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Teach English in Shuangan Zhen - Ankang Shi

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By: Joshua Heald Learning Phonics has proven time and time again that when it comes to older students who have to remember the spelling and pronunciation of bigger words, the students that have learned phonics from early on, have an easier time. When the pronunciation (the sound) has been linked to the spelling ( the look) it helps in many different ways. When you hear a strange word, you then know possibly how to spell it and look it up in a dictionary. When you see a strange word, you know then how it might possibly sound like. It is one of the most important building blocks of learning the English language. When learning a foreign language, it is very common to try to relate the foreign language to your native language. In many languages, there are about 50-75% relate-able sounds. It is usually those phonetic sounds that may cause a student to always have an accent when speaking English. So it should be frowned upon to relate all English sounds to their native language phonetics. How do we teach those phonetic sounds efficiently? If a native phonetic sound is exactly the same, then by all means tell them. But slight differences must be pointed out early on. Chinese, for example, taught in Taiwan, uses a bu- pu- mu- fu- … phonetic alphabet to make up the sound of their words, but the sound of “Bb” does not have such a “uh” sound to the end, especially when pronouncing the word, “tub”. Students will quickly try to say it like, “tu-uh-bu” So, in this type of case, one must teach that they can relate the beginning sound of their native phonetic sound. Verbal repetition and correction by the teacher should eliminate those native sounds from creeping into their pronunciation. But what do you do when the sounds in English are so different? Drawing something around the letter to help them relate the sound often helps. This method helps people who tend to be more visual people. One example could be a lower-case “e”, one can draw a face with the “e” as the mouth. When we make the short “e” pronunciation, our mouth looks like that lowercase “e”. So the next time they are looking at a word with that letter, they are more likely to remember that sound just by looking at the letter. When teaching phonetic sounds it is very important to make sure that the student(s) are looking at the letters being pronounced. Repetition of saying the letter’s name and the phonetic sound helps to link the letters with the sounds. Some of the students who have listened and repeated without looking will have a harder time when it comes to a spoken test where they are required to look at a letter/word and pronounce it correctly. The process of learning phonics is best done with textbooks where students have a place to refer to as well as introduce new vocabulary words.. Some techniques work well with a smaller class, such as drilling them with flash cards. While a larger class might work well with a bit of drilling and then a competition at the blackboard to recognize which letter’s sound you, the teacher, are saying. Remember, we are wanting them do two things: (1) know the letter by listening to the sound (2)Look at the letter and speak the pronunciation of the letter correctly. So, your drilling and review/competitions should include listening and speaking. In some education systems across Asia, learning phonics is not seen as an important building block in learning English, but rather a minor one. So third grade students (often the first year of English classes in public schools) are accustomed to learning a bit of phonics, along with vocabulary, sentence patterns, grammar, speaking, reading, and handwriting. With so many things to pay attention to, phonics seems to seem less important to learn. Sad as that seems, it does have many benefits in the long run. Just think about how difficult it would be to remember spelling, pronunciation, and comprehend spoken words, without being able to link it all together with phonics. This linking makes it easier to categorize/store in our brains together.


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