An investigation into errors of pronouncing some english consonants and final sounds made by first year students at thuongmai university

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT During the completion of this paper, I have appreciated precious support from many people First and foremost, I would like to express sincere gratitude towards my beloved supervisor, M.A Nguyen Thi Thuy Chung for her devoted instruction during the last year Despite her business, she was always willing to give me advice on the thesis She guided me ways to conduct this study and correct each mistake of forms and contents in my work Without her assistance, it would have been so difficult for me to accomplish the paper Secondly, I want to show my deep thankfulness to the lecturers who helped me to carry out an interview for this paper I highly appreciate their invaluable suggestions to my work I also desire to say thanks to teachers in charge of guiding students to research and evaluating the progress of their works Owing to their lessons and comments, I knew how to carry out a study and what to improve in my paper Furthermore, I would love to thank students from K53N of English Faculty at Thuongmai University, who have cooperated and given results of questionnaires to finish my study Last but not least, my special gratefulness is to my much –loved family At all times, they stood by my side and encouraged me to overcome difficulties in conducting this thesis Thanks to their material and spiritual support, I had more time and motivation to get over the challenge ABSTRACT English has become the most used popular international language in Vietnam in recent years Despite being spoken by the millions of people, lots of Vietnamese people including students still make mistakes in pronunciation, which makes them embarrassing when speaking This paper, therefore, focuses on some common mistakes in consonant pronunciation made by first- year students of English faculty at Thuongmai University The paper covers a number of reasons for the mistakes and some tentative suggestions to address those problems are then discussed These errors include wrong consonant pronunciation, final consonant sounds, omission of consonant cluster and omission of final consonants Moreover, it is argued that the mistakes can be explained in terms of inadequate knowledge of the articulation of the sounds and, more importantly, the interference of the mother tongue To end this study, some of key suggestions for pronunciation improvement includes careful instruction in how to pronounce the sounds and more emphasis on drills and practice TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT .i ABSTRACT ii TABLE OF CONTENTS .iii LIST OF TABLES, CHARTS, PICTURES AND ABBREVIATIONS v CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Previous studies 1.3 Aims of the study 1.4 Research subjects 1.5 Scope of the study 1.6 Research methodology 1.6.1 Observation 1.6.2 Recording Test .5 1.6.3 Questionnaire 1.7 Organization of the study CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 The definition of pronunciation, consonants, and final consonants 2.1.1 Pronunciation .7 2.1.2 English consonants .7 2.1.3 Final consonants 2.2 Vietnamese consonants and English consonants 2.2.1 English consonants .9 2.2.2 Vietnamese consonants .12 2.3 English final consonants and Vietnamese final consonants .14 2.3.1 Vietnamese final consonants 14 2.3.2 English final consonants 15 2.3.3 Contrastive analysis of some English consonants and Vietnamese consonants 15 2.4 Interference of mother tongue on pronouncing English consonants 16 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH FINDINGS 18 3.1 Error of pronouncing some English consonants and final sounds made by first- year students at Thuong Mai University 19 3.1.1 Consonants confusion 20 3.1.2 Omission of consonant cluster 21 3.1.3 Omission of final consonants .22 3.2 Evaluation of the English Faculty’s lecturers on pronouncing some English consonants and final consonants of the first- year students .23 3.3 Reasons for errors of pronouncing some English consonants and final consonants 24 3.3.1 Lack of practices and drills 24 3.3.2 Failure in distinguishing the differences among English consonants 25 3.3.3 Lack of correction from teachers .25 3.3.4 Difference between Vietnamese sound system and English ones 25 3.3.5 The influence of mother tongue in English pronunciation .26 CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 28 4.1 Recommendations for students 28 4.2 Recommendations for teachers of English Faculty 31 CONCLUSION 34 Summary of the study .34 Limitations of the study 34 Recommendation for further study 35 REFERENCES APPENDIX LIST OF TABLES, CHARTS, PICTURES AND ABBREVIATIONS TABLES Table 2.1 Table 2.2 Table 2.3 Table Table 2.5 Table Table 2.7 Table 3.8 CHARTS Chart 3.1 Chart 3.2 Chart 3.3 Chart 3.4 Chart 3.5 Chart 3.6 PICTURES Picture 4.1 Picture 4.2 Picture 4.3 Picture 4.4 English consonants Voicing contrast in English fricatives Voicing contrast in English stops Vietnamese initial sounds ending Vietnamese consonants Vietnamese ending consonants English final consonants Pronunciation errors of some English consonant cluster Students’ interest towards learning English Student’s perception to importance of learning English Students’ consonant mispronunciation Students’ consonant confusion No of students omits final consonants Reasons for errors of consonant pronunciation International Phonetic Alphabet Listen to the consonant sounds Example words ELSA Speak with artificial intelligence (Source: Edu2) CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1.1 Rationale English is the most commonly used language among foreign language speakers in the world In other words, everyone needs to learn the language in order to get in touch on an international level In Vietnam, English language is considered as a mean of communication which is widely used for studying or doing research, and for those who are working in various fields such as education, economics, science, and so forth Despite well awareness of its importance and emphasis on the acquisition and use of English, little people pay attention to some common pronunciation mistakes that are made as the consequence of the mother tongue interference or the lack of basic knowledge of articulation of the sounds According to recent research and from my own experience, it is figured out that most students usually have difficulty pronouncing a certain number of consonants Moreover, because of the difference of Vietnamese sounds and English ones, a large number of students make mistakes of the final consonants seriously Coping with these problems, therefore, students need to obtain the basic knowledge background of consonants pronunciation For all the mentioned reasons, I decided to investigate the subject “An investigation into errors of pronouncing some English consonants and final sounds made by first- year students at Thuongmai University” 1.2 Previous studies Many studies have been conducted to find out the problems in the pronunciation of English language which were made by students All over the world, linguists and researchers have demonstrated that the errors made by the speakers of English language are something systematic rather than random According to Moosa (1972) and Homedan (1984), Arab students who speak English face with problems in the pronunciation of sounds which are not familiar with such as /v/, /p/, /ŋ/ Therefore, they concluded that substitution of sounds was the main problem of the speakers of English language In other words, they substitute the sounds that they not have in their native language, with other sounds which are close to them in the place of articulation For instance they replace /p/ with /b/, /θ/ with /s/ etc Similarly, several studies conducted by Vietnamese researchers showed that Vietnamese learners encounter lots of difficulties in learning English pronunciation and also common errors of mispronunciation Dung (2014) pointed out that Vietnamese speakers have a wider number of problems with the voiced versus the voiceless stops in word final position, /b/, /p/, /d/, /g/ vs /p/, /t/, /k/ and final fricative consonants /f/, /v/, /θ/, /ð/, /s/, /z/ Omission of a fricative at the end of words usually occurs when speaking English as fricatives not occur in word-final position in their mother tongue Because of this, Avery and Ehrlich, emphasized” Vietnamese students tend to omit one or more consonants from a difficult cluster” (1992, p 155) In addition to the past works, Duong Thi Nu ( 2009, pp 41-50) has studied pronunciation problems and the influence of the mother tongue She highlighted that the common pronunciation mistakes of Vietnamese learners are confusion in terms of consonant sounds So many sounds such as /s/ and /ʃ/, /z/ and / ʒ/, /dʒ/ and / ʒ/, /tʃ/ and Vietnamese /ć/ are confused e.g (she/ sea), (measure / pleasure), (change /tʃeindʒ/ is pronounced //tʃeinʒ/) For the /tʃ/ and Vietnamese /ć/, the English /ʧ/ in chair is incorrectly pronounced like Vietnamese /ć/ in Vietnamese che The mispronunciation of the above sounds is the result of the over practice of the first language, a process of fossilization According to (Yule; O’Connor, 1975) reported that the main problem of English pronunciation is to build a new set of sounds corresponding to the sounds of English, and to break down the arrangement of sounds which the habits and the systems of the mother tongue have strongly built up It means that it is too difficult to change such habits which learners has obtained since their childhood or at least it needs very long years to be changed and after also very long time and regular practice, and all that is linked to a certain age of the learner, especially students So the points mentioned above altogether share the concept that the learners confuse such sounds and replace each of them with other sounds that are said to be the nearest ones to them (O’Connor, 2003) Another the result of the study being indicated by Nu was the effect of sound system on learning pronunciation She showed that the main problem in teaching and learning English pronunciation result from the differences in the sound system of English and the system of Vietnamese, so a Vietnamese student is not accustomed to pronounce for instance θ -sound and ð-sound, because they not found in his native language This means that the organs of speech of the learner are not trained to produce such sound systems because they are unfamiliar to students Particularly, the differences between two languages are the differences of manner of articulation, place of articulation, and voicing in Vietnamese and English Additionally, learners with different linguistic backgrounds would of course face different difficulties in order to produce English sounds, because of the differences between the two languages (English and Vietnamese).These differences between the sound systems are regarded as a barrier against competence in the pronunciation of English, because the new sounds still remain strange for their organs of speech However, this problem is expected to be solved after a long time of regular practice and hard work Therefore, most of the Vietnamese students face such problem because in Vietnamese, the sound system is not too complex and the learner can speak without any confusion, but in English he may pronounce /ʃ/ for /s/ for example /shame/, /same/ Also in English the /r/ is distinctly pronounced only before a vowel e.g the /r/ after a vowel is not pronounced In Vietnamese, however, the /r/-sound is similarly pronounced in all positions So students have lots of problems with different sounds and are difficult to distinguish those consonants ones Consequently, the mentioned studies above pointed out the common problems exist in the consonant pronunciation of most among English learners However, those studies were done outside Thuongmai University in general and students of the English Faculty in particular Therefore, that is why the research is intended to fill a certain gap and seek such problems at Thuongmai University based on conducted studies 1.3 Aims of the study The present study aims at investigating the most common pronunciation errors made by first- year students at Thuongmai University The research focuses on analyzing factors that affect to these errors And as final step, this study suggests solutions to help to promote learning process of pronunciation in undergraduate students Therefore, it was to answer the two following questions: What common errors of pronouncing English consonants are made by firstyear students of English faculty at Thuongmai University? What is the reason of making those errors? 1.4 Research subjects Within the limitation of time and reference materials, the research only emphasizes the pronunciation errors and final sounds in terms of consonants made by first- year students at Thuongmai University 1.5 Scope of the study Because this study focuses on errors of consonant pronunciation that are made by first- year students of English faculty, it is conducted on 100 students of K53N who are chosen randomly In addition, the researcher will interact with seven teachers of English faculty who are teaching English phonetics and phonology at Thuongmai University They also have the ability to answer all problems related to first- year students’ pronunciation 1.6 Research methodology In this research, the data has been collected from 50 first year students of the English Faculty The sample of the study contained 45 female students and male ones who were chosen randomly from the Faculty of English Besides, teachers responded to the questionnaire on the exact sounds which students mispronounce and the reasons for pronunciation problems Data was collected through using of three main research instruments, observation, recording test and questionnaire respectively These will be discussed in details below: 1.6.1 Observation In order to obtain some information of errors, the researcher started to observe the students inside some English classes that were taught English phonetics and phonology While the students were discussing in English, the researcher was taking down some particular sounds that students could not pronounce correctly, or which they tried to replace with others sounds close to them To verify the pronunciation among students, some teachers were asked to fill a questionnaire regarding the pronunciation of their students 1.6.2 Recording Test Recording test regarded as an essential tool of collecting their data by many of the researchers in the previous studies, helped the researcher investigate problems with English pronunciation among English Faculty’s students The sample of this study was 30 students at the English of Faculty The researcher prepared three exercises of pronunciation including consonant sounds, words and sentences written on a paper Each of the students read the whole sounds, words and sentences aloud while the researcher was recording their pronunciations After each of 30 students recorded their sounds, the researcher listen carefully samples and repeated this process a lot of times playing the tape at home Both incorrect and correct pronunciation was written down and analyzed descriptively In general, for the recording test, all sounds recorded from students were written on papers, and the number of correct and incorrect pronunciation was counted beside each student Consequently, the recording test assisted a lot the notes and the information, which was also drawn from observation 1.6.3 Questionnaire The third tool used in this study was a structured questionnaire, which was used in collaboration with some of students and English teachers at the English faculty A number of 37 copies of the questionnaire were printed and answered by 30 students and Faculty’s teachers within two weeks Using open- ended and follow- up questionnaires served three main purposes: - To assess common pronunciation errors made by students - To find out factors that affect to students’ English pronunciation - To suggest ways assisting in student’s pronunciation improvement The questionnaire used in this study had at least four sections: - The first section is made of questions about the background of the respondents - The second one comprises two questions in which the researcher enquires about the respondents’ attitude towards the English language It is really necessary for this study as it can explain the students’ pronunciation performance - The third section consists of five questions all related to pronunciation, particularly consonant sounds These questions give the details about the students’ difficulties in the pronunciations of English sounds, which are pivotal since the purpose of the study is to investigate the pronunciation errors made by first- year students The fourth and the last section consist of two questions about solution to their problems predictable and potential difficulties that the student subjects face because of the influences of Vietnamese CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 4.1 Recommendations for students According to the results of the study, some suggestions are given as the followings: 27 a Students should have basic knowledge of manner of articulation, place of articulation and the voicing and learn how to pronounce through IPA (the International Phonetic Alphabet) The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin alphabet, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet The general principle of the IPA is to provide one letter for each distinctive sound (speech segment), and help this practice not be complex Picture 4.1: International Phonetic Alphabet (Source: Wikipedia) However, in order to pronounce sounds in IPA correctly, students should be better aware of manner of articulation of sounds, place of articulation and voicing so that they can distinguish and recognize their differences More importantly, students need to pay attention to the shape of the speaker's mouth as the different sounds are pronounced In making simple consonants, it is also necessary to get a clear understanding of the position of the tongue and lips and how the mouth should look when they speak Secondly, whenever students access to English materials such as videos, books and listening files, it is advisable that they look at the online dictionary for checking the correct pronunciation of words they not understand or pronounce correctly yet Particularly, when the word itself is checked, and most of them it by both looking at the phonetic symbols and listening to the pronunciation of the word 28 Furthermore, the students are likely to repeat the correct pronunciation and usually check either UK or US accents Therefore, by using this effective tool, learners can practice and improve their pronunciation, especially consonant sounds Most importantly, students must listen to authentic English regularly and get suitable learning approaches such as watching Ted talks, BBC, CNN and some other useful channels Thirdly, it is necessary for students to have opportunities to communicate with teachers, classmates and especially native speakers in order that they feel more confident that they are actually learning from authentic sources For examples, students can participate in English clubs where many English learners together practice pronunciation or discuss about a specific topic Finally, recording is an effective way to see how they speak Each individual should choose one or two sentences and record themselves Then they can compare the two and see what they did differently, and try again If their pronunciation does not sound the same, see their video again to check their mouth, tongue, lips By applying this approach, therefore, learners can enhance their pronunciation quickly Besides mentioned suggestions above, there are several pronunciation apps which are helpful for students outside the classroom  Learn English Sounds Right This is the British Council’s iPad pronunciation app that helps master the sounds of the English language Sounds Right is an interactive Learn English pronunciation chart with sounds grouped by vowels, consonants and diphthongs complete with examples of each in use 29 Picture 4.2: Listen to the consonant sounds Picture 4.3: Example words  ELSA app (English Language Speech Assistant) ELSA is a mobile app that uses artificial intelligence to help people improve their pronunciation By using this app, learners can access different curriculum options based on their interests, such as travel or professional settings They’re then lead through a series of vocabulary words and phrases, and ELSA's algorithms analyze their speech According to Forbes, If ELSA detects a mispronunciation, it tells the user not only how the word should sound, but also how to move the tongue and lips to form the correct word 30 Picture 4.4: ELSA Speak with artificial intelligence (Source: Edu2) 4.2 Recommendations for teachers of English Faculty Firstly, lectures should generate stimulating teaching methods: As classroom observation, English classes in general were rather quiet and some were tense, which makes students not focus on lessons and interests in their study In other words, it is very important for students to be encouraged and praised to speak English during lessons Therefore, it is suggested that teachers should organize appealing activities, interesting things in class such as pronunciation games so that they find learning more enjoyable Here is the important order of the activities used in the experimental teaching:  Tongue twister challenge The game will challenge students ability to say tongue twister quickly while also focusing on their pronunciation For example: I thought I thought of thinking of thanking you She sells seashells by the seashore Fred fed Ted bread and Ted fed Fred bread 31 Secondly, teachers should recognize, explain and correct the pronunciation errors frequently In fact, learners being taught about how these sounds are produced tend to pronounce them correctly in their pronunciation lessons in the classroom and in examinations Hence, it is necessary for English teachers to review with them once a week and check their pronunciation again Besides direct correction from teachers, self-testing is another way that each student is asked to check themselves By doing this, students can evaluate an ability to recognize and pronounce sounds in words, sentences and conversational activities Finally, teachers should focus on helping students practice rather than teaching theories Practice makes perfect and can be done in the variety of exercises, discussion and debate in English classes This may help students become more fluent and automatic in pronouncing the sounds Here are some ways to help students improve their pronunciation, especially consonant sounds Repeat fricative and affricates pairs Listen and repeat Complete the conversation using words from the box Circle the correct word you hear Here are several particular examples of exercises that help students overcome difficult sounds Same Spelling Different Sounds Students should learn that the same consonant combination may have different sounds, for example the ch in chicken and character The sound [k] in character, in fact, may be spelled with a k, ck, c, ch or que The th combination is another example: it is pronounced [ð] in this, that, these, those; but it is pronounced [θ] in thin, thank, think, theory, for example The gh combination is yet another example, as it pronounced as a g (ghost) or f (rough) Ask students practice each of these combos and others one at a time Same Sound, Different Spellings Teach students to identify different ways to spell the same sound Examples of these are the sound in mine, buy, pie, rye Homophones are the perfect example of this: buy and by; pair and pear; cell and sell, etc There are lots of games and activities teachers can with their class with homophones 32 As a general recommendation, teachers should encourage students to listen to as much as they can in English, whether it is TV programs, movies, or songs 33 CONCLUSION Summary of the study The first chapter was created to declare rationale and aims which prompted to the birth of this paper give an overview of the context To facilitate my own findings, the researcher provided Chapter was a literature review on the field It was a theoretical base for the researcher to draw out conclusions in Chapter Later, a detailed plan helping the researcher to realize research objectives was set up in Chapter “Research Findings” Chapter was considered as the most important part in this study In this section, the researcher analyzed data to determine common errors of pronunciation some English consonants and also reasons for those errors were drawn from it After finished analysis and synthesis process, the results of the study showed that students still have the shortage of practice in classroom, lack correction from teachers and not have sufficient background knowledge of pronunciation to recognize and self- correct their mistakes After spotting the problems, the researcher found that all solutions suggested by both students and teachers of English faculty The first is that English lecturers who are teaching English phonetics and phonology in English faculty and know students’ problems of pronunciation To address the issues, they encourage students to practice continuously in order to enhance their knowledge as well as pronounce sounds correctly The second is first- year students who indicated that actively speaking English during lessons and participation in some English clubs are of vital importance to improve their pronunciation In summary, the goals of this paper were reached Not only did the research identify what errors were made by first- year students and its problems but it also provided solutions as practical references The researcher expects the work will stimulate readers’ study and research objectives Limitations of the study In spite of the researcher’s attempt and expectation, this paper remains shortcomings due to time limitation and lack of resources 34 The findings will be only satisfactory under certain conditions and hard to apply in other studies with a more comprehensive scope Subjectivity is another limitation of this thesis It may include the researcher’s subjective opinions which were given based on observations and questionnaire because her knowledge of this field is still not deep and firm enough Furthermore, conducting only an interview with some of teachers might reduce valuable comments for the paper Furthermore, literature review of this subject was quite limited Recommendation for further study From these drawbacks mentioned above, the researcher gave some recommendations for further study Firstly, she expected more papers on equivalence in investigating into errors of pronunciation English consonants This will contribute to enhancing students’ correct pronunciation and effective communication in life Secondly, different sources of materials such as those from pronunciation should be exploited in similar papers because an expansion in data will improve reliability Last but not least, interviews with various students and lecturers ought to be conducted for more objective suggestions It is an effective way to authenticate and strengthen findings 35 REFERENCES Avery & Ehrlich (1992), Teaching American English pronunciation Oxford: University Press Duong Thi Nu, Mistake or Vietnamese English, VNU Journal of Science, Foreign Languages 25 (2009) 41-50 Fromkin, V., Rodman, R., Collins, P., & Blair, D (1988) An Introduction to Language Australia: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Group Homidan, A H (1984) Utilizing the Theory of Articulatory Settings in the Teaching of English Pronunciation to Saudi Students Learning English as a Second Language Doctoral Dissertation, King Fahd Public Library Honey P J (1987) Vietnamese speakers In M Swan & B Smith, Learner English: A teacher's guide to interference and other problems (1st ed., pp 243-248) London: Cambridge University Press Moosa, M H (1979) Difficulties of Learning the Pronunciation and Structural Differences Between Arabic and English MA Dissertation, Library of Saudi Arabia, Educational mission; Texas Nguyen Tien Dung, Some common pronunciation problems facing Vietnam learners of English, Ba Ria- Vung Tau University, 2015 P Roach, English Phonetics and Phonology, (2nd edition), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1991 P Roach, English phonetics and phonology - A practical course, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990 10 Richards, J., & Renandya, W (2002) Methodology in Language Teaching: An Anthology of Current Practice Cambridge University Press, New York 11 Rogers, H (2000) The Sounds of Language - An Introduction to Phonetics Singapore: Pearson 12 Tam Ha Cam, English phonetics and phonology, A course book for students of the English department, Vietnam National University, 1999 13 Yule, G (1996) The Study of Language (2nd ed.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 14 http://www.actionresearch.net/writings/china/chendan.htm 15 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronunciation 16 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consonant 17 https://eujournal.org/index.php/esj/article/viewFile/10421/9927 18 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_(phonetics) APPENDIX QUESTIONAIRES This questionnaire was devised in order to collect data about pronunciation challenges faced by first- year students at Thuongmai University Answering honestly to the following questions would be of much help not only for my study but also for the learning of the English language for whole students in general at Thuongmai University Thank you for your cooperation! Part 1: General information Student’s Name: Student’s Code: Email: Gender Female Male Part 2: Relevant questions Question 1: How much you like to learn English? Very much A lot So so Not at all Question 2: Is studying English important to you? Why? Very important Not very important Important Not important ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………… Question 3: In your opinion, how you evaluate the importance of pronunciation? Very important Not very important Important Not important Question 4: How good is your pronunciation? Very good Good Normal Poor Question 5: Do you have any difficulty in English pronunciation? Yes No If yes, circle the ones that you have to cope with in the following list : a Omitting final consonants b Confusing consonant sounds” /∫/ /ʒ/ /t∫/ /dʒ/ /s/ /z/” c Mispronouncing the final consonants /s/, /z/ d Omitting or over pronouncing final sounds “ s, ed” e Other difficulties Question 6: What consonants you often mispronounce? (circle English sounds) /p/ /f/ /m/ /g/ /r/ /b/ /v/ /n/ /ʃ/ /j/ /t/ /θ/ /ʧ/ /ʒ/ /w/ /d/ /ð/ /dʒ/ /h/ /k/ /s/ /z/ /ŋ/ /l/ Question 7: Among the following reasons, which one(s) you think is behind your problems in English pronunciation, especially consonants? a Influence of the mother tongue b Failure in distinguishing the differences c Your speed ( too fast or too low) d Inadequate practice and drills e The difference between English sounds and Vietnamese sounds f Short time allocated to pronunciation teaching by teachers g Lack of correction from teachers h Other reasons …………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………… Question 7: Among the following solutions, which one(s) you think can help you to rapidly improve students’ pronunciation? a Students should be taught how to recognize the different places of articulation of sounds b Students increase time allocated to pronunciation learning c Students should be given enough practice both inside and outside of classroom d Students should have an opportunity to communicate with native speakers e Students should be given pronunciation games so that they find learning more enjoyable f Students focus on the most difficult and unusual sounds g Other suggestions Thank you for your cooperation! Interview questions for teachers What you think about students’ attitude during speaking lessons? What you evaluate about students’ pronunciation? In your opinion, what pronunciation errors students often make? What reasons you think lead to mentioned errors? Do you have any suggestion to encourage students to improve their pronunciation, especially consonants and final consonants? ... investigate the subject An investigation into errors of pronouncing some English consonants and final sounds made by first- year students at Thuongmai University 1.2 Previous studies Many studies... pronunciation errors and final sounds in terms of consonants made by first- year students at Thuongmai University 1.5 Scope of the study Because this study focuses on errors of consonant pronunciation that... consonants, final sounds, Vietnamese consonants and final consonants, English consonants and final consonants, and interference of mother tongue on pronouncing English consonants Chapter III: Research