Some typical pronunciation errors made by first year english major students at thuong mai university

In this study, the author studied typical English pronunciation errors offreshmen of English Faculty at Thuong Mai University, then proposed somesolutions to freshmen in particular and a

Nowadays, English plays an important role in all areas of life, especially ininternational integration An essential task of education is that English learnersshould communicate successfully with the target language To do this, learners musthave a deep understanding of the sound system in English language Therefore,pronunciation skill is the most important factor In fact, there are still manypronunciation errors of English learners, creating language barriers that preventthem from integrating with the outside world A large number of English majorstudents of Thuong Mai University are also experiencing these problems

Indeed, in spite of being learned English in secondary school and in highschool, many students of English Faculty at Thuong Mai University are weak atEnglish pronunciation This has a significant impact on their learning other subjectssuch as listening, speaking, reading, interpreting, etc as well as creates manyrestrictions in communicating with native speakers

In this study, the author studied typical English pronunciation errors offreshmen of English Faculty at Thuong Mai University, then proposed somesolutions to freshmen in particular and all students of English Faculty in general toimprove their pronunciation All data and information were collected from 50students from 7 classes of the English Department The findings indicate that first-year students tend to make pronunciation mistakes with vowels and consonants.However, they have not had real effective method to improve their pronunciationerrors Therefore, the findings from the study are hopefully of benefit not only forfirst-year English major students at Thuong Mai University but also all studentsinterested in the pronunciation area by raising their awareness of their own study

i

When completing this graduation paper, I would like to express my deepestand most sincere thanks to many people for their invaluable help in the process ofconducting research

First and foremost, I would like to send my sincere gratitude towards mysupervisor Ms Do Thi Bich Dao, for her constructive and timely feedbacks as well

as her continuous encouragement from the beginning and through the study process.Without her help, I could not finish my graduation paper

I would love to thank all the teachers at Thuong Mai University for bringing

me the world of knowledge during my course and helping me complete thisimportant document I would also like to send my sincerest gratitude to all first-yearstudents who have enthusiastically participated in the study Their participation hasbeen important to this research

Last but not least, I want to send my truly thanks to my family and friends fortheir endless love and support through the challenging time of conducting theresearch Without the encouragement of them, I could not have got this far

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES AND CHARTS v

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS v

CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Previous studies 2

1.3 Aims of the study 3

1.4 Research Subjects 4

1.5 Scope of the study 4

1.6 Research methodology 4

1.6.1 Setting 4

1.6.2 Sampling 5

1.6.3 Data collection 5

1.6.4 Procedures for data collection and analysis 7

1.7 Organization of the study 8

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 9

2.1 English pronunciation 9

2.1.1 Definition of pronunciation 9

2.1.2 Aspects of pronunciation 9

2.2 English pronunciation errors 17

2.2.1 What are English pronunciation errors? 17

2.2.2 Factors affecting English pronunciation of students 18

2.2.3 English pronunciation errors made by Vietnamese learners 19

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH FINDINGS 23

3.1 Result from survey questionnaire 23

3.1.1 Background information about students’ English pronunciation skill 23

3.1.2 Student’s difficulties in English pronunciation learning 25

iii

3.1.3 What are strategies do you use when you practice

English pronunciation? 31

3.2 Result from personal interview 33

CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATION AND SUGGESTIONS 36

4.1 Major findings of the study 36

4.2 Suggestions for the Improvement of the Pronunciation Errors 36

4.3 Limitation of the study and suggestions for further research 38

CONCLUSION 39 REFERENCES

APPENDIX

iv

LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES AND CHARTS

 List of tables

 List of figures

 List of charts

Chart 3.1 Factors affecting student’s English pronunciation 26

Chart 3.2 Student's difficulties in English pronunciation 28

Table 3.4 The vowel and consonant sounds that students often make mistakes 30

Chart 3.3 Methods used to improve English pronunciation skill 31

Table 3.5 The efficiency of used learning methods to improve pronunciation skills of students 33

v

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

 EU: European Union

 EFL: English as a Foreign Language

 ESL: English as a Second Language

 TMU: Thuong Mai University

 VPM: Voices, Place and Manner

 RP: Received Pronunciation

 N, V, A: Noun, Verb, Adjective

vi

CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY

1.1 Rationale

Nowadays, English has become the global language Among hundreds ofdifferent languages, the world has chosen English as a mean for people tounderstand each other English is the official language of 53 countries andterritories, the official language of the EU and the third widely used language afterChinese and Spanish The international events like the Olympics, globalorganizations, and multinational companies consider English as common language

of communication Vietnam is also one of the countries which use English as thesecond language Therefore, English plays an important role in Education sector asone of the main subjects in many schools in Vietnam This shows the importance ofEnglish in all fields of economy, culture, society, etc

However, a sad fact that Vietnamese young people are learning English as aformal subject at school but almost still express to be lack self when communicatingwith foreigners Many students after graduation still cannot speak more than simplesentence such as greetings and introduce themselves The reason is that they cannotpronounce English words correctly which discourages them from talking andcommunication To master a language is not easy at all We often hear about fourskills of listening, speaking, reading and writing in English but forgetting thatpronunciation is also one of the important skills If learners want to listen to Englishwell, they must first say it correctly and pronounce it correctly That requires aknowledge system of vocabulary and the process of practicing pronunciation, wordand sentence stress If learners pronounce one word wrongly, when they hear thenative speakers say that word, they cannot understand it because they may find theword very strange, not recognizing it and as a result English learners do notunderstand the whole sentence Besides, if learners speak wrongly, native speakerscannot understand what they are saying or cause misunderstandings

At Thuong Mai University, most of first-year English major students still havemany mistakes in pronunciation If English learners want to communicate fluently,English learners have to repair pronunciation mistake as soon as possible, especially

at the first year at university There are many pronunciation errors that learnersmake such as words and sentence stress, intonation, linking sound, length of vowelsounds, ending sounds etc This is one of the most disturbing things for studentspursuing an English-related career in the future if there is no method to change andovercome From the reasons mentioned above, to improve student’s pronunciation,the researcher has decided to carry out the study entitled "Some typicalpronunciation errors made by first-year English major students at Thuong MaiUniversity".

1.2 Previous studies

Prior to the 1980s, the pronunciation field was less interested not only inlanguage teaching at schools, but also in the found literature There were not muchresearches about pronunciation errors According to Brown (1991), among 1420articles in four leading English teaching journals, only 95 of them investigatedpronunciation In other words, between 1975 and 1988, the rate of the articlesrelated to pronunciation is only 7.6 %

After 1980 and onward, people began to pay attention to communicationmethods and the pronunciation prerequisite skill has been made as the “Intelligiblepronunciation is an essential component of communicative competence” (Morley,1991) Because of that, many researchers started to find out about different issuessuch as the influence of the factors on second language acquisition of pronunciation(Moyer, 1999; Thompson, 1991; Flege, Munro, & MacKay, 1995) When theresearchers learned about the segmental aspects which are consonants and vowels,they have realized the importance of the suprasegmental features such as stress,rhythm, intonation to maintain the healthy conversations (Celce-Murcia et al 1996).Finally, the study has been conducted with a pragmatic aim These researcheswere made to investigate the pronunciation errors of the EFL learners so as todescribe the current situations of the students in terms of pronunciationdevelopment, to define what extent the curriculum serves the aim of pronunciationteaching with the chosen documents like coursebooks Thank for these studies, it iseasier for teachers in preventing these errors from becoming fossilized errors anddesigning the lessons according to the needs of the learners (Hojati, 2013; Kaçmaz,1993; Hişmanoğlu, 2011; Tergujeff, 2012; Gordani & Khajavi, 2012)

The research about “Teaching English Intonation to ESL/EFL Students”,Mehmet Celik, (2001), Hacettepe University, Turkey put forward a framework ofEnglish intonation as a second of foreign language to non- native speakers ofEnglish That English intonation framework should include four maincharacteristics of intonation: intonation units, stress, tone and pitch range.Therefore, the phenomena of intonation in English should have a part of utterance,intonation unit, as a basis for studying all kinds of movements and features of thevoice Each intonation unit has a type of tonic stress: (unmarked) utterance-finaltonic stress, or emphatic, or contrastive, or new information stress, the last of which

is more frequently used in utterances given to wh-questions Moreover, intonationunits often have one of these tones: low-rise, high-rise, fall and fall-rise Tones areassigned to intonation units related to the type of voice movement on syllables.Finally, all intonation units must be said in one of three levels: high, mid and low.Although this framework may be ratified to be useful and feasible forpronunciation practitioners in the field of ESL/EFL (English as a Second Language/English as a Foreign Language), it seems to be rather general and theoretical Inorder to pronounce perfectly, English learners need to focus on many differentaspects such as intonation, stress, vowel, consonant, ending sounds, link word, etc.Besides, an equally important thing is how to present the pronunciation way ofvowels and consonants because they seem to be the basic things in pronunciationlearning processing

1.3 Aims of the study

Initially, the researcher wants to find out the most common pronunciationerrors made by first- year English major students of TMU

Secondly, the researcher desires to draw out an appreciate approach to helpimprove the English pronunciation skill of English learners in general and first-yearEnglish major students of TMU in particular More specifically, the study is anattempt to answer the two research questions:

- What are typical pronunciation errors that first-year English major students

of TMU often make?

- What are methods for first- year English major students to overcome Englishpronunciation errors?

1.4 Research Subjects

Firstly, the aim of the researcher is to find out the typical pronunciation errors

of first-year English major students at TMU, thus only first-year students of Englishfaculty at TMU would be the main research subjects of the study Most of thefreshmen are in rural areas from different provinces Therefore, their pronunciation

is greatly influenced by the local language, especially students in Nghe An, HaTinh, Quang Binh, Quang Ngai, etc In addition, the process of learning English athigh schools of these students mainly focuses on grammar for exam preparation, notinvesting time to practice pronunciation skills and speaking skills Besides, theteaching method at the university is different from the teaching method at highschool If in high school, the students are dedicated by the teachers to instruct step

by step, in the university environment, students must be more self-aware in learningwith the guidance of teachers

1.5 Scope of the study

Because of the small scale of the study as well as the limitation of time,expense and experience, the study concretely places a focus on the freshmen ofEnglish major at TMU Specifically, there are 50 first-year students from classes atEnglish faculty of TMU participating in this study with a survey research design.Besides, the researcher will also choose 5 out of those 50 students to take part in adirect interview These students are from both rural and urban areas

As the researcher mentioned in the " Research subject" part, the aim of thestudy is to find out the typical pronunciation errors of first-year English majorstudents at TMU, therefore the researcher only finds out about pronunciationaspects, not focusing on other skills such as speaking, reading, writing and listening

1.6 Research methodology

1.6.1 Setting

The quantitative data collection process was carried out through a surveyquestionnaire with the participation of 50 students who were randomly selectedfrom seven classes of English Faculty at TMU After that, the researcher created adirect interview to ask 5 out of the 50 selected students about difficulties in Englishpronunciation, the mistakes they often make and the methods they used to improveEnglish pronunciation skills

"Speaking Skills" (3 credits) and the "Basic communication English" (2 credits),creating approximately 270 minutes for a week to practice English pronunciation atschool The researcher used the convenient sampling procedure The findings fromthe sample could not be generalized to all students; however, the larger number ofthe participants can compensate for this limitation to some extent.

The specific number of the participants from each class is as follows:

1.6.3.1 Data collection instruments

In the study, the researcher used two different types of data collection tools tofind out the answers to two research questions The first is the survey questionnaire;the second is personal interview

1.6.3.2 Survey questionnaire

1.6.3.2.1 Aims of the questionnaire

According to Paul J Lavrekas, questionnaire “is a set of standardizedquestions, often called items, which follow a fixed scheme in order to collectindividual data about one or more specific topics” (2008) This research tool is themost popular, effective and time-saving for data and information collection.Because the items in the questionnaire often ask about specific information, hence,using the survey questionnaire in the study helps to "gather relativelystraightforward factual data in response to closed questions" (Gillham, 2005, p.166)

In addition, specific information collected from a large number of respondents in arelatively short period of time makes the questionnaire very suitable for quantitativeand statistical analysis

1.6.3.2.2 Questionnaire design

All information received from the questionnaires will be kept confidential inany way The questionnaire requires participants to provide their class for thepurpose of controlling the number of participants in each class answering thequestionnaire

In addition to asking participants to provide information about names, agesand grades, the researcher designed the questionnaire with three sections of 9questions Part A of the questionnaire contains 4 questions relating backgroundinformation about English pronunciation skill of participants Part B with 3 majorquestions, is focused on the difficulties in pronouncing English of participants Thefirst question contains 7 small items in relation to factors affecting Englishpronunciation The second question consists of 5 small items to survey aboutaspects of pronunciation that students face difficulties.The third question has 15items in relation to specific sounds that students often make mistakes Part Cincludes two questions, in which question number 8 is divided into 6 small items.All questions relate to the strategies and methods which participants used toovercome difficulties, common errors in English pronunciation

The content of the survey questionnaire is suitable for research because theresearcher wants to come up with an appreciate method to help improve

pronunciation skills To prepare for the survey questionnaire, the researcherdesigned a systematic series of detailed alternative questions carefully beforeconducting the survey (See Appendix 1).

1.6.3.3 Personal interview

1.6.3.3.1 Aims of the personal interview

The purpose of conducting a personal interview is to explore the responses ofthe people to gather more and deeper information and at the same time, to observethe behavior of the respondents, either individually or as a group

1.6.3.3.2 Personal interview design

The researcher has a list of questions or key points that need to be mentionedand interviewed in a methodical way Respondents will be asked similar questions,although additional questions may be asked in some certain cases In order for theinterview to be highly effective, the researcher will record the answers ofrespondents with their permission and take them home to summarize the obtainedinformation for analysis

1.6.4 Procedures for data collection and analysis

The researcher collected data through questionnaires and individual interviewsurveys All questions used are reasonable and consistent with the aims of the study.After collecting survey questionnaires from 50 students of the classes whilethe recordings obtained during the interview process are being processed, all thefigures and observation diagrams with information gathered from the participantswere used for analysis All ideas and methods collected from students were counted

in the table in the results section The quantitative data collected in surveyquestionnaires were converted into percentages and displayed as charts and tables.Recording files saved in the smartphone were collected and the researcher checkedthem to note some information The results, then, are compared with comments andnotes taken from research observations

Finally, data is processed by both statistical and interpretive methods Theyhave been clarified and summarized into tables and charts for later generalization.Comments and evaluations were given by the researcher relating to relevantknowledge in previous studies are presented in chapter 1 From statistics and

findings, some solutions for the pronunciation errors of first- year students in K54was found.

1.7 Organization of the study

The research is divided into four main chapters: Overview of the study,Literature review, Research findings, Recommendations and suggestions Morespecifically, the contents consist of four chapters are as follows:

Chapter one (Overview of the study) includes the rationale, previous studiesand the aims of the study In addition, it provides the research subjects, the scope,methodology and the organization of the study

Chapter two (Literature review) which presents theories related to the study.The researcher discusses the literature on typical English pronunciation errorsincluding the key terms together with the review of related studies

In chapter three (Research findings), the researcher describe research process,presents and analyze the research results

In chapter four (Recommendations and suggestion) the researcher summarizesthe major findings, suggests some pedagogical implications from those findings,acknowledges the limitation of the research and finds out solutions for the problem

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 English pronunciation

2.1.1 Definition of pronunciation

Most people think of pronunciation as the sounds we make while speaking.According to the research about "ESL Students' Opinions about Instruction inPronunciation" of Madden, et al (1997), "Pronunciation is often simplified to meanthe production of phonetic/phonemic sounds of a language" (p.2)

According to the research about "What is pronunciation?" of AMEP researchcentre (2002) "Pronunciation refers to the production of sounds that we use to makemeaning.” (p.1) It consist of some aspects such as specific sounds of language(segments), intonation, phrasing, stress, timing, rhythm (suprasegmental aspects)and voice quality Abbas Pourhossein Gilakjani said that "Pronunciation is viewed

as a sub-skill of speaking." (2011, p 74)

According to Fraenkel (1984), there are two main steps to learning how topronounce a language The first step is the reception phase By this stage, languagelearners learn to distinguish important sounds and patterns by listening to thelanguage The second stage is speaking, in which learners learn to say or createwhat we have learned before

In the book "English Phonetics and Phonology" (Roach, 1995), it is mentionedthat muscles contracting is the main reason creating all the sound when we speak.The chest muscles that we use to breathe create the air flow that is necessary foralmost all speech sounds The muscles in the larynx create many differentmodifications in the air flow from the chest to the mouth After passing through thelarynx, the air passes through what we call the vocal tract, ending in the mouth and

nostrils Here the air from the lungs escapes into the atmosphere We have a largeand complex muscle set that can make changes in the shape of the vocal tract, and

to learn how to make the sound of speech, it is essential to be familiar with thedifferent parts of the vocal tract These different parts are called articulators, andtheir study is called phonetic articulation

The articulators include the following parts: larynx, pharynx, soft palate(velum), hard palate, tongue, alveolar ridge, nose, upper teeth, lower teeth, upperlip, lower lip

Look at the diagram below to see where each part of the articulators is:

Figure 2.1 Places of articulation (Roach, 1983: 8)

2.1.2.1.2 The process of producing sounds

Beside mentioning about the articulators above the larynx, the book "EnglishPhonetics and Phonology" (Roach, 1995) also describes how the sounds areproduced in the following way: When a person is making sound, the air from thelungs passes through the trachea and comes first at the larynx Then it passesthrough the vocal cords into the throat, and up throat to the tongue At this point,there are two cases If the soft palate is lifted, it can enter the oral cavity and go out

of the mouth Or it may enter the nasal tract if the soft palate is lowered and escapethrough the nostril

2.1.2.2 English sounds

There are 44 sounds in English including 20 vowel sounds (with 12 vowels, 8diphthongs) and 24 consonants sounds

2.1.2.2.1 Vowel Sounds

According to Roach (2000), vowels are "sounds in the production of whichthere is no obstruction to the flow of air as it passes the larynx to the lips" (p.10).They "are the type of sounds that depend mainly on the variations in the position ofthe tongue They are normally voiced." Vowels are divided into two groups:monophthongs and diphthongs In the research, the author only focuses on themonophthongs

Generally monophthongs can be classified according to four variables:

• The part of the tongue

+ Front vowels: In making sound process, the front of the tongue is the highestpoint

E.g: /i:/, /e/, /ɜː/, /æ/, /ɪ/

+ Back vowels: In making sound process, the back of the tongue is the highestpoint

E.g: /u:/, /ʊ/, /ɒ/, /ɔː/, /a:/

+ Central vowels: are vowels created with neither the front nor the back of thetongue The tongue is neither high nor low in the mouth E.g: /ə/, /ʌ/

• Degree of lip rounding

+ Rounded vowels: are vowels created with rounded lips The corners of thelips are brought towards each other and the lips are pushed forwards E.g: /ʊ/, /u:/, /ɒ/, /ɔː/

+ Unrounded vowels: are vowels created with the lips spread The corners of thelips are moved away from each other as for smile E.g: /i:/, /e/, /ɜː/, /æ/, /ɪ/, /ʌ/, /a:/

+ Neutral vowels: are vowels with the lips neither rounded nor spread E.g: /ə/

• The length of sounds:

+ Short vowels: /ɪ/, /e/, /æ/, /ʌ/, /ʊ/, /ɒ/

+ Long vowels: /i:/, /u:/, /ɔ:/, /ɜː/,/a:/

Figure 2.2 Primary cardinal vowels

2.1.2.2.2 Consonant Sounds

Roach (1995) defined consonants “are the sounds in the production of whichone articulator moves towards another or two articulators come together,obstructing the air- stream cannot get out freely"

In English, there are 24 consonants including: /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /t∫/, /dʒ/, /k/, /g/, /f/, /v/, /ð/, /θ/, /s/, /z/, /∫/, /η/, /r/, /w/, /m/, /n/, /l/, /h/, /ʒ/, /j /

Consonants are often categorized by being called VPM - labels VPM standsfor Voices, Place and Manner:

 The place of articulation is where the airflow will be more or lessobstructed According to the place of articulation, consonants can be classified:+ Bilabial: are sounds created with lips pressed together or coming together,including: /p/, /b/, /m/, /w/

+ Labio- dentals: are the sounds created with the lower lip touching the upperfront teeth, including: /f/, /v/

+ Dentals: the sounds are made with the tip of the tongue touching the upperfront teeth or between the lower and the upper teeth, including: /ð/, /θ/

+ Alveolars: the sounds are generated with the tip of a tongue or approachingthe alveolar ridge, including: /t/, /d/, /s/, /z/, /l/, /n/

+ Retroflex: the sound is created with the tip of the tongue curling back behindthe alveolar ridge, including: /r/

+ Palato- alveolar: the sounds are made with the tip of the tongue coming nearthe area between the back of the alveolar ridge and the front of the hard palate,including: /t∫/, /dʒ/, /ʒ/, /∫/

+ Palatal: the sound is created with the front of the tongue coming near thehard palate, including: /j/

+ Velars: the sounds are made with the back of the tongue touching the softpalate, including: /k/, /g/, /η/

+ Glottals: the sound is created without using of the tongue and other parts ofthe mouth, including: /h/

 Manner of articulation is the way in which the flow of air is obstructed oraltered in the production of speech According to the manner of articulation,consonants can be classified:

+ Plosives: the sounds are created when the flow of air is completely stopped

in the oral cavity and the soft palate is lifted blocking off the nasal cavity Afterthat, the two articulators separate quickly and the air escaped through the mouth.E.g: /p/, /t/, /k/, /b/, /d/, /g/

+ Fricatives: the sounds are made when the flow of air is partially stopped,then gradually released, i.e an audible friction noise is produced

+ Lateral: the sound is made when the airstream goes through both sides of themouth

E.g: /l/

+ Approximants: the sounds are produced when the air flow quickly glides tothe sound E.g: /w/, /r/, /j/

 Voicing means that the vocal folds are used, if they are not, the sound isvoiceless According to voicing, consonants can be classified:

+ No vibration means voiceless (9 sounds) – Fortis: /p/, /t/, /k/, /f/, /θ/, /s/, /h/, /

 There are two types of stress

+ The stress placed on syllables within words is called word stress or lexicalstress

+ The stress placed on words within sentences is called sentence stress orprosodic stress

In the research, the author just focuses on the first type of stress- lexical stress

 Placement of stress within words

In the book "Phonetics and Phonology" (Roach, 1995), it is mentioned aboutthe placement of stress within words To decide on the stress placement, it is needed

to make use of some or all of the following information:

+ The grammatical category to which the word belongs to (N, V, A, etc)

+ The number of syllables in the word

+ The phonological structure of the word

+ The word is morphologically simple or complex

 Some lexical stress principles cited in “English Phonetics and Phonology”(Roach, 1995)

Note: These principles are only relative, because there are still exceptions

- Two- syllable words

+ In the most two syllable nouns and adjectives, the first syllable takes on thestress

E.g: HAPpy, BORing, LAPtop, TAble, etc

+ In the most two syllable verbs and prepositions, the stress is on the secondsyllable

E.g: beGIN, deCIDE, betWEEN, beSIDE, etc

+ About 80% of two syllable words get their stress on the first syllable

- Three - syllable word

+ For three- syllable words ending with the suffixes er or ly, the stress isplaced on the first syllable

E.g: ORderly, MAnager, etc

+ The stress is going to be on the syllable right before the suffix such as: able,ial, cian, ery, ian, ible, ic, ics, ion, ia, ient, ious, ish, (o)sis

E.g: DURable, SOcial, muSIcian, BAKery, coMEdian, imPOsible, iONic,TOpics, repoSItion, MEdia, ANcient, VARious, ENGlish, osMOsis

Note: This way just applies to words of all syllable lengths

+ Words that use the suffix -ade, -ee, -ese, -eer, -que, -ette or -oon have theprimary stress actually placed on the suffix

E.g: lemoNADE, aGREE, carTOON, unIQUE, etc

+ Words ending in -cy, -ty, -phy, -gy, and -ies, -ate, stress on the third fromend syllable E.g: geOLogy, ORganise, CONcentrate, etc

- Compound words

+ In a compound noun, the most stress is on the stressed syllable of the firstword

E.g: GREENhouse, FOOTball, etc

+ In compound adjectives, the most stress is placed in the stressed syllable ofthe second word

E.g: old- FASHioned, bad-TEMpered, etc

+ In compound verbs, the stress is on the second or on the last part

E.g: underSTAND, deTESTS, etc

+ In noun + compound noun, the stress is on the first word

E.g: PROject manager, BOARD member, etc

According to Cambridge dictionary, there are three main types of intonation inEnglish including: falling intonation, rising intonation and fall-rise intonation

• Falling intonation

Falling intonation describes how the voice falls on the last stressed syllable of

a phrase or a group of words It is used at the end of statements, special questions,commands sentences, in the first part of tag questions and in the last part ofalternative questions

• Rising intonation

Rising intonation describes how the voice rises at the end of a sentence Risingintonation is common in yes-no questions It is also used at the end of general

questions, in requests, at the end of introductory phrase beginning sentence, in thesecond part of tag questions, in direct address, in the first part of alternativequestions, etc.

The followings are the most familiar cases of the use of linking:

• Consonant to vowel linking

The final consonant of word is associated with the first vowel sound of thefollowing word

E.g: “These are old eggs”  [ði:.zə.rəʊl.degz]ði:.zə.rəʊl.degz]

• Vowel to vowel linking

When certain vowels come side by side, an extra sound is added to make thelink smooth

E.g: “See it”  [ði:.zə.rəʊl.degz]si:jɪt]

• Linking and intrusive "r"

In standard British English (RP), the letter 'r' after a vowel sound at the end ofthe word is usually not pronounced However, when the following word starts withvowels, the /r/ sound is pronounced to create a smooth link

E.g: “might rain” [ði:.zə.rəʊl.degz]mait rein] (r voiced when initial in “rain”, ai short)

“my train” [ði:.zə.rəʊl.degz]mai trein] (r voiceless following t in “train”)

2.2 English pronunciation errors

2.2.1 What are English pronunciation errors?

When learning any language, it is difficult for us to avoid making errors Inpronunciation, errors are defined as “variants of pronunciation which prevent onecommunicator from understanding the propositional content of the other’sutterances” (Jenkins, 2006)

In 1960s, it was considered that pronunciation errors was a failure in learningthat could not be forgiven (Lewood, 1984) Although today people have a more

lenient view of errors in language learning, but non-native people should try toimprove pronunciation errors in order to achieve the best results in communication.Richards (1971) argues that there are two different types of pronunciationerrors including: performance errors, caused by, for example, fatigue and lack ofconcentration, and capacity errors due to lack of knowledge of language rules.

2.2.2 Factors affecting English pronunciation of students

2.2.2.1 Attitude

According to Elliot (1995), attitude of language learners towards native ornear- native pronunciation is an important factor influencing the pronunciation ofthe target language In other words, if language learners pay more attention to theirpronunciation of the target language, they will pronounce better Earlier, Suter(1976) also realized that language learners who are more interested in theirpronunciation (p 249) have a better pronunciation of English as a second language(Elliot, 1995)

2.2.2.3 Instruction

One of the main reasons for students’ pronunciation errors is that they are nottaught this skill carefully and clearly at school In the process of teaching foreignlanguage, there are four skills that are highly valued by teachers including listening,speaking, reading and writing Teachers argue that pronunciation is less importantthan the other four skills, so they often ignore pronunciation teaching to focus onthose skills The language curriculum at the school often emphasizes pronunciationonly in the first year to introduce the alphabet and vowel and consonant system ofthe target language, but seldom keep this focus beyond the introductory level

According to Shumin (1997), because of the lack of contact with the targetlanguage and the native speakers, adult English learners often do not achieve anative- like level of pronunciation with the fluency, and good control of idioms,gestures, body language and facial expressions.

2.2.2.5 Mother tongue

An equally important factor influencing the English pronunciation that theresearcher wants to mention is the transformation or intervention from the mothertongue The ability to pronounce English may be affected by "a transfer from thenative language; an analogy with something correctly learned in the foreignlanguage; a wild guess, vagueness in remembering the right form; or general lack ofaccuracy and language skill.” (MacKay, 1967) Because of the difference in thesound system between the target language and the source language as well as thechallenges of the fossilised sound system of learners’ mother tongue, it is moredifficult to acquire the second language's sound system

2.2.3 English pronunciation errors made by Vietnamese learners

2.2.3.1 Vowel pronunciation errors

 /i:/ versus /ɪ/

Many Vietnamese learn English often make the mistakes with two sounds /i:/and /ɪ/ Learners cannot find the differences between these sounds or the findings

are very vague /ɪ/ is a short vowel but /i:/ is a long one However, whenpronouncing them, Vietnamese pronounce both sounds exactly the same Thereasons of this error is the wrong manner English learners pronounce these soundsand also, relate to the incorrect position English learners put their articulators tomake the sounds.

 /u:/ versus /ʊ/

When learning how to pronounce /u:/ and /ʊ/ sounds, Vietnamese canrecognize the differences between them However, there are many English wordscontaining ‘oo’ that may be pronounced as neither /u:/ nor /ʊ/ For example, in theword ‘wood’, 'oo' is pronounced /ʊ/, but in the word 'noon', 'oo' is pronounced /u:/.This can create confusion for English learners Therefore, learners often make themistakes with both /u:/ and /ʊ/ sounds

 /e/ versus /æ/

"Vietnamese students cannot identify the vowel /e/ and /æ/, such as in bed andbad (Avery & Ehrlich, p 156)" (Nguyen Tien Dung, 2014) This confusion is one ofthe most serious problems that Vietnamese have to face when they learn Englishvowels They cannot determine the differences, thus learners often make manymistakes with these sounds According to Avery & Ehrlich, “students often pronouncethese two vowels in exactly the same way Most commonly, students fail to lower theirtongue and jaw far enough in attempting to produce the /æ/ sound” (p 99)

2.2.3.2 Consonant pronunciation errors

According to Honey, “the Vietnamese consonant system is very different fromthat of the English, and there is considerable variation between dialects" (p.240).According to Avery & Ehrlich’s statement, “Vietnamese has no voiced stops at theends of words” (1992, p 154) Perhaps because of these differences, manyVietnamese feel very difficult in pronouncing some English consonants Someerrors about English consonants summarized as below are problems that mostVietnamese speakers, even those who are very fluent in English still encounter

 /s/ versus /z/

When learning English, Vietnamese often get confused between /s/ and /z/ andthey replace /s/ for /z/ There are two types of problem related to the /s/ sound The