I am teaching a young learners class (five to eight) in China. The students are all very bright and try hard. Any ideas for teaching basic phonics that are fun and interesting? I realize I need to keep it simple and concrete. Any ideas would be helpful. Thanks alot.
Molly
Phonics
Moderators: Dimitris, maneki neko2, Lorikeet, Enrico Palazzo, superpeach, cecil2, Mr. Kalgukshi2
Good morning, Molly!
I teach in a kindergarten in China, and I had an American colleague a year ago in a school not far from here. We both took more or less the same approach, and we both enjoyed it and had huge successes!
First thing, we did not, and I still do not teach separate subjects such as phonics although they make part of teaching in general. Yo9ur charges are too small to be interested in such academic stuff, and the Chinese school system will soon enough force them to memorise a lot of things they don't really care for!
Note that they are learning the Roman letters first so they get a handle on Chinese pronunciation! That is important as it means that the ABC is of paramount importance!
So, to get them to work on their pronunciation, try to teach them to write. You can easily combine it with drawing. Drawing is a very imagination-enhancing activity! I think that is what is most neglected by Chinese teachers who merely focus on rote-learning!
Once they have a grip on letters and their various pronunciations (go slowly there as they will find it bewildering that some letters, that is the vowels, as well as the consonants C, G, H, X, have several different pronunciations!), you can use VCD's with stories for kids (I highly recommend ENGLISH WONDERLAND, which is a story in 5 VCD's about a monkey and his animal friends), and they will easily pick up the proprer pronunciation from native speakers that dubbed the speech parts on the VCD's.
Don't "lecture" your young learners - interact with them, play, organise activities, rehearse, do physical exercises!
I teach in a kindergarten in China, and I had an American colleague a year ago in a school not far from here. We both took more or less the same approach, and we both enjoyed it and had huge successes!
First thing, we did not, and I still do not teach separate subjects such as phonics although they make part of teaching in general. Yo9ur charges are too small to be interested in such academic stuff, and the Chinese school system will soon enough force them to memorise a lot of things they don't really care for!
Note that they are learning the Roman letters first so they get a handle on Chinese pronunciation! That is important as it means that the ABC is of paramount importance!
So, to get them to work on their pronunciation, try to teach them to write. You can easily combine it with drawing. Drawing is a very imagination-enhancing activity! I think that is what is most neglected by Chinese teachers who merely focus on rote-learning!
Once they have a grip on letters and their various pronunciations (go slowly there as they will find it bewildering that some letters, that is the vowels, as well as the consonants C, G, H, X, have several different pronunciations!), you can use VCD's with stories for kids (I highly recommend ENGLISH WONDERLAND, which is a story in 5 VCD's about a monkey and his animal friends), and they will easily pick up the proprer pronunciation from native speakers that dubbed the speech parts on the VCD's.
Don't "lecture" your young learners - interact with them, play, organise activities, rehearse, do physical exercises!
Molly,
my pointer was meant to guide you to using the alphabet as a basis for phonics, but whether it is interesting I don't know. I have the kids write letters, then I say "A as in animal", "B as in bear", and so on. Animals exert a strong pull on children. 'C' is a tricky letter - I teach them to say "C as in circle", later they associate it with cat.
So, they learn entire words and even phrases and sentences rather than just single sounds.
The ENGLISH WONDERLAND series can be ordered from Peking:
Telephone: (010) 6891 6270, 6891 7884,
fax: 6891 7423
e-mail: [email protected]
I can't write the Chinese address but I can give you a Romanised version (which will be easy to rewrite in Chinese, I think):
100089 Beijing Shi Haidian Qu, 4 3 (si san) Huanshi Beilu 19 hao,
The name of the company in English: Foreign Studies Building,
(I guess that is the publisher).
visit their website: www.fltrp.com.cn
You usually pay through the post office (38 RMB per set, one set includes a tape which I regard as useless escept for some ditties; a VCD, a book containing transcripts and a picture book. All five together will set you back 190 RMB.
In XINHUA bookstores, you sometimes come across the book and the tape, and the VCD in separate packages.
my pointer was meant to guide you to using the alphabet as a basis for phonics, but whether it is interesting I don't know. I have the kids write letters, then I say "A as in animal", "B as in bear", and so on. Animals exert a strong pull on children. 'C' is a tricky letter - I teach them to say "C as in circle", later they associate it with cat.
So, they learn entire words and even phrases and sentences rather than just single sounds.
The ENGLISH WONDERLAND series can be ordered from Peking:
Telephone: (010) 6891 6270, 6891 7884,
fax: 6891 7423
e-mail: [email protected]
I can't write the Chinese address but I can give you a Romanised version (which will be easy to rewrite in Chinese, I think):
100089 Beijing Shi Haidian Qu, 4 3 (si san) Huanshi Beilu 19 hao,
The name of the company in English: Foreign Studies Building,
(I guess that is the publisher).
visit their website: www.fltrp.com.cn
You usually pay through the post office (38 RMB per set, one set includes a tape which I regard as useless escept for some ditties; a VCD, a book containing transcripts and a picture book. All five together will set you back 190 RMB.
In XINHUA bookstores, you sometimes come across the book and the tape, and the VCD in separate packages.