Investigating the pronunciation of English word-final consonants of English and non-English majored students at a university in Vietnam

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the production of English word-final consonants of two groups of students at a university in Vietnam to find out how well they performed in a pronunciation test and compare their performances. One hundred students from English and non-English majored students volunteered to participate in the study and were divided into two fifty-student groups. A pronunciation test was employed to collect quantitative data. The results show that among the twenty-one English word-final consonants tested, the group of English majored students outperformed the non-English majored ones in seventeen consonants. In addition, four English word-final consonants were found to be performed equally between the two groups. The study suggests that English exposure, practice environments, and the curriculum at school might play an essential role in the difference between the performances of these two groups. Accordingly, possible suggestions and implications for Vietnamese EFL teachers and students regarding the issue of teaching and learning English pronunciation of English word-final consonant sounds are addressed.