Designing supplementary exercises in teaching affricative sounds through the book "English pronunciation in use" by Mark Hancock to the first-year English major students at Lang Son teachers'''' Training College

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES =***= PHẠM THANH MAI DESIGNING SUPPLEMENTARY EXERCISES IN TEACHING AFFRICATIVE SOUNDS THROUGH THE BOOK “ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION IN USE” BY MARK HANCOCK TO THE FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT LANG SON TEACHERS’ TRAINING COLLEGE THIẾT KẾ BÀI TẬP BỔ TRỢ DẠY PHỤ ÂM TẮC XÁT DỰA TRÊN GIÁO TRÌNH “ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION IN USE” CỦA MARK HANCOCK CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT CHUYÊN ANH TẠI TRƯỜNG CĐSP LẠNG SƠN (M.A MINOR THESIS) Field: English Methodology Code: 60 14 10 Supervisor: Dr Dương Thị Nụ Hanoi, 2010 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements …………………………………………………………………… ii Abstract ……………………………………………………………………………… iii Table of contents ……………………………………………………………………… iv List of Abbreviation …………………………………………………………………… vii List of figures, charts and tables ……………………………………………………… viii Part A INTRODUCTION …………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………… Aims of the study ………………………………………………………………… Research questions ………………………………………………………………… Scope of the study ………………………………………………………………… Methods of the study ………………………………………………………………… Design of the study ………………………………………………………………… Part B DEVELOPMENT ……………………………………………………………… Chapter I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ………………………………………… Rationale 1.1 Teaching pronunciation ………………….………………………………………… 1.1.1 Importance of teaching pronunciation in EFL teaching ………………… …………………………………… 1.2 Affricative sounds ………………………………………………………………… 1.1.1 Problems in teaching pronunciation 1.2.1 Definition ………………………………………………………………… 1.2.2 Description of affricative sounds ………………………………………… 1.2.3 Learners’ problems with affricates ……………………………………… 1.2.3.1 Distribution/ Absence of sounds ……………………………… 1.2.3.2 Spelling pronunciation ………………………………………… 10 1.2.3.3 Syllable types …………………………………………………… 10 1.3 Materials Evaluation ……………………………………………………………… 11 1.3.1 What is Materials Evaluation …………………………………………… 12 1.3.2 Criteria for Materials Evaluation ………………………………………… 12 v 1.3.2.1 Criteria by Brian Tomlinson …………………………………… 12 1.3.2.2 Criteria by Hutchinson & Walters ……………… …………… 12 1.3.3 Types of Evaluation ……………………………………………………… 13 1.4 Materials adaptation ……………………………………………………………… 14 1.4.1 Reasons for adaptation ……………………………………………… … 15 1.4.2 Objectives for adaptation ……………… ………………………………… 15 1.4.3 Techniques for adaptation ………………………………………………… 16 Chapter II: THE STUDY ……………………………………………………………… 17 2.1 Subjects …………………………………………………………………………… 17 2.2 Context ……………………………………………………………………………… 17 2.2.1 The current situation of English teaching and learning at LSTC ………… 17 2.2.2 Teachers ………………………………………………………………… 18 2.2.2.1 Description …………………………………………………… 18 2.2.2.2 Teacher analysis ……………………………………………… 19 2.2.3 Learners ………………………………………………………………… 21 2.2.3.1 Description …………………………………………………… 21 2.2.3.2 Learner analysis ………………………………………………… 21 2.3 Summary …………………………………………………………………………… 29 Chapter III: SUPPLEMENTARY EXERCISES ……………………………………… 30 3.1 Brief evaluation of current coursebook …………………………… ……….…… 30 3.1.1 Objectives of the material ……………………………………………… 30 3.1.2 Organization and design ………………………………………………… 31 3.1.3 Activities and exercises ………………………………………………… 32 3.1.4 Methodology …………………………………………………………… 33 3.1.5 Summary ………………………………………………………………… 34 3.2 Proposed supplementary exercises ………………………………………………… 34 3.3 Suggestions for teachers and answer key …………………………………………… 38 3.4 Summary …………………………………………………………………………… 38 Part C CONCLUSION ………………………………………………………………… 39 vi Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………… 39 Limitations of the study ……………………………………………………………… 40 Recommendation for further research ……………………………………………… 40 REFERENCES ………………………………………………………………………… 41 APPENDICES ………………………………………………………………………… I Appendix Suggestions for teachers and answers for exercises ……………………… II Appendix Questionnaires …………………………………………………………… VII Appendix Unit 12 in “English pronunciation in Use” by Mark Hancock …………… XI vii LIST OF ABBREVIATION EFL: English Foreign Language ICT : Information Communication Technology LSTC: Lang Son Teachers’ training College M.A Master of Arts OHP Overhead Projector PPP Presentation, Practice, Production RP Received Pronunciation VNU: Viet Nam National University ULIS: University of Language & International Studies viii LIST OF FIGURES, CHARTS AND TABLES Figures: Figure 1: The position of the tongue in the production of /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ Figure 2,3: Section of stop phase of /tʃ, dʒ/ Charts: Chart 1: Frequency students dealt with pronunciation at high school Chart 2: Students’ exposure of spoken English in class Chart 3: Students’ views on the importance of pronunciation Chart 4: Students’ purposes of pronunciation Chart 5: Frequency of students’ pronunciation practice Chart 6: Methods of students’ pronunciation practice Chart 7: The ways students exercises Chart 8: Students’ ability in reading phonemic transcription Chart 9: Students’ ability in writing phonemic transcription Chart 10: The sounds students find the most difficult/ the easiest to pronounce Tables: Table 1: Possible final clusters with affricative sounds Table 2: Students’ difficulties in speaking English Table 3: Students’ evaluation to the current coursebook Table : Student’s choices of correct sounds Part A INTRODUCTION Rationale The new trend of teaching EFL has undergone the shift from linguistic competencies to broader communicative competencies This leads to the fact that the need for the integration of pronunciation with oral communication is clearly realized Therefore, pronunciation is such an integrated and integral part of EFL learning because of its direct effects on learners‘ communicative competencies that teaching pronunciation plays a really crucial role in teaching EFL Despite the importance of pronunciation and teaching pronunciation to EFL students, this aspect is less taken into consideration and takes much of teachers‘ ignorance in the EFL classes - an idea shared by Kelly (1996) who dubs pronunciation the ―Cinderella‖ area of foreign language teaching This fact affects students' learning and they take little concern for pronunciation Consequently, many students have poor knowledge of this aspect They often make mistakes in articulating English sounds and they find it difficult to capture correct pronunciation The above- mentioned matters are really true to the English teaching and learning situation in Lang Son teachers‘ training college (LSTC) Many English major students have trouble with pronunciation, especially with the English sounds As a result, there are various problems arising to the students Firstly, because of the differences between sound systems of English and Vietnamese, some English sounds not exist in Vietnamese and vice versa and thus many students not know how to correctly pronounce some certain sounds such as /θ/, /ð/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/ … and some other vowels Secondly, ―each sound of English is represented by more than one written letter or by sequences of letters‖ and ―any letter of English represents more than one sound, or it may not represent any sound at all‖ (Paul, 1991:5) for example /tʃ/ in chip, future, watch ; /dʒ/ in jam, general, age, fridge or /g/ in giggle, /ʒ/ in gigolo, /dʒ/ in giant …, the confusion among some sounds /dʒ/, /z/, /ʒ/ or / ʃ/, /s/ frequently happens to these students who can scarcely be able to clearly distinguish these sounds from others It's believed that this problematic issue results from teachers‘ ignorance and the fact that they wonder what and how to teach The teachers entirely depend on the course book and there is almost no creation or supplementary exercises for students‘ practice Besides, the teachers sometimes find it really difficult to apply the exercises in order to help students with pronunciation practice These crucial factors restrict students to improve their knowledge of pronunciation To solve the problem, some researchers have designed pronunciation syllabuses for their own colleges In LSTC, the book ―Pronunciation in Use‖ written by Mark Hancock is used as course book However, there are only 45 periods of the whole course for this subject so it is impossible to cover all the features of pronunciation From the fact that the students‘ “inaccurate of a phoneme can lead to misunderstanding‖ (G Kelly, 2006: 11) and that sound is considered as the core of language, the system of English sounds is chosen as prior part presented to students But the system of English sound exposes problems to students as stated above Therefore, the researcher decides to choose a particular pair of English sounds affricates - which challenge students when they are dealing with the system of English sounds in order to make an attempt to design the supplementary exercises for these consonants with the hope that it can help improve students‘ pronunciation, bring about the teachers‘ orientation and concerns over the pronunciation lessons as well as make their lessons more effective and interesting Furthermore, it can be a model for teachers to design exercises for teaching other sounds Aims of the study From the fact of teaching and learning pronunciation in EFL classes, there apparently exist limitations for both teachers and learners when dealing with this aspect With the hope of bringing about a small contribution to the matter of teaching and learning pronunciation in her own situation of researcher‘s, the study aims to: - Address a particular pair of English sounds: The affricates - Make some contrastive analysis of English and Vietnamese consonant sounds - Find out the difficulties students meet when pronouncing affricative sounds /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ - Evaluate the course book ― English Pronunciation in Use‖ in terms of a single section ―Letters and sounds‖ - Propose a certain number of exercises on affricate sounds for the first - year English major students at LSTC Research questions To target the aims of the study, the following research questions are addressed: (1) What difficulties students have in dealing with affricative sounds? (2) How suitable is the system of English sound in the course book ―English Pronunciation in Use‖ for English major students at LSTC? (3) What are supplementary exercises for affricative sounds? Scope of the study Obviously, pronunciation covers different features: segmentals (individual sounds) and suprasegmentals ( intonation and stress) We must bear in mind that the sounds are considered as the preliminary enquiry in teaching and learning pronunciation and they are also concerned in teaching other aspect like vocabulary or teaching speaking skill However, the researcher does not have ambition to include the whole English sound system because it is a really timeconsuming and complex matter Otherwise, the researcher would like to take only affricates two complex consonant sounds - which cause difficulties for students to a different job from the previous researchers': design the supplementary exercises with the hope that it could be not only an improvement in reality of teaching and learning pronunciation but also the sample to design exercises for teaching other sounds in the situation of LSTC and of teachers' who are concerned with the same situation Methods of the study The researcher, in this study, applies both quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze the data which are collected by means of questionnaire to both teachers and students in LSTC and the interviews to the teachers only in order to explore the aims of the study Besides, an important method to establish the theoretical background of the study is reviewing the related document relating to teaching pronunciation especially teaching the English sounds, the understanding of affricates as well as the exercises on English sounds to help EFL learners‘ practice is used Additionally, method of document analysis is also employed to fulfill the study Design of the study The study comprises three main parts, together with appendices: Part A is treated as the Introduction of the study addressing rationale, aims of the study, the research questions, scope, method as well as design of the study Part B is considered as the main content of the study It consists of three chapters Chapter I reviews theoretical background relating to the importance and problems of teaching and learning pronunciation Besides, all about affricatives sounds is also mentioned such as the description of affricatives and learners‘ problems with these sounds The third section in this chapter refers to Material Evaluation Material adaptation is clearly displayed in section Chapter II named The study plays a significant role of the study as it provides findings for the next chapter This chapters describes the context, instruments for data collection and analyses of the results Chapter III targets the goal of the study by making an evaluation of Section A Letters and sounds in the coursebook and designing supplementary exercises of affricative sounds Part C makes a conclusion and limitations of the study 42 15 O‘Connor J.D (1980), Better English pronunciation, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 16 Pennington M C (1996), Phonology in English Language Teaching: An International Approach, Longman, Harlow 17 Rosenbloom J (1986), World‟s Toughest Tongue Twisters, Sterling Publishing Co, New York 18 Marks J (2007), English Pronunciation in Use, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 19 Tench P (1981), Pronunciation Skills, Macmillan, London and Basingstoke 20 Tomlinson B (2003), Developing Materials for Language Teaching, Continuum, London I APPENDICES II Appendix Suggestions for teachers and answers for exercises Exercise - Sound descriptions Background notes: Using diagrams and “learner- friendly” explanations is one of way that helps raise awareness of consonant sounds Unlike vowels which is extremely difficult to describe the movement of the tongue within a space, with the consonants, it is easier to talk about the part of the mouth and throat which touch, and how they restrict, interrupt or divert the airflow (Kelly, 2000: 54) This exercise is good for students to review how to articulate consonant sound Suggestions for teachers: - Get students to this exercises individually, in pairs or in groups - Grade the language according to the level of the class (you can afford to be a bit more ‗technical‘ with higher level students) (Kelly; 2000:55) - Use ‗learner - friendly‘ explanations to describe how to make the sound - Get students to practice the target sounds following the right desciptions Key: a, c Exercise - Vocabulary Background notes: Vocabulary exercises are so interesting that they can help the teachers motivate their students in practice the target sounds With these exercises, not only the sounds but also students‘ vocabulary would be improved There are many ways to design the vocabulary exercises for practicing the sounds Suggestion for teachers: - Get students to this exercises individually, in pairs or in groups - Ask students to practice all the sounds after they finish the exercise III - Choose some words and read aloud for your students tick the words they hear in case you have no CD - Get students to pay attention to /dʒ/ if they tend to substitute the sound /y/ for /dʒ/ - Explain the difficult words to students Key: Listen: A cheers / tʃiə(r)/ B cheap / tʃ i:p/ C jacket /dʒækit/ D jigsaw /dʒigsɔː/ E match /mætʃ/ F choke / tʃ əʊk/ G chess /tʃ es/ H joke / dʒəʊk/ I chopsticks / tʃɒpstiks/ J jeers /dʒiə(r)/ K jeep / dʒiːp/ A cheers /tʃiə(r)/ H joke / dʒəʊk/ F choke /tʃ əʊk/ K jeep / dʒiːp/ G chess /tʃ es/ Exercise - Dialogue Background notes: Kelly (2000: 22) states that in reading activities, work on pronunciation can be successfully integrated Like listening, reading is a receptive activity (i.e students receive the language rather than produce it), and so it provides a suitable means of bringing language features to students‘ attention The exercise of giving students chances of reading aloud the dialogues offers opportunities not only for the practice the target sounds but also for the study of the links between spelling and pronunciation, of stress and intonation, and of the linking of sounds between words in connected speech; all of these can be highlighted and investigated further in fun and interesting ways through reading aloud Suggestion for teachers: - Get students to this exercises in pairs - Get students practice the sounds /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ on its own and in some certain words once or twice before they exercise - Pay attention to students‘ pronunciation of affricative sounds /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ - Play the recording of the dialogue for students to listen to check their pronunciation Key: The sounds /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ are highlighted in bold letters in the dialogue Exercise - Crosswords IV Background notes: Crossword puzzles are very useful for providing a focus on spelling Of course they must be suited to the learners in the target words, nature of the clues, etc Partially completed puzzles can be less daunting Students can exchange and complete the puzzles and mistakes due to spelling should be treated as a matter of interest and discussion (Kenworthy, 1987: 111) Usually, a puzzle can be constructed around a particular area of vocabulary or a topic This crossword is constructed around the words including affricative sounds Suggestion for teachers: - Get students to this exercises in groups or in whole class - Explain the difficult words to students when the puzzle is completed - Get students to practice the target sounds in clue words Key: Across: Down: Churchill Chicken jam reach jar larger choc(olate) Jock‘s chose jeep por(ch) (j)ok(e) 10 such Exercise – Ending sound Background notes: In Vietnamese, words are normally of the shape CV or CVC, being composed of one syllable (Avery and Ehrlich, 1997: 60) However, in the case of final consonants, they are never pronounced or heard That is the reason why Vietnamese learners of English often omit final consonants of words in English or they may substitute /ʃ/ for /tʃ/, saying „marsh‟ instead of „march‟ Practicing the exercises of ending sound help students to minimise the influence of their mother tongue on their pronunciation of English sounds Suggestion for teachers: V - Get students to work individually or in pairs - Get students to practice articulating the words from the phonetic transcriptions first - Get students to write down the words from the phonetic transcriptions - Play the CD for students to check or read aloud the words if you have no CD - Get students to practice the words after the CD or the teacher Key: a Word- final / tʃ/: catch; church; match; much; reach; sandwich; speech; which b Word- final /dʒ/: age; badge; bridge; cage; charge; college; garbage; large Exercise 7- Spelling pronunciation Background notes: The exercise uses different possible letters for affricative sounds /tʃ/ or /dʒ/, but the exercise can, of course, be tailored to cover whatever practice the class needs Exercises like this will increase students‘ confidence in their predictions of the relationships between spelling and sounds, and also help them to increase their understanding and knowledge of the spelling and pronunciation systems Suggestion for teachers: - Get students to work individually or in pairs - Suggest students for dictionary use to find pronunciation because ―guided work in using dictionaries to find pronunciations will also help students take a more independent role in their awareness of pronunciation in private study away from the classroom‖ (Kelly, 2000: 129) - In order to check students‘ work, give students phonetic symbols of the words - Play the CD for students to check or read aloud the words if you have no CD - Get students to practice the sounds in given words - Note that English does not always have a strict one-to- one correspondence between sound and letter Give students examples to illustrate this Key: get Christmas Exercise - Consonant clusters Background notes: give picture VI Every & Ehrlich (1997: 155) states that ―As Vietnamese has no consonant clusters in initial or final position, Vietnamese speakers must learn to produce a large variety syllable types that contain consonant clusters‖ With affricates, there is no initial clusters, but only final clusters This exercise helps students focus on the possible final clusters including affricative sounds which ―would be impossible to pronounce as initial clusters‖ (Every & Ehrlich 1997: 57) Suggestion for teachers: - Get students to work individually or in pairs or in groups or it can be treated as homework because it takes much time for students to even they use dictionaries as it focuses on final clusters, not initial ones - Repeat the possible consonant clusters including affricative sounds - Suggest students for the help of dictionaries - Note that the final clusters would be impossible to pronounce as initial clusters, so with the words only affricative sounds could be heard - Get students have phonetic transcriptions for and practice the words they find Key: - /ltʃ/: mulch, filch, gulch, milch… - /ldʒ/: bilge, divulge, indulge… - /ntʃ/: inch, munch, pinch, punch, tench, winch… - /ndʒ/: orange, change, fringe, lounge, plunge, sponge, twinge … (- /rtʃ/: march, porch, research, torch … - /rdʒ/: charge, emerge, forge, gorge, urge, verge …) VII Appendix Questionnaires QUESTIONNAIRE This questionnaire aims at identifying your attitudes towards and opinions about the importance of pronunciation, teaching and learning pronunciation from your course as well as your current coursbook Please fulfill the following questions as frankly as you can Your answers would be a great help for my only purpose of study Thank you very much for your cooperation! Please choose the answer(s) that is the best appropriate for your own situation How often did you study pronunciation at high school? always usually sometimes rarely never How often you speak English in your English classes? always usually sometimes rarely never What is/ are your difficulty(ies) in speaking English ( you can tick as many boxes as you wish) lack of vocabulary poor grammar knowledge incorrect pronunciation VIII lack of confidence other(s) ……………………………………………………………… How important you find pronunciation to your course? very important quite important important unimportant What is your purpose of learning pronunciation? ( you can tick as many boxes as you wish) passing examination communicating well acquiring a near- native pronunciation of English teaching English in the future other(s) …………………………………………………………… How often you practice your pronunciation? always usually sometimes rarely never ( if your answer is ―d‖, skip the question 8, come to question 9) In what way you practice your pronunciation? ( you can tick as many boxes as you wish) listen to the recording/ radio ask teachers and friends for help pronunciation exercises record your voice other(s) ………….…………………………………………………… ………….…………………………………………………………… IX Your teachers ask/ help you to practice pronunciation with … all exercises in the course book some exercises in the course book only exercises outside the course book both exercise inside and outside the course book Your teachers often ask you to the pronunciation exercises individually in pairs in groups with the whole class Circle number you find the best for questions 10, 11, 12 10 How you find the exercises in the coursebook “ English Pronunciation in Use”? Difficult - - - - - Easy 11 How interesting you consider the coursebook “ English Pronunciation in Use” to be? Interesting - - - - - Uninteresting 12 How appropriate you find the coursebook “ English Pronunciation in Use” to your level? Appropriate - - - - - The end Inappropriate X QUESTIONNAIRE Please fulfill the following questions as frankly as you can Your answers would be a great help for my only purpose of study Thank you very much for your cooperation! Do you know how to read phonemic transcription? Yes No Do you know the way to transcribe the English words phonemically? Yes No In what way is the word ―individual‖ phonemically transcribed? / individʒʊəl/ / inʒividʒʊəl/ / individʊəl/ / indivizʊəl/ How difficult you find to articulate these sounds? ( 1= the most difficult ; 2= the second difficult; 5= the easiest) / s/ /z/ /tʃ/ /dʒ/ /ʃ/ /ʒ/ How is the bold letter in the following word ―general‖ pronounced? /dʒenrəl/ /genrəl/ /zenrəl/ / ʒenərəl/ How is the bold letter in the following word ― question‖ pronounced? /kwesʃən/ / kwestən/ /kwestʃən/ /kwestsən/ The end Appendix XI Unit 12 in “English Pronunciation in Use” by Mark Hancock XII XIII ... method to establish the theoretical background of the study is reviewing the related document relating to teaching pronunciation especially teaching the English sounds, the understanding of affricates... material seem to be more general since English pronunciation in Use is a book to help students of English in general, not students at the teacher training college in particular, to work on pronunciation. .. of English at LSTC Among them, only three have dealt with the current coursebook since the coursebook ? ?English Pronunciation in Use‖ by Mark Hancock has been applied in teaching pronunciation to