1/15/24, 9:24 PM Module 9: Teaching Phonology: Unit 4: Phonemic Chart and how to use it?

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Module 9: Teaching Phonology 

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Unit 4: Phonemic Chart and how to use it?

Please explore the following Phonemic Chart from the British Council

Phonemic Chart
Let's have a look at the individual phonemes:

There are a total of 44 phonemes made up of vowels, double vowels and consonants. We also need to consider schwa
sounds which we'll come to in a moment.

Vowels:

You say vowels with an open mouth.

From left to right, a row at a time:

1. tree/see/please

2. it/is/sit

3. put/look

4. food/too

5. extra/said

6. mother/around

7. early/ word

8. door/floor/more

9. mat/hat/cat

10. cup

11. farm/arm

12. not/got

Double Vowels (diphthongs):

Double vowels are two vowels joined together.

From left to right, a row at a time:

1. ear/beer/career

2. rare/bear/hair

3. photo/know

4. cow/plough/how

5. face/ace

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1/15/24, 9:24 PM Module 9: Teaching Phonology: Unit 4: Phonemic Chart and how to use it?
6. my/eye

7. destroy/boy

Consonants:

From left to right, a row at a time:

1. up/pen

2. wife/off

3. tea/tight

4. bath/thank

5. cheap/cheese/

6. nice

7. sugar

8. cook

9. bubble/bad

10. voice

11. mud

12.father

13. general

14. jazz

15. visual

16. good/big

17. how

18. man 

19. no

20. bling

21. red

22. leg

23. wet

24. yes

The Schwa: /ə/

This is the most frequent of all English vowels. It is the easiest sound in the language, since you don't have to do anything to
pronounce it.

The schwa is a special type of short vowel. It is a very weak sound that is never stressed. You find the schwa in words with more
than one syllable.

It is heard primarily in unstressed syllables, as in these words where we have bolded the schwa sound: above,
photograph, America, mother

It is the vowel we produce if we vocalise as we prepare to speak--uh. The tongue is said to be in its neutral position as
we pronounce this vowel.

Any vowel letter can be pronounced as schwa and the pronunciation of a vowel letter can change depending on
whether the syllable in which it occurs is stressed or not.

For example:

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1/15/24, 9:24 PM Module 9: Teaching Phonology: Unit 4: Phonemic Chart and how to use it?
I see a man. /'mæn/

I see a policeman. /pə'li:smən/
In 'policeman', the syllable 'man' is unstressed and the letter 'a' is pronounced as schwa.

In fact, this schwa sound very often disappears and it is not pronounced at all, especially in British English. For instance, the
word 'police' may sound /pəli:s/ or simply /pli:s/.

A schwa comes from an unstressed syllable that became very weak, so today a schwa can be written with any vowel or vowel
combination, for example (schwa sound in bold):

the sun, important, station, festival, about, brother

Using the Phonemic Chart:

You can use the phonemic chart at any time during the lesson to help students understand the sound of a word. They
will understand the chart more and more as you use it more often in your lessons. Whenever you introduce a new
word, you can write the word on the board and write the phonemic letters underneath.

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