Experiences in teaching pronunciation for primary student

INDEX A: INTRODUCTION REASON FOR CHOOSING THE TOPIC THE PURPOSE OF THE RESEARCH RESEARCH TASKS RESEARCH TIME AND LOCATION B: RESEARCH CONTENTS RATIONALE THE PRESENT SITUATION OF THE PROBLEM 2.1 About students 2.2 About the teacher 2.3 About the teaching facilities 2.4 The quality survey and students’ classification THE SOLUSION 3.1 Sounds 3.2 Stress and Rhythm 3.3 Intonation 3.4 Five basic steps to teach pronunciation THE EFFICIENCY OF THE RESEARCH C: THE CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS CONCLUSION RECOMMENDATIONS REFERENCES Page 2 3 3 5 6 7 11 15 18 18 19 19 20 21 A INTRODUCTION REASON FOR CHOOSING THE TOPIC English plays an important role in human life It is not only the language in the field of international communication but also the language of the science, information technology, socio-cultural, tourism and commercial, etc In Vietnam, English is considered as a compulsory subject at school, especially Primary School With the trend of international integration, Vietnam is increasingly able to be fully available in all areas To meet the growing demand as well as communication needs of society, the Ministry of Education and Training has put English into the programme at Primary School Learning English is to form and develop students' knowledge and basic skills in English, through English, students gain knowledge and their love for the Vietnamese Learning English not only contributes for the development of personality and learning style but also provides students with basic knowledge and helps students understand initially the knowledge about the people and culture of English speaking countries At Primary School, English is a subject which has its own characteristics Therefore teachers are as an artist , he or she needs be creative and cheerful in order to involve students in learning English excitingly As a teacher of English at Primary School, I am always awarded of researching the specific methods in teaching English, especially in teaching pronunciation in order to make the students believe that they can speak English fluently and naturally Students will not be motivated to speak in English unless they are presented with words in context Creating a positive classroom ethos where students feel empowered to work in a collaborative way is an important role of the teacher We must understand the inter-relationship between speaking, listening, reading and writing and plan for speaking opportunities in the classroom in the same way that we plan for teaching pronunciation We know from Higgs Graph of Learner Needs that pronunciation is something that is very important with beginner learners as it allows them to feel more comfortable when speaking; teachers must be aware, however, that the more sounds differ between the mother tongue and the second language, the higher the affective filter A student feeling too self-conscious will not be as willing to take the risks that are necessary when learning a new language How important pronunciation instruction is and how much time should be allotted for it in such a crowded curriculum where general English is taught Some teachers might argue that pronunciation is not important at all for very few of the tests require students to show their speaking ability Others, however, find that they not know how to teach pronunciation, even if they want to teach it That is because of these conventional notions about pronunciation that the teaching of it has, for too long, been neglected in many ESL/EFL curriculums all over the world Recently as English teaching has moved to language functions, and communicative competencies, a new urgency for the teaching of pronunciation has arisen (Celce-Murcia, 1987; Morley, 1994; Gilbert, 1994) In Vietnam, however, we found that pronunciation had not received similar attentionyet According to our teaching experience, a great number of our students have many difficulties in pronunciation When speaking English, with very little or poorly trained pronunciation skill, they have problems either making themselves understand or understanding others After exploring and accumulating the experiences from colleagues, I have some experiences in teaching pronunciation and achieved quite effective results The students are more interested in learning English and more confident in speaking in front of the class This improves that my methods are right With the passion and the love for teaching English, I have studied and developed the research: "Experiences in teaching pronunciation for primary students " THE PURPOSE OF THE RESEARCH - The research applies the methods of teaching pronunciation to involve students in learning pronunciation well - Creating the language circumstance to communicate in English and promote students to actively participate in communicative activities; offering some solutions and methods for teaching pronunciation - Exchanging and sharing some experiences in teaching pronunciation for primary student RESEARCH TASKS - Systematizing some theoretical issues about the procedures and activities in teaching pronunciation in English Primary program according to the communicative approach - Exploring the present situation of teaching pronunciation at Primary School and suggesting some techniques in teaching pronunciation to develop speaking skill for elementary students, helping them be more confident to communicate in English RESEARCH TIME AND LOCATION Research Time : School Year 2015-2016 Research Location: Nghi Son Primary School Research Object: " Applying the methods of teaching pronunciation for primary students " The respondents of the research: With this research I focused on the primary student, especially the students of class B CONTENT RATIONALE A significance of research, developed over many years, is available to inform educators about effective approaches to teaching children how to read However, research on applying the methods of teaching pronunciation for primary students is in its infancy This reflects the fact that many teachers in the Vietnam are faced with the challenge of teaching children to listen and speak in English while the students have a heritage language that is not English and they are not proficient in English yet Making this a more critical issue, several researches suggest that teachers are not receiving adequate professional development in effective strategies to teach pronunciation for students As part of the effort to learn more about teaching pronunciation for primary students, educational researchers and teachers in Vietnam have looked at instructional practices in Primary School In order to be successful in using of the information presented in this research, many teachers might want to consider the following set of questions together in preparation for making decisions about teaching pronunciation for primary students Pronunciation is an umbrella term that encompasses the interrelated areas of sounds, phonetic symbols, stress, intonation and rhythm Good pronunciation comes from a lot of technical knowledge on the part of the teacher about placement of the mouth, etc Most teachers in Vietnam unfortunately, not have this knowledge and therefore tend to pass it off as being unimportant but in fact, as you progress in your fluency, pronunciation becomes more and more important Language learning needs a lot of practice and both mechanical and meaningful practice lead to improved pronunciation Only practising that pronunciation will become automatic and drill-like activities are not always considered interesting Nevertheless perception practice is a good way to help learners distinguish certainly sounds Pronunciation involves far more than individual sounds Word stress, sentence stress, intonation, and word linking all influence the sound of spoken English, not to mention the way we often slur words and phrases together in casual speech 'What are you going to do?' becomes 'Whaddaya gonna do?' English pronunciation involves to many complexities for learners to strive for a complete elimination of accent, but improving pronunciation will boost self esteem, facilitate communication, and possibly lead to a better job or a least more respect in the workplace Effective communication is of greatest importance, so choosing first to work on problems that significantly hinder communication and let the rest go Remember that your students also need tobe learnt strategies for dealing with misunderstanding, since native pronunciation is for most an unrealistic goal Pronunciation is an interesting area because when learning in a classroom context, pronunciation isn’t usually a major factor that influences comprehension The value of teaching pronunciation cannot be underestimated Besides the difficulty of changing a `bad habit´, early pronunciation instruction helps students understand how to form sounds that are not found in their mother tongue, contributes to decoding ability and lowers the affective filter Some researchers suggest that pronunciation does not need to be taught and will `take care of itself´ over time Others suggest that teaching pronunciation is necessary In order to avoid some of the pitfalls associated with poor pronunciation it is important to hear as much of the target language (TL) as possible This exposure to the TL can be from the teacher, from films or media clips, songs or audio clips, guest speakers and one’s peers This research will present specific tools and techniques to help students overcome problems with English pronunciation The selection of problems is based on both the frequency and seriousness of errors which many Vietnamese students may produce Methods are resolved or resolving the various problems, such as missing final consonants, misplaced stress in sentences, and misused intonation patterns, will be discussed in the three areas of pronunciation: sounds, stress & rhythm, and intonation Activities related to the correction of these errors are designed to meet students' different learning styles, namely auditory, visual, tactile, and kinesthetic learning In this way, the goal of the “learnercentered” classroom is hoped to be pragmatically achieved THE PRESENT SITUATION OF THE PROBLEM Analysis of my school’s performance in teaching and learning pronunciation in recent years showed that our average score in pronunciation had been consistently below that of like other schools in urban areas It was a situation that was of concern and motivated a thorough examination of the school’s approach to the teaching of pronunciation Our school is a public primary school in a rural area in Thanh Hoa province It is a large school with about 807 students, ranging from to 10 years old There are four or five classes in each grade, meaning that collaboration among teachers is extremely important to ensure consistency in learning programs In the school year 2009 - 2010, Ministry of Education and Training applied pronunciation as the framework in the program of teaching English for primary students After several years of teaching the book Tieng Anh 3, I found that most of the students can not pronounce the new words correctly They only focused on grammar and vocabulary and did not like to learn pronunciation during the lesson 2.1 About students In fact, in the process of learning a foreign language, students often focus on learning grammar mainly because the test requires the application of grammar, the tests often have a few exercises with pronunciation In English class they have little chance to practice pronouncing Over time they lose their ability to communicate in English In addition, the limitation of students’ speaking skill that has some reasons: + The old habit of learning English does not motivate students to communicate in English + Being lack of knowledge of English to communicate everyday + Having a few opportunities to speak and practise English in the classroom with their teacher and classmates 2.2 About the teacher Many teachers in the Vietnam are faced with the challenge of teaching students to pronounce correctly, when the students have a heritage language that is not English and they are not yet proficient in English Normally when teaching a foreign language, teachers often focus on teaching vocabulary, grammar or structure However, grammar is not the final result of the teaching and learning process It is only a tool to help learner to communicate more effectively But in fact, there are some differences between spoken English and written English Written English requires the accuracy statement of the structure, whereas spoken English needs the flexibility and the intimacy in communication From those factors, there are some problems in teaching pronunciation for primary student at school However, in a number of causes, teachers and students can progressively overcome the difficulties Therefore, in the teaching process teachers must use some suitable techniques to teach students how to lean pronunciation effectively He or she should have creative and flexible approaches in using the methods of teaching pronunciation 2.3 About the teaching facilities My school has facilities of teaching and learning to meet the needs of specific subjects such as: projectors, the modern teaching equipment such as Television, CD player, etc So the application of teaching pronunciation is quite effectively 2.4 The quality survey and students’ classification Based on the present situation of students in class the level of all students is acquired after a few weeks of the new school year with the methods of teaching pronunciation I had a test on students in class 3A, 3B, 3C, 3D to survey and classify the students The following servey showed the result: Class The Excellent Good Fair Poor Fail numbers (A) (B) (C) (D) (F) of students 3A 30 5=16,7% 8=26,6% 12=40% 5=16,7% 3B 29 4=13,8% 10=34,5% 11=37,9% 4=13,8% 3C 28 4=14,3% 9=32,1% 11=39,3% 4=14,3% 3D 28 4=14,3% 8=28,6% 11=39,3% 5=17,8% According to the survey result, I have classified the students and immediately applied the methods and experiences which I accumulated over the years to improve the teaching and learning quality THE SOLUSION According to the present situation in English classes at my school, pronouncing wrong still exists in all grades from to 5, especially in grade To improve this situation, I would like to present some techniques for teaching pronunciation and elicit the stages of teaching pronunciation for primary student which I have researched and applied quite successfully at my school This research will attempt to address the common and serious pronunciation errors that Vietnamese students produce Activities related to the correction of these errors are designed to meet students' different learning styles, namely auditory, visual, tactile, and kinesthetic learning As for the research's title, the "learner-centered" classroom, we take the term from a broader perspective, meaning that it is a class where students can feel, experience, and monitor their own learning of pronunciation The research will cover the three areas of pronunciation: sounds, stress & rhythm, and intonation with the expectation that it will provide the audience with comprehensive insight into ways of teaching pronunciation The presentation is by no means comprehensive; rather it is an opportunity for sharing what we know about new perspectives in pronunciation instruction 3.1 Sounds Teaching sounds involves several steps: first, identify your students' problem areas; second, find a meaningful context for the problem sounds, and then develop communicative or relevant tasks that incorporate the sound; third, develop at least three or four exercises so that students can keep practicing target sounds in new contexts ( Celce-Murcia, 1987 ) For the sounds part, we intend to offer teachers some remedial teaching techniques for sounds which they can apply in regular English classes to help students overcome problematic sounds Vowel length and final consonants are commonly found difficult for most Vietnamese students to master in English classes What teachers confront is that no effective technique has been found to help students to pronounce some problematic vowel contrast such as / i / and / I / correctly in sentences, in dialogues or even in reading passages Traditionally, teachers will model the sounds and then students repeat them or teachers show a facial diagram which allocates various sounds positions in the mouth to enhance correct pronunciation In order to provide teachers with more effective and interesting teaching techniques, the first part of this paper will present some new teaching tools and activities to solve the problems mentioned above In the second part of sounds, we will address the problem of dropping final consonants while students are speaking In Vietnamese, there is no CVC structure ( consonant + vowel + consonant); consonants would never appear at the end of the word This is quite different from English Influenced by Vietnamese, students omit final consonants while speaking and this result in semantic misunderstanding with each other For example: They pronounce these words in the same way: white, wine, wife, why, etc The activities adopted tend to alert students to final consonants and regulate their English language habits in putting final consonants on in speech * Vowel Length (1) Rubber bands Students like to have the chance to experience how sounds can be produced through operating a rubber band For example, using a rubber band in / i / sound, students have to pull both sides of the rubber band to the end to feel the strength and tense of / i / On the other hand, while practicing / I /, students just have to pull both sides of rubber bands slightly apart, as shown below /i/ /I/ (Adopted from Gilbert, 1993, Clear Speech, 2nd ed., p 54) By doing this, students can clearly distinguish the length of the two vowels and experience the real difference between both sounds Other vowel sounds can also be demonstrated by rubber bands in the same way For example: My brother is fifteen My grand mother is fifty – three yearsold (Tieng Anh - Unit 11: This is my family – Lesson - Page 10) Students may hear two different vowel lengths of “fifteen” and “fifty” The "ee" vowel sound of “fifteen” is pronounced a little bit longer than the ''y'' of “fifty.” Using rubber bands can help students to build up their listening comprehension ability and clarify the slightly different vowel length One important aspect that teachers have to inform students about vowels is that if the vowel sound follows a voiced consonant then the vowel sound will be pronounced a little bit longer than when followed by a voiceless consonant If the final sound is voiced, the vowel before it is long Pull the rubber band at both sides to the end If the final sound is unvoiced, then the vowel before it is short Pull the rubber band slightly toward both sides For example: rise rice (Gilbert, 1993, p.45) Practice the rubber band with different words within the same vowel but followed by voice and voiceless consonants, such as: back bet cap plants cart sink ice bucks bag bed cab plans card sing eyes bugs (Dauer, 1993) Then, some minimal pairs to practice these similar word sounds in sentences to reinforce the pronunciation One student is speaking the sentence and the other is operating the rubber band according to what he/she heard from the partner For example: a Please take this back Please take this bag b Has he used this bet? Has he used this bed? c I need a cap I need a cab d Where are your plants? Where are your plans? e Give him a cart Give him a card f She is going to sink She is going to sing g I wish I had blue ice I wish I had blue eyes h I found ten bucks I found ten bugs (Dauer, 1993) (2) Mirrors In addition to rubber bands, mirrors are a strong selfcorrection tool for students to modify or imitate sounds Teachers can ask students to take out mirrors to peer-correction or self-correction while approaching some problematic sounds (3) Rhymes To avoid boring students with continuous practicing and drills, use rhymes with a regular beat and the same vowel sound This will lead students to master the target sound unconsciously For example, we take /e / sound into rhymes Ask students to snap their fingers, clap, or tap on the desks to keep the beat and read aloud the rhyme: For example: Look! Look! Look! Look! Look! Look! These are books Those are robots They're my books They're my robots Look! Look! Look! Look! Look! Look! These are pens Those are robots They're my pens They're my robots (Tieng Anh 3- Unit 8: This is my family – Lesson – Page 56) (4) Mother tongue This is an added bonus if students find some way to apply their mother tongue to some English sounds For example: / e / sound can be applied to Vietnamese as " ten " in an expressive situation Examples can be found successfully in class or in students' books For example: How old is he? How old is he? He's eight He's eight yearsold How old is she? She's nine She's nine yearsold How old are you? I'm ten I'm ten yearsold (Tieng Anh - Unit 11: This is my family – Lesson - Page 10) (5) Role play A brief role play puts students into a realistic and communicative situation and will allow the sounds to be spoken more naturally and necessarily We have used a short dialogue which happened in a railroad station between Mr Gray and the conductor adopted from Pronunciation Pairs (Baker & Goldstein, 1990) One student acts as the first person who is asking about the things in the room, and the other student is the conductor who is answering the questions: For example: Where's the book? S1: Where is the book? S2: Here! Here! It's here S1: Where is the ball? S2: There! There! It's under the chair S1: Where are the posters? S2: On the wall On the wall They're on the wall S1: Where are the posters? S2: On the wall On the wall They're on the wall (Tieng Anh 3- Unit 13: Where's my book? – Lesson – Page 23) (6) Tongue twisters Tongue twisters are also an interesting way to practice and contrast similar sounds and have fun at the same time But there is a huge challenge for the teacher and students to it well Teachers should tell students at first not to feel upset at making mistakes because even for native speakers, it is difficult Examples for practicing / e / , and /æ / are below: Henry, age eight, etched the letter h on the edge of the desk * Final Consonants (1) Song lyrics Teachers can ask students to read some popular song lyrics aloud to practice final consonants In our classes, students omit final consonants often or pronounce them too lightly to be heard For example, they pronounce student as "studen" Therefore, we ask them to read the marked song lyrics of "Silent Night" in which the final consonants in each sentence have been underlined, and then to listen to the song to notice how the singer produced final consonants Silent night, holy night All is calm All is bright Round young virgin, mother and child Holy infant, so tender and mild, Sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace (2) Numbers Besides song lyrics, numbers can be a good aid in helping students put final consonants on For example, teachers can set up some particular numbers to have students practice final consonants A: What is your telephone number? B: 0982 818 205 3.2 Stress and Rhythm Why is it necessary to teach stress and rhythm? Every language in the world has a characteristic speech rhythm English tends to be a stress-timed 10 language with rhythmic patterns based on a fairly regular recurrence of stressed syllables (Browne & Huckin, 1987) However, Vietnamese tends to give equal weight to each syllable, making the rhythmic patterns appear to be more syllable-timed In Vietnam, many students often use the Vietnamese rhythmic pattern when speaking English; as a result, even though they can pronounce each English sound correctly, their speech does not sound like English Their problems with the word rhythm of English are that they often misplace the stress and give each syllable, whether it is stressed or unstressed, the same length; thus, the vowels in the unstressed syllables are not reduced As for their problems with the sentence rhythm of English, one is that they put stress on too many words, for they not know what kinds of words need to be emphasized; the other is that they tend to separate words during speech without linking them together In order to help Vietnamese students speak English naturally, we are English teachers who should pay more attention to teaching the rhythm of English Two aspects of English rhythm, stress and linking, and some teaching tools and techniques related to these two are now discussed * Stress It is important for our students to know the different rhythmic patterns of Vietnamese and English The teacher can show them a visual contrast between the two languages to indicate that Vietnamese is syllable-timed while English is stress-timed A Stress-Timed Rhythm B Syllable-Timed Rhythm Pron unciation is important (Adapted from the illustrations from Prator & Robinett, 1985, Manual of American English Pronunciation 4th ed.) In the above illustrations, the Vietnamese rhythm is composed of soldiers (each soldier represents a syllable), which implies that Vietnamese has the same length and strength in all syllables; however, the English rhythm is composed of adults (stressed syllables) and children (unstressed syllables), which implies that English has different syllable length and strength After having built the concept of the different rhythmic patterns of Vietnamese and English, students need to practice both word stress and sentence stress in English Following are some teaching techniques and activities * Word Stress (1) Visual effects Emphasize the stressed syllable by using visual effects: thicken, capitalize, underline, circle, or color the stressed syllable In addition, the teacher can put a dot for unstressed syllables and a line for the stressed one under the word to indicate that the stressed one needs to be lengthened; or he can put a small dot for unstressed syllables and a big dot for the stressed one 11 under the word to indicate that the stressed one has a stronger beat Using visual effects can help students notice the place of stress in each word and avoid misusing word stress For example: today toDAY today today today today (2) Rubber bands Pull a wide rubber band between the two thumbs while saying a word Stretch it out during the stressed syllable but leave it short during other syllables It provides a visual image of the variable length of the syllables as well as a kinesthetic tool that mimics the actual effort involved in lengthening a stressed syllable (Gilbert, 1994) The teaching point is to help students avoid pronouncing each syllable at the same length (3) Tapping, clapping, or playing simple rhythm instruments Give a strong beat to the stressed syllable and weak beats to the others by clapping, tapping on the desk, or playing simple rhythm instruments like tambourines or toy hammers It helps students to be aware that unstressed syllables have weak beats and so their vowels need to be reduced (4) Stress matching game Have students work in groups One member in the group taps or claps the rhythm of a word from the vocabulary list, and the others have to find out which word has the same rhythm as they hear For example: artist manager secretary musician politician cashier photographer You hear : So you choose manager (5) Stress and Meaning Have students work in pairs Student says sentence (a) or (b) Notice that the stress in (a) and (b) is put in different places Student has to identify a stressed syllable and make an intelligent guess and then choose an appropriate answer This activity helps students to understand the relationship between stress and meaning For example: (a) Is It an elephant? No, it’s a bear (b) Is it an apple? No, an orange (a) What’s for lunch? Rice and chicken (b) What’s a dinner? Bread and sausages (a) Is that a ruler? No, it’s a pen (b) Is that your book? No, it’s hers (Vietnamese Educational Publisher - Tieng Anh - 2014) * Sentence Stress (1) Finding content words First, introduce the basic emphasis pattern of English to students to let them know that content words are usually emphasized The basic emphasis pattern of English : Content Words nouns main verbs adverbs adjectives (emphasized) (cat) (runs) (quickly) (happy) question words (who, what, where, when, why, how) 12 Structure pronouns Words (he, she) (de-emphasized) conjunctions auxiliary verbs (and, but) (can, have, do, will) prepositions (of, to, at) articles (a, an, the) “to be” verbs (is, was) (Gilbert, 1993, p.72) Then, have students circle or underline content words in a sentence and give these words extra emphasis when speaking the sentence At the same time, students can tap, clap, or play simple rhythm instruments to produce strong and weak beats in the sentence For example: He wants to be an actor, and he wants to live in Hollywood (2) Rhymes Apply the rhythm of nursery rhymes to the rhythm of ordinary sentences The reason for this is that students can easily learn nursery rhymes and catch their rhythm without too much effort Practicing this way helps them to maintain the rhythm patterns in sentences unconsciously and naturally (3) Jazz chants A Jazz chant is a fragment of authentic language presented with special attention to its inherent natural rhythm (Graham, 1992) It has a very clear and strong one-two-three-four beat, so it is easy for students to practice the sentence rhythm through Jazz chants To establish the tempo, students can count out the rhythm by clapping, finger snapping, or tapping on the desk For example: 12341234 Chicken, chicken soup Rice and beans, rice and beans 1234 I’d like a bowl of soup Chicken soup 1234 I’d like a large bowl of chicken soup (Graham, 1986, p.45) * Linking One of the essential characteristics of spoken English is that the words in a thought group are linked together (Gilbert, 1993) Mortimer (1977) also talked about the importance of linking: to pronounce English fluently, it is necessary to link words together as a native speaker of English normally does Vietnamese students often fail to this because they pronounce one word at a time in English just as they when speaking Vietnamese Therefore, linking needs to be taught in order to help students to speak English more fluently as well as to improve their comprehension of English native speakers’ normal speech Following are some teaching techniques (1) Chain pictures Use chains to give a visual image of spoken English, but use separate circles to represent spoken Vietnamese It helps students to 13 identify the different speech pattern between spoken English and spoken Vietnamese (2) Magnets Gilbert (1994) mentioned that the pull of magnets can be a physical metaphor to emphasize the attraction between succeeding words, especially if the following word begins with a vowel She suggested the use of magnets, pieces of iron, and blocks of wood to make teaching aids However, we modified this; we used some empty audio-tape cases and magnets to produce this effect Flash cards (e.g., pick, it, me) were put in different tape cases and the magnets were glued onto the two ends of each tape case Make sure that the two words can be attracted only when the first word’s final letter is a consonant and the second word’s first letter is a vowel (e.g., pick it ); otherwise, the two words are repulsed (e.g., pick me) It helps students remember to link words through this physical image For example: pick it pick me up Look at Stand up (3) Curved lines Use the curved line “ ” between the last and first letters to indicate they need to be linked together It provides a visual image to remind students of linking words For example: Hold∪ on Pick ∪ it up I need∪ a cup of tea Look∪ at (4) Chants, poems, or song lyrics Practice linking through reading chants, poems, or song lyrics Students need to know that English words are linked together during speech For example: I love my parents I love you, Mummy I love you, Mummy I love you so much Do you know that? You never know how much I love you Oh, Mummy! I love you so much I love you, Daddy I love you, Daddy I love you so much Do you know that? You never know how much I love you Oh, Daddy! I love you so much (Tieng Anh 3- Unit 18 : What are you doing? – Lesson – Page 55) 3.3 Intonation In addition to Stress & Rhythm, Intonation, or Melody, or change in pitch, is another significant feature in English The purpose of intonation, according to Gilbert (1994), is “helping the listener to follow.” It is a navigation guide for the listener She goes on to note that “L2 learners have difficulty hearing intonation”(p.43) Indeed, most of our students, when listening to English, pay more attention to sounds, vocabulary, and grammar Seldom they attend to pitch changes Therefore, when it comes to speaking, they tend to pronounce each word as clearly as possible It is no surprise to find that many students 14 speak English simply by applying the rhythmic structure of Chinese The result is that they sound monotonous That is, their voice is rather flat with little or no change in pitch The two major problems: (1) misused intonation patterns; and (2) lack of sentence focus, and emotions appropriate to the situation, along with some teaching activities are now discussed * Intonation Patterns One way to make students become aware of their problems in Intonation Patterns is to have them listen to contrasting recordings The tape can be designed in such a way that students have a chance to hear their own voices and the native speakers’ The conversation should be deliberately chosen with various intonation patterns so that it is easy and obvious for them to find their problems In the following example, two basic intonation patterns, Rising/Falling Intonation and Rising Intonation, are presented The topic is identifying house For example: Is there a garden? Is there a garden behind the house? – Yes, there is Yes, there is Is there a yard behind the house? – Yes, there is Yes, there is Is there a gate behind the house? – No, there isn't No, there isn't Is there a pond behind the house? – No, there isn't No, there isn't (Tieng Anh 3- Unit 12: This is my house – Lesson – Page 16) Once students hear the two versions of the dialogue, they will immediately recognize the striking difference in intonation between their version and the native speakers’ Then the teacher should seek possible ways to solve their problems, such as misused intonation patterns We suggest that the three intonation patterns be presented through various visual or aural effects Some techniques include drawing pitch lines/curves or arrows, using musical scores, and using kazoos Let's take a closer look at each of these techniques (1) Pitch lines/curves One of the most commonly used ways to teach various intonation patterns is to draw pitch lines/curves Besides drawing the pitch lines/curves, we suggest that the teacher blacken the last stressed syllable and put a dot over it In doing so, students can be expected to produce the appropriate intonation with the correct word stress Linda: How was your trip? (Rising/Falling Intonation) (2) Arrows Another simple way to teach intonation is to draw arrows over the place where pitch changes It is a variation, in particular, for showing how pitch rises and falls within a sentence The two examples are presented: a choice question as shown in A and a statement showing a series of items as in B A: Can we rent it or buy it? (Combination Intonation) B: I have classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (3) Musical scores The other effective visual effect is musical scores In the following example, the pitch rises on “telle,” which is the last stressed syllable In order to be able to that, students need to apply their knowledge of 15 basic emphasis patterns as has been shown earlier in the part Sentence Stress That is, stress content words and not structure words Linda: May I go out?(Rising Intonation) (4) Follow-ups Often times when teaching Intonation Patterns, we found that many students seem to have more problems with Rising Intonation than with any other patterns we have noticed that many of our students tend to ask Yes/No questions with Rising/Falling Pattern instead of Rising Intonation Some may use Rising Pattern but tend to rise at the end of the sentence We suspect it may have some relation with their mother tongue Compare the following Yes/No questions: For example: English: Can you speak English? Vietnamese: Bạn có biết nói Tiếng Anh khơng? The difference between English and Vietnamese is obvious when asking Yes/No questions Whereas English use Rising Intonation, Vietnamese use Falling intonation or slightly rise at the question word “ ?”, which is added at the end of the sentence Apparently, for Vietnamese students, the Rising Pattern is a new habit that they need to learn how to perform Whenever students have problems with Rising Intonation, practicing putting sentences on musical scores can be a useful way to help them out Kazoos can be another option Musical scores and kazoos Draw musical scores for the following sentences, and then practice saying or kazoing the sentences For example: (a) Could you make a sandwich for me? (b) Will you be interested in it? (c) Would you like some Ice cream? * Sentence Focus & Emotions Though our students have learned the basic emphasis patterns mentioned in part Stress and Rhythm, they should know that these rules are not fixed In fact, English speakers use emphasis on any word in a sentence to achieve various results, such as introducing new information, showing contrasts, correcting the previous information, or creating special attention or emphases, and so on This special emphasis is called the sentence focus (1) Visual effects One simple way to help students understand the importance of sentence focus is through visual effects We can show students two different pictures For example: in the following pictures, what you see? 16 A big book and a small book That's an easy way to make students become aware of the importance of focus To help students overcome the problem with sentence focus, the teacher can easily draw from the textbook suitable situations in which two speakers exchange information by showing contrasts For example: A: This is your book B: No That's her book or No That's hers Notice that for speaker B, the stress shifts from “book” to “her,” which indicates the emphasis of the response If it is the general sentence, it should be : That's her book The stress falls on "book" rather than "her." (2) Mini dialogues Another perfect topic to help students practice these characteristics is good news or bad news In the following two situations, students can take turns practicing with a partner, playing with focus words “wonderful”, “wow”,and “Oh,” by dramatizing, lengthening and speaking louder Encourage students to add personal emotions with given situations Rubber bands can also be used here to get visual effects on vowel lengthening For example: Tony: This is the living room Nam: Wow! It’s nice Is there a garden? Tony: Yes, There is Come and see it (Tieng Anh 3- Unit 12: This is my house – Lesson – Page 14) (3) Follow-ups Sometimes we may want to challenge our students with tasks where they learn to become intelligent in using focus For the following activity, student A asks : “Where's Sapa?.” Student B has to, first, look at the responding sentence, then figure out the focus should be on word “Sapa,” and respond to student A appropriately For example: A: Where's Sapa? B: It's in the north of Viet Nam Giving the name of some cities and have students work in pairs or groups, and take turns practicing the conversation ( Tieng Anh 3- Unit 20: Where's Sapa?- Lesson 1- Page 64) 17 3.4 Five basic steps to teach pronunciation Pronunciation is presented in part of lesson in all Units of the book “ Tieng Anh 3” which is published by Vietnamese Educational Publishers Teaching pronunciation in Tieng Anh consists of teaching Phonics and Songs/ Rhymes/Chants Pronunciation enables pupils to recognize the relationship between letters or letter combinations and the sounds they make With the knowledge of phonics, pupils are able to improve their speaking and reading skills because they can identify the spelling and the pronunciation patterns of listening new words and decode them quickly Focus the pupils’ attentions on the letter and its sounds in words, and model the new sounds a few times for pupils to repeat It is advisable that the teacher should introduce the Songs/ Rhymes/ Chants in which the new sounds are embedded; teach new vocabulary, using flashcards, realia, pictures, etc; and mime the lines if it is possible These are five steps that I usually use to teach phonics in Lesson 3: Listen and repeat It need to be noted that in the classroom, the correct pronunciation of the teachers is not enough, it also needs the modern equipments such as speakers, CD player, Robot teacher, etc Step : Introducing the sounds in the songs, rhymes or chants; teaching new words using word cards, real objects, pictures, etc Focusing on the sounds of letters and words Step : Playing the recording a few time or let pupils listen to the Robot Teacher; having them repeat each line of the Songs/ Rhymes/ Chants and clap the words containing the focused sounds Step : Clap your hands to the beat while listening to the words that contain the sound that need to be trained Step : Organizing students to practice in pairs or groups to practice the songs, rhymes or chants Step : Calling on some volunteers to perform the Songs/ Rhymes/ Chants at the front of the class and have the rest of the class clap the rhythm of the chant The efficiency of the research After applying successfully the methods and procedures to teach pronunciation, the students’ improvement in pronunciation can be seen clearly The result in the first semester of the school year 2015-2016 shows the increase in the percentage of students who can pronounce correctly What is especially pleasing is the impact of pronunciation in class as there are fewer students who can not pronounce correctly than the beginning of the first semester The significance of the methods of teaching pronunciation can be seen when examining the percentage of students with a reading age above their chronological age since the program’s implementation The number of students assigned to be improve their pronunciation, especially bad students who now can pronounce more correctly Comparing with the result survey at the 18 beginning of new school year, I find that the recent result is better than the old one The following chart will show the result: Class The numbers of students 3A 30 3B 29 3C 28 3D 28 Excellent (A) 5=16,7% 5=17,2% 6=21,4% 4=14,2% Good (B) 10=33,3% 11=37,9% 12=42,9% 12=42,9% Fair Poor (C) (D) 14=46,7% 1= 3,3% 12=41,4% 1=3,4% 10=35,7% 12=42,9% Fail (F) 0 0 In conclusion, the changing of the students’ pronunciation has been a resounding success The consistency and clarity it has afforded in teaching pronunciation for primary student has been worth the time and effort My students are capable and ready for explicit teaching of pronunciation and are highly motivated by their success in speaking English C CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS CONCLUSION Pronunciation certainly deserves strong attention in the English class, especially in classes with a communicative approach Poor pronunciation will cause problems in oral communication no matter how good a speaker’s control of English grammar and vocabulary might be Many of the problems, in fact, are caused by the influence of the speaker’s mother tongue; Vietnamese students tend to use Vietnamese speech patterns or styles when speaking English Therefore, English teachers must to help students be aware of this tendency in order to be able to speak English clearly and intelligently To overcome students’ pronunciation problems, we offer a variety of kinesthetic, visual, and aural devices and activities for teaching English pronunciation Although we not have pronunciation class in our current English curriculum, it is hoped that these tools and techniques we have referred to will be a great help to English teachers as well as students This research investigated the methods of teaching pronunciation for primary student, lesson delivery and sequence of content and learning expectations used by teachers of English at Nghi Son Primary School This research brings broader understanding of strategies for teaching pronunciation to students whose first language is not English The rationale for the study stems from the need to gain greater international perspective of the teaching of English learners Results reflect analysis of classroom observation field notes of students in grade To sum up, The research provides some methods to improve teaching pronunciation for primary student in order to form the habit of using English words that contributes to improve the quality of students' listening skill and 19 speaking skill in particular and English for academic subjects in general This research does reveal some promising practices but more research is needed RECOMMENDATIONS To the leaders To enhance the capacity of teachers in teaching English, the leaders should organize the training courses for the English teachers regularly Through the training courses, teachers have the opportunity to exchange and learn their experience Acknowledgments I am grateful to the Ministry of Education and Training for publishing the book Tieng Anh 3, 4, 5; for valuable discussions and innovative ideas and techniques of teaching pronunciation during the program I would also like to thank the experts of Tinh Gia District Office of Education and Training, my colleague at Nghi Son Primary School, for providing helpful comments for the research Finally, I would like to encourage Vietnamese teachers to have more confidence in teaching English pronunciation even though we are not native speakers of English With full advanced preparation, including practicing our own pronunciation and designing effective teaching activities, we can all be experts in teaching English pronunciation Headmaster’s signature Tinh Gia district, march 11th 2016 I swear this thesis is written by me without copy content from others Written by Tran Thi Thuy REFERENCES Vietnamese Educational Publisher - Tieng Anh (2014) Ministry of Education and Training Baker, A., & Goldstein, S (1990) Pronunciation pairs: An introductory course for students of English Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Beisbier, B (1995) Sounds great: Intermediate pronunciation and speaking for learners of English MA: Heinle & Heinle 20 Browne, S C., & Huckin, T N (1987) Pronunciation tutorials for nonnative technical professionals: A program description In J Morley (Ed.), Current perspectives on pronunciation Washington, D.C.: TESOL Celce-Murcia, M (1987) Teaching pronunciation as communication In J Morley (Ed.), Current perspectives on pronunciation Washington, D.C.: TESOL Dauer, R M (1993) Accurate English: A complete course in pronunciation New Jersy: Prentice-Hall, Inc Gilbert, J B (1994) Intonation: A navigation guide for the listener (and gadgets to help teach it) In J Morley (Ed.), Pronunciation pedagogy and theory Bloomington: TESOL, Inc Graham, C (1992) Singing, chanting, telling tales New Jersey: PrenticeHall, Inc Grant, L (1993) Well said: Advanced English pronunciation MA: Heinle & Heinle 10 Lado, R (1989) Lado English series Book New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc 11 Morley, J (1994) A multidimensional curriculum design for speechpronunciation instruction In J Morley (Ed.), Pronunciation pedagogy and theory Bloomington: TESOL, Inc 12 Mortimer, C (1977) Link-up: A pronunciation practice book Cambridge: Cambridge University 13 Tay, M M E (1986) Creative phonics Singapore: Pan Pacific Publications Pte Ltd 14 Dalton, D (1997) Some techniques for teaching pronunciation 15 Fraser, H (2001) Teaching pronunciation: A handbook for teachers and trainers New Southwales Department of Education and Training 16 Kelly, G (2000) How to teach pronunciation London: Pearson Education Limited 17 Kenworthy, J (1988) Teaching English pronunciation London: Longman 21 ... research: "Experiences in teaching pronunciation for primary students " THE PURPOSE OF THE RESEARCH - The research applies the methods of teaching pronunciation to involve students in learning pronunciation. .. Exchanging and sharing some experiences in teaching pronunciation for primary student RESEARCH TASKS - Systematizing some theoretical issues about the procedures and activities in teaching pronunciation. .. students in learning English excitingly As a teacher of English at Primary School, I am always awarded of researching the specific methods in teaching English, especially in teaching pronunciation in