An action research on the use of continuous feedback to improve the first year students' pronunciation at the english department, college of foreign languages, vietnam national university, hanoi part 2

An action research on the use of continuous feedback to improve the first year students' pronunciation at the english department, college of foreign languages, vietnam national university, hanoi

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION1.1 Rationale

The trend of globalization in every field all over the world has given foreign languages ingeneral and English in particular a greater role than ever before As English is largelyused in international settings, the ability to communicate in real-life situations is veryimportant Therefore, speaking plays an essential role because without it, communicationcannot take place directly between people

Dealing with how to improve speaking skills, learners face the problem of pronunciation.A consideration number of learners’ pronunciation errors and how they inhibit successfulcommunication is a good reason for the justification of why it is important to teachpronunciation to learners

There is a great number of books relating to the teaching of English pronunciation, mostof which refer to specific exercises to help students achieve better pronunciation.However, in my experience as a teacher of English for three years, I have witnessed manycases in which students are able to do pronunciation exercises, but fail to have properpronunciation in their real-life speaking Thus, a good mark in doing pronunciationexercises in written form does not accompany good pronunciation.

In my opinion, the problem lies in the fact that students do not receive adequate feedbackfrom the teacher on their pronunciation performance Some students even do not knowhow to form certain sounds in English Therefore, it is impossible for them to havegenuine production of sounds and sentences Despite this, little can be done about this dueto a vast number of factors, the most serious of which is the high student-teacher ratio inVietnamese universities, which is about 25 to one (at universities in which English is amajor) The teachers hardly have enough time to pay attention and give correction toevery student’ speaking performance in general and pronunciation in particular As aresult, students are unable to identify their weak aspects

All of these motivated me to conduct an action research on the use of continuousfeedback with the aim at improving the first year students’ English pronunciation.

1.2 Statement of the problem

As a teacher at the English Department, College of Foreign Languages, Hanoi NationalUniversity, I have realized the fact that the first-year students have a lot of problemsconcerning their pronunciation It is true that they speak English in all English classes(twelve periods a week) and teachers are alert to help them with their pronunciationproblems However, after a year of learning, their pronunciation doesn’t seem to improvemuch, not to mention the fact that their frequent mistakes are maintained as the first daythey enter the university This reflects the fact that the present teaching and learning ofEnglish pronunciation is not very effective

As O’Connor (2002) stated, “clear, concise feedback matched to standards will promotestudent achievement”, feedback plays a very important role in the teaching of any foreignlanguage skill because without it, students would have a vague picture of what they arereally weak at and what they need to improve As for pronunciation, feedback is evenmore important This is because only when students are adequately informed about theirparticular pronunciation problems, and helped to make genuine sounds before moving onthe more complex issues of pronunciation such as intonation or elision, can they focusmore on what their personal problems are and invest more time and effort to improvethem

Generally, learners of English are required to have intelligible pronunciation However,for students at the English Department, College of Foreign Languages, Hanoi NationalUniversity, the aim of English pronunciation cannot be limited to that point It is obviousthat most of these students are becoming teachers of English in the future Therefore, theirEnglish pronunciation must go far beyond the “accepted level”, as they are going to teachEnglish for the coming generations of the country After finishing the four-year

curriculum, it is expected that their pronunciation would be native-like or near native-like.

Therefore, it is essential that the issue of English pronunciation must be raised at the veryfirst time the students enter the college These first year students should be taught how toachieve relatively correct pronunciation, regarding certain aspects of it This is to lay afoundation for better pronunciation competence in the next three years In addition, ifstudents are not provided with adequate feedback on their pronunciation, the mistakesthey make may be fossilized and it will take a very long time to correct them later

Those are the main reasons why I would like to propose An Action Research on the Useof Continuous Feedback to Improve the First Year Students’ English Pronunciation at theEnglish Department, College of Foreign Languages, Vietnam National University, Hanoi

to be the topic of my thesis

1.3 Purposes of the study

This research was designed to improve the students’ pronunciation performance by usingcontinuous feedback Generally, it has three purposes:

- To find possible explanations for the weak pronunciation competence of the students- To investigate pronunciation problems among first year students of English at theEnglish Department, College of Foreign Languages, Vietnam National University,Hanoi However, due to the limitation of time, the researcher only focused on Englishconsonant sounds

- To justify the effect of continuous feedback on students’ pronunciation.

1.4 Research questions

With the above purposes, the research questions are:

1 What are the possible reasons that lead to students’ weak pronunciation of English?2 What are the students’ most common problems regarding English consonant sounds? 3 Can continuous feedback improve students’ English pronunciation? If yes, to whatextend?

1.5 Scope of the study

The research was conducted on the first year students at the English Department of CFL,VNU Regarding its scope, the research was only aimed at justifying the effect ofcontinuous feedback on the students’ pronunciation of English consonant sounds Otheraspects of English pronunciation would not be investigated Even though the researchermade use of speaking tests as an important instrument for the research, only issuesconcerning the students’ pronunciation of consonant sounds were taken intoconsideration.

1.7 Significance of the study

Even though pronunciation is troublesome for most English learners, it is surprising thatthere is not much investigation into this problem This research provides an insight intothe common pronunciation problems that most of the Vietnamese students who arestudying English as their major encounter regarding English consonant sounds Inaddition, it suggests a new way which is very learner-centered to help students improvetheir pronunciation The results of the research will be, therefore, much beneficial to bothteachers and students of English.

1.8 Design of the study

The study is divided into five chapters as follows:

Chapter one presents an overview of the study in which the rationale for the research,

the research problem, the purposes, the research questions, the scope of the study, theresearch method, the significance of the study, as well as the design of the study werebriefly presented.

Chapter two reviews the literature relevant to the study, including the definition of

feedback, as well as an overview on the techniques that have been common used to teachpronunciation These lay the foundation for the choice of the medium for the research.More specifically, it presents a number of research in which feedback has been used tohelp students make improvement in their language study.

Chapter three is a detailed discussion of the method used in the study This chapter

presents a thorough justification for the use of continuous feedback and action research Italso gives a thorough description of the research’s components, as well as the researchprogram.

Chapter four presents the findings of the study This part is apparently important

because it justifies the effectiveness of the research

Chapter five discusses the findings of the study, provides pedagogical implications, as

well as presents limitations of the research It also makes recommendations for furtherresearch in the same field

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW2.1 Pronunciation teaching and learning

2.1.1 The importance of teaching and learning pronunciation

According to Kelly (2000: 11), it is vital for a language learner to have goodpronunciation of that language However, pronunciation competence does not go with themastery of grammar rules or a good lexis command Some learners may have alreadyacquired a considerable amount of grammar and vocabulary, but still fail to communicateeffectively due to their weak pronunciation A learner who mispronounces a variety ofwords would cause great difficulties for a speaker of that language to understand, which isa frustrating experience Therefore, it can be concluded that pronunciation plays a vitalrole in learner’s speaking ability Only when a learner is competent in pronunciation canhis speaking skills are acclaimed

In addition to that, bad pronunciation inevitably has negative effect on the learner’slistening ability When a learner has already been accustomed to the wrong way ofpronouncing particular language sounds and utterances, it is unlikely that s/he will be ableto recognize the authentic pronunciation by native speakers There are many cases inwhich learners are asked to listen to a familiar expression by native speakers with the useof mainly common words However, they fail to interpret it because they find itspronunciation totally different from the way they are used to speaking or listening in theirdaily communication As a result, they cannot understand what the speakers mean Moreover, it is obvious that good pronunciation serves as a strong motivation forlanguage learners Most language learners show considerable enthusiasm forpronunciation as they consider it a good way to show that they are competent of thelanguage Once they have obtained adequate pronunciation competence, they graduallybuild up strong confidence for themselves and are ready to learn new things withouthesitation

2.1.2 Approaches and methods in pronunciation teaching

The history and scope of pronunciation teaching are revised in Teaching Pronunciation(Celce-Murcia M, et al, 1996: 2) According to the authors, there are two general

approaches to the teaching of pronunciation in the modern times, namely imitative approach and analytic-linguistic approach

intuitive-An intuitive-imitative approach depends on “the learners’ ability to listen to and imitate

the rhythms and sounds of the target language without the intervention of any explicitinformation.” This means the teaching of pronunciation depends largely on the teacher’sturning on and rewinding a cassette player (or any other instrument), and the mainactivities in the class are listening and repeating Of course, in order to do this, there mustbe the supply of authentic materials as well as recording devices to use during the lesson.The teacher has no responsibility to explain how sounds are formed or produced Learnersdo their main task of listening and imitating, and it is expected that they will graduallygain pronunciation competence.

An analytic-linguistic approach “utilizes information and tools such as a phonetic

alphabet, articulatory descriptions, charts of the vocal apparatus and other aids tosupplement listening, imitation, and production.” In this approach, learners are givenexplanation as well as training on how to form particular sounds of the target language.This approach is actually a further development of the first approach rather than toreplace it because is still makes great use of authentic materials, as well as listening andimitating phases during the lessons

Regarding methods of language teaching in general and their philosophy of pronunciationteaching in particular, it can be seen clearly that each method puts a different weight onpronunciation, and therefore, treats pronunciation differently.

Some methods, such as Grammar Translation or Reading-based approaches, give no

acknowledge to pronunciation The teacher use learners’ native language to teachgrammar or text comprehension Thus, little attention is given to speaking, and almostnone to pronunciation

However, most methods give a genuine concern for the teaching of pronunciation Theappearance of a method often brings about new approaches towards the teaching ofparticular issues, most of which are affected by the time they come into being

In Direct Method, which first became popular in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the

teacher provides learners with a model for native-like speech This can either be theteacher himself or a recording By listening and then imitating the model excessively,

learners gradually develop their pronunciation Some successors to this method are called

naturalistic methods, which mean methods that devote a period of learning solely to

listening before speaking is allowed Linguists following this method believe that whenlearners are asked to listen without having to worry about speaking, they are better atrecognizing the sounds because they are under less pressure Thus, it is likely that theywill be able to produce correct sounds even without receiving explicit pronunciationinstruction

Other methods, namely Audiolingualism in the US and the Oral Approach in Britain

during the 1940s and 1950s have another way to treat pronunciation In the class,pronunciation is very important and is taught explicitly from the start The teacher (or arecording) models a sound, or an utterance and students are asked to repeat it The

difference between Audiolingualism and Direct Method lies in the feature that inAudiolingualism class, beside the model, the teacher also takes advantage of a number of

teaching aids such as phonetic description, or the transcription system The most common

technique that is used to teach pronunciation is the minimal pair drills Learners are asked

to distinguish between two different sounds that might sound similar by listening to theteacher or a tape recorder This listening discrimination is followed by oral practice

During the 1970s, the Silent Way came to public attention In classes applying this

method, accurate pronunciation is a focus from the very beginning The teacher speaks aslittle as possible, but takes advantage of gestures to indicate what the students should do.S/he can do this with the aid of a number of tools such as a sound-colour chart, the Fidelcharts, word charts, and colored rods

Another method that also came into being during the 1970s was the CommunityLanguage Learning (CLL) This is a method which focuses much on the learners rather

than the teacher or teaching curriculum A tape recorder is an indispensable tool in thisclass Students sit round a table, and then ask the teacher to translate any utterances theywish to be able to speak in the target language The teacher then provides students withthe phrase they need orally After some time of practicing its pronunciation, whenstudents can produce the whole utterance fluently, it is recorded on the tape After that,the tape is played back and the students are able to compare their pronunciation with thetarget one provided by the teacher It is the students who decide what particular utterances

they would like to be trained pronunciation The teacher is regarded as a “computer”turning on and off at the students’ request

Today, the dominant teaching approach has been the Communicative Approach Under

this approach, the main objective of language is communication Therefore, students arenot required to have a native-like pronunciation, but intelligible one This is a kind of“accepted pronunciation”, which means students may make some mistakes provided thosemistakes do not affect negatively on the comprehension of the listeners or causemisunderstanding.

How can learners achieve good pronunciation? This has been done by a number oftechniques with the aids of both traditional and modern materials, either authentic or non-authentic

2.1.3 Research into the techniques used in teaching pronunciation

To date, teachers make use of a great deal of techniques to teach pronunciation.Pronunciation may be taught in isolation or in combination with language skills oflistening, reading, speaking and writing We would like to mention some common

techniques proposed by Celce, et al (1996: 8) and Kelly (2000: 16).

* Listen and imitate: The pronunciation of the target language is provided by the teacher

or tape recorders, language labs, etc Students are to listen to a sequence of sounds orsentences and repeat it This not only helps students achieve better pronunciation, butremember new items more easily as well

This technique usually takes two forms, which are either all-class or individual (Kelly,2000: 16) These two forms are actually the two phases of the same technique Normally,at first, the whole class repeats after certain sounds and phrases After a certain amount ofclass-drilling, individual student take turns and pronounce those items on his/her own

* Phonetic training: This technique makes use of articulatory descriptions, articulatory

diagrams and a phonetic alphabet Learners are provided with basic theoretical knowledgeabout how sounds are formed They are also aided by the teacher to make genuine soundproduction However, this kind of technique is not supposed to teach to too younglearners as it is unlikely that they are able to comprehend such a complicated matter.

* Minimal pair drills: These relate to words which differ by only one phoneme.

Normally, learners are allowed to listen to the tape and distinguish between the twosounds This type of activities is particularly useful to teach sounds which causedifficulties for learners or sounds that are easily mismatched After listening, learners areasked to produce the sounds themselves

* Contextualized minimal pairs: When minimal pair drills seem a bit boring and too

theoretical with separated sounds, their contextualization compensates for this weakness.The sentence stem serves as a basis for students to produce appropriate responses withcorrect pronunciation When words are put in sentences, it seems to be more useful thanthe vague minimal pairs because it is more practical

* Tongue twisters: When other techniques look serious and sometimes put learners under

much pressure, tongue twisters provide a more delighting way to learn pronunciation.Sounds which are difficult to differentiate are put together to make meaningful sentences.This technique rooted from speech correction strategies for native speakers One of themost typical examples for this technique is the sentence, “She sells seashells by theseashore.”

* Practice of vowel shifts and stress shifts related by affixation: This is a useful

technique in which students are taught how stress and vowel shift by affixation Manylearners have the habit of pronounce a new-formed word according to the pronunciation

of the root one For example, they tend to pronounce the sounds of Exhibition like thesound of Exhibit With the help of the teacher, learners are more aware of some rules for

shifting stress and vowels, as well as are more aware that they should check first beforemaking any generalization relating to word formation’s pronunciation

* Reading aloud/recitation: Students are provided with a passage or scripts and then read

aloud, focusing on stress, timing and intonation This activity is often done with textssuch as poems, rhymes, song lyrics, etc It is true that reading aloud is not popular inEnglish class today, due to the fact that it can have negative effect on students’pronunciation The spelling of words can affect pronunciation adversely However,according to Kelly (2000: 22), reading aloud provides a good chance for students torealize the linking between spelling and pronunciation Moreover, it provides a vividexample of how stress and intonation are related, as well as the importance of linkingsounds between words in connected speech

* Recordings of learners’ production: Students are asked to record their reading over a

passage or their spontaneous speech in a tape recorder Then, the tape is played back sothat the students can get feedback from the teacher and have self-evaluation This activityis time consuming However, it gives a true reflection of how learners are makingprogress in their pronunciation The learners’ mistakes can be easily identified, so thatlearners know what aspects of pronunciation to focus for improvement

2.2 Problems in pronunciation teaching

Inevitably, when teaching pronunciation to students, teachers have to encounter a lot ofproblems These may not only come from the nature of pronunciation itself, but fromvarious subjective and objective factors In the following part, we exploit some importantissues that teachers have to pay attention to when teaching pronunciation

2.2.1 Aspects of pronunciation

The question of “What is pronunciation?” has been answered by a number of differentdefinitions Generally speaking, pronunciation is simply defined as “the way in which alanguage is spoken” (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Encyclopedic, 1992: 718) Accordingto Jones (1998:5), pronunciation is “the way in which people pronounce words.”

Pronunciation is a complicated concept that involves many aspects Generally, it can bebroken into the following components:

1/ Vowel sounds and consonant sounds

The word vowel comes from the Latin word vocalis, meaning "uttering voice" or

"speaking" Vowels usually form the peak or nucleus of a syllable, whereas consonantsform the onset and coda Vowels can be defined as “sounds in the production of whichthere is no obstruction to the flow of air as it passes the larynx to the lips” (Roach,2000:10) According to Roach (1998), vowels can be classified in terms of:

(1) The height of the bulk of the tongue in the mouth(2) The front/back position of the tongue in the mouth(3) The degree of lip-rounding

(4) The length of vowels

(Roach, 1998: 13-14)

As for consonant sounds, Roach (2000:10) defined them as “sounds in which there isobstruction to the flow of air as it passes the larynx to the lips.” As consonant soundswere the main issue of this research, we would like to propose the classification ofEnglish consonant sounds in Table 1 below.

Table 1: English consonant soundsBilabial Labio

+ g- k

- s

+ ʒ- ∫

2/ Word stress and sentence rhythm

According to Randolph Quirk and Sidney Greenbaun (1973: 450), stress is theprominence with which one part of a word or of a longer utterance is distinguished from

other parts For example, the word Domination‘s stress is on the third syllables, whereasthe word Where and been can be considered to be the stressed words in the question:Where have you been?

Rhythm is the pattern formed by the stresses perceived as peaks of prominence or beats,occurring at somewhat regular intervals of time, the recurring beats being regarded ascompleting a cycle or “measure” It is characterized by the alternation of strong and weaksyllables Kenworthy (1987: 30) claimed that rhythm is a product of word stress and theway in which important items are foregrounded through their occurrence on a strong beat,and unimportant items are backgrounded by their occurrence on a weak beat English is a

language with a tendency for “stress-timed” rhythm Therefore, when speaking English,the time interval between the peaks of an utterance is normally the same For example, therhythm of the sentence “What did you do at school today?” can be marked like this:

‘What did you ‘do at ‘school to’day?

3/ Intonation

Intonation is an important part that most teachers have to deal with when teachingconnected speech According to Kelly (2000: 86), intonation refers to the way the voicegoes up and down in pitch when we are speaking It plays a vital role in helping peopleexpress their opinions, as well as understanding thoughts of others Intonation is such asensitive issue that it involves practice rather than theory Therefore, it is alwaysnecessary to have a certain context to decide what words to stress and how to raise aspecific part of an utterance Learners have to be made fully aware of the fact that despitehow correct their grammar is, their wrong intonation may cause misinterpretation to thelisteners In addition, one sentence’s meaning can be altered by different types ofintonation a speaker uses Thus, learners should be taught how to achieve sensibleintonation so as not to let it interfere with the meaning of what they really want to say However, it is not an easy task to teach intonation to learners as it is largely affected by anumber of factors, among which one of the most important factors is the learners’competence of language If a learner is unable to find an appropriate word in time due tohis lack of vocabulary, then he cannot have a smooth intonation This results from the factthat he will have to spend a certain amount of time to think of a particular word

4/ Other aspects of connected speech

The master of pronouncing English sounds is not enough to achieve good pronunciationas it is a complicated issue Apart from the individual sounds, learners have to becompetent on the use of intonation and a vast number of other aspects relating toconnected speech If English is spoken in a very careful and slow way, such as whendelivering a speech, or having a lecture, these aspects do not appear much They are mostused in casual and rapid, everyday speech That is the reason why it is much moredifficult to teach learners these aspects in the class, where the environment for listening toauthentic communication is limited

* Assimilation

Kelly (2000) defines assimilation as the modification of sounds on each other when they

meet, usually across word boundaries, but can also within words Assimilation is said tobe progressive when a sound influences a following sound, or regressive when a soundinfluences one which precedes it In other words, this means in the preparation steps forpronouncing a coming sound, the previous sound is often altered It is not pronounced infull, but only partly That is the reason why as stated before, assimilation does not receiveattention in careful speech, when utterances are spoken at a very slow speed.

* Elision

The term elision means “the disappearance of a sound” (Kelly, 2000: 110) This

phenomenon, once again, usually refers to rapid speech rather than careful one In sayingan utterance, some sounds are deleted due to the fast speed and also due to the economyof effort, when people do not want to try hard in pronouncing every single sound Inaddition, it would be impossible to maintain a regular rhythm and speed if speakers are toput certain consonant sounds together

* Linking and intrusion

Normally, when a word is finished with a consonant and is followed by another wordwith a preceding vowel, the final consonant of the first word will join with the first vowelof the second one

Example 1: You must be quiet and mysterious (no linking)

Example 2: You must end telephone conversation first (linking between /t/ and /e/:

2.2.2 Class setting

Class setting poses lots of problems relating to pronunciation teaching Firstly, the classsize is often too big for the teaching of pronunciation Even in universities of foreignlanguages, the number of students in one class is normally from 22-27 With such a highstudent-teacher ratio, it is almost impossible to make sure that students are having properpronunciation in speaking class, whereas pronunciation is not paid much attention inwriting, reading or listening lessons

Besides, the quality of the teaching staff is also a big problem Most teachers of Englishare non-native speakers, and few of them can have a native-like pronunciation As a

result, the language input that students receive every day is from non-native people.Therefore, it is impossible to require students to achieve perfect pronunciation when eventhe teachers are not perfect speakers

2.2.3 What pronunciation model to teach?

We cannot judge students’ pronunciation without regarding the model of pronunciationthat we apply during the teaching process

According to Kelly (2000), in the past, the model for teaching English pronunciation wasusually Received Pronunciation (RP), which is the pronunciation of people in thesoutheast England Whereas other kinds of accent usually say something about thegeographical regions, RP is different in the way that it is perceived as the accent thatshows a person’s status and education

However, today, there are a vast number of English, such as American English,Australian English, etc They are also employed in all fields of life Even within countrieswhere English is the native language, it has a great number of variables Take the UK, forexample, people in the North and in the South have different accents

Thus, it is vital to decide what model of English pronunciation to teach, and for whatreasons the teacher makes such a decision However, the truth is that the teacher himselfis often unable to produce a “perfect” accent without being affected by his own language.Some teachers may modify their accents, but actually this can only be to some certainextend Another troublesome problem is that one student is taught by many teachers, withdifferent accent In addition, each student may have his/her own preference due to someinner motivation Some of them may want to study Australian English because they wishto study further in Australia, for example Therefore, it is virtually impossible to statewhat is the “correct accent”, what is not Normally, the teacher would allow the studentsto choose whatever accent they want to develop, provided that it is widelycomprehensible The teacher should teach the accent that they can use the best, andadequately inform students about the existence of other varieties

2.2.4 Intelligibility

Apart from identifying clearly the kind of pronunciation that will by employed and taughtto students, another important issue that needs raising is the question of the pronunciationgoal, i.e the level of pronunciation required from the learners Locke and Latham (1990)

claims that human action is caused by purposes, and goals have to be set and pursued bychoice so as for the action to take place Without a clear goal in mind, people do not knowwhat to work for Another important issue relating to goals is that goals should beattainable, but not easy to achieve This means approaching a goal must be a difficultprocess, so that people have to try hard However, if it is an impossible goal, they willgradually lose motivation and do not want to continue the pursuit

As stated before, it is virtually impossible to require students to have a “perfect Englishpronunciation”, because this seems to be also impossible even for the teachers.Furthermore, what is considered to be “perfect” is of much controversy Therefore, theaim of pronunciation cannot be the “perfect” one With the prevalence of thecommunicative language teaching approach, whose target is communication, the most

common goal for learners’ pronunciation is Intelligibility.

Kenworthy (1987: 13) defines intelligibility as “being understood by a listener at a giventime in a given situation” In other words, although the foreign speaker doesn’t makeprecisely the same sound or use the exact feature of linking or stress, it is possible for thelistener to match the sound heard with the sound (or feature) a native speaker would usewithout to much difficulty Therefore, the matter is “counts of sameness”

However, pronunciation intelligibility is affected by a number of factors It is actuallyaffected by other aspects of speech For example, if a person is not confident about whathe is saying and has lots of hesitation, the utterances he produces will not be easy to beperceived, not to mention the fact that he won’t be able to achieve sensible intonation Besides, familiarity with the speakers’ accent also affects the listener This is the reasonwhy Vietnamese teachers of English may find it easier to comprehend what Vietnameselearners say than the other speakers of English It is also likely that learners will find itless difficult to listen to people from their country speak a foreign language, rather thanthose from other countries For example, a Vietnamese learner will find listening toVietnamese people speaking English much easier than Italian people speaking English

2.3 Research into factors that affect pronunciation learning

A vast number of researches have been carried out to find out and justify factors that may

affect students’ pronunciation These are briefly summarized in Teaching EnglishPronunciation by Joanne Kenworthy (1987)

1/ The native language

It is inevitable that learners’ native language has a great impact on their ability ofpronouncing English The “foreign accent” is therefore easy to identify Even in somecases, it is possible to identify what country and what region a speaker comes from basedon his/her way of pronouncing English Furthermore, the native language may causedifficulties, as well as advantages for learners Take Vietnamese learners, for example,learning English may be easier than learning Chinese, because of the fact that bothEnglish and Vietnamese are Latin ones, whereas Chinese is a hieroglyphic language.However, some English sounds do not exist in Vietnamese such as /ʒ/, /∫/, /θ/, /ð/.Therefore, many Vietnamese learners are unable to produce those sounds correctly

2/ The age factor

It is often assumed that the younger a person starts learning foreign languages, the betterhe is at pronouncing it and therefore, a greater chance of having a native-like accent.Oyama (1976) conducted a research whose subjects were sixty male Italian-bornimmigrants They were tape-recorded reading aloud a short paragraph and telling a storyabout a frightening episode in their lives (completely unprepared or rehearsed) Theirpronunciation was judged by two experts based on a five point scale, ranging from “noforeign accent” to “heavy foreign accent” The results showed that the younger a personwas when he started learning English, the more native-like was his accent

Nevertheless, other researches showed opposite results Snow and Hoefnagel-Hohle(1975) conducted a research which had two parts The first part was a laboratory study inwhich 136 subjects (British English people who were learning Dutch as a secondlanguage in Holland) were asked to listen and imitate five Dutch words The resultsshowed that the two oldest groups of learners (eight 17-year-olds and seven 21-31-year-olds) had the highest achievement, whereas the youngest groups had the lowest scores(ten 5-year-olds and ten 6-year-olds) The second part was a long-term study in which thesubjects were tested in much the same way at intervals during their first year of studyingDutch This time, at first, older learners seemed to get better results However, after fourto five months, there seemed to be no significant age difference among the results ofthose subjects

Therefore, we can come to a conclusion that there is no trusted evidence relating to therelationship between age and a person’s ability to pronounce a new language Even if theage factor is a problem, nothing can be done for the learners It is the learners’ choicewhen to start learning a foreign language and therefore, virtually impossible for teachersto interfere

3/ Amount of exposure

People who live in the country where the target language is spoken and is surrounded byan English-speaking environment may have some advantages over some who do not.However, it is difficult to measure the exact amount of exposure to English Some mayuse English at work, but use their own language at home Some may live in the UK, butwork for companies from other countries Even if these people use English everyday, it isnot an easy task to measure the length of time they use English, and it is even morecomplicated to decide what kind of English it is It may be business English, or justinformal English in the market Furthermore, exposure is not the only important factor,but the way people take advantage to listen to and use English is also essential Therefore,there is still no clear evidence that an English-speaking country is a necessary factor for aforeigner to have good English pronunciation

4/ Phonetic ability

Researches have shown that some people naturally have a “better ear” for foreignlanguages than others They may benefit most from exercises such as imitating, drilling,or distinguishing sounds Others may have more problems and find it difficult to be ableto realize specific sounds However, this is an innate matter, which means the teacher cando nothing about it All the teacher should do is to provide a variety of exercises so thatall learners can benefit.

5/ Attitude and identity

Results from many studies have shown that learners who have a positive attitude towardsspeakers of a foreign language tend to have a more native-like pronunciation This is dueto the fact that when people like something, they are more likely to pay more attention toit That brings benefits to learners who are really interested in not only the language, butalso in the people and the culture of that language as well In this case, the teacher mayincrease the learners’ positive attitude towards the foreign language by providing vivid

information about that language’s culture, or making use of authentic materials to makethe lessons more interesting

6/ Motivation and concern for good pronunciation

It is essential that in order to learn a language in general, and pronunciation in particular,motivation plays a vital role If learners really care much about their pronunciation, theywill become more careful with their speaking, and gradually build up good pronunciationcompetence Moreover, it is the truth that many students have great concern for theirpronunciation They always seek for feedback from the teacher on how they speak.Sometimes, it is the fact that they feel unable to pronounce a word correctly that inhibitsthem from the desire to speak any more

7/ The teacher’s role

In teaching pronunciation, the teacher is expected to play an important role in guiding andhelping learners According to Kenworthy (1987: 1), the teacher has to perform thefollowing roles:

* Helping learners hear: The teacher has a mission to provide appropriate input of the

target sounds for learners to hear If such a provision is not available, learners are likely tohave misconceptions about the target language and perceive the sounds in a wrong way.Thus, they will be unable to produce genuine sounds and utterances

* Helping learners make sounds: It is true that some English sounds do not exist in the

learners’ mother tongue Some learners may be able to imitate the target sounds if theyare provided models However, for those who lack such ability, it is the teacher’s task toexplain the way those difficult sounds are made and provide aid to help learners producecorrect sounds.

* Providing feedback: Like any other aspect of teaching, feedback is very important in the

sense that it helps learners know where they are standing, how much they have gainedand what they need to improve As for pronunciation, this is of vital importance becausein many cases, learners may make overgeneralization about the way English ispronounced based on the way English words are spelt Besides, learners may be unawarethat they are persistently making the same pronunciation mistakes The teacher must,therefore, provide necessary and appropriate feedback to learners

* Pointing out what is going on: In many cases, learners fail to realize what and how they

are speaking As speaking is for the most part unconsciously controlled, learners maysometimes make mistakes in the way they produce a particular sequence of sounds, or putstress in an incorrect place, leading to misunderstanding It is the teacher’s role to specifythe area that learners have to pay attention to so as not to cause miscomprehension.

* Establishing priorities: Native-like pronunciation is not easy to achieve Therefore,

learners need a guide to tell them about what aspects they should master, what aspectsthey do not have to be “perfect” Inevitably, when learning a foreign language, it is idealif learners master every aspect of it However, as this is somehow unrealistic, learnersshould learn to satisfy at an accepted level of those aspects which are not vital The levelat which learners can feel satisfied with depends on different situation for differentindividuals

* Devising activities: Teaching pronunciation is not an easy task Therefore, the teacher

must be able to identify what exercises will benefit learners most, what types of activitieswill engage the most learners in the class In devising them, however, it should be kept inmind that certain activities are more suitable to some students than others.

* Assessing progress: This is actually a form of feedback, but more official and has more

weight Learners need to know at what level they are in pronunciation Tests allocated atappropriate times will serve as a strong motivation for students When they look at theirmarks, they have a clear sense of how much they have gained Judging learners’pronunciation performance is very complicated However, this should be doneaccordingly

2.4 Research into the use of feedbacks and learners’ improvement

Feedback plays an essential role in any language learning and teaching environment.Without proper feedback from the teacher, learners would be at a loss of specifying theirown position in the process of studying a foreign language Davies (2000) stated that“Specific, descriptive feedback that focuses on success and points the way toimprovement has a positive effect.” He also pointed out that the purpose of providingfeedback is to “provide opportunities for the learner to make adjustments andimprovements toward mastery of a specified standard.”

A further investigation finds out that there are some kinds of feedback, also specified in

the dictionary, namely auditory feedback, delayed auditory feedback and kinestheticfeedback As for the purpose of the research, for the sake of improving the students’

pronunciation, we would like to present the first two ones

When a person speaks, they can hear what they are saying, and can use this information tomonitor their speech and to correct any mistakes This is called auditory feedback This means this is a type of feedback that comes from the learners themselves, or we maycall self-feedback It is particularly common in speaking When students make somemistakes, they discover it immediately after they speak Then, they provide correctionimmediately This type of feedback does not involve the role of the teacher For example,one student says:

“I would like a room for two nights /laits/.”

She may discover that she has mispronounced night right at the time she speaks.

Then, she can continue to say “I mean nights /naits/”

Another type of feedback which we find particularly effective in the teaching and learning

of pronunciation is delayed auditory feedback This is “a technique which shows how

speakers depend on auditory feedback (i.e hearing what have just said) when speaking Instudies of delayed auditory feedback, speakers wear earphones through which they hearwhat they have said, but after a short delay The effect of this on speakers is that it is verydifficult for them to speak normally.” It is commonly observed that students find itdifficult to identify the mistakes made by themselves It is the fact that we seem todiscover mistakes made by other people rather than those made by our own For example,in peer-checking lesson in a writing class, some students are very good at pointing out the

mistakes made by their partners when they edit their partners’ writing versions However,they themselves may make the same mistakes in their own writing drafts

This problem gets worse with speaking skill in general and pronunciation in particular Ifone student makes mistakes in a writing draft, when the teacher or another student pointsthem out, that student will be able to identify them immediately However, it is totallydifferent for speaking When a student is making a presentation, for example, s/he seemsto focus more on fluency (i.e the ability to keep on speaking) rather than accuracy Ittakes students time to think of what they are going to say Finding words and phrases toexpress their thoughts is already a difficult task, so they may spend little time thinking ofhow precisely those expressions are used Therefore, they may make a lot ofpronunciation mistakes However, if there is no recorder to show how the students weregoing with their presentation, it is sometimes difficult to persuade them that they actuallymade those mistakes Thus, with the use of a recorder, it makes it easier for both teachersand students to identify mispronunciation This will be very effective in serving as abackground for further analysis, leading to further improvement

Another type of feedback which is widely used in almost any language classes for the

teaching of any language skills is corrective feedback It was defined by Lyster and Ranta

(1997) as “the provision of negative or positive evidence upon erroneous utterances,which encourages learners’ repair involving accuracy and precision, and not merelycomprehensibility.” This kind of feedback is mostly provided by the teachers and isnormally given right after the students make any mistakes, particularly in speaking.However, to minimize the risk of making students lose confidence and at a loss ofknowing what to say, some teachers may wait until the students have finished their speechto provide corrective feedback

Despite the inevitable importance of feedback, there have been very few researchesfocusing on the use of feedback to improve students’ performance Most of the researchesso far have been largely exploiting other aspects such as assessment or testing Feedbackseems to be ignored This may be explainable for two reasons First, feedback issomething that teachers do everyday It is the normal task of the teacher to providefeedback to his/her students Therefore, maybe it is such a familiar concept that manypeople think does not worth looking at The second reason may come from the fact thatfeedback is actually a very complicated concept Despite its clear and evident meaning,

there are various types of feedback, and the questions of which feedback types is the mostsuitable in a specific situation, or how should teachers provide feedback to students arenot easy to answer

2.4.2 Research into the use of corrective feedback

The term corrective feedback is considered by some researchers to be rooted from the

Output Hypothesis proposed by Swain (1985) When conducting a research in a classwhere school students learn French, she found out that despite the fact that the studentshardly encountered any difficulties in understanding the teacher’s instructions in French,their production often lacked accuracy Therefore, she came to a conclusion, which is theOutput Hypothesis, that “comprehensive input alone does not improve learners’ languageacquisition in terms of syntax,” and “the production of output in response to input isnecessary for further language development.” She also argued that modified output isnecessary for second language mastery Furthermore, modified output could result fromthe ample opportunities for output and the provision of useful and consistent feedbackfrom teachers and peers More specifically, modified output can be a form of learneruptake, or learner reaction to corrective feedback given to learners’ error Therefore,corrective feedback can be regarded as “a pedagogical means of offering modified inputto students, which could consequently lead to modified output by the students.”

Following this research, Long (1985) clarified the relationship between input, learner interaction and acquisition as follows:

teacher-(1) interactional modification makes input comprehensible(2) comprehensible input promotes acquisition

(3) interactional modification promotes acquisition

Another theory which served as a basic ground for the discussion of the significance ofusing corrective feedback was proposed by White (1987, 1989) She argued that if secondlanguage learners aim at achieving native-like proficiency, it is necessary that there mustbe a provision of negative evidence, which is information about what is ungrammatical.This is particularly essential when learners seem to over-generalize rules in their firstlanguage to produce the second language Therefore, it is of vital importance that learnersshould be pointed out what is wrong in their original utterances so as to build up betteroutput

A later issue that is worth looking into is the question of how error treatment should begiven, as well as whether learners’ errors should be corrected at all

Spada and Lightbown (1993) conducted an experimental research to justify the effect ofcorrective feedback in combination with form-focused instructional materials on ESLlearners whose native language was French Despite positive effects observed, there wasnot enough evidence to come to a conclusion whether error correction alone was effectivebecause in the experiment, it was provided together with intensive form-focusedinstruction

A significant research aiming at finding out the effectiveness of error correction alonewas done by DeKeyser (1993) He conducted an experimental research for over oneschool-year on Belgium high school students who learnt French as a second language.The research was designed to investigate whether error correction could improve thestudents’ grammatical use Simultaneously, DeKeyser collected data on the students’language learning aptitude, motivation and class anxiety The results of the research didnot reveal significant improvement in students’ grammar proficiency However, it didshow an association between error correction and learner variables, such as motivationand anxiety levels Thus, the researcher came to a conclusion that there may beinteraction between the effectiveness of corrective feedback and learner characteristics Apart from all of these, it is also of vital importance to look at the issue of how often and

to what degree learners perceive corrective feedback from the teacher Mackey et al.

(2000) made an interesting discovery after conducting a research over 17 non-nativespeakers According to the results, learners were more accurate in perceiving lexical,semantic and phonological feedback, but they were less accurate in perceivingmorphosyntactic one They also found that morphosyntactic errors were mostly receivedrecasts, whereas negotiation of form (elicitation, clarification request, repetition of theerror, and metalinguistic feedback) mostly occurred in response to phonological errors.Therefore, they pointed out that there was a relationship between learner errors’ types andfeedback types, and between feedback types and learner perception

From the literature review, we can see that despite the fact that feedback plays a vital rolein the learning of a second language, there is still not enough persuasive researchevidence to justify its effect on the students’ performance As for pronunciation, the effect

of feedback has not been adequately exploited This, once again, motivated us to carry outa research on it

CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY

In the following part, the researcher provides a detailed description of the research’smethodology Firstly, we present the argument for the choice of applying feedback toimprove students’ pronunciation and the justification for the use of an action research

3.1 Argument for the use of continuous feedback to improve first year students’English pronunciation

First and foremost, we would like to justify the reasons for our decision to use continuousfeedback to help first year students of English improve their pronunciation, although theliterature review shows that there is little research carried out in this field so far

3.1.1 A further analysis on factors that can help improve learners’ pronunciation

As can be seen clearly from the analysis of the factors that affect learners’ pronunciation(see 2.3), as well as the teacher’s role in helping learners achieve better pronunciation, thequestion that should be raised now is: “Which of those factors can teaching and traininghave impact on?” If an appropriate answer can be found, we can utilize them to helpstudents gain better pronunciation

When we examined the factors again, it is evident that some factors cannot be changed,

such as the age factor, the native language, and the phonetic ability of the students These

are the factors that no alternations can be made The teacher also seems unable to increase

the amount of exposure for learners due to the fact that English classes only take place

over a certain limit length of time in a day and in a week Moreover, the teacher cannot besure whether learners have a chance to use it outside the class, as well as whether they

want to do it or not As for learners’ attitude toward the foreign language, the teacher can

stimulate it by providing more authentic materials so as to raise learners’ love for it.However, this is often done only to some extend due to the fact that some learners maynot be interested in such provision In short, these factors are somehow out of theteacher’s control.

However, there is one factor that clearly can be improved so as to bring the most benefits

to learners, which are motivation and concern for good pronunciation According to

Kenworthy (1987), the teacher can do this in three ways Firstly, it is vital that learnersare persuaded how importance pronunciation is for good communication Secondly, it

must be clearly stated that “native-like” accent is not the pronunciation goal Learners canbe satisfied with the ability of pronouncing a language “intelligibly” with communicativeefficiency Lastly, the teacher has to show his great concern for learners’ pronunciationand their progress in it

From the researcher’s own experience, most students are very concerned about theirpronunciation This comes from the fact that they find themselves more confident whenthey are able to speak “like a native person” In addition, when they do not have to worryabout making mistakes when pronouncing English, they can concentrate on finding moreeffective ways to express their ideas However, despite this fact, students do not seem tospend adequate amount of time practising pronunciation Firstly, it is quite boring to listenand repeat certain sounds or certain phrases for a long time Moreover, it is difficult forstudents to find a person to check their pronunciation Sometimes they work in pairs witha partner, whose pronunciation is better than them The “better” student may be able topoint out the mistakes made by the “weaker” one However, if the student who is weak atpronunciation keep making the same mistakes, the other will soon get impatient Anothereffective way that students can do is to record their voice and listen to it again andunderline the mistake Nevertheless, this requires some technical assistance, like a tape-recording tool Some students cannot afford that In short, a contradiction is shownclearly On the one hand, students really want to improve their pronunciation On theother hand, they spend little time doing anything about it

As for the second point, in the researcher’s opinion, this is true only to some extend Weall know that English has become so popular that it has a lot of versions Beside“original” English like British English, American English, Australian English, there arevarieties such as Singaporean English, or even Vietnamese English For the sake ofcommunication, mistakes in pronunciation can be accepted provided that they do not leadto misunderstanding However, in many cases, learners need to go beyond the commonrequirement of the “accepted intelligibility” Some learners need mandate a high level ofintelligibility One group among those, as identified by Kenworthy (1987: 8), are teachersof English as a foreign language “who are not native speakers of English and who expectto serve as the major model and source of input in English for their students.” Therefore,for students at the English Department, CFL, VNU, the requirements must be muchhigher than in common practice This is because three quarters of the students are

expected to become teachers of English in the future, whereas the rest are likely tobecome interpreters Therefore, the pronunciation goal cannot be limited to“intelligibility”, it should be at least “near native-like” Only when the students achievethis goal can we have good teachers of English for the young generation of the country.That is the reason why these students must be made aware of the necessity to get a highlevel of English pronunciation right in their first year, so that they can have a “native like”or “near native-like” pronunciation by the end of the fourth year.

What we would like to focus on is the last way, which is the necessity for the teacher toshow his great concern for learners’ pronunciation and their progress in it It is expectedthat if the teacher continuously and consistently emphasizes on the need for goodpronunciation from learners, gradually the learners tend to develop a similar concern fortheir own pronunciation Once learners become more aware of their pronunciation, theywill pay more attention to it in their speech This certainly leads to pronunciationimprovement However, the question of how the teacher can show his concern for thestudents’ pronunciation is another troublesome issue

3.1.2 Current situation of teaching pronunciation at the English Department, CFL,VNU

In their first semester, first year students at the English Department have twelve periodsof English per week (two for listening, three for reading, three for writing, and four forspeaking and pronunciation) The pronunciation lesson is incorporated into speakinglesson and lasts one period, accounting for 45 minutes In each pronunciation lesson,students are given drilling practice on three or four pronunciation exercises taken from sixexercises designed for each unit The exercises are designed by a group a teachers at theEnglish Department and are based on the existence of certain words in certain units A lotof problems can be seen from this

Firstly, there is only one pronunciation period per week, accounting for 45 minutes Thus,only three or four exercises will be chosen to be corrected and practised among the sixones in the book due to the limitation of time This short length of time is obviously toolittle to be effective enough for students

Some may argue that the teaching of English pronunciation is carried out in all otherkinds of classes, namely listening, writing and reading This is because students still have

to talk during those classes, especially when those skills are taught in the light ofCommunicative Language Teaching This is true to some extend Obviously, students donot spend all their time in those classes listening, writing or reading The fact is that theteacher gives a lot of other tasks for them to do as warm-up and follow-up activities,many of which require students to talk In many cases, students are asked to work ingroups and then make a presentation on the topic that is being taught Therefore, it cannotbe denied that apart from pronunciation lesson, teachers have many opportunities toprovide feedback to students regarding their pronunciation

However, what actually happens is that in other types of classes, teachers give feedbackon the students’ pronunciation, but of a very limited scale Teachers often focus on thecontent of students’ product, rather than the accuracy of their pronunciation Thus,pronunciation receives little attention from the students

Besides, even in speaking classes, it is difficult for the teachers to devote much time forthe teaching of pronunciation due to some obvious negative factors.

First, class size is a big problem There are 22 to 25 students in one class When studentsare engaged in speaking activities such as group work and pair work, the teacher cannotpay attention to the pronunciation of every student What s/he can actually do is todiscover some most typical mistakes and may bring it before the class after the discussionhas finished However, this kind of feedback does not catch much attention of thestudents because it is surpassed by the feedback from the teacher on students’ ways ofdiscussing, or how to have a better discussion by taking turns and expressing theiropinions

The only time in speaking lessons when the teacher can actually give feedback tostudents’ performance individually is when they stand up and make a presentation.However, in one speaking lesson (accounting for 135 minutes), the maximum time forthis is normally only up to 45 minutes, which means feedback can only be provided tofive or six students in the class It is more troublesome due to the fact that this kind of“feedback on pronunciation” is unlikely to receive much attention from the studentsbecause it goes with other kinds of feedback relating to their presentation, such as theirpresentation skills (eye contact, posture, etc.), and the content of what they have said.Therefore, after that, students may forget all about it Then, students have to wait forabout four weeks before their turns come again.

Furthermore, a quick observation shows that students make a lot of pronunciationmistakes When students are asked to complete a pronunciation exercise in written form,they may do it perfectly well This may come from their knowledge about phonetics andthe relationship between spelling and pronunciation However, when students speak, theymispronounce many sounds Sometimes they even cannot have a proper pronunciation ofthe words in the exercise that they have done successfully in written form

Therefore, it is necessary that students are to provide proper training, especially in theinitial steps of their study At least, they must be taught how to pronounce certain soundscorrectly before moving on to more complicated issues like linking or intonation

3.1.3 The need for using feedback

Observation of the researcher shows that many students are unable to pronounce Englishsounds correctly At secondary schools, they were taught some common rules to apply sothat they can do the pronunciation exercise at the university exam well enough to pass it.However, they fail to have proper pronunciation of English Therefore, they need a personto show how badly they are at pronunciation, and more importantly, how to correct thosemistakes

When we talk about pronunciation, the type of feedback which is typically used by the

teacher is corrective feedback, because this relates to the accuracy of the students’

pronunciation This simply means that when students pronounce a word wrongly, theteacher should be willing to point it out and ask students to repeat again, or provide themwith the correct pronunciation of the word.

In this research, feedback was given both continuously and individually, both inside andoutside the language class A significant advantage of continuous feedback is that it isclosely related to the learning curriculum Feedback is provided for the students any timethey make a mistake In this research, it was provided during the whole pronunciationlesson of every week Apart from that, the researcher spent a great amount of timeworking with individual students Every two weeks, students were required to come toschool and attend a recording session, in which they were asked to record their voice overreading a particular passage The teacher audio recorded the students’ performance, letthem have a chance to listen to what they had read, and then asked if they had discovered

any mistakes made so far If the students were unable to identify the mistakes they hadmade, the teacher made them fully aware of it

This way, learners will feel that they are involved much in the teaching process.Furthermore, when feedback is given individually, this is beneficial to both the teacherand the students As for the teacher, she will have a better understanding of the realproblems that students are having This helps her design the pronunciation program so asto serve the students better As for the students, they have the feeling that they are reallytaken care by the teacher They will also feel more grateful for what the teacher does forthem Therefore, they have better motivation to try to achieve better pronunciation In short, after having a thorough investigation at the literature review, combined with theobservation of the current situation of teaching and learning English, we came to aconclusion that a significant amount of feedback provided to the students would helpthem a lot in improving their English pronunciation Then, we needed to decide what kindof research should be employed in the study

3.2 Rationale for the use of an action research

Teachers in general and teachers of English in particular actually carry out action researchfor most of their time Whenever s/he identifies a problem which is happening in theclass, it is his/her task to find ways to solve that problem Therefore, action research isinevitably a very common practice

As defined by Mills (2003: 4), action research is “any systematic inquiry conducted byteacher researchers to gather information about the ways that their particular schooloperates, how they teach, and how well their students learn The information is gatheredwith the goals of gaining insight, developing reflective practice, effecting positivechanges in the school environment and on educational practices in generals, andimproving student outcomes.” Kemmis and Mc Taggart (1988) identify threecharacteristics of an action research, which are: “carried out by practitioners”,“collaborative” and “aimed at changing things”.

A typical action research needs to go from one step to another Eileen Ferrance (2000)suggested an action research cycle as follows:

Figure 1: Action research cycle

According to her cycle, the first step of an action research is to identify the problem.Then, data must be collected through means of interviews, portfolios, questionnaires, etc.Next, the data is analyzed to find out problems The fourth step is to design a plan ofaction that will allow the researcher to make a change and to study that change After theintervention has been carried out, it is the researcher’s task to evaluate its effects in orderto justify whether the intervention worked or not Then, if it has not been very effectively,the researcher would have to consider another method so as to improve the situation Another researcher that has conducted a thorough investigation into action research,Nunan (1992), defines the framework of a research as consisting of seven steps:

 Step 1: Initiation (Identify the problem)

 Step 2: Preliminary investigation (Collect data through a variety of means) Step 3: Hypothesis (Develop research questions)

 Step 4: Intervention (Devise strategies and innovation to be implemented) Step 5: Evaluation (Collect data again and analyze it to work out the findings) Step 6: Dissemination (Report the result by running workshops or issuing a paper) Step 7: Follow-up (Find alternative methods to solve the same problem)

Action research is conducted widely due to its advantages that cannot be denied Whencomparing it with other kinds of research, we can see its advantages more clearly.

Table 2: Differences between Action Research and Formal Research

Training needed byresearcher

Extensive On own or with consultation

Goals of research Knowledge that isgeneralizable

Knowledge to apply to thelocal situation

Method of identifying theproblem to be studied

Review of previous research Problems or goals currentlyfaced

Procedure for literaturereview

Extensive, using primarysources

More cursory, usingsecondary sources

Sampling approach Representative sampling Students or clients withwhom they work.

Research design Rigorous control, long timeframe

Looser procedures, changeduring study; quick timeframe; control throughtriangulation

Measurement procedures Evaluate and pretestmeasures

Convenient measures orstandardized tests

Data analysis Statistical tests; qualitativetechniques

Focus on practical, notstatistical significance;present raw data

Application of results Emphasis on theoreticalsignificance

Emphasis on practicalsignificance

(http://mypage.iusb.edu/~gmetteta/Classroom_Action_Research.html#Differences)One of the most significant features of an action research is it is very situational, whichmeans it appears to provide specific solutions to specific problems in each context Whileother types of researches focus on experimenting or testing a pre-assumed theory orconcept, action research aims at “improving the situation” Therefore, it is very beneficialto the teaching and learning process

When thinking of choosing an appropriate methodology, the researcher, who is also ateacher, found out that action research is the best choice for the purpose of improving thestudents’ pronunciation

First of all, action research means “act upon research” It is impossible to assumepronunciation problems that students are having without having adequate amount ofobservation An action research enables the teacher to have a thorough investigation onthe pronunciation problems of students on a daily basis Thanks to this, the findingswould be up to date and mostly reliable The teacher can have a thorough look and is ableto work out a detailed analysis on the students’ performance during the progress of theresearch In short, an action research helps the teacher design a detailed program which ismost suitable to the class and therefore benefits students to the most This program will beconsulted for building up a more suitable pronunciation course for students who share thesame problems as the subjects of the research.

Secondly, in this action research, the data is taken from every student and treatedindividually Therefore, the teacher can see students’ progress easily S/he will be able toget the most up-to-date information and make sensible changes if necessary to theresearch while applying it to meet the demand of the students For pronunciation mistakesthat persist for a long time, the teacher can spend more time on it by giving more practicetime in class, as well as paying more attention when giving feedback to students.Performance of students is collected weekly, and any potential problems can be solved intime

Last but not least, by using an action research on the use of continuous feedback tostudents individually, the researcher gives the student a strong sense of themselves Thisis typically different from other types of research in which the teacher treats all thestudents in one class the same way In this case, data is carefully collected and analyzedfor each student When feedback is provided individually, each student can receive athorough care from the researcher The students’ awareness as well as their gratefulnessfor the teacher’s effort will serve as a strong motivation to make progress in theirpronunciation.

Despite the obvious advantages, the research has some shortcomings compared to othertypes of research, such as an experimental one It is sometimes claimed that actionresearch has limited application This comes from one of its typical characteristic, whichis situational This means the research program may work well in one class but cannot beapplied to other classes in different context If the same research is carried out in another

class, the result may not be effective as expected In other words, action research lacksgeneralization

However, the reality is that this action research is very applicable in a wide range ofclasses This is explainable by two reasons Firstly, students at the English Departmentwere sorted in different classes randomly There were no categories to classify them intodifferent classes, such as basing on their hometowns, or the marks acquired at theentrance university exam Therefore, each class consists of students coming from manyparts all over the country This also means students who learned in the same high schoolsmay be scattered over a number of classes at the department Therefore, they may havethe same pronunciation problems rooted from the same way of teaching method Inaddition, due to random sorting, it can be assumed that there is an equal division ofstudents’ level of English proficiency in different classes Obviously, there may be thepossibility that some classes may have more students whose English is better than others.However, this is the common practice in any language classes Therefore, it should not betreated as a major cause for the impossibility of generalization

3.3 Background of the study

3.3.1 Participants

The participants of the research were selected on the basis of cluster sampling Theresearcher, who is also a teacher, was in charge of teaching speaking and pronunciationfor first year students in group 07.E9, English Department, CFL, VNU during the firstsemester Naturally, they became ideal samples for the research

With the method of cluster sampling, the research ensures the variety of the students’background, which varies from one to another as the group was chosen by chance Thisalso enables for a wider range of application to other classes, which, to some extend,shorten the limitation of an action research

However, as the research was conducted during the first semester of the students’ firstyear, there were some problems relating to the consistency of the participants After thefirst two weeks of the first semester, a competition was held at the English Department toselect best students for the Fast-track group Some students in the experimented groupattended the competition, passed and then they moved to that group Thus, they were notable to attend the research program any more In turn, after some weeks, some new

students became members of the experimented group as a result of the redistribution ofthe students in the department These students could not be proper participants of theresearch program due to their lack of participation in the very initial steps of it Inaddition, as the program was conducted extensively during the first semester, with a lot ofextra-class time, in which students had to come to school to take part in audio recordingsessions even when they had no class at school, some students missed some sessions dueto their personal businesses Thus, their performance should not be treated as a trustedsource of information

Taken every factor into consideration so as to minimize the risk of invalidity and toensure that every single participant was treated under the same conditions of the research,the researcher reached the final number of 20 students whose performance would beappropriate data provider for the research They were the one who participated thoroughlyin the research from the beginning to the end In order not to make other students feelexcluded, the teacher still let them participate in the research program Nevertheless, theirperformance was not counted on to yield any comments or interpretation of the research Further observation, investigation and talks with the students revealed more informationabout them Most of the students are of the age 18-20 and many are from the countryside.When entering university, they faced many problems in life, not only in gettingacquaintance to a new lifestyle and living environment, but also with the new style ofstudying in university, which requires a great amount of self-study Therefore, theyneeded great help from the teachers

As for language competence, some of the students were from gifted English secondaryschools, but many were not The university exam comprised of three subjects, namelymathematics, literature and English, among which the mark for English was doubled Thisalso meant some students who got a low mark in English, but high marks in mathematicsand literature were still eligible to enter the university

In general, the students’ reading skill and grammar were quite good However, theirlistening, writing and speaking skill, including their English pronunciation were of alower level The good news was the students were willing and determined to improvethese weak skills.

3.3.2 The speaking and pronunciation programs

A semester at the English Department lasted 15 weeks Four periods per week(accounting for 180 minutes) was devoted to the teaching of speaking skills andpronunciation The pronunciation period was often the last period, which lasted for 45minutes As the tasks designed for the pronunciation period were closely related to thespeaking periods, we would like to present the content of both speaking andpronunciation programs.

* Objectives

The objectives of the speaking and pronunciation programs were stated clearly stated inthe course-outline of Division 1, English Department, CFL, VNU As for speaking, by theend of the semester, students would be able to:

- function in social and personal interactions with considerable confidence

- conduct a short discussion on common topics using proper verbal and non-verballanguage

- have built up basic skills of presentation

As for pronunciation, the course aims at building students’ pronunciation in a practicalway It was stated that, “By the end of the first semester, students will be able to haverelatively correct pronunciation of vowel sounds, difficult consonant sounds and endingsounds, so that the listeners can understand.”

* Materials:

The textbook that was used to teach speaking skills for first year students at the English

Department was Inside Out (Pre-Intermediate) As for pronunciation, the name of thecourse-book was Practise Your Pronunciation and Speaking Skills

Practise Your Pronunciation and Speaking Skills was designed by the teachers of

Division 1, English Department and had been used for teaching pronunciation for the pastthree years The pronunciation exercises in the book were designed in a practical way, in

which all the words are taken from the correlative units in Inside Out Each unit consists

of six pronunciation exercises, aiming at helping students familiarize and be able topronounce the words they have encountered in their speaking lessons.

* The pronunciation syllabus

All exercises of each unit in the pronunciation course-book must be done beforehand bythe students at home During the pronunciation class, three or four of the exercises,chosen by the teacher, would be corrected in the class The choice over what exercises to

correct in the class depended largely on the teacher, according to what aspects ofpronunciation s/he thought the students were weak at Normally, some students werecalled to do the exercises After the teacher gave feedback, the typical activity wasreading aloud, either individually or as a whole class after the teacher The teacher wasfree to choose any other extra class activity so as to make the lesson more interesting Atypical feature of this syllabus, which made it different from traditional pronunciationcourse, was that there was no pre-determined focus of each pronunciation lesson for eachweek The words that students were to practised were taken from another book based ontheir appearance

From week 11 to week 14, students were to do pronunciation assignments by groups of 5 They were to read a passage chosen by the teacher at home beforehand, record it, andthen bring to the class on the day of performance The students of the group would haveto analyze particular features of pronunciation they aimed at when reading the passage(normally suggested by the teacher), and make the whole class aware of those features Inother words, they played the role of the teacher in guiding the whole class through thelesson

4-* The speaking and pronunciation test

Tests of speaking skills and pronunciation were incorporated into one test delivered at the

end of the first semester under the name of the Speaking Test Students took the test in

pairs The test consisted of three parts:

1 Social interaction (2 points) Students introduced themselves to the examiners or

introduced themselves to each other This was aimed at checking students’ ability to makeinitial interaction.

2 Reading aloud (3 points): Students were required to read aloud a passage of about 100 words This passage was taken from Inside Out (Student book) This part was aimed

70-at checking the students’ pronunci70-ation competence

3 Topic (4 points): Students were asked to discuss one topic with each other The topics

were within the content of the speaking units in the first semester.

Students’ manner was assessed during the whole test and if the students were marked aspolite, friendly and natural, they would get the last point to make up the maximum markof ten