A study on common mistakes made by Vietnamese beginners of English in pronouncing θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ, ʤ, ʧ and possible solutions

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A study on common mistakes made by
Vietnamese beginners of English in
pronouncing θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ, ʤ, ʧ and possible
solutions


Lê Ngọc Hân

University of Languages and International Studies
M.A Thesis: English Linguistics; Code: 60 22 15
Supervisor : Prof.Dr. Võ Đại Quang
Year of graduation: 2011


Abstract. It is undeniable that English has become the most popular foreign
language in Vietnam nowadays. Nevertheless, among millions of people speaking
English in Vietnam, there are many people who make mistakes in pronunciation.
This paper is focused on the mistakes made by Vietnamese beginners of English
when pronouncing the six English sounds θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ, ʤ, ʧ . Causes for the mistakes
and some tentative suggestions to mitigate the problem are then discussed. The
mistakes are identified in terms of both wrong manner of articulation and wrong
place of articulation of the sounds. It is argued that the mistakes can be explained in
terms of inadequate knowledge of the articulation of the sounds and, more
importantly, the interference of the mother tongue. Suggestions for effective ways to
overcome the difficulty include careful instructions in how to pronounce the sounds,
comparative and contrastive analysis of the phonetic features of the sounds in
English and the equivalents in Vietnamese, and emphasis on drills and practice.

Keywords. Phát âm; Phụ âm; Tiếng Anh

Content

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Chapter one “Introduction” includes the reasons of choosing the thesis, the aims, the
objectives, the scope, research questions and the organization of the study.
1.1 Rationale
English, the most popular foreign language in Vietnam, has been taught from the early age (at
the age of 7 or even younger) in most of schools and universities throughout the country as a

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compulsory subject however, not many of them “have intelligible English pronunciation so
that they can be understood easily in direct communication with foreigners”. It is the exact
fact happening in Bac Ninh Specialized High School. Over many years of teaching English in
this school, the writer of the study has observed that there are quite a number of students who
frequently make mistakes with English sounds. Being fully aware of the necessity of
correcting mistakes for students as well as Vietnamese learners of English, the writer of this
paper decided to conduct the study entitled “A study on common mistakes made by
Vietnamese beginners of English in pronouncing θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ, ʤ, ʧ and possible solutions”.
1.2. Aims and objectives of the study
1.2.1 Aims
The research aims at:
- improving students‟ pronunciation of the six English consonants θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ, ʤ, ʧ
- providing English teachers with a reference for the pronunciation of θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ, ʤ, ʧ
1.2.2 Objectives
To achieve these aims, the following objectives are set forth as tasks of the study:
- identify Vietnamese learners‟ common mistakes in pronouncing θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ, ʤ, ʧ
- find out causes of mistakes made by Vietnamese learners in pronouncing θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ, ʤ,
ʧ
- find out solutions to make teaching and learning process better so that mistakes in

pronouncing θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ, ʤ, ʧ can be avoided.
1.2.3. Research questions
The above-mentioned objectives can be elaborated into the following research questions:
Question 1: What common mistakes do Vietnamese learners have in pronouncing the English
sounds θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ, ʤ, ʧ?
Question 2: What are the causes of those mistakes?
Question 3: What are possible solutions to those mistakes?
1.3. Scope of the study
In thesis we only concentrate on common mistakes made by 30 students who are studying
English as major field in Bac Ninh Specialized High School in pronouncing “θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ, ʤ, ʧ”
and causes of those mistakes as well as possible solutions to eliminate them. These collected
mistakes are considered as the common ones made by Vietnamese learners.
1.4 Organization of the study
To achieve the aims of the study, this paper is divided into five chapters.
Chapter one : Introduction
Chapter two :Literature Review
Chapter three :Methodology
Chapter four : Findings and discussions
Chapter five :Conclusion

CHAPTER TWO : LITERATURE REVIEW
Chapter two “Literature Review” is devoted to the presentation of the theoretical background
relevant to the research. Firstly, the review of pronunciation as well as factors affecting
pronunciation learning are introduced. Then the literature related to mistakes is given. It

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includes the notion of mistakes in language learning, types of mistakes and the main causes
of mistakes. Lastly, articulatory features of the six consonnants are mentioned.
2.1 Theoretical Background
2.1.1 The role of pronounciation in language teaching

2.1.2 Factors affecting pronunciation learning
2.1.2.1 The native language
2.1.2.2 The age factor
2.1.2.3 Pronunciation ability
2.1.2.4 Motivation and concern for good pronunciation
2.1.3. Articulatory phonetics
2.1.4. Consonants
2.1.4.1 General description of English consonants
2.1.4.2. Articulatory features of θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ, ʤ, ʧ
2.1.4.2.1 Articulatory features of /θ, δ / and /ʃ, ʒ /
2.1.4.2.2 Articulatory features of /ʤ, ʧ/
2.1.5. Mistakes in language learning
2.1.5.1 Mistakes in language learning
2.1.5.2 Types of mistakes
2.1.5.3 Possible causes of mistakes in language learning
2.1.5.3.1 The interference of the mother tongue
2.1.5.3. 2 Causes other than interference by first language
2.2 Previous works
As mentioned above, there have been a great deal of notable works about pronounciation
issues and pronounciation teaching ones but some of them express the writers‟ concern about
pronounciation problems especially the learners‟ difficulties in pronouncing English sounds.
However, it can be confirmed that Avery & Ehlrich (1992:67) are the two first people
mentioning problems Vietnamese learners may face with when studying English “As the
sound systems of English and Vietnamese differ greatly, Vietnamese speakers can have quite
serve pronounciation problems”
Recently, an article named Common pronunciation problems of Vietnamese learners of
English by Ha Cam Tam (2005:7) also pointed out some main problems in pronunciation of
Vietnamese learners, namely sound omission, sound confusion and sound redundancy.
However, many previous studies found in books, linguistic magazines or on the Internet are
only about general pronunciation problems of wide issues, none of them specifies in certain

consonants that most impede Vietnamese learners from communication and common
mistakes in English pronunciation. For this reason, the research is carried out to find out the
common mistakes made by the students studying in Bac Ninh Specialized High School in
pronouncing some English consonants and improve their pronunciation.

CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY
Chapter three “Methodology” describes in detail the research methodology which comprises
the principles based on which the study is carried out. It also presents techniques employed in
this thesis, namely questionnaire, tape recording and interview.

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In order to fulfill the study, a combination of survey questionnaire, tape recording and
interview is employed.
3.1 Survey research
Among the research methods, survey research is one of the most important areas of
measurement in applied social research. The broad area of survey research encompasses any
measurement procedures that involve asking questions of respondents. A “survey” can be
anything form a short paper-and- pencil feedback from to an intensive one-on-one in-depth
interview.
Survey research can be also defined in terms of the type of information gathered or the
purposes for which the information is collected. Alreck and Settle (1995:98) contended that
the reasons for conducting survey include influencing a selected audience, modifying a
service or product, and understanding or predicting human behaviour. Rea and Paker
(1997:88) added understanding people‟s interests and concerns as motivations for using
surveys, with data reflecting descriptive, bahavioural or preferential characteristics of
respondents.
3.1.1 Steps for conducting a survey research
In this process of conducting a survey research, the researcher must make a series of careful
decisions about how the study will be carried out. These include a great deal of steps such as:
determining the purpose of the study; stating the research questions; specifying the

population and drawing a sample from the population; deciding on the methods of data
collection; developing instruments, and training data collectors or interviewers ; collecting
data ; analyzing the data; and addressing non response. Understanding these steps will help
researchers assess and construct their own meaning from reports of surveys that they read.
3.1.1.1 Defining a population
After stating the research questions, it is advisable to define a population. The population is
the entire group of entities or people to which the results of a study are intended to apply. The
population can vary widely depending on the research questions and the purpose of the study.
It can be a set of schools, a group of people such as students or teachers or a set of instances
of language uses.
3.1.1.2 Sampling
Sample is a crucial factor in the survey research as it is not possible to survey the entire group
of interest (the population) but a subgroup (a sample). The selected sample must be similar to
the population of interest in important ways if the results of the study are intended to apply to
(be representative of) that population.
3.1.1.3 Methods of collecting survey data
While conducting the research, the most prevalent data-collection methods are
questionnaires, interviews and direct observations of language use. In addition, many other
types of information can be gathered including test results, compositions, or reactions to L2
oral or written language data.
Questionnaire is the most common methods of data collection L2 survey research. It can
range from short items to long documents which require one or two hours to complete. Items
in the questionnaire can be open-ended format (allowing respondents to reply in their own
words) or closed one, requiring the respondent to select one from among a limited number of
responses

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3.1.1.4 Data analysis
Descriptive Analyses of the results of a survey are often reported in frequency and
percentages. These descriptive statistics are numbers that summarize the data.

Correlational Analyses can be applied along with the descriptive to analyze relationships
among variables.
3.2 Techniques employed in this thesis
3.2.1 Data collection instruments
In order to complete this minor thesis, both quantitative and qualitative methods have been
conducted to collect data. They include: tape recording, questionnaire and interview.
3.2.1.1 Tape recording
A task was designed to record the students‟ pronounciation including two main parts: In part
one, students read aloud sounds and words which the sounds appear. In part two, there is a
short passage for students to read aloud, this passage has many words with the sounds
students always mispronounce.
3.2.1.2 Questionnaire
Questionnaire was used as the first tool to collect data for this study. This kind of method has
proved to be effective and time-saving since it could yeild a variety of data ranging from
factual, behavorial to attitudinal from numerous respondents in different situations.
In this research, a great number of question types categorized by Youngman (1986, as cited
in Nunan, 1992: 144) including frequency, list, category and ranking questions had been
applied. In that way, some serious limitations of questionnaires as cited in Dornyei (2003:10),
which are simplicity and superficiality of answers, unreliable and unmotivated respondents,
respondent literacy problems and fatigue effects, seemed to have been solved.
a. Aims of the questionnaire
The questionnaire is designed to clarify:
-Students‟ attitude toward pronunciation (question 4)
-Students‟ perception about their pronounciation mistakes (questions 5,6)
-Students‟ perception about causes of their mistakes in pronouncing some
consonants.(question 7)
-Students‟ self-treatment to oversome those mistakes (question 9)
-Reflection on teachers‟ methods to help students eliminate their mistakes in pronouncing
some English consonants (question 11)
b. Selection of participations

Thirty students from English Department of Bac Ninh Specialized High School participated.
All of the students are studying English as major field and 100% of the students taking part in
the study spent 7 years and more studying English.
3.2.1.3 Interview
Interview is one kind of questionnaire, it is the vocal questionnaires and it has been used by
second language acquisition researchers seeking data on stages and processes of acquisition
(Johnson,1985: 44), and also by language testers, who use the oral interview as a mean of
assessing proficiency (Ingram, 1984: 24).
3.2.2 Methods of data analysis
The approach offered by Strauss and Corbin (1998 :201) had been applied to analyze the
collected data for the study.Thanks to this approach, the researcher, who is initially concerned

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with describing exactly what they understood, can rebuild the data into a noticeable reality
for those who have participated in this study. Hence, the researcher‟s understanding of the
factors affecting pronunciation learning and articulatory features of θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ, ʤ, ʧ was
combined with the statistics, information provided by the students to result in certain
interpretation. The data were presented, thoroughly analyzed and discussed after the data had
been collected and synthesized. The interviews were used to provide more information as
evidence to the findings in the data.
3.3 Procedure
The first step of data collection is to record the students‟ pronunciation when reading aloud
some English sounds and some words that the sounds appear and a short passage to find out
whether the students make any mistakes with these sounds and how often the mistakes are.
After being piloted two times, the questionnaires were conducted on April 27th 2011 and
collected on the same day. They were not distributed to respondents to fill out on their own.
The participants were assisted in the process of completing the research questions, specially
by reading the questions in the definite order out load to the respondents, explaining each
question clearly to avoid misunderstanding and noting down their answers.
3.4 Summary

This study is carried out in the light of the action research so an overview of the action
research is provided including the definition, processes of the action research. Moreover, it
presents techniques employed in this thesis, namely survey questionnaire, tape recording and
interview as well as the aims of each technique and the procedure of collecting the data.

CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
4. 1 Findings from tape recording
There are two main types of errors found in the data. Among common errors, omission of
ending sounds was more frequent than others. It is easy to understand why ending sound such
as /ʤ/ was so frequently (85 % of the students omitted this sound as ending sounds) because
Vietnamese learners do not have to pronounce the ending sounds. In addition, the sound /ʤ/
is really hard for Vietnamese learners to pronounce especially when this sound occurs at the
end of words. Regarding the second type of errors, sound confusion, the most frequent errors
are /θ/, /ʧ/, / ʃ /. In brief, the data presented shows that when the subjects read the words or
the sentences consisting of those consonants, all of the subjects seemed to fail to produce the
sounds appropriately enough to make their speech comprehensible to native speakers.
4.2 Findings and discussions from the questionnaire
4.2.1 Students’ attitude towards pronunciation
The importance of pronunciation is acknowledged by most of the questionnaire respondents,
57% of students thought it was very important. It can be referred that only by mastering good
pronunciation can the English learners speak English fluently and make others understand.
Meanwhile, 20 % of them considered pronunciation important in studying English. About 13
% of the participants did not know whether it is important or not. Only 10 % of the students
considered pronunciation not very important in English studying. This is due to the focus of
lexical grammar in their studying.
4.2.2 Students’ perceptions of their frequency of pronunciation mistakes

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When being asked about their frequency of making mistakes in pronouncing English sounds,
43% of the participants thought that they often mispronounce English sounds. 33% of them

thought their frequency of mispronunciation was sometimes. Only 10% of students reported
that they always made mistakes in pronouncing English sounds. Meanwhile, there were some
of them thought they seldom or never made mistakes with English sounds.
4.2.3 Students’ perceptions of the causes of those mistakes
Finding out the causes of the students‟ mistakes with English sounds can be considered as a
key to solve the problems so that is the reason why question number 7 is carefully designed
to find out the students‟ mistakes. In this question, possible causes were listed and students
were asked whether they agreed or disagreed with these causes.
It can be seen in figure 5, about 45 % of the subjects agreed that they don‟t know how to use
their tongue or mouth. Meanwhile, 20 % of the students thought English sounds and
Vietnamese ones are the same. More than 47% of the participants agreed that they didn‟t
practice much. They didn‟t dare to ask teachers or friends for help. Some of them were even
afraid of their teachers‟ feedback.
4.2.4 Students’ self-treatment to overcome those mistakes
Besides being asked about causes of mistakes, students were also questioned about their own
ways to improve their pronunciation. About 82% of them have ever tried some methods to
improve their own pronunciation. Here are some of the commonly applied methods of the
students.
4.2.5 Reflection on teachers’ methods used to help students to overcome those mistakes.
Not all the students thought that their teachers did something to help them improve their
pronunciation (90%).
From the figure above, it can be seen that minimal pair drills ranks as the most frequent
methods (98%) as it can be easily applied in all skills not only in pronunciation lesson, and
then follows reading aloud (95%)- an other common activity in all English classes. Recording
is also one of the teachers‟ favorite options but it can be utilized in pronunciation course only
with the support of the modern technology especially in the lavatory. Listening and imitating
is also a very commonly used activity in any English lesson as it does not require a very great
condition, only with a radio and a tape this can help students to practice more. However, this
can not always motivate students as the students would not have chances to check their own
pronunciation and do not know whether they have made progresses or not. Rarely did the

teachers give the phonetic training to the students.
4.3 Findings from the interviews
Students were asked which sound in the word “worth” they cannot pronounce correctly. Ten
subjects answered that is the sound / θ / and explained why they mispronounced this sound
was because they did not know how to use their tongue and their teeth appropriately. Besides,
they tended to make it in the same way with the sound /th/ in Vietnamese.
The same questions were raised with the sound /δ/ in the word “that/this”, /ʃ/ in “English”, / ʒ
/ in “television”. All students confirmed that these are the sounds they found difficult to
produce correctly. When being asked about the causes of their mispronunciation of the
sounds / θ, δ/, they said that they were not used to put the tongue outside the mouth between
upper teeth and the lower teeth. Moreover, blowing the air out was not an easy task for them.

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With the sounds / ʃ, ʒ, /, they said they often made it as the sound /s/ and /z/.They found it
hard to raise the tongue up and make the mouth rounded at the same time. On being asked
about the mispronunciation with the sound /ʧ/, they thought they always made it more softly
than it should be, like „ch‟ in Vietnamese. For the sound /ʤ/, most of the students had no idea
about the way to produce it exactly.
4.4 Summary
This chapter can be considered as the most significant one of the study as it provides the
necessary data and evidence for the writer to fulfill the task. Firstly, students‟ mistakes with
English sounds were found out through the recorded tape. Next a questionnaire was given to
find out their opinions about their mispronunciations of some sounds and their confirmation
of the causes and their methods and teachers‟ methods to improve their pronunciation. Last
but not least, interviews were conducted to cover the shortcomings left by the questionnaire.

CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION
5.1 Recapitulation
This part of the study covers types of common mistakes made Vietnamese learners in
pronouncing θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ, ʤ, ʧ, causes of these mistakes and some recommendations to mitigate

the problems.
5.2 Concluding remarks
Concluding remarks on Research Question 1: “What common mistakes do Vietnamese
learners have in pronouncing θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ, ʤ, ʧ?”
It can be confirmed that Vietnamese learners do make some common mistakes in
pronouncing some English sounds such as θ, δ, ʃ, ʒ, ʤ, ʧ by looking at the data collected and
the analyzed data especially at the findings of the recorded tapes. Their common mistakes are
sound omission and sound confusion.
Concluding remarks on Research Question 2: “What are the main causes of those
mistakes?”
This research question of the thesis is concerned with the causes of these mistakes and the
writer had two chances to understand clearly about these causes by looking at the findings of
the questionnaire and the interviews. Firstly, students were not fully aware of articulatory
features of these sounds. And in real communication, they failed to make natives understand.
Thirdly, there exists the negative interference of the mother tongue. Last but not least, there
were insufficient drill and practice among the students. Some didn‟t dare to ask teachers or
friends for help. Others didn‟t pay enough attention to their pronunciation.
Concluding remarks on Research Question 3: “What are possible solutions to those
mistakes?”
Through the study, the solutions can be drawn out. In order to improve the pronunciation of
the learners, both teachers and students have to try hard. For the teacher, it is advisable that
chances for students to explore, sentilize English and their own speaking or pronunciation
should be provided.However, the students still need introducing and showing how to
pronounce these sounds. Last but not least, the learners should be informed of the similarities
and differences between the English and Vietnamese. For the students, self practice is an
advice they should pay much attention to.


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5.3 Pedagogical Implications

Teaching a foreign language is considered as a hard job as there are a great deal of
requirements the teachers have to live up to. This is not an easy job for language teachers in
Vietnam. That is the reason why English pronunciation is paid more attention to and this can
only be improved when learners‟ difficulties in English pronunciation is understood. This
thesis can be considered as a reference for any teachers for any teachers who concerns about
the learner‟s pronunciation.
5.3 Suggestions for further research
After conducting this study, I discovered some limitations remained. Firstly, the scripts for
recording did not have enough typical examples of words to use for analysis of the most
frequent mistakes.
Moreover, during the data analysis, I found that all the subjects made mistakes with not only
the six consonants but also the clusters of vowels, the pitch, intonation and the aspects of
connected speech. However, due to the scope of the study, the other problems would be taken
consideration in another study.
Therefore, the author wishes to study more about Vietnamese learners‟ pronunciation
mistakes in pronouncing other consonants as well as vowels on the same subjects with the
hope of helping her students improve their English so that they can use it for further study.


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