A case study of word stress production in speaking performance by efl learners at a language center in ho chi minh city

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE A CASE STUDY OF WORD STRESS PRODUCTION IN SPEAKING PERFORMANCE BY EFL LEARNERS AT A LANGUAGE CENTER IN HO CHI MINH CITY A thesis submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL By HOANG THI DOAN Supervised by NGUYEN THI NHU NGOC, Ph.D HO CHI MINH CITY, DECEMBER 2022 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE A CASE STUDY OF WORD STRESS PRODUCTION IN SPEAKING PERFORMANCE BY EFL LEARNERS AT A LANGUAGE CENTER IN HO CHI MINH CITY A thesis submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL By HOANG THI DOAN Supervised by NGUYEN THI NHU NGOC, Ph.D HO CHI MINH CITY, DECEMBER 2022 STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY I hereby certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled: A CASE STUDY OF WORD STRESS PRODUCTION IN SPEAKING PERFORMANCE BY EFL LEARNERS AT A LANGUAGE CENTER IN HO CHI MINH CITY In terms of the statement of Requirements for the Thesis in Master’s Program issued by the Higher Degree Committee The thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other situations Ho Chi Minh City, December 2022 HOANG THI DOAN i RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I hereby state that I, Hoang Thi Doan, being the candidate for the degree of Master in TESOL, accept the requirements of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the library In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original version of my thesis deposited in the library should be accessible for the purpose of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the library for the care, loan or reproduction of the thesis Ho Chi Minh City, December 2022 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to those who have helped and supported me during the hard time doing my research and completing this thesis First, my deepest gratefulness goes to my respectful supervisor, Dr Nguyen Thi Nhu Ngoc, for encouraging me to continuously review literature, write up and revise my thesis and providing me with valuable feedback and precious guidance throughout the tiring stages of doing research and thesis writing I am also grateful to Dr Tran Thi Thanh Dieu for her help during my first step to come up with the research I am thankful for the continuous support that the management of the Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature provided when I was working on my thesis My genuine appreciation also goes to my colleagues, for all the generous and enthusiastic support and the invaluable and professional advice they have given to help me better understand the issue under investigation Last but not least, I am very grateful to my incomparably caring and loving family for always being by my side to cheer me up when I suffered stress from my work and study Without the encouragement, support and guidance provided by those named or unlisted, I would not have completed this Master’s Thesis I appreciate all iii TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY i RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi LIST OF TABLES vii LIST OF FIGURES viii ABSTRACT ix CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY 1.2 AIMS OF THE STUDY 1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY 1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 1.6 ORGANIZATION OF THE THESIS CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 WORD STRESS 2.1.1 Definition 2.1.2 Features of word stress 2.1.3 Analysing word stress using the PRAAT application 11 2.2 SPEAKING PERFORMANCE 12 2.2.1 Definition 12 2.2.2 Oral presentation 13 2.2.3 Storytelling 14 2.2.4 Factors affecting word stress production in speaking performance 14 2.3 PREVIOUS STUDIES 16 2.4 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK 19 CHAPTER METHODOLOGY 21 3.1 RESEARCH DESIGN 21 3.2 RESEARCH SITE 22 3.3 PARTICIPANTS 23 3.4 ENGLISH COURSES AND MATERIALS 24 3.5 RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS 25 3.6 PROCEDURE OF DATA COLLECTION 27 3.7 DATA ANALYSIS PROCEDURE 31 iv CHAPTER RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 32 4.1 RESEARCH QUESTION 32 4.1.1 RESEARCH QUESTION 1A 32 4.1.2 RESEARCH QUESTION 1B 37 4.2 RESEARCH QUESTION 40 4.2.1 Topical knowledge 40 4.2.2 Native language/Mother tongue influence 41 4.2.3 Exposure 41 4.2.4 Planning 42 4.2.5 Time pressure 43 4.2.6 Amount of support 43 4.2.7 Motivation and concern for good pronunciation 43 4.2.8 Standard of performance/ Pressure to perform well 44 4.3 DISCUSSION 45 4.3.1 Students’ word stress production in speaking performance 45 4.3.2 Factors affecting students’ word stress production in speaking performance 46 CHAPTER CONCLUSION 48 5.1 SUMMARY OF THE MAJOR FINDINGS 48 5.2 IMPLICATIONS 49 5.3 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY 50 5.4 RECOMMENDATIONS 50 REFERENCES 52 APPENDIX A 56 APPENDIX B 57 APPENDIX C 58 APPENDIX D 59 APPENDIX E 62 APPENDIX F 65 v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS A2 level Elementary level EFL English as a Foreign Language ELT English language teaching CEFR Common European framework of reference for languages HCMC Ho Chi Minh City RP Standard pronunciation or Received Pronunciation vi LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1 Summary of features of word stress by scholars 10 Table 2.2 Extensive speaking performance tasks 13 Table 2.3 Factors affecting word stress production in speaking performance 16 Table 3.1 Students’ information 23 Table 3.2 The summary of the research procedures 30 Table 4.1 Loudness comparison of the word “admire” between RP and students’ samples 33 Table 4.2 Pitch comparison of the word “admire” between RP and students’ samples 35 Table 4.3 Duration comparison of the word “admire” between RP and students’ samples 36 Table 4.4 Loudness comparison of the word “inside” between RP and students’ samples 38 Table 4.5 Summary of the factors affecting word stress production in speaking performance 45 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1 Illustration of the frequency of the sound Figure 2.2 Illustration of pitch (blue line) and loudness (yellow line) of the sound Figure 2.3 Illustration of duration of the sound 10 Figure 2.4 Platform of the PRAAT application 11 Figure 2.5 The conceptual framework of the study 20 Figure 4.1 Spectrogram of pitch (blue line) and loudness (yellow line) comparison of the word “admire” between RP (left) and student’s samples (right) 32 Figure 4.2 Spectrogram of pitch (blue line) and loudness (yellow line) comparison of the word “person” between RP (left) and student’s samples (right) 34 Figure 4.3 Spectrogram of pitch (blue line) and loudness (yellow line) comparison of the word “owner” between RP (left) and student’s samples (right) 39 viii REFERENCES Ary, D., Jacobs, L C., Irvine, C K S., & Walker, D (2018) Introduction to research in education Cengage Learning Avery P & Ehrlich S (1992) Teaching American English Pronunciation UK: Oxford University Press Bala, E (2015) Storytelling in EFL classes International Journal of Social Sciences & Educational Studies, 2(2) Beňuš, Š (2021) Investigating Spoken English: A Practical Guide to Phonetics and Phonology Using Praat Springer Nature Boersma, P., & Van Heuven, V (2001) Speak and unSpeak with PRAAT Glot International, 5(9/10), 341-347 Brown, H D (2000) Principles of language learning and teaching (Vol 4) New York: Longman The current study lays emphasis on extensive speaking Brown, H D., & Abeywickrama, P (2004) Language assessment Principles and Classroom Practices White Plains, NY: Pearson Education Brown, H D., & Lee, H (2015) Teaching principles P Ed Australia Carr, P (2013) English phonetics and phonology: An introduction John Wiley & Sons Cavanaugh, C., & Clark, T (2007) The landscape of K-12 online learning What works in K-12 online learning Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education Celce-Murcia et al (2002) Teaching pronunciation UK: Cambridge University Press Celce-Murcia, M., Briton, D M., Snow, M A & Bohlke, D (2014) Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language UK: National Geographic Learning Creswell, J., & Plano Clark, V (2018) Designing and conducting mixed methods research, (3rd ed., ) Thousand Oaks: Sage Cutler, A., & Norris, D (1988) The role of strong syllables in segmentation for lexical access Journal of Experimental Psychology: performance, 14(1), 113 52 Human perception and Dieu, T T T (2015) A Case Study of Solutions to Some Intonation Mistakes Made by Vietnamese Students-A Phonetic Experimental Research International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 3(2), 52-60 Dinh, T B N., & Tran, T D (2020) Key Factors influencing learners’ oral fluency in English speaking classes: A case at a public university in Viet Nam VNU Journal of Foreign Studies, 36(6) Doan, T M T (2012) A survey on factors inhibiting the speaking performance of 11th graders at Nguyen Dieu High School, M.A thesis Evalinda, G., Haryanto, H., & Salija, K (2020) Students’ attitude toward performancebased assessment in speaking class at the state university of Makassar (Doctoral dissertation, Universitas Negeri Makassar) Fear, B D., Cutler, A., & Butterfield, S (1995) The strong/weak syllable distinction in English The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 97(3), 1893-1904 Fry, D B (1955) Duration and intensity as physical correlates of linguistic stress The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 27(4), 765-768 Goh, C C., & Burns, A (2012) Teaching speaking: A holistic approach Cambridge University Press Guha, M L., Druin, A., Montemayor, J., Chipman, G., & Farber, A (2007) A theoretical model of children’s storytelling using physically-oriented technologies (SPOT) Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 16(4), 389-410 Harmer, J (2007) How to teach English: new edition Harlow: Pearson Education Limited Hodgetts, J (2020) Pronunciation Instruction in English for Academic Purposes: An Investigation of Attitudes, Beliefs and Practices Switzerland: Springer Hwang, W Y., Shadiev, R., Hsu, J L., Huang, Y M., Hsu, G L., & Lin, Y C (2016) Effects of storytelling to facilitate EFL speaking using Web-based multimedia system Computer Assisted Language Learning, 29(2), 215-241 Ingram, J & Nguyen, T A T (2005) Vietnamese acquisition of English word stress Tesol Quarterly, 39(2), 309-319 53 Kazemi, S A., & Zarei, L (2015) The efficacy of topic familiarity on oral presentation: Extensive speaking assessment task of Iranian EFL learners in TBLT International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, 4(3), 93-97 Kenworthy, J (1988) Teaching English pronunciation New York: Longman Inc Levis Checklin, M (2012) What in the world we know about word stress? A review of what it is and how to teach it TESOL in context special edition S3, papers from the 2012 ACTA international conference TESOL as a global trade: Ethics, equity and ecology http://www.tesol.org.au/files/files/267_martin_checklin.pdf Levis, J M (2018) Intelligibility, Oral Communication, and the Teaching of Pronunciation UK: Cambridge University Press Ly, K C (2021) Factors Influencing English-majored Freshmen’s Speaking Performance at Ho Chi Minh City University of Food Industry Journal of English Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics, 3(6), 107-112 Mandel, S (2000) Effective presentation skills USA: Thomson Learning Newton, J M., & Nation, I S P (2020) Teaching ESL/EFL listening and speaking Routledge Nguyen, T N D (2007) Pronunciation focus in the new textbook "tiếng Anh 10" a case study at a high school in Pleiku city (Unpublished master’s thesis) Ho Chi Minh City: University of Social Sciences and Humanities Nguyen H T & Tran N M (2015) Factors affecting students’ speaking performance at le hien high school Asian Journal of Educational Research Vol, 3(2) O’Brien, M G (2019) Investigating stress assignment In J Levis, C Nagle, & E Todey (Eds.), Proceedings of the 10th Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching Conference, ISSN 2380-9566, Ames, IA, September 2018 (pp 7081) Ames, IA: Iowa State University Ortiz-Lira, Hector (1998) Word stress and sentence accent Santiago: Universidad Metropolitana de Ciencias de la Educación Polychronopoulos, S., Marini, D., Bakogiannis, K., Kouroupetroglou, G T., Psaroudakēs, S., & Georgaki, A (2021) Physical Modeling of the Ancient Greek 54 Wind Musical Instrument Aulos: A Double-Reed Exciter Linked to an Acoustic Resonator IEEE Access, 9, 98150-98160 Post da Silveira, A (2011) Frequency as (dis) advantage to word stress acquisition In International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS 2011) (pp 1634-1637) Puchta, H., Stranks, J., & Lewis-Jones, P (2016) Think Level Student's Book Cambridge University Press Roach, P (2009) English phonetics and phonology paperback with audio CDs (2): A practical course Cambridge university press Rogers, H (2000) The Sounds of Language Singapore: Pearson Education Ltd Thornbury, S (2005) How to teach speaking Longman Tuan, D (2018) ENGLISH LEXICAL STRESS ASSIGNMENT BY EFL LEARNERS: INSIGHTS FROM A VIETNAMESE CONTEXT European Journal of Education Studies, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejes.v0i0.1820 Van der Hulst, H (2014) The study of word accent and stress: past, present, and future Word stress: Theoretical and typological issues, 3-55 Van Donselaar, W., Koster, M., & Cutler, A (2005) Exploring the role of lexical stress in lexical recognition The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A, 58(2), 251-273 Yoshida, M T (2013) Understanding and teaching the pronunciation of English University of California 55 APPENDIX A TOPIC FOR ORAL PRESENTATION (EXTRACTED FROM THE TEXTBOOK) PRONUNCIATION PART (EXTRACTED FROM THE TEXTBOOK) 56 APPENDIX B TOPIC FOR STORYTELLING Write a story of about 60-100 words using the given pictures and cued questions as belows 57 APPENDIX C SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEW QUESTIONS How long have you been learning English at the center? Did you make good presentations? How you think you pronounced word stress in your oral presentation and storytelling?? Have you ever experienced such kind of tasks in English in front of other people/audiences? Who are they? Is the topic of the tasks familiar to you? Do you think an easy topic is favourable for your presentation, especially for word stress pronunciation? How you think mother tongue affect your word stress production? How much time did you spend for your preparation? Was it proper for you to get ready for the presentation? How did you prepare for your presentation? Regarding word stress, did you look up the word pronunciation in the dictionary? Who helped you with your preparation? How did you feel when you presented in front of your classmates? Do you think time constraint affect your word stress production? Why (not)? 10 What else you think are the factors affecting your word stress production? 58 APPENDIX D SAMPLES OF STUDENTS’ TRANSCRIPTION IN ORAL PRESENTATION AND STORYTELLING Oral presentation samples: I would like to talk about a person I admire I really like to listen to Kpop music so I really like IU – she’s the best singer of Kpop She's a really kind and always has a smile on her face She's so cute and I love her character IU has lots of famous songs such as Good Day or Celebrity They are so great IU started to become a singer when she was 14 and now she is 30 years old She can speak a lot of languages such as English, Chinese, Korean to talk to her friends In the future I hope she has lots of great songs and always happy with her life I would like to talk about a person I admire That’s my best friend She’s smart, intelligent and clever I have been friends with her since I was two years old I admire her because she is always kind to everyone and she tells me lots of secret that even her parents don’t know She tells me she wants to be the fashion designer in the future I think she can it because all of her arts are very good I would like to talk about someone I admire My Aunt Kim is a very nice person She is 30 years old Aunt Kim now lives and works in Ho Chi Minh City where she was born My aunt is a teacher and she works at a secondary school in Ho Chi Minh City She is clever and kind Her students and other teachers really love her Aunt Kim started teaching when she was 25 years old At that time she worked for the cost of living of her self but now Aunt Kim could take care of her whole family because she opened more extra classes and she is a very intelligent person so she makes a lot of money I want to be a person like aunt Kim one day because my dream is to be a teacher and I want to take care of my family like her too It's nice to have a great aunt like Aunt Kim I really love her 59 I admire my teacher His name is Tom He was born in 1990 He's so kind with me when I meet him I and he helped each other in two years in the school In the future, I hope that he and I will live in the house together and support each other to earn money Storytelling samples: Me and my friend were at a tent at a field We came there to go camping because we were bored My friend and I were in the tent playing chess Alex said he was hungry so we went out to find some food When we went out the ten for minute the sky got dark and the rain fell down so we got all wet We saw a scary house, the rain was harder and then there were thunders We got no choice so we decided to come inside We were very scared, we knocked at the door The door slowly opened and we saw an old man standing beside the door The old man was the owner of the scary house We saw a big picture in the middle of the house.There were also two big stairs on sides The old man greeted us and told us to come inside Me and Alex still kind of scared but we was find because we were able to avoid the rain The house was very big We explored around and there weren't anyone else there except the old man and us The old man told us he would rest in a room upstairs He told us to find another room to rest We asked him “where can we sleep?” He said you can sleep anywhere you want So we went out and found a room and we slept in it We were kind of worried because the room was very strange In the morning we wake up and we heard a strange noise We went closer to where the noise came from and we saw a scary thing The noise came from where the old man rested We called him but no one answered So we opened the door and we found a skeleton sitting on where the old man sat last night We decided to go out to find some people for help but when we went out the old man appear He told us it was just a prank It makes us feel relieved We feel very scared but it was not a boring day to us anymore We were at the field because I wanted to go camping with him It started to rain we saw a man and he welcomed us in his house because we needed to shelter the rain We came 60 inside the house We felt lucky because the owner of the house greeted us We saw a picture in the middle of the wall We felt surprised No one but me, my friend and an old man The old man told us that we could sleep anywhere we wanted We asked “Where can we sleep? …We were sleeping I can't hear anyone or anything except for the sound of my friend snoring Next morning, we saw a skeleton at the chair where the old man sat last night We ran out of the house We felt scared Last night, I and my friend were in the field We were camping His name is Nam We ran in the rain and we tried to find where to stay tonight We saw a house with lots of thunders around the house We had to wait for the rain to stop outside We went inside and asked the owner to stay there We felt so happy and lucky The old man was the owner We saw a big picture of owner in the big house The owner welcomed us We felt safe so much Only one - the owner’s inside the house And we were allowed to stay in the owner’s house We asked him “Where can I be now? “Please stay in the small room in his house” We had a good night sleep although it’s also very scary There was still nothing scary at night It was scary when we woke up We only saw a skeleton and many spiders above the wall We were scary and buzzle We immediately escaped the house and it was a nightmare for us I and my friend were running at the playground when we were camping because we are friends My friend’s name is Sen We saw an old house around because it’s raining and lightning We went inside that house, we felt good The old man was the owner of the house His name is Thomas We saw a picture in the middle of the wall We felt surprised Nobody was there except the owner of the house and us Then we slept everywhere we like When the man was tidying up the … then we slept After that, I heard a strange noise It’s unbelievable after the strange noise Then we found the corpse under the window and my friend was so scary so we ran out of that house We felt so horrified 61 APPENDIX E LIST OF DISYLLABIC WORDS PRODUCED BY STUDENTS IN ORAL PRESENTATIONS AND STORYTELLING admire admire admire about admire admire admire admire admire always always because admire admire admire because future admire because always city admire advice although person grandpa because because Chinese city admire city busy uncle support body clever English clever also clever ever admire support Brazil design fourteen extra artist cousin person admire teacher handsome even future herself author district very because admire model fashion happy money because friendly admire because person muscle future Kpop open content future person person because person parent language person famous located person person person upload secret music person famous person because future future website very person person future problem future helpful because admire admire really really japan student money really really person person really really other admire really really busy because person singer secondary person person teacher because busy really province thirty someone person person career clever career busy because admire student series because friendly friendship happy healthy really person teacher series really himself healthy friendly career idol person teacher story singer total friendly friendly helpful because because thirty story busy because because winter because singer really admire very 62 after allow able afraid around because because after avoid ahead although another again decide because because around camping avoid around answer alter grandma believe camping except happy because buzzle appear because happy camping except inside inside camping camping around enter inside inside lucky middle lucky corner happy avoid forest little later middle owner scary creepy inside because forest nervous morning owner owner sofa decide inside beside inside picture nowhere picture picture welcome lucky luckily boring inside rainy owner scary playground owner never nightmare closer invite sofa owner shelter scary picture because only decide middle worry picture snoring surprised scary nightmare outside decide morning morning somewhere surprised under scary sofa owner except owner open tonight welcome window spider sofa owner explore person open until scary upstair thunder somewhere owner harder quickly owner picture slowly worry welcome weekend scary inside quiet people relieved thunder middle scary welcome picture inside shelter minute scary around welcome thunder avoid forest little rainy middle owner except inside inside because forest nervous morning surprised owner because inside welcome beside inside picture nowhere picture picture inside welcome photo happy inside playground owner scary camping welcome lucky middle closer invite sofa owner shelter scary upstairs sofa upstair decide middle worry picture snoring surprised around around later inside photo inside upstairs welcome inside around spider morning upstair around morning spider inside downstair lightning nowhere jungle appear weekend open thunder open thunder thunder thunder 63 weekend appear open thunder thunder appear weekend thunder open open sofa eating little sleeping little sleeping little window sleepy sleeping open welcome window open welcome sofa sleeping little window window sofa camping corner window camping camping corner shelter shelter corner snoring shelter camping corner snoring window corner camping snoring photo camping corner window photo camping 64 APPENDIX F CONSENT FORM FOR INTERVIEW - STUDENT PARTICIPANTS To: Potential Interview Participant From: Hoang Thi Doan Subject: Informed Consent to Participate in Study Date: May 2022 Dear Potential Interview Participant, My name is Doan and I am a Graduate student at University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University - Ho Chi Minh City I am researching word stress production in speaking performance by EFL learners Thank you for your willingness to participate in the interview Your participation is voluntary You not have to answer any questions you not want to answer If at any time you not want to continue with the interview, you may decline Your time and involvement is profoundly appreciated The entire interview will take approximately 30 minutes To maintain the essence of your words for the research, I will record the information At any time you may request to see or hear the information I collect I will call you within days to set up a convenient time for the in-person interview The interview will be recorded This is done for data analysis The recording will be transcribed by the interviewer and kept confidential in a password-protected computer All individual identification will be removed from the hard copy of the transcript Participant identity and confidentiality will be concealed using coding procedures Excerpts from the interview maybe included in the final thesis report or other later publications However, under no circumstances will your name or identifying 65 characteristics appear in these writings If, at a subsequent date, biographical data were relevant to a publication, a separate form would be sent to you I would be grateful if you would sign this form to show that you have read and agree with the contents Please reach me at hoangdoanav6@gmail.com if you have any questions This study is being conducted in part to fulfill requirements for my Master of Arts program in TESOL at University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Ho Chi Minh City Sincerely, Your signature, Hoang Thi Doan USSH, HCMC 66