A study on some common mistakes made by vietnamese learners of english when pronouncing english final consonants

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES -    - ĐÀO THÚY MAI A STUDY ON SOME COMMON MISTAKES MADE BY VIETNAMESE LEARNERS OF ENGLISH WHEN PRONOUNCING ENGLISH FINAL CONSONANTS (Nghiên cứu số lỗi thường gặp học viên Việt Nam phát âm phụ âm cuối tiếng Anh) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.22.15 HANOI, 2012 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES -    - ĐÀO THÚY MAI A STUDY ON SOME COMMON MISTAKES MADE BY VIETNAMESE LEARNERS OF ENGLISH WHEN PRONOUNCING ENGLISH FINAL CONSONANTS (Nghiên cứu số lỗi thường gặp học viên Việt Nam phát âm phụ âm cuối tiếng Anh) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.22.15 Supervisor: Huỳnh Anh Tuấn, Ph.D HANOI, 2012 TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF TABLES v LIST OF FIGURES vi PART ONE: INTRODUCTION 1 RATIONALE AIMS OF THE RESEARCH RESEARCH METHODOLOGY SCOPE OF THE STUDY DESIGN OF THE STUDY PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE REVIEW I THEORETICAL BACKGROUND I.1 General descriptions of stop consonants I.2 Phonological characteristics and articulation of the sounds /p/, b/, /t/, /d/, /k/ and /g/ I.3 Vietnamese final stop consonants vs English final stop consonants 10 II LITERATURE REVIEW 11 Chapter 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 19 2.1 Research questions 19 2.2 The informants of the study 19 2.3 Research method 20 Chapter 3: DATA ANALYSIS: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 23 3.1 The recordings 23 3.2 The survey questionnaire 29 PART THREE: CONCLUSION 38 Summary 38 Concluding remarks 38 Pedagogical Implications 41 Limitations and Suggestions for further research 42 REFERENCES 43 APPENDIX I iv APPENDIX IV v LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Stop consonants chart Table 2: Sounds mispronounced by Vietnamese students Table 3: Occurrence of mispronunciation across the 30 informants Table 4: Percentages of informants producing sound omission Table 5: Percentages of informants producing sound deviation Table 6: Number of informants producing mistakes Table 7: Causes of the informants‟ mispronunciation Table 8: Informants‟ frequencies of applying pronunciation improving strategies Table 9: Teachers of informants‟ frequencies of applying strategies to improve learners‟ speaking English vi LIST OF FIRURES Figure 1: Place and manner articulation of the sound /p/ Figure 2: Place and manner articulation of the sound /b/ Figure 3: Place and manner articulation of the sound /t/ Figure 4: Place and manner articulation of the sound /d/ Figure 5: Place and manner articulation of the sound /k/ Figure 6: Place and manner articulation of the sound /g/ Figure 7: Informants‟ years of learning English Figure 8: Informants‟ perception of the role of pronunciation Figure 9: Informants‟ difficulty in speaking English Figure 10: Informants‟ opinion about the causes of mistakes Figure 11: Percentage of informants applying pronunciation strategies Figure 12: Informants‟ ideas about their teachers‟ pronunciation teaching strategies vii PART ONE: INTRODUCTION RATIONALE Our world is developing every hour and international cooperation is one of the important strategies of each country to promote its socio-economic development To integrate successfully into the global economy, foreign language is considered to be indispensable Understanding the importance of foreign languages in general and of English in particular, the Vietnamese government has set up a curriculum for English learning for children from years old onwards The number of English language centers has been remarkably increasing during the past two decades Whereas English is an urgent requirement for young graduates to get a good job, many of them find it difficult to speak English properly to meet this demand It is widely recognized that success in language learning is the ability to communicate with others in a way that makes them fully understand what the speaker says and his intended meaning There are many Vietnamese students who have been learning English for many years but find it rather difficult to sustain a conversation This is because the focus is only on grammar and vocabulary when they are in high school As a result, they have good knowledge of these two components, but their pronunciation is poor Thus, it is easy to understand that pronunciation is one of the most important factors affecting successful communication Also, it is one of the reasons for communication breakdown If the speaker pronounces the words incorrectly, the listener will get confused and find the speaking incomprehensible; or he may understand you in another way assuming something different from what is meant Therefore, pronunciation has great influence on the success of oral communication It is said that the better your pronunciation is, the better you will be treated and the more comfortable people will feel when dealing with you At university level, it is really important to have good pronunciation because it helps students to be confident in taking oral exams Certainly, examiners will be impressed with examinees‟ vocal clarity, and students‟ presentation will sound more professional and persuasive to listeners These premises have urged me into carrying research into the most common mistakes made by senior non- English major students at Thai Nguyen University of Economics and Business Administration (TUEBA) when pronouncing English final consonants The research ultimately aims at finding out solutions and to help Vietnamese learners of English overcome these mistakes AIMS OF THE RESEARCH Making mistakes in pronouncing final consonants is regarded as very common for students when they learn English These difficulties are challenges for Vietnamese learners in general and for senior year non- English major students in particular if they not find the most suitable study method for themselves In this study, the author investigates the most common mistakes made by those learners to:  Identify the most common mistakes in pronouncing English final consonants: /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, and /g/ by senior non-English major students at Thai Nguyen University of Economics and Business Administration;  Find out the causes of these mistakes;  Provide some strategies to help students avoid mispronunciation Hopefully, this research will provide one more reference source for teachers of English as a second language when they teach pronunciation At the same time, this will also be useful to Vietnamese students of English in correcting their mistakes and improving pronunciation skills RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Research questions The study addresses the following four questions: Do Vietnamese learners of English make mistakes when pronouncing English final stop consonants? What are the most common mistakes students often make? What are the causes of the mispronunciation? What are the possible solutions to help learners correct these mistakes? Research context The research was conducted on 150 senior English non- major students of joint training program between Thai Nguyen University of Economics and Business Administration and Daegu Cyber University These students had a lot of chances to improve their English proficiency because most of the courses were taught in English Research method The study was conducted via a survey in which two instruments of data collection were used: recording the informants‟ pronunciation of selected isolated words and words within utterances, sentences and texts to find out the common pronunciation mistakes with stop final consonants and a questionnaire to investigate the causes of the mistakes and the solutions to the problems The data analysis is quantitative SCOPE OF THE STUDY The English alphabet is based on Latin and contains twenty six letters However, the English sound system consists of forty four phonemes: twenty four consonants, twelve pure vowels (monothongs), and eight diphthongs In general, Vietnamese learners have difficulties in pronouncing some of the English sounds only but not all of them It is necessary to make a distinction between errors and mistakes According to “Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics” by Richards J, Platt J and Platt H (1992), errors results from incomplete knowledge but mistakes are made when writing or speaking and caused by lack of attention, fatigue, carelessness or some other aspect of performance Due to time constraints, the length of thesis (minor thesis) and the researcher‟s knowledge, it is impossible for the researcher to study all the mistakes made by students when producing English consonants Therefore, this study only focuses on finding out the most typical mistakes made by some senior non-English major students at TUEBA when pronouncing the six English stop consonants /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/ and /g/ at final position of words with the following reasons:  There has not yet been any research on all the six stop consonants Several authors have studied one or two certain consonants of the six only  Six stop consonants are not so difficult to produce, however students seem to omit these sounds at final position Basing on my teaching experience, I find that most students often make mistakes with some plosive consonants like /t/, /d/, /p, /b/ and the most common mistakes are sound omission and sound deviation The said reasons have motivated me to carry out this study to find out the mistakes as well as to offer strategies to help students to overcome this problem DESIGN OF THE STUDY The thesis comprises three parts: The first part is the introduction which includes the rationale, aims, research methodology, scope and design of the study The second part, development, is divided into three chapters Chapter one provides the theoretical background and literature review of the study The theoretical background presents the general description of stop consonants, the phonological characteristics and articulation of the sounds /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/ and /g/ and a comparison between Vietnamese final consonants and English final consonants The literature review discusses previous works related to consonant pronunciation among second language learners Chapter two is devoted to the methodology of the study in which the research questions are raised, the informants of the study are discussed and the research method is given with the data collection instruments, the data analysis methods and data collection procedure Chapter 3, data analysis: findings and discussion, analyses the data collected from the recordings and the questionnaire and presents the findings and discussion of the study The final part is the conclusion including a summary of the study, concluding remarks, pedagogical implications and suggestions for further research PART THREE: CONCLUSION Summary After years teaching English as a foreign language for English non-major students at TUEBA, the researcher finds that almost all of English learners not produce final consonants It can not be denied that proper pronunciation plays a very important role in communication These reasons motivated the researcher to carry out this study It was conducted on 150 senior English non-major students studying at Thai Nguyen University of Economics and Business Administration to identify their common mistakes when they produced English stop consonants at final position In addition, this study discovered the causes of the participants‟ mistakes as well as gave the strategies to help them improve their English pronunciation It can be said that this research is quite a useful reference for those who are interested in teaching English language pronunciation Concluding remarks Doing scientific researches is a requirement and interest of any teachers who dedicate all their lives to their teaching jobs Whenever they carry out a study to improve their language teaching or their own passion, implementing the concluding recommendations is the main purpose The researcher has the same expectation when doing this research, and it is the great success of the writer that all the research questions have been answered Do Vietnamese learners of English make mistakes when pronouncing English final stop consonants? It can be confirmed that Vietnamese learners of English made mistakes when pronouncing English final stop consonants /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/ and /g/ by looking at the data collected and the analyzed data in the findings of the recorded All of the informants of the study made some or all stop consonants at the final position with different occurrence What are the common mistakes students often make? The second research question of the study concerns clearly what kinds of mistakes students often make by looking the findings of the recordings The most common mistakes that the informants often made were the sound omission and sound deviation The way they produced the studied sounds was different from those described in the 38 theoretical background by either omitting them or replacing by a sound similar to it in a certain pair There were the sounds that the subjects did not omit like /p/, /b/ and /g/ or rarely omitted like /k/ However most of informants had difficulty with the sound /t/ and /d/ and they often omitted them in their speech This may be because of some reasons Firstly, these two sounds are more difficult than the others when producing Secondly, it is the habit of the students when they speak English They rarely pay attention to the /t/ and /d/ when they are in the final position and sometimes it is quite hard for them to determine these sounds (For example, the word ending in “ed” is pronounced as /d/ if the sound before it is a voiced sound) Lastly, it is the articulation ability of the speakers The air from the lungs is not strong enough to have an aspirated plosive That is why the listeners find it hard to hear the final sound /t/ and /d/ The second kind of mispronunciation mistake of this research is the sound deviation As mentioned in the chapter of data analysis: findings and discussion, up to nearly 87 % of the students participating in the recordings mispronounced the pair /t/ to /d/, and 100 % of the subjects deviated from /k/ to /g/, /p/ to /b/ or /f/ and vice versa It can be said that students seem not to distinguish the difference between these sounds For example, /k/ is a voiceless sound but they deviate to /g/ with the vibration In addition, within each pair, the way to produce the two sounds is similar in the manner of articulation so sometimes they mispronounce them What are the causes of the mispronunciation? Along with identifying the most common mistakes, it is more important and indispensable to explore the causes leading to these mistakes in producing six stop final consonants by senior English non- major students at TUEBA, school year 2011-2012 Among the causes of mispronunciation, imitating the respondents‟ teachers and friends when they speak English is considered the most prevalent obstacles that 49 % of the respondents agreed upon This means that their pronunciation ability is influenced by the people speaking around them If they speak English correctly, the students will have the correct pronunciation If not, they will have bad or wrong English pronunciation Furthermore, 40 39 % of the respondents affirmed that they did not know how to produce these stop sounds This may be because that they not have many chances to learn English phonetics and phonology in class or practise English pronunciation at home Another cause that prevented students from speaking English correctly was that they thought that they could not pronounce these stop sounds accurately It can be inferred that they are pessimistic about obtaining English proficiency This reason is really serious as they would make students become passive learners On the other hand, there are some other important subjective causes that lead to informants‟ mispronunciations For example, they were afraid of asking their teachers or friends for help (29 % agreed) or did not practise pronunciation frequently (40 % agreed) as well as did not pay attention to the pronunciation of these sounds at final position (36 % agreed) There are also two wrong opinions of the respondents on the pronunciation that add to their mistakes The fist one is that they thought that English sounds and Vietnamese sounds have the same way of production (30 % agreed) The last one is the opinion that they did not think bad or wrong pronunciation can cause communication breakdown (37 % agreed) This explains why they often make mistakes when speaking English What are the possible solutions to help learners correct their mistakes? The subjects were asked about how often they applied the given strategies to improve their pronunciation Imitating the native speakers speaking English is the method that 35 % of the respondents often used and 36 % of them sometimes used As mentioned in the methodology chapter, the informants had a lot of chances to learn English as well as other subjects with native speakers as the program they were following was the joint training between TUEBA and the foreign partner In addition, practicing speaking as much as possible was used by 48 % of informants They sometimes applied this method to help them speak English better They often asked English teachers and friends for help (31 %) and attended English pronunciation courses (32 %) to have better pronunciation In addition to the students‟ ways of learning, the teachers‟ methods of teaching play a very important role in the learners‟ speaking 50 % of the asked respondents agreed that sometimes their teachers gave explicit meta-linguistic instruction in English phonetics and 40 phonology and 45 % of them affirmed that the teachers often applied the method of listening and repeating This method helps students remember the pronunciation of the words better In addition, tongue twisters and minimal pair drills were sometimes used by their teachers (49 % and 38 % agreed on these methods) Besides, recording the subjects‟ speaking was another way that could often be used by the teachers Pedagogical Implications Learning a foreign language is a long term process which requires a lot of learners‟ effort to be successful Oral communication needs correct pronunciation Learners may encounter a lot of challenges when they learn how to pronounce properly For Vietnamese learners in general and TUEBA students in particular, it is common to see that students often make pronunciation mistakes when they produce English final consonant sounds Therefore, the teachers of English should make students aware of the importance of correct pronunciation in practice so that they would spend more time on pronunciation In designing and selecting materials for teaching it is necessary to consider the purpose of the learners‟ language study, whether it is to acquire a native like accent or for intelligibility in international communication This study can be used as a useful teaching material as it provides the basic knowledge of pronunciation It is also a source of visual aids to demonstrate the ways some sounds are produced with clear and exact demonstration To improve TUEBA learners‟ pronunciation of English consonant in word final position, first of all, the teachers should help them be aware of the significance of final sounds In order to minimize the language interference, it is necessary for teachers to provide learners with detailed description of consonant sounds such as their manner and place of articulation, the variants of each phoneme Besides, Vietnamese special features should be taken into account The limitation of phonetic knowledge happens maybe owing to the carelessness of the learners or the teaching induced errors Therefore, firstly teachers must teach correct pronunciation Secondly, it is essential to teach students theoretical matters related to pronunciation At the same time, teachers should ask the students to practice them in 41 isolating words as well as in connected speech More importantly they should get students involved in learning how to produce words correctly and practice as often as possible Limitations and Suggestions for further research Although this study has answered the research questions relating to TUEBA students‟ mispronunciation of English final stop consonants, it still has some limitations As the time used for doing this thesis is limited, the researcher only focused on the most common mistakes when students pronounced six English stop consonants in word final position The combination of these sounds with other sounds is not typical enough to find out various problems such as consonant clusters, linkage of sounds and so on Secondly, natural speech was not recorded for the study but the required recording was and the researcher did not have time to conduct the interview to have more and deeper information about their difficulty that caused their mistakes In addition, as the sounds were recorded with informants‟ consciousness, there may be some unavoidable factors such as anxiety and nervousness Consequently, the recorded sounds were not as closed to their natural speaking In order to get a good pronunciation, learners should pay attention to not only English sounds but also stress, intonation, rhythm etc as well This means that to have a full picture of Vietnamese learners‟ pronunciation, much more researches should be conducted However, it can not be denied that this study has placed the first brick to this issue and this will become a hot topic in the teaching and learning forums The researcher does hope that in the future, she can have more opportunities to further study to go to deeper into this field The researcher would be grateful to receive all remarks, comments, and suggestions from the readers so that her next research will be better 42 REFERENCES English Avery, P and Ehrlich, S (2010) Teaching American English Pronunciation Oxford University Press Baker, A (1985) Ship or Sheep Cambridge University Press Dale, P L and Poms, L (1994) English pronunciation for International students, Prentice Hall Regents Dyson, A T., & Paden, E P (1983) Some Phonological acquisition strategies used by two-year-old Journal of Childhood Communication Disorder, 7, 6-18 Finegan, E (2004) Language: Its structure and Use (4th ed.) Michael Rosenberd Press Grunwell, P (1987) Clinical phonology (2nd ed.) London: Croom Helm Naunton, J (2004) Head for Business Oxford University Press Richards, J., Platt, J., and Platt, H (1992) Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics Longman Singapore Press Roach, P (1990) English phonetics and phonology – A practical course Cambridge University Press 10 Treiman, R., Zukowski, A., and Richmond-Welty, E D (1995) What happened to the "n" of sink? Children's spellings of final consonant clusters Cognition, 55, 1-38 11 Treiman, R and Bourassa, D (2000) Spelling in children with dyslexia: Analysis from the Treiman- Bourassa early spelling test Scientific studies of reading, 7(4), 309–333 Retrieved on May 12, 2012 from http://pages.wustl.edu/files/pages/imce/readingandlanguagelab/Bourassa%20%26%20 Treiman%20(2003)%20-%20Spelling%20in%20dyslexic%20children.pdf 43 Vietnamese 12 Pham Quang Bao (1999) Difficulties often met with by Hue learners of English in pronouncing certain English sounds MA major thesis Hanoi University 13 Dao Thi My Hanh (2007) A study on pronunciation of some English consonants by Vietnamese learners MA minor thesis Vietnam National University, Hanoi 14 Pham Thi Tu Hang (2010) Problems of Ha Tinh learners in pronouncing English final consonants MA minor thesis Vietnam National University, Hanoi 15 Nguyen Thi Quynh Hoa (2007) Vietnamese learners‟ difficulties when pronouncing some English sounds “æ, θ, ð, , ” MA minor thesis Vietnam National University, Hanoi 16 Nguyen Thi Thu Huong (2010) Difficulties encountered by second year students at Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry in producing some English consonants MA minor thesis Vietnam National University, Hanoi 17 Ha Cam Tam (2005) Common pronunciation problems of Vietnamese Learners of English Journal of science-Foreign languages Vietnam National University, Hanoi Retrieved on June 23, 2012 from http://www.js.vnu.edu.vn/Ngoaingu_1/Bai3.pdf 18 Ha Cam Tam (2002) English Phonetics and Phonology A course book for students of the English Department Vietnam National University of Hanoi 19 Nguyen Thi Thu Thao (2007) Difficulties for Vietnamese when pronouncing English final consonants, MA minor thesis Vietnam National University, Hanoi Retrieved on June 23, 2012 from http://dalea.du.se/theses/archive/60dedb5e-7a86-4fc7-b127-09b0e99b853c/8256d1759d1a-4a97-ae9b-fb15ba152a60.pdf 20 Luu Trong Tuan (2011) Vietnamese EFL learners‟ difficulties with English consonants Studies in Literature and Language (2), 56-67 CS Canadian Research and Development Center of Sciences and Culture 44 21 Luu Trong Tuan (2010) Teaching English discrete sounds through minimal pairs Journal of Language teaching and Rerearch, (5), 540-561 Retrieved on June 23, 2012 from http:///www.academypublisher.com/jltr/vol01/no05/jltr0105.pdf Websites 22 http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/english/frameset.html 23 http://www.learnenglish.de/vocabulary/food.html 45 APPENDIX READING ALOUD TASKS FOR INFORMANTS Task 1: Read aloud the following words Import (v) Feedback (n) Help (v) Packet (n) Crack (n) Tape (n) Crate (n) Shark (n) Cap (n) Bankrupt (n) Gimmick (n) Escape (v) Segment (n) Black (a) Shop (n) Investigate (v) Clock (n) Soap(n) Reluctant (a) Frock (n) Hope (v) Patent (n) Stock (n) Lip (n) Negotiate (v) Boutique (n) Trip (n) Client (n) Traffic (n) Ship (n) Refund (n) Cab (n) Plug (v) Pretend (v) Pub (n) handbag (n) Stand (n) Bob (n) Clog (n) Attitude (n) Robe (n) Frog (n) Dividend (n) Bulb (n) Dog (n) Tend (v) Comb (n) Egg (n) Brand (n) Mob (n) Rug (n) Preoccupied (v) Lamb (n) Pig (n) Worldwide (adv) Rob (v) bug (n Task 2: Read aloud the following sentences A lot of interest has been generated by the competition The award ceremony was filmed by a local TV film crew They held the poll to find out what voters thought People are encouraged to participate and make themselves heard I Could you hold on a while I find a pen? She turned down the job offer because it involved working shifts We generally take on extra staff at Christmas when it‟s busy I my gap year I travelled round Australia and South-east Asia and did develop a much broader awareness of other cultures and ways of life by doing various shortterm jobs including being a nanny, cook and waitress My adopted parents gave me a handbag with a small frog embroidered on the top on my 20th birthday Task 3: Read aloud the following conversation It's Friday afternoon and John's friend Mark is coming for tea tomorrow Mrs S: John, is Mark coming for tea tomorrow? John: Yes mum, I told you yesterday! Mrs S: Oh did you? Sorry, I must have forgotten John: What are we having? Mrs S: John: I don't know yet, I was just writing out the shopping list What sort of things does he like? Anything, just about I know he hates pasta though, he never eats school dinner if it's pasta Mrs S: OK, what about pizza John: Yeah, pizza would be great, not too much salad though please mum Mrs S: How about a fruit salad for pudding instead? John: With ice cream? Mrs S: Yes, ok John: Great, I can't wait! II Task Read aloud the following text Before agreeing a loan, banks will want to see your own financial commitment to the success of your business You must be prepared to put your money where your mouth is After all, if you were in the bank manager‟s position, you would probably act in the same way They‟ll also want some kind of security like your car or house Therefore, if things go wrong you could find yourself out on the street And if the business fails, as so many do, the bank will be the first in a long time of creditors to get their money back If you are declared bankrupt, it will be difficult to secure any further loans And finally, on a darker note, once banks have made a decision to get their money back, it‟s hard to talk them out of it Read aloud the following story Bob is years old only but he is able to help his parents shopping One day, Bob was told to go to the nearby shop to take some things for his mum His mother reminded him to buy her a comb, a bulb, a plug, a cap, a packet of soap, and some food including some lamb, an egg, a bulb of garlic and a joint of pork When he was out of his house, his dog, Pab, followed him but he didn‟t notice After picking all the things he needed at the shop, Bob heard his dog barking at his back Some things were fell down and broken by Pab and Bob had to pay some money to the shop owner because of Pab‟s mistakes Bob got really annoyed with what Pab had done and left the shop without saying any thing to his naughty dog III APPENDIX SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE This questionnaire is conducted as part of my MA study Your completion of this questionnaire is highly appreciated The data collected are used in the research paper only, not for any other purposes Thank you for your cooperation!  Name:  Class: For questions to 7, please circle the option most appropriate to you How long have you been learning English? A 1-3 years B 3-5 years C 5-7 years D More than years How many English class hours you have a week? A: 1-2 B: 3-4 C: 5-6 D: more than hours Have you ever attended any pronunciation course? A Yes B No How would you rate the importance of proper pronunciation to your communication? A Very important B Quite important C Important D Not important at all How often you practice pronouncing English words at home? IV A Almost every day B 2-3 days per week C once per week D 1-2 times per month E Almost never Your difficulties in speaking English is……………… A Very great B Great C Not very great D Not great at all You have difficulties in producing …………… A English vowels B English consonants C Both English vowels and consonants For each of the items a-i in question 8, please put a tick in the box provided which best describes your opinion of the causes of your making mistakes when pronouncing English final stop consonants (/p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, /g/) Causes of mistakes Strongly agree Agree Neither agree nor disagree Disagre e I not know how to produce these sounds (how to use my tongue, mouth, teeth etc.)      k I imitate my teachers and friends when they speak English      l I pronounce the sounds as I perceive      m I think these sounds are pronounced in the same way in      j V Strongly Disagree English and in Vietnamese n I think I can‟t pronounce these sounds accurately      o I am afraid of asking my teachers or friends for help in pronouncing these sounds      p I not practise pronouncing these sound frequently enough      q I not pay attention to the pronunciation of these sounds at final position      r I not think that bad or wrong pronunciation of these sounds can cause communication breakdown      Have you tried any strategy to improve your pronunciation? Yes No If your answer to question is Yes, continue with question 10 If No, go to question11 10 How often you apply the following strategies to improve your pronunciation? Strategies Always Often Sometimes Rarely Never e Imitating native speakers speaking      f Practising speaking English as much as possible      g Asking teachers and friends for help in pronunciation      h Attending English pronunciation courses      i Your own strategies (please specify)      ………………………………………………… VI ……………………………………… 11 How often your teachers apply the following strategies/techniques to help you improve your English pronunciation? Strategies/techniques Always Often Sometimes rarely Never g Giving explicit meta-linguistic instruction in English phonetics and phonology      h Applying listen and repeat technique      i Giving read aloud tasks      j Applying tongue twister technique      k Applying minimal pair drills      l Recording and analyzing learners‟ speaking           m Other Strategies/techniques (please specify) …………………………………… …………………………………… …………………………………… ……… THANKS FOR YOUR COOPERATION! VII ... Vietnamese learners of English make mistakes when pronouncing English final stop consonants? What are the most common mistakes students often make? What are the causes of the mispronunciation? What... theoretical background for the research The general description of stop consonants, the phonological characteristics and articulation of these sounds and a comparison of Vietnamese final stop consonants. .. English final stop consonants? It can be confirmed that Vietnamese learners of English made mistakes when pronouncing English final stop consonants /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/ and /g/ by looking at the