Tài liệu Problems in teaching intonation to english majors at ussh hcm

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I certify that this thesis, entitled “Problems in teaching intonation to English majors at University of Social Sciences and Humanities” is my own work. This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other situation. Ho Chi Minh City, September 29, 2012 Hoang Thi Nhat Tam i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am truly indebted and thankful to a number of people who helped me to make this thesis possible. First and foremost, I would like to show my sincerest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Nguyen Thi Kieu Thu, who has supported me throughout my thesis with her great patience, knowledge and empathy. Without her, I could not have been able to understand how far I could reach in doing research. Especially, I always save a special part in my heart for remembering what she did for me during the time I have been working at the Faculty. I owe earnest thankfulness to all my teachers in the course who provided me with knowledge as well as inspiration in teaching and doing research. My special thanks also go to Ms. Nguyen Nha Tran for providing me with the materials that I was unable to access in Vietnam. Especially, she was really patient to give me precious advice at the beginning of my writing-the-thesis period. In addition, I would like to send my thanks to Ms. Pham Ngoc Kim Tuyen who nicely listened to my very first ideas and gave me great advice. I would like to thank all of the eight teachers who spent their precious time doing my questionnaire. Especially, they did share with me a lot of wonderful teaching experiences and I could learn a lot of great things from observing their class which I could never get from books. This thesis would not have been possible without the sincere encouragement from my colleagues, my classmates and the enthusiastic help of the kind librarians in ERC. Last but not least, I am truly indebt to my beloved family who always stand by me. Without their love and sacrifice, I could never be today‟s ME. ii RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I hereby state that I, Hoang Thi Nhat Tam, being the candidate for the degree of Master of TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master‟s Theses deposited in the Library. In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the library for the care, loan or reproduction of theses. Ho Chi Minh City, September 29 2012 Hoang Thi Nhat Tam iii TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ................................................................................ i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................... ii RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS ................................................................ iii LIST OF TABLES ...................................................................................................... viii LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................... x ABBREVIATIONS ...................................................................................................... xi ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................. xii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................... 1 1.1 Rationale of the research ........................................................................................................ 1 1.2 Background to the study ......................................................................................................... 8 1.3 Aim of the study ................................................................................................................... 10 1.4 Research questions of the study ........................................................................................... 10 1.5 Limitation of the study ......................................................................................................... 11 1.6 Significance of the study ...................................................................................................... 11 1.7 Organization of the study ..................................................................................................... 12 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW ...................................................................... 13 2.1 Teachers‟ knowledge of subject matter ...................................................................................... 13 2.2 English intonation....................................................................................................................... 18 2.2.1 Definition of English Intonation .......................................................................................... 18 2.2.2 Functions of English intonation........................................................................................... 19 2.2.3 The significant role of intonation in communication between a native speaker and a nonnative speaker ............................................................................................................................... 21 2.3 Teaching english intonation ....................................................................................................... 30 2.3.1 The necessity of teaching English intonation appropriately to Vietnamese learners .......... 30 2.3.2 Views of priorities in teaching intonation: Segmentals or suprasegmentals or combination ...................................................................................................................................................... 31 2.3.3 Three common approaches to teaching English intonation ................................................. 32 2.3.4 Meanings of tones in English .............................................................................................. 35 2.3.5 Some illustrated practice activities ...................................................................................... 36 iv 2.4 Previous studies on teaching and learning english pronunciation .............................................. 38 2.5 The conceptual framework of the study ..................................................................................... 41 CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY ................................................................................ 43 3.1 Research questions of the study ........................................................................................... 43 3.2 Research design .................................................................................................................... 43 3.2.1 Pilot survey ................................................................................................................... 44 3.2.2 Main survey .................................................................................................................. 45 3.2.2.2 Participants ....................................................................................................................... 46 3.2.2.3 Instruments ................................................................................................................... 46 3.2.2.4 Data collection procedures ........................................................................................... 53 3.2.2.5 Data analysis procedures .............................................................................................. 55 CHAPTER 4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS.......................................................... 56 4.1 Results ........................................................................................................................................ 56 4.1.1 Class observation ................................................................................................................. 56 4.1.2 Questionnaire....................................................................................................................... 59 4.2 Discussions and findings ............................................................................................................ 67 4.2.1 Discussions .......................................................................................................................... 67 4.2.2 Findings ............................................................................................................................... 78 4.2.3 Discussion of findings ......................................................................................................... 80 CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION .................................... 83 5.1 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 83 5.2 Recommendations ...................................................................................................................... 84 5.2.1 A dynamic career development program for pronunciation teachers at EF ........................ 87 5.2.2 Summary ............................................................................................................................. 90 5.3 Contributions of the study .......................................................................................................... 91 5.4 Further research .......................................................................................................................... 91 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................ 93 APPENDIX 1a Program of English Linguistics and Literature ................................ 101 APPENDIX 1b Syllabus of Introduction to English Linguistics ............................... 106 APPENDIX 2 Pronunciation syllabus (in Vietnamese) ............................................ 111 v APPENDIX 3 How intonation is treated in the two main coursebooks .................... 117 APPENDIX 4 Meanings of tones .............................................................................. 120 APPENDIX 6 Questionnaire ..................................................................................... 131 APPENDIX 7a Class observation checklist 1 ........................................................... 145 APPENDIX 7b Classroom observation checklist 1 ................................................... 146 APPENDIX 7c Classroom observation checklist 1 ................................................... 147 APPENDIX 7d Classroom observation checklist 1 ................................................... 148 APPENDIX 8 Classroom observation checklist 2 ..................................................... 149 APPENDIX 9 Classroom observation checklist 3 ..................................................... 150 APPENDIX 10 Teaching routine ............................................................................... 152 APPENDIX 11a Results from class observation checklist 1 ..................................... 153 APPENDIX 11b Results from class observation checklist 1 ................................... 154 APPENDIX 11c Results from class observation checklist 1 ..................................... 155 APPENDIX 11d Results from class observation checklist 1 ................................... 156 APPENDIX 12 Results from classroom observation checklist 2 .............................. 157 APPENDIX 13 Teaching routine teacher 1 ............................................................... 158 APPENDIX 14 Teaching routine teacher 2 ............................................................... 159 APPENDIX 15 Teaching routine teacher 3 ............................................................... 160 APPENDIX 16 Teaching routine teacher 4 ............................................................... 161 APPENDIX 17 Teaching routine teacher 5 ............................................................... 162 APPENDIX 18 Teaching routine teacher 6 ............................................................... 163 APPENDIX 19 Teaching routine teacher 7 ............................................................... 164 APPENDIX 20 Teaching routine teacher 8 ............................................................... 165 APPENDIX 21 Results from questionnaire teacher 1 ............................................... 166 APPENDIX 22 Results from questionnaire teacher 2 ............................................... 167 APPENDIX 23 Results from questionnaire teacher 3 ............................................... 168 APPENDIX 24 Results from questionnaire teacher 4 ............................................... 169 APPENDIX 25 Results from questionnaire teacher 5 ............................................... 170 vi APPENDIX 26 Results from questionnaire teacher 6 .............................................. 170 APPENDIX 27 Results from questionnaire teacher 7 ............................................... 171 APPENDIX 28 Results from questionnaire teacher 8 .............................................. 172 APPENDIX 29 Table 4.15 the number of right and wrong answers the teachers got from the test part ........................................................................................................ 174 APPENDIX 30 Table 4.16 The number of right answers the teachers got from the test part by guessing ......................................................................................................... 175 vii LIST OF TABLES Chapter 1 Table 1.1 How English intonation is treated in Ship or Sheep Table 1.2 How English intonation is treated in English Pronunciation in Use Chapter 2 Table 2.1 Meanings of tones in the 25 cases introduced in the two main coursebooks Chapter 3 Table 3.1 Study setting Table 3.2 Total number of class observation meetings Table 3.3 Class observation plan Table 3.4 Plan of distributing questionnaire Table 3.5 How often the teacher taught the intonation patterns introduced in the two coursebooks? Table 3.6 How often the teacher taught the intonation patterns introduced in the two coursebooks? Table 3.7 How often the teacher taught the intonation patterns introduced in the two coursebooks? Table 3.8 How often the teacher taught the intonation patterns introduced in the two coursebooks? Table 3.9 How often the teacher explained to his/ her students why they should learn intonation? Chapter 4 Table 4.1 How often the teacher taught the intonation patterns introduced in the two coursebooks? Table 4.2 How often the teacher taught the intonation patterns introduced in the two coursebooks? viii Table 4.3 How often the teacher taught the intonation patterns introduced in the two coursebooks? Table 4.4 How often the teacher taught the intonation patterns introduced in the two coursebooks? Table 4.5 How often did the teacher explain to his/ her students why they should learn intonation? Table 4.6 How often did the teachers teach the tones introduced in the two coursebooks in their classroom? Table 4.7 How often did the teachers explain the reason why their students should learn English intonation? Table 4.8 Teachers‟ knowledge of the definition of English intonation Table 4.9 Teachers‟ belief in the role of intonation in communication Table 4.10 Teachers‟ explanation about the important role of intonation is in communication Table 4.11 Teachers‟ belief in how the four aspects play their roles in intelligibility in communication Table 4.12 Amount of time that the teachers spent teaching the five aspects during the pronunciation course 4.13 Teachers‟ knowledge of three common approaches in teaching English intonation Table 4.14 Which approach(es?) did the teachers often use in classroom? Table 4.15 The number of right and wrong answers the teachers got from the test part Table 4.16 The number of right answers the teachers got from the test part by guessing Table 4.17 Teachers‟ knowledge of tones in the 25 cases in the two textbook Table 4.18 Teachers‟ knowledge of tones in the 25 cases in the two textbook ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1 Model of teacher knowledge Figure 5.2a Teacher professional development Figure 5.2b Dynamic career development program x ABBREVIATIONS EF: Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature USSH: The University of Social Sciences and Humanities xi ABSTRACT English intonation occupies a fundamental role in intelligibility between interlocutors in communication. More than that, it could create, maintain and strengthen their relationships. One key problem arising from the researcher‟s general investigation of the curriculum, the syllabus, two main course books of the pronunciation course, and pronunciation teachers at EF was that the teachers seemingly lacked knowledge of English intonation. Therefore, the thesis aimed at investigating to what extent the eight teachers of pronunciation courses at the Faculty understood English intonation by yielding an insight into their knowledge of this prosodic feature. Four main aspects of English intonation were taken into consideration in the survey conducted on the eight teachers (four teachers in 2010 and four in 2011): (1) its definition, (2) fundamental role, (3) the three common approaches to teaching English intonation, (4) meanings of tones in the 25 cases introduced in the two course books. The main research instruments were questionnaire and classroom observation. The findings revealed that the eight teachers lacked knowledge of English intonation in terms of the four aspects mentioned above, and consequently, intonation was not properly taught as expected. That provokes an alarm among teachers and administrators on teacher professional development. Given this matter, both of the forces should work together to improve the awkward situation. Especially, the administrators are supposed to support their teachers in terms of providing appropriate environments for them to learn more about English intonation. Additionally, teachers should start their self-development, co-operative development as well. xii development and formal CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 RATIONALE OF THE RESEARCH Vietnam is a country in transition whose economy has experienced a very strong growth over the past decade. It is a member of the Association of South East Asian Nations - ASEAN (1995) and Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation-APEC (1998), especially the World Trade Organization (WTO) (2007). Being the 150th member of WTO marked a very important milestone in Vietnam – U.S relation: the long process of reconciliation and normalization. Over the past 15 years, the U.S has become Vietnam‟s biggest foreign investor (VBN, 2010; VOV; 2007). American businesses have heavily invested in a variety of fields such as finance, banking and insurance services, hi-tech industries, pharmaceutical chemistry, energy, mechanical engineering, etc. In his remarks at the January 11th 2007 Reception, Ambassador Nguyen Tam Chien emphasized: We will see greater and greater trade and investment between our two countries; growing official contacts between our respective executive and legislative branches; and rapidly diversifying exchanges among our cultural and scientific communities, our militaries, and our citizens. Cooperation in health, education, and social welfare and other humanitarian concerns will be strengthened and deepened. Bilateral and multilateral cooperation will be enhanced on a wide range of international issues. (Sự kiện Việt Nam gia nhập WTO và Quan hệ Việt Nam - Hoa Kỳ Bình Thường Hóa Hoàn Toàn, 2007, p.1) Up to now, there have been many US leading business groups navigating to Vietnam to search for cooperation between the two countries. According to VOV (2007), 1 Vietnamese government will create the best conditions for U.S businesses to expand their investment so that the U.S. would become the number – one foreign investor in Vietnam. In 2007, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung met with representatives of nearly 20 U.S. leading business groups including AIG, Citigroup, Bantry Bay, Ventures-Asia, Conoco Philips, Merriill Lynch and Vietnam Partner at separate receptions in New York on September 28th. In 2009, another 16 ones visited Vietnam to look for an effective investment destination. In 2011, 14 other businesses met companies to find a franchise partners in the Vietnamese market. This fact means that Vietnamese people are going to communicate in English with those partners. The relationship does not stop at making friends (trying to skip mistakes/ errors from their interlocutors so that they are able to be friends), but does move to a much further stage – working together in the same environment for a long time. According to Kenworthy (1987) and Wong (1986), the very feature in pronunciation causing the toughest problems in intelligibility between interlocutors in communication is intonation. Moreover, many other linguists all agree that intonation plays an extremely important part in communication (Kelly, 2000; McNerney & Mendelsohn, 1992; Schmitt, 2002; Wong, 1986; Kenworthy, 1987). Additionally, According to Wells (2006, p. 1) native speakers do not realize that “intonation can be erroneous.” In a sense, the same words spoken out with different tones convey different meanings. For example, answering yes/no questions, we can use either rising or falling tone; however, the listener would understand the response in two ways. First, as far as we are concerned, if “yes” or “no” is produced with a going-down tone, it is comprehended that the speaker wants to confirm yes or no. Nevertheless, if s/he uses falling – rising tone to say “yes” or “no” to yes/no questions, her/ his interlocutor interprets that this person is not sure about her/his answer or still hesitates about her/his decision. (Celce-Murcia & Olshtain, 2000). 2 Noticeably, if communication frequently happens between these two persons mentioned in the example above, it leads to a fact that the one producing falling – rising tone for “yes” or “no” is thought to be too “wishy – washy”. In other words, misunderstanding, at first, might be minor; nonetheless, if it happens repeatedly, then “they may result in judgments about the attitudes, character, ways of behaving, etc. of a particular speaker” (Kenworthy, 1987, p.p. 9 - 10). Obviously, the speaker did not have such a negative attitude, yet his/ her using inappropriate intonation pattern led to this misinterpretation, resulting in the fact that his/her listener does not like or does not feel comfortable. In some cases, the wrong use of intonation could offend or hurt listeners; therefore, they will likely avoid communicating with the speaker. It is the reason why Wong (1986) ascertains that intonation plays an extremely important part in “establishment and maintenance of social harmony”. Clearly, apart from other factors making a good and long – term relationship between a Vietnamese and an American in the together-working environment, intonation definitely holds one of the key roles. However, the fact is that not all university students in Vietnam receive a thorough study of English intonation. Only those who major in English experience pronunciation courses in which this very special feature is supposed to be included. One of the prestigious universities training English majors in Vietnam is the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Ho Chi Minh City. After graduation, these students would contribute a very important part in the workforce: they are supposed to be equipped with a sound knowledge of English, and be able to write, read, speak and listen to English well; especially, they may not be worried about problems caused by the use of wrong or inappropriate intonation patterns in communication. 3 The researcher worked as a teaching assistant (TA) to the fourth – year students1 of Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature (EF) for three years. As a TA, she attended all the classes and made observation on how the class activities were taking place. During the courses, the students were supposed to make many presentations and participate in pair/ group discussions. To the researcher‟s surprise, many of these graduates-to-be spoke English with level/ flat tone or used inappropriate intonation patterns in communication with their classmates. As mentioned above, it unavoidably brought about misunderstandings between the interlocutors in this context. For example, the listeners likely made a judgment that their interlocutor was so impolite, rude, aggressive, boring, or polite, nice, patience, interesting. Tracing back to the curriculum of EF, we can see that students at EF are supposed to enroll in two courses2 in which intonation content was included (Pronunciation course and Introduction to English Linguistics course). In the first year of the program for English majors, in Pronunciation course the freshmen are instructed how to accurately pronounce English sounds, to produce strong forms and weak forms, to put stress in isolated words and in sentences, to link sounds between words, and to produce speech with appropriate rhythm and intonation. In the third year, they take Introduction to English Linguistics course in which intonation is briefly introduced. Obviously, the students could have time practicing this prosodic feature in the former course much more than in the latter. According to the syllabus for Pronunciation course (see Appendix 2 ), intonation receives as the same weight as the segmental aspect (sounds) 1 In the fourth year, students at EF are supposed to decide their specialized disciplines including (1) teaching English as a foreign language, (2) interpreting and translating skills, and (3) cultural and literary studies. The researcher used to be a TA to students specializing at the third. 2 There is another course namely Phonetics and Phonology which is supposed to be taken by only the students specializing at teaching English as a foreign language. 4 i.e. intonation content mostly appears in units assigned to be taught in every class meeting. Especially, in week 12, intonation and rhythm are supposed to be specifically instructed to the students. It means that intonation is also taken into consideration in the syllabus. Additionally, given the review of the two textbooks3 chosen as two main coursebooks in Pronunciation course (see Appendix 3) (which was going to be clearly presented in background to the study), it can be seen that intonation plays a part as equally important as other pronunciation aspects, especially sounds – segmental. Evidently, as for the curriculum, the syllabus of Pronunciation course as well as the main course books, there have been no problems causing difficulties in teaching intonation to students because the suprasegmental aspect is taken into account in the three factors mentioned above. Filled with wonder about the problem, on December 17th, 18th, 19th, 21st 2009 she had informal discussions4 with four teachers5 who used to be in charge of pronunciation classes on the matter. First, they were asked about their teaching in pronunciation classes. They continuously talked about whatever they would like to share without 3 Baker, A. (2006). Ship or Sheep – An intermediate course (New Edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hancock, M. (2003). English Pronunciation in Use. The United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. 4 These teachers said that they were not comfortable when their voice was recorded during the discussions; therefore, all information provided by the four teachers was noted on paper only. 5 These four teachers would be the subjects in the study. They had experience in teaching pronunciation at least one course. 5 any interruption. All of them spent much time on discussing how they taught individual sounds during the course. For instance, they shared (1) how they instructed the students to pronounce sounds correctly, (2) the activities for students to practice their pronunciation including games and quizzes, (3) common difficulties the students encountered, and (4) their solution. Then, after they stopped their sharing, some questions on how to teach suprasegemental aspects in their classroom were asked. They started to talk about rhythm and a little bit about intonation. They revealed that they spent much time on teaching segmentals first and that if there was some time left in each class meeting, they would introduce some information about rhythm and intonation. Lastly, they were specifically asked how their teaching intonation was in their classrooms. Again, they said that they did not spend much time on it. Especially, two of them admitted that they actually did not know much about intonation and how to teach this feature. The other agreed with the fact that intonation was important in speaking English; nonetheless, s/he did believe that as communicating in English with good sounds and without much intonation, speakers could obtain success in communication. Meanwhile, the last teacher seemed to be really confident of her knowledge of intonation. S/he said that it was not hard to learn and teach because it related to attitudes of a speaker, and that she just encouraged them to produce intonation according to their attitudes and moods at the time of speaking. For instance, if a student is bored, s/he will speak with a boring tone. The teachers seemingly lacked knowledge of English intonation because given the teachers‟ sharing two things should be taken into account. First, according to Shulman (1986) teachers are supposed to both have knowledge of concepts, principles, theories and facts on the subject matter and acquire new knowledge in their field. Otherwise, it could bring about serious problems in teaching. Second, according to O‟Connor (1986), different languages have different intonations i.e. non-native speakers of 6 English should not impose the intonation of their mother tongue on English, which could cause serious misunderstanding in communication. Moreover, among Master theses conducted at the Faculty, there has been no study on problems in teaching intonation in English-based environment. Of course, there are so many factors affecting the success of teaching; nevertheless, no one, in this teaching and learning context, has ever deeply and solely studied on the very important element providing learners with knowledge, guiding them to practice and putting the knowledge to use – it is teachers. According to Allen and Valette (1972), among many factors making a language course successful, the most significant one is teachers. Research shows that a quality teacher is the greatest determinants of student achievement. According to the researcher‟s observation of the fourth – year students‟ production of intonation in their real speaking environment, they spoke English with level/ flat tone and used inappropriate intonation patterns despite its significant role in communication. However, it is obvious that they were taught English intonation in the two courses (Pronunciation and Introduction to English Linguistics).Moreover, there has, generally speaking, been no problems with the curriculum, syllabus and the content of the two course book at EF in terms of how intonation is treated. However, tracing back to the source who provided their students with knowledge and instructed them to practice, their sharing about teaching pronunciation in the informal discussion seemingly revealed the fact that they lacked knowledge of English intonation. According to Shulman (1986), teachers‟ lack of knowledge of subject matter they are teaching could bring about serious problems. Furthermore, there has been no research on teachers‟ knowledge of subject matter in the context of teaching and learning at EF. All mentioned above captured the researcher‟s curiosity and strongly motivated her to have an understanding of this problem through yielding an insight into the teachers‟ knowledge of English intonation at the Faculty. 7 1.2 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY The study was launched at the Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature (EF) at University of Social Sciences and Humanities (USSH). Pronunciation course is placed at the very beginning of the curriculum of EF i.e. the students are taught pronunciation at the very first semester of the first year. 250 students are usually divided into seven classes (A, B, C, D, E, F, G). Therefore, every year there are also seven pronunciation classes. However, the number of teachers in charge of these classes is varied. One teacher could teach more than one class. Especially, the teachers in charge of pronunciation classes can be different every year because they can choose the subject(s) they are interested in teaching. The pronunciation course aims at instructing English majors to accurately pronounce English sounds, to produce strong forms and weak forms, to put stress in isolated words and in sentences, to link sounds between words, and to produce speech with appropriate rhythm and intonation. In addition, the course proposes to improve the students‟ speaking and listening skill, and also provides with a basic phonological knowledge. This course consists of 60 periods. The students are supposed to attend one five – period class meeting each week in 12 weeks. (see Appendix 2) Two text books are considered to be core materials during the pronunciation course: Ship or Sheep6 and Pronunciation in Use7. The following part presents how intonation 6 Baker, A. (2006). Ship or Sheep – An intermediate course (New Edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 7 Hancock, M. (2003). English Pronunciation in Use. The United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. 8