Learning To Read By Phonics

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas A key barrier to achieving fluency for ESL students is a mastery of individual phonics sounds. My experience with ESL students from Southeast Asia has led me to focus on techniques for the particularly difficult L, R, M, and P phonics sounds. In this essay, I propose methods for using the straight arrow ESA lesson plan to introduce and drill phonics sounds with young learners. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Ethan W. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. The Engage portion of the lesson should serve as an interesting introduction to ignite student curiosity. Students are shown a series of pictures, ideally on a smartboard, if not, then with teacher-generated props and...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Shuajingsi Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Aba Zangzu Qiangzu Zizhizhou —? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language. Learning to speak English in a country where the ability to practice then English language is less for some learners is a very difficult thing. English language just like other languages demand constant practice. However, the inability of a student to have constant practice reduce interest in the spending time on the language. This essay...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Gegou Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Linyi Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language. Imagine yourself sitting in a classroom with nothing but textbooks, a teacher, students, tables and chairs. The entire class time featured only the teacher, and the students held none of the talk time. That classroom experience would be an awful one for many students and most could expect that the learning outcomes might not be positive. In unit 5 “Managing...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Reading competence involves making sense of the written text and requires the complex interaction of knowledge and skills. When children learn to read, they need to learn to integrate the use of visual, phonological and semantic cues and relate to their own experience to construct meaning. An effective reading instruction thus involves a combination of phonological instruction (decoding) and whole language (reading for meaning), with the use of authentic literary experience. This paper will provide a summary of essential areas of reading instruction, coupled with various strategies that I have used in my work as an educational psychologist and teacher, helping young children to read. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Pearly T....  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas There are four basic skills in any language: receptive skills – reading and listening, and productive skills – speaking and writing. Usually, when we learn a new language, we tend to access our learning process and result by checking how our productive skills are and forget that before we can the product, we need to receive first. Data says that the production of every 100 words in writing needs a receipt of 1000 words in reading which means to be able to produce anything, one must get as much as 10 times receipt. Similarly in listening and speaking. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Josephine L. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. However, if we compare the...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas The above is a topic that I want to particularly used to teaching reading to young learners. There are some points given below, they are. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Angeline J. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Children's songs and nursery rhymes aren't just a lot of fun—the rhyme and rhythm help kids to hear the sounds and syllables in words, which helps them learn to read. A good way to build phonemic awareness (one of the most important skills in learning to read) is to clap rhythmically together and recite songs in unison. This playful and bonding activity is a fantastic way for kids to implicitly develop the literacy skills that will set them up for...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Zaogoutou Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Linyi Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language. This is going to be a short essay on the role of phonology in teaching English as a foreign language. What is phonology? The definition of phonology as a field of study is “The branch of linguistics that deals with systems of sounds (including or excluding phonetics), within a language or between different languages.” We, as ELF teachers, however, are more...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas I’m a non-native English speaker who never once benefited from an effective ESL program in her entire school years. It’s rather ironic that I became an ESL teacher and taught English for six years, essentially preaching what I had never practiced myself. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Somy L. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. I was born in Korea, and my family and I moved to South Africa when I was ten. Before 2000, ESL programs were not widespread knowledge and resources were on the limited side. My ESL teacher at the time would just give printouts to the students to color and trace words. The amount of progress I made in that class was essentially nonexistent....  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Phonemics according to the Merriam Webster dictionary is a branch of linguistic analysis that consists of the study of phonemes. In other words, it could be explained as the study of the sound system of a given language and the analysis and classification of its phonemes. Phonemics awareness, on the other hand, is the ability to examine language independently to its meaning and to manipulate its component sound[1]. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Lystra H. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. It could also mean the ability to notice, think about and work with the individual sounds in spoken words and further manipulate the sounds in words which includes combining,...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Learning difficulties can found in all teaching environments, be it a classroom of mixed ability students, a one-to-one tutoring session, teaching EFL or online teaching. Learning difficulties affect all age groups, both genders, and all languages and cultures, therefore a good teacher must be able to both foresee and prepare for supporting a student’s learning difficulties. This is even more important when teaching EFL students as unless these difficulties are met and coping methods are established then the student will struggle to make any progress in their learning English as a second language. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Tammy T. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas There are thousands of English coursebooks nowadays, and one might get confused while trying to choose a coursebook for the students. I have faced this problem as well, trying to choose the coursebook for private classes with a 7-year-old student who has already learned some English before. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Elena K. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. As far as I am concerned, Oxford University Press is known to be one of the best ESL coursebook «producers» in the world. One of their best courses is «Family and Friends» which had been developed into «Family and Friends 2nd edition», a highly-popular course among ESL teachers. Also Read: What is the...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Daozhuang Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Dongying Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language. Learning difficulties can found in all teaching environments, be it a classroom of mixed ability students, a one-to-on tutouring session, teaching EFL or online teaching. Learning difficulties affect all age groups, both genders and all languages and cultures, therefore it is essential that a good teacher is able to both foresee and prepare for supporting a...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas I’m a young ESL teacher in China, and I is Chinese. English is a compulsory subject for all Chinese students and reading skills have gained raising importance in the national tests for English subjects. Besides this, reading itself is fun and beneficial. I always try to let my students “learn through English” instead of “learning English”. From my experience, a successful reading class for young learners should consist of the following steps: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Fang W. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. If the book is about animals. I may ask the students some questions like “what animals do you know?” ,“ what is your favorite animal?”....  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Learning English has become a necessary extra-curricular activity for many students in China. Since China has become a global giant as a result of her rapid economic development, many parents have picked up the momentum in raising their children’s proficiency in English. From learning and studying the TESOL and Young Learners’ sessions, there are three areas of hurdles observed. They are learning environment, technical differences, and students’ mindsets. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Angela W. Although English is taught to children since pre-school years, many students do not have the exposure to this foreign language outside of the classroom. There is no encouraging learning climate for students to thrive in. Even...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Gaota Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Bazhong Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language. Reading is an integral part of the language system and is closely linked to both spoken language and writing. If our children do not learn to read they cannot succeed in life. Students who are most likely at risk for reading failure are students with limited linguistic and cultural backgrounds and their limited exposure to English language. They often lack sufficient...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas What is phonology? Most students have not even heard about it. Whenever I ask my students whether they know or have ever learned about phonetics, the same answers come out, “No, we don’t know about it at all”. It is no wonder they reply like this because there is no phonetic teaching lesson in English classes from KG to high school here in my country. As for me, I got to study about this only when I attended college. Even then, it wasn’t taught comprehensively and I only learned very little. So I couldn’t read nor write phonetic symbols very well. Thus I thought it was the most difficult part of studying English. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Thein G. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Online English teaching has become more and more popular and worldwide, it not only can save a lot of time but also supply many possibilities to study at any time, any place as long as you have wifi. Nowadays, many adults choose online courses because of the convenience. I have taught adults online for almost a year, I chose this job because the working time is more flexible, and also I feel self-satisfied when I see my students making progress. But how to teach English to adults online? This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Yingying Z. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. There must have some effective ways for us to take as references. Through my teaching experience, I list...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Tianshi Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Weinan Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language. Introduction Learning English has become a necessary extra-curricular activity for many students in China. Since China has become a global giant as a result of her rapid economic development, many parents have picked up the momentum in raising their children’s proficiency in English. From learning and studying the TESOL and Young Learners’ sessions, there are...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Phonology is the system of sounds that exist within a particular language, while phonetics is the study of how speech sounds are produced. One difficulty for all learners of a second language is learning how to produce new sounds by moving the mouth, lips, and tongue in new ways. Several other languages also share the Roman alphabet with English but do not pronounce letters and combinations of letters the same way. These learners need to learn the English phonology so that when they read English, they will know how to pronounce the words they read correctly, and so that they speak English with a more native-sounding accent. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Rebecca W. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas If you think of Chinese ESL students it is safe to assume that most teachers would immediately worry about how they should teach phonics to Mandarin speakers. It is also true that the media has portrayed the Chinese accent as one of the most challenging to understand or even get rid of. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Graciela G. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Usually, the first thing you will notice as an ESL teacher, speaking from experience, is the difficulty Chinese ESL students face when it comes to the pronunciation of certain English sounds. In this essay, I will address not only the most common but some of the most unexpected challenges in an ESL classroom...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Legendary musician Paul McCartney once said, or rather sang, “When you’ve got a job to do you’ve got to do it well. You’ve got to give the other fellow hell.” I don’t believe anybody wants to be the middle of the road teacher, who just gets through each day, though I have seen many teachers who are. Before I started, I asked myself what makes the best kind of teacher and who were the best teachers in my life? There are many styles of teacher, but the answer I came to is the inspiring style of teacher – the teachers who made me WANT to learn and to go out and read and study on my own. The way they did that was by using their skills to make learning interesting and irresistible. As a teacher you need to incorporate and use all of the skills...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences I came to China 4 years ago to teach English. I have not managed to learn Mandarin in that time frame but I did learn quite a bit about the differences in pronunciation between Mandarin and American English. The most common errors made by Chinese students generally come from the habit of translating to their native language. English and Mandarin share some similarities such as word order and sentence structure which also complicate the issue. In this essay, I will discuss teaching pronunciation, the problems that can occur when teaching pronunciations, and the issues that occur with Mandarin speakers learning English. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Paris S. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the...  [Read more]

Jon ITTT Alumni Experiences In my personal opinion, vocabulary learning is the basic and most substantial part in any language learning. It’s like the bricks for building a house. Moreover, the process of vocabulary learning is the most difficult and time-consuming. It requires not only memorizing skills but also a good understanding of the word, and constant practice. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Dan W. For most English learners in China, they often encounter the same problem when learning vocabulary, which is that they keep forgetting the meaning they've learned. One of the major reasons for this problem is that they only memorize the Chinese meaning for each word. They pay no attention to the word class and skip the context study in which the word...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas In this paper, we will attempt to show how important reading is and how it can influence language acquisition and its development. We will mainly focus on primary school pupils as most children start to learn to read around six or seven years of age. With this aim in mind, we will first try to define what reading is and carry on by providing a description of the different types of readings. In a second phase, we will look at the reasons that encourage pupils to read and finally the type of reading material that can be presented to them This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Alexandre B. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. First and foremost and to have a better understanding...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas I chose this topic for my essay because it is not something I had ever given much thought to. As a native speaker, I don’t recall studying correct pronunciation in school along with other aspects of language learning such as grammar and vocabulary. Correct, or at least acceptable and understandable, the pronunciation was something that just happened. I was initially somewhat surprised when I saw that an entire online module had been devoted to the topic, but as I read the module, I realized that it is a rich and complex component of language learning, to which serious students of English as a second language should be exposed. And the sample lesson video demonstrated to me that teaching phonetics could also be fun, both for the teacher and for the...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences There is a world tendency to start learning English at a very young age. This may be a result of globalization and developing countries putting more attention on education. Apart from that, many studies and real-life experience show that young children have a great ability to grasp a foreign language, therefore kindergarten is a perfect time to begin. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Tetiana A. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. When teaching in a kindergarten, it is very important to understand the features of children as learners. First of all, children are naturally curious and like exploring new things, which is very useful for a teacher. On the other hand,...  [Read more]

Jon ITTT TEFL Information Teaching Ideas TEFL teachers both new and experienced will benefit from having a range of course books to draw on for their lessons. General English course books for young learners differ from those for adults in a number of ways. Obviously the types of topics will be geared towards the interests of younger people but there are also differences in the way the language is presented. Course books for adults will generally have sections with explicit presentations of a grammar point,whereas books for young learners do not usually cover grammar in detail. There are several publishers involved in producing general English course books for young learners. The main publishers are Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Pearson ELT, and Macmillan. These...  [Read more]

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Liangyi Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Weinan Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language. Legendary musician Paul McCartney once said, or rather sang, “When you’ve got a job to do you’ve got to do it well. You’ve got to give the other fellow hell.” I don’t believe anybody wants to be the middle of the road teacher, who just gets through each day, though I have seen many teachers who are. Before I started, I asked myself what makes the best...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences My own teaching experience, though not as extensive as many seasoned teachers, is quite diverse. I have taught English class to middle and high school students in the US public school system, worked for an alternative school for students with behavior problems, taught in a language training school, taught in a bilingual Montessori kindergarten, tutored numerous students one-on-one, and I’ve taught many different kinds of online classes. Currently, I work as a course designer and an actor, filming fun videos to teach Chinese students English through an interactive online app. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Christy N. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. I chose to...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Learning English can be a daunting task. There is a great amount of vocabulary, a phonics system that is filled with exceptions, grammar that doesn’t always follow its own rules, and pronunciation that can be difficult to reproduce. A failure to speak and understand English effectively can have damaging effects on a student’s life. They could miss out on a crucial job opportunity, or lose face at a social gathering. It is for these reasons and many more that learning English is often a stressful task for students. It is therefore of vital importance to reduce the amount of stress that a student feels when learning English. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Gregory M. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily...  [Read more]