Teaching phonics for students in grade 3

However, to help students get whatthey want to be effective, English teachers need to use their method appropriate to each age level, use their knowledge to teach their students.. Beside

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 amongcountries

To communicate with each other, requiring that different nations of theworld must know proficient use of a common language besides their mothertongue

In the languages of communication in the world, English is the mostcommon language that is considered as the most popular one.They can use it as their "mother tongue" However, to help students get whatthey want to be effective, English teachers need to use their method appropriate

to each age level, use their knowledge to teach their students Beginningstudents of English often say that their top priorities are to know grammar welland to learn as many words and everyday phrases as possible Many studentsthink that phonetics is a luxury that they can do without It's a big mistake tounderestimate the importance of pronunciation If you want to communicate inEnglish, you need to speak English Speaking to people is the only way tocommunicate 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 isnecessary 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 languageskills are closely related to each other; skills to support other skills Correctpronunciation, therefore, is not only good for oral skills, but also to understandbetter for listening However, the pronunciation is a difficult skill; without theguidance 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 withnative 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 selfconfidently in lessons This is more excited than they are willing to learn inorder to improve their English pronunciation

1.2 The purpose of the research

The purpose of reseach is to contribute to innovating English teachingmethods in primary schools following the direction of promoting a positive,creative initiative of students, enhance individual coordinate activities withacademic exchanges Formating and drilling skills to apply knowledge toperform the communicative process Create interest in learning English forstudents.Language learners communicate not only correctly but also selfconfidently in lessons This is more excited when they are willing to learn inorder to improve their English pronunciation and this also helps themstrengthen and deepen knowledge further

1.3 The subject of research

With this research I focused on the Primary students at Minh Khai 2primary school, especially the students of grade 3

1.4 The methods of the research

To research a topic, people often choose many different methods Withthis topic, I use the following methods:

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 andpractice, 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 aclass Teaching phonics to help students create language learning atmosphere ofpronouncing words correctly in English lessons Much purpose of teachingphonics in a language class is not intended to make students capable ofpronouncing similar to the native because it is not practical, unless the schoolhas a special talent and highly motivated The goal is to teach phonics to helpstudents gain an ability to pronounce correctly at a certain level to be able tocommunicate in English with other people Phonics is a teaching method used tohelp children learn to read Phonics breaks down words into individual soundsand syllables and shows children how each sound fits together to make up aword Children taught with phonics must learn the different vowel sounds,consonants and regular rules of English grammar Because the learner's nativelanguage affects the pronunciation, English teachers need to have a certainunderstanding of the sound system Phonics helps your students learn to readand spell Without this ability, your child cannot be fully literate Words are likecodes and phonics teaches children how to crack the reading code Phonics istherefore an important part of any reading development program That is thereason 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 learningpronunciation for recent years has showed that our average score in phonics hasbeen consistently below, so has that of other schools in rural areas It is asituation that needs to be concerned and motivated through a thoroughexamination of the school’s approach to the teaching of phonics

Our school is a public primary school in Thanh Hoa city It is a largeschool 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 isextremely important to ensure consistency in learning programs Ministry ofEducation and Training applied International pronunciation l as the framework

in the program of teaching English for primary students After the first year ofteaching the book 3 I found that most of the students cannot pronounce the newwords 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 therequirements of educational development On the other hand, learning English inprimary 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 inthe general case, particularly in primary schools has long been a problem Manystudents encounter new words they do not know how to pronounce Oftenteachers must use International Phonetic form and read to students Some timesthe students forget how to pronounce it late In practically, teaching at myschool, I notice that some of them have the ability to read and pronounce verywell Besides, there are some children who have difficulty in pronunciation.They are afraid of the wrong director, afraid of friend’s laugh, resultingly theyare shy to say, less communicate and read the words As well as studentsmispronounce, this leads to make a marked accent and intonation wrong.So to

the result of students in English in grade 3C at Minh Khai 2 primary schoolAcademic 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 weaklyaccounts for 34 percent This is figure is comparatively high.The reasons maycome 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 ofgrammar, but the tests often have a few exercises with phonics In English classthey have few chances to practice pronounciation Over time they lose theirability 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 tocommunicate in English

+ Being lack of knowledge of English to communicate every day

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

2.2.2 About teachers

Many teachers in the Vietnam have faced with the challenge of teachingchildren to read and write in English, when the students have a heritagelanguage that is not English and they are not yet proficient in English

Normally when teaching a foreign language, teachers often focus onteaching vocabulary, grammar or structure However, grammar is not the finalresult of the teaching and learning process It is only a tool to help learner tounderstand English structures But in fact, there are some differences betweenspoken English and written English Written English requires the accuracystatement of the structure, whereas spoken English needs the flexibility and theintimacy in communication

From those factors, there are some problems in teaching phonics forprimary students at school However, in a number of causes, teachers andstudents can progressively overcome the difficulties Therefore, in the teachingprocess teachers must use some suitable techniques to teach students how tolearn 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 ofspecific subjects such as: projectors, the modern teaching equipment like RobotTeacher, Television, CD player, etc So the application of teaching phonics isquite effectively

2.3 Solution and implementation

According to the present situation in English classes at my school, wrongpronouncing still exists in all grades, especially in grade 3 To improve thissituation, I would like to present the defintion of phonics, some methods ofteaching phonics and elicit the stages of teaching phonics for primary studentwhich 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 similarhelps with spelling and decoding (sounding out) unfamiliar words This understanding

of phonetics can help teachers and parents understand kids' spelling and readingerrors, too

* Understanding stress and intonation helps speakers be moreunderstandable It also helps readers develop their reading fluency

Stress and intonation make a big difference in comprehension! Not onlythat, but they help us convey emphasis and feelings

There has been much confusion over this term Phonics is a method ofteaching 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 otherwords, decode) before they can comprehend the meaning of the written word

Phonics is seen to be an improvement on the previously used method oflearning the approximate sounds represented by letters(b=buh) first and thenblending them with other sounds (bl=bluh) to decode and encode words inwritten form This newer method attempts to eliminate the extraneous "uh"sounds which were unavoidable in the older method Children also learnstrategies 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 andthe meaning of the text The advantage of phonics is that, especially for studentswho come to schools with large English vocabularies, it enables students todecode 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 clapthe 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 thechant

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 correctpronunciation of the teachers is not enough, it also needs the modern equipmentssuch as speakers, audio visual, and teacher’s showing the picture which describethe 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 themouth 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 aword, 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/

No one can deny the important influence of the music and poetry onhuman life Most everyone loves music It's always show whether that person ishappy or sad It appears everywhere, all the time to share joys or relieve sadnesswhen we need to Futhermore, poetry-music can increase concentration, enhancememory, make people closer together, create motivation and joy in learning,makes people relax when they are depressed or stressful,

Because of the tremendous value that brings poetry to music, it has beenused as educators useful tool in teaching And now the use of songs, poetry as atool to support the learning of foreign languages is quite common Just a fewtunes of the song, students can learn the culture of authentic language,vocabulary, grammar, listening skills, and a variety of other skills

Using songs and poems in class can make the classroom atmospherebecomes fun and dynamic Students will not feel stressed, even scared they maylike to speak English in class solemn atmosphere It is this which will makethem feel really excited and voluntarily participate in classroom activities

The songs, poems not only create excitement for student learning, but alsocontains elements of very rich language including pronunciation, vocabulary,grammar

The songs, poetry can help students to learn about pronunciation Forlearners of English in general and in particular primary school students, there’resome sounds that are very difficult to imitate because our mother tongue doesnot have this sound such as: / ð /, / θ /, / æ / , Therefore, you must learn how topronounce inflexibly that can still not pronounced in your language The wrongpronunciation can change the meaning of the phrase, which will lead tocommunication results, because listeners misinterpreted the transmission ofinformation Songs, poems can help them overcome this The melody of thesong, the rhythm of the poem often repeat a similar sound When they hearmany times, they will indirectly be told how to pronounce the sounds which