A n investigation into the use of shadowing technique in listening lessons to improve the pronunciation of 3rd year students at HUBT (hanoi university of business and technology)

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HANOI UNIVERSITY OF
LAGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF
POSTGRADUATE STUDIES *************************

NGUYỄN THANH VÂN

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE USE OF SHADOWING ECHNIQUE IN
LISTENING LESSONS TO IMPROVE THE PRONUNCITION OF 3

RD

-

YEAR STUDENTS AT HUBT (HANOI UNIVERSITY OF BUSINESS AND
TECHNOLOGY)

(NGHIÊN CỨU VIỆC SỬ DỤNG THỦ THUẬT NGHE VÀ NHẮC LẠI
ĐỒNG THỜI TRONG GIỜ HỌC NGHE ĐỂ CẢI THIỆN VIỆC PHÁT
ÂM CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ BA TẠI ĐẠI HỌC KINH DOANH
VÀ CÔNG NGHỆ HÀ NỘI)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111

HANOI – 2016


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HANOI UNIVERSITY OF
LAGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF

POSTGRADUATE STUDIES *************************

NGUYỄN THANH VÂN

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE USE OF SHADOWING ECHNIQUE IN
LISTENING LESSONS TO IMPROVE THE PRONUNCITION OF 3

RD

-

YEAR STUDENTS AT HUBT (HANOI UNIVERSITY OF BUSINESS AND
TECHNOLOGY)

(NGHIÊN CỨU VIỆC SỬ DỤNG THỦ THUẬT NGHE VÀ NHẮC LẠI
ĐỒNG THỜI TRONG GIỜ HỌC NGHE ĐỂ CẢI THIỆN VIỆC PHÁT
ÂM CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ BA TẠI ĐẠI HỌC KINH DOANH
VÀ CÔNG NGHỆ HÀ NỘI)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111
Supervisor: Ph. D. Dương Thu Mai

HANOI – 2016


DECLARATION
I certify that this minor thesis entitled “Using shadowing technique to improve the

rd

pronunciation of the 3

year students at Hanoi University of Business and

Technology” is the study of my own research and the substance of this research has not
been submitted for a degree to any other university or institution.
Hanoi, 2016

Nguyen Thanh Van

i


ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to express my gratitude to all those who have given me great
assistance in the completion of my research work.
In the first place, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor
Duong Thu Mai, Ph.D., who has provided me with insightful discussion, helpful
comments, valuable support in the preparation and completion of this thesis. Without her
guidance and help, this work would not have been accomplished.
Secondly, my sincere thanks also go to all lecturers and staff of the department of
Post- Graduate studies for their valuable lessons and precious helps. Thanks to their
lessons as well as needed helps, I could overcome enormous obstacles when doing the
study.
I also wish to acknowledge the cooperation of my colleagues and the students at
Hanoi University of Business and Technology in contributing to the data collection
presented in this study.
Last but not least, I would like to express my deepest thanks to my family for

their encouragement and great support during my time of fulfilling this thesis.

ii


ABSTRACT
Most second language learners encounters difficulties when listening and speaking
in the target language. For the students at Hanoi University of Business and Technology,
the problem might be serious. Because of their poor pronunciation even with basic
sounds or words, the students found it difficult to say, speak and understand studying
materials in English. In order to solve the problem, students need to understand the
pronunciation in terms of the basics elements and target the individual sounds. As a result
of this, this project was set out to help the students‟ pronunciation of the individual
sounds in English. The research was formulated as an action one which used a
questionnaire, interviews and tests as research instruments to collect quantitative and
qualitative about the students‟ and teachers‟ attitudes and the effectiveness of using
shadowing technique in teaching and learning pronunciation. As can be seen from the
qualitative and quantitative data, difficulties, limitations and challenges still occurred
during the research; however, to some extent, the students‟ pronunciation was also
improved in terms of individual sounds and words. Their positive attitude and results
when using the technique to teach and improve the student‟s pronunciation in terms of
individual sounds in the research might suggest the use of the new technique
“shadowing” as one of the effective ways to teach and learn pronunciation in English.

iii


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
P: page
L2: second language

rd

3 : third
HUBT: Hanoi University of Business and Technology
JSL: Japanese as the second language
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Classification of shadowing (cited in Tamai, 2005)
Table 2: Information about the teacher participants
Table 3: The reliability of the tests
Table 5: The percentage of the participants with the range of scores
Table 6: Frequency statistics of vowel sections
Table 7: Frequency statistics of consonant sections
Table 8: Frequency statistics of cluster sections
Table 9: Frequency statistics of minimal pair sections
Table 10: Overall descriptive statistics of the sections
Table 11: One sample T test results
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 3.1. Shadowing technique improves pronunciation
Figure 3.2. Aspects of pronunciation that the technique of shadowing helped to improve
Figure 3.3. Attraction and motivation of the practice
Figure 3.4: The attitude towards the practice lessons
Figure 3.5: The attitude to the total time for the practice and time delivery for
each practice lesson Figure 3.6. Students’ difficulties
iv


TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART A: INTRODUCTION .....................................................................................................................
1.

Rationale ..................................................................................................................................................

2.

Objectives of the study ............................................................................................................................

3.

Research questions .................................................................................................................................

4.

The scope of the study .............................................................................................................................

5.

Research methods ...................................................................................................................................

6.

Design of the study ..................................................................................................................................

PART B: DEVELOPMENT ......................................................................................................................
CHAPTER I. LITERATURE REVIEW ..................................................................................................
1.

Pronunciation ................................................................................................................................

1.1.

Why is pronunciation important? ...............................................................................................

1.2.

Definition of pronunciation ..........................................................................................................

1.3.

Factors that affect pronunciation learning ..............................................................................

1.4.

Different techniques used to teach pronunciation ...................................................................

2.

Shadowing .....................................................................................................................................

2.1.

Definition of shadowing .............................................................................................................

2.2.

Significant features of using shadowing technique in learning and teaching pronunciation

CHAPTER II. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ...................................................................................
2.1.

Context of the study .....................................................................................................................

2.2 The study..............................................................................................................................................
2.2.1. Participants ..................................................................................................................................
2.2.2. Data collection instruments ........................................................................................................

2.2.2.1. Questionnaire ................................................................................................................

2.2.2.2. Interviews .........................................................................................................................

2.2.2.3. Pre-test and Post-test ....................................................................................................

2.2.2.4. Data presentation and analysis ....................................................................................
CHAPTER III. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS .................................................................................

3.1.
Students’ general attitude towards using shadowing in learning pronunciation (Research
Question 1). ................................................................................................................................................
3.1.1. Students’ attitude towards learning pronunciation through the project. ..............................
3.1.2. Students’ attitude towards the attraction and motivation of the practice .............................
3.1.3. Students’ attitude towards the content of the practice lessons ...............................................

v


3.1.4. Students’ attitude towards the amount of the total time for the practice and delivery of time
for each target practice lessons. ...........................................................................................................

Students’ difficulties in doing the project. ...........

3.1.5.

3.2.
Teachers’ attitude towards the use of shadowing technique in improving the pronunciat
of the students ( Research Question 2) ....................................................................................................
3.3. The effectiveness of the research (Research Question 3) ...........................................................
3.3.1. The overall descriptive data of the pre-test and the post-test: ................................................
3.3.2. Descriptive statistics of sections in the tests. .............................................................................
3.3.3. One Sample T-test Results: ........................................................................................................
3.4.

Discussion..................................................................................................................................

PART C: CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................
1.

Recapitulation and research experience ................................................................................

2.

Main findings .............................................................................................................................

3.

Limitations of the study ............................................................................................................

4.

Suggestions for further study ...................................................................................................

REFERENCES..........................................................................................................................................
APPENDICES ..............................................................................................................................................

vi


PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
Pronunciation is definitely the first aspect that people can notice in second
language learners when they speak any language in general and English in specific.
As Nation (2009) stated, “when some teachers and students complain about
difficulties in speaking, they are often talking about pronunciation" (p.75).
Pronunciation also “plays a very important role in learning a language” (Derwing
and Munro, 2005), "having good pronunciation of the language can help in normal
communication, particularly intelligibility" (Nation & Newton, 2009. p. 75).
Although the pronunciation of adult L2 learners cannot be native-like, it can be
improved with constant exposure to L2 (Flege, 1988; Flege & Liu 2001; Riney
1998; Trofimovich 2006).
Recently, shadowing has attracted much attention in the field of teaching and
learning foreign languages. Although shadowing was originally designed to train
simultaneous interpreters, its effects on foreign language learning have been widely
recognized and being used in classrooms. The effectiveness of shadowing in
classrooms has been investigated throughout the field on second language
acquisition (Kuramoto & Matsuura (2002), Lambert (1992), Murphey (2001),
Mochizuki (2006), Toda and Liu (2007), Tamai, (1992a, 1992b, 1997, 2001, 2005),
Suzuki (2007)). For instance, Tamai (1997) compared shadowing and dictation, and
concluded shadowing improved learners‟ listening proficiency faster than dictation.
Kuramoto (2002) reported the effectiveness of one type of shadowing activity,
parallel reading (Tamai, 2005).
Regarding the global trend in teaching and learning English pronunciation,

recently in Vietnam, the problem of English pronunciation has been more and more
increasingly noticed and solved. Many studies can be taken in account such as that
by Nguyen Tien Dung (2015) or Tweed (2012) and also the boom of English
pronunciation courses via the social networking sites like Facebook as well as
physical English centers throughout the country. Mispronunciation is a major

1


problem in learning English, because Vietnamese students often mix the
pronunciation of their first language and English as second language, also more than
often they mispronounce or even drop the ending sounds in English. Problems may
also come from the fact that when forming words, the sound of the same letter may
vary.
At Hanoi University of Business and Technology (hereafter HUBT), a
private university, English is a compulsory subject for all students of all faculties
rd-

from the beginning of every program. Therefore, 3 year students here have already
been familiar with the obligation of studying English at university. However,
because of their poor pronunciation, they find listening and speaking periods the
hardest moments in their foreign language study. That is to say, they cannot
understand what was said by teachers and other English speakers and vice versa.
There is a pressing need for them to learn correct pronunciation to make it possible
for them to understand the listening materials as well as speak English better. Even
though they have been given opportunities to learn “listening and speaking” in
English classes, their basic competence in listening and speaking were inferior to
their reading and writing skills. Incidentally, their mother tongue interference also
creates some difficulties in learning to pronounce English intelligibly. Furthermore,
English teachers mostly focus on the students‟ vocabulary and still lack of the

teaching facilities, which causes a fact that the students to be unable to speak in
English. Under the circumstances, at the Department of English- Hanoi University
of Business and Technology, there has been an attempt in investigating and solving
this issue. Regarding the crucial aspect of pronunciation in English learning and the
mentioned reasons, this action research entitled “Using shadowing technique to
rd

improve the pronunciation of the 3 - year students at HUBT” was done on the
situation of teaching pronunciation mainly the pronunciation of the individual
sounds and words in English.

2


2. Objectives of the study
The study is to investigate the use of shadowing technique to improve the
rd

pronunciation of 3 - year students at Hanoi University of Business and Technology.
rd

Questionnaire the 3 - year students and the teachers, the author firstly aimed at
identifying their general attitudes towards learning English pronunciation, and towards
using shadowing technique in teaching and learning pronunciation as the main focus of
the study. Besides, the study also examines how the use of shadowing technique helps
rd

improve the pronunciation of the 3 - year students at HUBT.

3. Research questions

With the aims stated above, three following questions were proposed for the
study:
1. What are the students‟ attitudes to shadowing?
2. What are the teachers‟ attitudes to shadowing?
3. To what extend does the shadowing technique improve the students‟
pronunciation?
4.

The scope of the study
Needless to say, the overview of the various aspects of English pronunciation

– sounds, stress, rhythm and intonation – is essential. The use of shadowing
technique in language teaching and learning has been approved for decades because
of its variety of benefits in enhancing four English skills in general, and also in
terms of pronunciation in particular. Shadowing plays an undeniable role in
improving students‟ pronunciation including both segmental and supra-segmental
levels (Hiramatsu, 2000); however, within the framework of this paper, this minor
thesis attempts to target the students‟ pronunciation in individual sounds and words
by applying the shadowing technique.
rd

The subjects of the study include only 30 3 -year students at the Department
of Finance and Banking at HUBT who are not English majored. Therefore, the
results of this study may be generalized to other similar Vietnamese non-English
majors.

3


5. Research methods

The study was conducted as an action research.
The research began with a literature review in different theoretical issues
related to pronunciation learning and the use of shadowing in teaching and learning
the language throughout the world. After the literature review, in response to the
presented aims, the researcher used different instruments which were a
questionnaire, interviews, a pre-test and a post-test to collect data from the students
and the teachers at HUBT.
+

Interviewing and asking students to do the questionnaire is to find out their

attitude to the use of shadowing technique in learning pronunciation. All the
questions in the interview involved closed and open-ended questions. After
collecting the data from the interview, the data was analyzed qualitatively and
quantitatively. This is to answer research question 1
+

Interviewing teachers is to obtain information about their attitude to the use

of shadowing technique in teaching pronunciation and answer research question 2
+

Doing statistics analyses from a pre-test and a post-test is to explore the

effectiveness of using the shadowing technique in learning pronunciation and
answer research question 3
6.

Design of the study
The thesis is entitled “Using shadowing technique to improve the

rd

pronunciation of 3 - year students at HUBT.” The study will be designed with three
parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion.
The first part, Introduction, is a brief overview of the study with more details
of the rationale, the objectives, the methods, the research questions, and the scope of
the study as well as the design of the study.
The second part, Development, consists of three chapters. Chapter 1 is literature
review which presents the theoretical background of the thesis. This chapter consists of
definitions of key terms: pronunciation and shadowing. A review of previous studies is
also put in this chapter. Chapter 2 begins with an overview

4


about the current situation of teaching and learning pronunciation at HUBT. This
chapter is also a deeper look on the technique used in the study with the participants
and data collection procedures as well as data analysis one. Chapter 3 deals with the
findings and discussion.
The last part, Conclusion, is devoted to the summary of the findings,
limitations of the study. This chapter also provides some suggestions for further
studies.
References and Appendices will be in the end.

5


PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I. LITERATURE REVIEW
This part reviews some authors‟ viewpoints concerning with pronunciation

learning and teaching, the convenience of teaching and learning pronunciation in
listening lessons and also the use of shadowing technique in English language
learning in order to build up the theoretical background for the study which consists
of three main parts: related issues of pronunciation, an overview of shadowing
technique as well as an overview of previous studies in the world and in Vietnam
about using shadowing technique in improving pronunciation of language learners.
1.

Pronunciation

Pronunciation was viewed as an important component of English language
teaching curricula since the 1940s. Morley (1991) argued that the question does not
lie in „whether‟, but „what‟ and „how‟ pronunciation should be taught. Baker (1992)

contended that advanced English learners realize while overall English proficiency
can be improved, that it is impossible to eliminate some repeated mistakes and
accented pronunciation. Although the pronunciation of adult L2 learners cannot be
native-like, it can be improved with constant exposure to L2 (Flege 1988; Flege &
Liu 2001; Riney 1998; Trofimovich 2006
1.1. Why is pronunciation important?
People also often judge others by the way they speak, and so learners with
poor pronunciation may be judged as incompetent, uneducated or lacking in
knowledge, even though listeners are only reacting to their pronunciation. Yet many
adult learners find pronunciation one of the most difficult skills of English to
acquire, and need explicit help from the teacher (Morley 1994; Fraser 2000).
Surveys of student needs consistently show that the learners feel the need for
pronunciation work in class (Willing, 1989). Thus, some sorts of pronunciation
work in class are essential.

6

1.2. Definition of pronunciation
This term is defined as the production of a sound system, which does not
interfere with communication, either from the speakers‟ or from the listeners‟ point
of view (Paulston and Burder, 1976, p.82). Also, it is defined as a way of speaking a
word in an accepted manner (American Heritage Dictionary, 1992, cited in
Otlowski, 1998). Meanwhile, Richard and Schmidt (2002, p.429) defined it as "the
way certain sound or sounds are produced".
Aspects of pronunciation:
Based on the viewpoint that pronunciation refers to the production of sounds
used to make meaning, there are two aspects of pronunciation to be taken into
account: the supra-segmental and the segmental aspects. The former covers aspects
of speech beyond the level of the individual sound such as intonation, phrasing,
stress, timing, and rhythm. The later refers to the particular sounds of a language.
About the Supra-segmental aspects of pronunciation, Stress comes in the first
place. Stress is about the prominence given to certain syllables within words, and to
certain syllables or words within utterances. Three main different levels of stress are
word level, sentence and contrastive stress. The second is Intonation. Intonation, or
change of pitch, is crucial in signaling speaker meaning, particularly interpersonal
attitudes. Clennell (1997) identified some major functions that are important for
learners such as information marking (prominent stress), discourse marking
(given/new), conversational management (turn-taking/collaborating), attitudinal or
affect

marking

(mood/feeling),

grammatical/syntactic

marking

(clause

boundaries/word classes) and pragmatic marking (illocutionary force/intention of
the speaker). Five major patterns of tones can be identified by fall, rise, fall-rise,
rise-fall and level. The third one is features of connected speech. In English, the way
of linking and blending sounds between words is quite distinctive from that of other
languages, and these features help to manage the patterns of stressed, unstressed and
pitch change. The fourth one is voice quality. Voice quality has received little
attention in L2 learning, although this factor may be quite familiar

7


with the concept. This term refers to the more general, longer term articulatory
settings shared by many sounds within a language, and these affect accent and the
quality of voice in a global way.
About Segmental aspects of pronunciation, the first one is the sound system
of English which is made up of phonemes, or individual sounds which carry the
potential to make meaning, and these may be vowels, diphthongs (combinations of
two vowel sounds), triphthongs (combinations of three vowel sounds) or
consonants. These sounds are made using our tongue in different parts of the mouth.
Consonants are made by causing a blockage or partial blockage in the mouth, and
these are usually described in terms of where the sound is made in the mouth, or
place of articulation, how the sound is made, or the manner of articulation and
whether or not the vocal cords vibrate, or voicing.
1.3.

Factors that affect pronunciation learning

Like in other subjects, there are many factors which affect pronunciation
learning, but some of them are specific to this language section as well as to
learning foreign language as a whole. It involves both learning as an organized and
intentional process, and the unintentional language acquisition which proceeds
subconsciously and intuitively, however, is not less beneficial. Both, learning and
the language acquisition, are dependable on the inner and outer factors, which the
teachers should be aware of when setting out goals and preparing methods and
materials.
While the factors which cannot be influenced neither by the learner, nor his
or her surroundings are the native language, the age and to a certain extent the
phonetic ability of the learner, the amount of exposure to English, the attitude and
motivation may be supported and changed a lot either by the teacher, or the learner,
but usually in cooperation and support from both sides. That is to say that in this
study, the research wants to examine to what extend or in what ways the positive or
negative attitude towards to technique influence the participants‟ improvement.

8


1.4.

Different techniques used to teach pronunciation
Up to now, there have been a variety of different techniques applied to teach

pronunciation all over the world such as listening and imitating, phonetic training,
minimal pair drilling, visual aids, tongue twisters, developmental approximation
drilling, practicing of vowel shifts and stress shifts related by affixation, and reading
aloud/recitation.

In listening and imitating, a technique used in the Direct Method, students
listen to a teacher-provided model and repeat or imitate it. This technique has been
enhanced by the use of tape recorders, language labs, and video recorders.
In phonetic training, teachers use descriptions of articulatory, diagrams of
articulatory, and a phonetic alphabet to help students understand and practice
pronunciation.
In minimal pair drilling, a technique introduced during the Audio-lingual era,
teachers use the words in pairs to help students distinguish between similar and
problematic sounds in the target language through listening discrimination and
spoken practice. Minimal pair drills typically begin with word-level drills and then
move on to sentence-level drills (both paradigmatic and syntagmatic).
Using visual aids is also a technique which helps to enhance teacher's
description of how sounds are produced by audiovisual aids such as sound-color
charts, Fidel wall charts, rods, pictures, mirrors, props, realia, etc. These devices are
also used to cue production of the target sounds.
Practicing tongue twisters is another technique of pronunciation in which
different sounds are repeated and contrasted. This technique helps learners to
practice difficult sounds in English in a funny way.
Using developmental approximation drills is a technique suggested by firstlanguage acquisition studies in which second language speakers are taught to retrace
the steps that many English-speaking children follow as they acquire certain sounds
in their first language. Thus just as children learning English often acquire /w/
before /r/ or /y/ before /l/, adults who have difficulty producing /l/ or /r/ can be

9


encouraged to begin by pronouncing words with initial /w/ or /y/, and then shift to
/r/ or /l/, respectively.
Practice of vowel shifts and stress shifts related by affixation is a technique
based on rules of generative phonology (Chomsky & Halle, 1968) used with

intermediate or advanced learners. The teacher points out the rule-based nature of
vowel and stress shifts in etymologically related words to raise awareness;
sentences and short texts that contain both members of a pair may be provided as
oral practice material.
In reading aloud/recitation, teachers deliver passages or scripts for learners to
practice and then read aloud, focusing on stress, timing, and intonation. This
technique may or may not involve memorization of the text, and it usually occurs
with genres that are intended to be spoken, such as speeches, poems, plays, and
dialogues.
In brief, there may be different ways of teaching and learning English
pronunciation, furthermore, the shadowing technique, the technique used in this
research, can be seen as the new and modern one.
2. Shadowing
2.1.

Definition of shadowing

Shadowing is a kind of “repeat-after-me” type exercise, but rather than
waiting until the end of the phrase heard, learners are required to reproduce nearly
at the same time.. Shadowing is known as one of the training techniques used to
improve interpreting skills. “There are five kinds of shadowing as teaching methods
which can be divided into three kinds of shadowing (shadowing, delayed
shadowing, and phrase shadowing) and two kinds of peripheral tasks (parallel
reading and speed reading)” (Tamai, 2005)

10


Kinds of shadowing
Shadowing

Delayed shadowing
Phrase shadowing

Parallel reading
Speed reading

Table 1: Classification of shadowing (cited in Tamai, 2005)
As can be seen from Table 1, delayed shadowing and phrase shadowing may
fit the aim of this research in terms of improving pronunciation of sounds and
words. Therefore the author put these two kinds of shadowing into practice during
the research.
The effectiveness of using these two types of shadowing on improving
pronunciation was mentioned as minimal delay (delayed shadowing) and at greater
latencies (phrase shadowing) in Lambert (1991) and Seleskovitch and Lederer
(1989:168).
2.2.

Significant features of using shadowing technique in learning and

teaching pronunciation
To talk about the use of shadowing for teaching pronunciation, researches
have been carried out to show the advantages of this technique. Rongna and Ryoko
(2012) specifically studied and yielded encouraging results. In their study, they
investigated the use of shadowing to help the Japanese as the second language (JSL)
students to improve their pitch accent. Shadowing was chosen as a language

11


teaching activity in their study, since correct pitch accent is crucial to

comprehensibility in Japanese speech (Rongna & Ryoko, 2012), and shadowing has
been shown to “improve prosodic features of... pronunciation (Mori, 2011 as cited
by Rongna & Ryoko, 2012).
The participants in Rongna and Ryoko‟s (2012) study shadowed a dialogue
ten times per week over a period of three weeks; before and after each recorded
shadowing activity, the participants read the dialogue aloud. Upon completion of
their study, the researchers found that there was a significant improvement in the
participants‟ pitch accent from the first reading to the final reading.
According to Yonehara (1994 as cited by Hiramatsu 2000), shadowing was
much more useful as an activity that focuses on pronunciation than as an activity
that focuses on content. She claimed that shadowing should be used for the
following purposes: “acquiring pronunciation, intonation and natural sentence
patterns and expressions” (as cited by Hiramatsu, 2000, p. 315). Hiramatsu (2000)
supports Yonehara‟s (1994) claim, adding that shadowing had the capability of
helping students to improve features of their pronunciation, such as accent and
stress.
To sum up, studies have been conducted to find if shadowing was the
appropriate way to teach and learn pronunciation. The use of shadowing has been
noticed the most among pronunciation teaching techniques because of its
convenience and effectiveness. However, in Vietnam, it has been a quite strange
technique, the author encountered difficulties when accessing related information.
With the hope of finding the most appropriate way of mastering pronunciation, this
study might help make a small contribution to fulfil the picture of current learning
pronunciation situation in Vietnam.

12


CHAPTER II. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This study employed an action research method which is often described as

being cyclical, participative, qualitative, reflective and responsive (Dick, 1993).
McCutcheon and Jung (1990) regard action research as a systemic inquiry that is
collective, collaborative, self-reflective, critical and undertaken by participants in
the inquiry. These two definitions lean more on the problem-solving practical
concerns that need quick and immediate remediation and action research render
itself well to this study focus.
In the previous chapter, the theoretical matters related to the topic have been
covered. In order to see how they work in real learning environment, the research
was carried out with the following steps:
1.

Identification of the problem

2.

Formulation of action hypothesis

3.

Designing and implementing the action plan

4.

Simple procedure of analyzing data and giving conclusion

This chapter describes only the first three steps. The last step will be presented in
the next chapter. That is, the main contents of the chapter include the context and
the subjects of the study, the research, the data collection instruments, the data
collection procedure, and the data analysis procedure. Also, this chapter mentions
the advantages and disadvantages when the researcher used those instruments and

data analysis procedure.
2.1. Context of the study
This study was conducted at HUBT, a private university in Hoang Mai
District, Hanoi, Vietnam. HUBT is quite famous for providing good training in two
main fields: business and technology. Business covers several different majors such
as Banking and Finance, Accounting, Business Administration and Commerce.
At HUBT, English is considered an extremely important subject to all
students; therefore, the students have to study English during three and a half years
at HUBT and to complete 45 credits of English (equivalent to 675 periods) before
13


taking the Graduation examination by the end of the fourth year. English and
informatics are two priorities equipped for students in the search for a competitive
job. That is the reason why HUBT always looks for new ways to improve the
quality of teaching and learning English.
For third year students, English is taught two lessons per week. Each lesson
focuses on improving the students‟ English skills such as reading, listening,
speaking, and writing in the classroom. To prepare for students to learn English
well, a great number of interactive classrooms with computers and projectors are set
up. In addition, such high quality equipment as players, tape players, and reference
books are also available. Moreover, on average, about 30 students attend each
English class, which is a good size for a language class. Though supported with
interactive video and audio files, not all learners find it easy to boost their
improvement in English pronunciation.
As regards the teaching, teachers at HUBT usually have an annual meeting
before the first day of the school year starts. They are informed of the course book,
schedule, and principles within the class. Assessment encompasses the attendance
marking, and mid-term and final scoring for students. Another point to note is that
teachers of English graduated from different universities in Vietnam. Moreover,

most of them are very young, enthusiastic, and dynamic. Nevertheless, some of the
teachers were not trained to be teachers. Or a number of them are over the age of
fifties and accompanied a lot of difficulties in pronouncing English in terms of
individual sounds and words. Those reasons lead to a great number of difficulties in
teaching and learning English pronunciation especially in ending sounds. In this
action research, the researcher would like to focus on the pronunciation of
individual sounds especially the ending sounds and words.

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2.2 The study
2.2.1. Participants
About students:
The participants in the study are 30 third year students, including males and
females from the Faculties of Finance and Banking at HUBT. They were all invited
to participate in this study. Coming from different parts of Vietnam, they may have
experienced different methods of instructions and achieved different levels of
English proficiency. Most of these students have studied English for over ten years,
and are going to finish their English program at HUBT (about 2 months before the
end of the school year); thus, they are quite familiar with the teaching and learning
rd

methods at HUBT. They are at the 3 -year study at University and share the same
schedule and materials in the study. In total, there are 30 students participated in the
study.
These students at Faculties of Finance and Banking participating in the study
were assumed by the researcher to be more proficient than those at other faculties
because of present academic and future career requirements. Therefore, this sample
does not necessarily present the whole population of the university. Because of the

scope of the study, the researcher tried to figure out the result of better English
pronunciation of sounds as well as individual words after using the technique of
shadowing.
About the teachers:
The three teachers took part in the interviews are at different ages and time of
teaching, therefore the answers should be various based on their ages and
experience. They were invited to observe the class in the research to have a better
understanding about the technique and the application during classed, after that they
were asked to give feedback to the researcher at the end of the research project
through the private interviews.

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Teachers
1
2
3
Table 2: Information about the teacher
participants 2.2.2. Data collection instruments
To reach the primary objectives of the study, a survey questionnaire has been
constructed for data collection for this research. The survey questionnaire is
intended to serve as a source of data for this research since it “is useful to collect
survey information, providing structured, often numerical data, being able to
administer without the presence of the researcher, and often being comparatively
straightforward to analyze”. Hence, it will certainly be valuable for helping the
author explore the subjects‟ difficulties in learning English pronunciation in terms
of individual sounds, ending sounds and words. Moreover, this research tool is also
relatively more comfortable, time-saving and economical to administer. Though the
use of questionnaire has some weak points like responses “participants think the

researcher wants to hear, or indulge in self-flattery”, Ellis (1985: 101) emphasized
that questionnaires have provided an insight into the personal nature of language
learning, particularly classroom language learning.
In addition to the questionnaire, this study encompassed the use of
quantitative and qualitative research methods. The qualitative data was gained from
the interviews with English teachers after they had been invited to observe the class.
In order to make sure that the participants can understand correctly the content of
the questionnaire, the questionnaire items are presented in Vietnamese as well.
Explanation is elicited where necessary.
Besides the use of the questionnaire and the informal interviews, the author
also used the adaptive pre-test and post-test from Test of English Pronunciation
(Cambridge University Press, 2004) and Ship and Sheep text book on English

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pronunciation ( Baker, 2001 ) to examine the effectiveness of using the new
technique to teach pronunciation.
2.2.2.1. Questionnaire
A questionnaire was used to find out the students‟ attitude toward using the
shadowing technique in improving pronunciation, the ways they learn and practice,
their problems in learning pronunciation... The questionnaire was designed with
both open- ended and closed questions, containing the title, instructions,
questionnaire items, additional information, and a final “thank you”. The
questionnaire for students was in Vietnamese so that the students were able to
understand easily and to avoid any misunderstanding of the questions. This may
enhance the reliability and validity of the collected data. Students were asked to
answer the questionnaires at the end of the course. They were guided to avoid
misunderstandings and to provide reliable information. Before the students were
handed the questionnaires, they were explained about its aims and that their

responses were anonymous. They were required to complete the questionnaire
during break time, which last 20 minutes at university.
The questionnaire consists of 16 questions that required the participants to
give their opinion about their attitude, interest and difficulties when applying
shadowing technique in learning pronunciation.
This section of the questionnaire also based on a 5-point Likert scale with a
hope to have the unity with the previous section of learning strategies. The scale
ranges from (1) strongly disagree to (2) disagree, (3) neither, (4) agree and (5)
strongly agree. By this scale, number 5 inferred a student who is highly motivated
by the given reason while number one means the other end of the spectrum.
Moreover, the type of odd-numbered scales is utilized here, with a middle value
(neither), the respondents could have an “out” (Losby & Wetmore, 2012).
Meanwhile, even-numbered scales (such as four options) without the middle value
“force people to choose”, make them “frustrated” and; therefore, responses
collected may not be accurate (Losby & Wetmore, 2012). In addition, despite more

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