Teaching speaking at high schools by incorporating basic phonetic knowledge

SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO THANH HOÁ TRƯỜNG THCS&THPT THỐNG NHẤT SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM “TEACHING SPEAKING AT HIGH SCHOOLS BY INCORPORATING BASIC PHONETIC KNOWLEDGE” Người thực hiện: Mai Thị Tuyết Chức vụ: Giáo viên SKKN thuộc môn: Tiếng Anh THANH HOÁ NĂM 2017 Table of Contents Table of Contents I INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background and rationale .3 1.2 Aim of the study 1.3 Significance of the study 2.1 Literature review 2.1.1 Speech rhythm 2.1.2 Assimilation 2.1.3 Elision 2.1.4 Linking 2.1.5 The correlation between spoken competence and aspects of connected speech 11 2.2 The reality of the study 11 2.2.1 Results from the diagnostic test (Pre-test) 11 2.3 Methodology .14 2.3.1 Study setting 14 2.3.2 Participants 14 2.3.3 Empirical application of ACS 14 2.3.4 Strategies for teaching ACS 17 2.4 Results from the achievement test (Post-test) .19 III CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS .20 3.1 Conclusion 20 3.2 Recommendations for applying ACS 20 3.2.1 The practitioners of ACS and the teachers of English .20 3.2.2 Educational administrators 21 I INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background and rationale Teachers and learners of English are well aware of the fact that a good command of the language includes many components, among which aspects of connected speech must be taken into serious consideration if one wants to participate in an international environment However, at the high school level, aspects of connected speech have not received attention commensurate with their roles It is suggested that supra-segmental features are far more important and central to communication than accurate production of the individual sounds Accordingly, the researcher assumes that an adequate knowledge of aspects of connected speech will help improve the students’ communication skill To examine whether aspects of connected speech could really better students’ ability in oral communication, an empirical study was conducted at my high school Forty five 12th graders were invited to take part in the study to find out whether they could improve their oral skills with the help of aspects of connected speech The data, both qualitative and quantitative, were collected through the pre- and post-test, as well as the questionnaires The results from the statistical analysis of the pre- and post-test showed that there was a significant improvement in the students’ oral communication through the use of aspects of connected speech, which made their speech more natural In the light of these findings, some recommendations were made for a better instruction of aspects of connected speech, so that they would be used for students of other schools with the same conditions and setting Besides academic purposes, English has also voiced its part in the daily life of Vietnamese people Investors become more and more interested in the young market of Vietnam, and the number of tourists to Vietnamese cities is increasing every year These really call for the use of English as a means of major business transaction and even small trades; therefore, waiters and waitresses in big cities of Vietnam, such as Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, or Da Nang, now need English to get a good job as well The importance of English, as substantiated above, cannot be denied in the context of present Vietnam, and every language learner wishes to communicate successfully; however, Vietnamese learners still have a lot of difficulties in oral communication due to the different nature of the Vietnamese sound system and tunes In fact, these difficulties stem both from the segmental and supra-segmental features of the English language Even though it is suggested that supra-segmental features are far more important and central to communication than accurate production of the individual sounds, a dominantly large part of the curriculum for high school students in general and the gifted specifically only focuses on the segmental aspects Accordingly, the students may acquire a good command of how discrete English sounds are produced, but in connected speech they seem to be out of place with the exception of some cases that undergo certain unofficial instructions Hence, the teaching of the supra-segmental features to high school students, which is narrowed down to aspects of connected speech in this study, is crucial if the desired result is the student’s improvement of oral communication skill Aspects of connected speech (hereafter reduced to ACS) belong to the supra-segmental sphere of phonetics and phonology which includes various issues, namely rhythm, assimilation, elision, and linking All of them exert a certain impact on the learner’s oral communication because their object is language in action and the interrelation between words in a sentence and even between sentences Notwithstanding such significance, these items have so far not been given commensurate recognition both from teachers and students at a high school level Here arises a question about whether it is possible to make the foreign language learning situation at high schools better through the introduction of basic knowledge about distinctive aspects of connected speech and whether the target students can incorporate this knowledge with their rudimentary command of segmental phonetics to achieve success in real-life communication The course of finding the answer to this question thus gives reason for the being of this study and therefore, I am writing this to provide students and teachers of English with teaching speaking at high schools by incorporating basic phonetic knowledge 1.2 Aim of the study Aspects of connected speech are too large a subject to study in full detail together with its pedagogical application within the limit of a research Therefore, the researcher would hereby certify that only basic features of the aspects of connected speech that help to improve learners’ oral communication will be examined With the scope defined above, the thesis aims at finding out the problems related to ACS faced by the students when they take part in authentic communication situations The researcher would, through this study, also like to investigate if the educational values of ACS can help the students better their oral communication, and assert the fact that aspects of connected speech should be introduced at a high school level to improve the students’ oral skill 1.3 Significance of the study The notion of bringing parts of the supra-segmental features, i.e ACS, into the teaching of English at high schools in Vietnam in general and at my school in particular has never been officially reported, so this research may complement the current practice of teaching and learning English at such educational institutions The study is intended for the advance of the 12-graded students in oral communication It can, therefore, be hailed as a contribution to changing the viewpoints on teaching the oral skill, which hopefully bears fruit in reaching the standard of natural English 1.4 Methodologies - Theorical framework - Emperical analysis - Data collection - Analytical framework - Data analysis II CONTENT 2.1 Literature review This chapter reviews the theory related to various aspects of connected speech including rhythm, assimilation, elision, and linking All of those will lay the groundwork for the research design and method of investigation in the next chapter 2.1.1 Speech rhythm There are generally two types of speech rhythm, namely “stress-timed rhythm like in English, Russian, and Arabic, and syllable-timed rhythm such as in French and Italian” (Roach, 2000, p 135) 2.1.1.1 Stress-timed rhythm As asserted by Roach (2000) English is the type of language featured by the stress-timed rhythm, which indicates that the occurrence of the stressed syllables will be at relatively regular intervals with or without their separation by unstressed syllables Take one English sentence for example, with the numbers from to placed above each stressed syllable It can easily be noticed that syllables and are not separated by any unstressed syllables, and are separated by one, and by two, and and by three unstressed syllables However, the times from each stressed syllable to the next tend to be the same, regardless of the number of intervening unstressed syllables e.g Walk down the path to the end of the canal 2.1.1.2 Syllable-timed rhythm The second type of speech rhythm is syllable-timed rhythm The main distinguishing feature of the latter type is its regular time-intervals, regardless of whether the syllables are stressed or unstressed As in the following example, the English version is divided into five feet based on the stressed and unstressed syllables, whereas the Vietnamese version has six feet which indicates its regular time-intervals Examples: Several experts are to give evidence on the subject (English version) Nhiều chuyên gia đưa chứng cho vấn đề (Vietnamese translation) Vietnamese is a tonal syllable-timed language (as asserted in a study done by Honey (1987)); therefore, Vietnamese people will have a lot of difficulties in learning English, a language of stress-timed rhythm It is advisable that Vietnamese learners of English practice speaking with a regular rhythm and repeating strongly rhythmical utterances By this way the learners will be made self-aware of concentrating on making unstressed syllables weak 2.1.2 Assimilation As classified by Celce-Murcia, M et al (1996) there are three types of assimilation in English, namely progressive (or perseverative), regressive (or anticipatory), and coalescent 2.1.2.1 Progressive assimilation A change in sounds is called progressive assimilation when the conditioning sound precedes and affects the following sound (the assimilated sound changes to become like the conditioning sound that precedes it) The figure below depicts what happens in progressive assimilation Assimilated sound Conditioning sound  The clear manifestation of progressive assimilation can be observed in the changes of sounds in –s ending and –ed ending e.g beans /bi:nz/ beats /bi:ts/ moved /mu:vd/ fished /fiʃt/ 2.1.2.2 Regressive assimilation The second type of assimilation is Regressive In regressive assimilation, the conditioning sound follow the assimilated sound as described in the chart below Assimilated sound  Conditioning sound e.g have /hæv/ + to /tu:/  /hæftə/ has /hæz/ + to /tu:/  / hæstə/ used /ju:zd/ + to /tu:/  /ju:stə/ So far we have studied the most common types of regressive assimilation, in which there are changes in place of articulation or in voicing However, changes in manner of articulation also occur in regressive assimilation but much less commonly and most cases are in informal speech e.g Could you give me a call?  /gimme/ Let me that for you /lemme/ [m:] [m:] I saw her in the bar  /inne/ Get them!  /gettəm/ [n:] [t:] 2.1.2.3 Coalescent assimilation Coalescent assimilation frequently occurs when final alveolar consonants or final alveolar consonant sequences precede initial palatal /y/, resulting in the creation of palatalized fricatives and affricates respectively The process is illustrated in the chart below Coalescent assimilation frequently occurs when final alveolar consonants or final alveolar consonant sequences precede initial palatal /y/, resulting in the creation of palatalized fricatives and affricates respectively The process is illustrated in the chart below Sound Sound  Sound Examples: He is coming this year [∫] as in issue Does your mother know? [ʒ] as in pleasure Is that your dog? [tʃ] as in stature  rule: /s/ + /y/  /∫/  rule: /z/ + /y/  / ʒ/  rule: /t/ + /y/  / tʃ/ 2.1.3 Elision Elision is the dropping of a sound or sounds which once existed or which still exists in precise speech (Jones, 1998, p 133) Similar to assimilation, elision is common in rapid, casual speech, which may cause difficulties to foreign language learners when some phonemes they expect to hear are not actually pronounced Below are some examples of elision provided by Peter Roach (2000) 2.1.3.1 Loss of weak vowel after p, t, k The vowels in the first syllables in such words as ‘potato’, ‘tomato’, ‘canary’, ‘perhaps’, ‘today’, etc may disappear, and the aspiration of the initial plosives occupy the whole of the middle portions of the syllables ph,teitəʊ th,mɑ:təʊ kh,neəri ph,hæps th,dei tattoo  th,tu: catastrophe  kh,tæstrəfi parade  ph,reid 2.1.3.2 Weak vowel becomes syllabic before n, l, or r When weak vowels precede consonants n, l, or r, they will become syllabic consonants, which means n, l, or r stands as the peak of the syllable instead of the vowel e.g tonight  tņait muddle  mʌdļ police  pļi:s correct  kŗ ekt cattle  kætļ threaten  θretņ particular  pŗtikjulŗ 2.1.3.3 Avoidance of complex consonant clusters Roach (2000) asserts in his book ‘English phonetics and phonology” that a normal English speaker would never pronounce all the consonants in a consonant cluster of three plosives plus a fricative, and that in such a case the middle plosive may disappear like in the examples below e.g George the Sixth’s throne  dʒɔ: dʒ ðə siks θrəʊn instead of dʒɔ: dʒ ðə sikθs θrəʊn Act  æks instead of ækts looked back  lu:k bæk instead of lu:kt bæk 2.1.3.4 Loss of final v in ‘of’ before consonants When ‘of’ precedes a consonant the ‘v’ sound is normally not pronounced Nevertheless, when it goes before a vowel the ‘v’ is retained e.g lots of them  waste of money District of Columbia lɒts ə ðəm   weist ə mʌni distrikt ə kəlʌmbiə 2.1.4 Linking 2.1.4.1 Linking consonants to vowels A highly common case of linking is known to be the one in which a word ends with a consonant followed by a word that begins with a vowel (especially function words) Thus, the consonant seems to become part of the following words e.g Labial consonant + Vowel: stop it came in leave early Dental consonant + Vowel: with it breathe it Alveolar consonant + Vowel: washed it played on run around Palatal consonant + Vowel: cash out camouflage it march it Velar consonant + Vowel: back out drag out breathe out sing it 2.1.4.2 Linking identical consonants When the final consonant of the preceding word is the same as the initial consonant of the following word, the two consonants are usually pronounced as one long consonant e.g t + t: hurt Tom p + p: ripe plum k + k: black b + b: grab Bill d + d: played g + g: big girls f + f: if θ + θ: with thanks s + s: ice skating r + r: far reacher l + l: fall leaves Fred ʃ + ʃ: push Shirley darts cat 2.1.4.3 Linking vowels to vowels When one word or syllable ends in a tense vowel or diphthong and the next word or syllable begins with a vowel, the vowels are linked by a process called ‘glide’ (Celce-Murcia, et al, 1996) e.g /y/ glides /i:/ + vowel: be yable, cre /w/ glides /u:/ + vowel: blue wink, Stu wart y ate /ei/ + vowel: say y it, lay y /ai/ + vowel: my y own, na /ɒi/ + vowel: toy y /əu/ + vowel: no wart, no ette y el /au/ + vowel: how wis it, flo wur ive airplane, boy w y ish Another case of linking vowels to vowels is “linking r” or ‘intrusive r’ The two low tense vowels /ɑ:/ and /ɒ/ often have the ‘intrusive r’ come in between if they precede a vowel e.g spa /r/ owner formula /r/ A saw /r/ Ann vanilla /r/ ice cream Australia /r/ all out here /r/ are media /r/ event four /r/ eggs 2.1.4.4 Linking vowels to semi-vowels Like linking identical consonants, when a word ending with a tense vowel, such as /i:/, /ei/, /u:/, or /əʊ/ comes before a word beginning with the same semi-vowel that ends the tense vowel, the tense vowel and semi-vowel are pronounced as one long vowel e.g Be yourself free union see Europe free uniform 10 2.2.1.1 Problems with rhythm Amongst the 45 testees, a substantial number of 31 students that accounted for 68.9% scored bad points (Problems with stress-timed rhythm) in the first three questions regarding rhythm This is followed by a less crowded group of 14 students (31.1%) who exposed the sole problem of not lending proper weight to different words in a sentence These students had a few problems with syllable-timed rhythm; they, however, had difficulty dealing with stress-timed rhythm and seemed to treat every word with equal importance resulting in the monotonous and non-rhythmic speech The data collected are presented in the following table Rhythm Problems Problems with stress-timed rhythm No or little problem Raw count 31 14 Percentage 68.9% 31.1% 2.2.1.2 Problems with assimilation The next three questions of the test were engineered for judging the students’ performance related to assimilation The researcher noticed a stark contrast to the favorable result obtained from analyzing the first three questions, which was presented in the chart below Students’ problems with assimilation 2.2.1.3 Problems with elision The third part of the test looked into the students’ difficulty with elision Among the 45 test-takers, over half of them showed serious problems in elision of weak vowels and /v/ in /əv/, but up to 64.4% underwent a hard time pronouncing consonant clusters They tended to pronounce all the consonants clearly, which makes their speech awkward and adversely affects fluency The table below summarizes the statistics discussed above 12 Type of problems Problems with weak vowels Problems with elision of /v/ in /əv/ Problems with consonant clusters Elision Raw count Percentage 25 55.5% 22 48.9% 29 64.4% Students’ problems with elision The figures suggest a telling sign of great difficulties faced by students when they deal with weak vowels, with elision of /v/ in /əv/ and consonant clusters 2.2.1.4 Problems with linking The final test items served the researcher’s purpose of finding out the students’ trouble associated with linking sounds in English While the students reported in their questionnaires that they were familiar with linking, in practice many a problem were pinpointed Out of the 45 participants, more than a half (53.3%) did not link ending consonants to vowels in their speech The results were even more appalling as far as other linking techniques were concerned No single testee utilized glides in cases of two vowels standing one after another, and the same situation applied to the case of intrusive /r/ The data for these questions are visualized as follows Students’ use of linking techniques To sum up, the results of the pre-test brought to light the fact that the students did not have an adequate knowledge of ACS and they could not effectively apply what they assumingly had known in real life practice of producing natural speech 13 2.3 Methodology 2.3.1 Study setting The study was conducted at high school The school’s main targets to teach students toward the university entrance exams so that they can stand a better chance of getting a place in the universities of their choice With these targets in mind, both teachers and students have to work hard together and the quality of teaching and learning at the school has been very good according to the ranking of the Vietnam’s Ministry of Education and Training 2.3.2 Participants The study was carried out with 45 participants from the class 12A1 aged about 17 These students were introduced to ACS after taking the pre-test with a view to discovering the progress made in their oral communication 2.3.3 Empirical application of ACS 2.3.3.1 The practice of ACS The practice of ACS consists of stages, namely preparation and implementation The preparation stage revolves around the tasks of choosing the materials for introducing ACS to the students and creating the attractive activities to help them acquire ACS at their best The second stage, implementation focuses on reviewing the practicality of teaching ACS at my school 2.3.3.1.1 Preparation stage 2.3.3.1.1.1 Material selection The textbook English 12 3.3.1.1.2 Activities for teaching ACS The activities for teaching ACS were selected and adapted from the those recommended by Celce-Murcia et al (1996, pp 8-9) However, only appropriate activities were used in the class because the researcher reckoned that it was beneficial to focus on some specific drills rather than applying too many kinds of them, which might result in the students’ distraction from the points being taught Some of the in-class activities are described in details in the table below Activiti es Listen and Imitate Aims Group work Preparation Procedure - Help acquaint the students with the - The whole class repeat in chorus, - The tasks adapted from the book and - Let students watch the videos or listen to the recording then 14 rhythmic pattern of English as well as other ACS - Help teacher keep track of students’ performance and detect any problems encountered by them Speed - Enhance dictation students’ recognition of the sounds - Give students an opportunity to be exposed to natural English then students the videos ask them to repeat drill downloaded after the voice they individually from Youtube hear - Teacher explains further with the theories of ACS - Students practice by themselves and then present in front of the class Back- Familiarize chaining the students with ACS such as linking, elision and rhythm - In groups or individually - Work in group Jumbled - Help students - In groups pictures use English naturally through storytelling - Enhance teamwork spirit and the students’ creativity in - Choose the suitable videos or recordings - Ask students to group themselves to compete against other groups in the class - Hand out pieces of paper for them to write down what they hear - Teacher decides the winner by comparing the students’ result with the reading - Prepare the - Ask students to back-chaining repeat in chorus sentences at - Call on some home students to repeat individually - Ask for volunteer to repeat the long backchaining sentences using ACS - Make - Divide the students photocopies into groups of the - Assign groups the pictures same pictures of the - Prepare same stories and ask handouts of them to rearrange the suggested pictures to make a stories logical story - Ask a representative from each group to 15 using language “The Pursuit of words” game - Help students - In groups practice ACS or with fun individually - Improve students’ natural reaction in using ACS Act it out! - To improve students’ oral fluency by using ACS - Give students more drills on ACS - In groups tell their story to the class - Prepare - Put the students into pictures of groups different - Explain the rules of themes with the game to the ideas or students words hidden - Ask the students to in them study the pictures - Prepare gifts carefully in 20 for the seconds and then winners speak out the words, phrases, or sentences the pictures suggest - Prepare - Instruct students to handouts of act out the short conversation using conversations ACS involving two - Choosing a board of or more judges to decide the speakers winner 2.3.3.1.2 The teaching of ACS in practice The knowledge of ACS was introduced to the students for a duration of fourty-five-minute periods The prominent characteristics of the instruction of ACS are summarized as follows At the very start of the academic year, the objectives of and rationale for introducing ACS were clarified to the students so that they could be prepared for attending the experimental teaching that would come later The teacher and researcher then set out to prepare the prerequisites for teaching ACS such as the lesson plans, the suitable activities, and teaching aids before embarking on guiding the students to obtain ACS As for the activities employed for teaching ACS, the researcher adapted the techniques and games as reviewed by Kelly (2000) and Celce-Murcia et al (1996) which were discussed earlier in the previous chapter Those activities include chaining, role-playing, miming, listening and imitating, using visual aids, etc The selection of specific techniques and activities was largely based on the researcher’s teaching experience and was clearly stated in the sample lesson plan 16 2.3.4 Strategies for teaching ACS 2.3.4.1 Strategies for teaching rhythm In order to acquire rhythm, students are to be encouraged to blend themselves into the English language environment as much as possible Multimedia will work miracles in the case of lack of real-life exposure to native speakers Listening to English news or music every day or watching English movies helps build a sense of English rhythm which will in turn enormously benefit speaking and listening skills even without the students’ noticing it There are some useful activities recommended to help the students learn rhythm are identifying stress, speaking in chorus, tone imitating, shadowtalking, role playing, and games and songs, etc The first thing first in acquiring rhythm is that students can identify the stress in a sentence They should be reminded of the rule of accentuating the content words (words referring to non-linguistic meaning) and gliding over function words (words expressing grammatical relationships) Speaking in chorus has traditionally been used for teaching rhythm, in which a model sentence is prepared by a teacher, and then he/she makes a model of English rhythm by reading the sentence out loud and finally asks students to repeat in chorus Another interesting activity for teaching rhythm is tone imitating The tones of a person’s speech differ a lot according to their moods A newsreader will assume a different rhythm compared with that of someone else An extract from a song or a movie will add color to one’s teaching and motivate one’s students Shadowtalking indicates the act of trying to speak at the same time as the voice in the tape or recording This activity can be done in the classroom or outside the class at home alongside fast speech drills Role playing, games and songs are good for language teaching including teaching rhythm Students play the role of different characters and perform in front of the class This can be effectively carried out through group projects and let the students’ imagination and creativity fly Together with role playing, games bring a lot of fun and life into the rhythm lesson The games stop the bus or bingo can be employed in teaching rhythm For example, the class is divided in to groups and given jumbled sentences in word cards The groups must rearrange the words to make a meaningful sentence then Stop the bus and read the sentence out loud in the tone specified 2.3.4.2 Strategies for teaching linking Linking is one of the important factors that English learners need to acquire to sound more like a native speaker However, the time teaching English at a high school help the researcher realize that the formal introduction rules for linking sounds in English is crucial because it is simply too hard for the students 17 to learn complex linking rules unconsciously Thus, the preliminary stage of learning linking should be the teacher’s explanation of the rules After introducing the rules of linking, the teacher is supposed to use a variety of activities for drills Listen and repeat, guessing, miming, and noughts and crosses which is introduced in by Kelly, G (2000) can be used in teaching rhythm creatively Listen and repeat is a simple approach to teaching linking The teacher is advised to add variety to this activity by using the tongue twisters such as: “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper Did Peter Piper pick a peck of pickled pepper? If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper, Where's the peck of pickled pepper Peter Piper picked?” Guessing and miming are beneficial as far as instruction of linking is concerned This activity can be carried out as a game for linking revision The teacher may put the class into teams then he/she read the clues for the students to guess For example: Clue 1: It is a type of car Clue 2: It is not used on normal roads Clue 3: It is used for racing The answer is “formula A”, but one thing should be kept in mind is that the students must use linking in the answer to score a point; thus the winning answer is “formula /r/ A” Employed much in the same manner, miming emphasizes on actions and gestures The teacher can ask a representative of each team to mime the target phrases for the class to guess Noughts and crosses is carried out by drawing the table on the board and two teams are formed to play this game The teacher puts some questions and the team that gives the correct answer will make a move The process is repeated until there is a winner This activity can be time-consuming and requires careful preparation in the teacher’s part because a plethora of questions must be asked before the winner is found 2.3.4.3 Strategies for teaching assimilation and elision It is recommended by the researcher that assimilation and elision introduction be carried out following the steps for teaching linking, which is to present the rules before having the students practice After the students have been famaliarized with the rules of assimilation and elision, the teacher can march on with some activities to help them practice the points Listen and repeat, guessing, miming, and noughts and crosses which are employed in teaching linking can also be reused for teaching assimilation and elision Besides, the game “Pursuit of words” (simply put here Đuổi hình bắt chữ) can bring laughter into one’s class The game is played by showing students one or two or more pictures which hide in them a word or phrases The 18 students will study the pictures, try to link the ideas, and form a corresponding word or phrase For instance, the two pictures of a face and of a book can be linked to create facebook – a popular social network The teacher should always remind the students of using assimilation or elision in their answers 2.3.4.4 Suggestions for further study The researcher would affirm that what he has done in this study on ACS can only be considered as the first step for the further exploration of some other issues related to ACS If possible, research should be done in a longer span of time, with more teacher and student participants from more schools, and include students of different levels so that the findings of the study can be more reliable and persuasive Besides, the techniques and strategies for teaching ACS can be very helpful to teachers and learners all the same Therefore, a research study into this issue will also be of great value 2.4 Results from the achievement test (Post-test) After weeks of reviewing the knowledge of ACS, the students took the test again and the results were analyzed against those of the pre-test so that the researcher could assess the progress made by the students by comparing the two The statistics are illustrated in the following table: Problems Pre-test 68.9% 100% 100% Post-test 11.1% 24.4% 11.1% 8.9% 4.4% 48.9% 64.4% 53.3% 100% 100% 2.2% 17.7% 13.3% 62.2% 71.1% Table 2.4 Students’ results of the two tests Legends for the nine problems as shown in the table above are explained right below: Problem 1: Failure in using stress-timed rhythm Problem 2: Failure in using regressive assimilation Problem 3: Failure in using coalescent assimilation Problem 4: Failure in using assimilation related to sequences of consonants Problem 5: Failure in omitting /v/ in /əv/ Problem 6: Failure in using elision for consonant clusters Problem 7: Failure in linking consonants to vowels Problem 8: Failure in using intrusive /r/ to link vowels Problem 9: Failure in using glides to link vowels As compared in Table 2.4, the extent of progress made by the students in overcoming their weaknesses was remarkable Of the nine problems they faced in the pre-test, up to eight had been successfully tackled after weeks reviewing ACS The results of the post-test showed an upward trend with an impressive improvement witnessed in the case of using coalescent assimilation In the pretest no one among the student subjects could overcome the ordeal of utilizing this aspect However, the number of the students who could use this with ease in 19 their speech soared to 89.9 percent in the post-test The two most problematic aspects for the students proved to be the use of the intrusive /r/ and glides in linking sounds The pre-test reported a disappointing fact that all the students could not handle these aspects, and the results of the post-test still did not satisfy the researcher teacher because only a marginal number of them (37.8% and 29.9% respectively) could apply these linking techniques in their natural speech Also noticeably, the students’ performance in dealing with regressive assimilation had revealed a wide discrepancy of 75.6% when the pre-test and post-test results were compared III CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 3.1 Conclusion The current study was prompted by the need to examine the students’ difficulties in using ACS and find the way to help them and the teachers to solve the problems encountered in learning and teaching ACS In order to achieve these goals, it was based on the following two research questions: - The students faced a lot of problems related to ACS, which adversely affected their performance in oral communication There were nine problems of stresstimed rhythm, regressive assimilation, coalescent assimilation, assimilation related to sequences of consonants, omission of /v/ in /əv/ elision for consonant clusters, link of consonants to vowels, use of intrusive /r/ to links vowels, and use of glides to link vowels discovered through analyzing the pre-test, and they were the most conspicuous and prevalent ones The fact that research question was positively answered gave rise to the need for studying the possibility and the extent to which the knowledge of ACS could help alleviate those above-mentioned problems On the course of finding out how much the knowledge of ACS served to improve the students’ oral communication skills, the answer to research question took form - The pre- and post-tests’ results revealed statistical evidence about the students’ progress This led to an inferential conclusion that the introduction of ACS could make a statistically significant improvement in the students’ performance on oral communication The satisfactory outcome realized by successfully answering the two research questions again reinforces the undeniable fact that the subject students have problems in communication due to the lack of ACS knowledge and that under the ACS instruction of the teacher, they can troubleshoot those problems 3.2 Recommendations for applying ACS The findings of this study have given the encouragement for the introduction of ACS in high schools 3.2.1 The practitioners of ACS and the teachers of English In order to teach and learn ACS successfully, practitioners should have adequate basic knowledge of English phonetics and phonology However, even 20 low level learners can still benefit from the knowledge of ACS by following the following steps - Research students’ interest so that appropriate activities can be employed to encourage them to enjoy learning ACS - Multimedia should be used so that learners can have an opportunity to be exposed to authentic and native voices which will little by little help the them develop a feeling for the language - Instruct students to self-study to improve their use of ACS “Practice makes perfect” is necessary for English learners, so the teacher needs to encourage them to practice at home through his/her guidance - Keep track of students’ improvement, give them incentives, and record their voices to compare with those of native speakers so that they will know what the target to achieve is - Assess the teaching method through feedbacks and test results to detect the shortcomings and make any necessary changes so as to have better outcome each year The teaching and learning of ACS will be better with the participation of a large community Therefore, the teacher can collaborate with his/her colleagues in popularizing the programme so that the experience can be shared and the students can have a positive competitive atmosphere to develop 3.2.2 Educational administrators Besides the efforts of the practitioners and the teachers of English, a successful application of ACS needs the support and guidelines from educational administrators Following are some suggestions for them to to realize the hope of creating a generation of students who can communicate effectively in English Firstly, the administrators should consider organizing annual speaking or eloquent competitions in order for the students to have a playground to express themselves, through which the teacher can reflect on his/her work and make timely changes Also, the students’ peers are expected to develop an awareness of learning English not only to take written exams but also to communicate orally Secondly, the administrators can guide the teachers’ more focus on spoken skills and work toward bettering the students’ use of the language which targets the knowledge of the language alone Finally, ACS is a large field and can be studied separately; thus the school administrators can encourage building up individual projects to better help the students acquire ACS through extra-curricular classes 21 XÁC NHẬN Thanh Hóa, ngày 26 tháng năm 2017 CỦA THỦ TRƯỞNG ĐƠN VỊ Tôi xin cam đoan SKKN viết, không chép nội dung người khác Người viết Vũ Văn Thành Mai Thị Tuyết 22 REFERENCES Kelly, G (2000) How to teach pronunciation London: Pearson Avery, P., & Ehrlich, S (1995) Teaching American English pronunciation Oxford: Oxford University Press Brown, G., & Yule, G (1992) Teaching the spoken language Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Case, A (2011) Things to teach about sentence stress and rhythm Retrieved June 21st, 2013 from http://edition.tefl.net/articles/teacher-technique/teach-sentence-stress-rhythm/ Celce-Murcia, M., Briton, D., & Goodwin, J (1996) Teaching pronunciation Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Celce-Murcia, M., & Olshtain, E (2000) Discourse and context in language teaching: A guide for language teachers Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Celce-Murcia, M., Brighton, D M., & Goodwin, J M (1996) Teaching pronunciation: A reference for teachers of English to speakers of other languages Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Cook, A (2000) American accent training: A guide to speaking and pronouncing American English for everyone who speaks English as a second language (2nd ed.) New York: Barron Darn, S (2007) Teaching English rhythm Retrieved May 18th, 2013 from http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/articles/rhythm Doff, A (1988) Teach English - A training course for teachers Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Halliday, M A K (1970) A course in spoken English: Intonation Oxford: Oxford University Press Hancock, M (2004) English pronunciation in use Ho Chi Minh City: HCMC Publishing House Joe, T (2011) Teaching rhythm to ESL students Retrieved June 23rd, 2013 from http://www.teacherjoe.us/TeachersRhythm.html Jones, D (1998) The pronunciation of English Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Woolard, G (1999) Lessons with laughter Hove: Language Teaching Publication Nunan, D (1999) Second language teaching and learning Boston: Heinle & Heinle Publishers Ur, P (1996) A course in language teaching: Practice and theory Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Nunan, D (1999) Second language teaching and learning Boston: Heinle & Heinle Publishers Roach, P (1991) English phonetics and phonology - A practical course (2nd ed.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press May, T (2011) Stress, rhythm, and intonation Retrieved August 25th, 2013 from English 12 – Education Publishing House 23 APPENDICES TEST Name: …………………… Class: ……………… Read the following sentences as naturally as possible to your ability Walk down the path to the end of the canal A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush Come and see us at our new apartment Peter’s coming in a minute if he can There are a lot of new castle in Edinburgh The meal was an awful this morning It’s upstairs Don’t forget to turn off the light Please look at these pictures 10 I saw a handsome man entering the garden 11.If you don’t have the best, make the best of what you have 12 Why did you behave like that? (extracted from “Pronunciation” in Unit 10, 11, 12 and 13 of Textbook English 12 – Education Publishing House) LESSON PLAN: ASPECTS OF CONNECTED SPEECH: RHYTHM - Aims: To help sts know how to use RHYTHM in natural speech to improve their oral communication skill 24 - Methodologies: Integrated methods - Objectives: By the end of the lesson, sts will be able to use RHYTHM in their natural speech Teacher’s activities Students’ activities I/ Lead-in: (5 minutes) Sing together - Play the video of the song “If you’re happy and you know it” - Listen to the song and sing along in - Ask students(Ss) the whole class to chorus sing along the voice in the video Set the scene - Draw Ss’ attention to the music of the - Listen to the teacher English language by speaking slowly the lyric of the song, emphasizing the sentence and word stress Introduce Ss to rhythm II Presentation: Theory of rhythm (10 minutes) - Write the rules and theory on the board Stress-timed rhythm e.g Walk down the path to the end of the canal Syllable-timed rhythm e.g Several experts are to give evidence on the subject - Take notes - Explain: Content word (stressed) and function word (unstressed) - Explain the rules of rhythm III Practice: A Controlled practice (15 minutes) - Ask Ss to practice in groups reading the following sentences Ask them to pay attention to word stress and sentence stress Sentences: 1/ If you are happy and you know it, clap your hands 2/ I’m Mark Baker Put your hands in the air and give me all your money 3/ You have saved my life I owe you once 4/ I dropped out of university in my 25 second year and began working in my grandpa’s factory 5/ How come you survived such a terrible crash? - Ask Ss to the Shadowtalking A panel of three judges are formed with excellent students whose spoken skill is outstanding Teacher plays the recording, and the representative from each group read after the voice The judges will decide the winner - Walk around and give suggestion to sts if necessary B Free practice (10 minutes) - Let Ss choose whatever one sentence they like, and recite it to the class and tell the reason he/she likes the saying - Observe the Ss’ work and offers help if needed - Remind the Ss that scores are give based on fluency using ACS and idea richness - Gives feedback and scores V Homework (5 minutes) - Go home and prepare a presentation using good rhythm imitating some native speakers - Imitate the voice in the recording - Search for the favorite saying and recite to the class - Work in groups - Present in front of class - Take notes - Take notes 26 ... writing this to provide students and teachers of English with teaching speaking at high schools by incorporating basic phonetic knowledge 1.2 Aim of the study Aspects of connected speech are too... suggested that supra-segmental features are far more important and central to communication than accurate production of the individual sounds Accordingly, the researcher assumes that an adequate knowledge. .. commensurate recognition both from teachers and students at a high school level Here arises a question about whether it is possible to make the foreign language learning situation at high schools