VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES
TRẦN THÚY ANH
TEACHING ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION TO 10th GRADE
STUDENTS AT THANH LIEM C HIGH SCHOOL

(DẠY PHÁT ÂM TIẾNG ANH CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 10 TRƯỜNG THPT
THANH LIÊM C, HÀ NAM)
M.A. Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology

1.3. The teacher’s roles and student’s roles in teaching and
learning pronunciation 8
1.3.1. The teacher's roles in teaching pronunciation 8
1.3.2. The student's roles in learning pronunciation 9
1.4. The pronunciation components 10
1.4.1. Gerald Kelly’s ideas about pronunciation components 10
1.5. Factors affecting pronunciation learning 12
1.5.1 The interference from the mother tongue 12
1.5.2 The age factor 12
1.5.3. Amount of exposure 12
1.5.4. Phonetic ability 13
1.5.5. Attitudes and identity 13
1.5.6. Motivation and concern for good pronunciation 13
1.6. Teachers’ and students’ problems in teaching and learning
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pronunciation 13
1.6.1. The nature of pronunciation 14
1.6.2. Class setting 14
1.6.3. Teaching model 14
1.6.4. Intelligibility 15
CHAPTER TWO: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 16
2.1. Methodology 16
2.1.1. The research questions 16
2.1.2. The participants 16
2.1.3. The instruments 17
2.1.4. Data analysis process 19
CHAPTER THREE: THE STUDY 20
3. Data presentation 20
3.1 Survey questionnaires 20

pronunciation 41
2.3. Motivating students in learning pronunciation 43
2.4. Increasing teacher’s and student’s roles in teaching and
learning pronunciation 43
3. Limitations of the study 44
4. Recommendations for a further study 44
REFERENCES 46

APPENDIX 1: SURVEY QUESIONNAIRE (for students) I
APPENDIX 2: SURVEY QUESTIONAIRE (for teachers) IV
APPENDIX 3: CLASSROOM OBSERVATION SHEET VIII
APPENDIX 4: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS IX

1

INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale of the study.
Despite the fact that pronunciation is one of the most important skills in
English Language Teaching, incorrect pronunciation leads to occasional
misunderstandings, at the upper-secondary school level in Vietnam, in language

Coping with this pressing fact, as a language teacher teaching English at
Thanh Liem C high school (TLCHS), the author always thinks of some questions:
What are the attitudes of teachers and students towards teaching and learning
pronunciation? What are the problems teachers and students face in teaching and
learning pronunciation? How to find suitable methods to teach pronunciation? What
should teachers do to teach pronunciation effectively? How should teachers make
students become interested in learning pronunciation? The answers to these
questions will help language teachers improve their students‟ pronunciation as well
as help them make progress in effective communication. For the above reasons, the
author decides to carry out the study entitled: “Teaching English pronunciation to
grade 10 students at Thanh Liem C High school” with the focus on the reality of
teaching and learning pronunciation, problems then suggests some solutions.

2. Aims of the study.
This study mainly focused on discovering the reality of teaching and
learning pronunciation at Thanh Liem C high school, especially to find out
problems that teachers and students often have in pronunciation lessons. The
writer also hopes to make some suggestions that can help the English teachers
overcome those problems and improve students‟ pronunciation.
In order to achieve this aim, some objectives are posed for exploration as
follows:
- To find out the teachers‟ and students‟ attitude toward teaching and learning
pronunciation at Thanh Liem C High School.
- To find out the difficulties and the causes of difficulties in teaching and
learning pronunciation.
- To suggest some recommendations.

3. Research questions.
The above aims of the study can be realized by answering the following
research questions:

useful for teachers and students at this school. Thus, this study will be an
interesting reference material for teachers of English at TLCHS, especially for those
who are in favor of improving their students' pronunciation. This research will help
4

teachers and students identify their problems in teaching and learning pronunciation
and self- improve their pronunciation.
7. The design of the study.
The study was designed with the first part as an INTRODUCTION to the
rationale, the aims, and the significance of the study, the research questions, the
method, the scope and the design of the study.
The next part provides the DEVELOPMENT of the thesis with 3 chapters.
Chapter 1 presents the theoretical background with definition of
pronunciation; the importance of teaching pronunciation; the teacher's and student's
roles in teaching pronunciation; the pronunciation components, factors affecting
pronunciation learning, , teachers‟ and students‟ problems in teaching and learning
pronunciation, intelligibility, and some techniques of teaching pronunciation.
Chapter 2 is research methodology. In this chapter, the focus will be on
background information of the subject of the study, the instruments used to collect
data and the procedure of data collection as well. Chapter 3 is the body of the study,
presents a description of data analysis and discussions. With the description of data
analysis through three instruments: questionnaire, classroom observation and the
interview, I explored some interpretations of the findings.
The last part CONCLUSION is devoted to the summary of the findings and
some pedagogical suggested recommendations to help teachers and students in
upper secondary schools to overcome difficulties in learning and teaching English
pronunciation. This chapter also provides the limitations of the study as well as
some recommendations for further study provides the summary of the thesis,
limitations and some suggestions for further study.
8. Previous studies on teaching and learning English pronunciation.

ability in academic English and teachers spend more time working on students‟
writing and grammar skills in order that students are best prepared for exams
and especially written exams together with main focus of the current academic
English curriculum are factor which cause students and teachers to leave little
time for pronunciation in the classroom (Germana Eckert, 2003)
Most of the literature on pronunciation deals with what and how to teach,
while the learner remains a silent abstract in the classroom. Morley (1994)
underlines that the prevalent focus on pronunciation teaching nowadays
should be on designing new wave instructional programs. Moreover she
stresses that these instructional designs should take into account not only
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language forms and functions, but also issues of learner self-involvement and
learner strategy training. In other words, students who have developed the skills
to monitor and modify their speech patterns if necessary should become active
partners in their own learning.
Kriedler (1989) states that correct and clear pronunciation are considerably
important in language learning. Without them, learners may not be understood and
may be poorly perceived by other English speakers. They need to have confidence
in their ability to speak. Good pronunciation takes time to build up, as there are
many factors involved. Learners need to hear a lot of English before they can
develop a feel for the sounds of English. The learners become more confident and
motivated in learning the language because of the teaching aids and materials such
as tape recordings of native speakers, pictures of mouth and articulations used in
the class along with the provision positive reinforcement (Phinit-Akson, 2002;
Quilter, 2002; Estrada & Streiff, 2002; Wu, 2002; and Jay, 1966).
7

DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER ONE: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

explore to the sounds of that language. Moreover, communicative approach is
8

considered as the major language teaching in the twenty first century as what the
learners really need after graduating is that they can communicate successfully in
their work and their life. That is the reason why pronunciation teaching has been
paid more and more attention by all the teachers.
Pronunciation is as important as any other aspects of language like syntax
and vocabulary. Speech is much more than pronunciation of course, but speech is
impossible without it. Correct pronunciation, in fact, is considered to be a
prerequisite to develop the speaking skill. That is why teaching pronunciation
should occupy an important place in the study of any language.
1.3. The teacher’s roles and student’s roles in teaching and learning
pronunciation.
Because of the importance of teaching pronunciation mentioned above,
teachers play a key role in teaching and learning pronunciation. Many authors share
this idea and they all give out the similar roles of teacher's and students' in
pronunciation practice. However, in this study, the literature of Kenworthy (1987:
1-2) about the teacher's role was chosen. The roles of the teacher and students can
be derived in the following parts.
1.3.1. The teacher's roles in teaching pronunciation.
1.3.1.1. Helping students hear and perceive the model as exactly as possible.
Students often have a strong tendency to hear the sounds of English in terms
of the sounds of their native language. The teacher needs to check that their students
are hearing sounds according to the appropriate categories and help them to develop
new categories if necessary.
1.3.1.2. Helping students make sounds intelligible.
Some sounds of English do not occur in Vietnamese. Therefore, the teacher
has to give some hints which help them to produce the new sounds intelligibly.
1.3.1.3. Providing students with feedback of their pronunciation.

surely depend on learners' attitude and how much attempt the learner puts into. In
other words, the most decisive factor of improving pronunciation is the learner's
willingness to take responsibility for his/her learning process.
In addition, students also have some following roles: Firstly, they have to
perceive the model as exactly as they can. If cannot acquire it, they will not be able
to pronounce the model correctly. Students need to respond as much and as well as
they can to the recognition, with repetition activities because "practice makes
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perfect". Finally, students should correction of their pronunciation mistakes.
1.4. The pronunciation components.
1.4.1. Gerald Kelly’s ideas about pronunciation components.
According to Colin Mortimer (1985), elements of teaching pronunciation are
weak forms, clusters, linking - up, contractions and stress time. Linda Grant (1993)
provided a more comprehensive and authentic elements of teaching. She organized the
teaching elements from sounds to syllables and words, to sentences and finally to
discourse-segments. According to Gerald Kelly (2000: 1), teaching pronunciation
includes: phonemes, vowels, consonants, stress, intonation, other aspects of connected
speech and spelling. However, this study only emphasizes on phonemes aspect of this
diagram.

Phonemes are the different sounds within a language. Although there are slight
differences in how individuals articulate sounds, we can still describe reasonably
accurately how each sound is produced.
Vowels.
Vowels are made by voiced air passing through different mouth-shapes; the
differences in the shape of the mouth are caused by different positions of the tongue
and of the lips. The quality of vowels is determined by the particular configuration
of the vocal tract. Different parts of the tongue may be raised or lowered. The lips
may be spread or pursed. The passage, through which the air travels, however, is

Labio-dental sounds. The lower lip makes light contact with the
upper teeth. The soft palate is raised. /f/ is unvoiced and fotis. /v/ is
devoiced at the end of the word.
/θ/ and /ð/
Dental sounds. The tongue tip makes light contact with the back of
the top, front teeth. Or, tongue tip may protrude between upper and
lower teeth. The soft palate is raised. / θ / is unvoiced and fotis. /ð/
is voiced and lenis. / ð / is devoiced at the end of a word
/s/ and /z/
Alveolar sounds. The tongue blade makes light contact with the
alveolar ridge. The soft palate is raised. /s/ is unvoiced and fortis.
/z/ is voiced and lenis. /z/ is devoiced at the end of a word.
/ʃ/ and /ʒ/
Palato-alveolar sounds. The tongue blade makes light contact with
the alveolar ridge, and the front of the tongue is raised. The soft
palate is also raised. / ʃ / is unvoiced and fortis. / ʒ / is voiced and
lenis. / ʒ / is devoiced at the end of a word.

12 1.5. Factors affecting pronunciation learning.
There are many factors affecting the learners' pronunciation. According to
Kenworthy (1987:4-9), factors such as the native language, the age factor, amount
of exposure, phonetic ability, attitude and identity, motivation and concern for good
pronunciation have great influence on Pronunciation learning.
1.5.1 The interference from the mother tongue.
The native language plays an important role in learning to pronounce English
as it is clearly seen that a foreign accent is influenced by some of the sound
characteristics of the learner's native language. These can be used to distinguish

accurately than others. These abilities are innate, so this factor seems to be out of
the teacher's control. What the teacher can do is to investigate the abilities of the
learners and provide a variety of tasks so that something will suit the needs and
ability of each learner.
1.5.5. Attitudes and identity.
It has been claimed that factors such as a person‟s „sense of identity‟ and
feelings of „group affiliation‟ are strong determiners of the acquisition of accurate
pronunciation of a foreign language. In many studies of attitude and motivation in
language learning, it has been shown that those learners who show positive feelings
towards the speakers of the new language tend to develop more accurate, native-like
accents.
1.5.6. Motivation and concern for good pronunciation.
It cannot be denied that motivation is an important factor which determines the
people's participation in every activity especially in language learning. Motivation
makes people more active in learning. The more motivated the people are, the
greater the cognitive process is. The learner's attitude towards the language they
are learning or going to learn also affects the process of learning pronunciation.
Their positive attitudes will help students a lot in learning this language, including
learning its pronunciation.
1.6. Teachers’ and students’ problems in teaching and learning pronunciation.
Both teachers and students encounter various problems in the process of
teaching and learning pronunciation. These problems do not only arise from the
nature of pronunciation itself, but from various subjective and objective factors. In
14

the light of the previous and current studies, some major problems that teachers and
learners face in teaching and learning pronunciation are:.
1.6.1. The nature of pronunciation.
According to Nunan (1991), the problem of acquiring the phonology of a
second or a foreign language presents a formidable challenge to any theory of

teach. In fact, each teacher often cannot produce a “perfect” accent without being
affected by his own language. This fact sometimes causes both teachers and
students problems in teaching and learning pronunciation. Some teachers do not feel
confident with their own voice and students do not know what input language is
perfect to receive.
1.6.4. Intelligibility.
Beside factors from the nature of pronunciation, class setting, etc. teaching and
learning pronunciation involves in its own problem that Kenworthy (1987) calls it
as “intelligibility”. He defines “intelligibility” as “being understood by a listener at
a given time in a given situation”. This means that intelligibility is affected by a
number of factors: the speaker, the listener, the time, and the situation. This also
means that teaching and learning pronunciation depends on many factors, causing
many problems for both teachers and students
16

CHAPTER TWO: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The research methodology was presented briefly in the first chapter, the
Introduction. In this chapter, once again, it will be discussed in more details.
2.1. Methodology.
2.1.1. The research questions:
The study was designed to seek the answer to the three following questions:
(1) What is teachers‟ and students‟ attitude toward teaching and learning
pronunciation at Thanh Liem C High School?
(2) Which problems do the teachers and students at TLCHS face in
pronunciation lessons?
With these two research questions, the study will investigate teachers‟ and
students‟ attitude toward teaching and learning pronunciation as well as their
difficulties in teaching and learning pronunciation at Thanh Liem C High School
in English 10 together with the causes of these difficulties then giving some

questionnaires. The reason for this is that, firstly, it is easy for us to construct
and it does not either consume time or cost money. Secondly, questionnaires can
help us to collect data in field setting, and the data themselves are more
amenable to quantification then discursive data such as free-form field-notes,
participant observers‟ journals or transcripts of oral language (David Nunan
1992:143). Furthermore, we can achieve respondent anonymity when applying
this type of instrument. There are two types of questions, closed and open-ended
questions. The former kind of questions are often used to get answers which are
factual or fairly predictable, meanwhile open-ended questions are preferred when
the researchers expect to get answers which are in terms of opinions, beliefs or
judgments. Furthermore, open-ended questions also give the respondents
chances to express more opinions individually. Because of these above reasons,
both two types of questionnaires were employed to get the data.
To get the data reliably and avoid problems such as respondents‟ shyness,
the questionnaires were started with explanations about its aims as well as its
respondent anonymity. In order that the students had no pressure of time and
freedom, they were let to finish the questions at home for one day. Furthermore,
all the questions were written in Vietnamese so that they could be at their best to
understand the questions and express their thoughts and ideas.
With the aims stated in the Introduction part, I handed out the
questionnaires to the teachers and students. These questions were aimed at
exploring the reality of teaching and learning pronunciation and teachers‟ and
students‟ general attitude towards learning English pronunciation.
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2.1.3.2. Interview.
Interview, as we know, is a very useful tool to get the data. According to
Hopkins (cited in McDonough & McDonough (1997:181), there are three
applications of interview in classroom research. The first application is to focus
on a specific aspect of classroom life in detail, the second is to get diagnostic

and classroom observation, were classified into different categories to analyze:
- Teachers and students‟ attitude towards teaching and learning English
pronunciation.
- Teachers and students‟ difficulties in teaching and learning English
pronunciation.
- The causes of the difficulties
All the data were gathered to analyze both descriptively and interpretively.
20

CHAPTER THREE: THE STUDY

3. Data presentation.
3.1 Survey questionnaires.
3.1.1 Teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards teaching and learning
pronunciation.
Assuming that the consideration of the teachers‟ and students‟ attitude towards
teaching and learning pronunciation would be beneficial to the research, at the
outset, these factors were surveyed. The results, shown in below, reflect that
grammar is the most concerning aspect in learning English at high school.
Surprisingly, only 20% of the teachers think that pronunciation is the most
necessary for their students. They always pay much attention and time and energy
on grammar. In contrast, teaching and learning pronunciation as well as developing
listening, speaking or reading skills do not receive enough attention to.
21

3.1.2 Students’ pronunciation level.


purpose of teaching and learning pronunciation. All the teachers (100%) agree that
teaching pronunciation is to help students to communicate better and the most