An action research on the use of continuous feedback to improve the first year students' pronunciation at the english department, college of foreign languages, vietnam national university, hanoi part 2

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An action research on the use of continuous feedback to improve the first year students' pronunciation at the english department, college of foreign languages, vietnam national university, hanoi part 2

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An action research on the use of continuous feedback to improve the first year students' pronunciation at the english department, college of foreign languages, vietnam national university, hanoi

1 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale The trend of globalization in every field all over the world has given foreign languages in general and English in particular a greater role than ever before As English is largely used in international settings, the ability to communicate in real-life situations is very important Therefore, speaking plays an essential role because without it, communication cannot take place directly between people Dealing with how to improve speaking skills, learners face the problem of pronunciation A consideration number of learners’ pronunciation errors and how they inhibit successful communication is a good reason for the justification of why it is important to teach pronunciation to learners There is a great number of books relating to the teaching of English pronunciation, most of which refer to specific exercises to help students achieve better pronunciation However, in my experience as a teacher of English for three years, I have witnessed many cases in which students are able to pronunciation exercises, but fail to have proper pronunciation in their real-life speaking Thus, a good mark in doing pronunciation exercises in written form does not accompany good pronunciation In my opinion, the problem lies in the fact that students not receive adequate feedback from the teacher on their pronunciation performance Some students even not know how to form certain sounds in English Therefore, it is impossible for them to have genuine production of sounds and sentences Despite this, little can be done about this due to a vast number of factors, the most serious of which is the high student-teacher ratio in Vietnamese universities, which is about 25 to one (at universities in which English is a major) The teachers hardly have enough time to pay attention and give correction to every student’ speaking performance in general and pronunciation in particular As a result, students are unable to identify their weak aspects All of these motivated me to conduct an action research on the use of continuous feedback with the aim at improving the first year students’ English pronunciation 1.2 Statement of the problem As a teacher at the English Department, College of Foreign Languages, Hanoi National University, I have realized the fact that the first-year students have a lot of problems concerning their pronunciation It is true that they speak English in all English classes (twelve periods a week) and teachers are alert to help them with their pronunciation problems However, after a year of learning, their pronunciation doesn’t seem to improve much, not to mention the fact that their frequent mistakes are maintained as the first day they enter the university This reflects the fact that the present teaching and learning of English pronunciation is not very effective As O’Connor (2002) stated, “clear, concise feedback matched to standards will promote student achievement”, feedback plays a very important role in the teaching of any foreign language skill because without it, students would have a vague picture of what they are really weak at and what they need to improve As for pronunciation, feedback is even more important This is because only when students are adequately informed about their particular pronunciation problems, and helped to make genuine sounds before moving on the more complex issues of pronunciation such as intonation or elision, can they focus more on what their personal problems are and invest more time and effort to improve them Generally, learners of English are required to have intelligible pronunciation However, for students at the English Department, College of Foreign Languages, Hanoi National University, the aim of English pronunciation cannot be limited to that point It is obvious that most of these students are becoming teachers of English in the future Therefore, their English pronunciation must go far beyond the “accepted level”, as they are going to teach English for the coming generations of the country After finishing the four-year curriculum, it is expected that their pronunciation would be native-like or near native-like Therefore, it is essential that the issue of English pronunciation must be raised at the very first time the students enter the college These first year students should be taught how to achieve relatively correct pronunciation, regarding certain aspects of it This is to lay a foundation for better pronunciation competence in the next three years In addition, if students are not provided with adequate feedback on their pronunciation, the mistakes they make may be fossilized and it will take a very long time to correct them later Those are the main reasons why I would like to propose An Action Research on the Use of Continuous Feedback to Improve the First Year Students’ English Pronunciation at the English Department, College of Foreign Languages, Vietnam National University, Hanoi to be the topic of my thesis 1.3 Purposes of the study This research was designed to improve the students’ pronunciation performance by using continuous feedback Generally, it has three purposes: - To find possible explanations for the weak pronunciation competence of the students - To investigate pronunciation problems among first year students of English at the English Department, College of Foreign Languages, Vietnam National University, Hanoi However, due to the limitation of time, the researcher only focused on English consonant sounds - To justify the effect of continuous feedback on students’ pronunciation 1.4 Research questions With the above purposes, the research questions are: What are the possible reasons that lead to students’ weak pronunciation of English? What are the students’ most common problems regarding English consonant sounds? Can continuous feedback improve students’ English pronunciation? If yes, to what extend? 1.5 Scope of the study The research was conducted on the first year students at the English Department of CFL, VNU Regarding its scope, the research was only aimed at justifying the effect of continuous feedback on the students’ pronunciation of English consonant sounds Other aspects of English pronunciation would not be investigated Even though the researcher made use of speaking tests as an important instrument for the research, only issues concerning the students’ pronunciation of consonant sounds were taken into consideration 1.6 Research method The method employed in this study is an action research, with the use of a number of instruments, namely observation, questionnaires, speaking tests and interviews Action research has proved to be the best choice for this study because the study was aimed at improving the students’ pronunciation within a certain context The combination of different instruments used in this research would help to gain reliable data and help the researcher have a close investigation into the problems that the students were having 1.7 Significance of the study Even though pronunciation is troublesome for most English learners, it is surprising that there is not much investigation into this problem This research provides an insight into the common pronunciation problems that most of the Vietnamese students who are studying English as their major encounter regarding English consonant sounds In addition, it suggests a new way which is very learner-centered to help students improve their pronunciation The results of the research will be, therefore, much beneficial to both teachers and students of English 1.8 Design of the study The study is divided into five chapters as follows: Chapter one presents an overview of the study in which the rationale for the research, the research problem, the purposes, the research questions, the scope of the study, the research method, the significance of the study, as well as the design of the study were briefly presented Chapter two reviews the literature relevant to the study, including the definition of feedback, as well as an overview on the techniques that have been common used to teach pronunciation These lay the foundation for the choice of the medium for the research More specifically, it presents a number of research in which feedback has been used to help students make improvement in their language study Chapter three is a detailed discussion of the method used in the study This chapter presents a thorough justification for the use of continuous feedback and action research It also gives a thorough description of the research’s components, as well as the research program Chapter four presents the findings of the study This part is apparently important because it justifies the effectiveness of the research Chapter five discusses the findings of the study, provides pedagogical implications, as well as presents limitations of the research It also makes recommendations for further research in the same field CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Pronunciation teaching and learning 2.1.1 The importance of teaching and learning pronunciation According to Kelly (2000: 11), it is vital for a language learner to have good pronunciation of that language However, pronunciation competence does not go with the mastery of grammar rules or a good lexis command Some learners may have already acquired a considerable amount of grammar and vocabulary, but still fail to communicate effectively due to their weak pronunciation A learner who mispronounces a variety of words would cause great difficulties for a speaker of that language to understand, which is a frustrating experience Therefore, it can be concluded that pronunciation plays a vital role in learner’s speaking ability Only when a learner is competent in pronunciation can his speaking skills are acclaimed In addition to that, bad pronunciation inevitably has negative effect on the learner’s listening ability When a learner has already been accustomed to the wrong way of pronouncing particular language sounds and utterances, it is unlikely that s/he will be able to recognize the authentic pronunciation by native speakers There are many cases in which learners are asked to listen to a familiar expression by native speakers with the use of mainly common words However, they fail to interpret it because they find its pronunciation totally different from the way they are used to speaking or listening in their daily communication As a result, they cannot understand what the speakers mean Moreover, it is obvious that good pronunciation serves as a strong motivation for language learners Most language learners show considerable enthusiasm for pronunciation as they consider it a good way to show that they are competent of the language Once they have obtained adequate pronunciation competence, they gradually build up strong confidence for themselves and are ready to learn new things without hesitation 2.1.2 Approaches and methods in pronunciation teaching The history and scope of pronunciation teaching are revised in Teaching Pronunciation (Celce-Murcia M, et al, 1996: 2) According to the authors, there are two general approaches to the teaching of pronunciation in the modern times, namely intuitive-imitative approach and analytic-linguistic approach An intuitive-imitative approach depends on “the learners’ ability to listen to and imitate the rhythms and sounds of the target language without the intervention of any explicit information.” This means the teaching of pronunciation depends largely on the teacher’s turning on and rewinding a cassette player (or any other instrument), and the main activities in the class are listening and repeating Of course, in order to this, there must be the supply of authentic materials as well as recording devices to use during the lesson The teacher has no responsibility to explain how sounds are formed or produced Learners their main task of listening and imitating, and it is expected that they will gradually gain pronunciation competence An analytic-linguistic approach “utilizes information and tools such as a phonetic alphabet, articulatory descriptions, charts of the vocal apparatus and other aids to supplement listening, imitation, and production.” In this approach, learners are given explanation as well as training on how to form particular sounds of the target language This approach is actually a further development of the first approach rather than to replace it because is still makes great use of authentic materials, as well as listening and imitating phases during the lessons Regarding methods of language teaching in general and their philosophy of pronunciation teaching in particular, it can be seen clearly that each method puts a different weight on pronunciation, and therefore, treats pronunciation differently Some methods, such as Grammar Translation or Reading-based approaches, give no acknowledge to pronunciation The teacher use learners’ native language to teach grammar or text comprehension Thus, little attention is given to speaking, and almost none to pronunciation However, most methods give a genuine concern for the teaching of pronunciation The appearance of a method often brings about new approaches towards the teaching of particular issues, most of which are affected by the time they come into being In Direct Method, which first became popular in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the teacher provides learners with a model for native-like speech This can either be the teacher himself or a recording By listening and then imitating the model excessively, learners gradually develop their pronunciation Some successors to this method are called naturalistic methods, which mean methods that devote a period of learning solely to listening before speaking is allowed Linguists following this method believe that when learners are asked to listen without having to worry about speaking, they are better at recognizing the sounds because they are under less pressure Thus, it is likely that they will be able to produce correct sounds even without receiving explicit pronunciation instruction Other methods, namely Audiolingualism in the US and the Oral Approach in Britain during the 1940s and 1950s have another way to treat pronunciation In the class, pronunciation is very important and is taught explicitly from the start The teacher (or a recording) models a sound, or an utterance and students are asked to repeat it The difference between Audiolingualism and Direct Method lies in the feature that in Audiolingualism class, beside the model, the teacher also takes advantage of a number of teaching aids such as phonetic description, or the transcription system The most common technique that is used to teach pronunciation is the minimal pair drills Learners are asked to distinguish between two different sounds that might sound similar by listening to the teacher or a tape recorder This listening discrimination is followed by oral practice During the 1970s, the Silent Way came to public attention In classes applying this method, accurate pronunciation is a focus from the very beginning The teacher speaks as little as possible, but takes advantage of gestures to indicate what the students should S/he can this with the aid of a number of tools such as a sound-colour chart, the Fidel charts, word charts, and colored rods Another method that also came into being during the 1970s was the Community Language Learning (CLL) This is a method which focuses much on the learners rather than the teacher or teaching curriculum A tape recorder is an indispensable tool in this class Students sit round a table, and then ask the teacher to translate any utterances they wish to be able to speak in the target language The teacher then provides students with the phrase they need orally After some time of practicing its pronunciation, when students can produce the whole utterance fluently, it is recorded on the tape After that, the tape is played back and the students are able to compare their pronunciation with the target one provided by the teacher It is the students who decide what particular utterances they would like to be trained pronunciation The teacher is regarded as a “computer” turning on and off at the students’ request Today, the dominant teaching approach has been the Communicative Approach Under this approach, the main objective of language is communication Therefore, students are not required to have a native-like pronunciation, but intelligible one This is a kind of “accepted pronunciation”, which means students may make some mistakes provided those mistakes not affect negatively on the comprehension of the listeners or cause misunderstanding How can learners achieve good pronunciation? This has been done by a number of techniques with the aids of both traditional and modern materials, either authentic or nonauthentic 2.1.3 Research into the techniques used in teaching pronunciation To date, teachers make use of a great deal of techniques to teach pronunciation Pronunciation may be taught in isolation or in combination with language skills of listening, reading, speaking and writing We would like to mention some common techniques proposed by Celce, et al (1996: 8) and Kelly (2000: 16) * Listen and imitate: The pronunciation of the target language is provided by the teacher or tape recorders, language labs, etc Students are to listen to a sequence of sounds or sentences and repeat it This not only helps students achieve better pronunciation, but remember new items more easily as well This technique usually takes two forms, which are either all-class or individual (Kelly, 2000: 16) These two forms are actually the two phases of the same technique Normally, at first, the whole class repeats after certain sounds and phrases After a certain amount of class-drilling, individual student take turns and pronounce those items on his/her own * Phonetic training: This technique makes use of articulatory descriptions, articulatory diagrams and a phonetic alphabet Learners are provided with basic theoretical knowledge about how sounds are formed They are also aided by the teacher to make genuine sound production However, this kind of technique is not supposed to teach to too young learners as it is unlikely that they are able to comprehend such a complicated matter * Minimal pair drills: These relate to words which differ by only one phoneme Normally, learners are allowed to listen to the tape and distinguish between the two sounds This type of activities is particularly useful to teach sounds which cause difficulties for learners or sounds that are easily mismatched After listening, learners are asked to produce the sounds themselves 10 * Contextualized minimal pairs: When minimal pair drills seem a bit boring and too theoretical with separated sounds, their contextualization compensates for this weakness The sentence stem serves as a basis for students to produce appropriate responses with correct pronunciation When words are put in sentences, it seems to be more useful than the vague minimal pairs because it is more practical * Tongue twisters: When other techniques look serious and sometimes put learners under much pressure, tongue twisters provide a more delighting way to learn pronunciation Sounds which are difficult to differentiate are put together to make meaningful sentences This technique rooted from speech correction strategies for native speakers One of the most typical examples for this technique is the sentence, “She sells seashells by the seashore.” * Practice of vowel shifts and stress shifts related by affixation: This is a useful technique in which students are taught how stress and vowel shift by affixation Many learners have the habit of pronounce a new-formed word according to the pronunciation of the root one For example, they tend to pronounce the sounds of Exhibition like the sound of Exhibit With the help of the teacher, learners are more aware of some rules for shifting stress and vowels, as well as are more aware that they should check first before making any generalization relating to word formation’s pronunciation * Reading aloud/recitation: Students are provided with a passage or scripts and then read aloud, focusing on stress, timing and intonation This activity is often done with texts such as poems, rhymes, song lyrics, etc It is true that reading aloud is not popular in English class today, due to the fact that it can have negative effect on students’ pronunciation The spelling of words can affect pronunciation adversely However, according to Kelly (2000: 22), reading aloud provides a good chance for students to realize the linking between spelling and pronunciation Moreover, it provides a vivid example of how stress and intonation are related, as well as the importance of linking sounds between words in connected speech * Recordings of learners’ production: Students are asked to record their reading over a passage or their spontaneous speech in a tape recorder Then, the tape is played back so that the students can get feedback from the teacher and have self-evaluation This activity is time consuming However, it gives a true reflection of how learners are making progress in 62 CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS 5.1 Discussion of research questions 5.1.1 What are the possible reasons that lead to students’ weak pronunciation of English? According to the findings of the questionnaire distributed to the students and the later interviews with individual student, the researcher could come to some justification for the students’ weak pronunciation of English It can be seen clearly that most of the reasons were subjective ones As most of the subjects had followed the three-year English curriculum at secondary schools, they lacked proper language input At their English classes, they had little chance to deal with real-life English, with only 35% of the subjects listened to authentic English for 20-45 minutes per week The main source of language input regarding English pronunciation was the Vietnamese teachers However, with 50% of the subjects judged the pronunciation of their Vietnamese teachers as “average”, and 25% said their teachers had “poor English pronunciation”, this was a big problem Actually, the pronunciation of Vietnamese teachers who are teaching English was very questionable How could we require the students to have good English pronunciation whereas they were taught by those whose English were not good enough? Other trouble some issues also rooted from the language curricula that the students followed at secondary schools, which was the lack of feedback and practice As communicative competence was not the main focus of both the seven-year English curriculum and the three-year English curriculum, pronunciation received little attention from the teachers Even though the student could realize that they certainly mispronounced some English sounds, for example, they had no one to correct their mistakes In addition, the students hardly had little opportunity to speak English, which gradually led to their weak speaking skills in general and pronunciation in particular Unlike other language skills such as reading and listening, when the students could study by themselves and check how good they were by looking at the keys, it seemed to be impossible for the students to practise speaking alone Another subjective factor that inhibits the students’ pronunciation of English was the fact that English share few similarities with Vietnamese 35% of the students claimed that they found English pronunciation difficult because there are many sounds and phonetic rules 63 that not exist in Vietnamese Investigation into the components of English and Vietnamese reveals that this is completely true For example, whereas English consists of a great number of plosive sounds, these sounds are rare in Vietnamese In addition, such English concepts as word stress, sentence rhythm, or intonation are totally strange to Vietnamese learners This, combined with the lack of proper language input of the target language, caused lots of problems to the students Last but not least, regarding subjective factors, local dialect also had an impact on the students’ English pronunciation Actually, the local dialect not only inhibit the students’ success in their English pronunciation, but in their pronunciation of Vietnamese as well For example, many people in Hải Phòng and Nam Định Province of Vietnam mispronounce the Vietnamese sound /n/ as /l/, whereas those coming from central provinces have a different language accent Even though this factor did not affect a significant number of the students, we think it was one of the most problematic problem because it will take the students a very long time to correct the mistakes, as they have been used to this dialect for a long time Apart from those subjective factors, objective factors also contributed to the students’ weak pronunciation Firstly, the students’ habit of looking up new words in dictionaries was troublesome We all know that a good English dictionary is a vital tool for any learner of English, provided that the learners pay attention to every piece of information provided in it However, most students seemed to ignore the words’ pronunciation in the dictionary This came from the fact that during the time the students studied at secondary schools, English pronunciation was not a focus in English classes Therefore, the students found it unnecessary to master it Furthermore, some students were unable to interpret certain phonetic symbols For English words that consist of many syllables, the students find them very complicated Thus, they decided to skip this information Moreover, some students have problems with their phonetic ability In this research, one student could not produce the English sound /dʒ/ However, she was also unable to pronounce the Vietnamese sound “gi” Another student could not make the sound /r/ even in Vietnamese In fact, this may be because even Vietnamese people hardly pronounce these two sounds with all of their characteristics As for the sound “gi”, we often substitute it with the sound /d/, whereas the sound /r/ is also mispronounced as /d/ Nevertheless, in 64 English, these two sounds must be pronounced clearly and they are significantly different from other sounds such as /d/ or /l/ These findings support previous studies of other researchers presented in the literature review, who claimed that the students’ pronunciation of a second foreign language was affected by a number of factors, namely the native language, the amount of exposure, the phonetic ability, and teacher’s role Fortunately, despite the fact that the students’ pronunciation was weak, they all seemed to have a very positive attitude towards the mastery of English pronunciation They said that good pronunciation of English brought them a great sense of satisfaction, motivation as well as confidence These are actually the decisive factors to success in the process of learning and acquiring anything, and English pronunciation in particular 5.1.2 What are the students’ most common problems regarding English consonant sounds? The findings showed that most students mispronounced English sounds that not exist in Vietnamese This reinforced the researcher’s opinion about English pronunciation of Vietnamese students before she conducted the research More specifically, students made lots of mistakes regarding palato-alveolar fricatives, dental consonants, palato-alveolar affricates, and voiceless plosive sounds Why couldn’t the students pronounce those sounds correctly? The problem lies in the fact that the students were largely affected by their mother tongue This was backed up by a number of researchers, who claimed that learners’ acquisition of L2 is strongly influenced by their mother tongue (O’Connor, 1991; Ohata, 2003) Generally, students have to take more effort to pronounce English sounds than Vietnamese sounds Many English consonant sounds required a certain amount of strength for the full pronunciation of them For example, in order to pronounce the sounds /t∫/ and /∫/, the students have to put more strength than the sounds “tr” and “s” in Vietnamese Furthermore, the formation of English sounds was often longer than Vietnamese sounds For example, students have to spend a longer time forming the sound /∫/ in English than the sound “s” in Vietnamese Another interesting finding was that also some English sounds share lots of characteristics, some students were able to pronounce one sound, but mispronounced others For example, 65 the sounds /ʒ/ and /∫/ are both palato-alveolar fricative Nevertheless, 90% of the students mispronounced /∫/, whereas only 15% mispronounced /ʒ/ Similarly, 45% of the students mispronounced /t∫/, whereas only 15% of the students mispronounced /dʒ/, despite the fact that they were both palato-alveolar affricates Therefore, it may be concluded that students tended to mispronounce voiceless sounds more than voiced ones This was proved to be true due to the fact that many students also mispronounced voiceless sounds of /p/, /t/, /k/ As the students were unable to pronounce those sounds correctly, they tended to substitute them with Vietnamese sounds whose pronunciation seemed to be familiar, such as “s” for /∫/, “tr” for /t∫/ This way of substituting sounds has been mentioned earlier in Tench (1981), who claimed that “L2 learners often use a more familiar sound in their first language to replace the L2 sound that they perceive as difficult.” (Tench, 1981: 26) Apart from those sounds, two students mispronounced alveolar lateral /l/ and one student mispronounced palato-alveolar approximant /r/, despite the fact that these sounds also exist in Vietnamese However, they made the same mistakes when they speak Vietnamese Therefore, this was the problem with their phonetic ability When we look back at the explanations for the students’ low competence of English pronunciation, this should not be treated as a surprise due to the lack of language input for the students at their secondary schools Apparently, regarding the sounds that not exist in Vietnamese, the only way that can help students have proper pronunciation was to provide as much authentic input as possible Only by that way can they have a full picture of how those sounds are formed, which help them form correct sounds However, this did not take place at their secondary schools Thus, it is easy to understand why the Vietnamese students have weak pronunciation of English consonant sounds 5.1.3 Can continuous feedback improve students’ English pronunciation? If yes, to what extend? One point that must be made clear before further discussion of the findings is that the “improvement” here only refers to the improvement of the way students pronounced English consonant sounds, not every aspect of English pronunciation This, nevertheless, apparently contributes to the improvement of their overall pronunciation 66 As presented before, it was a bit surprising that students made more progress regarding the sounds that most of them mispronounced than the sounds that was mispronounced by few students However, when we looked back at the research program, we can see the justification for this With her experience, the researcher had been fully aware that some consonant sounds were mispronounced more frequently than others That was the reason why she decided to teach those sounds first, and the sounds that were less frequently were taught later Despite the fact that there was a focus for each pronunciation period, the researcher also regularly provided the students with a revision over the sounds that they had learnt before Therefore, students spent more time practicing the sounds that they most mispronounced than other sounds Among the sounds, the students made most progress with the sound /∫/ and /t∫/ Later interview with the students showed that this was due to the fact that they are somehow “familiar” with the students because in Vietnamese, we have the sounds “s” and “tr” The only difference between the English and the Vietnamese sounds are that the former are palato-alveolar whereas the latter are alveolar Thus, students found it easier to articulate the sounds Despite the fact that only 25% of the students made mistakes with the sound /ð/, their progress was very low This is because the sound /ð/ is a familiar sound to the students and they have been using this sound a lot since they began studying English This sound exists in such word as the, this, that, those, these, which are very commonly used Thus, once the students mispronounced this sound right from the beginning and this was not corrected for many years, it became fossilized and the students seemed to be unable to correct it at later phases As for the two sounds of /dʒ/ and /ʒ/, the progress was also not significant Among those who mispronounced these two sounds, none could correct the mistakes completely This came from the fact that although the students had been trained on the pronunciation of these sounds, they did not use those sounds regularly in their English lessons As a result, after some time, they seemed to forget about the mispronunciation In contrast, with the sounds /p/, /t/ and /k/, the explanation seemed to be contradicted The students still mispronounced those sounds because they used these sounds a lot in their English lesson, especially when they discussed in pairs or groups, and when they made 67 presentations At first, they paid attention to the sounds and tried to pronounce them correctly However, after some time, they seemed to focus on how to express their ideas, i.e the content of their speech Thus, their focus shifted from accuracy to fluency By this time, they were not aware that they failed to pronounce those sounds correctly As for the last two sounds /n/ and /r/, no improvement was made For the students who mispronounced the sound /n/, they claimed that the time they were trained in the English class was too short to make a significant change to the way they used to pronounce the sound /n/ As the students also make the same mistake when they speak Vietnamese in daily communication, it is very difficult for them to slow down their speed of speaking to pay more attention so as to pronounce the correct sound For the student who mispronounced /r/, she also mispronounced many other sounds, including /dʒ/, /∫/ and /t∫/ Thus, she claimed that she could not pay attention to the sound /r/ whereas she needed to improve other sounds as well In sum, despite the fact that there were still some remaining problems, on overall, students made progress in their pronunciation after they participated in the research The most significant improvement was made regarding the pronunciation of English consonant sounds that were most mispronounced Therefore, it could be concluded that the research was successful 5.2 Pedagogical implications The use of continuous feedback has proved to be effective in improving Vietnamese students’ pronunciation of English regarding its consonant sounds From the discussions above, a number of implications can be made 5.2.1 Increasing the amount of feedback to students * Increasing the amount of corrective feedback A close investigation has shown that the amount of feedback that students received from the teacher was very limited Therefore, it is highly recommended that teachers of English should pay more attention to the students’ pronunciation when they teach different language skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing The teachers should be alert to create more opportunities for students to speak English correctly, rather than focusing mainly on the content of their speech 68 As for the teaching of speaking skills, the teacher should create more opportunities for students to involve in pair work and group work During the time the students work in pairs or groups, s/he should move around and identify the pronunciation problems of the students in general, and their mispronunciation of English sounds in particular Then, s/he should draw the attention from the whole class to the pronunciation mistakes that most of the students make Some drilling exercises should be given, if necessary, so that all students are fully aware of their mistakes * Increasing the amount of delayed auditory feedback Delayed auditory feedback was intensively used out-of-class time during the research program It has proved to be very effective in the way that the students could see how they mispronounced certain English sounds However, in the research, it was done only between the researcher and one student It would be more beneficial if this kind of feedback is better employed Ideally, each teacher should have a recorder to record the students’ discussions or presentations Their voice can be played back for the whole class to listen to In this way, the students will pay more attention to their accuracy of English while speaking In addition, the students in the class will have a vivid example of how they make mistakes regarding English pronunciation in general and English sounds in particular However, as it can be seen that feedback alone did not lead to significant improvement of the students’ English pronunciation, the increased provision of feedback should go along with a number of other measures 5.2.2 Increasing the amount and quality of language input As clearly stated above, one of the reasons that led to the students’ low competence of pronunciation was the fact that they had little chance to listen to authentic English, combined with the fact that the pronunciation of their Vietnamese teachers was not good enough Therefore, at the university, every effort should be made to ensure the provision of high-quality language input Teachers of English must be provided with more training on pronunciation so that they could really act as a model for the students to follow As listening provides an ideal authentic resource for the practice of pronunciation, it will be ideal if teachers can combine these two aspects of English for the sake of the students’ mastery of pronunciation A useful activity can be dictation, when students are asked to 69 transcript an authentic piece of English speech In this way, the students will be more familiar with the English sounds, and hopefully they can have better pronunciation 5.2.3 Focusing more on students’ self study following the credit-based approach Evidently, students have better pronunciation when they have more awareness about maintaining accuracy when they speak This explains why students tend to make fewer mistakes when they read aloud a passage than when they speak freely The problem here lies in the fact that the students not have enough practice In addition, such an action research consumes much time, which may prevent many teachers from wanting to apply it Therefore, what must be done is to increase the amount of students’ self-study Ideally, this can be combined with the present credit-based approach that is applied at Hanoi National University According to this approach, students would have to spend from one third to two thirds of their studying time at home Teachers can help students achieve better pronunciation by making them spend more time at home practise English sounds in particular and English pronunciation in general Each week, all students in the class will be given a wordlist, or a passage to read at home (a passage may be better because it is “more real to life” than wordlists), which focuses on a certain aspect of English pronunciation such as vowel sounds, consonant sounds, or intonation The students are to record it and bring to the class the next week The teacher will pick up students at random and let the whole class justify how well those students had done it, and how to improve the reading This is actually the same as the pronunciation assignments that first year students have to make at the end of the first semester However, this should be done right from the beginning of the school year, and every student must it 5.2.4 Organizing mock speaking test to find out the students’ pronunciation problems right at the beginning of the first year at university The mock speaking test used in the research showed that whereas some students share the same pronunciation problems, others have the problems of their own It will not be studentcentred (which is the focus of the present language teaching approach) if no attention is paid to the mistakes that the minority of the students make Therefore, it is advisable that at the very first week of the first year, a mock speaking test is delivered to every student They can this in pairs or individually This helps to find out 70 the most common pronunciation mistakes from the students Then, students can be classified into different groups who share the same problems rather than being taught in the same class with those who not encounter the same pronunciation problems An intensive program (which may ideally last for weeks) should be provided to the students in their “special class”, which the focus on the particular sounds that the class members all have There should be about five classes per week with different focuses (long vowel sounds, double vowel sounds, ending sounds, etc.) For students who have only one or two criteria, they only have to attend one or two classes However, for those who have a lot of problems, they have to attend all of the classes This may sound impossible due to the great requirement of teaching staff to this However, compared to the benefits it brings along, this can be treated as a good suggestion Furthermore, it is stated clearly in the credit-based approach that teacher must find ways to check whether the students have done their homework Therefore, teachers could replace the time they have to work at home by going to university and providing feedback to students directly 5.3 Limitations of the study In spite of the effectiveness of the use of continuous feedback justified by the improvement of the students, it should be admitted that a thorough understanding of it has not been achieved due to a number of reasons Firstly, the size of the study is rather small, consisting only 20 participants This somehow acts as an obstacle to have a full understanding of the pronunciation problems that first year students have For example, there may be other sounds that are also commonly mispronounced by the first year students, but was not visible in the experimental group Therefore, to some extend, this limit the generalization of the research under different conditions However, as this is an action research, such a limitation is unavoidable The second limitation lies in the length of the research It seems that a fifteen-week pronunciation program is not long enough for students to make significant progress This explains for the fact that most students only make progress over some consonant sounds If the research lasts longer, within a year, for example, the result is expected to be much better As a matter of fact, the number of students who make progress regarding different sounds is not the same For example, the sound /∫/ was the one that most students could pronounce 71 well after the research However, not many students could correct the sounds /p/, /t/, /k/ This may come from the effect of other factors, which the researcher could only have limited justification Another problem is that the participants of the research were all female There was one male student in the sample group, but his contribution to the research was excluded due to his fail to attend the research in its initial steps Therefore, the data collected is largely gender-based, which may be troublesome when coming up with the questions: whether male students have the same pronunciation problems as female ones Moreover, in order to collect real-life samples, the researcher asked the students to join a discussion with their partners This may be more effective if the focus of the research program was connected speech rather than individual English sounds It is because students’ interaction would be shown clearly, whereas the output of pronunciation of certain English sounds may be limited due to the students’ range of vocabulary For example, students may not use many words with the sound /∫/, so it is more difficult for the teacher to justify whether their pronunciation is correct or not In addition, it is shown that some students make more progress than others during the research This may come from other factors, which is their interest, the amount of time they practise pronunciation, their attention directed to pronunciation in other English classes, not only in pronunciation or speaking lesson The researcher could not control those factors Thus, whether continuous feedback alone can have a significant effect on the students’ performance is still questionable Last but not least, this action research is an incomplete one due to the fact that the researcher has not published a paper on it, or carried out a seminar on the same problem If she had been able to so, she would have found alternative ways to improve the students’ pronunciation thanks to the experience from other colleagues 5.4 Suggestions for further study Given the limitation of the study, it is highly recommended that further study should be conducted to gain a better understanding of how effective continuous feedback is on Vietnamese students’ pronunciation in general and English consonant sounds in particular As for the first year students, in their very first semester, they are only required to have relatively correct pronunciation of English sounds However, in their upcoming years, the 72 requirements are much higher This study only focuses on English consonant sounds, whereas English pronunciation covers a much wider range of aspects Therefore, more research should be done in order to justify the effect of feedback on other aspects of pronunciation The small size of the study is a big limitation Therefore, it is almost impossible to generalize the effect of continuous feedback over a wider range of subjects Thus, it is highly recommended that the research be applied to a larger number of students so as to gain better input for the research As the gender factor is largely ignored in the research (no male student took part in it), it is questioned whether the research can be effective for male students In addition, other factors like the students’ self study time, how much they pay attention to the pronunciation of the consonant sounds in other classes of English were not taken into consideration to yield the result of the research These left factors should be exploited in further study Last but not least, as pronunciation is a vital part of any English lesson, it can be combined with the teaching of language skills such as writing or reading More research should be carried in this field so as to benefit the students to the most 5.5 Conclusion The study provided an insight into the most common pronunciation problems regarding English consonant sounds of the first year students at the English Department, College of Foreign Languages, Vietnam National University, Hanoi It also justified the effectiveness of continuous feedback on the students’ pronunciation The research was conducted on a group of 20 first year students and lasted for 15 weeks Overall, the results showed that there was a significant improvement regarding the pronunciation of the participants The results of the study served as a basic ground for some pedagogical implications, which required more effort from the teachers in their teaching process It was also clear that if combined with the present trend of applying credit-based approach, teachers would be more willing to involve in such a research program It is much hoped that the study would be much beneficial to teachers of English regarding the aspects of English pronunciation they should focus on when teaching Vietnamese students Given the time constraint, the scope and the nature of the study, it was not free from limitations like any educational study of the type Therefore, suggestions for further studies 73 were made with the hope that a better understanding of using continuous feedback to improve students’ pronunciation would be finally gained Also, constructive comments from those who are concerned, especially the teachers at CFL (VNU), would be highly appreciated 74 REFERENCES Anh, T., et al (2006) Practise Your Pronunciation and Speaking Skills Nhà xuất Đại học quốc gia Hà Nội Baker, A (1992) Ship or Sheep Cambridge, Cambridge University Press Black, M and Sharp, W (2006) Objective IELTS Cambridge, Cambridge University Press Black, P., William, D (1998) Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment Phi Delta Kappan, 80 (2), 139-140 Brown, G., Malmkjar, K and Williams J (1996) Performance and Competence in Second Language Acquisitionciples Cambridge, Cambridge University Press Campbell, C and Krtszewska, H (1992) Learner-based Teaching.Oxford University Press Celce-Murcia, M., Brinton, D and Goodwin, J (1996) Teaching Pronunciation Cambridge, Cambridge University Press Davies, A (2000) Making Classroom Assessment Work Courtenary: Connections Publishing DeKeyser, R (1993) The effect of error correction on L2 grammar knowledge and oral proficiency Modern Language Journal, 77, 501-514 Dörnyei, Z (2001) Teaching and Researching Motivation Pearson Education Limited Edinburgh Gate, Harlow, Essex CM20 2JE, England Doughty, C (1994) Finetuning of feedback by competent speakers to language learners In J Alatis (Ed.), Strategic interaction and language acquisition: Theory, practice, and research GURT 1993 (pp 96-108) Washington: Georgetown University Press Ferrance, E (2000) Action Research Providence, RI: Brown University Hancock, M (2003) English Pronunciation in Use Cambridge University Press Kay, S., Jones, V., and Kerr, P (2002) Inside Out (Pre-Intermediate) Macmillan Publishers 75 Kelly, G (2000) How to Teach Pronunciation Longman Kemmis, Stephen; and McTaggart, Robin, eds (1988) The Action Research Planner, third edition Victoria: Deakin University Kenworthy, J (1987) Teaching English Pronunciation, Longman Locke EA and Latham GP (1990) A Theory of Goal Setting and Task Performance Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ Long, M H (1985) Input and second language acquisition theory In S Gass & C Madden (Eds.), Input in second language acquisition (pp 377-393) Rowley, MA: Newbury House Lyster, R & Ranta, L (1997) 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Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 22, 471-497 Mai, D.T., (2005) An Experimental Study on the Application of Stragegy-based Instructions to the Teaching Writing Skills to First-year Students at College of Foreign Languages, Vietnam National University, M.A Thesis Mettetal, G Classroom Action Research Overview http://mypage.iusb.edu/~gmetteta/Classroom_Action_Research.html#Differences Mill, G.E (2003) Action Research: A Guide for the Teacher Researcher Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill/Prentice Hall Nunan, D., (2001) Research Methods in Language Learning, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press O’Connor, J.D (1991) Better English Pronunciation, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press O’Connor, K (2002) How to Grade for Learning, Glenview: Pearson Ohata, K (2003) “Phonological Differences between Japanese and English: Several Potentially Problematic Areas of Pronunciation for Japanese ESL/EFL Learners’ Asean EFL Journal: Online TEFL Journal Iss.4 76 http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/Dec_04_ko.pdf Oyama, S “A Sensitive Period for the Acquisition of a Nonnative Phonological System (Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 5/3 1976) Richard et al Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics Roach, P (1992) Introducing Phonetics, Penguin English Sheppard, K Two Feedback Types: Do They Make a Difference, RELC Snow and M.Hoefnagel-Hohle “Age Differences in the Pronunciation of Foreign Sounds” (Language and Speech 20 1977) Spada, N., & Lightbown, P.M (1993) Instruction and the development of questions in L2 classrooms Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 15, 205-224 Swain, M (1985) Communicative competence: Some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible output in its development In S Gass & C Madden (Eds.), Input in second language acquisition (pp 235-252) Rowley, MA: Newbury House Tench, P (1981) Pronunciation Skills London: Macmillan Publishers Tudor, I (1993) Teachers’ Roles in Learner-centred Classrooms, ELT Journal Vol 47/1, p.22-32 Underhill, N (1992) Testing Spoken Language, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press White, L (1987) Against comprehensible input: The input hypothesis and the development of L2 competence Applied Linguistics, 8, 95-110 White, L (1989) Universal Grammar and second language acquisition Amsterdam: Benjamins ... propose An Action Research on the Use of Continuous Feedback to Improve the First Year Students’ English Pronunciation at the English Department, College of Foreign Languages, Vietnam National University,. .. College of Foreign Languages, Vietnam National University, Hanoi However, due to the limitation of time, the researcher only focused on English consonant sounds - To justify the effect of continuous. .. students’ pronunciation and the justification for the use of an action research 3.1 Argument for the use of continuous feedback to improve first year students’ English pronunciation First and foremost,

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