Solutions to improve the quality of teaching phonics for the students of grade 4

1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 REASON FOR CHOOSING THE TOPIC "English has become the medium of all relevant social interactions and the ability to use English effectively is considered an absolute essential for honorable existence." - Quotation from a retired Army Colonel English is a pre-eminent world language, it is at the heart of our culture and it is the language medium in which most of our pupils think and communicate It plays a very important role in in human life English is not only the language in the field of international communication but also the language of the science, information technology, socio-cultural, tourism and commercial,etc In Vietnam, English is considered as a compulsory subject at school, especially Primary School With the trend of international integration , Vietnam is increasingly able to be fully available in all areas Communicative languages becomes an effective tool in every aspects of life Besides the mother tongue, the Vietnamese consider English as the second communicative language and the major subject in the school course To meet the growing demand as well as communication needs of society, the Ministry of Education and Training has put English into the progam at Primary School The English program in Primary Schools is to form and develop for students the knowledge and basic skills in English, through learning English, students gain knowledge and their love for the Vietnamese Learning English not only contributes for the development of personality and learning style but also provides students with basic knowledge and help students understand initially the knowledge about the people and culture of English speaking countries At Primary School, English is a subject which has its own characteristics Therefore teachers are like an artist , he or she need to be creative and cheerful in order to involve students in learning English excitingly As a teacher of English at Primary School, I am always awared of researching the specific methods in teaching English, especially in teaching phonics in order to make the students to believe that they can speak English fluently and naturally Children will not be motivated to speak in English unless they are presented with words in context Once they believe this, we will be able to focus on improve the quality of their outputs The process of learning is just as important as the final product, and the children need to be encouraged to experiment with ideas and work collaboratively to share ideas Creating a positive classrooom ethos where children feel empowered to work in a collaborative way is an important role of the teacher We need to understand the inter-relationship between speaking, listening, reading and writing and we need to plan for speaking opportunities in the classroom in the same way that we plan for teaching phonics Phonics is a method of teaching reading that emphasizes the predictable relationship between sounds and the alphabetic symbols in our language It is also called “alphabetic principles.” There has been great controversy about the necessity of teaching phonics in our country for many years It is a method for teaching reading and writing the English language by developing learners’ phonemic awareness the ability to hear, identify and manipulate phonemes in order to teach the correspondence between these sounds and the spelling patterns that represent them The goal of phonics is to enable beginning readers to decode new written words by sounding them out, or in phonics terms, blending the sound-spelling patterns Since it focuses on the spoken and written units within words, phonics is a sublexical approach and, as a result, is often contrasted with whole language, a word-level-up philosophy for teaching reading Phonics is once again a hot topic that teachers, parents, school board members and legislators are discussing about it In this research, there was little knowledge on which to base decisions regarding how phonics should be taught at Primary School In the decades since, we have accumulated vast amounts of knowledge about how brain works, how children learn, and how words are structured After exploring and accumulating the experiences from colleagues, I have applied modern teaching methods in teaching phonics and achieved quite effective results The students are more interested in learning English and more confident in speaking before the class This improves that my methods are right With the passion and the love for teaching English, I have studied and developed the research: "Solutions to improve the quality of teaching phonics for the students of grade " 1.2 THE PURPOSE OF THE RESEARCH - The research applies the methods of teaching phonics to involve students in learning phonics well - Creating the language circumstance to communicate in English and promote students to actively participate in communicative activities; offering some solutions to help students use knowledge of vocabulary, phonetics and grammar in communication - Giving some solutions and methods for teaching phonics - Exchanging and sharing some methods of teaching phonics for primary students 1.3 RESEARCH OBJECTS - The object of study: With this research I focused on the students of grade - Systematizing some theoretical issues about the procedures and activities in teaching phonics in English Primary program according to the communicative approach - Exploring the present situation of teaching phonics at Primary School 1.4 RESEARCH METHODS 1.4.1 Theoretical research method : Researching and reading legal documents, scientific literature and textbooks which are related to researching problems by means of analysis , synthesis, comparison, to find the theoretical issues as a basis for solving problems and researching tasks 1.4.2 Survey Method : To survey the actual situation of teaching and learning phonics at Primary School in order to discover new problems that need to be solved, determining the common causes and preparing for the next procedures 1.4.3 Conversation Method: Exchanging to colleagues about the advantages and disadvantages of phonics and know how to use it to develop speaking skill for elemantary students 1.4.4 Observation Method : Observating the colleagues’ classes 1.4.5 Comparison Method : During the researching and teaching in grade 4, I have used this method to compare the survey results before and after applying the experiences of teaching phonics 1.4.6 Checking and assessment Method: Through the lessons and students’ test survey From the test results of the assessment I classified the students into groups and had suitable methods for each kind of student 1.4.7 Group of complementary Methods : - Methods of mathematical statistics - Methods of data analysis 1.5 NEW POINTS OF EXPERIENCE INITIATIVE These new features are to share solutions in teaching phonics to develop speaking skills for elementary students, helping them be more confident to communicate in English RESEARCH CONTENTS 2.1 RATIONALE: A significant base of research, developed over many years, is available to inform educators about effective approaches to teaching children to read However, research on applying the methods of teaching phonics for primary students is in its infancy This reflects the fact that 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 Making this a more critical issue, several studies suggest that teachers are not receiving adequate professional development in effective strategies to teach phonics for studnts As part of the effort to learn more about teaching phonics for primary students, educational researchers and teachers in Vietnam have looked at instructional practices in Primary Schools When those Primary Schools are faced with the challenge of teaching phonics for children, there has been greatest transfer of best practices Research and close observation of teaching phonics has been conducted in primary education system, and a smaller amount of research in Vietnam for the obvious reason that phonics helps to prevent common errors that arise from sight reading; it ensures that children adopt a rigorous strategy that enables them to deconstruct each word individually, rather than trying to remember what the word looks like This will benefit children from all backgrounds If they have internalised some words through sight reading, this method will help to iron out any errors In addition, phonics can help support those who aren’t from culturally rich homes If students aren’t read to at home, they will have a lesser reservoir of sight-learned words to draw from when reading If we teach them the phonics strategy, they will be able to approach any new word with more confidence If kids feel confident when reading, and experience the sense of success from being able to successfully decode, reading will become a more pleasurable experience for them In order to make best use of the information presented in this research, many teachers might want to consider the following set of questions together in preparation for making decisions about teaching phonics for primary students Note that this research focuses on teaching phonics to help children in the elementary grades learn to read It does not address many other important issues about the impact of phonics on literacy, such as what it means to be information literate in the 21st century Nor does it address the role of phonics in language arts in general, or in reading beyond the elementary level Educators generally agree that children learning to read and write English need to understand that there is a relationship between letter patterns and sound patterns in English (the alphabetic principle), to internalize major relationships between letter and sound patterns, and eventually to develop an awareness of the "separate" sounds in words (phonemic awareness) In other words, educators agree that emergent readers and writers need to develop a functional command of what is commonly called phonics However, this does not not necessarily mean that children should be taught phonics intensively and systematically, through special phonics programs or even through phonics lessons in basal reading books and workbooks Indeed, various lines of research argue for helping children develop phonics knowledge in the context of reading and enjoying literature and in the context of writing, rather than through isolated skills lessons Many of these reasons are listed below, followed by a list of ways that teachers can help children learn phonics and develop phonemic awareness while reading and writing interesting texts Despite extravagant claims found in the popular media, research does not strongly support the teaching of phonics intensively and systematically-and certainly not phonics first At best, systematic phonics (in comparison with traditional basal-reader/whole word approaches) may produce better scores on reading comprehension tests, but only through grade (Chall, 1967/1983) A recent study suggests that an approach which emphasizes phonemic awareness and phonics may get children off to an earlier start in grasping letter/sound relationships and reading words than an approach that embeds phonics in a whole literacy context, but the direct instruction, whole language, and embedded phonics groups showed no significant differences in comprehension (Foorman et al., forthcoming) Overall, "there is little evidence that one form of phonics instruction is strongly superior to another" (Stahl, McKenna, & Pagnucco, 1994) in developing phonics knowledge and phonemic awareness 2.2 THE PRESENT SITUATION OF THE PROBLEM Analysis of my school’s performance in teaching and learning phonics in 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 the center of Thanh Hoa city It is a large school with around 1747 students, ranging from to 10 years old There are seven to eight classes in most year levels, meaning that collaboration among teachers is extremely important to ensure consistency in learning programs In the school year 2009 - 2010, Ministry of Education and Training applied Phonics International as the framework in the progam of teaching English for primary students After some year of teaching Enlish 4, 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 phonics during the lesson 2.2.1 About students: 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 2.2.2 About the teacher : 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 learner 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 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 About the teaching facilities My school has facilities of teaching and learning to meet the needs of specific subjects such as: projectors, the modern teaching equipment like Robot Teacher, Television, CD player,etc So the application of teaching phonics is quite effectively 2.2.4 The quality survey and students’ classification Based on the present situation of students in class the level of all students is acquired after a few weeks of the school year with the methods of teaching phonics I had 40 minutes to test students in class 4D to survey and classify the students The result is: Class The numbers Excellen Good Fair Poor Fail of students t (B) (C) (D) (F) (A) 4D 49 = 12% 12 = 24% 21= 44% 10= 20% According to the survey result, I have classified the students and immediately applied the methods and experiences which I accumulated over the years to improve the teaching and learning quality 2.3 THE SOLUSIONS According to the present situation in English classes at my school, pronouncing wrong still exists in all grades from to 5, 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 2.3.1 What is Phonics? 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 2.3.2 How much phonics is enough? Phonics is the training wheels of reading So, how much phonics is enough? When we take off the training wheels and let them fly? You see, that is the question; how much phonics and practice are needed for mastery? Some of us may need training wheels a lot longer than others Too little, and some children will become struggling readers unnecessarily Too much, and some can develop an overdependence on phonics if it’s pushed too hard and too long Phonics is a means to an end, and generally speaking, most of the phonics a child will need can be covered in two years with more advanced concepts taught in quick mini-lessons at later years One study I read said that grade phonics could be covered in forty minutes per day, while in grade 4; it should only take twenty minutes After that, it can be covered in just a few minutes per week, especially if you’re using a phonics-based spelling program and take the time to teach the phonics concepts Students need to be encouraged to work toward automatically recognizing larger and larger chunks of the words But in the meantime, they must learn the code if they’re every going to be able to read easily The primary focus of phonics instruction is to help beginning readers understand how letters are linked to sounds (phonemes) to form letter-sound correspondences and spelling patterns and to help them learn how to apply this knowledge in their reading Phonics instruction may be provided systematically or incidentally The hallmark of a systematic phonics approach or program is that a sequential set of phonics elements is delineated and these elements are taught along a dimension of explicitness depending on the type of phonics method employed Conversely, with incidental phonics instruction, the teacher does not follow a planned sequence of phonics elements to guide instruction but highlights particular elements opportunistically when they appear in text Phonics is presented in part of lesson in all Units of the book “ English 4” which is published by Vietnamese Educational Publishers Teaching pronunciation in English consist of teaching Phonics and Songs/ Rhymes/Chants Phonics enables pupils to recognise the relatioship between letters or letter combinations and the souds they make With the knowledge of phonics, pupils are able to improve their speaking and reading skills because they can identify the spelling and the pronunciation patterns of listening new words and decode them quikly Focus the pupils’ attentions on the letter and its sounds in words, and model the new sounds a few times for pupils to repeat In teaching Phonics and Songs/ Rhymes/ Chants, it is advisable that the teacher should introduce the Songs/ Rhymes/ Chants in which the new sounds are embedded; teach new vocabulary, using flashcards, realia, pictures,etc; and mime the lines if it is possible Teaching pronunciation in the book “ English 4” includes teaching phonics, songs, rhymes all chants Pronunciation help students recognize the relationship between letters and letters with the corresponding sounds With knowledge of pronunciation, students can improve their speaking and reading skill because they can recognize patterns pronunciation and spelling of new words when listening Here are basic steps to teach phonics that I have applied successfully at my school: Step : 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 Step : 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 : Clap your hands to the beat while listening to the words that contain the sound that need to be trained Step : Organizing students to practice in pairs or groups to practice the songs, rhymes or chants Step : 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 Those are five steps that I usually use to teach phonics in Lesson 2: 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, CD player, Robot teacher,etc For example: Unit 7: Places in my school - Lesson (Page 48) Listen and repeat - Have students look at the words small and big and notice the letters coloured differently in both words - Tell them they are going to distinguish and produce the sounds sm in small and that of b in big - Produce the sounds sm and b a few times And ask students to say what they think about when they hear these sounds - Teach the words book, pen, big, small and together Small Big Look Look A big book Look.Look A small book Big, small Big, small Big and small togetther - Play the recording all the way through for students to listen as they read the chant on the board or in their books Clap the syllables - Play the recording again for students to repeat each line of the chant and clap the syllables - Call on the group of six to the front of the class, have three of them repeat each line of the chant, and the other three clap the syllables Repeat the step but this time have the students swap their parts - Ask students to practice saying and clapping the chant in groups - Monitor the activity and offer help; correct pronnciation error(s) (stress, assimilation of sounds, intonation) when necessary - Call on a group to recite the chant The rest of the class clap the syllables - Ask some questions about the chant to ensure students’ comprehension of the language - Have the whole class recite the chant and clap the syllables to reinforce their pronunciation 2.3.3 Ten Simple Phonics Activities Getting students to discover and practice the connections between letters and the sounds they represent should be an important part of any English class routine The following activities can be adjusted to meet different levels and adapted to fit into any timeframe Please note that not every activity you in class has to be extremely challenging Simple ideas that everybody is able to accomplish can work wonders with student confidence which, in turn, can increase motivation The following are ten activities that can assist us in practicing phonics at any point in the lesson: * Letters on the Board: At first, the teacher writes some letters on the board The teacher reads out a word, one at a time, and asks the students to try and spell each word using only the letters on the board It is always a good idea to stop after the first word in order to write the correct spelling on the board This can then be used as a reference point for the students for successive words After reading out five to ten words, go through the spellings of each word Also, limit the number of vowel sounds you practice as the variety of sounds they represent can be really challenging for students, especially beginners * Speed Reading: Write a number of words on the board If necessary, go over the pronunciation of each word Then read through a list of the same words at a good speed leaving out only one of the words The students should be listening to you read the list of words while following along on the board After you are finished, they tell you which word (words) you did not read out This activity can be targeted for a higher level by adjusting the vocabulary used, the speed you read, the number of words you leave off, or by doing additional tasks * Battleship Phonics: This is based on the popular game Battleship The teacher would draw a grid on the board with initial sounds written across the top, and medial and final sounds written together down the left side of the grid You would let the students know that you have chosen a few squares as ‘special squares’ that they should seek out They find these squares by volunteering to say a whole word made up of a letter at the top and the side of the grid The intersection of this row and column highlights a particular square The object is for the students to find all your designated special locations * Phonics Bingo: Write a good number of sounds on the board, e.g., pha, ma, la, ga The students would choose a designated number of sounds you wrote and write them on an available space for writing You would then play this like bingo and read out the sounds one by one The students can get bingo when they have three of their sounds chosen or all of their sounds chosen It is a good idea to go over all of the sounds written on the board beforehand to help ease comprehension * Criss-cross Phonics: All the students stand up To begin, show a word or a picture The first student to raise their hand gets called upon and if they can correctly say the first (or last) sound of that word they can sit down and choose if the people in their row, horizontally or vertically, can also sit down Gradually, there are fewer and fewer students standing * Missing Sound: Draw or show an image on the blackboard Beside the image, write all but one of the sounds For example, there is a picture of a dog on the board, you write ‘og’ beside it and the students have to provide you with the missing sound, not the letter This can be made into a group contest or a simple whole - class exercise where you would give the class time to think of the answer and get everyone to say the answer at the same time * Two Sounds: Good to practice sound distinction Have two words on the board representing the two different sounds you would like to practice, e.g., MEN, MAN You would then show the students pictures and get them to put those words under the appropriate column For example, you show a picture of a pen, the students should write ‘pen’ under the MEN column (If you are dealing with beginners, they could just mark their choice with an ‘X’ under the column 10 instead of asking them to write out the words You would, however, have to give numbers before every word to help everybody keep track of choices.) * Beginning/Middle/End: Students copy down the chart you provided on the board which is divided into three sections You can label the three sections, ‘beginning’, ‘middle’ and ‘end’ in English or the native language of your students You would focus on a specific sound and read out words containing that sound The students would have to decide if that sound was found in the beginning, middle or end of the word by writing the sound in that appropriate column * Ball and Cap Game: The students pass around a hat and a ball When the music stops, the student with the hat must take out a piece of paper with a letter or letters written on it then read out its sound, not the letter name The student with the ball must guess the letter(s) * Pen and Eraser: Students have a pen and an eraser in front of them You have two sounds you would like to practice, e.g., ‘f’ and ‘v’ sounds, and designate one sound for the pen and one sound for the eraser When you say a word beginning with one of those sounds, the students should pick up the appropriate object (for upper levels, the sound can be in any part of the word not just the beginning) If you say a word not incorporating one of the sounds, the students should make a big X with their arms This can evolve into a pair contest with one pen and one eraser for every two students * Concluding Remarks: Matching sounds to letters and letters to sounds can be quite a tricky and daunting task when students are learning English Activities such as these are simple to initiate, easily adaptable, and are good ways to practice and enforce English phonics 2.3.4 Creating a friendly and close atmosphere in class: One of the factors that make the lesson be successful is the atmosphere of the classroom The lesson can not be effective when students and teachers work with stress, especially in the speaking lesson Therefore, teachers should always be the person who is creative and skilful to to make the lesson more interesting and exciting There are some principles to follow in teaching speaking skill : - Do not force students to speak properly as teacher wants Let them express their idea, then the teacher comments and suggests - Do not interrupt when students are presenting their idea - Encouraging students with brief praises such as: Good!, Excellent!, Well done!, etc… - Creating a relaxing and close atmosphere by some small games related to the lesson or some English songs/ chants After the first task of the lesson, teacher can give students some questions : " Now , students Task You did very well and I give you three minutes off Do you like this ? / Do you want to play a small game ? / Do you want to sing a song ? ", etc… This is not only makes the classroom’s atmosphere be more comfortable but also helps students to increase communication between teachers and students 2.3.5 Teaching students both British English and American English 11 English is the international language so in each country it has some differences in spelling and pronunciation Most English documents are published according to the popular pronunciations of British English and American English Actually we can not compare the accuracy of the British English or American English, that why it is important to teach the students in using both American English and British English There are three major differences between British English and American English: + Speech - the differences are in both vowels and consonants, as well as emphasis and intonation + Vocabulary - the differences are nouns and verbs, especially the use of phrasal verbs + Spelling - the differences are generally found in the form of prefixes and suffixes certain In the Primary English program, teaching pronunciation according to the pronunciations of British - English and American – English is very important Teachers need to give students the differences between them in order to help the students undersand the context in any ways These are some words that have the differences between British - English and American – English: British - English American – English Bookstore Bookshop Favourite Favorite: Autumn Fall Candy Sweet Football Soccer Colour color 2.3.6 Tips for successful phonic teaching: Phonics is a highly effective method we can use to teach children to read and write Instead of just learning the 26 letters of the alphabet, the children are taught 42 sounds of English The children are taught to identify individual sounds (phonemes) in oral language, then they learn the way these sounds are represented by letters (graphemes) If we teach the 42 sounds to the children one by one, we can provide the children with the tools to begin to read and write on their own Children are taught how to blend the sounds together to read words and segment them for spelling 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 These are ten tips for teaching phonics that I have applied successful for my students 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 12 *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 * Model the sounds: Always say the sound and not the letter name when teaching phonics 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’ Some are long eg ‘ffffff’ We can stretch these sounds out as we model them * Use simple examples: After the introduction of the sound in context, show a selection of images that contain the target sound Point to each one in turn, naming as you so and encourage the students to repeat after you 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 * 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 * Blending and segmenting: Once you have introduced the first two or three sounds, show the children how to blend them together to read words Start by pushing the graphemes together to form two letter words eg i-t it, a-t at and move on to cvc words eg sat, sit, pat, pit Use word cards containing only the sounds you have introduced and encourage the students to blend these sounds for reading Show them how to segment by saying words and teaching the children to separate them into individual phonemes For example, tell the students you are going to say some words and they have to listen and tell you the sound at the beginning, middle or end (use your arm to demonstrate) For example: T: tin (segmenting and blending with your arm as you so) Repeat, encouraging the students to join in T: Which sound is at the beginning (t) / in the middle (i) / at the end(n)? (use your arm: touch your shoulder / elbow / hand) tin how ant sit Nam Big Tom pen can hi * Games: Introduce a variety of games for the students to start to discriminate between sounds (+) Sound and action: Materials: grapheme cards Hold up the graphemes one by one at random Have the students say the sound and the action in quick succession (+) Pick a sound: Materials: sound cards (one for each student) in a box Let students sit in a circle and give the first student the box The student picks a card from the box, identifies the phoneme (eg ‘p’) and thinks of something beginning with that sound (eg ‘pig’) Pass the box to the next student and repeat * 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 13 sounds they have learnt so far, eg sit in a tin / pat an ant The students will begin to gain confidence and realize that they can read on their own * Writing: Some sounds require extra teaching as they have multiple graphemes Sounds such as ‘c’, ‘k’ and ‘ck’ 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 * 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 2.3.7 Alphabetic knowledge and some kinds of exercises for teaching the alphabet * Alphabetic knowledge: The goal of instruction that develops alphabet knowledge is to get children to recognize and name letters quickly and accurately (Adams, 1990) Knowledge of letter names is strongly related to children's ability to remember the forms of written words, to treat words as sequences of letters, and to develop the alphabetic principle: the association of letters with their corresponding sounds Alphabetic knowledge progresses from letter names to letter shapes (the form) to letter sounds Learning letter names and sounds seems straightforward; however, children whose home language is logographic will also be learning a new alphabet system, while children from other alphabetic languages may only be learning new names and sounds for letters they have seen before You may need to provide more explicit instruction and more opportunities to practice those sounds and letters that have no equivalent in children's home language, since they may have difficulty hearing and pronouncing them Their inability to pronounce some sounds does not necessarily indicate lack of knowledge While you want to support children in pronouncing the sounds correctly by demonstrating how to position the mouth, teeth, and tongue, be careful not to turn the lesson into a speech lesson or to stop instruction of new letters until they master one that is difficult to pronounce Children who not know letter names and sounds, whether due to lack of instruction or because they are just learning English, need planned instruction that provides many opportunities to see, play with, and compare letters Some children can learn several letters each week, while others may only learn one Include games, songs, and other activities that help children identify and name letters, provide activities in which children learn uppercase and lowercase forms of letters, and point out differences and similarities among the letters In addition, plan writing activities that encourage children to practice making the letters they are learning and provide them 14 opportunities to experiment with and manipulate letters to make words and messages (Blevins, 1998; TEA, 2000) * Some kinds of exercises for teaching the alphabet (1) Listening: You can you teach students to listen There are many activities you can introduce to hone your students’ ability to isolate sounds they hear on a daily basis The skill of listening is required for students to be better able to recognize sounds (phonemes) in words that they will be introduced to in the months ahead Look out for listening games in educational toy stores Listening is also encouraged by reading rhymes or chants and poems (2) Rhyming and Alliteration: As adults we recognize when words like /gate/, /eight/, /late/ rhyme However, for students this skill has to be practiced and practiced before it becomes a natural process Nursery rhymes and poems are an excellent way to introduce rhyming and alliteration (3) Comparing & Contrasting Sounds of Rhyme: This step is sometimes referred to as an 'Oddity Task' - where a child learns to spot the 'odd one out' This is an important step that is often overlooked By encouraging students to compare and spot the odd one out you are helping them fine tune their listening skills for later on when they will need to recognize patterns and phonemes in words One activity I like to is read a familiar nursery rhyme and swap things around students will love to 'catch you out!' as they compare the version they know with your odd one For example: Unit 8: School Things – Lesson Pens Pencils Pen and pencils Books and bags Rulers and rubers They’re school things They’re all new For my new school year! (4)Awareness of Syllables: After students become aware of words the next step is the awareness that words are divided into parts or beats we call syllables An awareness of syllables will enable your students to perform phonemic segmentation (counting out the number of phonemes in a word) One easy game to play is to clap and count the syllables in their own name or other family and friends names and ask "Which name has the most syllables?" or "Which name is the longest?" My daughter is the 'longest' in our house - much to her brothers annoyance (5)Phoneme Recognition: Phoneme Recognition (remember a phoneme is the name given to the smallest unit of sound in our English Language - of which there are approx 44 sounds or phonemes) is really referring to an awareness that the words we are saying are made up of small sounds For example the first phoneme in the word /cat/ is the /k/ sound After listening to all those nursery rhymes and poems your students will quickly begin to pick out the 15 more obscure sounds and patterns in words they are hearing There are many oral activities you can to help your students have good phoneme recognition (6) Phoneme Spelling: This involves becoming so familiar with phonemes (sounds) that students will be able to manipulate words by adding and deleting phonemes at the beginning, middle and end of words to make new words For example /r/at, can become /p/at or /s/at because the first phoneme has changed Phoneme Recognition and Spelling are ongoing steps that your students will now build on for the next few years By committing to spend just a few minutes each day with your students in the above steps you will be well on the way to teaching phonics and helping them become successful readers and spellers 2.4 The efficiency of the research: After applying successfully the methods and procedures to teach phonics, the students’ progression in pronunciation can be seen clearly The result in the second semester of the school year 2019 - 2020 shows the increase in the percentage of students who can pronounce correctly What is especially pleasing is the impact of phonics in class as there are fewer students who can not pronounce correctly than the beginning of the first semester The significance of the methods of teaching phonics can be seen when examining the percentage of students with a reading age above their chronological age since the program’s implementation The number of students assigned to be improve their pronunciation, especially bad students who now can pronounce more correctly Comparing with the result survey at the beginning, I find that the recent result is better than the old one Below is the result: Class The numbers Excellen Good Fair Poor Fail of students t (B) (C) (D) (F) (A) 4D 49 12 =27% 20 = 32% 27= 41% 0 Overall, the changing of the students’ prounciation has been a resounding success The consistency and clarity it has afforded in phonics teaching for primary student has been worth the time and effort My students are capable and ready for explicit teaching of phonics and are highly motivated by their success in reading ‘real’ words These are some of experiences I researched and applied to improve the students’ pronunciation: - Learning two new phonemes a week provides plenty of opportunity for revision - Daily explicit focused teaching of phonemes with opportunities for practice and revision is critical to student achievement - Using only the essential resources such as grapheme tiles, frieze posters, picture posters, word blend cards, grapheme flash cards, my words and sounds activity sheets, etc…initially is important as teachers gain confidence and familiarity with explicit phonics teaching - Spending time revising the lesson after units, at a faster pace, makes sense to allow opportunities for at-risk students to consolidate simple alphabetic code 16 - Listening to children blend all-through-the-word each day is vital to ensure each sound is produced correctly and children develop the skill of blending - Regulary encourage students to create an atmosphere for students to learn English - Do not teach the pronunciation of individual words, because in fact the language appears not only single but in a context - Using modern equipments for teaching and training phonics - Do not teach only phonics, we ought to combine teaching pronunciation with teaching listening and speaking - Be patient with students and always encourage and motivate them to learn 17 THE CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 3.1 CONCLUSION This research investigated the methods of teaching phonics for primary students, lesson delivery and sequence of content and learning expectations used by teachers of English at Nguyen Van Troi Primary School This research brings broader understanding of strategies for teaching phonics to students.The rationale for the study stems from the need to gain greater international perspective of the teaching of English learners Results reflect analysis of classroom observation field notes, face-to-face interviews with forty nine students of class 4D To sum up, The research provides some methods to improve teaching phonics for primary student in order to form the habit of using English words that contributes to improve the quality of students' listenning skill and speaking skill in particular and English for academic subjects in general This research does reveal some promising practices but more research is needed in this research, I introduced the basic knowledge about phonics and some methods of teacing it I also have surveyed the result of the the teaching and learning phinics of students at my school 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 teacher: Teachers play a critical role in supporting language development Beyond teaching children vocabulary and grammar, they need to help children learn and use aspects of language associated with phonics They need to help them become more aware of how language functions in various modes of communication across the curriculum They need to understand how language works well enough to select materials that will help expand their students' linguistic horizons and to plan instructional activities that give students opportunities to use the new forms and modes of expression to which they are being exposed In order to improve the students’ pronunciation, teachers need to have these qualities: - Being creative and active in teaching English, especially in teaching phonics - 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 roundig the lips as in / u: / in fool , which the teacher can help them focus on - This, in turn, allows discussion on learning strategies for pronunciation which can be drawn up it the classroom 18 - It is a communicative exercise as it involves disagreement, repair and agreement among other things - Many language learners feel self concious and negative about their pronunciation To effectively deal with this question in the class and enable learners to see an improvement, is invariably a great psychological boost - I have used these activities with learners from many different cultural and language backgrounds and they have invariably been seen as both very useful and fun - As teachers, we are often not the best judges of the accuracy of our students' pronunciation.We are accustomed to it and usually very tolerant when in general, native speakers are not Such exercises help us to be more aware of real problems learners have in their oral production and to help to correct them - Such activities should be an integral part of any language teaching programme as they make pronunciation an active element of the learning process and focus learners on the language they are producing 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 Thanh Hoa City, April 1st 2021 I swear this thesis is written by me without copy content from others Headmaster’s signature Written by Kieu Thi Hoa 19 References Baker, A (2001) Ship or sheep – An intermediate course Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Baker, A (2006) Tree or three - An elementary pronunciation course Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Dalton, D (1997) Some techniques for teaching pronunciation English Computerized Learning Inc Pronunciation Power (Software) Fraser, H (2001) Teaching pronunciation: A handbook for teachers and trainers New Southwales Department of Education and Training Hancock, M & Donna, S (2007) Pronunciation in use – An intermediate course Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Hedge, T (2000) Teaching and learning in the language classroom Oxford: Oxford University Press Kelly, G (2000) How to teach pronunciation London: Pearson Education Limited Kenworthy, J (1988) Teaching English pronunciation London: Longman 10 Oyama, S (1976) A sensitive preiod for the acquisition of a nonnative phonological system Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 5(3) 11 Silveira, R (2002) Pronunciation instruction - Classroom practice and empirical research Linguagem & Ensino, 5(1), pp.93-126 12 Snow, C & Moefnagel-Hohle, M (1977) Age differences in the pronunciation of foreign sounds Language and Speech, 20 20 ... With the passion and the love for teaching English, I have studied and developed the research: "Solutions to improve the quality of teaching phonics for the students of grade " 1.2 THE PURPOSE OF. .. line of the chant and clap the syllables - Call on the group of six to the front of the class, have three of them repeat each line of the chant, and the other three clap the syllables Repeat the. .. small togetther - Play the recording all the way through for students to listen as they read the chant on the board or in their books Clap the syllables - Play the recording again for students to