TOPIC 10: Los códigos ortográficos de la lengua inglesa. Relación sonido-grafía.

Propuestas para la didáctica del código

escrito. Aplicaciones de la ortografía en las producciones escritas.

 ‘e’ is normally pronounced /e/ like in 'ten' or 'lend'.

 ‘ee’ is usually produced /i:/ like in 'feet' or 'teen'.
 Syllable ‘er’, when it is stressed is produced /3: / like in 'serving' or 'nerd'.
However, the unstressed syllable ‘er’ is said / / like in 'hammer' or 'teacher'.
 ‘e +a+ r’is quite irregular, it is said /3:/ in 'earth';/a:/ in 'heart' and / / in 'hear'.

 ‘o’ is usually pronounced /ɔ/as in 'hot' or 'plot', though it may also be / / in words like 'come' or 'some'.
 ‘o +consonant + e’ is said / u/ as in 'rose' or 'close'.
 ‘o +r’ is produced /ɔ:/as in 'lord' or 'more'.
 ‘w + o + r’ is /3:/ like in 'word' or 'world'.

 Letter ‘u’

 ‘u’ is usually pronounced / / as in 'cut' or 'lunch', but it also appears as /u/ in words like 'push' and 'pull'
 ‘u + r’ is said /3:/ as in 'surf' or 'nurse'.
 ‘u + r + e’ is produced /ju /as in 'cure' or 'pure'.

 Consonants: I will now present some general characteristics concerning consonants.

 Regular consonants: most of them are quite regular, as they hardly ever change their pronunciation. For example,
the grapheme ‘l’ and ‘p’ are pronounced /l/ and /p/ in all the following cases, no matter the position of the
grapheme or the surrounding letters: 'lollipop', 'pulp' and 'loop'.

 Combination of graphemes. Some combinations are very predictable, like:

o ‘tion’, that is produced / n/ like in 'communication' and 'caution'.

o ‘sion’, that sounds / n/ like in 'vision' or 'decision'.
o ‘ph’ is pronounced /f/ like in 'philosophy' or 'phantom'.

 Changes depending on the position: it happens with some graphemes like

o ‘ch’, that is said / / or /k/ at the beginning and at the end of the word, like in 'church' or ‘chemistry’,
but is said normally / / like in 'brochure' or 'machine'.
o Other are less predictable, like ‘th’, that can be pronounced / / or / / in the beginning ('think' or
'they'); and also in the end of a word ('bath' or 'bathe').

 Changes depending on the following vowel.

o Letter c:

 ‘c + a’, ‘c + o’ and ‘c + u’ sounds /k/ like in 'car', 'cord' or 'cut'.

 ‘c + e’, ‘c + i’ and ‘c + y’ sounds /s/ like in 'ceiling', 'city' or 'cycle'.
 ‘c + ea ‘, ‘c + ia’ sounds / / as in 'ocean' or 'racial'.

o Letter g:

 ‘g + a’,’g + o’ and ‘g + u’ sounds /g/ like in 'gate', 'goat' or 'gun'.

 ‘g + e’, ‘g + i’ and ‘g + y’ sounds / / as in 'gem', 'giraffe' or 'gym'.

 Silent letters: In some cases, a consonant does not sound at all, like in the following cases: ‘b’ in 'doubt'; ‘c’ in
'muscle'; ‘g’ in 'foreign'; ‘k’ in 'knee' ; ‘s’ in 'island' ; ‘l’ in 'half'; ‘w’ in 'write'; ‘d’ in 'sandwich'; ‘t’ in 'castle' or ‘p’
in 'psychology'.

These are just some relevant examples of how graphemes and phonemes relate to each other in English. Nonetheless, it is
important to understand that they are not universal rules, but general tendencies.

5. TEACHING THE WRITING SKILL.

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I need to move forward analysing the writing skill. I will start providing Matthews's studies about what is needed to
develop the ability. He stated five areas of knowledge.

MATTHEW´S 5 1.The graphic skill has to do with the correct production of graphemes, spelling, punctuation marks and
AREAS OF capitalization.
KNOWLEDGE
2.The grammatical skill is basically to use the language in a correct way, following the rules of grammar.
3.The stylistic skill means to express precise meaning in a variety of styles and media.
4.The rhetorical skill means to use devices to link the different parts of a text in a cohesive and
organized manner.
5.The organizational skill implies sequencing ideas and organizing the information that is presented in a
written text.

With the intention to work on those five components, teachers must have a clear idea of how the process of writing is
acquired. Following Kroll, the sequence is as follows.
KROLL Preparation: children must acquire the motor skills.
process
Consolidation: students start expressing in a written text what they are already able to communicate orally.
Differentiation: writings start diverging from oral speech, so individuals start developing a specific style for
the written media.
Integration any person is meant to use their own stylistic choices.

When it comes to procedure, Brewster pointed out that the writing skill must be addressed following a balanced approach
among three main elements: input, structured output, and communicative output. He proposed to include these elements
following a logical sequence.
BREWSTER Presentation stage: receive the meaningful input as the new contents are presented through
explanations, audio-clips, videos, reading extracts...
Balanced
approach Practice stage. start assimilating the contents, by practicing them in an guided way. They will take part in
drills, code-controlled games and activities. Therefore, they will produce the structured output, the
priorities will be accuracy and correction, and teachers will be eliciting the conscious learning of the
language.
Production phase: students will use the language in a more freely way and with autonomy through the
participation in tasks and communicative games. They will produce the communicative output, the
priorities will be communication and fluency and the development of the unconscious acquisition of the
language.

6. DIDACTIC APPLICATION OF SPELLING ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF WRITING

This point deals with some important methodological principles that teachers in Primary Education must take into
consideration when working on the writing skill.

 Word, sentence and text level have to be born in mind when setting up the activities, according to the age of the
pupils.

 At the level of Primary Education, teachers must use three types of tasks:

o Controlled activities, like copying words and simple sentences.

o Guided activities, like producing sentences and short texts in a more freely way, following a model.

o Free writing activities with a communicative purpose for the latest years of Primary Education.

In order to do so, I will propose to take into account some principles when setting up the tasks and learning situations.
I will Learning situations contextualized
propose
Written words must be presented orally first
some
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principles main goals and the kind of response must be explained clearly and in advance , making students aware of
what is expected from them during the activity.
use visual clues to facilitate understanding
use authentic materials
take advantage of Information and Communication Technologies, (digital comp)

And very importantly, the difficulty of the activities must be carefully chosen according to students’ level of proficiency
and their educational needs,

Gass SM. (1994) Second Language Acquisition. London: Lawrence Erlbaum

Hadley, A. (2000) Teaching Language in Context. Boston. Heinle and Heinle, 3rd Edition.

www.dictionary.com

www.howjsay.com

www.linguatic.com/methods.htm

www.wordreference.com