Andrew Tweed

TEACHING PRONUNCIATION TO

VIETNAMESE STUDENTS:

WHICH ASPECTS SHOULD WE FOCUS

ON AND WHAT ARE SOME EFFECTIVE

TECHNIQUES?

Andrew Tweed, Oxford University Press

VUS TESOL conference, 14 July, 2012

Let’s introduce ourselves.

Overview of talk

English in the 21st Century

Assessing the seriousness of mistakes in context

Vietnamese learners and pronunciation

General tips on correction

Techniques for teaching pronunciation

Applying the teaching techniques to mistakes

Q&A

English in the 21st century

English in the 21st Century

How many people are there in the world today?

How many of them speak English?

English in the 21st Century

There are over 7 billion people in the world today (USCB).

More than 25% of them speak English fluently or

competently (Crystal 2003, quoted in Jenkins 2007).

English in the 21st Century

This is Braj Kachru’s famous model for understanding how

English functions in different countries. (in Crystal, 1995)

English in the 21st Century

How many users in each circle?

300-500 million in inner circle (e.g., US) 320-380 million in outer circle (e.g., India)

500 million – 1 billion in

expanding circle (e.g., VN)

(Figures from Crystal, 2003, quoted in Jenkins, 2007)

English in the 21st Century

English in the 21st Century

On the other hand, consider these scenarios:

A Vietnamese man decides to emigrate to Australia and would like to speak Australian English so that he can fit in.

Young Vietnamese students at an International High School want to speak American English because they think the accent is cool.

A Vietnamese woman who recently graduated from university joins a British company in HCMC and wants to sound British.

Summary

English is an international language.

People have different reasons for speaking

English, and these affect their attitudes toward

the language.

There are different models of pronunciation.

All of these factors can inform our

pronunciation teaching.

Assessing the seriousness of

mistakes in context

Assessing the significance

of mistakes in context

Mistake? Slip? Error? Fossilization? Deviation?

Assessing the seriousness

of mistakes in context

A Vietnamese woman is in Cambodia. She is talking to a Cambodian woman about her daughter. During the conversation, the woman drops some of her final consonant sounds.

Yesterday I played with my daughter. She is 5 years old. She likes to play with other children.

These mistakes are:

1) Not serious: The message is clear from the context.

2) Sort of serious: The mistakes are distracting.

3) Serious: The mistakes probably make it hard to understand.

Assessing the seriousness

of mistakes in context

A Vietnamese man is in America. He wants to greet an American in a friendly way, but his intonation is monotone.

Good afternoon. How are you?

This mistake is:

1) Not serious: The listener can understand the greeting.

2) Sort of serious: The listener is not sure if the speaker is sincere.

3) Serious: The listener probably feels that the speaker is unfriendly.

Assessing the seriousness

of mistakes in context

A VN official is giving a presentation at an ASEAN meeting. When he speaks, his grammar and vocab. are perfect, but he doesn’t use sentence stress or intonation effectively. I would like to take this opportunity to make a very important proposal. I strongly believe that the ASEAN Economic Community should benefit all member nations…

This mistake is:

1) Not serious: He speaks clearly so everyone can understand.

2) Sort of serious: His English is clear, but he’s a little boring to listen to.

3) Serious: He doesn’t effectively present his argument because he doesn’t emphasize important words.

Assessing the seriousness

of mistakes in context

A Vietnamese woman is in France. She is talking to a French friend in English. She cannot pronounce the ‘th’ sounds /θ/ or /ð/, so she uses other similar sounds, like /s/ or /z/. The other day I was with my brother. He’s thirteen years old and is the third oldest in the family.

These mistakes are:

1) Not serious: The message is clear from the context.

2) Sort of serious: The mistakes are distracting.

3) Serious: The mistakes probably make it hard to understand.

Assessing the seriousness

of mistakes in context

The seriousness of mistakes depends on who is talking

to whom, where, and for what purpose.

We are now going to look at some common

Vietnamese mistakes and ways to correct them. But

please keep in mind that in certain contexts, these

mistakes may be fine.

Vietnamese learners and

English pronunciation

Vietnamese learners and

English pronunciation

Ask someone near you:

1) Do you think most Vietnamese students find

English pronunciation easy or difficult?

2) Which aspects of pronunciation do you think

they find difficult? Provide some examples.

L1 Transfer

Students’ difficulties in a foreign language are

often due to the transfer of linguistic features

from the mother tongue to the foreign

language. This is called L1 transfer.

It is likely that many of the difficulties that you

have just discussed are a result of L1 transfer.

Common Vietnamese difficulties

Final consonant sounds

a) I waited for you last night.*

b) Trang plays the guitar very well.*

c) Please forward those two emails to me.*

d) My favorite color is black.

*It should be noted that the mistakes in a, b, and c could also be caused by not understanding the grammar rules.

Common Vietnamese difficulties

Intonation

a) Are you from Thailand? (rising)

b) Where are you from? (falling)

c) Wow! What a wonderful surprise! (to express an excited

emotion)

d) I’d like a cup of coffee, please. (to express politeness

and/or friendliness)

Common Vietnamese difficulties

Consonant clusters

a) weeks: /wi:ks/ CVCC

b) months: /mʌnθs/ CVCCC

c) twelfth: /twelfθ/ CCVCCC

Note that all of these words are one syllable.

Common Vietnamese difficulties

Word stress

a) toMORrow

b) repeTItion

c) REcord (n), or reCORD (v)

Common Vietnamese difficulties

English spelling and pronunciation

a) Christmas should be pronounced with /k/ instead of /ʧ/.

b) The /s/, in island, should be silent: it shouldn’t be

pronounced like Iceland.

Common Vietnamese difficulties

Individual vowel and consonant sounds

a) Making a distinction between vowels /i:/ and /I/, as in

beat and bit

b) The following consonant sounds may also be difficult: /θ/, /ð/, /ʧ/, /ʤ/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/.

General tips on

correction

General tips on correction

Activity A

Read the 6 tips on correction.

Which one do you think is the most important?

Are there any that you disagree with?

Are there any that you would add?

Talk with the people around you.

General tips on correction

1) In general, try to avoid correcting students during free speaking activities. This disrupts the flow of their fluency practice. You can correct them afterwards.

2) As with all correction, consider the student who made the mistake. If it is a shy student, you should be careful about how you correct him/her.

General tips on correction

3) Remember that you do not have to correct

every mistake. Focus especially on those

mistakes which you think would cause

misunderstanding.

4) And also, focus on mistakes which you can

confidently correct. There is no point in saying that

something is wrong if you yourself are unable to

demonstrate or explain the correct version.

General tips on correction

5) Although it’s not always possible, try to

consider your individual students’ goals when

correcting.

6) Ideally, the mistake should be treated as an

opportunity for students to learn something

more in depth.

Feedback

Techniques for teaching

pronunciation

Techniques for teaching pronunciation

Activity B Look at the different techniques for teaching pronunciation on the handout. Discuss the following questions with your partner? 1) Have you used any of these techniques

before? 2) Which techniques do you like/dislike? 3) Do you have any questions about these

techniques?

Techniques for teaching pronunciation

Individual sounds: point to the phonemic chart exaggerate your mouth position show/draw a picture of a mouth diagram explain if a consonant is voiced or unvoiced explain how it differs from a VN sound follow up with a tongue twister write an ‘S’ on the WB, and point to it when

students don’t say it drill the word

Techniques for teaching pronunciation

Consonant clusters:

write the word in phonemic script

drill the word backwards, sound by sound, and

build up the word

drill the whole word

Techniques for teaching pronunciation

Word stress:

write the word with the stress over it

divide the word into syllables

write the word in phonemic script

ask the class for other words with the same

stress pattern

clap the stress pattern with the class

drill the word

Techniques for teaching pronunciation

Sentence stress:

mark the stressed words

elicit different meanings for contrastive stress

explain that content words are usually

stressed more than function words

drill the sentence

Techniques for teaching pronunciation

Intonation: write the intonation pattern on the WB explain the rising and falling tendencies of

intonation in WH- and Yes/No questions, statements, and tag questions

‘draw’ the pattern in the air with your hands demonstrate the difference with and without

intonation, e.g., if sounding friendly or polite drill the sentences

Feedback

Applying the teaching techniques

to some common mistakes

Applying the teaching techniques to

some common mistakes

Activity c

Look at the mistakes below. Talk with the people

near you. Choose suitable techniques to correct

these mistakes. Afterwards, practice these

techniques by playing the roles of student and

teacher.

Applying the teaching techniques to

some common mistakes

1. Consonant clusters not pronounced: I’ve been in Danang for six months. 2. Dropped consonant sounds: She plays basketball. 3. Mispronounced ‘th’ sound, /ð/: We saw them yesterday. 4. Wrong word stress: REcognition (should be recogNItion) 5. No intonation: The intonation peaks on meet.

It’s nice to meet you!

Summary

VN people speak with both NNESs and NESs.

English functions as an International language,

and a regional language within ASEAN nations.

There are different models of English.

We need to consider our students’ goals and

attitudes, and how they figure into the larger

picture of English in SE Asia and the world.

Teaching pronunciation is as important as ever.

Teaching pronunciation is more complex than

listen and repeat, or correct and incorrect.

Questions?

References

Crystal, D. 1995. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Crystal, D. 2003. English as a Global Language (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Holliday, A. 2005. The Struggle to Teach English as an International Language. Oxford University Press.

Jenkins, J. 2007. English as Lingua Franca: Attitude and Identity. Oxford University Press.

Kachru, B. 1992. The Other Tongue: English across Cultures (2nd ed.). University of Illinois Press.

Image 1: www.portwallpaper.com

Image 2: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/commentisfree+education/linguistics

Image 3: http://doanbangoc.researchland.net/2011/07/world-englishes/

Image 4: http://socialstudiesmontfort.blogspot.com/2007/11/asean-charter-slowdance.html

Image 5: http://www.flickr.com/photos/elodiep/3243450001/

Image 6: http://talkvietnam.com/2012/05/vietnamese-youths-opt-for-overseas-studies/

Image 7: http://www.sse-franchise.com/soapbox/201102/04/english-pronunciation-%E8%8B%B1%E8%AA%9E%E3%81%AE%E7%99%BA%E9%9F%B3-for-japanese-people/

Image 8: http://adrianpronchart.wordpress.com/2010/12/31/the-phonemes-have-got-me/

THANK YOU!

ANDREW TWEED OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Email: adtweed@gmail.com