Teaching English as a Second Language, Essay Example

Phonology is an important part of teaching English for foreign students. While cultural differences and language structure variations need to be taken into consideration, the first task learners need to complete, according to Freeman & Freeman (2004, p. 83) is to “develop the ability to comprehend and produce sounds of English”.

The authors (Freeman & Freeman, 2004) describe the logical classroom approach of teaching English as follows: teaching phonemic awareness skills, phonic rules, structural analysis, letter names and sounds, and phonics rules. However, the authors also conclude that phonemic awareness “is a key to word recognition” (p. 78).

There are currently two views of phonemic awareness: word recognition view, and the sociopsycholinguistic view. The word recognition view looks at phonemic awareness as the ability to “read” : translate written language to speech. The sociopsycholinguistic view promotes the use of graphophonic cues to acquire the skill.

Phonological awareness is an important aspect of learning a language, as it allows students to break down and segment words, sentences, while assigning a meaning to each segment. It also allows learners to differentiate between meanings of words, based on phonological differences.

There are certain exercises developed to improve phonemic awareness of students. However, the authors (Freeman & Freeman, 2004) state that communicating with native language users is improving the learning outcomes. Likewise, memorizing and reciting dialogues does help learners understand the correct intonation and helps them learn to manipulate phonemes.

Freeman & Freeman (2004, p. 82) also confirm that phonemic awareness has a great impact on learning to read. The authors state that the level of phonemic awareness proficiency does help achieving stronger written language skills (p. 85).

The authors (Freeman & Freeman, 2004) determine three linguistic factors: allophones (phonemes that are perceived as the same sound: c, k), dialect differences (added difficulty), and phonological differences among various languages. The above factors making language acquisition more challenging should be tackled and minimized.

There are several teaching methods that are currently being used by schools where English is taught as a second language: grammar translation, audiolingual, the natural approach, and sustained content language teaching approaches.

Reflection

The chapter has revealed the importance of phonology in teaching reading for ESL students. While the author has listed several teaching methods, the chapter provides no indication regarding the effectiveness of these approaches. It is likely that some classroom methods are more effective for some learners, while those who come from a culture where the structure and phonemic design is very different from English’s would find others more beneficial. In order to set up a phonology-related teaching plan in ESL schools, it is important – as the authors noted – that the linguistic, cognitive, and cultural background of the learners is considered. It would be very interesting to research and learn from studies that relate to the application of different phonemic awareness teaching methods in Asian and Hispanic classrooms.

Reading the chapter has created a question, though. Do the authors suggest that phonemic awareness competency should be introduced in classroom teaching before texts are presented for students for interpretation? Would reading simple words interfere with the development of this skill? Further, it would be extremely useful to study some of the sample teaching plans of ESL schools in order to understand their approach towards phonemic awareness competency building.

References

Freeman, D. E., & Freeman, Y. S. (2004). Essential linguistics: What you need to know to teach reading, ESL, spelling, phonics, grammar. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.