Using software to improve first year english majors pronunciation

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES TRINH T H I HANG USING SOFTWARE TO IMPROVE FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS' PRONUNCIATION: AN ACTION RESEARCH AT HONG DUC UNIVERSITY SU DUNG PHAN MEM PHAT TRIEN KHA NANG PHAT AM CHO SINH VIEN CHUYEN NGANH TIENG ANH NAM THU N H A T : NGHIEN CUU HANH DONG TAI TRUONG DAI HOC HONG DUC M.A Minor Program Thesis Major: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10 Supervisor: Do Tuan Minh, PhD HANOI-2010 IV TABLE OF CONTENT Page DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENT iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii LIST OF DIAGRAMS, CHARTS, AND TABLES ^"' PARTI INTRODUCTION I Rationale of the study Purposes of the study Research questions Scope of the study Method of the study Significance of the study , Design of the study PART II DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW , 1.1 Role of pronunciation in language learning 1.2 Aspects of pronunciation teaching 1.2.1 Vowel sounds 1.2.2 Consonant sounds 1.2.3 Word stress 1.2.4 Sentence stress 1.2.5 Rhythm , 1.2.6 Intonation 10 , 1.2.7 Other aspects of connected speech 10 11 1.3 Approaches to pronunciation teaching 11 1.3.1 Explicit or Implicit H 1.3.2 Top-down or Bottom-up 13 1.4 Computers-assisted language learning (CALL) and EFL learning and teaching 14 1.5 Roles of CALL software in EFL teaching and learning 15 1.6 Benefits of using CALL softAvarc in EFL teaching and learning 16 1.7 Limitations of CALL software in EFL learning and teaching 17 CHAPTER M E T H O D O L O G Y 19 : 2.1 Context of the study 19 2.2 Arguments for the use of an action research 19 2.3 Description of the software program 20 2.4 Subjects of the study 21 2.5 Instruments 21 2.6 Procedure 22 CHAPTER DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 23 3.1 Findings from the pretest 23 3.1.1 English sounds 23 3.1.2 Stress 24 3.1.3 Rhythm and thought groups 26 3.1.4 Intonation 26 3.1.5 Linking 28 VI 3.2 The intervention 28 3.3 Findings from the post-test 30 3.3.1 English sounds 30 3.3.2 Stress 32 3.3.3 Rhythm and thought groups ii 3.3.4 Intonation 34 3.3.5 Linldng 35 3.4 Further findings from the teacher's obser>ation and informal intei-view with students 37 PART HI CONCLUSION 39 vSummary 39 Pedagogical implication 39 Limitations of the study 40 Suggestions for further research 40 REFERENCES 42 APPENDICES I VII LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFL: English as a Foreign Language NS: Native speaker NNS: NOP native speaker IT: Information technology CALL: Computer-assisted language learning CMC: Computer mediated communication Vlll LIST OF DIAGRAMS, CHARTS, AND TABLES Diagram Diagram! English vowels Table I English consonants Table Students' common mistakes in producing English sounds 24 Table Students' stress on important words 24 Table Students' stress on corrective words 25 Table Students' intonation of statements, yes-no questions, wh-questions, Tables requests and suggestions 27 Table Students' intonation of lists 27 Table Students' performance of linking 28 Tabic Aspects of pronunciation to be integrated in speaking lessons 29 Table Comparison of the students' pronunciation of English sounds in the pretest and posttest 30 Table 10 Students' stress on important words 32 Table I Students' stress on corrective words 32 Table 12 Students' intonation of statements, yes-no questions, wh-questions, polite requests and suggestions 34 Table 13 Students' intonation of lists 35 Table 14 Students' performance of linking 35 Chart I Rhythm and thought groups 26 Chart Rhythm and thought groups 33 Charts PART I INTRODUCTION Rationale of the study In the last decades, the general goals of teaching have primed the effective use of the spoken language to establish successful communication That is why there has been a steady growth in the attention to the magnitude of speaking and pronunciation teaching This fact has brought about an emergent debate about models, goals and particularly, the methodology used for speaking and pronunciation teaching A number of research studies have dealt with pronunciation teaching and problems students face in English pronunciation The research findings have revealed that pronunciation frequently interferes with communication As a matter of fact, communication may break down when people pronounce incorrectly Moreover, learners with good pronunciation are usually more proficient speakers and more successful language learners than those with poor pronunciation Since I started teaching at Hong Due University, I have taught speaking and pronunciation to first-year 1-nglish majors many times have always been trying my best to help my students pronounce better However, I have had many frustrations because my students always have many mistakes in their pronunciation have been investigating into the reasons for this, and I have found that my students, most of whom are from rural areas in the province, only learned grammar and never focused on pronunciation at secondary school Moreover, they did not have much access to native speakers' pronunciation lor non-English majors at other departments of Hong Due University, they are required to have intelligible pronunciation English majors at Foreign Department, however, must go tar beyond the intelligibility to the point that they should sound like or nearly like native speakers because they will become teachers of English and their pronunciation will affect man\ generations to come That is the reason why frst-year English majors' weak pronunciation has been a matter of serious concern amonc us Due to the importance of pronunciation in language learning and the poor pronunciation of first-year English majors at Hong Due university, I decided to introduce some changes into my speaking and pronunciation course for first-year English majors with the hope to improve their pronunciation That v/as the reason why I conducted this study "Using software to improve first-year English majors' pronunciation: An action research at Hong Due University \ which tried to exploit the software programs available in my speaking and pronunciation lessons with an aim to improve first-year English majors' pronunciation Purposes of the study The purpose of this study is to improve English pronunciation for first-year English majors at I long Due University Specifically, it has three purposes as follows: - To identify students' most common mistakes in their English pronunciation - To exploit the software program, namely Pronunciation Power as an intervention in pronunciation lessons to improve students' pronunciation - To justify Ihc effectiveness of using pronunciation software in teaching r:nglish pronunciation to first-year English majors Research questions Regarding the importance of pronunciation teaching, purpose of the research and statement of the problem, this study is accomplished to find the answer to the question ^How effectively is software exploited to improve first-year English majors* pronunciation at Hong Due university? * Specifically, the study addressed the following three research questions: • What are the students' most common problems regarding their English pronunciation? • Is Pronunciation A;MCTeffective in teaching first-year English majors' pronunciation? • If yes, how effective is it? Scope of the study The study concentrates on improving first-year English majors at Hong Due University by using the pronunciation software named Pronunciation Power, Within its scope, the research was aimed at justifying the effectiveness of using this software program in teaching English pronunciation to first-year English majors at Hong Due university Methods of the study This study is conducted as an action research because it is aimed at improving first-year English majors' pronunciation In order to get data, a combination of different instruments, namely class observation, informal interviews and audio-recording, is used The data collected from the observation and interviews will be analyzed by qualitative method, and the data collected through the tape scripts will be analyzed by quantitative method Significance of the study Even though there have been numerous studies on pronunciation teaching, few investigations into the use of software in teaching pronunciation are conducted This research provides an insight into the effectiveness of applying pronunciation software to the teaching of pronunciation to first-year English majors The results of the study will, therefore, be much beneficial to both teachers who are considering whether to exploit software programs in their English pronunciation lessons and students who are interested in using software programs to improve their English pronunciation Design of the study The study consists of three main parts as follows The first part deals with rationale, purposes, research questions, scope, methods and design of the study The second part contains three chapters, in which chapter I reviews the literature focusing on the theoretical basis related to teaching pronunciation and using C A L L programs in language learning and teaching, chapter presents a detailed description of the research methodology, and chapter discusses the findings of the study The final part summarizes all the main ideas expressed throughout the research, provides pedagogical implications and suggests further research orientations 36 14 in the pretest However, the teacher's observation showed that although the students could link the sounds together, their speech is not natural and they often stopped to think when they started to produce the linking Therefore, it can be concluded from all the above findings that the students' intonation regarding statements, yes-no questions, wh-questions, polite requests, suggestions, lists, old and new information has experienced significant improvement after the researcher's intervention In summary, the following conclusions are drawn from the data collected in the posttest To start with, the students have actually made recognizable progress with F.nglish sounds, especially the distinction between long and short vowel pairs, and the sounds /O/, /d/, /tJ/, /// However, little improvement is seen for the sound /a:/ and final consonant clusters Moreover, the students' performance of stress has also greatly improved After training of stress in association with parts of speech, students' awareness of stress on important words has been raised to a much higher level However, longer sentences with more stressed words still seem to make students confused Also, the training of stress on corrective words has helped students to make impressive improvement in their performance As regards Fnglish rhythm, it seems to be the most difficult aspects to be mastered Students gained the least improvement because they misplaced stress, misplaced pauses or produced with syllable-timed rhythm Finally, on the part of intonation, statements and wh-questions received the most correct patterns This is understandable because they are most common in everyday language and the falling tune at the end of the sentence is familiar, so easier for the students to produce than the rising tune The students' intonation of lists and old information also remarkably improved at the end of the research program What seems to be the most difficult for the students to make progress is the polite request with the least improvement Teaching diar> points out that the students use the rising tune but not as polite as it needs 37 A l l in all, as a result of the intervention, the students' pronunciation has considerably improved The teacher's observation also shows that students could speak more naturally with more accurate sounds, appropriate stress, and intonation though rhythm needs more training and practice for better performance The results o f the study support the view by Stenson, Downing, Smith, & Smith (1992) that the use of software with visual displays of language learner speech and the opportunity to visually and aurally compare output to that of a native speaker can improve target language pronunciation Furthermore, the findings of this study fairly corresponds with the assumption Derwing, Munrol and Wiebe (1998) have made, that is, explicit instruction is essential in leaching pronunciation Explicitly teaching learners about the features of pronunciation \MI1 help them master the features faster than letting them pick up the features through exposure to the language, particularly in a foreign language context Therefore, it is necessary for FSL teachers to draw learners' awareness to these features and to provide them with explicit training On the other hand, the results of the study are also consistent with the findings in my related investigations (Levis, 2005; Saito, 2007) that segmental should be taught prior to suprasegmental features This result docs not mean that students not ha\e the ability to perceive the suprasegmental features at the initial stage, but that they need to have basic understanding of sounds before moving into the more complicated issue of prosody 3.4 F u r t h e r findings f r o m the teacher's observation and informal inter^ie^v with students The teacher' observation during class hours and informal interviews with the students during breaks were conducted as supplementary instruments in order to find out how students learnt pronunciation with the help of software, how they evaluated the new wa) of using the 38 software to present pronunciation lessons, and how useful they thought it was The findings are as follows Firstly, the students held the new way of teaching pronunciation in high regard They acknowledged that the use of software in teaching and learning pronunciation did a great help in improving their pronunciation The audible sounds accompanied by visual illustrations (a side and a front view) of real-time articulatory movements for the production of the sounds really helped them master the way to pronounce difficult sounds and distinguish similar sounds The function that the Speech Analysis offers the user a look at graphic representations of the sound utterance as a waveform helped the students a lot in evaluating their pronunciation accuracy by comparing their waveform of the sound with that of the instructor Secondly, during the class hour with the exploitation of software, the students were highlymotivated They took part in the lesson actively and enthusiastically All the students held a positive altitude towards using software in pronunciation lessons The informal interviews with the students revealed that the reasons for their high motivation consisted of the their interest in the new learning environment and authentic input, opportunity to learn at their own pace, and vivid images and sounds However, using the software Pronunciation Power in teaching pronunciation also reveals some disadvantages At the beginning of the project, the students complained about some difficulties which are mainly related to technical issues such as being untamiliar with some computer functions, or being unable to run the software However, these problems were easily solved by the teacher's instructions 39 PART i n CONCLUSION L Summary So far, this study has answered the three research questions what the students' most common problems regarding their English pronunciation are, whether Pronunciation Power is effective in teaching first-year English majors' pronunciation and how effective it is An action research project has been conducted in a speaking and pronunciation course in the first semester for the 30 first-year English majors of Foreign Language Department at Hong Due University The project involved exploiting the computer software entitled Pronunciation Power to provide students with explicit instruction on English sounds, word stress, sentence stress and rhythm, intonation and relevant exercises for them to practice The instruments used for obtaining the data consisted of a pretest at the beginning and a posttest at the end of the semester, classroom observations, and informal interviews with students The researcher's initial investigation and the pretest results showed that the students' difficulties concerns long and short vowel pair distinction, and the sounds that not exist in Vietnamese such as fxf fQf /cV, /t//, /J/, /dy, and fy Furthennore, stress, rhythm and intonation are also the students' weaknesses The intervention took place from week to week 14 of the semester The findings from the posttest results, teacher's observation and informal interview with students showed that the intervention helps improve English pronunciation for first-year English majors at Hong Due University Pedagogical implication The findings of the study implicate that CALL software packages should be integrated in teaching and learning Fnglish pronunciation in order to increase the quality of EFL education as well as to keep along with the present teaching trend in the world 40 - technical investment for English teaching and learning should be paid more attention For the time being, there is only a L A B room which is fully equipped with computers at Hong Due university More classrooms like this one should be installed so that all the English majors of Foreign Language Department have opportunity to learn English in a new learning environment - During the first lessons with the application of C A L L software packages, the students could face some difficulties with the computers The teacher should take this into consideration before using the software and be ready to give the needy sludents timely support - This study can be used as a reference source for teachers, learners and those interested in using software programs in teaching and learning English pronunciation Limitations of the study Although the study has some beneficial contributions to the pronunciation teaching and learning, it still has some limitations as follows First, as an action research with its typical characteristic defined as ^situational', this study is prone to lack generalization The intervention has worked quite successfully in the researcher's class but may not be applied to other classes in other contexts This research, therefore, has unavoidable limited application Furthermore, since the researcher could not control all the \ariables and constructs during the research project, the question whether software can improve students' pronunciation is still not absolutely answered Students' improvement may result from other factors such as their high motivation, time devotion, learning from other classes or self-learning, ect Last but not least, the size of the study is rather small with only 30 first-year English major students This number is not enough to have a full understanding of pronunciation difficulties that first-year English majors encounter 41 Suggestions for further research The study has opened some directions for future research (1) After the study has been conducted to first-year English majors at Hong Due university, it should be conducted to other first-year English majors at other universities as well Then the effectiveness of using the software Pronunciation Power in teaching English pronunciation will be more accurately evaluated (2) Beside the software Pronunciation Power, there exists other software packages used to teach English in general and pronunciation in particular The effectiveness of these packages should be tested so that they can be widely used in EFL teaching and learning Hopefully, this study and stibsequcnt research will result in better awareness and evaluation of applying software in teaching and learning English pronunciation, so that contribute to the renovation of EFL teaching methods at Hong Due University 42 REFERENCES Avery, P., & Ehrlic, S (1992) Teaching American English Pronunciation Oxford Oxford University Press Barr, D (2004) ICT- Integrating Computers in Teaching Peter Lang Brett, P (1997) A comparative study of the effects of the use of multimedia on listening comprehension System, 25, 39-53 Celce-Murcia, M., Brinton, D., and Goodwn, J (1996) Teaching Pronunciation Cambridge, Cambridge University Press Chun, D (1994) Using computer networking to facilitate the 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