Nghiên cứu các hoạt động nhằm tăng cường hứng thú học phát âm tiếng Anh cho sinh viên năm thứ nhất hệ Cao đẳng tiếng Anh tại Trường Cao đẳng Sư phạm Hà Nam

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ------ TRỊNH PHƯƠNG LIÊN A STUDY ON ACTIVITIES TO INCREASE MOT

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

- -

TRỊNH PHƯƠNG LIÊN

A STUDY ON ACTIVITIES TO INCREASE MOTIVATION TO LEARN PRONUNCIATION FOR THE FIRST – YEAR ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS

AT HANAM TEACHERS’ TRAINING COLLEGE

(NGHIÊN CỨU CÁC HOẠT ĐỘNG NHẰM TĂNG CƯỜNG HỨNG THÚ HỌC PHÁT ÂM TIẾNG ANH CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT HỆ CAO ĐẲNG

TIẾNG ANH TẠI TRƯỜNG CAO ĐẲNG SƯ PHẠM HÀ NAM )

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Methodology

Code: 60.14.10

HANOI – 2010

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

- -

TRỊNH PHƯƠNG LIÊN

A STUDY ON ACTIVITIES TO INCREASE MOTIVATION TO LEARN PRONUNCIATION FOR THE FIRST – YEAR ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS

AT HANAM TEACHERS’ TRAINING COLLEGE

(NGHIÊN CỨU CÁC HOẠT ĐỘNG NHẰM TĂNG CƯỜNG HỨNG THÚ HỌC PHÁT ÂM TIẾNG ANH CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT HỆ CAO ĐẲNG

TIẾNG ANH TẠI TRƯỜNG CAO ĐẲNG SƯ PHẠM HÀ NAM )

Field: ENGLISH METHODOLOGY

Code: 60.14.10 Supervisor: NGUYỄN HUYỀN MINH, M.A

HANOI - 2010

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study 1

2 Statement of the problem 2

3 Purpose of the study 2

4 Research questions 2

5 Method of the study 3

6 Significance of the study 3

7 Definition of terms 3

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Researches into pronunciation teaching 4

1.1.1 Approaches to pronunciation teaching 4

1.1.2 Teaching Pronunciation: Segmentals or Suprasegmentals? 6

1.1.3 Factors affect pronunciation learning and teaching English 8

1.2 Researches into motivation in teaching and learning 8

1.2.1 Role of motivation to students‟ learning 8

1.2.2 Factors affect students‟ motivation 8

1.2.3 Framework to increase and sustain students‟ motivation 9

1.3 Researches into the ways to motivate students in pronunciation lessons 10

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 12

2.1 Context of the study 12

2.2 Participants of the study 13

2.3 Instruments 13

2.3.1 Diagnostic test 13

2.3.2 Post test 14

2.3.3 Final oral examination 14

2.3.4 Questionnaire 14

2.3.5 The students‟ journals 14

2.3.6 Teacher‟s observations and anecdotal notes 14

CHAPTER 3: DATA PRESENTATION

3.1 Pronunciation orientation and diagnostic test 15

3.2 The students‟ journals 16

3.3 Dictation usage 16

3.4 Games 16

3.5 Songs 22

3.6 Software 23

CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 Results 24

4.1.1 Diagnostic test, posttest and final oral examination 24

4.1.2 Questionnaire 25

4.1.2.1 Areas of investigation 25

4.1.2.2 Analysis and findings 26

4.1.3 The students‟ journals 29

4.1.4 Teacher‟s observations and anecdotal notes 31

4.2 Discussion

4.2.1 The roles of motivating activities 32

4.2.2 Factors influencing the students‟ motivation and performance 33

CONCLUSION

1 Summary of major findings 34

2 Implications 34

3 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study 36

REFERENCES 37

APPENDICES

INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

In the process of globalization, the ability to communicate in English plays an important role in fostering the development of the whole nation in general and of Phu Ly city - Ha Nam province in particular In order to communicate well in English, one advantageous point is to have an intelligible pronunciation

However, from the first day of my career as a teacher, I faced a disillusion to find that the first-year English major students at Hanam Teachers‟ Training College had serious problems in pronunciation They mispronounced many words; paid very little attention to stress, intonation and rhythm Therefore, it is my desire to improve the situation of the students‟ pronunciation I registered to teach the subject “Practical Pronunciation” with the coursebook “Ship or Sheep” by Ann Baker (1997) After the first courses, I was delighted to witness certain improvements in students‟ pronunciation However, it seemed to me that my students were not very motivated in the course and their efforts faded quickly after the examination This fact dawned on me that my teaching was not interesting and motivating enough From the experience of the previous courses of pronunciation, I wished to apply more stimulating activities to increase the students‟ motivation and intelligibility

Moreover, I find that the time for students to study pronunciation in the class is limited, thus in order to obtain good pronunciation requires much self-study time of students The way

to promote students to self-study pronunciation is by making them have great motivation in learning pronunciation Because I strongly agree with Lightbrown, P.M and Spada, N (1999) that students never learn everything they are taught, they only learn what they are interested in The researchers also added that students are unlikely to be very successful at learning anything unless they enjoy the process

Being urged by the situation and motivated by the idea of finding interesting tools to teach pronunciation in an effective and systematic way, I would like to avail myself of this opportunity to conduct a research on activities to motivate first-year English major students at Hanam Teachers‟ Training College to learn pronunciation

2 Statement of the problem

At Hanam Teachers‟ Training College, up to now there are four classes major in English, with the aim of training teachers of English for secondary schools in the province, providing office workers specializing in English for joint-venture companies in the industrial zones in the province, training some male interpreters and translators to work in the Middle-East countries in Asia With the above aims, it is required that students must have an intelligible pronunciation

However, as a teacher of English at Hanam Teachers‟ Training College, I found that students had serious problems with English pronunciation Most of them come from rural areas of Thanh Liem, Binh Luc, Kim Bang, Ly Nhan, where there is no emphasis on learning pronunciation Therefore, it is easy to find that students have so many problems with pronunciation Moreover, in my previous courses of teaching pronunciation, I realized that my students seemed not to be highly motivated in learning with activities in the coursebook From the current situation of Hanam Teachers‟ Training College, I would like to conduct

a research on activities to motivate first-year English major students at Hanam Teachers‟ Training College to learn pronunciation

3 Purpose of the study

This research is designed to bring a new air into the pronunciation class of the first-year English major students at Hanam Teachers‟ Training College In general, the purposes of this study are:

+ to seek activities to motivate the first-year English major students at Hanam Teachers‟ Training College to learn pronunciation

+ to have empirical evidence of motivating activities on learning pronunciation of the first-year English major students at Hanam Teachers‟ Training College

5 Method of the study

The method employed in this study is an action research, using a number of instruments

as questionnaire, the students‟ journals, teacher‟s anecdotal notes, along with diagnostic test, posttest and final oral examination to collect data

6 Significance of the study

Despite the fact that pronunciation plays an important role in learning a foreign language,

so far there have been few researches on the ways to motivate students to study pronunciation compared to other skills such as speaking, listening, writing and reading The study suggests motivating activities in teaching pronunciation to facilitate the students‟ learning process Therefore, this study contributes to enriching the researches on strategies to promote students

to learn pronunciation The results of this study will be of much benefit to both teachers and students of English

7 Definition of terms

Motivation

Among many definitions of motivation stands out Gardner‟s one (1985)

“Motivation refers to the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal of learning the

language plus favorable attitudes towards learning the language” Gardner (1985, p 10)

Intelligibility

“Intelligibility may be broadly defined as the extent to which a speaker’s message is actually understood by a listener” (Munro & Derwing 1999, p 289)

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Researches into pronunciation teaching

1.1.1 Approaches to pronunciation teaching

The approaches to pronunciation teaching have swung in and out of favor through the years in the history Two general approaches to the teaching of pronunciation described by Celce-Murcia et al (1996) have been adopted by many researchers, which are intuitive-imitative approach and analytical-linguistic approach

An intuitive-imitative approach assumes that students will develop acceptable

pronunciation and speaking skills when exposed to the target language through accurate models This approach relies heavily upon imitation and repetition, without any explicit information provided by the teacher The early method of pronunciation training called Direct Method, which gained acceptance in the late 1800s and early 1900s, was formed from observations of children attaining their first language In this method, students would listen and imitate a model of the target language that was spoken by the teacher (and later by recordings) (Celce Murcia, Brinton, & Goodwin, 1996) From the late 1960s and the early 1980s, there was a decline in explicit pronunciation teaching with the invention of the language lab During this time intuitive-imitative approach was more popular in the pronunciation training with Total Physical Response by Asher‟s (1977) and Natural Approach by Krashen and Terrell‟s (1983) In Total Physical Response, students would begin to speak when they were ready and they were expected to make errors in the initial stage The main initial focus of Natural Approach was listening, which gave students the opportunities to internalize the target sound system Indeed, many contemporary researchers still adopt this view but it is still needed to further investigate if the method has the persuasive foundation

An analytic-linguistic approach recognises the importance of an explicit intervention of

pronunciation pedagogy in language acquisition The approach employs a variety of pedagogical aids including phonemic chart, contrastive exercises and articulatory descriptions

In this approach, students are given explicit information about how to produce the sounds and rhythms of the target language This approach was developed to complement rather than

replace the intuitive-imitative approach In the 1890s, Henry Sweet, Wilhelm Viëtor and Paul

Passy the creators and developers of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), led a movement in language teaching that was generally called the Reform Movement These phoneticians had great influence on the teaching of pronunciation with their contribution to the development of a system for describing and analysing the sound systems of languages The 1940s and 1950s witnessed a noticeable movement emphasized on explicit instruction of phonetics with Audiolinguism in the United States and the Oral approach in Britain These two methodologies competed with the Direct Method by relying on a recording or the teacher

to model the target language followed by the students‟ repetition of that language However, teachers also drew from their knowledge of phonetics and for the first time used simplified charts of the IPA and articulatory models in the classroom The audiolinguism relied much on drilling sound contrasts and minimal pairs, with very little attention to intonation and conversational speech The technique of minimal pairs drill was used extensively by Baker (1977) in her very popular course book on contrastive segmental instruction “Ship or Sheep.” The Silent Way (Gattegno, 1972) dominated in the early 1970s In this method segmentals and suprasegmentals are paid attention from the very beginning of instruction The teachers‟ talk is kept to a minimum using gestures, and visual aids such as the sound-colour chart, Fidel wall charts, and Cuisenaire rods, which were used to demonstrate pronunciation instruction

The 1980s witnessed the significant shift with discourse based communicative approach with the ultimate goal was communication The communicative approach dealt with tasks that focus on meaning, using activities such as role play, problem solving and games in a relaxed and supportive classroom environment By focusing more on active communication, it has been recognised that pronunciation competence below a certain threshold caused unintelligible, even for the most grammatically and lexically advanced students (Hinofotis & Bailey, 1980) Technique used to teach pronunciation included listening and imitating, phonetic training, minimal pairs drilling in context, visual aids, reading aloud, recording the students‟ production with more focus on suprasegmental aspects of pronunciation It can be seen that the communicative approach seems to be a more balance approach, with the focus on

both fluency and accuracy The approach perhaps has characteristics of both intuitive-imitative approach and analytical-linguistic approach

1.1.2 Teaching Pronunciation: Segmentals or Suprasegmentals?

The categorization of pronunciation into segments (discrete sounds), and suprasegments (features that organize streams of speech into meaningful units such as stress, rhythm, intonation, linking, assimilation and deletion) is accepted by many researchers (Kelly,

2003; Kenworthy, 1987; Celce-Murcia et al., 1996; Morley, 1999)

The tradition debate relating to which features of pronunciation - segments or suprasegments - should be focused on in teaching pronunciation has still been hold A brief review of the debates between segments and suprasegments is presented as following

Teaching segmental features started with a concentration on phonetic alphabets during the Reform Movement (Celce-Murcia et al., 1996) Phonetic training was used in order to help learners establish good speech habits Minimal pair drills were used extensively to distinguish phonemes in listening practice and oral production (Celce-Murcia et al., 1996) However, after Anderson-Hsieh introduced the researches on “Teaching suprasegmentals to international teaching assistants using field-specific materials” (1990) and “Pronunciation factors affecting intelligibility in speakers of English as a foreign language” (1995), the focus

of pronunciation teaching shifted dramatically from segmentals to an emphasis on suprasegmentals Following Anderson-Hsieh, abundant researches have investigated the extent

to which suprasegmentals contribute to speakers‟ intelligibility and its pedagogy Underhill (1994) stressed the necessity of designing syllabuses mainly focusing on major features of communication - superasegmental features of speech for teaching English McNerney and Mendelsohn (1992, p 186) suggested “a short-term pronunciation course should focus first and foremost on suprasegmentals, as they have the greatest impact on the comprehensibility of learners‟ English” So far a lot of books for teachers have largely encouraged the teaching of suprasegments at the production level to improve learners‟ intelligibility

In spite of the trend focusing on teaching superasegmentals, hesitation has still arisen from the trend Because of the close relation between suprasegmental features and the nature

of native accents, which are unlikely for learners to achieve, one question raises is that if

learners could acquire suprasegmental features at a productive level in a formal educational setting Taylor (1993) suggested that some suprasegmental features appear to be unteachable and require learners‟ extensive exposure to the target language for acquisition Moreover, Pennington‟s research (Pennington, 1994, p 95) asserted that learners approached new values for phonological features gradually and piecemeal, rather than as the outcome of a rapid shift Brazil (1994, p 3) commented that segmentals and suprasegmentals are interdependent because “the work students do in one area supports and reinforces the work they do in the other” Jenkins (2004) regardless of a few studies (Gass & Varonis, 1985; Derwing & Munro,

2001, 2002), argued that most studies conducted to investigate the problem with communication scenario between native speakers and non-native speakers, where native speakers serve as the judges to examine non-native speakers‟ intelligibility However, according to Jenkins (2004), interactions among non-native speakers and non-native speakers, which are very common in the world communication today, have revealed unintelligibility as a problem at the segmental level of a major portion rather than at the suprasegmental level Rost (1990, p 50) also pointed out, “most mishearings can be identified as occurring at a segmental level” Jenkins (2004) further suspected some researchers‟ attitude of wholesale transferring native speakers corpus data to the English teaching realm of the “corpus syndrome.” Therefore, Jenkins strongly suggested the need of a more systematic training of individual segmental features and a return to the forgotten minimal pair drills

In conclusion, the findings favor for suprasegments can only be suggestive rather than conclusive to advocate suprasegments over the segments Intelligible pronunciation cannot have one without the other Therefore, we would strongly attach the importance of both segments and suprasegments in order to teach pronunciation more effectively Final decisions

of which priority we should choose in our pedagogical implementation - suprasegments or segments or the balance between two components - seem to fall back on each teacher in their own context Along with that, perhaps teachers are also the people who have to find out the appropriate methods that transfer their belief of pronunciation teaching into relevant and absorbable lessons to bring the best benefits to their students and enable their students to communicate with intelligible pronunciation

1.1.3 Factors affect pronunciation learning and teaching English

For Joanne Kenworthy (1987), there are quite many factors affecting students‟ pronunciation, which are the native language, the age of student, the amount of exposure, the phonetic ability of student, attitude and identity of student, motivation and concern for good pronunciation of students He also stressed that a concern for good pronunciation on the part

of the teacher can instil a similar concern among the students, from which the teacher‟s role can be seen quite important Of the above factors, motivation and concern toward students‟ pronunciation play a very important role in order to get a good pronunciation Other researchers as Suter (1976), Celce Murcia, Brinton, & Goodwin (1996) considered that motivation and concern for good pronunciation affect pronunciation accuracy

According to Bowen (1972), the success of pronunciation instruction depended greatly

on motivating the learner by integrating pronunciation with the elements of instruction, which might be accomplished by contextualizing the pronunciation lesson He considered motivation

as a powerful factor influencing the improvement of learners‟ pronunciation The researcher also believed that successful pronunciation teaching is directly related to having motivated learners and meaningfully contextualized pronunciation instruction

1.2 Researches into motivation in teaching and learning

1.2.1 Role of motivation to students’ learning

There are the close relationship between learning and motivation Many researches have proved that motivation affects learning In the TESOL field, Brown (1987, p 114) stated that motivation is a key to learning another language Oxford & Shearin (1994, p.12) persuaded that “motivation is considered by many to be one of the main determining factors in success in developing a second or foreign language”

In a similar way, Dornyei (2001, p 1) corroborated the previous assertion and added that “skills to motivate learners are crucial for language teachers.”

1.2.2 Factors affect students’ motivation

Many researchers have pointed out that the construct of motivation is not a single entity but a multi-factorial one Among the researchers in this issue stands out Dornyei‟s extended

motivational framework (2005) Dornyei (2005, p 111) analyzed the second language learning motivation within a framework of three levels, which are:

 Language level

 Learner level

 Learning situation level

Language level involves factors related to the second language, such as the culture, the community as well as the practical values and benefits connected with the second language learning Learner level relates to learner personal characteristics in the process of second language learning, which are self-efficacy, self-confidence, need for achievement, causal attributions, the perceived second language competences and goal orientations and so forth Learning situation level consists of three aspects, which are course-specific motivational components such as syllabus, teacher materials, teaching tasks, teacher-specific motivational components such as teacher‟s personality, behaviors and teaching styles, group-specific motivational components such as the group dynamics of the learner group

1.2.3 Framework to increase and sustain students’ motivation

In order to increase and sustain students‟ motivation, some steps are required

The first step is to create the basic motivational conditions According to Dornyei (2001,

p 120) teacher behavior is a powerful “motivating tool” in creating the basic motivational conditions Moreover, a pleasant and supportive classroom atmosphere and a cohesive learner group with appropriate group norms are also elements to create the basic motivational conditions

The second step is to generate initial motivation This can be done by increasing the

learner‟s goal-orientedness, making the curriculum relevant for the learners, creating realistic

learner belief

The next step is to maintain motivation According to Dornyei (2001), there are five

areas to maintain motivation:

 Setting “proximal subgoals”

 Improving the quality of learning experience

 Increasing learner‟s self-confidence

 Creating learner autonomy

 Promoting self-motivating learner strategies

The last step is to encourage students’ positive self-evaluation by providing students

motivational feedback from teacher, increasing learner satisfaction with rewards and grades

1.3 Researches into the ways to motivate students in pronunciation lessons

According to Kenworthy (1987), there are some ways that can help to motivate students

to learn pronunciation

Firstly, students themselves must be persuaded how important pronunciation is good for communication According to Kelly (2003), pronunciation is the vital factor for the success or failure of oral communication The significance of pronunciation can be seen through the fact that interlocutors are to face serious problems in communication without good pronunciation

of the language In case the speaker mispronounce a word, or wrongly use the rhythm, intonation of his intended utterances, the listener may have difficulties in recognizing and

understanding the conveyed message, or in other words, encounter the problems of reception

In Kelly‟s viewpoint, a speaker can hardly be understandable to people if he consistently mispronounce a range of words or put stress wrongly The situation gets worse if misunderstanding makes each other confused, embarrassed or annoyed Therefore, good pronunciation helps to consolidate speakers‟ confidence and leads to mutual comprehension in

communication Sharing the same idea, website www.antimoon.com posted an article “first

impressions” saying that pronunciation is the first and the biggest thing that people notice

when someone is speaking

“When you first meet a person, do you think that they will notice your poor vocabulary

or bad grammar? Probably not! They pay attention to your pronunciation You can live without advanced vocabulary as you can use simple words to say what you want to say You can also live without advanced grammar as you can use simple grammar structures instead But there is no such ting as “simple pronunciation” Your pronunciation creates the first impression Therefore, it is one of the first things that you should learn.”

Thus, in order to motivate students to learn pronunciation, the teacher should help to make students understand the importance of pronunciation

Secondly, it is necessary for teacher to help students to set up a specific, short-term, achievable goal for students‟ learning This means that it must be clearly stated to students that

“native-like” accent is not the pronunciation goal Learners can be satisfied with the ability of pronouncing a language “intelligibly” with communicative efficiency This will motivate students to learn because if the goals are very general or unrealistic, students often tend to disappoint and get soon bored with learning process Moreover, McMillan and Forsyth (1991) suggested that making students‟ learning goals in line with their existing needs may be a good strategy to motivate students, because in this way, students can see the value and relevance of the course to their development

Thirdly, in order to motivate students to learn pronunciation, teacher should show the great concern for the students‟ pronunciation and their progress It is thought that if the teacher continuously and consistently emphasizes on the need for good pronunciation from learners, gradually the learners tend to develop a similar concern for their own pronunciation And this will help to improve the students‟ pronunciation One of the most important tasks of the teacher to show the great concern for the students‟ pronunciation is by devising useful and motivating activities for students to learn and practise pronunciation This is not an easy but rewarding task Therefore, teacher must be able to identify what exercises will benefit students most, what types of activities will engage students most in the class

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 2.1 Context of the study

Being a small city in the south of Hanoi capital, the demand for learning English in Hanam seem to be not as high as in other big cities because the limited number of joint-venture and foreign-funded companies here However the role of English in Hanam is paid more and more attention now when English is considered as one factor to attract more investment into Hanam Therefore, from 2006 Hanam Teachers‟ Training College opened the classes for students majoring in English Up to now, there have been four classes major in English With the main purpose of training students with high communicative ability and competence in English, teaching and learning pronunciation play an important role in the

college‟s training process However, the students at Hanam Teachers‟ Training College are

quite different from students in big cities such as Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City Frankly, they have more difficulties in learning English than students in big cities in terms of ability and condition For most students, studying in Hanam is in the last choice when they fail in the entrance examinations to university elsewhere Some students choose to study in Hanam because of their finance and health condition Moreover, almost all students here come from rural areas of Hanam such as Kim Bảng, Lý Nhân, Thanh Liêm, Bình Lục, where they get used to passive ways of learning, which is embedded deeply in their mind from primary school

to high school Last but not least, English learning environment in Hanam is not favorable Even when some of the students have great interest and want to improve their English, it is difficult for them to find good places to learn English The number of English centers in Hanam is still limited with low quality of teachers and learning facilities Moreover most students still have very limited access to Internet to find resources for studying For many students, even students majoring in English at Hanam Teachers‟ Training College, they have never had a chance to meet foreigners Resources of reference books in the college are also limited These internal and external constraints in learners and environment make the quality and motivation to learn English here quite low

The study was conducted in 9 weeks from the 26th of September, 2009 to the 27th of November, 2009, with 5 periods per learning session, 1 learning session per week

2.2 Participants of the study

The participants of this study were selected on the basis of convenience I would be in charge of teaching the subject “Practical Pronunciation” for the first-year students of English class K13A at Hanam Teachers‟ Training College, which consisting of 34 students, with 32 female and 2 male students ranging from 18 to 22 years of age All of them had learned English for at least 3 years They had to take the English test with the same format from the Ministry of Education in the entrance exam to the college However, their marks for English in the entrance exam were not high, in which the highest for English is 7.5 and the lowest is 3 Most of them come from rural areas in the province In general, their grammar and reading are comprehensible but their pronunciation is not good

2.3 Instruments

In order to obtain in-depth, rich information, the study used a variety of research instruments and sources of data, including diagnostic test, questionnaire, the students‟ journals, classroom observation and teacher‟s anecdotal notes, posttest and final oral examination

2.3.1 Diagnostic test

At the beginning of the course, participants were required to take part in a diagnostic test,

in which they would read aloud some sentences containing minimal pairs, a passage, which I took from the website effortlessenglishclub.com and a conversation, which I adapted from the book “Test Your Pronunciation” by Michael Vaughan (2002) The sentences, the passage and the conversations were selected from the recourses that had audio recordings, so that I could assess the students‟ performance by comparing the students‟ pronunciation with the pronunciation of the native speakers The diagnostic test was recorded for analysis of the students‟ problems in pronunciation in order that I would pay more attention to their problems The results of the diagnostic test were also used in comparison with the results of the posttest and final oral examination to reveal improvements that students made during the course of pronunciation with motivating activities (Appendix 3)

2.3.2 Post test

The day before the end of the course, I asked the students to carry out the posttest, in which they would do the diagnostic test again, with the aim to find out how they had improved after the course The posttest had the same design and content as the diagnostic test

2.3.3 Final oral examination

The researcher would use final oral examination test on pronunciation as a combination to evaluate the effectiveness of motivating tools on the students‟ pronunciation The examination took place two weeks after the course The examination had the same form

as the diagnostic test but the contents were different (Appendix 4)

2.3.5 The students’ journals

The students were required to write journals every week to reflect on what they had learned in the class and presented their understanding of the aspects of English pronunciation The journals were collected by the researcher at the end of the course and the reflection part in the journals was used to investigate the students‟ attitudes and issues in the course (Appendix 7)

2.3.6 Teacher’s observations and anecdotal notes

The researcher carried out classroom observation in order to take notes of changes in the students‟ attitude, motivation, interest and improvement in the course The researcher also reflected on the teaching and learning process after each lesson (Appendix 8)

CHAPTER 3: DATA PRESENTATION

In the pronunciation course, I applied some activities so that the pronunciation lessons would be more interesting and effective

3.1 Pronunciation orientation and diagnostic test

I spent the first day carrying out pronunciation orientation and diagnostic test I tried to create a friendly and comfortable atmosphere in the class After the introduction, we discussed the students‟ experience in learning pronunciation so far It was revealed that they learnt almost nothing about pronunciation before except some written tests of word stress and odd – one – out sounds, which were boring and hard for them Then we discussed about the importance of pronunciation in communication and in their future career After that the students did the diagnostic test in groups of 5 Our class had the first lesson on Saturday because on that day there were many vacant classrooms, so that we could conduct to record in

7 rooms for 7 groups of 5 in a quiet environment Each group would gather in one room that I prepared beforehand I distributed each group with one handout of the diagnostic test, which they would record individually I instructed them to use the recorder that I prepared While one member of the group did the diagnostic test, other members of the group would listen and play the role of Feedback Director and write their comments on the problems relating to vowels, consonants, word stress, sentence stress, rhythm and intonation that their friend made After all of the five members of the group finished recording the diagnostic test and their critical friends finished their comments, the group would exchange the comments among the members, in which each member would receive the comments from 4 other members Then the group would discuss for a while before coming back to their classroom at assigned time to listen to the model on the tape to compare their reading to their speaking of native speakers and then fill in the self-assessment of pronunciation I reassured them that they would not be marked based on this assessment form I would photocopy their assessment forms I would keep one set and give back to the students one set so that they can work to overcome their problems of pronunciation that they self-reflected and track their improvement While the students were recorded reading the diagnostic test, I went to all the rooms to monitor and give

a help when necessary After all groups came back to the classroom, I collected the recordings

for further investigation of the difficulties that the students faced The next lesson, I pointed out the common errors and mistakes in the students‟ pronunciation and then provided them the plan of the study in the course

3.2 The students’ journals

Guidance and basic knowledge of pronunciation, including English vowels, consonants, stress, rhythm and simple intonation are really needed for the students to make them autonomous learners of English pronunciation during the course and even after the course To

be able to self-monitor, learners must be aware of the phonological features and patterns underlying the second language (Morley, 1994) In order to equip the students with the knowledge of pronunciation, along with the teacher‟s lectures and discussion in the class, I required the students to write journals every week, in which the students reflected on what they had learnt in the class that week and their understanding of aspects of pronunciation (Appendix 7)

3.3 Dictation usage

It is common to see that most students use dictionaries just to look for the meaning of a word My students rarely use dictionaries to check its pronunciation and stress Even when some of them try to look for pronunciation of words in dictionaries, they do not succeed in pronounce words correctly because of their wrong articulation of the consonants and vowels Therefore, the encouragement and instruction on the use of dictionaries were combined in my teaching of basic articulation of vowel and consonant sounds The habit of using dictionaries effectively can help the students have better pronunciation of individual words and have better control and more responsibility in learning pronunciation

3.4 Games

Applying games in teaching and learning English is useful because it helps to create exciting atmosphere in the class and increase students‟ motivation Along with delivering the students with pronunciation games from the book “Pronunciation Games” by Mark Hancock (1995), and “The Pronunciation Book” by Tim Bowen and Jonathan Marks (1992) and organised some simple games such as Bingo or tongue twister, the following are some

stimulating games that I applied in the course which drew much of attention and interest from

Make up stories

After the students understood the articulation of individual sounds, and got some more practise on the sounds I asked them to work in groups of five to make up a story or a dialogue which contained at least 7 words with the sound they had practised The aim in this activity

was that I wanted the students to review the sound in context and be creative

Quickest minimal pairs

Minimal pair practice is often boring for students However, in order to create more motivating atmosphere in practising minimal pairs, I organised a game to review the sounds that the students had just learnt I divided the students into two teams and explained the rule I would write one word on the backboard The task of the players in two teams was to call out minimal pair of the word on the backboard In order to score points for their team, students had to stand up, call out minimal pairs and sit down quickly The student who stood up and spoke out one minimal pair of that word and sat down quickest scored points for their team

Teaching word stress:

Syllable identification:

In my teaching, I realized that the students had difficulties in counting out the syllables Therefore before teaching word stress, I had some review for syllables Firstly I introduced the definition of syllable in a simple way Then we worked as a whole class to count out the number of syllables in some words Next I asked the students to work in pairs taking turns pronouncing polysyllabic words while the partner counted the syllables on their finger Finally

I organized a game on syllables, which I based on the idea of Fischler (2004) I divided the class into 4 teams and handed out each team a worksheet containing spaces for filling in with

words having the required syllables The goal of each team is to write as many words as

possible within the given category in three minutes (Appendix 10)

When students had a firm grasp of syllables, it was the time that I introduced word stress

Word stress pattern

After a brief review of the stress patterns that the students had learnt in high schools, I arranged a group competition in the class to provide more examples of the stress patterns I divided the class into 6 groups and asked the groups to write down examples for word stress patterns within 5 minutes In this activity I asked the students not to use dictionaries I realized that the students cooperated and thoroughly debated Some of them tried to read aloud words with stress on different syllables for their friends to consider before writing down the examples

“Oh” language

After the game, the class practised the “Oh” language with the correct word stress

pattern that they had just written down In this activity the students would replace unstressed syllables with “oh” in soft voice and stressed syllables with “OH” in a stronger and louder manner This way of practice word stress brought a lot of laugh and happy faces to my students And It is found that the student were fluent in “Oh” language very quickly

Run &Tick

When all students were aware of the word stress patterns, I organized one fun game call

“run &tick” which attracted the students a lot First I drew the stress pattern on the blackboard Then I divided the class into two teams I explained to them that they were going to hear some words Their task was to run to the blackboard as quickly as possible and use chalk to tick at the appropriate stress pattern of the word I found that this activity created much of fun in the class and students were very excited to participate

Stand up – Sit down

One game that I organised to review word stress before teaching sentence stress is called

“stand up –sit down” In this game, I divided the class in half, with students belonging to two tables in a row competed with each other I wrote multisyllable words on the blackboard Each

student in one table represented one syllable The student represented the syllable which carried stress must stand up The students carrying the unstressed syllables still sat down At the end of the game, the half got most correct answers in word stress is the winner

Teaching sentence stress, intonation:

Three readings

As the findings in the diagnostic test (appendix 6), the students in the study as well as other Vietnamese students are influenced by syllable-timed language of Vietnamese Therefore in

my teaching, the first thing I do was to raise the students‟ awareness of the differences

between two languages The first activity I introduced is called “three readings”, which was

based on the idea of Underhill (1994) In this activity, I read aloud the same sentence three times in three different ways Because at this stage, the sentence stress should be clear Therefore I chose a Shakespearian verse to demonstrate three readings

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”

The first time I read the sentence without any stress or changes in intonation so that each syllable is given the same length, volume and pitch Then I elicited the students‟ comments on that way of speaking and asked them if in English people put stress on every word they speak like that

The second time I read the same sentence again, deliberately stressing wrong to get the

students‟ feedback:

A rose BY aNY oTHER name WOULD smell AS sweet

In the third time, the sentence was read aloud with the stress was put where it seemed

natural

a ROSE by ANy OTHer NAME would SMELL as SWEET Then we discussed as the whole class the role of stress and rhythm in English and how to make it sound more natural in English

I also used visual contrasts of the utterance: “Pronunciation is important” which I based

on the illustration of Prator and Robinett, 1985 to help the students remember better the differences between two languages

Syllable-Timed Rhythm Stress – Timed Rhythm

After that, we discussed and practised the cases that carry stress in the sentence

Talking hands

One game that aroused the students‟ interest is the game talking hands, which is based on the

idea of Laroy (1995) In this game, the students have to listen to rhythm patterns of some simple utterances in order to try to identify the meaning of the message To make it more

interesting, I told the student that in some tribes in the world, people use drums to transmit a

limited number of messages over long distances It is somehow the same as in English; rhythm can be recognized and understood in some way Then I introduced the game of talking hands,

in which the students would use the clapping of the hands to transmit meanings First I made a list of some simple utterances such as: Hello, Nice to meet you, I am glad to see you, How are you?, Good morning to you, Good evening, Sit down, Wonderful, Oh dear! Next I asked the students to put correct stress in the utterances by drawing symbols of stressed and unstressed syllables under the utterances with o indicating unstressed syllables and 0 indicating stressed ones For example o0 represented “hello”, 0o0o represented “nice to meet you” Then I clapped some rhythms and asked the students to call out the utterance After they practised clapping these utterances in pairs, I divided the class into two tribes and chose voluntarily a chief for each tribe and a number of „drummers‟ The rest of the class are villagers who will overhear the message The chiefs stood at two ends of the classroom The drummers stood along two ways leading to the chiefs One chief ordered his „drummer‟ to transmit a message

to another drummer who then transmits it to another one, until the message reaches the chief at the other end of the classroom The second chief says, „The chief from the other village is saying “Good morning to you”, for example If this is right, the drummers and villagers clap

„Wonderful!‟ or another expression of praise If the interpretation is wrong, they clap „Oh dear!‟ and make a sad face The second chief answers the message in the same way It is found

that this game is stimulating to my students and helps them recognize some basic rhythm patterns

Lip reading

Another activity that I applied in the course is called “lip reading” This activity helped

to develop the students‟ awareness of articulation and lip movements and facial expression, as well as body language, which work as clues to find out the meaning of utterances I used scenes from the cartoon “Tarzan” with the first conversation between Jane and Tarzan and scenes from the movie “My Fair Lady” (1964) because it is suitable to my students‟ level First I played the scenes with the sound off and asked the students to work in groups of 5 tried

to find out what the speaker is saying by watching the lip movements and body language of the speaker After several times, I elicited the answers from the students and replayed the scenes with sound so that the students could check their understanding Then the best group in understanding the scenes was asked to perform the scenes again in front of the class

Competitive role play games

In order to help student practise more materials in the coursebook with more interest and motivation, I applied some more competitive role play games After each lesson, I asked students to work in groups to practise dialogues in the coursebook “Ship or sheep” again at home The numbers of students per group depend on the number of characters in the dialogue Students could choose their partners or group without assignment from the teacher At the next lesson, the teacher would choose at random two groups to role play the dialogue again The group, which was evaluated the best by teacher and their classmates would receive one point

in their participation and mid-term marks Moreover, each member of the group would have chance to pick up a lucky number At the end of the course, the teacher would announce the lucky numbers The students who had the lucky numbers would receive small gifts from the teacher It was observed that the students tried their best to pronounce sounds, stress and intonation as accurately as they could when they participated in the competitive role play games

3.5 Songs

Applying songs to motivate students to learn speaking and listening skills have been used in many English classes In addition, songs can also be used effectively in pronunciation lessons to increase students‟ motivation and improve students‟ pronunciation of connected speech, stress, rhythm as well as English sounds As Balbina Ebong & Marta J Sabbadini, (2006) argued that teachers should let students practise pronunciation through songs

According to Balbina Balbina Ebong & Marta J Sabbadini, “songs are authentic and easily

accessible examples of spoken English…The rhymes in songs provide listeners with repetition

of similar sounds…They can be motivating for students keen to repeatedly listen to and imitate their musical heroes.”

Therefore in the pronunciation course, I used songs to motivate students to practise particular sounds, minimal pairs, stress, rhythm and intonation As for the selection of the kind

of music for practise pronunciation, I chose pop songs, jazz chants, folk songs and singing songs that native English speakers sing The choices of songs were based on the popularity of the song to the students‟ tastes and the applicability of designing effective tasks

group-I used the selected songs to help the students practise the sounds, minimal pairs, rhythm and stress, intonation

In order to help the students practise particular sounds, I chose songs with simple words such as “Girl you are my love” (Pink boy), “Papa” (Paul Anka) After teaching the particular sound, at the end of the lesson I asked students to listen to some of the rhymes of the songs and fill in the gaps with words containing the particular sound that needs practising Then all the class sang the song again

In order to practise minimal pairs, I delivered the handout in which the lyric of the song had some changed words The changed words and the origin words contain minimal pairs that the students need to practise Then I asked the students to listen to the song, correct the wrong words and sing the song again

In order to practise rhythm, stress, intonation and connected speech, I chose Jazz chants from the website http://www.teflvideos.com and some folk songs from the website

http://www.manythings.org/songs The activities to practise suprasegmentals through songs were combined with the students clapping hands at stressed syllables

(Appendix 9)

I found that the students loved pop songs, jazz chants and folk songs very much because they are very easy to follow and sing along with attractive rhythm The last day before the end of the course, I organized a karaoke English contest, in which the winner would receive a special gift from me It was exciting and we had a very friendly and relaxed atmosphere

3.6 Software

Currently, there are quite a lot of softwares on pronunciation in the market, which can help learners facilitate their learning After searching on pronunciation softwares, I decided to take use of two popular softwares, which are “Pronunciation Power” and “Real – Time Pitch Program” in the teaching One big advantage of the software “Pronunciation Power” is that the students can observe the movement of lips, tongue, and air flow clearly, which helps students imitate the sounds more correctly and with much more ease

The second software I use is the software “Real – Time Pitch Program” For this software, students would use it at the final stage of practising sentence stress and intonation after activities in the coursebook By using this software, students can practise the stress, intonation effectively Along with using the softwares in the class, I encouraged the students

to self-study pronunciation with these softwares at home

CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

This action research was conducted to determine whether or not activities on pronunciation help to increase the students‟ intelligibility and motivation in learning pronunciation at Hanam Teachers‟ Training College The action research was paced on a nine-week schedule This chapter presents the results of all data gathered throughout the research The information reported in this chapter was derived from both quantitative and qualitative methods The quantitative results reported in this chapter were derived from participant scores

of pretest, posttests, the final oral examination and the questionnaire The qualitat ive results reported in this chapter were derived from the analysis of the researcher‟s observation and the students‟ journals

4.1 Results

4.1.1 Diagnostic test, posttest and final oral examination

After I had the data of the diagnostic test, posttest and final oral examination, the data were rounded up, turned from 100-point scale into 10-point scale and graphed to find out the changes in the students‟ pronunciation The data of students‟ scores in the diagnostic test, post-test and final oral examination were shown in the following figure 4.1

Overall scores of the students

Percentage

of the

students

It was found out that the overall scores of the students changed a lot in the diagnostic test, posttest and final examination In the diagnostic test, the mode was 4, while in posttest the mode was 7 and in the final examination, it was 6 The average scores in the diagnostic test, in the posttest, in the final oral examination were 3.7, 5.8 and 5.3 respectively The standard deviation was 0.9 in the diagnostic test, 1.3 in the posttest and 1,1 in the final oral examination The results indicated that the students‟ pronunciation improved to some extent, most remarkable in the posttest but the students still need much more practice to master English pronunciation

In the researcher‟s anecdotal notes in tests and examination, it revealed that after the course the students showed much improvement in pronouncing consonant sounds although some needed further practice With the habit of using dictionary and motivating activities, the problem of word stress seemed to be solved quite successfully when the number of the students put correct stress on words increased considerably However, sentence stress and intonation were still the problems for many students and they needed much more practice on these aspects

4.1.2 Questionnaire

4.1.2.1 Areas of investigation

The following areas of investigation are covered by the questionnaire:

Points of investigations Questions

1 The students’ evaluation of the importance of

4 The students’ evaluation of the sufficiency of

5 The students’ preference of activities in the

4.1.2.2 Analysis and findings

The last day of class included a final questionnaire that students filled in, which was then compared to the questionnaire that the students filled in before the course (Appendix 1)

In general, the students‟ responses after the course were more positive than those before the course (Appendix 2)

In terms of the importance of pronunciation, majority of the students strongly agree

or agree that pronunciation is very helpful and should be taught, with the percentage of 91.18% before the course and of 97.06% after the course More specific, 76.47% of the students strongly agree or agree that pronunciation is important for their future job before the course compared to 91.18% after the course The number of the students who did not appreciate the role of pronunciation in their future job is small both before the course 8.82% and after the course 2.94% The other minority of the students gave no idea on the issue with 14.71% before the course and 0% after the course As for confidence in speaking English that their pronunciation bring about, before the course, only 11.66% of the students strongly agreed

or agreed that their pronunciation made them confident in speaking English, 26.47% expressed

no opinion, and 61.77% strongly disagreed or disagreed that their pronunciation made them confident in speaking English After the course, 47.06% strongly agreed or agreed that their pronunciation made them confident in speaking English, 23.53% still showed reserved attitude when not providing the answers, only 29.41% of the students strongly disagreed or disagreed that their pronunciation made them confident in speaking English,

The findings showed that the students were positive in learning pronunciation They also had quite high awareness of the importance of pronunciation in their future job After the course, a significantly increased number of the students responded that their pronunciation made them confident in speaking English

Interest and motivation in learning pronunciation were measured with 5 questions

3, 5, 7, 8, and 10 It is found out that the students‟ interest and motivation toward learning pronunciation had many changes when comparing responses before and after the course Responding to the question 3, before the course, only 23.53% of the students strongly agreed

or agreed that learning pronunciation is enjoyable, but after the course the number went up to