An investigation into the teaching and learning of intonation to the 9th grade students at a secondary school in thai binh province

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERISTY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ******************** NGUYỄN THỊ DIỄM AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF INTONATION TO THE 9TH GRADE STUDENTS AT A SECONDARY SCHOOL IN THAI BINH PROVINCE (Nghiên cứu điều tra việc dạy học ngữ điệu học sinh khối trường cấp tỉnh Thái Bình) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Major: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 HANOI – 2017 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERISTY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ******************** NGUYỄN THỊ DIỄM AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF INTONATION TO THE 9TH GRADE STUDENTS AT A SECONDARY SCHOOL IN THAI BINH PROVINCE (Nghiên cứu điều tra việc dạy học ngữ điệu học sinh khối trường cấp tỉnh Thái Bình) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Major: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Võ Đại Quang HANOI – 2017 DECLARATION I, Nguyen Thi Diem, hereby certify that my thesis submitted to the Faculty of Post- Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, apart from the help recognized, is my own work Documented references have been fully provided I have not submitted this thesis for assessment in any other training institutions Hanoi, 2017 Nguyễn Thị Diễm i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT First and foremost, I would like to express my special and sincere thanks to my supervisor, Assoc Prof Dr Vo Dai Quang, who gave me enthusiastic instructions, precious support and critical feedback on the construction of the study This has always been one of decisive factors in the completion of this thesis Second, I also express my profound gratitude to all doctors, lecturers and staff members of the Faculty of Postgraduate Studies, University of Foreign Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their valuable lectures and useful advice that are a great help me for the fulfilment of the thesis Next, I would like to send my deep sense of thanks to the teachers and 100 students at the 9th grade at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School, Thai Binh for their cooperation and the valuable information they provided in my research field Furthermore, I would like to send my heartfelt gratitude to my family and all of my friends who have great source of endless care and support Last but not least, I am also thankful to many writers whose ideas are useful hints for the development of this thesis ii ABSTRACT This research investigates teaching and learning of intonation to the 9th grade students at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School For research objectives, I surveyed 100 9th grade students at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School and asked their opinions about using intonation and difficulties in using intonation when putting various English questions The research was investigated through two instruments: questionnaires for students and students‟ voice recording Also, the in-depth interviews with two English teachers at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School were conducted in order to understand their intonation teaching methods and students‟ current intonation use As the result, the intonation mistakes that the 9th grade students commonly commit in using intonation in types of English questions, namely, Yes-No questions, Wh-questions and Tag questions were discussed and analyzed; thereby the appropriate solutions to improve their intonation use in different types of English questions at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School were recommended I hope this research will contribute a small part in helping the 9th grade students at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School correct their intonation mistakes and enhance intonation use in their English communication iii TABLE OF CONTENT ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENT iv ABBREVIATIONS vi LIST OF FIGURES vii LIST OF TABLES viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Aims of the research 1.3 Research questions 1.4 Scope of the research 1.5 Significance of the research 1.6 Structure of the research CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Review of theoretical background 2.1.1 General description of English intonation .4 2.1.2 Intonation in different types of English questions 2.2 Review of previous studies 11 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 15 3.1 Research questions 15 3.2 The participants of the study .15 3.3 Research method 15 3.4 Data-related issues 16 3.4.1 Data collection instruments 16 3.4.2 Data analysis techniques 17 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 18 4.1 Objectives of teaching and learning intonation 18 4.2 Report on the results collected in survey questionnaires 18 4.2.1 Summary of respondents participating in the research 18 4.3.2 Students‟ perception on intonation teaching by teachers at English lessons 19 iv 4.2.3 Students‟ perception on finding out teachers intonation mistakes and use of intonation as one of the important assessment criteria in examinations 24 4.2.4 Students‟ perception on materials and means of support that are currently applied for teaching intonation 28 4.2.5 Students‟ opinions of their commonly committed intonation mistakes in speaking lessons 33 4.3 The possible solutions to intonation teaching problems 34 4.3.1 Teaching intonation on the level of accuracy 35 4.3.2 Teaching intonation on the level of fluency 36 4.3.3 Organizing training courses for English teachers 37 4.3.4 Investing more suitable facilities 38 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION .39 5.1 Recapitulation 39 5.2 Concluding remarks 39 5.2.1 Concluding remarks on the first objective 39 5.2.2 Concluding remarks on the second objective 39 5.2.3 Concluding remarks on the third objective 40 5.3 Limitations and suggestion for the further studies 40 REFERENCES 41 APPENDIX I APPENDIX 1: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRES FOR 100 9TH GRADE STUDENTS I APPENDIX IN-DEPTH INTERVIEW WITH GROUP LEADER OF ENGLISH GROUP AT 9TH GRADE V APPENDIX IN-DEPTH INTERVIEW WITH ENGLISH TEACHER AT 9TH GRADE VI v ABBREVIATIONS TI Methods of teaching intonation AI Methods of assessing intonation MS Materials and means of support vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: One question pronounced with different intonation patterns (Ladefoged, 2006,p 120) Figure2: Illustration of an unmarked yes-no question (Pierrehumbert & Hirschberg, p.273) Figure 3: Illustration of rise-plateau-rise in the contour (Pierrehumbert & Hirschberg,p.274) Figure 4: Example of a Wh-question Figure 5: Students‟ perception on intonation teaching by teachers at English lessons Figure 6: Students‟ perception on finding out teachers‟ intonation mistakes Figure 7: Students‟ perception about materials and means of support that are currently applied for teaching intonation vii LIST OF TABLES Table 4.1: Students‟ perception on intonation teaching by teachers at English lessons .19 Table 4.2: Results of Methods of teaching intonation at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School 22 Table 4.3: Students‟ perception on finding out teachers‟ intonation mistakes and use of intonation as one of the important assessment criteria in examinations .24 Table 4.4: Results of Methods of assessing intonation in Pham Huy Quang Secondary School 27 Table 4.5: Students‟ perception on materials and means of support that are currently applied for teaching intonation 28 Table 4.6: Results of materials and means of support in Pham Huy Quang Secondary School 31 viii are middle – aged so their English approach is different They are old teacher generation so approaching and using modern teaching methods is limited Many the teachers don‟t know how to use PowerPoint in planning lessons and cut or adjust video for their students to practice listening and speaking skills From my observation and interview, the author found out that the teachers in Pham Huy Quang Secondary School did some attempt to help their students overcome intonation problems They did not employ enough various techniques to make the lessons more interesting and easily understand Therefore, lessons especially speaking lessons seem to be rather boring and I even heard some the teachers make serious intonation mistakes Many of them are not sure about intonation principles and they don‟t apply widely intonation principles in speaking English Also it needs to understand that in the rural areas, the teachers only focus on teaching grammar and vocabularies which help students pass English examinations Moreover, for 9th grade students, they are about to graduate from level, a very important turning-point in their learning route Thus they only pay more attention to learn vocabularies and exact grammar as much as possible In examinations such as mid-term tests, final tests or graduating tests, speaking test is not applied, which results in both the teachers and students reluctantly teach and learn speaking In some speaking lessons, speaking is even not taught but instead of doing extra grammar exercises or speaking lessons are taught cursorily So the problem here may be not only for the students but also for the the teachers They should try to improve their intonation and their teaching methods to help their students overcome the problems 4.3 The possible solutions to intonation teaching problems In accordance with the above findings, the followings will be some recommendations for English intonation teaching for secondary school the teachers of English As mentioned above, the teachers‟ methods of intonation teaching play a very important role in motivating and improving students‟ English in general and 34 students‟ intonation in particular If the techniques employed in the lessons are various and suitable, they will make the lessons easier to understand and more interesting to follow As a result, the students will be motivated to study With the fact that most classes in Vietnamese secondary schools are large and heterogeneous, it is very difficult for the teachers to individualize their teaching Therefore, the teachers should be aware of this difficulty and very their techniques and activities so that they can involve more students in the lessons By doing so, they can also reduce the boredom of the lesson at the same time There are many various techniques for the teachers to choose and saying says that “no method is best” so the teachers need to be more flexible in choosing the suitable techniques for different purposes of teaching intonation The author shall recommend some possible solutions for the teachers to help students overcome problems in leaning intonation in different types of mistakes as follows: 4.3.1 Teaching intonation on the level of accuracy The first requirement for using accurate intonation is teaching principles of intonation The teachers should comprehend principles of intonation There are some ways to create intonation as follows: - Emphasizing adverbs, nouns and adjectives in sentence: + Adverbs: are used to indicate the strength and weakness of the verbs that it modifies Adverbs may stand behind TO BE, before normal verbs, and the beginning of the sentence Therefore, when speaking, foreigners often emphasize it For example: His ideas were absolutely wrong (The word “absolutely” is emphasized in this sentence, and when it is emphasized, the “wrong” is not spoken so fast and uses falling intonation) + Nouns and adjectives: For example: I not have the money to study at an English center In this sentence, “money” and “English” are emphasized and they are emphasized by adding “acute accent” on them 35 - Emphasizing and stopping for a while for some words such as so, that, but, however, Words like so, that, will be emphasized when you want to emphasize something For example: I like driving car, but my mom don‟t (When it comes to the “but”, you emphasize and stop a bit; listeners will understand that they will then hear information contrary to the information before) - Emphasizing on negative thoughts: In English, negative meanings are always emphasized when talking Example: I have a car (The word will be emphasized as “I” and “car”) Negative sentence: I don‟t have any car (The word “don‟t” and “any” shall be emphasized) For questions, we use rising intonation for Yes-No question We use falling intonation for WH-question Question tags may have either depending on the intention of the speaker Questions tags that are comments or observations have a falling intonation while questions tags used to check information or express uncertainty have a rising intonation Besides, it is necessary to remember some following rules: - Statements have a falling intonation - Use rising intonation to express surprise - Use falling intonation to express sarcasm or disbelief 4.3.2 Teaching intonation on the level of fluency For this level, after giving intonation principles, the teachers must organize practice activities for students The teachers can divide class into small groups of five to six students and assign group leader depending on their pronunciation ability First of the teachers must convey their monitoring and correcting ways for students Accordingly, groups will practice types of sentences using correct intonation under group leaders‟ directions Group leaders are those who directly correct intonation mistakes for their peers Thanks to that, the teachers can save their time and students have more chance to practice intonation 36 The teachers also give group lessons which require students to practice intonation in different types of English questions by recording their voice in a tape and the teachers can collect and score For students‟ incorrect intonation, the teachers can note and specify all and represent in front of class for learning from experience Importantly, intonation lessons are practiced regularly and the teachers can be flexible to teach their students intonation principles for more types of sentences After teaching intonation principles all types of sentences in English, they can conclude and help students compare amongst them 4.3.3 Organizing training courses for English teachers As explained above, most of English teachers in Pham Huy Quang Secondary School are middle-aged and they are not good at using computer or information technology in planning lessons and teaching For using intonation, many of them even speak incorrectly and they don‟t really focus on using intonation in communication Therefore, to overcome and improve students‟ intonation mistakes, first of all is to talk the teachers over to importance and necessity of intonation In secondary level, they have not used and paid more attention to intonation in communication but in the higher levels, it is very important as it directly involves to meanings of the sentences and foreigners can‟t understand what they are talking about The Head of Pham Huy Quang Secondary School should plan to send Group Leader or the most qualified teacher to learn about speaking course that consists of skills such as pronunciation, stress, rhythm and intonation Depending on the school‟s scope with 07 English teachers, there is only one teacher to be sent After that, that teacher shall train others and the teachers also must seriously learn and practice However, the Head of this school must plan to regularly send the teacher to learn and maintain training course frequently In addition, the Head of the school also encourages their teachers to use technological methods in teaching such as teaching on PowerPoint, teaching with 37 video and radio and so on For serious implementation, the Head must plan to attend lessons with an aim of observing and assessing learning and teaching intonation of the teachers and students and then the Head learns from experience for better deployment in the future 4.3.4 Investing more suitable facilities This is one of the most urgent issues for teaching at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School Besides basic facilities such as textbooks, boards, chalks and so on, facilities support teaching activities especially lessons such as listening and speaking lessons to be invested namely radios, videos, computers, projectors, micro and loudspeakers and so on However, implementing and applying such facilities must be done regularly and seriously The Head of school must make monitoring plans teachers‟ implementation in order to avoid using reluctantly by the teachers and students The entire investment for a new school as Pham Huy Quang certainly deals with many difficulties in term of financial aspect so the Head can invest single facility based on the necessary level for teaching and learning activities 38 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 5.1 Recapitulation In conclusion, the study was carried out to investigate the teaching and learning of intonation to the 9th grade students at Pham Huy Quang Secondary Schoo It sometimes causes some unexpected misunderstanding in communication Furthermore, the factors that caused the problems were identified, so that possible solutions to solve the problems were proposed The instrument of this study included tape records and survey questionnaires I hope this study is a useful reference for further researches 5.2 Concluding remarks 5.2.1 Concluding remarks on the first objective * For the first research question: “What are the intonation mistakes commonly committed by the 9th grade students at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School, Thai Binh?” For investigating mistakes in using intonation in different types of English questions of the 9th grade students at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School, Thai Binh, the thesis was conducted to convey and deliver 100 9th grade students studying at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School, Thai Binh I gave them some short dialogues to practice and I directly listens and writes down their common mistakes After directly surveying, I found it was easy to write down the mistakes because most of the 9th grade students read aloud the sentences contingently without intonation principles In addition, I conducted in-depth interview with some English teachers and leader in this school to get more opinions about using and practicing intonation and the common intonation mistakes 5.2.2 Concluding remarks on the second objective * For the second research question: What are the causes of students’ problems when using intonation in different types of English questions? After analyzing, I identified some common mistakes which are committed by the 9th grade students at Pham Huy Quang Secondary, Thai Binh Most of them 39 found intonation in speaking English difficult because they aren‟t taught about intonation principles In some specialized classes, they are taught about intonation principles but due not to practice regularly, they quickly forget In different types of English questions, students cannot identify which types of English questions they have to raise their voice and which types of English questions they have to use falling voice and where in the questions they have to use raising or falling voice 5.2.3 Concluding remarks on the third objective * For the third research question: What are possible solutions to their intonation mistakes? The findings of the research show that there are many deficiencies about teaching materials as well as the teachers‟ unsuitable approach Most of the teachers and students in this secondary school have not realized importance of using intonation in communication so intonation lessons have not focused and attached special importance Thenceforth, I proposed some suitable recommendations with a view of assisting students and the teachers at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School to gradually improve their pronunciation, especially intonation in different types of English questions to express their various purposes 5.3 Limitations and suggestion for the further studies Nevertheless due to limited time and space, there are some issues that have not been studied Depending on the findings and shortcomings of the research, the author would like to give some recommendations for further researches First of all, due to limited time, the author could not study to find which techniques of teaching intonation would be proper for the 9th grade students at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School Therefore, an investigation into appropriate techniques to apply for teaching the 9th grade students at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School and intonation should be conducted Second, as mentioned above, Pham Huy Quang Secondary School is a rural and newly-established school, provision of modern and suitable facilities for teaching intonation and other skills Thus, further studies on this issue should be conducted in many other schools in different areas 40 REFERENCES Bygate, M (1991), Speaking, Oxford: Oxford University Press Chaney, A.L., and T.L Burk (1998), Teaching Oral Communication in Grades K-8, Boston: Allyn&Bacon Claudia Pesce (2014), Do Your ESL Students Make These Stress and Intonation Mistakes?, England: Commercial Colour Press Cruttenden, A (1986), Intonation, (pp1-40, 134-137) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Crystal, D (1995), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Gower, R., Phillips, D & S Walters (1995), Teaching Practice Handbook, Oxford: Heinemann Halliday, M A K (1967), Intonation and Grammar in British English, Janua Linguarum Series Practica 48, The Hague: Mouton Halliday, M A K (1970), A Course in Spoken English: intonation, Oxford University Press, London Halliday, M A K (1994), Investigating, learning and teaching intonation Study of Sounds (Proceedings of the International Symposium of Japanese Prosody and its Education), Phonetic Society of Japan 23, University of Surrey – Roehampton 10 Harmer, J (2001), The Practice of English Language Teaching, Longman 11 Koichi Kumaki (2003), A study of English intonation in high school textbook in Japan, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, United Kingdom 12 Ladd, D R (1996) Intonational phonology (pp 168-172).Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 41 13 Mojtaba Eghlidi (2016), Contrastive Analysis of English and Persian Intonation Patterns: An Error Analysis Study on Iranian Undergraduate EFL Students, Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research, (4) 14 Nancy Hedberg, Juan M Sosa and Amrah Gorgulu (2008), The Meaning of Intonation in Yes-No Questions in American English: A Corpus Study 15 Orion, G (1996), Pronouncing American English, Newbury House, New York 16 Pickering, L (2001), The Role of Tone Choice in Improving ITA Communication in the Classroom, TESOL Quarterly, 35 (2), pp 233-255 17 Pierrehumbert, J & Hirschberg, J (1990) The meaning of intonational contours in the interpretation of discourse In P Cohen, J Morgan, & M Pollack (Eds.), Intentions in communication (pp 271-311) Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 18 Pike, K (1956) The intonation of American English (pp 163-169) Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press 19 Roach, P (1991), English Phonetics and Phonology: a practical course, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 20 Do Tien Thang (2009), Vietnamese Intonation, Vietnam National University Publisher, pp 3-59 42 APPENDIX APPENDIX 1: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRES FOR 100 9TH GRADE STUDENTS Dear … , My name is Nguyen Thi Diem, and I am completing my research of teaching and learning of intonation to the 9Th grade students at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School, Thai Binh I would love you to spend some time answering my questions below Please answer accurately and completely the questions in the attached questionnaires Your information shall be used only for this thesis We sincerely thank you very much for your supports! This survey is designed in order to get students‟ feedback about intonation in different types of English questions This information shall help the teachers improve more about this aspect and then student‟s ability is enhanced Part 1: General information What is your name? …………………………………………… Which class are you in? …………………9……………………… Do you like English subject? ☐ Yes ☐ No Part 2: Particular information Please tick „√‟ into the following boxes, each question is selected once only and scored by the following criteria: Completely disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Completely agree I The question shall be based on the mentioned theoretical framework of intonation How are currently the teachers teaching intonation in English lesson? Completel Attributes of teaching methods The teachers y disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Complet ely agree regularly find out intonation mistakes, especially in different types of English questions The teachers pay more attention to correct mistakes in using intonation in different types of English questions The teachers teach you principles of intonation in different types of English questions The teachers give interesting intonation lessons about different types of English questions lesson to students How the teachers find out intonation mistakes and Is intonation used as one of the important assessment criteria in examinations? Attributes of assessing methods Completely disagree In assessing scale of speaking, intonation is one of the important and necessary assessing criteria in different types of English questions There are many methods used to assess intonation in different types of English questions, especially in examinations Intonation mistakes are included and specified as one of criteria in speaking examinations II Disagree Neutral Agree Completely agree What are materials and means of support the teachers use to teach intonation? Attributes of materials and means of support Completely disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Completely agree In-class document for intonation lesson is sufficiently provided for students by the teachers There are many materials provided for teaching intonation such as video, radio, PowerPoint and so on Materials and means of support for teaching intonation in different types of English questions are various, interesting and inspiring Part 3: Overall assessment What you think about the teachers (qualifications, experience and enthusiasm)? ………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… Do you find any difficulties when learning intonation? ………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… Do you distinguish between rising intonation and falling intonation in different type of questions? ………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… III Do you realize mistakes commonly committed in using intonation in different types of question? ………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… Part 4: Could you read aloud some following dialogues, please? Dialogue 1: Hoa is going shopping at the supermarket Hoa: How does this pen cost? Shopkeeper: This pen is VND 30,000 Hoa: This red pen is VND 30,000, isn‟t it? Shopkeeper: Yes, it is It is made of special material It is US‟ Hoa: Oh, yes Thanks Shopkeeper: You‟re welcome! Dialogue 2: The boy calls his girlfriend The boy: Do you like going to the cinema tonight? The girl: Tonight? Yes, I I really like The boy: What time can I pick you up? The girl: About o‟clock The boy: Ok, see you The girl: See you soon Dialogue 3: Mom talks to her son Mom: Do you like visiting your grandparents in this summer? Son: Why not? I want to go to countryside Mon: Why you love countryside? Son: Well, it very peaceful and healthy and I love to go fishing with my cousins It‟s so fantastic! Thank for your participation! IV APPENDIX IN-DEPTH INTERVIEW WITH GROUP LEADER OF ENGLISH GROUP AT 9TH GRADE How long have you been working as Group Leader of English Group at 9th grade? How many English teachers are there in 9th grade? How often does the Head of School attend English teachers‟ lessons? How does the Head of School invest materials and means of teaching support for English teachers at 9th grade? How often does the Head of School organize trainings for English teachers to improve their teaching skills and knowledge? Did you pay attention to intonation mistakes in different types of English questions of students? Did you direct English teachers to try to find out mistakes and correct them? Did you require English teachers to submit list of common intonation mistakes and recommendations to fix them? V APPENDIX IN-DEPTH INTERVIEW WITH ENGLISH TEACHER AT 9TH GRADE How long have you been working as English teacher in Pham Huy Quang Secondary School? What you think about importance of intonation in communication? How long have you been working as English teacher at 9th grade? How often you teach intonation for your 9th grade student? Have you prepared intonation exercises for your students? Have you organized specific intonation lessons for your students? Have you used intonation as one of the assessing criteria in oral tests or examinations? Which common mistakes you find out when students use intonation in different types of English questions? Did you help them correct those intonation mistakes? 10 Did you summarize and emphasize common intonation mistakes in different types of question in practice lesson? VI ... research ? ?An investigation into the teaching and learning of intonation to the 9th grade students at a secondary school in Thai Binh province? ??, which will go into details of intonation mistakes in. .. of intonation pattern, mistake of rhythmic and intonation pattern, mistake of tonic syllable identification and intonation patter and mistake of rhythm, tonic syllable identification and intonation. .. question and tag-question and two main types of intonation such as rising intonation and falling intonation According to the 9th grade students? ?? responses, their teacher teach them that they have to