Tài liệu Using some activities to help students overcome english stress errors for k16 english students at foreign languague department hung vuong university

HUNG VUONG UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES LE THI BICH PHUONG USING SOME ACTIVITIES TO HELP STUDENTS OVERCOME ENGLISH STRESS ERRORS FOR K16 ENGLISH STUDENTS AT FOREIGN LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT HUNG VUONG UNIVERSITY B.A. GRADUATION PAPER Field: English Teaching Methodology Phu Tho, 2019 HUNG VUONG UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES LE THI BICH PHUONG USING SOME ACTIVITIES TO HELP STUDENTS OVERCOME ENGLISH STRESS ERRORS FOR K16 ENGLISH STUDENTS AT FOREIGN LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT HUNG VUONG UNIVERSITY ( Sử dụng một số hoạt động nhằm khắc phục những lỗi về trọng âm Tiếng Anh cho sinh viên K16 Tiếng Anh Khoa Ngoại Ngữ - Trường Đại học Hùng Vương ) B.A. GRADUATION PAPER Field: English Teaching Methodology SUPERVISOR: VU THI QUYNH DUNG, Ph.D Phu Tho, 2019 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Firstly, I would like to express my special appreciation and thanks to my supervisor, Ms Vu Thi Quynh Dung, you have been a tremendous mentor for me. I would like to thank you for encouraging my research and for allowing me to grow as a research scientist. Your advice on both research as well as on my career have been priceless. Besides, I would like to thank the authority of Hung Vuong University for providing me with a good enviroment and facilities to complete this study. In addition, I would like also like to thank all my teachers who provide me valuable information as the guidance of my study. Especially, I would also like to take this opportunity to express my deepest thanks to the first year students of K16 English class at Foreign Language Department for their help in completing the research, for their constructive suggestions to this research, and for their willingness to share their relevant problems with me. Finally, a special thanks to my family. Words cannot express how grateful I am to my parents and my sister for all of the sacrifices that you‟ve made on my behalf. Your prayer for me was what sustained me thus far. I would also like to thank all of my friends who supported me in writing, and incented me to strive towards my goal. I do hope to receive the futher comments from the readers so that I can accomplish my graduation paper. Phu Tho, April 30th , 2019 Student Le Thi Bich Phuong ABSTRACT English language has been the common language of the world for decades. It is now the language of global business. The need to use English in daily life is essential and its frequency of use is increasing more and more. There are three important components in a language, namely phonetics, grammar and vocabulary. In lingustic, stress is a part of the rhythm of a language and also is one of the most important elements of a good accent. Because of this reason, the reseacher conducts a graduation paper named: “Using some activities to help students overcome English stress errors for K16 English students at Foreign Languague Department - Hung Vuong University .” The target of the study is to find out some popular stress errors, then suggest some typical classroom activities to intensify pronunciation skill for the first year English students. The study is conducted 10 students at K16 English, Hung Vuong University. All nedded data was collected through a series of pre – test, progress test, post – test and experiment. After experiment, the study has identified that the use of some typical classroom activities which has been moderately effective in the enhancement to over come stress errors for the first year English students, Hung Vuong University. It is hope that this thesis will be useful for teachers and students at Hung Vuong University in learning and teaching speaking and writing skills. TABLE OF CONTENT PART I: INTRODUCTION .............................................................................. 1 1. Rationale........................................................................................................ 1 2. Previous research .......................................................................................... 2 3. Aim of the study ............................................................................................ 4 4. Research questions ........................................................................................ 5 5. Significance of the study ............................................................................... 5 6. Research methods.......................................................................................... 5 6.1. Theoretical method..................................................................................... 5 6.2. Experimental method ................................................................................. 5 7. Content of the study ...................................................................................... 6 PART II. CONTENT ........................................................................................ 7 CHAPTER 1: Theoretical background ............................................................. 7 1.1. Pronunciation ............................................................................................. 7 1.2. Stress .......................................................................................................... 8 1.2.1. Definitions ............................................................................................... 8 1.2.2. Classification of Stress ............................................................................ 8 1.3. Errors ........................................................................................................ 17 1.3.1. What is the error? .................................................................................. 17 1.3.2. Pronunciation errors .............................................................................. 18 1.3.3. Stress errors ........................................................................................... 19 1.4. Learning activities .................................................................................... 21 1.4.1. Some activities to teach pronunciation ................................................. 21 1.4.2. Some activities to teach stress errors .................................................... 24 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY .................................................................. 28 2.1. General description of students at K16 English, Foreign Language Department, Hung Vuong University ............................................................. 28 2.2. Data collected instruments ....................................................................... 28 2.2.1. Tests ...................................................................................................... 28 2.3. Teaching experiment ................................................................................ 31 2.3.1. Desciption of the experimental teaching ............................................... 31 2.3.2. Experiment procedure ........................................................................... 31 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION ............................... 32 3.1. Results from the test ................................................................................. 32 3.1.1. Result from the pre-test ......................................................................... 32 3.2. Discussion ................................................................................................ 33 CHAPTER 4: EXPERIMENT AND RESULTS ........................................... 35 4.1. Experiment: .............................................................................................. 35 4.1.1. The experimental teaching 1 ................................................................. 35 4.1.2. The experimental teaching 2 ................................................................. 36 4.1.3. The experimental teaching 3 ................................................................. 37 4.1.4. The experimental teaching 4 ................................................................. 39 4.1.5. The experimental teaching 5 ................................................................. 40 4.2. Results of the experimental teaching ....................................................... 41 4.3. Assesment................................................................................................. 46 PART III: CONCLUSION .............................................................................. 48 1. Findings ....................................................................................................... 48 2. Implications ................................................................................................. 48 2.1. For teacher ................................................................................................ 49 2.2. For students .............................................................................................. 50 3. Limitations of the study .............................................................................. 50 4. Suggestion for futher study ......................................................................... 51 5. Conclusion ................................................................................................... 51 REFERENCES ................................................................................................ 52 LIST OF TABLES AND DIAGRAMS Table 1. Common errors made by K16 English students collected through the pre – test ........................................................................................................ 33 Table 2: Result from the tests before and after the experimental teaching.. . 45 PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale English plays a vital role in society and has made considerable contribution to education, culture, science. In our country, English has been regarded as the most important foreign language nowadays, especially since the Vietnamese government carried out the open door policy. The needs to use English to communicate verbally are essential and increase more and more. There are three important components in a language, namely phonetics, grammar and vocabulary. These components are very necessary for students to improve their English skills including reading, speaking, writing and listening. In linguistic, stress is a part of the rhythm of a language and also is one of the most important element of a good accent. Word stress as well as sentence stress can help students to understand spoken English, especially when spoken fast. Most people seem to feel that it is difficult to speak as a native speaker, though we are good at grammar or sounds formation. Stress – the “ music ” of a language plays an essential role in how we express meaning. In learning English as a second language, stress is considered one of the most complicated problems because there is no “right” ways of stressing an English sentence. The choice to stress depends on the context of the message and on the particular meaning the speaker wants to convey. Moreover, Vietnamese learners often meet with some difficulties in learning English stress. They used to get into trouble when trying to speak with correct stressing in their conversations. Because of this reason, the researcher carries out a study named “Using some activities to help students overcome English stress errors for K16 English students at Foreign Languague Department - Hung Vuong University”.The researcher hopes that this research will make a small contribution to the application of some 1 typical classroom activities in correcting some errors in learner‟s speaking and writing. 2. Previous research Besime Aktug (2015) in Common pronunciation errors of seventh grade EFL learners : a case from turkey. This thesis analysed the common English pronunciation errors of the seventh grade Turkish students. Since the vocabulary of subjects are limited due to their age, a specific rubric compatible with the official curriculum was designed to test the different qualities of the non – native pronunciation such as vowel, consonant and word stress. The results were analyzed statistically for the common errors quantitatively. Futhermore, the results of quantitative analysis was then compared with the qualitative analysis of the five interviews with professional English teachers teaching seventh grade students. The results show that the pronunciation errors of the seventh grade students present a common nature and the least sucessful pronunciation errors occur for vowels. In this respect, the study aims to provide a comprehensive survey of the pronunciation performance of secondary school students. Petra Jurekova (2015) in The pronunciation of English in Czech, Slovak and Russian speaker.The aim of the thesis is to identify possible common and different mistakes in the English pronunciation of Czech, Slovak and Russian speakers, which can help respective students to realize their specific errors and improve their language skills. Another very important goal is to learn about native speakers‟ perceptions of non-native pronunciation of English and their attitudes towards these accents. Iain Kurakarta (2017) in An error analysis in pronunciation of English vowels of the first students of English education department in Iain Kurakarta in the academic year 2015 – 2016. The objectives of this research are (1) to identify error pronouncing English vowels of the first semester students of English Department of Islamic Education and Teacher Training Faculty State Islamic Institute of Surakarta in the academic year 2015 – 2016, (2) to classify 2 the errors by its types in pronouncing English vowels of the first students of English Education Department of Islamic Education and Teaching Training Faculty State Islamic Institute of Surakarta in the Academic year. The research found that there are errors in pronouncing English vowel. The result showed that the participants perform three types of pronunciation errors: substitution, insertion and omission. In Viet Nam, Pham Thi Cam Chi (2009), Errors 1st year students at ED, HULIS, VNU make with ending sounds and strategies to overcome using communicative teaching in University of language and international studies English department denotes issues classifying synthesizing the data, the finding point out that first year students tend to omit, replace the final consonants or add an additional sound to the end of words. As these errors are typical for first year students, the paper also provides some suggestions for teaching pronunciation using the current trend‟s method: communicative teaching.It provides some noticeable points when using CLT in teaching pronunciation and sample activities such as: role play, group work, authentic native- nonnative communicating, prediction of students stress errors that could be helpful in helping students be aware of and correct their errors with final sounds. Nguyen Thi Hang (2014), A study on common pronunciation mistakes faced by first year English majors at Hai Phong private university. This study help 1st year students at Hai Phong Private University realize their ending sound errors. It also helps students have awareness of pronunciation problems and give some suggestions to deal with their ending sound errors. The author will concentrate on five common ending sound mistakes from survey questionnaire chosen by 38 students from class NA1701. The author hopes this study will be a useful material for every student who concern this issue and help to get rid of their pronunciation mistakes. Bui Thi Dieu Linh (2012), A Study on English sentence stress in dialogues. In this study, the researcher describes English sentence stress in 3 term of its rule and its function. In addition, the researcher studies on changes of stressing in each situation and then gives the implications for English learners in studying phonetics. The result of this will help students improve their knowledge of English phonetics in general and English sentence stress in particular, and the finding of this research in this field. Pham Thi Phuong (2010), Some common errors in English pronunciation of grade 10E students at Hung Vuong high school, Phu Tho province. The study researches the theoretical ground in theory and in practice of Pronunciation, difficulties with the sounds in English, Principles for teaching English sounds. Then the paper studies the current situation of pronouncing English of grade 10E students at Hung Vuong high school to find out the common Pronunciation errors made by them. Next, the reasearcher gives out some techniques in teaching and practicing Pronunciation to help students better pronounce. Lastly, the writer carries out experiments teaching to assert the effectiveness of those techniques proposed. However, this is first time the research on using some activities to help students overcome English stress errors for K16 English students at foreign language department-Hung Vuong university. The researcher continued to study this topic but the combination of some typical activities to improve speaking skill. The researcher hoped that the contributions of our research will help students improve their pronunciation. 3. Aim of the study The research aims at following goals: Investigating some stress errors of students at K16 English, Foreign Language Department – Hung Vuong University. Suggesting some activities to help students overcome English stress errors for K16 English students at foreign language department – Hung Vuong university. 4 4. Research questions: The above aims of the research can be realized by the following research questions: 1. What error(r) in stress do K16 students encounter? 2. What the classroom activities should be used to help students in K16 English overcome stress errors? 5. Significance of the study This research is carried out with the hope that it can help find out English stress errors, mainly in language uses, made by first year English student at Hung Vuong University. This is also beneficial to students themselves because once they realize their own errors; they can adapt their ways of learning as well to reduce errors. Besides, the research using some activities to help student overcome these stress errors. 6. Research methods This study is carried out employing the main following methods: 6.1. Theoretical method: Studying the related documents to speaking skill, pronunciation, phonetic & phonology. 6.2. Experimental method The researcher would like to conduct an experiment to check the feasibility of some suggested solutions and give the results and discussion to show the improvement of students ‟s stress pronunciation. The experiment includes five lesson plan to teach about word stress and sentence stress. During five week will have a post test to give the results of research and the improvement of students. 5 7. Content of the study: Part I: Introduction This part introduces an overall view of the research. Part II: Content This part consists of 4 chapters Chapter 1: Theoretical background This chapter focuses on overview of English pronunciation, stress Chapter 2: Methodology In this chapter, the researcher will write about general description of students in K16 English, data collected instruments. Chapter 3: Data Analysis and Discussion In this chapter, the researcher provides detailed information about participants of the researcher collects and analyzes the data to find out the current situation learning pronunciation and stress for the first year students at Hung Vuong university. Chapter 4: Experiment and Results In this chapter, the researcher will provide some suggested typical classroom activities to get over stress errors in pronunciation English for K16 English class. Part III: Conclusion This concludes the conclusion of the whole study, limitations of the research and provides suggestions for further studies. 6 PART II. CONTENT This part includes four chapters, which are related to reviews literature of the topic in chapter 1, general description of K16 English students at Hung Vuong University in chapter 2, some errors in stress pronunciation in chapter 3, suggested typical classroom activities and experiment in chapter 4. CHAPTER 1: Theoretical background In this chapter, the researcher reviews the theoretical background of English pronunciation, stress, errors and learning activities. 1.1. Pronunciation According to the Penny Ur (1996), pronunciation is the way in which a word or a language is spoken. This may refer to generally agreed-upon sequences of sounds used in speaking a given word or language in a specific dialect ("correct pronunciation"), or simply the way a particular individual speaks a word or language. To pronounce words, we push air from our lungs up through our throat and vocal chords, through our mouth, past our tongue and out between our teeth and lips. (Sometimes air also travels through our nose.) To change the sound that we are making, we mainly use the muscles of our mouth, tongue and lips to control the shape of our mouth and the flow of air. If we can control the shape of our mouth and the flow of air correctly, then our pronunciation is clearer and other people understand us more easily. Speakers of different languages tend to develop different muscles of the mouth for pronunciation. When we speak a foreign language, our muscles may not be well developed for that language, and we will find pronunciation more difficult. By practicing the foreign language pronunciation, our muscles develop and pronunciation improves. As well as crediting correct vowel and consonant sounds using the muscles of our mouth, tongue and lips, there are other important aspects of pronunciation, including: Word stress - emphasis on certain syllables in a word 7 Sentence stress - emphasis on certain words in a sentence Linking - joining certain words together Intonation - the rise and fall of our voice as we speak 1.2. Stress 1.2.1. Definitions According to Peter Roach (1987), stress is an important feature of English pronunciation and to become a powerful communicator of English one needs proficiency while using different stress patterns in his communication. Stress is crucial in English pronunciation. It can be called a grammatical device in English. In English a part of the meanings of a word depends on its stress. It serves to mark the function of words in spoken English. One thing should necessarily be kept in mind that English words are pronounced with one dominant syllable while the other syllables tend to get squashed and reduced. So to say to become a powerful one must be proficient in using stress. Stress is the degree of the force with which a syllable or a word is uttered. It can more easily be defined as a degree of prominence a syllable has. When we put a greater breath force on a syllable it becomes a stressed syllable. Stress is also called the word accent of a sentence. If a word has more than one syllable then one of the syllables stands out from the rest and this cause stress. 1.2.2. Classification of Stress Up to this point we have talked about stress as though there were a simple distinction between “stressed” and “unstressed” syllable with no intermediate levels. In Roach‟s study, he divided stress into two levels: word stress(lexical stress) and sentence stress (syntactical stress). 1.2.2.1. Word Stress  Levels of Stress: 8 Three levels of word – stress may be identified: a – tonic strong (or primary ) indicated by the sign („) put before the stressed syllable, b- non – tonic strong, and others are unstressed syllable. Primary stress: (tonic/nuclear): is the strongest type of stress. It is marked by a small vertical line high up just before the syllable it relates to. Secondary stress (non tonic): it is weaker than primary stress but stronger than unstressed syllables. It is usually found in words of four or five syllables. It is represented in transcription with a low mark. For examples: Pho‟tographic Anthro‟pology eco‟nomical natio‟nality Unstressed: can be regarded as being the absence of any recognizable amount of prominence.  Placement of Stress within the Word English is not one of those languages where word – stress can be decided simply in relation to the syllables of the words, as can be done in French (where the last syllable is usually stressed ) or Crech (where the first syllable is stressed ). Many writers have said that stress is difficult to predict and the best approach is to treat stress placement as a property of the individual word. According to Peter Roach, (1987), in order to decide on stress placement, it is necessary to make use of some or all of the following information: - Whether the word is morphologically simple, or whether it is complex as a result of containing one or more affixes or of being compound words - The grammatical category to which the word belongs. - The number of syllables in word. - The phonological structure of those syllables. a. Single words Verbs According to Roach‟s opinion, The basic rule is that if the second syllable of the verb contains a long vowel or dipthong, or if it ends with more 9 than one consonant, that second syllable stressed, e.g. apply, arrive, attract, assist. If the final syllable contains a short vowel and one (or no ) final consonant, the first syllable is stressed, e.g. enter, open, envy, equal. A final syllable is also unstressed if it contains au (eg. Follow, borrow). Most two – syllable verbs that seem to be exceptions to the above might be interpreted as being morphologically complex (e.g. permit: per+mit) or we could simply list all such as exception. Adjectives Two-syllable simple adjectives are stressed according to the same rule, e.g: lovely, divide, correct, hollow,... There are also exception, for example, honest, perfect, both of which end with two consonants but are stressed on the first syllable. Nouns Nouns require a different rule; if the second syllable contains of a short vowel the stress will usually come on the first syllable. Otherwise it will be on the second syllable. Other two-syllable words such as adverbs and prepositions seem to behave like verbs and adjectives. Three-syllable words In verbs, if the last syllable contains a short vowel and ends with not more than one consonant, that syllable will be unstressed, and stress will be placed on the preceding syllable,e.g. en‟counter, de‟termine. If the final syllable contains a long vowel or dipthong, or ends with more than one consonant, that final syllable will be stressed,e.g. enter‟tain, resu‟rrect. Nouns require a different rule. Here, if the syllable preceding this final syllable contains a long vowel or dipthong, or if it ends with more than one consonant, that middle syllable will be stressed,e.g. mi‟mosa, po‟tato, dis‟aster, sy‟nopsys. 10 If the final syllable contains a short vowel and the middle syllable contains a short vowel and ends with not more one consonant, both final and middle syllables are unstressed and the first syllable is stressed, eg. Quantity, cinema, emperor, custody. Three – syllable simple nouns usually have the stress placed on the first syllable if they end in more than once consonant. Adjective of three syllables seem to follow the same rule. b. Complex words According to P. Roach (1987 : 79) complex words are of two major types: words made from a basic stem word with the addition on an affix, and compound words, which are made of two ( or occasionally more ) independent English words ( e.g. ice – cream, arm – chair). Affixes The affixes in the English language will have one of the three possible effects on word – stress: The affix itself receives the primary stress ( e.g. semi- + circle  semicircle, -ability + person  personality ). The word is stressed just as if the affix is not there (e.g. pleasant  unpleasant, market  marketing ). The stress remains on the stem, not the affix, but is shifted to a different syllable ( e.g. „magnet  mag;netic ) Suffixes Suffixes carrying the primary stress themselves: -ain (e.g. entertain, asscertain ), -ee (e.g.refugee, evacuee), -eer(e.g.mountaineer, volunteer), -ese (e.g. Portuguese, journalese),- ette (e.g. cigarette, launderette), -esque,-ique (e.g.picturesque, unique) Suffixes that do not affect stress placement: -able,-age,-al,-en,-ful,-ing,-ish,-like,-less,-ly,-ment,-ness,-ous,-fy,-wise, -y. Suffixes that influence stress on the stem 11 When the following suffixes are added to a word, the primary stress is shifted to the last syllable of the stem. Eg: -eous,eg. Ad‟vantage  advan‟tageous -graphy,eg.‟photo  pho‟tography -ial,eg.‟proverb  pro‟verbial c. Compound words When is primary stress placed on the first word of the compound and when on the second? Both patterns are found. According to P. Roach (1987,p. 83 – 84) a simple rule can be used, though not completely reliable. If the first part of the compound is ( in a board sense ) adjectival, the stress goes on the second element, with a secondary stress on the first. There are many exceptions to this rule. The majority of these exceptions have in common the fact that they have become more like simple words and less like compounds with the passage of time, and their meaning is no longer easily derived from their constituent parts. For example, greenhouse /ˈɡriːnhaʊs/ is derived from green and house, but the green house is not green and is not really a house. Other examples are: broadcast, background, gentleman. If, however, the first element is ( in a broad sense ) a noun, the stress goes on the first element. For example: typewriter, car, sunrise, suitcase, tea – cup. 1.2.2.2. Sentence Stress At the sentence level, “Sentence stress refers to the various stressed element of each sentence” (Celce-Murcia et al, 1996). Sentence stress is also known as the focus word of a sentence. Through sentence stress, the speaker can let the hearer know his/ her intensions and clarify the hidden meaning of an utterance. In connected speech, words are not treated as separate units. When a word becomes a member of a sentence, word – stress may be either preserved or lost, weakened or strengthened, but it does not remain unchanged as 12 compared with the stress the world has when used in insolation. The degree of prominence that a word has in a sentence is different. ( According to Peter Roach, 1987). We can assume that there are three distinct levels of stress in the sentence: a-primary (main) stress, b-secondary stress, and c-non-stress (or unstressed). Eg: He will „come in a „day. He,will,in,a : unstressed Come: secondary stress Day: primary/main stress Nesterov,(1976) defined: “ Sentence stress is a prominence with which one or more words in a sentence are pronounced ( as compared with the other words in a sentence are pronounced (as compared with the other words of the same sentence). Actually, any word in the sentence can receive the primary or secondary stress. However, as a rule, words with a certain lexical meaning have an important semantic function in the sentence and are, therefore, usually stressed. To such words belong nouns, adjectives, numerals, notitional verbs, and adverbs, demonstrative, interrogative and absolute form of the possessive pronouns. Words which serve to express certain grammatical relations or categories in the sentence are either stressed or unstressed. These include auxiliaries, modals, prepositions, conjunctions, articles particles, pronouns. The normal tendency in English speech is for the primary stress to occur on the last stressed syllable of the tone group, which corresponds to the principle of the end – focus in communication. a. Functions of sentence stress In his study, Laderfoged, P.(1982) divided sentence stress into three types based on its function: 13