What is phonics?
Phonics is the systematic way to teach letter to sound correspondence. Each letter in the English alphabet has a name AND a sound and these should be taught at the same time. Learning the sounds for individual letters and groups of letters, is called phonics.
English speaking primary schools, spend a great amount of time teaching young children phonics. It is a big part of the reading framework and children have daily lessons to ensure that when they reach the junior school, they know all of the letters and corresponding sounds.
English as foreign language (EFL) and phonics
In my experience of teaching EFL courses, I have noticed that too little emphasis is placed on phonics. This can leave students struggling to read unfamiliar words. When phonics is not taught, students are unable to sound out words and their pronunciation is poor because of this. Later in their studies, they may learn the phonemic code, which is an extremely helpful system, but too overwhelming for beginner learners. I have observed phonics briefly taught by some teachers, but it is not recognised as a necessity. Often, intermediate/advanced students ask me to teach them phonics because "their didn't teacher didn't do it," which leaves them feeling unsure when reading new words.
Three reasons ( in my opinion) why phonics should be taught to beginner EFL students
1. Knowing the letters and their corresponding sounds, allows students to read unfamiliar words. Although the meaning of the word may not be understood, when spoken out loud correctly, students will have a better chance of recognising it. If not, they can ask others by pronouncing it clearly.
2. Phonics knowledge, supports the learners pronunciation skills. For example, when reading the word bake, they will understand that the /a/ and /e/ are split digraphs and together make the sound /ay/ as in play. Learners without this knowledge, may pronounce the /e/ at the end of the word pronouncing it/bakee/ which is not a recognisable word.
3. Phonics knowledge can help learners to spell. Obviously, not all words are spelt phonetically (for example /said/ cannot be sounded out), but it does help to know some of the rules. They can break down words into individual sounds (phonemes) and make their best attempts at spelling them. Even if the word is not spelt correctly, if phonetically written, the reader will be able to make sense of it.
Disadvantages of teaching phonics to adults
Boring and infantile – It’s quite easy to teach phonics to 4- or 5-year-olds because teachers can make lessons fun by playing games and reading stories that incorporate the particular sound they are learning.
Teaching adults, however, is not the same. Adults obviously do not want to be patronised with children’s books and they will already have some prior reading knowledge that they can refer to. Rather than teach a set-in-stone sequence of phonics lessons, teachers should build on students’ knowledge and use age appropriate resources. They can exploit other teaching opportunities to focus on a particular sound ( see below for an example).
Phonic rules are not always followed- As with many languages, English is a difficult language to master, because there are many irregularities. Some rules apply to some words, but not to others and this can cause many problems for all learners.
Reading for meaning - When all phonic sounds have been taught and the learner can read well, phonics alone will not improve their comprehension. Reading without meaning is pointless. I have taught EFL students who read perfectly, but when asked about the text, they do not have a clue what it is about. This is why, EFL lessons should always be centered around a topic and phonics included within that topic.
For example, if the topic is clothing, then the /ir/ sound could be taught to link with the words /shirt/, /skirt/, /girl/, /first (floor),/dirt/ ensuring that phonics is not taught in isolation.
In conclusion, becoming proficient in phonics is another tool to support EFL learners. In my opinion, a phonics assessment should be given to beginner learners to find out which sounds they already know. Relevant phonics can then be taught and incorporated into their English lesson, to give them the confidence to read accurately and fluently.
This is an interesting article about teaching phonics to adults ( not necessarily EFL, just any adult). Number two in this article does not relate to EFL students, because many DO NOT have the sounds in their speech, so I think it is important that we teach them. You will need to read the article to understand what I mean.
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