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I chose a topic for my essay “Problems for learners in Vietnam” because I plan to teach English there. Vietnamese students beginning to learn English have many problems with pronunciation and grammar because these two languages are so extensively separated in every respect. The Vietnamese language consists of short words that can have different meanings depending on the tone of pronunciation. And English words can be long and with irregular spelling. It can be difficult in English writing exercises. Also, one of the problems may be the tenses of English verbs. Vietnamese verbs do not change with tense and do not decline. Past, future and continuous tenses are simply indicated by a special word before the verb. But in English are there more tenses and many English verbs are irregular and must be mastered individually. The next problem that Vietnamese students may face is the plurals. For example, in English plurals are indicated by an ‘s’ at the end of noun (the rule is different, but it is simple). But learners tend to make errors in written English with a pronoun (it/they), referring to the noun, and with a verb (have/has, is/are) which changes between the plural and the singular. Also, the common problem of many students from Asia that sometimes they do not hear the ‘s’ on singular verbs and plural nouns. A huge problem faced by all English language learners in Asia is pronunciation. Students find that their mother tongue influences their pronunciation of English. But pronunciation plays a very important role in learning a foreign language because bad pronunciation of the language complicates a normal communication. The complexity of lax and tense vowels in English, a variety of dialect differences and consonant positions creates confusion for Vietnamese students. Also, learners have problem with consonant clusters. The stress and tones in English are very different. Where the English language is stress-timed, the Vietnamese language is syllable-timed. Vietnamese vowel system is highly complex. It has many diphthongs and tripthongs and also eleven pure vowels. Most of Vietnamese vowels can stand-alone but some cannot. And there are some similarities between English and Vietnamese vowel systems. In the Vietnamese language students can see alternatives to the closest pure vowel in pronouncing the pure vowel in English. By replacing and pronouncing English, they face problems in speaking. Often students cannot pronounce two vowels correctly because of the confusion between the lax and tense vowel sounds in English. For example, when Vietnamese students pronounce “sleep”, English native speaker may hear “slip”, instead (stewed/stood, etc.) Vietnamese learners of English may encounter difficulties with some consonant sounds. Many English consonants do not appear in Vietnamese because this language has no consonant clusters in final position. And learners often omit consonants from a difficult cluster. That are just some problems for Vietnamese learners English. All mistakes can be very difficult for them to overcome. Often students are not confident enough and afraid to communicate with other people in English. And therefore, it is very important pay attention to the teaching and learning process, support and encourage students and help them to master the English language fully.
