Pronunciation Awareness: A Point of View From Students and Teachers at HCMC University of Pedagogy
Pronunciation Awareness: A Point of View From Students and Teachers at HCMC University of Pedagogy
Pronunciation Awareness: A Point of View From Students and Teachers at HCMC University of Pedagogy
Tóm tắt
Phát âm đúng sẽ giúp sinh viên tự tin trong giao tiếp, góp phần nâng cao khả năng tiếp thu
và sử dụng ngôn ngữ. Phát âm cũng là một phần không thể thiếu trong các đề thi kiểm tra
giữa kỳ, cuối kỳ cho sinh viên. Chính vì thế, bài viết nhằm khảo sát ý thức của sinh viên
năm nhất không chuyên các khoa của trường Đại học Sư Phạm tp.HCM và giáo viên của
họ về vấn đề phát âm. Bài viết cũng tập trung vào những cách thức hữu ích giáo viên có
thể sử dụng để nâng cao khả năng của sinh viên trong phát âm. Số liệu được thu thập
thông qua phiếu khảo sát phát cho 100 sinh viên năm nhất khôngchuyên bất kỳ và 17 giáo
viên tiếng Anh trong Tổ Ngoại Ngữ trường Đại học Sư Phạm Tp. HCM và các bài phỏng
vấn ngắn. Kết quả thu được từ bài nghiên cứu thể hiện ý thức về vấn đề phát âm và những
gì giáo viên đã làm nhằm giúp sinh viên phát âm tốt hơn, cũng như sử dụng ngôn ngữ tốt
hơn.
Abstract
This paper investigates the awareness of the first year non-major students and their
teachers at Ho Chi Minh City University of Pegagogy (HCMC UP) towards pronunciation
issues. The paper also focuses on what the teacher did to help students improve their
pronunciation in class. The data were collected through a survey questionnaire of 15
teachers at the Foreign Languages Section and 100 first year non-major students at HCMC
UP. The findings revealed the awareness of the teachers and students. The paper also
suggests some ways to improve pronunciation teaching and learning at Foreign Languages
Section at HCMC UP.
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1. Introduction
2. The Problem
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skills of Speaking, Listening, Reading and Writing is much more important than
pronunciation. He does mispronounce a large number of sounds and words. A lot of
non-majored first year students have got difficulty pronouncing words and having
the appropriate intonation at HCMC. Another thing is from teachers. Dalton (2002)
writes “We (teachers) are comfortable teaching reading, writing, listening and to a
degree, general oral skills, but when it comes to pronunciation we often lack the
basic knowledge of articulatory phonetics (not difficult to acquire) to offer our
students anything more than rudimentary (and more helpful) advice such as, “it
sounds like this: uuuh”. Some teachers who can have good theoretical knowledge
on pronunciation but because of some objective and subjective obstacles don’t
spend the right amount of time in class teaching pronunciation. Some teachers
sometimes aren’t aware of the importance of pronunciation issues in class and
throughout the curriculum. This research focuses on the awareness of pronunciation
issues of both teachers and first year students at HCMC. Then it suggests some
ways to improve students’ pronunciation and raise teacher’s awareness of
pronunciation issues.
3. Research Background
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Education and Special Education. The students have to study English in 2stages.
The first is General English. The main course book used here is New Headway Pre-
intermediate by John and Liz Soars, 2000. A workbook is also used to supplement.
These students will learn the main course book in two semesters, covering from
unit 1 to unit 8. In this book, they will learn grammar, lexis, and skills.
Pronunciation is sometimes presented in separate parts in these units. The second is
English for Specific Purposes. Students from each department have their own
course books specializing in their majors.
4. The Subject
The target group for the study was first year non-majored students and their
teachers at HCMC UP. The students will have to cover 120 periods during one year,
60 periods of 50 minutes in each semester. There are 17 teachers of English asked
to fill in a questionnaire designed for teachers. 100 first year non-majored students
are delivered the questionnaires randomly and are asked to complete the
questionnaires in 15 minutes. The questionnaires are written in English. If they
have any difficulty understanding the questionnaire, the teachers in charge will
offer help. The questionnaires were then collected. The researcher analyzed the
data gained from these questionnaires.
5. The Questionnaires
The questionnaires of teachers and students are delivered at the end of the semester
2. Ten students from each class of 10 different departments was delivered randomly
and collected after fifteen minutes.
The questionnaires delivered to teachers focus on the following issues:
– Time spent teaching pronunciation in class
– The importance of spending time on pronunciation in class
– Teachers’ pronunciation quality satisfaction
– Amount of feedback on students’ pronunciation
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There is a large disparity between the amount of time perceived by the students to
be spent on pronunciation and the importance attached to it. Students’ ideas of the
importance of pronunciation are shown in Table 3. 31% of the respondents
assumed pronunciation is very important. A rather high figure -66% consider that
pronunciation is important. Only 3% said pronunciation is not very important. An
important thing here is that speaking and listening skills are also taken in great
consideration. 45% of the respondents and the similar figure 40% said that the two
skills are important to be paid attention in class. Although reading, in real classes,
is focused (20% students said that a lot of time spent on reading and 47% claimed
that some time is spent on this kind of skills) but according to the respondents’
opinions, it is not very important. Only 16% said that it is very important. In
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contrast, half of the student participants stated that grammar is very important.
Vocabulary also plays an essential role with 50% of the students saying that it is
very important and 31% regarding it as important.
There exists a gap between the amount of time spent on pronunciation in class with
students’ remark on pronunciation importance. It seems to be a failure to meet
students’ needs of learning and practicing pronunciation in class. When asked to
comment on their quality of their pronunciation, limited satisfaction is expressed in
Table 4. 65% of the student participants claimed that their pronunciation is not
good or bad. Only 5% of the respondents expressed their satisfaction to their
quality of pronunciation. When it comes to this point, there is little positive
comment from students. A short interview was carried out. The students asked the
reasons for their bad pronunciation said that they had little practice and lacked
confidence. They were always afraid of being misunderstood or not understood by
other people who communicate with them. One thing all students assumed was that
they couldn’t listen and sometimes they didn’t understand what their teachers and
friends were talking about.
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However, they showed good and positive comment on their teachers’ pronunciation.
89% of the student participants believed in their teachers’ pronunciation, stating
that it is clear enough for them to understand and their teachers can speak like a
native. Although the respondents were pleased with their teachers’ pronunciation,
they gave negative comment on teachers’ feedback on pronunciation issues in class.
No students said that their teachers don’t give them any feedback for their
pronunciation. But a large number of students 64 over 100 respondents hoped to
receive more feedback from teachers. They also claimed that teachers just focus on
correcting stress or sounds if their mistakes were repeated many times through
semester.
55% of the students said they got the advice from their teachers on pronunciation.
45% of the respondents hoped to get more advice from their teachers.
75% of the student respondents said that their teachers often give them advice on
improving their pronunciation. When it comes to pronunciation improvement, 39%
of the students have self-studied to make their pronunciation better by mainly
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listening to music and watching films. The 20 random respondents asked for a short
interview about the ways to improve their pronunciation regarded listening to
music and watching films were the most popular and accessible ways. They didn’t
ever think of any different ones.
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Apart from Writing, less time is spent on pronunciation in class than any other
language areas mentioned in the questionnaire. The limited amount of time is
shown through 39% teachers saying that not much time is for pronunciation issues
in their class. 3% of the teacher participants also claimed that they gave no time for
pronunciation. The fact that pronunciation is neglected is also highlighted in
contrast with the time teachers spend on teaching reading, grammar and vocabulary.
It should be even taken into more consideration when it comes to teachers’
opinions of the importance of pronunciation, shown in Table 8.
36% of the teacher participants claimed that teaching pronunciation issues in class
is not very important. This idea mainly came from the group of less qualified
teachers. Nearly a half of the respondents agreed on the importance of
pronunciation in class. An important figure is that 24% of teachers said that it is
very important to be considered teaching. No one said it is not important at all.
There is a paradox here. Only 7% of the students stated that pronunciation is not
important but there are 36% of teachers thinking so. The table also shows the great
amount of time should be spent on the three skills of listening, reading and writing.
Surprisingly, 65% of the teachers said that writing is also an important skill (more
than any other skills), but 41% of the teachers said not much time is spent on
writing. 34% of the respondents regarded writing as a neglected skill because no
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time is for this kind of skill. In short, teachers showed their awareness of teaching
pronunciation issues in class. And they are also proud of their pronunciation quality
when 59% of the teachers felt that they had a decent knowledge of pronunciation.
There existed 17% of the teachers who were not satisfied with their pronunciation
quality.
There were similarities in the teachers’ view and students’ view towards the
amount of advice given by teachers to help improve students’ pronunciation.
According to the teacher respondents, they are fully aware of giving the advice on
students’ pronunciation. Three of the teachers took part in a short interview, saying
that they gave students advice by recommending songs to listen, films to see, and
books to read. But they also showed their opinions that they were not sure if their
students could self-study.
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Teachers asked to complete the questionnaire also suggested some more ways and
strategies in class to help improve their students’ pronunciation. They can be listed
here:
- usually asking students to practice pronunciation in sentences
- making use of minimal pairs as a primary task
- asking students to play a game named “read my lips”
- placing an emphasis on speaking activities for self correction and peer
correction
- always asking students to repeat after T and tape scripts
- asking students to give feedback when their friends make presentations
- doing tongue twister for difficult sounds
- recommending songs and videos
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7. Findings
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There are some activities which more than 70% of the teacher participants never
did before. There is a need here for the teachers to get a training course on
pronunciation to help them with the activities and ways to give feedback and advice
on students’ pronunciation to get best communicative effectiveness. Although
teachers thought that they have provided students enough feedback on
pronunciation in class, their students are not satisfied. More teachers’ explicit
advice and deeper feedback should be explored. The data show that teachers are
trying to make their teaching more and more communicative. They are aware of the
importance of listening and speaking skills. And an important and necessary factor
to decide the effectiveness of these two skills is pronunciation.
8. Recommendations
As mentioned above, students are aware of the importance of pronunciation.
However they face many difficulties with their uttering appropriate sounds as well
as words and sentences. This hinders their communication effectiveness.
Firstly, the students would agree that the improvement of their pronunciation is a
desirable and necessary objective. That is the reason why they have to take pains
trying their hardest for their pronunciation improvement. This can’t be done in one
day. This requires time, energy and hard work.
Secondly, Wong (1993) argues that the importance of pronunciation is even more
distinct when the connection between pronunciation and listening comprehension is
taken into account. Wong (1993) also demonstrates that a lack of knowledge of
pronunciation could even affect learners’ reading and spelling. This puts a question
of how much time teachers spend on teaching listening in class. Asking students to
listen to songs, news or recorded news, well-designed and suitable listening tasks is
encouraged in every class. Listening is a “terrible” skill, according to Thang
(Chemistry 1A, school year 2010-2011). He said he couldn’t even listen to a word
and understand what the speaker was talking about. One reason for his weakness is
his mispronunciation. Pronunciation may make listening better and vice versa. At
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this point, the teachers’ role is placed much emphasis. Just look at the course book
used in the Foreign Languages Section now. A considerable number of listening
tasks in the units are not well-suited for the pre-intermediate students’ level. If
teachers don’t have any offer for help, students can’t fulfill their listening tasks or
they just guess the answers. To take an example, the listening task given in unit 8
page 65- Holidays in January. Exercise 2 asks students to listen and complete the
chart. This can be said as a very difficult task for a large number of non-majored
students. It is not just the new words or pronunciation but the culture and lifestyles,
which hinders students’ understanding of the text. Another interesting thing put
forward here is culture. Students don’t want to make any mistakes because they
could lose face. And Vietnamese students do, too. The Vietnamese language also
causes students some difficulties in pronouncing English sounds and practicing
stress and intonation. Vietnamese is a tonal and monosyllabic language in contrast
to English, which is an intonational and polysyllabic one. This causes some typical
problems in English pronunciation that teachers should be aware and find ways to
help their students overcome. According to Le Huy Lam in an independent study
project (1998), lack of the English sounds results in the perception of the closest
Vietnamese sounds. For example, since the vowel /u/ doesn’t exist in Vietnamese,
students tend to substitute /u:/ for this sound. Another problem is that sounds that
occur in both Vietnamese and English but have different articulation and
distributions. The sounds /p, k, t/ in syllable-initial position aspirated in English but
not in Vietnamese makes Vietnamese students pronouncing /pi, ki, ti/ instead of /
phi, thi, khi/. English stress is also difficult for Vietnamese students, especially non-
majored adults like students in the Section. One of the reasons is that word stress is
not existed in Vietnamese whilst English is a “free stress” language. The students
tend to give equal prominence to every syllable in multisyllabic words, and which
therefore distorts the pronunciation of the whole words. English intonation is a
problem to many Vietnamese students because pitch changes generally follow
certain patterns to convey different attitudes of the speakers. Features of connected
speech in English such as linking, assimilation, deletion, contractions and
epentheses cause Vietnamese students “headache”. The language barriers impair
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students’ understanding and being understood. The teacher, once again, is the
person to make the problem less problematic.
Thirdly, Scarcella and Oxford (1994) similarly postulate that pronunciation should
be taught in all second (/foreign) language classes through a variety of activities. In
the questionnaire, teachers also suggested some good ways that should be shared
among the teachers in the Section with the aim of giving students the best help. One
thing to remember is exercises given to students should be simple, accessible, fun
and combine reception and production. Pronunciation teaching should be
systematic, gradual, consistent, interesting, practical, and integrated. Gerald Kelly
(2000) pointed out that teachers of pronunciation need a good grounding in
theoretical knowledge; practical classroom skills and access to good ideas for
classroom activities. He also claimed that a lot of pronunciation teaching tends to
be done in response to errors which students make in the classroom. Such reactive
teaching, of course, absolutely necessary, and will always be so. Grammatical and
lexical difficulties arise in the classroom, too, and teachers deal with these
reactively. When it comes to planning a lesson or devising a timetable of work to
be covered, teachers tend to make grammar first concern. Lexis follows closely
behind, with items of vocabulary and longer phrases. Pronunciation work can, and
should, be planned for too. Teachers should regard features of pronunciation as
integral to language analysis and lesson planning. Any analysis of language that
disregards or sidelines factors of pronunciation is incomplete. Similarly, a lesson
which focuses on particular language structures or lexis needs to include features of
pronunciation in order to give students the full picture, and hence a better chance of
being able to communicate successfully. While planning, teachers should decide
what pronunciation issues are relevant to the particular structures and lexis being
dealt with in the lesson. Integrating pronunciation teaching fully with the study of
grammatical and lexical features had the further incremental benefit that learners
will increasingly appreciate the significance of pronunciation in determining
successful communication. Let’s take a look at the main course book. Teachers can
integrate teaching pronunciation and grammar as well as vocabulary with planned
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UNITS 2 & 3 focus on continuous tenses. This is ideal for teachers to teach nasal
sounds. Time expressions can be good examples to teach schwa sound.
UNIT 3 introduces simple past tense. Of course, how to produce “-ed” in verbs
endings should be focused. Teachers can remind students of the importance of final
sounds and gives students assignments as well as activities to practice.
UNIT 4 mentions articles. This is a good lesson for unstressed sounds. Teachers
can introduce stress and unstressed sounds. Delivering a hand-out of unstressed
sounds is also a useful activity.
UNIT 5 asks students to learn “hot” verbs. Teachers can make use of these verbs to
teach many difficult vowels in details such as / æ/; /^/, and some diphthongs like
/Əʊ / and / ɑʊ/. Teachers can compare these sounds with other vowels and
diphthongs.
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UNIT 6 is for revision for what teachers have introduced. Teachers can give more
tips to practice vowels and consonants.
UNIT 8 talks about collocations of nouns and nouns; nouns and adjectives; as well
as verbs and nouns. This is ideal for a word stress class.
UNIT 9 is concerned with conditional sentences and some hot verbs. The vowels of
/i/, /e/, / ʊ/, /u:/, and diphthongs such as /ei/, /ɔi/ and /ɑi/ should be planned
carefully to be taught in class.
UNIT 12 is about phrasal verbs. Teachers can have a pronunciation lesson plan for
the stress patterns of adverb and adverb particles.
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recommendations can be given. Websites are so plentiful, too. There have been
none exclusively for the Vietnamese non-majored students with the focus on the
particular pronunciation problems that Vietnamese non-majored students face.
Materials, therefore, should be suitable for this kind of students. Apart from
communication activities conducted in pairs and groups every day, some teachers
of the Section should think of books or complement materials that help their
students in HCMC UP with their pronunciation. To achieve this aim, teachers must
be fully aware of students’ special difficulties and practical solutions. According to
Ur (1996:52), “the aim of pronunciation improvement is not to achieve perfect
imitation of a native accent, but simply to get the learner to pronounce accurately
enough to be easily and comfortably comprehensible to other competent learners.”
Doctor Tran Thi Lan, PhD. Senior Lecturer, Hanoi University of Foreign Studies
mentioned a list of core pronunciation items to teach to fit Vietnamese learners’
context.
The English alphabet. A focus should put be on the following letters which
students confuse the sounds of: R, I, E, G, J, H, K, Q, W, X, Y
Voiced and unvoiced sounds. Students should be taught this to help with the
pronunciation of ‘s’ and ‘ed’ endings.
Long and short vowels. Students need to be able to confidently differentiate and
produce these as they are both challenging and have an effect on meaning.
Word final consonants. Vietnamese students often neglect these and constant
exercises on final endings should be done attentively during any course.
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Consonant clusters. These are not a feature of Vietnamese and therefore are
challenging. ‘sts’, ‘ts’, ‘str’, and ‘tr’ appear to be the most challenging for many
students.
Suprasegmental level: Word stress, sentence stress, and intonation are essential
items to address. Tonic intonation should be given special care as changes alter
meaning. Sound linking is important but not essential as when learners say the
words correctly, they will link sounds naturally themselves.
English sounds not found in Vietnamese. For example, the interdentals //, //, can
be mixed up with /f/ or Vietnamese /th/ though this may not influence
comprehensibility.
/l/ and /n/ can be mixed up in the northern dialect (Hai Phong, Hai Duong, Hung
Yen, Quang Ninh etc.).
Initial /j/ like in yes, young, yellow may be heard as in zes, zoung, zeallow. This
sound can be a bigger problem for learners from the south, or central provinces of
the country.
/r/ The Hanoi accent does not distinguish between /r/, /z/, or /gi/. Some people in
the central part of Vietnam such as Nghe An, Quang Binh, Hue, or Danang can say
/zed/ instead of /red/, /oz id3/ instead of /orid3/
The difference between aspirated and non-aspirated ‘t’. Initial ‘t’ in English is
aspirated as in ten and tea. After ‘s’ as in stop and steel ‘t’ is not aspirated and is
more similar to its Vietnamese counterpart. This is advisable to teach, but not on a
short course.
Fifthly, some popular and effective ways to help students improve their
pronunciation should be strongly encouraged in class. Songs are useful ways
teachers can make use of to improve students’ pronunciation. According to Balbina
Ebong & Marta J. Sabbadini, words in songs fit the music, helping learners
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associate the number of syllables / stress in these words, with memorable rhythms.
The relaxed atmosphere songs create can expose students to this difficult
pronunciation area, without their realizing. Songs contain endless examples of
weak syllables and connected speech helping to convince learners of the way
English is pronounced. They are, like other spoken texts, are full of contractions.
Making presentations is also preferred in language classrooms. It does not only
make students think, analyze, synthesize and evaluate but also bring them interest
in language learning and practice. When students present in front of the class,
teachers can resort to the following pronunciation checklist or compile into a
simpler checklist.
Consonants
th (e.g., thin—not[t])
th (e.g., then—not[d])
Final consonants
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Vowel variation
Intonation
Voice
Audibility level
Too loud
Too soft
Monotonous
Other comments
Note: This checklist was designed by Nora Samosir & Low Ee Ling (2000) as a
means to assess teachers’ oral English proficiency.
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9. Conclusion
Language competence and communication are two main aims of learning and
teaching a language. When a teacher is so interested in getting to the class goals, he
might focus mainly in grammatical structures, meanings, and pragmatics and in
certain specific language skills such as reading comprehension, writing, speaking
and listening. However, the final skill is not just about producing utterances. When
teachers are aware of the importance of pronunciation, it must be taken into account
into the lesson planning processes of the courses. This helps students not only to
improve the way they are speaking but also makes communication clearer and
accurate and, collaterally, helping listening comprehension to achieve progress.
In the credit educational system now in HCMC UP, teachers have the right for their
course as well as the materials supplementing to their books. Teachers should think
of good materials they themselves compile for their students, especially non-majored first
year students.
Tác giả
ThS. Nguyễn Thị Tú chuyên ngành Giảng dạy tiếng Anh của Đại học KHXH&NV
TP.HCM; là giảng viên biên chế của Tổ Ngoại ngữ trường Đại học Sư phạm TP.HCM;
phụ trách giảng dạy các khóa tiếng Anh Tổng quát và tiếng Anh chuyên ngành Hóa và Địa.
Lĩnh vực quan tâm nghiên cứu: TESOL.
Email: [email protected]
References
Balbina Ebong & Marta J. Sabbadini, British Council,
Cameroonhttp://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/developing-
pronunciation-through-songs
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Lan, Tran Thi. (2008). Essential English pronunciation in the Vietnamese context.
Retrieved December 9, 2008, from http://www.
Britishcouncil.org./9_essential_english_pronunciation_in_the_Vietnamese_co
ntext.
Low, E.L. (in press). Sounding local and going global: Current research and
implications for pronunciation teaching. In L. Lim, L. Wee, & A. Pakir
(Eds.), English in Singapore: Unity and utility. Hong Kong: Hong Kong
University Press.
Scarcella, R. & Oxford, T.L. (1994). Second language Pronunciation: State of the
Art in Instruction. System.22 (2), 221-230.
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