Teacher Discussion Forums

cfisher6 · Joined: 16 Jun 2009 Posts: 4

Hey everyone. I've recently been thrust into teaching phonics to a class of kindergarten aged Chinese children and am having trouble keeping them focused. My Chinese assistant teacher thinks we should introduce more songs in class, but I'm having a tough time finding what I'm looking for.

Dream English.com's phonics section has some simple songs that are ok for practice, but I could use something a little more active for an end of the month show for the students' parents. Do you know of any other audio or video resources for esl kindergarten phonics? For the next two months it looks like we'll only focus on hard consonants.

Sally Olsen · Posted: Thu Jul 15, 2010 11:45 am Post subject:

My granddaughter has just completed a course on phonics and they compared the sounds to animals and motions. SSS for snake, AAA for ant. You have to teach the animals first so they know the name in English but everytime she says a sound she makes the motion - wiggle of the snake for S and pretending ants are crawlng up her arm for A, etc. It seems to have stuck. She had a worksheet with a picture to colour and the sound. There were also other words to practice but she doesn't know how to read those yet and they weren't connected in any way. I guess they were good for initial sounds to hear them in words.

Talked a bit about this at http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewtopic.php?t=8229&highlight=phonics

cfisher6 · Joined: 16 Jun 2009 Posts: 4

Thanks, I've checked those out. We're using a set of books and flashcards called Itty Bitty Phonics Readers from Creative Teaching Press. They're American designed for use in America with American kindergarteners--not exactly ideal for young Chinese students learning to speak for the first time. The basic premise is to teach several words for each sound (our course is focusing only on initial consonants). Most of the words are ok for the kids, but there are several gems that confuse more than anything (such as Bat for B, the wooden variety). We then want the kids to be able to read the books, or at least recite them with us, but there are too many non-phonics words thrown in that confuse the kids.

The company who put together the course insists that these books are a hit in kindergartens across China, and that kids can learn to read them on their own. I doubt it, and am having a real tough time.

I'd really like some phonics-related songs or even just a resource of esl kindergarten songs, something to break up the class into more enjoyable segments. The Chinese aide is finding all sorts of videos from Chinese sites but they rarely have anything to do with the subject and so aren't doing much educating.

Sally Olsen · Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2010 2:57 pm Post subject:

Do you know about enchantedlearning.com? They are a great source of materials, little booklets and so on.

There were some song recommended by someone on this forum - I will check it out.
http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewtopic.php?t=8615
http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewtopic.php?t=6828

I always found that teaching them well known songs from my childhood such as Itsy Bitsy Spider, Row, Row, Row Your Boat, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Old MacDonald Had A Farm, Ring Around the Rosy, Ten LIttle Indians, and so on worked a lot better because they are part of the English tradition of literature and referenced in many books later on. They are also very good for action plays and usually there is a picture book that you can use to illustrate the song.

I did use Sing, Spell, Read and Write and Let's Go (although I loved the Jazz chants) at one point but I had to learn the songs as well and I don't remember them now but I always remember the ones I mentioned. Of course if you are from England or Australia, there will be different songs in your past but those are probably referenced in the literature as well.

alexcase · Joined: 07 Mar 2004 Posts: 96 Location: Tokyo

This sounds like what you are looking for:

http://edition.tefl.net/reviews/esl-yl/super-simple-abcs/

cfisher6 · Joined: 16 Jun 2009 Posts: 4

Alex,

Yeah that would be handy. This is only a temporary job though. More importantly the objective of the course is to convince the kindergarten to buy these books for future courses. Since I'm kind of demonstrating them, I can't really use an entire outside system.

Sally,

Thanks for the links, some of these might be useful. So far the best thing I've found with what I had in mind is dream english's phonics songs. They're simple, similar and introduce the sound of each letter. Most importantly they are free and stand-alone songs.

The kids seem to enjoy them and it makes it easy to demonstrate the next sound/letter since all the songs are so alike. I was worried they'd get bored, but they seem to like it. Of course we've introduced actions of our own to keep them interested and distinguish between the different letters to help.

musica5 · Joined: 15 Jul 2004 Posts: 40 Location: Canada

Hi
I have just started uploading video onto my youtube channel.
I have taught for years and just thought of adding the finger rhymes and chants to my site.
http://www.youtube.com/pamelasunshinetv
I will be adding more every week and if you have a request just let me know.

I also have a CD with loads of finger rhymes and chants available on itunes. It is called Five Little Finger Rhymes and Lots of Circle Games.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/five-little-finger-rhymes/id212629574?uo=4
So you can just get the individual mp3s that you might want.

I hope some of this helps you and enjoy the little ones, they are such a joy.

Take care
Pamela