Problems for Vietnamese when speaking english, I welcome public debate on various aspects of the pos

Mr. Guy Klages, Director of English Home speaking english club in Vietnam believes that one of the limitation reason that may challenge Vietnamese to speaking English well is that they are afraid of making mistakes while communicating

Guy said, after a long time manage english clubs in both Vietnam and China, he figured out some "diseases" from english speakers, especially Vietnamese students and pupils


"First of all, i want to talk about the psychology of nervous of mistakes. In our club, i always was encouraging everybody to speak out. My message was very clear: " let''s talk, don?Tt be afraid of mistakes, don?Tt be shy." then they felt like they could speak in a comfortable way.

Another wrong leaning method that i see is that they spend too much for vocabulary and grammar, even when they need to deductive a simple situation like " i want to go home now", as usually they cant speak it immediately, i mean lack of reflection, they have to think in their head first about how to translate from Vietnamese to English, it?Ts a wrong way.
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To be fluent in english, in my opinion they need to pronoun in a good way. Only right pronoun makes both listener and speaker communicate well.

Use every capability, meet up with english native speaker, go to club, coffee place, for example even making friend with foreign people via internet ( instead of chit chat, looking for partner as most of young Vietnamese do, they should spend sometimes to learn English, shouldn?Tt they? "




Được allurehn sửa chữa / chuyển vào 15:50 ngày 16/10/2006

source: http://www2.dantri.com.vn/giaoduc-khuyenhoc/2006/10/146972.vip

I welcome public debate on various aspects of our problem, it''s very serious

let go on

"To be fluent in english, in my opinion they need to pronoun in a good way. Only right pronoun makes both listener and speaker communicate well."
I would like to shout that I am for him. In ad***ion, I would like to contribute a little to his recommendation with the followings:
First, I am sure right pronunciation that includes both syllable and speed extremely benefits English student in the way that they can found the similarity between their voice and native speakers'' voice.
Second, the best way to archieve the right pronunciation is to know and use the international English pronunciation symbols provided in most of English dictionaries and then check again in sound-available ones. Of course, it is also necessary for students to practice reading out loud pieces of news or conversation in the fastest way they can to check syllable inclusion, stress and intonation.

I agree that one of the biggest obstacles encountered by VN students learning English is their -pyschology-, their need and wish to speak as well and as fast as a native speaker. They simply talk too fast! Whereas, they would be much easier to understand if they just speak SLOWLY.
Second problem is in Vietnamese, we have alot of different intonations (dau sac, hoi, nang vv). And do not have the following letters: "SH" very predominantly used in English (She, shy, shiver, etc..), the "TH" (Thank you, thief, thirsty etc..), the W, the WH, and especially the P. When we speak words that start with a P (like People, or Public), it''s simply too soft and sounds like Beoble, Bublic etc...
Third problem is the different intonations you place on the sentences or on the words itself, especially in words with multiple syllables. One example is: Politician. Sure enough we can all say the seperate syllable Po-Li-Ti-CIAN, but when placed together, we put -dau- on them and it just sounds completely wrong. Hence, we get vietnamese accent (where different English accents are derived from).
So in my opinion, you all need to SLOW down, people do not fault you over speaking slowly. And to practice letters that do not exist in the Vietnamese alphabet. Listen to alot of movies, pick an American accent (easiest to learn) and just copy the actors like crazy.

Well, You are quite right. My boss used to tell me that "Your voice is so soft, some time I could not pick up your words" And sometimes I pronouned "sh" = "s" but I think VNese has no difficulty to pronoun "p" In my opinion, generally Vietnamese speak English better than Japanese, Korean, Chinese, etc. But in Vietnam, English''s teachers are mostly Vietnamese, their pronounciation is sometimes wrong, it affects to students quite a lot. E.g. Vietnam has some areas people pronoun "l" = "n" and "n"= "l" why? Because their parent or even their teacher pronoun like that

I somewhat agree with you. But film and music are kinds of arts. Do you think that expressions used in film and music seem suitable for all real-life situations? And are you sure slow speaking will help improve listening to fast native speakers in CNN, NPR and others?

In my opinion, the speed rate doesnt matter. Either you speak slowly or fast, the point is that you can make people understand you. If your speech is clear and easily understanded then thats fine.
As your guys said, Vietnamese has intonations, so does E. More over, E has stress which is very important. Foreigners can find it hard to listen to all " the same accent " al the time.
And I agree that confident is the most important. If you''re afraid of making mistakes & afraid of talking out loud in E then you can never master it.

Sorry, I need to write in vietnamese my opinion about this matter based on my own experience:
Tuleo có nhớ một anh chàng lính Mỹ quyết định ở lại VN sau khi được thả về( thời kỳ chiến tranh); sau nhiều năm ở tại VN , hình như Hà Nội thì phải, chàng Mỹ đó quyết định về nước lại; ti vi Mỹ gởi người qua phỏng vấn; anh chàng mỹ đó vẫn còn lưu loát nhưng giọng nói giống hệt người VN nói tiếng Anh; bản thân tôi khi về VN chừng vài ngày là tiếng Anh bắt đầu có dấu hiệu mất đi chất giọng mà tôi phải cố gắng lắm mới có được- không biết có phải là cảm giác hay không?- đúng rồi phải vài ngày ỡ Mỹ tôi mới phục hồi lại được- có lẽ dù là tiếng Anh hàng ngày trên hai chục năm nhưng chưa đũ hay sao? Tôi cũng có chứng kiến một thầy giáo Phi nói tiếng Anh theo kiểu Mỹ vì phải giãng dạy học trò nhưng khi có cơ hội nói với người cùng quê tiếng Anh thì nói theo kiễu người VN mình nói tiếng Anh vậy.
Đọc những bài viết tiếng Anh trên diễn đàn, tôi thấy ngữ vựng và grammar cũa các bạn quá cao siêu nhưng tôi cũng biết là sẽ có nhiều người vì quá chú trọng đến grammar nên rất là do dự , đắn đo khi phải thốt ra bằng lời.
Tiếng Anh chữ cuối cùng rất là quan trọng, thí dụ như chữ FIND, ta phải đọc rỏ chữ N và chữ D thì người nghe mới hiễu; như WENT bạn phãi đọc rỏ chử T. Đó là thí dụ điển hình mà ng VN mình bị mắc phải. Phải đi làm, mong tha thứ.