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

AN INVESTIGATION INTO ENGLISH WORD STRESS MISTAKES
COMMONLY COMMITTED BY 12TH GRADE STUDENTS AT BACH
DANG HIGH SCHOOL IN QUANG YEN DISTRICT, QUANG NINH
PROVINCE AND POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVE ENGLISH
WORD STRESS LEARNING.

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111

HA NOI – 2016


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

AN INVESTIGATION INTO ENGLISH WORD STRESS MISTAKES
COMMONLY COMMITTED BY 12TH GRADE STUDENTS AT BACH
DANG HIGH SCHOOL IN QUANG YEN DISTRICT, QUANG NINH
PROVINCE AND POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVE ENGLISH
WORD STRESS LEARNING.

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

to complete this project.

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ABSTRACT
In an attempt to have an investigation into word stress mistakes committed
by 12th grade students at Bach Dang high school, Quang Yen, Quang Ninh, the
research objectives set forth for the research were to: (1) investigate English word
stress mistakes commonly committed by 12th grade students at Bach Dang high
school, (2) figure out the causes of these mistakes, (3) and, propose some possible
solutions for both teachers and learners to improve English word stress learning.
The subjects of the study were 78 students at grade 12. The research was
investigated through two instruments: questionnaires for students and students’
voice recording. It is found that students made word stress mistakes mostly in polysyllable words and compound words. Besides, there was a certain difference in the
way students did the written tests and the way students pronounced.
With the investigation into students’ word stress mistakes, the researcher
found out some possible causes of those mistakes. In detail, the mistakes were
supposed to result of both subjective and objective causes. From the findings of the
investigation procedure, the researcher proposed some possible solutions for
teachers, students and book designers to deal with word stress mistakes.
Although the study has offered some insightful findings, like many other
studies, there are some limitations, and therefore, it needs suggestions and
comments from other colleagues and those who are concerned.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION ..................................................................................................... i

2.3.5.4. Poly-syllabic words ......................................................................... 13
2.3.5.5. Compound words ............................................................................ 15
2.3.6. Levels of stress ...................................................................................... 15
2.3.7. Weak forms of words (Reducing function words) ................................ 16
2.4. Possible causes of word stress mistakes ...................................................... 16
2.5. Teaching and learning word stress of 12th grade students at Bach Dang high
school................................................................................................................. 19
2.5.1. Word stress lessons designed in the textbook English 12. ..................... 19
2.5.2. Language teaching and learning reality at BachDang high school. ....... 21
2.6. Summary .................................................................................................... 23
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY ...................................................................... 24
3.1. Research questions ................................................................................... 24
3.2. The subjects ............................................................................................. 24
3.3. Research methods .................................................................................... 24
3.3.1. Questionnaire ..................................................................................... 24
3.3.2. Voice recording2 ............................................................................... 25
CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ................................................. 26
4.1. Findings from the questionnaire .................................................................. 26
4.1.1. Part 1..................................................................................................... 26
4.1.1.1. Students’ attitude towards learning word stress ............................... 26
4.1.1.2. Students’ awareness of the difficulty in stress lessons ..................... 26
4.1.1.3. Students’ degree of certainty in word stress marking ....................... 27
4.1.1.4. Frequency of students’ mistakes in word stress2 ............................. 27
4.1.1.5. Students’ most common mistakes in word stress. ........................... 28
4.1.1.6. Students’ expectation towards the teaching of word stress .............. 29
4.1.2. Part 2..................................................................................................... 29
4.1.2.1. Scores students get in marking word stress. .................................... 29
4.1.2.2. Detail in all lexical items ................................................................. 30
4.2. Findings from the voice recording ............................................................... 31


IPA

International Phonetic Alphabet

L1

A first language

L2

A second language

SLLs Second Language Learners

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LIST OF FIGURES
Pages
Figure 1: Students’ attitude towards learning English word stress

26

Figure 2: Students’ awareness of the difficulty in word stress lessons

26

Figure 3: Students’ degree of certainty in word stress marking

27

1.1. Background to the study
The English language has rapidly become the most popular first foreign language
among Vietnamese people, especially at schools, colleges and universities. For
learners of English, the English language surely brings about a better career
prospect. Needless to say, pronunciation in general, and word stress in particular is
amongst the most prominent aspects that language learners need to learn as an
essential component of their academic practice and later on in their professional
communication, which partially explains why teaching pronunciation has prompted
a good deal of research that covers various aspects of its broad instructional
contexts. Teaching and learning how to mark word stress gets even more
complicated and challenging for both language teachers and students. For many
Vietnamese students, pronouncing a word accurately is a substantial challenge.
They may have little ability of pronouncing since the very first stage of schooling,
and may be very anxious about having to pronounce marked by a tutor.
1.2. Statement of the problem
High school students, generally speaking, cannot realistically achieve academic
success without mastering the skill of pronunciation.
In Vietnam high schools, although English are taught as a major subject, teachers
usually emphasize the mastery of vocabulary and grammatical structures. Students
may be able to understand sentences and a short paragraph correctly, but almost all
of them have difficulties, or are even at a loss when requested to pronounce a single
word, not mention to a whole sentence. In addition, official tests are in written form;
as a result, students have very few actual opportunities to represent their ability of
English orally. Bach Dang high school is not an exception as well. Pronunciation,
especially word stress, seems to be rarely taught in English lessons. When asked,
teachers all agree stress itself appears time consuming and the students’
improvement is difficult to achieve.

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attitude and method in learning English word stress, where they need help and what
sort of help they need. An explicit understanding why mistakes arise can assist in
adjusting teaching techniques.
Besides, for immediate purposes, remedial lessons or exercises can be designed to
help eliminate mistakes. In terms of material designing, the study may assist
designers to understand the nature of mistakes occurring to high school students,
which is useful for them in sequencing and arranging target language items in text
books in such a way helping prevent mistake occurrence as much as possible.
1.6. Design of the study
The research consists of five chapters:
Chapter 1 - Introduction - presents the background and statement of the problem,
the purpose, the scope as well as the method of the study.
Chapter 2 - Literature Review - looks at notion of mistakes and the its roles in
language learning. It discusses some definitions such as syllable and its structure,
nature of stress; word stress marking rules.
Chapter 3 - Methodology - is the core part of the research, which describes research
methods as well as data collection procedure.
Chapter 4 - Findings and Discussion - indicates data analysis result and also helps
teachers and students in high schools overcome difficulties in teaching and learning
English word stress as well as some recommendations for school’s facilities and
course book designers.
Chapter 5 - Conclusion - offers recapitulations, limitation of the research; besides,
gives suggestions for further studies.

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