Speaker
Description
English (ISO 639-3: eng) belongs to the Indo-European language family, while Vietnamese (ISO 639-3: vie) is part of the Austroasiatic family. Despite both languages possessing complex phonetic and phonological systems, they diverge considerably in syllable structure, sound distribution, and acoustic features. This study aims to analyze and contrast these systems from both theoretical and practical perspectives, particularly with regard to pronunciation instruction and language teacher education. Employing a mixed-methods approach, the study combines a survey of 300 first-year English language education majors across three major dialect regions of Vietnam with experimental phonetic analysis. Speech recordings from fifteen randomly selected participants (five from each region) were collected in a controlled environment. Key acoustic parameters, including fundamental frequency (F0), formant values, and duration, were extracted using phonetic software (e.g., Praat) and further analyzed and visualized using R programming. The results reveal distinct cross-linguistic phonetic contrasts and highlight common learner difficulties. These findings provide a foundation for developing more effective strategies for teaching English pronunciation to Vietnamese learners and contribute to the broader field of contrastive phonetics.
Biography
I was born in 1976 in Thua Thien Hue Province. I received my Bachelor's degree in English from the University of Education, Hue University, in 2000. I taught English at several public junior high schools in Dong Nai Province for 7 years. Following that, I taught English at Ton Duc Thang High School in Dong Nai Province for 5 years. In 2011, I earned my Master's degree in TESOL with honors from Victoria University, Australia. That same year, I was transferred to Dong Nai University to teach English as a major in Pedagogy.
I spent a year conducting doctoral research at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City. However, driven by my passion for experimental phonetics, I decided to take a leave of absence and moved to Hanoi to defend my proposal. After 6 years of dedicated work, I obtained my Ph.D. in Comparative Linguistics from the Institute of Social Sciences, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences.
In 2017, I began working at Thu Dau Mot University. Two years later, I took on the role of Deputy Program Director for the Master’s in English Language program. In 2019, I worked at Nguyen Tat Thanh University as the Foreign Languages Faculty Advisor. In 2020, I became a full-time lecturer at Binh Duong University, and in 2024, I moved to Van Hien University as the Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Foreign Languages. I currently oversee the academic programs in both English and French Languages at Van Hien University, where I am deeply passionate about my work and scientific research.
Additionally, I serve as a visiting lecturer at Tay Nguyen University and Ton Duc Thang University. I also participate in teacher training programs for English educators across various provinces as part of the Foreign Language Project 2020.
My research interests include phonetic contrastive analysis, phonology, particularly experimental phonetics and the historical study of the Vietnamese script.
