Common mistakes of secodary students in pronouncing english consonants

 Part A: Introduction
1. Rationale for choosing the topic
 The English language has become the international language for communication, and is used widely in many countries in the world. In Vietnam, English is the most popular foreign language to be used as a mean of communication. However, it is not easy for most of Vietnamese people to pronounce more properly. Like some other language, Vietnamese has phototoxic features that keep native learner from pronouncing English like native speaker. 
Like learners elsewhere in the world, Vietnamese learners encounter great difficulties in learning English pronunciation for several reasons. Firstly, the English sound system has several sounds foreign to Vietnamese speakers. Secondly, the way English speakers pronounce the ending sounds is completely different from the one deeply rooted in Vietnamese speakers , making it more difficult for them to achieve appropriate English pronunciation. The limitation of Vietnamese word-final sounds and the frequency of English word-final consonants errors which are made by most Vietnamese speakers as well as my secondary students have caught significant attention to this area of the topic. That is the reason why I choose this study: “COMMON MISTAKES OF SECODARY STUDENTS IN PRONOUNCING ENGLISH CONSONANTS”
2.Aims and Objectives:
 The aims of this research is to offer a systematic study of the articulation of word final consonants of Vietnamese–accounted English in pronouncing English of secondary students. More over this study will help teachers and students in my school understand features and the usage of English consonant more clearly to communicate more successfully. As a result, they will avoid some common mistakes in pronunciation English.
3. Scope of research:
+ English consonants
+ the difference between Vietnamese final consonant and English final consonants
4. Methodology;
In order to complete this study, both quantitative and qualitative methods have been applied to collect the data. The instruments are questionnaires, classroom observation, interviews and pronunciation exercises.
- Description: 
The study was set up to answer the following question:
What are the most common pronunciation problems of the students in a Secondary school?
Firstly, the system of English consonants, secondly the differences in word-final consonants of two languages are considered in scope of the research. In the second part, recorded data and evaluation from native speakers are analyzed. The comprehensibility of these productions is then worked with in order to get a general assessment of how native- like Vietnamese speakers ‘English final consonants are. Finally, the conclusion of the whole essay summarizes and comments on the finding of this research.
 The data collection was administered through speaking lessons in which pronunciation is taught integrated with grammar, vocabulary and four language skills. 
 The participants in this study are 300 students of a Secondary School. They are both female and male. Their ages range from 10 to 15. The students had been classified into English classes in grades of 6,7,8,9. All of the students have relatively equal English proficiency level (beginner or elementary) with similar educational background, so they are taught with the textbook . To those students, English is not their major but a compulsory subject in schools. The students have three English lessons each week. Each lesson lasts for 45 minutes. 
 Part B: Development
I. Theoretical background:
1. English consonants
1.1. Stop consonants (plosives)
 A plosive is a consonant articulation with the following characteristics
 1) The closing stage, during which the articulating organs move together in order to form the obstruction; in this stage, there
is often an on-glide or transition audible in a preceding sound segment and visible in an acoustic analysis as characteristic curve of formants of the preceding sound;
2) The hold or compression stage, during which lung action compresses the air behind the closure; this stage may or may not be accompanied by voice, i.e. vibration of the vocal cords;
3) The release or explosion stage, during which the organs forming the obstruction part rapidly, allowing the compressed air to escape abruptly; if stage (2) is voiced, the vocal cord vibration may continue in stage (3); if stage (2) is voiceless, stage (3) may also be voiceless (aspiration) before silence or before the onset of voice. English has six plosive consonants: p,t, k, b, d, g. These plosives have different places of articulation.
• Bilabial Plosives: /p, b/
The soft palate being raised and the nasal resonator shut off, the primary obstacle to the air-stream is provided by the closure of the lips. Lung air is compressed behind this closure, during which stage the vocal cords are held wide apart for /p/, but may vibrate for all or part of the compression stage for /b/ according to its situation in the utterance. Then the closure is released suddenly for the air to escape with a kind of explosion.
• Alveolar Plosives: /t, d/
The soft palate being raised and the nasal resonator shut off, the primary obstacle to the air-stream is formed by a closure made between the tip and rims of the tongue and the upper alveolar ridge
and side teeth. Lung air is compressed behind this closure, during which stage the vocal cords are wide apart for /t/, but may vibrate for all or part of the compression stage for /d/ according to its situation in the utterance. The air escapes with noise upon the sudden separation of the alveolar closure.
• Velar Plosives: /k, g/
The soft palate being raised and the nasal resonator shut off, the primary obstacle to the air-stream is formed by a closure made between the back of the tongue and the soft palate. Lung air is compressed behind this closure, during which stage the vocal cords are wide apart for /k/, but may vibrate for all or part of the compression stage for /g/ according to its situation in the utterance. The air passage escapes with noise upon the sudden separation of the velar closure. All six plosives can occur at the
beginning of a word (initial position), between other sounds (medial position) and at the end of a word (final position).
1.2. Fricatives
Fricatives are consonants with the characteristic that when they are produced, air escapes through a small passage and makes a hissing sound sometimes called “fiction”. Fricatives are continuant consonants, as you can continue making them without interruption as long as you have enough
air in your lungs.
• Labio-dental Fricatives: /f, v/
The soft palate being raised and the nasal resonator shut off, the inner surface of the lower lip makes a light contact with the edge of the upper teeth, so that the escaping air produces friction. For /f/, the
friction is voiceless, whereas there may be some vocal cord vibration accompanying v/, according to its situation.
• Dental Fricatives: /ð, θ/
(Examples words: thumb, thus, either, father, breath, breathe) The soft palate being raised and the nasal resonator shut off, the tip and rims of the tongue make a light contact with the edge and inner surface of the upper incisors and a firmer contact with the upper side teeth, so that the air escaping between the forward surface of the tongue and the incisors causes friction. For / θ / the friction is voiceless, whereas for / ð/ there may be some vocal cord vibration.
• Alveolar Fricatives: /s, z/ (Examples words: sip, zip, facing, rise, rice)
The soft palate being raised and the nasal resonator shut off, the tip and blade of the tongue make a light contact with the upper alveolar ridge, and the side rims of the tongue a close contact with the upper side teeth. The air-stream escapes through the narrow groove in the centre of the tongue and causes friction between the tongue and the alveolar ridge. In other words, in the articulation of these sounds the air escapes through a narrow passage along the centre of the tongue, and the sound produces is comparatively intense.
• Palatal-alveolar Fricatives: / ʃ; ʒ / (example words: ship, Russia, measure, Irish, garage)
The fricatives are so called palatal-alveolar, which can be taken to mean that their place of articulation is partly palatal, partly alveolar. The tongue is in contact with an area slightly further back than that for /s/, /z/. If you make /s/ then / ʃ /, you should be able to feel your tongue move backwards. The air escapes through a passage along the centre of the tongue, as in /s/ and /z/, but the passage is a little
wider. Most speakers of RP have rounded lips for / ʃ / and / ʒ /, and this is an important difference between these consonants and /s/ and /z/. In addition, the escape of air is diffuse (compared with that of /s, z/), the friction occurring between a more extensive area of the tongue and the roof of the mouth. In the case of / ʃ /, the friction is voiceless, whereas for / ʒ / there may be some vocal cord vibration according to its situation. All the fricatives described so far can be found in initial, medial and final positions. In the case of / ʒ/, however, the distribution is much more limited. Very few English words begin with / ʒ/ (most of them have come into the language comparatively recently from French) and not many end with this consonant. Only medially, in words such as “measure”, ‘usually’ is it found at all commonly.
• Glottal Fricative: /h/
The place of articulation of this consonant is glottal. This means that the narrowing that produce the friction noise is between the vocal folds. When we produce /h/ in speaking English, many different things happen in different contexts. In the word ‘hat’, the /h/ must be followed by an / æ / vowel. The tongue, jaw and lip positions for the vowel are all produced simultaneously with the /h/ consonant, so that the glottal fricative has an / æ / quality. The same is found for all vowels following /h/.
1.3. Affricates
Affricates are rather complex consonants. They begin as plosives and end as fricatives.
Affricates: /ʧ ; ʤ / (Palato-alveolar affricates)
The term “affricates” denotes a concept which is primarily of phonetic importance. Any plosive, whose release stage is performed in such a way that considerable friction occurs approximately at the point where the plosive stop is made, may be called “affricative”. The friction present in an affricate is of shorter duration than that which characterizes the fricatives proper. In the articulation of / ʧ; ʤ / the soft palate being raised and the nasal resonator shut off, the obstacle to the airstream is formed by a closure made between the tip, blade, and rims of the tongue and the upper alveolar ridge and side teeth. At the same time, the front of the tongue is raised towards the hard palate in readiness for the fricative release. The closure is released slowly, the air escaping in a diffuse manner over the whole of the central surface of the tongue with friction occurring between the blade/front region of the tongue and the alveolar/front palatal section of the roof of the mouth. During both stop and fricative stages, the vocal cords are wide apart for / ʧ /, but may be vibrating for all or part of / ʤ / according to the situation in the utterance.
1.4. Nasals
• Bilabial Nasal: /m/
The lips form a closure as for /p, b/; then soft palate is lowered, adding the resonance of the nasal cavity to those of the pharynx and the mouth chamber closed by the lips; the tongue will generally anticipate or retain the position of the adjacent vowel.
• Alveolar Nasal: /n/
The tongue forms a closure with the teeth ridge and upper side teeth as for /t, d/; the soft palate is lowered, adding the resonance of the nasal cavity to those of the pharynx and of that part of the mouth chamber behind the alveolar closure; the lip position will depend upon that of adjacent vowels.
• Velar Nasal: /ŋ/
A closure is formed in the mouth between the back of the tongue and the velum as for /k, g/ (the point of closure will depend on the type of vowel preceding); the soft palate is lowered, adding the resonance of the nasal cavity to that of the pharynx and that small part of the mouth chamber behind the velar closure.
1.4. Lateral
Only one alveolar, lateral phoneme occurs in English, there being no opposition between fortis and lenis, voiced or voiceless, or fricative and non-fricative. Within the /l/ phoneme three main allophones occur:
- Clear [l], with a relatively front vowel resonance, before vowels and /j/.
- Voiceless [l0], following aspirated /p, k/.
- Dark [ł], with a relatively back vowel resonance, finally after a vowel, before a consonant, and as syllabic sound following a consonant.
2. Vietnamese final consonants:
Vietnamese phonetic and phonology are not sufficiently and scientifically studied by local as well as foreign linguists. Actually, some studies about Vietnamese are controversial. The problem of which varieties should be chosen as standard Vietnamese, or which international Phonetic Alphabets ( IPA) letters should be used to transcribe Vietnamese sounds still remain unanswered. Vietnamese is one of the syllable –timed languages which each syllable is short and simple in construction. The structure of each syllable is ( C) V ( C) . Taiwan Buffalo International (2001) characterized syllable structure in Vietnamese by this table 
Initial
Tone
Final( rhyme)
onset
Nuclear
Coda
/ m/ :in words like 
em [ Em] ( I , younger sister/ brother) 
Lượm [ LM7m] ( pick up) 
 / n/ in words like : 
	Ăn [ a< n] ( eat) 
	Làm [ lam] ( do) 
	Phiền [ fien] ( tom) 
/ N/ : there are 3 allophones of this phoneme
[ Nom] bilabialised, produced by rounded vowels / u, o /
	Xong [ soNom] ( finish) 
	Không [ XoNom] ( no, not) 
[j] corresponding to letters ‘’ nh’’ , proceeded by front vowels / I, e, E</ 
	Tình [ t I j] ( love) 
	Nhanh [ j E <J] ( fast) 
It is easily diagnosed that final consonants in Vietnamese consist of only nasal consonants / m, n, N/ and un-aspirated voiceless plosives / p. t. k/ with their allophones. Before the sixth century, Vietnamese was concluded to have some consonants cluster in the word- initial position some centuries ago but never at the end in the article from Ngonngu.net ( 2006) 
3. English final consonants
What may be concluded from English phototoxic is that “ English permits any number or coronal obstruent to be tagged onto the end of a syllable “ and for coda clusters, “ the order sonorant + obstruent” ( Spencer, 1996, 86-89) . English consonant clusters are one of the most complicated and unusual phenomena of language . Besides many sounds that are not involved in linguistic cognition of non-native speakers, its consonant clusters as well as phonetic changes in consonants quality in formal and informal speech prevent non-natives from accessing and adopting English pronunciation 
4. Some distinctive similarities and differences
The distinctive similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese consonants under study are as follows:
- Both consonant systems have fricatives /s/. /z/, // and /_/ (equivalent to Vietnamese /_/).
- Unlike English, Vietnamese consonant system does not include any affricates.
- Vietnamese consonants are found in the initial or final positions of a word, but the final consonants are never heard. The English consonants under investigation are often heard and pronounced in three positions: initial, medial and final, except /_/, which is rarely found in the initial position.
II- Perception of mistakes before studying 
 Three main types of errors found in the data. The most common errors were sound omission in which omission of ending sounds were more frequent than others. It is easy to understand why ending sounds were omitted so frequently, because in Vietnamese speakers do not have to pronounce the ending sounds. In addition, some of the sounds, such as /ʒ, ʤ, ʧ / are really hard for Vietnamese learners to pronounce especially when these sounds occur at the end of words. 
The second type of errors, sound confusion, the most frequent errors are t, tr, ʧ, ʃ, ʤ, s, θ. It is interesting to find that several learners mispronounced /t/ and produced /ʧ/ instead. The mispronunciation of this sound may be due to the misperception of the aspiration of this sound
In conclusion, the results of this study show(1) that:
a) The sounds most frequently mispronounced by the informants include:
Oder
Sound
Mispronunciation
θ
ť
s
ʃ
tr
ʧr ; ʧ
t
ʧ, s
ʃ
z
ʤ
z , ʧ, t, j, ʒ, s
ʧ
ʃ, ʒ, z
t
ʃ, ch, s,
v
f
ʒ
z ʧ, ʤ
ť
b) Sounds that were most frequently omitted include /s, z, ʤ, t, l, k, ks, v/ at all positions such as help, difficult, agriculture, parents, because, sister, etc, in our data these sounds were omitted in at least 15 words and by several students.
c ) Redundant sounds most frequently found in the data include: The most frequently redundant sounds are /z; s/. In our data there were 13 words mispronounced in this way. Interestingly, several students did not pronounce these sounds in words where they occurred, however, added them to other words such as “goods”, “peoples” etc
- Data analysis
Table . Common errors found in the data
Type of errors
No. of subjects with errors
Sound omitted
Medial: l, ʤ, r, s, i, ei, k 
19
Final z, s, t, v, ks, ʤ
25
Sound confusion
t = ʧ
12
tr = ʧ
16
ð = z/d
9
ʃ = s
16
ʤ = /j/d/s/t/z/ʧ/
12
s = /ʃ/ʒ/
11
p = b; ʧ = s
8
θ= /s/t/ ; r = z
7
Sound redundancy
s, z,
14
 It can be concluded that Vietnamese learners and users of English make pronunciation mistakes for the following reasons:
- Lack of knowledge of the manner and the place of articulation of two English fricative consonants / ʤ /, / θ / and two English affricatives.
- The negative interference of the mother tongue, i.e. the English sounds are pronounced in the Vietnamese way.
- Lack of consciousness of being standard: learners are taught about how these sounds are produced. They only pronounce them correctly in their pronunciation lessons in the classroom and in examinations, but not in real communication.
- Insufficient drills and practice: Despite having some knowledge about pronunciation of these sounds, many Vietnamese learners do not have enough opportunity to use them in communication. For them, their only language environment is the classrooms, and they speak Vietnamese outside the classroom.
- Making mistakes is, therefore, unavoidable for our secondary students who are learning English as a foreign language in a difficult environment where Vietnamese is used as the official language.
III-Solutions:
 To overcome the difficulties it may take the learners a long time to learn more about the way these sounds are produced, to become better aware of the mistakes they make, to have enough drills and practice so that they become more automatic and natural in using the sounds, to do away with the interference of Vietnamese- the language they were born with. Among the simplest things that can possibly be done for better pronunciation of our learners, it is necessary to offer some suggestions to solve this problem. 
- First of all, the teachers should be more aware of the importance of pronunciation in practice so that they would spend more time teaching students to produce the consonant sounds correctly. Besides, teachers should always practice to improve the quality and avoid making bad example for students.
In addition, teacher should supply students with detailed descriptions of the consonant sounds and careful instruction, so-called “learner- friendly explanation” (Kelly, 2000) of how to control articulators to produce those sounds.
-Secondly, learners should be given enough practice both inside and outside classroom. This may help them become more fluent and automatic in pronouncing the sounds. Practice makes perfect and can be done in the forms of a variety of