TEACHING PRONUNCIATION TO THE FIRST YEAR STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TRANSPORT AND COMMUNICATIONS a CASE STUDY

thạc sỹ, luận văn, ngoại ngữ, tiếng anh, khóa luận, chuyên đề

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

In the past few years, as the Vietnamese have come into contact with people from othercountries, especially since Vietnam entered the World Trade Organization (WTO) and becameone of twenty destinations of the world, there is a growing awareness of the importance of andneed for communicative English The emphasis in language teaching has changed to givespoken English the same status as written English, and the communicative language teaching

is considered as a predominant approach in which teachers pay more attention to speaking andlistening skills and need to perceive that these skills require not only vocabulary and ideas butalso a reasonable pronunciation Unfortunately, the outcome of communicative learning is notvery satisfactory Though they have learnt English at school and university, many students,especially non-English majors, often complain that it is really hard to communicate in Englishsince they do not catch what the speakers are saying, and they are not confident to speakEnglish One of the reasons is their unintelligible pronunciation

Pronunciation plays an important role in second language teaching and learning Without

it, learners have many difficulties in getting their speech understood and understandingothers’ Misunderstanding, communication breakdown or failure may occur due tomispronunciation

As a teacher of English at the University of Transport and Communications (UTC) fortwo years, the researcher has witnessed the great efforts made by her colleagues as well asstudents to improve the quality of teaching and learning English As the teaching goals, allfour language skills are equally focused in the teaching program which lasts three terms.Students are required to have good English for their next coming major studies, and for theirfurther future Whereas, it is undeniable that, among four skills, students get worse score atlistening and speaking In such the context, pronunciation teaching should be taken inappropriate consideration so that the teaching goals can be met

However, up to now there has not been any research on teaching English pronunciation

at UTC yet Thus, the case study of teaching pronunciation to first-year students at UTC is of

special importance It describes pronunciation teaching in the context, specifying theshortcomings and then making suggestions to improve the teaching of pronunciation

2 Aims of the study

The aim of the study was to investigate how the teachers at UTC teach pronunciation tofirst-year students, with the goal of making suggestions for the teachers to improve theteaching of pronunciation

3 Research questions

Focusing on a case with a target on non-English-major students at UTC, this researchexamined the teaching of pronunciation To achieve this, three research questions wereproposed:

(1) What are the teachers’ beliefs in teaching pronunciation?

(2) What elements of pronunciations are taught?

(3) How do the teachers deal with teaching pronunciation?

4 Scope of the Study

This study plays the role as a case study The researcher intends to describe the currentsituation of pronunciation teaching in the context of first-year students at UTC It providesrich information about the teachers’ beliefs in the issue, pronunciation elements to be taught inthe curriculum, the ways the teachers use to treat pronunciation teaching

5 Method of the Study

A qualitative and quantitative methodology was selected for this case study Thisinvolves the following methods:

(1) Survey questionnaire

(2) Interviews and discussions

(3) Classroom observations

(4) Curricula analysis

The collected data come from 19 teachers of English at UTC, 57 classroom observationsand the existing syllabus Then the analysis is carried out in the light of finding out theanswers to the research questions.

6 Organization of the study

The study includes three parts:

- Part 1, INTRODUCTION, introduces the rationale for the research, the aims of the

study, the scope, the methods and the organization of the study

- Part 2, DEVELOPMENT, consists of three chapters as follows:

- Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

- Chapter 2: METHODOLOGY

- Chapter 3: ANALYSIS, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

- Part 3, CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS, summarizes some major findings,

provides recommendations for teaching pronunciation, limitations of the study, andsuggestions for further research

Students can be expected to do well in the pronunciation of English if the pronunciationclass is taken out of isolation and becomes an 'integral part of the oral communication' class(Morley,1991) The goal of pronunciation should be changed from the attainment of 'perfect'pronunciation (A very elusive term at the best of times.), to the more realistic goals ofdeveloping functional intelligibility, communicability, increased self-confidence, thedevelopment of speech monitoring abilities and speech modification strategies for use beyondthe classroom (Morley, 1991) The overall aim of these goals is for the learner to developspoken English that is easy to understand, serves the learner's individual needs, and allows apositive image of himself as a speaker of a foreign language The learner needs to developawareness and monitoring skills that will allow learning opportunities outside the classroomenvironment

The communicative approach to pronunciation teaching requires teaching methods andobjectives that include ‘whole-person learner involvement'’(Morley,1991) Morley states thereare three important dimensions the teacher should catered for in any pronunciation program;the learner's intellectual involvement, affective involvement, and physical involvement Thelearner's involvement in the learning process has been noted as one of the best techniques for

developing learner strategies, that is, the measures used by the learner to develop his languagelearning (Morley, 1991) It is the teacher's responsibility to develop the learning process so thelearner has the greatest chance to develop the learning strategies that are unique to eachindividual learner The teacher also has a special role to play in the communicative learningprogram, a role that Morley describes as one of ‘speech coach or pronunciation coach’ Ratherthan just correcting the learner’s mistakes, the ‘speech coach’ ‘supplies information, givesmodels from time to time, offers cues, suggestions and constructive feedback aboutperformance, sets high standards, provides a wide variety of practice opportunities, and overallsupports and encourages the learner’ (Morley,1991) It can be seen the teacher's role is notonly to ‘teach’ but to facilitate learning by monitoring and modifying English at two levels,speech production and speech performance.

1.2 History and scope of teaching English pronunciation

The role of pronunciation in the different schools of language teaching has varied widelyfrom having virtually no role in the grammar-translation method to being the main focus in theaudio-lingual method where emphasis is on the traditional notions of pronunciation, minimalpairs, drills and short conversations (Castillo, 1990) During the late 1960s and the 1970squestions were asked about the role of pronunciation in the ESL/EFL curriculum, whether thefocus of the programs and the instructional methods were effective or not Pronunciationprograms until then were ‘viewed as meaningless non-communicative drill-and-exercisegambits’ (Morley,1991) In many language programs the teaching of pronunciation waspushed aside, as many studies concluded ‘that little relationship exists between teachingpronunciation in the classroom and attained proficiency in pronunciation; the strongest factorsfound to affect pronunciation (i.e native language and motivation) seem to have little to dowith classroom activities’ (Suter, 1976, Purcell and Suter, 1980) Pronunciation has beenregarded as ‘the Cinderella of language teaching’ (Kelly, 1969; Dalton, 1997)

The above view that ‘little relationship exists between teaching pronunciation in theclassroom and attained proficiency in pronunciation’ was supported by research done by Suter(1976) and Suter and Purcell (1980) on twenty variables believed to have an influence on

pronunciation They concluded that pronunciation practice in class had little affect on thelearner's pronunciation skills and, moreover ‘that the attainment of accurate pronunciation in asecond language is a matter substantially beyond the control of educators’ They qualifiedtheir findings by stating that variables of formal training and the quality of the training inpronunciation could affect the results, as would the area of pronunciation that had beenemphasized, that is segmentals (individual sounds of a language) or suprasegmentals ( The

‘musical patterns’ of English, melody, pitch patterns, rhythm, and timing patterns (Gilbert,1987) Pennington (1989) questioned the validity of Suter and Purcell’s findings as the factors

of formal pronunciation training and the quality of the teaching, if not taken into account,could affect any research results He stated that there was ‘no firm basis for assertingcategorically that pronunciation is not teachable or that it is not worth spending time on ’ It

is quite clear from the research mentioned above that the role of pronunciation training in thelearner's language development is widely debated, with researchers such as Suter, Purcell, andMadden (1983) all thinking that pronunciation training is relatively ineffective, and inopposition researchers such as Pennington believing that teachers, with formal training inpronunciation and teaching suprasegmentals in a communicative language program, can make

a difference Between these opposing views, Stern (1992) says ‘there is no convincingempirical evidence which could help us sort out the various positions on the merits ofpronunciation training’

There has been a move from teacher-centered to learner-centered classrooms, andconcurrently, a shift from specific linguistic competencies to broader communicativecompetencies as goals for teachers and students Morley states the need for the integration ofpronunciation with oral communication, a change of emphasis from segmentals tosuprasegmentals, more emphasis on individual learner needs, meaningful task-based practices,development of new teacher strategies for the teaching, and introducing peer correction andgroup interaction (Castillo,1991) Research has shown that teaching phonemes isn't enough forintelligibility in communication (Cohen,1977) With the emphasis on meaningfulcommunication and Morley’s (1991) premise, that ‘intelligible pronunciation is an essentialcomponent of communication competence’ teachers should include pronunciation in their

courses and expect students to do well in them Without adequate pronunciation skills thelearner’s ability to communicate is severely limited Morley believes that not attending to astudent’s pronunciation needs, ‘is an abrogation of professional responsibility (1991)’ Otherresearch gives support to Morley’s belief in the need for ‘professional responsibility’ when theresults show that ‘a threshold level of pronunciation in English such that if a given non-nativespeaker’s pronunciation falls below this level, he or she will not be able to communicate orally

no matter how good his or her control of English grammar and vocabulary might be’ Murcia, 1987) Gilbert (1984) believes the skills of listening comprehension and pronunciationare interdependent: ‘If they cannot hear English well, they are cut off from the language Ifthey cannot be understood easily, they are cut off from conversation with native speakers.’Nooteboom (1983) also has suggested that speech production is affected by speech perception;the hearer has become an important factor in communication discourse This illustrates theneed to integrate pronunciation with communicative activities; to give the student situations todevelop their pronunciation by listening and speaking The current research and the currenttrend reversal in the thinking of pronunciation shows there is a consensus that a learner’spronunciation in a foreign language needs to be taught in conjunction with communicativepractices for the learner to be able to communicate effectively with native speakers

(Celce-1.3 Approaches to teaching pronunciation

According to Celce-Murcia’s review (1996), the field of modern language teaching has

developed two general approaches to the teaching of pronunciation: Intuitive-imitative Approach and Analytic-linguistic Approach

1.3.1 Intuitive-imitative Approach

Intuitive-imitative Approach depends on the learner’s ability to listen to and imitate the

rhythms and sounds of the target language without the intervention of any explicitinformation; it also presupposes the availability of good models to listen to, a possibility thathas been enhanced by the availability first of phonograph records, then of tape recorders andlanguage labs in the mid-twentieth century, and more recently of audio- and video-cassettesand compact discs

Jones and Evans (1995) suggest teachers should take this approach at the beginning ofteaching pronunciation: ‘Firstly it constitutes a more holistic approach in which, from theoutset, different elements of pronunciation are seen as integrated Secondly, it gives students achance to experience pronunciation on intuitive and communicative levels before moving on

to a more analytical exploration of specific elements of phonology Finally, work in voicequality can help students to improve their image when they speak English, and thus increasetheir confidence’

1.3.2 Analytic-linguistic Approach

Analytic-linguistic Approach utilizes information and tools such as a phonetic alphabet,

articulatory descriptions, chart of the vocal apparatus, contrastive information, and other aids

to supplement listening, imitation, and production It explicitly informs the learner of andfocuses attention on such segmentals as the sounds and rhythms of the target language Thisapproach was developed to complement rather than to replace the intuitive-imitative approach.Two common approaches to teaching pronunciation mentioned by Tench (1984),Pennington (1989), Jones and Evans (1995), Dalton and Seidlhofer (1994) are Approaches of

Bottom-up and Top-down

1.3.3 Approach of Bottom-up

Approach of Bottom-up has close relationship with accuracy which should be focused

from the very beginning of a course Teachers teach learners with the smallest and mostconcrete unit elements in pronunciation The teacher goes from individual consonants andvowels to more abstract segments such as intonation and thought group

1.3.4 Approach of Top-down

Approach of Top-down gets the idea of contextualized sounds in connected speech The

teacher goes from the biggest elements to the smallest ones of pronunciation: from intonation

or thought group, or contextualized sounds to individual sounds

1.3.5 Approach of integrating pronunciation

Hewings (2004) suggests an Approach of integrating pronunciation for some classes

where pronunciation is given a lower priority than other components of language such asgrammar and vocabulary The teacher gives pronunciation a more central role in teaching byintegrating it with other areas of language work, for example, connecting vocabulary andpronunciation, or the links between grammar and pronunciation

The approaches to pronunciation teaching above have been used worldwide in languageteaching However, it depends on the certain situation, the formal curricula and the teacherthat decide which approach is of priority

1.4 Techniques to teach pronunciation

The Communicative Approaches, which are currently dominant in language teaching,hold that since the primary purpose of language is communication, using language tocommunicate should be central in all classroom language instruction This focus on language

as communication brings renewed urgency to the teaching of pronunciation, since there is athreshold level of pronunciation for non-native speaker of English; if they fall below thisthreshold level, they will have oral communication problems no matter how excellent andextensive their control of English grammar and vocabulary might be (Celce-Murcia, Brinton,Goodwin, 1996)

To teach pronunciation as part of Communication Approach, Celce-Murcia, Brinton andGoodwin list ten techniques have been traditionally used and are still being used:

1.4.1 Listen and imitate: A technique used in the Direct Method in which students

listen to a teacher-provided model and repeat or imitate it This technique has been enhanced

by the use of tape recorders, language labs, and video recorders

1.4.2 Phonetic training: Use of articulatory descriptions, articulatory diagrams, and a

phonetic alphabet (a technique from the Reform Movement, which may involve doingphonetic transcription as well as reading phonetically transcribed text)

1.4.3 Minimal pair drills: A technique introduced during the Audiolingual era to help

students distinguish between similar and problematic sounds in the target language throughlistening discrimination and spoken practice Minimal pair drills typically begin with word-level drills and then move on to sentence-level drills

1.4.4 Contextualized minimal pairs: In this technique, the teacher establishes the

setting and presents key vocabulary; students are then trained to respond to a sentence stemwith the appropriate meaningful response

1.4.5 Visual aids: Enhancement of the teacher’s description of how sounds are

produced by audiovisual aids such as sound-color charts, Fidel wall charts, rods, pictures,mirrors, props, etc These devices are also used to cue production of the target sounds

1.4.6 Tongue twisters: A technique from speech correction strategies for native

speakers (e.g., “She sells seashells by the seashore.”)

1.4.7 Developmental approximation drills: A technique suggested by first-language

acquisition studies in which second language speakers are taught to retrace the steps that manyEnglish-speaking children follow as they acquire certain sounds in their first language Aschildren learning English often acquire /w/ before /r/ or /j/ before /l/, adults who havedifficulty producing /l/ or /r/ can be encouraged to begin by pronouncing words with initial /w/

or /j/, and then shift to /r/ or /l/, respectively:

1.4.8 Practice of vowel shifts and stress shifts related by affixation: A technique

based on rules of generative phonology (Chomsky and Halle 1968) used with intermediate oradvanced learners The teacher points out the rule-based nature of vowel and stress shifts in

etymologically related words to raise awareness; sentences and short texts that contain bothmembers of a pair may be provided as oral practice material:

Vowel shift: mime /ai/ mimic /i/

Sentence context: Street mimes often mimic the gestures of passersby.

Stress shift: PHOtograph phoTOgraphy

Sentence context: I can tell from these photographs that you are very good at photography.

1.4.9 Reading aloud/recitation: Passages or scripts for learners to practice and then

read aloud, focusing on stress, timing, and intonation This technique may or may not involvememorization of the text, and it usually occurs with genres that are intended to be spoken,such as speeches, poems, plays, and dialogues

1.4.10 Recordings of learners’ production: Audio- and video-tapes of rehearsed and

spontaneous speeches, free conversations, and role plays Subsequent playback offersopportunities for feedback from teachers and peers as well as for teacher, peer, and self-evaluation

Except the last two techniques listed above, we can see that the emphasis inpronunciation instruction has been largely on getting the sound right at the word level –dealing with words in isolation or with words in very controlled and contrived sentence-levelenvironments The last two techniques allow learners to practice at the discourse level.However, the practice material is often fully scripted and sometimes highly contrived

1.5 Elements of teaching pronunciation

According to Kelly (2000), teaching pronunciation concludes: vowels, consonants,word and sentence stress, intonation, other aspects of connected speed and spelling Whereas,Colin Mortimer (1985) argues that elements of teaching pronunciation are weak forms,clusters, linking-up, contractions and stress time Linda Grant (1993) provides a morecomprehensive and authentic elements of teaching She organized the teaching elements from

sounds to syllables and words, to sentences and finally to discoursal segments Elements of

pronunciation to teach are as follows:

1.5.1 Sound and Spelling Patterns

Sounds and spelling patterns are confusing aspects of English pronunciation Sound andspelling correspondences in English are irregular because English has borrowed lots of wordsfrom other languages, from ancient Latin and Greek to Eskimo and Farsi Homographs andhomophones are two typical examples of unequivalence of sound and spelling Referring tosound and spelling patterns, an effective pronunciation teaching must also consider individualsounds (vowels and consonants), phonetic transcription, syllable and ending sounds

1.5.2 Word Stress

Word stress must be highly focused on at the beginning of any pronunciation course tohelp learners to have understandable pronunciation In every words two ore more syllables,one of them is stressed and stronger, louder and longer than the other(s) This stressed syllable

is very important because speakers of English rely on patterns of stress to identify the wordsand phrases they hear (Linda Grant, 1993) The more frequently the speaker misused stress,the more effort the listeners have to make to understand what she/he is saying

1.5.3 Rhythm

‘Rhythm is characterized by the alternation of strong and weak syllables’ (Kenworthy,1992:30) Rhythm is a product of word stress and the way in which important items are fore-grounded through their occurrence on a strong beat, and unimportant items are back-grounded

by their occurrence on a weak beat

1.5.4 Sentence focus and Intonation

In spoken English, there are various ways in which a speaker gives the listenerinformation about the relative importance of different parts of the massage One of these ways

is to put stress on the words that carry the most information This usually called the mainsentence stress (Kenworthy, 1992:32) Sentence focus and intonation refer to the intention andfeelings of the speaker When she/he speaks, she/he gives more emphasis on the most

important words The teaching of sentence focus and intonation will be more successful if theteacher selects a context which forces learners to grapple with this notion of ‘importance’

1.5.5 Thought group

Words organized into short meaningful phrases by the speaker are called thought group

It is a suprasegmental factor of pronunciation, and it seems to be unteachable However, ifteachers simplify this abstract concept by explaining in a friendly way and providing authenticexercises, it will become teachable Teaching thought group is a crucial element in teachingpronunciation If a speaker does not divide the stream of speech into appropriate thoughtgroups, the language may be challenging to understand, no matter how clearly each word ispronounced So a really useful way to help students with their pronunciation is to help thembecome aware of thought group – a term from the excellent phonology book for learners

‘speaking clearly’ (Rogerson and Gilbert 1984) To define the ‘thought group’, Rogerson and

Gilbert state ‘When we speak, we need to divide speech into small chunks to help the listener

understand the messages These chunks or thought groups are groups of words which gotogether to express an idea or thought In English, we pause and low pitch to mark the end ofthought groups.’

1.6 The teacher’s roles in teaching pronunciation

The usefulness of teaching pronunciation is a widely debated subject in the languageteaching world Some of the current research suggest that teachers can make little or nodifference in improving their students pronunciation (Suter 1976, Purcell and Suter, 1980) Inother words, the attainment of accurate pronunciation in a second language is a matter ofsubstantially beyond the control of educators However, there is research that indicates that theteacher can make a noticeable difference if certain criteria, such as the teaching ofsuprasegmentals and the linking of pronunciation with listening practice, are fulfilled.Pennington (1989) believes ‘teachers with formal training in pronunciation and teachingsupragmentals can make a difference’ No matter how formal their training is, teachers play akey role in teaching and learning pronunciation Some roles of a typical teacher of teachingpronunciation are mentioned (by Kenworthy 1996) as follows:

1.6.1 Helping learners hear

Helping learners perceive sounds is part of teacher’s role Learners often have a strongtendency to hear the sounds of English in terms of the sounds of their native language Eachlanguage has its own categories of sounds Teachers need to check that their learners arehearing sounds according to the appropriate categories and help them to develop newcategories if necessary

1.6.2 Helping learners make sounds

It is obvious that some sounds of English do not occur in learners’ mother tongues.Sometimes learners will be able to imitate the new sound, but if they cannot then the teacherneeds to be able to give some hints which may help them to make the new sounds

1.6.3 Providing feedback

Both the above tasks require the teacher to tell learners how they are doing Oftenlearners themselves cannot tell if they have got it right; the teacher must provide them withinformation about their performance In other cases, learners may overdo something – theymay make inaccurate assumptions about the way English is pronounced, perhaps because ofthe way it is written This leads to another task for the teacher:

1.6.4 Pointing out what’s going on

Learners need to know what to pay attention to and what to work on Because whilelearners are speaking with the most part unconsciously controlled, they may miss somethingimportant For example, they may not realized that when a particular word is stressed or said

in a different way this can affect the message that is sent to the listener Teachers need to makelearners aware of the potential of sounds – the resources available to them for sending spokenmessages

1.6.5 Establishing priorities

Learners need the help of the teacher in establishing a plan of action, in deciding what toconcentrate on and when to leave well enough alone Learners themselves can be aware ofsome of the features of their pronunciation that are ‘different’, but they will not be able to tell

if this is important or not They may notice that something about their pronunciation is not likethe way English people do it and may automatically try to change this, but their efforts aremisplaced because that feature is a refinement, or acceptable to the English ear

1.6.6 Devising activities

Learning pronunciation is so complicated that the teacher must consider what types ofexercises and activities will be helpful Which activities will provide the most opportunitiesfor practice, experimentation, exploration? In designing activities for learning, teachers mustalso keep in mind that certain activities suit the learning styles and approaches of somelearners better than others

1.6.7 Assessing progress

This is a kind of feedback or comment on their dealing with pronunciation work.Learners find it difficult to access their own progress so it will be meaningful if the teacherprovide this kind of information This is especially difficult in the activity of making sounds,but information about progress is often a crucial factor in maintaining motivation

1.7 Pronunciation goal

In teaching pronunciation, teachers keeps in mind these questions of what goals should

be set for individual learners or groups of learners; How ‘good’ should the learner’s

pronunciation aim to be?

Some time ago, the goal should always be native-like pronunciation, and it was achieved

by relatively few learners It is thought to be an inappropriate goal for most learners The greatmajority of learners will have a very practical purpose for learning English and will derive no particular benefit from acquiring a native-like pronunciation

While native-like pronunciation may be a goal for particular learners, a far morereasonable goal is comfortable intelligibility (Kenworthy 1987, Morley 1994, Celce-Murcia et

al 1996) It means that the speech is understood by a listener at a given time in a givensituation It is the same as ‘understandability’

CHAPTER 2 : METHODOLOGY 2.1 The context of the study

At the University of Transport and Communications, students are majored in science,technology and engineering English is not considered a major It is expected to be a tool forstudents to read documents of their own field (Formula of teaching goals, the Ministry ofEducation and Training) Like many other subjects, English is taught in a formal setting,namely a classroom The teaching of English is divided into two stages During the first stage,students study General English which focuses on four language skills After the stage, studentsget the level of Pre-intermediate English During the second stage, students learn their ESP.The first stage lasts two academic terms The second stage lasts only one academic term Every academic year, there are 2300 new comers who study English as a compulsorysubject (Statistics from the Training Chamber, UTC, 2007) They have already learnedEnglish at school, however, there is no classification of levels at this very beginning time Thestudents are gathered into groups of majors If a group is larger than 50 students, it will bedivided into two small groups for English class-times On average, there are 40 students in aclassroom of English Therefore, it can be called a large class

All materials using for teaching and learning are self-edited textbooks called ‘New English’ series (Student’s Books), and cassettes for General English, a language lab for all groups to share The textbooks were quoted from ‘Headway’, ‘New Headway’ by John & Liz Soars, ‘Lifeline’ by Tom Hutchinson, and ‘Power Base’ by David Evans In this series of

books, four basic language skills are equally developed Other aspects of language are alsointegrated into teaching such as grammar, everyday English, vocabulary and pronunciation The study focuses on teaching pronunciation to first-year students (at the stage ofGeneral English) It is worthy to note that the University gives a special priority to students ofRoad and Bridge English The textbooks and other materials for such students are differentfrom the rest of students at the university In the study, those groups are not mentioned Theresearcher only investigated on the teaching to the majority of students

2.2 Rationale of using case-study as the research method

A case study is defined as a study of a ‘bounded system’ emphasizing the unity andwholeness of that system, but confiding the attention to those aspects that are relevant to theresearch problem at the time (Johnson 1992) A case is a unit of analysis, for example, ineducation research, a case is probably a learner, a teacher, a class, or a school that exists in itsnatural occurring environment A case study is used to describe the case in its context, tounderstand the complexity and dynamic nature of a particular entity Data collectiontechniques for a case study are not complicated to implement They can be entirely naturalisticobservation, elicitation, interviewing, verbal reports or collection of written materials

The reason why the researcher chooses ‘case study’ as the research method is itscharacteristics can meet the aims of her study The study is conducted to describe the situation

of teaching pronunciation in the scope-limited context of first-year students at the University

of Transport and Communications It functions as a rich-information report on the issue to allthe teachers of English at the University and to those who take interest in With theinformation reported, implications are then made with the hope that the situation of teachingpronunciation will be improved

The students who were involved in the lessons played a role as sub-participants Thosesub-participants’ feedback partly reflected the teaching The researcher used their feedback inclassroom as supplementary data to make the finding more reliable

2.4 Data collection instruments

To get the findings to research questions, these means of data collection wereadministered:

2.4.1 Class observations

Thanks to the movement of class observation during the academic year of 2007-2008,which was founded for teachers of English to learn from experience and then had action-reviews, The researcher observed totally 57 different classrooms occupied by all the teachers

of the English Section From the observations, the researcher learnt how English was taughtand learnt The researcher particularly focused on the way teachers treated teachingpronunciation

2.4.2 Curricula and Materials analysis

To support the findings, the researcher examined the formal curricula and teachingmaterials in the consideration of teaching pronunciation All the analyzed documents were twocourse books of New English (Elementary and Pre-Intermediate), cassettes/CDs and VCDsused along with the books, classrooms and facilities, and previous written reports by theteachers of UTC

2.4.3 Questionnaire

The questionnaire was designed with 10 questions to get information about the teachers’beliefs and practice in teaching pronunciation Collected demographic data included gender,age, years of teaching English, and professional qualifications

free talks with all the teachers and the administration staff to collect data for this study werealso carried out

2.5 Data collection procedure

The study was conducted during the academic year 2007-2008 (from September 2007 toJune 2008) The data was collected in following steps:

First of all, the researcher had an overview of the syllabus of Elementary and Intermediate English course-books She examined the elements of pronunciations to teach.Then she did 57 classroom observations and kept records of the teachers’ and students’classroom activities After each classroom observation, she transcribed and discovered thepatterns of the teachers when they did the language teaching and especially teachingpronunciation

Pre-Next, she conducted a questionnaire based on the literature on teaching pronunciation,her observation of the context during two years of working at UTC and the discussion withother teachers at the university The questionnaire was delivered to all the 19 teachers ofEnglish She clearly explained the purpose of doing research before they fulfilled thequestions The participants were also encouraged to raise questions if there was something inthe questionnaire they did not understand They were instructed to take as much time as theyneeded to complete it

After that, she did the interview to six of them separately to get further information thatshe could not have during the observations or in the questionnaire The participants in theinterview varied in ages and years of experience so they could represent the whole teachingstaff The interview helped support the findings