How to assist Haiphong secondary pupils in pronouncing English fricative sounds

TABLE OF CONTENT ACKNOWLEDGEMENT PART I: INTRODUCTION .1 Rationale of study Purpose of study Restriction of study Methods of study Design of study PART II DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I THEORETICAL BACKGROUND I Fricative sounds: an overview The basic consonants in English 1.1 Classification of English consonants 1.1.1 According to places of articulation 1.1.2 According to manners of articulation 1.1.3 According to voicing English fricatives consonants 2.1 Definition of fricative consonants 2.2 Classification of fricative sounds 2.2.1 According to places of articulation 2.2.2 According to voicing 12 2.2.3 According to sibilant sounds 13 3- Comparing the English fricatives sounds with Vietnamese ones 13 3.1 The similarities 13 3.2 The differences 14 II Teaching pronunciation 15 Planning stage 16 Teaching stage 16 2.1 Descriptions and analysis 16 2.2 Techniques in teaching pronunciation 17 2.2.1 Listening 17 2.2.2 Using pictures 17 2.2.3 Telling story 18 2.2.4 Song completion 18 2.2.5 Communicative practices 18 2.2.6 Bingo game 19 2.2.7 Minimal pairs of words 19 2.2.8 Gap fill poems 20 CHAPTER II A STUDY ON HOW ENGLISH FRICATIVE SOUNDS ARE STUDIED AND TAUGHT BY TEACHERS AND STUDENTS IN HAI PHONG SECONDARY SCHOOL 21 I Reality 21 Teachers and pupils 21 1.1 Teachers 21 1.2 Students 21 Teaching and learning condition 22 The design of English textbook 22 II Survey questionnaires 23 Purpose of survey questionnaires 24 Design of survey questionnaires 24 Data analysis 25 3.1 Students‟ and teachers‟ opinion on English pronunciation stage in general and English fricative sound in particular 25 3.1.1 The importance of teaching English pronunciation 25 3.1.2 Students‟ outlook on English fricative sounds 25 3.1.3 The necessity of English fricative sounds 26 3.1.4 The difficult levels of English fricative sounds 27 3.2 Current situation of teaching and learning English fricative sounds .28 3.2.1 Teachers frequency of teaching English fricative sounds 28 3.2.2 When to teach students to pronounce English fricative sounds 29 3.2.3 The ways students pronounce English fricative sounds 30 3.3 Students‟ and teachers‟ view points on currently used techniques in teaching English fricative sounds 31 3.3.1 Frequency of currently used techniques 31 3.3.2 The effectiveness of teachers‟ techniques 32 3.4 The difficulties students faced when studying English fricative 34 3.5 Students‟ expectations toward learning English pronunciation 35 III Finding and the discussion of finding 36 CHAPTER III APPLICATION OF SOME TECHNIQUES TO ASSIST HAI PHONG SECONDARY STUDENTS IN PRONOUNCING ENGLISH FRICATIVE SOUNDS 39 Listening 39 1.1 Listen to discrimination 39 1.2 Listen to music 42 Using story 43 2.1 Retell story 43 2.2 Gap the story 45 2.3 Making up stories 46 Studying through games 46 3.1 Tongue-twisters 46 3.2 Matching words 48 3.3 Run and write 50 3.4 The family tree 50 3.5 Wordsearch puzzle 50 3.6 Alphabet word game 51 3.7 Word challenging 52 3.8 Pronunciation Bingo 53 3.9 Circle words games 54 3.10 Pronunciation Pyramid 56 3.11 Hangman 56 3.12 Missing letters words 57 3.13 IPA symbol card game 58 3.14 The Bell game 59 PART III CONCLUSION 61 APPENDICE APPENDIX 1: The survey questionnaires for students APPENDIX 2: The interview question for teachers APPENDIX 3: A model lesson plan REFERENCES ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS During the process of fulfilling my graduation paper, I have been fortunate to receive a great deal of assistance, guidance and encouragement from many people First and most of all, I would like to express my deepest thanks to Mrs Nguyen Thi Huyen, MA, my supervisor, for her guidance, great suggestion and precious comment in each step of the study to help me complete my graduation paper Also, my sincere thanks is extended to all teachers in Foreign Language Department, Hai Phong Private University for their useful lectures and suggestions Besides, my special thanks send to all teachers and students in Dang Hai, Nam Hai, Dong Hai and Dang Lam secondary school for their enthusiasm in finishing the survey questionnaires Last but not least, I am really in debt to my family and friends who have motivated me during the time I carried out this paper Hai Phong, June, 2009 Student Nguyen Thi Hanh PART I INTRODUCTION Rationale of study In the developing social-economic background, Vietnam is gradually integrating into the worldwide so English becomes more necessary and most students must study English as compulsory subject However, almost students learn it passively because their English is only remarkable in grammar or other skills and their listening or speaking ones are not good because of pronunciation Pronunciation is an important part for learner and it is the biggest thing that people notice about your English So having a good and correct pronunciation is a stable foundation to study and communicate Nowadays, English is taught in all levels but not everyone pays attention in standard pronunciation for pupils in schools So that pupils lacks of the knowledge and not know how to pronounce a word correctly Furthermore, pronunciation is not the main skill taught at schools, students only pronounce new words following the teachers even they not know why So that it may lead to a serious consequence, which can makes students pronounce English sounds wrongly from the lower level to higher ones Add to that this habit in pronunciation English can cause the misunderstanding for students when communicating with foreigner language It is the main reason why student always fells shy or afraid of talking in class or meets difficulties in listening stage Despite the awareness of its role, teachers only teach students to pronounce English sounds by reading new words or text passages and students become passive in this case Therefore, students can memorize many words but the rate of exactly pronunciation is in inverse proportion In addition, teachers think that teaching students the transcription of words is impossible because they cannot ask their students remember all the words‟ transcription they have learned However, if we find out the simple and interesting methods to represent English sounds to students, it will become more attractive to learn Being a student of English Department, I always concern about this problem because I myself also make mistakes when speaking English, therefore I decide to study deeply about English fricative consonants to make it clear and simple to help secondary pupils and create a change for me to improve my English pronunciation For these reasons, I have chosen the subject “How to assist Hai Phong secondary pupils in pronouncing English fricative sounds” Purpose of study The purpose of the study focus on helping secondary pupils to have more specific and clear understanding of English fricative sounds and find out the method to learn them effectively: Studying on the basic theories of English fricatives sounds, compare the fricatives sounds in English and Vietnamese and the characteristics of teaching pronunciation The real situation of teaching and study English pronunciation in Hai Phong secondary school is surveyed The most important aim is application of some effective activities in class to help students study English fricative sounds as well as other ones better Restriction of study English pronunciation is a large aspect; however, because of limited time and knowledge, the study only focus on how to help students at Hai Phong secondary schools learn English fricative sounds in separated words and offering appropriate techniques to help students can pronounce them accurately in this paper So that the intonation as well as the stress parts will be expected explored in further study Methods of study With the purpose of making English fricative sounds specifically and simply for pupils, my research methods are: Reference books related to English consonant sounds and teaching pronunciation are review to get background knowledge of fricative sounds and some interesting techniques in teaching pronunciation A survey is carried out for four grades: 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th in Nam Hai, Dong Hai, Dang Hai, Dang Lam secondary schools to explore their opinion on English fricative sounds and the difficulties they faced as well as their expectation toward learning English pronunciation The information of the survey will be gathered from survey questionnaires for students and interview questions for teachers Basing on the currently situation of learning and teaching English fricative sounds in these schools, the writer gives some suggested techniques in order to help students in this case Design of the study The study consists of three parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion Part 1: The Introduction part points out the rationale of the study, the purpose, the restriction, methods and design of the study Part 2: Development involves three chapters: Chapter I: “Theoretical background” gives us the general overview in English fricative sounds and the introduction about teaching English pronunciation Chapter II: “Study on how English fricative sounds are studied and taught by teachers and students in Hai Phong secondary schools” reflects the students‟ and teachers‟ viewpoints and the situation of teaching and learning English sounds in general and fricative ones in particular in Hai Phong secondary schools Chapter III: “Application of some techniques to assist Hai Phong secondary students in pronouncing English fricative sounds” supplies the suggested techniques in teaching and learning fricative sounds in an easy and interesting manner to help students get the best effectiveness from them Part 3: Conclusion summarizes all the part mentioned in the paper and some suggestion for further study To sum up, Part has introduced the content of the study In part II, the writer will analyze more specifically about English fricative sounds and the survey questionnaires carried out in Hai Phong secondary schools, which reveal us the situation of teaching and learning English fricative sounds Additional, Part II also suggests some techniques applied in order to help student learn English pronunciation of sounds better PART II DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I THEORETICAL BACKGROUND I Fricative sounds an overview The basic consonants in English Consonants are the sounds in the productions of which the articulators move toward another or the articulators come together obstructing the air stream so the air stream cannot get out freely In English alphabet, there are 25 basic consonants: /b/, /p/, /d/, /t/, /g/, /k/, /v/, /f/, /ð/, /θ/, /z/, /s/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/,/ tʃ/, /dʒ/, /h/, /m/, /n/, /l/, /r/, /w/, /hw/, /y/ 1.1- Classification of English consonants Three major features used to distinguish consonants are Places of articulation, manners of articulation, and voicing 1.1.1- According to places of articulation The place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a consonant is the point of contact, where an obstruction occurs in the vocal tract between an active articulator and the passive articulator There are nine groups of consonants classified according to place of articulation: - Bilabial sounds: are the sounds made with two lips: /b ,m ,p, w/ - Labio-dental sounds: are the sounds made with the lower lip and the upper front teeth: /f, v/ - Dental sounds: are the sounds made with tip of the tongue and the upper front teeth: /ð, θ/ - Alveolar sounds: are the sounds made with tip of the tongue and the alveolar ridge, the tip of the tongue is moved to the alveolar ridge: /t, d, n, l, s, z/ - Alveolar-palatal sounds: are the sounds made with the palate of the tongue and the back of the alveolar ridge: /ʃ, ʒ, tʃ, dʒ/ 10 f y f a fe t fou fi h for fr g fi e fo fa e 3.13- IPA Symbol Card Game The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) can be very useful tool for improving pronunciation Instead of relying on the teacher for the correct pronunciation, students can look up words and decipher the correct pronunciation Procedures: Teacher begins introduction slowly by introducing students to a few fricative symbols at a time Draw symbol and example words on the board (this introduction should go 63 slowly and take place over a number of lessons) Students walk around the room exchanging cards Each student shows the symbol side of the card to his/her fellow student while saying the word out loudly Example cards: 3.14- The Bell Game Objectives: challenges students to pronounce words (consists of fricative sounds) correctly in a competitive game Teacher will need a deck of cards that contains each target word for the lesson(s), and two small bells The goal of the activity is help student can pronounce English fricative sound better Procedures: Teacher divides students into two teams Have the first player from each team come up to a desk at the front of the room Place two bells on the desk, one for each player Teacher uses the following introduction: Today we are going to play The Bell Game When I show you a word card, the first person to ring her bell and pronounce the word correctly gets one point for her team 64 If students pronounce the word incorrectly, the player on the opposite team gets a chance to read the word, but this time for two points instead of one Some example of cards: teacher gives some card of weather and requires students use an adjective to describe the picture in each card 65 PART III: CONCLUSION To conclude, everyone absolutely agrees with me about the paramount importance of pronunciation Words are first and foremost sounds and if the sounds are wrong, the students are incomprehensible However, in the secondary English textbook, pronunciation is not paid attention as well as other skills Therefore, this paper was conducted about “How to assist Hai Phong Secondary pupils in pronouncing English fricative sounds” with the purpose that this research will provide some interesting ways to learn English fricative sounds After years of teaching pronunciation in various traditional ways, my research indicates that the best methods to teach students fricative sounds is using funny activities They will bring the stranger atmosphere and make the condition for students creative Also, some related background knowledge were presented in Chapter I such as the overview of fricative sounds; the similarities and the differences between English fricative sounds and Vietnamese ones as well as teaching pronunciation stage Beside, Chapter II researches the currently situation of teaching and learning English pronunciation in general and fricative sounds in particular in four secondary schools in Hai Phong Moreover, the effectiveness of used techniques in teaching fricative sounds was revealed by survey questionnaires for teacher and students Finally, the application of some suggested techniques in teaching and learning English fricative sounds has been introduced in Chapter III However, because of the limitation of time and knowledge, the mistakes and shortcoming are unavoidable It also cannot cover whole situation of every secondary schools in Hai Phong Moreover, my graduation paper only mentions a small aspect of English pronunciation with the aim to help students in secondary school learn English fricative sounds better Therefore, I would like to receive both critical and lenient review from the readers Lastly, I expect that this paper can provide the useful techniques to help secondary students as well as language learner wanted to study English fricative sounds and in the coming time this research will be analyzed more carefully and deeply to get the best effectiveness 66 67 APPENDICE APPENDIX 1: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRES (FOR STUDENTS) What you think about pronouncing English fricative sounds? a Very difficult b Difficult c Not very difficult d Not difficult In your opinion, is it necessary to learn English fricative sounds? a Very necessary b Necessary c Normal d Not necessary As for you, which of fricative sounds are the most difficult to pronounce? a /f/ and /v/ sounds c /s/ and /z/ sounds b /ð/ and /θ/ sounds d /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ sounds e /h/ sounds What you often to pronounce English fricative sounds? a Pronouncing following the teacher b Finding the transcription in dictionary c Writing Vietnamese transcription adapted from teacher‟s pronunciation d Others 68 How often does your teacher teach English sounds pronunciation in lessons? a Always b Sometimes c Rarely d Never What your teachers often to help you study English fricative sounds in class? Its frequency and effectiveness? Frequency Techniques Frequently Sometimes Never Effectiveness Very effective Normal Not very effective Listening Using pictures Telling story Sing songs Games Communication What difficulties you meet when pronouncing English fricative sounds? (You can choose more than one) a I not know how to pronounce English fricative sounds accurately b I am afraid of making mistakes c The habits in pronouncing Vietnamese d I cannot distinguish between /s/ and /ʃ/ sounds e I can‟t distinguish between /z/ and /ʒ/ sounds f I make mistakes when pronouncing /ð/ and /θ/ sounds Do you like English pronunciation lessons? a Yes 69 70 APPENDIX 2: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS (FOR TEACHERS) Do you think teaching English pronunciation stage is important? a Very important b Important c Normal d Not very important Do you think it is necessary to teach students to pronounce English fricative sounds? a Very necessary b Necessary c Normal d Not necessary As for you, which of fricative sounds is the most difficult for students to pronounce? a /f/ and /v/ sounds c /s/ and /z/ sounds b /ð/ and /θ/ sounds d /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ sounds e /h/ sounds How often you teach your students to pronounce English sounds? a Always b Sometimes c Rarely d Never When you teach your students English fricative sounds? a When students ask me b I often teach it in other skills in textbooks c When my students pronounce wrongly d When the lesson time is left e I always it because it is very necessary 71 How often you use following techniques to teach pronunciation? Its frequency and effectiveness? Frequency Techniques Effectiveness Very Frequently Sometimes Never Normal effective Not very effective Listening Using pictures Telling story Sing songs Games Communication In your opinion, what are the problems students often faced when pronounce English fricative sounds? a They not know how to pronounce English fricative sounds b They are afraid of making mistakes c The habits in pronouncing Vietnamese d They cannot distinguish between /s/ and /ʃ/ sounds e They can‟t distinguish between /z/ and /ʒ/ sounds f They make mistakes when pronouncing /ð/ and /θ/ sounds 72 APPENDIX 3: A MODEL LESSON PLAN Unit 12 Let’s eat ( 7th English textbook) Section: /S/ and /Z/ sounds (Presented in Listening and Speaking parts) Objectives By the end of the lesson, students can understand the way to pronounce /s/ and /z/ sounds in the initial position of words as well as can distinguish them Allowance time: 25 minutes Note: Students has learned Speaking and Listening sections in textbooks Target learner: Students at Hai Phong secondary schools Teaching aids: - Cassette - Handouts Procedures Teacher’s activities Stages/minutes Students’ activities Introduction of Gives an example of /s/ and/z/ in two words: /s/ and sounds /z/ Sue – zoo (7 Students pronounce minutes) two Sue zoo Asks some students to pronounce two words loudly Ask students: Do you know the difference in pronouncing these words? Gives the answer: Because of the difference words Students answer: Yes or No Listen to the teacher‟s guiding in the consonants of two words Guides the way to pronounce /s/ and /z/ sounds: 73 + The consonant sounds in “Sue” and "zoo" are both made by putting your teeth together and putting your tongue in the middle of your mouth, right behind your teeth, but not touching them + When making these sounds, there is a big mouth of air is released through a small cavity Students listen then repeat + When pronouncing /s/ sound, we not use our voice; the sound is quiet You should not feel any movement in your throat When we pronounce /z/ sound, we use our voice They are both sibilant sounds At the initial position of a word, /s/ and /z/ are pronounced stronger than others Teacher has to explain some difficult terms to help student understand then pronounces these sounds again Listening minutes) (10) Gives students the photos of prepared Skim the pictures pictures Answer: Yes, of Asks students to listen to cassette and tick course the words they hear Listen to cassette Lets them minutes to skim the pictures and tick on the heard 74 Asks students: Are you ready? words Turns on the cassette twice See Asks students to read their answers keys the and teachers‟ check Turns on the cassette again then give the themselves keys and explanations Repeat these sounds Picture (a) is: “sack” without vibration of following vocal cord the cassette sack Zack Picture (b) is “Z” with vibration of vocal cord hello said Z Z Picture (c) is “zap” with vibration of vocal cord sap zap Picture (d) is “Sue” without vibration of vocal cord Sue zoo Picture (e) is: “zip” with the vibration of vocal cord 75 sip Lets student zip pronounce these words following cassette again Speaking(8 Imagine you are going shopping for the Students‟ answers: minutes) things on this list Working in pairs, decide A: What will you buy at Zizzi‟s store? where you will make your purchases Purchases: rice, cereal, sugar, salt, sauce, B: I will buy two sandwich, seafood, salad, sweet, strawberry, pizzas and some pizza, peas, bananas, cheese, cookies, sandwich spinach, spoons, Stores: Zack‟s A: Where will you grocery, Zizzi‟s store, buy the spinach and Zingy‟s bakery salad? B: I will buy them at Zack‟s grocery A: How much sugar will you buy? B: I will buy two kilos Homework Require the students find out and collect the Listen words that contain /s/ and /z/ sounds and write down in notebook Practice more these sounds learned in class 76 REFERENCES I Books Ann Baker.1982 Ship or Sheep Cambridge University Press Gerald Kelly How to teach pronunciation 2001 Pearson ESL Marianne Celce-Murcia, Donna Brinton, Janet M Goodwin 1996 Teaching Pronunciation Cambridge: University Press Martin Hewing 2004 Pronunciation practice activities Cambridge University Press Peter Avery and Susan Ehrlich 1992 Teaching American English pronunciation Oxford University Press.USA Peter Roach(Xuan Ba translate and annotate).2000 English phonetics and phonology II Websites http://www.en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fricative http://www.angelfire.com/scifi2/nyh/glossary.html http://www.lrc.salemstate.edu/linguistics/linguistics-terms.htmhttp://www.esllesson-plan.com/mt-tb.cgi/166 http://www.teachingenglish.org.ukhttp://playkidgame.com http://www.enhandedlearning.com http://www.playkidsgames.com http://www.storyforteaching.com 77 ... to assist Hai Phong secondary students in pronouncing English fricative sounds supplies the suggested techniques in teaching and learning fricative sounds in an easy and interesting manner to. .. chosen the subject How to assist Hai Phong secondary pupils in pronouncing English fricative sounds Purpose of study The purpose of the study focus on helping secondary pupils to have more specific... Listening (to the song),Reading (following the lyrics to determine the words),Writing (filling in the blanks)and Speaking (singing the song) Songs can help pupils for practicing difficult sounds;