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I wish to acknowledge my thankfulness to the pronunciation class for their
enthusiastic participation in this project.
Finally, I am deeply indebted to my beloved parents, my siblings and my post-
graduate friends for their sacrifice, encouragement and care.
iii
Certification of originality i
Abstract ii
Acknowledgement iii
Table of contents iv
Tables vi
Figuresv vii
8333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333331
1.Rationale 1
2. Research hypothesis 2
3.Aim of the study 2
4.Significance of the study 2
5.Scope of the study 3
6.Methodology of the study 3
7.Organization of the study 3
83333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333334
8O33333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333334
1.1. Phonecs 4
1.2. English phonecs 5
1.3. Phonics 7
1.3.1. Definitions of phonics 7
1.3.2. Review of previous studies 10
1.4. Action research 11
1.4.1. Definitions of action research 11
1.4.2. Steps of action research 12
Table 5: Examples of list of words without initial consonants……………………18
vi
Figures 1: English vowel sounds………………………………………………… 7
Figure 2: Comparison of the mean scores of four regular tests……….………… 22
Figure 3: Comparison between the mean scores of Pre-test and Post-test……… 23
vii
8
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Pronunciation instruction is important factor in foreign language teaching. As
sounds play a crucial role in communication, foreign language teachers must
attribute proper importance to teaching pronunciation in their classes. It is evident
that communication is a mutual relationship between the speaker and hearer. This
means that one must comprehend what he/she hears in the target language and must
produce the sounds of the language he/she must trying to learn accurately. Unless
he has sufficient knowledge of the sounds of the target language, he can neither
encode a message to anybody nor decode the message sent by another person by
learning the sounds of the target language within his mother tongue. Therefore,
pronunciation instruction is of great importance for successful oral communication
to take place since it is an important ingredient of the communicative competence.
(Hismanoglu, 2006). Hamers (2007) identifies the importance of pronunciation
instruction as “Pronunciation teaching not only makes students aware of different
sounds and some features, but can also improve their speaking immeasurably”
(p.248). Celce-Murca, Brinton, and Goodwin (1996) claim that none-native
speakers of English need to achieve a “threshold level of pronunciation” to be
understood and minimize oral communication problems (p.3). Pronunciation needs
to be taught and deserves more attention in a language course.
However, without a systematic syllabus, many students have difficulties in single
word pronunciation. Even though some students have learned English for years
before they enter junior high school, they were unable to read orally and spell out
•It may stimulate teachers to employ a new method for teaching English
pronunciation
•It may stimulate students and help them to improve the pronunciation ability.
2
E.<5;>@G5@P?<5;?F7A
As could be seen from the title of the study, this paper investigates the use of
phonics instruction in teaching English pronunciation. At the same time, the study
only concentrates on English learners at elementary level. Furthermore, the study
was conducted at an English learning center.
B35?<@7@6@:A@P?<5;?F7A
The action research approach was employed in this study.In addition the tests were
given to find out in-depth data about students’ progress and ability of pronouncing
words.
Q3H:=94R=?4@9@P?<5;?F7A
This study is divided three parts which discuss the following matters:
=H?89?H@7F>?4@9 presents a brief introduction of the rationale, the aims, scope,
significance, method and organization of the study.
=H?85I56@GL59?
Chapter 1: 4?5H=?FH55I45S provides the theoretical knowledge and results from
the recent studies for the issues relevant to the field under investigated. First
phonetics and English phonetics were reviewed. Second, previous studied related to
phonics instruction will be reported.
Chapter 2: <5;?F7A is composed of three sections. First, the setting of the study
including the context and participants will be described. Next, the model of action
research in this study is provided. Finally, the data analysis and discussion are
presented.
=H?8@9>6F;4@9 summarizes the major findings, the implications and presents
the limitations of the study, and suggestions for further studies.
3
8
Acoustic phonetics studies the physical properties of speech sound, as
transmitted between the speaker’s mouth and the listener’s ear.
Auditory phonetics studies the perceptual response to speech sounds, as
mediated by ear, auditory nerve and brain. Its interests lie more in sensation of
hearing, which is brain activity, than in the psychological working of the ear or the
nervous activity between the ear and the brain. The means by which we
discriminate sounds – quality, sensations of pitch, loudness, length, are relevant
here.
Phonetics is the study of how speech sounds are made, transmitted, and received,
i.e. phonetics is the study of all possible speech sounds. The human vocal apparatus
can produce a wide range of sounds, but only a small number of them are used in a
language to construct all of its words and utterance.
339:64;<G<@95?4>;
In English, there is no on-to-one relation between the system of writing and the
system of pronunciation. The alphabet which is used to write English has 26 letters
but in (Standard British) English there are approximately 44 speech sounds
including 12 vowels, 8 diphthongs and 24 consonant sounds.
3339:64;<I@S56;@F97;
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English “ah!” [a:],
pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at
any point above the glottis. According to Roach (2000:10), vowels are “sounds in
the production of which there is no obstruction to the flow of air as it passes from
the larynx to the lips”.
According to English phonetics and phonology, vowel was defined as
below:“Vowel is a speech sound in which the air stream from the lung is not
blocked in any way in the mouth or throat and which is usually pronounced with the
vibration of the vocal cords.”
5
Here under is the vowel chart:
What is the difference between phonics and phonetics? Dictionary.com has the
following entries:
<@94>; <@95?4>;
A method of teaching elementary
reading and spelling based on the
phonetic interpretation of ordinary
spelling.
The branch of linguistics that deals
with speech and their production,
combination, description and
representation by written symbols.
The system of sounds of a particular
language.
Table 2: Comparison of Phonics and Phonetics
(The American Heritage Dictionary of the English language)
7
<@94>; <@95?4>;
The science of sounds: acoustics
A method of teaching beginners to
read and pronounce words by learning
the phonetic value of letters, letter
groups and especially syllables.
A study and systematic classification
of sounds made in spoken utterance.
The practical application of this
science to language study.
The system of speech sounds of a
language and a group of language.
Table 3: Comparison of Phonics and Phonetics
(Merriam –Webster Medical dictionary)
between written letters and spoken sounds (Armbruster, Lehr, & Osborn, 2000).
This principle helps greatly on children’s ability to read words, both in isolation and
in reading passages. Adam (1990) also claimed that phonics is instruction intended
to help children understand the fundamental alphabetic nature of English writing
system and through that understanding, to internalize the correspondences between
frequent spelling patterns and the speech patterns. In another study with Taiwanese
students, Shen (2003) states that EFL learners should have phonics instruction to
develop their phonemic awareness efficiently; which will lead to successful
automaticity in word recognition.
Phonics instruction provides students with adequate alphabetic rules to choose
among a set of possible candidate sounds, the correct pronunciation of the word
(Rogers, 1985). With the corresponding letter-sound knowledge in mind, students
are ready to venture in the authentic word hunt. As they apply their alphabetic rules
to test on the words that are of irregular form, although they may not be completely
correct in the first place, they have accessed to match the decoded phonological
information of the words to their known-word repertoire (Hu & Kai, 2000). The
more student venture in decoding unfamiliar words, the more trial and error
experiences facilitate them to establish the repertoire of word-specific, irregular
orthographic representation (Hu & Kai, 2000). When it comes to foreign learning, a
clear and understandable pronunciation plays a crucial role of a succesful
communication that helps speakers understand and be understood( Goodwin, 2001).
9
However, as far as foreign language learning is concerned, learning the ability of
pronunciation had long been ignored till recent decades. After 1980s, with the trend
of the communicative approach, comprehensible pronunciation has become an aim
in ESL and EFL classroom, focusing on fluent communication and clear expression
(Brown, 2007). Besides, since 1990s, pronunciation has been emphasized in the
field of English learning and teaching (ELT) (Celce-Murcia, Brinton & Goodwin, 2007).
3335I45S@PGH5I4@F;;?F745;
In the past few decades, research on teaching pronunciation through phonetic
word pronunciation. The result indicated that student receiving phonic symbols
instruction outperformed those who received phonics instruction.
In summary, the results vary among different comparative studies on the effects
between phonics instruction and phonetic symbol instruction. Some show that
phonics instruction is more effective than phonetic symbol teaching. Some found
that there are no differences between these two methods. Some suggest that phonics
and phonetic symbols are both excellent tools in assisting young learners learning
English pronunciation. In contrast, some other studies show that a phonetic symbol
teaching is more effective than phonics instruction.
In Viet Nam, the phonetic symbol instruction has been a popular method used in
teaching pronunciation. Lately, phonics instruction is applied to teach in some
schools. Hence, in order to assist English teacher in Vietnam, it is necessary to
investigate teaching English pronunciation through phonics instruction.
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Action research is a very popular research method in the current development of
society. However, different researchers have different ideas about what an action
research is. According to Nunan, D. (1992:18), a very famous researcher in the field
of education, “A descriptive case study of a particular classroom, group of learners,
or even a single learner counts as action research if it is initiated by a question, is
supported by data and interpretation, and is carried out by a practitioner
11
investigating aspects of his or her own context and situations”. This definition
shows that in order to carry out an action research, the teacher must be a practitioner.
She must identify the problem, and then carry out her plan to solve the problem.
Another definition given in Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and
Applied Linguistics (2002:8) is that “Action research is teacher-initiated classroom
research that seeks to increase the teacher’s understanding of classroom teaching
and learning and to bring about improvements in classroom practices”. In other
words, action research aims to help teachers to improve their teaching and students’
the course. The outstanding advantage of the target training was the keen interest of
these learners in English. Most of them were very studious and purposeful in
studying the pronunciation course.
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The study was carried out in the English 123 center in Hanoi. The implementation
of the research was carried out from June, 6
th
to July, 19
th
2014.
The subjects of the research were eighteen students at English 123 center in Hanoi
including 10 females and 8 males. They were at the age range of 19 to 26. They
were assumed to be at the beginner level of English proficiency.
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According to action research approach, data collection instruments are included in
the phase of planning. The following part will present the phase of planning clearly.
The research was carried out within four weeks in total. There were two
pronunciation sessions for each week. Each session lasted ninety minutes. In the
phase of planning, teacher prepared lesson plans for each session and six oral tests
to check students’ progress during the pronunciation course.
13
The phonics instructions used in the phase of planning are described clearly as
follows:
ON
Session 1: Short vowel sounds: /ɒ/, /ɪ/, /e/, /ʌ/, /æ/, /ʊ/
Session 2: Consonant sounds /b/, /p/, /t/, /d/, /h/, /m/ /n/
ON
Session 3: Consonant sounds: /l/ /r/, /f/, /v/, /dʒ/
Session 4: Consonant sounds: /k/, /g/, /j/, /s/, /z/
scored one point and the total point of the test was 20 points.
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According to action research, the data collection procedure is in the phase of
action. The following part will describe the phase of action clearly.
In this phase, the planning is putting into practice. The teacher used phonics to teach
pronunciation in four weeks. During those four weeks, order of steps in every
session was nearly the same. Every session followed a specific order described
clearly as follows.
Firstly, students were displayed a chart of words containing the target sounds, read
them loudly and then asked students to repeat after. For example, in session 2, the
target sounds of the lesson were /b/, /p/, /t/, /d/, /h/, /m/ /n/. Therefore, students
was shown a chart of words including Tig, Gan, ?ook, 7uck, <ot, Len, 9ot.
Secondly, students were introduced the spelling rules of the target sounds. For
illustration, in session 8, the target sounds of this session were the diphthongs
/eɪ/, /aɪ/, /ɔɪ/. Students were shown a table of spelling rules as below.
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ai, ay, a-e
/eɪ/
r=4n, d=A, c=k5
igh, i-e, y, ie
/aɪ/
s4:<t, k4t5, drA, p45
oi, oy
/ɔɪ/
s@4l, b@A
Table 4: Examples of spelling rules in phonics instruction
15
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