Using video recording project to improve pronunciation for non english major students at a university in vietnam

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

HOÀNG THỊ THU HÀ

USING VIDEO RECORDING PROJECT TO IMPROVE
PRONUNCIATION FOR NON – ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS
AT A UNIVERSITY IN VIETNAM
(Sử dụng hoạt động tự quay video để củng cố việc phát âm tiếng Anh
cho sinh viên không chuyên ngữ tại một trường Đại học ở Việt Nam)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111

HANOI - 2017


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

HOÀNG THỊ THU HÀ

USING VIDEO RECORDING PROJECT TO IMPROVE
PRONUNCIATION FOR NON – ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS
AT A UNIVERSITY IN VIETNAM

(Sử dụng hoạt động tự quay video để củng cố việc phát âm tiếng Anh
cho sinh viên không chuyên ngữ tại một trường Đại học ở Việt Nam)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111
Supervisor: Ph.D. VŨ THỊ THANH NHÃ

HANOI - 2017


DECLARATION

I hereby certify that this material is entirely my own work. I have exercised
reasonable care to ensure that the work is original, and does not to the best of my
knowledge breach any law of copyright. It has not been taken from the work of
others save, and to the extent that, such work has been cited and acknowledge
within the text of my work.
Signed:……………………..
Hoang Thi Thu Ha
Student ID: 15045009
Date: September 2017

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

To complete this graduation thesis, I owe profound indebtedness to many

people for their enthusiastic help during the conduct of my research.
Firstly, I would like to give my sincere thanks to my supervisor Ph.D. Vu Thi
Thanh Nha for her invaluable support, helpful guidance and considerable
encouragement, which plays a very important part in the completion of this paper.
Secondly, I would like to express my gratitude to the teachers for the
valuable lessons as well as to the staff of Post graduate studies faculty for their
support until this work came to existence.
Besides, I would love to send my heartfelt thanks to the teachers as well as
third – year students at my university who enthusiastically participated in the data
collection process. In fact, without their help, I could not complete this thesis.
Also, I owe a great debt of gratitude to my family and my friends, who have
constantly encouraged me during the time I conducted this research.
Last but not least, I would like to thanks my readers for their interests and
comments on this study.

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ABSTRACT

Pronunciation has long been considered as a very important part of a language
learning process. Although there have been a lot of famous studies carried out on
teaching and learning English pronunciation, very few of them bring the look into
the effect of using self - recording technology of students. Based on the general
theories about pronunciation and how to teach pronunciation to Vietnamese people,
this study was specifically concerned with implementing video recording to help
students self - study pronunciation, and it also examined the relation between
improving the students‟ pronunciation with listening skill.

This is an action research project conducted in an English course in term 3 for 40

second-year students of K18 at Hong Duc university – academic year 2015-2016.
There are five chapters. Data were collected by means of tests, classroom
observation, informal interview and students‟ documents. Two cycles of action
research were conducted to compare the changes after the two periods of
intervention and implement the supportive actions.

The findings of the study shows that the foundation theories were completely
suitable with teaching pronunciation in this specific situation, when students almost
all participated in the project enthusiastically, and the results of pronunciation tests
after every intervention were improved considerably. However, the pronunciation
itself does not contribute to enhance the score above medium level of listening test.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION ........................................................................................................ i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ........................................................................................ii
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................. iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ......................................................................................... iv
LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES ......................................................................vii
CHAPTER IINTRODUCTION ............................................................................... 1
1. Rationale ................................................................................................................. 1
2. Aims of the study .................................................................................................... 2
3. Research question.................................................................................................... 2
4. Research method ..................................................................................................... 3
5. The scope of the study............................................................................................. 3
6. Significance of the study ......................................................................................... 3
7. The organization of the study.................................................................................. 4

CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................ 5
1. Pronunciation .......................................................................................................... 5
1.1. Pronunciation concepts....................................................................................... 5
1.2. Aspects of pronunciation ...................................................................................... 5
2. Teaching pronunciation ......................................................................................... 10
2.1. Teaching pronunciation .................................................................................... 10
2.3. Self - evaluation and monitoring ...................................................................... 13
3. Summary ............................................................................................................... 14
CHAPTER IIIRESEARCH METHODOLOGY ................................................. 15
1. Overview of the chapter ........................................................................................ 15
2. Context of the study .............................................................................................. 15
3. Subjects of the study ............................................................................................. 16
4. Reasons for using action research ......................................................................... 16
5. Procedures ............................................................................................................. 17

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6. Research instruments ............................................................................................ 18
6.1. Test record ......................................................................................................... 18
6.2. Classroom observation ...................................................................................... 19
6.3. Interview ............................................................................................................ 20
6.4. Students’ document ........................................................................................... 20
7. Data collection ...................................................................................................... 20
7.1. Test recording .................................................................................................... 20
7.2. Classroom observation ...................................................................................... 21
7.3. Interview ............................................................................................................ 22
7.4. Students’ document ........................................................................................... 22
8. Data analysis ......................................................................................................... 22
9. Summary ............................................................................................................... 22

CHAPTER IV FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ................................................. 23
1. Finding from the pre – tests and the first recording .............................................. 23
1.1. Students’ results of listening test 1 ................................................................... 23
1.2. Students’ result of pronunciation mini test 1 ................................................... 25
1.3. Features of students’ pronunciation in the first video - recording ................. 26
1.4. Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 28
2. The first intervention ............................................................................................. 28
2.1. Students’ results of 2nd listening test in comparison with results of 1st
listening test .............................................................................................................. 28
2.2. Students’ results of 2nd mini pronunciation test in comparison with results of
1st test......................................................................................................................... 30
2.3. Features of students’ pronunciation after the first intervention..................... 30
2.4. Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 33
3. The next cycle of intervention............................................................................... 34
3.1. Students’ results of 3rd listening test in comparison with results of 2nd and 1st
listening test .............................................................................................................. 34

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3.2. Students’ results of 3rd pronunciation test in comparison with results of 2nd
pronunciation test and 1st pronunciation test ......................................................... 35
3.3. Features of students’ pronunciation ................................................................ 35
3.4. Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 39
4. Results of students in the pretest, 2nd test and 3rd test in comparison .................. 39
4.1. Mini - pronunciation test .................................................................................. 39
4.2. Listening test ...................................................................................................... 39
5. Further finding from teacher‟s observation, informal interview and students‟
documents.................................................................................................................. 40
6. Conclusion............................................................................................................. 44

CHAPTER V CONCLUSION ............................................................................... 45
1. Summary ............................................................................................................... 45
2. Pedagogical implication ........................................................................................ 45
3. Limitations of the study ........................................................................................ 46
4. Suggestions for further study ................................................................................ 47
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................ 48
APPENDIXES ........................................................................................................... I

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LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Figure 1: Feature of pronunciation ............................................................................. .6
Figure 2: English vowels ............................................................................................. 7
Table 1: English consonants........................................................................................ 8
Table 2: Students‟ correct pronunciation .................................................................. 26
Table 3: Students‟ stress on correct syllable ............................................................. 27
Table 4: Students‟ intonation of statements, wh-questions, yes – no
Questions and suggestions ...................................................................................... .27
Table 5: Comparison of students‟ correct pronunciation on English sound
in the pretest and in the second test ......................................................................... .31
Table 6: Comparison of students‟ stress on correct syllable in the pretest
and second test .......................................................................................................... 32
Table 7: Comparison of students‟ intonation of statements, wh-questions,
yes – no questions and suggestions in the pretest and second test .......................... .33
Table 8: Comparison of students‟ correct pronunciation on English
sound in the third test, pretest and the second test .................................................. .36
Table 9: Comparison of students‟ intonation of statements, wh-questions,
yes – no questions and suggestions in the pretest and second test ........................... 38

Table 10: Results of mini – pronunciation tests ........................................................ 39
Table 11: Results of listening tests ........................................................................... 39
Table 12: Behaviors of students in two intervention cycles ..................................... 41
Table 13: Student‟s documents of self - evaluation sheets ...................................... 43
Chart 1: Correct answers of Listening Test 1 ........................................................... 24
Chart 2: Number of correct words of Pronunciation mini -test 1 ............................. 25
Chart 3: Percentage of correct words of Pronunciation mini -test 1 ......................... 25
Chart 4: Results of Listening Test 1 and Listening Test 2 ..................................... .29
Chart 5: Results of Pronunciation mini -test 1 and Pronunciation
mini – test 2 ............................................................................................................... 30

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Chart 6: Correct answers of Listening Test 3 in comparison with
Test 2 and Test 1 ....................................................................................................... 34
Chart 7: Correct answers of Pronunciation Test 3 in comparison with
Test 2 and Test 1 ....................................................................................................... 35

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CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale
Pronunciation has long been considered as a very important part in the language
learning process by many well – known scholars in the world. One among these
scholars, Tench (1981) already states that pronunciation is not an optional extra for
the language learner any more than grammar, vocabulary or any other aspect of
language is. There are some conditions which help speakers be understood by

others. However, if the general aim of a learner is to talk intelligibly to others in one
language, a reasonable pronunciation must be important.

In order to get the reasonable pronunciation of a language, firstly the speakers must
have the acceptable understanding of the very basic foundation: the sound, syllable
and word systems. After that, it is suitable to mention the idea about what factors
can affect the acquisition of these systems in a certain second language. Avery and
Ehrlich (1992) claim that there are many factors, and among these, the teacher plays
a very decisive role. They could positively affect students by showing them the
clear purposes and realistic goals.

Since I started working as a teacher at Hong Duc University, in syllabus, the
students are required to have general knowledge in four main skills of English:
reading, speaking, listening and writing. Although they do not have the main course
book of pronunciation, this sub - skill does clearly affect students‟ speaking and
listening results. Most of the students were from rural areas of Thanh Hoa province,
and they did not have many opportunities to access standard English pronunciation.
Moreover, at the secondary school, they were asked to focus only on grammar and
vocabulary to pass the graduate examination. Therefore, pronunciation is something
new and strange for them. To achieve the required level, the students obviously
have to spend much time self - studying outside classroom.

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Although pronunciation starting level of my students was very low, most of them
were full of energy with pronunciation practice, and very pleased to use the
technology in class. That made me think of the activity which can encourage
students and motivate them study well.
What I have mentioned before are the reasons for me to conduct the study „Using

video recording project to improve pronunciation for non - English major students
at a university in Vietnam‟ with the hope that pronunciation of my students would
be improved after some actions which were applied in my English course.

2. Aims of the study
This study aims to apply a new method of teaching pronunciation, it has three
purposes as follow:
- To investigate the practical problems of pronunciation among 2nd year non English major students, who study English 3 at Hong Duc university.
- To find out the effects of introducing video recording to improve the
pronunciation practice.
- To assess the relationship between pronunciation and listening skill then give
some implications for teaching and learning pronunciation.

3. Research question
This study was carried out with the purpose of finding out the answers to the
following research questions:
1. How do teachers implement video recording to improve current pronunciation
practice of students?
2. How effective are these activities in improving the students‟ pronunciation and
listening skill?

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4. Research method
This study is implemented as an action research as its purpose is to improve the
pronunciation for non - English major students who study subject English 3 at Hong
Duc University, Thanh Hoa, using the video recording. The methods to collect the
data are formal tests, class observation and students‟ documents.

5. The scope of the study
The study mainly focuses on motivating non - English major students using video
camera to record themselves after each session of learning pronunciation as self study activity. Self – study is compulsory part of English 3 syllabus.

Because there are many components in English pronunciation, it is very
complicated to mention all those aspects in the research. Moreover, the average
English level of these junior students is comparatively low. Therefore, this study
only focuses on the separate sounds, words, sentences, word stress and the
intonation of some short sentence that can be appeared in the simple daily
dialogues.

The recording equipments can be varied, from the normal cell phone with camera to
the digital camera or whatever can record the voice with face of the speaker and
upload the recorded file on the internet.

6. Significance of the study
Although there have been a lot of famous studies carried out on teaching and
learning English pronunciation, very few of them bring the look into the effect of
using self - recording technology of students, especially to let them self - evaluate
and evaluate each other. And there are also very few research studies carried out on
self - study or homework activities. The findings of this study, therefore, will

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contribute to enrich the environment of English teaching in general and encourage
the teachers as well as students in teaching and learning pronunciation in particular.

7. The organization of the study
The study is organized into five chapters:

Chapter 1 Introduction. It includes the rationale of choosing the topic, the objectives
of the study, the scope of the study, the research questions as well as the methods to
be applied.
Chapter 2 Literature review. It discusses relevant concepts to pronunciation and
teaching pronunciation.
Chapter 3 Methodology. It deals with the information about contexts, participants
and instruments of the study
Chapter 4 Findings and Discussion. It concentrates on data analysis of the collected
data then presents and discusses the findings
Chapter 5 Conclusion. It gives a summary of the whole study, carries out the
limitation of it and provides suggestions for further study.

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CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW

1. Pronunciation
1.1. Pronunciation concepts
Tench (1981) defines pronunciation as a notion which is more than a matter of
consonants, vowels and diphthongs. He links pronunciation to the sound of people
when they are speaking, to the rise and fall of the pitch of the voice, to the pausing
and grouping together of words and phrases, and to the highlighting of some
syllables and the virtual suppression of others.

Pronunciation, then, is itself a complex of sounds (consonants, vowels and
diphthongs), syllables (word accent and rhythm) and intonation.

From a different view point, according to Hewings (2004), there are certain

components of speech which together combine to form the pronunciation of a
language. These components range from the individual sounds that make up speech,
to the way in which pitch - the rise and fall of the voice - is used to convey
meaning.

1.2. Aspects of pronunciation
The following diagram of Kelly, G. (2000:1) shows a breakdown of the aspects of
pronunciation:

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Suprasegmental features

Phonemes

Consonants

Voiced

Vowels

Unvoiced

Intonation

Single
vowels

Dipthongs

Stress

Word stress

Sentence
stress

Figure 1: Feature of pronunciation (Kelly, 2000)
It is clear that Kelly sees pronunciation as the combination of two main parts:
phonemes and suprasegmental features. The former component includes consonants
and vowels, whereas the later one contains intonation and stress. About the
definition of individual components, there are different opinions as following.

1.2.1. Phoneme
Tench (1981) defines „phoneme‟ as the cluster of sound variations that make up a
single unit in the pronunciation system. When Hewings (2004) uses the term
„sound‟ to refer to the building blocks of pronunciation. The vowels and consonants
that go together to make words. The separate sounds are often referred to as
phonemes, and pairs of words which differ by only one vowel or consonant sound
are referred to as minimal pairs. In British English, around 44 phonemes (20 vowels
and 24 consonants) are generally recognized.

Vowels are sounds in which there is no obstruction to the flow of air as it passes
from the larynx to the lips. (Roach, 1983, p.20) In other definition, vowel sounds
“are produced by a freely flowing airstream. Essentially, we create different vowel

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sounds by using the mouth as a resonance cavity and changing its size and shape”
(Grant, 2014, p. 21)

Linguists categorize vowel sounds as simple vowels (those without a glide
movement, such as the /ɛ/ in “pepper”), glide vowels (those that have an
accompanying /y/ or /w/, like the /eɪ/ in “paper”), and diphthongs (two vowel
sounds in the same syllable, such as /ɔɪ/ as in “boy”). There are also distinctions
commonly made between rounded versus spread vowels (in terms of lip position)
and tense versus lax vowels (in terms of muscle tension).

Figure 2: English vowels (Roach, 1983)
Consonants therefore can be referred to the sounds in the production of which one
articulator move towards another or two articulators come together, obstructing the
air - stream and the air - stream cannot get out freely.

Consonant sounds are distinguished by whether they are voiced or not (for example
voiceless sound /f/ and voiced sound /v/), where they are formed in the mouth ( /ð/
and /θ/ sounds), and how the airflow is affected (for instance the air is stopped when
you say /p/ but not /m/).

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Table 1: English consonants (Roach, 1983)

Linkage of sounds: When English people speak they generally do not pause
between each word, but move smoothly from one word to the next. (Kenworthy,
1987)

1.2.2. Suprasemental features

The term suprasegmentals refers to the “features of pronunciation that stretch over
more than one sound or segment” (Grant, 2014, p. 16).

Hewings (2004) is more detailed in pointing out that vowel and consonant sounds
combine into syllables. Then, the structure of English syllables is:
consonant(s) + vowel + consonant(s)
However, suprasegmentals are commonly divided into stress and intonation.
Stress
Word: A word can be either a single syllable (e.g. cat. own) or a sequence of two or
more syllables (e.g. expensive). When a word has more than one syllable, one of

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these syllables is stressed in relation to the other syllables in the word - that is, it is
said with relatively more force or heard as being more emphatic - while other
syllables are said to be unstressed. For example, in apple the first syllable is stressed
and the second unstressed, when in above the first syllable is unstressed and the
second stressed. (Hewings, 2004)

Word stress: When an English word has more than one syllable one of these is made
to stand out more than the other(s). This is done by saying that syllable slightly
louder, holding the vowel little longer, and pronouncing the consonants very
clearly. (Kenworthy, 1987)

Word in connected speech: Words come into contact in connected speech, certain
common changes take place, mainly as a consequence of the speed of speaking and
in order to make the production of sequences of sounds easier. (Hewings, 2004)

Sentence stress: Speakers often decide that they want to give more or less

prominence to a particular word. A word may be given less weight because it has
been said already, or it may be given more weight because the speaker wants to
highlight it. (Kenworthy, 1987)

Intonation
Normally, intonation refers to the way the pitch of the voice falls or rises.
(Hewings, 2004)

Especially, Kenworthy (1987) assumes intonation like the melody of speech. He
describes speech like music, it uses changes in pitch; and speakers can change the
pitch of their voice as they speak, making it higher or lower in pitch at will. They
can even jump up suddenly in pitch as singers do.

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Another component of suprasegmental features which should be mentioned is
rhythm Rhythm is also defined by Kenworthy (1987) as a product of word stress
and the way in which important items are foreground by their occurrence on a weak
beat. Dalton and Seidholfer (1994) gave another definition of rhythm by contrasting
the stress and untress. They stated that “utterances are continuous strings of
syllables, the stressed syllables provide the foreground and the untressed ones the
background”

2. Teaching pronunciation
2.1. Teaching pronunciation
In the ways of teaching English pronunciation, there are some clear approaches:
Tench (1981) suggests that the basic strategy in pronunciation teaching is imitation.
The learners need to be able to imitate the teacher‟s pronunciation, imitating not
only the features of consonants, vowels and diphthongs, but also rhythm and

intonation.
Then, we should decide how „good‟ should the learner‟s pronunciation aim to be?
Some time ago it was said that the goal should always be native - like
pronunciation, even though it was realized that this would be achieved by relatively
few, most people now think that this is an inappropriate goal for most learners. The
great majority of learners will have a very practical purpose for learning English
and will derive no particular benefit from acquiring a native - like pronunciation.

There will be some learners, who may want to approach a native - like accent
because their work requires them to deal with native speakers in an English speaking country or abroad.

While native - like pronunciation may be a goal for particular learners, and while
we should never actively discourage learners from setting themselves „high‟ goals,

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for the majority of learners a far more reasonable goal is to be comfortably
intelligible.

Kenworthy (1987) points out several factors which may affect pronunciation
accuracy. They are native language, age factor, amount of exposure, phonetic
ability, attitude and identity, motivation and concern for good pronunciation. He
also tries to find out which factors can themselves be affected by teaching and
training. Among them, motivation and concern for good pronunciation can be
greatly affected.

In his book also on this teaching field, Hewings (2004) states that when we are
deciding on our priorities for pronunciation teaching, it is useful to know in general
what kinds of errors are most likely to interfere with communication, and what

special problems particular first - language speakers will have with English
pronunciation.

Hewings (2004) acknowledges that in some classes, pronunciation is given a lower
priority than other components of language such as grammar and vocabulary, and is
sometimes relegated to an „end - of - the - day‟ activity or a five - minute filler to
give students some relief from „real‟ work of language learning. This situation is
also very common in many English lessons in Vietnam.

For most students, however, an understandable pronunciation will be an important
part of their communication skills, and this justifies giving pronunciation a more
central role in teaching by integrating it with other areas of language work. Perhaps,
the most obvious area for useful integration is work that connects vocabulary and
pronunciation. There are good arguments for teaching the pronunciation of words
(both the sounds and their stress) as they are introduced. If students have confidence

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that they can pronounce a word correctly, they are more likely to use it as they
speak, and using words successfully aids memorisation. (Tench, 1981)
From Tench‟s opinion, the teachers can find two important principles in the
strategy of teaching pronunciation : pronunciation teaching has to be combined with
other skills, such as listening with comprehension, reading, writing, and non linguistic cues, e.g. gestures, facial expressions), and with the other aspects of
language, such as grammar, lexis, style, function and discourse; on the other hand,
pronunciation has to be practice in isolation, like the articulation of th, or various
vowels and so on.

According to Macneil (1987,p. 47), teachers need to:
- Ensure that students are able to produce the sound (e.g. with /dʒ/ try asking

students to combine „d‟ and „y‟ - i.e. „jet‟ can be approximated as „dyet‟.
- Give students many examples of words and phrases with the sound to
practice in class at home.
- Encourage the students to monitor their own production of the particular
sound, by assessing their own performance - at first when reading, then while
transmitting a message of a few sentences, building up to longer stretches of free
speeches.
- Encourage fluent students who are hard to understand to slow down their rate
of speech.

To summarize, pronunciation should be given a suitable position in teaching
English, although it is still under- evaluated by many teachers who teach English. It
is necessary to implement the pronunciation practice activity with certain list of
sounds and words. At the beginning, students must be introduced about the basic
system of sound, word, stress then intonation. Besides, they should be encouraged
to practice and see their mistakes to improve it for the next practice.

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2.3. Self - evaluation and monitoring
2.3.1. The role of self - evaluation and monitoring
According to Kenworthy (1987), teacher should combine the monitoring and self evaluation both inside and outside classroom. Moreover, oral homework should be
included.

Language learning is an extended process, and whenever we are involved in a
learning task over a long period of time it is very easy to lose track of our progress.
Therefore, keeping a record of progress or the students‟ tape will help.

2.3.2. Giving homework to motivate self - evaluation and monitoring

Avery and Ehrlich (1992) state that the development process of self - correcting and
self - monitoring abilities should be included the syllabus the sooner the better.
Teacher as an instructor plays a very important role in the first stages of
pronunciation improvement, and students who must take responsibility for ongoing
improvement. In addition, self - correcting as well as self - monitoring minimize
dependence and at the same time maximize self - reliance, which allows students to
continue improving pronunciation outside the classroom.

Video recording as homework is mentioned again by another author as following:

Assignments are prepared, rehearsed, and then recorded on video or audio
tape...learners evaluate their own performance using a score system specified by the
teacher. There is then an opportunity for feedback and evaluation by the teacher.
This may be given during „pronunciation clinics‟ (ten or fifteen minutes slots when
students can discuss their assignments) or during a lesson in which class members
have the opportunity to play or show their completed assignments and receive
comments from their teacher and colleagues.
(Kenworthy, 1987 :119 - 120)

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In giving the oral homework assignments, the teacher should provide some
guidelines for the learners to follow. Before the teacher introduces the activity, a
video sample of a group of learners unknown should be shown to the students.

In general, the theories of teaching English pronunciation focus on encouraging
students to imitate the certain model and self - evaluating their practicing results
gradually. Based on these theories, I constructed my research with the main
principle of imitating and self – evaluating to see the changes. As the previous part,

building the general understanding about sound, word and stress system would be
the first step, then teacher should let student to imitate the model and evaluate their
practice‟s product.

3. Summary
In this chapter, some basic concepts belong to theoretical background of the
research have been presented. Pronunciation definition and the classification from
different points of views have been mentioned. How to teach pronunciation, teach
pronunciation for Vietnamese leaners and the role of self- evaluation together with
monitoring are also discussed.

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CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
1. Overview of the chapter
This study was conducted for the purpose of implementing the intervention to
improve the pronunciation of students in one of the classes English 3 at Hong Duc
university by asking them to video - record themselves when pronouncing the
English words or sentences at home as the assignment. The reliability of findings
and conclusions totally depended on the quality of the research design, data
collection and data analysis. This chapter will concern about the description of
research methods and the research procedures in order to select the data, explain
how data will be analyzed, interpreted and how to evaluate the effect of the
intervention.

Specifically, this chapter will cover the following aspects: the research design and
method, the respondents or subjects to be studied (which were noted down on the
teacher‟s observation sheets), the instrument for collecting the data, and the data
analysis. They will be presented below.

2. Context of the study
This study was carried out at Hong Duc university in Thanh Hoa province. Hong
Duc is a public institution which includes many different faculties. Students from
these non – English major faculties have different majors but all of them must study
English 1, English 2 and English 3 as the compulsory subjects.

In these subjects, pronunciation is not designed as a separate part but it is
intergrated into the English courses. In the third semester, English 3 is designed
after English 1 and English 2, and it is constructed within 12 weeks with 5 periods
per week. The main course book used is “English File Pre-intermediate” from
Oxford University Press and “Target PET” from Richmon Publishing.

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