Teaching phonics for students in grade 3

PART 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1. The reasons of choosing topic
Nowadays, the economy of the countries in the world is growing, exchanges in policy, culture, society are increasingly expanding among countries. 
To communicate with each other, requiring that different nations of the world must know proficient use of a common language besides their mother tongue. 
In the languages of communication in the world, English is the most common language that is considered as the most popular one.
They can use it as their "mother tongue". However, to help students get what they want to be effective, English teachers need to use their method appropriate to each age level, use their knowledge to teach their students. Beginning students of English often say that their top priorities are to know grammar well and to learn as many words and everyday phrases as possible. Many students think that phonetics is a luxury that they can do without. It's a big mistake to underestimate the importance of pronunciation. If you want to communicate in English, you need to speak English. Speaking to people is the only way to communicate effectively. If not, you can exchange written messages, of course. Or use gestures to show what you want to say. 
But seriously, you need to know how to pronounce what you want to say. How you say something is as important as what you say. It means that it is necessary for you to acquire standard correct English pronunciation if you want to understand English speakers and want them to understand you. The use of correct English pronunciation can make the opposite understand what he said, and also understand the opposite easier and more accurate.The language skills are closely related to each other; skills to support other skills. Correct pronunciation, therefore, is not only good for oral skills, but also to understand better for listening. However, the pronunciation is a difficult skill; without the guidance and regular exercise, positive, the progress will be virtually impossible. Besides, there are so many different factors related to teaching, learning methods, the influence of the mother tongue or conditions interact with native English speakers also do not much affect the progress of learners. From the above reasons, I strongly research and write the experience initiative named "Teaching phonics for students in grade 3”. I decided to choose this topic with the desire to help students learn English well and can communicate in English. Language learners not only communicate corectly but also self confidently in lessons. This is more excited than they are willing to learn in order to improve their English pronunciation. 
1.2. The purpose of the research
The purpose of reseach is to contribute to innovating English teaching methods in primary schools following the direction of promoting a positive, creative initiative of students, enhance individual coordinate activities with academic exchanges. Formating and drilling skills to apply knowledge to perform the communicative process. Create interest in learning English for students.Language learners communicate not only correctly but also self confidently in lessons. This is more excited when they are willing to learn in order to improve their English pronunciation and this also helps them strengthen and deepen knowledge further.
1.3. The subject of research 
With this research I focused on the Primary students at Minh Khai 2 primary school, especially the students of grade 3.
1.4. The methods of the research
To research a topic, people often choose many different methods. With this topic, I use the following methods: 
1. Theoretical research method 
I read the conducting material issues related to my research needs. 
2. Learning experience from my colleagues 
  	Attend the colleagues’ lesson to follow their good method. 
3. Experimental matching method. 
4. Observation method.
PART 2.  CONTENT 
2.1. Rationale 
Through a lot of research material , as well as a combination of theory and practice, we need to rely on the basis of the following reason: Facing with a problem of teaching and learning that I think of figuring out a way to teach phonics, and the work that I have written to teach phonics method in a class. Teaching phonics to help students create language learning atmosphere of pronouncing words correctly in English lessons. Much purpose of teaching phonics in a language class is not intended to make students capable of pronouncing similar to the native because it is not practical, unless the school has a special talent and highly motivated. The goal is to teach phonics to help students gain an ability to pronounce correctly at a certain level to be able to communicate in English with other people. Phonics is a teaching method used to help children learn to read. Phonics breaks down words into individual sounds and syllables and shows children how each sound fits together to make up a word. Children taught with phonics must learn the different vowel sounds, consonants and regular rules of English grammar. Because the learner's native language affects the pronunciation, English teachers need to have a certain understanding of the sound system. Phonics helps your students learn to read and spell. Without this ability, your child cannot be fully literate. Words are like codes and phonics teaches children how to crack the reading code. Phonics is therefore an important part of any reading development program. That is the reason why Ministry of Education put on phonics lessons to Primary English.
2.2. The situation of the problem 
Analysis of my school’s performance in teaching and learning pronunciation for recent years has showed that our average score in phonics has been consistently below, so has that of other schools in rural areas. It is a situation that needs to be concerned and motivated through a thorough examination of the school’s approach to the teaching of phonics. 
Our school is a public primary school in Thanh Hoa city. It is a large school with around 537 students, ranging from 6 to 10 years old. There are three to four classes in most year levels, meaning that collaboration among teachers is extremely important to ensure consistency in learning programs. Ministry of Education and Training applied International pronunciation l as the framework in the program of teaching English for primary students. After the first year of teaching the book 3 I found that most of the students cannot pronounce the new words correctly. They only focused on grammar and vocabulary and didn’t like to learn pronunciation during the lesson. 
The organization of teaching English in primary schools meets the needs of students in learning a foreign language elementary and accordants with the requirements of educational development. On the other hand, learning English in primary school will help students get a certain knowledge of English to be able to learn English better when they are at junior high school. Pronounciation in the general case, particularly in primary schools has long been a problem. Many students encounter new words they do not know how to pronounce. Often teachers must use International Phonetic form and read to students. Some times the students forget how to pronounce it late. In practically, teaching at my school, I notice that some of them have the ability to read and pronounce very well. Besides, there are some children who have difficulty in pronunciation. They are afraid of the wrong director, afraid of friend’s laugh, resultingly they are shy to say, less communicate and read the words. As well as students mispronounce, this leads to make a marked accent and intonation wrong.So to have methods of teaching reading - speaking - pronunciation well, I have conducted a survey earlier this year to classify students The following table is the result of students in English in grade 3C at Minh Khai 2 primary school Academic Year for 2016-2017.
RESULT BEFORE APPLYING THE RESEARCH IN TEACHING
Students
Excellent
Average
Fail
 35
3 students 9%
20 students 57%
12 students 34%
This table shows the number of students pronouce the words weakly accounts for 34 percent. This is figure is comparatively high.The reasons may come from students,teacher as well as the teaching facilities.
2.2.1. About students
In fact, in the process of learning a foreign language, students often focus on learning grammar mainly because the test requires the application of grammar, but the tests often have a few exercises with phonics. In English class they have few chances to practice pronounciation. Over time they lose their ability to communicate in English. In addition, the limitation of students’ speaking skill has some reasons:
+ The old habit of learning English does not motivate students to communicate in English.
+ Being lack of knowledge of English to communicate every day.
+ Having a few opportunities to practice English in the classroom with their ​​teacher and classmates.
2.2.2. About teachers
Many teachers in the Vietnam have faced with the challenge of teaching children to read and write in English, when the students have a heritage language that is not English and they are not yet proficient in English
Normally when teaching a foreign language, teachers often focus on teaching vocabulary, grammar or structure. However, grammar is not the final result of the teaching and learning process. It is only a tool to help learner to understand English structures. But in fact, there are some differences between spoken English and written English. Written English requires the accuracy statement of the structure, whereas spoken English needs the flexibility and the intimacy in communication.
From those factors, there are some problems in teaching phonics for primary students at school. However, in a number of causes, teachers and students can progressively overcome the difficulties. Therefore, in the teaching process teachers must use some suitable techniques to teach students how to learn phonics effectively. He or she should have creative and flexible approaches in using the methods of teaching phonics.
2.2.3. About the teaching facilities
My school has facilities of teaching and learning to meet the needs of specific subjects such as: projectors, the modern teaching equipment like Robot Teacher, Television, CD player, etc. So the application of teaching phonics is quite effectively.
2.3. Solution and implementation 
According to the present situation in English classes at my school, wrong pronouncing still exists in all grades, especially in grade 3. To improve this situation, I would like to present the defintion of phonics, some methods of teaching phonics and elicit the stages of teaching phonics for primary student which I have researched and applied quite successfully at my school.
Why is pronunciation important?
Pronunciation is about so much more than accent!  Many of the features that play a role in pronunciation also are important in reading and writing.
* Understanding how to make specific sounds and how sounds are similar helps with spelling and decoding (sounding out) unfamiliar words. This understanding of phonetics can help teachers and parents understand kids' spelling and reading errors, too.
* Understanding stress and intonation helps speakers be more understandable.  It also helps readers develop their reading fluency.
Stress and intonation make a big difference in comprehension!  Not only that, but they help us convey emphasis and feelings. 
There has been much confusion over this term. Phonics is a method of teaching beginners to read and pronounce words by learning to associate letters or letter groups (graphemes or phonograms) with the sounds they represent (phonemes). Students must learn to unravel the secrets of the code (in other words, decode) before they can comprehend the meaning of the written word.
Phonics is seen to be an improvement on the previously used method of learning the approximate sounds represented by letters(b=buh) first and then blending them with other sounds (bl=bluh) to decode and encode words in written form. This newer method attempts to eliminate the extraneous "uh" sounds which were unavoidable in the older method. Children also learn strategies to figure out words they don't know. It is considered an "analytical" approach where students analyze the letters, letter combinations and syllables in a word; in an effort to "decode" the speech-sounds represented by the letters and the meaning of the text. The advantage of phonics is that, especially for students who come to schools with large English vocabularies, it enables students to decode or "sound-out" a word they have in their speaking vocabulary.
2.3.1. Here are 5 basic steps to teach phonics that I have
Step 1: Introducing the sounds in the songs, rhymes or chants; teaching new words using word cards, real objects, pictures,etc. Focusing on the sounds of letters and words.
Step 2. Playing the recording a few times or let pupils listen to the Robot Teacher; having them repeat each line of the Songs/ Rhymes/ Chants and clap the words containing the focused sounds.
Step 3. Clap your hands to the beat while listening to the words that contain the sound that need to be trained.
Step 4. Organizing students to practice in pairs or groups to practice the songs, rhymes or chants. 
Step 5. Calling on some volunteers to perform the Songs/ Rhymes/ Chants at the front of the class and have the rest of the class clap the rhythm of the chant.
However, for children I usually use to teach pronunciation in a simply way, especially for students in grade 3: 
Listen and repeat. It needs to be noted that in the classroom, the correct pronunciation of the teachers is not enough, it also needs the modern equipments such as speakers, audio visual, and teacher’s showing the picture which describe the possition of the tounge.
For example 
In unit 2 . “p” is pronouced /p / 
Consonant /p/
Introduction : is voiceless consonant sound which is created by two lips (bilabial), power-on (flosive) 
How to pronounce: the first upper and lower lips close and then open the mouth slightly, turn inside out to create a sound / p /, pronounce fast: 
 	Only consonants "p" is pronounced as / p / When it stands at the top of a word, the end of a word or after. 
 	In unit 5. I teach vowel “e” 
Short vowel /æ/ 
 Introduction : /æ/ is a short sound.
Open your mouth wide.
It's pronounced /æ/....../æ/. Identify the vowels which are pronounce /æ/ “a" is pronounced / æ / in the following cases: In one-syllable words that end in one or more consonants 
In unit 5. I teach vowel “a” 
 Short vowel /ʌ/
Introduction: Open your mouth wide by 1/2 compared to the pronounced/æ/ and give tongue back I dentify the vowels which are pronounced /ʌ/ 
In unit 8 . “th” is pronounced /ð/ 
Consonant /ð/
Introduction : sonant (voiced consonant), tip-dental, rubbing consonants (fricative).
How to pronounce: Similar to pronounce / θ /, using voice sound vibrations generated in the palate. 
2.3.2. Teaching phonics through songs, poems
No one can deny the important influence of the music and poetry on human life. Most everyone loves music. It's always show whether that person is happy or sad. It appears everywhere, all the time to share joys or relieve sadness when we need to. Futhermore, poetry-music can increase concentration, enhance memory, make people closer together, create motivation and joy in learning, makes people relax when they are depressed or stressful,...
Because of the tremendous value that brings poetry to music, it has been used as educators useful tool in teaching. And now the use of songs, poetry as a tool to support the learning of foreign languages ​​is quite common. Just a few tunes of the song, students can learn the culture of authentic language, vocabulary, grammar, listening skills, and a variety of other skills.
Using songs and poems in class can make the classroom atmosphere becomes fun and dynamic. Students will not feel stressed, even scared they may like to speak English in class solemn atmosphere. It is this which will make them feel really excited and voluntarily participate in classroom activities.
The songs, poems not only create excitement for student learning, but also contains elements of very rich language including pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar...
The songs, poetry can help students to learn about pronunciation. For learners of English in general and in particular primary school students, there’re some sounds that are very difficult to imitate because our mother tongue does not have this sound such as: / ð /, / θ /, / æ / ,.... Therefore, you must learn how to pronounce inflexibly that can still not pronounced in your language. The wrong pronunciation can change the meaning of the phrase, which will lead to communication results, because listeners misinterpreted the transmission of information. Songs, poems can help them overcome this. The melody of the song, the rhythm of the poem often repeat a similar sound. When they hear many times, they will indirectly be told how to pronounce the sounds which makes you remember them and eventually the correctly pronounce
For example 
In Unit 10. I have students chant the poem “What do you do at break time?” 
After chanting, they can pronounce the couples of consonants br and pl fluently.
In Unit 6.
The students can sing the song Come in and Sit down to learn the consonant c and d
2.3.3. Teaching phonics through practical training
In the process of teaching phonic I often organize activities to practice and reinforce training words temperate through listening, speaking, reading and writing to increase fluency when students use words. These activities will help students focus on the identification and proficient use of the learned words in each context.
Along with that, I myself always focus on the role of students in teaching and learning vocabulary. I always encourage them to participate actively in the learning process through a long and continuous period
2.3.4. Teaching phonics through simple activities
a. Train the voice.
 Children may love the voice and intonation of some famous people,such as: Former US President Bill Clinton,famous Australian, pop princess Kylie Minogue or British legendary actor Hugh Grant legend. It would be nice if the teacher heard the voice of the character that is kid’s fans. So listen to them very often, pay attention to their English pronunciation, and then speak like them. Student’s ability to pronounce will be improved fast there.
Give children the talk shows, the English songs on the Children radio. Take a look at the animation program, YouTube video and blockbuster movies in theaters, too. And keep in mind, do not let them the subtitles offline! You can also aloud English songs, English stories on computers and MP3 players. Let the space surrounding your students is the standard English pronunciation - as much as possible.
For example
In review 1, student can listen and learn to read an interesting story about their close animals.
b. Get students to use English as much as possible
Practice, practice and practice. Give students lots of talking and talking. Give students remembers things that get told throughout the day and talk again. Your students will be a child play with the ability to hear very well!
In the bathroom, when walking the park, visiting the zoo, or just the small advertisement. Let practice English pronunciation anytime, anywhere. So you have created exciting learning environment but extremely effective. Like riding a bike, playing instruments or painting - the more you practice the more you progress.
Let them record their voice, aloud and recording again - continues, continues and continues.
c. “Getting acquainted” with students’ voice
 	Hear how the students say, pronounce the star then please point out mistakes, and c