An investigation into the common errors in pronouncing word-final consonants “s”, “z”, “t” faced by six year-old students at Phu Xuyen primary school

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** LÊ PHƯƠNG LAN AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE COMMON ERRORS IN PRONOUNCING WORD - FINAL CONSONANTS /S/, /Z/, /T/ FACED BY SIX YEAR-OLD STUDENTS AT PHU XUYEN PRIMARY SCHOOL (Điều tra lỗi phổ biến học sinh lớp trường tiểu học Phú Xuyên phát âm phụ âm cuối /s/, /z/, /t/ từ) M.A PROGRAMME MINOR THESIS Field:English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 HANOI, 2015 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** LÊ PHƯƠNG LAN AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE COMMON ERRORS IN PRONOUNCING WORD - FINAL CONSONANTS /S/, /Z/, /T/ FACED BY SIX YEAR-OLD STUDENTS AT PHU XUYEN PRIMARY SCHOOL (Điều tra lỗi phổ biến học sinh lớp trường tiểu học Phú Xuyên phát âm phụ âm cuối /s/, /z/, /t/ từ) M.A PROGRAMME MINOR THESIS Field:English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Ph.D Phạm Thị Thanh Thùy HANOI, 2015 CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT I hereby certify that the minor thesis entitled “An investigation into the common errors in pronouncing word-final consonants /s/, /z/, /t/ faced by year-old students at Phu Xuyen primary school” is completely my own research which carried out at Phu Xuyen primary school during the whole school-year since 2012, and the thesis has not been submitted for any degree at any other university or institution Hanoi, August 16th, 2015 Lê Phương Lan i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Mrs Pham Thi Thanh Thuy, Ph.D for her invaluable supervision, constructive criticism, and enthusiastic encouragement without which the writing of this thesis would not have been successfully completed Secondly, my sincere thanks are sent to Mr Eduardo Culbeaux from the English Language Institute for his assistance in three experimental recording tasks and especially for his comments about the data collection procedure Thirdly, I am thankful to the lecturers and staff of the Faculty of Post – Graduate Studies at the University of Languages and International Studies for their scientific knowledge, enthusiastic guidance during my course My high appreciation and gratitude also extend to all the 6-year-old students at Phu Xuyen primary school for their contribution to the reliability of this study Last but not least, I owe my deep thanks to my family, my friends who keep encouraging me to complete this work ii ABSTRACT Being a teacher, an observer and researcher of Grade classes at Phu Xuyen primary school for the whole school-year since 2012, seeing a lot of mispronunciation errors happened, the researcher must conduct this case study research as a matter of urgency to help students to overcome these errors from the early school Two classes with 35 students naturally participated in the study through three experimental recording tasks and the basic questionnaire in Vietnamese The quantitative data gathered will provide readers with many reliable results relating to most problematic ending consonant sounds, the common errors in pronouncing these sounds, the causes as well the possible solutions to deal with such errors The results reveal the following concerning information Firstly, most of the subjects of the study struggle many difficulties in pronouncing the ending sound consonants /s/, /z/, /t/ Secondly, the most common errors were sound omitted, sound confusion and sound redundancy The causes leading to such errors were mainly the direct imitation of the teacher or friends‟ sounds, the lack of detailed instruction on the pronunciation of isolated consonant sounds and the students‟ laziness To help students pronounce more correctly, some strategies are being applied effectively such as the media/ software with the standard pronunciation of the native for students to listen and read aloud, encouraging students to ask for help from others and requiring students to practice as much as possible With limitations of the minor thesis, it is hoped that the study will be useful for other teachers or researchers with the passion for improving students‟ pronunciation, especially pronunciation with the word-final consonant sounds iii TABLE OF CONTENTS CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT…………………………………………………… i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………… ii ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………… iii TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………………… iv LISTS OF TABLES………………………………………………………………… vii LISTS OF FIGURES……………………………………………………………… viii PART A – INTRODUCTION …………………………………………………… 1 Statement of the problem and rationale of the study ………………… Aims of the study ………………………………………………………… Research questions ………………………………………………………… Scope of the research ……………………………………………………… Significance of the study ………………………………………………… Organization of the study ……………………………………………… PART B – DEVELOPMENT ……………………………………………………… CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW ………………………………………… 1.1 English consonants in general……………………………………………… 1.1.1 Phonological characteristics and articulation of the sound /t/……………… 1.1.2 Phonological characteristics and articulation of the sound /s/……………… 1.1.3 Phonological characteristics and articulation of the sound /z/…………… 1.2 Word-final consonants……………………………………………………… 1.2.1 English word-final consonants…………………………………………… 1.2.2 Vietnamese word-final consonants………………………………………… 1.2.3 Comparison between Vietnamese and English word-final consonants……… 10 1.3 Pronunciation errors……………………………………………………… 11 iv 1.3.1 Errors and Mistakes………………………………………………………… 11 1.3.2 Pronunciation errors……………………………………………………… 12 1.3.3 Description of errors……………………………………………………… 12 1.3.4 Explanation of errors……………………………………………………… 13 1.4 Previous works…………………………………………………………… 13 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY………………………………………………… 18 2.1 Research design…………………………………………………………… 18 2.2 Participants of the study………………………………………………… 18 2.3 Data collection procedure…………………………………………………… 19 2.4 Data analysis procedure…………………………………………………… 21 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS ………………………………… 23 3.1 Common errors in pronunciation…………………………………………… 23 3.1.1 Errors with ending sound /z/………………………………………………… 24 3.1.2 Errors with ending sound /s/………………………………………………… 24 3.1.3 Errors with ending sound /t/………………………………………………… 26 3.2 Sources of error reasons in ending consonants…………………………… 27 3.2.1 Internal reasons……………………………………………………………… 27 3.2.1.1 Origin……………………………………………………………………… 27 3.2.1.2 Hobbies……………………………………………………………………… 28 3.2.2 External reasons……………………………………………………………… 30 3.2.2.1 Reasons from teachers……………………………………………………… 30 3.2.2.2 Reasons from textbook……………………………………………………… 30 3.3 Suggestions to remove problems…………………………………………… 31 3.3.1 Phonics with consonants emphasis and practice…………………………… 31 3.3.2 Phonics with self-correction program ………………….…………………… 32 v PART C – CONCLUSION ………………………………………………………… 35 Summary of findings………………………………………………………… 35 Concluding marks…………………………………………………………… 35 Teaching recommendations…………………………………………………… 37 Limitations and suggestions for further research…………………………… 38 REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………… 40 APPENDIX 1………………………………………………………………………… I APPENDIX 2………………………………………………………………………… III APPENDIX 3………………………………………………………………………… XIV APPENDIX 4………………………………………………………………………… XV APPENDIX 5………………………………………………………………………… XVIII APPENDIX 6………………………………………………………………………… XXI vi LISTS OF TABLES Table : English consonants Table : Vietnamese initial consonants Table : Vietnamese final consonants Table : Common errors found in the data Table : More problematic consonants Table : Number of subjects with errors in pronouncing the ending sound /z/ and types of errors in isolated words Table : Number of subjects with errors in pronouncing the ending sound /s/ and types of errors in isolated words Table : Number of subjects with errors in pronouncing the ending sound /t/ and types of errors in isolated words Table : Students‟ opinion about the causes of errors Table 10 : Students' reflection on their teacher‟s strategies to help them to overcome the errors Table 11 : Students‟ self-strategies to correct the errors vii LISTS OF FIGURES Figure : Articulation of the sound /t/ Figure : Articulation of the sound /s/ Figure : Articulation of the sound /z/ Figure : Students' perceptions of the difficulty of pronouncing the word-final consonants Figure : Percentage of students‟ opinion about the causes of errors Figure : Percentage of Students' reflection on their teacher‟s strategies Figure : Percentage of students‟ frequencies of applying these self-strategies viii fish lemon VII drive gallop VIII giraffe mouth IX breathe deer X garage ostrich XI bridge sing XII tribe XIII APPENDIX Task 2: Read aloud the sentences below Horse likes to eat grass Rabbit is flying a white kite Mouse likes apple juice and lemon juice XIV APPENDIX PHIẾU ĐIỀU TRA NGHIÊN CỨU Những câu hỏi thiết kế cho nghiên cứu điều tra lỗi sai phổ biến phát âm phụ âm cuối /s/, /z/, /t/ từ học sinh lớp trường TH Phú Xuyên Cô cảm ơn trả lời câu hỏi Cảm ơn con! Lê Phương Lan  Họ tên:………………………………………………  Lớp: …………………………………………………… Con học phát âm trước học lớp chưa? A Đã tham gia B Chưa tham gia Một tuần học buổi tiếng Anh? A buổi B buổi C buổi D buổi Con có học cách đọc từ học tiếng Anh lớp khơng? A Có B Khơng Con có thấy việc phát âm âm /s/ từ “cats”, /z/ từ “mouse”, /t/ từ “rabbit” có khó khơng? A Có B Khơng XV Con dùng bút chì đánh dấu vào ô có mặt cười phù hợp để trả lời câu hỏi bên tay trái Khi học phát âm âm cuối /s/, /z/, /t/ Hồn Khơng Có lúc Đúng Rất toàn sai đúng a Con không học cách phát âm b Lúc nghĩ đọc sai c Con sợ xấu hổ đọc từ d Con tự phát âm theo cách nghĩ e Con bắt chước cách phát âm Thầy/ Cô giáo bạn lớp f Con không luyện phát âm thường xuyên Khi học đọc từ, có thử phát âm theo cách khác đọc xác âm cuối /s/, /z/, /t/ khơng? A Có B Khơng Con dùng bút chì đánh dấu vào có mặt cười phù hợp để trả lời câu hỏi bên tay trái Cách thức Chưa a Con nghe bắt chước theo Thầy/Cô bạn nước Anh băng XVI Rất Thỉnh thoảng Thường xun Ln ln Cách thức Chưa Rất Thỉnh thoảng Thường xuyên Luôn b Con nhờ Thầy/Cô bạn lớp giúp hướng dẫn cách phát âm c Con cố gắng luyện phát âm thường xuyên d Con có cách khác khơng? Hãy cho biết nào: ……………………………………… Con dùng bút chì đánh dấu vào ô có mặt cười phù hợp để trả lời câu hỏi bên tay trái Cách thức Chưa a Con Thầy/ Cô giáo dạy chi tiết cách phát âm cuối b Con nghe đĩa/ đài nhắc lại nhiều lần c Con luyện đọc to âm lớp d Các Thầy/ cịn dùng cách khác khơng?: ………………………………… XVII Rất Thỉnh thoảng Thường xuyên Luôn APPENDIX SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE This questionnaire is conducted as part of my MA study Your completion will be highly appreciated The data collected are used in the research paper only, not for any other purposes Thank you for your cooperation!  Teacher‟s name:………………………………………………………………  Teaching English at class: …………………………………………………… How many periods you have to teach for each grade class? A period B periods C periods D More than periods What you think about the importance of teaching pronunciation for your students? A Very important B Important C Neutral D Not very important E Not very important at all While teaching English in class, have you ever paid attention to help students to pronounce correctly the sound /s/ in the word “cats”, /z/ in “mouse”, /t/” in rabbit”? XVIII A Always B Often C Sometimes D Seldom E Never Towards the students‟ mispronunciation the ending sounds, you perceive as a mistake? A Yes B No Have you ever tried any methods to improve your students‟ pronunciation? A Yes B No If Yes, come to Question If No, stop here How often you apply the following methods to improve your students‟ pronunciation? Methods Never a Use the Phonics software to introduce the place and manner of articulation of each sound in detail b Listen and imitate the standard sounds XIX Seldom Sometimes Often Always Methods Never Seldom Sometimes c Reading aloud d Other methods (please specify…) ………………………………………… ………………………………………… ………………………………………… THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION! XX Often Always APPENDIX The aim of the observation paper is to find the facts of teaching and learning the ending consonant sounds /s/, /z/, /t/ Facts Teachers Never Seldom Sometimes Often Always teach how to pronounce the ending consonant sounds /s/, /z/, /t/ in detail Students make errors in pronouncing the ending sounds /s/, /z/, /t/ Students lack confidence in pronouncing the words that contain these sounds Students listen and imitate the sounds from their teacher and friends Teachers pay attention to correct these students‟ errors Students listen and imitate the sounds of the natives from the Phonics software Each student has a chance to read aloud these ending sounds XXI