An Investigation Into The Common Errors In Pronouncing Word-Final Consonants “S”, “Z”, “T” Faced By Six Year-Old Students.pdf

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
*****************

LÊ PHƯƠNG LAN

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE COMMON ERRORS IN
PRONOUNCING WORD - FINAL CONSONANTS /S/, /Z/, /T/ FACED BY
SIX YEAR-OLD STUDENTS AT PHU XUYEN PRIMARY SCHOOL

(Điều tra về lỗi phổ biến của học sinh lớp 1 trường tiểu học
Phú Xuyên khi phát âm phụ âm cuối /s/, /z/, /t/ của từ)

M.A. PROGRAMME MINOR THESIS

Field:English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111

HANOI, 2015


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
*****************

LÊ PHƯƠNG LAN

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE COMMON ERRORS IN
PRONOUNCING WORD - FINAL CONSONANTS /S/, /Z/, /T/ FACED BY

SIX YEAR-OLD STUDENTS AT PHU XUYEN PRIMARY SCHOOL

(Điều tra về lỗi phổ biến của học sinh lớp 1 trường tiểu học
Phú Xuyên khi phát âm phụ âm cuối /s/, /z/, /t/ của từ)

M.A. PROGRAMME MINOR THESIS

Field:English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111
Supervisor: Ph.D. Phạm Thị Thanh Thùy

HANOI, 2015


CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT
I hereby certify that the minor thesis entitled “An investigation into the
common errors in pronouncing word-final consonants /s/, /z/, /t/ faced by 6 year-old
students at Phu Xuyen primary school” is completely my own research which carried
out at Phu Xuyen primary school during the whole school-year since 2012, and the
thesis has not been submitted for any degree at any other university or institution.
Hanoi, August 16th, 2015

Lê Phương Lan

i


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my
supervisor, Mrs. Pham Thi Thanh Thuy, Ph.D for her invaluable supervision,

constructive criticism, and enthusiastic encouragement without which the writing of
this thesis would not have been successfully completed.
Secondly, my sincere thanks are sent to Mr. Eduardo Culbeaux from the English
Language Institute for his assistance in three experimental recording tasks and
especially for his comments about the data collection procedure.
Thirdly, I am thankful to the lecturers and staff of the Faculty of Post –
Graduate Studies at the University of Languages and International Studies for their
scientific knowledge, enthusiastic guidance during my course.
My high appreciation and gratitude also extend to all the 6-year-old students at
Phu Xuyen primary school for their contribution to the reliability of this study.
Last but not least, I owe my deep thanks to my family, my friends who keep
encouraging me to complete this work.

ii


ABSTRACT
Being a teacher, an observer and researcher of Grade 1 classes at Phu Xuyen
primary school for the whole school-year since 2012, seeing a lot of mispronunciation
errors happened, the researcher must conduct this case study research as a matter of
urgency to help students to overcome these errors from the early school.
Two classes with 35 students naturally participated in the study through three
experimental recording tasks and the basic questionnaire in Vietnamese. The
quantitative data gathered will provide readers with many reliable results relating to
most problematic ending consonant sounds, the common errors in pronouncing these
sounds, the causes as well the possible solutions to deal with such errors.
The results reveal the following concerning information. Firstly, most of the
subjects of the study struggle many difficulties in pronouncing the ending sound
consonants /s/, /z/, /t/. Secondly, the most common errors were sound omitted, sound
confusion and sound redundancy. The causes leading to such errors were mainly the

direct imitation of the teacher or friends‟ sounds, the lack of detailed instruction on the
pronunciation of isolated consonant sounds and the students‟ laziness. To help students
pronounce more correctly, some strategies are being applied effectively such as the
media/ software with the standard pronunciation of the native for students to listen and
read aloud, encouraging students to ask for help from others and requiring students to
practice as much as possible. With limitations of the minor thesis, it is hoped that the
study will be useful for other teachers or researchers with the passion for improving
students‟ pronunciation, especially pronunciation with the word-final consonant
sounds.

iii


TABLE OF CONTENTS
CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT……………………………………………………. i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………… ii
ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………………. iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………………… iv
LISTS OF TABLES………………………………………………………………… vii
LISTS OF FIGURES……………………………………………………………….. viii
PART A – INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………... 1
1.

Statement of the problem and rationale of the study …………………......... 1

2.

Aims of the study ………………………………………………………….... 2

3.

Research questions ………………………………………………………… 3

4.

Scope of the research ………………………………………………………. 3

5.

Significance of the study …………………………………………………... 3

6.

Organization of the study ………………………………………………...... 4

PART B – DEVELOPMENT ……………………………………………………… 5
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW …………………………………………. 5
1.1.

English consonants in general……………………………………………… 5

1.1.1.

Phonological characteristics and articulation of the sound /t/……………… 6

1.1.2.

Phonological characteristics and articulation of the sound /s/……………… 7

1.1.3.

Phonological characteristics and articulation of the sound /z/……………... 7

1.2.

Word-final consonants……………………………………………………… 8

1.2.1.

English word-final consonants……………………………………………... 8

1.2.2.

Vietnamese word-final consonants…………………………………………. 8

1.2.3.

Comparison between Vietnamese and English word-final consonants……… 10

1.3.

Pronunciation errors………………………………………………………... 11

iv


1.3.1.

Errors and Mistakes………………………………………………………… 11

1.3.2.

Pronunciation errors………………………………………………………... 12

1.3.3.

Description of errors………………………………………………………... 12

1.3.4.

Explanation of errors……………………………………………………….. 13

1.4.

Previous works……………………………………………………………... 13

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY………………………………………………… 18
2.1.

Research design…………………………………………………………….. 18

2.2.

Participants of the study…………………………………………………..... 18

2.3.

Data collection procedure…………………………………………………… 19

2.4.

Data analysis procedure…………………………………………………….. 21

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS ………………………………… 23
3.1.

Common errors in pronunciation……………………………………………. 23

3.1.1.

Errors with ending sound /z/………………………………………………… 24

3.1.2.

Errors with ending sound /s/………………………………………………… 24

3.1.3.

Errors with ending sound /t/………………………………………………… 26

3.2.

Sources of error reasons in 3 ending consonants…………………………….. 27

3.2.1.

Internal reasons……………………………………………………………… 27

3.2.1.1. Origin………………………………………………………………………. 27
3.2.1.2. Hobbies………………………………………………………………………. 28

3.2.2.

External reasons……………………………………………………………… 30

3.2.2.1. Reasons from teachers……………………………………………………… 30
3.2.2.2. Reasons from textbook……………………………………………………… 30
3.3.

Suggestions to remove problems……………………………………………. 31

3.3.1.

Phonics with consonants emphasis and practice…………………………… 31

3.3.2.

Phonics with self-correction program ………………….…………………… 32

v


PART C – CONCLUSION ………………………………………………………… 35
1.

Summary of findings………………………………………………………….. 35

2.

Concluding marks…………………………………………………………….. 35

3.

Teaching recommendations…………………………………………………… 37

4.

Limitations and suggestions for further research…………………………….. 38

REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………… 40
APPENDIX 1………………………………………………………………………… I
APPENDIX 2………………………………………………………………………… III
APPENDIX 3………………………………………………………………………… XIV
APPENDIX 4………………………………………………………………………… XV
APPENDIX 5………………………………………………………………………… XVIII
APPENDIX 6………………………………………………………………………… XXI

vi


LISTS OF TABLES

Table 1

: English consonants

Table 2

: Vietnamese initial consonants

Table 3

: Vietnamese final consonants

Table 4

: Common errors found in the data

Table 5

: More problematic consonants

Table 6

: Number of subjects with errors in pronouncing the ending sound /z/
and types of errors in isolated words

Table 7

: Number of subjects with errors in pronouncing the ending sound /s/
and types of errors in isolated words

Table 8

: Number of subjects with errors in pronouncing the ending sound /t/
and types of errors in isolated words

Table 9

: Students‟ opinion about the causes of errors

Table 10

: Students' reflection on their teacher‟s strategies to help them to
overcome the errors

Table 11

: Students‟ self-strategies to correct the errors

vii


LISTS OF FIGURES

Figure 1

: Articulation of the sound /t/

Figure 2

: Articulation of the sound /s/

Figure 3

: Articulation of the sound /z/

Figure 4

: Students' perceptions of the difficulty of pronouncing the word-final
consonants

Figure 5

: Percentage of students‟ opinion about the causes of errors

Figure 6

: Percentage of Students' reflection on their teacher‟s strategies

Figure 7

: Percentage of students‟ frequencies of applying these self-strategies.

viii


PART A – INTRODUCTION
1.

Statement of the problem and rationale of the study

English language has become an international language that is widely used by a large
number of people from many countries for the purposes of communication, further
studying career or seeking better jobs in foreign companies. (Crystal, 2003) Towards
the importance of this language, the Decision No 1400/QĐ – TTg on September 30th
2008 by the Prime Minister Government emphasized that foreign language should be
taught in the national education system at all levels includes training levels. To meet
the demand, the principal of Phu Xuyen primary school has decided to choose one of
the English programs that are allowed by Ministry of Education to implement. The
Phonics Learning Box United Kingdom program has been applied in this school since

2010 with the aim of providing students a chance to access an international language
from the first grade of a primary school.
It is said that the target of learning any foreign language is through the success of
communication in the detailed daily-life contexts. However, very few people can reach
this ideal target since learners have many serious common errors in pronunciation,
which causes the breakdown of communication. The reason here is “a learner who
consistently mispronounces a range of phonemes can be extremely difficult for a
speaker from another language community to understand” (Kelly, 2000:11). According
to Celce – Murcia (1985), mastering grammar rules and having a rich vocabulary are
important for learners but these important things would become useless if learners
could not pronounce exactly structures or words. Sharing the view, Hinofitis and Baily
(1980, as cited in Ha, 2005) reported that up to a certain proficiency standard, the fault
that most severely impaired the communication process in English foreign learners was
pronunciation, rather than vocabulary or grammar. To deal with these problems, there
are 70 learning periods for 2 semesters during the school year in the Phonics program.
1


With this syllabus, students will have 2 periods per week to develop comprehensively 4
English skills, reading – writing – listening – speaking. In addition, these students have
a chance to learn English pronunciation quite frequently. Specifically, every period,
two Vietnamese teachers are required to help students to practice pronouncing English
sounds, words and short sentences. The other compulsory is that teachers have to
design the supplementary activities and check students‟ pronunciation errors,
especially the errors with word ending sounds. When being implemented, this English
program is hoped to help students with bettering speaking and communication skills.
In fact, since the facts of observing many first - grade classes of Phu Xuyen primary
school, a number of mispronunciation errors produced by many 6-year-old students.
Among the pronunciation errors that students are likely to make (i.e. intonation, word
and sentence stress, linking sounds, ending sounds, etc.), errors with word-final

consonants can be seen as the most serious. According to the result of earlier research
by the Australian Government publication Asian Language Motes (1978, as cited in
Pham, 2009), Vietnamese students face many difficulties in pronouncing final clusters
instead of initial clusters. Also based on the research on common problems of
Vietnamese learners, “English consonant clusters give Vietnamese learners problems
not only because they do not have these combinations in theirs own language, but also
because they produce a variety of syllable types‟ (as cited in Nguyen, 2011). The
finding from Nguyen (2004, as cited in Pham, 2009) showed that 100% participants
have problems with ending sounds. Due to the importance of pronunciation in
communication, this study is expected to examine the facts of common errors of 6year-old students at Phu Xuyen primary school when dealing with many word-final
consonants /s/, /z/, /t/.
2.

Aims of the study

The purpose of this study is investigating the common errors made by 6 year-old
students at Phu Xuyen primary school to:
2


-

Identify the situation of errors made when pronouncing word-final consonants:
/s/, /z/ and /t/ faced by those learners;

-

Find out the causes of the errors;

-

Provide some suggestions assisted by Phonics Program for both teachers and
students to overcome the errors.

It is hoped that the study will be considered as a useful document for both teachers and
students to better their teaching and learning pronunciation.
3.

Research questions

The study is expected to find answers to the following questions:
1) What is the situation of errors made when pronouncing word-final consonants:
/s/, /z/ and /t/?
2) Why do 6 year-old students make those errors?
3) What are some possible solutions assisted by Phonics Program in helping
teachers and students to correct those errors?
4.

Scope of the research

English sounds consist of 44 sounds with 20 vowels sounds and 24 consonants. In fact,
Vietnamese students do not have errors with all the English vowels and consonants.
Also, due to the limited time and the scale of the minor thesis, the researcher only
focuses on 3 word-final consonants /s/, /z/ and /t/ made by 6 year-old students at Phu
Xuyen primary school where the researcher has visited many times to observe the
learning process of these participants during the whole school-year.
5.

Significance of the study

Even though there have been numerous studies on word-final consonant errors, few
investigations into errors in the production of such consonants as /s/, /z/ and /t/. The
participants for those early studies focus on students at high school or at the university
and research on young learners in English has not received much attention. The process
of data collection is stressful for participants, especially, participants with lower
3


English proficiency. Specifically, researchers test each student in a separate room and
student was required to finish the given tasks. Then, to remove this problem, this study
is intended to collect data in the most natural possible way to get the most effective
result through games and activities. Another problem in previous studies was about the
ones with analyzing the data. There was no standard software or native speakers‟
participation; thus, this study will fix this problem by engaging the native speaker to
evaluate students‟ errors through the recordings with clear criteria. These
improvements above are hoping to provide an insight into the common errors in
pronouncing word-final consonants /s/, /z/, /t/ of 6-year-old students at Phu Xuyen
primary school.
6.

Organization of the study

The study consists of three main parts as follow.
The first part concluding “Introduction” deals with statement of the problem, rationale,
aims, research questions, scope, significance, methodology with briefly introducing
design, participants, data gathering instruments and data analysis procedure.
Part B is the development with three chapters. Chapter 1 “Literature review” is
devoted to the theoretical background and a critical analysis of some related studies.
Chapter 2 “Methodology” describes the research methodology with the description of
the participants, a plan to collect adequate and reliable data for analysis including the

research gathering instruments and procedures of data collection as well as procedures
of data analysis. The next chapter “Findings and Discussions” mainly deals with the
findings from collecting and analyzing the research data.
Part C, the Conclusion concerns concluding marks, implications with some
recommendations for correcting word-final consonant errors of 6-year-old students.
Besides, the study provides some suggestions for further research on this topic.

4


PART B – DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
In this chapter, the researcher provides readers with the relevant literature of the study
by introducing some key concepts for understanding the research, as well as the review
of previous studies related to the topic. Some crucial concepts need to be clarified in
this part are consonants in general, word-final consonants particularly in English and in
Vietnamese. To understand many difficulties of Vietnamese learners when dealing
with word-final consonants, the comparison between English and Vietnamese final
consonants is illustrated. Then, the theoretical background in pronunciation error will
be critically presented to better the knowledge base of the study.
1.1.

English consonants in general

According to Peter Roach (2000), consonants are sounds that are “difficult or
impossible for the air to pass through the mouth”. The author emphasized that these
sounds do not really obstruct the flow of air. Jones (1972) stated all sounds which are
voiced, in the production of which the air has an impeded passage through the mouth
(/b/, rolled /r/), in the production of which the air does not pass through the mouth (/g/,
/m/), in which there is an audible friction (/f/, /v/, /s/, /z/, /b/), are called consonants.

There are 24 consonants in the English consonant system (Table 1). Then, the criteria
to categorize each consonant are the place of articulator, the manner of articulation and
voicing. According to Kelly (2000) and Peter Roach (2000), 24 consonants are divided
into 6 groups:
 Plosive

 Nasal

 Fricative

 Lateral

 Affricative

 Approximant

5


Table 1: English consonants (Duong, 2009)
Manner of
articulation
Stop
Fricative
Affricative

Voice

Labial

voiceless
Voiced
voiceless

Labiodental

/p/
/b/
/f/

Voiced

Place of articulation
InterAlveoAlveolar
dental
palatal
/t/
/d/
/θ/
/s/
/ʃ/

/v/

/ð/

Glottal

/k/
/g/

/ʔ/
/h/

/ʒ /

/z/

/ʧ/

voiceless

Voiced
Nasal
Voiced
Approximant Voiced
Lateral
Voiced

Velar

/ ʤ/
/m/
/w/

/n/
/r/
/l/

/ŋ/

/j/

As can be seen in figure 1, consonant sounds /s/ and /z/ are alveolar fricative while /t/
and /d/ are alveolar stop. To further seeking information about the sounds /s/, /z/, and
/t/, it is necessary that phonological characteristics and articulation of each sound are
investigated.
1.1.1. Phonological characteristics and articulation of the sound /t/
/t/ is alveolar stop and to make this sound, “the tongue blade is pressed against the
alveolar ridge (Figure 1). Normally the tongue does not touch the front teeth as it does
in the dental plosives found in many languages”. (Roach, 2000).
Figure 1: (As retrieved from
/>english/frameset-ad3.html)

In comparison with the sound /d/, the
strong stop /t/ is aspirated. For example, to pronounce the word “too”, /thu:/, we have to
put the tongue tip on the very centre of the alveolar ridge and only the very point of the

6


tongue is in contact, not the blade; then allow the air to burst out with a voiceless
vowel /u:/
1.1.2. Phonological characteristics and articulation of the sound /s/
According to Peter Roach (2000), /s/ Figure 2: (As retrieved from
is alveolar fricative with the same />articulation as /t/, the air escapes h/frameset-ad3.html)
through a narrow passage along the
centre of the tongue, and the sound
produced is comparatively intense.
(Figure 2).

O‟Connor (1975) suggested that to feel the strong friction /s/, we make small changes
in the position of the tip and blade if the tongue until the cold air is hitting the tongue at
the very centre if the alveolar ridge, not further forward and not further back.
1.1.3. Phonological characteristics and articulation of the sound /z/
/s/ and /z/ are alveolar fricative with the Figure 3:(As retrieved from
nearly same articulation but /z/ is quite />weak, short and may be voiced. glish/frameset-ad3.html)
(O‟Connor, 1975). The articulation of the
sound is shown in figure 3.

7


1.2.

Word-final consonants

1.2.1. English word - final consonants
The English language has 24 consonants and most of them can occur in word-initial
position, word-medial position and word-final position except for some sounds /h/, /ʒ/.
About the position of final consonants, Yule (2006) showed the basic structure of a
syllable found in English.
Syllable
Onset

Rhyme
Nucleus
Vowel

Consonant

Coda
Consonant (s)

According to Rachael (2003), there can be up to 4 consonants in a coda:



If there are no consonants at the end of the word, it has zero coda. e.g. go /ɡoʊ/
A single consonant is called the final consonant. Any consonant except for /h/, /r/,





/w/, /j/ may be a final coda. e.g. cat /kᴂt/, price / praɪs/
When there are two or more consonants standing at the end of the word, the term
“pre-final” and “post-final” are used.
Two consonant clusters. e.g. help /help/, bank /bæŋk/
Three consonant clusters. e.g. next /nekst/
Four consonant clusters. e.g. prompts /prɒmpts/

1.2.2. Vietnamese word-final consonants
Vietnamese is a tone, monosyllabic language, and its consonants are classified into 22
initial consonants and 6 final consonants. (Seen in Table 2 and Table 3).
Table 2: Vietnamese initial consonants (Duong, 2009)
Place of articulation/ Manner
of articulation
Stop

Aspirated

UnVoiceless
aspirated
Voiced
Nasal

Labial

b
m

Place of articulation
AlveoAlveolar
Palatal
Velar
palatal
ť
ć
k
t
ţ
d
n
ŋ

8

Glottal
Ɂ

ɲ
Fricative

x

Voiceless

f

s

ş

Voiced

v

z

ȥ

Nasal

h

ɤ

I

Table 3: Vietnamese final consonants (Duong, 2009)

Place of articulation/
Manner of articulation

Labial

Alveolar

Velar

Stop
p
t
k
ŋ
Nasal
m
n
According to Nguyen (2007), “the tone of each Vietnamese syllable structure covers
the whole syllable and only the nuclear vowel is compulsory”
Tone
Initial consonants

Labialization

Nuclear vowel

Final consonant/Semi-vowel

Based on Doan (1999, as cited in Nguyen, 2007), Vietnamese final consonants are
given in detail as follow.

i.
ii.
iii.

/m/ in words like em [ɛɯ] (I, younger sister/brother), lượm [lɯɪɤ:m] (pick up), nghiêm
[ŋiem] (strict)
/n/ in word like ăn [an] (eat), làm [la:m] (do), phiên [fien]
/ŋ/: there are three allophones of this phoneme:
[ŋm]: bilabialized, produced by rounded vowels /u, o, ɔ/ - xong [soŋm], súng [ʃuŋm]
không [xoŋm]
[ŋ]: corresponding to letters „nh‟, proceded by front vowels /i, e, ɛ/ - bệnh [beŋ], tình

iv.

[tiŋ], nhanh [ŋaŋ]
[ŋ]: elsewhere - tặng [taŋ], thiêng [thieŋ], chuộng [cuoŋ]
/p/: with no air released after pronunciation, in words like úp [up], Pháp [fap], tiếp [tiep]

v.

/t/: in English , [t] ending is pronounced both as [t] and [ʔ], but in Vietnam it is always
pronounced shortly and sharply without aspiration such as ớt [ɤ:t], giết [ziet], ghét [gɛt]

9


vi.

/k/: this sound is produced where the letter “c”, “ch” is shown at the final position of a
syllable and it is agreed by many linguistics that this phoneme has 3 allophones which

appear in a complementary distribution.
[kp]: this ending sound is bilabialized if the consonant is preceded by round vowels /u,
ɒ, ɔ] - ngọc [ŋɔkp], cốc [kp], nhục [kp]

[c]: preceded by front vowels /i, e, ɛ/, performed by letters “ch” - nghịch [ŋic], lệch [lec],
sách [sa:c]
[k]: elsewhere - nhác [ŋa:k], bực [bɯk], luộc [luok]
vii.

viii.

/w/: this final semi-vowel only appears in forms of letters “u” or “o” which follow
vowels to make dipthongs or triphthongs, for example, đau [da:w], vào [va:w], đều
[dew]
/j/: appears in forms of “i” or “y” and is preceded by vowels to make diphthongs and
triphthongs - tay [ta:j], dài [da:j]

1.2.3. Comparison between Vietnamese and English word-final consonants
Above the structure of any syllable in English and Vietnamese, basically, there must be
a consonant, a vowel and a coda. Nevertheless, the major difference between these
languages is a coda in each language. Vietnamese sounds accept either a vowel or a
consonant to be a coda. On the contrary, only consonant is considered as a coda in
English syllable. For example, the final sound in the word “đau” is a semi-vowel /ṷ/. In
English, if the final sound is vowel like in the word go /ɡəʊ/, it is a zero coda with no
consonant in the final position.
From all the examples above, it is obvious that most of the English consonants can
stand at flexible positions, either in word-initial or in word-medial or in word-final one.
However, almost all of the Vietnamese consonants occur in word-initial position.
Besides, the English final consonants may consist of single or consonant clusters that
are made from more than two final consonants that follow each other. These consonant

clusters cannot be found in the Vietnamese consonantal system.

10