Problems and solutions to improve the 10 TH graders pronuciation at nong cong no 1 secondary school

TABLE OF CONTENTS PART 1: INTRODUCTION ………………………… 1.1.Rationale for the study …………………………………… 1.2.Purposes of the study and Research Questions ………… 1.3 Scope of the study ………………………………………… Page Page Page Page 1.4Methods of the study ……………………………………… PART 2: DEVELOPMENT …………………………………… 2.1 Literature Review ………………………………………… 2.2.1 Definition of pronunciation …………………………… 2.1.2 Ways to overcome pronunciation errors …………… 2.2 Methodology…………………………………………… 2.2.1.Participants and the research context………………… Page Page Page Page Page 10 Page 11 Page 11 2.2.2.Textbook and Reading materials Page 11 2.2.3.The reality of teaching and learning Pronunciation at Nong Cong Page 11 Upper secondary school 2.2.4 Research methodology ………………………………… Page 12 2.3 FINDINGS AND IMPLICATIONS 2.3.1.Data analysis and discussion …………………………… Page 12 2.3.2 Major finding and discussion ………………………… Page 13 PART 3: CONCLUSION 3.1 Summary of the main findings 3.2 Suggestions for further study ……………… ………………… Page 16 Page 16 PART INTRODUCTION 1.Rationale for the study Obviously, pronunciation is one of the most important skills in English language teaching Incorrect pronunciation leads to misunderstandings, however, at the upper-secondary schools in Vietnam, pronunciation has so far been paid less attention to compared to vocabulary, grammar and language skills Moreover, in English textbooks for 10 th graders, there are a few exercises for pronunciation practice As we know, all English exams at school are always in the written form so most teachers as well as students have little motivation to teach and to learn pronunciation In teaching English I recognize that students make many pronunciation errors such as word and sentence stress, intonation, length of vowel sounds, ending sounds and linking sounds There are a lot of differences in learning English between people in city and the countryside, as students in city have better skills than in countryside The results of examination in two recent years show that students in the cities have better marks than in the countryside The gap in knowledge and skills of English between students in those two areas is very big Therefore, the necessity to fill this gap is a challenging but worth doing for teachers of English One of the aspects that needs to be fulfilled is pronunciation To improve students' pronunciation , I carry out this study to find out suggested solutions to overcome problems in pronunciation Thus, with the ambition to improve our own students’ pronunciation, that is, to improve our students’ English skills, decided to carry out the study entitled “ Problems and sollutions to improve the 10 th graders’s pronunciation at Nong Cong no.1 Upper secondary school” 1.2 Purpose of the study The aim of the study is mainly figure out common mistakes in pronouncing English vowels and consonants by 10th graders at Nong Cong no.1 upper secondary school in order to give some suggested solutions to improve teaching and learning pronunciation at Nong Cong no.1 upper secondary school 1.3 Scope of study The research focuses on English pronunciation mistakes made by 10 th graders at Nong Cong no.1 upper secondary school and gives suggested solutions Moreover, within the scope of this study, we not have an ambition to cover all students' problems with English pronunciation Only pronunciation mistakes with some typical vowels and consonants made by the students are investigated In order to obtain the exact response to the aims, two research questions are raised: What types of common pronunciation mistakes made by 10th graders students? 2.What should students to overcome the pronunciation mistakes? 1.4 Methodology There are 80 10th graders from classes 10A6, 10A10 at Nong Cong no.1 upper secondary school in Thanh Hoa province They are the same age but they are in different levels The students are from rural areas such as Tế Nông, Tế Thắng, Thăng Long communes.They were asked to answer the questionaires The teacher calls them to read the sounds in each lesson with their teacher’s observation The observer listens and finds out the common pronunciation mistakes in vowels and consonants PART DEVELOPMENT 2.1 literature review 2.1.1 Definition of pronunciation Pronunciation is the way in which a word is spoken" or "the way in which a word is usually pronounced Pronunciation is a basic skill in speaking If the word is pronounced wrong, the listener can't understand In addidition, sound is the core of the language so the teacher should teach pronunciation correctly Nowadays communicative approach is popularly applied, it means that learners must communicate successfully with each other That is the reason why pronunciation teaching has been paid attention to by all the teachers as well as the students As we know there are 44 sounds in English They are included two groups: there are 20 vowel sounds including 12 pure vowels, dipthongs and 24 consonants sounds Characteristics of pure vowel sounds are presented as follows: Pure vowel Characteristics Sounds / i: / The front of the tongue is slightly behind and below the close front position The "close" position is where the tongue is closest to the roof of the mouth Lips are spread The tongue is tense, and the sides of the tongue touch the upper molars For example some words are read as / i:/: sea, seat, , see, /ɪ/ free, cede, secret, receive, Vietnamese, chief, machine The part of the tongue slightly nearer the centre is raised to just above the half-close position The lips are spread loosely, and the tongue is more relaxed The sides of the tongue may just touch the upper molars As in these words: village, ear, beer , pier , here, bit, / e/ become, women The front of the tongue is between the hlf-open and half4 close positions Lips are closely spread The tongue is tenser than for / ɪ /, and the sides of the tongue may touch the upper molars / æ/ For example: bed, bread, breath, chair, care, pleasant The front of the tongue is raised to just below the half-open position Lips are neutrally open / ɑː / For example: dam, map, have, plait, antique The tongue, between the centre and the back, is fully open position Lips are neutrally open / ɔː / As in these words: bar, sharp, half, calm, star, smart The back of the tongue is raised to between the half-open and half-close positions Lips are loosely rounded For example: all, call, fault, laugh, law, awful, wall, water, /ɒ/ born, cross, oar, four, door The back of the tongue is in the fully open position Lips are lightly rounded Example: dot, often, long, knowledge, want, cough, /ʊ/ Astralia The part of the tongue just behind the centre is raised, just above the half-close position The lips are rounded, but loosely so The tongue is relatively relaxed For example: could, should, full, put, woman, wolf, foot, / uː / cook, good The back of the tongue is raised just below the close position Lips are rounded The tongue id tense As in these words: screw, fruit, juice, rule, do, who, cool, /ʌ/ food, cukoo The centre of the tongue is raised to just above the fully open position Lips are neutrally open For example: come, some, young, cousin, but, cup, blood, / ɜː / rug, must, unhappy, umbrella, lungs The centre of the tongue is between the half-close and half5 open positions Lips are relaxed, and neutrally spread As in these words: serve, girl, first, worm, fur, hurt, earth, learn The centre of the tongue is between the half-close and half- /ə/ open positions Lips are relaxed, and neutrally spread For example: sperate, about, paper, silent, banana Table 1: Characteristics of pure vowel sounds Characteristics of English diphthongs are presented as follows: A diphthong is defined by Jones as "a sound made by gliding from one vowel to another represented phonetically by sequence of two letters" Diphthongs / eɪ / Characteristics Diphthong / eɪ / starts " from slightly below the halfclose front position and moves in the direction of RP / Diphthong / ɔɪ / ɪ /" The first element of / ɔɪ / in RP is pronounced very close to cardinal [ɔ ] and the second, after configuration / əʊ / changes, is close towards the pronunciation of [ɪ The realisation of diphthong / əʊ / starts with the articulators positioned for "typical RP [ɜː] position", while afterwards the tongue moves "slightly up and / aʊ / back to RP [ʊ] The diphthong / aʊ / starts "further back than / aɪ/ and / ɪə / changes towards RP / ʊ /" This is one of the centering diphthongs (/ ɪə /, / eə/, / ʊə/) Diphthong / ɪə /, starts with the tongue / eə / positioned for / ɪ / Diphthong / eə / "starts at cardinal /e / or below and / ʊə / moves to more central but equally open position" The glide / ʊə / has "coalesced with / ɔː / for most RP speakers" and "[a] monophthongal pronunciation is found regularly before / r / in, e.g alluring, furious, having the quality of the diphthong's beginning point" Consonant sounds Consonan Characteristics t sounds /p/ Bilabial sounds: total closure is made using both lips The soft palate is raised / p / is unvoiced and fortis / b / is voiced and /b/ lenis / b / is devoiced at the end of the word For example: pig/ big, cap/ cab, happen, cabbage /t/ /d/ Alveolar sounds: closure is made by the tongue blade against the alveolar ridge The soft palate is raised / t / is unvoiced and fortis / d / is voiced and lenis / d / is devoiced at the end of a word /k/ For example: to/ do, hat/ bad, hotter, harder Velar sounds: closure is made by the back of the tongue against the soft palate / k / is invoiced and fortis / g / is voiced and lenis / g / is devoiced at the end of a word Example: cat/ get, pick/ pig, packet, forget /g/ /f/ /v/ Labio- dental sounds: the lower lip makes light contact with the upper teeth The soft palate is raised / f / is unvoiced and fortis / v / is voiced and lenis / v / is devoiced at the end of a word /s/ For example: fan/ van, cafe, cover, hoof, hooves Alveolar sounds: The tongue blade makes light contact with the alveolar ridge The soft palate is raised / s / is unvoiced and /z/ fortis / z / is voiced and lenis / z / is devoiced at the end of a word /θ/ For example: sad/ zoo, this, that, these, icy, lazy Dental sounds The tongue tip makes light contact with the back of the top, front teeth Or, tongue tip may produce between upper and lower teeth The soft palate is raised / θ / is unvoiced and fortis / ð / is voiced and lenis / ð / is devoiced at the end of /ð/ /ʧ/ /ʤ/ a word For example: thank, the, bath, bathe, mathematics, father Palato-alveolar sounds The tongue tip, blade and rims close against the alveolar ridge and side teeth The front of the tongue is raised, and when the air is released, there is audible friction The soft palate is also raised / ʧ / is unvoiced and fortis / ʤ / is voiced and lenis / ʤ / is devoiced at the end of a word /ʃ/ For example: church, judge, nature, larger Palato-alveolar sounds The tongue blade makes light contact with the alveolar ridge, and the front of the tongue is raised The soft palate is also raised /ʒ/ / ʃ / is unvoiced and fortis / ʒ / is voiced and lenis / ʒ / is devoiced at the end of a word Note: / ʒ / does not occur as an initial sound in English, and is rare as a final sound /h/ For example: she, fish, nation, measure A glottal sound Air passes from the lungs through the open glottis, causing audible friction Tongue and lip position is that of the following voel sound The soft palate is raised / h / is unvoiced Note: / h / does not occur as a final sound /m/ For example: hello, behind A bilabial sound Total closure is made by both lips If followed by / f / or / v /, the closure may be labio-dental The soft palate is lowered, and air passes out through the nasal cavity / m / is voiced, but may be devoiced, after /s/ like in smart /l/ For example: more, room, camera A lateral sound A partial closure is made by the blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge Air is able to flow around the sides of the tongue The soft palate is raised / l / is voiced /n/ For example: life, pool, small An alveolar sound The tongue blade closes against the alveolar ridge, and the rims of the tongue against the side teeth If lollowed by / f / or/ v / the closure may be labio-dental, or bilabial if followed by / p / or / b / The soft palate is lowered, and passes out through the nasal cavity / n / is voiced, but may be devoiced after / s / like in snow /ŋ/ For example: no, on, infant, know A velar sound The back of the tongue closes against the soft palate The closure is further forward if it follows on from a front vowel (compare sing and bang) The soft palate is lowered, and air passes out through the nasal cavity / ŋ / is voiced / ŋ / does not occure as an initial sound /r/ Foe example: sing, sink, singing Sinking A post- alveolar sounds, as the tongue tip is held just behind (not touching) the alveolar ridge Back rims of tongue touch upper molars The soft palate is raised / r / is voiced /j/ For example: red, hurry, party, car A palatal semi-vowel The tongue is in the position of a close from vowel (similar to / ɪ /) The soft palate is raised The sound glides quickly to the following vowel / j / is voiced / j / does not occure as a final sound For example: yes, young, usual, few, education, suit /w/ A labio-velar semi-vowel The tongue is in the position of a close back vowel (similar to / ʊ /) The soft palate is raised The soft palate is raised The sound glides quickly to the following vowel / w / is voiced / w / does not occure as a final sound 2.1.2 Ways to overcome pronunciation errors There are many ways to help students overcome pronunciation mistakes because of its importance Learners need to be taught pronunciation, as all other aspects of language, in a communicative method Though communicative methods for teaching vocabulary, grammar and pragmatics have been around for decades, there has been little development of a communicative method for pronunciation teaching We consider here some aspects of what is involved in a communicative approach to pronunciation One thing learners need is teachers with confidence to assure them that the communicative methods fulfill their needs 2.2 METHODOLOGY 2.2.1.Participants and the research context The participants were 82 students of 10 A6,10 A10 class from every corner of Nong Cong district, by this I mean they are both from town and rural areas Almost of them are females and they are 16 years old Most these students are generally at elementary level They learned English for at least five years at high school but this subject was not carefully taken into its consideration In their opinion, learning English means learning grammar and structures with common lexical sources Therefore, they find learning English pronunciation difficult Some students can easily adapt to the new ways of learning, but most of them face challenges 2.2.2.Textbook and Reading materials The vocabulary materials used in the study consisted of selected texts from English Textbook 10 published by Education Publishing House In the textbook, there are 16 units with diverse topics related to themes: You and me, Education.Community, Nature, Recreation, People and places sections were included in one unit namely: Reading, Speaking, Listening, Writing, Language focus ( where pronunciation is taught) It is hoped that English teachers will have a better insight into using images and become confident to integrate these effective tools into their learning vocabulary classroom practice 10 2.2.3 The reality of teaching and learning pronunciation at Nong Cong no.1 Upper secondary school Nong Cong no.1 upper secondary school is a school located in the countryside, the students have very few opportunities to speak English Students' level of English is lower than other areas After finishing high school, if they enter university or go to work, English is very essential to get a good job Therefore, it is essential to help students pronounce correctly, which helps students have opportunity as students in other areas In communication, correct pronunciation is very important because if you mispronounce a sound, it leads to misunderstand If the pronunciation is different from other people, it is difficult to recognize and understand each other To get success in communicating with other, you must have good pronunciation So good pronunciation is very important for students who learn foreign language This will decide the success or failure of students' communication in the target language Like other aspects of language pronunciation is very important Correct pronunciation is very necessary to develop our skills, especially speaking skill Beside this, pronunciation also has other connections to other fields like listening, writing, spelling If you are good at pronunciation, you will be able to speak English well The sound systems of English and Vietnamese differ greatly, so Vietnamese learners can have some pronunciation problems Vietnamese is a tone language, that is, pitch changes distinguish word meaning Most words in Vietnamese consist of only one syllable, there are fewer consonants than in English and there is no consonant cluster Thus, they often meet some main problems when producing English 2.4 Research methodology Through questionaires and classroom observation survey to find out the student's pronunciation mistakes The study is based on the combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches Quantitative researchers are concerned in their research with an attempt to count, measure the events and perform the statistical analysis of a body of numerical data This method can achieve high levels of reliability of gathered data due to controlled observations, laboratory experiments, mass surveys, or other form of research manipulations 11 2.3 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 2.3.1 Mistakes analysis 2.3.1.1 / æ/ sound mistake analysis The results from the survey questionnaire, there are up to 62 students in the number of 82 students participating in researcher's survey agree that, / æ/ sound is the most difficult sound to them / æ / sound is often mispronounced into monothong / e/ or / ɑː / This leads to some difficulties for speakers and listeners when they talk to each other in English I would like to discuss why my students turn / æ / sound into / e/ or / ɑː / when they pronounce the sound / æ / sound is mispronounced into / e/ or / ɑː / sound because of the wrong manner the students or inexact place they put their articulators to produce the sound on the other hand, when pronouncing / æ / sound, my students not open their lips neutrally, they keep their lips loosely spread that may become the first favourable condition for them to pronounce / e/ not / æ / sound Moreover, the different positions of their toungue also make them produce different sounds The students pronounce / æ / sound, they not raise the front of their tongue to just below the half-open position, they put either the front of their tongue between the half-open and half-close position or the tongue between the centre and the back in the fully open position As a result, they produce either / e/ or / ɑː / sound When pronouncing / æ / sound, the tongue must be relaxed, not be tense as in producing / e/ sound Thus, the student's misplaced articulators directly results in the wrong manner of their articulation that will continue to be used to analyze the sounds mistakes made by 10 th grade 2.3.1.2 Mistakes concerned with consonant sounds Base on the analysis results from questionaires, most of students mispronounce consonants / z / for / ð / and they often omit final sounds /p/, /k/, /t/ The results show that students always make pronunciation mistakes between / ð / and / z/ (85.55% students) They read /z/ for / ð /, especially class 10A10 28/30 students made this mistake 72.22% students read / s / for /ʃ/, 60% / z / for / ʤ /, 47.77%/ t / for / ʧ /, 42.22% / ʃ / for / ʧ /and 50% /s / for / ʧ /.They 12 omit most of final consonants such as 85.55% for / p / sound, 80% for / k / sound and 82.22% for / t / sound 2.3.2 Major finding :The causes lead to common mistake 2.3.2.1 Time limit on teaching and learning pronunciation From questionaires we know that in 10 th textbook there is little time to teach and learn to pronunciation Pronunciation is a part of languague focus period It is about 10 minutes in the languague focus lesson, so that both teachers and students are not aware of the importance of pronunciation They just concentrate on the skills and grammar, it means that many students often mispronounce 2.3.2.2 Lack of awareness of the importance of pronunciation Obviously from questionaires, our students have inappropriate thoughts of pronunciation pronunciation is an important part that can support other skills' improvement Pronunciation plays a very important role both learning a language and using that language Although many students have good selfcomments on pronunciation, they are still unconfident when speaking in English My students should understand that good pronunciation is one of the first thing to learn English well If they pronounce wrong, the hearers may not understand what they say It is essential to practice pronunciation everyday 2.3.2.3 Teacher's neglection of pronunciation From my classroom observation, I know that all the materials used for teaching and learning are in the textbook: " English 10", published by Vietnamese education publisher The teachers used a cassette to teach listening in only 1/6 teaching sessions In the pronunciation lesson, teachers only played the tapes which contain the words for students to listen They did not focus on checking pronunciation of students The teachers did not use any additional materials for the teaching pronunciation Almost techers complained that there are so many things to teach and train for the test and exam while the teaching 13 time is limited Beside this, the students did not use dictionary to check pronunciation at home, it leads to mispronounce 2.3.2.4 Lack of knowledge of pronunciation rules The students forget or not master the place and manner of articulation when they pronounce the sound Thus, they tend to mistake one sound to another sound From my questionaires, the findings point out most of 10 th students cannot distinguish what consonants are voiced and voiceless So most of them have wrong transcriptions of many simple words such as: bad /bʌd/, rise /raɪs/, hot /hɔː t/ 2.3.2.5 Mother toungue interference Because they are from Nong cong province so that they did not pronounce the consonants in the final positions, which can cause a lot of misunderstanding As we know, the students did a lot of word- ending omission, they did not pronounce word-ending sound such as three word-final fortis stops consonants /p/, /k/, /t/ and three dental consonant stop /f/, /v/, /ð/ Most of students at Nong cong no.1 upper secondary school also made mistakes when they pronounce two consonants /ð/ and / θ / They often pronounce /t/ for / θ / and /d/ for /ð/ 2.3.3 Suggested solutions There are a lot of suggested ways for students to find out the phonetics course books to practice pronunciation From my teaching experiences, what we attempt to present here are some suggested solutions that we find effective in our own experiences in teaching how to pronounce well 2.3.3.1 Suggested solutions for each student/ individuals 2.3.3.1 Students should pronunciation exercises In textbook 10, there is a few exercises on pronunciation, so after learning basic sounds of English, students can self- practice by doing the phonetics exercises regularly They will help students to read and review the sounds they 14 are taught by the teachers When doing the phonetics exercises students know the differences between the pair of sound and pronouce correctly 2.3.3.1 Talking, listening to native speakers and try to imitate their voice This way is very useful for students to apply because students can communicative with native speakers That helps them to improve their pronunciation.It will help you see the differences between the sounds of English and your native language and you can imitate the pronunciation and other qualities of speech easier.When you listen to native speakers for example talking to them, watching TV, watching a movie, listening to an audio book, listening to the song you should pay attention to the sounds they pronounce and try to imitate them again and again Part CONCLUSION 3.1 Summary of the finding As we know, with the aims stated in the first introduce chapter, I did my research with some issue concerning English pronunciation teaching and learning Throughout the study, our goal has been to take closer look at the most common mistakes by tenth graders' at Nong Cong no.1 upper secondary school , the study has achieved its aim, which is to awareness of vowels and consonants mistakes and provide some ways to help students overcome difficulties in learning pronunciation Firstly, the findings show that some common pronunciation mistakes that 10 th graders' students often make vowels sounds and consonants ones From the questionaires and classroom observations, I found out that my students cannot distinguish clearly the differences between long vowels and short ones, so they always make mistakes with some English couples like / e / vs / æ /, / ɪ / vs / ɪ: /, / ʊ / vs / uː / They also make mistakes with the consonant sounds such as / ð / and / z /, / ʤ / sound vs / z/, /ʃ/ and /s/ 15 Secondly, there are many causes of these mistakes The causes are time limit on teaching and learning pronunciation, lack of awareness of the importance of pronunciation, teacher's neglect of pronunciation, lack of knowledge of pronunciation rules and the influence of mother tongue Another significant part of the study is that some suggested solutions to teach and learn English pronunciation better The suggested solutions for individuals and groups or classes teach and practice pronunciation effectively For individuals, each student can practice at home as well as anywhere they want For groups and classes some games and activities are used to teach and practice easier It provides some noticeable points when using games and activities in teaching and practicing pronunciation and sample activities that could be helped students to be aware of and correct their mistakes with the vowel and consonant sounds 3.2 Suggestions for futher study The researcher would like to give some suggestions related to this study for English teachers and students The researcher hopes that these suggested solutions will be useful, especially for teachers, institutions, students, and other researchers For teachers Pronunciation is very important for the students as a basic ability to help them listening to English utterances Pronunciation is considered important subject that should be taught as early as possible So, it is better for the teacher to teach this subject first before the others There are some ways to teach pronunciation effectively so that teachers can use them to reach achivements For students Throughout the common pronunciation mistakes that found out in the research, each student must reliaze own mistakes to practice pronunciations better and better Students can apply some suggested solution to practice their pronunciation 16 Signature of Principle Thanh Hoá June 26th 2020 Hereby, I certify that this study is the result of my own experience and has not been submitted by any others Writen by LÊ HƯƠNG GIANG REFERENCES Baker, Ann and Goldstein, Sharon.(1990) Pronunciation Pairs Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Bowen, T., and Marks J (1992) The Pronunciation Book: student-Centred Activities for Pronunciation Work Harlow: Longman Hancock, M (1995) Pronuncation Games Cambridge University Press Dalton, David F 1997 Some Techniques for Teaching Pronunciation: The Internet TESL Journal, Vol III, No Hopkins, David (1993) A Teacher’s Guide to Classroom Research Great Britain: St Edmundsbury Press Ltd Hornby, A.S.1995 Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English.Oxford Oxford University Press Kelly, G (2000) How to teach Pronunciation Harlow: Pearson Roach, P (1983) English Phonetics and Phonology, Cambrigde, Cambridge University Press Roach, P ( 2001) Phonetics : Chapter and Oxford University Press 17 10 Spencer, A (1996) Phonology Oxford: Blackwell Publishers 18 APPENDIX 1: QUESTIONAIRES This survey questionaire is designed for the research into " " SOME PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS FOR BETTER PRONUNCIATION FOR GRADE 10TH STUDENTS " Your cooperation in answering the following question is appreciated Thank for your assistance Do you like to learn pronunciation? A Yes B No In your opinion: " which of the following parts is the most important?" A Grammar B Vocabulary C pronunciation D developing skills In your opinion, pronouncing well means: A Pronouncing clearly B Pronouncing as exactly/ correctly as native speakers of English Do you think pronunciation is very important in learning English? A Yes B No Do you learn English pronunciation as a separate lesson at your school? A Yes B No In your opinion, pronunciation is: A Difficult B Easy C Interesting D Boring What consonants are voiced and voiceless Put "x" next to the voiced consonants and "0" next to the voiceless consonants s z t d ʒ ʤ j p b f v h Θ Ð ʃ ʧ w l r k Put a tick next to the vowel(s) you find difficult to pronounce E ɒ æ ə ɪ iː ɜː ɑː g m n ŋ ʌ ʊ uː ɔː Put a tick next to consonant(s) you find difficult to pronounce s z t d ʒ ʤ j p b f v h Θ Ð ʃ ʧ w l r k g m n ŋ 10 Put a tick next to the pair(s) of sounds you find difficult to distinguish e- æ ɪ- iː s-z ɒ- ʌ ə- ɜː s- ʃ ɑː- ɔː ʊ- uː m-n 11 How often you practice pronunciation? A sometimes B always g-w z- ð ʤ-z C never 12.How you often practice pronunciation? A Reading loudly the sounds in textbook B Recording pronunciation and listen to it C Talking with foreigners and try to imitate their pronunciation D Other ways: 13 Write the transcription of these words Number 10 11 12 Word Hit Bad Put Jellyfish They Shop Church Clear Where How phone Note transcription ʧ -s ʧ-ʃ ʧ -t APPENDIX 2: CLASSROOM OBSERVATION SHEET Name of observer: ……………………… Name of teacher observed: Date and time of observation: Length of observation: Grade level: 10th grade Objective of observation: To find out the common pronunciation mistakes made by 10th graders Name of lesson: Unit / Stage time Procedures Teacher' activity technique Students' activity s ... the pronunciation mistakes? 1. 4 Methodology There are 80 1 0th graders from classes 10 A6, 10 A10 at Nong Cong no. 1 upper secondary school in Thanh Hoa province They are the same age but they are in... by 1 0th graders at Nong Cong no. 1 upper secondary school in order to give some suggested solutions to improve teaching and learning pronunciation at Nong Cong no. 1 upper secondary school 1. 3... practice 10 2.2.3 The reality of teaching and learning pronunciation at Nong Cong no. 1 Upper secondary school Nong Cong no. 1 upper secondary school is a school located in the countryside, the students