IMITATION TECHNIQUE IN IMPROVING 2nd YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS’ ORAL COMPETENCE DISCOURSE AT THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION

Abstract

Many learners at Thai Nguyen University of Education recognize that they have difficulties in communicating in English even after many years of learning English. They are smart in grammar but their speaking skill is not good. They always face many mistakes in pronunciation such as final consonants, word stress, intonation and other problems which sometimes lead to misunderstanding in communication with foreigners. Moreover, these EFL university teachers rely too much on traditional teaching methods in textbooks without paying attention to their students' problems. An unsuitable method may make students lack motivation in study. Hence, these students need a learning technique to help them to overcome problems in English pronunciation and improve their speaking skill. One of the effective techniques that has been experimented in many countries is Imitation Technique. The technique helps learners to feel the rhythm of English and express their ideas better and more efficiently by practising copying the native speakers’ voice, words, stress and intonation. Therefore, the study is to investigate the current of 2^nd year non-English major students’ Oral Discourse Competence at Thai Nguyen University of Education, especially the most common pronunciation mistakes and suggest the Imitation Technique to help learners overcome these problems.