Teaching phonics for students in grade 3

Teaching phonics for students in grade 3 1 PART 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1 The reasons of choosing topic Nowadays, the economy of the countries in the world is growing, exchanges in policy, culture, society a[.]

PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 The reasons of choosing topic

Nowadays, the economy of the countries in the world is growing,

exchanges in policy, culture, society are increasingly expanding among

countries

To communicate with each other, requiring that different nations of the

world must know proficient use of a common language besides their mother

tongue

In the languages of communication in the world, English is the most

common language that is considered as the most popular one

They can use it as their "mother tongue" However, to help students get what

they want to be effective, English teachers need to use their method appropriate

to each age level, use their knowledge to teach their students Beginning

students of English often say that their top priorities are to know grammar well

and to learn as many words and everyday phrases as possible Many students

think that phonetics is a luxury that they can do without It's a big mistake to

underestimate the importance of pronunciation If you want to communicate in

English, you need to speak English Speaking to people is the only way to

communicate effectively If not, you can exchange written messages, of course

Or use gestures to show what you want to say

But seriously, you need to know how to pronounce what you want to say

How you say something is as important as what you 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 make 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 do not much affect the progress of learners

From the above reasons, I strongly research and write the experience initiative

named "Teaching phonics for students in grade 3” I decided to choose this

topic with the desire to help students learn English well and can communicate

in English Language learners not only communicate corectly but also self

confidently in lessons This is more excited than they are willing to learn in

order to improve their English pronunciation

1.2 The purpose of the research

The purpose of reseach is 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 correctly but also self

confidently in lessons This is more excited when they are willing to learn in

order to improve their English pronunciation and this also helps them

strengthen and deepen knowledge further

1.3 The subject of research

With this research I focused on the Primary students at Minh Khai 2

primary school, especially the students of grade 3

1.4 The methods of the research

To research a topic, people often choose many different methods With

this topic, I use the following methods:

1 Theoretical research method

I read the conducting material issues related to my research needs

2 Learning experience from my colleagues

Attend the colleagues’ lesson to follow their good method

3 Experimental matching method

4 Observation method

PART 2 CONTENT 2.1 Rationale

Through a lot of research material , as well as a combination of theory and

practice, we need to rely on the basis of the following reason: Facing with a problem of teaching and learning that I think of figuring 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 language learning atmosphere of

pronouncing words correctly in English lessons Much purpose of teaching

phonics in a language class is not intended to make students capable of

pronouncing 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 in English 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 Because the learner's native

language affects the pronunciation, English teachers need to have a certain

understanding of the sound system Phonics helps your students learn to read

and spell Without this ability, your child cannot be fully 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 why Ministry of Education put on phonics lessons to Primary English

2.2 The situation of the problem

Analysis of my school’s performance in teaching and learning pronunciation for recent years has showed that our average score in phonics has been consistently below, so has that of other schools in rural areas It is a situation that needs to be concerned and motivated through a thorough examination of the school’s approach to the teaching of phonics

Our school is a public primary school in Thanh Hoa city It is a large school with around 537 students, ranging from 6 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 Ministry of Education and Training applied International pronunciation l as the framework

in the program of teaching English for primary students After the first year of teaching the book 3 I found that most of the students cannot pronounce the new words correctly They only focused on grammar and vocabulary and didn’t like

to learn pronunciation during the lesson

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 a 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 do not know how to pronounce Often teachers must use 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 to say, less communicate and read the words As well as students mispronounce, this leads to make a marked accent and intonation wrong.So to have methods of teaching reading - speaking - pronunciation well, I have

the result of students in English in grade 3C at Minh Khai 2 primary school Academic Year for 2016-2017

RESULT BEFORE APPLYING THE RESEARCH IN TEACHING

35 3 students 9% 20 students 57% 12 students 34%

This table shows the number of students pronouce the words weakly accounts for 34 percent This is figure is comparatively high.The reasons may come from students,teacher as well as the teaching facilities

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, but the tests often have a few exercises with phonics In English class they have few chances to practice pronounciation Over time they lose their ability to communicate in English In addition, the limitation of students’ speaking skill has some reasons:

+ The old habit of learning English does not motivate students to communicate in English

+ Being lack of knowledge of English to communicate every day

+ Having a few opportunities to practice English in the classroom with their teacher and classmates

2.2.2 About teachers

Many teachers in the Vietnam have 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 understand English structures 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 students 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 learn 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

2.3 Solution and implementation

According to the present situation in English classes at my school, wrong pronouncing still exists in all grades, especially in grade 3 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 difference 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 Here are 5 basic steps to teach phonics that I have

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

Step 2 Playing the recording a few times 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 in a simply

way, especially for students in grade 3:

Listen and repeat It needs 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’s showing the picture which describe 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 open the mouth slightly, turn inside out to create a sound / p /, pronounce fast:

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 pronounce /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/