RICELT - Margarita Irarrazabal

Margarita Irarrázaval Jory

PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS AND PHONICS INSTRUCTION IN ENGLISH-AS-

A-FOREIGN-LANGUAGE IN CHILE

By: Margarita Irarrázaval JoryMasters of Arts in English Language Teaching.

Universidad de los Andes.October 2014.


PURPOSEThe purpose of this study is to explore Chilean

teachers’ of English as a foreign language (EFL) use of: phonological awareness (PA) tasks and phonics during reading instruction in the early grades (kinder to third grade).


WHY? Chilean Ministry of Education (Piñera’s

government) issued > the National English Strategy 2014-2030. By 2015> EFL will be a compulsory subject matter since kindergarten. It used to be mandatory only from 5th grade and on.

I’m a Learning Specialist (LP) or Resource Specialist (RSP). I work with children with mild learning disabilities, such as ADD and dyslexia.

In my practice in the U.S. and in Chile > witnessed children transferring Spanish phonemes to English graphemes and vice versa. These children were not only those with LD but also around 30% of the EFL class.


Due to the NES 2014-2030 a bigger amount of young EFL learners will need reading instruction.

Do EFL teachers know how to teach reading in English in order to address the gaps between the two languages?

SPECIFIC RESEARCH QUESTION: Do EFL teachers incorporate phonological awareness and phonics in early grades?


Theoretical FrameworkPhonemes are the smallest units

of speech sounds and graphemes refer to the corresponding symbols; this is to say, the letters of the alphabet that represent phonemes. This relationship is called “Alphabetic Principle”.

Spanish’s alphabetic system > shallow orthography (almost perfect grapheme-phoneme correspondence). Finnish, Italian and Dutch are shallower than English because letters are more reliably associated with particular phonemes.

English is deeper because the spelling-sound correspondences are more variable. (Rainer et al., 2001, p.36)



Language transfer Reading skills transfer from the first language to the

second language. Gass & Selinker (2008) Errors may occur to EFL students if they transfer Spanish

spelling rules to spell the English words. Research validates this negative transfer: “native Spanish-

speaking children spell English vowels according to Spanish orthographic rules”(Fashola et al., 1996; Rolla San Francisco et al., 2006,Sun Alperin and Wang, 2008”

“it is also a definite place for the continued, systematic, and explicit instruction of English spelling in the foreign-language classroom, as it has remarkable differentiating and durable effects on orthographic performance" (Perez Cañado, 2005, p. 525)


FIRST THOUGHT

Rounding upSpanish: Shallow language English: Deep or obscure languageReading gaps may appear when teaching

reading in EFL to Spanish speakers


Approaches to reading instruction

TOP DOWN +BOTTOM UP = INTERACTIVE APPROACH


What is good English reading instruction?

NRP Report 2000 > 5 essential reading sub processes.

Most important one> comprehension

This study will focus on the first two reading subprocesses of Phonological awareness and Phonics

Phonological AwarenessRefers to the ability to understand and

manipulate the components of oral language: words, syllables and sounds (phonemes).

PA needs to be developed before formal reading instruction.

A well-developed phonological awareness > constitutes the basis for reading. "Children who perform well on [PA] tasks do markedly better in early reading than those who do not" (Rainer, Foorman, Perfetti, Pesetsky, & Seidenberg, 2001 p.37). Margarita Irarrázaval Jory


.Phonological awareness tasks: Rhyming, phoneme isolation, phoneme identity, phoneme blending, phoneme segmentation etc.


Phonics Phonics instruction > teaching alphabetic writing system.

This is to say, the relationship between phonemes, and the graphemes. (National Reading Panel, U.S., 2000)

In order to be successful, phonics instruction should begin after children have internalized how to segment, blend, count, match, delete etc. phonemes of the spoken language, all of which are phonological awareness tasks.

“Systematic phonics instruction makes a bigger contribution to children's growth in reading than alternative programs providing unsystematic or no phonics instruction" (NRP 2000, Report of subgroups,p.94


Some relevant terms to knowPhonological awareness tasks: Rhyming,

phoneme isolation, phoneme identity, phoneme blending, phoneme segmentation etc.

Consonant cluster (blend): : spr, str, sk etcConsonant digraph: wh, th, ch, sh,etc. (two

consonants, single sound)Long/short vowel: a, e , i , o , u. Vowel generalizations: silent e > can-

cane, cod-code, rid-ride.Vowel digraph: ai, ee, ie, ou etc. (two

vowels, single sound)

PHONICS

PH. AW.


Similarities:Spanish / English

Both languages share 26 graphemes (letters). (Sun Alperin and Wang 2008 p.934).

Both languages have 5 written graphemes for vowels. Short vowel sounds in English “may” be compared to

Spanish vowel sounds. Consonant digraph <ch> Consonant clusters: cr, bl, sr, fl, pr etc.

Similarities and Differences Between Spanish and English Written Language


Differences:Spanish / English

Almost perfect grapheme-phoneme correspondences: one letter > one sound.

Spelling sound correspondences are more variable (Rainer et al. 2001)

5 vowels have more than a dozen of sounds. (Rainer et al. 2001) (Sun Alperin and Wang, 2008, p.934).

Some consonant clusters: str, spr, nk, thr, sk, ng etc.

Consonant digraphs: sh, wh, th, ph.

THE ENGLISH WRITING SYSTEM DEMANDS NEW DECODING ABILITIES TO THE EFL LEARNER ESPECIALLY IN CONSONANT COMBINATION, VOWEL SOUNDS AND VOWEL COMBINATION.

Similarities and Differences Between Spanish and English Written Language


Study: Survey to EFL teachers (by email)

SURVEY’s STRUCTUREFirst section: Educational background Teaching experience Training on the English

reading process in their educational programs.

Second section: Characteristics of the

school : immersion, non immersion, public, private, subsidized.

Grades levels they teach, amount EFL hours per week.

If the workplace have provided training in the EFL reading process.

Third section: Use of phonological

awareness tasks Use of phonics:

consonant digraphs, letter clusters, short and long vowel sounds and the teaching of vowel generalizations: Silent “e” rule and vowel digraphs.

31 PARTICIPANTS TEACHING KINDER THROUGH 3RD GRADE


Participant’s background

1239%

826%

619%

26%

13%

13%

13%

Undergraduate studies of participants

Elementary Ed-ucation (English)Preschool Educa-tionElementary Ed-ucationHigh-School Ed-ucation (English)Preschool Educa-tion (English)High-School Ed-ucationOther

13%

619%

619%

516%

1342%

Years of Teaching Experience

Less than 1 year1 to 3 years4 to 6 years7 to 9 yearsmore than 10 years


Characteristics of the schoolswhere participants worked at.

13% 2

6%

2890%

Type of School

Public SchoolSubsidized SchoolPrivate School

13% 1

3% 26%

723%

310%

1755%

Amount of English Instruction per Week

23 to 45 to 67 to 1011 to 15full immersion

It turned out accidentally that nearly half of participants worked at full Immersion schools and the other half did not. Therefore, I decided to analize the differences between EFL reading instruction on both types of participants


Use of PA tasksImmersion / Non

immersion

In average: immersion schools use of total PA tasks is 60%, similarly in non-immersion schools is 56 %.


Phonics: letter clusters and consonant digraphs

Immersion / Non immersion


Vowel generalizationsImmersion / Non immersion


Professional Background of teachers working at immersion and non-immersion

schools

- 56% of teachers working as EFL educators at non-immersion schools hold an English language specialization.

- 41% of teachers working as EFL educators at immersion schools hold an English language specialization.

- 19% of the total of participants are high school teachers working at early elementary grades.


Teachers’ professional studies and its relation to what they teach

Use of PA tasks:70% preschool teachers60% of elementary teachers 42% of English elementary teachers High school teachers are not shown due to the

small amount of them who participated in this part of the survey.



Letter clusters: 50% preschool teachers 29% of elementary

teachers 17% of English

elementary teachers

Consonant digraphs: 88% of preschool

teachers 67% of elementary


elementary teachers High school teachers are not shown due to the small amount of them who participated in this part of the survey.



Short vowel sounds

67% of preschool teachers

67% of elementary teachers

59% of English elementary teachers

Long vowel sounds

67% of elementary teachers

50% of the total preschool teachers

33% of English elementary teachers

High school teachers are not shown due to the small amount of them who participated in this part of the survey.



Silent “e” 50% of elementary

teachers 40% of preschool


elementary teachers

Vowel digraphs 50% of elementary

teachers 43% of preschool


elementary teachers High school teachers are not shown due to the small amount of them who participated in this part of the survey.


Teacher's training on the English Reading Process

1 / 31 participants declared to have gotten instruction on different English reading methods at her program of studies (University).

This finding may point out that English teachers are intuitively teaching the English reading process.

ConclusionsInstruction on the English reading process:First hypothesis: immersion teachers will instruct the

reading process in English, however 50% of immersion teachers use this theoretical background and its instructional implications, and the remaining 50% did not. >>> Immersion schools do not seem to require their teachers to teach the English reading process.

Teacher’s Professional specialization on English language: Non-immersion schools: 56% of teachers. Immersion schools: 41% of the teachers.

It is therefore wondered if immersion schools required another kind of certification on English language to their teachers.


ConclusionsPhonics: Short vowel sounds were taught by an average

of 65% of the total of teachers Long vowel sounds by 58% of all participants. 42% of the participants said they train students

on silent "e”. 37% on vowel digraphs.


Silent "e" and vowel digraphs were the least instructed strategies by both types of schools. Research shows…“EFL native Spanish-speaking children make more vowel spelling errors due to the interference of their Spanish orthography” (Sun Alperin and Wang, 2008).

ConclusionsProfessional studies of participants that include PA tasks and phonics in their instruction:1st place: elementary teachers 2nd place: preschool teachers. 3rd place: Elementary English teachers. They do not appear to focus much on teaching the English reading process explicitly. This fact constitutes a paradox, and makes me wonder whether Universities are preparing English elementary teachers to instruct the English reading process effectively.



Conclusions Results showed that 51% of participants are working as EFL

teachers without a proper training as EFL instructors 19% of participants are high school teachers working at early

grades. Findings revealed that most teachers did not receive training

on teaching to read in English during their program of professional studies.

National English Strategy 2014-2030 > focuses on drastically improving the amount of students able to communicate and to manage English Language properly. The lack of preparation of EFL teachers in the English reading process may hinder student’s ability on making adequate progress on their foreign language.


AcknowledgmentsThanks to my supervisor Pelusa Orellana for her

guidance and support.Thanks also to Annjeannete Martin