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[fluffyhamster]

Just thought I'd share some thoughts on phonics in Japan (yes, I believe that phonics should be taught). I've taught elementary and junior high school kids in private language schools and the public school systems. They appear to start looking at the alphabet in elementary 4th grade, and studying it formally from the first year of junior high. The only thing is, phonics often doesn't actually get mentioned, it's all just the ABC song (naming the letters, useful for spelling but not for actual reading) and penmanship (learning stroke orders of capital and lower case by heart)...all of which takes years, with many kids at 16 still lacking even a sight vocabulary let alone much phonic decoding ability with unfamiliar words (or is this just the legendary Japanese hesitancy and fear of making mistakes).

So I came up with and refined a quick method to familarize students with how the alphabet works, relating new (the alphabet) to known (the Gojuon, "fifty sounds of Japanese" - a i u e o, ka ki ku ke ko etc). I briefly mention the ABC song and spelling, but soon move on to relating lower case letters to not only kana shapes but also sounds, thus:

a: there is an English smallcase 'a' visible in the lower left hand part of the hiragana symbol "a". Stroke-wise, simply reverse that part's kana stroke directions, starting from the top of the curved leftwards downstroke forming the English a.
i: long downstroke with shorter stroke near top is similar visually and phonically in both languages.
u: rotate the hiragana symbol almost 180 degress clockwise and then reverse the stroke order and you have 'u'.
e: superimpose the western symbol on/inside the hiragana one.
o: western is like the end stroke or the hiragana.

The above only covers short vowel sounds in short words and is a bit "Italiany", but with the addition of "magic e" for longer vowel sounds etc it covers the majority of the values that vowels have in elementary wordlists. It's certainly quick and better than nothing. Note that with e and especially a that the alphabet letter's stroke order/direction differs from that of or "within" the respective kana; generally however there's more similarity and overlap at least graphically between the symbols that I've paired from the two languages' orthographies.

For the consonants, again following the Gojuon, under hiragana 'ku' I place the letters c, k and q (c looks like ku, and k and q are similar sounds just with the addition of an extra stroke to the left then right respectively); with the addition of two nigori dots to katakana ku we have something that looks like the letter g, if we move those nigori down and to left fill the gap in the gu). I also mention that c can have an s value (again is it like the addition of an extra stroke/tail to the c, although this could be confusing).

j reminds me of katakana ji (shi with nigori); z of katakana zu (su with nigori); t of hiragana ta (delete the third stroke, and add a looping tail to the right of the second, or superimpose the western symbol on the Japanese); d of hiragana do (to with nigori, move the nigori to fill the gap in the kana symbol); f of hirgana fu; b of katakana bu (fu with nigori, again move them to make the b downstroke); p of katakana pu (think "circular" at top of fu, it is after all fu with a mini circle rather than stroke nigori); h of he in either kana syllabary; m of katakana ma rotated 90 degrees anti-clockwise and with an extra stroke added; y of katakana ya rotated 90 degress cloclwise and with the stroke order reversed; r of hiragana ra; l of katakana re; w of hiragana wa rotated almost 180 degrees clockwise and the stroke order reversed; and finally n of hiragana/syllabic n.

There are two letters that I don't relate to the Gojuon, s and x: like a snake and X-Men LOL.

I'd be interested to know if people who decide to try this encounter the same success that I did (i.e. having the more attentive students showing appreciation and understainding within minutes of the 15 minute or so presentation, and carefully putting away the charts for safekeeping and future reference).

[saloc]

I'm not sure I fully understand what you're trying to do here so apologies if I've misunderstood.

Firstly, the kids learn romaji in 4th grade, which although uses the letters of the alphabet has nothing to do with phonics in the English language. It is used for Japanese words.

Secondly, what you are doing with the consonants seems to me to be basically trying to connect roman letters with Japanese pronunciation '(k, c and q under KU etc) which again is of no help when trying to master English pronunciation or reading skills.

I agree that phonics is incredibly important and is not taught effectively (if at all) in the school system, but I don't really see any need for connecting phonics with regard to English to kana. Perhaps your system might assist them to remember how to write letters when using romaji, but, as I said, that is taught in 4th grade anyway, and is more of a hindrance than a help to students learning to read and write in English.

Again, sorry if I've misunderstood, and if I have, I would be interested to know more about how your system works..

[markle]

I have to concur. It seems you are overcomplicating the process. In the time that it takes you to have the kids familiar to your system, you could just teach them the phonic values of the alphabet, which they learn anyway.

[fluffyhamster]

[fluffyhamster]

Quick summary (KK = katakana's, HG = hiragana's):

HG "a" = a
HG "i" = i
HG "u" = u ; KK "v(a)" ('u' with nigori) = v
HG "e" = e
HG "o" = o

HG "k(u)" = c, k, q
KK "g(u)" = g

KK "j(i)" = j
KK "z(u)" = z

HG "t(a)" = t
HG "d(o)" = d

HG "f(u)" = f
KK "b(u)" = b
KK "p(u)" = p
HG/KK "h(e)" = h

KK "m(a)" = m

KK "y(a)" = y (in initial position)

HG "r(a)" = r
KK "r(e)" = l

HG "w(a)" = w

HG n = n

MISC: s, x

(BTW I forgot to mention the letter v in my above posts. It's basically relatable to the katakana symbol for va, rotated @180 degrees clockwise and with reverse stroke order).

[saloc]

It still seems remarkably over complicated to me. I've been teaching reading and writing through phonics for a number of years in Japan and have never had any problem teaching it without any need for kana. But I don't, as you suggest, think that many kids learn phonics without assisatance and guidance. I think most, if not all, need it and it is sadly neglected in the school system. I just don't agree with bringing kana in.

When you connect, say k to the hiragana ku, you may well focus on the initial k sound, but the kids don't separate a hiragana ku into two parts. It is not made up of two letters for them. It is just the sound KU. So I think the danger is that they will begin to associate the letter k with the sound KU, which, of course, is wrong. Why bother when it is not difficult just to teach them the sounds of the letters without kana?

The reason I mentioned romaji is that many kids (and parents and even teachers) wrongly associate romaji with English. I have seen countless kids writing simple sentences accurately in English in second and third grade, but then they start learning romaji in 4th grade and their English spelling suffers as they get confused. A word like bench, they start writing as benti, and drink becomes dorinku. I think,your system just encourages kids to theink of d as do etc. How do you explain to them that it is not the case?

[fluffyhamster]

Sure, if you have the time in which to teach things thoroughly using just the alphabet letters themselves, that's ideal and would help avoid possible confusion; that being said, I've met students who mix up b and d when writing, or lack confidence in reading/decoding, and there is surely some argument for the benefits of mnemonic devices potentially outweighing the slight risks; as for "k(u)", I'd soon be going on to stressing /k/ /k/ /k/..., rather than continuing to point out the at least visual similarity of c, k and q to the hiragana symbol for romaji ku. I'd also show the values operating in initial, medial and especially final positions, so that the kids would soon realize that the value of the vowel following the consonant is dependent on, well, that vowel itself (and not the "vowel" present in the purely mnemonic e.g. k(u) or d(o)). (One might like to refer to the syllabic n of hiragana, and show how that sound-shape in English combines with a, or i, or u, or e, or o to make na ni nu ne no in English; even though using that Japanese final n in initial position might initially be a bit mind-bending for students, it could well be yet another means of illuminating how this alphabet business works).

By the way, saloc, how did you learn kana (assuming you have)? With no reference to English or whatever other languages? Myself, I noted when kana were similar to English letters or Chinese characters...

Hmm, benti > benchi (Hepburn) > bench. It's arguable if this is indicative of and/or has the potential for, confusion, or might be a learning opportunity (if and when this chain of errors occurs). (BTW I like the Japanese systems for romanization rather than Hepburn, it makes -te form easier to grasp for a start cos there's no need to list spelling changes for learners of Japanese).

[RingofFire]

I can't say I'm too convinced either of the "success" of this presentation. Maybe students are intrigued and impressed and develop an appreciation, as you've said, but that doesn't necessarily equate to building language proficiency.

Pronunciation, in my opinion, is best taught in conjunction with building other skills, not in isolation. Especially since there's too many sounds and exceptions in English relative to Japanese. This seems to me just a quick fix to get teachers to do things faster, and that's seldom a good idea.

[saloc]

In answer to your question, I learned kana from a teacher who taught me the pronunciation of each character. Now, I am quite sure that I related these to English sounds in my head and probably wrote them in romaji to try and remember them, just as I am sure many of the kids I teach try to equate the sounds of letters with kana. In fact, I know some of them do because I catch them writing the kana under a letter in their notebook. But that doesn't mean we should encourage the practice and when I find a kid doing it I gently explain or demonstrate the difference in the sounds. Over time I have developed a CD / worksheet homework system with which the kids kearn the sounds of letters / blends etc without the need for the use of any kana. It's not particularly problematic and gets kids away from using Japanese sounds in English.

I respect the effort you are going to in order to make phonics easier, but the thing is, it does take time to teach thoroughly and like most areas of language learning there are no magical shortcuts. If you feel you are having success and are sure your students understand that the kana sounds do not generally equate to english sounds then good luck to you and to your students. I just happen to take a different approach.

[fluffyhamster]

Oh, I'm not out to convince or even impress anybody, I'm simply offering food for thought for those teachers who might not (or even may) have time to teach phonics more thoroughly (but like I said, the focus would soon shift from my or whatever system to words, sounding out, blends etc, so students would not be any illusion/confusion for long. For example, if a student brought up on a diet of katakanese and/or smitten from even the briefest initial encounter with my system started writing or sounding out 'drink' as "dorinku" (or in the case of my system, "d(o)r(a)ink(u)" LOL), it wouldn't take much to direct them to the word as it is actually spelt in English and note the absence of vowels other than the 'i'. I'm afraid that even with the best phonics instruction, we are competing with piles of texts full of katakana furigana above the words and/or in the wordlists (BTW, do you think IPA should be taught in junior or senior high school as a guide to pronunciation?)).

At least we all seem to agree that teaching romaji may not be the most logical of moves, but that is what the Japanese teachers seem to be wanting or needing to do, like the students will and should always be dealing with clueless tourists (and then, in non-Hepburn romaji, despite the fact that road signs etc seem to use it) rather than getting out themselves into the wider world and to grips with actual English; and from elementary into JHS, they just sing the alphabet song and learn stroke orders by rote, but little more beyond ploughing through texts (mainly receptively only...and by the time they might be expected to do individual reading tests, the text has been committed to memory enough that the illusion of actual reading skill can be demonstrated to the JTE's "satisfaction" (i.e. for official box-ticking purposes - 'Yes, these kids can "read"!')).

[saloc]

I'm not sure how beneficial teaching IPA would be. I've never tried it (and maybe they would just write kana next to all the symbols as they lerned them!), but we are certainly in agreement that something needs to be done about how reading is (or isn't) taught in most schools in Japan. When I first came here, people often said "Oh Japanese students can read and write English; they just can't speak it well" but in my experience general reading and writing skills leave a lot to be desired. I think things are getting better as more kids are learning phonics etc outside the school system, but expecting kids with no prior English experience to pick up their texts and be able to read them as soon as they start junior high is ridiculous. Yet that is basically what is expected.

[fluffyhamster]

Yes, if the kids are depending on furigana all the time, they can't be said to be good readers or writers, and this surely impacts on their speech too (they won't be able to read much beyond the limited "spoken" texts that they've already encountered in their school textbooks).

There was a thread a while ago from somebody asking about the utility of IPA in Japan (he was about to commence the CELTA):
http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=55814

IPA (or furigana) probably wouldn't be needed so much if phonics was taught adequately from the last years of elementary school onwards (there doesn't seem to be enough linkage between elementary and JHS, then JHS and SHS, at least as far as English is concerned).

[fluffyhamster]

Here's the chart for my system:
http://img72.imageshack.us/my.php?image=alphabetrelatedtokanahq2.jpg

It should help make things a lot clearer!

[G Cthulhu]

[fluffyhamster]

Eh? What's American? (Do I sound American? I'm English!).