AN INVESTIGATION INTO EFL LEARNERS’ RECOGNITION AND PRODUCTION OF ENGLISH LEXICAL STRESS
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Abstract
Assigning stress in English words accurately is considered a challenging task for Vietnamese EFL learners because their first language (L1) does not possess a system of word stress. The study is aimed to investigate the extent to which Vietnamese learners are able to recognize and produce English lexical stress correctly. To further explore the topic, the study examines whether there is a significant difference in the performance of EFL learners on the recognition and production of lexical stress. To achieve these objectives, 40 elementary EFL learners studying English to prepare for the English proficiency test of pre-intermediate level at a foreign language center in Can Tho city participated in the study. Data were collected by means of a recognition test and a production test. The results showed that learners were highly competent in recognizing English lexical stress, whereas their ability to produce this subset of pronunciation is limited. The possible causes for this discrepancy were their unsuccessful production of stress contrast between secondary stress and primary stress, the effect of stress patterns, their unintelligible production of words and the interference from L1.
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