A study on vowel sounds Ɜ & Ə Ɔ & Ɒ pronounced by twelve grade non major students at vinh high school for the gifted”

However, learning English is not easy because English has four skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing.. In addition, correct pronunciation of long and short vowels also helps

VINH UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY

FINAL PROJECT REPORT

twelve-grade non-major students at Vinh High School for the

gifted

GROUP 03_ CLASS 11_ K63 Group members:

1 Nguyen Thi Lan Nhi(leader) 225714023130151

3 Pham Nguyen Uyen Nhi 225714023130009

5 Nguyen Thi Le Quyen 225714023130013

VINH, 2023

TABLE OF CONTENT

I The reason for choosing the topic 3

1 Introduce 3

2 The reason for choosing the topic 4

II A brief description of how to conduct the survey 4

1 Paragraph 4

2 Object of the study: Non-English majors 5

3 Time, place, and methods of conducting the survey 5

3.1 Time 5

3.2 Location 5

3.3 Methods of conducting surveys 5

III Findings 6

1 Data analysis 6

2 The reason why non-English majors do not pronounce well 6

3 Implications 7

3.1 For students of English 7

3.2 For teachers of English 8

I The reason for choosing the topic

1 Introduce

Nowadays, English in education is essential and popular Learning and speaking English fluently and accurately will create many advantages for Vietnamese students studying and working in an English-speaking environment However, learning English is not easy because English has four skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing Every skill is difficult, but when it comes to speaking skills, most Vietnamese students encounter a problem in learning English speaking skills: how to pronounce English accurately and clearly Speaking more deeply, pronouncing standard vowel sounds is very important today because it directly affects the learner's communication ability Specifically, it is the correct pronunciation of long vowels and short vowels

It helps:

1 Increase clarity and understanding for listeners: When pronouncing

correctly, learners will be able to convey information more accurately and easily to listeners

2 Avoid misunderstandings: Improper pronunciation can lead to

misunderstandings about the sentence's meaning For example, the word

"caught" is pronounced /k t/ (bắt được) or /k t/ (giường trẻ em) If the ɔː ɒ learner pronounces the word "caught" as /k t/, the listener may ɒ

misunderstand it as "child's bed."

3 Make a good impression on listeners: When pronouncing correctly,

learners will make a good impression on listeners, showing

professionalism and seriousness in communication

In addition, correct pronunciation of long and short vowels also helps learners: Learn vocabulary and grammar well Correct pronunciation helps learners remember and distinguish words with similar pronunciation For example, the word "caught" (bắt buộc) is pronounced /k t/ and cot /k t/ (giường trẻ em) If ɔː ɒ learners cannot distinguish between the pronunciations of these two words, they can easily get confused when using them

Learn good listening and speaking skills Correct pronunciation helps learners listen, understand, and speak English more fluently When learners pronounce

correctly, they will become familiar with native speakers' pronunciation, making it easier to understand and speak English

Thus, the correct pronunciation of long and short vowels in English is extremely important

2 The reason for choosing the topic

English brings many benefits, but pronunciation is quite a difficult problem for high school students Therefore, we assumed that high school students confused the vowel pairs / :/ and /ə/ and / :/ and / / and researched these two vowel pairs.ɜ ɔ ɒ And here are the reasons we chose this topic:

- Influence of mother tongue: A student's mother tongue can affect English pronunciation In Vietnamese, there is no distinction between long vowels and short vowels This can make it difficult for students to learn how to pronounce long and short vowels in English

- The vowel pairs / :/ & /ə/, / :/ & / / are all common sounds in English, ɜ ɔ ɒ appearing in many vocabulary and grammatical structures

- Inaccurate pronunciation of these vowel pairs will make the other person not understand what you are talking about and will make them self-conscious when communicating and affects English listening practice in the wrong way This is also the motivation for my group to conduct survey research to find out the difficulties of students when pronouncing the vowel pairs / :/ & /ə/, / :/ & ɜ ɔ / /, and / / At the same time, we provide suggestions to help improve ɒ ɒ

pronunciation skills, enhance comprehension, and create conditions for successful foreign language learning

II A brief description of how to conduct the survey

1 Paragraph

Summer /ə/ is almost/ /ɔː here and for/ /ɔː many, it means summer camp! In Australia / /ɒ, there is a very special camp which runs for thirty/ɜː/ days each summer called/ /ɔː Shiny World/ɜː/ It is a non-profit / /ɒ camp for kids ages from

/ə/ / /ɜː / /ɒ / /ɔː

early/ɜː/ ten to eighteen battling cancer /ə/ to join in The /ə/ goal of this camp is

to provide /ə/ a safe and healing environment /ə/ where those brave children are able to enjoy themselves /ə/, build up their self-esteem, and look toward/ /ɔː a brighter future Each camper /ə/ is responsible / /ɒ for looking after a horse for the week, the same horse they will learn to ride Molly / /ɒ, a courtesy/ɜː/ and gorgeous/ /ɔː girl/ɜː/ who volunteers/ /ɒ her/ɜː/ time as the camp photographer / /ɒ, noted that "most of the campers start the week a little unfriendly toward each other /ə/, and some are shy around the horses By the time the last day comes, they are different! It is amazing to see the changes in them I am so fortunate/ /ɔː

to witness it first/ɜː/." by Justin In addition /ə/ to caring for their horse and learning to ride, campers get to experience other activities, like building log / / ɒ cabins, knitting birds/ɜː/, ropes courses / /ɔː, archery, and camping Tom and Dorothy started the camp to provide a unique high mountain-working/ɜː/ experience that Justin runs the program The horses that the kids care for and ride are all owned and trained and encourage achievement through a variety /ə/ of activities They fund the camp out of their pockets / /ɒ with the help of donations and the generosity of volunteers There is no cost / /ɒ to the camp attendees and their families Shiny World is so much more/ / ɔː than a summer camp, it's an honestly / /ɒ adorable / / ɔː journey/ɜː/ for children

2 Object of the study: Non-English majors

3 Time, place, and methods of conducting the survey

3.1 Time

- 4 weeks (from October 30, 2023 to November 25, 2023)

3.2 Location

- Directly at Vinh High School for the Gifted

3.3 Methods of conducting surveys

- For this study, we prepared a short passage containing the vowel pairs :/ & ɜ /ə/, / :/ & / / Then, we found and met face-to-face with 30 non-specialized ɔ ɒ students at a specialized high school and asked them to read the passage aloud (maybe give some clear instructions so participants could understand what they were going to do)

- We prepare some smart devices, like phones, to record when they speak Then save and combine everything into one link drive

- After completing the recording, the next step is to listen to the recordings and find out the errors that learners make when reading passages containing the above sounds Next, create two tables with two pairs of sounds to list the names

of students participating in the survey and the detailed errors of each student

- From the statistical table, we can see the total number of students who read correctly and how many students read incorrectly or were confused

III Findings

1 Data analysis

1 / :/ & /ə/ ɜ

- The collected data about non-major students' mistakes in pair of vowel sounds / / & /ə/ are presented in the table below:ɜ

Vowel sounds The number of times % of total

Correct Incorrect Correct Incorrect / :/ɜ

/ə/

Table 1.1 Table of the percentage of vowels pair / / & /ə/ of non-major ɜ students at Vinh Specialized High School

The table illustrates the mistakes of the confusing vowel pair / / & /ə/ that non-ɜ major students at Vinh Specialized High School made Overall, there is a big gap between correct and incorrect in the vowel /ə/, while which in the vowel / :/ɜ

is insignificant

1 / :/ ɜ

The chart shows the proportion of correct and incorrect pronunciation vowel / :/ɜ

of thirty students participating in the survey The proportion of correct pronunciation is 56% while incorrect one is 44% The number of incorrect entries is quite high, accounting for close to half of the total They particularly pronounce /ə/ instead of / :/.ɜ

1.2 /ə/

In contrast, the number of students who pronounce incorrectly the vowel /ə/ is much lower, which is 27,3%, accounting for more than a quarter of the total Most of the mistakes they encounter are pronouncing / :/ instead of /ə/.ɜ

Conclusion:

Based on the charts, the degree of confusion between the vowel / :/ that non-ɜ major students encounter is much higher than the vowel /ə/

2 / :/ & / ɔ ɒ

- The collected data about learners' mistakes in pair of vowel sounds / :/ & / / ɔ ɒ will be presented clearly in the table below:

Vowel sounds The number of times % of total

Correct Incorrect Correct Incorrect

Table 1.2: Table of the percentage of sound pair / :/ & / / of non-major ɔ ɒ students at Vinh Specialized High School.

The data table compares the sound errors of the confusing sound pair / :/ & / / ɔ ɒ that non-specialized high school students encounter In general, there is a big gap between the sounds / :/ & / / After we compare the ratio of the two sounds ɔ ɒ shown in the table above, the rate of mispronunciation of non-specialized students in the sound / :/ is much higher than the sound / / ɔ ɒ

Chart 2.1 Frequency of errors in sound / :/ɔ

 Regarding the level of mispronunciation, the rate of learners pronouncing errors in the sound / :/ is 138/300 (46%), this number is significantly ɔ high and accounts for nearly half Mostly, they pronounce the sound / / ɒ instead of the sound / :/, for example, “fortunate”, “horse”, “call”, etc.ɔ

2.2 / /

Chart 2.2 Frequency of errors in sound / /ɒ

 On the contrary, for the sound / /, the rate of mispronunciation decreasedɒ significantly, accounting for just over 28%, more than 1/4, while the number of correct pronunciations was high, accounting for 71.7% Most

of the errors they encounter are using the sound / :/ instead of the ɔ sound / /, for example, “molly”, “volunteer”, etc.ɒ

 Conclusion:

- Based on the two data pie charts, we can see that the level of confusion between / :/ & / / is very large In particular, the pronunciation ratio of the ɔ ɒ sound / :/ to the sound / / is high, becoming a problem in pronunciation for ɔ ɒ non-specialized high school students in general

The reason why non-English majors do not pronounce well

To better understand why non-specialized students are easily confused when reading these sound pairs, we have included five questions for learners to survey And after completing the survey, we got the following results:

1 The first is the question: "How do you know how to pronounce a new word?"

- In this sentence, up to 48.4% of students chose to guess and pronounce it themselves Guessing correctly has a very low probability for some non-specialized students, so it will become a habit, and from there, you will always

be confused about how to read between sounds in general and these two pairs of sounds in general only / :/ & /ə/, / :/ & / /.ɜ ɔ ɒ

2 The second is the sentence: When you encounter vocabulary containing these sound pairs: :/ & /ə/, / :/ & / /, do you find it difficult to pronounce them? For ɜ ɔ ɒ example, "provide" /prə va d/, "courtesy" / k tə.si/ˈ ɪ ˈ ɜː

- In this sentence, the survey showed that 80.6% of students had difficulty pronouncing these sounds This shows that you have not practiced these sounds much, which leads to difficulty

3 Does your teacher in class often let you listen to native speakers read and pronounce along?

- In this question, 48.4% of non-specialized students choose sometimes, but often and not often are equal Through the above data, we conclude that these non-major students do not practice listening much, which leads to them not paying attention to listening or pronunciation

4 What do you like most about learning English, and which parts do you find important to you?

- This survey chart shows that pronunciation and listening are 19.4%; the rest are vocabulary and grammar The listening and pronunciation sections account for very little compared to the remaining 2 sections, showing that

non-specialized students at Vinh High School do not pay much attention to pronunciation and listening

5 In your opinion, is it difficult to pronounce vowels in English correctly, and what will you do to improve it?

- In this sentence, everyone generally states their opinion that they feel pronunciation is complicated and says they will practice listening to native speakers more to improve their pronunciation

"I think it is difficult, and I will learn how to read IPA and use it to improve my pronunciation in English."

* In summary, from the above content, we can infer the reasons why students do not specialize in English at honor high schools:

 Many learners do not use dictionaries or pronunciation practice materials

as often as native speakers This leads to a serious lack of knowledge about pronunciation skills

 Many learners think they pronounce correctly but only pronounce according to inertia, limiting the acquisition of pronunciation experience

 Many learners think they pronounce correctly but only pronounce by inertia, limiting the acquisition of pronunciation experience

 In Vietnamese, there are no long and short sounds, so reading these sound pairs ( :/ & /ə/, / :/ & / /) is quite difficult.ɜ ɔ ɒ

 Maybe it's because you don't have much access to these vowels when studying in class

 The survey subjects are non-specialized students, so they may not practice pronunciation regularly

 Most students in the survey are only interested in vocabulary and grammar rather than pronunciation

 Many learners think they pronounce correctly but only pronounce by inertia, limiting the acquisition of pronunciation experience After reading these sound pairs, we have included five questions for learners to survey And after completing the survey, we got the following results:

3 Implications

3.1 For students of English

- Here are some activities to help English learners address pronunciation issues:

 Listen and Repeat:

- Listen and imitate: Listen to English audio, such as news broadcasts, podcasts, English songs or audiobooks, and language learning apps with exercises focusing on / :/ and /ə/, as well as / :/ and / / sounds to enhance your listening ɜ ɔ ɒ skills and try to imitate the pronunciation as closely as possible

- Follow lyric videos: Watch lyric videos to synchronize listening and reading, helping you connect sounds with written words more accurately

- Playing games in English, reading pronunciation books

 Use Apps and Learning Tools:

- Explore language learning apps like TFlat, ELSA Speak, and Sounds to practice pronunciation through exercises and games and to hear native speakers pronounce words

- Use pronunciation software: Some apps and websites offer automatic pronunciation assessment tools for you to compare your pronunciation with native speakers focusing on / :/ and /ə/, as well as / :/ and / / soundsɜ ɔ ɒ