The research was implemented in an intonation training course of ten 150-minute classes taken by the EG, each class consisting of group discussion and intonation training. Quantitative data were collected from EG and CG on their ability to perceive and produce intonation focus and tonal differences in English using intonation pre-tests and post-tests. | TEACHING ENGLISH INTONATION TO VIETNAMESE STUDENTS OF ENGLISH: TONICITY AND TONE Ngo Phuong Anh* Hanoi University of Science and Technology, Dai Co Viet, Hai Ba Trung, Hanoi, Vietnam Received 21 April 2017 Revised 23 October 2017; Accepted 23 November 2017 Abstract: English intonation is often regarded as difficult to teach in the foreign language classroom. However, its communicative value is of importance, with tonicity (nucleus placement / focus) singled out as one of the few prosodic features of the Lingua Franca Core (Jenkins, 2000). This study adopts an experimental approach to investigate the effects of intonation training among Vietnamese learners of English in tertiary education in Vietnam, looking at tonicity and tone. 27 second-year English major students at a Vietnamese university were recruited. Participants were split into the experimental group (EG, n=16) and the control group (CG, n=11). The research was implemented in an intonation training course of ten 150-minute classes taken by the EG, each class consisting of group discussion and intonation training. Quantitative data were collected from EG and CG on their ability to perceive and produce intonation focus and tonal differences in English using intonation pre-tests and post-tests. The results reveal a statistically significant difference in performance between EG and CG in perception and production of tonicity and tone. EG performed better in perception than production and in tonicity than in tone, and performance improved significantly over the period of training. Keywords: English intonation, tonicity, tone, Vietnamese learners 1. Introduction While some mainstream research on pronunciation teaching holds that intonation is, at best, difficult to teach (Chun, 1998; Roach, 2009; Taylor, 1993), others indicate that intonation can be taught successfully, examples being Goh (1994), McGregor and Sardegna (2014, cited in Derwing and Munro, 2015) and de Bot and Mailfert (1982). However, while there
