Pronunciation and Phonology in the EFL Classroom - Traditional Spellings to Phonemic Spellings Pt. 1
Now let's take a look at how we go from traditional spellings into the phonemic spellings. The first step in this process is identifying each unit of sound or each phoneme within a word. Let's look at bet, bit, but, and bought. The only difference in each one of these words is in the vowel sound. We have bet, bit, but and bought. Each word simply uses three sounds. Now we have photo. That's four phonemes. Wow we have taxi. That's five phonemes. We have unite with a hidden phoneme in there being the ?y? sound before anything else. Those are five phonemes as well and now we have a longer word: chemistry. Let's give that a shot. That's eight phonemes used in the word chemistry. Now once we've isolated each sound we want to assign a phoneme for each one of those sounds let's do that now.
Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate regarding one section of their online TEFL certification course. Each of our online courses is broken down into concise units that focus on specific areas of English language teaching. This convenient, highly structured design means that you can quickly get to grips with each section before moving onto the next.
The advantages of using the course book are that it is easier for teachers; it provides a pre-made, graded syllabus; it has a balanced mix of grammar, vocabulary and skills; it offers the students an easy way to assess their progress and provides flow through the materials; it has been used by many people before and tested before publication; as it progresses, language taught earlier in the book will be used again to reinforce the meaning; and it can be good for inexperienced teacher.
However there are also many disadvantages: coursebooks are often created to be used all over the world so they will not meet the specific needs of your class or the nationality for which you use it; students might not enjoy using the book, and if they are forced to use it too much it will become predictable and boring; teachers can become lazy as a result of having a book which offers a whole syllabus, which might result in the students lacking motivation when no new interesting and creative activities are offered; they can dictate what is taught too much; and also the teacher will rarely get to choose the book they us.
To use coursebooks most effectively, teachers should pick the most suitable one they can, if they are involved in the decision making proces.
This will involve researching as many books as possible for the right leve.
Teachers should also look at the materials in the book and only use the relevant parts, any unhelpful parts should be omitted, changed, supplemented or adapted to make them better for the clas.
Perhaps most importantly, teachers should not only use the coursebook, or base all their lessons on i.
When choosing a coursebook the teacher should consider the price, availability, methodology used (does it follow the ESA structure and have a good balance for each part?), whether the skills are well balanced, the level, syllabus, topics and all the extra materials it comes wit.
In addition to the coursebook, teachers should also utilize extra material.
Authentic materials are those used my native speakers such as newspapers however these are not designed for EFL students so might not always be appropriat.
On the other hand, created materials are made by the teacher to suit the level of the student.
