Nghiên cứu điều tra về việc dạy và học ngữ điệu đối với học sinh khối 9 ở một trường cấp 2 tại tỉnh thái bình

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI
UNIVERISTY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
********************

NGUYỄN THỊ DIỄM

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF
INTONATION TO THE 9TH GRADE STUDENTS AT A SECONDARY
SCHOOL IN THAI BINH PROVINCE
(Nghiên cứu điều tra về việc dạy và học ngữ điệu đối với học sinh khối 9
ở một trường cấp 2 tại tỉnh Thái Bình)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Major: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111

HANOI – 2017


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI
UNIVERISTY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
********************

NGUYỄN THỊ DIỄM

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF
INTONATION TO THE 9TH GRADE STUDENTS AT A SECONDARY
SCHOOL IN THAI BINH PROVINCE

(Nghiên cứu điều tra về việc dạy và học ngữ điệu đối với học sinh khối 9
ở một trường cấp 2 tại tỉnh Thái Bình)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Major: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111
Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Võ Đại Quang

HANOI – 2017


DECLARATION
I, Nguyen Thi Diem, hereby certify that my thesis submitted to the Faculty of
Post- Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam
National University, apart from the help recognized, is my own work. Documented
references have been fully provided. I have not submitted this thesis for assessment
in any other training institutions.

Hanoi, 2017

Nguyễn Thị Diễm

i


ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
First and foremost, I would like to express my special and sincere thanks to
my supervisor, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Vo Dai Quang, who gave me enthusiastic
instructions, precious support and critical feedback on the construction of the study.

This has always been one of decisive factors in the completion of this thesis.
Second, I also express my profound gratitude to all doctors, lecturers and
staff members of the Faculty of Postgraduate Studies, University of Foreign
Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their
valuable lectures and useful advice that are a great help me for the fulfilment of the
thesis.
Next, I would like to send my deep sense of thanks to the teachers and 100
students at the 9th grade at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School, Thai Binh for their
cooperation and the valuable information they provided in my research field.
Furthermore, I would like to send my heartfelt gratitude to my family and all
of my friends who have great source of endless care and support.
Last but not least, I am also thankful to many writers whose ideas are useful
hints for the development of this thesis.

ii


ABSTRACT
This research investigates teaching and learning of intonation to the 9th grade
students at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School.
For research objectives, I surveyed 100 9th grade students at Pham Huy
Quang Secondary School and asked their opinions about using intonation and
difficulties in using intonation when putting various English questions. The research
was investigated through two instruments: questionnaires for students and students‟
voice recording. Also, the in-depth interviews with two English teachers at Pham
Huy Quang Secondary School were conducted in order to understand their
intonation teaching methods and students‟ current intonation use. As the result, the
intonation mistakes that the 9th grade students commonly commit in using
intonation in types of English questions, namely, Yes-No questions, Wh-questions
and Tag questions were discussed and analyzed; thereby the appropriate solutions to

improve their intonation use in different types of English questions at Pham Huy
Quang Secondary School were recommended. I hope this research will contribute a
small part in helping the 9th grade students at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School
correct their intonation mistakes and enhance intonation use in their English
communication.

iii


TABLE OF CONTENT
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ....................................................................................... ii
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................. iii
TABLE OF CONTENT .......................................................................................... iv
ABBREVIATIONS ................................................................................................. vi
LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................... vii
LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................ viii
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................1
1.1 Rationale ...................................................................................................................... 1
1.2 Aims of the research .................................................................................................... 2
1.3 Research questions ....................................................................................................... 2
1.4 Scope of the research ................................................................................................... 2
1.5 Significance of the research ......................................................................................... 3
1.6 Structure of the research .............................................................................................. 3

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................4
2.1 Review of theoretical background ................................................................4
2.1.1 General description of English intonation ...............................................4
2.1.2 Intonation in different types of English questions ........................................7
2.2 Review of previous studies ........................................................................................ 11

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .................................................15
3.1 Research questions ..................................................................................................... 15

3.2 The participants of the study .......................................................................15
3.3 Research method ........................................................................................................ 15
3.4 Data-related issues ..................................................................................................... 16
3.4.1 Data collection instruments ........................................................................................ 16
3.4.2 Data analysis techniques ............................................................................................. 17

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ...................................................18
4.1 Objectives of teaching and learning intonation ......................................................... 18
4.2 Report on the results collected in survey questionnaires ........................................... 18
4.2.1 Summary of respondents participating in the research ............................................... 18
4.3.2 Students‟ perception on intonation teaching by teachers at English lessons .............. 19

iv


4.2.3 Students‟ perception on finding out teachers intonation mistakes and use of
intonation as one of the important assessment criteria in examinations .............................. 24
4.2.4 Students‟ perception on materials and means of support that are currently applied for
teaching intonation ............................................................................................................... 28
4.2.5 Students‟ opinions of their commonly committed intonation mistakes in speaking
lessons .............................................................................................................................. 33
4.3 The possible solutions to intonation teaching problems ............................................ 34
4.3.1 Teaching intonation on the level of accuracy ............................................................. 35
4.3.2 Teaching intonation on the level of fluency ............................................................... 36
4.3.3 Organizing training courses for English teachers ....................................................... 37
4.3.4 Investing more suitable facilities ................................................................................ 38

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION ...............................................................................39
5.1 Recapitulation ....................................................................................................39
5.2 Concluding remarks..........................................................................................39
5.2.1 Concluding remarks on the first objective ..................................................39
5.2.2 Concluding remarks on the second objective ..............................................39
5.2.3 Concluding remarks on the third objective .................................................40
5.3 Limitations and suggestion for the further studies ........................................40
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................41
APPENDIX 1 ............................................................................................................. I
APPENDIX 1: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRES FOR 100 9TH GRADE
STUDENTS ................................................................................................................ I
APPENDIX 2. IN-DEPTH INTERVIEW WITH GROUP LEADER OF
ENGLISH GROUP AT 9TH GRADE ..................................................................... V
APPENDIX 3. IN-DEPTH INTERVIEW WITH ENGLISH TEACHER AT
9TH GRADE............................................................................................................. VI

v


ABBREVIATIONS
TI

Methods of teaching intonation

AI

Methods of assessing intonation

MS

Materials and means of support

vi


LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: One question pronounced with different intonation patterns (Ladefoged,
2006,p. 120).
Figure2: Illustration of an unmarked yes-no question (Pierrehumbert &
Hirschberg, p.273).
Figure 3: Illustration of rise-plateau-rise in the contour (Pierrehumbert &
Hirschberg,p.274).
Figure 4: Example of a Wh-question.
Figure 5:

Students‟ perception on intonation teaching by teachers at English

lessons
Figure 6: Students‟ perception on finding out teachers‟ intonation mistakes
Figure 7: Students‟ perception about materials and means of support that are
currently applied for teaching intonation

vii


LIST OF TABLES
Table 4.1: Students‟ perception on intonation teaching by teachers at English
lessons .......................................................................................................................19
Table 4.2: Results of Methods of teaching intonation at Pham Huy Quang
Secondary School ......................................................................................................22

Table 4.3: Students‟ perception on finding out teachers‟ intonation mistakes and use
of intonation as one of the important assessment criteria in examinations...............24
Table 4.4: Results of Methods of assessing intonation in Pham Huy Quang
Secondary School ......................................................................................................27
Table 4.5: Students‟ perception on materials and means of support that are currently
applied for teaching intonation..................................................................................28
Table 4.6: Results of materials and means of support in Pham Huy Quang
Secondary School ......................................................................................................31

viii


CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Rationale
In recent years, English has been widely used in Vietnam. It has become a
compulsory subject at school. Theoretically, there has been a remarkable change in
methods of teaching and learning English. However, in fact, teaching and learning
English at the secondary school don‟t prove their own real competence. Teaching
and learning English only focus on grammar and vocabulary with an aim at getting
the high scores in examinations. For instance, in speaking lesson, teachers seem not
to focus on teaching some significant factors such as rhythms, phonetics and
intonation…
Individually, I first became interested in intonation of English language after
my first year at university. At one of the seminars, I completely misunderstood a
question that a native speaker asked because of the difference in intonation. The
other students and I did not recognize that was said as a question and nodded our
head as we might respond to a statement we did not understand even though we
were getting the gist of the conversation. The teacher stopped all conversation and
let us know that this is a big problem for English – speaking learners. This sparked
my interest in intonation in different types of questions. Since then, intonation and

how it relates to miscommunication is an area I have focused on in teaching.
Because intonation pattern differences could hinder students‟ lives outside the
classroom in various ways such as making friends, meeting needs, and job
advancement.
All of these motivated me to conduct this research “An investigation into the
teaching and learning of intonation to the 9th grade students at a secondary
school in Thai Binh province”, which will go into details of intonation mistakes in
different types of English questions of the 9th grade students at Pham Huy Quang
School and then recommend solutions in order to mitigate the problems.

1


1.2 Aims of the research
The specific aims of the study are:
-

To investigate the most common mistakes committed when using intonation
in different types of English questions by the 9th grade students at Pham Huy
Quang Secondary School, Thai Binh.

-

To identify the causes of students’ problems when using intonation in
different types of English questions.

-

To recommend possible solutions to their intonation mistakes.

1.3 Research questions
Based on the above purposes, this investigation was designed to answer the
following questions:
-

What are the intonation mistakes commonly committed by the 9th grade
students at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School, Thai Binh?

-

What are the causes of students’ problems when using intonation in different
types of English questions?

-

What are possible solutions to their intonation mistakes?

1.4 Scope of the research
The research was conducted on the 9th grade students at Pham Huy Quang
Secondary School, Thai Binh. Regarding its scope, the research focused on finding
out the most typical mistakes which the 9th grade students at Pham Huy Quang
Secondary School, Thai Binh commonly commit when using intonation in different
types of English questions. Hence, the research results cannot be true to all
Vietnamese learners. That is to say, the study works well only for teachers and
learners who are teaching and learning at such schools with similar English syllabus
or education training or for the ones who are concerned.
Moreover, due to both limited time and experience, this study only mentions the
mistakes in using intonation in different types of English questions. Any attempt to
study English intonation mistakes on other aspects, such as statement sentences
intonation…, is beyond the scope of this thesis.

2


1.5 Significance of the research
This research provides an insight into the teaching and learning of intonation
to the 9th grade students at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School, Thai Binh.
Furthermore, the research results would be used as useful references for English
teachers while they teach intonation to their students not only in Pham Huy Quang
School but also in other schools.
1.6 Structure of the research
The research consists of 5 chapters as follow:
Chapter 1 is the INRODUCTION, which provides an overview of the
research with specific information about rationale, aim and objectives of the
research, the research questions, the scope and structure of the research
Chapter 2 is the LITERATURE REVIEW, which presents a review of
theoretical background about using intonation in different types of English question
and a review of previous studies related to the research.
Chapter 3 is the METHODOLOGY, which gives a detailed discussion of
the method used in the study. It presents the subject of the study, the instruments
used to collect the data and the procedure of the data collection.
Chapter 4 is the FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION, which is a detail
description of data analysis and a discussion of the findings of the study
Chapter 5 is the CONCLUSION, which includes the recapitulation of the
main points presented in the thesis and concluding remarks. The limitations of the
study and some recommendations for further research are also discussed in this
chapter.

3

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Review of theoretical background
2.1.1 General description of English intonation
2.1.1.1 Definition of intonation
Intonation is a part of prosody and it often cooperates with other prosodic
features such as duration and amplitude in order to convey or supplement meaning
(Haan, J. 2002). Nevertheless, pitch, or, in acoustic terms, fundamental frequency
(F0) is usually assumed to be the main correlation to intonation (Bolinger, 1986,
Cruttenden, 1986, Beckman, 1995b). Stress is also an integral part of intonation. In
the present thesis, intonation will be defined as the meaningful variation of pitch in
the course of an utterance (Haan J., 2002).
Do Tien Thang in “Vietnamese Intonation” defined that “Intonation is the
phenomenon of language that is made up of the action of the acoustical features in
certain allomorph in the sentences. Intonation makes the sentence realized and
becomes the unit of communication" [3, 59]. Brazil (1997) stated that “one of the
traditional concepts of intonation is variation in the pitch of the voice and proposed
an innovative approach to production and reception of speech called Discourse
Intonation theory”.
In all languages, intonation is used as a means of expressing semantic and
emotionally stylistic differences of an utterance. Intonation may be presented as
raised or lowered pitch that in an expression usually means a completed or
uncompleted idea, question or statement. Prosodic features, such as a tone and a
pitch, can distinguish important ideas from less important ones and can show a
speakers‟ personality and attitude towards what he/she is saying. The pragmatic role
of intonation can be potent in conveying the speakers‟ intention with speech acts
(Searle 1969). Speech acts can be loosely described as actions of speaking whereby
the speaker sends a message to a hearer with an intention.

4

2.1.1.2 Types of intonation
Ladd (1980) presents five major intonations, while Levis (1999) divides
intonation into three categories. However, according to majority of authors,
intonation in English is divided into two key types such as raising intonation and
falling intonation.
+ The raising intonation is symbolized as
+The falling intonation is symbolized as

.

However in daily communication, there are many types of sub-intonations in
order to exactly express the speakers‟ different viewpoints such as low fall, high
wide fall, high narrow fall, low rise, high wide rise, high narrow rise, rise – fall, fall
– rise, rise – fall – rise. The England in Australia even uses 13 different subintonations in their daily communication.
In the English questions, two types of intonation of raising and falling
intonation are used widely. Looking at the following examples:
Eg1:

Eg2:

or

or

or

or

We can conclude that for the “Wh-question” questions, the end of the
sentence must fall intonation and for Question-No question, the end of the sentence
must raise intonation.
2.1.1.3 The importance of Intonation
The phrase people often use to illustrate the importance of intonation is, “It‟s
not what you said, it‟s how you said it!” The “how you said it” refers to the pitch
level, accent, length, or intonation contour – all aspects of suprasegmentals – of

5


what was said. Suprasegmentals can carry meaning not found in individual sound
segments. Segmentals are individual phones whereas suprasegmentals operate
above the level of the segmentals. The pitch level, accent, or intonation contour of
words or a whole phrase sometimes carries more pragmatic meaning than just
words as written. These suprasegmental features express intent, emotion, and
inquisitiveness and as such are a critical component of language competence and
proficiency.
Each intonation group has a typical pitch contour which changes in
predictable ways, for example when emphasis is added. Intonation can provide
attitudinal meaning in English and other languages (Cruttenden, 1986, p.14). The
example in Figure 1 illustrates two different intonation contours for the same words,
each conveying a different attitude toward what is being said. Native speakers of
American English can interpret differing intonation patterns to convey slight or
great differences in meaning.

Figure 1: One question pronounced with different intonation patterns (Ladefoged,
2006,p. 120).
Above are examples of how English speakers may pronounce the same
question with different intonation patterns. The top intonation contour is a falling

6


contour and is considered more neutral. The bottom contour, which is considered
more argumentative has two rising phrases, the second having a large pitch increase
(Ladefoged, 2006, p. 120)
Given that intonation contours can distinguish attitude or pragmatic force,
intonation functions importantly in cross cultural communication. “A failure to
make full 6 use of English prosodic features has crucial consequences in NS/NNS
[native speaker/non-native-speaker] oral interaction” (Clennell, 1997, p. 118).
Overall, more native-like intonation will help non-native speakers have their
intentions perceived more accurately in conversation.
2.1.2 Intonation in different types of English questions
2.1.2.1 Intonation in Yes- No questions
The unmarked English contour for yes-no questions has a final rise as is the
case for many intonational languages (Cruttenden, 1986, p.163). Pierrehumbert
(1980, p. 16, 262) describes yes-no questions in English with more detail, as having
a rise-plateau-rise. She shows an F0 pattern which is commonly used on yes-no
questions. The pitch accent is low, then the contour rises, makes a plateau, and then
rises again to a high tone. Pierrehumbert also cited Sag and Liberman (1975) and
Rando (1980) as describing yes-no questions as having a rise-plateau-rise
configuration when there is enough distance from the pitch accent to the end of
utterance for this to occur. We see this rise-plateaurise in the question if the contour
is long enough, but what I am looking for to determine if an utterance is target-like
is the final rise at the boundary tone. This is sufficient to distinguish an utterance
from being native-like. Figure 2 illustrates the unmarked contour for yes-no
questions (Pierrehumbert & Hirschberg, 1990)

7

Figure 2: Illustration of an unmarked yes-no question (Pierrehumbert &
Hirschberg, p.273).
The intonation contour in Figure 2 shows a low pitch accent on the first syllable
of “vitamins” and the contour rising from there to a final high tone. Figure 3, below,
shows another example of the yes-no question, this time with the rise-plateau-rise

Figure 3: Illustration of rise-plateau-rise in the contour (Pierrehumbert &
Hirschberg,p.274).

8


In Figure 3 the boundary tone is far enough from the final pitch accent to
allow for the rise-plateau-rise in the contour. This contour shows a low pitch accent
on “good” and a rise-plateau-rise from there (Pierrehumbert, 1980).
Although there are grammatical structures that align with such intonation
contours to indicate interrogatives such as English aux + S + V (Do you like
apples?), speakers (and especially English language learners) don‟t have to use
these grammatical forms to make yes-no questions and can rely on high rise of the
boundary tone of unmarked intonation contours to express that action. This can be
typical of beginning language learners (Pienemann, 1998). (2) A: You work full
time (with high rising pitch at the end) B: yes In example (2) the language learner
does not use grammar to form a question by using the auxiliary verb „do‟ and
moving the subject after the verb. The question is in statement form and the final
rise in intonation indicates that it is a question. For this study I looked at fully
formed syntactic yes-no questions as well as those that were indicated by intonation
alone such as in example (2)
2.1.2.2 Intonation in Wh- questions

In contrast to yes-no questions, wh-questions in English, also known as
information questions, have the same unmarked falling contour as declaratives. Pike
(1956) describes the general tendency of question contours to be falling and refers
to them as the “chief contour” (pp. 168-169). Wh-questions in English have also
been 12 described more specifically as having a final falling tone (Couper-Kuhlen,
1996 citing Armstrong/Ward, 1931). Pierrehumbert & Hirshberg also described whquestions this way stating that “the H* L-L% tune used with simple declaratives is
also frequently used with wh-questions” (1990, p. 284).
Cruttenden (p.165) cites Bolinger (1978) and Ultan (1978) in describing
whquestions. “Falls are the dominant pattern for question-word interrogatives in
contrast to the rises associated with yes-no questions.” The following example
(Figure 4) shows a rise to the stressed syllable of the focus word and then a fall

9


including a low boundary tone. This is an unmarked question contour for whquestions in English.

Figure 4: Example of a Wh-question.
After looking at the unmarked intonation contours for questions in English
we will look at unmarked intonation contours in Russian and some information on
how they differ.
2.1.2.3 Intonation in Tag questions
Intonation in English tag questions has been investigated by many linguists
such as McCawley (1988), Huddleston and Pullum (2002), and Ladd (1988). Tag
questions are usually punctuated with question marks, but sometimes they are not
meant as questions. In most cases the speaker wants to confirm something and, as a
result, the falling pattern is used. If the speaker does not know something or is not
sure, he uses the rising pattern. Ladd (1981) describes two types of tag questions in
English. He defines them in terms of nuclear and post-nuclear tags instead of
“rising” and “falling”. In other words, a context and an intonation play an extremely

important role. Pitch contours are the clue to knowing what someone is really
asking when they ask a tag question. The examples of nuclear and post-nuclear tags
are presented below. It should be mentioned that the term anchor means the
declarative part of a tag question (Ladd, 1981). The falling intonation is used to

10


seek acknowledgment that the anchor is true, entreating a strong bias for an answer
that confirms the anchor. Ladd (1981) associates it with nuclear tags, whereas rising
intonation in tag questions asks for confirmation of the anchor, at the same time
expressing uncertainty. Ladd (1981) associates it with post-nuclear tags.
Example: A: Julie wouldn’t do it that way
B: Well, Julie isn’t here, /is she. (falling intonation pattern)
Example: A: Perhaps, Mary could do it
B: Mary isn’t here, /is she. (rising intonation pattern)
Tag questions convey varying degrees of bias depending on the direction of the
pitch over the tag. Falling intonation over the tag, for example, conveys a strong
bias toward the proposition expressed by the anchor. Rising intonation, on the other
hand, normally conveys some doubt or uncertainty by the speaker regarding the
truth of the anchor and is therefore associated with a weak bias. Intuitively, falling
intonation tag questions ask for acknowledgement of the anchor from the addressee,
while rising intonation tag questions ask for confirmation (Rando, 1980;
Huddleston and Pullum, 2002). When tags are used in their most frequent function,
– that is, seeking confirmation or making a point, – they also have rising-falling
intonation. The risingfalling pattern is definitely the more frequently occurring
contour for tag questions in English. However, the same tag question can have
different intonation and different meaning depending on the context. According to
Dart (1982), in English speech, a pause between the statement and the tag question
is very normal. Thus, tag questions in English can have rising or falling intonation

patterns, depending on a situation and person‟s interest in continuing or finishing a
conversation.
2.2 Review of previous studies
So far, there have been a quite number of studies about Vietnamese‟s
mistakes in using intonation. They are the valuable references for further researches,
especially, for this thesis.

11


Tran Thi Thanh Dieu (2015) studied about “A case study of solutions to some
intonation mistakes made by Vietnamese students – a phonetic experimental
research”. This study focuses on the importance of combining phonological
knowledge with rhythm, melody and syntax rules in teaching English intonation
affected by stress for Vietnamese students, verified by Experimental Phonetics. The
hypothesis is that the English Rhythmic patterns and melodic aspect will help
students to identify their intonation mistakes and change from negative to positive
attitude towards practicing intonation melodically affected by stress. The final target
is to improve Vietnamese students‟ pronunciation skill as well as catching the main
idea in the conversation in order to have successful communication in English. To
solve this problem, the author carried out with 90 Vietnamese students in two
universities namely University of Social Sciences and Humanities and Ho Chi Minh
City Open University. The study gave seven common intonation mistakes such as
mistake of rhythmic pattern, mistake of tonic syllable identification, mistake of
rhythm and tonic syllable identification, mistake of intonation pattern, mistake of
rhythmic and intonation pattern, mistake of tonic syllable identification and
intonation patter and mistake of rhythm, tonic syllable identification and intonation
patterns.
In the study of “Contrastive Analysis of English and Persian Intonation
Patterns: An Error Analysis Study on Iranian Undergraduate EFL Students” of

Mojtaba Eghlidi (2016), the author highlighted importance of intonation pattern. In
particular, intonation patterns play a significant role in successful direct
communication i.e. speaking in the target language. Some language learners
generalize their native language patterns while speaking target language, in other
words, they make some pronunciation errors. In the present study, firstly, intonation
patterns of English and Persian have been analyzed and discussed contrastively.
Secondly, an error analysis study of intonation patterns on Iranian undergraduate
EFL students carried out. In order to collect data the voices of thirty Iranian
undergraduate EFL students while reading aloud an authentic English text have

12


been recorded. Then their errors while using English intonation patterns have been
identified. The results confirmed the predictions and showed that the subjects erred
in using rise-fall pattern in the sentences containing two clauses more than other
patterns; whereas they did not err while applying rise intonation.
According to Claudia Pesce (2014) in “Do Your ESL Students Make These
Stress and Intonation Mistakes?, the author identified two most common mistakes
of intonation namely no rising pitch and using the wrong pitch. Therefore, he
recommended some suggestions such as Yes/No questions have the rising pitch
towards the end; questions that begin with wh-words have a falling intonation;
statements have a falling intonation; question tags may have either depending on the
intention of the speaker; questions tags that are comments or observations have a
falling intonation while questions tags used to check information or express
uncertainty have a rising intonation; using rising intonation to express surprise and
using falling intonation to express sarcasm or disbelief.
Koichi Kumaki (2003) studied about “A study of English intonation in high
school textbook in Japan”. The study stated that teaching intonation is usually
neglected in teaching English at high school and upper secondary school in Japan.

Therefore, the study attempted to find out which intonation features are commonly
taught and how they are treated in the context of TEFL at high school in Japan. The
results pointed out the main intonation approaches, especially discourse intonation
and the intonation treatment in the authorized English textbooks largely takes the
grammatical approach rather than attitudinal or discourse, and the teachers‟ view on
intonation treatment is almost in line with that of the textbooks, though they rarely
teach intonation in lessons.
Obviously, there are many problems in relation to teaching and learning of
intonation for students at secondary school and high school. I hope that these are
useful references to develop my topic in this thesis.
2.3 Summary

13


All the theoretical background of the research was presented in this chapter with the
purpose of giving a general view to readers to get information about English
intonation, intonation in different types of English question, and some studies on
related topics. It was believed that the 9th grade students participating in this study
would struggle with the intonation in different types of English questions. The next
chapter will present the research methodology.

14


CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 Research questions
The study was carried out to address the following three questions:
-

What are the intonation mistakes commonly committed by the 9 th grade
students at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School, Thai Binh?

-

What are the causes of students’ problems when using intonation in different
types of English questions?

-

What are possible solutions to their intonation mistakes?

3.2 The participants of the study
The study was conducted with the participation of 100 students around 14
years old (64 males, 36 females) in two classes 9G and 9H at Pham Huy Quang
Secondary School. These two classes with 100 learners were selected randomly
from a population of 7 classes with 362 students of the basic program. They were
mixed-ability classes in which some students had limited proficiency in English.
The students had low intrinsic and extrinsic motivation for learning English.
Besides, the study has in-depth review with two teachers who are leader of English
group and English teacher at 9th grade. They were reminded that the data gathered
would not be utilized for any assessment purposes and that personal details would
be kept confidential.
3.3 Research method
In order to find out common intonation mistakes that the 9th grade students at
Pham Huy Quang Secondary School, Thai Binh commit, I use two methods of
qualitative and quantitative methods for gathering data. The data is collected from
two sources: secondary data and primary data (questionnaires and in-depth
interview). Based on these data, the current mistakes commonly committed by the
9th grade students at Pham Huy Quang Secondary School, Thai Binh in using

intonation in different types of English questions would be identified, analyzed and
assessed in order to find out the limitations. And then the solutions and

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