Abstract

This presentation introduces the pronunciation difficulties encountered by students in Vietnamese classes in APU and exercises designed to help them to overcome these difficulties. I will begin with a brief introduction to Vietnamese phonetics, including the constitution of Vietnamese words, the beginning and end consonants, the vowel sounds, and the tonal system. This section is followed by a discussion concerning the pronunciation difficulties encountered by Vietnamese learners, especially with aspects of the tonal system. In order to determine the difficulties in pronunciation, I make a comparison between the pronunciation of Vietnamese consonants, vowels, and the tonal system and those of the common L1 languages of learners in Vietnamese classes (e.g., Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Thai). Based on this comparison, a survey was conducted with Vietnamese learners to identify which features of pronunciation were most challenging for them. The presentation will conclude with an overview of exercises developed to help students to overcome pronunciation difficulties and improve their pronunciation of the Vietnamese language.