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HONG DUC UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES GRADUATION THESIS COMMON PRONUNCIATION ERRORS OF FIRST YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT HONG DUC UNIVERSITY AND USING ELSA SPEAK APP TO IMPROVE PRONUNCIATION Student : Le Thi Diu Linh Class : K20B Course : 2017-2021 Supervisor : Nguyen Thi Thuy Ngan THANH HOA, MAY, 2021 i ACKNOWLEDGE When completing this graduate paper, I would like to express my deepest and most sincere thanks to many people for their invaluable help in the process of conducting research First and foremost, I would like to send my sincere gratitude towards my supervisor Nguyen Thi Thuy Ngan , for her constructive and timely feedback as well as her continuous encouragement from the beginning and through the study process Without her help, I could not have finished my graduation paper I would also like to send my thanks to many lectures of Foreign Language Department, Hong Duc University who have helped me with devoted consultancies for the completion of this thesis My deep appreciation also goes to the first year English majors at Hong Duc University who have helped me collect the authentic data without which my study could not have been carried out Finally, I owe friends as well as my family the deepest gratefulness which I could find it hard to move on and overcome the troubles during the process of doing my study i ABSTRACT This study focuses on common errors of first year English majors at Hong Duc university and using ELSA speak app to overcome these mistakes with an aim to help them become more confident when pronouncing English words and improve their English pronunciation The thesis has been carried out in a logical order It includes main parts: Part 1: Introduction of the study Part 2: Development of the study which is divided into chapters: Chapter 1: Theoretical background of English phonetics and pronunciation mistakes Chapter 2: The common errors in pronunciation of first year English majors at Hong Duc University and using ELSA speak app to improve pronunciation Part 3: Conclusion of study ii ABREVIATIONS E.g example gratia Etc et cetera N number of test L2 second language iii LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES Charts Chart The most favorite skill of first year English majors‘ students Chart The percentages of important factors in speaking Chart Students‘ opinions about the importance of English pronunciation skill Chart Students‘ interest in pronunciation Chart Students‘ frequency of making pronunciation mistakes Chart Students‘ understand of English phonetic transcription system Chart The frequency of reference phonetic transcription Tables Table 1.1 Plosives consonants in English language Table 1.2 Fricatives consonants in English Language Table 2.1 Non-pass and pass students of test Table 2.2 Pronunciation errors of producing vowels and consonants in words Table 2.3 The right and erroneous forms of single words Table 2.4 Ending sound omission Table 2.5 Students‘ stress errors Table 2.6 arbitrarily /s/ ending sound iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGE i ABSTRACT ii ABREVIATIONS iii LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES iv TABLE OF CONTENTS v Part I: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale Aims and objectives of the study Methods of study Research questions Scope of the study Significant of the study CHAPTER2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 An overview of English pronunciation 1.1.1 Pronunciation 1.1.2 The importance of pronunciation 1.1.3 Articulators 1.1.3.1 The Lungs and the Larynx 1.1.3.2 The vocal tract 1.1.4 Received Pronunciation (RP) 1.1.5 Vowels 10 1.1.5.1 Long and short vowels 11 1.1.5.2 Diphthongs 11 1.1.5.3 Triphthongs 12 1.1.6 Consonants 12 1.1.6.1 Plosives 12 1.1.6.2 Fricatives 14 1.1.6.3 Affricative 15 v 1.1.6.4 Nasals 16 1.1.6.5 Laterals 17 1.1.6.6 Approximants 18 1.2 Errors 19 1.2.1 Classification of errors 19 1.3 Error analysis 21 1.3.1 Definitions 21 1.3.2 Signification of error analysis 22 1.4 Pronunciation errors in Second Language Learning 24 1.4.1 Articulation errors 25 1.4.2 Stress errors 26 1.4.3 Ending sound errors 26 1.5 Causes of Pronunciation errors in Second Language Learning 27 1.6 Summary 28 CHAPTER 2: COMMON PRONNUCIATIOIN ERRORS OF FIRST YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT HONG DUC UNIVERSITY AND USING ELSA SPEAK APP TO IMPROVE PRONUCIATION 29 2.1 Research Methodology 29 2.1.1 Participants 29 2.1.2 Instruments of Data Collection 29 2.1.3 Data Collection 30 vi Part I: INTRODUCTION This part, which includes rationale for the study, aims, methods, research questions, scope, significances of the study and the design of the study, would hopefully provide readers with an overview of the whole paper Rationale In the recent year, English has become a very popular language in the world and in Vietnam as well People use English for communication, travel, for cultural and trading exchanges and many other fields in life Vietnam is one of the countries which use English as the second language and as a result, English has adopted as one of the most important subjects in many school in Vietnam Four English skills are essential for every English learners of all ages Nonetheless, learners seem to focus on reading and writing rather than speaking They spend a lot of time learning grammar for tests and examinations In each semester, meanwhile they are quite afraid of speaking English At high school, speaking skill seems to be paid less attention than the others They not spend much time practicing speaking in class and that is the main reason why they get difficulties with speaking Moreover, many students are weak on grammar; they lack vocabulary and feel so shy when communicating in English In fact, there are many other factors that affect speaking English such as intonation, grammar, liking, rhythm, context and so on…and pronunciation is considered the most important one During my speaking periods in class and speaking tests, fact shows that there are many students getting trouble with pronunciation, especially English beginners, making pronunciation in English speaking become a popular problem One illustration for this remark is the result of speaking tests of first year English majors at Hong Duc University First year English majors at Hong Duc University (K23 Foreign Language Department- course 2020-2024) to evacuate their English pronunciation as well as to find out their concerns in learning English pronunciation Many students made mistakes towards articulation, tress, pitch, length, etc Most of these students shared that they only focus on grammar and vocabulary in order to succeed in the university entrance examination That is why they did not pay much attention to English pronunciation In the era of information technology development, there are many apps to help learners improve their pronunciation For example: FluentU, pronunroid-IPA pronunciation, say it: English Pronunciation, ELSA speak….Through these apps leaners can study anytime and anywhere Therefore, in order to study this problem in depth, the author has conducted the research entitled “the common pronunciation mistakes of first year English majors at Hong Duc University and using ELSA speak app to improve pronunciation‖ Hopefully, this study will help students understand deeply about the issues that they have not noticed before and suggest some solutions to solve the problem and help them improve their pronunciation Aims and objectives of the study The study is carried out with the following aims and objectives: - To present theoretical background of English phonetics and phonology - To identify the student‘s common mistakes in pronouncing English - To discover the causes of mistakes committed by first year‘s students of Foreign English Department, Hong Duc University when learning and practicing English pronunciation - To suggest a solution is use ELSA speak app to the problems identified - To build up pedagogic activities in the process of teaching to enhance learners‘ ability to pronounce English words Methods of study In order to complete the study, the main research methods are: - Theoretical methods are used to generalize theoretical background of English phonetics and phonology - Statistical methods are used to find out and classify the learners‘ mistakes - Descriptive methods are used to be describe the actual mistakes committed by the learner - Mathematical methods are used to process the collected data Research questions The study was carried out in order to find out the answers to the following research questions: What are the common pronunciation mistakes of first year English majors at Hong Duc University? What are the causes of these mistakes? What are the effective solutions to help students pronounce correctly and accurately English words? Scope of the study There are many mistakes of English pronunciation that the first year students encounter when speaking However, this study will not cover all problems in learner‘s pronunciation Moreover, there are so many different material resources that require a lot of time and effort Therefore, this research will focus on the most common pronunciation mistakes of first year English majors at Hong Duc University (K23 Foreign Language Department- course 2020-2024) The author hopes this study will be a useful material for every student who concern this issue and help to get rid of their pronunciation mistakes learning autonomy The present study aimed at investigating student‘s voices regarding the use of mobile application named ELSA App in speaking classes 2.2.2.4.2 Disadvantages The lack of control can be problem for those of you who don`t have much self-discipline Learning a language only once a week isn`t very efficient Mobile Apps are very impersonal compared to face-to-face courses online or in language schools You only ―communicate‖ with a computer but can`t have a real conversation with them Mobile Apps need a working internet connection If your mobile service or Wi-Fi doesn`t work you won`t be able to your tasks 2.2.2.5 Conclusion ELSA is an app that has made great strides in the world of AI for practicing the pronunciation of individual sounds However, in order for it to break new ground in the world of accent reduction, it needs to be expanded to include suprasegmental aspects of pronunciation The lack of attention to what many applied linguists consider the most important part of accent reduction combined with smaller issues such as typos cause the app to lose face with the population of experts (language teachers) who are best positioned to both evaluate and market it 2.3 Summary In short, this chapter presented the research method which contains participants‘ instruments of Data collection, Data collection of Produces, it also gave data of students‘ attitude on English speaking skill in general and pronunciation and students‘ learning style Next, the author indicated students‘ interested in pronunciation and their frequency of making pronunciation mistakes Types and causes in this term of the English Pronunciation errors were given There are recommendations to improve pronunciation skill and there are certain some pedagogical implications for this study 66 PART III: CONCLUSION Conclusion To summarize, this graduated paper has been conducted with the aim to investigate the English common pronunciation problem faced by first year English majors at Hong Duc University The rationale, the aim of the research, the scope of the study and the design of the paper are present in Part In Part 2, some related background such as definitions of English pronunciation, consonants; ending sound errors… are presented Especially, in order to find out what common pronunciation mistakes of first year students are, the survey questionnaire is carried out Finally, ending sound mistakes are the answer There are common ending sounds that students tend to make when speaking English in class The author analyzes the information and data from survey questionnaire for further understanding Besides, some suggestions to deal with problems are also provided in this part However, due to limitations of time, experience and knowledge, the research cannot cover all problems and it concerns a small part of English pronunciation mistakes, it is ending sound Besides, some solutions are provided for further practice English pronunciation Therefore, the author is glad to receive comments from readers Finally, the author hopes this study can be useful material for students who concern ending sounds and suggested solutions to encounter with pronunciation problems as well Through chapters of the study, the background and basic information of English Pronunciation have been introduced Many of knowledge related to phonetics and pronunciation skills are presented in the graduation 67 paper All of them can provide learners a comprehensive look towards English pronunciation Finally, the author hopes that paper will be useful and helpful for learners of English general and for Vietnamese students in particular Suggestion for further study In any research paper, limitations are unavoidable This one is certainly no exception The paper cannot cover all aspects of errors because the time and the scope of the study The study dealt with the common errors in pronunciation made by first year English major at Hong Duc University and suggests ELSA speak app to improve their pronouncing skill This paper discovers the learners‘ errors which teachers can apply pedagogic activities in process of teaching The study also proposes pedagogical activities to improve English pronunciation first year English students in particular and students learning English in general In the future, it is hope that, many studies are written on the different types of learners of various levels Besides, these studies will focus on higher level of phrases or sentences Specially, they can give more effective solutions to help learners improve their own English pronunciation 68 REFERENCES LIST Baker, A (1981) Ship or Sheep (2nd Ed) Cambridge University Press Baker, A (1982) Introducing English Pronunciation, Cambridge University Prress Brown, H.D (2000) Principles of language learning and teaching Longman, Inc Burt, M.K (1975) Error analysis in the adult EFL classroom, TESOL Quarterly Catford, J C (1968) The articulatory possibilities of man In B Malmberg (Ed), Manualofphonetics (pp.309-333), Amsterdam: North-Holland clark, J &Yallop, C (1990) An introductionto phonetics and phonology Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Corder, S.P.(1967) The significance of learner errors Gimson, A C (1989) An introduction to the pronunciation of English, 4th edition, revised by Susan Ramsaran, London: Edward Arnold Jame, C (1998) Errors in language learning and use Addison Wesley Longman Limited 10 Laver, J 1995 Principles of Phonetics, Cambridge University Press 11 Kenworthy , J (1987) Teaching English Pronunciation, London: Longman 12 Roach, P 1983 English Phonetics and Phonology, Cambridge University Press 69 13 Wells, J.C (1982) Accents of English, vols Cambridge university Press 14 Anderson-Hsieh, J., Johnson, R., & Koehler, K (1992) The relationship between native speaker judgments of nonnative pronunciation and deviance in segmentals, prosody, and syllable structure Language Learning, 42(4), 529-555 15 Derwing, T M., & Munro, M J (1997) Accent, intelligibility, and comprehensibility: Evidence from four L1s Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 19(1), 1-16 16 Derwing, T M., & Rossiter, M J (2003) The effects of pronunciation instruction on the accuracy, fluency, and complexity of L2 accented speech Applied Language Learning, 13(1), 1-17 17 Kang, O., Rubin, D O N., & Pickering, L (2010) Suprasegmental measures of accentedness and judgments of language learner proficiency in oral English The Modern Language Journal, 94(4), 554-566 18 J S & M C Teräs M, ―Post-Covid-19 Education and Education Technology, ‗Solutionism‘: a Seller‘s Market,‖ Postdigital Science and Education, vol 2, p 863–878, 2020 19 A Abidah, H N Hidaayatullaah, R M Simamora, D Fehabutar dan L Mutakinati, ―The Impact of Covid-19 to Indonesian Education and Its Relation to the Philosophy of ―Merdeka Belajar‖,‖ Studies in Philosophy of Science and Education (SiPoSE), vol 1, no 1, pp 38-49, 20201 20 Pietro, F Biagi dan C P, ―The likely impact of COVID-19 on education: Reflections based on the existing literature and recent international dataset,‖ Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2020 [4] S Dutta dan M K Smita, ―The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Tertiary Education in Bangladesh: Students‘ Perspective,‖ Open Journal of Social Sciences, vol 8, pp 53-68, 2020 70 21 N E Charles, ―Increased mood disorder symptoms, perceived stress, and alcohol use among college students during the COVID-19 pandemic,‖ online, 2020 22 O N Jacob, Abigeal dan A & Lydia, ―Impact of COVID-19 on the Higher Institutions Development in Nigeria,‖ Electronic Research Journal of Social Sciences and, vol 2, pp 126-135, 2020 23 O Chandasiri, ―The COVID-19: Impact on Education,‖ Journal of Asian and African Social Science and Humanities, vol 6, pp 37-42, 2020 24 S A Meo, A Abukhalaf, Alomar, K Sattar dan D & Klonoff, ―COVID-19 Pandemic: Impact of Quarantine on Medical Students‘ Mental Wellbeing,‖ Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences, vol 36, pp S43-S48., 2020 25 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error_analysis_(linguistics) 26 https://carla.umn.edu/learnerlanguage/error_analysis.html 27.https://elsaspeak.net/popularity-of-elsa-speak-app-english-speakingandlistening/?fbclid=IwAR0zWVwy97XuP3vbkVI4pSl49IZxqRITDG3kj3Jf3MFS xMCyrAbL72L_r8#:~:text=ELSA%20is%20an%20acronym%20of,helps%20users%20 improve%20their%20pronunciation.&text=With%20over%2030%20games%20 and,and%20improve%20their%20English%20pronunciation 28.https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334001515_ELSA_Speak Accent_Reduction_Review 29 http://www.pronunciation.englishclub.com 30 https://thesoundofenglish.org/approximants/ 71 APPENDIXE PHONETIC TEST This test is designed for my research for my research into ―techniques to improve pronunciation skills for the first year students in Foreign language Department of Hong Duc University‖ Your assistance in completing the test is highly appreciated All the information is solely for the study purpose, not others Thank you for your cooperation Task 1: Pronounce following words correctly θ ð ʒ t∫ dʒ iː ə 8, uː æ Task 2: Pronounce following words correctly Watch Cloth Without 72 That Vision Fridge Tea Before Chapter 10 Food 11 Bad Task 3: pronounce following words correctly need both wash white started church bags allowed 9.weeks 10 watches Task 4: Pronounce following words correctly, pay attention to stress Forget Understand Hobby Workshop Handsome Well- done Homesick Typhoon Economic 10 Photograph 73 11 Total Task 5: Read aloud following sentences Her birthday was last Thursday We both need something for our throat What are those things over there? Did you go there together? This one is better than the others Key: Task 2: /wɒtʃ/ /klɒθ/ /wɪˈðaʊt/ /ðæt/ /ˈvɪʒən/ /frɪdʒ/ /tiː/ /bɪˈfɔː(r)/ 74 /ˈtʃæptər/ 10 /fuːd/ 11 /bæd/ Task 3: /niːd/ /bəʊθ/ /wɒʃ/ /waɪt/ /stɑːtid/ /tʃɜːtʃ/ /bæɡz/ /əˈlaʊd/ /wiːks/ 10 /wɒtʃiz/ Task 4: /hər ˈbɜːrθdeɪ wəz læst ˈθɜːrzdeɪ/ /wi bəʊθ niːd ˈsʌmθɪŋ fər ˈaʊər θrəʊt/ /wʌt ər ðəʊz θɪŋz ˈəʊvər ðer/ /dɪd juː gəʊ ðer təˈɡeðər/ /ðɪs wʌn ɪz ˈbetər ðən ði ˈʌðərz/ 75 APPENDIXE 2, QUESTINNAIRES This survey questionnaire is designed to find out your attitude and awareness toward importance of pronunciation in English speaking as well as some common pronunciation mistakes that you have to face when speaking English in class Your answers will be collected and used for my research with title: ―A study on some common pronunciation mistakes faced by first year English majors at Hong Duc University‖ Thank you for your cooperation in completing my survey questionnaire Please tick the answers or write your answers for open-ended questions 1) Which English skill you like most? g 2) Which factor you consider the most important in English speaking? 76 3) What are students’ opinions about the importance of English pronunciation skill? important No idea 4) How you like learning pronunciation? 5) How often you make pronunciation mistakes when speaking English in class? 6) Which pronunciation errors you tend to when you study and speak English? 7) Do you know and understand of English phonetic transcription? I read it and understand very well I read it and understand some symbols in phonetic I read but did not understand what it was about 77 I not know about it 8) What are your ending sound mistakes that you often make when speaking English? /p/ /b/ /t/ /d/ /k/ /g/ /v/ /l/ /m/ /dʒ/ /ð/ /θ/ /s/ /z/ /tʃ/ /ʒ/ /ʃ/ /ŋ/ 9) How often you make pronunciation mistakes when speaking English in class? Always Often Sometimes Rarely Never 78 10) Which solution you agree to use in order to avoid pronunciation mistakes? sh Using ALSE speak Your other opinions: Thank you for your cooperation! SURVEY FOR EXPERTS This survey is designed for my research into reality of pronouncing English for freshmen at Hong Duc University Your assistance in completing the survey is highly appreciated The data collected in research paper only, not for any other purpose Thank you very much for your cooperation Please give your opinion on the following questions: What subject you teach? Have you ever taught phonetics and phonology? What are the difficulties of teaching this subject? 79 In your opinion, what are the possible causes of English pronunciation errors caught by first year English students? Which methods and techniques you have applied to teach English Pronunciation? Among the methods you have applied, which ones seem too take effects? 80
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