Phân tích lỗi thường gặp và áp dụng một số kỹ thuật dạy học để cải thiện vấn đề phát âm cuối cho các em học sinh lớp 10

SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO NGHỆ AN

SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM
Đề tài:

AN ANALYSIS OF ERRORS AND APPLICATION OF SOME
TECHNIQUES IN IMPROVING 10th GRADERS’ ENDING
SOUNDS IN PRONUNCIATION
(Phân tích lỗi thường gặp và áp dụng một số kỹ thuật dạy học
để cải thiện vấn đề phát âm cuối cho các em học sinh lớp 10)

LĨNH VỰC: TIẾNG ANH

NĂM, 2020


SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO NGHỆ AN
TRƯỜNG THPT NGHI LỘC 5

SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM
Đề tài:

AN ANALYSIS OF ERRORS AND APPLICATION OF SOME
TECHNIQUES IN IMPROVING 10th GRADERS’ ENDING
SOUNDS IN PRONUNCIATION
(Phân tích lỗi thường gặp và áp dụng một số kỹ thuật dạy học
để cải thiện vấn đề phát âm cuối cho các em học sinh lớp 10)

LĨNH VỰC: TIẾNG ANH

Họ và tên

: Bùi Lan Anh

Tổ

: Ngữ Văn - Tiếng Anh

Năm thực hiện : 2020 - 2021

NĂM 2020


TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART I. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................... 1
I. Reasons for the study ......................................................................................... 1
II. Aims of the study.............................................................................................. 1
III. Methods of the study ....................................................................................... 2
IV. Scope of the study ........................................................................................... 2
V. New features in the study’s result .................................................................... 2
PART II. CONTENT .............................................................................................. 3
I. THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL BACKGROUND.................................. 3
1. A historical overview of pronunciation in English ........................................... 3
1.1. The definition of pronunciation ................................................................. 3
1.2. Phonetics .................................................................................................... 3
1.3. English ending sounds............................................................................... 5
1.4. Ending sound errors ................................................................................... 6
2. Existing studies on some common mistakes about final consonants that
students tend to make. ........................................................................................... 7
II. THE CURRENT SITUATION OF THE ISSUE. ............................................ 8
1. Method of the study........................................................................................... 8

2. The reality of teaching and learning English ending sounds with the
students in grade 10 at Nghi Loc 5 High school. .................................................. 8
3. Research context ............................................................................................. 11
3.1. Setting and Participants ............................................................................ 11
3.2. Textbook and Pronunciation materials .................................................... 11
4. Data analysis and discussion ........................................................................... 11
4.1. Data analysis and discussion of the students’ survey questionnaire ........ 11
III. THE SOLUTIONS TO SOLVE THE MATTER. ........................................ 13
1. Suggested tips to 5 common ending sounds errors /ð/, /θ/,/tʃ/, /dʒ/,/ʃ/. .......... 13
2. Applying techniques to improve 10 th graders’ ending sounds in
pronunciation .................................................................................................... 14
2.1. Games ....................................................................................................... 14
2.2. Study ending sound pronunciation through watching and listening
videos, audios. ................................................................................................. 21
2.3. Training your ears by listening to English Songs .................................... 23
2.4. “Watch yourself” technique or Practicing in front of the mirror ............ 25
2.5. Recording and listening yourself ............................................................. 25
2.6. Study ending sound pronunciation by using ELSA speaking
application ....................................................................................................... 26


3. THE RESULT AFTER APPLYING THE RESEARCH TEACHING .......... 28
PART III: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION ............................................ 30
1. Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 30
2. Suggestion ....................................................................................................... 30
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................ 31
APPENDIX 1
APPENDIX 2

LIST OF TABLES, CHARTS
Table:
Table 1: Practical Situation of learning English pronunciation ............................... 9
Table 2: The percentage of the ending sounds that students have difficulties ......... 9
Table 3: Student’s opinion about solutions to cope with ending sounds ................ 10
Chart
Chart 1: Students' attitudes towards pronunciation activities ................................. 12
Chart 2: Students’ difficulties in learning ending sound pronunciation ................. 13


PART I. INTRODUCTION
I. Reasons for the study
As we know, English is an international language.It is not just a language; it is
a very effective tool and a useful device too. It has been the most powerful
language in the world. A lot of people speak English as mother tongue in their
daily life. Recently, almost websites are written on the Internet to approach the
world's growth, to extend our understanding of what is happening around us.
The another reason for carrying out this work is that pronunciation is very
important for the learner to study English.The goal of learning a foreign language
is communication, so it's very necessary to have clear pronunciation. Poor
pronunciation may impedes communication.When a student mispronounces a
sound,a stress, or a word, or misuses the rhythm and intonation of his utterances,
he will definitely cause confusion for his partner,even no understanding. There are
several pronunciation errors that learners are likely to make when studying
English: word and sentence stress, intonation, length of vowel, etc.
However, I know that the normal pronunciation problem for Vietnamese
learners is errors with pronunciation of the ending sounds.
In addition , teachers pay mainly attention to grammar, reading skills, writing
skills instead of pronunciation in general and ending sounds in particular when
teaching English. I have seen my students struggle with pronouncing the ending

sounds.They often get mistakes or even forget pronouncing the ending sounds
which makes their speech difficult to understand or misunderstood. So it is
essential to apply some techniques for improving students' pronunciation.
For the above reasons, I decided to choose: “ An analysis of errors and
application of some techniques in improving 10th graders’ ending sounds in
pronunciation” as the topic of this study.
II. Aims of the study
The purpose of this research is to help the students realize mistakes when they
pronounce ending sounds. Besides, it will help them raise awareness of their
pronunciation problems. Moreover, this research also aims to help these students
improve speaking skill and ending sounds pronunciation. My work helps myself to
have a good document to review for my students more effectively so that they are
able to cope with the exercise relating to pronunciation in their tests or exams more
easily. Last but not least, I can use this document for exchanging slight experiences
to the other teachers in correcting ending sounds errors.
This study will focus on two issues: The first one is to find out the ending
sounds errors of the students in grade 10 at Nghi Loc 5 High school. The second
one is to give out the suggestions for students to correct these errors.
1


Research objectives:
1. To identify the pronunciation errors of English ending sounds made by high
school students.
2. To provide techniques on students' pronunciation of English ending sounds.
III. Methods of the study
The study was carried out on the basis of material collection, survey
questionnaire and class observation, aimed to determine whether pronunciation
drills are able to enhance students’ motivation o r have a positive affect on the
ability of students to make pronunciation. The author used data collection

instrument to gather information about the students involved, monitor the progress
of the students when they used pronunciation drills throughout the research, and
determine the effectiveness of the pronunciation drills based on survey
questionnaire and class observation
IV. Scope of the study
The study mainly deals with surveying 86 EFL 10 graders in Nghi Loc 5 High
school. In order to conduct the thesis, I observe the pronunciation of the students at
the classroom and collect data related to the errors with ending sound
pronunciation. Most of the students are at the age of 15 and 16. Almost students in
this experiment group have been studying English since grade 3 with the help of
devices as computers or smartphones.
V. New features in the study’s result
In my innovation, there are a lots of pronunciation drills which have high
effectiveness and wide application. And these available activities, which were
suitably adapted for all levels of students, can help create environment for students
to develop student’s pronunciation skill and for teachers to use flexibly in their
teaching.

2


PART II. CONTENT
I. THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL BACKGROUND
1. A historical overview of pronunciation in English
1.1. The definition of pronunciation
Definition of English pronunciation is extremely significant because the
author examined the errors of pronunciation in English with ending sound. Also a
Standard English pronunciation should be established on which error analysis is
performed.
Crowther and Jonathan (1992) note that pronunciation is simply put as “the

way in which a language is spoken”.As Houghton Mifflin (2001), pronunciation as
“a way of speaking a word, especially a way that is accepted or generally
understood” ( as cited in Nguyen, 2008:06).
1.2. Phonetics
1.2.1. Definition of phonetics
According to Houghton Mifflin (2000) Phonetics is the linguistics branch
dealing with speech sounds and their production, combination, description, and
representation through written symbols.
1.2.2. English sounds
John,D. (1998) stated that there are 44 sounds in English which are classified
into two groups: 20 vowel sounds including vowels, diphthongs and tripthongs and
24 consonant sounds. During my thesic I just focus on studing ending sounds. To
help futher research I have provided the following sound systems in English.
1.2.3. Consonant sounds
Roach (2000 ) notes that consonants are “speech sounds when we produce
them the organs of speech always form a barrier, the airstream is stopped before
going out of the mouth and the vocal cords may vibrate or not”. Consonant sounds
are different from consonant letters. In Wikipedia Dictionary, it is said that “the
number of consonants in the world’s languages is much greater than the number of
consonant letters in any one alphabet”.
Such consonant letters such as c, q, and x are absent as found in other sounds.
(The letter C can be found in the k sounds and in the s sound in words like cereal,
city and cent. The letter q can be found in words like backwards in "kw").
Consonant Classification is based on various criterias. The consonants are
categorized into 6 classes based on the way they are articulated:
- Plosive
- Fricative
3

- Affricative
- Nasal
- Lateral
- Approximant
+ Plosive: /p/,/b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, /d/
+ Fricative: /s/, /z/, /f/, /v/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /θ/, /δ/, /h/
When we create these sounds, the airflow is completely stopped and then
released abruptly with a light explosion
These sounds are created when the airstream is partially halted and released
slowly with audible friction
+ Affricative: /ʧ/, /ʤ/
Such sounds are made with the airstream stopped completely and released
slowly
+ Nasal: /m/, /n/, /ŋ/
These sounds are produced when the airstream escapes through the nose
+ Lateral : /l/
This sound is produced with the airstream escaping along the sides of the
tongue
+ Approminant: /w/, /j/, /r/
- These sounds are made with the slight friction
Consonants are divided into 9 categories, depending on the place of
articulation:
Bilabials: /p/, /b/, /m/, /w/
- Labio-dental: /v, /f/
The bilabial consonants are sounds produced with a combination of two lips.
Those sounds are designed as we touch the upper teeth with the lower lips.
- Dental: /θ/, /δ/
Dentals are formed by rubbing the upper teeth with the tip of the tongue.
- Alveolars: /t/, /d/, /s/, /z/, /l/, /n/
Such sounds are produced with alveolar touches of the tips of the tongue.

- Post-alveolar: /r/
This sound is made by hitting the portion behind the alveolar with the tip of
the tongue.
4


- Palato-alveolar: /ʒ/, /ʃ/, /ʤ/, /ʧ/
The tip of the tongue rises between the alveolar and hard palate when making
certain sounds.
- Palatal: /j/
The front of the tongue's upper surface nearly touches its rough palate.
- Velar : /k/, /g/, /ŋ/
- These sounds are created by contacting the soft palate at the mouth bank
with the tongue bench.
- Glottal: /h/
This sound is created by swift closure of the glottis.
Consonants are classified into 2 classes, depending on the state of the vocal
cords:voiceless and voiceless.
If the vocal cord vibrates, the sounds produced are voiced.
If the vocal cord does not vibrate, the sounds produced are voiceless: /p/,
/t/, /k/, /s/, /f/, /h/, /ʃ/, /θ/, /ʧ/. The rest are voiceless.
Here is the table of consonant sounds:
Bilabial
Plosive

Labio
dental

Dental Alveolar

pb

Fricative

f v

Palatal Velar Glottal

θδ

sz

kg
ʒʃ

H

ʤʧ
m

Lateoral
Approximant

alveolar

td

Affricative
Nasal

Palato -

ŋ

n
l

w

R

j

Figure 2: Consonant chart
1.3. English ending sounds
Fred (1998: 145) revealed that ESL (English as a Second Language) learners
is familiar with the term "end sound" because it refers to those final sounds in a
word. More precisely, it refers to the consonant sounds, because the word may end
with one or more consonant sounds (consonant clusters). Thus "end sounds" can be
defined in the English pronunciation as those consonant sounds which appear at
the end of the words. They are called Codas. The coda is the final consonant
cluster, or consonant. A coda can contain as many as 4 consonants:
5


- If there are no consonant at the end of the word, it has a zero coda.
- A single consonant is called the final consonant.The final coda may be any
consonant except /h/, /r/, /w/ and /j/.
Eg: In English, the final consonant sounds are described as follows:
/p/ -keep, stop, clip

/s/

- pass, kiss

/b/ -rob, job

/z/

- buzz, is

/t/ -fight, hat, set

/ʃ/

- wash

/d/ -add

/ʒ/

- beige

/k/ -speak, click

/ʧ/

- watch

/g/ -beg, hag

/ʤ/ - luggage, knowledge,change

/f/ -laugh, gaff

/m/ - boom, tom, gloom

/v/ -move, live

/n/ - fan, plan,

/θ/ -teeth, smooth

/ŋ/ - string, long

/δ/ -weather, brother

/l/

- lull, hall

The words "pre-final" and "post-final" consonants are used when there are
two or more consonants standing at the end of the word.
Pre-final includes: /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /l/, /s/ Post-final includes: /s/, /z/, /t/, /d/, /θ/
- Two consonant clusters
+ Pre-final /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /l/, /s/ followed by a final consonant
+ Consonant plus post-final /s/, /z/, /t/, /d/, /θ/
- Three consonant clusters
+ Pre-final plus final plus post-final e.g: helped, banks, bonds, twelfth
+ Final plus post-final plus post final /s/, /z/, /t/, /d/, /θ/ e.g: fifths, next, lapsed

- Four consonant clusters
+ Most are pre-final plus final plus post final plus post-final
e.g twelfths, prompts
+ Occasionally there is one final and three post final consonants
e.g sixths, texts.
1.4. Ending sound errors
According to Mark (2008), ending sound errors can be defined as “the
inaccurate pronunciation of the final consonant in a word”. Here under is
introduction about 6 types of ending sounds errors according to Treiman (1989)
- Cluster reduction: this is the “deletion of one or more consonants from a
6


target cluster so that only a single consonant occurs at syllable margins”
- Cluster simplification: The error occurs when one or some elements of a
cluster being is produced in a different manner from the target phoneme.
- Epenthesis: this is the insertion of some vowel ( normally a schwa) between
cluster elements
- Coalescence: It occurs when the yeilded pronunciation contains a new
consonant composed of features from the original consonants.
- Omitting nasal and liquid sounds: In consonants cluster consisting of pre
final+ final consonants with nasals (/n/, /m/) or liquids (/r/, /l/) as the first element,
(/m, n, l, r/ + final consonant), nasals and liquid sounds are often omitted .
- Phonetically possible spelling: In representing the first consonant of a
cluster, spellers tend to spell words in an inaccurate but phonetically plausible ways.
In sum, ending sound errors were divided into 3 groups:
Reduction is omitting the final consonant or one element of a cluster.
Insertion is inserting a consonant to the ending of word.
Substitution is replacing an English consonant by a phonetically similar of
Vietnamese sound. In current study, the findings of students’ tapes recorded and

observation will be analyzed according to the three types of errors as mentioned
above.
2. Existing studies on some common mistakes about final consonants that
students tend to make.
To English learners such as Vietnamese, pronunciation errors with final
consonants are extremely popular. As the research on difficulties for Vietnamese
when pronouncing English final consonants, she proved that Vietnamese does not
have the same final consonants like English. There are many consonants that exist
in English but do not in Vietnamese. Moreover, the way that English speakers
pronounce the ending sounds is absolutely different from the one deeply rooted in
Vietnamese learners.That is a big barrier to Vietnamese learners who are studying
English. However, there were some study on this problem and the tips to
overcome. According to Avery and Ehrlich (1992), they pointed out some common
mistakes that Vietnamese students often make. Firstly, it was the word-final
voiceless stop consonants problem: /p/, /t/, /k/. In Vietnamese, these three
consonants occur at the end of a word, but the others are never released in final
position and are much shorter than their English equivalents. It means that even
when Vietnamese speakers pronounce these consonants in final position, English
speakers find it difficult to hear. Secondly, it was the mistake of voiced and
voiceless stops in word final position: /b/, /d/, /g/, vs. /p/, /t/, /k/ because
Vietnamese has no voiced stops at the end of words. Last but not least, it was
about word final fricative consonants: /f/, /v/, /θ/, /ð/, /s/, /z/, and /d /. These
fricatives occur in English but do not in Vietnam. It might be the reason why
Vietnamese speakers often omit these fricatives at the ends of the sounds. Besides,
according to Common pronunciation problems of Vietnamese learners of English
7


by Ha Cam Tam, she classified consonants errors into three main types: Sound
Omitted, Sound confusion and Sound redundancy. Of those, sound omission was

the most common errors that Vietnamese learners tend to make. Here are sounds
that were most frequently omitted by Vietnamese learners : /s, z, dʒ, t, l, k, ks, v/.
From the above valuable and reliable information, the author intends to discuss the
problem in details as well as make use the three criteria above for assessment and
analysis. All the theoretical background of the study was presented in this chapter
with the purpose of giving a general view to readers to get information about
English pronunciation, ending sound, ending sounds errors and some previous
studies on related topic.
II. THE CURRENT SITUATION OF THE ISSUE.
1. Method of the study
The research is done qualitatively in the 10th grader class . At the beginning of
school year 2020-2021 at Nghi Loc 5 High School. In this survey, I use the survey
questionnaire for students. This survey is designed to collect information for the
study on “An investigation into the reality of pronouncing the ending sounds with
the students in grade 10 at Nghi Loc 5 High School. All related data were
collected by survey questionnaires for 3 main following purposes:
- To find out the student’s attitude about English pronunciation and its
importance.
- To get information of student’s pronunciation problem of ending sounds.
- To inquire about students/s opinions on suggested techniques in order to
solve the problems.
2. The reality of teaching and learning English ending sounds with the
students in grade 10 at Nghi Loc 5 High school.
The whole procedure of teaching and learning is implemented similarly to all
students of the class with their consent. However, due to the limit of the study, I
only focus to collect information from the learning engagement of 10th grader
students during this process as the data for analysis. Below is the survey of the
practical situation of learning English ending sounds in grade 10 at Nghi Loc 5
High School.

8


Table 1: Practical Situation of learning English pronunciation
Questions for students
A
1. Which factor do you Grammar and
consider the most important
vocabulary
in English speaking?
30 %
2.How is pronun
Very important
ciation important in English
55%
speaking?
3. How often do you make
always
pronunciation
mistakes
35%
when speaking English in
class?
4.Which
pronunciation
Word and
mistakes do you tend to sentence stress
encounter when speaking
33,3%
English?

5. Does your teacher give
Always
you any active activities to
15%
improve your pronouncing
ending sounds?

B
Pronunciation
40%

C
intonation
15 %

D
spelling
15%

Important
21,67%

Normal
16,67%

Often
55%

sometimes
10%

Not
important
6,66%
never
0%

Vowel
misunderstanding
10%

intonation
10%

Ending
sounds
46,7 %

Sometimes
25%

Rarely
35%

Never
25%

From the table 1, we can see that teaching and learning ending sounds are not
often improved at Nghi Loc 5 High School. There are not many activities and
exercises about ending sounds in curriculum at 10th grade. This may not make it

attractive to learners as a classroom activity. When being asked some questions,
students answered that they often omit or pronounce wrong ending sounds while
speaking English. It is because they often see learning ending sounds as hard work,
confusing, unrewarding.
Some more questions are conducted to find out student’s most common error
of ending sounds.
Question 6: What are your ending sound mistakes that you often make
when speaking English?
Table 2: The percentage of the ending sounds that students have difficulties
Ending sounds
Percentage (%)
Ending sounds
Percentage (%)
/p/
20
/k/
16,67
/b/
26,67
/g/
23,33
/t/
30
/f/
36,67
/d/
30
/v/
20
/θ/

66,67
/ʃ/
70
/ð/
80
/tʃ/
70
/s/
40
/dʒ/
80
9


This table was completed by collecting results from the question 6 of the
survey questionnaires. All the English ending sounds were given out for students
to choose. Of those, the underlined sounds are the sounds that most of them find
hard to pronounce. They are: /ð/, /θ/, /tʃ/, /ʃ/, /dʒ/. These five sounds had a high
percentage (over 60%) chosen by students. This finding proved that students have
the same difficulties in pronouncing these ending sounds. For instance, the word
“breathe”, “bathe”… Students could not figure out how to pronounce this.
In order to find out the reason why students have difficulties with ending
sounds, I carried out another question:
Question 7: Why do you get difficulties when pronouncing ending sounds?
The answers are stated by some main reason following:
- No perception of how to pronounce these sounds.
- No existence of the sound in mother tongue.
- No importance of pronouncing ending sounds.
- Interference of friends’ pronunciation.
- No habit of practicing English pronunciation.

- Shyness in making mistakes when pronouncing.
Finding out the reasons of the students’ difficulties on pronouncing ending
sounds can be considered as a key to give out the solutions.
Question 8: Which solution do you think useful in order to avoid
pronunciation mistakes?
Table 3: Student’s opinion about solutions to cope with ending sounds
Solutions
Playing games
Watching and listening videos,
audios, English Songs
“Watch yourself” - Practicing in
front of the mirror
“Listen yourself” - Tape recording
Practicing in pairs
Using ELSA speaking application.
Doing pronunciation exercises in
text books

Agree
Not interesting
Interesting
(%)
(%)
100%
0%

Disagree
(%)

90%

10 %

55%

45%

60 %
50%
70%

10%
20%
25%

30%
30%
5%

30%

50%

20%

The table above presents that playing games, watching and listening videos,
audios, singing English Songs are the most student’s favorite solutions. Besides,
there are some other great solutions agreed by students.
10

To the students at Nghi Loc 5 High school, their speaking skill seems to be
pretty bad, especially in pronouncing ending sounds. The study is intended to point
out the ending sounds errors that students tend to make and the solutions to solve
the problems. The research is a useful reference for students to learn English
pronunciation and correct ending sounds errors. Through studying myself,
exchanging with my colleagues as well as observing and investigating the learning
method of students in real lessons I would like to give solutions to the problems. I
truly hope that this subject will be a meaningful document for readers.
3. Research context
3.1. Setting and Participants
3.1.1. Students
The participants were 86 students in Nghi Loc 5 high school. Most these
students are generally at pre-intermediate level. They have learned English for at
least five years at high school. However, they usually express no interest in
speaking lessons specially pronunciation skill due to the bering and the difficulties.
3.1.2. Teachers
Three teachers who have been teaching English at Nghi Loc 5 High School
were invited to join the research. All of the teachers under the investigation have
ever taught grade 10, and all of them were teaching in the academic school year
2020-2021. When the study was carried out. The problem was that the students are
not attentive and interested in pronunciation practice. As a result, they were
confused about detailing their teaching activities. In addition to that, there was
difficulty in finding the teaching materials or references to support for the
designing their lessons apart from the textbooks and the teacher’s books. The
results from these teachers will give an objective view on how to improve students’
pronunciation ability and how their teaching will be better.
All participants took part in the survey by responding to the two kinds of
questionnaires, one for students and one for teachers.
3.2. Textbook and Pronunciation materials

The pronunciation materials used in the study consisted of selected texts from
Textbook. Besides, the author also searched and selected many pronunciation
exercises from reputable and quality internet sources.
4. Data analysis and discussion
4.1. Data analysis and discussion of the students’ survey questionnaire
The questionnaire was designed with three parts with 12 questions. Part one
was to explore the students’ attitudes towards pronunciation techniques. Part two
aimed at collecting information about students’ difficulties when learning ending
sound and students’ expectation towards teachers’ pronunciation techniques.
11


4.1.1. Students' Attitudes toward learning ending sound pronunciation
There is a question set: “Why are many students not interested in learning
pronouncing activities ?” Through the questions 4 in appendix 2a and 2b, the
researcher can get some reasons.
Firstly,we consider the learners' attitudes due to their interest when participate
in pronunciation activities.Secondly,the researcher would like to explore the
reasons motivating or de-motivating students in learning pronunciation activities.

Chart 1: Students' attitudes towards pronunciation activities
The results reflect that 60% of the informants said they felt embarrassed and
nervous when taking part in the pronunciation exercises and 10% of them said they
were dissatified with the tasks, while 7% were bored with those activities.
Nonetheless, 5% of students show their interest in pronunciation activities and 8%
confirmed that they were confident with them.
4.1.2. Students’ difficulties when learning ending sound pronunciation
According to the questionnaire survey as well as the reality in daily teaching, I
knew the reason why 85% of students evaluated pronouncing ending sound to be a
big challenge. Eighty-four percent of students were afraid of pronunciation and

they were afraid to make errors that would prevent them speaking. 65 percent felt
shyness when they presented in front of class. 68% students said that they were not
sure about their pronunciation knowledge. The teachers had a great effect on their
studying. It is worthworrying because 51% students thought that the teacher did
not encourage them to pronounce much.

12


Chart 2: Students’ difficulties in learning ending sound pronunciation
4.1.3. Data analysis and discussion of the teachers’ survey questionnaire
The questionaire completed by the teachers covered three main things. The
first questions are what difficulties they are facing and then their suggestions to
improve it.
Obviously, all of the teachers have positive attitude toward pronunciation.
They know how important and beneficial pronunciation is to their students.
However, at least one among three of them think that pronunciation is boring and
sometimes difficult to students. Three of them admitted having adapting some
tasks or simplify them in oder to motivate their students but they met a lot of
challenges. Beside some problems coming from their students like their limitation
of basic knowledge about pronunciation, or lack of context to practise speaking.
In short, the data analysis of the questionnaires at Nghi Loc 5 High school has
provided primary important information concerning the students‟ difficulties, what
they do in as well as what they would like their teachers to do to help them study
pronunciation more effectively.
III. THE SOLUTIONS TO SOLVE THE MATTER.
This part will introduce the readers some suggestions, some tips to correct
ending sounds errors.
1. Suggested tips to 5 common ending sounds errors /ð/, /θ/,/tʃ/, /dʒ/,/ʃ/.
- With the sound /ð/

When you pronounce the sound /ð/, you have to place your tongue between
your teeth but use your voice when you blow out the air, like this: Words to
practice: bathe, breathe…
- With the sound /θ/
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When pronouncing this sound, you have to put the tip of your tongue between
your teeth so it extends past your teeth a little, and blow air out. Words to practice:
math, tenth, earth…
- With the sound /tʃ/
To create the sound /tʃ/, air is briefly prevented from leaving the vocal tract
when the tip of the tongue presses against the back tooth ridge while the sides of
the tongue press against the upper side teeth. The sound is aspirated when the air is
released with friction. Words to practice: teach, beach…
- With the sound /dʒ/
To create the sound /dʒ/ air is briefly prevented from leaving the vocal tract
when the tip of the tongue presses against the back tooth ridge while the sides of
the tongue press against the upper side teeth. The sound is aspirated when the air is
released with friction.
- With the sound /ʃ/.
When pronounce this sound, you have to put your tongue up and back a little,
then push your lip forward in to a circle. Words to practice: crash, wash ,…
Here are some suggested websites for students to watch and study more by
themselves:
/> />2. Applying techniques to improve 10 th graders’ ending sounds in
pronunciation
2.1. Games
In teaching and learning English, a happy learning atmosphere with lots of
opportunities for real-world communication will motivate learners to be more

interested and active. Using games in English teaching can be considered as one of
the useful methods to encourage and increase students 'interest in learning and is a
starting step to attract students' attention. In fact, games in English teaching often
promote learning motivation for students because of the demands of players'
activeness and initiative. Furthermore, for most types of games, the competition
between players and teams is always an incentive for players to participate. This is
also the most important reason why most students are interested and drawn into the
games. Games are often flexibly applied in English teaching to develop listening,
speaking, reading and writing skills as well as improving pronunciation and
vocabulary development.
As the students’ expectations presented in part II, they wished their teacher to
use more effective techniques to help them improve pronunciation. Games could
be an effective way to practice. Students can play these games to practice alone, in
pairs or in groups. There are several kinds of games in practicing pronunciation.
However I just appilied these the following games:
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2.1.1. Odd one out
Procedure:
1. There will be two teams in this game. Besides, students have to choose a
person to be the judge.
2. There will be a list with sets of three to four words that have the same
consonant sound. For example, eyes, ice, leave and leaf.
3. Students will stand in two lines in front of the board.
4. The judge will write the first set of four words on the board.
5. The students at the front of the line must read the set of words, race to the
board once they have identified the word that sounds different and circle it.
6. The first student circle the odd word will score a point for the team.
An applied activity:

Aim : to help students distinguish two ending sounds /θ/ and /ð/
ODD ONE OUT
1
Something
Another
Brother
Clothes
2
Mouth
Month
Bathe
Path
3
Truth
Bath
Breath
Breathe
4
Loathe
Smooth
Cloth
soothe
Answer key :
1. Something

2. Bathe 3. Breathe 4. Cloth

Image: Students are playing game “ Odd one out”
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2.1.2. IPA Bingo
Procedure:
1. In IPA Bingo game, students can play in groups of three or four.
2. One person in a group will be the person who takes the IPA flashcard and
say, for example the sound /tʃ/.
3. The other in group must find the word that matches that sound on their
Bingo sheet in order to cross it out:

(IPA flashcard for example)
Another kind of game is Bingo. It helps students learn more vocabulary and
reaction. To play this game, teacher will prepare some words, about 15-30 words
and write each word on cards.Then, class can be divided into 6 goups and cards are
given for each group. When the teacher speaks a word which group finding out
correctly that word in shortest time will become the winner.

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An applied activity:
Aim: to help students to practise listening skill as well as learn more vocabulary.
BINGO
Smith

Thirtieth

brother

English

Massage

Measure

Machine

Television

Age

Such

Catch

Church

village

cottage

Wish

Push

Punish

Garage

Rouge

Swedish

pleasure

Finish

width

strength

smooth

Image: Students are playing game “ BINGO”
2.1.3. Minimal Pair Slap
A minimal pair is two words that vary by only a single sound, usually
meaning sounds that may confuse English learners, like the /f/ and /v/
in fan and van, or the /e/ and /ɪ/ in desk and disk.
Procedure:
1. This game is really interesting because there is no limitation of members in
groups.
2. Students have to choose one person in group to be the judge of the game.
3. There will be two teams and each team will line up in front of a desk.
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4. The judge has to choose sets of minimal pairs and write down each word on
a separate card or piece of paper.
5. The first students in line must have their hands behind their backs. The
judge will present two cards: cab and cap.
6. She/ he will say one of the words out loud and the first student of two

teams must slap the right card.
7. The one who slaps it first must use the word in a sentence to get a point for
the team.
An applied exercise :
Practicing ending sounds with minimal pairs final /t/ and /d/
Ant/ and

Bat/ bad

Bet/ bed

Cat/cad

Eight/ aid

Fat/fad

Feet/feed

Got/god

Hat/had

Wet/ wed

Wait/ weighed

Not/ nod

Image: Students are playing gmame “ minimal pair”

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Image: Students are playing gmame “ minimal pair”
2.1.4. Tongue twister
Tongue twisters are long strings of words that are difficult to say quickly.
Words in tongue twisters are often pronounced similarly (alliteration), such as:
“Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers” (repeating consonant “p”).
Whatever language it is, tongue twisters are always a challenge for both native
speakers and language learners. For that reason, tongue twisters are considered one
of the fun and useful ways if you want to speak English faster and more fluently.
Practice speaking tongue twisters is also an effective way to help you
pronounce each word correctly. Because when we say a tongue twister, we will
have to pay attention to every detail and see pronunciation differences in words
that sound similar.
This game helps students practice pronunciation by reading sentences.
Procedure:
1. In tongue twister game, students will play in two teams. There will be 6 to 8
persons in each team.
2. Students have to choose a person in a group to be a judge.
3. In this game, students will stand in two lines and the first student in the line
will have the sentence in a piece of paper. The others behind will not see the
content of the sentence.
4. After reading carefully, the first student will tell the persons behind and the
last one has to write down what she/he heard into the paper.
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5. The judge will compare with the original sentence. The most accurate
sentence will be the winner.

Here are the sample sentences:
- Out of the same cloth.
- Like father, like son
- To believe that chalk is cheese.
- Be your age
- To speak under one’s breath
Toungue twister is a sentence or pharse that is difficult to articulate clearly
and quickly, such as “How much wood a woodchuck chuck….”

Some interesting tongue twisters that can be applied in the optional lessons to
improve students’pronunciation.
B và P
“Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked.
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where’s the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?”
“TH/F/T
While these fleas flew, freezy breeze blew.
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