Why Vietnamese Learners Drop the Final /S/ — And How ESL Teachers Can Help
If you have taught Vietnamese students, you have heard this:
"I have two book."
"He go to school every day."
"I like three cat."
They know the grammar. So why does the final /s/ keep disappearing? It's not carelessness. It's linguistics.
1. Why Is Final /S/ So Hard for Vietnamese Learners?
a) Vietnamese has no final /s/ and no final clusters
In English, we can end a word with almost any sound: bus, books, dogs. In Vietnamese, only six sounds are allowed at the end: /p, t, k, m, n, ŋ/ — and they are unreleased, spoken very softly. There is no /s/ at the end and no clusters like /-ks/ in "books" (Osburne, 1996; Nguyen, 2007).
b) Vietnamese does not use endings for grammar
Vietnamese is an isolating language. It does not add -s for plural or third-person singular. To say "two books," Vietnamese says "hai quyen sach" (hai means two, sach means book, quyen is a classifier) — the number, "hai" already shows plural, so no extra ending is needed (Tang, 2007).
c) What you cannot hear, you cannot say
Vietnamese final sounds are quiet. Learners transfer this habit to English, so they delete the final sound or say it too weakly to hear. This is called L1 phonological transfer (Lado, 1957).
2. Why Adults Struggle More Than Children: My Classroom Observation
In my own classes, I noticed something very clear.
With Vietnamese adult learners, final /s/ omission is very strong. I have to remind them in almost every discussion: "Don't forget the final /s/." If you don't say it, your listener can get confused. For example:
- decades → they say "decade" (I asked to remind my student "Is it one decade or many?")
- startups → they say "startup" (I asked once more "One startup or many startups?")
- seems → they say "seem" (It seems vs. they seem — "who is the subject?" I asked)
Why is this harder for adults? This is likely fossilization. Fossilization is when a language error becomes a permanent habit because it has been repeated for many years without correction (Selinker, 1972). Many adult Vietnamese learners learned English for years with final consonant deletion, and their brain has already accepted "decade" as correct for both singular and plural. Adults also have stronger L1 interference and focus more on meaning than on small sounds.
With younger learners, especially children, it is much easier. I remind them the first or second time, and in the next sessions, they already say the final /s/ correctly. "Two books!" "Three cats!"
Why?
1. Neuroplasticity and the Critical Period: Children's brains are more flexible for pronunciation. The Critical Period Hypothesis says that before puberty, learners can acquire new sounds more easily because their brain is still highly adaptable (Lenneberg, 1967; Johnson & Newport, 1989). Now, everything discussed in my MA ED ELT classes at the Philippine Normal University are making sense to me.
2. Tabula Rasa and Less Fossilization: Children are like a tabula rasa (blank slate) for English pronunciation. They have not yet formed bad habits. They have no years of saying "two book" to unlearn. Adults do. So when we correct a child, we are building a new habit. When we correct an adult, we are breaking an old one and building a new one at the same time — which is twice as hard. Apparently, the idea of unlearning and relearning by Alvin Toffler applies in this situation.
What this means for us ESL teachers: With children, correct early and consistently. With adults, be patient and make the final /s/ meaningful. Don't just say "Say the /s/." Say "If you say decade, I think one. If you say decades, I think many. Which one do you mean?" When adults see that the sound changes the meaning, they are more motivated to keep it.
3. Why Does Pronunciation of Final /s/ Matter? Impact on Communication and Exams
In English, final /s/ is not just accent — it is grammar. It signals:
- Plural: book vs. books
- Third-person singular: he go vs. he goes
- Possession: the student vs. the student's
When the sound is missing, listeners get confused. It carries a high functional load (Jenkins, 2000).
Impact on KET, PET, and IELTS Speaking
For KET (A2) and PET (B1), Cambridge assesses "control of phonological features." Consistent final consonant deletion often limits students to Band 3 out of 5 for pronunciation.
For IELTS Speaking, the public band descriptors state that at Band 5, "frequent mispronunciations cause some difficulty for the listener" (British Council et al., 2023). A consistent final /s/ omission is one reason many Vietnamese candidates get stuck at 5.5 or 6.0 for Pronunciation. It also lowers Grammar because "he go" is counted as a grammar error. Therefore, Vietnamese students who take KET, PET and IELTS examinations cannot achieve their desired score if final sound ommission is observed in their speech.
Does Final /s/ Ommission Affect Listening and Writing?
Yes. Listening: If you don't produce a sound, you often don't perceive it either (Flege, 1995). In IELTS Listening, when the audio says "books," many learners only hear "book" and write the wrong answer.
Yes. Writing: Students write what they hear in their head. So "three cats" becomes "three cat" in essays, lowering their grammar score (Sato, 1984).
4. What Can ESL Teachers Do? 5 Practical Strategies
1. Make the final /s/ visible
Use minimal pairs: book vs. books, cat vs. cats. Write the -s in RED. Use the finger trick — one finger for "one cat," two fingers for "two cats." Awareness-raising is more effective than drilling (Avery & Ehrlich, 1992).
2. Teach the three sounds of -s
Teach the voicing rule (Celce-Murcia et al., 2010):
- /s/ after voiceless: books, cats, cups
- /z/ after voiced: bags, dogs, pens
- /ɪz/ after hissing: buses, watches
3. Use linking, not isolated words
Instead of "books" alone, drill "books_are" as "book-sare." When /s/ links to the next vowel, Vietnamese learners keep it because it feels natural.
4. Train their ears before their mouths
Say: "I have a cat. I have cats." Ask: Did you hear one or two? Use dictation. If they can't hear it, they can't say it.
5. Correct with kindness
Don't stop them for every missing /s/. Use delayed correction or gentle recasting: Student: "I have two book." Teacher: "Oh, you have two books? What color are they?" (Derwing & Munro, 2005).
Final thought: Final /s/ is small, but for our Vietnamese learners, it is big. It is the difference between being understood and misunderstood. When we help them master it, we are not just teaching pronunciation. We are helping them be heard.
References
Avery, P., & Ehrlich, S. (1992). Teaching American English pronunciation. Oxford University Press.
British Council, IDP: IELTS Australia, & Cambridge English Language Assessment. (2023). IELTS speaking band descriptors (public version). https://ielts.org
Celce-Murcia, M., Brinton, D. M., & Goodwin, J. M. (2010). Teaching pronunciation: A course book and reference guide (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Derwing, T. M., & Munro, M. J. (2005). Second language accent and pronunciation teaching: A research-based approach. TESOL Quarterly, 39(3), 379–397. https://doi.org/10.2307/3588486
Flege, J. E. (1995). Second language speech learning: Theory, findings, and problems. In W. Strange (Ed.), Speech perception and linguistic experience (pp. 233–277). York Press.
Jenkins, J. (2000). The phonology of English as an international language. Oxford University Press.
Johnson, J. S., & Newport, E. L. (1989). Critical period effects in second language learning: The influence of maturational state on the acquisition of English as a second language. Cognitive Psychology, 21(1), 60–99. https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0285(89)90003-0
Lado, R. (1957). Linguistics across cultures. University of Michigan Press.
Lenneberg, E. H. (1967). Biological foundations of language. Wiley.
Nguyen, T. T. A. (2007). Difficulties for Vietnamese when pronouncing English: Final consonants [Unpublished master's thesis]. Dalarna University.
Osburne, A. G. (1996). Final cluster reduction in English L2 speech: A case study of a Vietnamese speaker. Applied Linguistics, 17(2), 164–181. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/17.2.164
Sato, C. J. (1984). Phonological processes in second language development. Language Learning, 34(1), 43–57. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-1770.1984.tb00996.x
Selinker, L. (1972). Interlanguage. International Review of Applied Linguistics, 10(1-4), 209–232. https://doi.org/10.1515/iral.1972.10.1-4.209
Tang, G. (2007). Cross-linguistic analysis of Vietnamese and English. Journal of Southeast Asian Linguistics, 1, 33–56.
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