THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY ENGLISH FACULTY GRADUATION PAPER A STUDY ON COMMON PRONUNCIATION ERRORS OF FIRST YEAR STUDENTS AT ENGLISH FACULTY, THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY AND SOME POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS Supervisor Pham[.]
THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY ENGLISH FACULTY - - GRADUATION PAPER A STUDY ON COMMON PRONUNCIATION ERRORS OF FIRSTYEAR STUDENTS AT ENGLISH FACULTY, THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY AND SOME POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS Supervisor : Name : Nguyen Thi Thu Hoai Class : K54N4 Student’s number: Pham Minh Hong 18D170164 HANOI - 2022 ABSTRACT According to survey results and records, now English is present everywhere, is the most popular language in the world English plays an important role in daily life from communication to opportunities in studying, working, expanding relationships to business cooperation… Being equipped with a solid English foundation will help people communicate, exchange learning, and business experience with friends from other countries Currently, in Vietnam, English is considered a second language Students learn English from elementary school to high school And until the university level, there are also many English-related majors to supplement learners with English knowledge and skills , helping them to have solid English skills to apply to work for a living later In fact, most Vietnamese students in general and students of Thuongmai University in particular, have pretty good grammar and vocabulary But many students are still not confident enough to communicate in English There are many reasons for this, but the most common reason is that students not pronounce correctly and not understand the pronunciation rules This not only makes students not confident enough when speaking but also affects other skills In this graduation thesis, the author focus on highlighting common pronunciation errors, related to ending sound, phonetics, pronunciation of difficult sounds, stress, and intonation of sentences of first-year students of the English Faculty, Thuongmai University At the same time, analyze and find out objective and subjective causes leading to incorrect pronunciation Since then, some solutions have been proposed to solve this problem Hopefully, in the near future, the pronunciation ability of students at Thuongmai University will be improved i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT To complete this graduation, I have received a lot of help, guidance and encouragement from teachers and friends First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my mentor - Ms Pham Minh Hong, who has helped me a lot to complete this graduation successfully Her dedicated guidance, valuable comments and encouragement throughout the process of writing this research paper Without her help, I would not have been able to complete my graduate paper Secondly, I would like to especially thank the 90 first-year students of the English Faculty of Thuongmai University for their enthusiastic cooperation and assistance in helping me answer questions to complete my thesis Third, I would like to thank all the lecturers of the English Faculty of Thuongmai University very much, because they have taught me so wholeheartedly during my four years of study at the University Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends who have always supported and encouraged me to complete this graduation to the best of my ability I am very happy for all those who have supported my graduation And I'm honored to receive any comments from readers ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT .ii TABLE OF CONTENTS iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .iv LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES .vi CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Previous studies 1.3 Aims of the study 1.4 Research subject .4 1.5 Scope of the study .4 1.6 Research methodology .5 1.7 Organization of the study CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 English pronunciation .6 2.1.1 Definition of pronunciation 2.1.2 The importance of pronunciation (đoạn đầu My, đoạn cuối Hằng) 2.1.3 Aspects of pronunciation .7 2.2 Types of pronunciation errors 16 2.2.1 Sound substitution 16 2.2.2 Don’t prolong the previous sound 16 2.2.3 Remove sound .16 2.2.4 Add redundant sounds 17 2.3 Main factors affecting English pronunciation .17 2.4 Some common pronunciation errors of English learners 19 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH FINDINGS .21 3.1 Research methods 21 3.1.1 Participants 21 3.1.2 Research instruments 21 3.1.3 Data collection process 21 3.2 Data analysis 22 iii 3.2.1 Attitudes of students toward their ability to speak English in general and their pronunciation in particular 22 3.2.2 Student’s interest in pronunciation and their frequency of making pronunciation mistakes 25 3.2.3 Students’ ending sound errors .27 3.2.4 Students’ opinions on pronunciation solutions 30 3.3 Research findings 31 3.3.1 The reality of first-year English majors’ pronunciation, Thuongmai University 31 3.3.2 The result of the survey questionnaire 31 3.4 Summary 32 CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS .33 4.1 Summary of the study 33 4.2 Some possible solutions to improve pronunciation skills of first-year English majors .33 4.2.1 Practicing Difficult Phonemes and Syllables .33 4.2.2 Learning from native speakers 34 4.2.3 Speaking slowly 34 4.2.4 Paying attention to intonation and stress 34 4.2.5 Studying English pronunciation 35 4.2.6 Mimicking English Sounds 35 4.3 Some suggested books for English learners to study pronunciation 36 4.3.1 Ship or Sheep .36 4.3.2 Tự Tin Phát Âm Chuẩn – A J Hoge 36 4.3.3 Mastering the American accent 37 4.3.4 Pronunciation Workshop .37 4.4 Limitations and suggestions for further study 38 4.4.1 Limitations of the study 38 4.4.2 Suggestions for further study 38 CONCLUSION .39 REFERENCES I APPENDIX .II iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS No Abbreviations English Meaning TMU ThuongMai University i.e This is etc Et cetera E.g For example AMEP Adult Migrant English Program v LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Figure 2.1: Articulatory phonetics Figure 2.2: Bilabial articulation Figure 2.3: Articulatory classification of English consonants .12 Figure 2.4: Palato-alveolars 13 Figure 2.5: Velar articulation 14 Chart 3.1: The most favorite skill of first year English majored students 23 Chart 3.2: The percentages of important factors in speaking 24 Chart 3.3: The importance of pronunciation in English speaking 24 Chart 3.4: Students’ interest in pronunciation 25 Chart 3.5: Students’ frequency of making pronunciation mistakes 26 Chart 3.6: Sounds that students found harder to pronounce 26 Chart 3.7: Students’ common pronunciation mistakes 27 Chart 3.8: Reasons for difficulties when pronouncing ending sounds 29 Table 3.1: Percentage of ending sounds faced by first-students of English Faculty.28 vi CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1.1 Rationale In today's globalization trend, the importance of English cannot be denied and ignored because it is a commonly used language in all parts of the world Vietnam is one of the countries that use English as a second language and therefore English is considered the most important subject at all levels of education in Vietnam's educational program However, teaching and learning English in Vietnam focuses more on reading and writing skills than on listening and speaking skills while for any language, speaking skill is still the most important skill To be able to speak English also needs some factors such as pronunciation, vocabulary, reflexes in which, pronunciation is a skill that many Vietnamese people still make many mistakes In the process of teaching and learning foreign languages in general and learning English in particular, standard pronunciation always plays an important role It has a direct effect on learning basic skills to grasp a foreign language, especially listening and speaking skills However, in Vietnam, most English learners from primary school to high school are only taught and learned grammar, reading, and writing skills to take exams and tests without being taught a lot about listening and speaking skills leading to them being quite afraid of speaking English When speaking English, the students can say enough vocabulary and very correct grammar because they have learned a lot about those two things over the past 12 years of learning English, but there is one very common mistake that most students make when saying it is pronunciation Stemming from that fact combined with the assessment of the pronunciation ability of students of Thuongmai University in general and first-year students of the English Faculty of the university in particular, the author chose to research the topic "A study on common pronunciation errors of first-year students at English Faculty, Thuongmai University and some possible solutions" to find out the common pronunciation errors of first-year students of the English Faculty, the causes those errors and propose some solutions to improve the correct pronunciation of these students, and at the same time contribute to improving the quality of teaching English courses in Thuongmai University 1.2 Previous studies There have been many analysis articles on pronunciation errors in English by linguists or students, graduate students in foreign countries and Vietnam Each study pointed out the English pronunciation errors of each subject The common point is that they help readers better understand the common pronunciation errors of foreigners learning English and some solutions to overcome those pronunciation errors Many studies have shown that the pronunciation errors of speakers of other languages when pronouncing English are systematic and justified errors, not random Moosa (1972) and Homeidan (1984) demonstrated that Arabic students have problems pronouncing sounds that they not have in their language, for example: /v/, /p/, /ŋ / Ronald Carter and David Nunan, 2001 and O'Connor, 2003 note that the pronunciation errors made by English learners from non-English speaking countries are systematic and not random Therefore, they have concluded that the errors in pronunciation of speakers of other languages when learning English come from them replacing sounds that are not present in their native language with the sounds they used to say every day For example, replace /p/ with /b/, /θ/ with /s/, etc Jaroslav Ondráek published a paper titled "Communication problems caused by Czechs' faults in English pronunciation" (April 11, 2011) The purpose of the study was to discover the errors in English pronunciation made by first-year students in Masaryk University's English Department of the Faculty of Education The study was based on an analysis of recordings made by 88 first-year English majors at Masaryk University's Faculty of Education Three assessors assessed the recordings: two educated native speakers (one American, one English) who were not phonetically trained, and a Czech assessor who was The study's two objectives were to determine the students' awareness of mistakes and attitudes about pronunciation The second aim is to determine the perceived errors in Czech English pronunciation from the perspective of a typical native speaker, as well as the characteristics that most limit "comfortable intelligibility." The two native speakers described the study's primary issues as incorrect word stress, words pronounced as if they were Czech, and a general lack of diction clarity In Vietnam, there are also many studies on pronunciation errors Ms Nguyen Thi Thanh Huyen, working at the Department of English Theory, Faculty of English, Thuongmai University, did a school-level scientific research paper (March 3, 2017) with the topic: "Survey on pronunciation errors in English of a first-year student at Thuongmai University " In her research paper, she outlined in great detail the concepts of pronunciation, and the differences in the sound system between English and Vietnamese As well as analyzing the survey results with the first-year students to point out pronunciation errors and have solutions to overcome those errors The doctoral thesis in linguistics by author Le Thanh Hoa (2016) with the topic "English pronunciation errors of Vietnamese students - the case of students of Dong Nai University" has shown the error types and causes of errors in pronunciation of English extracts about consonants at the beginning of the syllable, at the end of the syllable, as well as the errors in pronouncing English vowels by Vietnamese people, and then propose solutions to overcome these types of errors for Vietnamese people Another study (2018) with a similar topic: "A study on common pronunciation mistakes of the third year English major students at Haiphong Private university and some suggested solutions" by student Tra My at Hai Phong Private University It helped the students to have a good awareness of pronunciation problems and gave some suggestions to solve the errors of final sound and stress 1.3 Aims of the study The study focuses on the English speaking difficulties of freshmen in the English Faculty at TMU Through this study, the researcher wanted to find answers to three questions: What is the pronunciation status of first-year English students at TMU? What are common pronunciation errors? How to fix those errors? ... the assessment of the pronunciation ability of students of Thuongmai University in general and first-year students of the English Faculty of the university in particular, the author chose to research... Masaryk University''s English Department of the Faculty of Education The study was based on an analysis of recordings made by 88 first-year English majors at Masaryk University''s Faculty of Education... students at English Faculty, Thuongmai University and some possible solutions" to find out the common pronunciation errors of first-year students of the English Faculty, the causes those errors