PART 1: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
In the past few years, as the Vietnamese have come into contact with people from other
countries, especially since Vietnam entered the World Trade Organization (WTO) and became
one of twenty destinations of the world, there is a growing awareness of the importance of and
need for communicative English. The emphasis in language teaching has changed to give
spoken English the same status as written English, and the communicative language teaching
is considered as a predominant approach in which teachers pay more attention to speaking and
listening skills and need to perceive that these skills require not only vocabulary and ideas but
also a reasonable pronunciation. Unfortunately, the outcome of communicative learning is not
very satisfactory. Though they have learnt English at school and university, many students,
especially non-English majors, often complain that it is really hard to communicate in English
since they do not catch what the speakers are saying, and they are not confident to speak
English. One of the reasons is their unintelligible pronunciation.
Pronunciation plays an important role in second language teaching and learning. Without
it, learners have many difficulties in getting their speech understood and understanding
others’. Misunderstanding, communication breakdown or failure may occur due to
mispronunciation.
As a teacher of English at the University of Transport and Communications (UTC) for
two years, the researcher has witnessed the great efforts made by her colleagues as well as
students to improve the quality of teaching and learning English. As the teaching goals, all
four language skills are equally focused in the teaching program which lasts three terms.
Students are required to have good English for their next coming major studies, and for their
further future. Whereas, it is undeniable that, among four skills, students get worse score at
listening and speaking. In such the context, pronunciation teaching should be taken in
appropriate consideration so that the teaching goals can be met.
However, up to now there has not been any research on teaching English pronunciation
at UTC yet. Thus, the case study of teaching pronunciation to first-year students at UTC is of
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special importance. It describes pronunciation teaching in the context, specifying the
shortcomings and then making suggestions to improve the teaching of pronunciation.

study, the scope, the methods and the organization of the study.
- Part 2, DEVELOPMENT, consists of three chapters as follows:
- Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
- Chapter 2: METHODOLOGY
- Chapter 3: ANALYSIS, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
- Part 3, CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS, summarizes some major findings,
provides recommendations for teaching pronunciation, limitations of the study, and
suggestions for further research.
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PART 2: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1. Pronunciation and communicative teaching
Pronunciation is not an optional extra for the language learner, any more than grammar,
vocabulary or any other aspect of language (Tench, 1981). ‘Pronunciation’ is defined as ‘A
way of speaking a word, especially a way that is accepted or generally understood.’ (American
Heritage Dictionary, 1992). A reasonable pronunciation is important when a learner’s general
aim is to talk intelligibly to others in another language. Making yourself understood when you
say something, besides grammar, lexis, function, and discourse, it has to be pronounced
reasonably well. It is necessary for a teacher to give due attention to pronunciation along with
everything else.
Students can be expected to do well in the pronunciation of English if the pronunciation
class is taken out of isolation and becomes an 'integral part of the oral communication' class
(Morley,1991). The goal of pronunciation should be changed from the attainment of 'perfect'
pronunciation (A very elusive term at the best of times.), to the more realistic goals of
developing functional intelligibility, communicability, increased self-confidence, the
development of speech monitoring abilities and speech modification strategies for use beyond
the classroom (Morley, 1991). The overall aim of these goals is for the learner to develop
spoken English that is easy to understand, serves the learner's individual needs, and allows a
positive image of himself as a speaker of a foreign language. The learner needs to develop
awareness and monitoring skills that will allow learning opportunities outside the classroom

with classroom activities’ (Suter, 1976, Purcell and Suter, 1980). Pronunciation has been
regarded as ‘the Cinderella of language teaching’ (Kelly, 1969; Dalton, 1997).
The above view that ‘little relationship exists between teaching pronunciation in the
classroom and attained proficiency in pronunciation’ was supported by research done by Suter
(1976) and Suter and Purcell (1980) on twenty variables believed to have an influence on
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pronunciation. They concluded that pronunciation practice in class had little affect on the
learner's pronunciation skills and, moreover ‘that the attainment of accurate pronunciation in a
second language is a matter substantially beyond the control of educators’. They qualified
their findings by stating that variables of formal training and the quality of the training in
pronunciation could affect the results, as would the area of pronunciation that had been
emphasized, that is segmentals (individual sounds of a language) or suprasegmentals. ( The
‘musical patterns’ of English, melody, pitch patterns, rhythm, and timing patterns (Gilbert,
1987) Pennington (1989) questioned the validity of Suter and Purcell’s findings as the factors
of formal pronunciation training and the quality of the teaching, if not taken into account,
could affect any research results. He stated that there was ‘no firm basis for asserting
categorically that pronunciation is not teachable or that it is not worth spending time on ’. It
is quite clear from the research mentioned above that the role of pronunciation training in the
learner's language development is widely debated, with researchers such as Suter, Purcell, and
Madden (1983) all thinking that pronunciation training is relatively ineffective, and in
opposition researchers such as Pennington believing that teachers, with formal training in
pronunciation and teaching suprasegmentals in a communicative language program, can make
a difference. Between these opposing views, Stern (1992) says ‘there is no convincing
empirical evidence which could help us sort out the various positions on the merits of
pronunciation training’.
There has been a move from teacher-centered to learner-centered classrooms, and
concurrently, a shift from specific linguistic competencies to broader communicative
competencies as goals for teachers and students. Morley states the need for the integration of
pronunciation with oral communication, a change of emphasis from segmentals to
suprasegmentals, more emphasis on individual learner needs, meaningful task-based practices,

information; it also presupposes the availability of good models to listen to, a possibility that
has been enhanced by the availability first of phonograph records, then of tape recorders and
language labs in the mid-twentieth century, and more recently of audio- and video-cassettes
and compact discs.
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Jones and Evans (1995) suggest teachers should take this approach at the beginning of
teaching pronunciation: ‘Firstly it constitutes a more holistic approach in which, from the
outset, different elements of pronunciation are seen as integrated. Secondly, it gives students a
chance to experience pronunciation on intuitive and communicative levels before moving on
to a more analytical exploration of specific elements of phonology. Finally, work in voice
quality can help students to improve their image when they speak English, and thus increase
their confidence’
1.3.2. Analytic-linguistic Approach
Analytic-linguistic Approach utilizes information and tools such as a phonetic alphabet,
articulatory descriptions, chart of the vocal apparatus, contrastive information, and other aids
to supplement listening, imitation, and production. It explicitly informs the learner of and
focuses attention on such segmentals as the sounds and rhythms of the target language. This
approach was developed to complement rather than to replace the intuitive-imitative approach.
Two common approaches to teaching pronunciation mentioned by Tench (1984),
Pennington (1989), Jones and Evans (1995), Dalton and Seidlhofer (1994) are Approaches of
Bottom-up and Top-down.
1.3.3. Approach of Bottom-up
Approach of Bottom-up has close relationship with accuracy which should be focused
from the very beginning of a course. Teachers teach learners with the smallest and most
concrete unit elements in pronunciation. The teacher goes from individual consonants and
vowels to more abstract segments such as intonation and thought group.
1.3.4. Approach of Top-down
Approach of Top-down gets the idea of contextualized sounds in connected speech. The
teacher goes from the biggest elements to the smallest ones of pronunciation: from intonation
or thought group, or contextualized sounds to individual sounds.

listening discrimination and spoken practice. Minimal pair drills typically begin with word-
level drills and then move on to sentence-level drills.
1.4.4. Contextualized minimal pairs: In this technique, the teacher establishes the
setting and presents key vocabulary; students are then trained to respond to a sentence stem
with the appropriate meaningful response.
1.4.5. Visual aids: Enhancement of the teacher’s description of how sounds are
produced by audiovisual aids such as sound-color charts, Fidel wall charts, rods, pictures,
mirrors, props, etc. These devices are also used to cue production of the target sounds.
1.4.6. Tongue twisters: A technique from speech correction strategies for native
speakers (e.g., “She sells seashells by the seashore.”)
1.4.7. Developmental approximation drills: A technique suggested by first-language
acquisition studies in which second language speakers are taught to retrace the steps that many
English-speaking children follow as they acquire certain sounds in their first language. As
children learning English often acquire /w/ before /r/ or /j/ before /l/, adults who have
difficulty producing /l/ or /r/ can be encouraged to begin by pronouncing words with initial /w/
or /j/, and then shift to /r/ or /l/, respectively:
/w/ → /r/ /j/ → /l/
wed red yet let
wag rag young lung
1.4.8. Practice of vowel shifts and stress shifts related by affixation: A technique
based on rules of generative phonology (Chomsky and Halle 1968) used with intermediate or
advanced learners. The teacher points out the rule-based nature of vowel and stress shifts in
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etymologically related words to raise awareness; sentences and short texts that contain both
members of a pair may be provided as oral practice material:
Vowel shift: mime /ai/ mimic /i/
Sentence context: Street mimes often mimic the gestures of passersby.
Stress shift: PHOtograph phoTOgraphy
Sentence context: I can tell from these photographs that you are very good at
photography.

Word stress must be highly focused on at the beginning of any pronunciation course to
help learners to have understandable pronunciation. In every words two ore more syllables,
one of them is stressed and stronger, louder and longer than the other(s). This stressed syllable
is very important because speakers of English rely on patterns of stress to identify the words
and phrases they hear (Linda Grant, 1993). The more frequently the speaker misused stress,
the more effort the listeners have to make to understand what she/he is saying.
1.5.3. Rhythm
‘Rhythm is characterized by the alternation of strong and weak syllables’ (Kenworthy,
1992:30). Rhythm is a product of word stress and the way in which important items are fore-
grounded through their occurrence on a strong beat, and unimportant items are back-grounded
by their occurrence on a weak beat.
1.5.4. Sentence focus and Intonation
In spoken English, there are various ways in which a speaker gives the listener
information about the relative importance of different parts of the massage. One of these ways
is to put stress on the words that carry the most information. This usually called the main
sentence stress (Kenworthy, 1992:32). Sentence focus and intonation refer to the intention and
feelings of the speaker. When she/he speaks, she/he gives more emphasis on the most
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important words. The teaching of sentence focus and intonation will be more successful if the
teacher selects a context which forces learners to grapple with this notion of ‘importance’.
1.5.5. Thought group
Words organized into short meaningful phrases by the speaker are called thought group.
It is a suprasegmental factor of pronunciation, and it seems to be unteachable. However, if
teachers simplify this abstract concept by explaining in a friendly way and providing authentic
exercises, it will become teachable. Teaching thought group is a crucial element in teaching
pronunciation. If a speaker does not divide the stream of speech into appropriate thought
groups, the language may be challenging to understand, no matter how clearly each word is
pronounced. So a really useful way to help students with their pronunciation is to help them
become aware of thought group – a term from the excellent phonology book for learners
‘speaking clearly’ (Rogerson and Gilbert 1984). To define the ‘thought group’, Rogerson and

information about their performance. In other cases, learners may overdo something – they
may make inaccurate assumptions about the way English is pronounced, perhaps because of
the way it is written. This leads to another task for the teacher:
1.6.4. Pointing out what’s going on
Learners need to know what to pay attention to and what to work on. Because while
learners are speaking with the most part unconsciously controlled, they may miss something
important. For example, they may not realized that when a particular word is stressed or said
in a different way this can affect the message that is sent to the listener. Teachers need to make
learners aware of the potential of sounds – the resources available to them for sending spoken
messages.
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1.6.5. Establishing priorities
Learners need the help of the teacher in establishing a plan of action, in deciding what to
concentrate on and when to leave well enough alone. Learners themselves can be aware of
some of the features of their pronunciation that are ‘different’, but they will not be able to tell
if this is important or not. They may notice that something about their pronunciation is not like
the way English people do it and may automatically try to change this, but their efforts are
misplaced because that feature is a refinement, or acceptable to the English ear.
1.6.6. Devising activities
Learning pronunciation is so complicated that the teacher must consider what types of
exercises and activities will be helpful. Which activities will provide the most opportunities
for practice, experimentation, exploration? In designing activities for learning, teachers must
also keep in mind that certain activities suit the learning styles and approaches of some
learners better than others.
1.6.7. Assessing progress
This is a kind of feedback or comment on their dealing with pronunciation work.
Learners find it difficult to access their own progress so it will be meaningful if the teacher
provide this kind of information. This is especially difficult in the activity of making sounds,
but information about progress is often a crucial factor in maintaining motivation.
1.7. Pronunciation goal

English’ series (Student’s Books), and cassettes for General English, a language lab for all
groups to share. The textbooks were quoted from ‘Headway’, ‘New Headway’ by John & Liz
Soars, ‘Lifeline’ by Tom Hutchinson, and ‘Power Base’ by David Evans. In this series of
books, four basic language skills are equally developed. Other aspects of language are also
integrated into teaching such as grammar, everyday English, vocabulary and pronunciation.
The study focuses on teaching pronunciation to first-year students (at the stage of
General English). It is worthy to note that the University gives a special priority to students of
Road and Bridge English. The textbooks and other materials for such students are different
from the rest of students at the university. In the study, those groups are not mentioned. The
researcher only investigated on the teaching to the majority of students.
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2.2. Rationale of using case-study as the research method
A case study is defined as a study of a ‘bounded system’ emphasizing the unity and
wholeness of that system, but confiding the attention to those aspects that are relevant to the
research problem at the time (Johnson 1992). A case is a unit of analysis, for example, in
education research, a case is probably a learner, a teacher, a class, or a school that exists in its
natural occurring environment. A case study is used to describe the case in its context, to
understand the complexity and dynamic nature of a particular entity. Data collection
techniques for a case study are not complicated to implement. They can be entirely naturalistic
observation, elicitation, interviewing, verbal reports or collection of written materials.
The reason why the researcher chooses ‘case study’ as the research method is its
characteristics can meet the aims of her study. The study is conducted to describe the situation
of teaching pronunciation in the scope-limited context of first-year students at the University
of Transport and Communications. It functions as a rich-information report on the issue to all
the teachers of English at the University and to those who take interest in. With the
information reported, implications are then made with the hope that the situation of teaching
pronunciation will be improved.
2.3. Participants
The participants were 19 teachers who fulfilled the questionnaire for teachers and do the
interview. They are from different parts of Vietnam, but all living in Hanoi. They are from 25

on the teaching of pronunciation. The researcher interviewed them separately when she met
them at the teacher’s halls at breaking time. In addition, formal and informal discussions and
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free talks with all the teachers and the administration staff to collect data for this study were
also carried out.
2.5. Data collection procedure
The study was conducted during the academic year 2007-2008 (from September 2007 to
June 2008). The data was collected in following steps:
First of all, the researcher had an overview of the syllabus of Elementary and Pre-
Intermediate English course-books. She examined the elements of pronunciations to teach.
Then she did 57 classroom observations and kept records of the teachers’ and students’
classroom activities. After each classroom observation, she transcribed and discovered the
patterns of the teachers when they did the language teaching and especially teaching
pronunciation.
Next, she conducted a questionnaire based on the literature on teaching pronunciation,
her observation of the context during two years of working at UTC and the discussion with
other teachers at the university. The questionnaire was delivered to all the 19 teachers of
English. She clearly explained the purpose of doing research before they fulfilled the
questions. The participants were also encouraged to raise questions if there was something in
the questionnaire they did not understand. They were instructed to take as much time as they
needed to complete it.
After that, she did the interview to six of them separately to get further information that
she could not have during the observations or in the questionnaire. The participants in the
interview varied in ages and years of experience so they could represent the whole teaching
staff. The interview helped support the findings.
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CHAPTER 3: ANALYSIS, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
3.1. Data analysis
To answer the three research questions, data from the observations, the questionnaire, the
interview, the syllabus analysis were classified into six different categories as follows:

Response Good at Ok Not good at
Number of
participants
6 13 0
Percentage 32 % 68 % 0 %
Table 1: Teachers’ beliefs in teaching pronunciation
Mentioning the importance of pronunciation in the teachers’ English teaching, most of
them argued that it is very important or quite important (32 % very important and 36 % quite
important). 32 % of the teachers believed that it is not very important. In the interviews, the
teachers who argued that pronunciation is important to their students explained the benefits of
having a reasonable pronunciation: ‘A reasonable pronunciation make learners more confident
in their communicative skills.’ (Thu Huong, aged 46), ‘Pronunciation is necessary for
speaking and listening which are two of four language skills that we should treat equally.’
(Kim Thanh, aged 26). The others who thought that pronunciation is not very important said
‘there are a lot of things we have to deal with while teaching. Pronunciation is only a minor
area in language teaching. Moreover, the students are non-English-major ones, it would be too
demanding if they were asked to be good at all four skills. There is no test for speaking.
Listening makes up only 20% of total mark in the exams.’ (Thuy Quynh, aged 43). The
teachers gave pronunciation different scales of importance, however, no one ignored the role
of pronunciation in their language teaching.
Fifteen of the teachers have professional qualifications as M.A. in linguistics or English
teaching methodology. The rest of them are attending a postgraduate course at the same time
of teaching. They were well-trained phonetics and phonology as well as teaching
pronunciation beside other areas of linguistics and language teaching during their courses of
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postgraduate. Therefore, it was no surprising that they responded they are OK (68%) or even
good (32 %) at teaching pronunciation.
The teachers were confident to teach pronunciation. 47 % of them liked, other 47 %
didn’t mind teaching pronunciation. They found it funny and relaxing when there were some
pronunciation exercises or tasks in the course books. The whole students were attentive to join

The curricula can be described in a summary of claims as follows:
Level of learners - Beginners or false beginners: before learning English Elementary;
- Those who have finished English Elementary
Age of learners - 19 and older
Learners’ culture
and L1
Vietnamese and Lao (a minor number of students are from Laos to
study overseas)
Reason for learning English as a compulsory subject; for general, practical or cultural
purposes
Language model British English, but illustrates other varieties as well
Target performance Learners are required to pass the examination after every academic
term of learning. Three language skills (reading, writing, listening)
are tested in the exam.
Claims and
assumptions
It offers valuable practice for the exam.
Students learn what they use and forget what they do not use
Table 2: Claims of the formal curricula
Analyzing the curricula, the researcher focused on pronunciation which is treated in
order to help answer the second research question that what elements of pronunciation are
taught.
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Course Book: New English Elementary
Breakdown of exercises in which pronunciation is treated
Total number of exercises in which pronunciation is treated in some way: 50
- Number of exercises with pronunciation instructions appear: 9 (18 %)
- Number of exercises in which teachers may treat elements of pronunciation regarding
lexis/structures presented (no exercises in student’s book): 18 (36 %)
- Number of exercises with optional exercises (students’ decision): 23 (46 %)