An investigation into teaching linking sounds to improve listening skill to first year english major students at tien giang university

CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationales Nowadays, more and more countries consider English as a useful tool to communicate successfully with the world outside Therefore, learning English has become a tendency to most people, both old and young ones It even becomes a compulsory subject in most school in Vietnam Nevertheless, having successful conversation requires learners to have not only knowledge of linguistic competence but also good pronunciation Morley (1999) stated that limiting pronunciation skills could undermine learners‟ self-confidence, and restrict social interactions Fraser (2000) confirms pronunciation as most critical communication skill Therefore, intelligent pronunciation is an essential component of communication competence (Morley, 1991:488) However, pronunciation is also one of the most difficult aspects to acquire In Vietnam, in spite of recognizing the importance of pronunciation, Vietnamese students still cannot have correct pronunciation Brown (1992), Claire (1993), Fraser (2000), conducted the studies and Yates (2001) indicated that several teachers tend to avoid dealing with pronunciation because they lack confidence, skills and knowledge As a result, students cannot pronounce English words and sentences correctly even though they are good at vocabulary and grammar Moreover, Vietnamese teachers have to deal with the class of more than forty students It is impossible to say that the teachers can pay attention to all students‟ speaking performance in general and pronunciation in particular Hence, teaching and learning English pronunciation has become one of the most serious issues for both teachers and students Like almost schools in Vietnam, the effect of teaching and learning pronunciation at Tien Giang University have been far from the satisfaction even though both teachers and students have tried their best Pronunciation has been becoming a separated aspect in teaching Nowadays, the teachers and students‟ perception of teaching pronunciation has changed dramatically It is paid attention more than before However, getting a good effect is not a simple task for any teacher in my school Actually, there are only 10 teachers teaching listening and speaking among 24 teachers in English faculty at Tien Giang University All of these 10 teachers have many problems in teaching pronunciations, especially in teaching linking sounds to first year English major students These problems have occurred from many reasons The first belongs to the teachers and students‟ perception According to the teachers‟ point, although teaching pronunciation is the main task, they still make little attempt to teach it For them, vocabulary and grammar are the main needs for their students to get marks in the examinations than any other aspects Others stated that they not have enough time and available materials to teach pronunciation separately From the students‟ view, pronunciation is the second thing they want to learn after vocabulary For them, vocabulary is the most important factor in helping them improve listening skill The second one is the students‟ effort Tien Giang is still influenced from the countryside where people are still shy and passive in dealing with foreign languages As a result, students cannot hear anything from the native speakers or even the recordings even though they have learned a little bit of knowledge of linking sounds This affects seriously in their communication, both in their learning process and later life From surveying and observing from the teaching and learning at Tien Giang University, I realize that my students‟ listening skill has almost several problems in aspects of connected speech It belongs to linking sounds They cannot hear anything when I give them the pretest containing linking sounds In addition, some of them said that they have never known what linking sounds are This, perhaps is occurred not only at Tien Giang University but also at any another college or university It is time to look for the solutions for this situation of teaching English pronunciation so that our students can get effect in their listening In addition, this is the main motivation to tempt me to conduct a research entitled “An investigation into teaching linking sounds to improve listening skill to First year English major students at Tien Giang University” 1.2 Research aim My research aims to investigate the teaching of linking sounds, one of the aspects of connected speech, to improve First year English major students‟ listening skill at Tien Giang University Particularly, it also aims to: - Investigate the practice of teaching and learning linking sounds at Tien Giang so that it could bring many benefits for both teachers and students To teachers, this study can help them have a good outlook in teaching pronunciation, especially teaching linking sounds To students, this study brings them a good way to improve their listening skill through learning how the sound can link together - Search the best ways to teach linking sounds more effectively to improve students‟ listening skill 1.3 Research questions In order to achieve the purposes mentioned above, the research seeks the answer to the following questions: What are the teachers and students‟ perceptions about teaching linking sounds at Tien Giang University? How is the practice of teaching and learning linking sounds at Tien Giang University? Which techniques should the teachers apply to teach linking sounds effectively to improve students‟ listening skill? 1.4 The scope of the study This study is conducted with 100 first year English major students and 10 English teachers who have been teaching listening and speaking at Tien Giang University Due to time limitation, my study only focuses on three parts of linking sounds such as linking a consonant to a consonant, a consonant to a vowel and a vowel to a vowel It mainly investigates the practice of teaching linking sounds to First year English major students at Tien Giang University as well as the ways the teachers apply to teach these sounds Finally, it requires some solutions to help teaching and learning linking sounds effectively 1.5 Significance of the study This study is hopefully significant for both teachers and students at Tien Giang University in particular and in other parts of Vietnam in general Firstly, the study can raise the awareness of the importance of linking sounds in listening among teachers and students so that pronunciation training should be paid more attention Secondly, students can have a good chance to listen well through identifying some problematic sounds in the way that sounds can link together I hope that the implication from the study can be useful to improve first year English students‟ listening skill at Tien Giang University Finally, I also hope to gain many benefits from this study It possibly helps me understand more what linking sounds cause problems to my students and how to solve them effectively In addition, it can help me find out the suitable techniques to teach three parts of linking sounds more effectively in particular and other aspects of pronunciation in general 1.6 The structure of the study This study consists of five chapters: Chapter 1: Introduction – provides the reasons for choosing this study The research purposes, research questions, scope of the study, as well as the structure of the study are also included in this chapter Chapter 2: Literature review and theoretical background, provides a brief literature review and theoretical background for the study Chapter 3: Methodology, describes the research approach, subjects, data collection and analysis Chapter 4: Findings and discussion, analyzes the data collected during the study and report the findings of the study Accordingly, the researcher‟s opinions and reflections on them will be presented Chapter 5: Conclusion and Implications, summarizes the findings and offer implications for the study as well as suggestions for further research CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter first briefly reviews previous studies related to the study Secondly, the role of teaching some aspects of connected speech to improve listening skill will be then presented Next, the perspective on improving listening skill through linking sounds instruction is mentioned Finally, a comparison and contrast of the sound systems between English and Vietnamese is also included in this chapter 2.1 PREVIOUS STUDIES RELATED TO THE TOPIC Among the studies of the teaching and learning English language skill, the issues of teaching and learning listening have been especially concerned by many researchers and educators Among many factors affecting listening, linking sounds is regarded as one of the aspects of connected speech that cause the big challenges to our students Due to being one of the aspects of connected speech, the influence of linking sounds has the relationship with other aspects Rost (2001) confirmed the effects of connected speech to English teaching in his article He thought, “The pronunciation of certain syllable – timed languages, such as English sound unclear due to the present of linking, assimilation or reduced forms.” Although the primary research and literature dealing with reduced forms is found in Rosa – ESL Teachers‟ Perspectives on Reduced Forms Instruction pronunciation texts, it is obvious that the presence of reduced forms or connected speech affects not only the pronunciation of second language learners, but also the listening comprehension of learners Many texts on listening seem to focus on listening strategies Yet, it seems that strategies may be too broad to focus on when the very comprehension of natural spoken language may be the true challenge (Norris, 1995) Avery and Ehrlich (1992) deal directly with „connected speech‟ and the ways in which it is pronounced, yet follow this focus with the following conclusion: “…when our ESL students use „wanna‟, „gonna‟ and „dunno‟, they often sound unnatural…we should probably not insist on having our students produce these forms until their spoken English is fairly advanced We should, however, introduce these forms for recognition to even basic students as they appear frequently in spoken English”, (Avery and Ehrlich, 1992 : 89) Some researchers like Brown (1977), Underwood (1989) and Ur (1984) have advocated the importance of teaching reduced form The research aims to explore the effects of reduced form instruction on overall listening comprehension… Based on Rosa (2002), when perceptual accuracy of the input diminishes, the challenge of listening comprehension will increase According to Field (2008), normal speech flows containing simplified patterns such as contraction, elision, deletion, assimilation, and linking can pose challenges to L2 listeners Brown and Hilferty (2007) confirmed that the instruction of reduced forms helped improve listening comprehension for EFL students in China In addition, Brown and Kondo-Brown (2007) supported teaching reduced forms in that they are a real part of language and they are essential to better understanding of spoken English In addition, Norris (1995) conducted a study on Japanese students‟ awareness of reduced forms by introducing the 20 common forms in Weinstain‟s “Waddaya Say?” in order to find out whether teaching reduced forms will have a positive impact on listening comprehension Dictation and cloze exercises were used as main activities Moreover, Norris enabled his students to get as much exposure as possible by assigning them to listen to natural English, such as listening to journals At the end of this two-year study, he observed that students‟ listening comprehension had improved a lot A similar study was done by Brown and Hilferty (1986), who looked into the effectiveness of teaching reduced forms on L2 listening comprehension by making a comparison between a treatment group that was exposed to reduced forms instruction, and a control group which worked on minimal pairs practice rather than reduced forms To test the progress and compare these groups, three measures were utilized: the Bowen Integrative Grammar Test, a norm-referenced multiple-choice listening test, and reduced-forms dictations The results revealed that the treatment group‟s post-test score was higher than the control group‟s on all three measures Rosa‟s paper (2002), which the survey used in the current study was taken from, has revealed valuable data regarding ESL teachers‟ feeling about “reduced forms instruction” Rosa (2002) carried out a study of ESL teachers‟ attitudes on reduced form teaching at the University of Hawaii in Manoa About 52 surveys were distributed to ESL instructors in Oahu In terms of teachers‟ familiarity with reduced forms, she concluded that teachers consider themselves very or somewhat familiar with the role of reduced forms in spoken English In addition, it has been revealed that teachers spend little time on teaching these forms When they teach these forms, they prefer teaching them in a context with common examples rather than through the system of linguistic rules and constraints Almost all teachers considered teaching reduced forms to be helpful in improving students‟ listening comprehension; on the contrary, most of them usually spend only 10% or less of a typical class Almost all of the participants reported that their students seemed somewhat or very interested in reduced form teaching There are more than 42% percent of all the participants considered that their limited focus on reduced form instruction is a result of lack of time and materials Henrichsen (1984) investigated the effect of “sandhi-variation” on listening comprehension He looked into the interaction between absence and presence of “sandhi-variation” and learners‟ level of proficiency The participants of his study were 65 college students of three distinct proficiency levels; a first group (low level group) whose mean score was 69.63 on the Michigan Test of English Language Proficiency (MTELP), a second group (high group) whose mean score was 78.00 on the MTELP, and a third group (native speakers) taking courses in linguistics and TESOL at Brigham Young University, Hawaii Campus Aquil (2012) discovered the difficulties of Cairen Arabic in connected speech learning He attempted various teaching techniques to address the learners' problem in listening First, insufficient or unfamiliar vocabulary was considered the probable cause However, this did not solve the problem because neither did knowledge of English vocabulary, nor exposure to new words, seemed to help Then, he resorted to phonology and syntax and explained to the learners the syntactic structures the utterances contained and the phonological alternations He also tried phonological explanation of general rules of assimilation and reduction, in addition to constant exposure to the sound of the words and connected forms; but nothing changed Finally, he turned to pronunciation drills and listening discrimination and identification tasks were attempted In the discrimination task, learners were asked to discriminate between two utterances and report whether the utterances were the same or different Regardless of the type of technique and frequency and duration of exposure to any one technique, the identification of connected utterances was rarely realized A valuable book written by James Dean Brown & Kimi Kondo Brown describes completely about the perspectives on teaching connected speech to second language learners A study of 32 Chinese graduated EFL students by Brown and Hilfery (pp.56-57) suggests the value of explicit connected speech instruction An experimental group of 16 students who received mini-lessons on reduced forms for four weeks on an intensive basis performed better on a dictation and grammar exercise than a control group receiving traditional instruction However, a pretest/post-test study of 20Japanese business persons that got just seven 30-minute lessons on 69 reduced forms for one month revealed no significant improvement in terms of TOEIC listening scores (p 63) Rogerson (pp 87-91) explores the attitudes of 45 ESL instructors towards reduced form instruction Over half the respondents considered reduced forms “very important” and most reported explicitly teaching them in mini-lessons Cahill (pp.108 – 110) then describes one way to teach reduced forms through choral response, cloze dialogs, and dictations Varden (pp 129-165) next outlines a phonetic software package, which visually displays speech patterns Unfortunately, no empirical evidence of how this might help students monitor their speech is offered A 1979 study by Hasegawa (pp 173-187) shows how casual speech differs from fast speech Toda (pp 189-190) then debunks the myth that Japanese speakers always speak formally or politely She also challenges the notion that listening skills invariably precede production skills, asserting that, “ from a pedagogical point of view, perceptual acquisition does not have to strictly precede acquisition of speech production” (p 201) After this, Hirata (pp 234-243) argues for the teaching words with subtle vowel/consonant contrasts in connected sentences rather than in isolation In a word, the above foreign researchers have contributed a significant part to improve listening through teaching some aspects of connected speech In Vietnam, this field has also been paid attention to A study of Trinh Vinh Hien shows that the linguistic features are language barrier to learners The liaison, the linking of the first word and the word coming right after which begins with a vowel, is claimed by 73.7% of the students to be the most common obstruction in listening since the students are used to hearing each separate word by unit in a sentence and slow stream of listening Hence, they misunderstand the linking words or they have no idea of the meaning delivered Another problem in listening is the elision of a sound or exactly a syllable in a word These kinds of features may be encountered when the message is spoken at such a rapid speed mood that the sentences uttered cannot be spoken word by word Thus, students cannot recognize the words that they hear Liaison and elision, as Yagang (1994) think, are difficulties which listener often face while listening Normally, they get used to the written words that organized orderly in a textbook Thus, in the stream of speech, students find it hard to recognize separate words 10 the reality has a little bit difference Although the teachers are aware of these measures, there is still not much attendance of linking sounds in pronunciation session The teachers usually tend to ignore or even spend a little of time in teaching linking sounds instead of transmitting the knowledge of linking sounds to students Of all the reasons, time spending is mostly the main one Expectedly, with this research, the research can bring the new outlook to teaching linking sounds at Tien Giang in general, and to teachers of pronunciation in particular 4.3.4 Techniques to teach and learn linking sounds better to improve students’ listening From opened question, both English teachers and students gave some suggestions to improve the quality of teaching and learning linking sounds at Tien Giang University 4.3.4.1 From teachers’ viewpoints As mentioned above, time spending is always the obstacle for teachers Hence, in their opinion, spending more time on teaching linking sounds in details is required most If the time spending is reasonable, the teachers will be able to teach linking sounds in context and integrated in other aspects of pronunciation by repetition and demonstration on the board Others said that if there is enough time, the teachers should let students practice until they sound naturally Beside time, materials are also remarked Some of the teachers indicated that teachers should design interesting classes with various sources of materials In their opinion, materials should be variable and need to be contained linking parts For better teaching, they suggested that EFL teachers should share materials with their colleagues This idea is rather interesting and helpful because the teachers can learn teaching experiences between them Interestingly, there are some teachers emphasizing that games, songs and video clips cannot be deficiency in teaching pronunciation, especially in teaching linking sounds Actually, they are three helpful activities motivating learners and creating the active atmospheres for the classroom Besides, some teachers requested 54 “recordings” as a convenient way Recordings can help teachers identify the students‟ problems and learners can have a chance to recognize their voice On the other hands, recordings can help them control their shyness and recover some their limitation in pronouncing In addition, some of the teachers suggested that the English teacher should organize the English-speaking club and encourage English major to participate One of the benefits of this club is motivating students‟ awareness and confidence in learning English, especially in pronunciation 4.3.4.2 From students’ viewpoints Most students confirmed that linking sounds is too hard to comprehend Hence, they suggested that the teachers should spend more time for their practicing Besides, they expected that materials should be supplied efficiently so that they can know more about linking sounds and have chance for home – practicing In addition, some of the students expressed that they would like to study with both native teachers and non – native teachers in their listening session They hope to have a chance to practice more listening, especially listening to aspects of linking sounds such as linking a consonant to a vowel, a vowel to a vowel and a consonant to a consonant In general, to teach linking sounds more effectively, it requires much effort from both teachers and students 4.4 Chapter summary Chapter IV explores the perception of both teachers and students toward teaching and learning linking sounds at Tien Giang University Besides, it also provides the situation of teaching and learning here Finally, some suggestions are presented It can be seen that the problems still occurs even though both teachers and students are highly aware of its linking sounds‟ importance The results from the questionnaires and recordings reveal that most of the students got the problems with linking a consonant to a vowel Therefore, to get a better teaching, it requires 55 that the teachers should give the suitable techniques to teach linking sounds to help students improve their listening CHAPTER CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS This chapter first briefly summarizes the major findings from the research Then, it offers some implications to the problems of teaching linking sounds Finally, the limitations of this study as well as suggestion for further research are also taken into account 5.1 Summary of the main findings 5.1.1 Teachers’ and students’ perception of teaching and learning pronunciation in Tien Giang University The results from the study show that both teachers and students shared the same view that they all had a positive perception of teaching and learning linking sounds in first year English major students No participating teachers and students denied the significance of teaching and learning linking sounds However, when being asked whether they like to teach and learn linking sounds, the majority of them expressed their hesitation to this issue Lacking of time and materials becomes one of the chief problems Due to these two problems, the teaching of linking sounds seemly to be neglected Therefore, most of the teachers and students at Tien Giang are familiar with linking sounds in teaching of a consonant to a vowel than others 5.1.2 Teachers’ and students’ situations of teaching and learning linking sounds at Tien Giang University Involving the importance of linking sounds, the results of the study shows that most of the students had problems with all aspects of linking sounds However, the problem of linking a consonant to a vowel is accounted for more than another two aspects As can be seen from the questionnaires and recording, most of the students are not impossible to link sounds together One of the reasons because Vietnamese 56 which they used to be familiar with has no ending sounds pronouncing Therefore, the students tend to omit the ending sounds instead of linking them Comparing with the native speaker‟ recording, it is obviously that the students often pronounce separate sounds between words Concerning the time spending for teaching linking sounds in class, a majority of the teachers admitted that they only spend from to 10 minutes on teaching linking sounds Hence, to get a better teaching, supplying more time for teachers in the curriculum is required essentially Regarding the techniques, the findings of the research indicated that a large number of teachers have ever used “introducing the concept of linking, demonstrating the linking features and asking students to repeat after” as a primary technique in their teaching process Besides, the teachers also designed communicative tasks such as dialogues and role-plays or mini – conversations to support their teaching Furthermore, they also applied “recording” as one of the techniques to teach linking sounds At times, the students may think they are using correct pronunciation when in fact they are saying something quite different By using a device to record what your students are actually saying, the teacher will have empirical data to play back for each person We should encourage the students to listen to what they actually said rather than what he thinks he said The teachers are able to compare a recording of a native speaker against their recording In this way, the students will have a more objective understanding of their true pronunciation and be able to take steps to correct it The finding also showed that the sources of materials to teach linking sounds are not efficiency For that reason, the students are not satisfied and have no chance for practicing pronunciation In reality, because there are only two periods for each week, it is really a barrier for both teachers and student to use a full type of material containing linking sounds As a result, the ability of connecting sounds together is so poor, and it affect considerably to students‟ listening 57 Concerning the reason why students had problems with learning linking sounds, both teachers and students shared the same view that native speakers‟ accent affects a lot to listening abilities, especially in making the smooth of speech In addition, the result indicated that a large number of students got problems in perceiving sounds The contrast of the ending sounds between English and Vietnamese is the main reason because they used to be familiar without ending sounds of Vietnamese Thus, there is frequently omission of the sounds when they pronounce the words together Certainly, this related to their learning process in linking sounds seriously 5.1.3 Teachers and students’ solutions and suggestions for teaching and learning linking sounds at Tien Giang University Besides the teachers and students‟ situations, the findings of the study also found out teachers‟ solutions, suggestions and techniques to the problems Firstly, dealing with the problems emerged from learner factors, there were some solutions indicated by teachers To enhance students‟ motivation and positive attitudes towards learning linking sounds, a majority of teachers made their choice into songs Some of other teachers took advantage from watching video clips, recording, practicing at home to teach linking sounds to students Only a small number of teachers confirmed that role-playing and imitating teachers‟ voice are useful ways to enhance students‟ learning Among these activities, songs are also chosen by most of the students Besides, they supported recordings due to practicing listening with recordings at home can be helpful for their learning In addition, they preferred imitating teachers‟ voice to playing role and watching videoclips Expectedly, these solutions will contribute to the success of teaching and learning linking sounds for both teachers and students at Tien Giang University Concerning the teachers‟ factor, some suggestions were indicated A large number of teachers agreed that the EFL teachers should co – teach with native speakers when teaching pronunciation Some of the teachers indicated that the EFL teachers should have correct pronunciation and understand clearly about the knowledge of 58 linking sounds before starting teaching it Only a small number of them thought that the EFL teachers should be well – trained, or even overseas trained In term of measures to help students learn linking sounds better, both teachers and students shared nearly the same views Among the measures, “time” was supported by both of them It is easy to understand because time spending is the most difficult factor for their learning and teaching Besides, both teachers and students also thought that materials, especially materials containing linking sounds are really essential for their teaching and learning In addition, encouraging students‟ patience and further exercises for home practicing are also mentioned With techniques, some suggestions from teachers and students were picked to reach the effectiveness of teaching and learning connected speech There were many useful techniques to be offered for teachers to teach linking sounds such as inserting games, video clips, songs into teaching linking sounds Besides, they also suggested that the EFL teachers should record students‟ voice and using some helpful software in teaching process One of the interesting points is that the teachers should organize the English club and let students practice their learning on it Certainly, this English club has at least one native teacher as a club staff According to students, they expected that their teachers prioritize the technique “explaining the rule, demonstrating the linking features and asking them to repeat after the teachers” For this reason, they can study linking better if they comprehend what linking sounds are and how to link sounds together effectively Besides, the students hoped their teachers should co – teach with native speakers so that they have more chance to practice Concurrently, they expected their teachers should spend more time on practicing linking the sounds, and recording their voice after each session and then comparing to native speakers In this way, they can know about their pronunciation Finally, to enhance their motivation in their learning, they really desire their teachers should insert some interesting activities such as songs, games, video clips into learning linking sounds Without supplementing of these activities, their learning of linking sounds is rather monotonous and passive 5.2 Implications 59 Based on the findings of the study, the researcher would like to offer some implications for teaching and learning linking sounds at Tien Giang University 5.2.1 Implications for teachers It is clear that not all the problems mentioned above can be solved However, to some extent, if teachers have proper and significant concerns about the teaching of linking sounds, they will be able to get the effective teaching more It can be seen from the results that the teaching effect is not as much as expected although the teachers were awareness of the importance role of linking sounds in listening comprehension Practically, students still have obstacle with aspects of linking sounds Therefore, it requires the teachers not only have professional qualifications of teaching but also finding some new techniques to develop linking teaching They certainly have to identify and master the rule of linking sounds plainly, so that they can explain and demonstrate to their students In reality, teaching pronunciation requires teachers to have a good voice and good pronunciation Therefore, the teacher must be a standard model for them to follow This cannot be executive by feeling but by well – trained courses and experiences If it is possible, the teachers will be more confident with their model in front of the students in case they are trained overseas Concurrently, co – teaching will help the teachers share the instruction of students It also allows both teachers blend their teaching styles and expertise Co-teaching provides a unique learning experience for students, as more than one teacher is present in the room to address learning needs From the results of the study, it is obviously that Vietnamese sounds affect students‟ pronunciation Vietnamese students tend to omit the ending sounds instead of pronouncing them Hence, when dealing with English sounds they become confused how to pronounce and why to link the sounds together In this case, the teachers should apply the suitable method for easy level to hard one to help students master it first Then, with some sounds have no similarity between them, the teachers should raise students‟ awareness of similarity and difference 60 between English and Vietnamese Gradually, the students will have a chance to identify to pronounce and link these sounds reasonably Practically, time spending is one of the most difficulties for teaching linking sounds There is not always enough time for teaching all aspects of linking sounds fully Consequently, combining teaching linking sounds with other skills such as speaking and listening is suggested Through listening, students have chance to deal with aspects of linking sounds such as linking between a consonant to a vowel, a vowel to a vowel, and a consonant to a consonant Through speaking, students can have more chances to know about the knowledge and features of linking sounds and then practice to say aloud By this way, time spending is helpful for them in practicing and demonstrates what they comprehend about linking sounds Due to the limitation of time, the further exercises and recordings for home practicing are useful for the students In this way, the teachers can raise students‟ awareness of self – study and supply more chances for them to deal with linking sounds outside the classroom instead of practicing in class If it is possible, the teachers should apply some pronunciation software like “Pratt” software in their teaching It creates the funny and interesting environment for students Through Pratt, the students can see their voice raising or falling relying on the waveform 5.2.2 Implications for students To improve students‟ pronunciation of linking sounds, the primary thing for them is the awareness of the importance role of linking sounds in listening comprehension With the limitation of time, it is too hard for teachers to lead the class practice and practice Therefore, it requires students to be autonomous in their learning linking sounds The more self – study attitudes the students have, the more success they get from the pronunciation The result showed that students used to subtitle the sounds they are not clear with the sounds of their language Hence, students should spend more time to practice pronouncing individual vowel and consonant sounds fluently before connecting them together 61 In order to improve students‟ listening skill, students should find the appropriate learning methods to learn linking sounds more effectively Beside the rules of linking sounds are supplied by the teachers, the students can discovered themselves the ways to remember and comprehend these rules easily and effectively Moreover, English songs, video clips and games are some good supplementary activities for students to practice listening with sounds In addition, students can ask their teachers to give them more recordings to practice listening at home Recordings can be a useful activity because the students can compare their pronunciation with native speakers‟ one Pratt is one of the helpful softwares to support for recordings Through the waveform, the students can recognize what standard pronunciation they have when comparing to the native speakers‟ pronunciation This software is also simple in installing and applying As mentioned above, only practice in class is not adequate to make a competence for listening some aspects of linking sounds Involving in this thing, English-speaking clubs are wise choice for them Through English clubs, the students have more chances to practice listening, to play roles, to imitate native speakers‟ voice and to play some English funny games Consequently, English clubs can help students both in improving listening and in being patient and confident with their learning Apart from the aspects of linking sounds, the students should be constantly concerned with other aspects of connected speech such as assimilation, deletion, weakening Through these aspects, the students can identify and comprehend more about the sounds and how they work together between the words 5.2.3 Implications for Administrators Firstly, almost first year English major students got problems in connecting sounds together Therefore, to gain a better teaching, time spending for teaching pronunciation in general and teaching linking sounds in particular should be paid more attention At present, it has 30 periods for the each term for first year students in pronunciation session Each week will be covered with periods Unluckily, 62 there are not any units related to linking sounds separately Hopefully, there will be enough time for an insertion of teaching linking sounds in each pronunciation period Secondly, to help students familiarize with the aspects of linking sounds, the curriculum should contain the knowledge of them At the same time, the materials should be efficient and variable in order that the students can have more chances to practice after having the knowledge and features of linking sounds Finally, to support the teaching and learning pronunciation, facilities should be paid more attention The students should be supplied adequately about supplementary facilities such as computers with internet connection, stereos, cassette player, and some helpful pronunciation installed into the computers With these assistance, it is expected that the teaching and learning of linking sounds will be improved 5.3 Limitation of the study It must be acknowledged that there exist some limitations of the study The first limitation is the scope of the study Because Tien Giang university has only 10 teachers of listening and speaking session, the small number of teachers participating in the study seems not to satisfy the requirement of the study Besides, the number of students is limited with 100 students and only 15 of them were recorded Consequently, the researcher cannot investigate all the situations and problems of teaching and learning linking sounds Due to limitation of time, the researcher only conducted the study with three aspects of linking sounds such as the linking a consonant to a consonant, a consonant to a vowel and a vowel to a vowel However, there are many other aspects in linking sounds such as linking /r/ or linking intrusive /r/ has not been explored Because the researcher does not have enough time, questionnaires and recordings are two main instruments used in collecting data Therefore, it is rather hard to gain the most reliable results 63 5.4 Suggestions for further study As mentioned above, the purpose of the research is to investigate the teaching and learning linking sounds at Tien Giang University Nevertheless, because of time limitation, the researcher only investigated into three of linking aspects To help students listen well, other aspects of linking sounds should be paid more attention Furthermore, the future research should apply more research instruments suitably to get more data In addition, to overcome the difficulties in teaching and learning linking sounds, it is required that an action research will be conducted in the future study to solve these problems 64 REFERENCES Anh, H.N (2008) A study of the issues of teaching listening at Dao Duy Tu high school in Quang Binh MA Thesis in Education Hue University Brown, A (1992) A survey of 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