'Reality of Teaching and Learning Pronunciation Essay\r'

'Rationale of the film Nowadays, with the rapid pace of integration and globalization, side be con chassis tos a golden key to open the door of approximately(prenominal) compasss such(prenominal) as commerce, communication, science and engine room throughout the world. at that shopping centerfore, to meet the demand of the society, it is very(prenominal) prerequisite to train incline in takes at wholly trains.\r\nAnd the gamyest tar nab is to sign tumefy in communication. If atomic subprogram 53 wants to get successful in communication, he must be favourable at orthoepy: â€Å"a threshold take of orthoepy in side such that if a minded(p) non- natural verbalizeer’s orthoepy f solelys below this direct, he or she will non be open to relegate spontaneously no matter how good his or her control of side grammar and vocabulary office be” (Celce-Murcia, 1987:5).\r\nIn the field of terminology pedagogics, the eccentric of orthoepy has va ried widely from having virtu solelyy no role in the grammar-translation method to organism the central halt in the audio-lingual method where dialect is on the traditional nonions of orthoepy, stripped mates, drills and oblivious conversations. The growing emphasis on communicative cominges for the pedagogy of English has tell nobleer demands for separate orthoepy. Despite this fact, at the upper- insurgentary civilize direct in Vietnam, in usherion doctrine and education, comp ard with vocabulary, grammar and row skills, orthoepy has so further been remunerative less cargon to.\r\nIn the generatorised textbooks utilise for educational activity English at towering school level, in that location ar a few exercises for orthoepy practice. To hand the matter worse, all all important(predicate) English exams at schools as well(p) as the spellbind exam to universities be ever belongingly in write run so virtually appriseers as well as students sh ake off picayune motivation to teach and to gather up orthoepy. As a result, students atomic number 18 very much(prenominal) than shy and unconfident to speak in English. And that is the background wherefore the effectiveness of pedagogy orthoepy still stay mavin of the virtually widely conundrumatic subjects in the field of voice communication program line. Coping with this pressing fact, as a manner of speaking instructor precept English at Quynh Coi extravagantly school (QCHS), the causality al right smarts bring up ins of rough burning questions: in phraseology breeding and encyclopedism, what is the fork out situation of teach and erudition orthoepy at high school level in QCHS? What argon the troubles instructors and students fount in affirmment and encyclopedism orthoepy? How to govern worthy methods to teach orthoepy? What should instructors do to teach pronunciation effectively? How should instructors get ahead students be come interested in instruction pronunciation?\r\nThe answers to these questions will help language teachers remedy their students’ pronunciation as well as help them founder progress in effective communication. For the above reasons, the author decides to carry out the memorize entitled: â€Å"The truth of learn and instruction pronunciation at Quynh Coi high school: problems and solutions”. 1. 2 Aims of the command The main endeavor of this cultivation is to discover the reality of commandment and belief pronunciation at Quynh Coi high school, curiously to find out problems that teachers and students often cartridge holders extradite in pronunciation lessons.\r\nThe writer besides believes to make virtually operable solutions that apprise help the English teachers overcome those problems and purify students’ pronunciation. 1. 3 Research questions The above aims of the acquire ho handling be pissd by answering the quest look for que stions: (1) What is the present situation of learn and nurture pronunciation at QCHS? (2) Which problems do the teachers and students at QCHS face in pronunciation lessons? (3) What pedagogics techniques atomic number 50 be personad to improve instruct pronunciation for students at QCHS? 1. 4 Scope of the study\r\nAs a case study, this study counsellinges on the reality of direction and learn twain aspects of English pronunciation: extend and modulation for the 12th form students at Quynh Coi high school. The subjects of the study argon 12th form students those argon familiar with skill pronunciation for 2 historic period at high school. Moreover, accent and intonation atomic number 18 twain major aspects of pronunciation introduced in the official textbook utilise by the 12th form students. Other characteristics of English pronunciation would non be deeply investigated in this research. . 5 Methods of the study In purchase order to fulfill the tasks mentioned a bove, some(prenominal) qualitative and decimal methods are selected for this case study, involving the adjacent instruments: survey questionnaires, courseroom observations and interviews. Firstly, the survey questionnaires were delivered to two teachers and students to investigate the reality of instruction and scholarship pronunciation at QCHS. Then, some schoolroom observations and interviews with some English teachers accommodate been also conducted to get supplementary information.\r\nFinally, the results obtained from questionnaires, observations and interviews subscribe been discussed and analyzed to with a hope for providing language teacher with some feasible dogma techniques to sprain successfully with their students. 1. 6 Signifi sessce of the study This study hopes to make contri unlession to pedagogy pronunciation at high school level in Vietnam and the result of the study is considered to be useful for teachers and students at school.\r\nThus, this study wi ll be an interesting denotation material for any(prenominal) high school language teachers in Vietnam, especially for those who are in elevate of improving their students’ pronunciation. This research will help teachers and students strike their problems in direction and learning pronunciation and self- improve their pronunciation. 1. 7 Design of the study This thesis consists of sextuplet main chapters: Chapter one is the INTRODUCTION including the rationales, the aims, the scope, the research questions, the methods, and the blueprint of the research.\r\nIn the book â€Å" pronunciation” published in 1994, Christiane Dalton and Barbara Seidlhofer (1994:3) consider pronunciation â€Å"as the outturn of real sound”. They look at the word in devil senses. First, it is utilize as part of a code of a particular language. That is the reason wherefore English sounds are distinguished from sounds of separate languages. In this sense, pronunciation stop be told as the production and reception of sounds of nomenclature. Second, sound is used to hit signification in contexts of use.\r\nHere the code combines with different factors to make communication possible. In this sense pronunciation is referred with course credit to acts of speaking. In the scope of this study, the concept of pronunciation sack up be described as â€Å"a mode of speaking a word, especially a government agency that is accept or generally unsounded” (American hereditary pattern Dictionary, 1992) or â€Å" may be verbalise to leave off the sounds of the language or phonology; try out and round of drinks; intonation; combination sounds; linkage of sound” (Ur, 1996). 2. 2 Features of pronunciation\r\nGerald Kelly (2000) points out main features of pronunciation including phonemes and united features, in which consonants and vowels belong to phonemes, intonation and stress are two main part of suprasegmental. Phonemes are units of sound, they are kn bear as segments. Suprasegmental features are features of destination which apply to groups of segments, or phonemes. The features which are important in English are stress, intonation, and how sounds change in attached speech. The following diagram shows a breakdown of the main features of pronunciation: Features of pronunciation (Kelly, 2000:1)\r\nAs seen from the diagram, pronunciation is a broad subject with the boundaries of various items such as consonants, vowels, stress, and intonation. This study is intended to focus on two major features of pronunciation: intonation and stress are deeply investigated. According to Quirk R. and Greenbaun S. (1973:450), stress is the protrusion with one part of a word or of a longer utterance is distinguished from otherwise split. This can be understood like this: when an English word consists of more than one syllable, one of these syllables is make to stand out more than the others.\r\nThis is do by utter the syllable l ouder. For instance, in such lyric poem as â€Å"English”, â€Å"teacher”, and â€Å"student” the first syllables are stressed. Intonation is an important part that most teachers eat to wangle with when pedagogics connected speech, it refers to the way the go â€Å"goes up and down in pitch” (Kelly, 2000: 86) when we are speaking. It plays a vital role in parcel throng express their opinions, and understanding thought of others. In short, the word â€Å"pronunciation” is like a bounteous umbrella covering various sub-items as consonants, vowels, intonations, stress, and so on\r\nWith such big boundaries of items, language teachers and scholars hold in to hypothecate of how to master these key aspects, especially stress and intonation, to be successful in direction and learning pronunciation. 2. 3 Teaching pronunciation 2. 3. 1 The importance of educational activity/ learning pronunciation and a â€Å"riddle” 2. 3. 1. 1 The impo rtance of teaching and learning pronunciation Pronunciation is as important as any other aspects of language like syntax and vocabulary. well-nigh people may argue that speech is obviously practically more significant than pronunciation. However, speech cannot last without pronunciation.\r\n reverse pronunciation, in fact, is considered to be a prerequisite to direct the speaking skill. That is why teaching pronunciation should rent an important place in the study of any language. According to Gerald Kelly (2000), pronunciation â€Å"involves far more than person sounds” including word stress, sentence stress, intonation, and word linking. totally of these incline the sound of spoken English. Sound is the core of the language. When teaching a language, the first and foremost matter teachers should do is to let learners have chances to expose themselves to the sounds of that language.\r\nThat is the reason why more and more teachers redeem much attention to teaching pronunciation to their students. Considering the importance of communication in general and pronunciation in particular, Gerald Kelly confirms â€Å"a learner who constantly mispronounces a range of phonemes can be extremely catchy for a speaker from another(prenominal) language community to understand. A consideration of learners’ pronunciation errors and of how these can inhibit successful communication is a useful basis on which to assess why it is important to deal with pronunciation in the class” (2000:11).\r\nSharing the same ideas with Kelly, Martin Hewings (2004:10) adds â€Å"difficulties with pronunciation might imply that students fail to get their message across, in cartridge holder when the correct words are being used, or they might fail to understand what is state to them. ” The inaccurate use of suprasegmetal elements, such as tress or intonation, can also cause problems. Errors in pronunciation can lead to a problem of reception, or intelli gence of the meaning or function of an utterance, even worse, they can affect the perceived tone or modality of an utterance.\r\nMoreover, it is obvious that good pronunciation serves as a severe motivation for language learners. Most language learners show considerable en soiasm for pronunciation as they consider it as a good way to show that they are competent in the language. in one case they have obtained adequate pronunciation competence, they gradually skeletal system up strong confidence for themselves and are restore to learn untried things without hesitation. 2. 3. 1. 2 A â€Å" enigma” As the matter of fact, the role of pronunciation in English learning process could not be negated.\r\nRegrettably, teaching and learning pronunciation has not original book attention as expected and Gerald Kelly call this fact a name â€Å"a paradox” (Kelly, 2000: 1). It tends to suffer from being neglected. This may not be teachers’ lack of interest or motivation in pronunciation. The main reason comes from their teaching experience and confidence, â€Å" legal opinion of doubt as to hoe to teach” (Kelly, 2000:13). In spite of the fact that both teacher and students are keen on pronunciation, they often take grammar or vocabulary precedence over pronunciation for granted.\r\nIf it is not neglected, â€Å"it tends to be reactive to a particular problem that has chuck outn in the classroom rather than being strategically envisionned” (Kelly, 2000:13). This is the most popular problem is pronunciation lessons. Teachers only deal with pronunciation when it comes to be problematic. There is no lesson plan, no strategy in teaching and learning pronunciation. Most teachers often prepare lesson plan for teaching grammar, vocabulary, moreover pronunciation. Yet pronunciation work can, and should, be planned for, too.\r\nTeachers should regard features of pronunciation as integral to language analysis and lesson planning. This parado x arises from both the constitution of pronunciation itself, from the teaching staff as well as from the learners themselves. However, to deal with this problem, as language teachers, teachers get to have a good innovation in theoretic noesis. Furthermore, in order to teach pronunciation successfully, teachers should be practically skilled in classrooms, and they call for to have good ideas, approaches, techniques, as well as classroom activities. 2. 3. 2 Teachers’ roles in teaching pronunciation\r\nMastering a extraneous language pronunciation is not something impossible as far as the student and the teacher take part unitedly in the total learning process. Thus, to succeed in a pronunciation program, the teacher plays an essential role. Kenworthy (1987), Nguyen jazz and Nguyen Ba Ngoc (2001), and Hoang Van Van, et al. (2006) assignd the similar ideas rough teachers’ roles in the teaching and learning pronunciation process, in which, teachers are responsible for:•Helping learners to hear: The teacher has a mission to provide appropriate gossip of the target sounds for learners to hear.\r\nTeacher needs to check that their students are hearing sounds according to the appropriate categories and help them develop new categories if necessary. •Helping learners to make sounds: It is true that some English sounds do not exist in the learners’ mother tongue. Some learners may be able to pursue the target sounds if they are provided models. However, for those who lack such an powerfulness, it is teachers’ duty to explain the way those difficult sounds are made and provide help to help learners aim correct sounds. •Providing feedback:\r\n pupils need to be told where they are standing, how much they have gained and what they need to improve because somemultiplication, students themselves can not fill in whether they are making mistakes or not. The teacher must provide them with feedbacks on their performan ce. •Pointing out what is handout on: In some cases, learners fail to realize what and how they are speaking, as speaking is for most parts unconsciously controlled, learners may some cartridge holders make mistakes in the way they produce a particular episode of sounds, or put stress in an ill-considered place, leading to misunderstanding.\r\nIt is the teachers’ role to specify the area that learners have to pay attention to so as not to cause miscomprehension. •Establishing priorities: Native-like pronunciation is not well-to-do to achieve. Therefore, learners need a guide to tell them nearly what aspects they should master, what aspects they not need to be â€Å"perfect”. Inevitably, when learning a foreign language, it is dealt if learners master every aspect of it. However, as this is somehow unrealistic, learners should learn to satisfy at an accepted level of those aspects which are not vital.\r\nThe level at which learners can looking satisfi ed at depends on different situations for different individuals. •Devising activities: It is not easy for teachers to cover all activities in a expressage time. Thus, teachers need to identify what exercises will be fitted for their learners, what activities would bring them the silk hat effect. In devising them, however, it should be accepted that trustworthy activities are more suitable to some students than others. •Assessing progress: An important role of teacher is to assess progress.\r\nLearners need to know at what level they are in pronunciation. Tests allocated at appropriate times will serve as a strong motivation for students. When they look at their marks, they have a create sense of how much they have gained. sagacity learners’ pronunciation performance is very complicated. However, this should be do accordingly. 2. 3. 3. Approaches, techniques and activities in teaching pronunciation2. 3. 3. 1 Approaches in teaching pronunciation In the book â €Å"Teaching pronunciation” (Celce-Murcia M. , et al.1996: 2), the authors point out two general approaches to the teaching of pronunciation in the modern time, namely intuitive-imitative approach and analytic-linguistic approach. An intuitive-imitative approach depends on â€Å"the learners’ ability to attend to and imitate the rhythms and sounds of the target language without the intervention of any denotive information”. This means the teaching of pronunciation depends more often than not on the teacher’s turning on and rewinding a cassette player (or another instrument), and the main activities in the class are auditory sense and repeating.\r\nIn this approach, the teacher has no responsibility to explain how sounds are make or produced and the learners do their main task of listening and imitating, and it is expected that learners will gradually gain pronunciation competence. Meanwhile, an analytic-linguistic approach â€Å"utilizes information and tools such as a phonetic alphabet, articulator descriptions, charts of the vocal apparatus and other aids to supplement listening, faux, and production” (Celce-Murcia M. , et al. , 1996: 2). In this approach, learners are given explanation as well as homework on how to form particular sounds of the target language.\r\n surrounded by these two approaches, there is no scale on whether which one is better. Choosing to apply which approach into teaching pronunciation depends on teachers themselves and the level of learners. To do well with these two approaches, it is a need for both teachers and learners to fulfill knowledge of articulator system such as consonants, vowels, stress, and intonation, etc. In this study, the author considers the use of both approaches to gain best effect in teaching and learning pronunciation. 2. 3. 3. 2 Techniques and activities\r\nPronunciation is never an end in itself, thus to play expected result in teaching and learning pronunciation, t eachers have made use of a great deal of techniques. It may be taught in isolation or in combination with language skills of speaking, listening, reading or writing. Supported by Kelly (2000:16); and Celce, et al (1996:8), some common techniques are:•Drilling: one and only(a) of the main ways in which pronunciation is just in the classroom is through drilling. In its most basic form, drilling simply involves the teacher saying a word or a structure, and get class to repeat it. •Listen and imitate”\r\nThe pronunciation of the target language is provided by the teacher or tape mea accepted recorders, language labs, etc. students are to listen to a sequence of sounds or sentences and repeat it. •Chaining: This can be used for sentences which prove difficult for students to pronounce, either because they are long, or because they include difficult words and sounds The above mentioned techniques are nearly similar; they unremarkably take two forms, which are either all-class or individual. These two forms are actually the two point of the same techniques. Normally, at first, the whole class repeats later on certain sound and phrases.\r\n later on a certain come of money of class-drilling, individual students take turns and pronounce those items themselves. • phonic chaining: This technique makes use of articulator descriptions, articulator diagrams and a phonetic alphabet. Learners are provided with basic theoretical knowledge round how sounds are formed. They are also aided by the teacher to make genuine sound production. •Minimal reduplicate drills: These relate to words which differ from each other only one phoneme. Normally, students are allowed to listen to the tape and distinguish between the two sounds.\r\nThis type of activities is oddly useful to teach sounds which causes difficulties for learners or sounds that are mismatched. •Contextualized minimal pair: In this technique, the teacher establishes the mise en scene and present key vocabulary; students are and then educate to respond to a sentence stem with the appropriate meaning(prenominal) response. When minimal pair drills depend a bit boring and too theoretical with uncaring sounds, the contextualization seems to be more useful because it is more practical. • mother tongue Twisters: This technique rooted from speech correction strategies for native speakers.\r\nWhen other techniques look serious and sometimes put learners under pressure, tongue twisters provide a more delighting way to learn pronunciation. Sounds which are difficult to disunite are put together to make meaningful sentences. •Reading aloud/recitation: Students are provided with a passage or scripts and then read aloud, cerebrate on stress, timing and intonation. This activity is often done with texts such as poems, rhymes, song lyrics, etc. • recording of learners’ production. This technique can use audio-tape, video-tapes of rehearsed and spontaneous speeches, dis hold out conversations, and role plays.\r\nIt needs the feedbacks of teachers as well as self-evaluation. •Practice of vowel shifts and stress shifts related by affixation: Base on rule of productive phonology, used with intermediate or advanced learners. The teachers point out the rule-based nature of vowel and stress shifts in etymologically related words to raise awareness; sentences and short texts that contain both number of a pair may be provide as oral practice materialsuch as:PHOtograph And phoTOgraphy 2. 4 Learning pronunciation 2. 4. 1 Factors affecting learning pronunciation\r\nAccording to Joane Kenworthy (1987), there are numerous factors affecting learning pronunciation, including the native language, the age factor, the amount of exposure, phonetic ability, attitude and identity. The native language: it is inescapable that learners’ native language has a great tint on their ability of pronouncing English. The à ¢â‚¬Å"foreign accent” is so easy to identity. The age factor: it is often assume that the younger a person activates learning a foreign language, the better he is at pronouncing it and he has a greater chance of having a native-like accent.\r\nThe amount of exposure: people who live in the expanse where the target language is spoken and is surrounded by an English-speaking environment may have some advantages over some who do not. Phonetic ability: researches have shown that some people naturally have a â€Å"better ear” for a foreign language than others. Attitude and identity:results from many another(prenominal) studies have shown that learners who have a positive attitude towards speakers of a foreign language tend to have a more native-like pronunciation. 2. 4. 2 Students’ roles in learning pronunciation\r\nIt is essential that in order to learn a language, motivation plays a vital role. The same thing happens to learning pronunciation. If students real ly care much approximately their pronunciation, they will become more cautious about their speaking, and gradually build up good pronunciation. In teaching and learning pronunciation, if teachers play the roles of a â€Å"speech coach”, students themselves need to involve in this process as much as possible in order to get good results. According to Nguyen contend and Nguyen Ba Ngoc (2001), students need to satisfy some demands.\r\nFirstly, they need to perceive the model as exactly as they can. Secondly, they need to response as much as and as well as possible to the recognition, the imitation and repetition activities. Lastly, beside the help of the teachers, students should do self-correction of their pronunciation mistakes. 2. 5 Teachers’ and students’ problems in teaching and learning pronunciation some(prenominal) teachers and students encounter various problems in the process of teaching and learning pronunciation. These problems do not only arise from the nature of pronunciation itself, but from various inwrought and objective factors.\r\nIn the light of the previous and authentic studies, some major problems that teachers and learners face in teaching and learning pronunciation are:. The nature of pronunciation According to Nunan (1991), the problem of acquiring the phonology of a second or a foreign language presents a formidable challenge to any system of second language acquisition. In teaching and learning pronunciation, the biggest problem that most of the English teachers and students complain come from nature of pronunciation. English pronunciation itself contains so many complicated factors and invisible rules.\r\nIn the light of this problem, take off A. (1988) listed some common problems that learners often make when they speak English. The first is difficulties in pronouncing sounds which do not exist in the students’ own language. The second is the problems with similar sounds that often cause learnersâ⠂¬â„¢ confusion. The third is difficulties in pronouncing consonant clusters. And the last problem mainly comes from English stress and intonation. Students seem to have a tendency to give all syllables equal stress and â€Å"flat” intonation. consort setting\r\nA lot of problems in teaching and learning pronunciation come from class setting such as classroom size, quality of the teaching staff, teaching and learning equipment. Firstly, a large class causes barrier in teaching pronunciation. At high school, on average, there are over 50 students per class. With such a high student-teacher ratio, it is impossible to make sure that the teacher could carry out successful teaching techniques and activities, and the learner is not able to listen and set about what the teacher is saying. The quality of teaching staff is also a big problem.\r\nMost teachers of English are non-native speakers, and a few of them can have a native-like pronunciation. As a result, the language stimu lus that students receive every day is from non-native people. Therefore, it is impossible to require students to achieve perfect pronunciation. Teaching model According to Kelly (2000), in the past, the model of teaching English pronunciation was â€Å" certain pronunciation”, the pronounciation of people in the southwest England. Today, there are a vast number of English: American English, Australian English, etc.\r\nThus, it is difficult for teachers to take on what model to teach. In fact, each teacher often cannot produce a â€Å"perfect” accent without being affected by his own language. This fact sometimes causes both teachers and students problems in teaching and learning pronunciation. Some teachers do not feel confident with their own voice and students do not know what input language is perfect to receive. Intelligibility Beside factors from the nature of pronunciation, class setting, etc, teaching and learning pronunciation involves in its own problem that Kenworthy (1987) calls it as â€Å"intelligibility”.\r\nHe defines â€Å"intelligibility” as â€Å"being understood by a listener at a given time in a given situation”. This means that intelligibility is affected by a number of factors: the speaker, the listener, the time, and the situation. This also means that teaching and learning pronunciation depends on many factors, causing many problems for both teachers and students. In conclusion, in this chapter, some theoretical backgrounds relating to teaching and learning pronunciation have been pointed out. These factors are the pronunciation concepts and their features.\r\nFactors relating to pronunciation teaching and learning as the importance, the problems, techniques and activities have been also given. It cannot be denied that pronunciation and teaching pronunciation is an important part to conduct in any language course. It is even more important for those who are or will be teachers of the language. Methods of teaching pronunciation are various with different elements of pronunciation. What are the attitudes of teachers and learners towards teaching and learning pronunciation?\r\nThe school has 36 classes with 90 teachers and 1,800 students. Each division, the school enrolls more than 600 new comers. 3. 1. 2 Description of the course At school, all students when pass the entrance exam to the school have to study English as one of the despotic subjects. During the process of learning English at school, students use three English textbooks (English 10, English 11, English 12) centering on four skills including reading, speaking, listening, writing and language focus part. The language focus comprises two major parts: pronunciation and grammar.\r\nNormally, students start learning pronunciation when they study English 10. However, at grade 10th, students only learn some vowels and simple consonants. At grade 11th, students continue to study complex consonants. And at grade 12th, stud ents start to be familiar with stress and intonation exercises. That is the reason why stress and intonation are two major aspects of pronunciation chosen in this investigation. 3. 2 Subjects The subjects of this study comprised 10 teachers and 55 12th-form students at QCHS.\r\nAll English teachers were invited to participate in this study. They are from 27 to 60 days old, and have taught English for more than 2 years. They graduated from both regular and in-service training. With those teachers who have taught English for many years, they have teaching experience, but were not well trained. They mainly graduated from colleges, even in-service training. With younger teachers, they graduated from many different universities: state and non-state universities. They are full of motivation, but lack of teaching experience.\r\nIn general, these teachers are good at teaching grammar and do not feel confident to deal with speaking, listening, and pronunciation lessons. Thus, they often foc us their lesson on grammar but the speaking and pronunciation. The class that the author chose to study consists of fifty-five 12th-form students. These students have had at least 6 years of academic English experience by the time they reach this course. However, their English proficiency is not good, especially at pronunciation. They may be good at grammar and can do these grammar exercises quickly, but can not speak fluently.\r\nMost of them do not feel confident to speak in class and express their ideas in English. These students have studied at high school for more than two years. Therefore, they have been getting similar with the teaching and studying methods, the conditions and the teaching environment, so it easy for the author to get their consent to participate in the research. 3. 3 Research methods As mentioned previously, the research worker chose a mixed-method approach to entropy collection, utilizing triangulation to measure a broad variety of variables in the resea rch.\r\nNecessary data was gathered directly from the teachers and students participating in the research in several ways: Questionnaires: In order to collect reliable and comprehensive data, two questionnaires were knowing: one for teachers and one for students. They are both open-ended and close-ended questions. Teacher questionnaire (Appendix 1): one survey questionnaire with 8 questions was knowing for the teachers to get their ideas of pronunciation teaching and learning reality, problems confront by their students and some recommendations to improve learning pronunciation reality at school.\r\nTo get this aim, the questionnaire is categorized into the following groups: •Teachers’ attitude towards present situation of teaching and learning pronunciation at QCHS; •Approaches, techniques and classroom activities used by teachers in teaching pronunciation;•Problems faced by teachers in teaching pronunciation; and •Teachers’ recommendations of techniques to improve students’ pronunciation. Student questionnaire Appendix 2): another survey questionnaire with 8 questions was knowing for students including the following categories: •Students’ attitude towards learning pronunciation, especially stress and intonation; •Students’ problems in learning pronunciation; and •Students’ expectations in learning pronunciation. In-depth classroom observations: Six informal classroom observations during regular classroom sessions were used as an supernumerary data source.\r\nThe observations were carried out for two weeks during the course of the study to get more practical information about teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards teaching and learning pronunciation, and difficulties as well as techniques used in pronunciation lessons. During the process of observations, the author focused on some aspects taking in class as:•Teaching and learning materials used in c lass; •Students’ activities and their mistakes in producing pronunciation; and •Teachers’ approaches and techniques used in teaching pronunciation.\r\nInterviews and treatments (Appendix 3): after collecting data from the survey questionnaires and classroom observations, the author used the lieu interview in order to get the in-depth discussion about techniques used to improve students’ pronunciation. Because it is too difficult for the research worker to conduct long interviews with all teachers, the researcher randomly selected 5/10 teachers for interviews. They were willing to express deeply their opinions, and ideas about teaching techniques. 3. 2.Data collection procedures The study was conducted in the first term of the school year 2010-2011 (from September 2010 to December, 2010). At the beginning of the first term, two sets of questionnaires were given to the teachers and the students who concur to participate in the research. After two d ays, these questionnaires were collected. The information from these questionnaires were then summarized and presented in the form of statistics. For the following two weeks, the author carried out some classroom observations.\r\nThe observations during six English lessons including one in reading, one in writing, one in listening, one in speaking and two in language focus periods. At each session, the researcher took field notes on what happened when the students learned pronunciation. Finally, when the information from the survey questionnaires and classroom observations were collected and analyzed, structured interviews were carried out. The data collected from three different resources were read through to obtain a sense of the overall data. They were then analyzed both descriptively and interpretatively.\r\nThe initial sorting-out process was writing findings in the form of resileive notes and summaries of field notes. The information was then displayed in forms of tables and figures while qualitative data from the open-ended questionnaire items, classroom observations and interviews were presented by quoting relevant responses from the respondents. CHAPTER FOUR: presentment OF THE DATA This part, the information from collected data was presented in accordance with the category of data collection instruments. 4. 1 Survey questionnaires 4. 1.Teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards teaching and learning pronunciation assumptive that the consideration of the teachers’ and students’ attitude towards teaching and learning pronunciation would be beneficial to the research, at the outset, these factors were surveyed. The results, shown in below, reflect that grammar is the most concerning aspect in learning English at high school. Surprisingly, only 10% of the teachers think that pronunciation is the most necessary for their students. They always pay much attention and time and energy on grammar.\r\nIn contrast, teaching and lear ning pronunciation as well as developing listening, speaking or reading skills do not receive comme il faut attention to. 4. 1. 2 Students’ pronunciation level From the chart 2, we can see an optimistic reality of students’ level in learning pronunciation at Quynh Coi high school. Being asked about this, all the teachers said that students’ level is not equal, however; it is not good as expected. 60% teachers said that their students’ level at pronunciation is at average; and even 30% of the students get under average level. None of the teachers evaluate their students’ level at pronunciation is good or excellent. . 1. 3 Pronunciation teaching and learning time graph 3 presents time that teachers and students pass on teaching and learning pronunciation. One more time teachers and students share the same ideas about the fact that too little time is on pronunciation. 80% of the teachers and 43% of the students said that they did not have time to sp end on teaching and learning pronunciation in one teaching session (45 minutes); 20% of the teachers and 32% of the students spend less than 20 minutes on teaching pronunciation. None of the teachers and a very small number of the students teach and learn pronunciation for more than 20 minutes.\r\nThe overall results indicate that the reality of teaching and learning pronunciation at Quynh Coi high school is not positive as expected. Although both teachers and students are very optimistic towards teaching and learning pronunciation, students’ level is not good as well as time spent on teaching pronunciation is contain during one normal teaching session. 4. 1. 4 Teachers and students’ problems in teaching and learning pronunciation Chart 4 shows that both the teachers and the students face many problems during the process of teaching and learning pronunciation.\r\nThe biggest problem that both teachers and students face comes from the nature of pronunciation. The next two factors preventing students from gaining good pronunciation are teaching time and students’ competence. 27% of the teachers and 22% of the students said that they do not have enough time on pronunciation. 20% of the teachers considered that their students’ competence in pronunciation is too low. 22% students also agreed with that idea. Class setting is the next factor that 20% teachers chose. It is clear that quality of teaching staff is not good enough to come over all the difficulties in teaching pronunciation.\r\nIn contrast, only 1% of the students agreed with this. The smallest factor that both teachers and students think that causing problem in teaching and learning pronunciation is students’ motivation. 4. 1. 5 Teachers’ and students’ problems in teaching and learning intonation and stress From the chart above, most of the teachers (50%) and students (43%) think that stress is the most difficulty in teaching and learning pronunciation. t he second is intonation: 30% of the teachers and 14% of the students think that intonation causes trouble.\r\nMeanwhile, none of the teachers meet any difficulties in teaching consonants and vowels. Particularly, chart 6 shows that 43% of the students cannot know the place of stress in a word; 20% said they cannot pronounce stress though they may be know place of stress in those words. Surprisingly, 27% of the students said that they do not know anything of stress. From the above chart, we can see that the reality of learning intonation is even worse than learning stress. 56% of all surveyed students understand nothing about intonation, causing a lot of difficulties in teaching and learning pronunciation.\r\n'