Using elsa speak application to improve english pronunciation for the 11th graders at a high school in hanoi

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES NGUYEN THI HAN USING ELSA SPEAK APPLICATION TO IMPROVE ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION FOR THE 11TH GRADERS AT A HIGH SCHOOL IN HANOI English language teaching methodology Code: 8.14.01.11 MASTER THESIS THAI NGUYEN, OCTOBER 2023 TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC SƯ PHẠM THÁI NGUYÊN KHOA NGOẠI NGỮ NGUYỄN THỊ HÂN SỬ DỤNG ỨNG DỤNG ELSA SPEAK ĐỂ CẢI THIỆN PHÁT ÂM TIẾNG ANH CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 11 TẠI MỘT TRƯỜNG THPT TẠI HÀ NỘI Ngành: Lý luận và phương pháp giảng dạy Tiếng Anh Mã số: 8140111 LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ Cán bộ hướng dẫn: TS Ngô Thị Bích Ngọc Thái Nguyên, tháng 10 năm 2023 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP Apart from where reference is made, no material in this thesis was published elsewhere or extracted in whole or in part from a thesis by which I have qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma No other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgements in the thesis This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other tertiary institution Thai Nguyen, October 2023 Nguyen Thi Han i ACKNOWLEDGMENT I am especially indebted to my supervisor, Mrs Ngo Thi Bich Ngoc, Ph.D., who has been supportive of my work This study would not have been possible without her valuable guidance and insightful advice I am grateful to all teachers and staff at the English faculty at Thai Nguyen University of Education for their encouragement and help Nobody has been more important to me in the pursuit of this project than the members of my family I would like to thank them for their unending inspiration ii ABSTRACT The study aims at investigating the use of the ELSA Speak Application to improve English pronunciation for the 11th graders at a high school in Hanoi Questionnaires and observation were employed as data collection instruments to answer the following research questions: 1) To what extent does ELSA Speak application help to improve students’ pronunciation? 2) What are the students’ attitudes toward the implementation of ELSA in learning English pronunciation? Questionnaires and observation were employed as data collection instruments The findings show that students had positive attitudes toward ELSA Speak and the application was effective in improving their pronunciation Keywords: pronunciation, English pronunciation, ELSA Speak iii TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i ACKNOWLEDGMENT ii ABSTRACT .iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF TABLES v LIST OF FIGURES vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Rationale of The Study 1 1.2 Aims of The Study 2 1.3 The Scope of The Study 2 1.4 Research Questions 2 1.5 Significance of The Study 3 Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 4 2.1 Pronunciation 4 2.1.1 Definition of pronunciation 4 2.1.2 Features of pronunciation 4 2.1.3 Problems in teaching and learning English Pronunciation 9 2.1.4 Factors Causing Pronunciation Problems 9 2.1.5 Assessing Students’ Pronunciation 11 2.2 Speech Recognition Technology and Elsa 13 2.2.1 Definition of speech recognition 13 2.2.2 Basic information about ELSA 14 2.2.3 The use of speech recognition in learning pronunciation 16 2.3 Previous Studies 16 Chapter 3 METHODOLOGY 20 3.1 Research method 20 3.2 Data collection instruments 22 3.2.1 Questionnaires 22 3.2.2 Tests 23 iv 3.3 Participants 23 3.4 Data collection procedures 23 3.4.1 Planning 23 3.4.2 Action 24 3.4.3 Observation 25 3.4.4 Reflection 26 3.5 Data analysis description 26 Chapter 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 27 4.1 Findings from the questionnaires 27 4.1.1 Pre-survey questionnaire 27 4.1.2 Post-survey questionnaire 32 4.2 The use of Elsa to learn English pronunciation 35 4.2.1 Week 1 36 4.2.2 Week 2 37 4.2.3 Week 3 37 4.2.4 Week 4 39 4.2.5 Week 5 40 4.2.6 Week 6 42 4.3 Discussion 44 4.3.1 Research question 1: To what extent does ELSA Speak application help to improve students’ pronunciation? 44 4.3.2 Research question 2: What are the students’ attitudes toward the implementation of ELSA in learning English pronunciation? 47 Chapter 5 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 50 5.1 Conclusions 50 5.2 Limitations 51 5.3 Recommendations 52 REFERENCES 54 APPENDIX A PRE-SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE APPENDIX B POST-SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Abbreviations Meaning English Language Speech Assistant ELSA Automatic Speech Recognition ASR Computer-assisted language learning CALL Computer Assisted Pronunciation Training CAPT Hidden Markov Model HMM Artificial intelligence AI English as a Foreign Language EFL iv LIST OF TABLES Name of tables Page Table 3.1 The action plan of using ELSA to learn pronunciation 24 Table 3.2 The phonological control by the Co.E 25 Table 4.1 Students’ information 27 Table 4.2 Students’ methods to learn pronunciation 29 Table 4.3 Post-survey questionnaire results 32 Table 4.4 Students’ Pre-test scores assessed by ELSA and Co.E rating scale 36 Table 4.5 Observation results of the third week, based on the Co.E rating scale 38 Table 4.6 Observation results of the fourth week, based on the Co.E rating scale 39 Table 4.7 Observation results of the fifth week, based on the Co.E rating scale .41 Table 4.8 Students’ Post-test scores assessed by ELSA and Co.E rating scale42 Table 4.9 Students’ Pre-test and Post-test scores assessed by ELSA 43 v LIST OF FIGURES Name of figures Page Figure 3.1 The cyclical action research model (Kemmis and McTaggart, 1988) 21 Figure 4.1 Students’ opinions on the importance of English pronunciation 28 Figure 4.2 Students’ interests in learning English pronunciation 28 Figure 4.3 The number of hours per week that students spent practicing pronunciation.30 Figure 4.4 Students’ difficulties in learning English pronunciation 30 Figure 4.5 Students’ difficulties in pronouncing English consonants .31 Figure 4.6 Students’ difficulties in pronouncing English vowels .32 vi