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Vietnam national university, hanoi
University of languages and international studies
Faculty of post graduate studies
HOÀNG THỊ HẢI LÝ

DIFFICULTIES IN TEACHING AND LEARNING PRONUNCIATION IN
LANGUAGE FOCUS PERIODS – ENGLISH 12 AND SOME SOLUTIONS
(KHÓ KHĂN TRONG DẠY VÀ HỌC NGỮ ÂM TRONG CÁC TIẾT DẠY
“LANGUAGE FOCUS” SÁCH GIÁO KHOA TIẾNG ANH 12 VÀ MỘT SỐ GIẢI
PHÁP)

M.A. Minor ProgammeThesis

Field: Methodology
Code: 601410

Hanoi, 8 - 2010


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Vietnam national university, hanoi
University of languages and international studies
Faculty of post graduate studies
HOÀNG THỊ HẢI LÝ

DIFFICULTIES IN TEACHING AND LEARNING PRONUNCIATION
IN LANGUAGE FOCUS PERIODS – ENGLISH 12 AND SOME
SOLUTIONS

List of charts and tables………………………………………..……………………….

vi

PART 1: INTRODUCTION………………………………..………………………...

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1. Rationale of the study…………………………………..……………………………

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2. Aim of the study…………………………………………………………………….

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3. Research questions…………………………………………….…………………….. 2
4. Methods of the study……………………………………..………………………….

2

5. Scope of the study ……………………………………….………………………….. 2
6. Significance of the study…………………………………..………………………..

2

7. Design of the study…………………………………………………………………

3


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1.7. Techniques of teaching pronunciation.……………………………………………

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1.8. Summary…………………………………………………………………………..

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Chapter 2: The study………………………………………………………………...

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2.1. An overview of the situation of teaching and learning English at Thang Long 14
Upper Secondary School.………………….…………………………….……………..
2.1.1. Learners…………………………………………………………………………

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2.1.2. Teachers………………………………………………………………………...

14


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2.1.3. The textbook…………………………………………………………………….

14


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3.1.1. The teachers and students‟ attitudes towards teaching and learning 20
pronunciation
3.1.2. The levels of difficulties in teaching and learning pronunciation………………

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3.1.3. The causes of the difficulties in teaching and learning pronunciation………….

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3.1.4. The techniques used in each stage of teaching pronunciation…………………..

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3.2. Summary…………………………………………...……………………………… 35
Chapter 4: Some suggested techniques for teaching pronunciation in “Language 36
Focus Periods” – English 12. ………………………..………………………………
PART 3: CONCLUSION…………………………………………………..………..

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1. Conclusions of the study……………………………………………………………

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2. Limitations of the study…………………………………………………………….




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PART 1: INTRODUCTION
1. RATIONALE OF THE STUDY
Nowadays, with the rapid pace of integration and globalization, English becomes a
golden key to open the door of many fields such as commerce, communication, science and
technology throughout the world. Therefore, to meet the demand of the society, it is very
necessary to teach English in schools of all levels.
One of the most important goals of learning a foreign language is to communicate while
oral communication of human beings bases on sounds. If people do not pronounce correctly
they will have many difficulties in exchanging ideas or sometimes it may lead to the
communication breakdown.
Up to now, at upper-secondary school level, in language teaching and learning,
pronunciation is paid less attention compared with vocabulary, grammar and language skills.
This is because of number reasons: First, the textbooks (English 10 - 11 - 12) have few
exercises for pronunciation practice. Second, all important English exams at schools as well
as the entrance exam to universities are always in written form so most teachers as well as
students have little motivation to teach and to learn pronunciation. As a result, students are
often shy and unconfident to speak in English.
So, what are the difficulties in teaching and learning? 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? They are burning
questions for many teachers of English. The answers to these questions will help teachers
improve students‟ pronunciation knowledge and help them to make progress in
communication. For the above reasons, I decide to investigate “Difficulties in teaching and
learning Pronunciation in Language Focus periods – English 12 and some solutions”
2. AIMS OF THE STUDY
This study mainly focused on the difficulties in teaching and learning pronunciation

5. SCOPE OF THE STUDY
There are a number of difficulties in teaching and learning English at upper –


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secondary school. However, as this study is concerned with teaching and learning
pronunciation in Language focus periods – English 12.
6. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
This study hopes to make contribution to teaching pronunciation at upper secondary school
and the result of the study is considered to be useful for teachers and students at school. So
this study will be an interesting reference material for any upper secondary teachers in
Vietnam especially for those who are in favor of improving their students' pronunciation. This
research will help teachers and students identify their difficulties in teaching and learning
pronunciation and self- improve their pronunciation.
7. DESIGN OF THE STUDY
The study starts with the first part as an INTRODUCTION to the rationale, the aims,
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 4 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, and some techniques of
teaching pronunciation.
Chapter 2, chapter 3 constitutes the body of the study. Chapter 2 is the study of the thesis with
an overview on situation of teaching and learning English at Thang Long high school, research
questions, and research methodology and data analysis process. Chapter 3 presents data
analysis and discussions.
Chapter 4 suggests some techniques for teaching pronunciation in “Language Focus Periods”
– English 12.

While saying about why it is important to teach pronunciation, Martin Hewings (2004:10)
adds “Difficulties with pronunciation might mean that students fail to get their message across,
even when the correct words are being used, or they might fail to understand what is said to


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them.”
Sound is the core of the language so that is the reason why when teaching a language the
first thing the teachers should do is to let the learners have chances to explore to the sounds of
that language. Moreover, communicative approach is 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

1.3.2. The student's roles in learning pronunciation
In teaching a foreign language in general, and in teaching pronunciation in particular,
what ever the teacher does, the learner's improvement and prospects of change are minimal if
the learners take no action and do not try to monitor their own efforts. What all learners are
required to do in pronunciation learning is response. But it is not as simple as that. Ultimate


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success in pronunciation will 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 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.

Phonemes are the different sounds within a language. Although there are slight differences in

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 native language.


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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 between the native speakers and
non native speakers (untrained as well as trained speakers). Due to the role of native language,
there has been a great deal of research on the differences between sound systems of English
and other languages in terms of sound system as well as problems, difficulties the learners face
when studying English. According to Kenworthy, (1992: 4): "To put it very crudely, the more
differences there are, the more difficulties the learners will have in pronouncing English.”.
1.5.2 The age factor
It is commonly assumed that people can pronounce a foreign language like a native if
they start learning it as a child and vice versa even though the adults have a good knowledge
of English or they live in the countries where the language is a native one. This leads to a
question that whether there is an age-related limit on the mastery of pronunciation. There have
been many studies on this question and the results are conflicting because these studies have
assessed pronunciation in different ways and it is extremely difficult to control other factors
which may be involved such as ability, motivation or opportunity to use and to hear the
language.
1.5.3. Amount of exposure
Another factor is the amount of exposure to English the learner receives. Some people
view this as a matter of whether the learner is living in an English-speaking country or not.
This means that the learner surrounded by English will have more advantages than who is not

Hinst and Cristo, (1998) have been adopted. The main differences between English and
Vietnamese pronunciation presented hereafter:
1.6.1. Phonemes
In Vietnamese, a letter is often represented by the same phoneme (except / r / /ng, ngh/, /k/ (c,
k). While in English, the same letter may represent different sounds.
Besides, many words contain silent letters which may be at any positions in the word.
This feature is quite a challenge for Vietnamese students in learning pronunciation.
1.6.2. Vowels


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Three out of seven short English vowels are absent in Vietnamese. Vietnamese does
not have vowel contrasts (minimal pairs) which means there is not discrimination between the
short and long. This is really a matter to Vietnamese students because they cannot pronounce
some words correctly without looking at its pronunciation transcription in the dictionary.
1.6.3. Consonants
English has 24 consonants but there are only 22 in Vietnamese. There are some
phonemes in English but not in Vietnamese and vice versa. In Vietnamese, a letter is often
represented by the same phoneme. In English, some phonemes seem to be represented by
identical letters but different pronunciation. Vietnamese in general is spoken with a staccato
delivery. Syllables and words are not linked together as in English but are clearly separated
from each other. Especially final consonant clusters cause the greatest difficulties for
Vietnamese students.
1.6.4. Stress
Vietnamese is a basically monosyllabic language. Unlike English - a polysyllabic
language, most Vietnamese words have only one syllable. And unstressed syllable do not
occur in Vietnamese. Even in compound nouns, each syllable has its own distinctive tone.
This is the reason why stress within words does not exist in Vietnamese.
1.6.5. Intonation

students to practice pronunciation components. Students need to practice both speaking and
writing so we have techniques for both oral practice and written practice:
- Listening and repeating individual words
- Listening and repeating phrases
- Listening and repeating sentences
- Listening and repeating conversation
- Odd one out (multiple choice)
- Imitating a series of words, phrases or sentences which have the same pronunciation


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pattern
- Grouping words, phrases or sentences
- Transcribing phonetically words, phrases, sentence or conversation
- Doing the listening exercises
- Reading aloud
- Playing games
1.7.3. Production stage: This stage is seen as the culmination of the language learning
process, whereby the learners have become independent users of the language rather than
students of the language. We also have some techniques for this stage such as:
- Making sentences
- Making conversation
- Playing games
- Interviewing about personal activities

1.8. Summary
It can not be denied that pronunciation and teaching pronunciation is an important
part to conduct in any language course. It is even more important for those who are or
will be teachers of the language. Methods of teaching pronunciation are various with

Russia, four teachers taught Russian originally, and then changed to English. Five teachers are
from 25 to 35 years old, one has just finished an MA course, two are following MA course,
and the other two teachers have just graduated from Hanoi national university. All the teachers
are very enthusiastic with teaching and want to improve the quality of English teaching and
learning.
2.1.3. The textbook


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We have been using the text book - English 12 for two years. There are many changes in this
new text book in comparison with the old text book. This text book has four lessons focus on
four skills such as Reading, Speaking, Listening and Writing. Especially, Pronunciation is also
introduced in this text book. However, it is only one small part in the Language Focus lessons.
About 10 to 15 minutes are spent for Pronunciation in each unit. There are 16 units in the text
book and they focus on eight components of Pronunciation: Grammatical endings, Stress,
Weak and strong forms, Contractions, Rhythm, Elision, Linking and Intonation. (See appendix
5). There are two main activities of practicing: Listen and repeat individual words and Practice
reading sentences. Following is the table of contents of the pronunciation components and
activities in each unit:
Table 1: Pronunciation components and activities in each unit

Unit 1

Pronunciation components

Techniques and activities

The pronunciation of the ending „s‟



- Practice reading sentences

Weak and strong forms of some - Listen and repeat individual words
conjunctions and prepositions

- Practice reading sentences


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Unit 7

Strong and weak forms of auxiliaries

- Listen and repeat phrases
-

Practice

reading

question and

answer
Unit 8

Contracted form of auxiliaries

- Listen and repeat phrases

and

practice

reading

sentences
- Mark the primary stress over stress
syllables

and

practice

reading

sentences
Unit 12

Elision

- Listen and repeat individual words
- Practice reading sentences

Unit 13

Linking

- Practice reading sentences


pronunciation?
2. What are the difficulties and the causes in teaching and learning pronunciation in
Language focus periods – English 12?
3. How are pronunciation components taught at Thang Long upper secondary school?
2.3. Research methodology
The author will describe the subjects of the study, which consists of 7 teachers and 100
students of grade 12. The data collection instruments will be presented. The study procedure
will then be described. The preliminary results will be dicussed.
2.3.1. The subjects of the study
2.3.1.1. The teacher subjects
The subjects of the study are seven (out of ten) teachers of English who have been
teaching English 12 (The rest three teachers are two teachers who have not taught English 12
yet and the author). All of them are experienced in teaching English 12. They age from 30 to
46. One of whom studied English at Teacher training University of Russia, four teachers
taught Russian originally, and then changed to English one has just finished an MA course,
one is following MA course.
2.3.1.2. The learner subjects
One hundred students among 500 students of grade 12 were chosen randomly. There
are 14 classes with 10 classes of group A and 4 classes of group D. In each class, 7 students
with unequal level of English were chosen. Three have mark from 8 to 10, three have mark


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from 6 to 8 and one has mark below 6. Their purposes of learning English are different. Two
thirds of them learn English as a compulsory subject. Some learn English to get scholarship to
study abroad. The others study English more deeply to take the exam to university. They are
all 18 years old. Among them, 70% are female and 30% are male.
2.3.2. Methods and procedures
As mentioned in the above section, to collect information and data, three instruments:

Thirdly, the information obtained from the questionnaires and interview, however,
might be subjective and biased. The class observation was conducted (with 7 pronunciation
lessons of 7 teachers) in order to gather further information and to witness the reality in
which the teachers used techniques in the pronunciation teaching process. Then, the result of
the observation would be compared with the result of the questionnaire. The author acted as a
non-participant observer and made notes of the classroom procedures. These notes were then
transcribed and analyzed to evaluate pronunciation teaching in the classroom. The author
attended 7 pronunciation lessons during three weeks and each lesson lasted 15 minutes.
2.4. Data analysis process
Data collected from three different sources were categorized into (a) teachers and
students' attitudes towards pronunciation learning and teaching at Thang Long upper
secondary school, (b) the difficulties and the causes in teaching and learning pronunciation
(c) the ways of using different techniques in teaching pronunciation. The data were categorized
this way is easy for the author to find the answers for the research questions. The quantitative
data were presented in the form of charts while qualitative data from the interview and class
observation were presented by quoting relevant responses from the respondents.
2.5. Summary
This chapter presented the overview on situation of teaching and learning English
grammar at Thang Long upper secondary school, the research questions, the research
methodology and instruments of data collection. The author used three different instruments:
two survey questionnaires, interview and class observation with the purpose of achieving
triangulation and more reliable, valid data. In the next chapter, chapter 3, the author will present
the data analysis, discussion and the implications for teaching and learning English
pronunciation in English 12.


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CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DICUSSIONS
This chapter presents data analysis both descriptively and interpretively as well as