SKKN Some effective techniques to help the 10th form students improve their word stress at Nghi Loc 5 High School

 possible. Students come to 
language schools afraid to learn because they have always been exposed to 
grammar rules that are not used for communication, thus English teachers and 
students can not realize the role pronunciation plays in communication. Students 
will perceive this importance when they try to use the language and are not 
understood. 
To help students recognize word stress more easily, teachers should try to 
use a combination of teaching methods and techniques and make students feel 
comfortable and confident by training them to focus on syllables as well as word 
stress. When teaching about word stress, we often integrate it in all skill lessons, 
guide students to identify word stress and then remind students by repeating basic 
rules 
We hope that this article makes a small contribution to the application of 
teaching and learning stress in high schools. In our opinion, these methods are 
effective because we have applied them to our teaching and exam preparation 
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process, and we find the results are really wonderful. It not only helps students to 
achieve high results in exams, but also help them be confident in communication. 
2. Implications 
2.1. To the teachers 
Making the lessons more and more interesting 
That means the teachers should find out different methods to motivate 
students to learn and improve their knowledge of word stress. If the techniques 
employed in the lessons are various and suitable, they will make their lessons 
easier to understand and more interesting for students to get involved then, error 
occurrence will reduce as much as possible. The fact that most classes in Vietnam 
are large and heterogeneous is a matter for teachers to be concerned with. They 
shouldchoose suitable techniques for the levels of their students and start from 
building students' awareness of the importance of word stress to apply the right 
processes of teaching pronunciation from accuracy to fluency as following: 
Building up students' awareness of the importance of wordstress 
First and foremost, teachers should make students understand that word 
stress plays a very important part in improving their language abilities. Once, 
students have understood the importance of stress in helping them to communicate 
and work with foreigners after they have finished school, they will co-operate with 
teachers in the lessons, which is the first stepofteachers' successes. 
Asking students to make short reports on various aspects of English word 
stress 
This is a way of reviewing the acquired material and as a means of applying 
it, students are asked to prepare short reports in English on various aspects of 
English word stress such as the rules for compounds, poly-syllabi words, weak 
forms, and so on. Teachers should provides references for students and offers 
consultation to them. Upon completion, the reports are presented in class orally. 
Then, the most capable students can be asked to report on new material. Such a 
report requires more effort and more consultation from the teacher who provides 
the material. 
Integrating word stress into the lessons 
The teacher can integrateword stress into their normal lessons. The ideal 
time to focus students' attention on it is when introducing vocabulary. That is, 
teachers should quickly and simply elicit the stress pattern of the word from the 
students and mark it on the board. Teachers may ask that their students use stress 
patterns as another way to organize and sort their vocabulary. 
40 
2.2. To the students 
Building up a habit of discovering learning sources at home 
One way to make students happier with their pronunciation classes is to 
allow them to work with their favorite English songs, films, radio program or any 
other enjoyable supplement to the necessary drills andexercises... 
Students should be asked to find material illustrating a certain aspect of 
pronunciation. The materials are first assessed by the teacher who selects the most 
promising examples to be used in class, based on aesthetic value and the 
occurrence of phonetically interesting phenomena. 
Speaking without fear 
The fastest way to learn anything is to do it again and again until they get it right. 
Like anything, learning English requires practice. That is why, students are advised 
not to let a little fear stop them from getting what they want. They should keep 
talking to themselves and talk about everything. If they feel shy, they should do it 
in the privacy of their own home first and then try reading out loud until they feel 
comfortable hearing their own voice in English. If possible, they had better record 
their own voice. 
3. Limitation of the study 
Although the study has offered some insightful findings, like many other 
studies, there are some limitations. In terms of methodology, the study is limited in 
the fact that it may not really reflect all the problems that are facing students at 10th 
grade in learning English stress. For instance, only students were provided with list 
of items to choose and to respond from the questionnaire may not fully cover all 
the important information about in teaching and learning English word stress. 
Moreover, the research only applied to a small area with a small number of 
subjects. Thus, the result is not completely universaltrue. 
4. Suggestions for further studies 
On the basic of the findings and the limitations of the study, the following 
suggestions were made for further study: 
As indicated, it is suggested that the limitations of the study will be over 
come in further studies with an increased number of participants and class 
observations should be taken place to find out more reliable information. 
Moreover, it is advised that more techniques in teaching word stress should be 
focused on in further studies. 
To sum up, due to time and experience, limitations are unavoidable. Any 
suggestions and comment from other colleagues will be highly appreciated.We 
hope to receive the constructive participation of teachers and colleagues so that the 
problem we raised is more complete and more effective in the teaching process. 
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Finally, we would like to say our thanks to your willing in reading our 
study to support us in finishing this research paper. 
This study may have made some unexpected mistakes and shortcomings. 
We are looking forward to any suggestions and corrections to better our paper! 
42 
REFERENCES 
[1] Fry D. B. (1955). Duration and intensity as physical correlates of 
linguistic stress. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 27, 765–768. doi: 10.1121/1.1908022. 
[2] Fry D. B. (1958). Experiments in the perception of stress. Lang 
Speech 1, 126–152. 
[3] Fry D. B. (1965). The dependence of stress judgments on vowel 
formant structure. in Proceedings of the 5th International Congress of Phonetics 
Sciences, eds. Zwerner X., and Bethge W., Karger: Basel, pp. 306–311. 
[4] Corder, S.P (1967). The Significance of Learner’s errors. 
International Review of Applied Linguistics 5. London:OUP. 
[5] Corder, S.P (1975). Error Analysis. Papers in Applied Linguistics, 
Vol. 5. London: OUP. 
[6] Cutler, A. 1980. Slip of the Tongue . New York , AcademicPress 
[7] DauerR.M (1992) Accurate English.Regents‟PrenticeHall 
[8] Dulay, H.C & Burt, M,K. (1974). Errors and Strategies in Child 
Second Language Acquisition. TESOL Quarterly8. 
[9] Dulay H.C., Burt M.K. and Krashen S.D.(1982).Language Two. 
Oxford:OUP. 
[10] Edge, J. (1989). Mistakes and Correction. Longman Group 
UKLimited. 
[11] Gimson, A.C.(1962). An introduction to the Pronunciation of English. 
Edward Arnold 
[12] James, C. (1998). Errors in Language Learning and Use. Addision 
Wesley LongmanLtd. 
[13] Jones D.( 1998) The Pronunciation of English. Cambridge 
UniversityPress. 
[14] Kenworthy, J. (1987) Teaching English pronunciation.Longman. 
[15] Lennon, P. (1991). Errors- Some Problems of Definition, 
Identification and Distinction. Applied Linguistics, Vol. 12, No 2. Oxford 
UniversityPress. 
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APPENDIX 1 
TEST SURVEY 
Test 1 
Exercise 1: Choose the word whose stress is different from the others: 
1. A. beautiful B. important C. delicious D. exciting 
2. A. element B. regular C. believing D. policy 
3. A. punctual B. tolerant C. utterance D. occurrence 
4. A. expensive B. sensitive C. negative D. sociable 
5. A. education B. development C. economic D. preparation 
6. A. attend B. option C. percent D. become 
7. A. literature B. entertainment C. recreation D. information 
8. A. attractive B. perception C. cultural D. expensive 
9. A. chocolate B. structural C. important D. national 
10. A. cinema B. position C. family D. popular 
11. A. natural B. department C. exception D. attentive 
12. A. economy B. diplomacy C. informative D. information 
13. A. arrest B. purchase C. accept D. forget 
14. A. expertise B. cinema C. recipe D. similar 
15. A. government B. musician C. disgusting D. exhausting 
16. A. successful B. interest C. arrangement D. disaster 
17. A. competition B. repetition C. equivalent D. disappointment 
18. A. private B. provide C. arrange D. advise 
19. A. academic B. education C. impossible D. optimistic 
20. A. study B. knowledge C. precise D. message 
Suggested answers: 
1.A 2.C 3.D 4.A 5.B 6.B 7.A 8.C 9.C 10.B 11.A 
12.D 13.B 14.A 15.A 16.B 17.C 18.A 19.C 20. C 
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APPENDIX 2 
TEST SURVEY 
Test 2 
Exercise 1: Choose the word whose stress is different from the others: 
1. A. industry B. performance C. importance D. provision 
2. A. contain B. express C. carbon D. obey 
3. A. impress B. favor C. occur D. police 
4. A. regret B. selfish C. purpose D. preface 
5. A. govern B. cover C. perform D. father 
6. A. writer B. teacher C. builder D. career 
7. A. morning B. college C. arrive D. famous 
8. A. ambitious B. chocolate C. position D. occurrence 
9. A. furniture B. abandon C. practical D. scientist 
10. A. devote B. compose C. purchase D. advise 
11. A. remember B. influence C. expression D. convenient 
12. A. medium B. computer C. formation D. connection 
13. A. national B. cultural C. popular D. musician 
14. A. successful B. humorous C. arrangement D. attractive 
15. A. construction B. typical C. glorious D. purposeful 
16. A. accident B. courageous C. dangerous D. character 
17. A. accordance B. various C. balcony D. technical 
18. A. telephone B. photograph C. expertise D. diplomat 
19. A. romantic B. illusion C. description D. incident 
20. A. bankruptcy B. successive C. piano D. phonetics 
Suggested answers: 
 1.A 2.C 3.B 4.A 5.C 6.D 7.C 8.B 9.B 10.C 11.B 12.A 
13.D 14. B 15.A 16.B 17.A 18.C 19.D 20.A 
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APPENDIX 3 
SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS 
There are 7 questions in this survey with options arranged in boxes and it will 
take no longer than 10 minutes to complete the questionnaire. 
Your answers and the information you provide in the questionnaire will remain 
confidential. Thank you very much for your time and support! 
Please make your answer by putting a tick () where applicable. 
*Your gender is Male Female 
* Your age is . years old 
Question 1: How do you find word stress learning? 
 Very interesting Interesting Not interesting 
Question 2 : How difficult do you find English word stress lessons at school? 
 Very difficult Difficult Easy 
Question 3 : Are you sure about your decision in marking word stress ? 
 Very sure Rather sure Not sure 
Question 4. Do you often make errors in word stress ? 
 Very often Often Not often 
Question 5. What makes you more confused when learning ? 
 Stress with 2 syllable-words 
 Stress with more than 2 syllable-words 
Question 6. What are the most common errors in word stress that you often 
✓ 
46 
encounter? (Please tick more than one if necessary) 
 Failure to distinguish primary and secondary stress 
 Stress on the wrong syllable of compound words 
Stress on the wrong syllable of poly-syllabic words 
Equal stress for all syllables 
 Other (please specify) ............................................... 
Question 7. How do you like your teacher teaching word stress in the classroom? 
(Please tick more than one if necessary) 
 Give you chances to listen to native speakers’ voices regularly 
Motivate you to learn word stress by providing various activities 
(games , exercises, etc in word stress) 
 Being taught the nature of word stress carefully 
 Other (please specify) ........................................................... 
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APPENDIX 4 
QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TEACHERS 
I. Teacher’s profile 
- Age: .................... 
-Teaching experience:..................... 
II. Now, please tick the answers that you choose. You can tick more than one 
answer for a question. 
Question 1. Are your students interested in learning word stress? 
a. Yes 
b. No 
Question 2. In your opinion, teaching word stress is 
a. Very important 
b. Important 
c. Not very important 
d. Not important 
Question 3. Do you think using different techniques in teaching word stress is a 
good choice to improve students' pronunciation? 
a. Yes 
b. No 
Question 4. If you answer “Yes”, tick the following options that you think using 
different techniques in teaching word stress is a good choice to improve students' 
pronunciation 
a. Activate students’ needs and interests. 
b. Pursue the development of interacted skills in the classroom. 
c. Encourage students’ intrinsic motivation. 
d. Promote students’ academic progress. 
Question 5. How do you feel when applying the various techniques in improving 
word stress in your English classes? 
a. Confident 
b. Embarrassed 
c. Bored 
d. Uncomfortable 
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Question 6. Which difficulties do you often encounter in applying different 
techniques in improving word stress ? 
a. Students’ low motivation 
b. Students’ passive learning styles 
c. Students’ not participating in class 
d. Students’ low proficiency of English 
e. Lack of teaching facilities and teaching aids 
f. Large class size 
Question 7. How often do you use gamesto teach word stress? 
a. Always 
b. Often 
c. Sometimes 
d. Never 
Question 8. Which of the following things do you think will help to make the 
application of the techniques effective in your English classes? 
a. Make a good preparation. 
c. Make good time management. 
d. Encourage students. 
e. Discuss and share the experience with colleagues. 
f. Organize the class work appropriately through individual work, pair work, 
group work. 
Question 9. What are your solutions to multi-level classes? 
b. Encourage collaborative work from students. 
c. Allocate easy questions to the less able students and more difficult ones the 
more able ones. 
d. Praise weak students more often. 
e. Organize pair work and group work including good and weak students. 
Thank you for your cooperation!