VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES
LƢƠNG MINH TI
́
N
IN INVESTIGATION INTO INTONATION AWARENESS OF
TEACHERS AND STUDENTS AT FACULTY OF FOREIGN
LANGUAGES AT INDUSTRIAL UNIVERSITY OF
HO CHI MINH CITY

((KHO ST S QUAN TÂM CA GIO VIÊN V SINH VIÊN TI KHOA NGOI NG
TRƢƠ
̀
NG ĐA
̣
I HO
̣
C CÔNG NGHIÊ
̣
P THNH PH H CH MINH)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS


(KHO ST S QUAN TÂM CA GIO VIÊN V SINH VIÊN TI KHOA NGOI NG
TRƢƠ
̀
NG ĐA
̣
I HO
̣
C CÔNG NGHIÊ
̣
P THA
̀
NH PHÔ
́
HÔ
̀
CHI
́
MINH)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111
Supervisor: Dr. Nguyê
̃
n Trƣơ
̀
ng Sa

ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Every researcher who conducts a study owes a debt to his supervisor, to his
counselors, to his respondents, to his friends, and to his supporters; I gratefully
acknowledge my deep indebtedness to all of them. First and foremost, my sincerest
thanks go to my supervisor, Doctor NguyễnTrườngSa, a great lecturer atFaculty of
Foreign Languages (FFL), in Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City (IUH). He
has spent a lot of time guiding me through how to approach the research and how to
conduct it step by step with comprehensive instructions. He also spends his valuable
and limited time correcting my research and provides me with trustworthy
feedback. Hopefully, I have applied exactly what he has told me; in case I failed to
do so it was my fault. Secondly, I wish to express my particular thanks to
respondents and teachers who have supported me with all their heart. The data
collection is not without their support.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Declaration of authorship
Acknowledgements i
Abstract ii
Table of contents iii
List of chart, shape, extract iv
List of abbreviations vi

Chapter 1 Introduction 1
1 Reasearch background and problem 1
2 Context of the research 2
3 Research objectives 2
4 Research questions 3
5 Value of the research 3
6 Definitions of terms 3
7 Conclusion and overview of chapter 4

Chapter 2 Literature review 5
1 The nature of pronunciation 5
1.1 The definitions 5
1.2 Tones in intonation of spoken English 7
1.3 Theoretical and practical importance of intonation 8


vi

LIST OF CHART, SHAPE, EXTRACT

Chart 1 Respondent‟s academic year 20
Chart 2 English learning important elements 21
Chart 3 Which is more important: stress or intonation? 21
Chart 4 Students‟ frequency of using intonation 22
Chart 5 Intonation challenges 24
Chart 6 Do you practice intonation at home? 24
Chart 7 Using of the internet to help you with learning English intonation 25
Chart 8 How do you often practice English intonation? 26
Chart 9 Students‟ self-correction 26
Chart 10 Do you learn intonation from your teachers? 27
Chart 11 Teacher‟s care 28
Chart 12 How do you get trained on English intonation? 28

1

Chapter 1
Introduction

1. Research background and problem
The development of English has been so dramatic over the past centuries and
centuries beyond that Harmer (2006) called the language lingua franca. However,
the biggest question that has even been asked by generations and generations is why
a lot of students fail to interact effectively at workplace and even at interviews for
job opportunities. It is long believed that everything is there for reason; the same
goes for the situation being discussed. Chomsky (1980) ever addressed the terms of
competence and performance on discussing learner‟s learning ability. These two
terms also account for speaking skill learning and acquisition. Cook (2003:41)
points out that the formal systems of language consist of pronunciation, grammar,
and vocabulary. When linguistic competence is taken into consideration, three

Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City was upgraded into a university from
a humble college known as Don Bosco for almost 10 years ago. Although the
school name sounds industrial; however, it includes a number of approximately 30
institutions and faculties which are about Tourism and Management, Bio
Technology, Food Technology, Environment, Electronics, Mechanics, Business
Administration, English and the like. The Faculty of Foreign Languages attracts as
many as 900 students and 30 teachers. Most of students come from rural areas and
are very studious with learning. The teachers follow pre-designed programs and
take turn teaching students. The training program divides into 2 main kinds: four-
year and three-year training programs. In the former program, there are students as
freshmen, sophomores, junior and senior. These students will be taken randomly as
samples for the research. The sample will also be discussed more deeply in chapter
three, Research Methodology.
3. Research objectives
3

The objectives of the research are to discover the awareness of students and
teachers in language classrooms about intonation and how this awareness has
helped them both to teach and learn English speaking skill.
4. Research questions
With the hope of understanding the tangible role of intonation correction, this
paper will also be used to answer the following research question:
Does intonation awareness matter to both teachers and students?
The research question will be solved through these three sub questions:
(1) To what extent do teachers take care of intonation correction as part of their
error correction and feedback provision in language classrooms?
(2) What is students‟ awareness of intonation as part of their learning English
for communicative purpose?
(3) What could be challenges for both the teacher and students in teaching and
learning English intonation as a foreign language?

5

Chapter 2
Literature review

1. The nature of pronunciation
1.1 The definitions
Features of pronunciation mainly compose of segmental phonology, i.e.
individual sounds, such as minimal pairs like /bit/ and /pit/ and so on and supra-
segmental phonology, i.e. stress, for example, falling tone, rising tone and the like,
rhythm, and intonation (Nunan 1999 313). Pronunciation thus has been vitally
indispensable to teaching a foreign language in terms of spoken language (Cook
2003 41; Hedge 2000 119; Kumaravadivelu 2006 67; Nunan 1999 42). Factually,
pronunciation has recently gained more and more awareness from both language
learners and teachers. The matter of pronunciation, as described by Nunan (1999)

Carter and Nunan (1999) has also considered rhythm part of paralanguage, together
with pitch and intonation (Carter &Nunan 1999 203). Later in the book, they
consider rhythm the sequence of strong and weak elements in language, such as the
patterns made up by stressed and unstressed syllables (Carter &Nunan 1999 225).
They divide rhythm into two types which are trochaic (strong-weak) rhythm and
iambic (weak-strong) rhythm (Carter &Nunan 1999 9).
Pitch
On their discussion about pitch, Carter &Nunan (2001) point out that pitch is
the height of voice (Carter &Nunan 2001, 226). It is the vocal cords that create
vibrations which help make voice height. To make it clear, in the chapter written
about pronunciation, Carter &Nunan (2001) agree that pitch change is the speaker‟s
voice going up or down (Carter &Nunan 2001 58). As Roach (2000) suggests, pitch
is described as high and low (Roach 2000 150). However, he adds that only those
that are linguistically meaningful should be considered (Roach 2000 150). For
example, when someone is riding a horse, his voice might be high which is not very
linguistically meaningful.
Intonation
7

What is intonation? The answer to this question could never be satisfied (Roach
2000 150). However, Roach (2000) mentions the fact that intonation, to some extent
or perhaps most extent, has a strong relationship with pitch (see the definition
above) (Roach 2000 150). Carter &Nunan (1999) define intonation as the „use of
pitch to convey different kinds of meaning in discourse‟ (Carter &Nunan 1999 223).
They also mention the term intonation groups which are, according to their point of
view, „chunks of spoken discourse‟ and that this serves listeners as „signals of
organization and are characterized by pitch change on the most important syllable‟
(Carter &Nunan 1999 224). Intonation groups are also known as sense groups or
tone units. Also, in another book, Nunan (1999) proposes that intonation is by
means of lowering or raising voice pitch to convey aspects of meaning (Nunan 1999

intend to speak. Not only that, the rising tone has been adopted in some
circumstances below.
Level tone
Roach (2000) defines level tone as something we are trying to sing on steady
note (Roach 2000 152). The function of level tone is to express the feelings of
someone who is uninteresting and boring. For example,
1.3 Practical and theoretical importance of intonation
Intonation together with stress is part on pronunciation (Carter &Nunan 2001
56). As far as we know, the role of pronunciation is:
the production and perception of the significant sounds of a
particular language in order to achieve meaning in contexts of
language use
(Carter &Nunan 2001 56)
It is because of the fact that intonation makes up pronunciation, it shares some
roles with pronunciation. We will take a close look at such roles: practical
importance and theoretical importance of intonation.
Divide a discourse into ‘units of information’
According to Taglicht (2008), intonation has the function of breaking a
discourse into tone units, or chunks of meaningful language and then intonation will
9

structure these units by separating anything from the whole thing that is considered
„new‟ to listeners (Taglicht 2008 213-230). With this role, intonation clearly helps
listeners to know before-hand which is new and which is given to them. Thanks to
that role of intonation, listeners are advantageous in understanding others and
making themselves across too. By contrast, without intonation, it is very
challenging for listeners to read up what the speakers said. That might be because of
the truth that chunks of language will be very much harder to understand then small
and comprehensible groups of words.
Position ourselves in personal and social lives

that with age, it tends to become much more difficult for someone to learn English
pronunciation and intonation as well. In other words, the older someone is the more
difficult for them to learn pronunciation and intonation of a language, especially a
foreign language. For that reason, learners should begin with intonation as soon as
possible.
Lack an opportunity for exposure to English intonation
Carter and Nunan (2001) have shown that students need an ample opportunity
for them to get as much exposure as possible to English intonation (Carter &Nunan
2001 60). Lack of opportunity also leads students to lack of perception of English
intonation (Carter &Nunan 2001 60). From their view point, we come to understand
that English intonation is very important but it will be useless if students are not
provided with a chance to master themselves in the field of English intonation.
Current treatments of intonation
In terms of teachers‟ feedback correction, it is very rarely for teachers to correct
students‟ pronunciation and intonation. This is true as Corder (1967). He reports
that teachers do not have enough detachment to evaluate learner‟s pronunciation.
That is also because of students‟ motivation and aptitude that might determine the
acquisition of intonation (Skehan 1989a cited in Carter &Nunan 2001 62). Other
factors are probably social attitudes, and personality factors (Carter &Nunan 2001
62). Apparently, current treatments of intonation are quite limited and for that
reason intonation awareness has not been paid a lot of attention to.
11

A missing communicative focus
According to Carter and Nunan (2001), „pronunciation moves from sound
manipulation exercises to communication activities‟ and they also add that „it
moves from a focus on isolated forms to the functioning of pronunciation in
discourse‟ (Carter &Nunan 2001 64). The same should go for intonation, i.e. it
should move from sound manipulation exercise to a communicative purpose.
Teaching English for communicative purpose is not easy at all; for that reason, the

never-give-up attitude, students are more possible to get successful than those who
are still not clear of why they are studying English. This attitude cannot be achieved
easily; it is the part of teacher‟s encouragement and students‟ effort that count. Once
students are autonomous in learning, mastering intonation is just the matter of time.
Self-assessing
Assessing intonation is very crucial in student‟s life. The role of assessment has
been pointed out by Hedge (2000); he claims that assessment guide you towards a
greater awareness of your own assessment practices (Hedge 2000 406). Assessing is
also beneficial for those who do not have much time to go to class. After assessing
themselves, they can learn something from themselves and then move on. That is
everything we expect our students to have with them right when they are still here,
being on the chair of a high school student.
Being able to recognize and copy English intonation
Roach (2000) has shown us that it is very important for students to be able to
recognize and copy English intonation (Roach 2000 152). He also recommends
several options which are to listen carefully to foreign speakers and to talk in person
with them (Roach 2000 152). Nevertheless, Roach (2000) warns us that in case
students are not able to have as much exposure as they can to English intonation
through foreign speakers, then it becomes very hard and challenging for them to
learn English intonation (Roach 2000 152).
Making students aware of structure of tone units
13

Brazil (2000) states that all spoken English is made up of tone units (Brazil
2000 194). Every tone unit has a tonic syllable. A tonic syllable, according to Brazil
(2000) is the last prominent syllable in the tone units (Brazil 2000 195). These clues
suggest us that tone units are a very important part of learning intonation and they
should be mastered by students either intentionally or unintentionally. The structure
should be made clear in the next few lines by Roach (2000). The tone unit usually
has three parts: the head, the pre-head, and the tail (Roach 2000 165). In fact,

As a word of summary, both above-mentioned researches and many others have
focused on how to teach intonation, they did not reveal or suggest or include the
awareness of students and teachers in teaching and learning intonation. So this
research once again will reveal the darkness and bring the truth which is the
awareness of learners and teachers in the course of learning and teaching intonation
out under the light of scientific research. 15

Chapter 3
Research methodology
1.Introduction
The research has been conducted for the purpose of investigating awareness of
students and teachers on the importance of intonation to learning and teaching

course of Pronunciation. It probably lasts approximately 2 months. It seems to race
with time for observing the classes. I have prepared very carefully under the
pressure of time to deliver the questionnaires and conduct the interviews with
teachers.
The sampling strategy to be used is „non-probability sample‟ (see more in
Cohen, Manion, Morrison 2000: Chapter 4 and in review of methodology which is
mentioned in chapter two). Non-probability sample is made use instead of
probability sample because in the former (non-probability sample) the researcher
can purposely select a number of respondents to include or exclude (Cohen,
Manion, Morrison 2000 99). Due to restricted time, non-probability sample may
work better than probablility sample which requires every member of the wider
population to have an equal chance of being included as sample.
Questionnaire
There will be a couple of research tools to be adopted. The most important tool
is questionnaire. As far as we have known, questionnare is widely used and it is also
a useful way of collecting data. A number of 14 questions will be included in the
questionnaire. Those questions range from general to specific level, from awareness
of intonation used in and out classrooms, from teachers‟ role to students‟ role. I
refer the reader to the appendix for a closer look at the questionnaire which has been
composed basing on theory of research methodology suggested by Cohen, Manion,
Morrison (2000 Chapter 14).
Interviews and recordings
For recording journal, all six students will be asked to help by recording their
voices through some major types of intonation (see chapter one of the research). I
want them to do this to reveal the relationship between their awareness towards