Skkn some solutions to improve the quality of learning phonics for students in class 3c – thiet ong primary school

THANH HOA EDUCATION & TRAINING DEPARTMENT BA THUOC CHAMBER OF EDUCATION & TRAINING EXPERIENCE INTIATIVE SOME SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF LEARNING PHONICS FOR STUDENTS IN CLASS 3C – THIET ONG PRIMARY SCHOOL Performed by: Pham Tuyet Suong Job title: Teacher Organization: Thiet Ong Primary school Exerience idea in subject field (English) THANH HOA, 2022 skkn INDEX INTRUDUCTION 1.1 The reason of choosing the topic 1.2 Research purposes 1.3 Research subjects 1.4 Methods of study 2 CONTENT OF INITIATIVE EXPERIENCE 2.1 Theoretical basis of experience initiative 2.2 Current status of the problem before applying experience initiatives 2.2.1 General situation 2.2.2 Status of teachers 2.2.3 Status of students 2.3 The solutions are used to solve the problem 2.3.1 basic steps to teach phonics that I have applied successfully at my school 2.3.2 Teaching phonics through songs, poems 2.3.3 Teaching phonics through practical training 11 2.3.4 Teaching phonic through simple activities 11 2.3.5 Some tips to teach phonic successfully 12 2.4 Effectiveness of experience initiatives for educational 15 activities, with myself, my colleagues and school CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 16 3.1 Conclusion 16 3.2 Recommendations 16 3.2.1 To the leaders 16 skkn 3.2.2 To the teachers 16 Reference books 18 skkn INTRODUCTION 1.1 The reasons of choosing topic Nowadays, English plays a very important role in many fields, even in education because of international intergration trend English is a communication tool and a key that leads to the human treasure On the other hand, application of information technology widely that made learning English become necessary Therefore, it is the second language, a compulsory subject of many countries around the world This need for global English learning has shown that English is extremely important and essential for economic and social development at the national level as well as for every individual in the society Teaching English for primary students has been cared specially by not only their teachers, their parents but also the education sector English becomes one of the most important subjects at school Especially in educational reform situation like nowadays, teaching English according to the communicative approaches is supported by many people Young learners have many chances to communicate with their friends, their teachers in order to practice language and take part in real situations actively and positively The traditional method in teaching and learning English is prior care for words, phrases and grammatical structures only That is the main cause for why students can’t communicate with others in English after many years learning English Nowadays, teachers and learners focus on four English skills: Speaking, Listening, Reading and Writing that need in communication It is true that how to say something is as important as what to say It means that it is necessary for you to acquire standard correct English pronunciation if you want to understand English speakers and want them to understand you The use of correct English pronunciation can the opposite understand what he said, and also understand the opposite easier and more accurate.The language skills are closely related to each other; skills to support other skills Correct pronunciation, therefore, is not only good for oral skills, but also to understand better for listening However, the pronunciation is a difficult skill; without the guidance and regular exercise, positive, the progress will be virtually impossible Besides, there are so many different factors related to teaching, learning methods, the influence of the mother tongue or conditions interact with native English speakers also not much affect the progress of learners From the above reasons, I strongly research and write the experience initiative named "Some solutions to improve the quality of learning phonics for students in class 3C – Thiet Ong Primary School” I decided to choose this topic with the desire to help students learn English well and can communicate in English Language learners communicate not only corectly but also self confidently in lessons This is more excited than they are willing to learn in order to improve their English pronunciation skkn 1.2 Research purposes To contribute to innovating English teaching methods in primary schools following the direction of promoting a positive, creative initiative of students, enhance individual coordinate activities with academic exchanges Formating and drilling skills to apply knowledge to perform the communicative process Create interest in learning English for students Language learners communicate not only corectly but also self confidently in lessons This is more excited than they are willing to learn in order to improve their English pronunciation but also help them strengthen and deepen knowledge further 1.3 Research subjects With this research I focused on the Primary students at Thiet Ong Primary School, especially the students of grade 1.4 Methods of study To research a topic, people often choose many different methods With this topic, I use the following methods: Theoretical research method: I read the conducting material issues related to my research needs Learning experience from my colleagues: Attend the colleagues’ lesson to follow their good method Experimental matching method Observation method 2.  CONTENT OF INITIATIVE EXPERIENCE 2.1 Theoretical basis of experience initiative Through a lot of research materials, as well as a combination of theory and practice, we need to rely on the basis of the following reasoning: Faced with a problem of teaching and learning that I think to figure out a way to teach phonics, and the work that I have written to teach phonics method in a class Teaching phonics to help students create atmosphere language learning correct pronunciation of words in lessons.Much purpose of teaching phonics in a language class is not intended to make students capable pronounced similar to the native because it is not practical, unless the school has a special talent and highly motivated.The goal is to teach phonics to help students gain an ability to pronounce correctly at a certain level to be able to communicate what they want to talk with other people Phonics is a teaching method used to help children learn to read Phonics breaks down words into individual sounds and syllables and shows children how each sound fits together to make up a word Children taught with phonics must learn the different vowel sounds, consonants and regular rules of English grammar Due to the learner's native language affects the pronunciation teaching English to people who need to have a certain understanding of the sound system of the learner’s mother tongue to first guess the difficulties and advantages of learner’s pronunciation Phonics helps your child learn to read and spell Without this ability, your child cannot be fully skkn literate Words are like codes and phonics teaches children how to crack the reading code Phonics is therefore an important part of any reading development program That is the reason Ministry of Education put on phonics lessons to Primary English 2.2 Current status of the problem before applying experience initiatives 2.2.1 General situation Analysis of my school’s performance in teaching and learning pronunciation recent years showed that our average score in phonics had been consistently below that of like other schools in urban areas It was a situation that was of concern and motivated a thorough examination of the school’s approach to the teaching of phonics Our school is a public primary school in a mountainous commune of Ba Thuoc district It is a large school with 767 students, ranging from to 10 years old There are three to four classes in most year levels, meaning that collaboration among teachers is extremely important to ensure consistency in learning programs In the accademic year 2010 - 2011, Ministry of Education and Training applied pronunciation International as the framework in the progam of teaching English for primary students After the first year of teaching the book I found that most of the students can not pronounce the new words correctly They only focused on grammar and vocabulary and didn’t like to learn pronunciation during the lesson 2.2.2 Status of teachers Many teachers in the Vietnam are faced with the challenge of teaching children to read and write in English, when the students have a heritage language that is not English and they are not yet proficient in English Normally when teaching a foreign language, teachers often focus on teaching vocabulary, grammar or structure However, grammar is not the final result of the teaching and learning process It is only a tool to help learners to communicate more effectively But in fact, there are some differences between spoken English and written English Written English requires the accuracy statement of the structure, whereas spoken English needs the flexibility and the intimacy in communication In addition, teachers lack supporting tools and modern teaching equipments They only use laptops and small speakers during class time Therefore, students' learning of listening is limited From those factors, there are some problems in teaching phonics for primary student at school However, in a number of causes, teachers and students can progressively overcome the difficulties Therefore, in the teaching process teachers must use some suitable techniques to teach students how to lean phonics effectively He or she should have creative and flexible approaches in using the methods of teaching phonics 2.2.3 Status of students skkn In fact, in the process of learning a foreign language, students often focus on learning grammar mainly because the test requires the application of grammar; the tests often have a few exercises with phonics In English class they have little chance to practice pronouncing Over time they lose their ability to communicate in English In addition, the limitation of students’ speaking skill of the have some reasons: - The old habit of learning English does not motivate students to communicate in English - Being lack of knowledge of English to communicate everyday - Having a few opportunities to practice English in the classroom with their teacher and classmates - Most of the students are from ethnic minorities, they have to use many languages: their mother tongue (Thai, Muong), Vietnamese and English While students are facing many difficulties with Vietnamese, they have to learn more English Accessing multiple languages at the same time is a great difficulty for many students, especially pronunciation The organization of teaching English in primary schools meets the needs of students in learning a foreign language elementary and accordants with the requirements of educational development On the other hand, learning English in primary school will help students get certain knowledge of English to be able to learn English better when they are at junior high school Pronounciation in the general case, particularly in primary schools has long been a problem Many students encounter new words they not know how to pronounce Often teachers must International Phonetic form and read to students Some times the students forget how to pronounce it late In practically, teaching at my school, I notice that some of them have the ability to read and pronounce very well Besides, there are some children who have difficulty in pronunciation They are afraid of the wrong director, afraid of friend’s laugh; resultingly they are shy saying, less communicates and read the words As well as students mispronounce, this leads to make a marked accent and intonation wrong So to have good methods of teaching reading - speaking - pronunciation well, I have conducted a survey on the eighth of October 2021, the first term for 2021- 2022 school year to classify students SURVEY Read the following sentences aloud: Hello, Peter How are you? Goodbye, Miss Hien Bye, Mai Is that Tony? Yes, it is The following table is the result of students in English in class 3C at Thiet Ong Primary School RESULT BEFORE APPLYING THE RESEARCH IN TEACHING skkn Students Excellent Average Fail 30 students (6,7%) 15 students (50%) 13 students (43,3%) This table shows the number of students pronounce the words weakly account for 43,3 percent 2.3 The solutions are used to solve the problem According to the present situation in English classes at my school, pronouncing wrong still exists in all grades, especially in grade To improve this situation, I would like to present the defintion of phonics, some methods of teaching phonics and elicit the stages of teaching phonics for primary student which I have researched and applied quite successfully at my school Why is pronunciation important? Pronunciation is about so much more than accent!  Many of the features that play a role in pronunciation also are important in reading and writing Understanding how to make specific sounds and how sounds are similar helps with spelling and decoding (sounding out) unfamiliar words. This understanding of phonetics can help teachers and parents understand kids' spelling and reading errors, too Understanding stress and intonation helps speakers be more understandable.  It also helps readers develop their reading fluency Stress and intonation make a big different in comprehension!  Not only that, but they help us convey emphasis and feelings.  There has been much confusion over this term Phonics is a method of teaching beginners to read and pronounce words by learning to associate letters or letter groups (graphemes or phonograms) with the sounds they represent (phonemes) Students must learn to unravel the secrets of the code (in other words, decode) before they can comprehend the meaning of the written word Phonics is seen to be an improvement on the previously used method of learning the approximate sounds represented by letters (b=buh) first and then blending them with other sounds (bl=bluh) to decode and encode words in written form This newer method attempts to eliminate the extraneous "uh" sounds which were unavoidable in the older method Children also learn strategies to figure out words they don't know It is considered an "analytical" approach where students analyze the letters, letter combinations and syllables in a word; in an effort to "decode" the speech-sounds represented by the letters and the meaning of the text The advantage of phonics is that, especially for students who come to schools with large English vocabularies, it enables students to decode or "sound-out" a word they have in their speaking vocabulary 2.3.1 basic steps to teach phonics that I have applied successfully at my school Step 1: Introducing the sounds in the songs, rhymes or chants; teaching new words using word cards, real objects, pictures, etc… focusing on the sounds of letters and words skkn Step 2: Playing the recording a few time or let pupils listen to the Robot Teacher; having them repeat each line of the Songs/ Rhymes/ Chants and clap the words containing the focused sounds Step 3: Clap your hands to the beat while listening to the words that contain the sound that need to be trained Step 4: Organizing students to practice in pairs or groups to practice the songs, rhymes or chants Step 5: Calling on some volunteers to perform the Songs/ Rhymes/ Chants at the front of the class and have the rest of the class clap the rhythm of the chant However, for children I usually use to teach pronunciation simply, especially for students in grade 3: Listen and repeat It need to be noted that in the classroom, the correct pronunciation of the teachers is not enough, it also needs the modern equipments such as speakers, audio visual, and teacher shows the picture discribe the possition of the tounge For example: In unit 2: “p” is pronouced / p / Consonant /p/   Introduction: is voiceless consonant sound which is created by two lips (bilabial), power-on (flosive) How to pronounce: the first upper and lower lips close and then opene his mouth slightly ,turn inside out to create a sound /p /, pronounce fast Identify: skkn Only consonants "p" is pronounced as /p/ when it stands at the top of a word, the end of a word or after In unit 5: I teach vowel “e” Short vowel /æ/ Introduction: /æ/ is a short sound Open your mouth wide It's pronounced /æ/ /æ/ Identify the vowels which are pronounced /æ/ “a" is pronounced / æ / in the following cases: In one-syllable words that end in one or more consonants In unit 5: I teach vowel “a” Short vowel /ʌ/   Introduction: Open your mouth wide by 1/2 compared to the pronounced/æ/ and give tongue back I dentify the vowels which are pronounced /ʌ/ In unit 8: “th” is pronounced /ð/ skkn Consonant /ð/   Introduction: sonant (voiced consonant), tip-dental, rubbing consonants (fricative) How to pronounce: Similar to pronounce / θ /, using voice sound vibrations generated in the palate Identify:"th" is pronounced / θ / Students practise chanting 2.3.2 Teaching phonics through songs, poems No one can deny the important influence of the music and poetry of human life. Most everyone loves music. It's always with people whether that person happy or sad. It appears everywhere, all the time to share joy or sadness relieve when we need to. Futhermore, poetry-music can increase concentration, skkn enhance memory, makes people closer together, creating motivation and joy in learning, makes people relax when they are depressed or stress, Because of the tremendous value that brings poetry to music, it has been used as educators’ useful tool in teaching. And now the use of songs, poetry as a tool to support the learning of foreign languages is quite common. Just a few tunes of the song, students can learn the culture of authentic language, vocabulary, grammar, listening skills, and a variety of other skills Using song and poem in class can make the classroom atmosphere become fun and dynamic Students will not feel stressed, even scared like to speak English in class solemn atmosphere. It is this will make them feel really excited and voluntary participation in classroom activities The songs, poems not only create excitement for student learning, but also contains elements of very rich language including pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar The songs, poetry can help students to learn about pronunciation. For learners of English in general and in particular primary school students, there’re some sound that are very difficult to imitate because our mother tongue does not have this sound such as: /ð/, /θ/, /æ/, Therefore, you must learn how to pronounce inflexibly that can still not pronounce. The wrong pronunciation which can change the meaning of the phrases will not lead to communication results, because listeners misinterpreted the transmission of information Songs, poems can help them overcome this. The melody of the song, the rhythm of the poem often repeated a similar sound. When they heard many times, they will indirectly be told how to pronounce the sound that makes you remember them and eventually the correct pronunciation For exemple, In Unit 10: I have students chant the poem “What you at break time?” skkn 10 After chanting, they can pronounce the couples of consonants br and pl fluently In Unit 6: The students can sing the song Come in and Sit down to lean the consonant c and d Students practise singing in group skkn 11 2.3.3 Teaching phonics through practical training In the process of teaching phonic I often organize activities to practice and reinforce training words temperate through listening, speaking, reading and writing to increase fluency when students use words. These activities will help students focus on the identification and proficient use of the learned words in each context Along with that, I myself always focused on the role of students in teaching and learning vocabulary. I always encourage them to participate actively in the learning process through a long and continuous 2.3.4 Teaching phonic through simple activities a Training of the voice According to their favorite children love the voice and intonation of someone? Former US President Bill Clinton, pop princess Kylie Minogue famous Australian or British actor Hugh Grant legend It would be nice if she heard the voice of the character that kid fans So let's listen to their students very often, pay attention to their English pronunciation, and then speaking like them The ability to pronounce the students will be improving fast Creating an English listening and speaking atmostphere for children to listen to English as much as possible using some English kid programmes such as: Enslish cartoons, English songs, … at the begining os at the end of the classes During lessons, teachers must give students chances to listen and practise speaking as much as possible Students listen to the dialogues then practise with partners by role playing So that students can hear native speaker voices that help them how to pronouce a word or phrase correctly and how to raise or fall their tune nicely or even how to link the sounds For exemple In review 1, students can listen and learn to read an interesting story about their close animals skkn 12 b “Getting acquainted” with students’ voice Hear how the students said, pronounce the star then please point out mistakes or suffer little and after a little free time can help them Let them prepare before the talk, recorded on an MP3 player or phone and then listen to every word There will be a new way of training and effective for these angels of our talented child Clearly show them how to say, clearly pronounce each word until the end The important thing is how to say others can understand Make sure children speak clearly and understand people hear what they said The teacher can improve their English pronunciation skills but children right on the tablet of their mini This is a tool that I can help students pronouce effectively Speaking Lab All the teacher need is a computer outside the Internet, speakers and microphones Pronunciation training students is hard work, requiring long process of trying to train children as well as parents of students Happy parents & kids achieve increasingly better results 2.3.5 Some tips to teach phonic successfully There are 44 sounds in the English language, which we put together to form words Some are represented by one letter, like 't', and some by two or more , like 'ck' in duck and 'air' in chair.Children are taught the sounds first, then how to match them to letters, and finally how to use the letter sounds for reading and spelling Synthetic phonics refers to 'synthesising', or blending, the sounds to read words It's based on the idea that children should sound out unknown words and not rely on their context Once the first sounds have been taught, children are introduced to the idea that sounds can be represented by more than one letter (i as in tiger, ie as in pie, igh as in night) and that sounds can be written in different ways A systematic approach can facilitate the children’s progress towards independent reading and writing skkn 13 Now I specifically refer to some tips for teaching phonics in English and use them to the lessons which are applied for students in grade at my school - One sound at a time: Introduce one sound at a time For example, the sound /ei/, as in rain, train, etc, can be practised before moving on to other sounds In Unit 19: - Context: Introduce each sound in a simple context that the students will understand If the context is too complex, students will struggle to understand and their attention will be divided For example, the consonant “h” can be taught in the chant Hello *Model the sounds: Always say the sound and not the letter name when teaching phonics In Unit 3: Some sounds are short eg: ‘t’, so it is a good idea to repeat the sound a few times so that the students can hear it properly: ‘t, t, t, t’ In Unit 4: Some are long “f, f, f, f” We can stretch these sounds out as we model them skkn 14 - Use simple examples: After the introduction of the sound in context, show a selection of images that contain the target sound Ask students to repeat the sound Don’t show the words for these images at this stage Emphasize the target sound in these words. Use vocabulary items the children are familiar with In Unit 7: - Reading: Practice makes perfect, so once you have taught the first six sounds, introduce the students to captions and mini-stories that contain only the sounds they have learnt so far, eg sit in “sit down”. The students will begin to gain confidence and realize that they can read on their own In Unit 6: skkn 15 - Writing: Some sounds require extra teaching as they have multiple graphemes. Sounds such as ‘c’, ‘s’ ‘cl’ and ‘st’ will require or separate input sessions Students will quickly begin to read words containing the three different graphemes, but extra work will be required to help them determine when to write each one If you have mini-whiteboards, short dictations can help as can activities that encourage the students sort and classify words according to spelling In Unit 6: - Actions: If you are using a multi-sensory method where you introduce the letter sounds accompanied by an action, this will aid students’ memories and serve as a tool to help them read more difficult sounds This way, instead of reading the word for the students when they get stuck, use the action to remind them of the sound to get them back on track - Review all the sounds you have taught before introducing a new one: Stick the grapheme cards you have introduced so far on the board and point to each one in turn Make sure the children are confident in making the sounds before you move on 2.4 Effectiveness of experience initiatives for educational activities, with myself, my colleagues and school After a period of application of the new method, in addition to guided reading, students always diligent, painstake reading English, the learning of the children has increased significantly I conduct the survey again, on the eighth of April 2022, the second term for 2021 - 2022 school year SURVEY Read the following sentences aloud: Do you have any parrots? Where are the cats? I like kites, ships and trucks How many dolls you have? Does she have any planes? skkn 16 Most children prefer to read and learn English After the self-study training methods English courses for students in class 3C, I obtained the following results: Students Excellent Average Fail 30 students (26,64%) 20 students (66,66%) students (6,7%) Through this table we can see the quality of students increased significantly, along with the quality of their learning interests also greatly increased I can see them eagerly participate in English lessons which I have tought This major helps students learn better, remember new vocabulary, sentences structures longer and apply in practice well CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 3.1 Conclusion Through teaching phonics for students in grade 3, I have summarized some small experience and the results are very encouraging Number of students who read slowly, read poorly in class had dropped a lot of sense demonstrate their learning very well.These classes are very eager to learn English, not toxins Clearly that many of them well vocally train And the first step to learning in English has prospered It is also important for children to learn in different parts of the program Sometimes I use the phonics songs in my lessons to make my lessons more lively and effectivel This experience is the best method of instruction in English pronunciation that I boldly launch.I think this is a very interesting problem in ordinary English I look forward to the comments of the teacher, to hone expertise in the teaching process more 3.2 Recommendations: 3.2.1 To the leaders: To enhance the capacity of teachers in teaching English, the leaders should organize the training courses for the English teachers regularly Through the training courses, teachers have the opportunity to exchange and learn their experience 3.2.2 To the teachers: - Being creative and active in teaching English, especially in teaching pronunciation - The exercise allows clear practice in production and reception and gives concise feedback to individual learners as to where their problms lie in these areas and how to repair them Often these are very simple physical questions such as not rounding the lips as in / u: / in fool, which the teacher can help them focus on skkn 17 - This, in turn, allows discussion on learning strategies for pronunciation which can be drawn up it the classroom With the implementation of foreign language instruction under the direction of communication and respect not only vocabulary and grammar, but also phonetic, I found myself alone has obtained some positive results However, due to the characteristics of the subjects are subjects requiring specialized attention of learners, gifted language learning environment and need to communicate effectively in English of topics should not met as expected Thiet Ong, April 10th, 2022 CONFIRMATION OF THE I pledge that this is my initiative HEAD OF UNIT experience experience I don’t copy the content of others HEADMASTER Written by Trinh Hong Van Pham Tuyet Suong skkn 18 REFERENCE BOOKS English English’s teacher book Oxford Advanced Leaner’s Dictionary - New Edition 1991 Fraser, H (2001) Teaching pronunciation: A handbook for teachers and trainers New Southwales Department of Education and Training English Pronunciation in use Tips for encouraging CPS to speak English David F Dalton Academ 01.chs itesm.mx Chiapas Hedge, T (2000) Teaching and learning in the language classroom Oxford: Oxford University Press skkn ... reasons, I strongly research and write the experience initiative named "Some solutions to improve the quality of learning phonics for students in class 3C – Thiet Ong Primary School? ?? I decided to choose... is The following table is the result of students in English in class 3C at Thiet Ong Primary School RESULT BEFORE APPLYING THE RESEARCH IN TEACHING skkn Students Excellent Average Fail 30 students. .. equipments They only use laptops and small speakers during class time Therefore, students'' learning of listening is limited From those factors, there are some problems in teaching phonics for primary