Phonetics

[strawberry]

hi All

I'm not a teacher is what I keep telling folks who come to me to teach english. In fact I believe teaching is an art and I'm not gifted with that art.

I'm looking for advice about me teaching phonetics to my 9 yo daughter. I've been living in this little village for 12 yearsand often get kids coming to me for help with their english home work. Its very difficult because the kids don't seem to know how to put a word together using syllables. this is even after years of being taught english.

they don't know the sound of a letter as in a b c etc. and only seem to know the letter by its name eg ABC etc.

Can someone give me an idea about whats going on and how I can go about teaching my daughter.

I'm not able to get on line much, only once a week it would be helpful to send me advice directly to my email address. but then again it might be helpful to other parents to be able to read the advice.

Regards Joe

[kenkannif]

Yeah I never really understand why people teach the ABC over the aa bu cu phonetic alphabet....seems strange.

Just teach it now I'd say! Not a lot else you can do really!

[PeaceBlondie]

I'm no expert, no degree in English or education. But, I've taught Englirish in Thailand, and I understand your situation.

In the USA, teaching by the sounds is often called "phonics," and I think that most surveys have found it more successful than mere, rote memorization. "Enough" sounds like ee'nuf; "dough" sounds like doe, and "through" sounds like "threw."

Consonant sounds are easy to teach, because their name usually pronounces its sound. b, d, f, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, t, v, x, z. Note, however, there are several consonants that don't have the sound in their name, or they have more than one sound: c, g, h, s, w. Americans call the last letter "zee" and others call it "zed." H is often silent, as in hour and our.

Then you have homonyms, heteronyms, and similar terms. Threw, through. Too, to, two. Its and it's. Some of these can really confuse the reader when used wrong, or confuse the listener if pronounced wrong. They're, their, there. Polish and Polish. Dough and doe, not to be confused with does or do.

You have words that change their intonation: psychology, psychological. You have past tense verbs ending in -ed that don't sound the same: laughed, ended, burned.

You have all the irregular verbs that seem totally unrelated: is, was, been; and buy, bought and teach, taught, and burst and burst, and hide-hid-hidden.

You have silent -e at the end of many nouns, which usually mean there's a verb in the middle that pronounces its name, like ride and same. Double vowels that say their name (meet) and other double vowels that don't say their name (soon), and those vowel combinations called diphthongs which aren't even consistent: said, raid, leek, leak.

Some teachers of EFL teach pronunciations of both British and American English, and it really gets confusing when the dictionary uses such words (with different sounds) as the example of how to pronounce all words.

Then you have dictionaries that use one of a dozen phonetic languages that is just one more alphabet for the poor student to memorize.

Like income tax law, you've got general rules, general exceptions, and countless special exceptions to the general exceptions.

Phonics may not be easier, but memorizing the pronunciation of every word seems far more difficult.

Pardon the brevity or levity of this post, but I had nothing better to do for 15 minutes than to explain the complexity of the task. However, even European-Western students are at the age when their brain likes to put things into hard categories, and Thai students are even more so willing to memorize a set of rules and exceptions. They hate grammar.

Phonetics are about pronunciation (not pronounce-eayshunn) and Thai students are often terrible at it, because their own Thai teachers don't pronounce well.

[kenkannif]

^ LoL or 'cos they weren't taught it phonetically perhaps??? I remember learning it when I was a nipper.

Should be easy to teach them.....and PB aren't all of the phonetic sounds different from the names of the letters??? If you get letters right then it's easier to make simple words....in fact it's kind of similar to maths in my mind.

I was under the impression the OP was talking mainly about the alphabet than whole words (which will come in time even native speakers struggle with that).

[strawberry]

Hi All,

what got me started on this was that a couple of months back I felt it was necessary for me to start teaching my daughter to read and went out and bought a couple books called learning to read english with Gogo. I also included my nephews ands nieces. I soon found out that the only way the kids knew a word was if they remembered the word from the previous day otherwise I had to tell them the sound of the word. To my way of thinking this was the hard way and the kids were reluctant to learn. Then I realised that I'd have to start teaching them sounds which someone told me this was called phonetics.

My schooling didn't teach me much but I'm a reader and I started reading cheap westerns and private detective stories and then moving on to better quality books. Along the way I've learned things but I'm deffinately not a teacher so I'm a bit out of my depth and find I make mistakes but mostly recognise these and try to correct them.

I'm greatful for the advise.

Joe

[PeaceBlondie]

Joe, my long post above was to show that it's complex. I don't mean to discourage you.

Try the easy ones first: the consonants that almost always make a sound similar to their name. You'll find that Thai kids confuse b, d, and t; just keep drilling it back and forth among them. Of course, "th" is really hard, actually pronounced two slightly different ways, and Thais will say it like "t" in "Thai." Show them how to stick out their tongue.

If you're fully fluent in both languages, you could make parallels to Thai, but I think that doesn't work. Mai bpen rai has no 'b' to my ears, and sawasdee has no middle 's' but to Thais, it may.

If Thais can pronounce 'r' at all rather than saying 'l' it will sound more like a single Spanish 'r'. The English tongue hits the roof of the mouth differently than the Spanish and Thai tongues do. However, a Thai who speaks English with a Spanish accent isn't all that bad.

Generally, it's wrong to talk too much when teaching English. However, for sheer pronunciation accuracy, they need to hear you saying it right. Tthen they can take turns mocking you. It will sound like mocking.

For example, they have never noticed the proper way to say "Happy Birthday to you." They probably think it's "bwoo-da"

[kenkannif]

Just teach them the phonetic alphabet (very easy) and then use it to build simple words......easy peasy! I do it with my kid and even my wife and they seem to 'get it' reasonably easily and quickly.

Cross the gh and th etc. bridge when you need to, by then they should be okay (as most of us were!).

English has loads of exceptions which makes it a nightmare even for native speakers......so avoid the exceptions until they come to them....job done.

Reason Thais have problems with phonetics is they ain't taught it from what I can gather (generally) so you have Thai teachers fossiling mistakes with them.....there's no reason why they can't say all the letters we say in the same way....they don't as they tend to transliterate English sounds/letters in to Thai ones....stop them from doing so by getting them to learn the phonetic English alphabet

Edited June 16, 2006 by kenkannif

[kenkannif]

Also think about getting some of the amazing new educational 'toy's from I think Leapfrog (will check over the weekend and get back to you Sunday) and another one. You can get them over here, or on E-Bay. They ALL use the phonetic alphabet (for example one has all the letters of the alphabet and a word that begins with that letter....you get the name of the letter, the phonetic sound of the letter and the word at a touch of a button).

The other one he's got is amazing. You just add a cartridge and a book and then it reacts to where ever you move the pen....even I like playing it. It's incredible and everso educational.

I'll try and also Google up some pictures for you.

[Hong Kong Phooey]

Hi Joe/Strawberry !

I know you said you don't access the internet very often but you might like to check these websites when you have time. You can print off the info and read it at your leisure.

http://www.jollylearning.co.uk/ - the Jolly Phonics site used in early years, esp in the UK

http://www.northwood.org.uk/literacy.htm - spelling games to reinforce sound patterns

http://www.northwood.org.uk/phonics.htm - interactive games for the kids to play, perhaps when they're at school or in internet shops (we can hope ! )

http://www.adrianbruce.com/reading/posters/index.htm - good Aussie site with some A4 size posters you can print which gives word groupings with similar sound patterns

Not sure I'd agree with Kenkannif's suggestion to teach the kids the phonetic alphabet at this stage. Many educators say that Thai beginners have enough problems learning the "regular" alphabet without loading another alphabet on them. It's great if they use dictionaries a lot but I've yet to meet any Thai who can navigate their way round an English dictionary with confidence. Moreover, the "regular" alphabet is what Thai kids will encounter most if they study the language.

Hope this helps.

[kenkannif]

Mate he's lived here for 12 years and the kid is 9.....I'm guessing the kid is not a Thai beginner (although what does this have to do with learning English???). At what stage are you referring to???

I'd personally teach the phonetic over the regular....it helps more so in the long run and will help to avoid transliteration. Which is kind of what the OP proves as it's not helping at all

Works fine for my nipper! He speaks both English and Thai pretty darn well, albeit his Thai is a fair bit better than his English.

[PeaceBlondie]

Point of clarification: when we say "phonetic alphabet" do we mean a variant of the IPA for English, with upside down letters and backward letters that let you know that one "th" sounds different from the other "th" sound; and then there's the good old schwa? Literally, that's another alphabet, as tough as Greek.

But I think when we talk about "the phonic method of learning English" we mean that the sounds are taught as sounds, rather than teaching words as solid units.

[kenkannif]

Nah mate just the sounds of the letters

So you teach them Ae is the name, aa is the sound etc. That's what I learnt at school and that's how most of the educational 'toys' seem to teach it nowadays....I'm surprised (or am I?) that it's not used here more as ABC is pretty pointless really.

Like you say that would be a nightmare elsewise

I think the Thais kind of learn their alphabet phonetically?

[kenkannif]

Probably would be better to say learn the alphabet phonetically as opposed to learning the phonetic alphabet.....didn't think PB...sorry mate!

[Hong Kong Phooey]

Point of clarification: when we say "phonetic alphabet" do we mean a variant of the IPA for English, with upside down letters and backward letters that let you know that one "th" sounds different from the other "th" sound; and then there's the good old schwa? Literally, that's another alphabet, as tough as Greek.

Yep, that's exactly what I'm talking about ! What I'm referring to is the usual way it's taught in UK schools whereby the various sounds are attributed to each alphabet letter. To avoid the risk of boring the pants of people, the Jolly Phonics website explains it in layman s terms.

[meadish_sweetball]

Point of clarification: when we say "phonetic alphabet" do we mean a variant of the IPA for English, with upside down letters and backward letters that let you know that one "th" sounds different from the other "th" sound; and then there's the good old schwa? Literally, that's another alphabet, as tough as Greek.

Actually, from a Thai's point of view, it isn't any tougher than the standard system, because unlike the standard spelling system, it has the advantage of being able to show consistently all the sounds in English without having to go through all the short cuts you discuss above... once mastered, this system gives you direct access to the proper pronunciation of a word.

IMO, the reason you think it is difficult is because you have learned the regular spellings of words already, to the point where they will be fixed images in your mind and not just spellings - and when this system introduces another way of rendering them, which shows you much clearer what sounds actually come out of your mouth, it looks 'wrong'.

But I am confident anyone can learn to use the IPA characters commonly used for English - when I studied English as a second language at uni, we all managed to cram it in and use it within a matter of 2 weeks. Naturally you should expect it to take a little longer with Thai children who have not had the same exposure to the Latin alphabet as Europeans.

You can of course question if it is really worth spending time on. I can only say that few people that have mastered basic IPA think it is a waste of time. Learning IPA will force you to go through exactly how you articulate words, and this will be very helpful for mastering pronunciations of words in any new language you get into later in life - and as a second language learner, it will highlight exactly what mistakes you make and need to work on. My English pronunciation improved dramatically during those two weeks.

[kenkannif]

Point of clarification: when we say "phonetic alphabet" do we mean a variant of the IPA for English, with upside down letters and backward letters that let you know that one "th" sounds different from the other "th" sound; and then there's the good old schwa? Literally, that's another alphabet, as tough as Greek.

Yep, that's exactly what I'm talking about ! What I'm referring to is the usual way it's taught in UK schools whereby the various sounds are attributed to each alphabet letter. To avoid the risk of boring the pants of people, the Jolly Phonics website explains it in layman s terms.

But aren't you both now talking about two different things? PB the phonetic alphabet and Hong Kong about learning the alphabet phonetically (soundwise as opposed to written which is what PB is on about)???

Edited June 21, 2006 by kenkannif

[kenkannif]

SM,

I assumed from the OP that the kid involved was half Thai and Western....so really the kid shouln't be learning English as a second language...but rather as like a joint first language???

OP....more info please???