USING SOFTWARE TO IMPROVE FIRST YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS’ PRONUNCIATION AN ACTION RESEARCH AT HONG DUC

1

PART I. INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale of the study

In the last decades, the general goals of teaching have primed the effective use of the spoken

language to establish successful communication. That is why there has been a steady growth

in the attention to the magnitude of speaking and pronunciation teaching. This fact has brought

about an emergent debate about models, goals and particularly, the methodology used for

speaking and pronunciation teaching.

A number of research studies have dealt with pronunciation teaching and problems students

face in English pronunciation. The research findings have revealed that pronunciation

frequently interferes with communication. As a matter of fact, communication may break

down when people pronounce incorrectly. Moreover, learners with good pronunciation are

usually more proficient speakers and more successful language learners than those with poor

pronunciation.

Since I started teaching at Hong Duc University, I have taught speaking and pronunciation to

first-year English majors many times. I have always been trying my best to help my students

pronounce better. However, I have had many frustrations because my students always have

many mistakes in their pronunciation. I have been investigating into the reasons for this, and I

have found that my students, most of whom are from rural areas in the province, only learned

grammar and never focused on pronunciation at secondary school. Moreover, they did not

have much access to native speakers’ pronunciation.

For non-English majors at other departments of Hong Duc University, they are required to

have intelligible pronunciation. English majors at Foreign Department, however, must go far

beyond the intelligibility to the point that they should sound like or nearly like native speakers

because they will become teachers of English and their pronunciation will affect many

generations to come. That is the reason why first-year English majors’ weak pronunciation has

been a matter of serious concern among us.

2

Due to the importance of pronunciation in language learning and the poor pronunciation of

first-year English majors at Hong Duc university, I decided to introduce some changes into my

speaking and pronunciation course for first-year English majors with the hope to improve their

pronunciation. That was the reason why I conducted this study “Using software to improve

first-year English majors’ pronunciation: An action research at Hong Duc University”, which

tried to exploit the software programs available in my speaking and pronunciation lessons with

an aim to improve first-year English majors’ pronunciation.

2. Purposes of the study

The purpose of this study is to improve English pronunciation for first-year English majors at

Hong Duc University. Specifically, it has three purposes as follows:

- To identify students’ most common mistakes in their English pronunciation.

- To exploit the software program, namely Pronunciation Power as an intervention in

pronunciation lessons to improve students’ pronunciation.

- To justify the effectiveness of using pronunciation software in teaching English

pronunciation to first-year English majors.

3. Research questions

Regarding the importance of pronunciation teaching, purpose of the research and statement of

the problem, this study is accomplished to find the answer to the question ‘How effectively is

software exploited to improve first-year English majors’ pronunciation at Hong Duc

university?’. Specifically, the study addressed the following three research questions:

* What are the students’ most common problems regarding their English pronunciation?

* Is Pronunciation Power effective in teaching first-year English majors’ pronunciation?

* If yes, how effective is it?

3

4. Scope of the study

The study concentrates on improving first-year English majors at Hong Duc University by

using the pronunciation software named Pronunciation Power. Within its scope, the research

was aimed at justifying the effectiveness of using this software program in teaching English

pronunciation to first-year English majors at Hong Duc university.

5. Methods of the study

This study is conducted as an action research because it is aimed at improving first-year

English majors’ pronunciation. In order to get data, a combination of different instruments,

namely class observation, informal interviews and audio-recording, is used. The data collected

from the observation and interviews will be analyzed by qualitative method, and the data

collected through the tape scripts will be analyzed by quantitative method.

6. Significance of the study

Even though there have been numerous studies on pronunciation teaching, few investigations

into the use of software in teaching pronunciation are conducted. This research provides an

insight into the effectiveness of applying pronunciation software to the teaching of

pronunciation to first-year English majors. The results of the study will, therefore, be much

beneficial to both teachers who are considering whether to exploit software programs in their

English pronunciation lessons and students who are interested in using software programs to

improve their English pronunciation.

7. Design of the study

The study consists of three main parts as follows.

The first part deals with rationale, purposes, research questions, scope, methods and design of

the study.

4

The second part contains three chapters, in which chapter 1 reviews the literature focusing on

the theoretical basis related to teaching pronunciation and using CALL programs in language

learning and teaching, chapter 2 presents a detailed description of the research methodology,

and chapter 3 discusses the findings of the study.

The final part summarizes all the main ideas expressed throughout the research, provides

pedagogical implications and suggests further research orientations.