Task 2 : Creating teaching aids for the pronunciation of English words and sounds

Nowadays, children have develops as one of the hottest prospect in Malaysian to

become the one that can turn Malaysian to become one of the modern country in the world.
That is the reason why Malaysian people especially young children have to know and learn
English since in preschool. This was the good mission and vision from the education
department of Malaysia. But there have been one issue that always become the main issue
that everyone try to cure it. The issue is children can’t pronounce English words or sounds
fluently and accurately. In order to overcome it, we have created one teaching aid and hope
this teaching aid can become a cure that everyone want.

We have decided to teach and help Year 1 student to pronounce “s” correctly. There
are many reasons why we choose “s” sound. First, based on our last School Based
Experience, we discover that some student can’t pronounce “s” sound correctly. When they
want to sound “s”, they will sound “sh”. For example, when the read the word “snake’, they
will read is as “shnake”. There are big different between the “s” sound and “sh’ sound. Based
on our observation, teacher just ignore student problem and when we ask, the teacher say
that it is normal children to pronounce “s” sound as “sh” sound. Besides that, children also
influence by what parent talking at home. For example, children in Malaysia when hungry,
they will asked for milk and the way they asked was “cucu”. Attitude of parent, they not
correct their children since young and that is why children hard to pronounce “s” sound
correctly. If we do not correct it, students will never pronounce it correctly and can affect their
communication.

Second, children nowadays have a speech disorder problem. Most children make
some mistakes as they learn to say new words. A speech sound disorder occurs when
mistakes continue past a certain age. Every sound has a different range of ages when the
child should make the sound correctly. Speech sound disorders include problems with
articulation (making sounds) and phonological processes (sound patterns). One of big
problem is student do not know the right position of tongue when pronounce English word.
Actually as teacher or adult, we must teach student which are lips, tongue, glottis, teeth and
many more. This steps can make students become more easy to pronounce “s” sounds.
That is why in our teaching aid, we included the way to pronounce “s” accurately when we
begin our lesson.

We have refers to Document Standards for year 1 and 2 for English Language KSSR
as our main references. Under the listening and speaking in KSSR, we have choose content
standard 1.1 by the end of the year primary schooling, pupils will able to pronounce words
and speak confidently with the correct stress, rhythm and intonation in accordance to
Standard British English (SBE). Under the content standards, we choose two learning
standards. First, 1.1.1 able to listen and respond to stimulus given with guidance:
a)environmental sounds b) instrumental sounds c)body percussion d)rhythm and rhyme
e)alliteration f)voice sounds g)oral blending and segmenting. The second one is 1.1.3 able to
listen to, say aloud and recite rhymes or sing songs with guidance.

We have decided to choose a children song which is “The S Song”. The reason
behind why we choose this song is this song is an easy song to sing with many of repetition
element in there. As we know, children will learn more by using a repetition method. Besides
that, the melody of this song is fun and can attract student to sing along with teacher. This
song actually have been change the lyrics by us in order to make student enjoy listen it and
the words that contain in the lyrics is the words that student often hear and often use such as
”sun”, “sea”, “six”, “snow” and many more. This actually one of the method that can put
students in the situation that they want. If we use the hard word to pronounce by Year 1
students such as “seashore”, their attention towards what we teach will not last long. For us,
this is the most suitable song to teach student how to pronounce “s” sound correctly.

We have created appropriate teaching aids in order to assist us in teaching the “s”
sound. The first step is, we will enter the class by wearing letter “S” on our head. This is
because we want to attract student attention. As we know, first impression is important when
we want to do something.  In a survey of the members of the American Personnel
Consultants 3/4 those men and women who are responsible for hiring people for large
companies 3/4 members generally agreed that they made their decision to hire or not to hire
a person within 30 seconds of the first meeting. This explains us why first impression is
important. When student started to focussed on us, this will make our plan in teaching the “s”
sound go like what we plan and can make students to pay full attention towards us.
 Our teaching aid has its own name which is “Power of S”. We put all our tools in one
box. As a children, they will eager want to know what actually things inside the box. This is
how we can attract student to stay focus on our lesson. Inside our box actually contains all
the tools for lesson. We just put in one box and that is why we called it “Power of S”.

Our teaching aid: Power of S

Then, we show student how to pronounce “s” sound correctly. We sound “s” then we
ask student to follow us. This explanation of how to pronounce “s” sound correctly didn’t take
a long time because we do not want student become boring. After that, we ask student to
sing the song “The S Song”. In order to make our session become fun, we do not use the
power point presentation at all. This is because, teachers nowadays often use power point
presentation as a tool to teach. This will make power point presentation as a common thing
for student nowadays. So, we have used our own guitar and sing the song together with
students. This will make students become happy and easy to learn because not many
teacher use guitar in class and that kind of thing will make student eager to learn more. The
guide student how to sing, we have wrote the lyrics on the whiteboard and we write the letter
“s” with a red colour in order to make know how to differentiate it. We repeat this song two
times because as we know, repetition is one of the best strategies to teach student.

Then, we bring student to learn through play. One of the early childhood education
which is Maria Montessori have said that, children can develop their potential and can gain
knowledge by playing. We take our teaching aids in front of class and then we ask students
to take one person one card inside the box.
 Student taking out the card inside the box The S card inside the box

After each student have one card, we will ask students to pronounce “s” sound. After
that, we called up the most quiet and disciplined student to came out and take another piece
of card. Then we ask student to read what word that they get. For example, student A
already have S card on his hand, then another card that he take is “un”. Student A must
combined it and read it. It will become “Sun”. Next we ask Student A to pick up which picture
is sun. Then, we call another student and repeat the steps that student A have done. On this
activity, students not only know how to pronounce “s” sound but students also can gain new
vocabulary.

Students combines the card Students combines the card and with picture

The next activity is actually as assessment activity to help and make sure students
can pronounce “s” sound fluently and accurately. The next activity’s name is “S Bird”. We
take out “S Bird” inside the box. Then we ask student to make a big circle. We sing “The S
Song” then we ask student to pass the “S Bird” around the circle. When the song stop., the
person who hold the “S Bird” must pronounce “s” sound for three times. Then we sing again
the song and repeat the steps. This actually to improve students knowledge and to make
students remember on how to pronounce “s” correctly. Repetition strategies play a big role
here.
 The “S Bird”

Next, our material is safe to use. As we know, one of the element that important in
early childhood education is students safety. Our material is totally safe because there is
nothing dangerous thing to student. This will created a safe an great learning sessions.
Besides that, our teaching aid that we created was the same level of Year 1 students. This
factor will guide students to understand what teacher has them teach easily. Lastly, our
materials have been created based on types of learning styles that suitable for generation Y.
The facts said that, generation Y’s learning styles was more towards the student’s centred.
So, this kind of element we used in order to make fulfil our objective

In conclusion, our adapt material was more appropriated and suitable to use for Year
1 students because we have follow all the needs of students in Malaysia. With this teaching
aid, our hope is students can develop and can become one of the generation that put
Malaysia on the next level which is become one of the modern country in the world.