Phonological Awareness and Teaching English as a Second Language

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Phonological Awarenessand Teaching English as a
Second Language
Linda Siegel University of British
Columbia Vancouver, CANADA
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Special Thanks to

• Suk Han Lee and colleagues at the EMB
• EMB
• Mei Lan Au
• Alice Lai
• Nonie Lesaux, Orly Lipka, Rose Vukovic
• Chinese Rhenish Church Hong Kong Synod
• Hong Kong Institute of Education
• Ian Smythe

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Aims of this presentation

• To understand the role of phonological awareness
  in the development of English speaking, reading
  and writing
• To understand the English language learning of
  ESL speakers
• To understand how to develop English language
  skills in ESL speakers

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Inspiration for the ideas

• English Immersion in Xian
• Also Beijing, Lanzhou, Guangzhou, Shanghai
• North Vancouver Canada ESL teaching
• Hong Kong EMB Project

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How Is Language Learned?

• A childs first language is learned by listening
  and speaking.
• Reading and writing comes much later after there
  is a good oral language foundation.
• Children speak first in single words and then in
  short sentences.
• Children learn nouns, adjectives, and verbs
  first. Grammar comes later.

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Good Language Education

• Listening and speaking are stressed to help
  develop comprehension and reading skills.
• Conversation and oral language skills, not
  dictation, are important.

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Principles

• Listening skills are about the ability to extract
  meaning from a string of words.
• Reading is about extracting meaning from a series
  of written words.

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Principles

• You cannot extract meaning from spoken language
  unless you understand the meaning of words.
• Understanding of sounds precedes understanding of
  the written word.

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Terminology

• Phonological Awareness the ability to break
  down speech into smaller segments
• Phoneme the smallest unit of sound
• Phonics a method of teaching reading that
  emphasizes the association of sounds with letters

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Terminology

• Phonological awareness training teaching the
  sound structure of words
• Auditory training
• Phonics training teaching the connection
  between sounds and letters
• Training with print

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Teaching English

1. It is important to first develop oral language
   skills.
2. Phonological awareness skills should be taught
   orally without print.
3. Phonological awareness training helps children
   learn vocabulary and reading skills.

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Danger of teaching writing early

1. They will learn English like they learn to write
   Chinese as a series of keystrokes. This limits
   the size of the vocabulary.
2. They can never develop fluent and accurate
   reading.
3. They will have trouble with talking to people and
   writing good English.

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North Vancouver Study
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Aims of the Vancouver Study

• Identify children at risk for literacy
  difficulties
• Provide an appropriate intervention
• Assess the effectiveness of the intervention

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Longitudinal Study

• Screening at age 5 when children enter school
• Tested every year on reading, spelling,
  arithmetic, language and memory skills
• Results at grade 6 age 12

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Longitudinal Sample

• All the children in the North Vancouver School
  District
• 30 schools
• Varying SES levels
• 20 English as a Second Language (ESL)

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Languages In The Study

• Japanese
• Korean
• Kurdish
• Mandarin
• Norwegian
• Polish
• Punjabi
• Romanian

• Arabic
• Armenian
• Bulgarian
• Cantonese
• Croatian
• Czech
• Dutch
• Farsi

• Finnish
• French
• German
• Greek
• Hindi
• Hungarian
• Indonesian
• Italian

• Russian
• Serbian
• Slovak
• Spanish
• Swedish
• Tagalog
• Tamil
• Turkish

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Kindergarten
KINDERGARTEN
L1 English
ESL
GRADE 5
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Grade 6
KINDERGARTEN
L1 English
ESL
Dyslexic
Dyslexic
Normal
Normal
GRADE 5
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KINDERGARTEN SCREENING

• LETTER IDENTIFICATION
• MEMORY
• PHONOLOGICAL PROCESSING
• SYNTAX
• SPELLING

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Letter Identification

• c r m k b w o
• s y t a u d q
• x l g e z n j
• p h v i f

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Phonological Processing
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• the
• and
• sit
• when
• book

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• anacampersote
• mithridatism
• qualtagh
• ucalegon
• groak

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Phonological Awareness

• Ability to break speech down into smaller units
• ? words
• ? syllables
• ? phonemes

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Syllable Identification
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Rhyme Identification
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Phoneme Identification
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Working Memory
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Sentence Repetition

• Sentences are spoken orally to the child and the
  child is required to repeat them exactly.
• Examples.
• Drink milk.
• I like ice cream.
• The boy and girl are walking to school.
• The girl who is very tall is playing basketball.

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Oral Cloze
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SIMPLE SPELLING

• childs name
• mom
• dad
• cat
• I
• no

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LAUNCH INTO READING SUCCESS

• RHYME DETECTION
• INITIAL SOUNDS
• SEGMENTATION
• BLENDING
• SOUND DISCRIMINATION

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Other Important Abilities

• Vocabulary understanding and producing the
  meanings of words
• Syntax understanding the basic grammar of the
  language
• Differences between Chinese and English
• Verb tenses
• Plurals
• Articles

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LITERACY ACTIVITIES

• LISTENING TO STORIES
• ACTING OUT STORIES
• SINGING SONGS
• LETTER OF THE WEEK
• LETTER COOKIES

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Grade 6 MEASURES OF READING
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Grade 6 READING COMPREHENSION
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Grade 6 SPELLING
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Grade 5 Phoneme Deletion
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SES Reading
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SES Spelling
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Conclusions

• It is possible to identify children at risk for
  reading disabilities in kindergarten.
• It is possible to provide a classroom based
  intervention to bring these children to at least
  average levels of reading.
• Children learning English as a second language
  can perform at native speaker levels and
  bilingualism may be an advantage.

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Hong Kong EMB Project

• Primary 1

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AIMS OF THE PROJECT

• Improve English oral language skills of P1
  children in Hong Kong
• Vocabulary and Grammar
• Train phonological awareness skills
• Improve reading skills

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Hong Kong Study

• Experimental group received phonological
  awareness training
• Control group - same SES
• All government schools mostly low SES

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Study Design

• Experimental and Control Schools
• Pretest Fall 2002
• Intervention for Experimental Schools 2002-2003
• Post-test Summer 2003

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Literacy Activities

• Oral vocabulary
• Listen to stories
• Draw pictures
• Act out stories
• Sing songs

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Components

• Only English is used in the classroom
• Build up vocabulary ability to follow English
  instructions
• Use of games, story-telling, etc. to provide rich
  English language environment

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INITIAL PHONEME DELETION
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WORD READING
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PSEUDOWORD READING
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PICTURE NAMING
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Oral Cloze

• Tony _______ a happy boy.
• I eat oranges _____bananas.
• There are some books_____the bag.
• I have two_____.

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ORAL CLOZE
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First Steps in English

• Dr. Alice Lai
• Prof. Linda Siegel
• Dr. Ian Smythe
• Project funded by the QEF

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Conclusions

• Phonological awareness training improves reading,
  vocabulary, and syntactic skills
• Phonological awareness training can be
  implemented in the classroom
• ESL students benefit from PA training

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Grade 5 Spelling
A
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KindergartenSYNTACTIC AWARENESS
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Grade 5SYNTACTIC AWARENESS
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Phonological Awarenessand Teaching English as a
Second Language
Linda Siegel University of British
Columbia Vancouver, CANADA