a study on common mistakes made by vietnamese beginners of english pronouncing θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ, ʤ, ʧ and possible solutions = nghiên cứu về những lỗi thường gặp của học viên người việt khi phát âm các phụ âm tiếng anh

Being fully aware of the necessity of correcting mistakes for students as well as Vietnamese learners of English, the writer of this paper decided to conduct the study entitled “A study

Candidate’s statement i

Acknowledgements ii

Abstract ii

Table of contents iv

List of figures vi

Chapter one: Introduction 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 1

1.2.1 Aims 1

1.2.2 Objectives 1

1.2.3 Research questions 1

1.3 Scope of the study 2

1.4 Organization of the study 2

Chapter two : Literature Review 3

2.1 Theoretical Background 3

2.1.1 The role of pronounciation in language teaching 3

2.1.2 Factors affecting pronunciation learning 4

2.1.2.1 The native language 4

2.1.2.2 The age factor 4

2.1.2.4 Motivation and concern for good pronunciation 5

2.1.4 Consonants 10

2.1.4.1 General description of English consonants 10

2.1.4.2 Articulatory features of θ, δ, ʃ , ʒ , ʤ , ʧ 10

2.1.4.2.1 Articulatory features of /θ, δ / and /ʃ , ʒ / 11

2.1.4.2.2 Articulatory features of /ʤ , ʧ / 12

2.1.5 Mistakes in language learning 12

2.1.5.1 Mistakes in language learning 12

2.1.5.2 Types of mistakes 13

2.1.5.3 Possible causes of mistakes in language learning 14

2.1.5.3.1 The interference of the mother tongue 14

2.1.5.3 2 Causes other than interference by first language 15

2.2 Previous works 16

Chapter three: Methodology 18

3.1 Survey research 18

3.1.1 Steps for conducting a survey research 19

3.1.1.1 Defining a population 19

3.1.1.2 Sampling 20

3.1.1.3 Methods of collecting survey data 20

3.1.1.4 Data analysis 20

3.2 Techniques employed in this thesis 21

3.2.1 Data collection instruments 21

3.2.1.1 Tape recording 21

3.2.1.2 Questionnaire 21

3.2.1.3 Interview 22

3.2.2 Methods of data analysis 23

3.3 Procedure 23

3.4 Summary 24

4.2.1 Students’ attitude towards pronunciation 26

4.2.2 Students’ perceptions of their frequency of pronunciation mistakes 27 4.2.3 Students’ perceptions of the causes of those mistakes 28

4.2.4 Students’ self-treatment to overcome those mistakes 29

4.2.5 Reflection on teachers’ methods used to help students to overcome those mistakes 31

4.3 Findings from the interviews 32

4.4 Summary 33

Chapter five: Conclusion 34

5.1 Recapitulation 34

5.2 Concluding remarks 35

5.3 Pedagogical Implications 36

5.3 Suggestions for further research 37

References 38

Appendices……… ……… vii

Survey questionnaire……… ……….vii

Exercises for tape recording……… x

Interview sheet……… xi

Figure 1: English consonants 11

Figure 2: Common mistakes found in data……….25

Figure 3: Students’ attitude towards pronunciation 26

Figure 4: Students’ perception of their frequency of pronunciation mistakes 27

Figure 5 : Students’ perceptions of causes of those mistakes 28

Figure 6: Students’ self-treatment to overcome those mistakes 30

Figure 7: Reflection on teachers’ methods 31

1.1 Rationale

English, the most popular foreign language in Vietnam, has been taught from the early age (at the age of 7 or even younger) in most of schools and universities throughout the country as a compulsory subject Thus, many Vietnamese, especially the young people, can speak English; however, not many of them “have intelligible English pronunciation

so that they can be understood easily in direct communication with foreigners” It is the exact fact happening in Bac Ninh Specialized High School Over many years of teaching English in this school, the writer of the study has observed that there are quite

a number of students who frequently make mistakes with English sounds Being fully aware of the necessity of correcting mistakes for students as well as Vietnamese learners of English, the writer of this paper decided to conduct the study entitled “A study on common mistakes made by Vietnamese beginners of English in pronouncing

θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ , ʤ , ʧ and possible solutions” It is hoped that this study will contribute to the goal of enhancing students‟ performance in teaching and learning foreign language

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

1.2.1 Aims

The research aims at:

- improving students‟ pronunciation of the six English consonants θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ , ʤ , ʧ

- providing English teachers with a reference for the pronunciation of θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ ,

ʤ, ʧ

1.2.2 Objectives

To achieve these aims, the following objectives are set forth as tasks of the study:

- identify Vietnamese learners‟ common mistakes in pronouncing θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ , ʤ , ʧ

- find out causes of mistakes made by Vietnamese learners in pronouncing θ, δ,

ʃ, ʒ , ʤ , ʧ

- find out solutions to make teaching and learning process better so that mistakes

in pronouncing θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ, ʤ, ʧ can be avoided

1.2.3 Research questions

Question 1: What common mistakes do Vietnamese learners have in pronouncing the English sounds θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ , ʤ , ʧ ?

Question 2: What are the causes of those mistakes?

Question 3: What are possible solutions to those mistakes?

1.3 Scope of the study

In English there are twenty six consonants which are divided into groups according to the place, manner of articulation and degree of voicing.Vietnamese learners do have mistakes in pronouncing the English consonants However, due to the limited time and the scale of the minor thesis we only concentrate on common mistakes made by 30 students who are studying English as major field in Bac Ninh Specialized High School

in pronouncing “θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ , ʤ , ʧ ” and causes of those mistakes as well as possible solutions to eliminate them These collected mistakes are considered as the common ones made by Vietnamese learners

1.4 Organization of the study

To achieve the aims of the study, this paper is divided into five chapters

Chapter one “Introduction” includes the reasons of choosing the thesis, the aims, the objectives, the scope, research questions and the organization of the study

Chapter two “Literature Review” is devoted to the presentation of the theoretical background relevant to the research Firstly, the review of pronunciation as well as factors affecting pronunciation learning are introduced Then the literature related to mistakes is given It includes the notion of mistakes in language learning, types of mistakes and the main causes of mistakes Lastly, articulatory features of the six consonnants are mentioned

Chapter three “Methodology” describes in detail the research methodology which comprises the principles based on which the study is carried out It also presents techniques employed in this thesis, namely questionnaire, tape recording and interview

Chapter five “Conclusion” deals with recapulation, concluding marks, implication with the recommendations for correcting mistakes in pronouncing the six consonnants, suggestions for teaching in order to prevent and eliminate these mistakes

CHAPTER TWO : LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Theoretical Background

2.1.1 The role of pronounciation in language teaching

Sound is the core of the language so that is the reason why when teaching a language the first thing the teachers should do is to let the leaners have chances to explore the sounds of that language Moreover, communicative approach is considered as the major

is the reason why pronunciation teaching has been paid more and more attention by all the teachers Some years ago, pronounciation used to be taught along with other skills but at the present pronounciation courses are provided at any universities where English

is taught as the major subject

2.1.2 Factors affecting pronunciation learning

There are many major factors affecting the learners‟pronunciation such as: the native language, the age factor, pronunciation ability as well as motivation and concern for good pronunciation

2.1.2.1 The native language

The native language plays an important role in learning to pronounce English as it is clearly seen that a foreign accent is influenced by some of the sound characteristics of the learner‟s native language These can be used to distinguish between the native speakers and nonnative speakers (untrained as well as trained speakers) Due to the role

of native language, there has been a great deal of research on the differences between sound systems of English and other languages in terms of sound systems as well as problems, difficulties the learners face when studying English

According to Kenworthy, J(1992:4): “To put it very crudely, the more difficulties there are, the more difficulties the learners will have in pronouncing English”

2.1.2.2 The age factor

It is commonly assumed that people can pronounce a foreign language like a native if they start learning it as a child and vice versus This leads to a question that whether there is an age-related limit on the mastery of pronunciation There have been many studies on this quesion and the results are conflicting because these studies have assessed pronunciation in different ways Besides, it is extremely difficult to control other factors which may be involved such as ability, motivation or opportunity to use and to hear the language

2.1.2.3 Pronunciation ability

It is common view that some people have a “a better ear” for foreign languages than others and this has been demonstrated in some research that some people are able to

they would not have learned the sounds of native language More inerestingly, there is a quesion whether certain types of learners, poor discriminators and good discriminators, benefit from different types of training

One study has shown that those with good phonetic abilities benefit from pronounciation drill, tasks in which particular sounds are heard and the learner has to imitate again and again Their innate abilities enable them to exploit all the opportunities to compare what they are doing with the model presented “Poor discriminators” do not seem to benefit from drills very much In fact, drills seem to cause their attempts to stabilise before they reach an accurate production of a sound It can be assumed that learners have the basic equipment and provide a variety of tasks so that something will suit the needs and abilities of each learner

2.1.2.4 Motivation and concern for good pronunciation

It cannot be defined that motivation is an important factor which determines the people‟s participation in every activity especially in language teaching Motivation makes people more active in learning The more motivated the people are, the greater the cognitive process is Gardner (1985:10) defined “Motivation is the present context refers to the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal of learning plus favourabe attitudes towards learning the language” A key issue in Gardner‟s motivation theory is the relationship between motivation and orientation (goal) Thus,

in his view, “motivation” refers to a kind of central metal “engine” or “energy-centre” that subsumes effort, want/will and task enjoyment However, they are internal factors not external factors Motivation is affected by both internal and external factors

According to Ellis (1997:75), learners‟attitude and effective states constitue the learners‟ effort degree when learning an L2 belong to “motivation”

The same point of view can be found in the definition given by Little Wood “In second language learning as in every other filed of human learning, motivation is crucial force which determines whether a learner embarks on a task at all, how much energy he devotes to it, and how long he perseveres it It is a complex phenomenon and includes many components: the individual‟s drive, need for achievement and success, curiosity, desire for stimulation and new experience and so on” (Little Wood, 1998:53)

Some learners seem to be more concerned about their pronunciation than others This concern is often expressed in statements about how “bad” the pronunciation is and in request for correction-both blanket requests and frequent pauses during speech used to solicit comments on the accuracy of pronunciation It may even be reflected in a reluctance to speak Moreover, the desire to do well is a kind of “achievement motivation” Conversely, if you do not care about a particular task or do not see the value of it, you won‟t be motivated to do well Learners may also be unconcerned because they simply are not aware that the way they speak is resulting in difficulty, irritation or misunderstanding for the listeners

There are several factors which may affect pronunciation accuracy leading to common mistakes in pronunciation in process of studying English

2.1.3 Articulatory phonetics

Articulatory phonetics, one of the three main branches of phonetics, is the study of the organs of speech and their use in producing speech sounds The term “organs of speech” refers to those parts of the human body that are concerned in various ways with the production of speech A lot of them are only secondarily concerned with the productions of speech- their primary functions have to do with eating, chewing, and swallowing food, and respiration Those parts of the body below (not the lungs) belong

to the vocal tract The vocal tract is divided into the supra-glottal and the sub-glottal tract

other hand, this study is paid attention to consonants, particularly the six studied ones, therefore, the manner and the place of articulation and voicing, the three main features of consonants, are discussed with more interest, as followed

Clark and Yallop use two features to describe the manner of articulation of consonants: constriction and articulation The degree of constriction decreases from total closure via partial constriction to a fully open vowel like manner Articulation divides into dynamic and stable Altogether, there are seven recognized manners of articulation : stop, fricative, approximant, nasal, flap, tap and trill

The manners of articulation are described as followed:

vocal tract and sudden release of the closure

by a constriction in the vocal tract that

is narrow enough to create a turbulent airflow

Approximant potentially stable articulation in which

the constriction is normally greater than in a vowel but not great enough to produce turbulence at the point of constriction

cavity, velum is lowered to allow airflow through the nasal cavity, stable articulation

brief occlusion in the vocal tract, a single deliberate movement to create a

closure, equivalent to a very short stop

brief occlusion in the vocal tract, one articulator strikes the other in passing not so much to create a brief closure but more as the incidental effect of the articulatory gesture

vibration of any articulator, a series of vibrations

The place of articulation defines both the area of the oral-pharyngeal vocal tract where the constriction is made and the part of the tongue used for the constriction This gives us the following places of articulation:

 Bilabial: the two lips

 Dental: the tongue lip or (usually) the tongue blade with the upper teeth

 Alveolar: the tongue blade or (usually) the tongue tip with the alveolar ridge

 Palatal: the tongue body and the hard palate

 Velar: the tongue body and the soft palate

 Uvular: between the back of the tongue and the uvula (which hangs down in the back of the mouth)

 Pharyngeal: between the root of the tongue and the back of the throat (the pharynx)

 Glottal: This isn‟t strictly a place of articulation Glottal sounds are made in the larynx

(Davenport & Hannahs, 1998: 99)

Voicing is also one of the main categories that consonants have to base on when being described The vocal folds may be held against each other at just the right tension so that the air flowing past them from the lungs will cause them to vibrate against each other This process is called voicing Sounds that are made with vocal fold vibration are said to be voiced Sounds made without vocal vibration are said to

be voiceless There are several pairs of sounds in English which differ only in voicing- that is, the two sounds have identical places and manners of articulation, but one has vocal fold vibration and the other doesn‟t The six chosen consonants are such exact examples in pairs, /θ, δ /; /ʃ, ʒ /; / ʤ , ʧ /

2.1.4 Consonants

2.1.4.1 General description of English consonants

From a phonetic point of view, consonants are articulated in one of two rays: either there is a closing movement of one of the vocal organs, forming such a narrow constriction that it is possible to hear the sound of the air passing through; or the closing movement is complete, giving a total blockage The closing movement may involve lips, tongue, or throat, but in each case the overall effect is very different from the relatively open and unimpeded articulation found in vowels (Crystal, 2003:192) In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized

by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence

Consonants, actually, are sounds made with closed or nearly articulations As a consequence, they tend to break up the stream up speech, defining a perceptual and articulatory edge, or margin, for a unit (word or syllable in a word) that includes one or more vowels Consonants can be divided into different kinds in accordance with three categories, i.e., the degree of vocal cord vibration, the place of articulation and the manner of articulation

Most dialects of English have about 24 distinctive (phonemic) consonant sounds divided according to three different categories: voicing, place and manner of articulation

2.1.4.2 Articulatory features of θ, δ, ʃ , ʒ , ʤ , ʧ

The sounds θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ, ʤ, ʧ can be called in different terms: fricatives/ affricatives if basing on the manner of articulation ; dental sounds /θ, δ /, post- (palato) alveolar sound /ʃ , ʒ , ʤ , ʧ / if basing on the place of articulation /θ, ʃ , ʧ / are strong and long fiction sounds; the others are weak and short ones They are similar at this point but different

at another point due to their own characteristics in the language, thus it is much easier

to take them into consideration in pairs, that is /θ, δ / ; /ʃ, ʒ /; / ʤ , ʧ /

Figure 1: English consonants

2.1.4.2.1 Articulatory features of /θ, δ / and /ʃ , ʒ /

According to the manner of articulation, Katamba (1996 : 121) descibes FRICATIVE;

the articulators are brought very close together leaving only a very narrow channel

through which the air squeezes on its ways out, producing turbulence in the process,

such as /f,v, θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ /

Kelly (2000: 35) provided the detailed descriptions of consonants in his books

including dental sounds /θ, δ / (as in think, the, bath, bathe, mathematics, father) “The

toungue tip makes light contact with the back of the top, front teeth Or, tongue tip may

protrute between upper and lower teeth The soft palate is raised / θ / is unvoiced and

fortis./ δ / is voiced and lenis.”

Also, he wrote “/ʃ , ʒ / (as in she, fish, beige, nation, measure) are post-alveolar

sounds But when pronouncing them, the tongue blade makes light contact with the

alvealar ridge, and the front of the tongue is raised / ʃ / is unvoiced and fortis /ʒ / is

voiced and lenis It also devoiced at the end of the word /ʒ / does not occur as an initial sound in English, and is rare as a final sound.”

2.1.4.2.2 Articulatory features of /ʤ , ʧ /

Cruttenden (2001: 9) gives the description of affricative : a complete closure at some point in the mouth, behind which the air pressure builds up ; the separation of the organs is compared with that of a plosive, so that more extended friction is a characteristic second element of the sound English has only two affricatives, the voiceless palato-aveolar /ʧ / and its counterpart /ʤ /

/ ʤ, ʧ / (as in church, judge, nature, larger) are also palato-aveolar sounds The

tongue tip, blade and rims close against the alveolar ridge and side teeth The front of the tongue is raised , and when the air is released, there is audible friction The soft palate is also raised /ʧ / is unvoiced and fortis /ʤ / is voiced and lenis /ʤ / is voiced

at the end of a word

2.1.5 Mistakes in language learning

2.1.5.1 Mistakes in language learning

Mistakes are said to be unsystematic in nature and correctable when attention is drawn

to its producers Mistakes are caused by temporary lapses of memory, confusion, and carelessness and so on According to Adrian (1994: 131), the term “mistake” is used to refer to something that at that moment is not acceptable He suggested that “it could turn out to be either a slip or an error” The mistake is a “slip” when the learner already has the inner criteria for self-correction but isn‟t applying them at the moment, perhaps because her attention is elsewhere, or perhaps at the moment she is not recalling the criteria, though she might recognize them At some level she already knows what is required for correctness By “error” he meant that the learner does not have the criteria for correctness This is something new that she cannot work out for herself Furthermore, many people only pay attention to “the what”, i.e what is conveyed, not

“the how” i.e the way words are said, nor the stress and intonation of the sentence Regardless of the distortion of some fricatives and affricates in pronunciation, in many English classes in Vietnam, teaching focuses on ideas (what), but very little or almost

no attention is paid to the way (how) the ideas are expressed orally This negative

attitude towards pronunciation mistakes more or less indulges people with pronunciation mistakes, thus degrades the standard of English in Vietnam Nevertheless, recently, there has been some improvement in learning English with a little bit more focus on pronunciation, stress and intonation in some English training institutions in Vietnam, ranging from secondary schools and evening English centers to tertiary educational institutions such as colleges and universities of foreign languages

As a result, a bit more phonetic drills and practice are included in English teaching programs as well as in examinations now

2.1.5.2 Types of mistakes

According to Adrian (1994: 133), mistake is “error” when the learner does not yet have the criteria for correctness This is something new that she cannot work out for herself There have been different ways to classify errors because researchers look at errors differently

Hendrickson (1980: 206) divided errors into 2 types: local errors and global errors because he focused on the influence of errors on the sense of a sentence or an utterance According to him, the global errors not the local ones could make the sentence ambiguous or senseless Duley, Burt and Krashen (1982: 53) classified errors relating

to their observable characteristics For them there are 4 types of errors, namely omission, addition, misformation and misordering

Abbot (1980:82) divided errors into competence errors and performance errors The competence errors consists of transfer, intralingual and induced Performance errors include errors of processing problems and errors of communication strategies

Pham Dang Binh (2003), in his PhD thesis dissertation on Vietnamese students‟ errors, classifies errors into two main types: common errors and typical errors Common errors are those which are committed by any second language learners when learning the same target language even when they come from different countries These errors normally appear at the beginning of the learning process and consist of competence errors with errors in phonology, vocabulary and grammar and performance errors with intralingual and interlingual errors Errors that are typical of certain groups of learners who speak the same first language or live in the same culture are called typical errors Those errors include two main types: interlingual errors and culture interference errors

Richards (1984:19-27) distinguishes three main major types of errors: interlingual errors, intralingual errors and developmental errors Interlingual errors result from language transfer, that is, which is caused by the learner‟s native language

However, with their classifications, they showed very little concern about error types and did not reflect the process of making errors and causes of errors made by learners

as well

Ha Cam Tam (2005: 9-10) in her science article believes that the main problems in pronunciation of Vietnamese learners are sound omission, sound confusion and sound redundancy According to her, they are the most frequent errors of Vietnamese learners The author finds the classifications by Ha Cam Tam (2005) by far the most appropriate for her research She believes almost Vietnamese beginners of English tend to produce pronunciation mistakes of the following types:

2.1.5.3 Possible causes of mistakes in language learning

2.1.5.3.1 The interference of the mother tongue

The notion of the first language interference is understood as negative transfer from the first language to the target language, it is the way of learning new habits in hindered by the previous learnt ones Lado (1957: 3) claims that “mistakes are originated in the learners‟ disposition to transfer forms and meanings, and the distribution of forms and meanings of their native language and culture to the foreign language and culture” (1957: 1) Myles (2002:20) considers transfer an important cognitive factor is related to writing mistakes The study of transfer involves the study of errors (negative transfer), facilitation (positive transfer), avoidance of the target language forms, and their over-use (Ellis, 1994: 12) Corder (1967:8) observed that language learners make hypotheses about the language they are learning , tried to compare it with their native language, then came to the conclusion that errors in foreign language reflected the first language‟s

features Later in 1978 he recasted interference as learners‟ reliance on the first language as their strategy of communication, which means learners use literal translation as a learning strategy to overcome their ignorance

Why do language learners apply their native language in second language acquisition? The answer lies in four major factors Firstly, it is the performance pressure In class room settings, the clearners may be forced to perform tasks they do not want or their linguistic competences fail to meet; therefore, they may fall back on the language most familiar to them that is their mother tongue Windowson (1990:13) realized that when learners write under pressure, they may rely on systematic resources from their native language for the achievement and synthesis of meaning Secondly, the limited foreign language environment also contributes to mistakes in language learning The lack of natural linguistic inputs with native speakers results in learners‟ resource on their language Moreover, language tasks assigned for the learners have a significance affect

on their verbal production Among these tasks, translation is said to “increase the foreign language learners‟ reliance on first language structures ” (Dulay et al., 1982: 110) Lastly, Dulay et al (1982) considered the monitor as “an important factor associated with the learners‟ use of foreign language acquisition” (1982: 110) Learners tend to think in the first language and attempt to put the idea in the target language Thus, the first language interference takes place because of four factors : performance and the monitor use

Myle (2002:186) defined the above four factors as social factors affecting writing in foreign language These factors are closely related to learners‟ attitudes, motivation and goals “Research based on direct and indirect measures generally shows that learners with positive attitudes Motivation, concrete goals will have attitude reinforced if they experience success Likewise, learners‟ negaive attitudes may be strengthened by lack

of success or by failure” (2002: 2) He concluded that learners‟ negative attitudes, motivations and goals can explain why some foreign language writers perform better than others

2.1.5.3 2 Causes other than interference by first language

Causes independent of the first language include :overgeneralization, false concepts hypothesized , incomplete application of rules, cross association and fossilization

Overgeneralization : According to Jakobovist (1969: 152), overgeneralization is the

application of previous available strategies in new situations Richard (1974: 64) and Littlewood (1980:23) defined the term “intra-lingual interference” Littlewood (1980:25) suggests that overgeneralization and transfer have the same strategy; the difference is the employment of knowledge of the foreign language in the former and of the first language in the latter

False conceptualization: Learners‟ faulty understanding of distinctions of target

language items leads to false conceptualization, Richard (1971) blames poor presentation or presentation based on constrative approach for the confusion

Incomplete application of rules: Richard (1971) noted down two factors leading to incomplete application of rules as the rules as the use of question in classroom as elicitation techniques and learners‟ interest in communication which helps them to achieve efficient communication without a mastery of the target language rules

Cross association: The notion of cross association is proposed by George (1972:74) It

is different from overgeneralization in the way that interference does not come from the prior learning items, but from the adverse direction George (1972:74) wrote “cross-association is the phenomenon of mutual interference between partially learned items, neither being inhibited but one or both being affected by the other”

Fossilization : “Fossilization is refered to a phenomenon that takes place as a learner

internalizes an incorrect form” (Brown et al., 1987:186) This is believed to exist in adolescents and adults‟ pronunciation, and also manifests in some syntactic structures

or vocabularies a learner uses.Three factors contribute to this phenomenon: mother tongue influence, communication needs, and teachers‟ feedback

Sometimes it is difficult to decide exactly which process is applied in a certain error Littlewood (1980: 29) concluded that many processes might operate stimultaneously and reinforce each other in causing the learners to produce errors

2.2 Previous works

As mentioned above, there have been a great deal of notable works about pronounciation issues and pronounciation teaching ones but some of them express the writers‟ concern about pronounciation problems especially the learners‟ difficulties in

pronouncing English sounds However, it can be confirmed that Avery & Ehlrich (1992:67) are the two first people mentioning problems Vietnamese learners may face with when studying English “As the sound systems of English and Vietnamese differ greatly, Vietnamese speakers can have quite serve pronounciation problems”

In their works, the most common problem for the Vietnamese learners have is the problem with the words with final consonants including voiceless stop consonants

/p/,/k/,/t/ , fricative consonants , /f/,/v/, /θ/ as in “truth” For example, in Vietnamese the

voiceless stop consonants /p/, /t/ and /k/ can stand at the final position of the word but they are not released in the final position and much shorter than their English equivalents A word “beat” may sound like “bee” Moreover, in Vietnamese there are

no fricatives at the word-final position, Vietnamese speakers may not produce fricatives

at the end of the words The word “pass” can be pronounced as “pa” They also have found out the Vietnamese difficulty in pronouncing the sound /θ/ and /δ/, they often produce a heavily aspirated stop in stead of /θ/ in the word “think” This probably based on the orthographic system of Vietnamese, where the letter combination/th/ represents a heavily aspirated /t/ They will usually sustitute a /b/ or an /f/ for /p/ The word “put” may sound like “foot”

Recently, an article named Common pronunciation problems of Vietnamese learners of

English by Ha Cam Tam (2005:7) also pointed out some main problems in

pronunciation of Vietnamese learners, namely sound omission, sound confusion and sound redundancy However, many previous studies found in books, linguistic magazines or on the Internet are only about general pronunciation problems of wide issues, none of them specifies in certain consonants that most impede Vietnamese learners from communication and common mistakes in English pronunciation For this reason, the research is carried out to find out the common mistakes made by the students studying in Bac Ninh Specialized High School in pronouncing some English consonants and improve their pronunciation

CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY

In order to fulfill the study, a combination of survey questionnaire, tape recording and interview is employed

3.1 Survey research

Among the research methods, survey research is one of the most important areas of measurement in applied social research The broad area of survey research encompasses any measurement procedures that involve asking questions of respondents A “survey” can be anything form a short paper-and- pencil feedback from

to an intensive one-on-one in-depth interview

According to Kathleen Bennett DeMarrais and Stephen D.Lapan, survey research can

be defined simply as a means of gathering information, usually through self-report using questionnaires of interviews However, almost survey researchs fall within the framework of nonexperimental or correlational research designs in which no independent variable is typically used either for purely descriptive purposes or for examining relations between variables Moreover, surveys can also be used as a method

of data collection in qualitative research which comprises only one of many sources of data and in qualitative research which is primary methof of data collection Often subsumed within the definition of survey research is the requirement of some types of rigorous sampling procedure (Miller, 1983: 24) Some other authors even make a distinction between a survey as data collected from a sample and a census as data based

on all unit of a given population (Jolliffe, 1986: Schwars, Groves and Schuman, 1998) Johnson (1992:35) gave the same idea when confirming “The purpose of a survey is to learn about characteristic of an entire group of interest (a population) by examining a subset of that group (a sample)”

Survey research can be also defined in terms of the type of information gathered or the purposes for which the information is collected Alreck and Settle (1995:98) contended that the reasons for conducting survey include influencing a selected audience, modifying a service or product, and understanding or predicting human behaviour Rea and Paker (1997:88) added understanding people‟s interests and concerns as motivations for using surveys, with data reflecting descriptive, bahavioural or preferential characteristics of respondents

3.1.1 Steps for conducting a survey research

In this process of conducting a survey research, the researcher must make a series of careful decisions about how the study will be carried out These include a great deal of steps such as: determining the purpose of the study; stating the research questions; specifying the population and drawing a sample from the population; deciding on the methods of data collection; developing instruments, and training data collectors or interviewers ; collecting data ; analyzing the data; and addressing non response Understanding these steps will help researchers assess and construct their own meaning from reports of surveys that they read

3.1.1.1 Defining a population

After stating the research questions, it is advisable to define a population The population is the entire group of entities or people to which the results of a study are intended to apply The population can vary widely depending on the research questions

and the purpose of the study It can be a set of schools, a group of people such as students or teachers or a set of instances of language uses

3.1.1.3 Methods of collecting survey data

While conducting the research, the most prevalent data-collection methods are questionnaires, interviews and direct observations of language use In addition, many other types of information can be gathered including test results, compositions, or reactions to L2 oral or written language data

Questionnaire is the most common methods of data collection L2 survey research It can range from short items to long documents which require one or two hours to complete Items in the questionnaire can be open-ended format (allowing respondents

to reply in their own words) or closed one, requiring the respondent to select one from among a limited number of responses The discourse structure of questionnaire is important to consider as it seems obvious that the respondent must be abe to understand the language of the questionnaire

Interview can be considered as a helpful hand to overcome the shortcomings of the questionnaire as the response rates from the interview can be quite high and respondents are more likely to answer all the questions presented because of their personal involvement with the interviewer Moreover, the interviewer can obtain more meaningful information by rephrasing questions that are not clear to the respondent Observing and Collecting Language Data is not commonly used data collection technique in L2 educational research as it is so time-consuming

3.1.1.4 Data analysis

Descriptive Analyses of the results of a survey are often reported in frequency and percentages These descriptive statistics are numbers that summarize the data

Correlational Analyses can be applied along with the descriptive to analyze relationships among variables

Analyses of Precision of estimates and Nonresponse is an analysis of the precision (accuracy) of the results Precision refers to the accuracy with which the results from the study of the sample represent the results for the population

3.2 Techniques employed in this thesis

3.2.1 Data collection instruments

In order to complete this minor thesis, both quantitative and qualitative methods have been conducted to collect data They include: tape recording, questionnaire and interview

3.2.1.1 Tape recording

In teaching population, tape recording is considered as an indispensible tool as it has served a dual purpose: students can have chances to access to appropriate samples of native speakers while at the same time they are allowed to record and replay their own pronunciation or speech in order to judge the accuracy of their pronunciation which is a motivation for their own improvement Moreover, tape recording is an useful tool for teachers to understand how students pronounce a foreign language at the first stage and assess the process of students‟ pronounciation and the progress the students make This

is the reason why tape recording is ultilized to recognize the students‟ problems in pronouncing some English sounds

A task was designed to record the students‟ pronounciation including two main parts:

In part one, students read aloud sounds and words which the sounds appear In part two, there is a short passage for students to read aloud, this passage has many words with the sounds students always mispronounce

3.2.1.2 Questionnaire

Questionnaire was used as the first tool to collect data for this study This kind of method has proved to be effective and time-saving since it could yeild a variety of data