ARMY POLYTECHNIC SCHOOL

1. ARMY POLYTECHNIC SCHOOL ¨ A STUDY OF THE AMERICAN ENGLISH VOWEL SYSTEM AND THE DIFFICULTIES OF AUDITORY DISCRIMINATION FOR THE SPANISH – SPEAKING STUDENTS ATTENDING TO THE COURSE OF MECHANICS AT SECAP DURING THE SCHOOL YEAR 2008 – 2009 ¨ DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGES APPLIED LINGUISTICS IN ENGLISH PROGRAM BY: Pablo Martínez R. Advisors: Dra. María Teresa Llumiquinga Lcda. Olga Cárdenas

2. IDENTIFICATION OF THE PROBLEM Without the ability to discriminate and produce Vowels sounds in English it would be impossible to differentiate simple words such as: (CAT) and (CUT).

3. MAIN PROBLEM The research was made at ¨SECAP¨ Riobamba Canton, Province of Chimborazo. Two groups of fifteen students each were investigated. The planned question was ¿What are the difficulties of Auditory Discrimination of the American English vowels system for the thirty students attending to the course of Mechanics at SECAP during the school year 2008-2009?

4. SECONDARY PROBLEMS What level of previous ability of pronunciation do students have? What is the incidence of learning the American English Vowel System in students’ comprehension? Is it really possible to acquire discriminative abilities by learning through the Audio – Lingual method and how the English Vowel System works?

5. OBJECTIVES GENERAL: To show that the knowledge of English Vowels System affects directly and positively to the Auditory discrimination of the language To establish the abilities and difficulties of Auditory Discrimination for the thirty students attending to SECAP. SPECIFIC: To carry out a Pre – Test and Post Test about the English Vowel System. To use the information obtained to determine if teaching the American English Vowels system affects positively to the improvement of students’ auditory discrimination.

6. JUSTIFICATION English has been considered an important Language around the world. That is the reason that millions have been exposed to English at least once in their lives. In writing we usually have time to plan our message, but in speech we have no time to do this, that is why good pronunciation is important. Proper pronunciation adds dignity to the message we give. It allows a listener’s attention to be focused on the message we say rather than on any mistakes in pronunciation. Students often realize that correct pronunciation is important but at the same time they usually do not feel comfortable with their actual abilities for discriminating English Vowel Sounds.

7. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK When we try to understand a new language, the first thing we normally do is to compare the first language sounds to the target language sounds. That is a common mistake because in most languages they are different. Alta Media Baja SPANISH VOWEL CHART ENGLISH VOWEL CHART

8. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK PICTURE TAKEN FROM GOOGLE IMAGES

9. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

11. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK In all languages proper pronunciation requires using the right sound for each letter or combination of letters and sometimes they may be pronounced in more than one way or, at times, may not be pronounced at all. Failure to give adequate attention to this aspect of a language can result in conveying wrong ideas Bear Beer

12. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK WHAT IS AUDITORY DISCRIMINATION? Some people can play an instrument ¨ by ear ¨. That is exactly what happens in languages, auditory discrimination is an ability that can be considered an inborn talent or also it can be acquired by practicing and training our ears. EXAMPLE: Had Head

13. HYPOTHESIS SYSTEM Null Hypothesis Alternative Hypothesis Teaching the American Vowel System to the thirty Spanish – speaking students attending to SECAP during the school year 2008 – 2009 will not affect the results in their abilities of Auditory Discrimination of English words Teaching the American Vowel System to the thirty Spanish – speaking students attending to SECAP during the school year 2008 – 2009 will have a positive effect in their abilities of Auditory Discrimination of English words

14. PROPOSAL • The research will take place in SECAP and students will be divided into two groups of fifteen students each. • Fifteen students (Experimental group) will receive class for about two months about English Vowel system. • A second group (Control) of fifteen students will not have any instruction about the subject. • A Pre and Post – Test will reveal their improvement and help us to contrast their initial and final abilities of Auditory Discrimination

16. STUDENTS SCORE 0/10 PERCENTAGE TEST PERFORMANCE 4 6 26.67% Some students were able to discriminate sounds in the first stage of the test, but only a 26.67% of them had 6 correct answers. It means that it was challenging to perform correctly the task. 5 5 33.33% 2 4 13.33% 3 3 20% 1 1 6.67% 15 100%

17. CLASS TO EXPERIMENTAL GROUP METHODOLOGY Audio – Lingual Method Students learned vowels sounds with: • ipa explanation • Contrast between long and short vowels • Classes were managed by a native speaker

18. CONTROL GROUP Fifteen students did not receive any explanation about American English Vowel System. They showed lack of confidence while pronouncing English words. All of them pronounced each word using the Spanish Vowels sounds.

20. Comparisonbetween Experimental and Control Group STUDENTS READ COP - CUP FEET - FIT

21. Comparisonbetween Experimental and Control Group STUDENTS READ COP - CUP FEET - FIT

22. Comparisonbetween Experimental and Control Group STUDENTS READ COP - CUP FEET - FIT

23. Comparisonbetween Experimental and Control Group STUDENTS READ COP - CUP FEET - FIT

25. DEGREES of FREEDOM gdl = n1+n2-2 gdl = 15+15-2 gdl = 28 DEGREES OF FREEDOM = 28 STANDARD ERROR OF THE DIFFERENCE INTO TWO MEANS Sx1-x2 = 1.4422 REASON T REASON T= (47.33 – 20.53)/1.4422 REASON T= 18.582 GENERAL CONCLUSION Whereasthe mean is a wayto describe thelocation of a distribution, thevarianceis a wayto capture itsscaleordegree of being spread out. In our example The Student’s t (degree of freedom 28 and probability 0.05 used in Education). The calculated REASON T (18.58) is > than 2.048, the null hypothesis is rejected and Teaching the American Vowels Sound System to the thirty Spanish –speaking students attending to SECAP during the school year 2008 – 2009 will have a positive effect in their Auditory discrimination of English words.

26. CONCLUSIONS • The incidence of teaching the English Vowels System has a positive influence in the level of student’s performance. • Students who did not receive instruction in English Vowel system had the same mistakes in the Pre and Post – Test. It includes lack of confidence in communicating words orally because they are afraid of pronouncing them incorrectly. • After the Pre and Post – test we discovered that the majority of the Experimental Group got a 91.4% of effectiveness in the Sound Discrimination Test. That means that ¨ Exposure ¨ to the langue proper sounds can help students to Understand Spoken English.

27. RECOMMENDATIONS • Every single Educational Institute should give emphasis to proper pronunciation and teachers should be aware of the importance of the English Vowel System. They must be sure to pronounce them correctly to help students recognize English Sounds and avoid bad pronunciation habits. • Rather than starting teaching grammar rules: morphology, syntax or semantics, the very first step should be help students understand the difference between our vowel system and American English vowel system.

28. RECOMMENDATIONS • It is important to take into account the students’ motivation for learning, many of them learn just to pass a course or to get a score. Teachers should help them understand that by making mistakes they can improve their oral production and comprehension. • It is recommendable that SECAP should provide students materials such as CDs, tapes, videos, computer software and specially a laboratory where they can increase their exposure to English pronunciation using technology in the case that the teacher does not manage the English Vowels System. • It is important for students that teachers apply new and modern methodologies for teaching pronunciation such as the Audio – Lingual method.

29. ARMY POLYTECHNIC SCHOOL ¨ A STUDY OF THE AMERICAN ENGLISH VOWEL SYSTEM AND THE DIFFICULTIES OF AUDITORY DISCRIMINATION FOR THE SPANISH – SPEAKING STUDENTS ATTENDING TO THE COURSE OF MECHANIC AT SECAP DURING THE SCHOOL YEAR 2008 – 2009 ¨ DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGES APPLIED LINGUISTICS IN ENGLISH PROGRAM BY: Pablo Martínez R. Advisors: Dra. María Teresa Llumiquinga Lcda. Olga Cárdenas