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Vietnamese and Vietnamese and English Language English Language

ComparisonComparisonAmy SouderAmy Souder

ESL 502ESL 502Wilkes UniversityWilkes University

History and Key Features of Vietnamese

Austroasiatic language

Official language of Vietnam

Spoken in numerous other countries around the world

(Omniglot, 2012)

Tonal LanguageVietnamese consists of six tones:

2.Midlevel

3.Low-falling

4.High-rising

5.Low-falling-rising

6.High-rising broken

7.Low-falling broken

(Ngo, 2011)

Vietnamese Alphabet

Regular writing system

Most of the letters (grapheme) represent one phoneme

(Ngo, 2011)

Vietnamese Alphabet Video

(YouTube, 2009)

Vietnamese and English Comparison

Vietnamese

3 main dialects: northern, central, and southern

Tone language

Syllable is the minimal meaningful unit that cannot be divide into smaller parts

Voiced and voiceless stops

Syllable-timed language and rhythms are fairly level

English

Dialects are countless

Non-tonal language

Syllable is a sequence of sounds and the smallest unit that cannot be divided into smaller parts is a phoneme.

Voiced and voiceless stops

Stressed-timed language and the accented syllable recurs at intervals

(KrysTall, 2012; Ngo, pg. 7, 2011)

Vietnamese and English Comparison cont.

Vietnamese

Tense markers are usually left out if the time expression is clear from the context or sentence

No suffix endings, such as s and es

A word succeeds the noun it modifies (cat white)

Interrogative words are placed at the beginning or end of a question, depending on the tense of time

English

Past, present, and future tense markers

Suffixes are added to nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs

A word precedes the noun it modifies (white cat)

Interrogative words are at the beginning of a question

(Ngo, 2011, pg. 17-18; Teaching English to Speakers of Vietnamese, 1991, pg. 19). )

Diacritics used in the Vietnamese Language

Vietnamese is a tonal language

Tones are represented by a diacritic (mark) positioned over or under a vowel in the syllable

Each of the six tones has its own diacritic

Diacritics are not used in English

This may cause confusion for an ELL

(Ngo, pg. 7, 2011; Teaching English to Speakers of Vietnamese, pg. 5, 1991)

Aspiration

English speakers aspirate when pronouncing the letters p, t, and k at the beginning of words

Vietnamese speakers pronounce these same sounds and often do not aspirate, causing words such as pit, tie, and call to sound like bit, die, and gall

(Teaching English to Speakers of Vietnamese, pg. 9, 1991)

Suffixes

English uses suffixes to show grammatical meaning

Inflectional suffixes add meaning and agreement to the words they are attached to

Vietnamese language does not add suffixes to words

(Teaching English to Speakers of Vietnamese, pg. 16-17, 1991)

Verbs

In English, verbs are converted to nouns by adding ing to the base word

English forms of the verb “to be”: am, is, are, was, were, be, and been

In Vietnamese, words can be used either as verbs or as nouns without any changes being made to the base word

Vietnamese only has one form of a verb, la


Case Study

Sam Johnson

Vietnamese decent

Migrated to the US two years of age, when Sam was eight years old

Neither of Sam’s parents speak English

Vietnamese is the primary language spoken in the home

Sam’s older sister is proficient in English

Much L2 support is provided by Sam’s older sister

Sam Johnson

5th grade student

Attending ESL since his enrollment in school

ESL three days a week; totaling six hours of instruction

Sam has made vast improvements in English since his enrollment two years ago

Verbs

Sam is having difficulties with the correct tense of verbs

Example: Commonly dismisses the ing ending of verbs or adds an ing ending

when not needed

Errors with using the correct helping verbs

Example: Commonly used “are” when he should have chosen “is”

Vocabulary

Sam struggles with phonemics

In result, often gets frustrated and creates nonexistent words

Example: He wrote “merred” when it should have been “purred”

Difficulties with grammar rules; such as understanding when to drop the “y” and add an “ies”

Nouns

Sam is having trouble with correct noun usage

Subject pronouns are a major concern

Example: Used “me” instead of “my” and “she” instead of “her”

Instructional Findings

There are sounds which occur in English but not in Vietnamese, and there are sounds which occur in both languages but are produced differently and pattern differently

Verb tense markers in English but not in Vietnamese

English uses aspiration in some letter sounds and Vietnamese does not

The result of Sam’s errors my be the cause of language transfer interference


Areas of Focus

Sam would benefit from:

More emphasis on verb endings

More focus on aspiration of letter sounds

Minimal pair activities


Correct the Errors?

Teaching English to Speakers of Vietnamese states that “a student’s pronunciation should not be corrected when he or she is attempting to communicate an idea except by following a set of guidelines.

Guidelines

2. Only correct those aspects of pronunciation which the student is able to appreciate. Making the learner correct a sound in an unfamiliar context or in isolation is futile.

3. Stop a learner in the context of his utterance only when it is necessary for communication. Other interruptions will frustrate the learner and stifle the communication effort in progress.

4. Take note of the pronunciation problems of the learners from among those aspects which they have been taught and drilled on. Make reference not only to the nature of the error and its correction but also to the situation in which the aspect was practiced. This helps the learner put the error into perspective and take note of the things learned but not used correctly.

5. Correct no more than one or two things in a learner’s utterance or you will provide more feedback than the learner is likely to be able to retain as well as deflate the learner’s ego and confidence in learning the language.


ReferencesCenter for Applied Linguistics. (1991). Teaching English to speakers of Vietnamese. Refugee education guide: General Information Series #23. Retrieved from: http://www. eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED208681.pdf

KryssTal. (2012). The origin and history of the English language. Retrieved from: http://www.krysstal.com/english.html

Ngo, B. (2011). The Vietnamese language learning framework. (Master’s thesis, Harvard University). Retrieved from: http://www.seasite.niu.e du/jsealt/past%20issues/volume%2010/VN%20LLF%20Part%20I.pdf

Omniglot. (2012). The online encyclopedia of writing systems and languages. Retrieved from: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/vietnamese.htm

YouTube. (2009). Vietnamese alphabet. Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GB6iHi8qvM& feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PLAA34FBF 61CDFB290

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