A survey on common pronunciation problems faced by sophomores majoring in english at tay do university

TAY DO UNIVERSITY FACULTY of LINGUISTICS and LITERATURE A SURVEY ON COMMON PRONUNCIATION PROBLEMS FACED BY SOPHOMORES MAJORING IN ENGLISH AT TAY DO UNIVERSITY Supervisor: Student’s name: Nguyen Thuy Trang Dang Thi Hanh Student’s code: 13D220201084 Class: English 8B April 2017 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT My research could not have been finished without helping from a lot of people First, I would like to express my honest and deep gratitude to my advisor Ms Dang Thi Hanh, who has given me many precious comments for complete the writing of this study well as provided me useful materials so that I can complete my proposal I hardly accomplish this research without her instructions Secondly, I want to send my special thanks to all lectures in Faculty of Linguistics and Literature at Tay Do University for teaching me and giving me an opportunity to this research Last, but not least, I thank my family and my friends, who always support me Thanks my parents for giving me life in the first place, for educating me, for giving unconditional support and encouragement to pursue my interests i COMMENTS ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKOWLEDGEMENT i COMMENTS ii TABLE OF CONTENTS iii ABSTRACT iv CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Significance of the research 1.3 Organization of the research proposal CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Definition of pronunciation and its importance 2.1.1 Definition of pronunciation 2.1.2 The importance of pronunciation 2.2 Common problems in pronunciation 2.2.1 Linguistic problems 2.2.1.1 Vowels 2.2.1.2 Consonants 2.2.1.3 Ending sounds 2.2.1.4 Word stress and tones 2.2.1.5 Intonation and word connections 2.2.2 Background knowledge 2.2.3 Attitude and Psychological base 2.2.4 Influence of mother tongue 10 2.3 Previous studies 11 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH AIMS – RESEARCH QUESTION – HYPOTHESIS 13 3.1 Research aims 13 3.2 Research question 13 iii 3.3 Hypothesis 13 CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 14 4.1 Design 14 4.2 Participants 14 4.3 Instruments 14 4.3.1 Questionnaire 14 4.3.2 Interview 15 4.4 Procedure 15 CHAPTER 5: EXPECTED OUTCOME 16 REFERENCES APPENDIX 1: QUESTIONNAIRES FOR STUDENTS APPENDIX 2: INTERVIEW iv ABSTRACT Pronunciation has a positive effect on learning a second language and learners can gain the skills they need for effective communication in English However, there are many students facing difficulties in learning this subject This study is conducted to figure out problems in studying pronunciation of students majoring in English The instruments are questionnaire and interview The collected data from these two instruments will point out the problems of students v CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION In this chapter, the researcher would like to present the rationale, significance and the organization of the study 1.1 Rationale In today's modern world the English language has become part and parcel of every existing field It has been an international language of communication, business, science, information technology, entertainment and so on Though many countries have English as their native language, those who have the command over the English Language are considered and respected as highly educated Moreover they ocean of career opportunities are opened to those English speaking people anywhere and everywhere It has become the working of English and also an inevitable requirement for a number of fields, professions such as computing and medicine Especially for a developing country as Vietnam, a country with a high degree of integration and globalization, English is more and more valued Many young people are aware of its importance for reasons such as finding a high quality job, communicate with the outside world, access the scientific resources that they are pursuing Thus, many people, especially students want to learn English as their second language To be good at speaking English, one of the most important thing that students need to pay attention is pronunciation However, many students find it difficult when practice to pronoun English General suggest observation suggests that it is who start to learn English after their school years are most likely to have serious difficulties in acquiring intelligible pronunciation Many learners of English as a second language have “major difficulties” with English pronunciation even after years of learning the language This often results in them facing difficulties in areas such as finding employment Hinofotis and Baily (1980, pp 124-125) notes that “up to a certain proficiency standard, the fault which most severely impairs the communication process in EFL/ESL learners is pronunciation” Pronunciation problems happen when speaking a second language because most people are used to hearing and making sounds which only exist in their mother tongue Students at Tay Do University especially the English sophomores, usually face many problems in pronunciation They often make mistakes in pronouncing vowels, consonants or the ending sounds They not know where to stress in a sentence or how to raise the tone in the right place Other problems are about intonation, word connection, background knowledge Their attitude and psychological base or mother tongue influence also trouble them Consequently, this research is conducted to help the sophomores in English at Tay Do University figure out the problems when they pronounce Thus, students can understand their difficulties and improve their pronunciation 1.2 Significance of the research This study is expected to help students realize their difficulties in pronouncing English, particulary the English majored sophomores at Tay Do University Moreover, basing on the problems mentioned in this study, students can overcome their problems and improving pronunciation 1.3 Organization of the research proposal Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Literature Review Chapter 3: Research Methodology Chapter 4: Expected Outcome CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW In this chapter, the study would like to present the definitions of pronunciation, its important and some common problems in pronunciation 2.1 Definition of pronunciation and its importance 2.1.1 Definition of pronunciation Pronunciation is a key element of the learning of oral skill in a second language Pronunciation is a set of habits of producing sounds The habit of producing a sound is acquired by repeating it over and over again and by being corrected when it is pronounced wrongly Learning to pronounce a second language means building up new pronunciation habits and overcoming the bias of the first language (Cook, 1996) Oxford Dictionary states pronunciation is the way in which a language or a particular word or sound is spoken If one is said to have "correct pronunciation", then it refers to both within a specific dialect.” A word can be spoken in different ways by various individuals or groups, depending on many factors, such as: the area in which they grew up, the area in which they now live, if they have a speech or voice disorder, their ethnic group, their social class, or their education The fact sheets about pronunciation have been developed by the AMEP research Centre mention that “Pronunciation refers to the production of sounds that we use to make meaning It includes attention to the particular sounds of a language (segments), aspects of speech beyond the level of the individual sound, such as intonation, phrasing, stress, timing, rhythm ( supra-segmental aspects), how the voice is projected (voice quality) and, in its broadest definition, attention to gestures and expression that are closely related to the way we speak a language” Moreover, Otlowski (2004:1) stated that pronunciation is a way that is accepted or generally understood To complete their understanding, the students also learn pronunciation and spelling to improve accuracy and fluency of their English Willing (2009, p 39) said, “Mastering the sounds and pronunciation of the target language is a high priority for the speaker of English” One of the reasons is, as suggested by Morley (in Pardede, 2007, p 4), “Intelligible pronunciation is an essential component of communication competence” Richard (in Yuniarti, 2009, p 2) stated that pronunciation is the way a certain speech sounds in the mouth, pronunciation stresses more on the way of sounds are produced by the hearer Pronunciation is important in English because mispronunciations will make the hearer misunderstand about the meaning of utterance Pronunciation is clearly a central factor in people’s success in making themselves understood In short, pronunciation instruction helps learners to have a better understanding of native speakers and improves their ability to communicate easily and effectively 2.1.2 The importance of pronunciation Communication in today’s international world is so important Good pronunciation help conveys the information exactly Pronunciation gives a significant effect to the meaning of what someone says According to Fangzhi (1998:39), it is important to pay attention to pronunciation since it results in whether or not someone’s message can be passed or not by other people Moreover, Gilbert (cited in Otlowsky, 2004:3) stated that if someone cannot hear English well, she or he is cut off from the language And if someone cannot be understood easily, he or she is cut off from the conversation with native speakers Many learners of English as a second language have “major difficulties” with English pronunciation even after years of learning the language This often results in them facing difficulties in areas such as finding employment Hinofotis and Baily (1980, pp 124-125) notes that “up to a certain proficiency standard, the fault which most severely impairs the communication process in EFL/ESL learners is pronunciation”, not vocabulary or grammar This is true despite the fact that research by the likes of Davis (1999), for example, reveals that an area of concern and indeed one of the top priorities of ESL students after CHAPTER III RESEARCH AIMS – RESEARCH QUESTION – HYPOTHESIS 3.1 Research aims This research is conduct to find out the common problems that English majored sophomores at Tay Do University have faced when learning pronunciation subject 3.2 Research question The research is required to answer with the research question: “What are common problems in pronunciation of English majored sophomores at Tay Do University?” 3.3 Hypothesis According to most of English majored students at Tay Do University, pronunciation is the most difficult subject Students often expect to be able to speak that language like a native speaker However, they find that their mother tongue influences their pronunciation of English The complexity of tense and lax vowels in English creates confusion for Vietnamese learners A variety of dialect differences and consonant positions can cause confusion Consonant clusters also lead Vietnamese speakers to make mistakes when they speak English The stress and tones in the English language vary widely Where the Vietnamese language is syllable-timed, the English language is stress-timed 13 CHAPTER IV RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 4.1 Design The research is carried out at Tay Do University to find out the answer for the research question stated in chapter The sophomores majoring in English are chosen as the sample to the survey They will be given questionnaire so that the information about they problems in studying English pronunciation subject could be collected Ten students are randomly selected to answer the interview questions The collected data through instruments will be analyzed to show the problems of students 4.2 Participants The participants of this study are sophomores majoring in English studying in the same class, (English 10) They come from different areas, both rural and urban The students in English 10 speak Vietnamese as their mother tongue and speak English as a foreign language They will be given questionnaires and interview in order to get information about problems they have faced in pronunciation skill 4.3 Instruments Questionnaire and interview are used as the instruments to collect the data from students 4.3.1 Questionnare This questionnaire includes questions and 15 statements and it is classified into following groups: 14 Group Summary of the content of question group a 1,2,3,4,5,6 Students’ background b Students’s attitude toward pronunciation c From to 21 The problems students have faced in pronunciation 3.3.2 Interview The paper interview consists of questions which mentioned the attitude, problems of studying pronunciation and students’ solution to improve their pronunciation skill 4.4 Procedure Duration (12 weeks) Activities in study process Step 1: from the 1st week to the - Designing the framework of the research 4th - Designing questionnaire and interview - Do the study according to the week Step 2: from the 5th week to the 7th week Step 3: from the 8th week to the framework - Fixing and completing the paper 12th week 15 CHAPTER V EXPECTED OUTCOME Students have problems on pronouncing vowels They cannot distinguish between short and long vowels They also make errors with consonants, some pairs of consonants are pronounced in the same way The ending consonant sounds often are forgotten so they also not use the word connection In a sentence, students not know how to raise the tone or which words need to be stressed It makes them so confused Students lack knowledge of correct pronunciations and the meaning of English words They not pronounce an English word exactly the same as the native speaker of English Thus, students are often misunderstood when pronoun Students are afraid when speaking because of mispronunciation, they cannot control their nerves The students were more concerned about their pronunciation of the target language, they tended to have better pronunciation of the target allophones Native language influenced their production of English, so they often speaking by habit of mother tongue The learners confuse such sounds and replace each of them with other sounds that are said to be the nearest ones to them 16 REFERENCES Acton, W (1984) Changing Fossilized Pronunciation TESOL Quarterly (1): 6983 Alfred Charles Gimson & Alan Crutterden (1992) Gimson’s Pronunciation of English Avery, P., & Ehrlich, S (1992) Teaching American English pronunciation New York: Oxford University Press Claire, S (1993), Pronunciation in the NSW adult migrant English service: curriculum practice, future directions, Master Thesis, University of Technology, Sydney http://www.dest.gov.au/archive/ty/litnet/docs/Teaching_Pronunciation.pdf Cook V (1996) Second Language Learning and Language Teaching London: Arnold Elliot, A R (1995) Foreign Language Phonology: Field independence, attitude, and the success of formal instruction in Spanish pronunciation The Modern Language Journal, 79(iv), 530-542.doi:10.2307/330005, http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/330005 Fangzhi, Cheng (1998) The teaching of pronunciation to Chinese students of English English Teaching Forum, 36, 1, pp 37-39 Gilbert, J (2005) Clear speech: Pronunciation and listening comprehension in American English (3rd ed.) New York: Cambridge University Press Ha, Cam Tam (2005) Common pronunciation problems of Vietnames learners of English Journal of Science – Foreign Language http://news vnu.edu.vn/Bai3.pdf Hinofotis, F and Baily, K., American undergraduate reaction to the communication skills of foreign teaching assistants, TESOL “80: Building Bridges: Research and Practice in TESL”, Alexandria, V.A, 1980 Lintunen, P (2004) Pronunciation and phonemic transcription: A study of advanced Finnish learners of English Turku: University of Turku Morley, J (1991), ‘The pronunciation component in teaching English to speakers of other languages’, TESOL Quarterly, vol 25, no.1, pp 51-74 O’Connor, J D (1980) Better English Pronunciation (2nd ed.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Odden, D (2005) Introducing Phonology New York: Cambridge University Press Richards J., & Renandya W (2002), Methodology in language teaching: An anthology of current practice, Cambridge University Press, New York Park, H & Lee A.R (Eds.) (2005) L2 learners’ anxiety, self-confidence and oral performance 10th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics, Edinburgh University, conference proceedings (197-208) Pennington, M.C (1994) Recent Research in L2 Phonology: Implications for Practice London: Cambridge University Press Purcell, E.T., & Suter, R.W (1980) Predictors of pronunciation accuracy: A reexamination Language Learning, 30, 271-287 Tang, Giang M (2007) Cross-linguistics analysis of Vietnamese and English with implications for Vietnamese language acquisition and in maintenance in the United States Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement Volume http://129.115.51.210/index.php/JSAAEA/article/viewFile/13/8,2007 Tracey M.Derwing & Murray J.Munro, (2005) Second Language Accent and Pronunciation Teaching: A Research-Based Approach Wenda, Chen (1983) Strucutres and functions of English Intonation Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Teaching Press Willing, K (1993), Learning styles in adult migrant education, National Centre for English Language Teaching and Research, Sydney Yates, L (2001), Teaching pronunciation in the AMEP:Current practice and professional development, AMEP Research Centre, viewed 11 February 2002, http://www.nceltr.mq.edu.au/conference2001/index.html APPENDIX A QUESTIONAIRE FOR STUDENTS Dear students, My name is Nguyen Thuy Trang and I am a senior of English major I would like to give my thanks to you for spending your precious time helping me with this questionnaire This questionnaire is one of the instruments for my research about “Common pronunciation problems faced by sophomores majoring in English at Tay Do University” This questionnaire aims to free you answer the questions You are expected to answer all questions honestly Please take your time to complete these below questions Thank you very much Part 1: Hint: Put a check mark () in the box that matches your answer Name: Age: _ Class: _ Gender:  Male Female Hint: Answer the questions and circle the appropriate answer to your opinion Give the specific answers if needed How long have you studied English? _years Where are you from? a Urban area/ city b Rural area/ country side What are your purposes of learning English? a Finding a good job with a high salary b Communicating with foreigners c Watching films without subtitles d Living in English speaking countries e Others: _ What you think about pronunciation? a Very important b Important c Normal d Not important What you think about your pronunciation skill? a Very good b Good c Normal d Bad e Very bad How much time you spend practicing pronunciation a day? a _hour(s) a day b _minute(s) a day Part 2: Statements Strongly Agree No Disagree Strongly agree (2) ideas (4) disagree (1) Pronunciation importance is when speaking English You have difficulties learning pronunciation faced when (3) (5) You cannot distinguish between ‘long’ and ‘short’ sounds 10 You often make mistakes when pronounce consonants sounds 11 Consonant sounds at the ends of words often cause problems 12 You forget pronounce to the ending sounds of words 13 You not know where should stressed in be a sentence 14 You not use the raise and fall in tone when English speaking 15 It is very difficult to say word-final consonants 16 You not often link words 17 With a poor background knowledge, you cannot pronounce the word in a right way 18 Sometime, you feel that you are not trained pronounce to such sounds since you were children 19 You are afraid to be laughed if you mispronounce the words 20 You are not concerned to your pronunciation skill 21 You are effected by mother tongue so you pronounce the sound by habit THANKS FOR YOUR HELP! APPENDIX INTERVIEW Dear students, My name is Nguyen Thuy Trang and I am a senior of English major I would like to give my thanks to you for spending your precious time helping me with this questionnaire This questionnaire is one of the instruments for my research about “Common pronunciation problems faced by sophomores majoring in English at Tay Do University” This questionnaire aims to free you answer the questions You are expected to answer all questions honestly Please take your time to complete these below questions Thank you very much Name: Age: _ Class: _ Gender: Male Female Do you like pronunciation subject? Why or why not? Do you think pronunciation is the most difficult subject? Why or why not? What are your problems when study pronunciation subject? What should you to improve your pronunciation skill? THANKS FOR YOUR HELP!