Suggested techniques to improve pronunciation for first year english máo at hong duc university, the case ò sentence stress

ACKOWLEGEMENTS In the completion of the graduation paper, I received so much help and advice from many people that my indebtedness to them is beyond words First and foremost, I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to my supervisor, Ms Trịnh Thị Hằng, for her warmth and understanding which she graciously gave me, for her energy and time which she consumed to improve and polish my drafts, and for her criticism and encouragement, the lack of which would render this paper impossible Then, I would like to thank other teachers of Department of Foreign Languages for their useful lessons and materials during years which construct the background of the paper Last but not least, I wish to express my heart-felt gratitude to my family and my friends, who always encouraged and supported me in the process of completing the paper Many thanks also go to all of you, to anymore I have forgotten to mention here i ABSTRACT This is an action research project conducted in a speaking and pronunciation course in term for the first-year English majors at Hong Duc University After finding that English pronunciation of first-year English majors at Hong Duc University is rather poor, a method is designed to improve English pronunciation for the firstyear students of K23 – academic year 2020-2021 The plan involved suggested techniques to improve pronunciation for students with explicit instruction on sentence stress The data was obtained from classroom observations, informal interviews with students, and audio recording The findings showed that the students‘ common difficulties are sentences stress, rhythm and intonation The intervention took place in 12 weeks of the first semester The findings from the posttest, the teacher‘s observations and informal interview with the students during the project showed that the intervention helps improve English pronunciation for first-year English majors at Hong Duc University ii LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Figure 1: Students‘ English learning time Error! Bookmark not defined Figure 2: Students‘ interest in learning English skillsError! Bookmark not defined Figure 3: Attention of English sentence stress Error! Bookmark not defined Figure 4: The importance of sentence stress in enhancing speaking competence Error! Bookmark not defined Figure 5: Students‘ opinion in producing accurate sentence stress Error! Bookmark not defined Figure 6: The frequency of using sentence stress in English speaking Error! Bookmark not defined iii TABLE OF CONTENTS PART ONE: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale Aims of the Study Methods of the study Scope of the study Design of the study PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERTURE REVIEW 1.1 Pronunciation 1.1.1 The Act Of Pronunciation 1.1.2 The System And The Pronunciation 1.1.3.Language systems 1.1.4.Dialects and standards of pronunciation 1.2 An overview of words stress and sentence stress 1.2.1 Definition of words stress 1.2.2 What is ―sentence stress‖? 1.2.3 What is ―English speaking competence‖? 1.3 Levels of stress 1.3.1 Primary stress 10 1.3.2 Secondary stress 10 1.3.3 Tertiary stress 10 1.3.4 Quaternary stress 10 1.4 Sentence stress patterns 10 1.5 General rules in sentence stress 12 1.6 Sentence stress, rhythm, and intonation 14 1.6.1 The stress-timed rhythm of English 15 1.6.2 Placement of stress in sentences 15 1.6.3 Some major intonation features 17 iv 1.6.3.1 Classification of Stress 17 1.6.3.1.1 Tonic Stress 17 1.6.3.1.2 Emphatic stress 18 1.6.3.1.3 Contrastive Stress 18 1.6.3.1.4 New Information Stress 19 1.6.3.2.Tune shapes 19 1.7 Functions of sentence stress 20 1.8 The relationship between sentence stress and English speaking competence 20 1.9 The role of sentence stress in enhancing English speaking competence 21 CHAPTER TWO: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 23 2.1.Current situation student‘ pronunciation in terms of sentences stress at FFL, HDU23 2.1.1 Context of the study 23 2.1.2 Subject of the study 23 2.1.3 Instrument of the study 23 2.1.3.1 Survey questionaires 23 2.1.3.2 Videos recording 24 2.2 Suggested techniques to improve pronunciation ( the case of sentences stress) 24 2.2.1 Cuisenaire Rods 24 2.2.2 Focusing on Context 24 2.2.3 Rising or Falling? 25 2.2.4 Intonation and Feelings 25 2.2.5 Video Warm-ups 25 2.2.6 Stress Shifting 26 2.2.7 Inside Out 27 2.2.8 Who Do You Think You‘re Talking‘ To? 27 2.2.9 Sentence Stress Improve 28 2.2.10 Get the Class Speaking 28 2.2.11.Worksheet Activities 29 2.2.12 Telephone Conversations 29 2.2.13 Emotions 29 2.2.14 Role Play 30 2.2.15 Practice identifying pitch words 30 2.2.16 Identify the emotion behind a statement 30 v 2.2.17 Identify rising 31 2.2.18 Listening 31 2.2.19 Speaking 32 2.2.20 Curriculum design 32 2.2.21 Focus on the suprasegmentals 33 2.2.22 Teacher training 33 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 34 3.1 Findings 34 3.2 Data analysis based on students‘ survey questionnaires 34 3.3 Some possible problems encountered by English majors in enhancing 38 English speaking competence 38 3.3.1 Misunderstanding of meaning caused by wrong placement of stress 38 3.3.2 Misunderstanding of meaning caused by changes in sentence stress 38 3.3.3 Communication breakdown caused by wrong use of stress 39 PART III: CONCLUSION 40 REFERENCES 41 APPENDIX 43 vi vii i PART ONE: INTRODUCTION Rationale Nowadays , English has found its ground in the educational system The learners have little opportunity to contact native input in the target language Learners encounter great difficulties in learning English pronunciation During my English learning in the university especially pronunciation learning in the first year, I myself find out that if Vietnamese can understand and practice pronunciation clearly, judiciously, the English pronunciation problems will be overcome By that, there should be some changes in the students‗ awareness in the ways of learning English professionally English is the best way for us to have a great deal of opportunities to reach the success in life Why Vietnamese students make the wrong stress placement? What can be the cause of those errors? If the answers to these questions can be found, it is hoped that something could be done to help students to avoid or correct them Therefore, to understand and communicate English effectively the learners should not only pay attention to vocabulary, grammar but master sentence stress as well However - what is sentence stress? ―How can sentence stress affect communication? For both English learners in general and HDU English majors in particular, there is little attention to the importance of sentence stress in communication Pronunciation is vital to proper communication because the incorrect use of pronunciation inevitably leads to the message being misunderstood by the recipient Pronunciation of the letter sounds in words as well as syllable emphasis on parts of words will more often than not change the words meaning and context drastically thereby irreversibly altering the meaning of the sentence being communicated A good example of this is the word present If one were to say ―I am present‖ with an emphasis on the first syllable of the word, one is referring to one‘s presence at a particular place or time On the other hand, if one were to say ―I wish to present….‖ Then one refers to a statement or article one wishes to announce Sentence stress is accent on certain words within a sentence and it is the key component of English intonation Intonation organizes words into sentences, distinguishes between different types of sentences, and adds an emotional colouring to utterances All the above reasons have inspired the writer to choose the title of the theis – suggested techniques to improve pronunciation for first year English major at HDU Aims of the Study In the hope of a more comprehensive and specific understanding of English, finding out the common pronunciation problems of Vietnamese people, and offering some techniques to improve English to Vietnamese pronunciation, this research paper I desire to find out common intonation problems that Vietnamese people encounter; provide some skills to improve first-year specialized English sentence stress; improve learners' awareness of how to read and say sentences with correct stress so that they will improve their English speaking and communication skills Methods of the study To achieve the above mentioned aims, the study employs the following methods of study: Firstly, videos recording is recorded for the first year English major at HDU with a view to finding out their problems, evaluatation of the matter and the difficulties that they have as well as the expectations toward pronunciation Secondly, using a qualitative research with six survey questionnaires to collect data on the importance of sentences stress Scope of the study Stress is an integral part in the sentence and it has pervasive force in meaning interpretation Besides, there are so many different material resources and researches while my person experience is terminate Therefore, in my graduation paper, in my graduate paper, I only focus on English stress problems faced by Vietnamese and suggested some techniques to improve pronunciation Design of the study This theis consists of three part: Part I – Introduction: Rationale, Aims, Scope, Methods and Design of the study Part II – Development which consists of three chapters as following: Chapter 1: Literature review Chapter 2: Research methodology – provide context of study, methodology, purpose of the surveyquestionaire experiment with different syllable stresses and intonation to convey different feelings, such as excitement or seriousness 2.2.17 Identify rising Listen to a series of questions in English If you don‘t have a recording, ask a native English-speaking friend or tutor to ask the questions Try to identify whether each question is rising (going up in pitch at the end) or falling (going down in pitch at the end) You should start to notice certain patterns For example, questions that can be answered by ―yes‖ or ―no‖ typically have a rising intonation, while questions that start with ―who,‖ ―what,‖ ―when,‖ ―where,‖ or ―why‖ typically have a falling intonation These are just some activities to help you with the topic of intonation and stress What are some of your favorite ways to teach stress and intonation? 2.2.18 Listening Listening activities: Here are some activities I've done in class with students of all levels to raise awareness of stress time in English and help them overcome the difficulties it causes during listening After completing a listening comprehension task in class, give the students the tape script and play a very short extract Students mark on the tape script the words that are stressed Discuss the kinds of words that are stressed They will usually be the words that give meaning: verbs, nouns and adjectives Give the students the tape script to a listening before they hear it and ask them to predict which words they think will be stressed Play the tape to check the predictions Play a fairly short listening extract, maybe a paragraph in length, students write down the important (stressed) words they hear You can play the tape several times Emphasise that this isn't a dictation exercise you don't want students to try to write down every word In groups ask the students to try and recreate the listening extract using the words they have and their knowledge of the English language Compare the students' version with the original Discuss with students the aim of this activity - to show how native speakers listen and understand the language, taking note of the important words, usually stressed ones, and using their knowledge of the language to build meaning.The important conclusion being it is not necessary to understand every word 31 2.2.19 Speaking Stress timing can help speakers communicate meaning Learners need to be made aware of the fact that the way they say something can affect it's meaning Listen to the sentence below with the stress on different words.You can hear that the meaning changes I asked you to buy me a bunch of red roses I asked you to buy me a bunch of red roses I asked you to buy me a bunch of red roses I asked you to buy me a bunch of red roses Here are some limericks I've used with my students: I read the limericks aloud and check the students understand them The students in groups then try writing one It's fun to use the names of the students in the class to start the limerick Next we mark the stressed syllables and the students read the limericks out, trying to keep to the rhythm Recently I was working with advanced students who were about to take the speaking part of the Proficiency exam Their grammar and vocabulary was fine but when they spoke English they didn't sound fluent They spoke very deliberately and gave words equal stress I asked them to record themselves speaking and then listen to the recording They were aware they didn't sound fluent but still didn't know what to about it Next we used the cassette from the course book they were using, and chose a two-person dialogue to listen to The students, using the tape-script, recorded themselves again and again until the dialogue sounded as close as possible to the original 2.2.20 Curriculum design Referring to curriculum and syllabus designs, Morley (1998) submits that English language programs should start by ―establishing long range oral communication goals and objectives‖ that help identify pronunciation needs as well as speech functions and the contexts in which they might occur Florez (1998) adds that these goals and objectives should be realistic, aiming for functional intelligibility (ability to make oneself relatively easily understood), functional communicability (ability to meet the communication needs one faces), and enhanced confidence in use and they should be the result of a careful analysis and description of the learners‘ needs 32 2.2.21 Focus on the suprasegmentals Bray (1995) observes that beginning in the late 1970s, several teachers/theorists took a stand by suggesting that at a very basic level if communicative competence was the goal of language learning, then it would have as one of its essential components, intelligible pronunciation Intelligibility rather than the native-like competence valued in traditional approaches became the goal of phonological instruction Therefore, teaching speech from the perspective of suprasegmentals seems indispensable within the communicative approach to teaching ESL However, Bray (1995, p 3) adds that although many theorists began to make a case for the role of suprasegmental phonology in communication on paper, ―many teachers continue with a limited conception of the role of explicit phonological instruction in the language classroom.‖ We can say that curriculum and syllabus designers need to focus on the suprasegmental features of pronunciation In making their case for emphasis in teaching rhythm to ESL learners in China for example, Chen et al., (1996) discovered that Chinese students were not aware of the difference between the rhythm of the syllable-timed Chinese language and the stress timed English language and therefore drawing their attention to this suprasegmental feature helped significantly in improving their communicative ability 2.2.22 Teacher training Fraser (2002) notes that it is hardly surprising that so many teachers are not confident with teaching pronunciation because training that is available often does not cover the most essential aspects of knowledge about speech and pronunciation relevant to teaching adult English language learners Most teachers have been equipped with information about English phonemics: the IPA symbols, the articulation of English phonemes and sometimes with some basic English intonation patterns However, what is much more useful is some understanding of the psycholinguistics of speech perception and production, and the effects of a person‘s native language and literacy on their interpretation of speech 33 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 3.1 Findings As the survey is restricted to only a small number of students, surely the result cannot reflex the real situation of English majors speaking competence at Haiphong Private University Nevertheless, it is hoped that the findings and discussion following can give useful information to some extends The students soon realize the importance of sentence stress in English speaking With this positive attitude, they will have effective way to learn English 3.2 Data analysis based on students’ survey questionnaires Question 1: Students’ English learning time 3% 1-3 years 9% 3-5 years 25% 5-7 years 63% More than years Figure 1: Students’ English learning time The table below indicates the time of learning English of all the first year English As it can be seen from the table, of all the students, has 3% the students have been studying English for 1-3 years, there are only 9% of the students who have been studying for 3-5 years Whereas, the percentage of students studying English more than years is five times higher than those students, 63% The rest of these students with 25% have spent around 5-7 years studying From the figures, it is clear to see that almost students have been acquired to study English for quite a long time, from the secondary school Very few students have just started learning English It is likely that there would be some differences in their proficiency 34 Question 2: The most favourite lesson of English major 9% 11% Speaking 8% Listening 72% Reading Writing Figure 2: Students’ interest in learning English skills The chart below shows the most favourite lesson in their views It can be seen that a high percentage of the students (70%) like speaking lesson The number of students like writing lesson about 12.5% These statistics show that productive skills are concentrated Although, in high school, is not considered as important as other skills, most students in this study now realize its importance The rest likes receptive skills, but this is only a small number (listening: 10%, reading: 7.5%) Question 3: Students’ attitude towards sentence stress 26% 15% Very attentively 18% 35% 6% Attentively Neutral Not attentively Not attentively at all Figure 3: Attention of English sentence stress As it can be seen from chart below, the majority of students often are not very attentive to sentence stress when they speak English accounts for 35% while a number of students are very attentive to stress in sentence only 15% this demonstrated that although they are students of English major, they have not still determined about sentence stress 35 Question 4: The importance of sentence stress 0% 24% 43% Very important Important 10% Neutral Not important 23% Not important at all Figure 4: The importance of sentence stress in enhancing speaking competence To some extents, the students‗ favourite lesson and their thought of speaking competence affect their attitude towards stress in sentence According to the chart above, most of them realize the important role of sentence stress, which occupies 43% Meanwhile, 22% of them thought sentence stress is important for enhancing speaking competence None of them thinks that sentence stress is not very important This shows their awareness of the important of sentence stress The thought that sentence stress is neutral takes up 10% This can reflex that HDU majors are aware of the essence of sentence stress to them in their study 36 Question 5: Students’ opinion in producing accurate sentence stress 0% 8% Strongly agree Agree 17% 25% Neutral Disagree 50% Strongly disagree Figure 5: Students’ opinion in producing accurate sentence stress The first impression is that half of students a strong agreement towards sentence stress 50% of them strongly agree producing accurate sentence stress that will support the speakers to convey their meaning and none of them denied the role of producing accurate sentence stress However, a problem, their strong attitude, cognition and utilization sentence stress in enhancing speaking competence are two different problems So their attempts in learning, applying sentence stress in communication need to be determined Question 6: The frequency usage of English sentence stress 8% 33% 25% Always Often Sometimes 13% 21% Rarely Never Figure 6: The frequency of using sentence stress in English speaking The chart below shows of them 8% indicate that they never use sentence stress while speaking Some of them about 13% often use sentence stress in communication, representation, and reading 25% of them rarely use sentence stress in English 37 speaking competence and that is 21% sometimes use stress in sentence They said that they only determined to grammar and vocabulary much 3.3 Some possible problems encountered by English majors in enhancing English speaking competence Nowadays, English is considered as a global language because it is the main language used in transactions However, when learning English as the second language, we both found that we have to face with many difficulties We are afraid of communicating with foreigners because we find it difficult to understand what they said While listening, we realize some words, but cannot understand the meaning of the whole sentence When foreigners speak out, they often stress on the important parts in a sentence, in other word, that‗s sentence stress From years studying English and from experience of my American and Vietnamese English teachers, the writer summarizes some difficulties that English majors often face, and give out some solutions for those problems 3.3.1 Misunderstanding of meaning caused by wrong placement of stress Stress in sentence does not have any typical rules (the rules for it seems to be quite general) so it is possible for English learners to make mistakes of stress placement And this difficulty is the most typical for learners when they study sentence stress For example: Some of our friends are studying and working in China In fact, if it is a general positive sentence to inform, stress will only fall on our friends, studying, working, and China If it is to emphasize that friends not belong to us, they belong to others, stress will fall on the pronoun there However if this sentence is changed into a declarative sentence, the stress may change and it decides what is the core of the question 3.3.2 Misunderstanding of meaning caused by changes in sentence stress Stress in each sentence type keeps its own rules So if speakers not pay attention to stress, listeners will get the misunderstanding of meaning that caused by changes in sentence stress, especially to interrogative sentence Example (Quirk, R, 2003,192): Was he a famous actor in THOSE days? When the stress fall on THOSE that means ―I know he once a famous actorbut was it then or later? 38 Was he a Famous actor in those days? When the stress falls on Famous that means ―I know he was an actor in those days- but was he a famous one? 3.3.3 Communication breakdown caused by wrong use of stress That can be known when speakers put stress on functional or notional words (content words or structure words) It is not easy to indicate when notional words are stressed because it bases much on the attitude of speakers and what they want to express in their speaking sentence The Browns, I love so much As focused above, article ―the is notional word so it is unstressed in accordance with the rules of sentence stress, in speaking, however, the in such sentence must be stressed to informed that speaker love all members in Brown‗s family Otherwise, listeners will think that speaker loves color in Brown 39 PART III: CONCLUSION Through three chapters above, it is clear that the paper has dealt with some aspects of sentence stress Particularly, the role of sentence stress is emphasized and mainly focused in English intonation patterns Sentence stress is another golden key for speaking and understanding English With sentence stress, some words in a sentence are stressed (loud) and other words are weak (quiet) The first chapter of the graduation paper‗s development is ―theoretical background which introduces an overview of involving in main knowledge of chapter two The concepts of sentence stress are identified clearly according to many points of view Some functions of sentence stress are also found in this chapter This chapter has helped the readers have a look about English sentence stress; general rules of sentence stress and sentence stress patterns as well in which the writer mainly concentrates on sentence stress patterns in types of major intonation patterns, and relationship between sentence stress and English speaking competence in order to help learners to understand the speakers‗ attitude towards what they are saying together with understanding suggested techniques to improve pronunciation for first year English major at HDU The second chapter the writer just focus on research methodology The third is also the last chapter is the implication of the study This chapter helps the show some possible problems encountered by learners in using sentence stress patterns, and some suggested solutions to improve sentence stress is also mentioned here Thus, in order to help the learners towards better understand native speaker speech and English speaking competence, the writer just focus on the role of sentence stress in enhancing English speaking competence of HDU English majors 40 REFERENCES Anne Cutler and Donald J Foss On the role of sentence stress in sentence processing, University of Texas Bray, E (1995) Using limericks to help Japanese students improve their pronunciation Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Japanese Association of Language Teachers, Japan, November Crystal, D (1994) Functions of intonation, Cambridge University Press Celce-Murcia, M., Brinton, D., and Goodwn, J (1996) Teaching Pronunciation Cambridge, Cambridge University Press David Brazil, (1997) The communicative value of intonation in English, Cambridge University Press Gerald Kelly (2001) How to teach pronunciation, 2nd Edit, Longman Kelly, G (2000) How to Teach Pronunciation Longman Field, J (2005) Intelligibility and the Listener: The Role of Lexical Stress Fraser, H (2002) Change, challenge and opportunity in pronunciation and oral communication Plenary Address at English Australia Conference, Canberra, October 2002 Retrieved December 28, 2006 10 J.D.O‗Connor, B.A and G.F Arnold, B.A, (1961) Intonation of colloquial English, Longman 11 J.D.O‗Connor, B.A and G.F Arnold, B.A Better English Pronunciation, Cambridge University Press 12 Marianne Celce-Murcia, Donna M.Briton, and Janet M.Goodwin, (1996) Teaching Pronunciation, Cambridge University Press 13 Maureen McNerney and David Mendelsohn,(1992) Journal of Linguistics and Language Teaching 14 Morley, J (1998) Trippingly on the tongue: Putting serious speech/pronunciation instruction back in the TESOL equation ESL Magazine, January/February, 20-23 15 Naiman, N (1992) A Communicative Approach to Pronunciation Teaching, in Every, P and Ehrlich, S (eds.), Teaching American English Pronunciation Oxford University Press, pp.163-171 41 16 Peter Avery and Susan Ehrlich, (1992) Teaching American English Pronunciation, Oxford University Press 17 Peter Roach, (1983) English Phonetics and Phonology, Cambridge University Press 18 Peter Ladefoged A course in Phonetics, University of California, Los Angeles 19 Susan Ehrlich (1997) Studies in Second Language Acquisition 19(04):421 – 446 20 Quirk, R.a and Greenbaum, S (1973) A University Grammar of English, London, Longman Group U.K limited 21 Rebecca M.Dauer, (2002) Accurate English, HCM city Publisher Roach, P (1998) English Phonetics and Phonology Penguin English 22 (https://www.britannica.com/topic/pronunciation) 23.(http://www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/sentence-stress.htm) 42 APPENDIX STUDENTS’ SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE Dear students! This survey questionnaire is designed to find out your attitude and your expectation toward English speaking competence Yours answers will be used for research purposes of my graduation paper entitled ―Suggested techniques to improve pronunciation for first year English major at HDU Thank you very much for your cooperation in completing this survey questionnaire! Please answer the following questions by ticking () where appropriate How long have you been learning English? 1-3 years 3-5 years 5-7 years More than years Among four these following skills which is the most difficult for you? Speaking Listening Reading Writing Do you attend to sentence stress while speaking? Very attentively Attentively Not very attentively Not attentively How is sentence stress important for you? Very important Important Neutral Not very important Not important at all 43 Producing accurate sentence stress supports the speakers to convey their meaning? Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree How often you use sentence stress in communication? Always Often Sometimes Rarely Never 44 HONG DUC UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES GRADUATION THESIS SUGGESTED TECHNIQUES TO IMPROVE PRONUNCIATION FOR FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT HONG DUC UNIVERSITY, THE CASE OF SENTENCE STRESS Supervisor : M.A, Trinh Thi Hang Student : Nguyen Thi Anh Linh Class : K20B- FFL- HDU Course : 2017 – 2021 THANH HOA , MAY 2021 45