Possible solutions to the problems commonly encountered by students at Hanoi University of Technology in pronouncing the English affricative consonants

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

****************

NGÔ THU HUYỀN
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEMS COMMONLY
ENCOUNTERED BY STUDENTS AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF
TECHNOLOGY IN PRONOUNCING THE ENGLISH
AFFRICATIVE CONSONANTS

NHỮNG GIẢI PHÁP KHẢ HỮU CHO NHỮNG VẤN ĐỀ MÀ SINH VIÊN
TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC BÁCH KHOA HÀ NỘI THƯỜNG GẶP PHẢI KHI
PHÁT ÂM CÁC ÂM TẮC XÁT CỦA TIẾNG ANH

M.A. Minor Thesis

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60 22 15
MA course: 18

Hanoi – 2011


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

****************

NGÔ THU HUYỀN
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEMS COMMONLY
ENCOUNTERED BY STUDENTS AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF
TECHNOLOGY IN PRONOUNCING THE ENGLISH
AFFRICATIVE CONSONANTS

NHỮNG GIẢI PHÁP KHẢ HỮU CHO NHỮNG VẤN ĐỀ MÀ SINH VIÊN
TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC BÁCH KHOA HÀ NỘI THƯỜNG GẶP PHẢI KHI
PHÁT ÂM CÁC ÂM TẮC XÁT CỦA TIẾNG ANH

M.A. Minor Thesis

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60 22 15
MA course: 18
Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Võ Đại Quang

Hanoi – 2011


iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS
CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT ...................................................................................... i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................... ii
ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................... iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................................................................. iv
LIST OF FIGURES, CHARTS AND TABLES .......................................................... vii
ABBREVIATIONS...................................................................................................... viii
PART 1: INTRODUCTION .............................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.

1.1. Rationale .................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
1.2. Aims and Objectives of the study ............................................................................ 1
1.3. Research questions................................................................................................... 2
1.4. Scope of the study .................................................................................................... 2
1.5. Significance of the study .......................................................................................... 2
1.6. Design of the study ................................................................................................... 3
PART 2: DEVELOPMENT ........................................................................................... 4
Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW............................................................................ 4
1.1. Theoretical Background .......................................................................................... 4
1.1.1. The role of pronunciation in EFL teaching .............................................................. 4
1.1.2. Factors affecting pronunciation learning ................................................................. 4
1.1.3. Consonants in English and Vietnamese ................................................................... 6
1.1.3.1. English consonants .............................................................................................. 6
1.1.3.2. Vietnamese consonants ........................................................................................ 7
1.1.3.3. Learners’ problems with consonant sounds .......................................................... 9
1.1.4. Affricative sounds ................................................................................................. 10
1.1.4.1. Definition .......................................................................................................... 10


v

1.1.4.2. The description of affricates ............................................................................... 11
1.1.4.3. Learners’ problems with affricates ..................................................................... 12
1.2. Previous works ....................................................................................................... 15
1.3. Summary of the chapter ........................................................................................ 16
Chapter 2: Methodology ............................................................................................. 17
2.1. Survey reseach ...................................................................................................... 17
2.1.1. Definition ............................................................................................................ 17
2.1.2. Steps in conducting a survey research ................................................................... 17
2.2. Techniques employed in the research .................................................................. 18

2.2.1. Data collection ...................................................................................................... 18
2.2.1.1. Questionnaire ..................................................................................................... 18
2.2.1.2. Tape recording ................................................................................................... 19
2.2.2. Data analysis......................................................................................................... 20
2.3. Procedures for the study........................................................................................ 20
2.4. Summary of the chapter ........................................................................................ 20
Chapter 3: Findings and Discussion ........................................................................... 21
3.1. Findings .................................................................................................................. 21
3.1.1. Findings from the questionnaire ............................................................................ 21
3.3.2. Findings from the tape recording........................................................................... 27
3.2. Discussion ............................................................................................................... 29
3.3. Summary of the chapter ........................................................................................ 30
Chapter 4: Possible sollusions to the problems identified ........................................... 31
4.1. Giving regular practice ......................................................................................... 31
4.2. Improving teaching techniques ............................................................................. 31
4.3. Supplying supplementary exercises ...................................................................... 34


vi

4.4. Summary of the chapter ........................................................................................ 36
PART 3: CONCLUSION ............................................................................................. 37
1. Recapitulation ........................................................................................................... 37
2. Conclusion remarks .................................................................................................. 37
3. Limitations and suggestions for further research ................................................... 38
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................. 39
APPENDIX 1 ................................................................................................................... I
APPENDIX 2 ................................................................................................................. V
APPENDIX 3 ................................................................................................................ VI

vii

LIST OF FIGURES, CHARTS AND TABLES
FIGURES:
Fig 1: The position of the tongue in the production of /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ ................................. 11
Figs 2&3: Section of stop phase of /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ ............................................................. 12
CHART:
Chart 1: The sounds that students find most difficult/ easiest to pronounce ..................... 26
TABLES:
Table 1: English consonants ............................................................................................. 7
Table 2: Vietnamese initial consonants ............................................................................. 8
Table 3: Vietnamese final consonants ............................................................................... 8
Table 4: Manner and place of articulation of sounds /dʒ/, /z/ and /s/ .............................. 13
Table 5: Manner and place of articulation of sounds /tʃ/and Vietnamese /c/.................... 14
Table 6: Summary of Sample Profile .............................................................................. 21
Table 7: Students’ attitude towards pronunciation ........................................................... 22
Table 8: Students’ learning habit and teachers’ response to students’ mistakes ............... 23
Table 9: Students’ pronunciation difficulties in general .................................................. 24
Table 10: The sounds that students find most difficult/ easiest to pronounce ................... 25
Table 11: Student’s choices of correct sounds ................................................................. 26
Table 12: The result of the recording process .................................................................. 26


viii

ABBREVIATIONS
CLT

:

Communicative Language Teaching

EFL

:

English as a Foreign Language

ELT

:

English Language Teaching

ESP

:

English for Specific Purposes

HUT

:

Hanoi University of Technology

IT

:

Information Technology

N-Power

:

Networking Power (Bach Khoa-Npower International Information
Technology Education System)

M.A

:

Master of Arts

VNU

:

Vietnam National University


1

PART 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale
Three prominent factors that develop four language skills are vocabulary, grammar and
pronunciation. In the light of CLT, accurate pronunciation is a must for broadening
communicative competencies. This leads to the fact that the need for the integration of

pronunciation with oral communication is clearly realized. This is the reason why teaching
pronunciation is considered a really crucial job in teaching EFL.
Despite realizing this importance, pronunciation is the most ignored aspect in the EFL
classes. According to Celce Murcia (2007:2), “grammar and vocabulary have been much
better understood by most language teachers than pronunciation”. This fact shows that
pronunciation is viewed as difficult for both students and teachers to prepare and master.
They take little concern to it. Hardly do they spend time learning or practicing English
pronunciation. Consequently, many students often make mistakes in articulating English
sounds and they find it difficult to get accurate pronunciation. This fact posts the question
of how to change the attitude of students and teachers towards pronunciation.
The above- mentioned matters are really true to the English teaching and learning
situation at N-Power, HUT where a lot of students have troubles with pronunciation,
especially with the English sounds. In the scope of this minor thesis, the researcher does
not have an ambition to find out all the sounds causing problems for students but a
particular pair of English sounds - affricates - which challenge students when they are
dealing with the system of English sounds. Once the difficulties are found out, solutions to
the problems can be worked out with the hope that it can help to improve students‟
pronunciation.
1.2. Aims and Objectives of the study
1.2.1. Aims of the study
From the fact of existing limitations for students when dealing with pronunciation, with
the hope of bringing about a small contribution to this aspect, the study aims to:


Provide

the

students

sounds /tʃ/and /dʒ/.

with

basic

knowledge

of

English

affricative


2



Help the students be able to pronounce English affricates accurately.



Help the teachers improve their pronunciation teaching techniques at HUT.

1.2.2. Objectives of the study
The objectives are set as follows:


To find out the difficulties students meet when pronouncing affricative

sounds /tʃ/ and /dʒ/.



To state the causes of these difficulties.



To give out some possible solutions to the problems identified.

1.3. Research questions
The objectives mentioned above are elaborated into the following research questions.
(1)

What difficulties do students have in dealing with affricative sounds?

(2)

What are the causes of those difficulties?

(3)

What are the possible solutions to the stated problems?

1.4. Scope of the study
The study was carried out on only the first-year students at N-Power, HUT. Due to time
constraint and the scope of a minor thesis, only affricates - two complex consonant sounds
- which cause difficulties for students are taken into consideration. It also focuses on
finding out some problems when students pronounce these sounds and working out some
possible solutions.

1.5. Significance of the study
The study is designed to investigate students‟ difficulties when pronouncing the English
affricates and suggest some solutions to solve the problems. Thus, it helps to raise
students‟ awareness of improving pronunciation learning. More significantly, it offers the
pedagogical implications for further applications of teaching pronunciation in the
classroom.


3

1.6. Design of the study
The research is presented as follows:
The first part is the introduction, which presents an overview of the study with the
rationale for conducting the research, the aims, the objectives and the research questions.
It also states the research scope as well as stresses its significance and outlines the content
of the study.
The second part is the development of the study, which is divided into 4 chapters:
- Chapter 1: Literature review - provides the theoretical background and some previous
work.
- Chapter 2: Methodology - reports the methodology and the methods used in the research
including the instruments and the procedures for data collection as well as the data
analysis applied in the study.
- Chapter 3: Findings and discussion - reveals some major findings basing on which the
discussion is produced.
- Chapter 4: Possible solutions – offers some useful suggestions to problems identified.
The last part is the conclusion of the study, which summarizes the major points presented
in the thesis, offers concluding remarks on the objectives and points out the limitations as
well as provides some suggestions for further studies.

4

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1. Theoretical Background
1.1.1. The role of pronunciation in EFL teaching
Pronunciation teaching should be paid more consideration by teachers since it occupies a
considerable place in EFL classes. Thus, mentioning of various issues relating to teaching
pronunciation to foreign language learners is a must.
It is highly recognized that correct pronunciation is necessary for a speaker to
communicate. According to Kelly - an expert at teaching pronunciation - the importance
of teaching pronunciation is

evaluated as following: “A consideration of learners‟

pronunciation errors and of how these can inhibit successful communication is a useful
basis on which to assess why it is important to deal with pronunciation in the classroom”.
(Kelly, 2000:11) The statement indicates the great importance of pronunciation in
communication. Since pronunciation is so important, teaching and learning pronunciation
should be paid enough attention to. This idea is also shared by Stevick : “pronunciation is
the primary medium through which we bring our use of language to the attention of other
people”. (1978, quoted in Pennington, 1996:2) There are still several researchers carrying
out studies on the role of teaching pronunciation in EFL such as Haycraft (1971),
Kenworthy (1987), Brown (1991), Pennington (1996), etc.
It can be seen clearly that, the effects of pronunciation on the successful communication
are so significant that teaching pronunciation is deservedly put in high position in teaching
language. Therefore, teaching pronunciation has been taken into account for many years
due to the changes in the purpose of foreign language learning in general and English in
particular. Learners take English courses for successful communication in their work and
lives so they want to achieve native-like pronunciation.

1.1.2. Factors affecting pronunciation learning
There are a lot of researchers studying on factors that may affect students‟ pronunciation.
In Teaching English Pronunciation, Kenworthy (1987) indicates six categories that affect
pronunciation learning: (1) native language, (2) age, (3) amount of exposure, (4) phonetic


5

ability, (5) attitude and identity, and (6) motivation and concern for good pronunciation.
These factors are briefly summarized as follows.
The Native Language
The differences between the sound systems of English and other languages are compared
by a lot of researchers. Kenworthy, J (192: 4), stated that: “To put it very crudely, the
more differences there are, the more difficulties the learners will have in pronouncing
English.” Since the “foreign accent” is easy to identify, learners‟ native language impacts
greatly on their ability of pronouncing English. Take the case of the countries having the
Latin writing systems like English, the pronunciation process is much easier in
comparison with those having hieroglyphic languages.
The age factor
It is often said that younger people can learn pronunciation better than the older ones.
However, there have been a lot of researches showing the opposite results. Oyama (1976)
conducted a research proving that the younger a person was when he started learning
English, the more native-like was his accent. Whereas, Snow and Hoefnagel-Hohle‟s
study (1975) showed that the groups of older learners had higher achievement in
pronouncing words than the younger ones.
Amount of exposure
It‟s obviously that people surrounded by English will have more chance to speak English
than who don‟t live in English-speaking environment. Thus, many researchers have
pointed out the amount of exposure to the target language as one of the factors that affect
pronunciation accuracy (Celce-Murcia, Brinton, & Goodwin, 1996; Kenworthy, 1987;

Suter, 1976). An adequate model of the target language in and outside of classroom is
significant in EFL situation.
Phonetic ability
Some people are thought to have better ability in phonetics than others. It means they can
get better results in mimicking as well as distinguishing sounds. In this case, all the things
that teachers can do are giving students different kinds of practice to deal with the
problems of phonetics.


6

Attitude and identity
Kenworthy (1987) states that the more people have positive feelings when speak the target
language, the more accuracy they get. The study also indicates that such feelings relate
highly to integrative motivation, explaining that learners are willing to identify.
Motivation and concern
Motivation plays an important role in learning pronunciation. When learners pay enough
attention to their pronunciation, they will improve their speaking so as to reach the point
of pronunciation competence. In this case, teachers‟ concern also takes a part in learners‟
success. Thus, Kenworthy (1987)stresses that a concern on the part of the teacher can
instill a similar concern among the learners.
In short, there are some major factors that affect pronunciation acquisition. Teachers of
foreign language should be aware of these when teaching pronunciation.
1.1.3. Consonants in English and Vietnamese
1.1.3.1. English consonants
There are 24 consonants in the English consonant system, among which /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ are
alveo-palatal affricates.


7

Table 1: English consonants
Manner

of

Voice

articulation

Stop

Fricative

Affricate

Place of articulation
Labial

Labio-

Inter-

dental

dental

Alveolar

Alveo-

Velar

Glottal

palatal

voiceless

p

t

k

voiced

b

d

g

voiceless

f

θ

s

ʃ

voiced

v

ð

z

ʒ

voiceless

tʃ

voiced

dʒ

Nasal

voiced

m

n

Approximant

voiced

w

r

Lateral

voiced

h

ŋ
j

l

1.1.3.2. Vietnamese consonants
In Vietnamese, consonants are classified into 22 initial consonants and 6 final consonants
according to the positions of the consonant in a word. In the initial consonant system,
most sounds are not much different from English sounds in terms of pronunciation.
However, unlike the English consonant system, there is no affricate in Vietnamese.


8

Table 2: Vietnamese initial consonants
Place of articulation

Labial

Alveolar

Alveo-

Palatal

Velar

Glottal

c

k

ʔ

ɲ

ŋ

palatal
Manner of articulation
Stop

Aspirated
Un-

ť

voiceless

t

ƫ

aspirated
voiced

Fricative

b

d

Nasal

m

n

Voiceless

f

s

ʂ

x

Voiced

v

z

ʐ

ɣ

Nasal

l

Table 3: Vietnamese final consonants
Place of articulation

Velar

Labial

Alveolar

Stop

k

p

t

Nasal

ŋ

m

n

Manner of articulation

h


9

1.1.3.3. Learners’ problems with consonant sounds due to differences between
English and Vietnamese
Because of major differences between English and Vietnamese sound systems,
Vietnamese speakers can have some pronunciation problems with vowels, consonants,
stress and intonation. However, due to limitation of time and of the study, I only focus on
the mistakes in which Vietnamese students often meet in learning consonants.
Firstly, the consonant sound systems between the two languages also differ greatly. In
English, there are 24 consonants, but Vietnamese has only 21. Unlike English, Vietnamese
consonant system does not include any affricates. Some phonemes exist in English but not
in Vietnamese and vice versa. According to Doan Thien Thuat, these following English
sounds are absent in Vietnamese.
/dʒ/

/tʃ/

/j/

/θ/

change

church

year

thing

/ð/
that

/p/ (initial)

/t/ (initial)

pen

top

Thus, those consonants are often confused with little the same sounds, for instance: /dʒ/
in genius /’dʒi:niə s/ is confused with /z/, /θ/ in thin /θin/ is confused with
Vietnamese /ť/, / j/ in yard is confused with /z/.
Secondly, in English, some phonemes seem to be represented by identical letters but
different in pronunciation, for example, “ch” in chemist is transcribed as /k/; “ch” in

cherry is pronounced as /tʃ/. Whereas, a letter is often represented by the same phoneme
in Vietnamese.
Thirdly, unlike English, Vietnamese does not have consonant clusters at all. Although
some orthographic combinations of letters in Vietnamese look like consonant cluster such
as: th, ch, ng, ngh, nh, tr, ph, in fact they represent only simple consonants phonologically
such as ng /ŋ/, ph /f/, etc. Meanwhile, English has many sequences of consonants
including the initial such as “spread” /spred/ and the final such as “mixed” /mikst/. This
feature brings lots of difficulties for Vietnamese learners. As a result, Vietnamese students
often delete one or more than one consonants in a consonant cluster so that it will be
easier for them to produce the sound.


10

Fourthly, in Vietnamese, the consonants are not stressed at the final position of a word
while English consonants are often heard and pronounced in three positions: initial,
medial and final, except /ʒ/, which is rarely found in the initial position. That is why
Vietnamese students often omit these consonants at the end of the sounds such as night
/nait/ is pronounced as /nai/, wine /wain/ is produced as /wai/, etc.
Fifthly, generally, words are clearly separated from each other in Vietnamese, but in
English, words are linked when they are speeded up. For instance, not at all /nɔtətɔ:l/
All in all, the above differences give clear reasons why our students often make mistakes
when they face to English sound systems. Teachers of English should pay attention to
these problems when teaching pronunciation.
1.1.4. Affricative sounds
According to O‟Conner‟s, (1980: 24): “There are two good reasons for beginning with
consonants rather than vowels. First, consonants contribute more to making English
understood than vowels do. Second, consonants are generally made by a definite
interference of the vocal organs with the air stream, and so are easy to describe and
understand”. That is the reason for the writer to mention English consonants in the study.

Two of 24 consonant sounds in English considered complex are the affricates /tʃ/ and
/dʒ/. These affricates are post- alveolar sounds in which /tʃ/ is unvoiced and fortis; /dʒ/ is
voiced and lenis.
Giving the definition of the affricates is necessary for making a clear description of these
sounds.
1.1.4.1. Definition
Among many definitions about affricates, Cruttenden‟s is considered a clear one. He
defines: “The term „affricate‟ denotes a concept which is primarily of phonetic
importance. Any plosive whose release stage is performed in such a way that considerable
friction occurs approximately at the point where the plosive stop is made, may be called
„affricative‟ ” (Cruttenden, 2001: 171).


11

1.1.4.2. The description of affricates
There are three basic characteristics in the description of affricative sounds:
Place of articulation (where in the mouth, the airstream is obstructed)
In the production of affricates, the soft palate is raised and the nasal resonator shut off, the
obstacle to the airstream is formed by a closure made between the tip, blade, and the rims
of the tongue and the upper alveolar ridge and side teeth. The place of articulation of
affricates is illustrated in figure 1.
Fig 1: The position of the tongue in the production of /tʃ/ and /dʒ/

Manner of articulation (the way in which the airstream is obstructed)
As Cruttendence‟s description, in order to pronounce /tʃ/ and /dʒ/, the front of the tongue
is raised towards the hard palate in readiness for the fricative release. The closure is
released slowly, the air escaping in a diffuse manner over the whole of the central surface
of the tongue with friction occurring between the blade of the tongue and the alveolar.
(Cruttendence, 2001: 176).

12

Fig 2: Section of stop phase of /tʃ, dʒ/

Fig 3: Section of stop phase of /tʃ, dʒ/

Degrees of voicing (whether there is vibration of the vocal cords)
Voiceless sounds are made without the vibration of vocal cords while voiced sounds are
the one produced with the vibration of vocal cords. In the case of affricative sounds,
during both stop and fricative stages, the vocal folds are wide apart for /tʃ/, but may be
vibrating for all or part of /dʒ/ according to the situation in the utterance. Therefore, /tʃ/
is unvoiced and /dʒ/ is voiced.
1.1.4.3. Learners’ problems with affricates
Sound confusion
Many Vietnamese learners make mistakes in pronouncing the above mentioned
consonants. They often confuse these sounds with other sounds. Therefore, the confusing
sounds are classified into 2 pairs:
1-

/dʒ/ - /z/ or /s/

2-

/tʃ/ - Vietnamese/c/

The confusion of these sounds is due to some reasons:
(1)

The mother tongue influence

(2)

Failure in distinguishing the differences

(3)

Inadequate practice


13

Comparing the 2 above-mentioned sound pairs


Sound pair /dʒ/ - /z/ or /s/

Owing to no affricates in the Vietnamese consonant system so many Vietnamese speakers
of English find it difficult to pronounce /dʒ/, for which they have to make great effort to
place their tongue at the point to make a plosive /d/ then quickly move their tongue a little
back to make a fricative /ʒ/. They often change /dʒ/ into /z/ or /s/. Thus, judge /dʒʌdʒ/ is
pronounced /zʌz/ or /zʌs/. Mistakes can also be found in the pronunciation of orange,
damage, village, January, bridge, etc.

Table 4: Manner and place of articulation of sounds /dʒ/, /z/ and /s/
Sound

Voice

Manner of articulation

Place of articulation

/dʒ/

voiced

Affricate

alveo-palatal

/z/

voiced

Fricative

alveolar

/s/

voiceless

Fricative

alveolar

When making a mistake, speakers can‟t make /dʒ/ palatal and voiced. As discussed above,
/s/ and /z/ are pronounced differently from /dʒ/, whose production starts with a plosive

stop sound and finishes with a fricative sound. First the tongue touches the ridge of the
upper front teeth for /d/, but instead of releasing quickly for a plosive sound like /d/, the
tip of the tongue moves (further back than that for /z/) to the place for the fricative /ʒ/ The
roundness of the lips also depends on the surrounding sounds.


Sound pair /tʃ/- Vietnamese /c/

According to the table of Vietnamese consonants, /c/ is produced by the contact of the
blade of the tongue against the front part of hard palate, voiceless and aspirated, while the
English /tʃ/ is produced as a palato-alveolar consonant and voiceless with the tongue rolls
a little bit. The confusion is indicated in the table below.


14

Table 5: Manner and place of articulation of sounds /tʃ/ and /c/
Sound

Voice

Manner of articulation

Place of articulation

/tʃ/

voiceless

Affricate

alveo-palatal

/c/

voiceless

Stop

palatal

When making a mistake, speakers fail to make /tʃ/ alveolar and affricate, but instead, they
make it plosive stop. Like /dʒ/, /tʃ/ is produced beginning with a plosive stop sound and
finishing with a fricative sound. First the tongue touches the ridge of the upper front teeth
for /t/, then instead of releasing quickly for a plosive sound like /t/, the tip of the tongue
moves (further back than that for /s/) to the place for the fricative /ʃ/. Vietnamese learners
of English often mispronounce /ʃ/ like Vietnamese /c/, which is a voiceless palatal stop
and which is produced with the blade of the tongue touching the hard palate. This sound
can be found both in initial and final positions, e.g. cho, chung, chi, etc. Therefore,
English /tʃ/ in chop is incorrectly pronounced like Vietnamese /c/ in chop. Mistakes can
also be found in the pronunciation of cheap, change, church, etc.
Absence of sounds
As mentioned, affricates are two complex sounds in English in the way that they are
sounds, in the progress of articulating: starting as stop consonants and ending as fricatives.
However, according to Đoàn Thiện Thuật (2003:153), Vietnamese consonant system
comprises three main categories of sounds: stops, nasal and fricatives. This shows that the
Vietnamese consonantal inventory does not contain the same consonants as its English
counterpart, particularly, in Vietnamese language, there is no affricates at all. Thus,
Vietnamese students tend to make these sounds similar to the ones of their native
language, for example, they pronounce /tʃ/ as /ƫ/ in Vietnames trong and /c/ in

Vietnamese cho, etc.
It‟s supposed that, the effective way to help learners to overcome this is to help them
practice as much as possible.


15

Spelling and pronunciation differences
The reason for calling Vietnamese a „phonetic‟ language is its high level correspondence
between spelling and pronunciation. In Vietnamese, there is no case in which a letter
represents more than one sound. However, “English can have more than one sound value.
So there is not always a strict one-to-one correspondence between sound and letter”
(Kenworthy, 1987: 94) and “the relationship between spelling and pronunciation is more
complex in English” (Kelly, 2000: 122)
Apart from some sounds represented by a single letter as /m/, /n/, /v/, many sounds can be
represented by more than one letter or combination of letters. Among these sounds, /tʃ/ &
/dʒ/ can be good examples for this: /tʃ/ can appear in chin, nature, question and /dʒ/ is
shown in Job, management, large, etc.
All in all, the lack of sound-spelling correspondence in English makes it “not always easy
for learners of whatever L1 to see how a written English word should be pronounced, or
how a word they have only heard should be written” (Kelly 2000:122-3). That is why
teachers should help learners aware of the the relationship between written and spoken
language.
1.2. Previous works
There have been many researches on Vietnamese learners‟ difficulties in English
pronunciation so far but only some of them refer to English sounds, especially consonant
sounds. Avery and Ehrlich (1992) are the two authors who studied on the facing problems
Vietnamese speakers often meet when they study English. According to their opinion: “As
the sound systems of English and Vietnamese differ greatly, Vietnamese speakers can
have quite severe pronunciation problems.” The most common problems challenging

Vietnamese learners mentioned in their work are the omission and confusion of the final
consonants. For instance, Vietnamese often drop affricative sounds in the final position
because there are no Vietnamese affricates at the word-final position, thus orange is often
pronounced as /orin/ or teach is often sounded as /ti:t/.
In the research named “difficulties for Vietmamese when pronouncing English: Final
Consonants”, Nguyen Thi Thu Thao stated that Vietnamese speakers are not pronounced


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English word-final consonants in a native-like way. Instead, they try to pronounce these
sounds by adding schwa, replacing by sounds closers to those or even omitting the sounds.
The problems Vietnamese speakers encountering when pronouncing English sounds,
especially the consonant sounds, have been concerned by many researchers. However,
they only study the pronunciation problems in board aspects. Due to the fact, this research
focuses on only two English affricates which are considered as some of the most
challenging sounds.
1.3. Summary of the chapter
It is surely that pronunciation is one of the most vital factors that govern language
teaching and learning following CLT method. In order to stress on the significance of
pronunciation, in this chapter the author focuses on giving brief literature review of
English pronunciation teaching such as role of pronunciation in ELT, factors that affect
pronunciation acquisition, learners‟ difficulties in learning English consonants and an
overview of affricative sounds and problems that Vietnamese learners often face when
pronouncing these sounds following with the overview of previous works on this aspect.
The chapter‟s purposes are to find out the most common difficulties with the English
affricates encountered by Vietnamese students so as to find the solutions to the mentioned
problems.

Chapter 2: methodology

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2.1. Survey research
2.1.1. Definition
According to Johnson, survey research is a study of a large group through direct study of a
subset of that group (Johnson, 1992:104). Survey research is one of the most common
types of quantitative, social science research. It is a research method of collecting data
from respondents‟ thoughts and behaviors using questionnaires and/or statistical surveys.
In the 1930s and 1940s, this method was pioneered by sociologist Paul Lazarsfeld. “The
purpose of a survey is to learn about characteristics of an entire group of interest (a
population) by examining a subset of that group (a sample).” (Johnson, 1922:113)
2.1.2. Steps in conducting a survey research
In the process to conduct a survey research, the researcher must highly care about how the
research will be fulfilled. There are a lot of steps involved in the process such as: pointing
out the purpose of the study; defining the research questions; choosing the population;
drawing a sample from the population; determining the data collection methods;
developing instruments; gathering data; and analyzing data. Hereinafter, some concepts
related are made clear.
a. Population
Johnson defined population as follows: “Population is the entire group of entities or
persons to which the results of a study are intended to apply.” (Johnson, Approaches to
Research in Second Language Learning, p.110). Adding to the meaning of the concept,
Webster also stated: “A population is a group of individual persons, objects, or items from
which samples are taken for measurement for example a population of presidents or
professors, books or students.” (Webster, 1985)
b. Sampling
A sample is a finite part of a statistical population whose properties are studied to gain
information about the whole (Webster, Webster‟s ninth new collegiate dictionary, 1985).

Sampling is the act, process, or technique of selecting a suitable sample, or a
representative part of a population for the purpose of determining parameters or


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characteristics of the whole population (Salant, P. and D. A. Dillman, How to conduct
your own survey, 1994). Sample is a fraction of population being studied. (Fritz Scheuren,
What is a survey, 2004, p.9)
c. Respondent rates
Respondent rate is defined as the percentage of survey invitations that result in a
response. Response rates vary greatly from survey to survey, affected by almost all
aspects of the survey process.
2.2. Techniques employed in the research
2.2.1. Data collection
There are many different types of surveys and many methods of collecting data. The most
common data-collection methods are questionnaires, interviews and direct observation.
In order to fulfill this minor thesis, the following instruments are employed to provide a
much more detailed and comprehensive picture of the research issues:
-

Questionnaire for students

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Tape recoding for students

Each instrument has its own purpose:
2.2.1.1. Questionnaire
Questionnaires are commonly used in ELT research because they have many significant

advantages, such as less pressure on informants, not under pressure of interview bias and
analysis of answer is straightforward.
There are three types of data: behavioral deals with people‟s actions, life-styles, habits
and personal history; factual includes demographic characteristics (e.g. age, gender and
race), residential location, marital and socioeconomic status, level of education, religion
and occupation, as well as any other background; attitudinal relates to attitudes, opinions,
beliefs, interests and values.
Types of questionnaire items
* Close- ended questionnaire items