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
Code: 601410

Hanoi, 2012


TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
DECLARATION

i

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ii

ABSTRACT


6. Significance of the study

3

7. The design of the study

4

8. Previous studies on teaching and learning English pronunciation

4

DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER ONE: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

7

1.1. Definition of pronunciation.

7

1.2. The importance of teaching and learning pronunciation

7

1.3. The teacher’s roles and student’s roles in teaching and
learning pronunciation

8


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

v


pronunciation

13

1.6.1. The nature of pronunciation

14

1.6.2. Class setting


2.1.4. Data analysis process

19

CHAPTER THREE: THE STUDY

20

3. Data presentation

20

3.1 Survey questionnaires

20

3.1.1 Teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards teaching and
learning pronunciation

20

3.1.2 Students’ pronunciation level

21

3.1.3 The purpose of teaching and learning pronunciation

21

3.1.4 The attraction of teaching and learning pronunciation


28

3.2 Classroom observations

30

3.2.1 Teaching and materials and curriculum

30

vi


3.2.2 Students’ activities and their mistakes in producing long,
short vowels and fricative consonants

30

3.3 Interviews and discussions

31

4. Data analysis and discussion

34

CONCLUSIONS

39


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

vii


INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study.



only at Thanh Liem C High School but also at many other mountainous schools. In
addition, no research on teaching English pronunciation at Thanh Liem C High
School has been done so far.
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.

work successfully with their students.
6. Significance of the study.
Because the study was conducted on a small scale with a group of 10th
grade students at a high school, the researcher hoped to make contribution to
teaching pronunciation at TLCHS. The result of the study is considered to be
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

3


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

address the issues of motivation and exposure by creating awareness of the
importance of pronunciation and providing more exposure to input from native
speakers (Jones, 2002).
Poor pronunciation can condemn learners to less social, academic and work
advancement than they deserved (Fraser, 1999, 2000). Good pronunciation
may make the communication easier and more relaxed and thus more successful
(Dan, 2006). Almost all learners rate pronunciation as a priority and an area in
which they need more guidance (Willing, 1993; Australian Bureau of Statistics,
1997).

Although the

study

of

foreign

accents

has

always

been

a

fascination for some researchers, the teaching of pronunciation and oral
skills in general in foreign and second language classrooms has often been

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).

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DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER ONE: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
1.1. Definition of pronunciation.
The notion of pronunciation has been defined in many different ways by
writers. Generally speaking, pronunciation is simply defined as “the way in which a
word is spoken” (Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Encyclopedic, 1992) or “the way in
which a word is usually pronounced” (Longman dictionary of contemporary
English, 1978). In the book “Pronunciation” published in 1994, Christiane Dalton
and Barbara Seidlhofer (1994:3) consider pronunciation “as the production of
significant sound”. They look at the word in two senses. First, it is used as part of a
code of a particular language. That is the reason why English sounds are
distinguished from sounds of other languages. In this sense, pronunciation can be
told as the production and reception of sounds of speech. Second, sound is used to
achieve meaning in contexts of use. Here the code combines with other factors to

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.
Students need to be told how they are doing as sometimes they themselves
cannot tell if they have pronounced correctly. The teacher must provide them
feedback about their performance.
1.3.1.4. Pointing out what is going on.

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It is important for students to know what to pay attention to and what to work
on. Because speaking is for the most part unconsciously controlled, students may
miss something important. For example, they may not realize that when a particular
word is stressed or said in a different way this can affect the message that is sent to

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
Alveolar sounds. The tongue blade makes light contact with the

/s/ and /z/

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.
Palato-alveolar sounds. The tongue blade makes light contact with
the alveolar ridge, and the front of the tongue is raised. The soft

/ʃ/ and /ʒ/

palate is also raised. / ʃ / is unvoiced and fortis. / ʒ / is voiced and
lenis. / ʒ / is devoiced at the end of a word.

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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
between the native speakers and non-native speakers (untrained as well as trained

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
second language acquisition. In teaching and learning pronunciation, the biggest
problem that most of the English teachers and students complain come from nature
of pronunciation. English pronunciation itself contains so many complicated factors
and invisible rules.
In the light of this problem, Doff A. (1988) listed some common problems
that learners often make when they speak English. The first is difficulties in
pronouncing sounds which do not exist in the students‟ own language. The second
is the problems with similar sounds that often cause learners‟ confusion. The third is
difficulties in pronouncing consonant clusters. And the last problem mainly comes
from English stress and intonation. Students seem to have a tendency to give all
syllables equal stress and “flat” intonation.
1.6.2. Class setting.
A lot of problems in teaching and learning pronunciation come from class
setting such as classroom size, quality of the teaching staff, teaching and learning
equipment. Firstly, a large class causes difficulty in teaching pronunciation. At high
school, on average, there are over 50 students per class. With such a high studentteacher ratio, it is impossible to make sure that the teacher could carry out
successful teaching techniques and activities, and the learner is not able to listen and
receive what the teacher is saying. The quality of teaching staff is also a big
problem. Most teachers of English are non-native speakers, and a few of them can
have a native-like pronunciation. As a result, the language input that students
receive every day is from non-native people. Therefore, it is impossible to require
students to achieve perfect pronunciation.
1.6.3. Teaching model.
According to Kelly (2000), in the past, the model of teaching English
pronunciation was “received pronunciation”, the pronunciation of people in the

14

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
pedagogical implications.
2.1.2. The participants:
With the questionnaire and classroom observation instruments, the
participants are 100 randomly selected students. They are both male and female.
Among 100 respondents, 59 were female and 41 were male. All of them are 10th
grade students who are going to finish their 10th grade school year. They have
learned English for nearly five years.
These 100 students were chosen randomly without any criteria set before.
With this random selection, I hope to receive the most reliable and honest data
from the questionnaires. In the questionnaires, I explained that their answers
would be anonymous and my aim at giving them the questionnaires are just to
get the data for the research without any other aims.
With another questionnaire and interview instrument, the participants were
five teachers of English at Thanh Liem C High School. Among them, there was
one male teacher and four female ones. They have been teaching at that school
from one to six years.

16


2.1.3. The instruments.
As I stated in the Introduction part, the research will be carried out by
classroom observation, questionnaires and interviews
The questions and interviews are designed into investigate these main
following categories:



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
information, and the third is to improve the classroom climate.
Nunan also gives more uses of interview instrument such as needs analysis,
program evaluation, individual case studies and mini- surveys.
From these above uses of interview, we can see that with this study, using
interview instrument is very suitable to be applied. The questionnaires were used
to investigate teachers‟ and students‟ general attitude towards teaching and
learning English, English pronunciation and their difficulties in teaching and
learning English pronunciation, This second instrument, the interview, was used
to investigate what difficulties students meet when they learn English
pronunciation.
So, five teachers of English teaching at Thanh Liem C High School were
selected for a follow- up interview for more details in difficulties that students often
meet when learning English pronunciation.
2.1.3.3. Classroom observation:
I also employed classroom observation for more data. Certainly, classroom
observation is instrument that can help researchers bolster the qualitative and
quantitative results. Hopkins (1993) described classroom observation as a “pivotal
activity” with a crucial role to play in classroom research, teachers‟ personal
professional growth, and school development as a whole ( as cited in McDonough, J
and McDonough, S 1997:101). McDonough, J and McDonough also stated that
observation with its associated, so it can help me test the validity of the data
obtained about students‟ attitude towards learning English pronunciation and their
difficulties.


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.

20


3.1.2 Students’ pronunciation level.

From the chart 2, we can see the reality of students‟ level in learning
pronunciation at Thanh Liem C high school. Being asked about this, all the teachers
said that students‟ level is not equal. Only 20% teachers said that their students‟
level at pronunciation is at average; and even 60% of the students get under average
level. None of the teachers evaluate their students‟ level at pronunciation is good or
excellent.
3.1.3 The purpose of teaching and learning pronunciation
Table 1: The purpose of teaching and learning pronunciation
PURPOSES

TEACHERS

STUDENTS

To help students to communicate better

100%



21