Some techniques to teach the sound ʊ and u for gifted students at luong ngoai secondary school

THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONN AND TRAINING

BA THUOC CHAMBER OF EDUCATION & TRAINING

EXPERIENCE INITIATIVE

SOME TECHNIQUES TO TEACH THE SOUND / ʊ / AND / u: /
FOR GIFTED STUDENTS AT LUONG NGOAI SECONDARY
SCHOOL

Writer: Ha Thi Thao
Position: Teacher
Teaching school: Luong Ngoai secondary school
The aspect of study: English

THANH HOA 2019
1|Page


INDEX

1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Reason of research..................................................................
1.2. The purpose of the research ...................................................
1.3. Research subjects....................................................................
1.4. Method of research.................................................................
2. CONTENT
2.1. Rationale.................................................................................
2.2. Statement of the problem........................................................
2.2.1. Problem
2.2.2. Effect

2.3. Suggested Solutions and Implementation...............................

Page 3
Page 4
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Page 5
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Page 6
Page 6

2.3.1. Some techniques to teach the two sounds.

Page 7

2.3.2. Practice activities for both / u:/ and / ʊ /

Page 13

2.3.3. Some helpful tips I got after applying the initiative

Page 14

2.4. Results.....................................................................................
2.4.1. For education activity.
2.4.2. For subject’s quality.
2.4.3. For myself.

2.4.4. For my colleagues.
3. CONCLUSION AND PROPOSAL
3.1. Conclusion..............................................................................
3.2. Proposal.................................................................................
DOCUMENTS
CATEGORY INITIATIVES

Page 14
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1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale
There are many things that English teachers need to fit into their limited
class time-grammar, vocabulary, speaking, listening, reading, and writing.
Pronunciation often gets pushed to the bottom of the list. Many teachers say
there’s just not enough time to teach pronunciation. Students often think it isn’t
that important-after all, it won’t be tested on their high school entrance exams! But
if students need or want to speak English understandably, pronunciation is
important. “The days when learners only needed reading and writing skills in
English are past. Depending on where you teach, many or all of your students will
need to speak and understand English in real life to communicate with both native
2

speakers of English and speakers of other languages. Even if students’ grammar
and vocabulary are strong, if their pronunciation isn’t easy to understand, their
communication will fail” [1]. We owe it to our students to give them the tools
they’ll need to be able to communicate successfully in English.
When teaching pronunciation, I see many students including gifted students
have difficulties in identifying the sounds / ʊ / and / u:/. These sounds are
available in the phonetic exercises so I decided to choose this subject as my
research. Many of my students confessed that they couldn’t recognize when to
pronounce / ʊ / or / u:/. I am their teacher of English, but my teaching remedies
didn’t help them much and this made me always make questions to myself such as
“How must I do to help the students recognize the two sounds correctly?” and “
How should the practice activities be to get their high attention to them?”. It can’t
be denied that recognizing the sounds / ʊ / and / u:/ is not easy at all. They
themselves are fairly different in different cases. In addition the rules of
generalization of them not fixed. Thus they make us confused.
Little understanding, lacking of practice led to the fact that many students
couldn’t find out the two sounds correctly and read the word wrongly. As a result,
students make mistakes in speaking and pronunciation exercises.
The repeated mistakes of / ʊ / or / u:/ forced us to ask ourselves once again:
+ Why can't they recognize the two sounds correctly?
+ How do we teach them?
+ What practice activities should we use for students to practice?
+ How do we test?
Train students to become independent and autonomous learners
because our students won’t be with us forever. Someday they’ll be facing
pronunciation puzzles on their own. If we can help them build up their own skills
in listening, imitating, and monitoring their own pronunciation, it will be a big
help to them in their future learning. After many years teaching English at Luong

Ngoai secondary school, coping with a lot of difficulties that gifted students have
in pronouncing the sound / ʊ / and / u:/ I applied some new ways to change the
learning skills and results of students. In this study, I would like to clarify the way
I did through the topic “Some techniques to teach the sound / ʊ / and / u:/ for
gifted students at Luong Ngoai Secondary School”
1.2. The purpose of the research
- To help students recognize and pronounce the sounds / ʊ / or / u:/ correctly .
1.3. Research subjects
- To research the regulations so as to help the students at Luong Ngoai school
overcome difficulties in identifying the sounds / ʊ / and / u:/correctly.
1.4. Researching method:
During the study, I used the following methods:
- Survey and investigation are applied to investigate the quality of students
when they pronouce the sound / ʊ / and / u:/ through class activities and tasks in
the textbook
3


- Observation is applied to observe the activities of students during the time
they are included in the phonetic drills.
- Practice is applied when the teachers organize activities for students to
reconigzie the sound/ ʊ / and / u:/ .
- Analysis, statistics, synthesis, comparation and assessment are applied to
assess the progress of students when they approach with new methods
2. CONTENT
2.1. Theoretical Base
English has 24 consonant sounds and 20 vowel sounds, represented by just
21 consonant letters and five vowel letters. Also, unlike some other languages,
English does not have a one-to-one correspondence between letter and sound. For
example, the spelling group “ough” is pronounced differently in the words ought,

rough, though and through. Or take the letter sequence “gh”, which has different
pronunciations in rough, ghost and through. In fact, in through, “gh” is not
pronounced at all. There are many other such words in English where some letters
remain silent-calm, pneumonia, doubt. It must be said that pronunciation is one of
the most important points not only in English but also in any foreign language.
Pronouncing correctly helps learners understand better and it also helps you listen
better. That requires a systematic knowledge of vocabulary and the practice of
pronunciation, stress of words and sentences. The same word you say wrong,
when you hear a native speaker say that you cannot understand it because you
may find the word very strange, do not realize what the word is and as a result you
do not understand a whole sentence. Besides, if you say wrong then native
speakers do not understand what you are saying or cause misunderstanding.
Pronunciation is main basic part of learning a new language – it’s
especially important when it comes to your speaking and listening skills!
“English's role as a lingua franca has implications for teaching pronunciation.
The goal is not to sound like a native speaker, but rather to communicate
effectively in a global context” [2]. When students learn English, Teachers will
definitely talk about ‘vowel sounds’, but let’s take a quick look at long and short
vowels right here.
What’s a long vowel?
A long vowel sound is one that is pronounced the same way as its name, like
the A in the word ‘make’ - /meɪk/. In the phonetic alphabet, it’s written as /eɪ/.
What’s a short vowel?
A short vowel sound does not sound like the letter’s name, like in the
word ‘mad’. In the phonetic alphabet, this sound is written /a/. This can be tricky
when saying words like ‘beach’ or ‘sheet’, which can sound a lot like some rude
words!
4

Short vowel sound (/u/): e.g. Cut
This sound is pronounced (/ʌ/), like in bus, until, and ugly.
Long vowel sound (/uː/): e.g. Cute
The /uː/ sound can be heard in the words use, argue, and student.
2.2. Statement of the problem
2.2.1. Problem:
Many researchers have also proven that students are much more ready to
interact with each other with more complex responses than with their teacher [4]
‘students feel comfortable working, interacting and making mistakes with their
partners rather than with their teachers and corrective feedback from peers are
found to be less daunting than the correction by teachers. I was a new teacher at
Luong Ngoai Secondary School. Many of my students could barely pronunciation
any English and were reluctant to even try. Most of the time, they were found
speaking Muong, their mother tongue language. After a short time teaching in
here, myself identifies factors causing pronunciation difficulties as: Students are
worried about making mistakes fearful of criticism, or simply shy. Students have
no motivation to express themselves… only one participant can talk at a time
because of large classes and the tendency of some students to dominate while
others speak very little or not at all… students who share the same mother tongue
tend to use it because it is easier and because they feel less exposed if they speak
their mother tongue.
- / ʊ / và /u:/ are the popular sounds in English. However, most students in Luong
Ngoai often mistake the sound / ʊ / for /u:/. The main reason of the mistake is that
in Vietnamese all the syllables are read alike, and there is no concept of "long
syllable" so Luong Ngoai students find it difficult to pronounce short and long
vowels, which leads to misunderstanding for the listeners.
2.2.2. Effect.
In fact, when I taught gifted student in the school year 2017-2018, 2018-2019
at Luong Ngoai Secondary School. To have accurate basis for determining
innovative solutions, find out the way to solve the problem, from the beginning of

school year 2017 – 2018, 2018-2019 I conducted a survey for gifted students in
grade 8 and obtained the following results:
5


Table 1. Result English 8 marks (general lesson), school year 2017-2018
and 2018-2019:
Gra
de

Total

8
8

15
15

Good
Amou
%
nt
0
0
0
0

Fair
Amo
%

unt
0
0
2
13,3

Medium
Amo
%
unt
7
46,6
8
53,4

Weak
Amo
%
unt
7
46,6
4
26,6

Poor
Amo
%
unt
1
6.8

1
6,7

Table 2. Survey result emotional index of gifted students for English
pronunciation:
Like so
Like
Nomal
Dislike
much
School year Total
SL
% SL
%
SL
%
SL
%
2017-2018
15
0
0
3
20
5
33,3
7
46,7
2018-2019
15

0
0
5
33,3
7
46,7
3
20
By the statistical results showed that the percentage of weak & poor
students are still quite high. This indicates their pronunciation skills are limited, so
the essential problem is how to train pronunciation skills for students to be
effective, I have proposed solutions and used following methods to perform.
2.3. Suggested solutions and implementation
How do you know if a word in English is pronounced with the long vowel
sound or the short vowel sound? For example, cut and cute are pronounced
differently, but which one has the long u sound? It may seem obvious with a short,
familiar word, but what if you encounter a new word that you have never seen
before? There is a quick an easy trick I have found that will give you the right
answer most of the time.
2.3.1) Some techniques to teach the two sounds:
The sound /u:/
A. LESSON ONE: The sound /u:/
In this unit we will study the various letters which represent or include the
sound / u: / for example,/u:/ in blue, too, who and chew
A.1)Teaching /u:/ sound.
-Describe
the
way
of
pronouncing

/u:/
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/uː/ is a long vowel sound. Make a lip into a circle. Put your tongue up and back.
It's pronounced /uː/....../uː/.
- Write some words that includes /u:/ on the board and read them out.
Blue, Chew, Route, Two, Cruise, Boot, Hoop, Goose, bamboo
Ask students to compare the words. They recognize that the letters pronounced
/u:/ are different. After that we teach them how to identify the vowels
pronounced /u:/.
* WRITE ON THE BOARD:
+ “o” is pronounced /u:/ in some common words that end by “o” or “o” with
some certain consonants.
Example:
Do, To, Lose, Tomb.
+) “u” is pronounced as /u:/ in words having “ue”, “u-e”, “uit”, “ui-e” , as in glue,
June, fruit, cruise.
+) “oo” is pronounced as /u:/ when standing at the end of a word or a sound or
being followed by some consonants: l, d, t, n, th (e) as in school, tooth, noon,
7


soot, food, sooth except for “oo” followed by k as in book, look, and some words
such as “foot”, “floor”.
+) “ou” is pronounced as /u:/ in some words when it is followed by “p”, “pe”,
“ch-”, “nd”, “ff” as in loup, troupe, douche, wound, boudoir, bouffant. Words
similar to (because they are derived from) French words tend to have /u/, e.g.
"soup", "route" [for UK speakers], "group" etc;
+) “ew” is also pronounced /u:/.For example: crew, grew, bedew, jewel…
A.2) Practice activity:

- For beginners:
a) Reorder:
- Students can reorder the letters given to make a fully worked-out word.
- Teacher writes some jumble letters on the board or hang on a sub-board or
deliver worksheets to students for them to reorder the letters.
For example:
1. w t o
……………………….
2. o d
……………………….
3. g o r u
p
……………………….
4. ch s e o
……………………….
5. b r i u
s e
……………………….
6. s
m th o o
……………………….
7. b
e
h
s
r e w ……………………….
8. f
u
t
l

e
……………………….
9. g o
g
o l
e
……………………….
10. t
b
e
u
……………………….
The answer:
1. two
6. smooth
2. do
7. bestrew
3. group
8. flute
4. chose
9. google
5. bruise
10. tube
b) Fill in the missing word.
Students can be given partially written words and then fill in the missing letters.
To make it easier, pictures [4] are included.

1.s - - 2.j - - - -

3.t - - 8

4.h-m- - -

5.sa - - -

6. W - -

( Capital letters)

7. re - - - -

8.w - -

- -

The answer:
1.soup
2.juice
3.tooth
4.humour
5.salute

6.remove
7.remwove
8.wound

c) Categories:
Students can work in pairs or in groups to write words containing /u:/
through an activity like the following one: Teacher prepares many words in

different categories. A student goes to the board and picks one word up then the
others try to guess the word by asking him/ her questions. For instance, he picks a
word relating to appliance of family. Through questions are made, students can
find the word “broom”.
Suggestions for categories:
+Appliance of family: broom, duvet, bathroom scales, stool, spoon, cruise
+Animals: baboon, gnu, goose, rooster, moose, raccoon, bluebird
+Vegetables and fruits: mushroom, ugli fruit, jackfruit, star fruit, blueberry
+Clothes: uniform, suit, hood, swimsuit, tunic, bloomers, pantsuit
+Jobs-occupation-professions: supervisor, musician, student, computer
programmer
-For intermediate:
9


Limit time for students to write as many words including long vowel u relating to
a certain category as possible. They can work individually, in pairs or in groups.
The categories can be
 Sports
 Foods
 Verbs
 personality
 Tools
Examples: judo, canoeing, rude, bestrew…..
- For advanced:
Ask students to work in groups of 5. Each group is given one of these tasks
following:
 Write as many words as you can that contain “oo”.
 Write as many words as you can that contain “u-e”, “ue”.
 Write as many words as you can that contain “ui”.

 Write as many words as you can that contain “ou”.
 Write as many words as you can that contain “ew”.
Allow students to use dictionary during the activity. When the time is
over, students hang their posters on the board. All groups can check and add more
words for each other with teacher’s controlling.
* Suggested answers:
- oo: cartoon, moon, monsoon, good Friday, food, noon, spoon, doomsday…
-u-e, ue: flute, June, cue, cube, cute, huge, plume, true…..
-ui: accruing, bruin, ruin, bruise…
-ou: through, croup, troupe, douche…
-ew: chew, grew, crew, blew, yew, …
B. LESSON TWO: The sound /ʊ/
In this lesson we get to know the letters pronounced /ʊ/.
B.1) Teaching / ʊ / sound.

-Describe the way of pronouncing / ʊ /

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/ʊ/ is a short vowel sound.
Make your lip a little rounded.
Your tongue is not so far back as for /u: /.
It’s pronounced /ʊ/…/ʊ/.
Write some words on the board and read them out.
/ʊ/
/u: /
Book
Tooth
Cook

Cartoon
Full
June
Put
It can be easily seen that there the same letters but they are pronounced
differently as book and cartoon.
+) "o" is pronounced /ʊ/ in some words such as wolf

,

woman
,bosom.
+) "ou" is pronounced /ʊ/ in some model verbs: should, would, could
+) "oo" " is pronounced /ʊ/ if it is followed by k, d, t as in book, good, sooth.
Now we can see that it is difficult to recognize /ʊ/ or /u: / in a word with “oo”
when we compare it to it in the previous lesson because “oo” itself has 2 ways of
pronunciation. Therefore we must learn the cases by heart.
Note: g,st or h precedes ood then oo is pronounced /ʊ/.
+) “u” is pronounced /jʊ/ when we find it in the pattern : “u + r + a vowel” such
as in cure, furious.
+) “u” is pronounced /ʊ/in some words when it is followed by “sh”, “ ll”, “t”.
For example: pull, push, foot except for boot, soot, cull, lull or ush follows b .
B.2) Practice activity:
/ ʊ / and /u:/ are the sounds in English that can be difficult for any learners, and
there are also distinctions between sounds that some students find confusing
because there is no such distinction in their mother tongue so it is definitely
worthwhile doing some activities to target specific areas.
- For beginners:
a. Limited time writing:
Divide the class into groups. Give them 5 minutes to write as many words as

Possible that containing short vowel u. The team which writes the most correct
words are the winner. Help the teams by writing on the board: ull, ush, ook, ould,
urb. Vowel /ʊ/ game:
Finding words.
Students can do it individually, in pairs or in groups to find out the given
words in the table.
11


W

S

O

N

G

B

O

O

K

T

R

O

H

T

B

X

R

B

H

T

O

N

M

O

M

C

Q

U

J

O

O

E

H

A

U

V

D

L

M

O

K

Z

E

I

N

L

P

L

N

F

S

Y

E

N

E

P

D

E

E

N

U

M

H

O

T

O

O

T

O

P

N

I

L

B

U

L

L

U

O

U

O

O

U

D

H

J

L

K

I

L

G

O

O

D

H

X

W

U

E

L

- For intermediate:

* Group work: Ask students to work in groups of 5. All groups do the same task at
the same time
First, write as many words as you can that contain “ur-”.
Second, write as many words as you can that contain “ush”.
Third, write as many words as you can that contain “ull”.
Last, write as many words as you can that contain “ook”.
Limit the time. Allow students to use dictionary during the activity. When
the time is over, students hang their posters on the board. All groups can check
and add more words for each other with teacher’s controlling.
* Suggested answers:
-cure, pure, during, curious, furious, durra, pure, lure, bureau…
-bush, push, push-cart, pushchair, ambush, pusher….
-bull, full, pull, bell-pull, bulldog, mournful….
-cook, book, look, crook, gook, shook…
- For advanced:
* Puzzle: Teacher prepares many questions for words containing short vowel /ʊ/.
Students try to guess the word to fill in the table. After the correct answers are
filled, they have a special word. For example:
1. V A L
U E
R
2.

C

R

O

O

K

E

3.

W

O

L

F
E

B

U

S

H

E

L

L

5.

B

U

L

L

E

T

6.

C

O

U

L

D

D
R

4.

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1. A person whose job is to say how much something is worth.
2. The shape of a witch’s nose.
3. Origin of the domestic dog.
4. Your skirt is torn, but you still want to wear it. So you take it to this person.
5. A metal projectile for firing from a rifle.
6. A modal verb shows ability in the past.
* Finding out
- Teacher shows the sentences containing the sounds /u:/ and /ʊ/ on the board then
ask students to find out
It should be good wool.
/ ʃʊd
gʊd wʊl/
The woman took a good look at the wolf.
/wʊmən tʊk gʊd lʊk
wʊlf/
Are you doing anything on Tuesday?
/ juː 'duːɪŋ
ˈtuːzdeɪ/
You must chew your food.
/juː
tʃuː
fuːd/
2.3.2) Practice activities for both / u:/ and / ʊ /
a. / u:/ or / ʊ /: Students are given a list of words containing long vowel u or short
vowel u. They have to decide which words belong to long vowel u group or short
vowel u one.

/ u:/
………………………………………
………………………………………
………………………………………
………………………………………
……………………………………
1. boot
2. good
3. soot
4.woman
5. hook
6. suit
7. pussy cat
8.full
b. Find / u:/ or / ʊ / way

/ʊ/
………………………………………
………………………………………
………………………………………
………………………………………
………………………………………
9. tube
10.pool
11.do
12.food
13.should
14. Undertook
15.push
16.tooth

13


Start

goon

groom

Bull

put

chew

Took

flew

druid

who

spoon

would

glue

Food

gune

pool

Soot

stood

croup

facebook Good

c. Write what you hear. Teacher get students to draw the table with two column
containing /u/ and / u:/ and then Teacher read a list of words containing long
vowel u or short vowel u out and ask students write the words they hear in the
right column. After reading, the teacher takes some of students’ papers to check.
Both teacher and students correct the answer. Students can do the practice
individually, in pairs or in groups.
d. Odd One Out
Prepare a list with sets of three to four words that have the same vowel
sound, plus one somewhere in the middle that is different. For
example, food, good, boot and fool. Divide your class into two teams and have
them form two lines in front of the board. Write the first set of four words on the
board. The students at the front of the line must read the set of words, race to the
board once they have identified the word that sounds different and circle it. The
first student to circle the odd word scores a point for the team.
e. Four in a Row
Here’s a good one for young learners! Divide your class into groups of

three to four students. Print out this Four in a Row worksheet (or make your
own!) and cut it up into separate cards. In groups, students must work together to
arrange the words into sets of four words that sound the same. The first team to
complete all of the sets wins.
Ex:
Pool
hood

Pull
good

Look

stood

Chew

could

Pull
stew

cool
rout
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2.3.3) Here are some helpful tips I got after applying the initiative.
1. Teach one lesson every week.
2. Model each sound after explaining the way of pronunciation and ask students to

do it the same.
3. Check if students always remember the rules and if they can write long or short
vowel u by oral test, five minute test or fifteen minute test after teaching .
4. Give them homework for example, practice reading sentences, write 5 or more
words containing / ʊ / sound and you have to check and correct homework for
them.
5. Teach words listed as "common exceptions" only if they are fairly important
words that your students are likely to need and try to use pictures, images and
games to reduce difficulty and tension.
6. Encourage students by good marks if they do well.
2.4. Result after applying the research in teaching.
2.4.1) For education activity.
- Students recognize two vowel sounds and they can explain the answer.
My students told me that they could recognize two vowel sounds after lessons.
Here is one of four groups’ correct answer for a practice activity within 3 minutes
photographed in our lesson with the students in the class. They did it without
looking at their notebook .We were proud to see the following perfect answer.

- Students became more attentive and conscientious in lessons.
I was really happy when I saw my students look at the board and listened to
my teaching more concentrated. They asked me questions during the lessons to
catch on the knowledge instead of sitting and listening quietly. When they
practiced, they discussed altogether in groups and good learners help the weak
ones. These positive changes show that my effort is helpful and useful.
15


- Students became more enthusiastic
I used to be so depressed and angry when looking at their uncompleted
homework exercises. After applying the research in teaching, I was satisfied with

my students’ homework. Most of them finished their homework quickly and
accurately. Of course, there were still some wrong answers, but that they did their
whole homework regularly could be regarded a great achievement.
- Students like this way of teaching
Clear sound model, rules and interesting practice activities attracted students
much. They were also eager to take their homework notebook back to see my
feedback after I had checked their answer.
Here are some exercises extracted from the tests for gifted students
Exercise 1: Choose the word which has the underlined part pronounced differently from that of
the rest

1. A. thing
B. they
2. A. breathed
B. planned
3. A. danger
B. ginger
4. A. grew
B. knew
Exercise 2
 Find /ʊ/
1, A.full
3, C.fan
5, F.woman
7, H.shampoo
9, J.balloon
11, L.football
 Find /u:/
1, A.chase
3, C.chosen

5, E.notebook
7, G.truth
Exercise 3
1. A. hear
B. clear

C. there
C. placed
C. stranger
C. threw

2,
4,
6,
8,
10,

D. than
D. showed
D. longer
D. flew

B.fun
E.boat
G.sugar
I.butcher
K.pudding

2, B.choose
4, D.move

6, F.boom
8, H.umbrell
C. bear

D. ear

2.

A. heat

B. great

C. beat

D.break

3.

A. blood

B. pool

C. food

D. tool

4.

A.mouse

B. could

C.would

D. put

2.4.2) For subject’s quality.
Be used during two school years at Luong Ngoai secondary school 2017-2018,
2018-2019. Subject’s quality has improved clearly and more effective. Detail such
as:
* Before applying
16


Table 1. Result English 8 marks (general lesson), school year 2017-2018
and 2018-2019:
Gra
de

Total

8
8

15
15

Good
Amou
%

nt
0
0
0
0

Fair
Amo
%
unt
0
0
2
13,3

Medium
Amo
%
unt
7
46,6
8
53,4

Weak
Amo
%
unt
7
46,6

4
26,6

Poor
Amo
%
unt
1
6.8
1
6,7

Table 2. Survey result emotional index of gifted students for English
pronunciation:
Like so
Like
Nomal
Dislike
much
School year Total
SL
% SL
%
SL
%
SL
%
2017-2018
15
0

0
3
20
5
33,3
7
46,7
2018-2019
15
0
0
5
33,3
7
46,7
3
20
* After applying.
Table 1. Result English 8 marks (general lesson), school year 2017-2018
and 2018-2019:
Gra
de

Total

8
8

15
15

Good
Amou
%
nt
3
20
4
26,65

Fair
Amo
%
unt
5
33,35
6
40

Medium
Amo
%
unt
5
33,35
5
33,35

Weak
Amo

%
unt
2
13,3
0
0

Poor
Amo
%
unt
0
0
0
0

Table 2. Survey result emotional index of gifted students for English
pronunciation:
Like so
Like
Nomal
Dislike
much
School year Total
SL
% SL
%
SL
%
SL

%
2017-2018
15
2
13,3
8
53,35
5
33,35
0
0
2018-2019
15
3
20
9
60
3
20
0
0
Compare datas between two tables, I found that studying effection of
students in school year 2018 - 2019 had increase clearly. Emotional index had also
become possitive. It means that applying this method brought the better results
and necessary. Students could practice easier and pronounce more naturaly.
2.4.3) For myself.
After using these methods through the year of teaching in Luong Ngoai
secondary school, I had divided my class into three ability groups. I had also
designed special instructional materials for the weakest students. I spent more
time with them while the others were engaged in reading or writing activities. I

had flashcards and sentence strips, pictures and simple storybooks to read to them
and allowed them to ask her questions in Vietnamese or Muong, if they wanted to.
In this way, I made them feel at home. Most began to speak in groups and later in
class directly, albeit in halting English. The new strategy worked very well, and
17


the students developed confidence as well as competence. I was happy and had a
lot of motivations to develop my job.
2.3.4) For my colleagues.
This method is also the good teachnique which is applied and supported by
many my co-workers.
3. CONCLUSION AND PROPOSAL
3.1. Conclusion
More 90% students in Luong Ngoai secondary school are ethnic minority
students. However we have also achieved the results we expect that students
would like to learn pronunciation, interested in learning from innovation method.
This study helped me promote effective speaking in my classrooms by engaging
my students in communicative activities to develop oral proficiency. Through
methods described above I developed students’ confidence in using English in
various communication situations, both formal and informal. The ability to
pronunce English effortlessly in a variety of situations requires good
pronunciation, a wide range of vocabulary, grammatical accuracy and also the
knowledge of what to say to whom and when. In short, proficiency in
pronunciation includes knowledge not only of the language but also social and
cultural norms, and the ability to respond appropriately in a variety of situations.
This study contains a range of activities for the teacher to use in the classrooms to
encourage students to speak effectively and with confidence. The activities are
mainly designed around shared experiences, to be done in pairs and groups so that
students learn to respond spontaneously in any communication situation.

In conclusion, I found my teaching effective. My students made much
progress in learning. In terms of their behaviors, they studied seriously. I have
learnt that a successful lesson includes many factors: teacher, students,
environment…,so to make classroom teaching more effective and useful for
students, teachers have to try to make each lesson purposeful and interesting and
students have careful preparation before class hours. Teachers should also try to
make the classroom environment relaxing in order that students do not feel tense
while learning. One more important thing is that when you test your students,
notice to their different abilities to give them suitable tasks. In short, the research I
made was effective. I am so thankful to receive more contributive ideas to make
it more improvable.
3.2. Proposal
Based on the findings, I suggested the following:
+ For the ethnic minority students in the same class to facilitate teachers can help
students more in the learning process .
+ Organization of English club 1 time per month to help them to have a chance to
talk the language they have learned , opportunities to communicate .

18


+ Do Lab to give students more opportunities to hear the exact pronunciation of
native speakers , due to the time teachers in the use of teaching aids in the
classroom
+ The textbook should include tape scripts at the end, students should also have
tapes for practicing speaking outside the classroom and have a revision speaking
unit after each three units.
+ Topics for speaking are not interesting from students point of view, so topics
from daily life experience are recommended these are like customs of marriage in
their tribes, interviews with famous football players or journeys.

The study have been made to partially evaluate the students' learning,
autonomy, independent of their creativity. However initiative will definitely
implement flawed. I look forward to colleagues and teachers interested in
comments to make my intiative increasingly more complete.
CONFIRMATION OF HEADS OF
Luong Ngoai, May 24, 2019
UNIT
I pledge that this is my experience
initiative and do not copy the content of
other people.
The implementer

Hà Thị Thảo

DOCUMENTS
1. Pronunciation Fundamentals. (Tracey Derwing and Murray Munro, 2015)
2. Phonology of English as an International Language, Jennifer Jenkins –
2016.
3. Brown A. (ed.) 1992. Approaches to Pronounciation Teaching. London
Macmillan.
4. Internet.

DANH MỤC SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM ĐÃ ĐƯỢC HỘI ĐỒNG
SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM NGÀNH GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO HUYỆN,
TỈNH VÀ CÁC CẤP CAO HƠN XẾP LOẠI TỪ C TRỞ LÊN

19


Họ và tên tác giả: Hà Thị Thảo

Chức vụ và đơn vị công tác: Trường THCS Lương Ngoại.

TT

Cấp đánh giá
xếp loại

Tên đề tài, Sáng kiến

1

Các phương pháp quản lý tốt tiết
dạy tiếng anh lớp 6.

2

Experience helps students in
grade 7 of Luong Ngoai secondary
school to learn vocabulary well.

Phòng GD&ĐT
huyện Bá
Thước
Phòng GD&ĐT
huyện Bá
Thước

Kết
quả
Năm học

đánh đánh giá
giá xếp xếp loại
loại
C

20062007

C

20172018

PHỤ LỤC
(No)

20