Re: Chinese Learning English

Russ Taylor wrote:
> Ria, what are the "English phonetics" you are talking about there? 
---
Brendan O'Flaherty wrote:
> Ria, could you explain the rationale here please? And what do you
> mean by English phonetics? 
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Brendan, teaching in a top university you have the 0.?% of the
students in the country.  That is the cream.  Let us not aim our
teaching only at them.  Most of us do not teach the cream.

IPA is not English.  It was formulated to help linguists compare
languages.  It was never meant to learn a new language.  It is very
useful for those who have a fluent command of the language, to learn
IPA and so expand their knowledge even further.

We are talking, not about people expanding their knowledge of English,
we are talking about people learning English, that means, from
nothing.  Teach them IPA and they treat it as the pinyin for the
Chinese characters.  The English word and the IPA pronunciation.

English is a "pinyin" (phonetic) language, so let us start with its
own phonetics first.  I have for years used "The Writing Road to
Reading" by Spalding (on Amazon website), modified somewhat to use for
ESL.  I still use it to teach the teachers.  However with the children
I use a slightly modified for ESL "Synthetic Phonics" by Debbie
Hepplewhite (www.syntheticphonics.com).

For my summer school I did games and activities.  I try to use new
words which have the sounds that they know.  A Bingo game had the word
'fox' which was new although they have learned all those sounds.  It
was a joy to hear the little ones sounding to themselves  'f - o - x'
and so work out for themselves which word it was.

Students who can sound words can also spell words.  How often do
teachers ask me how to help the students with their spelling?  Teach
sounding, that means teach the sounds first.  The teacher trainees had
to be able to sound an unknown word as part of their oral exam.  They
were all able to do it.

I know that there are some words that you cannot sound as they are.
But that is not a problem either.  More than 90% of the language
follows the sounds.  As I teach the teachers, "Don't major on minors".
 You get the word 'one'; just teach them that we write o-n-e but we
say /w-u-n/.  Why do you need IPA?  We write b-u-s-i-n-e-s-s and we
say /b-i-s-i-n-e-s-s/.  What's so difficult in teaching that?

There are only about 40 different sounds that you have to teach.  The
primary sounds (a for apple, b for ball, etc) are still the most used
sounds in the language.  Then just teach them the other combinations.
It is not difficult.  It is a mind set.

In college my supervisor told me that the students were really being
helped by what I was teaching them.  They were sounding the words and
they are more often right than wrong.  And, as I told them, if you are
wrong with a completely new word then the first person who notices it
will correct you; it is not the end of the world.

I suggest you try it.  It is great to see the progress.

I am not at home, but will be in two weeks.  If you want a list of the
sounds I taught when I was teaching college, let me know and I will
send them to you in a document.  Anything if it will help the
students.

Ria
--------------
Ria Smit, Zhengzhou, China
Phone:(0371) 6761 2725
Mobile: 136 7397 4347
Alternative e.mail: tryria-9q/xBM6aKHVWk0Htik3J/w@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
SKYPE: riacalling




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