VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES
*****************

TRẦN THỊ THU HÀ INTEGRATION OF PRONUNCIATION PRACTICE INTO
SPEAKING ACTIVITIES: AN ACTION RESEARCH AT HANOI
TOURISM COLLEGE

Nghiên cứu hành động về việc kết hợp kỹ năng phát âm trong các hoạt
động nói tiếng Anh của sinh viên trường Cao đẳng Du lịch Hà Nội

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111

HANOI – 2013

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES
*****************

TRẦN THỊ THU HÀ


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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

At the completion of this thesis, I would like to express my deep gratitude to
my supervisor, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Vo Dai Quang, for his continuous assistance,
guidance and critical comments at every stage of the study.
I also wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to all the lectures provided by
all the teachers during the M.A course, who have helped me to fulfill this thesis.
Finally, I would like to thank my mother, my colleagues and my friends for
their encouragement, understanding and kind-hearted assistance in completing this
research. iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF THESIS ORIGINALITY i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii
ABSTRACT iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS iv
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii
LIST OF TABLES viii
LIST OF CHARTS ix
PART A: INTRODUCTION 1
1. Rationale to the study 1
2. Aims and objectives of the research 2
3. Research questions for the study 2
4. Scope of the research 3
5. Significance of the research 3
6. The design of the study 3
PART B: DEVELOPMENT 5
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5
1.1. Review of previous studies about integrating pronunciation into speaking activities 5
1.2. Pronunciation in English language teaching 8
1.2.1. What is pronunciation? 8
1.2.2. The importance of pronunciation in English language teaching 10
1.3. Speaking skill in English language teaching 10

3.2.2. Comments 40
3.3. Finding 3 and comments on this finding 40
3.3.1. Finding 40
3.3.2. Comments 41
PART C: CONCLUSION 42
1. Summary of the main points presented in the thesis 42
2. Concluding remarks on each of the thesis objectives 42
2.1. Concluding remarks on objective 1 42
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2.2. Concluding remarks on objective 2 43
3. Limitations of the study 44
4. Suggestions for future study 44
PART D: REFERENCES 45
PART E: APPENDICES I
APPENDIX 1: PRE-TEST I
APPENDIX 2: MATERIALS USED IN THE SPEAKING LESSON WITH STRESS AT THE
SUPRASEGMENTAL LEVEL IV
APPENDIX 3: MATERIALS USED IN THE SPEAKING LESSON WITH RHYTHM AND
INTONATION PATTERNS V
APPENDIX 4: POST-TEST VII

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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1 Word stress
Table 2 Sentence stress: Conversation 1-Emphasizing added details
Table 3 Sentence stress: Conversation 2 – Emphasizing important words
Table 4 Intonation: Conversation 5 - Intonation in making suggestions
Table 5 Intonation: Conversation 6 - Tones in new and old information
Table 6 Intonation: Conversation 8 - High tone
Table 7 Word stress
Table 8 Sentence stress: Conversation 1 - Emphasizing added details
Table 9 Sentence stress: Conversation 2 - Emphasizing important words
Table 10 Intonation: Conversation 5 - Intonation in making suggestions
Table 11 Intonation: Conversation 6 - Tones in new and old information
Table 12 Intonation: Conversation 8 - High tone

errors in pronunciation (still sounds like steel and ship sounds like sheep), word
accent (words are frequently accented on the wrong syllable, e.g., “content”
meaning “pleased, satisfied” versus “content” “that which is contained”), and
sentence pitch (statements have the „melody‟ of questions, etc.). The student needs
to know that improving pronunciation may have greater significance and
importance as it supports some aspects like listening comprehension, spelling,
reading, and grammar (Wong, 1993). Many studies have shown the strong links
between precise pronunciation and speaking well. However, teaching pronunciation
in university or college is not really effective or nearly neglected during the process
of teaching, whereas four skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing) are the main
emphasis.
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While English is really important in almost every field of our life such as:
economy, technology, science, education, trade, tourism and etc…, there are much
more difficulties in teaching and learning English especially in teaching and
learning pronunciation. At Hanoi Tourism College in particular, difficulties come
from inconvenient working conditions like not well-equipped devices, low level
students and too large classes, as a result, it‟s hard for students to study.
In addition, the popular method here is that teachers pronounce new words
and students repeat them during speaking periods. However, the disadvantage is the
pronunciation of teachers may not be really exact or repetition of students is not the
same as what they hear from teachers. Therefore, the best way to help students to
pronounce a word exactly and be able to apply the proper pronunciation to speaking
is to teach them how to pronounce a word with phonetic and stress.
2. Aims and objectives of the research
This study is aimed to enhance the quality of English pronunciation of the
first year students of non-major English at Hanoi Tourism College.
The first and foremost objective of the study is by virtue of the students. In
addition, the research is expected to use as a source of reference for teachers of

The study is divided into three parts, which are presented as follows.
Part A is the introduction, which states the rationale to the study, the aims
and objectives, research questions and the scope as well as the significance and
design of the study.
Part B, including three chapters, reports on the main contents of the study:
Chapter one – Literature review - presents an overview of theoretical
issues of pronunciation discussed and analyzed by prominent and high-qualified
ELT experts and researchers. The focus is exclusively devoted to pronunciation and
speaking.
Chapter two – Methodology – describes how we have carried out the study
of the Faculty of Foreign Languages for Tourism at Hanoi Tourism College. Sub
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steps in this process consist of observing the learning situation, collecting data,
analyzing data and summarizing findings.
Chapter three – Findings and Discussions – deal with the summary, the
findings as well as the comments for each finding.
Part C is the conclusion where we summarize all the main contents of the
study, give remarks on objectives, limitations of current research and show
suggestions for further studies.
Besides, there are also appendixes in which supplementary materials and list
of references are provided.
countries. However, oral communication began to be more important when they
arrived in this century with extended forms of communication with Western
countries. Yong (2004) asserted that understanding by reading or writing would no
longer be sufficient for the development of the economy and that communicating
face to face personally or through the internet needed to be understood.
The central issue of pronunciation teaching is how to help students speak
accurately and fluently in speaking classes. One aspect of this issue is what should
be taught in class. Earlier teaching approaches focused on the segmental features of
pronunciation, while more recent approaches have emphasized supra-segmental
features such as sentence rhythm and intonation. However, this debate has never
reached a conclusion. The growing trend in today‟s pronunciation curriculum
design is to integrate both the most important segmentals and suprasegmentals
appropriately in one course. Another aspect of the issue is how to teach effectively.
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Along with the development of instruction approaches, traditional teaching methods
and techniques have been advocated or challenged during different times while new
methods and techniques have been created. A more balanced view today, as
represented by Celce - Murcia et al., (1996), is to use traditional pronunciation
techniques as a starting point of class and later have students move to more
communicative classroom tasks.
In recent years, there has been a greater emphasis on teaching competent
pronunciation, especially in ESL/EFL classrooms. This is due to the increasing
realization that poor pronunciation can cause serious problems for learners, such as
communication breakdowns, anxiety, and discrimination (Morley, 1998). Yet
English pronunciation is neglected in classrooms throughout the world today,
including Asia. One of the reasons that it is neglected or ignored is because not
many English pronunciation teaching strategies or techniques are available to
teachers in the classroom (Wei, 2006).
Fraser (1999) added that in the quest for effective teaching, it is worth

Speaking in the Class and Pronunciation Instruction Should Fit the Constraints of
the Speaking Task. Also, they suggested 4 activities (a) word clarity in public
speaking, (b) thought groups in storytelling, (c) intonation in conversation, and (d)
focus in comparisons, three first of which help pronunciation features to be
incorporated into speaking tasks intended to aid students develop oral
communication skills. They showed the conclusion as follow.
We have shown ways in which effective use of pronunciation features is crucial for
effective spoken communication. Words must be recognized if listeners are to process
speech. Speech is processed more easily if speakers chunk information in expected ways.
Intonation is essential to management of conversational goals. Important cues about given
and new information and about categories being contrasted with a topic are signaled by
sentence focus (19).
However, those researches above have just shown challenges and solution
for integrating pronunciation into oral activities, but not find whether it meets
teachers‟ abilities and students‟ awareness in particular.
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1.2. Pronunciation in English language teaching
1.2.1. What is pronunciation?
Pronunciation refers to the phonology of the language – or the meaningful
perception and production of the sounds of that language and how they impact on
the listener (Burns and Claire, 2003, p.5). Similarly, the AMEP Fact Sheets shows
that Pronunciation refers to the production of sounds that we use to make meaning.
Pronunciation is a set of habits of producing sounds. The habit of producing a sound
is acquired by repeating it over and over again and by being corrected when it is
pronounced wrongly. Learning to pronounce a second language means building up
new pronunciation habits and overcoming the bias of the first language (Cook,
1996).
Pronunciation refers to the production of sounds that we use to make
meaning. It includes attention to the particular sounds of a language (segments),

segmentals to intermediate and advanced NNSs could be more beneficial in a
shorter period of time (p. 5).
Anderson-Hsieh, Johnson, and Koehler (1992) compared the relative
contributions made to intelligibility by prosody, segmentals, and syllable structure.
Within 11 different language groups, they found that the score for prosody was
most significantly associated with the overall score for pronunciation. In a related
finding, Derwing, Munro, and Wiebe (1998) studied the effects of both segmental
and suprasegmental instruction on learners‟ comprehensibility ratings and
concluded that the latter had a greater effect on performance in communicative
contexts. Usually learners benefit from attention to both aspects, and some learners
may need help in some areas more than in others. One considerable practical
advantage of focusing on suprasegmentals is that learners from mixed L1
backgrounds in the same class will benefit, and will often find that their segmental
difficulties improve at the same time (Fraser, 2001).

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1.2.2. The importance of pronunciation in English language teaching
Harmer (2007, p. 248) states that “pronunciation teaching not only makes
students aware of different sounds and sound features (and what these mean), but
can also improve their speaking immeasurably”. The process of learning
pronunciation makes learners be aware of the sounds which they are using while
speaking (Harmer, 2007). Pronunciation plays a vital part in successful
communication. When people have intelligible pronunciation, they can comprehend
what others speak as well as use language to make others understand them. Besides
face-to-face communication, they will have abilities to understand information in
foreign languages on mass media such as TV, newspapers, etc. Since then, they will
have more chances to obtain good jobs and enhance their language level.
1.3. Speaking skill in English language teaching
1.3.1. What is speaking skill?

lose all interest. It is more essential in speaking class that both the teachers and
students pay much attention in organizing and carrying out positive activities,
otherwise, the speaking class can be regarded as a dead class. Brown, G. and Yule,
G. (1992:256) point out that speaking plays an important role in a very transactional
intention, that is, to make clear what they want to say. When speaking well, learners
will have more capacity to learn other skills such as listening, reading and writing.
In addition, speaking also helps them to open their mind to the large world.
To sum up, speaking skill, besides listening, reading and writing skills, plays
a vital role in language teaching.
1.4. Factors affecting the integration of pronunciation into speaking activities
It is obviously that any choice of a method of teaching needs favorable
conditions for effective application. We can consider some factors affecting the
integration of pronunciation into speaking activities as follows:
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1.4.1. Teachers
1.4.1.1. Teachers’ attitudes and beliefs
Because teachers are trained to teach students and play a main role in a class,
their beliefs are very important in guiding learners to study. They are directly in
relation to the instruction, content and process of teaching students. When they
believe strongly in the effectiveness of a particular approach or method of teaching
and try to carry out it in classroom, they will be confident to use that.
In addition, teachers‟ attitudes are also very important in teaching. In
classroom, teachers play roles as instructors, consultants, supervisors,
communicators and controllers, so their attitudes have much influence on teaching
and learning processes and the results of them after the course.
Although we know very clearly that pronunciation is very important in
speaking, it is usually neglected in oral activities. Teachers‟ attitudes and beliefs
about this matter will help learners be better in communication.
1.4.1.2. Teachers’ qualities and personalities

learners‟ attitudes and beliefs affect how they approach their learning.
Pronunciation is considered one of the most important things in speaking fluently.
Therefore, learners should have right attitudes and beliefs in learning this, which
will aid them to feel confident in communicating with foreigners and have more
chances in the world market.
1.4.2.3. Learners’ anxiety and confidence
Inaccurate pronunciation and having no ideas when speaking to foreigners
are main reasons which make learners feel worried and unconfident in
communication. Language anxiety is one of the characteristics which have a
relationship with learning process. The more anxious students feel, the less their
result in learning is. With anxiety, learners may have difficulties in making normal
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conversations or expressing spontaneous reactions. When they have confidence,
they will speak English freely. After that, teachers can discover their mistakes in
pronunciation, which helps them to improve speaking skill quickly. Therefore,
teachers should pay more attention in encouraging learners to speak and creating a
comfortable atmosphere in speaking classroom.
1.4.3. Learning environment and text books
The learning environment can greatly influence on their academic
performance. The learning environment can be seen as physical conditions, such as
class size, chairs, desks, tables, lights, boards, computer and projectors. Physical
conditions really affect students‟ learning and their attitudes towards the subject
matter. With enough equipment to serve the learning, learners will have more
interest in training pronunciation and speaking.
In addition, text books and teaching aids can be considered important
resources. Talking about the challenges of integrating pronunciation into speaking
activities, Levis, J. M. & Grant, L. (2003) say that “existing textbooks offer two
primary avenues for integrating pronunciation and speaking instruction. On the one
hand, although current pronunciation-based texts include communicative activities,