The interference of mother tongue as vietnames in learning english souds and stress at high school = ảnh hưởng của tiếng mẹ đẻ đối với việc học âm và trọng âm tiếng anh ở trường phổ thông

Acknowledgements I could not have completed my graduation thesis if my teachers, my family as well as my friends had not given me advice, guidance and help I especially would like to express my deepest thanks to Mrs Nguyen Thi Van Lam, my supervisor, who has given me enthusiastic help, encouragement and advice to shape and complete my thesis I also would like to thank all my teachers whose useful materials and faithful advice have helped me a lot during the thesis writing process I also acknowledge to all the teachers and pupils at Gia Vien A high school for giving me a chance of carrying out the survey for my study Finally, I am grateful to my family as well as my friends for their help and encouragement during the process of writing this graduation thesis I have made great efforts to complete the study However, due to my limited knowledge, the thesis is far from being perfect Thus, it is my responsibility for any shortcomings the thesis may be considered to have Vinh, May 2nd 2006 Mai Thi Thuy Table of Contents Page Part I: Introduction The Reasons for Choosing the Study The Aims of the Study The Scope of the Study The Methods of the Study 5 The Design of the Study .6 Part II: Investigation Chapter 1: Theoretical Background 1.1 Interference 1.1.1 Language Interference 1.1.2 Causes of Interference in Learning Language 1.1.3 Mother Tongue Interference 1.2 Pronunciation 1.2.1 Sounds 1.2.1.1 Production of Sounds 1.2.1.2 Articulators 10 1.2.1.3 Types of Sounds .1 1.2.1.3.1 Vowel Sounds 10 1.2.1.3.2 Consonant Sounds 10 1.2.2 Stress 11 1.3 Vietnamese Pronunciation 11 1.3.1 Vietnamese Vowels .11 1.3.2 Vietnamese Consonants 12 1.4 English Pronunciation 13 1.4.1 English Vowel .13 1.4.2 English Consonants 14 1.5 Summary Chapter 2: Differences between English and Vietnamese Pronunciation 2.1 Vowels .15 2 Consonants 20 2.2.1 Fricative Consonants .20 2.2 Word-Final Voiceless Consonants /p/, /ƚ/, /k/ 21 2.2.3 Fricative Consonant /θ/ 22 2.2.4 Fricative consonant /ð/ .23 2.5 Aspirated Consonant /ƚ/ in the Initial Position 24 2.6 Consonant Clusters 24 2.2.6.1 Consonant Clusters in English 25 2.2.6.2 Consonant Clusters in Vietnamese 26 2.3 Sound Linking .26 2.3.1 Sound Linking in English .26 2.3.2 Sound Linking in Vietnamese 27 Sound- Spelling Correspondence .28 4.1 Principles of Constructing Spelling .28 4.2 Sound- Spelling Correspondence 29 4.2.1 Sound- Spelling Correspondence in English 29 4.2.2 Sound- Spelling Correspondence in Vietnamese .29 Pronunciation of Grammatical Endings 30 5.1 Pronunciation of Grammatical Endings in English 30 2.5.1.1 The Importance of Pronunciation of Grammatical Endings .30 5.1.2 Types of Grammatical Endings 30 2.5.2 Pronunciation of Grammatical Endings in Vietnamese .31 2.6 Pronunciation of Contractions 32 2.7 Word Stress 33 2.7.1 Word Stress in English 33 2.7.1.1 Definition 2.7.1.2 Importance of Word Stress .34 2.7.1.3 Characteristics of Word Stress 34 2.7.2 Word Stress in Vietnamese 35 Chapter3: The Survey 37 3.1 Overview of the Survey 37 3.1.1 Aims of the Survey 37 3.1.2 Informants and their background .37 Description of the Survey Questionnaire .38 3.3 Findings and Discussions 38 3.3.1 The Results 38 3.3.2 Discussions 39 Chapter 4: Suggestions for Practising English Sounds and Stress 41 4.1 Vowels 41 Consonants 45 Sound Linking 49 4.4 Sound - Spelling Correspondence .50 Grammatical Endings 51 Contraction 52 Word Stress 52 Part III: Conclusion 54 References .55 Appendix Part I: Introduction The Reasons for Choosing the Study Everyone is now aware of the importance of English, which is the reason why English is learnt with the great motivation However, it is not easy to master and use it effectively because of many reasons such as learning environment, age, ability and especially mother tongue interference It is shown that interference appears in almost aspects of English like grammar, preposition, article especially pronunciation, which is really important It is important for the following reasons Firstly, it is pronunciation and the first impression It is clear that pronunciation is definitely the biggest thing that people notice when we are speaking English When we meet a native person, he could already tell if our English is good or bad He realizes our English is good or bad because we use advanced grammar structures or difficult words In fact, it is not structures or words but pronunciation that helps him to realize that Thus, in communication, the first thing that people can realize is pronunciation Secondly, it is pronunciation and meaning Pronunciation should be one of the first things that learners study in English We can communicate without advanced vocabulary because we can use simple words to express what we want to say We can communicate without advanced grammar because we can use simple grammar structures in stead However, there is no such as thing as simple pronunciation If we have bad pronunciation, even if we use advanced vocabulary or grammar, people may not understand what we want to say Thus, pronunciation creates meaning that helps people understand each other when communicating Like learners from other countries, Vietnamese learners are coping with many difficulties in pronouncing English The main cause, which can be seen, is the mother tongue interference It is shown that there are so many differences between English and Vietnamese pronunciation Therefore, Vietnamese learners fail to pronounce English successfully As an English learner for many years, the author can see mistakes that her friends and pupils have made when she hears them speak These mistakes are regarded to be frequent and prevent them from speaking English correctly For the reasons above, the author decides to work on "The Interference of Mother Tongue as Vietnamese in Learning English Sounds and Stress at High School" The Aims of the Study This thesis aims to: -Compare Vietnamese pronunciation and English pronunciation and find out differences between them These differences are regarded as the proofs of difficulties to learners - Demonstrate how Vietnamese affects English pronunciation learning by analyzing those differences -Provide some suggestions for the problems that have been mentioned with the hope that they could make a small contribution to the improvement in teaching English especially in teaching pronunciation in Vietnam The Scope of the Study In this thesis, mother tongue interference in pronunciation is dealt with However, the thesis cannot cover all the problems related to pronunciation but for the effect of mother tongue in vowels, consonants, sound linking and stress The Methods of the Study With the aim to compare and demonstrate differences between English and Vietnamese pronunciation, the following methods have been used during the study process: -Contrastive analysis -Investigative method -Collective method -Illustrative method The Design of the Study The thesis consists of three main parts: Part I is the introduction of the thesis in which we present the reasons for choosing the subject, the aims, the scope, the methods and the design of the thesis Part II is the development with four main chapters: Chapter entitled, "Theoretical Background", which provides information about interference, Vietnamese and English pronunciation Chapter provides a comparison between English and Vietnamese pronunciation Chapter deals with the survey and the results Chapter is about suggestions for the problems mentioned Part III is the conclusion of the thesis, which summarizes the contents mentioned in part II Besides these three main parts, the thesis also opens with the acknowledgements, the table of contents and ends with the references and appendix Part II: Investigation Chapter 1: Theoretical Background 1.1 Interference 1.1.1 Language Interference To understand clearly what language interference means We will put language interference in the process of learning a language because interference and this process are related closely to each other We know that the process of learning a new language is the one of gaining a new habit system In that process, the habits of using the mother tongue affects language learning This effect consists of two aspects, negative and positive The positive effects called ‘transfer’ are ones that are useful to learning process On the contrary, negative effects cause difficulties to learning process and they are called ‘ Interference’ According to pedagogy- living language viewpoint, interference is a kind of special errors that learners meet because of their habits or natural effects from the mother tongue into the target language As a result, errors appear and learning is out of the standard of the target language 1.1.2 Causes of Interference in Learning Language According to Nguyen Van Chien (1992:30), there are some causes of interference in learning language The first one is learner’s habit When learning a new language, learners have a habit of applying this language’s elements to another language According to the Behaviorism, it is assumed that a person learning a second language starts off with the habits associated with the first language These habits interfere with those needed for second language speech and new habits must be formed Besides, in the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis where there are similarities between the first language and second one, students will learn structures with ease; where there are differences, the learner will have difficulties that may lead to making errors In addition, age and competence also cause interference People think that, the young especially the children tend to learn language more quickly than the old At the certain language level, these children will get less interference than the other Because the mother tongue has not become a system of sign that is present deeply in their mind, therefore the children’s mother tongue has a few natural elements that cause interference Besides the method of teaching is also an important problem that is related to language interference such as time, deadline, language environment, linguistics, teaching lessons and reasonable time division The last one is communicative situation If the speakers are forced to speak a language that is related to a topic spoken by another language, interference might happen In other words, differences in communicative function or language in social situation can cause interference This is a field of communicative habits attached tightly to specific situations in family, in schools or outside the society (at markets or offices) and to different language styles like communicative and scientific languages 1.1.3 Mother Tongue Interference Mother tongue interference is defined as the use of elements from one’s native language while learning the second language It is one of the causes of error When we learn a foreign language, there are, of course, many other influences, but the one that the mother tongue has on the language we produce when we use a foreign language has become a very important area of study for people interested in second language acquisition We know that the language produced by foreign learners is so unavoidably influenced by the mother tongue of the learner and that is certainly clear For example: A German learner says: ‘How much costs the buss?’ A French learner says: ‘ I must to my homeworks.’ A Spanish learner says: ‘I go to the town walking’ A Vietnamese learner says: ‘This person not old’ or ‘you not write letters.’ From the above examples, we see that it is the mother tongue interference that makes these learners say the sentences which are full of errors Indeed, the mother tongue has a great effect on the English language produced by learners According to Swan and Smith (1999:238), mother tongue interference appears in many aspects of language It influences Grammar, vocabulary…etc especially pronunciation However, in the scope of thesis, the mother tongue interference in pronunciation especially sounds and stress is discussed 1.2 Pronunciation Pronunciation consists of three aspects: sound, stress and intonation However, in the thesis, only sounds and stress are focused on 1.2.1 Sounds 1.2.1.1 Production of Sounds According to Roach (1998:20), all the sounds we make when we speak are the result of muscles contracting The muscles in the chest that we use for breathing produce the flow of air that is needed for almost speech sounds while muscles in the larynx produce many different modifications in the flow of air from the chest to the mouth After passing though the larynx, the air goes through the vocal tract, which ends at the mouth and nostrils Here the air from the lungs escapes into the atmosphere 10 English is considered to be a stressed language in which word stress is a part of language and of course word stress is not an optional extra that we can add to the English if we want It is clear that the most noticeable characteristic of word stress is stress in English can fall on almost any syllable of a word that is different from other languages whose word stress regularly falls on the same language For example: total syllables stressed syllable photograph #1 photographer #2 photographic #3 English learners may want to know if there is any rule for the placement of the stress Unfortunately, there are no hard and fast rules except a few generalizations Thus, stress must be learned with each vocabulary item Furthermore, there are some words that carry two stressed syllables instead of one stressed syllable The word ‘'expla'nation’ is an example in which ‘na’ is called the first stress and ‘ex’ is called the second stress that is said with less breath effort than the first but more than the others Because of these characteristics, many learners have difficulties in learning and pronouncing stress in English 2.7.2 Word Stress in Vietnamese According to Vuong Huu Le (1994:98), Vietnamese is monosyllabic because syllables are separated individually We can imagine that a speech of Vietnamese is a group of syllables in which each is independent For example: GiÃ/ từ/ câu/ hát/ ngời/ cv cv cv cvc cv v Là/ khi/ tôi/ thấy/ đất/ trời/ rỗng/ không cv cv cv cv cvc cv cvc cvc (§ång §øc Bố , Câu hát theo chồng) Thus, when producing many syllables, syllables are pronounced separately and this syllable does not affect another syllable 36 Besides that, Vietnamese is tonal language There are six tones that are called ‘s¾c’, ‘ng·’, ‘ngang’, huyền, hỏi, nặng Tone name Sắc Ngà Ngang Huyền Hỏi NỈng Symbol ˊ ~ Pitch level High High High- mid ` Low ? Mid-low Low Vietnamese Tone System Contour Rising Rising Trailing- failing Trailing Dropping Dropping Because Vietnamese is a tone language, therefore, Vietnamese use tones to distinguish word meanings For example, the word ‘hai’, if we say with ‘hun’ tone, it’s meaning is funny, with ‘nỈng’ tone it is harmful, with ‘s¾c’ tone it is pick up, with ‘hái’ tone it is a name of a person Therefore, tone’s changes lead to changes of word’s meaning and each individual syllable is pronounced with its characteristic tonal pattern, without which it would be not recognizable That is the reason why Vietnamese learners give full stress to each syllable The problem is that because Vietnamese learners tend to stress each syllable equally, when speaking English words with polysyllables they also give full stress to every syllable that is not acceptable in English For example, to Vietnamese learners, it is easy for them to speak two words ‘black’ and ‘bird’ as two words are separated from each other because of their habit they put full stress on each word naturally But when two words are joined together and become a complex word, they will still put full stress on each word, which is incorrect pronunciation This is one example to show that learners transfer Vietnamese stress into English stress and we can realize that clearly when we hear them speak 37 Chapter The Survey 3.1 Overview of the Survey 3.1.1 Aims of the Survey The survey is designed to find out information related to how pupils are affected by the mother tongue in pronouncing English sounds, linking sounds, stressing syllables and others Moreover, it pointed out some errors which pupils face when speaking English As a result, some solutions can be suggested to solve these problems 3.1.2 Informants and their Background This survey questionnaire is designed for pupils and was investigated in class 11A1 and class 11A2 at Gia Vien A High School There are 100 pupils who are involved in the survey, 50 from class 11A1 and 50 from class 11A2 At Gia Vien A High School, a lot of pupils ignore pronunciation They think that pronunciation is not necessary when they study English They highly pay attention to grammar and vocabulary that appear mostly in tests and exams It is true that pronunciation is not often mentioned in tests even in the university entrance exams As a result, they have no motivation to learn pronunciation and they think that learning grammar and vocabulary is enough Besides, pupils have difficulties in learning pronunciation Pupils learn pronunciation through learning vocabulary because there is no time given for pronunciation First, the teacher teaches words in the texts, then they pronounce 38 them and let his pupils imitate It means that teaching pronunciation is combined with teaching vocabulary Consequently, the pupils have no chance of learning pronunciation systematically from the elementary to advanced level and that causes difficulties Description of the survey questionnaire The survey was designed with 13 questions that are intended to find out some problems on sounds and stress that pupils make The survey questionnaire focuses on: -The pupil’s attitudes towards the importance of English pronunciation -The situation of being affected by Vietnamese when pronouncing English -The information on pupils’ distinction between similar vowels in English and Vietnamese -The frequency of pronouncing consonants as well as consonant clusters at the word -final position, grammatical endings, linking sounds and stressing syllables 3.3 Findings and Discussions 3.3.1 The results Variables B c d Total Answer Q1 a N N N N N 95 100 39 Q2 Q3 14 53 33 100 Ýt eat it 46 50 100 BÐt bag beg 24 63 Bít bird 42 48 10 M¸t march much 16 70 10 Cãt cord cod 20 74 Phun fool full Q4 15 72 5 10 80 100 100 Q5 15 75 100 Q6 25 65 10 Q7 23 Q8 16 77 100 Q9 Q10 Q11 40 11 50 21 15 10 46 29 30 45 100 100 100 34 19 12 10 100 100 Q12 60 Q13 59 (N: Number, Q: Question) 100 100 100 100 100 67 100 3.3.2 Discussions After investigating the pupils by using the survey questionnaire, the following findings will show the mother tongue interference in learning sounds and stress or the problems that pupils face when learning English: +Most pupils (95) highly appreciate the importance of pronunciation They agree that pronunciation is very important Thus, pupils’ attitudes to pronunciation is positive +More than half of the pupils (53) accept that they are affected by mother tongue when speaking English The rest (33) are sometimes affected They themselves see Vietnamese’s effects on pronouncing English 40 +The majority of pupils (90) cannot distinguish similar sounds in English and Vietnamese They pronounce identically or a little identically It means that they not know how to pronounce English vowels and replace Vietnamese vowels for English vowels +Pupils rarely the pronunciation of fricative consonants (5), clusters (2) and grammatical endings (11) in the word-final position They sometimes or even never pronounce them because they are not used to doing that which is not present in Vietnamese +A lot of pupils (77) pronounce plosive /ƚ/, /θ/ in English and Vietnamese a little identically They cannot find differences between them because they think that they have the same spelling As a result, they pronounce incorrectly +A few pupils (3) link sounds when speaking English although they are conscious about it, they have not done They speak this word that is separated with the other +A great number of pupils (59) pronounce every syllable clearly when they speak a word with polysyllables It shows that they not stress any particular syllable of word but give equal stress to every syllable The way of stress is the same as Vietnamese In conclusion, a lot of pupils make errors when they pronounce a word The reason is that they are affected by mother tongue Differences between Vietnamese pronunciation and English pronunciation cause difficulties to learners Pupils may apply the way of pronouncing a word in Vietnamese to English As a result, pupils not know how to pronounce words correctly Chapter 41 Suggestions for the Problems of Mother Tongue Interference in Learning English Sounds and Stress In this chapter, tips and exercises that help learners of English avoid the problems of Mother Tongue Interference are suggested as follows: 4.1 Vowels • /ɪ/ and /i:/ - Practice /ɪ/: Dialogue Bill: Is Tim in? Lyn: Is he coming to the pictures? Mrs Smith: Tim’s ill Bill: Here he is! Hello, Tim Tim: Hello, Bill Lyn: Are you ill, Tim? Tim: Is it an interesting film? Lyn: It’s ‘Big Jim and the Indians’ Bill: And it begins in six minutes Tim: Quick! Or we’ll miss the beginning of the film! - Practice /i:/: Dialogue Peter: What would you like to eat, Edith? Edith: A meat sandwich Peter: Jean? Would you like a meat or cheese sandwich Jean: A cheese sandwich, please, Peter -Listen and repeat Aim: To distinguish /ɪ/ and /i:/ 42 Sound ship sheep bin bean it eat sit seat lick leak chicks • Sound cheeks /e/ and / æ/ -Practice /e/: Dialogue Eddie: Hello, Ellen! Hello, Ben! Hello, Jenny! Ben: Hello, Eddie Have a cigarette Eddie: Thanks, Ben Ellen: Help yourself to whisky Jenny: It’s on the self Ben: How did you spend your holiday, Eddie? Eddie: I went to America with a friend - Practice /æ/: Dialogue Hostess Bradley: Alice! Perhaps that passenger is a hijacker! Hostess Allen: Which passenger, Anne? That sad man with the camera? He’s wearing black slacks and a jacket Hostess Bradley: No That fat lady with the big black handbag in her left hand Hostess Allen: Is she standing next to the lavatory? Hostess Bradley: Yes She’s traveling to Amsterdam -Listen and repeat: 43 Aim: To distinguish /e/ and /æ/ pen pan men man said sad beg bag bread brad • /ɔ/and/ɔ:/ - Practice /ɔ/: Dialogue Voice A: what’s wrong with you, Mrs Bloggs? Mrs Bloggs: What’s wrong with me? I want a holiday from this horrible job of washing socks! Voice B: Buy a bottle of ‘Onwash’, Mrs Bloggs! Voice C: ‘Onwash’ is so soft and strong Voice D: You don’t want lots of hot water with ‘onwash’ - Practice /ɔ:/ Announcer: Good morning, George George Ball: Good morning Announcer: I’m from channel Please tell your audience about the football match in York George ball: Well, It was awful we lost and the score was four, forty-four But it wasn’t my fault It was the forwards! Announcer: The forwards? George Ball: The forwards They were always falling down or losing the ball! -Listen and repeat 44 Aim: To distinguish /ɔ/and/ɔ:/ don cod cord pot ort cot caught fox forks spots • dawn sports /з:/ and / Ə/ - Practice /з:/: Listen and repeat er herbert worst skirts sir sherman thirsty shirts early turner dirty nurse world turner Burton curse -Practice /Ə/: Listen and repeat A photograph of Barbara A glass of water A pair of binoculars A photograph of her mother and father A book about South America • /ʌ/and /ɑ:/ -Practice/ʌ/: Dialogue Russ: Honey, why are you so sad? I don’t understand Janet: you don’t love me, Russ! You love my cousin, Sunny You think she’s lovely and I’m ugly Russ: Janet, just once last month I took sunny out for lunch You mustn’t worry I like your company much better than Sunny’s 45 Janet: On, shut up, Russ -Practice /ɑ:/: Dialogue Margaret: Where’s your glass, Barbara? Barbara: It’s on the bar Martin: Barbara! Margaret! Come into the garden! Martha and Charles are dancing in the dark Margaret: In the garden? What a laugh! Barbara: Ah! Let’s take a photograph of Martha and Charles Martin: We can’t It’s too dark -Listen and repeat Aim: To distinguish /ʌ/and /ɑ:/ cup carp hut heart cut cart bun barn much march cluck clerk Consonants • Fricative consonants As fricative consonants not occur in word-final position in Vietnamese, Vietnamese learners may delete fricatives at the end of words Thus, we let pupils linking exercises in which words ending in these fricatives are followed by words beginning with vowels Don’t give up your seat Don't play with Breathe Pass it in and then breathe out the books 46 out Your wish is my command • Word- final voiceless consonants /p/, /ƚ/, /k/ In Vietnamese, these consonants are not aspirated in final position; therefore, English speakers may not hear them Firstly, let pupils know that aspiration is the puff of air that goes with the release of the consonant You will demonstrate that by letting pupils pronounce /p/ for example Ask pupils to hold a piece of paper close to their mouth and say the word after you, it is sure that a burst of air blows the paper away from them Secondly, practice these consonants in final position such as ‘student’, ‘steak’, ‘assistant’, ‘top’, ‘pop’, ‘like’, ‘look’, ‘work’ Thirdly, linking exercises in which ending in these consonants are followed by words beginning with vowels Look at! It is going to rain There is a book on the top of the shelf Sit at the bank of the room • Fricative consonants /θ / and /ð / Make sure that the pupils know how to pronounce them - To make /θ/, put your tongue between your teeth Then blow out air between your tongue and your top teeth Baker (1992:133) Listen and repeat 47 thanks thirsty birthday thought Thursday nothing thousand thirty-three worth -To make /ð/, first practice /θ/, then use your voice to make /ð/ Baker (1992:138) Listen and repeat the together this feathers that leather Besides that we can use tongue twisters such as f/ θ That fin is thin If you buy three, you get one free Did Ruth climb on the roof ? d/ð I don’t dare to go there By then they’ll be in the den θ /ð Are those the men who doze? Those three thys think that they threw those things there • /ƚ/ in initial position Learners substitute /t’/ for /ƚ/ because /t’/ and /ƚ/ both represent spelling ‘t’ Make sure that pupils can pronounce /ƚ/ 48 Baker (1992:82) To make /ƚ/: - Put the front of your tongue behind your top teeth Push air forward in your mouth - Then move your tongue away Listen and repeat tin tennis top steak telephone ten After pupils practice /ƚ/ in English, make comparison with Vietnamese English Vietnamese tin tin tởng top tốt ten tên ã Clusters As Vietnamese has no consonant cluster, learners fail to pronounce them especially final consonant clusters Firstly, we let pupils practice difficult final consonant clusters by using two words For example, to practice the final cluster /d/ as in ‘field’, use the phrase 49 feel down Then pupils can delete gradually more and more off the second word feel down → feel dow → feel d → field Secondly, practice consonant clusters by adding grammatical endings This will help pupils understand the importance of such clusters in conveying meaning Fox example: I drinka lot I drinkeda lot Thirdly, practice syllables with final consonant clusters by increasing complexity For example: car card cards feel field fields tax taxed texts class clasp clasps bread brand brands Sound Linking As learners often delete consonants at the end of English words, thus, words will not be linked in connected speech Suggestions: Do linking exercises in which words ending in consonants are linked to following words that begin with vowels Read after the teacher Put the book on the top of the shelf He taught us a lot about language Breathe in and breathe out Sit at the back of the room He made a lot of money Pass out the books He decided it wasn’t enough time 50 ... for the Problems of Mother Tongue Interference in Learning English Sounds and Stress In this chapter, tips and exercises that help learners of English avoid the problems of Mother Tongue Interference. .. Discussions After investigating the pupils by using the survey questionnaire, the following findings will show the mother tongue interference in learning sounds and stress or the problems that pupils... frequent and prevent them from speaking English correctly For the reasons above, the author decides to work on "The Interference of Mother Tongue as Vietnamese in Learning English Sounds and Stress at