Friday, October 26, 2018

Teaching Early Learners About ESL Phonics

By Steven Thomas


When you have young kids in your English as a second language class, you may treat this as a challenge since this is likely the earliest time they will become familiar with the language. This may even become more challenging for the teacher and the students if their first language uses a different writing system. To make it easier for your learners, you have to start teaching them ESL Phonics as part of their study plan.

The first thing that you need to do is to teach the English alphabet. One of the best ways to do this is through the ageless Alphabet Song that will help students remember each letter as they memorize the song. After the kids have become familiar with it, have them study the sound associated with each letter. You may prepare flashcards for teaching and testing their familiarity with each letter.

Increase your learners' vocabulary by introducing more words that begin with each letter. Stick with short words that are no more than two syllables. To make them remember faster, use flashcards with pictures of the items. Once you have taught more words, you can create a game that will test your students' understanding and retention of the words.

Engage in listening and speaking exercises with your students. You can start with repetitions in which you will read a word, and the students will repeat after you. Later, you can have them identify pictures and associate them with the letter of the alphabet that begins each word. Listen to each student to determine their problem areas when it comes to pronunciation.

Introduce short sentences to your class. It is better if you can limit yourself to just using a maximum of five words in creating simple sentences. Start with giving your learners sample sentences for introducing themselves. Have them practice this with a partner. This will work better if you teach them how to ask simple questions and to respond to them. Another thing they can learn is to give short descriptions for basic items.

Nursery rhymes are some of the easiest paragraphs to introduce to early English learners since these usually have simple themes and words. To facilitate better understanding, discuss each statement along with the action associated with it. You can test their retention by having them perform in class. You may also ask questions about the character and the story to check their comprehension.

Make learning more fun and engaging by using movies and songs. Select those that generally use neutral accent so that these are easier for early learners to understand. Stick with themes that are wholesome and simple so that these can be easily discussed with young students. It is better if you can provide them movies and songs with subtitles so that they will learn how the words are inflections are used in conversations.

While it is challenging to teach young learners, once you were able to properly orient them on how fun it is to learn English, learning will become easier for them and and the teacher as they move forward. Make sure that all of you still have fun while learning. Incorporate games into the lessons whenever appropriate. Discussing topics that they are interested in also helps a lot.




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