From needs analysis to designing a communicative English pronunciation syllabus for the first year non - English major students at University of Economic and Technical Industries

1 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** TRẦN THỊ QUỲNH FROM NEEDS ANALYSIS TO DESIGNING A COMMUNICATIVE ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION SYLLABUS FOR THE FIRST YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMIC AND TECHNICAL INDUSTRIES PHÂN TÍCH NHU CẦU NHẰM THIẾT KẾ MỘT CHƯƠNG TRÌNH PHÁT ÂM TIẾNG ANH CHO SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC KINH TẾ KỸ THUẬT CÔNG NGHIỆP M.A Minor Thesis Field: English Methodology Code: 60 14 10 HANOI – 2010 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** TRẦN THỊ QUỲNH FROM NEEDS ANALYSIS TO DESIGNING A COMMUNICATIVE ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION SYLLABUS FOR THE FIRST YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMIC AND TECHNICAL INDUSTRIES PHÂN TÍCH NHU CẦU NHẰM THIẾT KẾ MỘT CHƯƠNG TRÌNH PHÁT ÂM TIẾNG ANH CHO SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC KINH TẾ KỸ THUẬT CÔNG NGHIỆP M.A Minor Thesis Field: English Methodology Code: 60 14 10 Supervisor: Nguyễn Minh Huệ, M.A HANOI – 2010 TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration i Acknowledgement ii Abstract iii Table of contents iv Lists of tables and charts vii List of abbreviation vii i Appendices ix CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rational of the study 1.2 Aims of the study 1.3 Scope of the study 1.4 Significance of the study 1.5 Structure of the study CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Language syllabus design 2.1.1 Syllabus and curriculum 2.1.2 Some major approaches in designing a syllabus 2.1.2.1 Synthetic strategy 2.1.2.2 Analytic strategy 2.1.3 Three principal types of language syllabus 2.1.3.1 Structural syllabus 2.1.3.2 Situational syllabus 2.1.3.3 Notional-functional syllabus 2.1.4 Essential steps in designing a language syllabus 2.1.4.1 Needs background 2.1.4.1.1 Needs analysis 2.1.4.1.2 Resources analysis 2.1.4.2 Goal setting 2.1.4.3 Selecting and grading content 2.1.4.3.1 Selecting the content 2.1.4.3.2 Grading the content 10 2.1.4.4 Selecting and grading tasks and activities 10 2.1.4.4.1 Selecting tasks 10 2.1.4.4.2 Grading tasks 11 2.1.4.5 Teaching method 12 2.1.4.6 Testing – Evaluation 12 2.2 Communicative pronunciation teaching 12 2.2.1 Pronunciation and communicative teaching 12 2.2.2 History and scope of teaching English pronunciation 13 CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY 3.1 The setting of the study 15 3.2 Participants 15 3.3 Data collection methods 16 3.3.1 Questionnaire 16 3.3.2 Mock speaking test 17 3.3.3 Interview 17 3.4 Data collection procedure 18 3.5 Data analysis 18 CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 4.1 Students‟ expectations 19 4.1.1 The student‟s expectations towards teachers of pronunciation 19 4.1.2 Students‟ expectations towards materials exploited in pronunciation 19 4.2 Students‟ attitude towards the pronunciation 20 4.3 Students‟ problems with English pronunciation 21 4.3.1 Students‟ problems with English consonants 23 4.3.2 Students‟ problems with English vowel 25 4.3.3 Students‟ problems with English weak forms / linkage words 26 4.3.4 Students‟ problems with English stress / intonation 26 4.4 Teachers‟ perception of teaching pronunciation and their assessment of the existing materials 27 4.5 Curricular and Materials Analysis 29 CHAPTER FIVE: A PROPOSED SYLLABUS OF ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION 5.1 Introduction 32 5.2 Goals and objectives 32 5.2.1 Goals 32 5.2.2 Objectives 32 5.3 The content 32 5.4 Teaching methodology 36 5.4.1 Accuracy and Fluency in teaching pronunciation 36 5.4.2 Teaching pronunciation on the level of Accuracy 37 5.4.2.1 Teaching individual sounds 37 5.4.2.2 Teaching problematic consonants 37 5.4.3 Teaching pronunciation on the level of fluency 38 5.4.3.1 Stress and Rhythm 38 5.4.3.2 Intonation 39 5.5 A sample test 40 CHAPTER SIX: CONCLUSION 6.1 Conclusion 42 6.2 Implications of the study for teaching English pronunciation 42 6.2.1 Awareness of the importance of teaching and learning pronunciation 42 6.2.2 Relation between pronunciation and other aspects of language 43 6.3 Limitations and recommendations for future research 43 REFERENCES 44 10 LISTS OF TABLES AND CHARTS Tables Table 1: The faults in producing English vowels of the first-year students Table 2: The faults in weak forms and linkage words Table 3: The faults in stress and intonation Table 4: English curricular of the students at full-time University level Charts Chart 1: The student‟s expectations towards teachers of pronunciation Chart 2: The student‟s expectations towards materials exploited in pronunciation Chart 3: The importance of learning English pronunciation Chart 4: The purposes of learning English pronunciation Chart 5: The students‟ difficulties of pronunciation Chart 6: English consonants sound that the students mispronounced Chart 7: The importance of teaching English pronunciation to the students Chart 8: The teachers‟ evaluation of students‟ pronunciation Chart 9: The quality of pronunciation parts in the existing textbook Chart 10: The aspects relating to pronunciation in the existing textbook 11 LISTS OF ABBREVIATION EFL: English Foreign Language ELT: English Language Teaching FLD: Foreign Language Department N.P: Number of Participants UNETI: University of Economic and Technical Industries APPENDICES APPENDIX 1: Questionnaire for the first-year students at UNETI APPENDIX 2: The mock speaking test APPENDIX 3: Questions for interview for teachers 12 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study English together with Russian and French has been taught in Vietnamese universities, colleges and schools for the last few decades However, unlike the past misconception that focused mainly on writing and grammar, nowadays the emphasis in language teaching has changed to give spoken English the same status as written English, and the communicative language teaching is considered as a predominant approach This means that in order to reach a good degree of efficiency in teaching English, besides other skills teachers should pay more attention to speaking and need perceive that speaking requires not only vocabulary but also an accurate pronunciation Nowadays, of all the language teaching approaches, it has been proved that the communicative language teaching has its predominant role This predominance over other approaches to language teaching has led to the increasingly important role of teaching pronunciation In communication, correct pronunciation is a must One can not communicate without reasonable pronunciation In other words, if the mastery of English sounds and pronunciation is not achieved, it may lead to the misunderstanding and the communication between people may even be broken down Pronunciation is so important, that is why, higher and higher priority is given to teaching and learning pronunciation Teaching pronunciation is no less important than teaching English grammar, vocabulary, or any other aspects of language As a consequence, learning English pronunciation is given high priority by students of English in general and by students at University of Economic and Technical Industries (UNETI) in particular One of the difficulties that the teachers of English at our University have to cope with is the first – year students‟ habit of pronouncing English words incorrectly Most of the students, before entering the University, have had several years of learning English at school, but in fact, the school teachers don‟t pay much attention to teaching pronunciation Perhaps, one reason for it is that they don‟t have enough time Most of the time is used to teach Grammar and other language skills Another reason is that they think their students will have to take examination only in written form before leaving school, even the entrance 13 exams to universities or colleges are never taken orally As a result, the emphasis has been shifted away from teaching speaking skill, including teaching pronunciation and many school leavers can not pronounce English words, even simple words, correctly They have no ideas of stress, intonation, or rhythm etc…Moreover, our current English materials are New Headway and Toeic so pronunciation parts in these materials are insufficient, unspecific and unsuitable for students at UNETI In addition, there has not been any research, up to now, on the subject of teaching and learning pronunciation at UNETI From all the reasons mentioned above, I have chosen the topic “From needs analysis to designing a communicative pronunciation syllabus for the first year non-major English at UNETI” 1.2 Aims of the study The research is aimed at investigating the students‟ expectations and their attitude towards pronunciation learning, the problems in learning English pronunciation, the teachers‟ perception of teaching pronunciation and their evaluation of the existing materials Based on the findings, the study also aimed to design a 30-period pronunciation syllabus appropriate and workable for the first-year students at full-time University level at UNETI To achieve the aforementioned aims, the following research questions are set out to be answered: What are the students‟ expectations towards the teachers of pronunciation and materials exploited in pronunciation? What are the students‟ attitudes towards pronunciation learning? What problems the students encounter in learning pronunciation? What are the teachers‟ perception of teaching pronunciation and their evaluation of the existing materials? 1.3 The scope of the study UNETI is a University which has two headquarters (one in Nam Dinh and the other in Hanoi) and it trains students at different levels including university, college, vocational high school and technical workers However, this study only focused on the first-year students at full-time University level in Nam Dinh City In addition, the pronunciation is a complex problem composing a number of components, but this study is confined to only some basic elements such as sounds, stress linkage, rhythm and intonation ... learning pronunciation at UNETI From all the reasons mentioned above, I have chosen the topic ? ?From needs analysis to designing a communicative pronunciation syllabus for the first year non- major. .. answered: What are the students? ?? expectations towards the teachers of pronunciation and materials exploited in pronunciation? What are the students? ?? attitudes towards pronunciation learning? What problems... were the materials developed?) Materials compatibility (Are the materials compatible with the syllabus? ) Materials alternatives (So most of the materials provide alternatives for teachers and learner?)