The impacts of the use of shadowing technique on students' oral production of english past tense morpheme

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY

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ĐÀO THỊ NGỌC LÝ

THE IMPACTS OF THE USE OF SHADOWING TECHNIQUE

ON STUDENTS’ ORAL PRODUCTION OF ENGLISH

PAST TENSE MORPHEME

MASTER OF ARTS IN TESOL

Hồ Chí Minh City, 2021

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY

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ĐÀO THỊ NGỌC LÝ

THE IMPACTS OF THE USE OF SHADOWING TECHNIQUE

ON STUDENTS’ ORAL PRODUCTION OF ENGLISH

PAST TENSE MORPHEME

Major: TEACHING ENGLISH TO SPEAKERS OF OTHER LANGUAGES

Major code: 8 140 111

MASTER OF ARTS IN TESOL

Supervisor: PHAN THỊ NGỌC THANH, Ph.D.

Hồ Chí Minh City, 2021

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC MỞ CỘNG HÒA XÃ HỘI CHỦ NGHĨA VIỆT NAM

THÀNH PHỐ HỒ CHÍ MINH Độc lập – Tự do – Hạnh phúc

KHOA ĐÀO TẠO SAU ĐẠI HỌC

GIẤY XÁC NHẬN

Tôi tên là: ĐÀO THỊ NGỌC LÝ

Ngày sinh: 27 / 04 / 1993 Nơi sinh: Tây Ninh

Chuyên ngành: Lý luận và phương pháp dạy học bộ môn tiếng Anh

Mã học viên: 1781401110017

Tôi đồng ý cung cấp toàn văn thông tin luận án/ luận văn tốt nghiệp hợp lệ về bản

quyền cho Thư viện trường đại học Mở Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh. Thư viện trường

đại học Mở Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh sẽ kết nối toàn văn thông tin luận án/ luận văn

tốt nghiệp vào hệ thống thông tin khoa học của Sở Khoa học và Công nghệ Thành

phố Hồ Chí Minh.

Ký tên

Đào Thị Ngọc Lý

IMPACTS OF USE OF SHADOWING TECHNIQUE ON ORAL PRODUCTION OF –ED i

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I hereby declare that the master thesis “The impacts of the use of shadowing technique on

students’ oral production of English past tense morpheme” is my own work.

I declare that this thesis has not been submitted, in whole or in part, at any other

institution in order to obtain a degree.

I declare that any information cited from the publishers or unpublished work written by

others has been acknowledged in the text and a bibliography has been provided.

Ho Chi Minh City, 2021

Dao Thi Ngoc Ly

IMPACTS OF USE OF SHADOWING TECHNIQUE ON ORAL PRODUCTION OF –ED ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My thesis paper would not have been completed without the great support that I received

from many people. First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my

supervisor, Dr. Phan Thi Ngoc Thanh for her invaluable feedback on my research.

Without her guidance, my thesis paper would not have been completed.

I gratefully recognize the help of all the lecturers and friends on the MA course at Ho Chi

Minh City Open University for their thoughtful advice and support. In addition, I wish to

show my gratitude to all my colleagues and students for their cooperation and

encouragement.

Last but not least, I would like to acknowledge the great support and love of my beloved

mother and best friends. This paper would not have been possible without their warm

encouragement.

IMPACTS OF USE OF SHADOWING TECHNIQUE ON ORAL PRODUCTION OF –ED iii

ABSTRACT

The pronunciation of the English past tense morpheme has remained a major challenge to

Vietnamese learners. Consequently, researchers have conducted a number of studies on

effective techniques that can help learners pronounce the –ed morpheme better. This

study aimed to investigate how the use of shadowing technique impacted the seventh

graders’ oral production of the past tense morpheme at Thuc Hanh Sai Gon School in Ho

Chi Minh City. In order to achieve the aim of the study, the researcher employed a

quantitative approach with a one-group quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design. The

sample of the study included 35 seventh-grade students at Thuc Hanh Sai Gon School.

After having received detailed instructions on shadowing technique, the participants

attended 6 shadowing practice sessions, which took place once a week. The instruments

consisted of a questionnaire, a pretest and a posttest. The questionnaire was used to

record the participants’ exposure to English and their previous experience with the

shadowing technique in order to control extraneous variables that could influence the

research outcomes. The pretest and posttest were employed to figure out the impact of the

use of shadowing technique on students’ oral production of the past tense morpheme. The

results revealed that the implementation of the shadowing technique produced a

statistically significant effect on the participants’ performance. In addition, with regard to

the developmental phases in expressing temporality, the results showed that the use of the

shadowing technique facilitated students to some extent. Based on the findings, some

recommendations were suggested to teachers of English, students studying English and

researchers with interest in the shadowing technique.

Keywords: shadowing technique, past tense morpheme, pronunciation, developmental

phases, second language learning

IMPACTS OF USE OF SHADOWING TECHNIQUE ON ORAL PRODUCTION OF –ED iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP..................................................................................I

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................II

ABSTRACT.....................................................................................................................III

LIST OF TABLES..........................................................................................................VI

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION.................................................................................... 1

1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY.................................................................................... 1

1.2 RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY ...................................................................................... 2

1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS............................................................................................... 4

1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY..................................................................................... 5

1.5 DEFINITIONS OF TERMS.............................................................................................. 6

1.6 SCOPE OF THE STUDY................................................................................................. 7

1.7 CHAPTER SUMMARY .................................................................................................. 7

1.8 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY .................................................................................. 7

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................................................... 9

2.1 THE REGULAR SIMPLE PAST TENSE MORPHEME ......................................................... 9

2.1.1 Developmental phases in the expression of the past .......................................... 9

2.1.2 The problematic oral production of the past morpheme –ed ........................... 11

2.1.3 The reasons for difficulties in producing the morpheme –ed encountered by

Vietnamese learners of English ................................................................................. 15

2.2 SHADOWING TECHNIQUE........................................................................................... 16

2.2.1 The definition and history of shadowing technique.......................................... 16

2.2.2 The differences between shadowing and repetition.......................................... 20

2.2.3 The challenging features of shadowing technique ........................................... 20

2.2.4 The benefits of shadowing ................................................................................ 23

2.2.5 The applicability of shadowing ........................................................................ 24

2.3 PREVIOUS STUDIES ON THE SHADOWING TECHNIQUE .............................................. 25

2.4 RESEARCH GAP ........................................................................................................ 28

2.5 CHAPTER SUMMARY ................................................................................................ 30

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY ................................................................................ 31

3.1 STUDY DESIGN ......................................................................................................... 31

3.2 RESEARCH SETTING ................................................................................................. 31

3.3 POPULATION AND SAMPLE....................................................................................... 32

3.4 MATERIALS.............................................................................................................. 33

3.5 INSTRUMENTS .......................................................................................................... 33

3.5.1 Questionnaire ................................................................................................... 33

3.5.2 Pre-test and post-test........................................................................................ 34

3.6 DATA COLLECTION .................................................................................................. 35

3.7 DATA ANALYSIS....................................................................................................... 37

3.8 VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY.................................................................................... 39

IMPACTS OF USE OF SHADOWING TECHNIQUE ON ORAL PRODUCTION OF –ED v

3.8.1 Internal validity ................................................................................................ 39

3.8.2 External validity ............................................................................................... 40

3.8.3 Content validity ................................................................................................ 40

3.8.4 Construct validity ............................................................................................. 40

3.8.5 Reliability ......................................................................................................... 41

3.9. CHAPTER SUMMARY ............................................................................................... 42

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS......................................................... 43

4.1 FINDINGS ................................................................................................................. 43

4.1.1 Descriptive statistics of the questionnaire........................................................ 43

4.1.2 Descriptive statistics of pre-test and post-test.................................................. 45

4.1.2.1 Descriptive statistics of pre-test................................................................. 45

4.1.2.2 Descriptive statistics of post-test ............................................................... 46

4.1.3 Normality test ................................................................................................... 48

4.1.4 Paired t-test ...................................................................................................... 48

4.2 DISCUSSION ............................................................................................................. 49

4.2.1 Students’ oral production of the past tense morpheme .................................... 50

4.2.2 Students’ developmental phases in the expression of temporality ................... 52

4.3 CHAPTER SUMMARY ................................................................................................ 52

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS.............................................. 54

5.1 CONCLUSION............................................................................................................ 54

5.2 IMPLICATIONS .......................................................................................................... 55

5.3 LIMITATIONS............................................................................................................ 56

5.4 SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH .................................................................. 57

REFERENCES................................................................................................................ 58

APPENDICES................................................................................................................. 65

APPENDIX A................................................................................................................... 65

APPENDIX B................................................................................................................... 67

APPENDIX C................................................................................................................... 68

APPENDIX D................................................................................................................... 70

APPENDIX E................................................................................................................... 72

APPENDIX F ................................................................................................................... 76

IMPACTS OF USE OF SHADOWING TECHNIQUE ON ORAL PRODUCTION OF –ED vi

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Three Broad Developmental Phases in Terms of Temporality Expression by

Ortega (2009) 8

Table 2.2 Three Allomorphs of the Regular Past Morpheme 10

Table 2.3 The Order of English Morpheme Acquisition of L1 Learners by Brown

(1973) 10

Table 2.4 The Order of English Morpheme Acquisition of Learners from Various L1

Background 11

Table 2.5 Varieties of Shadowing by Hamada (2016) 16

Table 3 The Procedure of Shadowing Adopted from Hamada (2012) 33

Table 4.1 Descriptive Data of the Participants 41

Table 4.2 Descriptive Statistics of the Pre-test Scores 43

Table 4.3 Numbers and Percentages of Participants Classified into Developmental

Phases in Expressing Temporality According to Their Pre-test Results 44

Table 4.4 Descriptive Statistics of the Post-test Scores 45

Table 4.5 Numbers and Percentages of Participants Classified into Developmental

Phases in Expressing Temporality According to Their Post-test Results 46

Table 4.6 Normality Test of the Scores of Pre-test and Post-test 46

Table 4.7 Paired Samples T-test on Pre-test and Post-test Scores 47

IMPACTS OF USE OF SHADOWING TECHNIQUE ON ORAL PRODUCTION OF –ED 1

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the study

Due to globalization, there has been a strong demand for global languages that can

enhance international communication. According to the United Nations, there are six

official international languages, which are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and

Spanish. With approximately 1.35 billion speakers (Statista, 2021), English has been

regarded as one of the most common lingua francas in the world. As a result, English is

taught as a compulsory subject in school curriculums of many countries around the

world, including Vietnam. Considering the importance of English, great effort has been

put into improving the quality of English teaching and learning, especially speaking skills

in general and pronunciation in particular. Along with the introduction of a

communicative approach, Vietnam has experienced several modifications in English

teaching practices since the second half of the 1980s (Ha, 2005). However, owing to

numerous reasons, including the significant differences between the target language and

mother tongue, pronunciation has been a challenging aspect for Vietnamese learners of

English. In particular, Vietnamese learners encounter special difficulties in pronouncing

inflectional morphemes, especially the past tense morpheme.

The –ed morpheme has remained a major challenge to Vietnamese learners due to

several reasons. The past tense morpheme occurs relatively late according to the order of

grammatical morpheme acquisition (Brown, 1973; Krashen, 1977). In addition, the low

frequency of regular verbs compared to irregular verbs, as well as the negative and

interrogative forms of the simple past lower the salience of the regular past form. In

regard to its variant pronunciation, the –ed morpheme has three allomorphs /ɪd/, /t/ and

/d/, which means it can be pronounced differently depending on the final sounds of

regular verbs, and therefore causes considerable confusion for learners. Among the three

allomorphs, /t/ and /d/ are the most challenging ones because they often create consonant

clusters in several phonetic environments, which do not exist in Vietnamese and therefore

IMPACTS OF USE OF SHADOWING TECHNIQUE ON ORAL PRODUCTION OF –ED 2

tend to result in discomfort associated with their pronunciation. The difficulty in

pronouncing complex codas has also led to the fact that the –ed morpheme is often

deleted in some phonetic environments by both L1 and L2 speakers. This reduces its

salience, and therefore negatively affects learners’ acquisition of the past tense

morpheme.

In an attempt to deal with this challenge, many studies have been conducted in

order to develop effective techniques that can help students improve their pronunciation

of inflectional morphemes. One technique that has recently gained great attention is

shadowing. According to Hamada (2018c), shadowing is a technique that requires

learners to repeat what they have heard without delay. Although this technique was first

introduced in cognitive studies on selective attention, and later was implemented in

teaching interpretation, shadowing has been recognized as an effective technique in

language teaching. Empirical research conducted on shadowing has proved that the use of

this technique not only develops learners’ working memory and produces positive effects

on their psychology, but also noticeably contributes to learners’ development of both

listening comprehension and speaking skills. In particular, the practice of shadowing

technique allows learners to improve their perceptions and production of unfamiliar

sounds that do not exist in their mother tongues. In the case of Vietnamese learners, this

technique can help them improve their oral production of the past tense morpheme.

Although the results of several studies have shown the positive effects of

shadowing technique on learners’ speaking and listening skills, this technique has not

been widely researched in the educational settings of Vietnam. For this reason,

considering Vietnamese learners’ difficulties in the pronunciation of –ed, this study

aimed to investigate the impacts of the use of shadowing technique on students’ oral

production of the past tense morpheme.

1.2 Rationale for the study

Despite the fact that shadowing technique has been increasingly recognized as a

useful technique to teach listening and speaking skills (Fatimah, 2017; Hamada, 2016;

IMPACTS OF USE OF SHADOWING TECHNIQUE ON ORAL PRODUCTION OF –ED 3

Sumarsih, 2017), there is little empirical research on this technique in various educational

contexts and with students at low level of proficiency. In fact, most studies on shadowing

were conducted in Asian countries such as Japan and Indonesia with the participation of

tertiary or high school students. In Vietnam, there is a scant investigation into the effects

of shadowing on students’ achievements. In addition, the use of shadowing with

Vietnamese students at different levels of education is not fully studied. To be specific,

despite the fact that shadowing has been proven to be more beneficial to lower

proficiency learners (Hamada, 2016), most studies are carried out on university students.

The lack of empirical research on the effects of shadowing on students at low level of

proficiency has made it unsafe to draw general conclusions about the effectiveness of this

technique. Furthermore, since shadowing has been known as a useful technique to

improve students’ fluency and intonation, there is a question whether this technique

works on other components of speaking skills, namely the pronunciation of the regular

past morpheme. Additionally, unlike other techniques such as repetition, shadowing not

only helps students improve their pronunciation, but also brings great benefits to them in

numerous aspects. When practicing shadowing, students can develop their listening and

speaking skills, enhance their working memory, take part in the learning process more

actively, and become less anxious when using the target language outside the class room

(Arthurson, 2019b; Hamada, 2018c; Sumiyoshi & Seventant, 2017). Consequently, the

application of shadowing to teaching practices can facilitate students’ learning progress

in various aspects.

Moreover, due to the fact that the accurate production of –ed remains a major

challenge to Vietnamese learners of English, and that the use of morphological means is

considered a sign of language competence, further research is needed to help students

acquire the regular past morpheme. Considering the benefits of the shadowing technique

and Vietnamese learners’ difficulty in the pronunciation of –ed, this study was conducted

with the participation of seventh-graders at Thuc Hanh Sai Gon School. The students

have already learnt the past simple, but they still found it difficult to produce the past

tense morpheme orally. To be specific, the students were confused by the variant ways of