9 Essential English Pronunciation in the Vietnamese

Context
Tran Thi Lan, PhD. Senior Lecturer, Hanoi University of Foreign Studies

Of the four language skills speaking is always seen as the most challenging by
Vietnamese students. One reason for this is neglecting pronunciation at school at all
levels.
On tutoring IELTS candidates the instructor constantly asks herself whether it is possible
for a “false learner” to acquire English pronunciation in a short amount of time. If so,
what are the essential items to learn and what is the best way to learn them?
English pronunciation books on the market are plentiful. So are websites. Yet these
materials are written predominantly by English native speakers for general learners. None
are exclusively for the Vietnamese with the focus on the special difficulties that
Vietnamese learners have.
The major objective of this paper is to define a core list of English pronunciation items
for Vietnamese students to acquire. Methods to deal with the problems or materials for
practice can be found in “English Pronunciation for All” (Trần Thị Lan Ngữ âm tiếng
Anh cho mọi người – Sách biên soạn riêng dành cho người Việt) due to be published this
summer by the publishing house “Văn hoá Thông tin”. Contrastive analysis, articulation,
and minimal pairs, are common and effective tools for the teacher to use.
The findings:
Below is a list of core items to teach (the first 7 are believed to be most essential):

1. The English alphabet. A focus should put be on the following letters which
students confuse the sounds of: R, I, E, G , J, H, , K, Q, W, X, Y
2. Familiarisation with the English phonemic chart. Essential as it helps students to
be able to know the pronunciation of words from dictionaries. Teachers should
encourage students to use monolingual dictionaries made by reputable publishers.
3. Voiced and unvoiced sounds. Students should be taught this to help with the
pronunciation of ‘s’ and ‘ed’ endings.
4. Long and short vowels. Students need to be able to confidently differentiate and
produce these as they are both challenging and have an effect on meaning.
5. Word final consonants. Vietnamese students often neglect these and constant
exercises on final endings should be done attentively during any course.
6. Consonant clusters. These are not a feature of Vietnamese and therefore are
challenging. ‘sts’, ‘ts’, ‘str’, and ‘tr’ appear to be the most challenging for many
students.
7. Suprasegmental level: Word stress, sentence stress, and intonation are essential
items to address. Tonic intonation should be given special care as changes alters
meaning. Sound linking is important but not essential as when learners say the words
correctly, they will link sounds naturally themselves.
8. English sounds not found in Vietnamese. For example, the interdentals /δ/, /θ/, can
be mixed up with /f/ or Vietnamese /th/ though this may not influence
comprehensibility.
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9. /l/ and /n/ can be mixed up in the northern dialect (Hai Phong, Hai Duong, Hung Yen,
Quang Ninh etc.).
10. Initial /j/ like in yes, young, yellow may be heard as in zes, zoung, zeallow. This
sound can be a bigger problem for learners from the south, or central provinces of the
country.
11. /r/ The Hanoi accent does not distinguish between /r/, /z/, or /gi/. Some people in the
central part of Vietnam such as Nghe An, Quang Binh, Hue, or Danang can say /zed/
instead of /red/, /oz iηd3/ instead of /oriηd3/
12. The difference between aspirated and non-aspirated ‘t’. Initial ‘t’ in English is
aspirated as in ten and tea. After ‘s’ as in stop and steel ‘t’ is not aspirated and is more
similar to its Vietnamese counterpart. This is advisable to teach, but not on a short
course.

Sounds not causing comprehension problems for the Vietnamese.

The sounds b, c, d, ch, f, k, h, m, n, ng, q, s, t, v, w may be a little difficult to produce but
they don’t tend to lead to problems of comprehensibility.
Diphthongs do not seem to cause much difficulty for the Vietnamese.

Principles of teaching English pronunciation to the Vietnamese.

Pronunciation teaching should be systematic, gradual, consistent, interesting, practical,
and integrated.

Conclusion:
• Teaching pronunciation is important. It is “one of the surest elements of language
to fossilise and fossilise good and hard” (Dr. Maria Sperily – TESL-L). It needs to
be taught properly at the very beginning of language study.
• In designing or selecting materials for pronunciation it is important to take into
account the purpose of the learners’ language study, whether it is to acquire “a
native like accent or for intelligibility in international communication. In most
cases it - the accent selected - should be comprehensible to the greatest number of
persons not sharing that particular language” (Dr. Merton Bland – TESL-L).
• Once the dominant accent is selected, a list of core and non-core items should be
identified. Learners’ native language special features should be taken into account
to avoid language interference. Teaching and learning items should be prioritised
according to learners’ need and their time availability.
• Teaching should be done in an easy, learner-friendly, consistent, regular, practical,
interesting, integrating, personalized manner and it should help maintain learners’
autonomy.

Recommended materials for further readings:

1. Bell M. 1996. Teaching pronunciation and intonation to EFL learners in Korea.
Originally submitted in the course Ling 901: Phonetics and Phonology, Master of
Applied Linguistics, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia June 1996
2. Bowel J.D, Madsen H., Filferty A. 1992. TESOL Techniques and Procedures. Chapter
5: Pronunciation (133-158) Newbury House
3. Celce-Murcia M. 1991. Teaching English as a second or foreign language, 2nd ed.
Section “Teaching pronunciation”, pp. 136-153. Heile&Heile Publishers
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4. Dalton D. Some techniques for teaching pronunciation.
ddalton@academic01.chs.itesm.mx
5. Doyle D. Phonics, syllable and accent rules. English.glendale.cc.ca.us/phonetics.html
6. Griffiths B. Integrating pronunciation into classroom activities. British Council
teaching English-Pronunciation- English sentence stress.htm
7. Joyce K. Rhyming pair game. British council teaching English – try –
pronunciation.htm
8. Pathare E. Word Stress. British Council- Pronunciation.htm
9. Steele V. Connected speech. British Council teaching English – Pronunciation –
Connected speech.htm

Recommended materials for students’ self-study:

Baker, A. Ship or Sheep: an intermediate pronunciation course. Cambridge University
Press.
For further notes and practice on English pronunciation please see “Ngữ âm tiếng Anh
dành cho mọi người” – Sách viết dành riêng cho người Việt – to be published this summer
by “Văn hoá Thông tin”).
Websites for beginners:
bbc.co.uk/worldservice/englishlearning (British English)
www.manythings.org/ (American English)
http://eleaston.com/pr/home.html (American English)