The trend of globalization in every field all over the world has given foreign languages in general and English in particular a greater role than ever before. As English is largely used in international settings, the ability to communicate in real-life situations is very important. Therefore, speaking plays an essential role because without it, communication cannot take place directly between people.
Dealing with how to improve speaking skills, learners face the problem of pronunciation. A consideration number of learners’ pronunciation errors and how they inhibit successful communication is a good reason for the justification of why it is important to teach pronunciation to learners.
There is a great number of books relating to the teaching of English pronunciation, most of which refer to specific exercises to help students achieve better pronunciation. However, in my experience as a teacher of English for three years, I have witnessed many cases in which students are able to do pronunciation exercises, but fail to have proper pronunciation in their real-life speaking. Thus, a good mark in doing pronunciation exercises in written form does not accompany good pronunciation.
In my opinion, the problem lies in the fact that students do not receive adequate feedback from the teacher on their pronunciation performance. Some students even do not know how to form certain sounds in English. Therefore, it is impossible for them to have genuine production of sounds and sentences. Despite this, little can be done about this due to a vast number of factors, the most serious of which is the high student-teacher ratio in Vietnamese universities, which is about 25 to one (at universities in which English is a major). The teachers hardly have enough time to pay attention and give correction to every student’ speaking performance in general and pronunciation in particular. As a result, students are unable to identify their weak aspects.
