difficulties encountered by second year students at thai nguyen university of agriculture and forestry in producing some english consonants

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS TUAF: Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry No of Students: Number of Students EFL: English as a Foreign Language LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Diag

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ THU HƯƠNG

DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED BY SECOND YEAR STUDENTS

AT THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE AND

FORESTRY IN PRODUCING SOME ENGLISH CONSONANTS

Những khó khăn trong việc phát âm một số phụ âm Tiếng Anh của sinh viên năm thứ hai trường Đại học Nông Lâm , Thái Nguyên

M.A MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE: 60 22 15

HA NOI - 2010

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ THU HƯƠNG

DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED BY SECOND YEAR STUDENTS

AT THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE AND

FORESTRY IN PRODUCING SOME ENGLISH CONSONANTS

Những khó khăn trong việc phát âm một số phụ âm Tiếng Anh của sinh viên năm thứ hai trường Đại học Nông Lâm , Thái Nguyên

M.A MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE: 60 22 15

SUPERVISOR: : Assoc Prof Dr VÕ ĐẠI QUANG

HA NOI - 2010

TABLE OF CONTENTS

page

Declaration ……… i

Acknowledgements……… ii

Abstract ……… iii

Table of contents ……… iv

List of abbreviations and figures……… vii

List of tables……… vii

List of speech organs……… viii

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION……… 1

I Rationale……… 1

II Aims of the study……… 2

III Research questions……… 2

IV The scope of the study……… 3

V Design of the study……… 3

PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW………

4 1.1 Theoretical Background……… 4

2.1.1 What is pronunciation……… 4

2.1.2 The role of pronunciation in language teaching……… 4

1.2 Factors affecting pronunciation in language learning……… 5

2.2.1 The native language……… 5

2.2.2 The learners’ background……… 7

2.2.3 Pronunciation ability……… 7

2.2.4 Motivation to learning English……… 8

2.2.5 Teaching and learning environment 9 1.3.Phonological characteristics and articulation of the sounds /θ/, /ð/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/………

9 1.3.1 Phonological characteristics and articulation of the consonant /θ/ 10 1.3.2 Phonological characteristics and articulation of the consonant /ð/ 11

1.3.3 Phonological characteristics and articulation of the consonant /ʃ/ 12 1.3.4 Phonological characteristics and articulation of the consonant /ʒ/ 13 1.3.5 Phonological characteristics and articulation of the consonant /tʃ/ 13

1.3.6 Phonological characteristics and articulation of the consonant /dʒ/ 14

1.4 Previous works……… 15

1.5 Sub- conclusion……… 16

CHAPTER TWO: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY……… 18

2.1 Research method……… 18

2.2 Research context……… 19

3.2.1 Description of in – service training English courses at TUAF… 19

3.2.2 Description of in – service students at TUAF……… 20

2.3 Research design……… 21

3.3.1 Sample and sampling……… 21

3.3.2 Research Instruments……… 22

3.3.3 Data collection……… 23

3.3.4 Data analysis……… 23

2.4 Sub- conclusion……… 24

CHAPTER THREE: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION……… 25

3.1 Difficulties due to subjective causes……… 25

3.1.1 Low pronunciation ability……… 25

3.1.2 Passive way of learning……… 27

3.1.3 Low motivation to language learning English……… 28

3.2 Difficulties due to objective causes……… 30

3.2.1 Mother tongue’s influence……… 30

3.2.2 Poor learning background……… 30

3.2.3 Articulatory features of the consonants under research 31

3.2.4 Teaching and learning environment efficiency……… 31

3.2.5 Simple techniques used by the teacher……… 32

PART THREE: CONCLUSIONS……… 34

I Summary of major points presented……… 34

II Concluding marks……… 35

III Limitations of the study……… 38

IV Suggestions for further study……… 38

References……… 40

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

TUAF: Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry

No of Students: Number of Students

EFL: English as a Foreign Language

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Diagram of the vocal organ

Figure 2: English consonants

Figure 3: Place and manner of articulation of the consonant /θ/

Figure 4: Place and manner of articulation of the consonant /ð/

Figure 5: Place and manner of articulation of the consonant /ʃ/

Figure 6: Place and manner of articulation of the consonant /ʒ/

Figure 7: Place and manner of articulation of the consonant /tʃ/

Figure 8: Place and manner of articulation of the consonant /dʒ/

Table 3: Students’ methods to improve their pronunciation

Table 4: Students’ reasons for learning English

Table 5: Students’ opinions on pronunciation

Table 6: Teachers’ methods on teaching pronunciation

Figure 1: Diagram of the vocal organ

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION

I Rationale of the study

English has been playing its significant role in Vietnam since 1986 due to the “Open Policy‟ of Vietnamese government Many foreigners from English language backgrounds came to Vietnam for their investments and traveling This has created the movement of learning English among people from rural to urban areas in Vietnam Currently, English has been a compulsory subject at all levels in education except in lower primary school in rural areas in Vietnam Although communicative language teaching method has been employed instead of the Grammar Translation method with the hope that Vietnamese students will have better speaking skill, they are still poor in oral communication As commented by a native – English speaker (Ha, http://js.vnu.edu.vn) “Many Vietnamese speakers can speak English, but only a few have intelligible English pronunciation so that they can be understood easily in direct communication with foreigners”

One of the main reasons leading to poor pronunciation of Vietnamese learners of English is the difficulties in producing the English sounds that are unfamiliar with their native language, Vietnamese, such as θ// ð/ or consonants occurring at the final position of the word such as /z/, /ʃ/; /ʒ/, /tʃ/, etc; consonant clusters; vowels; and some English features not existing in their first language such as syllable stress and connected speech (Honey, 2001; Tran, 2002; Zielinski,

2006, Yates, 2002)

Most of the learners of English agree that the ability to express themselves freely in communication is of great importance for their future career, especially in modern societies where contacting with foreigners often occurs However, there still exist many difficulties in learning and teaching English in Vietnam in general and at Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry (TUAF) in particular Many Vietnamese learners can write and read English quite well but they cannot speak it correctly and fluently in real-life situations, which makes the listeners misunderstand, even results in communication breakdown Surely, there are many reasons for this reality After teaching in some courses at TUAF for 7 years, I have recognized some big obstacles which prevent English language teachers and learners in Vietnam from reaching their aims These obstacles are unprofessional environment, students‟ low level of English language proficiency, low

students‟ pronunciation ability and so on Unfortunately, this is not only the situation at my university but also the case for many other colleges and universities in Vietnam

My desire is to conduct a research in order to find out the difficulties encountered by second year students of English at TUAF in producing the English consonant sounds: /θ/, /ð/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/ as well as to explore the causes of the difficulty and some proposal approaches to improve teaching and learning some English consonant sounds at TUAF and then help my students dealing with the pronunciation‟s difficulties

II Objectives of the study

With the necessity of pronunciation teaching and learning above and the reality of the difficulties in producing some English consonant sounds, the objectives of the research presented here are as follows:

1 To identify difficulties in producing some English consonant sounds /θ/, /ð/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/ by second year in - service English major students at TUAF (Academic Year 2009-2010)

2 To explore the causes of these difficulties

3 To provide some possible solutions to the identified problems

It is hoped that this study makes a contribution in teaching pronunciation, especially the consonant sounds /θ/, /ð/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/ to the best results in courses at TUAF in particular and

to those who are in favor of improving the student‟s pronunciation and the result of the study is considered to be useful for students of English to identify their difficulties in producing these English consonant sounds and to self – improve their pronunciation

III Research questions

Due to limited time and knowledge, it is impossible to cover all difficulties which the students may face in their using English Hence this study mainly focused on the questions that have been raised:

1 What are the difficulties encountered by second year students of English at TUAF in

2 What are the causes of the difficulties?

3 What are the possible solutions to the difficulties?

IV The scope of the study

In an overview of the English sound system, its alphabet is based on Latin which

contains twenty six letters: twenty- four consonants; twelve vowels; eight diphthongs

and a total of 44 phonemes (Sousa, 2005, p 37) It should be noted that other

authorities vary slightly from this, but the number is between 43 and 45 phonemes However, Vietnamese learners do not have difficulty in pronouncing all the English sounds but some of them only in both consonants and vowels With the limitation of the type of the thesis, the researcher does not have the desire for finding out all the sounds causing problems for the author‟s students but articulatory and acoustic features of some typical consonant ones like /θ/, /ð/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/ Also, due to the researcher‟s limited ability, time constraints and narrow-scaled study, this study only involves in finding out errors and mistakes commonly committed by second-year students of English at TUAF in producing these consonants of a small number of TUAF-English major students in their second academic year

VI Design of the study

The thesis consists of five chapters The first chapter is an introduction to the thesis The review of related literature, the role of pronunciation in language teaching, factors affecting

pronunciation learning, phonological characteristics and articulation of the sounds

/θ/,/ð/,/ʃ/,/ʒ/,/tʃ/, /dʒ/ are presented in the second chapter The third chapter is about methodology used for the research study The findings and discussion of relevant difficulties in pronunciation

teaching and learning viewed from subjective and objective causes are presented in the fourth

chapter The final chapter is the conclusion of the study, which discusses the overview that can be

drawn from the study, voices some concluding marks from objectives given in the first chapter with recommendations for teachers and students to overcome the obstacles and improve the quality of their teaching and learning pronunciation in general and consonant sounds in particular

In addition to this, moreover, the limitations of the thesis and suggestions for further study are also pointed out

PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Theoretical Background

1.1.1 What is pronunciation?

The notion of “pronunciation” has been defined in different ways by many writers Ur (1996)

affirm that “The concept of “pronunciation” may be said to conduce the sounds of the language

or phonology; stress and rhythm; intonation; combination of sounds; linkage of sounds”

Dalton, (1994:3) stated pronunciation can be defined “as the production of significant sound

in two senses First, sound is significant because it is used as part of a code of a particular language In this sense we can talk about pronunciation as the production and reception of sounds of speech Second, sound is significant because it is used to achieve meaning in context of use Here the code combines with other factors to make communication possible In this sense we can talk about pronunciation with reference to acts of speaking”

In Oxford Advanced Learner‟s dictionary of current English (1995), “pronunciation” is defined “the way in which a word is pronounced” and the pronunciation of a word is represented through alphabetic spelling

In this paper, the author has no intention of analyzing all definitions of pronunciation but only gives some simple definitions above that are close to the thesis

1.1.2 The role of pronunciation in language teaching

Nowadays pronunciation tends to be de-emphasized in language courses Advocates of

modern comprehension based or communicatively oriented language curricula generally take the view that pronunciation should not be taught explicitly but should rather be allowed to develop naturally as a by – product of attempts by students to communicate However, there has been little systematic research to discover if certain teaching practices or condition of training can have positive effects on pronunciation Hence, we have no firm basis for asserting categorically that pronunciation is not teachable or that is not worth spending time on pronunciation training in a language course New ways of teaching pronunciation are still developed and tested, then there still a need for careful experimentation to determination and effectiveness of methods

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 learners have chances to explore to the sounds of that language Moreover, communicative approach is considered as the major language teaching

in the twenty first century as what the learners really need after graduating is that they can communicate successfully in their work and their life That is the reason why pronunciation teaching has been paid more and more attention by all the teachers Some years ago, pronunciation used to be taught along with other skills but at the present pronunciation courses are provided at any universities where English is taught as a separate and major subject

1.2 Factors affecting pronunciation in language learning

1.2.1 The native language

The native language plays a very important role in learning a foreign language It affects a great deal of aspects, such as the way to achieve the ideas and the way of using the speech organs

in order to produce sounds peculiar to the new language The findings of many studied on Vietnamese learners of English has revealed that the influence of their first language, Vietnamese

is the major contributor to the difficulty for Vietnamese learners (Tran, 2002; Zielinski, 2006, Honey, 2001) According to Lado (1957), who builds the CA hypothesis, the learners who learn a particular second or foreign language will find some features of that language easier, while other features more difficult The easier elements are similar to those in his native language and the difficult ones are different from his native language

The speech of non-native English speakers may exhibit pronunciation characteristics that result from such speakers imperfectly learning the pronunciation of English, either by transferring the phonological rules from their mother tongue into their English speech ("interference") or through implementing strategies similar to those used in primary language acquisition They may also create innovative pronunciations for English sounds not found in the speaker's first language The age at which speakers begin to immerse themselves into a language (such as English) is linked to the degree in which native speakers are able to detect a non-native accent; the exact nature of the link is disputed amongst scholars and may be affected by "neurological plasticity, cognitive development, motivation, psychosocial states, formal instruction, language learning aptitude," and the usage of their first and second languages English is unusual in that speakers rarely produce an audible release between consonant clusters and often overlap constriction times Speaking English with a timing pattern that is dramatically different may lead to speech that is difficult to understand More transparently, differing phonological distinctions between a speaker's first language and English create a tendency to neutralize such distinctions in English, and differences in the inventory or distribution of sounds may cause substitutions of native sounds in the place of difficult English sounds and/or simple deletion This is more common

when the distinction is subtle between English sounds or between a sound of English and of a speaker's primary language While there is no evidence to suggest that a simple absence of a sound or sequence in one language's phonological inventory makes it difficult to learn, several theoretical models have presumed that non-native speech perceptions reflect both the abstract phonological properties and phonetic details of the native language Such characteristics may be transmitted to the children of bilinguals, who will then exhibit a number of the same characteristics even if they are monolingual Vietnamese

Final /s/ is likely to be confused with /ʒ/ or simply omitted

Final /ʒ/ is likely to be omitted

Final /z/ is likely to be confused with /ʒ/or /s/

Final /tʃ/ is likely to be confused with /ʒ/

Speakers often have difficulty with the following phonemes:

/θ/, which is confused with /t/ or /s/

/ð/, which is confused with /d/ or /z/

/dʒ/, which is confused with /z/

/ʒ/, which is confused with /z/ or /dʒ

/s/, which is confused with /ʃ/

Vietnamese is a tonal language and speakers may try to use the Vietnamese tonal system or use

a monotone with English words They may also associate tones onto the intonal pattern of a sentence and becoming confused with such inflectional changes

1.2.2 The learners’ background

It almost goes without saying that students come into the classroom with unique backgrounds and life experiences Vietnam has three regions, the North, the South and the Central with

different socio-economic, cultural, traditional conditions, especially with different accents that the people, even in a country, can not understand easily According to an author, the accent is one of the difficulties in causing misunderstanding of the communicative competence Coming from different certain backgrounds, the learners have different acquisitions and perceptions Being aware of this, the teachers, instructors pay more their attention to those who are inadequate of knowledge mainly due to objective conditions

1.2.3 Pronunciation ability

There is a common view that some people have a better ear capacity for foreign language than some other people So, they are able to discriminate between the two sounds more accurately than the others and able to imitate sounds better We can accept these people as those with

phonetic abilities Also, this phonetic ability of the learner affects the development of his/her pronunciation But it does not mean that people who have a better phonetic ability will be

successful but the others won‟t be successful So language aptitude ability exists in many

people, but its degree is variable, so some people have more ability but some have less Besides the factors mentioned above, the influence of age must be stated as an

efficient factor for phonetic ability because the beginners start to learn a language, the more they become successful It is clear that learners may lose some of their abilities when they become older, so it can be difficult for them to pronounce the target language with a native or near native-like accent At the same time, immigrants, especially their children, have more chance in learning the target language since they have started to their learning process in a target language speaking environment The poor phonetic ability can be cured again by the foreign language teachers‟ patient attempts There are several devices to motivate the poor pronunciation

of the learners such as the phonetic labs and remedial pronunciation teaching techniques Those learners must not be discoursed but must be treated meticulously

1.2.4 Motivation to learning pronunciation

If the learners are highly motivated to have a better pronunciation, they can

develop a concern for pronunciation, and become more eager to take part in the activities and pay more attention to discriminate the sounds of the target language, and they try

to produce better utterances Motivation can be the key to learn the target language, and they try to produce better sounds Here it must be pointed out what the motivation is and how the learners will be motivated According to Brown (1997:114-115) the motivation is thought of

as an inner drive, impulse, emotion, or desire that moves one to a particular action He also stated that learning a foreign language requires some of all three levels of motivation which can

be global, situational, or task-oriented For example, a learner may possess high global motivation but low task motivation on the written mode of the language

On the one hand, some factors such as intelligence, aptitude, and self-confidence

have much contribution to the formation of motivation For example, to motivate the less intelligent people will be more difficult than the intelligent ones because these people cannot appeal to their needs Motivation, of course, is a number of different kinds of attitudes and can be divided into two basic types: instrumental and integrative motivation (Brown, 1997: 115-117) First one refers to the instrumental goals such as furthering a career, reading

some kinds of materials, translation, etc An integrative motivation is the one which is employed when the learners want themselves to be in the culture of the second language group, to identify themselves with and become part of the society Needless to say, teachers may need to discern the source of a student motivation in order to meet particular needs That is, pronunciation teaching must be directed according to the needs, expectations, attitudes, intelligence, etc of the learners If the learners‟ main goals are to make translation from the native language to the target language, less time may be needed for pronunciation activities, and therefore teachers will spend less time for motivating them If the learners are highly motivated to have a better pronunciation, they can develop a concern for pronunciation, and become more eager to take part in the activities, and pay more attention to discriminate the sounds of the target language, so they try to produce better sounds and utterances At the same time, motivation can be achieved by paying attention to the learners‟ concern for pronunciation because learners generally are not awared of that the way they speak is full of irritation and misunderstanding for the hearer

1.2.5 Teaching and learning environment

It can be undeniable for the important of teaching and learning environment to the second language learning As a teacher of English with eight years‟ experience, I notice that the environment affect directly the students‟ learning motivation and their results Sandberg (1994 – retrieved from tecfa.unige.ch/ /node4.html) identified the seven components of a teaching and learning environment must all be there in order to optimize learning Each component has functionalities as follows

1.`Teacher'' component: Its role is to provide something between loose guidance and direct

instruction It can be a human agent (present or distant), an intelligent agent, instructions like some text books provide, etc This component provides information from the syllabus to the task level

2.``Monitor component: Ensures that something is learned A role taken by either the human teacher, the learner (self-control) or by some programs

3.``Fellow learners'' component: Improves the learning process (some research tries to implement artificial ones)

4.``Learning material'': Contains what has to be learned in a very broad sense (knowing what, knowing how) It can be computational in various ways (exploratory hypertext, lesson and task oriented hypertext, simulation software, task solving environments, etc.)

5.``External information sources'': All kinds of information which is not directly stored in the learning material (e.g additional material, handbooks, manuals, etc.)

6.``Tools'': Everything which may help the learning process other then the learning material (e.g calculators, communication software, etc.)

7.``School'' [a category we added]: Something that provides a curriculum

1.3.Phonological characteristics and articulation of the sounds /θ/, /ð/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/

According to Gerald Kelly (2000), there are three ways of describing the consonant sounds, namely the manner of articulation (the interaction between the various articulators and the airstream), the place of articulation (the description for more detailed information about what the various articulators actually do.) and the force of articulation (referring to the strong or fortis and weak or lenis form of the consonants) His description about the above consonants is as follows

Figure 2: English consonants

1.3.1 Phonological characteristics and articulation of the consonant /θ/

Figure 3: Place and manner of articulation of the consonant /θ/

The consonant /θ/ is a dental, fricative and voiceless consonant according to the place, manner

and force of articulation In order to pronounce this sound, the tip of the tongue makes light

contact with the back of the top, front teeth, or the tip of the tongue may protrude between the upper and the lower teeth then blow the air out gently The soft palate is raised It is a voiceless

sound so speakers should feel no vibration from their neck when pronouncing it As in…think / θiηk/, thief / θi:f/, author / 'ɔ:θə/, nothing /'nʌθiη/, mouth / mauθ/, both /bouθ/…

There are some possible pronunciation problems This sound does not exist in most languages Because it is difficult to recognize, the learners sometimes substitute a variety of more familiar sounds

Examples: If you substitute /s/ for /θ/, thank will sound like sank

If you substitute /ʃ/ for /θ/, thank will sound like shank

If you substitute /f/ for /θ/, lath will sound like laugh

If you substitute /t/ for /θ/: bath will sound like bat

In order to correct these mistakes the learners have to place their tongue between their teeth for /θ/ If they place their tongue behind their teeth, they will make sounds /t/ and /s/

1.3.2 Phonological characteristics and articulation manner of the consonant /ð/

Figure 4: Place and manner of articulation of the consonant /ð/

This consonant is a dental, fricative, voiced and lenis consonant according to the place, manner and force of articulation To produce this sound the tip of the tongue is put between the upper teeth and the lower teeth to make a voiced sound from the throat The tip of the tongue is close to the cutting edge of the upper front teeth, blow air through this position so that the friction is made The soft palate is raised so that all the breath is forced to go through the mouth This sound

is made with the vibration of the vocal cords /ð/ is devoiced at the end of a word As in…the /đə/, them /đem /, mother /'mʌđə/, gather /'gæđə/, clothe /klouđ/, smooth /smu:đ/…

There are some possible pronunciation problems This is an unfamiliar sound It is difficult to recognize and produce, especially for Vietnamese learners We may substitute the more familiar

sound /d/, /z/, or /dʒ/

Examples: If you substitute /d/ for /ð/: there will sound like dare

If you substitute /z/ for /ð/: then will sound like Zen

If you substitute /dʒ/ for /ð/: leather will sound like language

In order to correct these mistakes the learners have to place their tongue between their teeth for /ð/ If they place their tongue behind their teeth, they will make sounds /d/ and /z/

1.3.3 Phonological characteristics and articulation manner of the consonant /ʃ/

Figure 5: Place and manner of articulation of the consonant /ʃ/

The consonant /ʃ/ is a palatal alveolar, fricative, unvoiced and fortis consonant To produce this

sound, the tongue blade makes light contact with the alveolar ridge and the front of the tongue is

raised The soft palate is also raised As in … she /∫i:/, shop /∫ɔp/, rubbish /'rʌbi∫/, finish

/'fini∫/…

There are some possible pronunciation problems Although this is a familiar sound, we may

confuse it with /tʃ/ or /s/ As in…shop /∫ɔp/, shy /∫ai/, patient /'pei∫nt/, mission /'mi∫n/, finish /fini∫/, cash /kæ∫/

Examples: If you substitute /tʃ/ for /ʃ/: wish will sound like witch

If you substitute /s/ for /ʃ/: sheep will sound like sip

In order to correct these mistakes, the learners are sure to pucker their lips for /ʃ/ but

form a smile for /s/

1.3.4 Phonological characteristics and articulation manner of the consonant /ʒ/

Figure 6: Place and manner of articulation of the consonant /ʒ/

The consonant /ʒ/ is an alveolar - palatal, fricative, voiced and lenis consonant To produce this

sound, the front of the tongue touches the part between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate The air is constricted, causing friction when passing through the organs of speech This sound is

produced with the vibration of the vocal cords As in… vision /'viʒn/, measure /'meʒə/, beige /beiʒ/, garage / 'gærɑ:ʒ/… /ʒ/ does not occur as an initial sound in English, and is rare as a final

sound

There are some possible pronunciation problems /ʒ/ is not a common and widely

distributed phoneme It is easy to with similar English sound /ʃ/ and /dʒ/

Examples: If you substitute /ʃ/ for /ʒ/: decision will sound like addition

If you substitute /dʒ/ for /ʒ/: lesion will sound like legion

In order to correct these mistakes, the learners are sure that their vocal cords are

vibrating when they say /ʒ/ or they will substitute /ʃ/ instead That means they should

put their hand on the throat until feel the vibration from their neck

1.3.5 Phonological characteristics and articulation manner of the consonant /tʃ/

Figure 7: Place and manner of articulation of the consonant /tʃ/

The consonant /tʃ/ is one of the only two affricate phonemes in English It is palato – alveolar,

voiceless and fortis sound To produce this sound, the tongue tip, blade and rims close again 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 As in church / t∫ə:t∫/, chew /t∫u:/, nature / 'neit∫ə/, teacher / 'ti:t∫ə/, match / mæt∫/, much / mʌt∫/…

There are some possible pronunciation problems The sound /tʃ/ and /ʃ/ are easily

confused with each other

Examples: If you substitute /ʃ/ for /tʃ/: which will sound like wish

In order to correct these mistakes, the learners are sure to press your tongue tip

against the gum ridge behind your upper front teeth, or they will say /ʃ/ by mistake

/tʃ/ is an explosive sound – like a sneeze!

1.3.6 Phonological characteristics and articulation manner of the consonant /dʒ/

Figure 8: Place and manner of articulation of the consonant /dʒ/

The consonant /dʒ/ is the other affricate phoneme in English It is palato – alveolar, voiced and

lenis sound To produce this sound, 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 It is devoiced at the end of a word As in … job / dʒɔb /, joy /dʒɔi/, angle /'eindʒəl/, adjust /ə'dʒʌst/, age /eidʒ/, large /lɑ:dʒ/…

There are some possible pronunciation problems The learners may have confusions of English spelling patterns and similarities between /dʒ/ and other sounds, which causes the pronunciation problems with /dʒ/

Examples: If you substitute /j/ for /dʒ/: jet will sound like yet

If you substitute /ʒ/ for /dʒ/: pledger will sound like pleasure

If you substitute /tʃ/ for /dʒ/: ranger will sound like rancher

In order to correct these mistakes, the learners are sure to make the tongue press against upper

gum ridge and the vocal cords are vibrating when they say/dʒ/

1.4 Previous works

The study entitled “Common pronunciation problems of Vietnamese learners of English ” of

Ha Cam Tam was set up to answer the question “What are the most common pronunciation problems of the students in the English department?”

The data collection was administered through an oral final examination During the exam, each of the students who had finished four years of English at English department was requested to present a talk about a particular topic in approximately five minutes While listening to students talking, the researcher took notes of the errors related to pronunciation Ha Cam Tam found out that Vietnamese speakers do not have to pronounce the ending sounds In addition, some of the sounds, such as /ʃ, ʤ, ʧ / are really hard for Vietnamese learners to pronounce especially when these sounds occur at the end of words She concluded three common errors on pronunciation of her students : sound omission, sound redundancy and sound confusion

In his study entitled “Pronunciation Matters: English Consonant Production by AUAP

Students” K James Hartshorn, Central Washington University indicated some problems of his

students‟ pronunciation This study examined the production of six English phonemes (/l/, /r/, /v/, /f/, /ð/ and /θ/) by AUAP students after completing the five-month program at Central Washington University Two general English proficiency levels were represented He indicated that the greatest reason for the pronunciation pitfalls that Japanese students encounter is because of the phonological differences between Japanese and English Student observation suggests that many Japanese ESL learners can produce these consonants correctly if they learn how to position their mouths, even when perception skills may not be as developed

“Vietnamese learners’ difficulties when pronouncing some English sounds /æ/ /θ/, /ð/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/” is

the study of Nguyen Thi Quynh Hoa, 2007 This study found out some difficulties of Vietnamese students when producing some English sounds such as /æ/ /θ/, /ð/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/” and pointed out the causes of the difficulties of their pronunciation They are as follows, students lack of real English speaking environment, influence by their native language, these sounds mentioned above have different place and manner of articulation, the students‟ low ability of pronunciation, the amount

of exposure and the methods of learning She also gave some suggestions for further research on difficulties in pronouncing English sounds

In her research entitled “Difficulties for Vietnamese when pronouncing English : Final Consonants” Nguyen Thi Thu Thao indicated that… Vietnamese people have many difficulties when pronouncing English Among those, that paper will firstly deal with the hypothesis

“English word-final consonants are not pronounced in a native-like way by Vietnamese speakers” Theoretical phonological research about final consonants in the Vietnamese language and English has been carried out to characterize the difficulties The author collected and analyzed data from Vietnamese informants to draw the findings that Vietnamese effort to pronounce English word-final consonants was towards omitting, adding schwa or replacing by sounds closer to those existing in their mother-tongue Results of native speakers‟ evaluation of Vietnamese-accented final consonants were also concluded to clarify how comprehensible informants‟ pronunciation is

In short, all studies mentioned above are really meaningful to this study in the way that they

also consider some factors affecting Vietnamese when pronouncing English

1.5 Sub – conclusion

This chapter provides us an overview of the theoretical background on which this study based

on It includes the definition and the role of pronunciation in language teaching, the factors affecting pronunciation learning such as the native language, the learner background, pronunciation ability, motivation to learning English, teaching and learning environment and techniques used by the teachers as well as phonological characteristics and articulation of the sounds /θ/,/ð/,/ʃ/,/ʒ/,/tʃ/, /dʒ/ In addition to the above matters, a summary of previous works

related to the given issue was also presented

CHAPTER TWO: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

2.1 Research methods

In order to fulfill the objectives of the study, the qualitative and quantitative methods will be used as the main method of the study, in which tape recording, a short listening test on pronunciation, information collection and analysis as well as questionnaire to collect data are

used As Bouma has stated “both qualitative and quantitative approaches are essentials to the research process in social sciences” (1996: 173); moreover, each methodology has its strengths

and weaknesses, thus it could not alone help to find out satisfactory and sufficient information As

a result, I choose to make full use of both approaches rather than approve one and dispose the other so as to achieve the reliable results

First, the data including books, journals, e-journals and other kinds of materials on the subject have to be reviewed carefully Then, the certain and detailed problems and difficulties in teaching and learning pronunciation at TUAF will be collected and analysed through survey questionnaire, tape recording, and a short pronunciation listening test One of the salient features of the

quantitative methodology is its objectivity According to Burns (1999), the quantitative approach

is employed when the researcher aims at achieving objectivity and control as it is held that it can

“offer ways of testing hypothesis that are widely accepted or standardized” (1999:22) Therefore,

to gain an overview of difficulties in producing the English consonant sounds /θ/, /ð/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/ by the second year students at TUAF, a survey will be conducted to the 100 second -year in

service English major students

On the other hand, according to Burns (1999), qualitative research is the methodology of studying the participants‟ opinion, actions and experiences through tape recording, a listening test and observation Correspondingly, this method will be made use of in the phrase of collecting, analyzing and synthesizing basic knowledge for the literature review since, in this part, I need to have a deep understanding about the setting of the study, the history of relating studies, ideas, facts and figures

One strong point of the qualitative method is that the data collected is usually “extensive” and

“detailed” (Burns, 1999:23) or as held by Larsen Freeman & Long, it supplies researchers with

“real”, “rich” and “deep” data (1991:12) For these reasons, I decide to design a listening test on

pronunciation and a tape recording in order to collect the data from 30 of the above students as I would like to gain profound understanding of relevant difficulties in producing the English

consonant sounds /θ/, /ð/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/ by the second year students at TUAF

The author also use the real teaching and learning process in the classroom, and results of a short listening test on pronunciation for more information and detailed analysis After that the results obtained from questionnaires, tape recording and the students‟ results will be discussed in the findings At last, the author will provide some recommendations for teaching and learning

pronunciation in general and the consonant sounds /θ/, /ð/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/ studying in particular 2.2 Research context

2.2.1 Description of the English course at TUAF

The study was conducted at Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry (TUAF) TUAF associated with Hanoi Open University to train in - service Bachelors of Art of major English The Center for Foreign Languages of TUAF has directly been run and controlled these courses Students are required to learn all English classes of a major English curriculum, such as Language Practice 1,2,3,4 (including listening skill, speaking skill, reading skill and writing skill), Grammar 1,2, English Pronunciation, Business English, Vietnamese – English Translation 1,2, English – Vietnamese Translation1,2, Background, English Literature, Teaching Method, , Lexicology, Foreign language 2… with some general subjects as Communist Party, Practical Vietnamese, Foundation of Vietnamese culture, Introduction of Linguistics, Basic Informatics…

in Vietnamese Language Practice subjects are required to learn all the course from the first semester to the final – the eighth semester They are ranged from elementary to advanced level In the first year, Language Practice and Grammar 1 are taught continuously During semesters 3,4 (the second year) students have to learn English Pronunciation, Business English, Vietnamese – English Translation 1, English – Vietnamese Translation1 and Language Practice After finishing these subjects, they continue to learn some general subjects in Vietnamese In the third and fourth years, they complete all the rest subjects

The first stage- semester 1, 2, 3, 4- aims at providing students with general knowledge of English grammar, vocabulary, phonetics and phonology as well as developing students‟ four language skills with more focus on speaking skill, at this very first stage, the textbook Know How 1, 2, English Grammar In Use, Practical English Grammar, Pronunciation Pair, English Phonetics and Phonology, Business English, and Vietnamese – English Translation 1, English – Vietnamese Translation 1 are used Moreover, at this stage, all forms of tests are employed after each semester: written middle-term tests, written end-term tests, listening tests, oral tests which forces students to pay their more attention to speaking skill and pronunciation, but in fact teachers usually ignore their students‟ mistakes in pronunciation, which results in the students‟ low pronunciation ability

At the second stage-semester 5, 6, 7, 8, the students are equipped with the knowledge of terms and structures related to their future jobs at advanced level The textbooks utilized at this phrase consist of Vietnamese – English Translation 2, English – Vietnamese Translation 2, Background, English Literature, Teaching Method, Lexicology, Foreign language 2…etc with Language Practice 3, 4 Students are equipped all the necessary knowledge before getting a job as a teacher

of English or an interpreter Therefore, at this stage, students also have oral tests, listening tests and written tests at much more difficult level

2.2.2 Description of in – service students at TUAF

Students in the research are those who graduated from secondary schools and have no ability to attend to regular training courses (or failed in the university entrance examination) They are from mountainous and remote area Most of them live and grow up in poor economic condition They

do not have the same level of English language proficiency Some of them have learned English for 7 years at junior and senior high schools; some have only learned English for 3 years while a few have never learned English Only a few of them study English well, but they are only good at grammar, not speaking in general and pronunciation in particular They are likely to do

grammatical exercises confidently at their level but when given a topic to speak, most of them need the teacher‟s correction on pronunciation Moreover, motivation to their learning English in these in service training classes, even as major of English, is generally low since English, for most of the students, is a difficult language and learning these courses is an objective solution after graduation More importantly, because mainly coming from the country, most of them have different dialects which are not Kinh ethnic group standard accent Some of them are ethnic minority groups including the Tay, Thai, Muong, Nung and Dao Hence, it is very important that the staff at the Center for Foreign Languages of TUAF find out effective ways to help these students overcome all of their difficulties in learning English in general and in correcting

pronunciation in particular

2.3 Research design

Data were gained through the employment of three research instruments, namely, questionnaires, tape recording and a listening test on pronunciation, which will be discussed in detail below

2.3.1 Sample and sampling

In order to get information to fulfill the aims of the study, first and foremost, the survey will be conducted among 100 second year English major students at TUAF The questionnaire was administered to them They are in - service students at Center for Foreign Languages of TUAF The researcher selected them as the subjects of the study with the hope to find out the difficulties they

encounter in producing the English consonant sounds /θ/, /ð/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/ There are 40 male