A study on common pronunciation mistakes faced by students of english faculty at thuongmai university

THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY ENGLISH FACULTY GRADUATION PAPER A STUDY ON COMMON PRONUNCIATION MISTAKES FACED BY STUDENTS OF ENGLISH FACULTY AT THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY HANOI - 2020 ABSTRACT In the integration period with the current trend of globalization, foreign languages, especially English, plays an extremely important role, a powerful support for the construction of a global shared house More importantly, thanks to foreign languages, each of us has the opportunity to integrate into the world, learn from the experience and quintessence of human civilization, thereby developing our own strengths Today in Vietnam, many universities and colleges have conducted professional content teaching in English as well as the standard of foreign language output (popularly English) for graduates and the University Thuongmai University is no exception In fact, most Vietnamese students in general and Thuongmai University's students in particular, have a good training in grammar and vocabulary But many students are still not confident enough to communicate in English due to the fear of being wrong There are many reasons for this, the first is due to students' incorrect pronunciation, and they not understand the pronunciation rules This not only makes students not confident enough to speak, but also affects other skills This leads to inefficient English learning Results of a survey of 50 students with unequal language skills, coming from many regions across the country showed that all students have pronunciation errors In this graduation thesis, I focus on highlighting common pronunciation errors, related to tail pronunciation, phonics, pronunciation of difficult sounds, word stress, stress and intonation of sentences At the same time, analyzing and understanding the objective and subjective causes leading to false pronunciation From that, offering some solutions to solve this problem, I hope that in the near future, the pronunciation of Thuongmai University's students will be improved ACKNOWLEDGEMENT In order to complete this Graduation Paper, I have received a large amount of assistance, guidance and encouragement from my teachers and friends Firstly, I don’t know how to express my thanks to my beloved supervisor, Ms Le Thi Tuyet Nga who has supported me a lot to fulfill this study, her great guidance, precious comments and continuous encouragement from the beginning and through the study process Without her help, I could not finish my graduation paper Secondly, I particularly express my thankfulness to 50 students of English Faculty in Thuongmai University for cooperation and enthusiastic help in recording and answering questions Thirdly, I owe all the lecturers of English Faculty at Thuongmai University a great deal, because they have taught me a lot throughout the valuable lessons on the amphitheater Lastly, sending my gratitude to my family and friends always supported and encouraged me to complete this paper as well as possible I am glad all of those who supported for my graduation paper And I have a very great honors to receive any comments from readers TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii TABLE OF CONTENTS .iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS v LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES vi CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Previous studies .1 1.3 Aims of the study .3 1.4 Research subject .3 1.5 Scope of the study 1.6 Research methodology 1.6.1 Data collection instruments 1.6.2 Data collection procedures 1.6.3 Data analysis procedures 1.7 Organization of the study .4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .6 2.1 English pronunciation 2.1.1 Definition of pronunciation 2.1.2 The importance of pronunciation 2.1.3 Aspects of pronunciation 2.2 Pronunciation mistakes 16 2.2.1 Definition of pronunciation mistakes 16 2.2.2 Common pronunciation mistakes made by Vietnamese learners 16 2.3 Solutions for improving pronunciation skill .18 2.3.1 Practicing Difficult Phonemes and Syllables .18 2.3.2 Studying English pronunciation 19 2.3.3 Mimicking English Sounds 20 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH FINDINGS 21 3.1 Introduction 21 3.2 Subjects 21 3.3 Design of questionnaire 21 3.3.1 Design of survey questionnaire 21 3.3.2 Aim of the survey questionnaire 21 3.4 Research findings 22 3.4.1 Data analysis .22 3.4.2 Summary 31 CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 32 4.1 Suggestions for improving pronunciation skill and further research .32 4.1.1 Suggestions for improving pronunciation skill 32 4.1.2 Further research 33 4.2 Some suggested books for learners to research on pronunciation 33 4.2.1 English pronunciation in use .33 4.2.2 Mastering the American accent 34 4.2.3 Ship or Sheep? 35 4.2.4 American Accent Training 36 CONCLUSION 37 REFERERENCES .vii APPENDIX viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS No Terms TMU i.e RP BBC AMP English meaning ThuongMai University This is received pronunciation British Broadcasting Corporation Accelerated Pages Mobile LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Figure 2.1: Articulatory phonetics Figure 2.2: Bilabial articulation .9 Figure 2.3: Classification of English consonants (Cawley, 1996) 11 Figure 2.4: Palato-alveolars 13 Figure 2.5: Velar articulation 13 Figure 2.6: Primary cardinal vowels 15 Chart 3.1: The most favorite skill of first year English major students 22 Chart 3.2: The percentages of important factors in speaking 23 Chart 3.3: The importance of pronunciation in English speaking 24 Chart 3.4: Student’s interest in pronunciation 25 Chart 3.5: Sounds that students found harder to pronounce 25 Chart 3.6: Student’s frequency of making pronunciation mistakes 26 Chart 3.7: Students’ common pronunciation mistakes 27 Table 3.1: Percentage of ending sounds faced by students of English Faculty .28 Chart 3.8: Reasons for difficulties when pronouncing ending sounds 29 Chart 3.9: Students’ opinions on pronunciation and speaking skill solutions 30 CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1.1 Rationale In today's society, learning a foreign language has become an essential need of everyone Learning a language includes the practice of listening - speaking reading and writing skills, in which pronunciation is an important part of language learning This study concerns to mistakes of learners' English pronunciation Pronunciation is a skill which definitely plays an important part in learning a language Poorly pronounced people will not confident enough to be able to communicate Learning without using it is not considered learning and does not result in foreign language learning because the purpose of language learning is to communicate Therefore, pronunciation practice should be more focused in the process of teaching and learning English from high school to university These are the reasons why I chose the topic “A study on common pronunciation mistakes faced by students of English Faculty at Thuongmai University” for my graduation paper Showing common mistakes, identifying the causes and proposing some solutions to deal with the pronunciation mistakes, we hope to help students understand deeply about the issues that they have not noticed before Thereby improving the status of false pronunciation of the majority of students at the TMU 1.2 Previous studies According to Elkhair Muhammad Idriss Hassan (English Language Department, Al-Farabi Private College, Riyadh, KSA ) all around the world, there are a lot of people with strong desire to learn and speak English with correct pronunciation In Sudan, there is a large number of interested groups in the subject; among them are the students of English language at Sudan University of Science and Technology However, there are many barriers that hinder them to speak with good English pronunciation Many studies have demonstrated that the errors made by the speakers of other languages, who speak English, are something systematic rather than random Moosa (1972) and Homeidan (1984) demonstrated that Arab students face problem in the pronunciation of sounds which the students are not familiar with e.g /v/, /p/, /ŋ/ (Ronald Carter and David Nunan, 2001) (O’Connor, 2003) noted that the errors of pronunciation that learners of English from different language backgrounds make are systematic and not accidental So they concluded that the main problem of the speakers of other languages who speak English, is substitution of sounds i.e they substitute the sounds that they don’t have in their native language, with other sounds which are close to them in the place of articulation e.g they replace /p/ with /b/, /θ/ with /s/, etc Although the same problem exists in the pronunciation of most of the Sudanese Students of English (SSEs), all the studies above were done outside Sudan E.g for speakers of German, Italian, Spanish etc On the other hand, some studies have been conducted as mentioned above, but on the Arab student’s e.g for the students of English in Saudi Arabia So that is why this research was intended to fill a certain gap Thus, perhaps mispronunciation of sounds replacements of problematic sounds is explored The research is seeking to study such problems of pronunciation E.g the mispronunciation of some sounds and the shifting of particular sounds with others and to try to find what are the exact reasons for such errors i.e are these errors related to the mother tongue interference, sound system differences between the native and the foreign language, moreover to study the influence of spelling on the pronunciation, then see to what extent the inconsistency of some English sounds effects on the pronunciation So this study is an attempt to study such problems in a Sudanese context because substitution of sounds such as /θ/, /ð/, /p/ is expected in the pronunciation of many Sudanese students of English, this is because the students don’t have 32 such sounds in their mother tongue language i.e (Sudanese Spoken Arabic) The importance of this study comes from the perspective that all the previous studies, addressed the problem among speakers of European languages such as German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese etc and Asian languages E.g Chinese and Thai There are also some studies on pronunciation errors among speakers of Arabic So this study is discussing the same problem, but for the speakers of Sudanese Spoken Arabic as a form of Arabic in Sudan The study also aims at helping the Sudanese students of English improve their pronunciation using the modern techniques and aids in learning language e.g internet, audio aids such as (CDs, tapes, and TV) 1.3 Aims of the study Helping students of English Faculty at TMU realize about pronunciation problems that they faced to The study is aim to:  Figure out the general pronunciation mistakes that often met of students at English Faculty of TMU  Suggesting some solutions to eliminate those mistakes then improving pronunciation skill 1.4 Research subject Realizing that students of English Faculty at TMU’s pronunciation skill is not good enough This is main reason why they often make many mistakes when pronouncing As a result, their communicating is difficult and limited Thus, the author chose: “A study on common pronunciation mistakes faced by students of English Faculty at Thuongmai University” to be research subject 1.5 Scope of the study During studying English process, listening, speaking, reading and writing are four essential skills for learners There are many different documents that require a great deal of time and effort but time is so limited Therefore, this research cannot cover all English skills It only focus speaking skill as well as the common pronunciation mistakes that students of English Faculty at TMU often met The author hopes this study will be a useful document for all students to improve their pronunciation and become more confident when communicating 1.6 Research methodology 1.6.1 Data collection instruments In order to answer research-related issues as well as to collect survey data from the research object (students), a questionnaire was designed These survey questions focus on analyzing mistakes, figure out solutions for them The questionnaire was carefully designed with reference from previous research authors and instructors The questionnaire was sent to 50 students in a class of the English Faculty Moreover, in order to find out the mistakes when pronouncing, and analyze them correctly, the author has conducted the survey through using primary data After finishing the survey and collecting data, the author proceeded to analyze the mistakes, classify the questions and find popular mistakes through the data obtained 1.6.2 Data collection procedures Stage 1: The researcher created a questionnaire and sent it to the supervisor From the opinion of the supervisor, the researcher adjusted and completed a questionnaire concerns to the research Stage 2: The researcher carried out the survey by sending the questionnaire to each student in a class of English Department The researcher clearly presented the aim of the survey for those students understand and answer honestly and enthusiastically Thanks to it, the researcher has collected the most accurate answers Stage 3: The researcher synthesizes data from the survey and has general comments 1.6.3 Data analysis procedures The study focuses on the difficulties when speaking English of students of the English Department at TMU Through this study the researcher wants to find out the answers for three questions:  What is the reality of speaking of students of the English Department at TMU?  What are common pronunciation mistakes when speaking English?  How to solve this problem? 1.7 Organization of the study The study consists of four main chapters: CHAPTER - “OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY” Question 7: Which pronunciation mistakes you tend to encounter when speaking English? There are many kinds of pronunciation mistakes including word and sentence stress, the misunderstanding between short vowels and long vowels or others, but ending sounds seems to be the most common pronunciation mistake that students of English major have to face when speaking English The chart below will reveal that result: 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Ending sounds Word stress Intonation Concatenation Others Chart 7: Students’ common pronunciation mistakes The chart above indicates that ending sound and word stress are two most common mistakes with 30%, then is intonation with 20% and concatenation with 18% 2% belongs others Question 8: What are your ending sound mistakes that you often make when speaking English? The collected data about students’ ending sound mistakes will be presented clearly in table below: Ending sounds /b/ /k/ /d/ /g/ /h/ Percentage 10% 12% 30% 20% 12% 27 /l/ 10% /m/ 11% /n/ 15% /p/ 13% /s/ 13% /z/ 35% /v/ 11% /t/ 10% /dʒ/ 89% /ð/ 77% /θ/ 82% /tʃ/ 56% /ʒ/ 72% /ʃ/ 81% /ŋ/ 65% Table 3.1: Percentage of ending sounds faced by students of English Faculty The table includes all enwinding sounds that was given out and there are five ending sounds with highest percentages chosen by students They are /dʒ/, /θ/, /ʃ/, /ð/ and /ʒ/ The sound /dʒ/ accounts for highest percentage (89%), then the sound /θ/ with 82%, next is the sound /ʃ/ with 81%, 77% is the percentage of the sound /ð/ and 72% belongs to the sound /ʒ/ This means most of students having the same problems of pronouncing these ending sounds, especially ending sound /dʒ/ For instance, students often get trouble when distinguish these words:  Choke /tʃəʊk/ - Joke /dʒəʊk/  Cheers /tʃɪərz/ - Jeers /dʒɪərz/  Cheap /tʃiːp/ - Jeep /dʒiːp/ For reasons, students find these sounds difficult to pronounce, then they have tendencies to omit these ending sounds or produce them in uncorrected ways Question 9: What are your reasons for difficulties when pronouncing ending sounds? In order to find out the reason why students feel difficult when pronouncing ending sounds, the author continues to carry out question There are reasons considered main factors making ending sounds be difficult for students: Reason 1: There are no ending sounds in our mother tongue Reason 2: They have not attended any pronunciation courses before 28 Reason 3: It is nonessential to pronounce ending sounds Reason 4: They have not been taught about ending sound at their high schools Reason 5: They have no habit of pronouncing these sounds Reason 6: It is difficult to pronounce ending sounds The answers will be stated by under chart 30.00% 40.00% 10.00% 13.00% Reason Reason 5.00% 2.00% Reason Reason Reason Reason Chart 3.8: Reasons for difficulties when pronouncing ending sounds Finding out the reason why students get trouble with pronouncing ending sounds is considered as a key to give out the solution to this problem According to the results of survey questionnaire, there are around specific reasons chosen by students Chart 3.8 reveals that the main reason of making ending sound mistakes is reason (40%) As mentioned, Vietnamese is one of languages having no ending sounds, so that students get difficult when pronouncing those It is obvious that reason takes second rank with fairly high percentage (30%) of total All asked students agree that ending sounds are very difficult to pronounce They not know how to produce that sounds in correct way For example, with word “wife”, students sometimes pronounce /waɪ/ instead of /waɪf/ In reason 4, the number of students who have not been taught about ending sound at their high school quite high percentage (13%) Hence, that students cannot produce exactly ending sounds and it is not surprising Not practicing ending sounds every time speaking English becomes a bad habit to many students (reason 5) and it accounts for 10% Lower percentages belong to reason with 5%, reason with 2% 29 3.4.1.4 Students’ opinions on pronunciation solutions Question 10: What should you to improve your pronunciation as well as speaking skill? What should you to improve your pronunciation as well as speaking skill? Others 40 Speaking English regularly 90 Focusing on pronunciation 70 Focusing on vocabulary 80 Focusing on grammar 85 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Chart 3.9: Students’ opinions on pronunciation and speaking skill solutions The chart above presented that speaking English regularly was the most students’ favorite solutions 90% chose speaking English regularly It meant this solution was the best suggestion in order to improve their speaking skill It helps students deal with their speaking problems as well as interest them in learning 85% of the student considered that they should focus on grammar; 80% of them chose focusing on vocabulary; 70% of them thought that they should focus on pronunciation and 40% belongs the others 3.4.2 Summary After conducting the survey questionnaires delivered to the students, observation and analysis, it is clear that pronunciation plays an important role in speaking English and ending sound is the most common pronunciation mistakes, it need to be solved as soon as possible If they face that problems for a long time, it can become a bad habit and it is really hard to change From the result of survey questionnaires, students can use a lot of solution to their pronunciation problems and each one has their own ways in order to get rid of the issues 30 CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 4.1 Suggestions for improving pronunciation skill and further research 4.1.1 Suggestions for improving pronunciation skill Pronunciation is an important part of learning any language The way your speech sounds can have a big impact on whether or not people understand what you are saying and their initial impression of you The tricky thing about pronunciation is that it is not just a question of acquiring knowledge, it’s a physical skill that you need to practice regularly There are no shortcuts to perfect pronunciation; however, there are some ways you can practice more effectively and improve your skills faster: 31 4.1.1.1 Learning from native speakers When you have a word that you not how to pronounce it correctly, it is necessary to learn the mouth movements of native speakers Looking at the position of their mouths and then try to replicate their exact methods by speaking in front of a mirror or camera Listening to foreigners’ programs, movies and repeat what you are hearing even if you are not sure what they are saying yet You can also sing a song in English What you need to is to imitate the lyric which you are hearing Singing a song helps you relax as well as improving your intonation and your rhythm 4.1.1.2 Listening to yourself If you cannot hear your pronunciation problem, it is hard to correct it Therefore, recording your speech and comparing it to native speakers helps you recognize your problem and change it 4.1.1.3 Speaking slowly Many English learners say that speaking too quickly reinforces their bad habits Practice a few basics each day Start with single sounds, then move on to words, and finally, string several words together 4.1.1.4 Doing more than just reading and listening A trap which many learners of English fall into, which stops their pronunciation from improving as quickly as it should, is to spend all their study time either reading or listening to English learning materials It’s important to actively use the language, even if you not have a partner to speak with Read out passages, record audio and even sing in the shower 4.1.1.5 Paying attention to intonation and stress Good pronunciation is more than just mastering individual sounds It is also understanding intonation (the rise and fall of the voice) and stress (some sounds in words and some words in sentences are louder or clearer than others) 4.1.2 Further research Discussing about pronunciation topic, because of its variety, there are many aspects for analyzing and researching However, due to time constraints, the author only focused on the common pronunciation mistakes of English major students at 32 TMU In subsequent studies, if given the opportunity, the author would like to propose the following topics:  Study and propose measures to improve speaking skills for Thuongmai University students  Research finding ending sounds errors that students of English Faculty at Thuongmai University often face up 4.2 Some suggested books for learners to research on pronunciation 4.2.1 English pronunciation in use This set of English pronunciation books is divided into two learning pathways: beginner and intermediate English pronunciation books will be broken down into separate pairs to help you practice gradually  The CD will provide and guide from how to read, pronounce to how to read words, sentences, conversations using that sound so that you can easily visualize the vowels and consonants  In addition, the phenomenon as well as the rule of connecting sounds and stressing will be explained in detail  The book has a practice section with entries, phrases, each sound and sentences that vary from context to context This practice exercise will help you to pronounce better The English pronunciation book set is divided into three books:  Pronunciation in use elementary: This English pronunciation book is designed with fifty lessons, divided into five sections, providing basic to advanced lessons 33  Pronunciation in use intermediate: four Sections, sixty Units Overall knowledge is much more advanced than the basic book This book will give you a band of 3.0 or higher when you can master the sounds and phrases of English  Pronunciation in use advanced: This is the last document to help you improve your pronunciation skills with complex sounds, harder than the above books The source of knowledge divides the vocabulary, how to connect the sounds, and pronounces different sentences 4.2.2 Mastering the American accent This is an American English pronunciation training book for beginners in pronunciation First, you will learn how to distinguish correct or incorrect pronunciation mistakes while speaking and also correct common mistakes that you make when pronouncing In addition, this English-language transliteration book will also talk about the oral expressions of syllables in detail in the lesson At the same time, the listening is various because the speaker can be male or female, speaking in a language or the mother tongue So this is also a way to improve your listening skills This English pronunciation book will be included with the CDs to help you practice your pronunciation better It’s a good English pronunciation book for you to learn at home, isn’t it? 4.2.3 Ship or Sheep? 34 We often focus on learning vocabulary and grammar without even knowing that learning pronunciation is also very important Sometimes we will feel confused because the wrong pronunciation makes the other person not understand Ship or Sheep is a perfect book for teaching phonetic English to overcome that situation with systematic easy-to-understand content that complements accents and intonation practice, along with many listening lessons more so that we can easily learn and apply in real communication We will distinguish the pronunciation of words with similar syllables when studying with Sheep or Ship Its advantage is there are many listening exercises and practice exercises This book is divided into parts, but we can choose to study at your level rather than necessarily following the curriculum We can use it for the purpose of self-study to gain experience in learning English pronunciation or can be used as a teaching curriculum 4.2.4 American Accent Training 35 With these thirteen chapters of English pronunciation book, we will start from easy to difficult, mainly small exercises that can help you acquire knowledge more easily You will master English pronunciation skills in a standard American Using the correct semantics in sentences will increase the effectiveness when communicating with indigenous people and increase the professionalism in communication This English pronunciation book will guide you from basic concepts in grammar to daily communication and adjust your pronunciation If you want to pronounce English in an American style, this book is the right choice for you However, this book is only for people who have intermediate level or above (pre-immediate) Nationality Guides is the highlight of this English pronunciation book because through this chapter you will discover more about some problems that people around the world have when starting to learn English when this is not mother language All details are explained carefully to help you understand thoroughly CONCLUSION In the modern society, English become an important part in our life and speaking seems to be the most important of all the four language skills And in order to speak well, we also have good pronunciation When mastering English language, we have more opportunities for future job 36 This graduation paper has been conducted with the aim to investigate the common difficulties faced by students of English major at Thuongmai University To some extent, it succeeded in answering the research questions From the results of the research, the researcher discovered the difficulties the students face and effective solutions that students can apply to eliminate pronunciation mistakes However, due to the limitation of time, experience and knowledge, the research cannot cover all difficulties of student Therefore, the researcher is glad to receive comments from readers Finally, the researcher hopes this study can be useful material for students who concerns pronunciation and suggested solutions to improve pronunciation as well 37 REFERERENCES Books: Ha Cam Tam, Common pronunciation problems of Vietnamese learners of English Marianne, Donna and Janet (1996), Teaching Pronunciation, Cambridge University Press Richards (1971), Error analysis and second language strategies, International Center for Research on Bilingualism Roach, P (1995) English Phonetics and Phonology: A Practical Course, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Well, J C (2000) Pronunciation Dictionary, Essex: Longman Webs: https://stepup.edu.vn/blog/sach-day-phat-am-tieng-anh/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articulatory_phonetics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_Pronunciation#Consonants https://www.slideshare.net/norielr/general-classification-of-vowels- 41523513 https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c23e/60a601e5db8a46deb668f6d92f2e5a4e 2ffe.pdf https://www.wikihow.com/Improve-English-Pronunciation APPENDIX Questionnaires for the survey related to pronunciation of student at Thuongmai University: I Personal information: Name: ………………………………………………… Class: ………………………………………………… II Questionnaires for the survey: Put a tick (√) in the box of your answer: Question 1: What is English skill you like most? □ Listening □ Speaking □ Reading □ Writing Question 2: Which factor you consider the most important in English speaking? □ Pronunciation □ Vocabulary □ Intonation □ The others □ Grammar Question 3: How important pronunciation in speaking English? □ Very important □ Important □ Normal □ Not important Question 4: How you like learning pronunciation? □ Very like □ Like □ Normal □ Hate Question 5: What is kind of sounds learners found harder to pronounce? □ Vowel sounds □ Consonant sounds □ Both of them Question 6: How often you make pronunciation mistakes when speaking English in class? □ Always □ Often □ Rarely □ Never □ Sometimes Question 7: Which pronunciation mistakes you tend to encounter when speaking English? □ Ending sounds □ Word stress □ Concatenation □ Others □ Intonation Question 8: What are your ending sound mistakes that you often make when speaking English? (Can choose more than one for this question) Ending sounds Often Never /b/ /k/ /d/ /g/ /h/ /l/ /m/ /n/ /p/ /s/ /z/ /v/ /t/ /dʒ/ /ð/ /θ/ /tʃ/ /ʒ/ /ʃ/ /ŋ/ Question 9: What are your reasons for difficulties when pronouncing ending sounds? Reason 1: There are no ending sounds in our mother tongue Reason 2: They have not attended any pronunciation courses before Reason 3: It is nonessential to pronounce ending sounds Reason 4: They have not been taught about ending sound at their high schools Reason 5: They have no habit of pronouncing these sounds Reason 6: It is difficult to pronounce ending sounds □ Reason □ Reason □ Reason □ Reason □ Reason □ Reason Question 10: What should you to improve your pronunciation as well as speaking skill? □ Focusing on grammar □ Focusing on pronunciation □ Focusing on vocabulary □ Speaking English regularly □ Others 10 ... questionnaire In this study, survey questionnaire is conducted to collect students? ?? opinions and information about common pronunciation mistakes that students of English major at Thuongmai University. .. when pronouncing As a result, their communicating is difficult and limited Thus, the author chose: ? ?A study on common pronunciation mistakes faced by students of English Faculty at Thuongmai University? ??... Chart 7: Students? ?? common pronunciation mistakes The chart above indicates that ending sound and word stress are two most common mistakes with 30%, then is intonation with 20% and concatenation with