alphabets between the two languages and the ways to pronounce them Thus, the most common cause is the default misunderstanding of the way these sounds are produced and the effect of some sounds of the mother tongue In Vietnam, English is the core foreign language that is taught as a compulsory subject at all school levels The need to acquire this so popular language proves to be constant with socioeconomic changes in Vietnam in recent years However, it is undeniable that many Vietnamese students receiving the English teaching from their teachers at schools can’t pronounce English words correctly This is one of the first language influences on the second language acquisition in the way that some features of pronouncing words in English not exist in Vietnamese In fact, Vietnamese learners of English have many difficulties in pronouncing English For high school students, especially students at Me Linh high school are not the exception even 11 though they have learnt English since the early age Another reason is that no research has been carried on this field at Me Linh high school in Hanoi This leads the researcher to the thought of making a research on ―Common mistakes made by tenth grade students at Me Linh high school in producing English vowel and consonant sounds‖ with the purpose of finding out the causes of mispronunciations It is hoped that this study will contribute to the goal of enhancing students’ performances in the teaching and learning foreign language Aims of the study The study aims at finding out common mistakes made by tenth grade students at Me Linh high school in pronouncing English words and the causes of these problems The results will provide an overview of learners’ pronunciation at Me Linh high school and give suggestions for teachers to improve the situation The findings of this research will hopefully help Me Linh high school students to raise their awareness of learning correct pronunciation so as to produce English vowel and consonant sound properly Research questions What are the common mistakes in pronouncing English vowels and consonants made by 10th grade students at Me Linh high school? What are the causes of those mistakes? What are solutions to the problem? Scope of the study The study limited itself to the investigation of common mistakes in English pronunciation of the 10th grade students at Me Linh high school in Hanoi The researcher of the thesis pays attention to find out students’ common mistakes in the lessons Language focus with the subsection Pronunciation of Tieng Anh 10- textbook Solutions are also provided to help improve teaching and learning English pronunciation in general, teaching and learning English pronunciation for the 10th grade students at Me Linh high school in particular Research method 12 A combination of different data collection methods was used including class observations and questionnaires for students Details of the methodology applied in the study are discussed in Chapter of Part two Organization of the study The study composes of three parts: Part one, Introduction, includes the rationale, aims, research question, scope, method and organization of the study Part two, Development, consists of four chapters Chapter one, Literature Review, presents the theoretical background relevant to the research The first section presents the basic concepts of phonetics, phonology articulatory phonetics The second section shows the main differences between English and Vietnamese sounds The next section presents the importance of teaching pronunciation The last section summarizes the review of previous research related to vowel and consonant pronunciation Chapter two, the Study, describes the context of the study, the participants, and the method Chapter three is the findings and discussion from classroom observations and questionnaire The last chapter is some suggested solutions for 10 grade students at Me Linh high school to produce English sounds correctly Part three, Conclusion, summarizes the findings and gives limitations and suggestions for further research Besides, the classroom observation transcripts, survey questionnaire and suggested solutions for the teachers and students are included in the Appendices PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter is devoted to the presentation of the theoretical issues related to the study The 13 first section provides some basic linguistic and phonetic concepts to bring a common view of the matter studied including phonetics, phonology, English consonants and vowels The second section describes the differences between English and Vietnamese The next section presents the importance of pronunciation teaching and learning The final section discusses the review of some previous research related to English consonant and vowel sounds 1.1 Phonetics and phonology This section starts with a distinction between two related terms (often loosely) used to refer to linguistic disciplines studying the linguistic sign which Ferdinand de Saussure in Course of General Linguistics called the acoustic image: phonetics and phonology Phonetics deals with how speech sounds are actually produced, transmitted and received in actual spoken language, while phonology deals with especially with the ways those sounds are organized into the individual languages, hence dealing with abstractions on a virtual basis ―Phonetics first of all divides, or segments, concrete utterances into individual speech sounds It is therefore exclusively concerned with parole or performance Phonetics can be divided into three distinct phases: (1) articualtory phonetics, (2) acoustic phonetics and (3) auditory phonetics‖ (Skandera& Burleigh, 2005:3) Articulatory phonetics deals with the way in which speech sounds are produced Sound are usually classified according to the position of lips and the tongue, how far open the mouth is, whether or not the vocal cords are vibrating and so on Acoustic phonetics deals with the transmission of speech sounds through the air When a speech sound is produced it causes minor air disturbances (sound waves) Various instruments are used to measure the characteristics of these sound waves Auditory phonetics deals with how speech sounds are perceived by the listener, From the practical phonetic standpoint, it is convenient to distinguish two types of speech sound, simply because the majority of sounds may be described and classified most appropriately according to one of the two techniques 25 The teaching material for this study is the textbook Tieng Anh 10 It is the basic curriculum for general students with 16 units of different themes which cover two semesters Each unit consists of sections: reading, speaking, listening and language focus and each section is supposed to be taught in 45 minutes The classes have periods a week There is a test after every units and two final tests at the end of each semester Teaching pronunciation is the first part of the Language focus, the second one is Grammar Because the time is limited for this section (only 45 minutes for parts: pronunciation and Grammar), so the pronunciation is often practiced in or 10 minutes that is not enough The details of Pronunciation sub-section in Tieng Anh 10 are shown in the table below Units Pronunciation matter Unit / I / - / i: / Unit / ʌ / - / a: / Unit /e/ - /æ/ Unit / ɒ / - / ɔ: / Unit / ʊ / - / u: / Unit /ə/ - / ɜ: / Unit / eI / - / / - / ɔI / Unit / aʊ / - / əʊ / Unit / iə / - / e ə / - / ʊə / Unit 10 /b/- /p/ Unit 11 / d/- /t/ Unit 12 /s/- /z/ Unit 13 /f/- /v/ Unit 14 / g/ - / k / Unit 15 /θ/- /ð/ Unit 16 /ʒ/- /ʃ/ 26 Table 1: Pronunciation matters mentioned in Tieng Anh 10 From the table, we can come to a conclusion that in Tieng Anh 10, pronunciation matters are complicated, including diphthongs, minimal pairs of both vowels and consonants Teaching facilities also play an important part in teaching English and may affect the teaching positively or negatively All teachers can use cassette recorders in their class when necessary but the recorders are too old and often out of order There are some modern devices such as overhead projector and projector, but seldom can teachers and students use them because it is inconvenient for them to fetch it to the classroom It is obvious that teaching facilities at Me Linh High School are poorly supplied This certainly has negative effects on English teaching and learning 2.2 Research questions The research focuses on analyzing the pronunciation problems of tenth grade students at Me Linh high school to find out their common mistakes in producing English sounds The study raised the following questions What are common mistakes in pronouncing English vowels and consonants made by 10 th grade students at Me Linh high school? What are the causes of those mistakes? What are solutions to the problem? 2.3 The subjects The subjects of the study consist of 100 ten grade students from ten classes at Me Linh high school They are chosen at random basing on their ordinal number in the attendance register They are from 15 to 16 years old All of them have learned English since 6th grade (about 12 years old) The learning aid is only a cassette player Most of them can written English tasks quite well, but they speak English with a lot of mispronounced words 2.4 Data collection instruments 27 To get the findings for research questions, these means of data collection were administered: 2.4.1 Class observations Classroom observations are applied in order to find out common mistakes in producing English consonant and vowel sounds among students at grade ten The observations were carried out before the time the questionnaires were conducted in three Language Focus periods of three different classes taught by three different teachers at grade 10 Hopefully, the results from the classroom observations will contribute much to finding out the solutions to the problems 2.4.2 Questionnaire The questionnaire was designed with 11questions to get information about the students’ attitude, their difficulties in producing English sounds and the causes of those difficulties as well as the teachers’ methods to help students to produce English correctly 2.5 Data collection procedures As mentioned in the above section, to collect information and data, two instruments: the observation and questionnaire were used All the participants were informed of the purpose of the study and willing to help the researcher to fulfill the task The study was conducted in two steps as follows: Firstly, the class observation was done when the subjects learning English pronunciation lessons naturally without awareness of being observed in the classroom The researcher attended teaching periods of other colleagues and observed the students of her own class During the observation, the researcher took notes immediately in her notebook These notes were then transcribed and analyzed to evaluate pronunciation teaching and learning in the classroom Then, the result of the observation would be compared with the result of the questionnaire Secondly, the questionnaires were administered to 100 students of grade 10 at the end of the second- semester of the school year The questionnaire consists of 11questions Five first questions are aimed at finding out the attitudes of students towards the pronunciation lessons The next three questions are aimed at finding out the levels of difficulties in producing vowels 28 and consonants and the causes of difficulties The three last questions are aimed at finding out the solutions to produce English sounds correctly in teaching and learning pronunciation The researcher clearly explained the purpose of doing research before the participants answered the questions They were also encouraged to raise questions if there was something in the questionnaire they did not understand They were instructed to take as much time as they needed to complete it 2.6 Data analysis process Data collected from two different sources were categorized into (a) the tenth grade students' attitudes towards pronunciation at Me Linh high school, (b) the difficulties in producing English vowel and consonant sounds and the causes of mistakes (c) the suggestions made by the researcher for both teachers and students in learning and teaching pronunciation correctly The data were categorized this way is easy for the researcher to find the answers for the research questions The quantitative data were presented in the form of tables while qualitative data from the class observation was presented by quoting relevant responses from the respondents 2.7 Summary This chapter presented the context of the study at Me Linh high school, the research questions, the research methodology and instruments of data collection The researcher used two different instruments: class observation and questionnaires with the purpose of achieving reliable and valid data In the next chapter, chapter 3, the author will present the data analysis, discussion The last chapter is the implications for teaching and learning English pronunciation in Tieng Anh 10 29 Chapter 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION In this chapter, the results are in turn elaborated and discussed in two sections The first part is the findings from classroom observations The second part presents the data from the questionnaires by means of tables Classroom observation and discussion During the academic year 2010- 2011, the researcher observed grade 10 teachers in class 10A1, 10A4, 10A8, at Me Linh high school when they taught Language focus which has the subsection: Pronunciation During the process of observations, the researcher focused on some aspects such as: teaching and learning materials used in class, students’ activities and their 30 mistakes in producing sounds, and teachers’ approaches and techniques used in teaching pronunciation In class 10A1 The lesson that the researcher was allowed to observe was Language Focus period of unit in Tieng Anh 10 which focuses on minimal pair / e / - / æ / After settling down the students (there were 40 students in this class), the teacher asked them to look at the two columns of words / e / - / æ /, then listened to the cassette player Students had a chance to get all the sounds from the cassette twice, and then they had to repeat after the teacher Then problems appeared that students sitting at the back of the room could not hear the cassette clearly, as a consequence, some read words in the way they thought right, some tried to imitate the sounds the teacher had just pronounced The most significant mistakes were that students could not produce the sounds / æ /in words man, sad, bad, sand, some pronounced / æ / like /e/ and some pronounced it like /a/ After one minute practicing reading the words, the teacher asked four students to read aloud individually and checked immediately The teacher found that all four students make mistakes with the sound / æ/, so she let the whole class listen again that sound and then required the whole class to repeat after the cassette twice It took minutes for those activities The next minutes were spent on practicing sentences The teacher read all sentences and students listened After that, she called students in turn read aloud sentences in the textbook and checked All six students made mistakes in producing the sound / æ/ in the words: fat (sentence 1), handbag (sentence 2), apples (sentence 3), pans (sentence 4), cat (sentence 5), bad (sentence 6) There appeared other problems like some students just sat and listened to his/ her partner; some just read sentences as required only when the teacher came near him or her Then the teacher asked students to practice more at home and said that she would check it in the next lesson From the observation, we can see that pronunciation teaching and learning in class 10A1 still followed the traditional path of imitating and drilling which causes boredom for students Even though there was listening activity at the beginning, it did not help much because the room was too large for the students sitting at the back All of the students make mistakes in producing 31 the sound / æ/ in words and sentences The lesson was far from satisfaction for both teacher and students In class 10A4 The teacher taught this section as warm up activities that makes students learn both vocabulary and pronunciation of unit 12 with two sounds: /s/ - /z/ Students were eager to learn because she gave them some picture and asked them to find the words for those pictures and pronounce those words She checked immediately Then, the teacher introduced these two sounds /s/ - /z/ It seemed that they are easy sounds that students can pronounce them correctly after listening to the teacher’s instruction and imitating her pronunciation When asked, students were able to read the isolated words and sentences correctly After minutes students could distinguish these sounds without any difficulty They seemed to be very happy When checked, out of students read sentences correctly The researcher saw that this minimal pair was not difficult for students to pronounce In class 10A8 The researcher had a chance to observe a Language Focus period in class 10A8 (A remarkable characteristic in this class is that there were 47 students) when they had been taught unit 15 which deals with /θ/ - /ð/ The steps carried out by the teacher were not very different from which the teacher teaching class 10A1 chose to introduce the sounds and then give time for students to practice The different points were the challenges that the teacher had to deal with during the lesson The emerging problem was that most students had difficulty in producing these sounds because they were not in Vietnamese sound system and they often confused with the sound /th/ in Vietnamese The teacher let students listen to her introduction of the two sounds twice, and then the teacher read aloud and asked students to repeat However, when students read aloud, most of them could not produce these sounds correctly The teacher had to read aloud the words which have the sounds/θ/ - /ð/ again slowly and clearly and asked students to read in chorus twice She let students minute practice individually However, students’ practicing was still unsatisfactory When three students were asked to read aloud this minimal pair, they pronounce two sounds similarly; therefore, all three students made mistakes in producing this minimal pair The teacher checked immediately for only these students Then she moved to the 32 part practice the sentences First the teacher read all the five sentences, then she had minutes for students to practice reading them individually, next she called in turn students to read aloud the five sentences However, all five students make mistakes in these sounds Each of five students was checked and made correction Those activities took nearly 30 minutes that is why the teacher asked students to practice more at home, and moved to Grammar section After the lesson, the researcher had informal talk with the teacher She said that she herself was not satisfied with the result of her students’ practice; however, if she had continued checking and correcting students’ mistakes, there would have been no time for grammatical points which were supposed to be taught in the same lesson From the situation of class 10A8, the researcher is more aware of class size, time spent on pronunciation lessons, and the confusing sounds between Vietnamese and English All these factors hinder students’ learning In conclusion, the present situation of teaching and learning pronunciation at Me Linh high school is not positive as expected The researcher found that teaching and learning materials and equipment, limited teaching and learning time, unvaried teaching techniques and few chances for students to practice in class bring about trouble in teaching and learning pronunciation 3.2 Findings and discussion from the questionnaire According to the structure of the questionnaires, the findings and discussion in this part is divided into three main parts The first part is students’ attitude towards pronunciation in Tieng Anh 10 The second part presents the common problems with pronunciation that students usually face The last part give more details about the correction made by their teachers and studentsthemselves in producing English sounds 3.2.1 Findings about the students’ attitudes towards pronunciation Answer A B C 100 Question Question D 33 Question 100 Question 11 16 73 Question 37 48 15 Question 37 46 15 Table 2: students’ attitude toward pronunciation The data reveals that most of the students are highly aware of the vital role of proper pronunciation of English All of the students started to learn English atgrade at their secondary schools as English is a compulsory subject from this grade to higher ones 73 participated students have a modest aim to attain intelligible pronunciation of English (a reasonable and understandable pronunciation) and the rest was the number of students desired to have near native like and near- native like pronunciation When students were asked about the importance of pronunciation, most of them (85 students) agreed that it was very important to learn English This proves that only by mastering a good pronunciation can the students speak English accurately and fluently and make others understand Similarly, 83 students thought that English pronunciation was difficult or even very difficult, while only students thought that it was not difficult at all Those numbers reveal the fact that producing English pronunciation correctly is necessary in communicating It is needed for the students to achieve the goal of intelligible pronunciation 3.2.2 Findings about the common problems with English sounds and the main causes 3.2.2.1 Findings about the common problems with English sounds As the answer for the question 4, 83 out of 100 students at the grade 10 thought that English pronunciation was difficult and even very difficult The textbook was designed with 12 units involving the minimal vowel and consonant pairs To find out the common mistakes in producing English sounds of 10 grade students, the researcher raised questions and which asked students to rank the pairs according to their levels of difficulty 34 Vowel sounds Number of students chose most difficult vowel pair A /I/ -/i:/ hit- heat B //ʌ/ / - /a:/ subject -father 12 C / e / - //æ/ / men –man 68 D // ɒ/ / - / ɔ:/ 10 top – sport E / ʊ/ / - /u: / put – food F / ə / - // ɜ:/ / teacher - bird Table3: students’ opinion on the level of difficulties of English vowels With the minimal vowel pairs in question 6, the pair /e/ - //æ/ was chosen for the most difficult pair by 68 students, while only 5, or students chose for the pair/I/ -/i:/, / ʊ/ / - /u: / and / ə / - / ɜ:/ for the most difficult one respectively 12 students put number one for the pair /ʌ/ / - /a:/ Therefore, it is clear that most of the students considered the pair /e/ - //æ/ is difficult for them to distinguish and to practice Consonant pairs Number of students chose the most difficult consonant pair A /b/ -/p/ bee- pea B /t/ - /d/ topic- difficult C /s/ -/z/ said –zoo D /f/ -/v/ fan – van E /g/ - /k/ group – club F / θ/ -/ ð/ / think – they 42 35 G / ʒ / / - / ʃ / / Asia - English 38 Table4: students’ opinion on the level of difficulties of English consonants Similarly, with the minimal pairs on Tieng Anh 10 , the pair / θ/ -/ ð/ ranked the first place as it was the most difficult chosen by 42 students 38 students chose the pair / ʒ / - / ʃ / The rest minimal consonant pairs were chosen by l 20 students To conclude, the pairs / θ/ -/ ð/ and / ʒ / - / ʃ/ were the most difficult pairs for Me Linh tenth grade students 3.2.2.2 The causes of consonant and vowel mistakes It is important to find out the causes of consonant and vowel mistakes Therefore, question was designed to mention all aspects of the problem, for example: the sound system, students’ practice or the feedback Causes of mistakes Number of Number of students students agree disagree there are some sounds that not exist in Vietnamese 86 14 I haven’t been familiarized with the sounds in English 93 I think that English sounds and Vietnamese are the same 97 I not practice the sounds taught outside class 95 5 nobody corrects my pronunciation 96 I not dare to ask my teachers or friends for help 92 Table5: Causes of students’ mistakes in producing English sounds According to the data provided, 86 students recognize the cause of their difficulty in pronunciation lies in the fact that there are some English sounds that not exist in Vietnamese Only of them think they haven’t been familiarized with the sound in English And students agree that English sound s and Vietnamese are the same This is understandable because they have quite sufficient input of English inside and outside classroom as mentioned above In contrast, 95 students agree that they not practice the sounds taught outside class Therefore, 36 the students’ practice plays an important role in producing English sounds correctly; the main cause of having problems with some sounds was the lack of practicing Only students say that nobody corrects their pronunciation because the others are often received the help from their teachers and friends Most of the students (92 students) agree that they dare to ask their teachers and friends for help when they have problems It is clear that students are aware of their problems and confident to ask for the help and eager to achieve better pronunciation 3.2.3 The solutions to the problem 3.2.3.1 Students’ self correction When asked about what they should to produce English sounds correctly, 100 students agreed that they should practice as much as possible It is understandable because practice is perfect In addition, most of the students agreed with the ways such as asking teachers and friends for help, practicing when possible, and learning Pronunciation on Internet In contrast, students did not agree with recording for self-correcting and attending English extra pronunciation courses because these two ways are time-consuming and expensive as well The following figures were presented in the table below methods record for self- correcting practice as much as possible ask teachers and friends for help attend English extra pronunciation courses learning pronunciation on Internet Number of students agree Number of student disagree 97 100 96 98 72 28 Table 6: Students’ opinions about their self- correction 37 3.2.3.2 Teachers’ methods in teaching pronunciation Question 10 mentioned students’ opinions about the ways their teachers taught pronunciation The data was collected in the following table methods yes no Listen and imitate 100 Minimal pair drills 100 Visual aids 97 Tongue twister 57 43 Reading aloud 100 Playing games 98 Listening activities 96 Table 7: Teaching English pronunciation methods It can be seen that all the teachers use such way as listening and imitating, minimal pair drilling, and reading aloud It proves that these are popular ways to teach pronunciation Students learned to produce sounds by listening to the tape or the teacher’s voice and imitating by reading in chorus or individually The minimal pairs were designed in the textbook in each unit Therefore, minimal pair drills were chosen by all students 57 students agreed that their teacher used tongue twister to teach pronunciation Students practiced by reading the sentences in the textbook However, 96, 97, even 98 students say ―no‖ with listening activities, visual aids, and playing games Tải FULL (70 trang): https://bit.ly/3BcZoA3 Dự phòng: fb.com/TaiHo123doc.net 3.2.3.3 Students’ expectation from their teachers’ methods in teaching pronunciation Question 11 is about students’ expectation from their teachers’ methods that help to improve their pronunciation methods Number of Number of 38 students agree students disagree Listen and imitate 100 Minimal pair drills 100 Visual aids 85 15 Tongue twister 86 14 Reading aloud 100 Playing games 95 Listening activities 88 12 Tải FULL (70 trang): https://bit.ly/3BcZoA3 Dự phòng: fb.com/TaiHo123doc.net Table 8: Students’ expectation from their teachers’ methods in teaching pronunciation It can be seen that the methods of listening and repeating, minimal pair drilling and reading aloud were applied in teaching pronunciation and all students agreed that they were good and common methods The teachers can use them when teaching pronunciation as they not require any teaching facilities Students only listen to teacher’s pronunciation and practice 85 students expected to be taught pronunciation with visual aids such as pictures and VCD which help them to practice English sounds accurately in producing sounds It is clearly that most of the students would be fascinated by the images as well as the sounds of visual aids In addition, 86, 88 and even 95 students liked learning pronunciation from tongue twister, playing games, and listening activities Therefore, teachers should pay more attention to activities in pronunciation lessons so that the lesson would be more interesting and students would be encouraged to learn better 39 CHAPTER 4: SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS FOR 10th GRADE STUDENTS AT ME LINH HIGH SCHOOL TO PRODUCE ENGLISH SOUNDS CORRECTLY There are two main causes of difficulties in teaching and learning pronunciation: students’ lack of practice and lack of visual aids So some suggestions are given as follows in order to overcome the mentioned difficulties: 4.1 Using visual aids Visual aids have good effect on learning English pronunciation Picture of organ speech help teacher to introduce how the sounds are produced The pronunciation video clips can 6814529 ... Irish, garage) The fricatives are so called palato-alveolar, which can be taken to mean that their place of articulation is partly palatal, partly alveolar The tongue is in contact with an area slightly... teachers are always aware of the new trend in teaching methods and aware of the importance of the communicative approach when teaching English to their students in general and pronunciation in particular,... learning results of more than 120 students In addition, teaching materials are not always available; so many teachers have to buy textbooks and use them as their main material Although the teachers