Experiences in teaching pronunciation for primary student

INDEX
A: INTRODUCTION
1. REASON FOR CHOOSING THE TOPIC
2. THE PURPOSE OF THE RESEARCH
3. RESEARCH TASKS
4. RESEARCH TIME AND LOCATION
B: RESEARCH CONTENTS
1 . RATIONALE
2. THE PRESENT SITUATION OF THE PROBLEM
2.1. About students
2.2 . About the teacher
2.3. About the teaching facilities
2.4. The quality survey and students’ classification
3. THE SOLUSION
3.1. Sounds
3.2. Stress and Rhythm
3.3. Intonation
3.4. Five basic steps to teach pronunciation
4. THE EFFICIENCY OF THE RESEARCH
C: THE CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
1. CONCLUSION
2. RECOMMENDATIONS
REFERENCES

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A. INTRODUCTION
1. REASON FOR CHOOSING THE TOPIC
English plays an important role in human life. It is not only the language
in the field of international communication but also the language of the science,
information technology, socio-cultural, tourism and commercial, etc. In
Vietnam, English is considered as a compulsory subject at school, especially
Primary School. With the trend of international integration, Vietnam is
increasingly able to be fully available in all areas. To meet the growing demand
as well as communication needs of society, the Ministry of Education and
Training has put English into the programme at Primary School. Learning
English is to form and develop students' knowledge and basic skills in English,
through English, students gain knowledge and their love for the Vietnamese.

Learning English not only contributes for the development of personality and
learning style but also provides students with basic knowledge and helps
students understand initially the knowledge about the people and culture of
English speaking countries .
At Primary School, English is a subject which has its own characteristics.
Therefore teachers are as an artist , he or she needs be creative and cheerful in
order to involve students in learning English excitingly. As a teacher of English
at Primary School, I am always awarded of researching the specific methods in
teaching English, especially in teaching pronunciation in order to make the
students believe that they can speak English fluently and naturally. Students will
not be motivated to speak in English unless they are presented with words in
context. Creating a positive classroom ethos where students feel empowered to
work in a collaborative way is an important role of the teacher. We must
understand the inter-relationship between speaking, listening, reading and
writing and plan for speaking opportunities in the classroom in the same way
that we plan for teaching pronunciation.
We know from Higgs Graph of Learner Needs that pronunciation is
something that is very important with beginner learners as it allows them to feel
more comfortable when speaking; teachers must be aware, however, that the
more sounds differ between the mother tongue and the second language, the
higher the affective filter. A student feeling too self-conscious will not be as
willing to take the risks that are necessary when learning a new language.
How important pronunciation instruction is and how much time should
be allotted for it in such a crowded curriculum where general English is taught.
Some teachers might argue that pronunciation is not important at all for very few
of the tests require students to show their speaking ability. Others, however, find
that they do not know how to teach pronunciation, even if they want to teach it.
That is because of these conventional notions about pronunciation that the
teaching of it has, for too long, been neglected in many ESL/EFL curriculums all
over the world.

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Recently as English teaching has moved to language functions, and
communicative competencies, a new urgency for the teaching of pronunciation
has arisen (Celce-Murcia, 1987; Morley, 1994; Gilbert, 1994). In Vietnam,
however, we found that pronunciation had not received similar attentionyet.
According to our teaching experience, a great number of our students have many
difficulties in pronunciation. When speaking English, with very little or poorly
trained pronunciation skill, they have problems either making themselves
understand or understanding others.
After exploring and accumulating the experiences from colleagues, I have
some experiences in teaching pronunciation and achieved quite effective results.
The students are more interested in learning English and more confident in
speaking in front of the class. This improves that my methods are right. With the
passion and the love for teaching English, I have studied and developed the
research: "Experiences in teaching pronunciation for primary students "
2. THE PURPOSE OF THE RESEARCH.
- The research applies the methods of teaching pronunciation to involve
students in learning pronunciation well.
- Creating the language circumstance to communicate in English and
promote students to actively participate in communicative activities; offering
some solutions and methods for teaching pronunciation.
- Exchanging and sharing some experiences in teaching pronunciation for
primary student.
3. RESEARCH TASKS
- Systematizing some theoretical issues about the procedures and
activities in teaching pronunciation in English Primary program according to the
communicative approach.
- Exploring the present situation of teaching pronunciation at Primary

School and suggesting some techniques in teaching pronunciation to develop
speaking skill for elementary students, helping them be more confident to
communicate in English.
4. RESEARCH TIME AND LOCATION
Research Time : School Year 2015-2016.
Research Location: Nghi Son Primary School
Research Object: " Applying the methods of teaching pronunciation for
primary students "
The respondents of the research: With this research I focused on the
primary student, especially the students of class 3.
B. CONTENT
1 . RATIONALE
A significance of research, developed over many years, is available to
inform educators about effective approaches to teaching children how to read.
However, research on applying the methods of teaching pronunciation for
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primary students is in its infancy. This reflects the fact that many teachers in
the Vietnam are faced with the challenge of teaching children to listen and
speak in English while the students have a heritage language that is not English
and they are not proficient in English yet. Making this a more critical issue,
several researches suggest that teachers are not receiving adequate professional
development in effective strategies to teach pronunciation for students. As part
of the effort to learn more about teaching pronunciation for primary students,
educational researchers and teachers in Vietnam have looked at instructional
practices in Primary School. In order to be successful in using of the information
presented in this research, many teachers might want to consider the following
set of questions together in preparation for making decisions about teaching
pronunciation for primary students.

Pronunciation is an umbrella term that encompasses the interrelated areas
of sounds, phonetic symbols, stress, intonation and rhythm. Good pronunciation
comes from a lot of technical knowledge on the part of the teacher about
placement of the mouth, etc. Most teachers in Vietnam unfortunately, do not
have this knowledge and therefore tend to pass it off as being unimportant but in
fact, as you progress in your fluency, pronunciation becomes more and more
important. Language learning needs a lot of practice and both mechanical and
meaningful practice lead to improved pronunciation. Only practising that
pronunciation will become automatic and drill-like activities are not always
considered interesting. Nevertheless perception practice is a good way to help
learners distinguish certainly sounds.
Pronunciation involves far more than individual sounds. Word stress,
sentence stress, intonation, and word linking all influence the sound of spoken
English, not to mention the way we often slur words and phrases together in
casual speech. 'What are you going to do?' becomes 'Whaddaya gonna do?'
English pronunciation involves to many complexities for learners to strive for a
complete elimination of accent, but improving pronunciation will boost self
esteem, facilitate communication, and possibly lead to a better job or a least
more respect in the workplace. Effective communication is of greatest
importance, so choosing first to work on problems that significantly hinder
communication and let the rest go. Remember that your students also need tobe
learnt strategies for dealing with misunderstanding, since native pronunciation is
for most an unrealistic goal.
Pronunciation is an interesting area because when learning in a classroom
context, pronunciation isn’t usually a major factor that influences
comprehension. The value of teaching pronunciation cannot be underestimated.
Besides the difficulty of changing a `bad habit´, early pronunciation instruction
helps students understand how to form sounds that are not found in their mother
tongue, contributes to decoding ability and lowers the affective filter. Some
researchers suggest that pronunciation does not need to be taught and will `take

care of itself´ over time. Others suggest that teaching pronunciation is necessary.
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In order to avoid some of the pitfalls associated with poor pronunciation it
is important to hear as much of the target language (TL) as possible. This
exposure to the TL can be from the teacher, from films or media clips, songs or
audio clips, guest speakers and one’s peers.
This research will present specific tools and techniques to help students
overcome problems with English pronunciation. The selection of problems is
based on both the frequency and seriousness of errors which many Vietnamese
students may produce. Methods are resolved or resolving the various problems,
such as missing final consonants, misplaced stress in sentences, and misused
intonation patterns, will be discussed in the three areas of pronunciation: sounds,
stress & rhythm, and intonation. Activities related to the correction of these
errors are designed to meet students' different learning styles, namely auditory,
visual, tactile, and kinesthetic learning. In this way, the goal of the “learnercentered” classroom is hoped to be pragmatically achieved.
2. THE PRESENT SITUATION OF THE PROBLEM
Analysis of my school’s performance in teaching and learning
pronunciation in recent years showed that our average score in pronunciation
had been consistently below that of like other schools in urban areas. It was a
situation that was of concern and motivated a thorough examination of the
school’s approach to the teaching of pronunciation.
Our school is a public primary school in a rural area in Thanh Hoa
province. It is a large school with about 807 students, ranging from 6 to 10 years
old. There are four or five classes in each grade, meaning that collaboration
among teachers is extremely important to ensure consistency in learning
programs. In the school year 2009 - 2010, Ministry of Education and Training
applied pronunciation as the framework in the program of teaching English for
primary students . After several years of teaching the book Tieng Anh 3, I found

that most of the students can not pronounce the new words correctly. They only
focused on grammar and vocabulary and did not like to learn pronunciation
during the lesson.
2.1. About students
In fact, in the process of learning a foreign language, students often focus
on learning grammar mainly because the test requires the application of
grammar, the tests often have a few exercises with pronunciation. In English
class they have little chance to practice pronouncing. Over time they lose their
ability to communicate in English. In addition, the limitation of students’
speaking skill that has some reasons:
+ The old habit of learning English does not motivate students to
communicate in English.
+ Being lack of knowledge of English to communicate everyday .
+ Having a few opportunities to speak and practise English in the
classroom with their teacher and classmates.
2.2 . About the teacher
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Many teachers in the Vietnam are faced with the challenge of teaching
students to pronounce correctly, when the students have a heritage language that
is not English and they are not yet proficient in English
Normally when teaching a foreign language, teachers often focus on
teaching vocabulary, grammar or structure. However, grammar is not the final
result of the teaching and learning process. It is only a tool to help learner to
communicate more effectively. But in fact, there are some differences between
spoken English and written English. Written English requires the accuracy
statement of the structure, whereas spoken English needs the flexibility and the
intimacy in communication .
From those factors, there are some problems in teaching pronunciation for

primary student at school. However, in a number of causes, teachers and
students can progressively overcome the difficulties. Therefore, in the teaching
process teachers must use some suitable techniques to teach students how to lean
pronunciation effectively. He or she should have creative and flexible
approaches in using the methods of teaching pronunciation.
2.3. About the teaching facilities
My school has facilities of teaching and learning to meet the needs of
specific subjects such as: projectors, the modern teaching equipment such as
Television, CD player, etc. So the application of teaching pronunciation is quite
effectively.
2.4. The quality survey and students’ classification
Based on the present situation of students in class 3 the level of all
students is acquired after a few weeks of the new school year with the methods
of teaching pronunciation. I had a test on students in class 3A, 3B, 3C, 3D to
survey and classify the students. The following servey showed the result:
Class

The
Excellent
Good
Fair
Poor
Fail
numbers
(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
(F)
of students

3A
30
0
5=16,7% 8=26,6% 12=40%
5=16,7%
3B
29
0
4=13,8% 10=34,5% 11=37,9% 4=13,8%
3C
28
0
4=14,3% 9=32,1% 11=39,3% 4=14,3%
3D
28
0
4=14,3% 8=28,6% 11=39,3% 5=17,8%
According to the survey result, I have classified the students and
immediately applied the methods and experiences which I accumulated over the
years to improve the teaching and learning quality.
3. THE SOLUSION
According to the present situation in English classes at my school,
pronouncing wrong still exists in all grades from 3 to 5, especially in grade 3. To
improve this situation, I would like to present some techniques for teaching
pronunciation and elicit the stages of teaching pronunciation for primary student
which I have researched and applied quite successfully at my school.
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This research will attempt to address the common and serious

pronunciation errors that Vietnamese students produce. Activities related to the
correction of these errors are designed to meet students' different learning styles,
namely auditory, visual, tactile, and kinesthetic learning. As for the research's
title, the "learner-centered" classroom, we take the term from a broader
perspective, meaning that it is a class where students can feel, experience, and
monitor their own learning of pronunciation. The research will cover the three
areas of pronunciation: sounds, stress & rhythm, and intonation with the
expectation that it will provide the audience with comprehensive insight into
ways of teaching pronunciation. The presentation is by no means
comprehensive; rather it is an opportunity for sharing what we know about new
perspectives in pronunciation instruction.
3.1. Sounds
Teaching sounds involves several steps: first, identify your students'
problem areas; second, find a meaningful context for the problem sounds, and
then develop communicative or relevant tasks that incorporate the sound; third,
develop at least three or four exercises so that students can keep practicing target
sounds in new contexts. ( Celce-Murcia, 1987 ). For the sounds part, we intend
to offer teachers some remedial teaching techniques for sounds which they can
apply in regular English classes to help students overcome problematic sounds.
Vowel length and final consonants are commonly found difficult for most
Vietnamese students to master in English classes. What teachers confront is that
no effective technique has been found to help students to pronounce some
problematic vowel contrast such as / i / and / I / correctly in sentences, in
dialogues or even in reading passages. Traditionally, teachers will model the
sounds and then students repeat them or teachers show a facial diagram which
allocates various sounds positions in the mouth to enhance correct
pronunciation. In order to provide teachers with more effective and interesting
teaching techniques, the first part of this paper will present some new teaching
tools and activities to solve the problems mentioned above.
In the second part of sounds, we will address the problem of dropping

final consonants while students are speaking. In Vietnamese, there is no CVC
structure ( consonant + vowel + consonant); consonants would never appear at
the end of the word. This is quite different from English. Influenced by
Vietnamese, students omit final consonants while speaking and this result in
semantic misunderstanding with each other. For example: They pronounce these
words in the same way: white, wine, wife, why, etc. The activities adopted tend
to alert students to final consonants and regulate their English language habits in
putting final consonants on in speech.
* Vowel Length
(1) Rubber bands. Students like to have the chance to experience how
sounds can be produced through operating a rubber band. For example, using a
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rubber band in / i / sound, students have to pull both sides of the rubber band to
the end to feel the strength and tense of / i /. On the other hand, while
practicing / I /, students just have to pull both sides of rubber bands slightly
apart, as shown below.
/i/

/I/

(Adopted from Gilbert, 1993, Clear Speech, 2nd. ed., p. 54)
By doing this, students can clearly distinguish the length of the two
vowels and experience the real difference between both sounds. Other vowel
sounds can also be demonstrated by rubber bands in the same way.
For example:
My brother is fifteen.
My grand mother is fifty – three yearsold.
(Tieng Anh 3 - Unit 11: This is my family – Lesson 3 - Page 10)

Students may hear two different vowel lengths of “fifteen” and “fifty”. The
"ee" vowel sound of “fifteen” is pronounced a little bit longer than the
''y'' of “fifty.” . Using rubber bands can help students to build up their listening
comprehension ability and clarify the slightly different vowel length.
One important aspect that teachers have to inform students about vowels
is that if the vowel sound follows a voiced consonant then the vowel sound will
be pronounced a little bit longer than when followed by a voiceless consonant
If the final sound is voiced, the vowel before it is long. Pull the rubber band
at both sides to the end. If the final sound is unvoiced, then the vowel before it is
short. Pull the rubber band slightly toward both sides.
For example:
rise
rice

(Gilbert, 1993, p.45)
Practice the rubber band with different words within the same vowel but
followed by voice and voiceless consonants, such as:
back bet cap plants cart sink ice bucks
bag bed cab plans card sing eyes bugs
(Dauer, 1993)
Then, do some minimal pairs to practice these similar word sounds in
sentences to reinforce the pronunciation. One student is speaking the sentence
and the other is operating the rubber band according to what he/she heard from
the partner.
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For example:
a. Please take this back. Please take this bag.
b. Has he used this bet? Has he used this bed?

c. I need a cap. I need a cab.
d. Where are your plants? Where are your plans?
e. Give him a cart. Give him a card.
f. She is going to sink. She is going to sing.
g. I wish I had blue ice. I wish I had blue eyes.
h. I found ten bucks. I found ten bugs.
(Dauer, 1993)
(2) Mirrors. In addition to rubber bands, mirrors are a strong selfcorrection tool for students to modify or imitate sounds. Teachers can ask
students to take out mirrors to do peer-correction or self-correction while
approaching some problematic sounds.
(3) Rhymes. To avoid boring students with continuous practicing and
drills, use rhymes with a regular beat and the same vowel sound. This will lead
students to master the target sound unconsciously. For example, we take /e /
sound into rhymes. Ask students to snap their fingers, clap, or tap on the desks to
keep the beat and read aloud the rhyme:
For example:
Look! Look! Look!
Look! Look! Look!
These are books.
Those are robots.
They're my books
They're my robots.
Look! Look! Look!
Look! Look! Look!
These are pens.
Those are robots.
They're my pens
They're my robots.
.
(Tieng Anh 3- Unit 8: This is my family – Lesson 3 – Page 56)

(4) Mother tongue. This is an added bonus if students find some way to
apply their mother tongue to some English sounds. For example: / e / sound can
be applied to Vietnamese as " ten " in an expressive situation. Examples can be
found successfully in class or in students' books.
For example:
How old is he?
How old is he?
He's eight.
He's eight yearsold.
How old is she?
She's nine.
She's nine yearsold.
How old are you?
I'm ten.
I'm ten yearsold.
(Tieng Anh 3 - Unit 11: This is my family – Lesson 3 - Page 10)
(5) Role play. A brief role play puts students into a realistic and
communicative situation and will allow the sounds to be spoken more naturally
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and necessarily. We have used a short dialogue which happened in a railroad
station between Mr. Gray and the conductor adopted from Pronunciation
Pairs (Baker & Goldstein, 1990). One student acts as the first person who is
asking about the things in the room, and the other student is the conductor who
is answering the questions:
For example:
Where's the book?
S1: Where is the book?
S2: Here! Here!

It's here
S1: Where is the ball?
S2: There! There!
It's under the chair.
S1: Where are the posters?
S2: On the wall. On the wall.
They're on the wall.
S1: Where are the posters?
S2: On the wall. On the wall.
They're on the wall.
(Tieng Anh 3- Unit 13: Where's my book? – Lesson 3 – Page 23)
(6) Tongue twisters. Tongue twisters are also an interesting way to
practice and contrast similar sounds and have fun at the same time. But there is a
huge challenge for the teacher and students to do it well. Teachers should tell
students at first not to feel upset at making mistakes because even for native
speakers, it is difficult. Examples for practicing / e / , and /æ / are below:
Henry, age eight, etched the letter h on the edge of the desk.
* Final Consonants
(1) Song lyrics. Teachers can ask students to read some popular song
lyrics aloud to practice final consonants. In our classes, students omit final
consonants often or pronounce them too lightly to be heard. For example, they
pronounce student as "studen". Therefore, we ask them to read the marked song
lyrics of "Silent Night" in which the final consonants in each sentence have been
underlined, and then to listen to the song to notice how the singer produced final
consonants.
Silent night, holy night. All is calm. All is bright.
Round young virgin, mother and child.
Holy infant, so tender and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace.......
(2) Numbers. Besides song lyrics, numbers can be a good aid in helping

students put final consonants on. For example, teachers can set up some
particular numbers to have students practice final consonants.
A: What is your telephone number?
B: 0982 818 205.
3.2. Stress and Rhythm
Why is it necessary to teach stress and rhythm? Every language in the
world has a characteristic speech rhythm. English tends to be a stress-timed
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language with rhythmic patterns based on a fairly regular recurrence of stressed
syllables (Browne & Huckin, 1987). However, Vietnamese tends to give equal
weight to each syllable, making the rhythmic patterns appear to be more
syllable-timed. In Vietnam, many students often use the Vietnamese rhythmic
pattern when speaking English; as a result, even though they can pronounce
each English sound correctly, their speech does not sound like English.
Their problems with the word rhythm of English are that they often
misplace the stress and give each syllable, whether it is stressed or unstressed,
the same length; thus, the vowels in the unstressed syllables are not reduced. As
for their problems with the sentence rhythm of English, one is that they put
stress on too many words, for they do not know what kinds of words need to be
emphasized; the other is that they tend to separate words during speech without
linking them together. In order to help Vietnamese students speak English
naturally, we are English teachers who should pay more attention to teaching the
rhythm of English. Two aspects of English rhythm, stress and linking, and some
teaching tools and techniques related to these two are now discussed.
* Stress
It is important for our students to know the different rhythmic patterns of
Vietnamese and English. The teacher can show them a visual contrast between
the two languages to indicate that Vietnamese is syllable-timed while English is

stress-timed.
A. Stress-Timed Rhythm
B. Syllable-Timed Rhythm

Pron
unciation is important.
(Adapted from the illustrations from Prator & Robinett, 1985, Manual of
American English Pronunciation. 4th ed.)
In the above illustrations, the Vietnamese rhythm is composed of soldiers
(each soldier represents a syllable), which implies that Vietnamese has the same
length and strength in all syllables; however, the English rhythm is composed of
adults (stressed syllables) and children (unstressed syllables), which implies that
English has different syllable length and strength.
After having built the concept of the different rhythmic patterns of
Vietnamese and English, students need to practice both word stress and sentence
stress in English. Following are some teaching techniques and activities.
* Word Stress
(1) Visual effects. Emphasize the stressed syllable by using visual effects:
thicken, capitalize, underline, circle, or color the stressed syllable. In addition,
the teacher can put a dot for unstressed syllables and a line for the stressed one
under the word to indicate that the stressed one needs to be lengthened; or he
can put a small dot for unstressed syllables and a big dot for the stressed one
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under the word to indicate that the stressed one has a stronger beat. Using visual
effects can help students notice the place of stress in each word and avoid
misusing word stress.
For example: today toDAY today today today today
(2) Rubber bands. Pull a wide rubber band between the two thumbs while

saying a word. Stretch it out during the stressed syllable but leave it short during
other syllables. It provides a visual image of the variable length of the syllables
as well as a kinesthetic tool that mimics the actual effort involved in lengthening
a stressed syllable (Gilbert, 1994). The teaching point is to help students avoid
pronouncing each syllable at the same length.
(3) Tapping, clapping, or playing simple rhythm instruments. Give a
strong beat to the stressed syllable and weak beats to the others by clapping,
tapping on the desk, or playing simple rhythm instruments like tambourines or
toy hammers. It helps students to be aware that unstressed syllables have weak
beats and so their vowels need to be reduced.
(4) Stress matching game. Have students work in groups. One member in
the group taps or claps the rhythm of a word from the vocabulary list, and the
others have to find out which word has the same rhythm as they hear.
For example: artist
manager secretary musician
politician cashier photographer
You hear : So you choose manager.
(5) Stress and Meaning. Have students work in pairs. Student 1 says
sentence (a) or (b). Notice that the stress in (a) and (b) is put in different places.
Student 2 has to identify a stressed syllable and make an intelligent guess and
then choose an appropriate answer. This activity helps students to understand the
relationship between stress and meaning.
For example:
1. (a) Is It an elephant? No, it’s a bear.
(b) Is it an apple? No, an orange.
2. (a) What’s for lunch? Rice and chicken.
(b) What’s a dinner? Bread and sausages
3. (a) Is that a ruler? No, it’s a pen
(b) Is that your book? No, it’s hers.
(Vietnamese Educational Publisher - Tieng Anh 3 - 2014)

* Sentence Stress
(1) Finding content words. First, introduce the basic emphasis pattern of
English to students to let them know that content words are usually emphasized.
The basic emphasis pattern of English :
Content Words nouns
main verbs
adverbs
adjectives
(emphasized)
(cat)
(runs)
(quickly)
(happy)
question words
(who, what, where, when, why, how)
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Structure
pronouns
Words
(he, she)
(de-emphasized)
conjunctions auxiliary verbs
(and, but) (can, have, do, will)

prepositions
(of, to, at)

articles

(a, an, the)

“to be” verbs
(is, was)

(Gilbert, 1993, p.72)
Then, have students circle or underline content words in a sentence and
give these words extra emphasis when speaking the sentence. At the same time,
students can tap, clap, or play simple rhythm instruments to produce strong and
weak beats in the sentence.
For example: He wants to be an actor, and he wants to live in Hollywood.
(2) Rhymes. Apply the rhythm of nursery rhymes to the rhythm of
ordinary sentences. The reason for this is that students can easily learn nursery
rhymes and catch their rhythm without too much effort. Practicing this way
helps them to maintain the rhythm patterns in sentences unconsciously and
naturally.
(3) Jazz chants. A Jazz chant is a fragment of authentic language
presented with special attention to its inherent natural rhythm (Graham, 1992). It
has a very clear and strong one-two-three-four beat, so it is easy for students to
practice the sentence rhythm through Jazz chants. To establish the tempo,
students can count out the rhythm by clapping, finger snapping, or tapping on
the desk.
For example:
12341234
Chicken, chicken soup. Rice and beans, rice and beans.
1234
I’d like a bowl of soup. Chicken soup.
1234
I’d like a large bowl of chicken soup.
(Graham, 1986, p.45)

* Linking
One of the essential characteristics of spoken English is that the words in
a thought group are linked together (Gilbert, 1993). Mortimer (1977) also talked
about the importance of linking: to pronounce English fluently, it is necessary to
link words together as a native speaker of English normally does. Vietnamese
students often fail to do this because they pronounce one word at a time in
English just as they do when speaking Vietnamese. Therefore, linking needs to
be taught in order to help students to speak English more fluently as well as to
improve their comprehension of English native speakers’ normal speech.
Following are some teaching techniques.
(1) Chain pictures. Use chains to give a visual image of spoken English,
but use separate circles to represent spoken Vietnamese. It helps students to

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identify the different speech pattern between spoken English and spoken
Vietnamese.
(2) Magnets. Gilbert (1994) mentioned that the pull of magnets can be a
physical metaphor to emphasize the attraction between succeeding words,
especially if the following word begins with a vowel. She suggested the use of
magnets, pieces of iron, and blocks of wood to make teaching aids. However, we
modified this; we used some empty audio-tape cases and magnets to produce
this effect. Flash cards (e.g., pick, it, me) were put in different tape cases and the
magnets were glued onto the two ends of each tape case. Make sure that the two
words can be attracted only when the first word’s final letter is a consonant and
the second word’s first letter is a vowel (e.g., pick it ); otherwise, the two words
are repulsed (e.g., pick me). It helps students remember to link words through
this physical image.
For example:

pick it
pick me up
Look at
Stand up
(3) Curved lines. Use the curved line “ ” between the last and first letters
to indicate they need to be linked together. It provides a visual image to remind
students of linking words.
For example:
Hold∪ on. Pick ∪ it up.
I need∪ a cup of tea.
Look∪ at
(4) Chants, poems, or song lyrics. Practice linking through reading chants,
poems, or song lyrics. Students need to know that English words are linked
together during speech.
For example:
I love my parents.
I love you, Mummy. I love you, Mummy.
I love you so much. Do you know that?
You never know how much I love you.
Oh, Mummy! I love you so much.
I love you, Daddy. I love you, Daddy.
I love you so much. Do you know that?
You never know how much I love you.
Oh, Daddy! I love you so much.
(Tieng Anh 3- Unit 18 : What are you doing? – Lesson 2 – Page 55)
3.3. Intonation
In addition to Stress & Rhythm, Intonation, or Melody, or change in pitch,
is another significant feature in English. The purpose of intonation, according to
Gilbert (1994), is “helping the listener to follow.” It is a navigation guide for the
listener. She goes on to note that “L2 learners have difficulty hearing

intonation”(p.43). Indeed, most of our students, when listening to English, pay
more attention to sounds, vocabulary, and grammar. Seldom do they attend to
pitch changes. Therefore, when it comes to speaking, they tend to pronounce
each word as clearly as possible. It is no surprise to find that many students
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speak English simply by applying the rhythmic structure of Chinese. The result
is that they sound monotonous. That is, their voice is rather flat with little or no
change in pitch. The two major problems: (1) misused intonation patterns; and
(2) lack of sentence focus, and emotions appropriate to the situation, along with
some teaching activities are now discussed.
* Intonation Patterns
One way to make students become aware of their problems in Intonation
Patterns is to have them listen to contrasting recordings. The tape can be
designed in such a way that students have a chance to hear their own voices and
the native speakers’. The conversation should be deliberately chosen with
various intonation patterns so that it is easy and obvious for them to find their
problems. In the following example, two basic intonation patterns,
Rising/Falling Intonation and Rising Intonation, are presented. The topic is
identifying house.
For example:
Is there a garden?
Is there a garden behind the house? – Yes, there is. Yes, there is..
Is there a yard behind the house? – Yes, there is. Yes, there is.
Is there a gate behind the house? – No, there isn't. No, there isn't.
Is there a pond behind the house? – No, there isn't. No, there isn't
(Tieng Anh 3- Unit 12: This is my house – Lesson 3 – Page 16)
Once students hear the two versions of the dialogue, they will
immediately recognize the striking difference in intonation between their version

and the native speakers’. Then the teacher should seek possible ways to solve
their problems, such as misused intonation patterns. We suggest that the three
intonation patterns be presented through various visual or aural effects. Some
techniques include drawing pitch lines/curves or arrows, using musical scores,
and using kazoos. Let's take a closer look at each of these techniques.
(1) Pitch lines/curves. One of the most commonly used ways to teach
various intonation patterns is to draw pitch lines/curves. Besides drawing the
pitch lines/curves, we suggest that the teacher blacken the last stressed syllable
and put a dot over it. In doing so, students can be expected to produce the
appropriate intonation with the correct word stress.
Linda: How was your trip? (Rising/Falling Intonation)
(2) Arrows. Another simple way to teach intonation is to draw arrows over
the place where pitch changes. It is a variation, in particular, for showing how
pitch rises and falls within a sentence. The two examples are presented: a choice
question as shown in A and a statement showing a series of items as in B.
A: Can we rent it or buy it? (Combination Intonation)
B: I have classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
(3) Musical scores. The other effective visual effect is musical scores. In
the following example, the pitch rises on “telle,” which is the last stressed
syllable. In order to be able to do that, students need to apply their knowledge of
15


basic emphasis patterns as has been shown earlier in the part Sentence Stress.
That is, stress content words and not structure words.
Linda: May I go out?(Rising Intonation)
(4) Follow-ups. Often times when teaching Intonation Patterns, we found
that many students seem to have more problems with Rising Intonation than
with any other patterns. we have noticed that many of our students tend to ask
Yes/No questions with Rising/Falling Pattern instead of Rising Intonation. Some

may use Rising Pattern but tend to rise at the end of the sentence. We suspect it
may have some relation with their mother tongue. Compare the following
Yes/No questions:
For example:
English: Can you speak English?
Vietnamese: Bạn có biết nói Tiếng Anh không?
The difference between English and Vietnamese is obvious when asking
Yes/No questions. Whereas English use Rising Intonation, Vietnamese use
Falling intonation or slightly rise at the question word “ ?”, which is added at the
end of the sentence. Apparently, for Vietnamese students, the Rising Pattern is a
new habit that they need to learn how to perform. Whenever students have
problems with Rising Intonation, practicing putting sentences on musical scores
can be a useful way to help them out. Kazoos can be another option.
Musical scores and kazoos. Draw musical scores for the following
sentences, and then practice saying or kazoing the sentences.
For example:
(a) Could you make a sandwich for me?
(b) Will you be interested in it?
(c) Would you like some Ice cream?
* Sentence Focus & Emotions
Though our students have learned the basic emphasis patterns mentioned
in part Stress and Rhythm, they should know that these rules are not fixed. In
fact, English speakers use emphasis on any word in a sentence to achieve
various results, such as introducing new information, showing contrasts,
correcting the previous information, or creating special attention or emphases,
and so on. This special emphasis is called the sentence focus.
(1) Visual effects. One simple way to help students understand the
importance of sentence focus is through visual effects. We can show students
two different pictures. For example: in the following pictures, what do you see?

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A big book and a small book. That's an easy way to make students
become aware of the importance of focus. To help students overcome the
problem with sentence focus, the teacher can easily draw from the textbook
suitable situations in which two speakers exchange information by showing
contrasts. For example:
A: This is your book.
B: No. That's her book. or No. That's hers.
Notice that for speaker B, the stress shifts from “book” to “her,” which
indicates the emphasis of the response. If it is the general sentence, it should be :
That's her book. The stress falls on "book" rather than "her."
(2) Mini dialogues.
Another perfect topic to help students practice these characteristics is
good news or bad news. In the following two situations, students can take turns
practicing with a partner, playing with focus
words “wonderful”, “wow”,and “Oh,” by dramatizing, lengthening and speaking
louder. Encourage students to add personal emotions with given situations.
Rubber bands can also be used here to get visual effects on vowel lengthening.
For example:
Tony: This is the living room.
Nam: Wow! It’s nice. Is there a garden?
Tony: Yes, There is. . Come and see it.
(Tieng Anh 3- Unit 12: This is my house – Lesson 2 – Page 14)
(3) Follow-ups. Sometimes we may want to challenge our students with
tasks where they learn to become intelligent in using focus. For the following
activity, student A asks : “Where's Sapa?.” Student B has to, first, look at the
responding sentence, then figure out the focus should be on word “Sapa,” and
respond to student A appropriately.

For example:
A: Where's Sapa?.
B: It's in the north of Viet Nam
Giving the name of some cities and have students work in pairs or groups,
and take turns practicing the conversation.
( Tieng Anh 3- Unit 20: Where's Sapa?- Lesson 1- Page 64)
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3.4. Five basic steps to teach pronunciation.
Pronunciation is presented in part 1 of lesson 3 in all Units of the book “
Tieng Anh 3” which is published by Vietnamese Educational Publishers.
Teaching pronunciation in Tieng Anh 3 consists of teaching Phonics and
Songs/ Rhymes/Chants. Pronunciation enables pupils to recognize the
relationship between letters or letter combinations and the sounds they make.
With the knowledge of phonics, pupils are able to improve their speaking and
reading skills because they can identify the spelling and the pronunciation
patterns of listening new words and decode them quickly. Focus the pupils’
attentions on the letter and its sounds in words, and model the new sounds a few
times for pupils to repeat. It is advisable that the teacher should introduce the
Songs/ Rhymes/ Chants in which the new sounds are embedded; teach new
vocabulary, using flashcards, realia, pictures, etc; and mime the lines if it is
possible. These are five steps that I usually use to teach phonics in Lesson 3:
Listen and repeat. It need to be noted that in the classroom, the correct
pronunciation of the teachers is not enough, it also needs the modern equipments
such as speakers, CD player, Robot teacher, etc.
Step 1 : Introducing the sounds in the songs, rhymes or chants; teaching
new words using word cards, real objects, pictures, etc. Focusing on the sounds
of letters and words.
Step 2 : Playing the recording a few time or let pupils listen to the Robot

Teacher; having them repeat each line of the Songs/ Rhymes/ Chants and clap
the words containing the focused sounds.
Step 3 : Clap your hands to the beat while listening to the words that
contain the sound that need to be trained.
Step 4 : Organizing students to practice in pairs or groups to practice the
songs, rhymes or chants.
Step 5 : Calling on some volunteers to perform the Songs/ Rhymes/
Chants at the front of the class and have the rest of the class clap the rhythm of
the chant.
4. The efficiency of the research
After applying successfully the methods and procedures to teach
pronunciation, the students’ improvement in pronunciation can be seen clearly.
The result in the first semester of the school year 2015-2016 shows the increase
in the percentage of students who can pronounce correctly. What is especially
pleasing is the impact of pronunciation in class 3 as there are fewer students who
can not pronounce correctly than the beginning of the first semester. The
significance of the methods of teaching pronunciation can be seen when
examining the percentage of students with a reading age above their
chronological age since the program’s implementation. The number of students
assigned to be improve their pronunciation, especially bad students who now
can pronounce more correctly. Comparing with the result survey at the
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beginning of new school year, I find that the recent result is better than the old
one. The following chart will show the result:
Class The numbers
of students
3A
30

3B
29
3C
28
3D
28

Excellent
(A)
5=16,7%
5=17,2%
6=21,4%
4=14,2%

Good
(B)
10=33,3%
11=37,9%
12=42,9%
12=42,9%

Fair
Poor
(C)
(D)
14=46,7% 1= 3,3%
12=41,4% 1=3,4%
10=35,7%
0
12=42,9%

0

Fail
(F)
0
0
0
0

In conclusion, the changing of the students’ pronunciation has been a resounding
success. The consistency and clarity it has afforded in teaching pronunciation for
primary student has been worth the time and effort. My students are capable and
ready for explicit teaching of pronunciation and are highly motivated by their
success in speaking English.
C. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS.
1. CONCLUSION
Pronunciation certainly deserves strong attention in the English class,
especially in classes with a communicative approach. Poor pronunciation will
cause problems in oral communication no matter how good a speaker’s control
of English grammar and vocabulary might be. Many of the problems, in fact, are
caused by the influence of the speaker’s mother tongue; Vietnamese students
tend to use Vietnamese speech patterns or styles when speaking English.
Therefore, English teachers must to help students be aware of this tendency in
order to be able to speak English clearly and intelligently.
To overcome students’ pronunciation problems, we offer a variety of
kinesthetic, visual, and aural devices and activities for teaching English
pronunciation. Although we do not have pronunciation class in our current
English curriculum, it is hoped that these tools and techniques we have referred
to will be a great help to English teachers as well as students.
This research investigated the methods of teaching pronunciation for

primary student, lesson delivery and sequence of content and learning
expectations used by teachers of English at Nghi Son Primary School. This
research brings broader understanding of strategies for teaching pronunciation to
students whose first language is not English. The rationale for the study stems
from the need to gain greater international perspective of the teaching of English
learners. Results reflect analysis of classroom observation field notes of students
in grade 3.
To sum up, The research provides some methods to improve teaching
pronunciation for primary student in order to form the habit of using English
words that contributes to improve the quality of students' listening skill and
19


speaking skill in particular and English for academic subjects in general. This
research does reveal some promising practices but more research is needed.
2. RECOMMENDATIONS.
1. To the leaders
To enhance the capacity of teachers in teaching English, the leaders
should organize the training courses for the English teachers regularly. Through
the training courses, teachers have the opportunity to exchange and learn their
experience.
2. Acknowledgments
I am grateful to the Ministry of Education and Training for publishing the
book Tieng Anh 3, 4, 5; for valuable discussions and innovative ideas and
techniques of teaching pronunciation during the program. I would also like to
thank the experts of Tinh Gia District Office of Education and Training, my
colleague at Nghi Son Primary School, for providing helpful comments for the
research.
Finally, I would like to encourage Vietnamese teachers to have more
confidence in teaching English pronunciation even though we are not native

speakers of English. With full advanced preparation, including practicing our
own pronunciation and designing effective teaching activities, we can all be
experts in teaching English pronunciation.
Headmaster’s signature

Tinh Gia district, march 11th 2016
I swear this thesis is written by me without
copy content from others.
Written by

Tran Thi Thuy

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