Phân tích lỗi thường gặp và áp dụng một số kỹ thuật dạy học để cải thiện vấn đề phát âm cuối cho các em học sinh lớp 10

SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO NGHỆ AN SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM Đề tài: AN ANALYSIS OF ERRORS AND APPLICATION OF SOME TECHNIQUES IN IMPROVING 10th GRADERS’ ENDING SOUNDS IN PRONUNCIATION (Phân tích lỗi thường gặp áp dụng số kỹ thuật dạy học để cải thiện vấn đề phát âm cuối cho em học sinh lớp 10) LĨNH VỰC: TIẾNG ANH NĂM, 2020 SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO NGHỆ AN TRƯỜNG THPT NGHI LỘC SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM Đề tài: AN ANALYSIS OF ERRORS AND APPLICATION OF SOME TECHNIQUES IN IMPROVING 10th GRADERS’ ENDING SOUNDS IN PRONUNCIATION (Phân tích lỗi thường gặp áp dụng số kỹ thuật dạy học để cải thiện vấn đề phát âm cuối cho em học sinh lớp 10) LĨNH VỰC: TIẾNG ANH Họ tên : Bùi Lan Anh Tổ : Ngữ Văn - Tiếng Anh Năm thực : 2020 - 2021 NĂM 2020 TABLE OF CONTENTS PART I INTRODUCTION I Reasons for the study II Aims of the study III Methods of the study IV Scope of the study V New features in the study’s result PART II CONTENT I THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL BACKGROUND A historical overview of pronunciation in English 1.1 The definition of pronunciation 1.2 Phonetics 1.3 English ending sounds 1.4 Ending sound errors Existing studies on some common mistakes about final consonants that students tend to make II THE CURRENT SITUATION OF THE ISSUE Method of the study The reality of teaching and learning English ending sounds with the students in grade 10 at Nghi Loc High school Research context 11 3.1 Setting and Participants 11 3.2 Textbook and Pronunciation materials 11 Data analysis and discussion 11 4.1 Data analysis and discussion of the students’ survey questionnaire 11 III THE SOLUTIONS TO SOLVE THE MATTER 13 Suggested tips to common ending sounds errors /ð/, /θ/,/tʃ/, /dʒ/,/ʃ/ 13 Applying techniques to improve 10 th graders’ ending sounds in pronunciation 14 2.1 Games 14 2.2 Study ending sound pronunciation through watching and listening videos, audios 21 2.3 Training your ears by listening to English Songs 23 2.4 “Watch yourself” technique or Practicing in front of the mirror 25 2.5 Recording and listening yourself 25 2.6 Study ending sound pronunciation by using ELSA speaking application 26 THE RESULT AFTER APPLYING THE RESEARCH TEACHING 28 PART III: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION 30 Conclusion 30 Suggestion 30 REFERENCES 31 APPENDIX APPENDIX LIST OF TABLES, CHARTS Table: Table 1: Practical Situation of learning English pronunciation Table 2: The percentage of the ending sounds that students have difficulties Table 3: Student’s opinion about solutions to cope with ending sounds 10 Chart Chart 1: Students' attitudes towards pronunciation activities 12 Chart 2: Students’ difficulties in learning ending sound pronunciation 13 PART I INTRODUCTION I Reasons for the study As we know, English is an international language.It is not just a language; it is a very effective tool and a useful device too It has been the most powerful language in the world A lot of people speak English as mother tongue in their daily life Recently, almost websites are written on the Internet to approach the world's growth, to extend our understanding of what is happening around us The another reason for carrying out this work is that pronunciation is very important for the learner to study English.The goal of learning a foreign language is communication, so it's very necessary to have clear pronunciation Poor pronunciation may impedes communication.When a student mispronounces a sound,a stress, or a word, or misuses the rhythm and intonation of his utterances, he will definitely cause confusion for his partner,even no understanding There are several pronunciation errors that learners are likely to make when studying English: word and sentence stress, intonation, length of vowel, etc However, I know that the normal pronunciation problem for Vietnamese learners is errors with pronunciation of the ending sounds In addition , teachers pay mainly attention to grammar, reading skills, writing skills instead of pronunciation in general and ending sounds in particular when teaching English I have seen my students struggle with pronouncing the ending sounds.They often get mistakes or even forget pronouncing the ending sounds which makes their speech difficult to understand or misunderstood So it is essential to apply some techniques for improving students' pronunciation For the above reasons, I decided to choose: “ An analysis of errors and application of some techniques in improving 10th graders’ ending sounds in pronunciation” as the topic of this study II Aims of the study The purpose of this research is to help the students realize mistakes when they pronounce ending sounds Besides, it will help them raise awareness of their pronunciation problems Moreover, this research also aims to help these students improve speaking skill and ending sounds pronunciation My work helps myself to have a good document to review for my students more effectively so that they are able to cope with the exercise relating to pronunciation in their tests or exams more easily Last but not least, I can use this document for exchanging slight experiences to the other teachers in correcting ending sounds errors This study will focus on two issues: The first one is to find out the ending sounds errors of the students in grade 10 at Nghi Loc High school The second one is to give out the suggestions for students to correct these errors Research objectives: To identify the pronunciation errors of English ending sounds made by high school students To provide techniques on students' pronunciation of English ending sounds III Methods of the study The study was carried out on the basis of material collection, survey questionnaire and class observation, aimed to determine whether pronunciation drills are able to enhance students’ motivation o r have a positive affect on the ability of students to make pronunciation The author used data collection instrument to gather information about the students involved, monitor the progress of the students when they used pronunciation drills throughout the research, and determine the effectiveness of the pronunciation drills based on survey questionnaire and class observation IV Scope of the study The study mainly deals with surveying 86 EFL 10 graders in Nghi Loc High school In order to conduct the thesis, I observe the pronunciation of the students at the classroom and collect data related to the errors with ending sound pronunciation Most of the students are at the age of 15 and 16 Almost students in this experiment group have been studying English since grade with the help of devices as computers or smartphones V New features in the study’s result In my innovation, there are a lots of pronunciation drills which have high effectiveness and wide application And these available activities, which were suitably adapted for all levels of students, can help create environment for students to develop student’s pronunciation skill and for teachers to use flexibly in their teaching PART II CONTENT I THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL BACKGROUND A historical overview of pronunciation in English 1.1 The definition of pronunciation Definition of English pronunciation is extremely significant because the author examined the errors of pronunciation in English with ending sound Also a Standard English pronunciation should be established on which error analysis is performed Crowther and Jonathan (1992) note that pronunciation is simply put as “the way in which a language is spoken”.As Houghton Mifflin (2001), pronunciation as “a way of speaking a word, especially a way that is accepted or generally understood” ( as cited in Nguyen, 2008:06) 1.2 Phonetics 1.2.1 Definition of phonetics According to Houghton Mifflin (2000) Phonetics is the linguistics branch dealing with speech sounds and their production, combination, description, and representation through written symbols 1.2.2 English sounds John,D (1998) stated that there are 44 sounds in English which are classified into two groups: 20 vowel sounds including vowels, diphthongs and tripthongs and 24 consonant sounds During my thesic I just focus on studing ending sounds To help futher research I have provided the following sound systems in English 1.2.3 Consonant sounds Roach (2000 ) notes that consonants are “speech sounds when we produce them the organs of speech always form a barrier, the airstream is stopped before going out of the mouth and the vocal cords may vibrate or not” Consonant sounds are different from consonant letters In Wikipedia Dictionary, it is said that “the number of consonants in the world’s languages is much greater than the number of consonant letters in any one alphabet” Such consonant letters such as c, q, and x are absent as found in other sounds (The letter C can be found in the k sounds and in the s sound in words like cereal, city and cent The letter q can be found in words like backwards in "kw") Consonant Classification is based on various criterias The consonants are categorized into classes based on the way they are articulated: - Plosive - Fricative - Affricative - Nasal - Lateral - Approximant + Plosive: /p/,/b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, /d/ + Fricative: /s/, /z/, /f/, /v/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /θ/, /δ/, /h/ When we create these sounds, the airflow is completely stopped and then released abruptly with a light explosion These sounds are created when the airstream is partially halted and released slowly with audible friction + Affricative: /ʧ/, /ʤ/ Such sounds are made with the airstream stopped completely and released slowly + Nasal: /m/, /n/, /ŋ/ These sounds are produced when the airstream escapes through the nose + Lateral : /l/ This sound is produced with the airstream escaping along the sides of the tongue + Approminant: /w/, /j/, /r/ - These sounds are made with the slight friction Consonants are divided into categories, depending on the place of articulation: Bilabials: /p/, /b/, /m/, /w/ - Labio-dental: /v, /f/ The bilabial consonants are sounds produced with a combination of two lips Those sounds are designed as we touch the upper teeth with the lower lips - Dental: /θ/, /δ/ Dentals are formed by rubbing the upper teeth with the tip of the tongue - Alveolars: /t/, /d/, /s/, /z/, /l/, /n/ Such sounds are produced with alveolar touches of the tips of the tongue - Post-alveolar: /r/ This sound is made by hitting the portion behind the alveolar with the tip of the tongue - Palato-alveolar: /ʒ/, /ʃ/, /ʤ/, /ʧ/ The tip of the tongue rises between the alveolar and hard palate when making certain sounds - Palatal: /j/ The front of the tongue's upper surface nearly touches its rough palate - Velar : /k/, /g/, /ŋ/ - These sounds are created by contacting the soft palate at the mouth bank with the tongue bench - Glottal: /h/ This sound is created by swift closure of the glottis Consonants are classified into classes, depending on the state of the vocal cords:voiceless and voiceless If the vocal cord vibrates, the sounds produced are voiced If the vocal cord does not vibrate, the sounds produced are voiceless: /p/, /t/, /k/, /s/, /f/, /h/, /ʃ/, /θ/, /ʧ/ The rest are voiceless Here is the table of consonant sounds: Bilabial Plosive Labio dental Dental Alveolar pb Fricative f v Palatal Velar Glottal θδ sz kg ʒʃ H ʤʧ m Lateoral Approximant alveolar td Affricative Nasal Palato - ŋ n l w R j Figure 2: Consonant chart 1.3 English ending sounds Fred (1998: 145) revealed that ESL (English as a Second Language) learners is familiar with the term "end sound" because it refers to those final sounds in a word More precisely, it refers to the consonant sounds, because the word may end with one or more consonant sounds (consonant clusters) Thus "end sounds" can be defined in the English pronunciation as those consonant sounds which appear at the end of the words They are called Codas The coda is the final consonant cluster, or consonant A coda can contain as many as consonants: Image 1: Students watch videos then imitate how to make the sound Image 2: Students watch videos to understand the rules to make sound and then imitate how to make the sound 22 Image: Students watch videos to understand the rules to make sound and then imitate how to make the sound - Here are some suggested links on You tube American accent: Teacher Melanie (http://www.youtube.com/TeacherMelanie) JenniferESL (http://www.youtube.com/JenniferESL#g/c/81BCA0A2CB139CB7) 2.3 Training your ears by listening to English Songs This method helps students not only in learning pronunciation but also improving rhythm and intonation Students can learn the words to popular English songs and sing along to practice pronouncing ending sounds Getting lyrics from websites, listening to the songs and singing along could be an effective way to improve pronunciation As can be seen from the English classes, English songs are very popular because students can learn a lot of things from these songs ListeningEnglish songs is also a natural way to study not only pronunciation but also new vocabularies or useful structures Bellow are somes English songs that students enjoy and very excited with: The song: “ At My Worst” Can I call you baby? Can you be my friend? Let me show you love, oh, no pretend Stick by my side even when the world is caving in, yeah [Pre-Chorus] Oh, oh, oh, don't, don't you worry I'll be there whenever you want me 23 Image 3: Students watch videos and practise singing the song “ At My Worst” The song : Comethru “ I might lose my mind Waking when the sun’s down Riding all these highs Waiting for the comedown Walk these streets with me Image 4: Students watch videos and practise singing the song “ Comethru” 24 2.4 “Watch yourself” technique or Practicing in front of the mirror Standing in front of the mirror to practice could be a good way to improve pronunciation because you can see the placement of the tongue, lips, and shape of mouth when making certain sounds Moreover, when students practice in front of the mirror, it will help them feel more confident in communicating For instance, if students practice the sound /ð/, they have to see the movement of their tongue Students have to place their tongue between their teeth but use the voice when blowing out the air Do it slowly and watch carefully the tongue’s movement Try to pronounce like this: 2.5 Recording and listening yourself Tape recorder is considered as the necessary and useful tool in learning pronunciation Students can use tape recorder to record and listen yourself From that, problems of ending sounds would be easily recognized Try recording the speech on a tape and comparing it with a native speaker's 25 Here are some suggested websites for students to record themselves http://audioboo.fm http:/ /vocaroo.com https://soundcloud.com In two websites audioboo.fm and soundcloud.com, students have to sign up first After that, there will be a symbol of record, like this: The next step that students have to is clicking on that symbol and put the microphone near the mouth and record In http://vocaroo.com/ website, students not have to sign up, just click to record immediately By recording and listening yourself everyday, students will be able to improve their pronunciation and speaking skill They feel more confident and their pronunciation is natural Teachers encourage student to use Vocaroo application to practise at home Applied homework in all units: Part E- Language focus – Read the single word or practise sentences Teacher asked students to record at home and then send their tapes recording to get their teacher’s checking and marks This technique will motivate students, they will complete their homework in active and voluntarily 2.6 Study ending sound pronunciation by using ELSA speaking application ELSA (English Language Speech Asistant) was invented by Van Dinh Hong Vu - Master of Education and Business Administration from Stanford University and leading experts from Silicon Valley, Europe and Asia In 2014, Vu officially started his career with the ELSA voice recognition application, helping foreign language learners around the world to pronounce closely with the native language ELSA is considered as one of the technology products with the main participation of Vietnamese people, which is highly appreciated by experts as well as users 26 ELSA is one of the best apps in the world to help learners to speak English fluently as a native speaker more effectively, easily, and economically ELSA's Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology is exclusively developed specifically for the purpose of guiding users to pronounce English ELSA is your very own online native tutor, ready to help you practice 24/7 with instant feedback and superbly accurate instruction ELSA is a very smart application that can recognize the user's voice and compare the results heard with the correct English pronunciation ELSA will point out the pronunciation mistakes the learners made, guide the learners to move their tongue and lips to adjust pronunciation From there, help them improve each sound after practicing Specifically, what ELSA hears will be displayed on the phone screen with accompanying signs (red, yellow and green) to show the accuracy level of the student's pronunciation When reading vocabulary, the application will score, point out the user's mistakes and how to fix them like curl lips, open tongue, press voice, speak long or short There are many words that students often make mistakes They have corrected and their ability to stress word and sentence stress has improved a lot 27 + How to enroll with ELSA and get free counseling ELSA Speak is supported on both iOS and Android operating systems You will be able to try it out for days and if you want to continue using it, you will have to pay a package fee To download the app, first go to the app store on your phone and type in the keyword search box: ELSA Speak to start installing the app and try it out There are forms of Pro account registration: + Register information on the website: ELSASPEAK (Fill information and transfer payment by bank card - this way is quite simple and convenient) Link registration with 79% discount: http: //bit.ly/2rwuscV Nowadays, every high school student has his or her own smartphone, so it is very easy to register and use the elsa speaking software It is a useful tool to help students not only practice pronunciation but also practice listening and speaking skills With the support of this software, students will practice pronunciation and learn to speak English actively and excitedly THE RESULT AFTER APPLYING THE RESEARCH TEACHING Part has shown the suggestions for coping with errors made by 10 grade students of pronouncing ending sounds The answer of the research questions has clearly been presented in the part above Within limited time, the author just showed a small number of techniques for students to correct ending sounds errors and improve their pronunciation Teacher hands out the 10 questions to check the students’ acquirement Ask students to circle the correct answer within 15 minutes then collects and marks, jots down, analyses and compares the result The following is the result chart: The result before carrying the experiment Total mark 10 mark mark mark mark mark < mark 86 0 13 26 27 15 Percentage (%) 0 5.81 15.11 30.2 31.39 17.44 The result after carrying out the experiment Total mark 10 mark mark mark mark mark < mark 86 12 23 34 6 Percentage (%) 5.81 13.9 26.74 39.53 6.97 6.97 28 As can be seen from the tables above, the knowledge about ending sounds of the students 10 graders was greatly enhanced Although there are not still excellent marks (9, 10), the good and fair marks increase and poor marks (below 5) decrease sharply It is clear that the experiment was definitely successful 29 PART III: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION Conclusion This study is an attempt to investigate the application of drilling techniques in teaching English ending sounds to 10th students at Nghi Loc high school in Nghe An In Nghi Loc high school, teaching English ending sounds is not developed due to a set of factors such as large class, the teachers’ ineffective management in oral English classes, the over use of the traditional teaching method, the resultoriented teaching and testing Moreover, students’ level also prevented the development of teaching pronunciation Throughout the study, my goal has been to take a closer look at the common errors of pronouncing ending sounds which are made by the students at Nghi Loc high school and to give out the suggestions In general, the study has successfully achieved its aims- to answer the two research questions as mentioned above With the purpose of answering the first question, the findings of all related data has shown the common ending sound errors of these students They were: /ð/, /θ/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/, /ʃ/ The answer of the first question was thoroughly presented in part The second research question of the thesis concerns about the suggested techniques to correct ending sounds errors has been answered in the last chapter As the main focus of the study is the students in grade 10 at Nghi Loc school’s ending sounds errors, causes and techniques to overcome these difficulties so the readers can only find out the information related to only some English ending sounds, not all the sounds There are still a number of other sounds which causes learners difficulty Hopefully, there will be more studies not only on ending sounds but also English sounds and the participants will be different ages, grades, levels Due to limited time and knowledge, mistakes are inevitable so all the comments and suggestions are highly appreciated so that the author can improve the quality of the study Suggestion - Designing exercises about synonyms and antonyms in each lesson is necessary for the teachers to enrich the students’ vocabulary day after day - Practice exercise should be given to the students in flexible way in checking vocabulary technique or exercise at home - Students must actively learn new words by heart everyday I hope that my research will be a meaningful document for the students and the colleague I wish to receive share and exchange from readers Nghi Loc, 28th February 2021 Writer: Bui Lan Anh 30 REFERENCES English authors Abercrombie, D (1967) Element of General Phonetics Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company Baker, Ann and Goldstein, Sharon.(1990) Pronunciation Pairs Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Corder, S (1967) The significance of the learners’ errors IRAL, (vol 5.N.4), 161-70 Kenworthy, Joanne.(1987) Teaching English Pronunciation Essex: Addison Wesley Longman Ltd Vietnamese Authors: Nguyễn Thị Bich.(2012) Pronunciation of ending sounds-an analysis of errors made by high school students Master thesis, Vinh University Tran Nguyên Nhu Quynh.(2017) Using Videos to improve EFL Vietnamese learner's English pronunciation Master thesis, Vinh University 31 APPENDIX QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TEACHERS …………………………………………………………………… ………… I Teacher’s profile - Age: -Teaching experience: < years 5-10 years > 10 years II Now, please tick the answers that you choose You can tick more than one answer for a question How you feel when applying pronunciation drills in improving ending sounds in your English classes? a Confident b Embarrassed c Bored d Uncomfortable What are the advantages of applying pronunciation drills in improving ending sounds in your English classes? a It helps students develop their pronunciation skills b It fosters students’ critical thinking, problem-solving and collaboration c It provides students with opportunities to lead learning activities d It makes students use Vietnamese during pair or group work In your opinion, pronunciation drills in improving ending sounds is… a Very important b Important c Not very important d Not important How much are you interested in applying pronunciation drills in improving ending sounds ? a Very much b Much c Not very much d Not much Which difficulties you often encounter in applying pronunciation drills in improving ending sounds ? a Students’ low motivation b Students’ passive learning styles d Students’ not participating in class e Students’ low proficiency of English f Lack of teaching facilities and teaching aids g Large class size i Too little time to carry out pronunciation drills ? How often you use pronunciation drills to teach your students in your high school? a Always b Often c Sometimes d Never Does the pronunciation drills in improving ending sounds prove successful in your pronunciation lessons? a Yes b No Are your students interested in pronunciation drills in improving ending sounds? a Yes b No Do you think pronunciation drills in improving ending sounds is a good choice to improve your English pronunciation? a Yes b No 10 If you answer “Yes”, tick the following options that you think pronunciation drills in improving ending sounds is a good choice to improve your English pronunciation a Activate students’ needs and interests b Pursue the development of interacted skills in the classroom c Encourage students’ intrinsic motivation d Promote students’ academic progress 11 Which of the following things you think will help to make the application of pronunciation drills effective in your English classes? a Make a good preparation b Provide comprehensible input c Make good time management d Encourage students e Discuss and share the experience with colleagues f Organize the class work appropriately through individual work, pair work, group work 12 What are your solutions to multi-level classes? a Give some prompts for the less able students b Encourage collaborative work from students c Allocate easy questions to the less able students and more difficult ones the more able ones d Praise weak students more often e Organize pair work and group work including good and weak students Thank you for your cooperation! APPENDIX Questionnaire for students (English version) QUESTIONNAIRES This questionnaire is designed to seek for the information to serve the research “'' The use of pronunciation drills in improving 10th grader's ending sounds in pronunciation" The answer will be used as important data for the research not for any other purposes The answer, therefore, should be frank and accurate to your own ideas and teaching context Thank you very much for your cooperation! Please put a tick (√) on the answer you choose Questions for students A B C Which factor you Grammar consider the most and important in English vocabulary speaking? Pronunciation intonation spelling 2.How is Very pronunciation important important in English speaking? Important Normal How often you always make pronunciation mistakes when speaking English in class? Often sometimes never 4.Which pronunciation Word and mistakes you tend sentence to encounter when stress speaking English? Vowel intonation Ending misunderstandin sounds g Does your teacher Always give you any active activities to improve your pronouncing ending sounds? Sometimes Rarely D Not importan t Never Which of the following activities does the teacher use in teaching ending sound at your school? Activities IPA Bingo Minimal Pair Slap Tongue twister Watching, listenin Videos/ Audios Recording Always Often Sometimes Seldom Never ... GRADERS’ ENDING SOUNDS IN PRONUNCIATION (Phân tích lỗi thường gặp áp dụng số kỹ thuật dạy học để cải thiện vấn đề phát âm cuối cho em học sinh lớp 10) LĨNH VỰC: TIẾNG ANH Họ tên : Bùi Lan Anh... at Nghi Loc High School were invited to join the research All of the teachers under the investigation have ever taught grade 10, and all of them were teaching in the academic school year 2020-2021... engagement of 10th grader students during this process as the data for analysis Below is the survey of the practical situation of learning English ending sounds in grade 10 at Nghi Loc High School