Nghiên cứu cải thiện khả năng phát âm của sinh viên chuyên ngữ năm nhất tại trường Đại học Quy Nhơn trong khóa Luyện âm

uality recordings by native English speakers 
with enough clarity and medium speed. 
3.4. The Experiment 
During the course of the experiment, a 
mixed utilization of informal, formative and 
constructive feedback is mainly used in chats on 
Facebook messengers to grasp areas of weakness 
or strengths, and to encourage a focus on future 
improvement. Formative feedback helps students 
to improve and prevent them from making the 
same mistakes again. The experiment spanned 
through one semester.
3.5. Data analysis 
Although all features of phonetics and 
phonology in the texts that the treatment group 
performed were examined and fed back, only 
mistakes relating to Sentence Stress, Final 
Consonants, and Connected Speech that both 
groups revealed in the two tests by both groups 
were analyzed and reported. In case of Connected 
Speech, the items in the sub-group Natural, are 
in fact, not exactly mistakes, but refer to the fact 
that the students could connect words naturally 
as native speakers.
Next, the data were processed with the 
software IBM SPSS Statistics 20, of which the 
Welch’s t-test determined whether the two groups 
were statistically different after the treatment, 
while The Wilcoxon Sign Rank test showed 
whether there was any significant difference 
in the mean scores within the group under the 
experiment itself. 
4. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 
4.1. Results of the Treatment and Control 
Groups in the Post-test
The study is aimed to explore whether the 
two techniques applied affect the performance 
of the treatment group in terms of Sentence 
Stress, Connected Speech and Final-word 
Consonants as compared with that of the 
control group. To this end, the Welch’s t-test 
was conducted with independent variables 
being the conditions (treatment versus control) 
and dependent variables being Sentence Stress, 
Wrong Connected Speech, Unnatural Connected 
Speech, Natural Connected Speech, -ed-Ending, 
s/es-Ending and Redundant -s-Ending of the 
post-test. Table 4.1 below presents students’ 
scores on all measures in the post-test.
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Table 1. Results of the Post-test of the Treatment and Control Groups
Sum of 
Squares
df
Mean 
Square
F Sig.
Sentence Stress
Between group
Within groups
Total 
15.195
180.656
195.851
 1
65
65
15.195
 2.779
5.467 .022
Wrong Connected 
Speech
Between group
Within groups
Total
.596
25.703
26.299
 1
65
65
.596
.395
1.507 .224
Unnatural Connected 
Speech
Between group
Within groups
Total
.904
101.275
102.179
 1
65
65
.904
1.558
.580 .449
Natural Connected 
Speech
Between group
Within groups
Total
11.767
228.950
240.716
 1
65
65
11.767
3.522
3.341 .072
ED Ending
Between group
Within groups
Total
.153
20.563
20.716
 1
65
65
.153
.316
.485 .489
S/ES Ending
Between group
Within groups
Total
11.689
258.819
270.507
 1
65
65
11.689
3.936
2.936 .091
Redundant-S Ending
Between group
Within groups
Total
1.692
126.965
128.657
 1
65
65
1.962
3.982
.866 .356
Figures in Table 1 show that after the 
treatment, there was a statistically significant 
difference between the treatment group and 
the control group in the scores of the Sentence 
Stress (p = 0.022 < 0.05). The mean scores for 
each group in Table 2 below confirmed that 
the experimental group made significantly less 
Sentence Stress mistakes than the control group.
Table 2. Pre-test and Post-test Mean Scores of Sentence Stress
N
Pre-test Post-test
Mean
Std. 
Deviation
Mean
Std. 
Deviation
Sentence 
Stress
Treatment Group 43 3.07 2.685 1.47 1.638
Control group 24 4.33 3.749 2.46 1.719
Total 67 3.52 3.140 1.82 1.723
To gain more insights into the mean scores 
of the treatment and control groups in the Post-
test, let us have a look at Table 3.
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QUY NHON UNIVERSITY
SCIENCEJOURNAL OF
Journal of Science - Quy Nhon University, 2019, 13(6), 33-42
Table 3. Descriptive Statistics on the Post-test across Groups
Measures Conditions N Mean Std. Deviation
Sentence Stress Mistakes
Treatment
Control
43
24
1.47
2.46
1.638
1.719
Wrong Connected Speech Mistakes
Treatment
Control
43
24
.51
.71
.703
.464
Unnatural Connected Speech Mistakes
Treatment
Control
43
24
.67
.92
1.017
1.586
Natural Connected Speech cases
Treatment
Control
43
24
2.79
1.92
2.065
1.472
ED Ending Mistakes
Treatment
Control
43
24
.56
.46
.548
.588
S/ES Ending Mistakes
Treatment
Control
43
24
2.84
3.71
1.902
2.156
Redundant-S Ending Mistakes
Treatment
Control
43
24
1.42
1.75
1.159
1.751
The highest mean score (3.71) was 
registered when the comparison students make 
more -s/es-ending mistakes in the post-test.
A closer look at those figures revealed 
that the mistakes students make the most is 
the final consonant mistakes with s/es-ending 
accounting for the highest mean score of the 
three subtypes regardless of the conditions they 
were assigned into. 
4.2. Results of the Treatment Group in the 
Pre-test and Post-test
Table 4 illustrates the descriptive statistics 
of the treatment group’s performance on all 
measures of the pre-test and post-test.
Figures in Table 3 show that the treatment 
group had a lower mean score than their 
comparison counterparts on six out of seven 
measures investigated in this study. They made 
quite less mistakes in Sentence Stress and -s/es 
Ending with lower mean scores 1.47 and 2.84 
in comparison with 2.46 and 3.71, respectively. 
They also did better in joining words naturally 
with a higher mean score (2.79). Their scores 
on the other two aspects also have relatively 
low mean scores of 0.51 for Wrong Connected 
Speech and 0.67 for Redundant-s Ending.
Unlike the treatment group, students 
in the comparison group had slightly higher 
performance in the post-tests producing -ed 
endings with a slightly higher score of 0.56. 
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Table 4. Descriptive Statistics on the Pre-test and Post-test of the Treatment Group
N
Pre-test Post-test
Mean
Std. 
Deviation
Mean
Std. 
Deviation
Sentence Stress Mistakes 43 3.07 2.685 1.47 1.638
Wrong Connected Speech Mistakes 43 .23 .427 .51 .703
Unnatural Connected Speech Mistakes 43 .51 .798 .67 1.017
Natural Connected Speech cases 43 .98 1.300 2.79 2.065
ED Ending Mistakes 43 1.07 .669 .56 .548
S/ES Ending Mistakes 43 4.60 1.904 2.84 1.902
Redundant-S Ending Mistakes 43 2.84 2.214 1.42 1.159
proper efforts to listen to the native speakers and 
imitate them.
- At home they did not pay much attention 
to the trainer’s feedback, not strictly realizing 
what they were advised to do or not to do.
l On the trainer’s side: 
Although she performed well in class, 
resulting in the progress of both classes, 
she should have followed and checked the 
experimented students’ shadowing the model 
audio file and self-correcting the mistakes she 
had pointed out in her feedback. 
5. CONCLUSION
From the demand for a better pronunciation 
of English for Vietnamese learners of English, 
efforts have been made to search for ways to 
reach the goal.
The study is aimed at improving the 
students’ spoken English through promoting 
their autonomy. The study is aimed to (1) to 
explore how effective two extra measures are in 
improving students’ pronunciation in the Speech 
Training course at Quy Nhon University; and 
(2) to offer some suggestions to learning and 
teaching pronunciation to first-year students.
The figures above show that performance 
of treatment students on the post-test was 
better after treatment. Specifically, they make 
dramatically less Sentence Stress Mistakes, 
-ed-ending Mistakes, s/es-ending Mistakes and 
Redundant -s-ending Mistakes with much lower 
mean scores.
A quick look at the significant values 
in Table 4.1 proves that Speech Shadowing 
Feedback techniques did have a large, positive 
effect on the students’ performance on Sentence 
Stress (p=0.022). 
The fact that the employment of the 
techniques of Shadowing and Directing Effective. 
Feedback hand-in-hand with the formal 
course of Speech Training did not make much 
difference as expected in bettering the students’ 
articulation may be explained as follows: 
l On the students’ side:
Although they attended the course and did 
well in class, 
- At home they were not well aware of 
their self-study and the importance of shadowing 
in learning foreign languages in general and 
pronunciation in particular, hence did not make 
41
QUY NHON UNIVERSITY
SCIENCEJOURNAL OF
Journal of Science - Quy Nhon University, 2019, 13(6), 33-42
Of multiple areas in English phonetics 
and phonology, this investigation focused on 
only sentence stress, pronunciation of ending 
consonant sounds, and aspects of connected 
speech. The techniques of Shadowing and 
Feedback were resorted to as measures to 
promote autonomy in addition to the formal 
classes of the course of Speech Training. The 
experiment lasted one semester of the first-year 
students of Course 41, Department of Foreign 
Languages, Quy Nhon University. The data were 
collected via pre-test, post-test.
The result shows that both classes 
made encouraging progress in upgrading their 
pronunciation after the course and the treatment 
group performed a little better, proving the 
effectiveness of the experiment. However, there 
the employment of the techniques of Shadowing 
and Directing Effective Feedback for the 
treatment group did not result in vast difference 
from the control group as expected in bettering 
the students’ articulation. This unexpected 
result may be attributed to the students’ low 
level of autonomy after the formal classes, in 
both carrying out tasks and taking into account 
the instructor’s feedback. Another reason may 
lie with the instructor herself. She should have 
followed and checked the students’ more closely. 
The practical significance of the study 
is apparent. The results reported do indicate 
progress in pronunciation on the part of the 
students. The experiment can also be replicated 
in other classes in order to improve EFL learners’ 
pronunciation, with the same materials and 
procedure or with some modification depending 
on the different contexts.
Although the present study has some 
practical contributions, it has its limitations. 
Firstly, after the data of the pre-test and post-
test were processed, two among the students 
making the most impressive progress and two 
among those with the least progress could have 
been interviewed to have a deeper insight into 
their results. Particularly, the interview questions 
were expected to clarify how much Shadowing 
and Feedback techniques work in some specific 
cases as well as in order to exclude any possible 
external variables (improvement due to learning 
speaking, private tutoring, etc.) that may have 
affected the results of the experiment. 
This study certainly does not include all 
the applications of Shadowing and Feedback 
in relation to pronunciation. If possible, further 
research should be done on other features of 
phonetics and phonology like consonant clusters, 
intonation or other aspects of connected speech 
like elision, intrusion, and/or assimilation.
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