(Luận văn thạc sĩ) a study on activities to increase motivation to learn pronunciation for the first year english major students at hanam teachers training college

1 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES - - TRỊNH PHƯƠNG LIÊN A STUDY ON ACTIVITIES TO INCREASE MOTIVATION TO LEARN PRONUNCIATION FOR THE FIRST – YEAR ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT HANAM TEACHERS’ TRAINING COLLEGE (NGHIÊN CỨU CÁC HOẠT ĐỘNG NHẰM TĂNG CƯỜNG HỨNG THÚ HỌC PHÁT ÂM TIẾNG ANH CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT HỆ CAO ĐẲNG TIẾNG ANH TẠI TRƯỜNG CAO ĐẲNG SƯ PHẠM HÀ NAM ) M.A Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Methodology Code: 60.14.10 HANOI – 2010 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES - - TRỊNH PHƯƠNG LIÊN A STUDY ON ACTIVITIES TO INCREASE MOTIVATION TO LEARN PRONUNCIATION FOR THE FIRST – YEAR ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT HANAM TEACHERS’ TRAINING COLLEGE (NGHIÊN CỨU CÁC HOẠT ĐỘNG NHẰM TĂNG CƯỜNG HỨNG THÚ HỌC PHÁT ÂM TIẾNG ANH CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT HỆ CAO ĐẲNG TIẾNG ANH TẠ I TRƯỜNG CAO ĐẲNG SƯ PHẠM HÀ NAM ) Field: ENGLISH METHODOLOGY Code: 60.14.10 Supervisor: NGUYỄN HUYỀN MINH, M.A HANOI - 2010 TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv INTRODUCTION Rationale of the study Statement of the problem Purpose of the study Research questions Method of the study Significance of the study Definition of terms CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Researches into pronunciation teaching 1.1.1 Approaches to pronunciation teaching 1.1.2 Teaching Pronunciation: Segmentals or Suprasegmentals? 1.1.3 Factors affect pronunciation learning and teaching English 1.2 Researches into motivation in teaching and learning 1.2.1 Role of motivation to students‟ learning 1.2.2 Factors affect students‟ motivation 1.2.3 Framework to increase and sustain students‟ motivation 1.3 Researches into the ways to motivate students in pronunciation lessons 10 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 12 2.1 Context of the study 12 2.2 Participants of the study 13 2.3 Instruments 13 2.3.1 Diagnostic test 13 2.3.2 Post test 14 2.3.3 Final oral examination 14 2.3.4 Questionnaire 14 2.3.5 The students‟ journals 14 2.3.6 Teacher‟s observations and anecdotal notes 14 CHAPTER 3: DATA PRESENTATION 3.1 Pronunciation orientation and diagnostic test 15 3.2 The students‟ journals 16 3.3 Dictation usage 16 3.4 Games 16 3.5 Songs 22 3.6 Software 23 CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 Results 24 4.1.1 Diagnostic test, posttest and final oral examination 24 4.1.2 Questionnaire 25 4.1.2.1 Areas of investigation 25 4.1.2.2 Analysis and findings 26 4.1.3 The students‟ journals 29 4.1.4 Teacher‟s observations and anecdotal notes 31 4.2 Discussion 4.2.1 The roles of motivating activities 32 4.2.2 Factors influencing the students‟ motivation and performance 33 CONCLUSION Summary of major findings 34 Implications 34 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study 36 REFERENCES 37 APPENDICES INTRODUCTION Rationale of the study In the process of globalization, the ability to communicate in English plays an important role in fostering the development of the whole nation in general and of Phu Ly city - Ha Nam province in particular In order to communicate well in English, one advantageous point is to have an intelligible pronunciation However, from the first day of my career as a teacher, I faced a disillusion to find that the first-year English major students at Hanam Teachers‟ Training College had serious problems in pronunciation They mispronounced many words; paid very little attention to stress, intonation and rhythm Therefore, it is my desire to improve the situation of the students‟ pronunciation I registered to teach the subject “Practical Pronunciation” with the coursebook “Ship or Sheep” by Ann Baker (1997) After the first courses, I was delighted to witness certain improvements in students‟ pronunciation However, it seemed to me that my students were not very motivated in the course and their efforts faded quickly after the examination This fact dawned on me that my teaching was not interesting and motivating enough From the experience of the previous courses of pronunciation, I wished to apply more stimulating activities to increase the students‟ motivation and intelligibility Moreover, I find that the time for students to study pronunciation in the class is limited, thus in order to obtain good pronunciation requires much self-study time of students The way to promote students to self-study pronunciation is by making them have great motivation in learning pronunciation Because I strongly agree with Lightbrown, P.M and Spada, N (1999) that students never learn everything they are taught, they only learn what they are interested in The researchers also added that students are unlikely to be very successful at learning anything unless they enjoy the process Being urged by the situation and motivated by the idea of finding interesting tools to teach pronunciation in an effective and systematic way, I would like to avail myself of this opportunity to conduct a research on activities to motivate first-year English major students at Hanam Teachers‟ Training College to learn pronunciation Statement of the problem At Hanam Teachers‟ Training College, up to now there are four classes major in English, with the aim of training teachers of English for secondary schools in the province, providing office workers specializing in English for joint-venture companies in the industrial zones in the province, training some male interpreters and translators to work in the Middle-East countries in Asia With the above aims, it is required that students must have an intelligible pronunciation However, as a teacher of English at Hanam Teachers‟ Training College, I found that students had serious problems with English pronunciation Most of them come from rural areas of Thanh Liem, Binh Luc, Kim Bang, Ly Nhan, where there is no emphasis on learning pronunciation Therefore, it is easy to find that students have so many problems with pronunciation Moreover, in my previous courses of teaching pronunciation, I realized that my students seemed not to be highly motivated in learning with activities in the coursebook From the current situation of Hanam Teachers‟ Training College, I would like to conduct a research on activities to motivate first-year English major students at Hanam Teachers‟ Training College to learn pronunciation Purpose of the study This research is designed to bring a new air into the pronunciation class of the first-year English major students at Hanam Teachers‟ Training College In general, the purposes of this study are: + to seek activities to motivate the first-year English major students at Hanam Teachers‟ Training College to learn pronunciation + to have empirical evidence of motivating activities on learning pronunciation of the first-year English major students at Hanam Teachers‟ Training College Research questions What are motivating activities for the first-year English major students at Hanam Teachers‟ Training College to learn pronunciation How much motivating activities in the research account for changes in students‟ pronunciation and motivation? 10 Method of the study The method employed in this study is an action research, using a number of instruments as questionnaire, the students‟ journals, teacher‟s anecdotal notes, along with diagnostic test, posttest and final oral examination to collect data Significance of the study Despite the fact that pronunciation plays an important role in learning a foreign language, so far there have been few researches on the ways to motivate students to study pronunciation compared to other skills such as speaking, listening, writing and reading The study suggests motivating activities in teaching pronunciation to facilitate the students‟ learning process Therefore, this study contributes to enriching the researches on strategies to promote students to learn pronunciation The results of this study will be of much benefit to both teachers and students of English Definition of terms Motivation Among many definitions of motivation stands out Gardner‟s one (1985) “Motivation refers to the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal of learning the language plus favorable attitudes towards learning the language” Gardner (1985, p 10) Intelligibility “Intelligibility may be broadly defined as the extent to which a speaker’s message is actually understood by a listener” (Munro & Derwing 1999, p 289) 11 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Researches into pronunciation teaching 1.1.1 Approaches to pronunciation teaching The approaches to pronunciation teaching have swung in and out of favor through the years in the history Two general approaches to the teaching of pronunciation described by Celce-Murcia et al (1996) have been adopted by many researchers, which are intuitiveimitative approach and analytical-linguistic approach An intuitive-imitative approach assumes that students will develop acceptable pronunciation and speaking skills when exposed to the target language through accurate models This approach relies heavily upon imitation and repetition, without any explicit information provided by the teacher The early method of pronunciation training called Direct Method, which gained acceptance in the late 1800s and early 1900s, was formed from observations of children attaining their first language In this method, students would listen and imitate a model of the target language that was spoken by the teacher (and later by recordings) (Celce Murcia, Brinton, & Goodwin, 1996) From the late 1960s and the early 1980s, there was a decline in explicit pronunciation teaching with the invention of the language lab During this time intuitive-imitative approach was more popular in the pronunciation training with Total Physical Response by Asher‟s (1977) and Natural Approach by Krashen and Terrell‟s (1983) In Total Physical Response, students would begin to speak when they were ready and they were expected to make errors in the initial stage The main initial focus of Natural Approach was listening, which gave students the opportunities to internalize the target sound system Indeed, many contemporary researchers still adopt this view but it is still needed to further investigate if the method has the persuasive foundation An analytic-linguistic approach recognises the importance of an explicit intervention of pronunciation pedagogy in language acquisition The approach employs a variety of pedagogical aids including phonemic chart, contrastive exercises and articulatory descriptions In this approach, students are given explicit information about how to produce the sounds and rhythms of the target language This approach was developed to complement rather than 12 replace the intuitive-imitative approach In the 1890s, Henry Sweet, Wilhelm Viëtor and Paul Passy the creators and developers of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), led a movement in language teaching that was generally called the Reform Movement These phoneticians had great influence on the teaching of pronunciation with their contribution to the development of a system for describing and analysing the sound systems of languages The 1940s and 1950s witnessed a noticeable movement emphasized on explicit instruction of phonetics with Audiolinguism in the United States and the Oral approach in Britain These two methodologies competed with the Direct Method by relying on a recording or the teacher to model the target language followed by the students‟ repetition of that language However, teachers also drew from their knowledge of phonetics and for the first time used simplified charts of the IPA and articulatory models in the classroom The audiolinguism relied much on drilling sound contrasts and minimal pairs, with very little attention to intonation and conversational speech The technique of minimal pairs drill was used extensively by Baker (1977) in her very popular course book on contrastive segmental instruction “Ship or Sheep.” The Silent Way (Gattegno, 1972) dominated in the early 1970s In this method segmentals and suprasegmentals are paid attention from the very beginning of instruction The teachers‟ talk is kept to a minimum using gestures, and visual aids such as the sound-colour chart, Fidel wall charts, and Cuisenaire rods, which were used to demonstrate pronunciation instruction The 1980s witnessed the significant shift with discourse based communicative approach with the ultimate goal was communication The communicative approach dealt with tasks that focus on meaning, using activities such as role play, problem solving and games in a relaxed and supportive classroom environment By focusing more on active communication, it has been recognised that pronunciation competence below a certain threshold caused unintelligible, even for the most grammatically and lexically advanced students (Hinofotis & Bailey, 1980) Technique used to teach pronunciation included listening and imitating, phonetic training, minimal pairs drilling in context, visual aids, reading aloud, recording the students‟ production with more focus on suprasegmental aspects of pronunciation It can be seen that the communicative approach seems to be a more balance approach, with the focus on 13 both fluency and accuracy The approach perhaps has characteristics of both intuitive-imitative approach and analytical-linguistic approach 1.1.2 Teaching Pronunciation: Segmentals or Suprasegmentals? The categorization of pronunciation into segments (discrete sounds), and suprasegments (features that organize streams of speech into meaningful units such as stress, rhythm, intonation, linking, assimilation and deletion) is accepted by many researchers (Kelly, 2003; Kenworthy, 1987; Celce-Murcia et al., 1996; Morley, 1999) The tradition debate relating to which features of pronunciation - segments or suprasegments - should be focused on in teaching pronunciation has still been hold A brief review of the debates between segments and suprasegments is presented as following Teaching segmental features started with a concentration on phonetic alphabets during the Reform Movement (Celce-Murcia et al., 1996) Phonetic training was used in order to help learners establish good speech habits Minimal pair drills were used extensively to distinguish phonemes in listening practice and oral production (Celce-Murcia et al., 1996) However, after Anderson-Hsieh introduced the researches on “Teaching suprasegmentals to international teaching assistants using field-specific materials” (1990) and “Pronunciation factors affecting intelligibility in speakers of English as a foreign language” (1995), the focus of pronunciation teaching shifted dramatically from segmentals to an emphasis on suprasegmentals Following Anderson-Hsieh, abundant researches have investigated the extent to which suprasegmentals contribute to speakers‟ intelligibility and its pedagogy Underhill (1994) stressed the necessity of designing syllabuses mainly focusing on major features of communication - superasegmental features of speech for teaching English McNerney and Mendelsohn (1992, p 186) suggested “a short-term pronunciation course should focus first and foremost on suprasegmentals, as they have the greatest impact on the comprehensibility of learners‟ English” So far a lot of books for teachers have largely encouraged the teaching of suprasegments at the production level to improve learners‟ intelligibility In spite of the trend focusing on teaching superasegmentals, hesitation has still arisen from the trend Because of the close relation between suprasegmental features and the nature of native accents, which are unlikely for learners to achieve, one question raises is that if 50 APPENDIX The students’ responses to the questionnaire Before the course Question items Student number After the course Student Percentage number Percentage The students’ evaluation of the importance of pronunciation Pronunciation Strongly agree 26.47% 14 41.18% is very helpful Agree 22 64.71% 19 55.88% and 5.88% 2.94% Disagree 2.94% 0% Strongly 0% 0% should be No opinion taught disagree Pronunciation Strongly agree 11 32.35% 14 41.18% is important for Agree 15 44.12% 17 50% my future job No opinion 14.71% 0% Disagree 5.88% 2.94% Strongly 2.94% 0% disagree My Strongly agree 2.94% 26.47% pronunciation Agree 8.82% 20.59% makes me No opinion 26.47% 23.53% confident in Disagree 12 35.3% 11.76% speaking in Strongly 26.47% 17.65% English disagree The students’ interest and motivation in learning pronunciation Learning Strongly agree 8.82% 26.47% pronunciation is Agree 14.71% 17 50% 51 enjoyable No opinion 14.71% 2.94% Disagree 12 35.29% 11.76% Strongly 26.47% 8.83% disagree If I were to Very high 17.65% 23.53% rate my interest High 20.59% 17 50% in learning Neutral 26.47% 17.65% pronunciation, I Low 23.53% 5.88% would say it is: Very low 11.76% 2.94% If I were rate Very 14.71% 10 29.41% my attitude favourable toward the Favourable 23.53% 16 47.06% pronunciation Neutral 17 50% 20.59% course, I would Unfavourable 8.82% 2.94% say it it: Very 2.94% 0% unfavourable If I were to Very high 2.94% 11 32.35% rate my effort in High 11.76% 13 38.24% learning Neutral 20 58.83% 23.53% pronunciation, I Low 11.76% 2.94% would say it is: Very low 14.71% 2.94% 10 After the Strongly agree 5.88% 11 32.35% pronunciation Agree 20.59% 13 38.24% course, I would No opinion 15 44.12% 17.65% continue to self Disagree 20.59% 8.82% study Strongly 8.82% 2.94% pronunciation disagree The students’ evaluation of their aptitude to learn pronunciation 52 Learning Strongly agree 12 35.30% 10 29.41% pronunciation is Agree 11 32.35% 10 29.41% difficult No opinion 17.65% 11.76% Disagree 5.88% 17.65% Strongly 8.82% 11.76% disagree If I were to Very high 2.94% 5.88% rate my aptitude High 17.65% 23.53% to learn Neutral 13 38.24% 19 55.89% pronunciation, I Low 23.53% 8.82% would say it is: Very low 17.65% 5.88% The students’ evaluation of the sufficiency of class activities to improve pronunciation 11 Classroom Strongly agree 17.65% 8.82% activities are Agree 20.59% 14.71% sufficient to No opinion 11 32.35% 5.88% improve your Disagree 20.59% 15 44.12% pronunciation Strongly 8.82% 26.47% disagree The students’ preference of activities in the course 12 a How you Very much 0% 0% like learning Much 0% 2.94% pronunciation Neutral 20.59% 18 52.94% through drilling? Not like 12 35.29% 12 35.29% Not at all 15 44.12% 8.82% 12 b How Very much 8.82% 14.71% you like learning Much 5.88% 11.76% pronunciation Neutral 11 32.35% 10 29.41% through teacher‟s Not like 23.53% 23.53% 53 lecture and class Not at all 10 29.41% 20.59% 12 c How you Very much 14 41.18% 21 61.77% like learning Much 14 41.18% 10 29.41% pronunciation Neutral 11.76% 5.88% through songs? Not like 5.88% 2.94% Not at all 0% 0% 12 d How Very much 22 64.71% 17 50% you like learning Much 10 29.41% 12 35.29% pronunciation Neutral 2.94% 14.71% through games? Not like 2.94% 0% Not at all 0% 0% 12 e How you Very much 23 67.65% 19 55.88% like learning Much 11 32.35% 10 29.41% pronunciation Neutral 0% 14.71% through Not like 0% 0% softwares? Not at all 0% 0% discussion? 54 APPENDIX Reading aloud the following sentences (3 points) Please sit in this seat They run in the rain This bed is bad A duck is on the deck He taught the tot Please look at Luke That wine is mine The pig is big That tree's bark is dark That fin is thin The photograph of the girl is burn Those sheep aren't cheap I will sue the zoo There‟s something wrong with the television Read the following text aloud (4 points) New Year Resolution It‟s time A new year is beginning and it‟s time to make a serious commitment This is the year you will master English This is the year you finally speak fluent English In the US, we have the tradition of making New Year‟s resolutions A resolution is a strong decision to something or accomplish something Unfortunately, most people forget their resolutions They quickly become distracted and lose their commitment So I want you to make your resolution with great emotional power I want you to say, strongly, with tremendous emotion and energy, “This year I will speak English fluently.” Say it out loud– with a very strong voice Then it again Use all of your body when you say this resolution Move your arms powerfully Stand firm Take a deep breath and with a loud powerful voice say again, “This year I will speak English fluently!” Read the following conversations aloud with the suitable stress and intonation (3 points) 3.1 A: Good morning B: Ah You‟re the new secretary, aren‟t you? 3.2 A: Are you ready? B: Yes, I think so 3.3 A: Where you live in England? B: I live in Wales, actually 3.4 A: Cool Electricals Can I help you? B: I would like to speak to Martin Turner, if he‟s available 3.5 A: Which did you order? Fish or meat? B: I ordered fish and meat I‟m feeling hungry 3.6 A: Would you like to sit outside? B: I prefer sitting inside if it‟s possible 55 APPENDIX Reading aloud the following sentences (3 points) These shoes should fit your feet Some men are mean That bug is big Please taste the toast A duck is on the deck He put down the pot Our fan is in the van That shine is fine Point to the pint My gun is gone He is a fat cat The rest is in the west The vine is fine I think that the sink is big Luke booed the fool whose foot was in the food Read the following text aloud (4 points) Don't Translate Yuriko is an excellent student She writes very well in English So I was very surprised today when she gave me an essay The writing was not so good I was confused I had a lot of trouble understanding what she was trying to communicate I kept thinking, "Why is this essay different than her others? Why is this one so much worse?" Finally, I had an idea I asked her, "Did you write this first in Japanese, and then translate it?" She said, "Yes" Yuriko wanted this essay to be good So she wrote it first in Japanese and then translated it She probably thought this would make it better Instead, it made it much worse By translating, Yuriko stopped thinking in English She lost her natural "Feel" for English I told her, "Next time, don't write the essay in Japanese first Just write it in English directly When you that, your writing is always very good." Read the following conversations aloud with the suitable stress and intonation (3 points) 3.1 A: Has she ever been to England? B: No, I don‟t think she has But she often goes to America 3.2 A: I‟m not going to eat this! B: Yes, you are Have I ever made anything that you don‟t like? 3.3 A: Would you like to go to the canteen for a sandwich? B: Yes, I‟d love to 3.4 A: What would you like to eat? B: An ice cream and some apple pie 3.5 A: The Globe Theatre is on the North Bank of the river Thames B: Not the North Bank; the South Bank 3.6 A: Tom doesn‟t look very well today, does he? B: No, he looks awful 56 APPENDIX RATING CRITERIA Reading aloud the following sentences (30 points) Each sentence is points, in which correct minimal pairs in each sentence are scored point (each word in the pair is 0.5 point) The other words in a sentence which are read correctly are scored point Read the following text aloud (40 points) - Correct pronunciation of words with correct word stress is scored 10 points - Suitable sentence stress is scored 10 points - Natural sense groups, rhythm, and connected speech is scored 10 points - Suitable intonation: 10 points Read the following conversations aloud with the suitable stress and intonation (30 points) Each conversation with suitable intonation is scored points (2,5 points for the question and 2,5 points for the answer.) APPENDIX Analysis of the diagnostic test The following is the analysis of the diagnostic test In the diagnostic test, it was found out that the first year English major students at Hanam Teachers‟ Training College made the most common problems as follow: The segmental features Vowels All of the students had trouble with vowel length In minimal pairs containing vowels, the students could not identify which words contain short vowels and which words contain long vowels Some students tried to distinguish between short and long vowels but they either misplace the sounds or pronounce the sound incorrectly Another common problem relating to vowels is the pronunciation of the sound /æ/ and /α/, which 85.29% of the students cannot distinguish Consonants In comparison with vowels, the students had more troubles in pronouncing consonants The first problem is that 85.29% students delete the final sounds The sounds which are often omitted include: /t/, /s/, /z/, /d/, /f/, /v/, /ks/, /dƷ / The second problem is sound confusion, which means the students replace the sounds they not know how to pronounce or the sound they have difficulties in articulating with the similar sounds The sounds which cause confusion most often are /t/, /θ/, /ʃ /, /r/, /p/, /b/, /ʤ /,/Ʒ / /ʧ /, [ ð ] 73.53% students replaced /t/ in English with /t/ in Vietnamese Although the phonemic symbol of /t/ in English and in Vietnamese is the same, but the place and manner of articulation are different In order to pronounce /t/ in English, “the tongue blade is pressed against the alveolar ridge” (Roach, P: 32) whereas /t/ in Vietnamese the tip and rims of the tongue touch the side teeth (Đặng et al : 102) 94.12% students replaced /θ/ with /t/, /th/ 79.41% students pronounced /ʃ / as /s/ /r/ was replaced by/z/ by 76.47% students /p/ and /b/ were indistinguishable for 61.76% students /ʤ / was pronounced as /z/ by 91.18% students /ʧ / and /tr/ were interchanged by 67.65% /ð/ was often replaced by either /z/ or /d/ by 88.24% students The third problem with consonants is that 35.29% of the students instead of deleting the final sound, they added /s/ and /z/ to almost every word they pronounced The supra segmental features Stress  Word stress Nearly half of the students did not put any stress on any multi syllable words This means that they pronounced every syllable with the same effort They did not try to identify which syllables carries stress or which syllables is unstressed and therefore they pronounced multi syllable words with the same force on each syllable 17.65% students seemed to be conscious of the necessity to put stress on multi syllable words; however they not stress on correct syllables (For example: „decision instead of de‟cision)  Sentence stress Sentence stress is really a big trouble for the students All of the students are influenced by Vietnamese syllable – timed language, which can be seen the way they read aloud sentences and conversations They applied the same Vietnamese syllable – timed pattern into English, which means they put equal weight on each syllables in English sentences This makes their pronunciation unnatural and monotonous and even causes difficulties in speaking English Example: „A „new „year „is „be „gin „ning „and „it‟s „time „to „make „a „se „ri „ous „com „mit „ment Another problem in reading aloud sentences is that students tend to separate words so clearly without linking between words, which makes their pronunciation choppy This problem can be seen most obviously by 91.18% of the students Intonation The students in my class seemed not to be aware of the roles of intonation in English which function as the means of distinguishing various types of sentences and showing emotions Therefore although part requires students to read aloud conversations with suitable intonation and stress, it still can be heard as if they were reading aloud Vietnamese conversation with so little changes in their voice signifying their intention APPENDIX Guidelines for Journals Part A: Reflection The following questions are some guidelines for you to reflect in your journals Please complete the journals as scheduled You can add more information or skip the questions that you not want to reflect on What have you learned from the course this week? What are your personal feelings of the lessons this week? Do you like activities in the class? Are the activities useful? Do you have any problems in learning pronunciation this week? Could you solve the problems? Or you have any plan to solve the problems? Do the lessons help you improve your pronunciation? Specify the aspects of your pronunciation which you find that you have improved most What would you like to change in the lessons this week? Part B: Present your understanding of: Week 1: English vowels Week 2: English consonants Week 3: English word stress Week 4: English sentence stress Week 5: English rhythm Week 6: English intonation Week 7: English connected speech Note: Beside the knowledge from the lectures and discussion in the class, more information from other resources such as from reference books, internet is highly appreciated APPENDIX Teacher’s observation and anecdotal notes Date .Time The student‟ attendance _ _ _ _ _ _ The students‟ attitude when participating in the activity? _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Classroom atmosphere _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Students‟ performance _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ The students‟ problems _ _ _ _ _ _ The students‟ improvement _ _ _ _ _ _ Others _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ APPENDIX Activities to practise pronunciation with songs  Activity 1: Particular sounds practice Listen to some of the rhymes of the song, fill in the gaps and sing the song again Example 1: Practising /ai/ sound Example 2: Example 3: Practising /i:/ sound Fill in the gap and then Practising /ei/ sound Fill in the gap and then Fill in the gap and then sing along sing along sing along I want to hold you by my Everyday my papa worked Listen to the rhythm of the (1) To help to make ends (1) falling (1) …………… I want to make you stay …………… (2) To see what Girl, somehow I know deep (2)…………… (3) Keep those shoes upon my let me cry in (2)…………… Your heart that you need (3)…………… Telling me just what a fool we could I’ve been I wish that it would go and And let me (4) tender Key: (3)…………… touch! meet Key: rain Key: side eat vain tonight feet again inside my  Activity 2: Minimal pairs practice Listen and correct the wrong words Song: Love story Where so I begin to tell the story be alone Of how great a love can be The sweet love story that is older than the she The simple tooth about the love she brings to me Where I start With her thirst hello She gave a meaning to this empty world of a guy There‟d never be another love another thought She came into my life and made the living mine She fills my heart, she fills my heart With very special things, with angle songs, With wild imaginings, she fills my soul Key: shesea toothtruth thirstfirst guymine minefine  Activity 3: Rhythm, stress, intonation, connected speech practise Sing and clap your hand at stressed syllables which are underlined Jazz chant I have terrible sense of direction I never know which way to go This way or that way I never know which way to go In order to practise more on intonation, connected speech I selected some folk songs from the website http://www.manythings.org/songs  Baa, Baa, Black Sheep / Are you goin’ to swim / Buffalo Gals APPENDIX 10 SYLLABLE GAME DIRECTION: Write down as many words that are members of the given category as possible Remember to use one, two, three, four, five syllable words as required CATEGORY: FRUITS syllable word syllable word syllable word syllable word syllable word TIME LIMIT: MINUTES ... motivate first- year English major students at Hanam Teachers? ?? Training College to learn pronunciation 9 Statement of the problem At Hanam Teachers? ?? Training College, up to now there are four classes... the first- year English major students at Hanam Teachers? ?? Training College to learn pronunciation + to have empirical evidence of motivating activities on learning pronunciation of the first- year. .. first- year English major students at Hanam Teachers? ?? Training College Research questions What are motivating activities for the first- year English major students at Hanam Teachers? ?? Training College to