Tài liệu An application of games and other stimulating activities in teaching pronunciation to grade 10 english gifted students at ha noi specialised upper secondary school

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ---------- ĐÀO THỊ KIM NHUNG AN APPLICATION OF GAMES AND OTHER STIMULATING ACTIVITIES IN TEACHING PRONUNCIATION TO GRADE 10 ENGLISH GIFTED STUDENTS AT HA NOI SPECIALISED UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL (ÁP DỤNG TRÒ CHƠI VÀ C C HO T NG MANG TÍNH KHÍCH LỆ KHÁC TRONG VIỆC D Y PHÁT ÂM CHO HỌC SINH CHUYÊN ANH LỚP 10 TRƯỜNG PHỔ THÔNG CHUYÊN NGỮ HÀ N I ) Course: Cohort 12 Supervisor: Dr. GARY CARKIN Ha Noi 2013 INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………….4 1. Rationale………………………………………………………………………….4 1 2. Objectives of the study……………………………………………………………5 3. Scope of the study………………………………………………………………...5 4. Methods of the study……………………………………………………………...5 5. Design of the study……………………………………………………………….5 DEVELOPMENT………………………………………………………………………….6 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW…………………………………………6 1.1. Pronunciation ……………………………………………………………..........7 1.1. Definition of pronunciation ……………………………………………………7 1.2. The impotance of pronunciation ………………………………………………7 2. Pronunciation in language teaching ……………………………………………..8 2.1.The status of pronunciation teaching……………………………………............8 2.1.1. The vowel and consonant sounds ……………………………………………9 2.1.2. Words stress pattern………………………………………………………….9 2.1.3. rhythm………………………………………………………………………..9 3. Current ideason pronunciation teaching and writing …………………………….9 4. Teachers’ roles …………………………………………………………………10 5. Learners’ roles …………………………………………………………………..10 6. The use of games and other communicative activities in pronunciation teaching …….11 CHAPTER 2. MOTHODOLOGY………………………………………………13 1. Context of the study……………………………………………………………..13 2. game……………………………………………………………………………..13 3. instruments………………………………………………………………………14 4. Questionaire …………………………………………………………………….15 5. Teacher’s note ………………………………………………………………….15 CHAPTER 3. DATA PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION ..16 1. Responces to the questionaire …………………………………………………..16 2. Qualitative to the questionaire ………………………………………………….17 3. Diagnotic Test Analysis ………………………………………………………..18 4. The reseacher’s observation during class time through out the course ………...20 5. Dicussion ………………………………………………………………………. 21 6. The effectiveness game and other stimulating activities ………………………. 22 CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………25 1. Conclusion………………………………………………………………………25 2. Implications…………………………………………………………………..…25 REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………27 APPENDICES ………………………………………………………………........28 2 INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale It is undeniable that English has become a language of global communication thanks to its contribution to different fields of our life such as: science, technology, aviation, diplomacy and so on. No one can deny that the rapid expansion of information technologies and the spread of globalization have led to an explosion in the demand for English worldwide. English is now taught throughout of Vietnam in different levels of education from primary schools to universities because it serves as an international language and as a mean to promote mutual understanding and cooperation between Vietnam and other countries. In fact, more and more people desire to know and master English in order to keep them up-to-date with the global development. As a result, English is taught not only at schools and universities but also at many foreign language centres, on radio, television and even via the internet. However, both teaching and learning of English are still far from being satisfaction. One main problem is that most Vietnamese learners are rather good at English writtenly but not orally. Many of them have a good command of grammar and vocabulary, which promises very high marks in written tests, but cannot communicate successfully with foreigners. The reason lies in the imbalanced development of four language skills. In most schools and universities (except those whose major is English), teachers focus too much on reading and writing rather than speaking and listening of which pronunciation is a good foundation. Thus, students do not often have English competence, especially in oral communication. In the present context of teaching English at CNN, speaking and listening are very important for grade 10 students because they establish a firm base for students’ further development, especially in interpreting skills. Being a teacher of English in general, I am well aware of the importance of pronunciation to help my students improve these skills, but like other teachers, I have faced many difficulties in creating motivation so that students are eager to practise in and out of their classes. 4 We have questioned ourselves about how to motivate our students to maximize their time of practising in class and even outside class, which leads to the use of games and other stimulating activities. We have tried activities collected from different sources, which seems to bring about great effect. 2. Objectives of the study The study is aimed at:  Finding out their advantages and disadvantages.  Helping pronunciation teachers choose suitable activities for their classes. Thus, this thesis is to answer two research questions:  How effective is the use of games and some other stimulating activities?  What are students’ attitude towards the use of games and some other stimulating activities? 3. Scope of the study To create motivation for students in pronunciation classes, teachers at English group, CNN, have applied a lot of games and activities. However, the researcher in this study only focuses on and analyzes some typical ones (which will be presented in the following parts) and then suggests some effective activities that teachers can introduce to students so that they have more practice outside class. There are 4classes at grade 10 which consist of 160 students who have to take pronunciation as a compulsory subject; however, this action research was carried out in only two classes of which the researcher was in charge. Thus, the questionnaire was delivered to only 50 participants. 4. Methods of the study Action research is the method employed in this study. To achieve the aims mentioned above, the researcher has used a number of instruments to collect data for analysis which include a questionnaire distributed before the term started and after it ended, teachers’ observation and notes. 5. Design of the study This minor thesis is composed of three parts. Part 1, INTRODUCTION, presents the rationale, aims, scope, methods and design of the study. 5 Part 2, DEVELOPMENT, is divided into three chapters. Chapter 1, Literature Review, presents relevant concepts to pronunciation and pronunciation teaching. Chapter 2, Methodology, involves the information about context, participants and instruments of the study. Chapter 3: Data Presentation, Analysis and Discussion, focuses on data analysis to show students’ point of view towards pronunciation and the effectiveness of different activities. Part 3, CONLUSION, summarizes some major findings, provide implications for pronunciation teaching, limitation of the study and suggestions for further research. 6 DEVELOPMENT LITERATURE REVIEW 1.Pronunciation 1.1. Definition of pronunciation There are various ways to define pronunciation. Macmillan Dictionary gives an easy-to-understand definition, that is “the way in which a word or language is pronounced”. Similarly, Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines pronunciation as the way in which a language or a particular word or sound is pronounced or the way in which a particular person pronounces the words of a language. More specifically, pronunciation can be understood as one of the three explanations given in the http://www.thefreedictionary.com:  The act or manner of pronouncing words; utterance of speech.  A way of speaking a word, especially a way that is accepted or generally understood.  A graphic representation of the way a word is spoken, using phonetic symbols. 1.2. The importance of pronunciation Nowadays, no one can deny the significant role of pronunciation in language teaching and learning. Pronunciation is one of the most important aspects of language. We may be proficient at grammar and have a huge store of vocabulary, but if we pronounce words wrongly, we just will not get understood. Wong (1993) argues that the importance of pronunciation is even more distinct when the connection between pronunciation and listening comprehension is considered. As listeners expect spoken English to follow certain patterns of rhythm and intonation, speakers need to employ these patterns to communicate effectively. If the rhythm and intonation are different, listeners simply can’t get the meaning. Similarly, listeners need to know how speech is organized and what patterns of intonation mean in order to interpret speech accurately. Thus, learning about pronunciation develops learners’ abilities to comprehend spoken 7 English. Furthermore, Wong demonstrated that a lack of knowledge of pronunciation could even affect students’ reading and spelling. 2. Pronunciation in language teaching 2.1. The status of pronunciation in current language teaching The status of pronunciation teaching in different schools of language teaching has varied widely. According to Castillo (1990), pronunciation teaching has no role at all in the grammar-translation method, but it is the main focus in the audio-lingual method. The audio-lingual view of the pronunciation class was also mirrored in situational language teaching, developed in Britain (Richards and Rodgers, 1986 Nowadays, teachers and learners have realized the importance of pronunciation in English teaching and learning, however, it still has not received enough attention. In fact, pronunciation tends to be de-emphasized in most English courses because many teachers believe that pronunciation cannot be taught effectively and it is not worth spending time on this field because it should be allowed to develop naturally by students. Colin Mortimer (1985) claimed that elements of pronunciation teaching include weak forms, clusters, linking-up, contractions and stress time. However, according to Gerald Kelly (2000), teaching pronunciation involves: vowels, consonants, word and sentence stress, intonation, other aspects of connected speech and spelling. Jennifer Jenkins (2004) provided more comprehensive elements of pronunciation teaching. This researcher stated that depending on the second language in question, pronunciation teaching typically covers any or all of the following: consonant and vowel sounds, changes of these sounds in the stream of connected speech, word stress patterns, rhythm, and intonation, which might be described as the nuts and bolts of pronunciation. 2.1.1. Consonant and vowel sounds It is obvious that learners of English need to know and pronounce letter sounds correctly because they are the basement for the combination of sounds into words. However, students must know that English pronunciation does not match spelling and one of the most confusing aspects of English pronunciation is sound and spelling patterns. English has borrowed lots of words from other 8 languages such as ancient Latin, Greek, Eskimo and Farsi, so its sound and spelling correspondences are irregular. Thus, phonetic transcription is an indispensable part of pronunciation teaching. 2.1.2. Word stress patterns Word stress must highly be focused on at the beginning of any pronunciation courses because without correct word stress, speakers of English cannot have understandable pronunciation. In every two or more-syllable words, one of the syllables is stressed, which means it is higher, louder and longer than the others. This stressed syllable is very important because it helps listeners distinguish the word from others. Therefore, listeners often find it hard to understand what the speaker is saying when he or she misuses word stress. 2.1.3. Rhythm Rhythm is the obvious feature of every language. Rhythm or beat of a language is the product of word stress and the way in which important items are emphasized. The combination of strong beats (the occurrence of important items) and weak beats (the occurrence of unimportant items) makes rhythm easy to be recognized. Thus, after dealing with word stress patterns, teachers of pronunciation should introduce to their students the rhythm of English which is characterized by the alteration of strong and weak syllables (Kenworthy, 1987). Intonation 3. Current ideas on pronunciation teaching and learning Changing outlooks on language learning and teaching have influenced the view of language competence, which leads to a shift from specific linguistic competencies to broader communicative competencies as goals for teachers and students (Morley, 1991). Previously, teachers of pronunciation only focused on teaching segmental features which started with a concentration on phonetic alphabets during the Reform Movement (Celce-Murcia et. al., 1996). Phonetic training was used in order to help learners establish good speech habits. Minimal pair drills were used extensively to distinguish phonemes in listening practice and oral production (Celce-Murcia et. al., 1996). McNerney and Mendelsohn (1992, p. 186) suggested “a short-term pronunciation course should focus first and foremost on suprasegmentals, as they have the greatest impact on the 9 comprehensibility of learners’ English”. So far a lot of books for teachers have largely encouraged the teaching of suprasegments at the production level to improve learners’ intelligibility. 4. Teachers’ roles Some researchers (Suter and Purcell, 1980) have cast doubt on the importance of pronunciation teaching because in their opinion, little relationship exists between teaching pronunciation and attained pronunciation proficiency. They stated that “the attainment of accurate pronunciation in a second language is the matter substantially beyond the control of educators”. However, other researchers including Pennington (1989) believed that teachers with formal training in pronunciation play an important role in helping students improve their pronunciation. A teacher of pronunciation often fulfills the following roles:  Helping learners perceive sounds  Helping learner make sounds  Creating authentic activities and exercises  Providing learners with feedback  Accessing learners’ progress 5. Learners’ roles There is no doubt that whatever the teacher does and however hard he/ she tries, there is still no success in the teaching and learning process if students do not involve. Students need to develop awareness and monitoring skills that will allow learning opportunities inside and even outside the classroom environment, which promises their improvement and prospect of change. The learner’s involvement in the learning process has been noted as one of the best techniques for developing learner strategies, that is, the measures used by the learner to develop his language learning (Morley, 1991). Thus, students must become part of the teaching and learning process, actively involve in their own learning. Ultimate success in pronunciation surely depends on learners’ attitude and how much attempt they put into the process of learning. 10 6. The use of games and other communicative activities in pronunciation teaching As discussed above, pronunciation is an essential part in language learning and teaching. Many people believe that in language learning, effort is required at every moment and must be maintained over a long period of time. It is also obviously true with pronunciation learning. There are a few pronunciation teachers who think that teaching pronunciation means helping students perceive and produce English sounds correctly. That is why they often ask their students to repeat the sounds times and times again after introducing them, which makes students get bored with studying pronunciation. Once students get bored, they will get nothing from the studying. Talking about the advantages of games, Thiagarajan (1999); Wright, Betteridge, & Buckby (2005) claimed that games add interest to what students might not find very interesting. Sustaining interest means sustaining effort. After all, learning a language involves long-term effort because games offer students a fun-filled and relaxing learning atmosphere. Thanks to that, they learn and practise the sounds in a non-stressful way. Games ease the fear of negative evaluation, the concern of being negatively judged in public, and which is one of the main factors inhibiting language learners from using the target language in front of other people (Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope, 1986). In a game-oriented context, anxiety is reduced and speech fluency is generated, so communicative competence is achieved. According to Shalley Vernon in the article “Teaching English Pronunciation Using Role Playing and Other Games”, anxiety is one of the most common obstacles to the ESL students’ ability to learn English pronunciation. However, the problem of anxiety can also be resolved with games because students will learn to relax and enjoy themselves, which encourages them to participate and be more willing to experiment with new different sounds. Richard-Amato (1988) and Uberman (1998) also shared the same view that the variety and intensity that games offer may lower anxiety and encourage shyer learners to take part especially when games are played in small groups. More importantly, it is undeniable that games are advantageous in pronunciation teaching in the way that they help teachers to create contexts in 11 which the language is useful and meaningful. Games provide a context for meaningful communication. Even if the game involves discrete language items, such as a spelling game, meaningful communication takes place as students seek to understand how to play the game and as they communicate about the game: before, during, and after the game (Wright, Betteridge, & Buckby, 2005). In order to take part in games, learners must understand what others are saying and they must speak in order to express their own point of view or give information. By that way, teachers are successful in helping learners achieving the shift from specific linguistic competencies to broader communicative competencies and the change of emphasis from segmentals to suprasegmentals. Apart from games, other communicative activities such as drama practice, puppet-play, news reading, and video making which sometimes require preparation before going to class are also effective in pronunciation teaching because they are very motivating even outside class and yield opportunities for students to put what they have learnt in pronunciation lessons into connected speech. Thus, they will experience what have been taught more vividly, therefore, remember better. Games and other communicative activities, from what have been discussed above, undoubtedly bring about a lot of benefit to both teachers and students in the process of teaching and learning pronunciation. 12 METHODOLOGY 1. Context of the study The study was carried out in two grade 10 classes at CNN.They have a favorable English learning environment because they can work with qualified teachers, have more access to resources of reference books in the library or via the internet, and more chance to meet foreigners. Thus, a good way to enhance students’ improvement is to motivate them to make most use of all the external conditions to self study. 2. Games Most of the games applied in my classes are taken from the book “Pronunciation Games” by Mark Hancock. I have chosen some games that were suitable for my students when they practised individual sounds, word stress, sentence stress and intonation (Appendix 3). All the games were used in classes at different stages of the lesson. Besides, I have also designed some other games that drew much attention and interest from my students. Teacher vs. Class - Material: One set of cards, on each card, there is one word which is familiar but commonly mispronounced; make cards out of the game words (Appendix 4) - Rules: Teacher (T) raises one card for each student to pronounce. If that student says it correctly, the whole class has 1 point. Otherwise, the T has 1 point. Every student in the class will take turns to do this until the end to see who wins the game. - Notes: T is expected to win but don’t forget to encourage students (Ss). At the end of the game, T should stress that the ultimate purpose of the game is to show Ss the difficulty of pronunciation Single Sounds - Material: 6 sets of cards, each set has 44 cards. On each card, there is one sound (Appendix 5) 13 - Rules: T divides class into 6 groups. Each group gets one set of card. T gives Ss 2 min to revise all the sounds. Then, T will pronounce one sound at a time and the groups will have to raise the correct symbol for that sound. The group who raises the CORRECT symbol the QUICKEST will get one point. At the end, the group with the most points will be the winner. - Notes: T should ask one student (S) to act as assistant to ensure fairness. T should be very careful and accurate in his/her own pronunciation. - Notes:  Any person in the group can yell out “SAME!” Whenever he first notices that the top two cards have the same stress pattern, even if it is before the card thrower pronounces his word.  If someone uses incorrect pronunciation, tell the other Ss to help correct it.  If someone yells “SAME!” and it is not the same stress, then he must put a card of his on the center pile as penalty.  If someone runs out of cards, they can still yell “SAME!” and join in the game again 3. Instruments In order to obtain in-depth information on the application of activities in the course, the study used a variety of research instruments including an oral diagnostic test, questionnaire, classroom observation and teacher’s notes, and final examination. There are a number of reasons why I chose these tools in my study. I carried out the oral diagnostic test because it would give me true information on my students’ pronunciation before I decided which fields to focus on during the whole course. The final examination was really necessary because it was an effective tool to measure my students’ improvement. The result of the final examination worked as a good reference to see how much they had gained after the course. Besides the two tests, I used questionnaire because it was easy to manage and obtain big-scale data. Questionnaires are familiar to most people and nearly everyone has had some experience completing questionnaires, so they generally do not make people apprehensive. Moreover, questionnaires reduce bias. There is uniform question presentation and no middle-man bias. The researcher's own opinions will not influence the 14 respondent to answer questions in a certain manner. Thus, the questionnaire would give me more reliable data for analysis. Lastly, I applied classroom observation and teacher’s notes because it was convenient for the teacher to obtain more detailed and precise evidence of the students’ attitude and classroom atmosphere. Additionally, it would permit the researcher to study the processes of education in naturalistic settings. Classroom observation also stimulated change and verified that the change occurred, which led to improved understanding and better models for improving teaching. 4. Questionnaire The questionnaire was delivered to students before and after the course. The purpose of the two deliveries was to find out the students’ attitude, interest and motivation before the course and the changes in the students’ self evaluation after the course. (Appendix 1) 5. Teacher’s notes The researcher carried out classroom observation in order to take notes of changes in the students’ attitude, motivation, interest and improvement during the course. The researcher also reflected on the teaching and learning process after each lesson.(Appendix 2) 15 DATA PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 1. Responses to the questionnaire Areas of investigation The questionnaire includes 7 questions which cover three main areas of investigation as follows: Area of investigation Question Students’ evaluation of the importance of Question 1, 2 pronunciation Students’ evaluation of their aptitude to learn pronunciation Students’ evaluation of their interest and motivation Question 3, 4 Question 5, 6, 7 Analysis and findings  Students’ evaluation of the importance of pronunciation Firstly, the researcher analysed students’ evaluation by looking at their responses to a direct question about the importance of pronunciation in language learning. After the course Before the course 0% 0% 8% 32% a. Very important 16% b. Rather important 60% 84% c. Not very important d. Not important at all Chart 1: The role of pronunciation in language learning As can be seen clearly from the chart, the majority of students thought that pronunciation was very important in learning a foreign language both before and after the course. However, the percentage of students who held the idea after the course (84%) was much higher than that of those who had the same point of view before the course (60%). On the contrary, only half of the students who thought that pronunciation is rather important kept their view after they had 16 finished all pronunciation lessons. It was obvious that none of the students did not appreciate the role of pronunciation and chose option d (not important at all). In order to analyse students’ evaluation of the importance of pronunciation, the researcher based not only on their direct answer to question 1 but also on their acknowledgement on the influence of poor pronunciation on other skills in question 2. After the course Before the course 12% 20% 24% 40% 16% 16% a. Yes, always 52% 20% b. Yes, sometimes c. Yes, but rarely d. No, never Chart 2: The influence of pronunciation on speaking and listening Generally speaking, most of the students were aware of the role and influence of pronunciation, which is illustrated by the fact that 80% of them found it difficult to learn such skills as speaking and listening due to their poor pronunciation. After the course, even more students (88%) realized the reason for difficulty in listening and speaking was poor pronunciation. Looking at the analysis, it was obvious that students were positive in learning pronunciation. They had quite high awareness of the importance of pronunciation in their language learning, especially speaking and listening.  Students’ evaluation of their aptitude to learn pronunciation There are three questions dealing with this matter. The first question is for students to self evaluate their pronunciation. The responses before and after the course were different in all options. After the course Before the course 46% 16% 18% 20% 24% 28% a. Very good 20% 28% b. Good c. Rather good d. Not good at all 17 2. Qualitative results - Teacher’s notes and observations Apart from the results in the diagnostic test and final test as well as the responses to the questionnaire, the study was also based on the researcher’s observations and analysis of the diagnostic test and during class time throughout the course.  Students’ evaluation of their interest and motivation to learn pronunciation Question 5, 6, and 7 were used to measure students’ interest and motivation. Looking at the results, it is clear that students’ interest and motivation towards learning pronunciation had many changes when comparing responses before and after the course. After the course Before the course 4% 18% 22% 8% 38% 32% 28% a. Very high 50% b. High c. Low d. Very low Chart 3: Students’ interest in learning pronunciation Responding to question 5, only 60% of the students revealed that they had very high or high interest in pronunciation, but after the course, the number went up to 88%. In contrast, the number of students who showed their low or very low interest decreased by 28% from 40% to 12%. After the course Before the course 4% 16% 26% 10% 24% a. Very high 44% 42% 34% b. High c. Low d. Very low 3. Diagnostic Test Analysis After the test, the researcher has summarized some common problems that students encountered and put them in the analysis as follow: 18 Individual sounds Students had problems with both vowel and consonant sounds. With regard to vowel sounds, the first problem was that most students could not correctly pronounce the sound /æ/. This might be because the sound does not exist in Vietnamese language. They replaced the sound with either /e/ or /a/ which seems to be more familiar to them. Another typical problem was the length of sounds. Most students could not distinguish short and long vowel sounds such as // or /I:/, // or /u:/, etc. For diphthongs, they did not pronounce them with enough length of time and did not pronounce them as two vowel sounds but just like one sound in Vietnamese. For instant, /ei/ was pronounced like “ây”, // was pronounced like “âu”. In comparison with vowel sounds, students had more troubles in pronouncing consonant sounds. Deleting ending sounds was a common mistake of most students. This kind of mistakes is easy to be explained because in Vietnamese language system, consonants at the end of a word are never spoken. The second striking note was that students often replaced some English sounds with Vietnamese ones. Such typical sounds were //, //, //, //, /r/, /j/ /tr/, /d/. // was often replaced with “th” in Vietnamese, //, /j/, //, /d/ were mispronounced to /z/ or “d” in Vietnamese. /r/ was also pronounced like /z/ sometimes. // was wrongly pronounced like /s/, /tr/ was not pronounced as a consonant clusters but like the Vietnamese “tr” which sounds like /t/. Additionally, some students even could not distinguish /n/ and /l/ due to their dialect. Consonant clusters were another problem for my students. Some of them could not make the clusters smooth because they tend to add // between the two sounds. Finally, many students added /s/ to almost every word they pronounced. Word stress Many students did not put any stress on multi-syllable words. They pronounced every syllable with the same effort, which slowed down their speed and made their speaking hard to listen to. A few students seemed to be conscious of the necessity to put stress on multi-syllable words; however, they 19 do not stress on correct syllables. This problem led to the fact that multi-syllable words they pronounced sounded strange and difficult to be recognized. Sentence stress It was obvious that my students had a really big trouble with sentence stress due to their word stress. Most of the students are influenced by their mother tongue which is totally different from English. Vietnamese is a syllable – timed language, which explains why Vietnamese people tend to put equal stress on each syllables. In the diagnostic test, most of my students applied that habit to English sentences. This made their pronunciation sound unnatural and monotonous. By putting equal effort to every syllable in a sentence, my students tend to separate words so clearly that they did not have smooth reading but choppy one. Rhythm and Intonation With the analysis of word stress and sentence stress above, it is clear that the students could not have natural rhythm and intonation in reading English. Most of them had flat intonation without the change of pitch due to the lack of stressed and unstressed syllables. 4. The researcher’s observations during class time throughout the course The information taken from the observations was divided in to three main parts: students’ attendance, students’ participation and students’ performance.  With regards to students’ attendance, most of them participated the class regularly. Only 5 students were absent from the class once or twice because of their illness. The situation was much better than the previous years when many of the students did not care about their attendance even though it accounted for 20% of their final scores.  As for students’ participation, the researcher found it quite positive when most of the students were very enthusiastic in taking part in games taken form the book Pronunciation Games and games designed by the teacher. Other class activities were also attractive to students. However, students seemed to be the most attentive and motivated in practising pronunciation with songs and puppetplay. Students also took part in such activity as news reading, but they did not 20 show their great enthusiasm as in other activities. The researcher also noted the fact that some students were considerably more shy and self-conscious than others and were not confident to take part in class activities for fear that they would make mistakes and be laughed at by their classmates. Nonetheless, some were so dominant and always volunteered to participate in games and other activities. Another thing that the researcher realized was that while participating in pronunciation games, the students expressed disappointment when they were not the winners in the competition, but after that they quickly recovered and tried much more in other games.  With regards to students’ performance, the researcher would like to discuss their performance during class time and in the final examination. In the beginning lessons, many students demonstrated difficulty in articulating some vowel and consonant sounds listed in the analysis of the diagnostic test. They also had many problems with word stress and intonation. However, the problems reduced gradually in the following lessons. Some students showed their great improvement, but some others still could not overcome their difficulties even at the end of the course. Among those who did not gain any improvement, some worked very hard in class, but some did not. Most of the students completed homework very regularly and often show better performance in presenting their homework than in activities they joined in class. At the end of the course, most of the students were more aware of the difference between long and short vowel sounds and more careful in pronouncing words including those sounds. Nevertheless, many of them still could not pronounce the vowel sound /æ/. Additionally, diphthongs were not pronounced long enough. Such sounds as //, //, //, //, /d/, /n/, /l/ were also difficult for many students even when they performed in activities in the last lesson. As for word-stress, from the beginning till the end of the course, many students still gave the last syllable more force in their pronunciation, which made their speaking sound unnatural and strange. That kind of mistakes happened most commonly in adjectives with –ese, -ous ending. With regards to intonation, the majority of students improved their monotonous voice pitch while some others could not and gave each individual word equal force. In the final test, the researcher witnessed a lot of 21