Phonics: When Task Based Learning Can't Help

Although TBLT is a wonderful approach to second language acquisition there are times when students need to focus on forms to better get an understanding of a language area or skill.
One such time I think is learning to read in another language. English is notorious for being hard to read as there are 26 alphabet letters but at least 44 different sounds and a sometimes difficult relationship of sound to spelling.
Phonics is a proven method which helps native and second language learners get a grasp of written and read/spoken English. Phonics approaches typically focus on micro aspects of language such as the discreet sounds a letter or set of letters in combination represents.
For example “e” can be pronounced in several different ways, and this is seen clearly in the International Phonetic Alphabet which uses several special symbols to show each sound.
The book which inspired me to develop a phonics program is Phonics A-Z. Author Wiley Blevins provides a complete rationale and very useful sample sets of words and lessons for any teacher doing a reading program. However for ESL the challenges are multiplied as, especially for beginners, students may not have a grasp of the alphabet or much in the way of L2 vocabulary.

Phonics Goals

My students’ age range is 11-12 in their first year of Junior High School. Some come to school with a basic knowledge of the alphabet and some vocabulary but other have to start from pretty much scratch.
The initial program I’ve developed for this is an integrated language approach to reading and phonics instruction. My aim is to get students reading simple books (I’ve found the Dolphin Readers Pack: Dolphin Readers Pack (40 titles) to be excellent) within seven weeks of starting school.
The two hurdles to overcome are:
- vocabulary knowledge
- word readability
I’ve approached this by integrating a phonics program with vocabulary instruction so that the 40 most common words in the starter level books are both readable (i.e. students can pronounce them) and meaningful (they understand the words’ meaning and can therefore hopefully decode the text efficiently).
By learning the 40 or so “sight words” and combining these words with meanings and also phonics instruction when students are given the books to read they should feel and be confident that they can tackle the reading and not only understand the book, but also know how to pronounce the words and make guesses at words they are unfamiliar with.

The Sound Shapes of English

Another problem learners have is how to shape the mouth to pronounce phonemes well. Languages that don’t have English or approximate English sounds don’t have English mouth shapes so these have to be learnt.
This video is useful to show mouth movements and related letter combinations. I show this to students three times a week for several weeks to reinforce the sounds and movements of English.
Not only does this help with phonic instruction, it’s also quite funny.
Original page with downloadable video

Games

Although there is no replacement for face time with books, different activities can help reinforce the learning. One game that my students like, and which can get fidgety kids running around to let of a bit of steam is “hammer”.
The focus of this is to practice listening either at a micro level (letters or letter combinations) or you can expand it up to words or phrases or minimal pairs.
You’ll need either printed copies or I use a TV hooked up to a media player to display the images.
Get some sponge sticks or toy hammers and get into teams. Draw a square with four boxes on the board. Display the first slide and choose a letter or whatever and say it. Students then have to hit the corresponding square on the board (e.g. top left or bottom right etc).

Example Slide for Hammer

This zip file contains about 20 pages of word number combinations in jpeg format and the word docx file so you can change it to add your own or use as a template.
References
UK Education Department Phonics Program