VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES - - ĐÀO THỊ KIM NHUNG AN APPLICATION OF GAMES AND OTHER STIMULATING ACTIVITIES IN TEACHING PRONUNCIATION TO GRADE 10 ENGLISH GIFTED STUDENTS AT HA NOI SPECIALISED UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL (ÁP DỤNG TRÒ CHƠI VÀ C C HO T NG MANG TÍNH KHÍCH LỆ KHÁC TRONG VIỆC D Y PHÁT ÂM CHO HỌC SINH CHUYÊN ANH LỚP 10 TRƯỜNG PHỔ THÔNG CHUYÊN NGỮ HÀ N I ) Course: Cohort 12 Supervisor: Dr GARY CARKIN Ha Noi 2013 INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………….4 Rationale………………………………………………………………………….4 Objectives of the study……………………………………………………………5 Scope of the study……………………………………………………………… Methods of the study…………………………………………………………… 5 Design of the study……………………………………………………………….5 DEVELOPMENT………………………………………………………………………….6 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW…………………………………………6 1.1 Pronunciation …………………………………………………………… 1.1 Definition of pronunciation ……………………………………………………7 1.2 The impotance of pronunciation ………………………………………………7 Pronunciation in language teaching …………………………………………… 2.1.The status of pronunciation teaching…………………………………… 2.1.1 The vowel and consonant sounds ……………………………………………9 2.1.2 Words stress pattern………………………………………………………….9 2.1.3 rhythm……………………………………………………………………… Current ideason pronunciation teaching and writing …………………………….9 Teachers’ roles …………………………………………………………………10 Learners’ roles ………………………………………………………………… 10 The use of games and other communicative activities in pronunciation teaching …….11 CHAPTER MOTHODOLOGY………………………………………………13 Context of the study…………………………………………………………… 13 game…………………………………………………………………………… 13 instruments………………………………………………………………………14 Questionaire …………………………………………………………………….15 Teacher’s note ………………………………………………………………….15 CHAPTER DATA PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 16 Responces to the questionaire ………………………………………………… 16 Qualitative to the questionaire ………………………………………………….17 Diagnotic Test Analysis ……………………………………………………… 18 The reseacher’s observation during class time through out the course ……… 20 Dicussion ……………………………………………………………………… 21 The effectiveness game and other stimulating activities ……………………… 22 CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………25 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………25 Implications………………………………………………………………… …25 REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………27 APPENDICES ……………………………………………………………… 28 INTRODUCTION Rationale It is undeniable that English has become a language of global communication thanks to its contribution to different fields of our life such as: science, technology, aviation, diplomacy and so on No one can deny that the rapid expansion of information technologies and the spread of globalization have led to an explosion in the demand for English worldwide English is now taught throughout of Vietnam in different levels of education from primary schools to universities because it serves as an international language and as a mean to promote mutual understanding and cooperation between Vietnam and other countries In fact, more and more people desire to know and master English in order to keep them up-to-date with the global development As a result, English is taught not only at schools and universities but also at many foreign language centres, on radio, television and even via the internet However, both teaching and learning of English are still far from being satisfaction One main problem is that most Vietnamese learners are rather good at English writtenly but not orally Many of them have a good command of grammar and vocabulary, which promises very high marks in written tests, but cannot communicate successfully with foreigners The reason lies in the imbalanced development of four language skills In most schools and universities (except those whose major is English), teachers focus too much on reading and writing rather than speaking and listening of which pronunciation is a good foundation Thus, students not often have English competence, especially in oral communication In the present context of teaching English at CNN, speaking and listening are very important for grade 10 students because they establish a firm base for students’ further development, especially in interpreting skills Being a teacher of English in general, I am well aware of the importance of pronunciation to help my students improve these skills, but like other teachers, I have faced many difficulties in creating motivation so that students are eager to practise in and out of their classes We have questioned ourselves about how to motivate our students to maximize their time of practising in class and even outside class, which leads to the use of games and other stimulating activities We have tried activities collected from different sources, which seems to bring about great effect Objectives of the study The study is aimed at:  Finding out their advantages and disadvantages  Helping pronunciation teachers choose suitable activities for their classes Thus, this thesis is to answer two research questions:  How effective is the use of games and some other stimulating activities?  What are students’ attitude towards the use of games and some other stimulating activities? Scope of the study To create motivation for students in pronunciation classes, teachers at English group, CNN, have applied a lot of games and activities However, the researcher in this study only focuses on and analyzes some typical ones (which will be presented in the following parts) and then suggests some effective activities that teachers can introduce to students so that they have more practice outside class There are 4classes at grade 10 which consist of 160 students who have to take pronunciation as a compulsory subject; however, this action research was carried out in only two classes of which the researcher was in charge Thus, the questionnaire was delivered to only 50 participants Methods of the study Action research is the method employed in this study To achieve the aims mentioned above, the researcher has used a number of instruments to collect data for analysis which include a questionnaire distributed before the term started and after it ended, teachers’ observation and notes Design of the study This minor thesis is composed of three parts Part 1, INTRODUCTION, presents the rationale, aims, scope, methods and design of the study Part 2, DEVELOPMENT, is divided into three chapters Chapter 1, Literature Review, presents relevant concepts to pronunciation and pronunciation teaching Chapter 2, Methodology, involves the information about context, participants and instruments of the study Chapter 3: Data Presentation, Analysis and Discussion, focuses on data analysis to show students’ point of view towards pronunciation and the effectiveness of different activities Part 3, CONLUSION, summarizes some major findings, provide implications for pronunciation teaching, limitation of the study and suggestions for further research DEVELOPMENT LITERATURE REVIEW 1.Pronunciation 1.1 Definition of pronunciation There are various ways to define pronunciation Macmillan Dictionary gives an easy-to-understand definition, that is “the way in which a word or language is pronounced” Similarly, Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines pronunciation as the way in which a language or a particular word or sound is pronounced or the way in which a particular person pronounces the words of a language More specifically, pronunciation can be understood as one of the three explanations given in the http://www.thefreedictionary.com:  The act or manner of pronouncing words; utterance of speech  A way of speaking a word, especially a way that is accepted or generally understood  A graphic representation of the way a word is spoken, using phonetic symbols 1.2 The importance of pronunciation Nowadays, no one can deny the significant role of pronunciation in language teaching and learning Pronunciation is one of the most important aspects of language We may be proficient at grammar and have a huge store of vocabulary, but if we pronounce words wrongly, we just will not get understood Wong (1993) argues that the importance of pronunciation is even more distinct when the connection between pronunciation and listening comprehension is considered As listeners expect spoken English to follow certain patterns of rhythm and intonation, speakers need to employ these patterns to communicate effectively If the rhythm and intonation are different, listeners simply can’t get the meaning Similarly, listeners need to know how speech is organized and what patterns of intonation mean in order to interpret speech accurately Thus, learning about pronunciation develops learners’ abilities to comprehend spoken English Furthermore, Wong demonstrated that a lack of knowledge of pronunciation could even affect students’ reading and spelling Pronunciation in language teaching 2.1 The status of pronunciation in current language teaching The status of pronunciation teaching in different schools of language teaching has varied widely According to Castillo (1990), pronunciation teaching has no role at all in the grammar-translation method, but it is the main focus in the audio-lingual method The audio-lingual view of the pronunciation class was also mirrored in situational language teaching, developed in Britain (Richards and Rodgers, 1986 Nowadays, teachers and learners have realized the importance of pronunciation in English teaching and learning, however, it still has not received enough attention In fact, pronunciation tends to be de-emphasized in most English courses because many teachers believe that pronunciation cannot be taught effectively and it is not worth spending time on this field because it should be allowed to develop naturally by students Colin Mortimer (1985) claimed that elements of pronunciation teaching include weak forms, clusters, linking-up, contractions and stress time However, according to Gerald Kelly (2000), teaching pronunciation involves: vowels, consonants, word and sentence stress, intonation, other aspects of connected speech and spelling Jennifer Jenkins (2004) provided more comprehensive elements of pronunciation teaching This researcher stated that depending on the second language in question, pronunciation teaching typically covers any or all of the following: consonant and vowel sounds, changes of these sounds in the stream of connected speech, word stress patterns, rhythm, and intonation, which might be described as the nuts and bolts of pronunciation 2.1.1 Consonant and vowel sounds It is obvious that learners of English need to know and pronounce letter sounds correctly because they are the basement for the combination of sounds into words However, students must know that English pronunciation does not match spelling and one of the most confusing aspects of English pronunciation is sound and spelling patterns English has borrowed lots of words from other languages such as ancient Latin, Greek, Eskimo and Farsi, so its sound and spelling correspondences are irregular Thus, phonetic transcription is an indispensable part of pronunciation teaching 2.1.2 Word stress patterns Word stress must highly be focused on at the beginning of any pronunciation courses because without correct word stress, speakers of English cannot have understandable pronunciation In every two or more-syllable words, one of the syllables is stressed, which means it is higher, louder and longer than the others This stressed syllable is very important because it helps listeners distinguish the word from others Therefore, listeners often find it hard to understand what the speaker is saying when he or she misuses word stress 2.1.3 Rhythm Rhythm is the obvious feature of every language Rhythm or beat of a language is the product of word stress and the way in which important items are emphasized The combination of strong beats (the occurrence of important items) and weak beats (the occurrence of unimportant items) makes rhythm easy to be recognized Thus, after dealing with word stress patterns, teachers of pronunciation should introduce to their students the rhythm of English which is characterized by the alteration of strong and weak syllables (Kenworthy, 1987) Intonation Current ideas on pronunciation teaching and learning Changing outlooks on language learning and teaching have influenced the view of language competence, which leads to a shift from specific linguistic competencies to broader communicative competencies as goals for teachers and students (Morley, 1991) Previously, teachers of pronunciation only focused on teaching segmental features which started with a concentration on phonetic alphabets during the Reform Movement (Celce-Murcia et al., 1996) Phonetic training was used in order to help learners establish good speech habits Minimal pair drills were used extensively to distinguish phonemes in listening practice and oral production (Celce-Murcia et al., 1996) McNerney and Mendelsohn (1992, p 186) suggested “a short-term pronunciation course should focus first and foremost on suprasegmentals, as they have the greatest impact on the comprehensibility of learners’ English” So far a lot of books for teachers have largely encouraged the teaching of suprasegments at the production level to improve learners’ intelligibility Teachers’ roles Some researchers (Suter and Purcell, 1980) have cast doubt on the importance of pronunciation teaching because in their opinion, little relationship exists between teaching pronunciation and attained pronunciation proficiency They stated that “the attainment of accurate pronunciation in a second language is the matter substantially beyond the control of educators” However, other researchers including Pennington (1989) believed that teachers with formal training in pronunciation play an important role in helping students improve their pronunciation A teacher of pronunciation often fulfills the following roles:  Helping learners perceive sounds  Helping learner make sounds  Creating authentic activities and exercises  Providing learners with feedback  Accessing learners’ progress Learners’ roles There is no doubt that whatever the teacher does and however hard he/ she tries, there is still no success in the teaching and learning process if students not involve Students need to develop awareness and monitoring skills that will allow learning opportunities inside and even outside the classroom environment, which promises their improvement and prospect of change The learner’s involvement in the learning process has been noted as one of the best techniques for developing learner strategies, that is, the measures used by the learner to develop his language learning (Morley, 1991) Thus, students must become part of the teaching and learning process, actively involve in their own learning Ultimate success in pronunciation surely depends on learners’ attitude and how much attempt they put into the process of learning 10 The use of games and other communicative activities in pronunciation teaching As discussed above, pronunciation is an essential part in language learning and teaching Many people believe that in language learning, effort is required at every moment and must be maintained over a long period of time It is also obviously true with pronunciation learning There are a few pronunciation teachers who think that teaching pronunciation means helping students perceive and produce English sounds correctly That is why they often ask their students to repeat the sounds times and times again after introducing them, which makes students get bored with studying pronunciation Once students get bored, they will get nothing from the studying Talking about the advantages of games, Thiagarajan (1999); Wright, Betteridge, & Buckby (2005) claimed that games add interest to what students might not find very interesting Sustaining interest means sustaining effort After all, learning a language involves long-term effort because games offer students a fun-filled and relaxing learning atmosphere Thanks to that, they learn and practise the sounds in a non-stressful way Games ease the fear of negative evaluation, the concern of being negatively judged in public, and which is one of the main factors inhibiting language learners from using the target language in front of other people (Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope, 1986) In a game-oriented context, anxiety is reduced and speech fluency is generated, so communicative competence is achieved According to Shalley Vernon in the article “Teaching English Pronunciation Using Role Playing and Other Games”, anxiety is one of the most common obstacles to the ESL students’ ability to learn English pronunciation However, the problem of anxiety can also be resolved with games because students will learn to relax and enjoy themselves, which encourages them to participate and be more willing to experiment with new different sounds Richard-Amato (1988) and Uberman (1998) also shared the same view that the variety and intensity that games offer may lower anxiety and encourage shyer learners to take part especially when games are played in small groups More importantly, it is undeniable that games are advantageous in pronunciation teaching in the way that they help teachers to create contexts in 11 improvement in most of the students in all aspects of pronunciation However, some of them showed the same intelligibility as in the diagnostic test Discussion The results analysed in this chapter derived from the diagnostic test and final test as well as the teacher’s observation and the questionnaire delivered before and after the course The analysis showed that students’ motivation and pronunciation in terms of both segmental and suprasegmental features had been improved a lot After the researcher has worked hard on the data and information, she would like to discuss the effectiveness of motivating activities in the course and some disadvantages that led to difficulties she encountered when applying those activities The effectiveness of games and other stimulating activities It can be said that stimulating activities applied in the course had brought about great improvement in students’ motivation, interest and pronunciation intelligibility Firstly, the researcher found that students in this course were much more active, voluntary, and enthusiastic in the class than the students in the previous years The evidences lied in regular attendance of the students and their responses to questions in the questionnaire With the application of new motivating activities, the students seemed to be more interested and autonomous in their learning When applying such interesting activities, the teacher hardly found any sleepy and bored faces in her class, instead, there were just eagerness and enthusiasm Students often volunteered to take part in motivating activities that their teacher introduced in class Sometimes they showed exhaustion and tiredness in pronunciation lessons because they had had two hours studying listening, however, students never showed their disconcern and disinterest The researcher many times saw students practising sounds, word-stress and sentence stress in the break time They even told the teacher that they spent more time self-studying pronunciation than they had used to Many of them revised the sounds by replaying the games in class, listen to songs and try to sing the lyrics, watch movies or animated films and read the subtitles aloud Some other students logged in different websites for pronunciation that the teacher had introduced to them to have more drillings They used the internet not only for 22 chatting, emailing, searching for information but also for practising pronunciation At the end of the course, when the teacher collected the students’ feedback, the majority of them revealed that pronunciation class was what they expected the most among all subjects in the week Thanks to such interest, students’ intelligibility had been improved much at the end of the course even though both teacher and students had longed for better results Some disadvantages of the use of games and other stimulating activities It is obvious that apart from advantages games and other stimulating activities have brought about, there have been some disadvantages that led to difficulties teachers have to overcome in order to prepare and organize class activities which are effective and attractive to students Vast time and effort investment is the first thing that teachers have to face with It is undeniable that teachers need to spend a lot of time reading different books and reference documents to have a wide range of activities that they can use in class It may take them hours to think and consider whether the activities are suitable and effective in their classes When teachers can decide what kind of activities to use in class, the next step is to make a careful lesson plan to ensure that they will deliver the activities successfully Teachers sometimes have to adjust the rules or make some changes so that the activities will be suitable to their students’ level of proficiency and the context of teaching There are not always handouts that they can use immediately for their students, so it will take them more time to adapt or even design totally new handouts More specifically, if teachers want to apply lyrics completing, they will have to listen to many different English songs just to choose one song which has suitable pace and includes the sounds in focus they want to teach their students Then, they need to work with the lyrics to decide the blanks Another evidence of vast time investment is the preparation for subtitle reading Not all movies and cartoons can be used to help students practise the sounds and intonation That is why teachers must spend time watching and deciding which one to be used in class Then, they will invest more time extracting the pieces of the movies or cartoons that will be used to avoid the complication of playing forward and backward In 23 general, teachers need to be very flexible and creative in order to create useful and interesting activities to their classes Another thing that challenges teachers relates to technology Firstly, teachers need to be familiar with computer and internet if they want to adapt or design various activities for their students For example, in order to extract one piece of movie or cartoon to use in class, teachers have to proficiently use some soft wares like Video Editor or Mc Fun Soft Editor It is also very necessary for them to be ready to fix some of the technical problems in class related to computer, speakers or projector; otherwise, it will be a waste of time Last but not least, teachers will need very good classroom management skills so as not to make the class chaotic when students take part in games and other stimulating activities It is clear that students will not sit still in some activities, they have to move their places and undoubtedly, there will be a lot of noise If teachers cannot control the class, students may not learn anything but just chat to each other or are tired from hearing so much noise It is also very easy for students to be over excited in some games and activities, many of them may keep talking about the games even when they are over Thus, teachers are the ones to drive them back to the lesson and make them be on track It is true that in order to prepare and organize interesting activities for students, it takes teachers quite a lot of time and effort, but the reward of the improvement and favor of the students makes it worth trying 24 CONCLUSION Summary of major findings First of all, the course has helped to improve students’ motivation and interest in learning pronunciation The activities, in fact, have brought about a lot of joyous and happy time to students when they were in class or even outside class With those activities, pronunciation drills were not a burden to students any more In contrast, students were willing to practice sounds, stress and intonation during the course Secondly, the course actually had positive effects on students’ intelligibility in pronunciation The results in the final examination clearly showed their improvement Most of them had better pronunciation of letter sounds Moreover, apart from being aware of the role of stress, rhythm and intonation, almost all students paid more attention to those aspects and were more careful when they were speaking Thus, they were undoubtedly better at segmental and suprasegmental features of pronunciation However, the results at the end of the course still showed limited suitability and appropriateness Implications Based on the findings and the discussion of the research, the following implications for teaching pronunciation are suggested Firstly, more researches should be done in teaching pronunciation because it is very important and useful, especially to English majored students In order to help students master pronunciation, the best way is to enhance their motivation and interest which will then encourage them to self study It is understandable because the time they spend in class is not enough to make great changes and improvement Teachers can use discipline to raise students’ extrinsic motivation; however, pronunciation practice will soon become a burden if students not participate voluntarily Therefore, teachers need to make an effective and motivating learning environment in the class to raise students’ intrinsic motivation By that way, students will be more interested and will not feel tired from learning, which will bring about long term benefit One of the best ways to create that motivating environment is to use games and 25 stimulating activities However, teachers should be flexible in considering which activities are suitable and how to have friendly atmosphere in the classroom Apart from some printed sources, teachers can also refer to some online sources to have a wide range of activities in class as well as to share experience with teachers all over the world The researcher would like to recommend some useful websites for teachers of pronunciation as follows:  http://edition.tefl.net/ideas/pronunciation/top-fun-pronunciation-games/  http://www.soundsofenglish.org/tips.htm  http://www.eslprintables.com/printable.asp?id=70669  http://www.slideshare.net/guest963c74e1/pronunciation-gamesfun-andeffective  http://www.eslgamesworld.com/members/games/pronunciation/  http://www.ehow.com/way_5294921_pronunciation-games-esl.html  http://www.englishbaby.com/forum/TeacherTalk  http://www.eslhq.com/forums/esl-forums/esl-gamesactivities/pronunciation-games-activities-9724/ Secondly, teachers should bear in mind of pronunciation is students’ intelligibility and spoken communicative competence It is undeniable that errors in individual sounds cannot prevent students from being understood when they can speak complete sentences clearly Therefore, suprasegmental features of pronunciation such as stress, rhythm and intonation are important in teaching English pronunciation However, individual sounds should not be ignored as they may cause confusion and misunderstanding, especially for the students who would become interpreters and teachers of English The analysis above necessitates the combination of games and activities which focus on the sounds such as minimal pair practice and other communicative activities like role play or puppet play 26 REFERENCES Anderson-Hsieh, J (1990) Teaching suprasegmentals to international teaching assistants using field-specific materials English for Specific Purposes, 9, 195-214 Anderson-Hsieh, J (1995) Pronunciation factors affecting intelligibility in speakers of English as a foreign language Speak Out, 16, 17-19 Celce-Murcia, M., Brinton, D and Goodwin, J (1996) Teaching Pronunciation: A reference for teachers of English to speakers of other languages Cambridge: Cambridge University Press HanCock, M.(1995) Pronunciation Games Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Horwitz, E.K., Horwitz, M.B., and Cope, J.A 1986 Foreign language classroom anxiety The Modern Language Journal 70 (2): 125-132 McNerney, M & Mendelsohn, D (1992) Suprasegmentals in the pronunciation class: Setting priorities In Teaching American English pronunciation, Oxford University Press, pp 185-196 Morley J (1999) New developments in Speech Pronunciation Instruction, As We Speak, Newsletter of the TESOL Speech Pronunciation Interest Section Pennington, M.C (1994) Recent Research in L2 Phonology: Implications for Practice In J Morley (Ed.) Pronunciation Pedagogy and Theory: New Views, New Directions Alexandria, VA: TESOL Publications Thiagarajan, S (1999) Teamwork and teamplay: Games and activities for building and training teams San Francisco: Jossey-Bass 10.Underhill, Adrian 1994 Sound foundations Oxford: Macmillan Heinemann English Language Teaching 11.Wright, A., Betteridge, D., & Buckby, M (2005) Games for language learning (3rd ed.) New York: Cambridge University Press 12 http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Dalton-Pronunciation.html 27 APPENDIX Questionnaire This survey questionnaire is designed to collect information for the study on the application of games and other stimulating activities in teaching pronunciation to first year students at English Department, Hanoi University The obtained result will be of great importance to my thesis which aims at working out the effectiveness of the activities to create motivation and students’ reaction in pronunciation classes You can be positive that you are not to be identified in any discussions or debates Thank you for your cooperation! Please tick ONE option as your best answer What you think of the role of pronunciation in learning a foreign language? a Very important b Rather important c Not very important d Not important at all Do you find it difficult to communicate or to learn such skills as listening and speaking due to your poor pronunciation? a Yes, always b Yes, sometimes c Yes, but rarely d No, never How you evaluate your own English pronunciation? a Very good b Good c Rather good d Not good at all How difficult is learning pronunciation? a Very difficult b Difficult c Rather difficult d Not difficult at all Has your pronunciation become better since you joined the course? a Yes, much better b Yes, better c Yes, a little better d No, not better at all How you spend time learning pronunciation outside the classroom? a Every day b Every week c Sometimes d Never 28 How you describe your interest in learning pronunciation? a Very high b High c Low d Very low How you think about pronunciation lessons? a Very favourable b Favourable c Unfavourable d Very unfavourable How you rate your effort in learning pronunciation? a Very high b High c Low d Very low 10 What you think of games and other stimulating activities your teacher uses in your pronunciation lessons? a Very interesting and useful b Interesting and useful c Rather interesting and useful d Uninteresting and useless 29 APPENDIX Teacher’s observation and anecdotal notes Date Time .Class……… ……… Homework check:……………………………………………….….………………………… Contents:……………………………………………….………………………… Activities applied:………………………… ……….…………………………… Students’ attendance Classroom atmosphere Students’ participation and performance Teacher’s difficulties Students’ participation and performance Participation: Most students were excited about making sentences including the pairs of sounds Almost all of them were willing to read their work aloud with great enthusiasm However, some students were still shy and timid, they kept silent and did not contribute any ideas to sentence making Performance: Students were very creative and made a lot of interesting sentences They read the sentences loudly and clearly Some students showed the distinction between the two sounds in pairs, but many others still could not distinguish those sounds both in speaking and listening There were a lot of problems with word stress and sentence stress when students orally presented their work Teacher’s difficulties It was sometimes too noisy when students were working in pairs, so it was rather hard for the teacher to drive them back to class work 30 APPENDIX Teacher’s observation and anecdotal notes Date 8/11/2010 Time 9.30-11.00 a.m Class…6A10 …… Homework check: students did not complete their homework……… ……… Contents:…//, // /e/ …………………………… … ….………………… Activities applied:……………Poem composing.…………….………………… Students’ attendance All 25 students were present Classroom atmosphere Joyful and friendly Students’ participation and performance Participation: Students were eager to join the activity Most of them were happy when being called randomly by the teacher to present their utterances Some other students were nervous and anxious when the teacher called them They refuse to make utterances including the diphthongs Performance: Students produced many interesting and funny utterances They had better pronunciation of vowel sounds and diphthongs However the minority of students still pronounced the diphthongs too short, which made the sounds not sound like two vowel sounds Many students still had problems with word stress and put more force on the last syllable (anxious, nervous, strongest, etc) Their intonation was still not good and rather flat They dropped the final sounds very often Teacher’s difficulties It was sometimes hard for the teacher to encourage some very timid and shy students to take part in the activity 31 APPENDIX Teacher’s observation and anecdotal notes Date 13/12/2010 Time 9.30-11.00 a.m Class…5A10… Homework check: None of the students forgot to complete their homework… Contents: Sentence stress and intonation.…………… ………………………… Activities applied:……………Subtitle reading.………………………………… Students’ attendance All 25 students were present Classroom atmosphere Relaxing and encouraging Students’ participation and performance Participation: Many students volunteered to take part in the activity Some others were nervous and anxious when the teacher called them Most of the students enjoyed watching the clips and listening to their friends reading the subtitles They were very attentive and kept silent when their classmates were reading Performance: Students had better pronunciation of vowel sounds and diphthongs They were more aware of the final sounds and more careful when pronouncing them Most students had a lot of improvement in word stress and sentence stress, at least when they tried to imitate the intonation of the characters in the clips However, some others still had flat intonation and did not show their emotion in the reading Teacher’s difficulties Preparing for the lesson was time consuming The teacher had encountered some problems when using the software named Mc Funsoft Editor to extract the clips from the whole films At the beginning of the lesson, the speakers did not work well, so it was hard for the students to hear the characters’ voice It took time to fix the problem 32 APPENDIX Pronunciation Games INDIVIDUAL SOUNDS FOCUS GAME Hidden names Pronunciation journey PAGE NOTE 34 36 This game can be used to help Ss revise stress in multi-syllable words by changing the rules  Turn left if Ss hear words that have stress on the 1st syllable  Turn right if Ss hear words that have stress on the 2nd syllable WORD STRESS 46 52 Stepping stones 22 Happy family SENTENCE STRESS & INTONATION Wind a word Two vowel jigsaw Phonetic crossword Bingo Stress dice 27 Fishing Intonation direction 84 104 66 70 19 It is not easy to have a dice for each pair/ group To carry out this game in class, T can print the stress patterns on pieces of paper and give each pair/ group a set of pieces Ss take turns to pick a piece of paper instead of throwing the dice This game can be used to help Ss revise stress in words with more than two syllables by replacing the words on the stones with those T wants to check and ask Ss to step on the words that have the same stress pattern This game is used to help Ss mainly revise contrastive and emphatic stress 33 APPENDIX TOMB GUEST SCISSORS SSTREET THANK JUDGE YOUNG TWICE QUEUE SHOULDER WOOD PAIL TREES LIVE WHICH SIX PIN THOSE ROUGH FULL BAD EXIT CLOTHES WOUND FIFTH CURVE COOKED SINGER ACHE CLEANED 34 APPENDIX p ð ɪ əʊ b s e aʊ t z æ ɪə d ʃ ɒ eə k ʒ ʌ ɑː g h ʊ ɔː tʃ m iː ʊə dʒ n eɪ ɜː f ŋ aɪ ə v l ɔɪ j θ r uː w 35 24 ... games and some other stimulating activities?  What are students’ attitude towards the use of games and some other stimulating activities? Scope of the study To create motivation for students in pronunciation. .. low 10 What you think of games and other stimulating activities your teacher uses in your pronunciation lessons? a Very interesting and useful b Interesting and useful c Rather interesting and useful... designed to collect information for the study on the application of games and other stimulating activities in teaching pronunciation to first year students at English Department, Hanoi University