Tài liệu Efl teachers' challenges in teaching pronunciation to young learners in phu cat district of binh dinh province

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY NGUYỄN CÔNG HOÀNG EFL TEACHERS’ CHALLENGES IN TEACHING PRONUNCIATION TO YOUNG LEARNERS IN PHU CAT DISTRICT OF BINH DINH PROVINCE. MASTER OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING Binh Dinh - 2022 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY NGUYỄN CÔNG HOÀNG EFL TEACHERS’ CHALLENGES IN TEACHING PRONUNCIATION TO YOUNG LEARNERS IN PHU CAT DISTRICT OF BINH DINH PROVINCE Field: Theory and Methodology of English Language Teaching Code: 8140111 Supervisor: Trương Văn Định, Ph.D. BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN NGUYỄN CÔNG HOÀNG NHỮNG TRỞ NGẠI CỦA GIÁO VIÊN TRONG VIỆC DẠY PHÁT ÂM CHO HỌC SINH Ngành: Lý luận và phương pháp dạy học bộ môn tiếng Anh Mã số: 8140111 Người hướng dẫn: TS. Trương Văn Định i DECLARATION I certify that all the content in this thesis paper is my original work to the best of my knowledge and hard-work. Any external source used for reference in the paper has been cited and acknowledged. I, hereby, declare that the present paper has not been submitted to any other institution previously. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS With the tremendous guidance and assistance from professor, it has been possible for this research to be completed this thesis. He has always been very helpful and dedicate with every single detail in different stages of the paper. All his valuable comments and suggestions throughout the process not only helped the researcher to finish the work on time, but also brought many lessons from each time he corrected. Therefore, I am very much indebted to him for all his hard work. To be able to come to this stage of the course, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to professor Truong Van Dinh whose lectures enlightened me the new concepts of English teaching and academic research. To every member of my family, who has been providing the best support during the time this research was conducted. Without the love, belief, care, and encouragement from my family, this research would have not been possible. Finally, I would like to extend my greatest thanks to all teachers as well as participants, who created favorable conditions for the implementation of the study. ABSTRACT iii This study is carried out on the topic "EFL TEACHERS’ CHALLENGES IN TEACHING PRONUNCIATION TO YOUNG LEARNERS IN PHU CAT DISTRICT OF BINH DINH PROVINCE". This study aims to find solutions to the challenges that EFL teachers face in teaching pronunciation to young learners. In order to achieve that purpose mentioned above, the researcher had to answer three research questions, they are "1: What are the challenges faced by EFL teachers in teaching English pronunciation to YLs? 2: What are the causes of challenges confronted by EFL teachers in teaching English pronunciation to YLs? and 3: What are the solutions to the challenges encountered by EFL teachers in teaching English pronunciation to YLs?". The study was carried out in Phu Cat District, Binh Dinh province with the attendance of 120 teachers. The researcher used a survey questionnaire and interviews to collect information from participants. The researcher has also given out some important results. Regarding the challenges that teachers are facing, internal and external challenges were found to cause trouble for English teachers. In terms of internal challenges, lack of confidence, lack of adequate knowledge, and pedagogical problems can challenge the teaching of English pronunciation. While lack of priorities; time constraints; and lack of teaching materials and resources are external challenges that teachers are facing. In terms of solutions, to address these challenges, teachers also have their own ways of managing these challenges, namely seeking help from mentors, providing strategies, and helping students. In general, despite certain limitations, the researcher has also solved the problems posed. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION ...................................................................................................... i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.................................................................................... ii ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ....................................................................................... iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................... vi LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................ viii LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................ ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................1 1.1. Rationale of the Study ............................................................................. 1 1.2. Aim and Objectives of the Study ............................................................ 2 1.2.1. Aims of the Study ............................................................................. 2 1.2.2. Objectives of the Study ..................................................................... 2 1.3. Research Questions ................................................................................. 3 1.4. Scope of the Study .................................................................................. 3 1.5. Significance of the Study ........................................................................ 3 1.6. Organization of the Study ....................................................................... 4 CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................................................5 2.1. Pronunciation .......................................................................................... 5 2.1.1. Definition of Pronunciation .............................................................. 5 2.1.2. Features of Pronunciation ................................................................. 7 2.1.3. Importance of Teaching Pronunciation............................................. 8 2.2. Young Learners and Their Characteristics ........................................... 11 2.2.1. Definition of Young Learners ......................................................... 11 2.2.2. Cognitive Development of Young Learners ................................... 12 v 2.3. Challenges of Teaching Pronunciation ................................................. 13 2.3.1. Teaching Pronunciation .................................................................. 13 2.3.2. Phonological Systems of English and Students' the first language 14 2.3.3. Challenges faced by Teachers of Teaching Pronunciation ............. 15 2.4. Previous Studies .................................................................................... 17 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND PROCEDURES .........22 3.1. Research Methods ................................................................................. 22 3.2. Participants ............................................................................................ 22 3.3. Data Collection Instruments ................................................................. 23 3.4. Data Analysis Procedure ....................................................................... 24 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION.................................................25 4.1. Challenges faced by EFL teachers of teaching English pronunciation to young learners............................................................ 25 4.2. Causes for the challenges faced by EFL teachers of teaching pronunciation to young learners............................................................ 34 4.3. EFL Teachers’ Approaches to Challenges of Teaching Pronunciation 45 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION ..............................................................................55 5.1. Summary and Implications on Teaching Pronunciation to Young Learners ................................................................................................. 55 5.1.1. Summary ......................................................................................... 55 5.1.2. Implications ..................................................................................... 55 5.2. Limitations of the Study and Suggestions for Further Study ............... 57 5.2.1. Limitations of the Study.................................................................. 57 5.2.2. Suggestions for Further Study. ....................................................... 57 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................59 APPENDICES vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFL: English as a foreign language ESL: English as a second language YL: Young Learner YLs: Young Learners L1: The first language C1: Lack of confidence C2: Lack of pronunciation knowledge C3: Lack of pedagogical knowledge C4: Lack of time C5: Lack of teaching materials and resources C6: Lack of Priority CC1: Afraid of making mistake to pronounce the words properly CC2: Confusion in pronouncing the words correctly CC3.1: Students’ reluctance to speak during the learning process CC3.2: Pronunciation practice CC3.3: Students’ inability to follow the pronunciation lessons CC4: Time given for teaching English is not enough CC5: Teaching materials are limited and not really suitable for the students CC6: Teaching pronunciation is not emphasized in school S1: Prepare and plan for lesson by confirming the correct pronunciation of words before class vii S2.1: Asking help from mentor S2.2: Referring to offline dictionary in mobile phone S2.3: Watching related videos on YouTube and listening to English songs S3.1: Having one-to-one session with the students S3.2: Selecting students randomly so that they come prepared S3.3: Monitoring the students one by one during the practice S3.4: Setting a rule on speaking only English during English lessons S3.5: Using interesting and integrating suitable videos in the lesson S3.6: Conducting more group activities S4: Integrating pronunciation teaching in the teaching of other skills S5: Using online sources on creative ways in teaching pronunciation S6: Asking help from mentor viii LIST OF TABLES Table 4.1: Challenges faced by EFL teachers of teaching English pronunciation to young learners .............................................................25 Table 4.2: Challenges faced by EFL teachers of teaching English pronunciation to young learners .............................................................26 Table 4.3: Challenges faced by EFL teachers of teaching English pronunciation to young learners .............................................................28 Table 4.4: Causes for the challenges faced by EFL teachers of teaching pronunciation to young learners .............................................................34 Table 4.5: Causes of the challenges faced by EFL teachers of teaching pronunciation to young learners .............................................................36 Table 4.6: Causes for the challenges faced by EFL teachers of teaching pronunciation to young learners .............................................................37 Table 4.7: EFL teachers’ approaches to challenges of teaching pronunciation .....45 Table 4.8: EFL teachers’ approaches to challenges of teaching pronunciation .....47 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1: Features of Pronunciation - Gerald Kelley (2000, p.1) .................. 7 Figure 2.2: Various Features of English Pronunciation - Burns (2003, p.20) ........................................................................ 8 Figure 4.1: Internal challenges of teaching pronunciation ............................. 29 Figure 4.2: External challenges of teaching pronunciation ............................ 32 Figure 4.3: Causes of the challenges faced by EFL teacher of teaching pronunciation - Lack of confidence .............................................. 39 Figure 4.4: Causes of the challenges faced by EFL teacher of teaching pronunciation - Lack of pronunciation knowledge....................... 40 Figure 4.5: Causes of the challenges faced by EFL teacher of teaching pronunciation - Lack of pedagogical knowledge ......................... 41 Figure 4.6: Causes of the challenges faced by EFL teacher of teaching pronunciation - Lack of time ........................................................ 42 Figure 4.7: Causes of the challenges faced by EFL teacher of teaching pronunciation - Lack of teaching materials and resources ........... 43 Figure 4.8: Causes of the challenges faced by EFL teacher of teaching pronunciation - Lack of Priority ................................................... 44 Figure 4.9: Solutions to the challenges of teaching pronunciation - Lack of confidence ..................................................................... 49 Figure 4.10: Solutions to the challenges of teaching pronunciation - Lack of pronunciation knowledge .............................................. 50 Figure 4.11: Solutions to the challenges of teaching pronunciation - Lack of pedagogical knowledge ................................................. 51 Figure 4.12: Solutions to the challenges of teaching pronunciation - Lack of time ................................................................................ 52 x Figure 4.13: Solutions to the challenges of teaching pronunciation - Lack of teaching materials and resources................................... 53 Figure 4.14: Solutions to the difficulties of teaching pronunciation - Lack of Priority........................................................................... 53 1 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1. Rationale of the Study Pronunciation plays an important role in communication process because mispronunciation can lead to misunderstanding and worsen the effect of the conversation. The idea is shared by Aliaga García (2007, p.p. 1-5); MartínezFlor et al (2016, p.p 139-157); Pourhosein Gilakjani (2016, p.p. 314-326) who claimed that English pronunciation is one of the most difficult skills to acquire and learners should spend lots of time to improve their pronunciation. Morley (1991, p.p 51-74) indicated that understandable pronunciation is a main objective of pronunciation instruction. This is a necessary component of communicative competence. It is emphasized by Morley that learners should develop functional intelligibility, functional communicability, increased selfconfidence, the speech monitoring abilities, and speech modification strategies. Pronunciation is the process of making the sound of speech. Pronunciation includes three components: stress, vocalization, and intonation. Stress shows the emphasis of the syllables of a word. Vocalization mention to the movement of the teeth, lips, and tongue to change the sound produced. Intonation refers to the rising or falling of a sound. Pronunciation skills are linked to speaking, listening, and reading abilities. Bad pronunciation can have a negative impact on those abilities. For examples, people can not understand the meaning of the words if they do not recognize the essential sounds or words from the speaker. It has also happened to students, if they do not know how to pronounce correctly, their partners or teachers will be unable to grasp what they are saying. In fact, at school, especially primary school little attention is paid to teaching pronunciation. At this level, teachers only teach vocabulary, reading, 2 and basic grammar. Sometimes, teachers overlook some words because they are not sure how to pronounce them. It is for this reason that students have few opportunities to learn pronunciation. They often make mispronunciation. It means they cannot learn pronunciation by themselves because they are not motivated in learning English. Besides, teachers lack knowledge about cognitive development, motivation and attention is also a challenge of teaching pronunciation to students. In the researcher’s observation, students still make mistakes in their pronunciation and teachers still have many challenges of teaching pronunciation. Although many researchers have investigated the pronunciation issues that EFL teachers face when teaching English, no study has conducted on challenges faced by high school teachers in Binh Dinh province. For those reasons, the researcher decides to conduct the research “EFL Teachers’ Challenges in Teaching Pronunciation to Young Learners in Phu Cat District, Binh Dinh province.” 1.2. Aim and Objectives of the Study 1.2.1. Aims of the Study The present study aims to examine EFL teachers’ perceptions about the challenges in teaching English pronunciation to young Vietnamese learners. 1.2.2. Objectives of the Study To achieve the aim, the study focuses on the following objectives: - To identify the EFL teachers’ challenges in teaching English pronunciation to young Vietnamese learners. - To identify the reported causes of the challenges faced by EFL in teaching pronunciation. - To identify the teachers’ suggested or reported solutions to their own 3 problems. 1.3. Research Questions Based on the aim and objectives of the study, this research will seek to answer the following research questions: 1. What are the challenges faced by EFL teachers of teaching English pronunciation to young learners? 2. What are the causes of the challenges confronted by EFL teachers of teaching English pronunciation to young learners? 3. What are the teachers’ reported solutions to their own challenges in teaching English pronunciation to young Vietnamese learners? 1.4. Scope of the Study The study will be conducted to find out EFL teachers’ challenges of teaching pronunciation to primary and secondary school students in Phu Cat District, Binh Dinh province. Due to the limited time, ability and research conditions, the study focuses only on teaching English pronunciation with two standard accents predominantly used in English textbooks, they are British RP (Received Pronunciation) and GA (General American), not on other cases of accents like Canadian English, Indian English, and so on. 1.5. Significance of the Study Theoretically, the study not only helps to perfect the theories about theory and methodology of language teaching but also proposes some approaches to the challenges posed by the teaching of an aspect of a language. Practically, the findings of the study help teachers to be aware of challenges that they face in teaching pronunciation. This study also helps them with some solutions to these problems. Also, curriculum designing will be facilitated in 4 terms of providing appropriate tasks to assist students in the mastery of English pronunciation. 1.6. Organization of the Study The research is divided into five chapters: Chapter 1; Introduction, presents the rationale, the aim and objectives, the research questions, the scope, the significance, and the organization of the thesis. It states the reason why the author decided to choose this study and provides the methodology for the fulfillment of the study. Chapter 2; Theoretical Background and Literature Review, synthesizes and analyses related documents on the theory of teaching and learning pronunciation to YLs. Also in this chapter, the previous researches on challenges of teaching pronunciation to YLs will be mentioned. Chapter 3; Research Methods, presents the methods that the study is handled. It also shows the research questions. Additionally, this chapter supplies the research design and the participants of the study, data-collection instruments, and the procedure of data analysis of conducting the research. Chapter 4; Findings and Discussions, presents and analyzes all the collected data to find out the answers to the research questions. Chapter 5; Conclusion, gives the result of answering the research questions and points out limitations as well as suggestions for further research. 5 CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE REVIEW Teaching pronunciation and the challenges of teaching pronunciation have gotten a lot of attention from language teachers and researchers in the field of foreign language acquisition. Investigations into language learning strategies attempt to identify, describe, and classify specific language learning strategies use by EFL learners to facilitate their own learning. This literature review part will show the definition, features and the importance of pronunciation teaching. The definition and characteristics of YLs are also mentioned. Also, this chapter provides a thorough review of prominent theoretical background on teaching pronunciation to YLs. This review is finished with the goal of showing a theoretical foundation for an investigation into teaching pronunciation challenges by teachers in Binh Dinh province, especially the solutions that help them to solve the challenges of teaching pronunciation. 2.1. Pronunciation 2.1.1. Definition of Pronunciation Although it can be said that pronunciation is not the most important aspect of FL learning it needs to be acknowledged that without adequate or intelligible pronunciation, we would not be able to get our messages across when interacting with others in the FL. There are different ways of defining “Pronunciation”, depending on the different views of the authors. According to (Dalton & Seidlhofer, 1994, p.p784 -785) “pronunciation is the action of producing sounds of speech to communicate a message”. For this reason, possessing a good pronunciation of the FL is vital in oral communication. In addition, it is important to recognize that foreign language students must aim at developing a good pronunciation, but this does not mean 6 that they have to sound exactly like a native speaker. Rather, FL speakers need to be understood in the target language (Celce-Murcia, Brinton, & Goodwin, 1996, p. 36). Therefore, the focus on pronunciation needs to be considered as a crucial aspect in FL programs since, as research has shown, some errors will probably never disappear entirely. Littlewood (1984) asserts that “such errors are often described as fossilized, meaning that they become permanent features of the learner’s speech” (p.34). Hornby (7th edition) (2000) defines that “Pronunciation is the way in which a language or a particular word or sound is pronounced, or it is the way in which a particular person pronounces the words of a language” (p.1209). Yates and Zielinski (2009) point out that “Pronunciation refers to how we produce the sounds that we use to make meaning when we speak. It includes the particular consonants and vowels of a language (segments), aspects of speech beyond the level of the individual segments, such as stress, timing rhythm, intonation, phrasing, (suprasegmental aspects), and how the voice is projected (voice quality). Although we often talk about these as if they were separate, they all work together in combination when speak, so that difficulties in one area may impact on another, and it is the combined result that makes someone’s pronunciation easy or difficult to understand” (p.11). Richard and Schmidt (2010) defines that “Pronunciation is the way certain sound or sounds are produced” (p.469). One of the most important factors in determining the effectiveness of a conversation is pronunciation. Harmer (2001) emphasizes that “When we are speaking, we construct words and phrases with individual sounds, and we also use pitch change, intonation, and stress to convey different meanings” (p.28). The author also showed that pronunciation is the way the sounds of a language are produced, 7 the way of words and sentences are placed, and the way pitch and intonation are used to convey our feeling and meaning. 2.1.2. Features of Pronunciation As English becomes more widely used for international communication, it is critical that English speakers, whether native or non-native, are able to exchange meaning efficiently. According to Gerald Kelley (2000, p.1), the main features of pronunciation include the elements shown in Figure 2.1: Figure 2.1: Features of Pronunciation - Gerald Kelley (2000, p.1) Figure 1 helps us to know the features of pronunciation, which allows us to know how pronunciation works and what its constituent parts are. Among these features, stress and intonation are two important features in English. It also focuses on how the sounds change in connected speech. As English increasingly becomes the language used for international communication, it is vital that speakers of English, whether they are native or non-native speakers, are able to exchange meaning effectively. In fact, in recent