The study focuses specifically on the use of educational video clips in teaching student’s stress and intonation to the 12th form non English majors at Lao Cai high school number 1. So the study limits itself to the teaching and learning stress and intonation only, and the subjects of the study are 70 non English majors from class 12D1 and 12D2 studying the new “Tieng Anh 12” textbook at Lao Cai high school number 1.
Questionnaire
In this study, a quantitative research method is used to determine the difficulties of grade 12 students at Lao Cai High School No 1 in English pronunciation and their perception of using educational video clips to improve their English pronunciation, their English accent, and intonation Researchers use the survey method because survey results can generate standardized, quantitative, and empirical data through open-ended questions Besides, the data collected is entirely confidential and anonymous The questionnaire is written in both English and Vietnamese to avoid any misunderstandings The questionnaire consists of four parts, including (1) Basic information; (2) Students' difficulties in English pronunciation; (3) Students' perceptions of using educational video clips to improve stress and intonation in English pronunciation, and (4) their self-assessment of improvements from using educational video clips to improve their English accent and intonation.
The first part of the questionnaire consists of 4 questions to collect information related to the survey participants.
In the second part of the questionnaire, a set of questions was compiled to investigate the difficulties in English pronunciation faced by 12th graders.
The third part of the survey questionnaire includes questions to collect students' awareness about using educational video clips to improve accent and intonation in English pronunciation of grade 12 students in Lao high schools Number 1.
The fourth part consists of questions to collect students' self-assessment of the improvement of stress and intonation in English pronunciation.
Interview
Despite the above-mentioned advantages, the questionnaire method also has some unavoidable disadvantages Its reliability and data quality may be low.Sometimes, it is impossible to check the seriousness or honesty of the answers.This is especially true for studies of motivation, which is an abstract and attitudinal concept Therefore, it is advisable to incorporate more than one method in a study That is the reason why the follow-up interviews are also adopted in this study in order to provide an insight into the responses made in the questionnaires and confirm the survey result.
In other words, this interview is intended to gather in-depth information and make the data obtained from the questionnaires more reliable and convincing. The participants are invited to answer the questions All the interviews are conducted in Vietnamese, noted-down, and lasted around one hour The data collected from the interview are used for the purpose of analysis.
The interview subjects were English teachers at Lao Cai High School No 1.Semi-structured interview questions were designed to explore the following specific contents: (1) Evaluation of teachers about students' difficulties and common pronunciation errors; (2) Frequency of using educational video clips in teaching pronunciation by teachers; (3) The benefits of using educational video clips to improve students' intonation and stress in English pronunciation.
Data analysis
Data analysis took several steps First, the data from the surveys were processed into an Excel sheet to produce the percentage for each question Responses were grouped according to the questionnaire questions, and those had similar themes were also grouped together
After that, to validate the findings from the survey, the researcher has proceeded short interviews to get more information The interviews elicit information about participant’s background, and oral reports concerning participants’ difficulties,processes and strategies when making oral presentations in English as well as lecturers’ evaluation on students’ performance Based on the note taken during interviews, most of the information collected from surveys and interviews were compared to confirm the reliability of the survey result.
RESEARCH RESULTS
Descriptive statistics 0
The survey was distributed to students in grades 12D1 (35 students) and 12D2
(34 students) Below are descriptive statistics of the study sample:
Figure 4.1 Gender structure of the research sample
The survey results show a large difference in the sex of the study sample. Specifically, among 69 students in 2 classes, 12D1 and 12D2, 68% are female students, and male students only account for 32% of the total number of students in the class
Number of years studying Eng
Number of years studying English
Under 5 years From 5 - 10 years More than 10 years
Figure 4.2 Number of years studying English
The survey results show that out of 69 students participating in the survey, most of them have studied English as a second language for 5 to 10 years (65%), with 17% of the students studying English as a second language Survey participants said that they had studied English for more than ten years and 18% of them said that their time of learning English was less than five years
Self-assessment of pronunciation ability
Poor Average Pretty Good Excellent
Figure 4.3 Self-assessment of pronunciation ability
The survey results show that most students who participate know that their pronunciation ability is only average (accounting for 54%) Among 69 students in grades 12D1 and 12D2 who participated in the survey, 16% think that their pronunciation is poor, 20% rate their pronunciation as good, 9% in the survey good level, and none of the students claimed to have excellent pronunciation.This shows that the general situation of students' pronunciation ability is not good Therefore, finding solutions to improve pronunciation skills is extremely necessary.
Quantitative research results 2
4.2.1 Difficulties in pronunciation and common errors in pronunciation
To investigate the difficulties in learning phonics skills that students face The author designed 06 questions measured by a 5-level Likert scale (1 - Totally disagree to level 5 - Totally agree) Below are descriptive statistics of the minimum, maximum, mean, and standard deviation for these 06 survey questions:
Table 4.1 Descriptive statistics on students' difficulties in learning pronunciation skills
New sounds: In English, some sounds that
Vietnamese do not have make it difficult for learners to pronounce correctly.
Vietnameseized: Being familiar with the pronunciation in Vietnamese, the parts that make up sounds, especially the tongue, lips, and teeth, are difficult to adjust to pronounce correctly in
Word sounds: In English, words with two or more syllables are stressed The word's stress will fall on one of the certain syllables, and that syllable will be more
69 2.00 5.00 4.0435 93045 stressed than the rest In our
Vietnamese, there is no word stress because words in
The intonation of sentences in English is very diverse and rich Maybe the same sentence, but we can raise or lower the voice at the end of the sentence to convey different information to the listener.
The influence of Vietnamese on final pronunciation in
Consonants in Vietnamese affect learners' receptivity
The survey results on the difficulties in learning pronunciation that students face show that the most significant difficulty is the problem of new sounds, with the highest average score of 4.23 points This result shows that most of the participating students agree with the statement that in English, there are many syllables In Vietnamese, there is no significant obstacle in their efforts to pronounce English correctly
The second most significant difficulty is related to intonation, with an average score of 4.17/5 points The vast majority of survey respondents agreed with the statement that the intonation of English sentences is very diverse and rich.Vietnamese too However, because Vietnamese is the same, it makes learners feel difficult They are familiar with the way sentences in Vietnamese go up and down, so when they switch to English, more or less, the intonation of sentences in Vietnamese will affect English, or else it will take much time to learn and fix.
The third most incredible difficulty comes from the influence of Vietnamese on the last pronunciation in English, with an average score of 4.14 points This is a relatively high average score, which shows that most of the survey participants believe that being too familiar with their mother tongue has created specific barriers for them in learning English pronunciation, especially related to the last pronunciation in English.
The fourth-biggest difficulty is related to the sound of words, with an average score of 4.04 In Vietnamese, words have one syllable, so there is no stress. Meanwhile, English words with two or more syllables are stressed The word's stress will fall on one of the certain syllables, and that syllable will be more stressed than the rest Therefore, this is another difficulty for learners.
Having the same average score of 4.04 points is the difficulty stemming from Vietnamese consonants affecting learners' ability to absorb However, in this question, the standard deviation of the statistic for the value is 1.09 > 1 This means that there is quite a significant difference in the participants' ratings regarding this difficulty.
The scale with the lowest average score of 3.97 points / 5 points is that the English pronunciation is Vietnameseized Students are too familiar with their mother tongue, so controlling the pronunciation organs of English is also a barrier.
Table 4.2 Descriptive statistics on common errors in pronunciation
Deviation Missing pronunciation of words leads to the incorrect
Do not press or even press the wrong stress to make listeners misunderstand the meaning
Vietnamese and assign them to English
The survey results on students' common pronunciation errors show that the error of no intonation is the scale with the highest average score of 4.1 points with a standard deviation of 1.05 > 1, which means there is a significant difference in the respondents' responses to this question.
The second most common error with the second-highest average score is the error of under-pronunciation of words leading to the incorrect meaning of words, with an average score of 4.07 points and a standard deviation of 1.14. The error of not connecting the sound has the third-highest average score of 3.96.
The fourth most common mistake with an average score of 3.94 points, is that students use familiar sounds in Vietnamese assigned to English.
Having the lowest average score is the error related to not pressing or pressing the wrong stress, causing listeners to misunderstand the meaning with an average score of 3.85 points
4.2.2 The current status of the application of educational video clips in teaching pronunciation
Frequency of using educational video clips in teaching pronunciation
Rarely Occasionally Regularly Very often
Figure 4.4 Frequency of using educational video clips in teaching pronunciation
The survey results showed that most participants said their teachers only occasionally use educational video clips in teaching pronunciation (accounting for 55%) Of the 69 students surveyed, 20% said that their teachers rarely use educational video clips in teaching pronunciation, 20% often, and only 5% of the respondents Surveyors say that teachers often use this method.
Level of enthusiastic participation in learning activities
Rarely Occasionally Regularly Very often
Figure 4.5 Level of enthusiastic participation in learning activities using educational video clips
The level of enthusiastic participation in learning activities using educational video clips shows that students actively participate in learning activities when teachers use educational video clips in teaching pronunciation Specifically,among 69 students participating in the survey, 40% of them said that they sometimes participate in practice activities when teachers use educational video clips in teaching pronunciation, 35% regularly participate in practice activities students, 13% very often participate, and only 12% of the students who participated in the survey said that they rarely participate in learning activities.
Evaluation of the educational video clips used in the lesson
Not attractive Normal Attractive Very attractive
Figure 4.6 Evaluation of educational video clips used in class
The follow-up survey question was designed to collect students' evaluations of the educational video clips used in the pronunciation lesson The survey results showed that most participants rated the videos used as attractive (accounting for 49%), 32% of the participants rated the videos, as usual, 10% thought that the video clips were used use is not attractive and 9% think that the video clips used are very attractive to them.
4.2.3 Awareness of the benefits of applying educational video clips in teaching pronunciation
Table 4.3 Descriptive statistics on the benefits of applying educational video clips in teaching pronunciation
Using educational video clips in teaching helps me be aware of my current pronunciation
Using educational video clips helps me be more aware of intonation and stress in
Using educational video clips helps me become aware of my intonation and stress mistakes when pronouncing English.
Using educational video clips helped me understand that intonation and stress play an essential role in correctly pronouncing English.
I am interested in pronunciation lessons that use educational video clips
I think using educational video clips is effective in my foreign language learning, especially in listening, speaking, and pronunciation skills.
I can practice my intonation and stress by watching educational video clips.
Using educational video clips motivates me to continue to
69 2.00 5.00 4.0725 84573 practice, and strengthen intonation and stress to improve my pronunciation skills
The results of the survey on students' awareness of the benefits of using educational video clips in teaching pronunciation show that the most significant benefit is that through this method, students are more motivated to practice and reinforce intonation and stress attempts to improve pronunciation with the highest average score of 4.07 points and standard deviation of 0.85 < 1 This means that there is not much difference in the respondents' answers survey participants.
The second biggest benefit perceived by students is that using educational video clips makes them aware of their intonation and stress errors when pronouncing English, with the second-highest average score of 4.02 points.
Qualitative research results 13
A total of 3 foreign language teachers at Lao Cai High School No 1 agreed to participate in the interview They all have over three years of experience in teaching English at the school The teachers participating in the interviews were coded as TEA1, TEA2, and TEA3, respectively Below is a summary of the interview results.
4.3.1 Difficulties in pronunciation and common pronunciation mistakes of students
For the first interview question related to the difficulties in learning pronunciation that students face, most teachers have the same opinion about some specific difficulties as follows:
The first is the difficulty in stressing Teachers share the same opinion that stress is essential to English pronunciation skills In the communication process, if the speaker does not emphasize the correct stress, then native speakers will certainly not understand the speaker's meaning TEA1 shared that "Vietnamese is considered a monosyllabic language, so when learning English - a multi- syllabic language with many complex features of stress, many Vietnamese will have difficulties Some phrases have up to 2 stress, causing many to miss-stress or not stress Similarly, TEA2 also believes that "emphasis is one of the problems that create barriers for students in learning foreign languages".
The second is difficulty in connecting words TEA1 said, "For native speakers, the consonant always occurs at the end of a consonant followed by a vowel. Connecting sounds makes it difficult both for pronunciation and listening practice for many students.” Sharing the same opinion, TEA2 believes that
"matching sounds is one of the limitations of students when learning pronunciation," and TEA3 believes that "one of the factors that create barriers in learning pronunciation of that student comes from audio connection problem.”
The third is the influence of Vietnamese on pronunciation The teachers interviewed said that this is one of the basic difficulties for Vietnamese people to pronounce English When speaking English, many people use Vietnamese words and say them out to make them easier to remember This way of learning only has a temporary effect but causes difficulties in English pronunciation. Because when Vietnameseizing English, essential principles such as stressing sounds, connecting sounds, etc., will not be followed and make your pronunciation more likely to fail.
In addition, being familiar with the pronunciation in Vietnamese, the parts that make up sounds, such as the tongue, lips, and teeth of students, are challenging to adjust to pronounce correctly in English So for new sounds, students will find it difficult to pronounce or even mispronounce.
Besides, intonation is also one of the difficulties teachers consider a big problem for students.
According to the teachers interviewed, Vietnamese is a tonal language. Changing the tone will change the meaning of the word For example, in the series of pure Vietnamese words me, mè, mé, mẻ, mẽ, mẹ, each word has different meanings due to different tones Tones in Vietnamese are often classified according to two criteria: pitch and tone.
Pitch criteria: high tones (sharp, falling, horizontal) and low tones (question, profound, heavy)
Tonal criteria: flat tone (or flat tone, including profound, horizontal) and uneven tone (or trich, including sharp, falling, asking, heavy)
Meanwhile, English is a language without tones Moreover, English is inherently a polyphonic language, and each word has a stressed syllable, so word stress is the starting point of studying English rhythm and intonation.Saying no or wrong word stress will affect the lexical meaning in communication and make it difficult for listeners to understand.
When asked about the common pronunciation mistakes of students, some of the errors are listed explicitly by the teachers as follows:
The mistake of omitting stress in English pronunciation is an error up to 80% of students make The omission of stress makes the students' lines emotionless. This is most evident in English words with two or more syllables It is common practice for students to read each syllable without any stress.
Wrong pronunciation of wind sounds Mispronouncing the wind sound can change the meaning of the word, making it difficult for the listener to understand what the student wants to say That is also the cause of students' lack of confidence in communication.
Connect the wrong sound Vietnamese has no rules for connecting sounds, and words are read separately and combined into a sentence Therefore, when learning English, many students often make mistakes with their pronunciation skills.
Ignore or mispronounce ending sounds The last sound is the most apparent difference between English and Vietnamese Therefore, many Vietnamese people, when learning English, often make mistakes related to the last sound. Some people know they have the last sound wrong but still cannot correct it In English, many consonants can come at the end of a sentence However, Vietnamese people are not used to this Moreover, by default, ending sounds like the “k” in “like” or “think” are often left out The consonant "d" is also often omitted unintentionally or "intentionally"; for example, the word "build" the /d/ sound is very often omitted for readability
4.3.2 The current status of the application of educational video clips in teaching pronunciation
In the second interview question about the frequency of using educational video clips in teaching pronunciation by teachers, all three teachers said that they had used this method in teaching pronunciation but with a low-frequency difference.
TEA1 states, "According to Musrafidin (2018), using videos to teach phonics can significantly improve students' pronunciation accuracy, and teachers should use videos to teach phonics and phonology Recognizing the benefits of this method, in the past time, I have also applied this method in teaching pronunciation to improve intonation and accent for students However, because this teaching method requires a thorough understanding of the time to prepare lectures, the frequency of applying this method in my teaching is not high, only occasionally applied.
To this question, TEA2 shared, "When teaching English in particular and foreign languages in general, surely every teacher has the same goal of helping his students to communicate freely, confidently, and naturally in the language being studied With speaking skills, phonetics is an important factor in learners' success The use of materials (audio, video, etc.) with a native speaker's voice for students to listen to and imitate the pronunciation, especially for students at a young age or just starting to learn, because This is when learners need the most accuracy Therefore, in the past time, I have often used educational video clips in my pronunciation lesson.”
CONCLUSION
Conclusion 0
Stemming from the actual requirement to learn English today, English has been included in the main curriculum of all levels in our country The ultimate goal of teaching and learning English is for students to be able to communicate in English The ability to communicate manifests in two aspects: receiving (listening and reading) and producing (speaking and writing) language. However, to achieve that final goal, the first factor that students must master is pronunciation If the pronunciation is correct, all skills such as listening, speaking, and reading will become much more manageable.
On the contrary, if the pronunciation is wrong or not clear, it will make the listener misunderstand or even not understand the speaker's meaning One of the difficulties of English learners, especially Vietnamese people, is related to Listening and Speaking skills Many people who find weaknesses look to communication courses to improve these two skills However, the effect is still not as desired, and they do not know that the leading cause is the difficulty in pronunciation If the pronunciation is not good, the Listening and Speaking skills cannot be as expected This study investigated the effects of using educational video clips in teaching pronunciation to improve students' pronunciation, especially in intonation and stress The research method that combines the quantitative research method with the data collection tool, which is the survey questionnaire, and the qualitative research method with the data collection tool, which is the semi-structured interview, provides an overview of the difficulties and common errors in students' pronunciation, the actual situation of using educational video clips in teaching pronunciation Research results show that students and teachers of Lao Cai No 1 High School are highly aware of the benefits of using educational video clips in teaching pronunciation.
In addition, students are also aware of a marked improvement in their pronunciation skills through educational video clips.
Recommendation 1
Pronunciation is essential in learning a foreign language because incorrect pronunciation often causes communication barriers In English, pronunciation has three important contents; teachers need to pay attention in the teaching process: (i) students must learn to pronounce each sound separately; (ii) students must understand word stress; (iii) students need to use correct intonation.
Teach pronunciation of each sound separately.
We can hardly say that English pronunciation is more complicated than other languages However, teaching English pronunciation can be more difficult because English sounds and English letters are not the same The English alphabet has only 26 letters, but there are 39 familiar sounds in the phonetic table Another difficulty is that a letter can be expressed with many different sounds; the same sound is written with two different letters.
All of the above difficulties make students easily confused in pronunciation To avoid confusion between sounds and letters in English, teachers can teach the sounds before teaching the alphabet The phonological system in English can be introduced to students from the first session of the course, and then the alphabet is introduced later Another way to avoid confusion is to instruct students to spell words like “thought” (t-h-o-u-g-h-t) and then use symbols to transcribe the word (/ot/) This way, students can see that the way a word is written is often different from how it is read Teachers should make students aware that an English word is not always the same when written as when read (like Vietnamese).
Rules for teaching English pronunciation
- Teachers should remember that the goal is clear pronunciation, not correct pronunciation Teachers should not spend too much time teaching each student to pronounce individual sounds A non-native English speaker will rarely speak exactly like a native speaker Pronunciation must be clear so that listeners can understand and distinguish it from other similar sounds, not precisely like native speakers.
- Students' pronunciation will improve with the learning process, although students do not consider pronunciation the focus of the learning process During the learning process, the teacher's standard pronunciation makes the students themselves listen and imitate So on, their pronunciation is improved even though they do not have to try their best.
- Teachers do not need to teach the sounds students already know For example, Vietnamese and English have many similar or even wholly similar sounds. Students can pronounce these sounds easily
- If the teacher mispronounces it, the students will also mispronounce it. Teachers should be careful to pronounce individual words and sentences clearly because this is a model activity for students If the teacher's pronunciation is not good, the most important thing is that the teacher must correct himself.
- Teachers should not let students pronounce the same sound repeatedly. Repeating too many times, especially without understanding the meaning, will make the activity boring Therefore, teachers should not let students repeat separate sounds for long However, instead, teachers should let students practice sounds in the context of words (eg, cat, bat, sat, etc.) ), then combine them with other words to form sentences with higher meaning “for example, The cat ate the bat and sat down”.
Steps to teach and practice pronunciation
- The students listen when the teacher pronounces the word containing that sound.
- The teacher repeats one or two separate sounds, and the students listen.
- The teacher pronounces it, and the students follow it.
- The teacher describes the pronunciation, especially the consonants.
- The teacher repeats the separate sounds once or twice, and the students pronounce them along.
- The teacher compares the sound of that word with similar sounds.
- Pronunciation teachers need to teach in the context of other words, often pairs of homonyms (minimal pairs) Homonyms are words with the same phonemes except one (e.g lamp and damp, cat and cut, shoe and glue, etc.).
- The teacher repeats that sound when in different positions in a word: at the beginning, middle or end.
- Teachers design activities for students to practice new sounds.
Some activities to teach pronunciation
- Same or Different (Same or Different): Write the phonetic symbols to be taught on the board (i.e., /?/) The teacher pronounces a series of sounds similar to that sound (/ỉ/, /?/, /e/, /?/, /,…), asking students to say which sounds are similar to and different from the ones written.
- One or two (or three) (One or Two or Three): The teacher writes two (or three) phonetic symbols on the board (i.e., /i/, /l/, /?/, ), reads one for students to hear (sheep, seep, seat, feet, sheet…), ask students to say “one”, or “two”, (or
“three”) to distinguish them from the sounds they hear.
- Correct or Incorrect: Similar to the above exercise, the teacher writes one or more on the board The teacher pronounces some words correctly and some incorrectly and then asks the students to say "true" or "false" after each word.
- Word discovery: The teacher writes the phonetic symbol of a sound on the board and then asks the students to find and read out the words that have that sound at the beginning, middle, or end.
- Minimal pairs: The teacher writes the phonetic symbol of a sound on the board and then asks the students to find and read as many pairs of words as possible with the same sound.
- Constructing sentences: The teacher gives students a list of words containing the sounds they are learning and then asks students to use those words to make meaningful sentences.
- Tongue Twisters: The teacher writes sentences containing similar sounds and asks students to read them at different speeds:
For example: - What she said made me sad.
- He bet she let the pet fret underneath Ted's green shed.
- Identify pictures: The teacher draws on the board 2 details, such as a sheep (a sheep) or a ship (ship), seat - feet; thin - chin,… ask students to point to ship or sheep,… and then read the word aloud.
Teach pronunciation of word stress
Stress in English is significant Pronouncing the wrong stress in English can lead to:
- Change the meaning of words.
- Listeners have difficulty hearing the speaker's pronunciation and may misunderstand and not understand what the speaker wants to express.
- Even makes the listener feel belittled and made fun of, and the conversation can be hindered.
Some techniques for teaching pronunciation of accents to note are as follows:
- Increase students' awareness and confidence: