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PART I. INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study
In the last decades, the general goals of teaching have primed the effective use of the spoken
language to establish successful communication. That is why there has been a steady growth
in the attention to the magnitude of speaking and pronunciation teaching. This fact has brought
about an emergent debate about models, goals and particularly, the methodology used for
speaking and pronunciation teaching.
A number of research studies have dealt with pronunciation teaching and problems students
face in English pronunciation. The research findings have revealed that pronunciation
frequently interferes with communication. As a matter of fact, communication may break
down when people pronounce incorrectly. Moreover, learners with good pronunciation are
usually more proficient speakers and more successful language learners than those with poor
pronunciation.
Since I started teaching at Hong Duc University, I have taught speaking and pronunciation to
first-year English majors many times. I have always been trying my best to help my students
pronounce better. However, I have had many frustrations because my students always have
many mistakes in their pronunciation. I have been investigating into the reasons for this, and I
have found that my students, most of whom are from rural areas in the province, only learned
grammar and never focused on pronunciation at secondary school. Moreover, they did not
have much access to native speakers’ pronunciation.
For non-English majors at other departments of Hong Duc University, they are required to
have intelligible pronunciation. English majors at Foreign Department, however, must go far
beyond the intelligibility to the point that they should sound like or nearly like native speakers
because they will become teachers of English and their pronunciation will affect many
generations to come. That is the reason why first-year English majors’ weak pronunciation has
been a matter of serious concern among us.

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4. Scope of the study
The study concentrates on improving first-year English majors at Hong Duc University by
using the pronunciation software named Pronunciation Power. Within its scope, the research
was aimed at justifying the effectiveness of using this software program in teaching English
pronunciation to first-year English majors at Hong Duc university.
5. Methods of the study
This study is conducted as an action research because it is aimed at improving first-year
English majors’ pronunciation. In order to get data, a combination of different instruments,
namely class observation, informal interviews and audio-recording, is used. The data collected
from the observation and interviews will be analyzed by qualitative method, and the data
collected through the tape scripts will be analyzed by quantitative method.
6. Significance of the study
Even though there have been numerous studies on pronunciation teaching, few investigations
into the use of software in teaching pronunciation are conducted. This research provides an
insight into the effectiveness of applying pronunciation software to the teaching of
pronunciation to first-year English majors. The results of the study will, therefore, be much
beneficial to both teachers who are considering whether to exploit software programs in their
English pronunciation lessons and students who are interested in using software programs to
improve their English pronunciation.
7. Design of the study
The study consists of three main parts as follows.
The first part deals with rationale, purposes, research questions, scope, methods and design of
the study.
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are responsible for the listeners’ failure to be comprehended and to interpret what the speaker
means, which leads to the disappointment of the speaker.
Furthermore, Stevick (1978) justifies that pronunciation is a primary medium for
communication of information through which we bring our use of language to the attention of
other people and the teaching of pronunciation should therefore be given priority in a language
class.
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According to Murphy (1991), given that most courses emphasize general oral communication
over pronunciation, teachers must seek creative ways to integrate pronunciation into speaking-
oriented classes in a manner clearly related to the oral communication goals of the course. He
also adds that pronunciation instruction needs to be integrated with broader level
communicative activities in which speakers and listeners engage in meaning communication.
It is obvious in my situation as a teacher of English that students’ weak pronunciation has
negative effect on their ability to express themselves and their ability to listen to others,
especially to native speakers. Speakers with wrong pronunciation find it difficult to make
themselves understood by the teacher and other students, which makes them embarrassed and
hesitant to continue speaking. Moreover, when a learner has already stuck to the wrong way of
pronouncing a particular word, phrase or sentence, (s)he is unlikely to recognize the authentic
pronunciation by a native speaker and fail to interpret what the speaker means.
Therefore, it can be concluded that pronunciation play an essential role in learning a foreign
language because it is intelligible pronunciation that make communication possible and even if
a speaker uses the right words with the right structure but without correct or intelligible
pronunciation, s(he) is likely to cause misunderstanding, communication interruption, or even
communication breakdown.
1.2. Aspects of pronunciation teaching
As regards what teaching pronunciation involves, Ur (1996:47) claims that “the concept of


Diagram 1. English vowels
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1.2.2. Consonant sounds
According to Kelly. G, (2003:24), “consonants are formed by interrupting, restricting or
diverting the airflow in a variety of ways.”
Roach (1998) define consonants as “sounds in which there is obstruction to the flow of air as
it passes the larynx to the lips.”
Consonants are classified according to:
- the manner of articulation
- the place of articulation
- the force of articulation
The classification of English consonants can be shown in the following table:
Table 1. English consonants 
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1.2.5. Rhythm
Kenworthy (1987:30) claims that rhythm is a product of word stress and the way in which
important items are foregrounded through their occurrence on a strong beat, and unimportant
items are backgrounded by their occurrence on a weak beat. Dalton and Seidlhofer (1994) also
give the similar description of rhythm concentrating on the contrast between stress and
unstress, which states that “utterances are continuous strings of syllables, the stressed
syllables provides the foreground and the unstressed ones the backgrounds.” English has a
stress-timed rhythm, in which stressed syllables recur at equal intervals of time but unstressed
syllables are unequally spaced in time. The amount of time it takes to say a sentence depends
on the number of syllables that receive stress, not on the total number of syllables. This should
be distinguished from syllable-timed rhythm like Vietnamese, in which all the syllables recur
at equal intervals of time, stressed or unstressed, so that Vietnamese students can avoid the
interference of their mother tongue in the target language.
1.2.6. Intonation
According to Kelly (2000), intonation refers to the way the voice goes up and down in pitch
when we are speaking. He also claims that “it is a fundamental part of the way we express our
own thoughts and it enables us to understand those of others.”
Four basic tunes of English are as follows:
- The falling tune (the glide-down)
- The first rising tune (the glide-up)
- The second rising tune (the take-off)
- The falling-rising tune.
Intonation has the function as the expression of speaker’s attitude and purpose in saying
something such as greeting you, telling you something, asking you, ordering you, pleading
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difference"
In a well-known study by Derwing, Munrol and Wiebe (1998), explicit instruction was given
to the experimental group and not to the control group. Both groups were evaluated before and
after the experiment by both trained and untrained listeners. The results demonstrated that
explicit phonetic instruction enhanced learners' pronunciation of the target language.
Luchini in his article “Task-Based Pronunciation Teaching: A State-of-the-art Perspective”
argues that “…the formal instruction of those common core features of English pronunciation
– vowel length, nuclear stress (especially contrastive stress), and voice setting – which seem to
be vital for establishing intelligibility enable learners to take utmost advantage of both their
receptive and productive pronunciation skills.” (p.197)
However, not all researchers agree that formal and explicit instruction can help students to
improve their pronunciation. Roach,1983; Dalton and Seihofer, 1994; among others state that
numerous students can not gain all the prosodic features when they are overly taught, which
can only be implicitly learnt by long-term exposure to the target language. (p195)
I myself believe that overt instruction is necessary in the speaking and pronunciation lessons,
especially for my first-year English major students at Hong Duc university because they will
become teachers of English and they need to know exactly how a sound, a word, a phrase, an
utterance or a sentence is pronounced, so that they can teach their pupils in the forthcoming
future, not just to learn pronunciation implicitly without thorough understanding of it.
However, this does not mean that implicit learning is not important. Teachers should on the
one hand give explicit phonetic instructions and on the other hand encourage students to
continuously expose to the target language. 
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1.3.2. Top-down or Bottom-up

1.4. Computers-assisted language learning (CALL) and EFL learning and teaching
During the last decades, much CALL research has explored the potential of technology as well
as multimedia—the combination of text, audio, video, graphics, and animations—as a tool to
teach and reinforce English language learning. These studies focus on justifying the
effectiveness of the application of certain technologies in specific language skill areas.
In his recent literature review and meta-analysis, Zhao (2003) identifies three problems with
assessing the effectiveness of technology. First is the problem of defining what counts as
technology (videos, CALL tutorials, and chat rooms, for example, are obviously very
different). The second problem is separating a technology from its particular uses. Because
any given technology may be used in a variety of ways, some effective, some not, it is difficult
to generalize about the effectiveness of a technology itself. The third issue has to do with the
effects of other mediating factors, such as the learners, the setting, the task(s), and the type of
assessment. Zhao attempted to address these issues by performing a meta-analysis of
stringently selected studies published between 1997 and 2001. Including technologies ranging
from video to speech recognition to web tutorials, Zhao found a significant main effect for
technology applications on student learning.
According to (Wood, 2001) and Nikolova (2002), multimedia is seen as supporting
vocabulary acquisition because it can effectively present new lexical items and enable learners
to practice them with visual referents and through gaming formats that include visual and
auditory information, which improve retention.
Multimedia technology containing audio and video has also been shown to promote the
development of listening skills (Brett, 1997, Merler, 2000), and computer mediated
communication (CMC) has also had positive effects on language acquisition (Chun,1994;
Warschauer, 1997). Gulcan (2003), and Hagood (2003) contend that the interplay of
multimedia elements improves learning to read a second language.
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- CALL software as a resource for reference
According to Barr, CALL software programs are available over the web which can also be
directly downloaded. This give tutors the opportunity to prepare lessons using the programs
appropriate with aims and objectives of their lessons. Similarly, students are free to browse the
web for material or use CALL packages in their own time.
Therefore, it can not be denied that information technology in general and CALL software in
particular play a positive role in language learning and teaching. In other words, IT and CALL
software enhances the process of language learning.
1.6. Benefits of using CALL software in EFL teaching and learning
As regards benefits of CALL software, Sciarone and Meijer (1993, quoted in Barr, 2004),
suggested that “CALL programs can be used for quite tedious tasks such as teaching grammar
and vocabulary acquisition” (p33). CALL programs will never tire, unlike human teachers,
and can be used repeatedly. Barr added that when students use CALL packages, the teacher
therefore has more time to devote to preparing other types of classes, concentrating on specific
problems they may have. In addition, CALL has a certain academic value. Many modern
programs make effective use of graphics and color and recorded sound: they are therefore eye-
catching, which make students be attracted to the programs that teach tedious areas of
language learning. This view is further reinforced by Galavis (1998), who claimed that “Video,
pictures, and sound presented by computers stimulate sight and hearing simultaneously in a
way traditional resources do not”
Galavis goes on to state that CALL software programs may provide considerable input and a
wide variety of registers and accents. They “provide access to authentic materials”. Pacoex
(1997) also maintains that CALL software is able to offer comprehensible input, which is
necessary for the taking place of second language learning. The software utilize a multi-
sensory collection of text, sound, pictures, video, animation and even hypermedia which
provide meaningful contexts to facilitate comprehension.
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As Graham Davies points out, in his article on history of CALL, that these programs are not
suitably spontaneous (2000). In other words, they do not yet have the ability to react to the
unforeseen. It students do not understand the mistakes they make, the help sections that many
CALL packages provide are limited by the information that the programmer has fed into the
help section database. They cannot address questions that have not been pre-programmed.
Moreover, “it appears that CALL systems have insufficient technological capability to
recognize and respond to the human voice” (Ehsani and Knodt, 1998 quoted in Barr, 2004).
Students cannot yet conduct a conversation in a foreign language with a computer: human
contact is required for this type of interaction. Galavis (1998) agrees on this fact when he
states that computers do not provide some important features of real communicative
exchanges as well as the sense of cooperation that can be found in class with a teacher. Lee
(2000) also stated that there is a lack of high quality software.
To a certain extent, these limitations can be reduced in a number of ways. Levy (1997:231)
argues that it is importance for language teachers to have a more direct role in the production
of CALL software, thereby, ensuring the pedagogical relevance of these programs. In addition,
all the software programs should be carefully checked before being used.
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CHAPTER 2. METHODOLOGY
2.1. Context of the study
The study was conducted at Hong Duc university in Thanh Hoa province. This is a multi-
discipline university in which English is one of the majors. Students at Foreign Language
Department are trained to become teachers of English for secondary schools in Thanh Hoa.
Teachers of English training course K12, to which the study is targeted, is in its first year in
the academic year 2009-2010.

2.3. Description of the software program
Pronunciation Power series consisting of 2 CD-Roms is an interactive software program that
focuses on developing students’ individual sounds and basic suprasegmental features. There
are three areas of study for a particular sound: Lessons, Speech Analysis, and Exercises.
Pronunciation Power 1 contains S.T.A.I.R. (Stress, Timing, Articulation, Intonation and pitch,
and Rhythm) Exercises which are not available in Pronunciation Power 2. Audible sounds are
accompanied by visual illustrations (a side and a front view) of real-time articulatory
movements for the production of the sounds. For the side view, animated drawings provide an
x-rayed look of the complete articulatory mechanics, including manner and location of
airflow, lips and tongue placement and movement, velum movement, and whether a sound is
voiced or voiceless. For the front view, a video clip of a real person is shown, demonstrating
jaw, lip, and tongue protrusion movement. A written description, and at times suggestions, for
producing the sound is provided, which the user can access as an auditory clip. The Speech
Analysis offers the user a look at graphic representations of the sound utterance as a
waveform. The user is able to record their own production of the sound, and then compare
their waveform of the sound with that of the instructor. The waveforms provide information
concerning the loudness (amplitude) and pitch (frequency) of sounds, as well as duration
(length).
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2.4. Subjects of the study
The researcher is a teacher of Foreign Language Department at Hong Duc University. The
students participating in the research were 30 first-year English majors from K12 - teacher
training course, academic year 2009-2010 of Foreign Language Department at Hong Duc
University. They consist of 29 girls and 1 boy, who are between 18 – 20 years of age. They
come from different districts in Thanh Hoa and have learned English for 7 years or more.
They must get at least mark 5 for English in order to pass the entrance exam. Therefore, it can

The study was conducted during the first term of the academic year 2009-2010. At the
beginning of the semester, a pretest was conducted to the students to find out the current
situation of their pronunciation. Then the intervention was provided. During the pronunciation
and speaking classes, the teacher used the CALL software package named Pronunciation
Power to give students explicit instruction on how to pronounce different sounds, to put stress
on words or in sentences, to speak with the right rhythm and intonation in English. Then the
students practiced with the help of the software to achieve native-like pronunciation. At the
end of the semester, a post-test was administered to these students to discover whether the
intervention had any positive effect on their pronunciation. Furthermore, from the very first
lesson of the course, the teacher kept the record of the students’ pronunciation in classroom
activities in her teaching journals, which lasted for a whole term. By the end of the term, 15
records of teacher observation will be collected. In the class breaks during the term, informal
interviews with the students were carried out and also kept in the teacher’s teaching journals.
Based on the results of the audio-recording as well as the teacher’s observation and informal
interviews with the students,, the efficiency of the intervention was evaluated.
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CHAPTER 3. DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
3.1. Findings from the pretest
In the second week of the semester, students participated in the pretest in which they were
given a passage, or single sentences to read and short conversations to practice speaking in
pairs. The reading passage was taken from How to Prepare for the TOEFL by Palmela
J.Shape, PhD, 9
th
edition, Nha xuat ban tre (2000), and the short conversations from Life Line
Pre-intermediate, Life Line Intermediate by Tom Hutchinson, Oxford University Press 2002
and English Pronunciation In Use by Mark Hancock, Cambridge University Press, 2003. The

2. Pronouncing /æ/ like /e/ or // 25 83%
3. Omitting final consonant clusters
26 87%
4. Producing // like ‘th’ and /ð/ like ‘d’
24 80%
5. Having wrong pronunciation with /t/
20 67%
6. Having wrong pronunciation with //
17 57%
7. Having wrong pronunciation with /d/
16 53%
8. Having wrong pronunciation with //
16 53%

3.1.2. Stress
As regards stress on important words, the result is shown in the table 3 below.
Table 3. Students’ stress on important words
Sentence 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Model OooOo oOoooO ooOoO OooO ooOoO oOoO ooOooO
Number of
correctness

10 7 9 11 8 11 7
Percentage 33% 23% 30% 37% 26% 37% 23%
The figures in table 3 represents that the number of students who put the right stress on
important words is not high. Sentence 4 and 6 receive the most correct responses from
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asked what they knew about corrective stress, most of the students acknowledged that they
had never heard of it before. This really explained why so many students had mistakes with
corrective stress. In addition, it is surprising that even some of the students who had the
correct responses admitted that they just put stress at random positions and their performance
is accidentally correct.