Pronunciation of english ending sounds an analysis of errors made by high school students = (phân tích lỗi về việc phát âm âm cuối tiếng anh của học sinh trung học phổ thông)

VINH UNIVERSITY FOREIGN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT NGUYỄN THỊ BÍCH PRONUNCIATION OF ENGLISH ENDING SOUNDS – AN ANALYSIS OF ERRORS MADE BY HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS (PHÂN TÍCH LỖI VỀ VIỆC PHÁT ÂM ÂM CUỐI TIẾNG ANH CỦA HỌC SINH TRUNG HỌC PHỔ THÔNG) GRADUATION THESIS FIELD: METHODOLOGY CLASS: 49A – ENGLISH Supervisor: Nguyễn Thị Kim Anh, M.A VINH - 2012 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thanks to the great supports from my lecturers, my family and my friends therefore I could complete my thesis First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Nguyen Thi Kim Anh, M.A, for her readiness at all time to discuss the problems and give me useful advice and important materials for my thesis, without which my thesis would have still remained uncompleted I would also like to express my sincere thanks to all of my teachers in the Foreign Language Department of Vinh University for their lectures on the area, which enable me to get a lot of theoretical as well as practical knowledge Finally, I am very grateful to my parents and my close friends who are always by my side in order to help and encourage me while I was doing this thesis Vinh, 2012 Nguyễn Thị Bích TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements i Table of contents ii Table and diagram v Abbreviation vi Part A : Introduction 1 Justification of the study 2 Aims of the study Methods of the study Scope of the study Format of the study Part B: Development Chapter 1: Theoretical background Pronunciation in English 1.1 The definition of pronunciation 1.2 English standard pronunciation 1.3 Phonetics 1.3.1 The definition of phonetics 4 4 5 1.3.2 The English sounds 1.3.2.1 The English vowel sounds 1.3.2.2 The English consonant sounds 1.4 English stress 10 1.4.1 The nature of stress 10 1.4.2 Level of stress 10 1.4.3 The placement of stress within the words 11 1.5 Aspects of connected speech 11 1.5.1 Rhythm 11 1.5.2 Assimilation 11 1.5.3 Ellision 12 1.5.4 Linking 12 1.6 English ending sounds 12 1.7 Vietnamese ending sounds 15 Errors in language learning process 17 2.1 The definition of errors 17 2.2 Errors verus mistake 17 2.3 The concept of errors analysis 19 2.4 The significance of learners’ errors 20 2.5 Factors causing foreign language learners to make errors 20 2.5.1 Interlingual errors 20 2.5.2 Intralingual errors 21 2.5.2.1 Over-genaralization 22 2.5.2.2 Ignorance of rule restriction 22 2.5.2.3 Incomplete application of rules 23 2.5.2.4 False concept hypothesized 23 Chapter 2: The study 24 Research questions 24 Research setting 24 The subject 23 Data collection 25 Procedure Predictable errors and mistakes made by high school students Preliminary results and data analysis 25 25 26 7.1 Results of section 26 7.2 Results of section 28 7.3 Results of section 31 Errors and their causes 32 8.1 Errors and their causes in section 32 8.2 Errors and their causes in section 35 8.3 Errors and their causes in section 39 8.4 General tendency 42 Chapter 3: Findings and discussion 44 Research question review 44 1.1 Research question 44 1.2 Research question 44 1.3 Research question 45 Implications for teaching and learning English ending sounds pronunciation 2.1 45 Suggestion for teaching English ending sounds pronunciation 45 2.1.1 Suggestion for presentation 45 2.1.2 Suggestion for practice 47 2.1.3 Suggestions for production 49 2.2 Suggestion for learning English ending sounds pronunciation 50 Suggestion for futher research 51 Part C: Conclusion 52 References 54 Appendix 56 Suggested answer 57 LIST OF DIAGRAMS AND TABLES Diagram 2.1: Results of students’ performance in doing section 27 Diagram 2.2: Results of students’ performance in doing section 29 Diagram 2.3: Results of students’ performance in doing section 31 Table 2.1: Results of students’ performance in doing section 26 Table 2.2: Errors in section Table 2.3: Results of students’ performance in doing section Table 2.4: Errors in section Table 2.5: Results of students’ performance in doing section Table 2.6: Errors in section 27 28 30 30 32 Table 2.7: Number of error causes in section 34 Table 2.8: Number of error causes in section 39 Table 2.9: Number of error causes in section 42 Table 2.10: Total of number error causes in the survey 43 ABBREVIATIONS Eg: example N: number Q: question ESL: English as a Foreign Language GA: General American PART A: INTRODUCTION Justification of the study As we know, English is an international language It has become the most powerful language in the world It is also the official language of 45 nations A lot of people speak English as mother tongue in their daily life Moreover, English is used widely in many fields such as: entertainment, technology, education, communication, etc Lots of TV programmes are broadcast in English, most of magazines, newspapers, books are published in English Especially, almost websites on Internet are written in order to approach the world’s development, widen our knowledge about what is happening around us That is one of the reasons why there is an increasing demand for learning English Most people learn English not only to communicate but also to reach the source of human’s information The second reason for conducting this research is the importance of pronunciation in communication The goal of learning a foreign language is communicating, so clear pronunciation is very important Poor pronunciation often prevents communication If a student mispronounces a sound, a stress or a word, or wrongly uses the rhythm and intonation of his utterances, he will surely cause misunderstanding, even no understanding for his partner While studying English there are many pronunciation errors that learners are likely to make: word and sentence stress, intonation, length of vowel sounds etc However, I realize that errors with pronunciation of ending sounds are the typical pronunciation problem for Vietnamese learners Lack or wrong ending sounds in pronunciation will lead to the problem in communication as written above Finally, because of the influence of Vietnamese mother tongue, in which the Vietnamese consonant sounds are never paid attention to Vietnamese learners tend to make errors with ending sounds They either simply omit them or pronounce them wrongly Moreover, when teaching a foreign language, teachers mainly pay attention to grammar, reading skill, writing skill instead of pronunciation in general and ending sounds in particular From the reasons above, it is essential to study the errors of ending sound pronunciation made by high school students in this thesis Aims of the study The study reported in this thesis aims to: - Identify the pronunciation errors of English ending sounds made by high school students - Analyze the major causes and sources of errors made by high school students - Suggest some activities and sollutions for teaching and learning pronunciation of English ending sounds Methods of the study In the study, we use both qualitative and quantitative methods First, we search for information, read books, materials related to the study Then, we collect the data of errors made by students when pronouncing the English ending sounds Next, we find and analyze the errors Lastly, we give some applications and suggestions to learners and teachers about ending sound pronunciation Scope of the study The study focuses on the errors made by high school students when pronouncing the English ending sounds In order to conduct the research, we observe the students’ pronunciation at class and collect data related to the errors with ending sound pronunciation Format of the study The study is divided into three main parts: Part A: Introduction This part deals with the justification, aims, methods, scope and format of the study Part B: Development This part is presented in three chapters: Chapter 1: Theoretical Background This chapter gives theoretical background of the study including theory of pronunciation and phonetics as well as errors in language learning process Chapter 2: The study This chapter focuses on finding and analyzing the errors made by students when pronouncing the ending sounds in English The statistics of the data are also stated Chapter 3: Finding and discussion In this chapter, we propose some findings and suggestions in teaching and learning ending sound pronunciation Part C: Conclusion In this part, we summarize major findings of the study and give some suggestions for further study 10 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND IMPLICATIONS In the previous chapter, the causes of errors have been mentioned and it has been found that Vietnamese learners committed a great deal of errors in pronouncing the ending sounds in English In this chapter, we will look at major findings and some implications for teaching and learning process with a view to preventing errors Research question review 1.1 Research question What errors high school students commit in pronouncing the ending sounds in English? The study shows that students committed a lot of errors in pronouncing the ending sounds They are errors with codas in section and 2, including: reduction errors (omiting the final consonants or one element of a cluster) in section 1,2; insertion errors (inserting a consonant to the ending words); substitution errors (replacing the target consonant by a phonetically similar or Vietnamese sounds) Another error is linking sound errors in section Vietnamese students easily get confused, hence, they committed errors with linking sounds The errors made by students with linking sounds are caused by lack of linking sounds and wrong linking sound pronunciation Most students are not aware of the importance of the ending sounds in words as well as sentence pronunciation 1.2 Research question What might be the causes and sources of the errors in pronouncing the ending sounds? After the survey, it is recognizable that many students had difficulties in realizing the ending sounds and pronouncing them correctly Therefore, they made a lot of errors All of the errors may be seen from different sides They are interlingual as they result from language transfer and they are intralingual as the results of inadequate knowledge and faulty use of different items of the target language Of all error causes, 51 mother tongue interference seems to be the largest source of errors for students (74 out of 201 errors in section 1, 86 out of 186 errors in section and 103 out of 163 errors in section 3), and false concept hypothesized ranks the second (49 out of 201 errors in section 1, 84 out of 186 errors in section and 25 out of 201 errors in section 3) 1.3 Research question What suggestions can be made in learning and teaching process in order to help students master the pronunciation of the ending sounds? After a thorough investigation, it can be seen that students did not really pronounce the ending sounds in English well Therefore, it is necessary for them to be more guided and taught about ending sound pronunciation Based on types of errors and causes of errors committed by students through tasks, we can make some suggestions in teaching and learning English ending sound pronunciation as follows: - Giving basic knowledge of ending sound pronunciation - Using communicative language teaching, providing students more time to speak using target language and without the control of teachers - Communicative teaching should be used in accompany with the traditional method of giving instruction Implications for teaching and learning ending sound pronunciation In order to improve students’ knowledge of ending sound pronunciation as well as to prevent them from committing errors, we would like to make suggestions for teaching and learning ending sound pronunciation in English 2.1 Suggestions for teaching ending sound pronunciation 2.1.1 Suggestions for presentation In much of the preceding discussion, the fundamental errors of learners with ending sounds have been revealed In this part, we would like to give some recommendations on the use of Communicative Language Teaching in teaching pronunciation in order that the problem with ending sounds could be lessened to become less serious 52 An outstanding feature of pronunciation learning and teaching is that the amount of time for students to use the target language must be relatively high, so that they can have enough time to practice However, one problem of Vietnamese teaching environment drawn from observation is that teacher talking time is too much in comparison with student talking time Most of the time student can just listen and repeat in chorus, or speak when the teacher call upon This does not enable all students to talk and practice but just several individuals, who normally have better competence compared with others This also creates a fear of speaking in slow students To solve this, communicative approach provides students more time to speak using target language and without the control of teachers Of course it is agreed among many teachers that students can not produce a word when they not have a sample and instruction Students can also easily mispronounce it into a similar mother tongue sound Especially to many Vietnamese pre-intermediate and intermediate students, ending sound problems seem to be within their consciousness So what I suggest here is that communicative teaching should be used in accommpany with the traditional method of giving instruction, drills may or may not be used It can increase students talking time, so they have more time to practice in pairs or in groups, where every student can raise their voice In teaching ending sound pronunciation in English, the following steps should be applied:  First, teacher says the sound in the word containing the sound while students listen without speaking  Then, teacher says the sound in insolation clearly two or three times so that students can listen, observe his mouth shape and perceive the model  Teacher says it again in some words and allows students to repeat  The teacher writes the word on the board  Teacher shows a picture of the tongue, lips and mouth shape for the sound and explains how it is made 53  Teacher gets students to repeat the words again in chorus two or three times, in group and then individually  Teacher contrasts the sound taught with the similar sounds  Students are divided into two groups and then repeat the minimal pairs after teacher for several times  Teacher uses pictures to show students the different mouth shapes for these two sounds To help students their spoken exercises in concrete situation, the teacher should: - Create some recognition tasks by asking students to listen and pick out the sound in words said in disorder by teacher - Ask students to practice the sound in group of words, in sentences and then in tongue twisters and in dialogue - Predict the errors that students may make and be flexible in correcting their mistakes Teacher should have a suitable treatment for each student, which depends on their levels To sum up, to help students acquire how to pronounce the ending sounds, the teacher should give a good and skilled presentation in a systematic way with careful explanation and make example in different context In addition, the teacher should predict errors made and point them to students 2.1.2 Suggestions for practice Beside the necessary explanations mentioned above, giving the learners as many activities as possible is also considered a good way to help students pronounce the ending sound well in their speech This part presents some suggested activities for practice the ending sound pronunciation Correct or incorrect The teacher writes a word or a list of words on the board and pronounces some of them correctly and others incorrectly, having students say “correct” or “incorrect” after each one Example: Practice the sound /s/ 54 Promise, laughs, kicks, commits (20) Brainstorming Teacher asks students to think of words that contain the target sound of the lesson When students provide number of words, give them communicative activities so that they can practice the sound using those words In this way, students can focus on the sounds and be more aware of it The example 21 is a brainstorming task to teach the ending sound /t/: - Ask students to find any verb that ends with /t/ - Remind them that /t/ at the end of word is an aspirated sound, or in other words it is clearly audible The instruction should insist the difference between Vietnamese and English ending sounds set sit suggest meet Verbs ending with /t/ comment flight commit result Missing words The teacher says short sentences or phrases in which one word is missing The students guess the words, which contains the sound that the teachers wishes students to practice Example: Practice the sound /ӕ/ 55 Teacher: say a word to fill in the gaps: A woman and a students: man (22) Picture identification Teacher draws a picture of two items on the board such as bat and bad The teacher then tells students “Point to the bat” or “Point to bad boy” Next the teacher points to the different words and has students pronounce them correctly Then, the teacher points to the pictures with no word and have students pronounce the word for the picture 1.2.3 Suggestions for production The aim of learning and teaching of a foreign language is to communicate, which directly bring about the production stage Vietnamese students have difficulties in pronouncing the ending sounds in English In order to help them pronounce the sounds well, students should be given many real situation that are familiar to them in their everyday life The below are some activities: Chain stories In turn, learners contribute sentences containing words or phrases with the sounds being practiced to make a story Give each student a paper containing a word with the target ending sounds The first student will be called upon to make the first sentence and begin the story All other member’s task is to make other sentences to contribute the story using the word they have When another student reads aloud his sentence, others keep thinking how to keep story going on Exaggeration 56 Demonstrate a sound by exaggerating the actions and position of the tongue, teeth, lips and mouth This activity is used to revise those sounds studied in previous lessons Divide the class into small groups Each group member will choose a flash card with words containing a target ending sound He or she must try to exaggerate the sounds so that other members can guess which the final sound in his/her flash card is Other group members the same until everyone has talked Sound picture This is a pair work activity Prepare a pair of cards for each pair of students in the class the two pictures are similar but for some differences Devide the class into pairs Give one member of each pair one picture and the other member the second one Students should not look at each other’s picture For each picture, give students the key sound, explaining that the differences lie in words that contain the sound Students work in pairs, describe the pictures and find out the differences Look at example 23: with the pair of picture below, the purpose of the activity is to practice /d/ and /t/ /d/: bridge, giraffe, jacket, jet, message, orange /t/: chair, cheese, chicken, church, matches, picture Implications for learning ending sound pronunciation Teacher plays an important role in helping students acquire knowledge However, students are decisive element in gaining it They should try their best to study and have a strategy when learning a foreign language They should: - Get the basic knowledge of ending sound pronunciation - Spend a lot of time practicing the ending sound pronunciation at class as well as a home - Share knowledge, experience with teacher and classmates 57 Suggestions for further research Due to the shortage of time, my limited knowledge and the framework of the dissertation, this research work has got certain restrictions Thus, on three basic knowledge of the study, further research may be done on greater details of contrastive analysis between English and Vietnamese ending sound pronunciation, English pronunciation – an analysis of errors made by the first year students at university This may hopefully bring about promising results 58 PART C: CONCLUSION This thesis has made a phonetics study of ending sound pronunciation in the light of different view of phoneticians, taking into the consideration the English pronunciation as well as English sounds It is concerned with the ending sound pronunciation from different branches of phonetics and phonology Basing on the previous phoneticians’ ideas and concepts, we have carried out a rather thorough study on errors analysis made by high school students in pronouncing the ending sounds The aim of survey is to look into how ending sounds are taught and learned at high schools Besides, some suggestions have been revealed with a view to improving the process of teaching and learning ending sound pronunciation In addition, it is also aimed at helping students possess knowledge of ending sound pronunciation The study has shown that high school students commit a lot of errors in pronouncing the ending sounds In my concrete analysis carried out here, we realize that Vietnamese students normally make a great number of errors on negative transfer from their mother tongue – the so-called interlingual errors Apart from this, students also make intralingual errors which include over-generalization, incomplete application of rules, ignorance of rule restrictions, false concept hypothesized Mother tongue interference seems to be the most common one The second cause of errors should be paid attention to is false concept hypothesized Besides, poor language knowledge is also a remarkable cause leading to lots of errors Together with error analysis process, some suggestions have been made in order to avoid and prevent errors through the stages of teaching process The presentation stage is used for giving a way that could help students fully master pronunciation of English ending sounds In addition, practice stage is recommended as a good way to pronounce English ending sounds more naturally and fluently Many types of activities have been suggested for consideration The last stage is served for practice ending sounds in the free way 59 Finally, suggestions for further research in the area of pronouncing the English sounds have been raised in the hope that anyone who is interested in and wishes to carry out research on phonetics as well as the field of error analysis can make reference and employ them usefully in their study 60 REFERENCES Cook,A (1991) American Accent Training Matrix Press Coady, J & Huckin, T (Eds) (1997) Second language Acquisition Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Corder, S (1967) The significance of the learners’ errors IRAL, (vol 5.N.4), 16170 Corder, S (1971) Errors analysis The Edinburgh Course in Applied Linguistics, Vol 3, Oxford University Press Crowther & Jonathan (1992) Oxford Advanced Learner’s Encyclopedic Dictionary London: Oxford University Press Dulay, H., Burt,M & Krashen,S (1982) Language Two Oxford : Oxford University Press Hancock,M (2004) Pronunciation Games Cambridge University Press Hendrickson, J.M (1987) Methodology in TESOL Cambridge: Cambridge University Press James, C (1998) Errors in Language Learning and Use London: Addison Wesley Longman John,D (1998) The pronunciation of English Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 10 Kelly,G (2003) How to teach pronunciation Oxfordshire: Bluestone Press 11 MacDonald, George, Doris & Yule (1995) The Different Effects of Pronunciation Teaching IRAL 32.4:345-350 12 Mifflin, H (2001) The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language Houghton Mifflin Company 13 Mifflin, H (2000) The American Heritage Dictionary of English Language Houghton Mifflin Company 14 Lado, R (1957) Linguistics across Cultures Applied Linguistics for Language Teachers Michigan: University of Michigan Press 61 15 Nguyen, T.T.T (2007) Difficulties for Vietnamese when pronouncing English final consonants Hogskolan Dalarna, Engelska C Uppsats 16 Nguyen,H.D (2008) Common mispronunciations made by CLC students at English Department, College of Foreign Languages, Vietnamese National University VNU, Hanoi 17 Richards, J (1995) Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics Addison Wesley Publishing Company 18 Roach, P (2000) English Phonetics and Phonology Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 19 Richards,J.C (1971) Error analysis and second language strategies English Language Teaching 25:115-135 20 Richards, J & Schmidt, R.W (1992) Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics Longman: Addison Wesley Longman 21 Wyld, H.C (Ed) (1952) The Universal Dictionary of the English Language Waverley Book Company 62 APPENDIX Section 1: Choose the word in each group that has the underlined part pro-nounced diffrently from the rest A massage B carriage C voyage D dosage A regrets B.remembers C.drinks D.laughs A enriched B.filled C.missed D.watched A.played B.intended C.decided D.visited A.beneath B.breath C.health D.breathe Section 2: Read the list of words below, pay attention to the ending sounds missed dreams health promise protects stayed resources visited enough massage church bridge pool sing pig kick Section 3: Read the phrases and the sentences below, pay attention to the linking sounds 63 three eggs the car is here Do you love it ? I like him I think of you SUGGESTED ANSWER Section 1: A B B A D Section 2: missed /mist/ dreams /dri:mz/ health /helθ/ promise /prɔmis/ protects /prəteks/ stayed /steid/ resources /risɔ:siz/ visited /vizitid/ enough /inʌf/ massage /mesiʤ/ church /ʧə:ʧ/ bridge /briʤ/ pool /pu:l/ sing /siŋ/ pig /pig/ kick /kik/ Section 3: three eggs /j/ 2.the car is here 64 /r/ Do you love it ? /v/ I like him /k/ I think of you /k/ 65 ... this kind of errors The following table shows the number of errors and types of errors and the number of students making those types Type of errors Quantity of errors Percentage Number of students. .. Predictable errors and mistakes made by high school students Basing on the theory of pronunciation and error analysis made in previous chapter, I suppose that errors and mistakes in pronouncing the ending. .. Aims of the study The study reported in this thesis aims to: - Identify the pronunciation errors of English ending sounds made by high school students - Analyze the major causes and sources of errors