Hi everybody! I've enjoyed reading the new entries and introductions and surfing the new websites. May I suggest a topic for conversing? What is reading in English all about and how can we help our learners to become proficient speakers and hence, readers? I want to refer you to a website, learn@cdl.org, the site for The Center for Development and Learning in the U.S. There is a great new conference coming up (I know! we can't go) but you can search some of the presenters. . for example, Louisa Moats. She is great -- practical but knowledgeable about spelling and reading in English (No! we NEVER use Italian phonology to help students spell in English as they are completely different). And, we should never forget to teach 'phonics' (the sound/letter correspondences in English -- sounds in English do not have fixed letter patterns as in Italian. . .we know that!) so that students can automatically 'decode' (then, they know what the print sounds like and focus their attention on meaning). The better able students are to access the code of English, the more attention they can pay to building vocabulary, natural rhythm in English and learning grammar because they hear it more clearly. Such a simple thing! And yet, why don't we regularly focus on this. . .especially in elementary school? We are doing it through Inglese Dinamico at the European School of Venice and in our labs -- what a quick uptake on better pronunciation, decoding and vocabulary and yes, even grammar recall -- we store words and 'chunk' our grammar in our 'mental dictionaries' first through sound!
Nancy
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Dear Nancy,
I completely agree with your view on the importance of teaching phonetics. When students are given a means to understand sound differences they are supported in the growing of a comprehesion competence and writing. In fact as I have always taught English starting from phonetics and IPA, I can appreciate the positive consequence on correct pronounciation, comprehension and words spelling. One of the problems of English speakers coming from Africa for example is the problem they have with writing and spelling.Most times their speaking is incomprehensible and needs a lot of hard work to be re-arranged.
I hope to meet you in Venice once again, Nancy. Good luck for your summer project!
Antonietta
Dear Antonietta,
Thanks for your thoughtful comment. And, I applaud you for tackling this area in your own classes, recognizing the challenges of diverse phonologies and their impact on learning English and the resulting Engish(es) that we hear. I can't stress enough that comprehension resides in the listener, not the speaker and so, we have to be mindful of this and teach English phonology not English through Italian phonology! This leads me to Anna Franca's insightful quote about technology making better teachers. Certainly, when used artfully and in an informed matter and not just as a matter of course, it can be a powerful 'teacher's assistant.' We have been using Lexia Learning (see www.lexialearning.com) programs for preschoolers, school-aged children and adults with excellent success. Having a professional program that provides a consistent model, tracks individual's difficulties and flags them, gives the extra practice and then, documents their progress is an fine teaching tool, particularly for those English teachers who feel that their own speaking skills are not strong, or just in general, for great English teachers who realize meaningful real speech/language models can enhance their own teaching by providing support in this area. Actually, right now, Lexia will provide any school the program free this year as long as they try it!
The summer project! It is so exciting!! Any help any of you can give with student referrals (this is our first year and start-up is always a challenge!) would be great!
And, I hope we get to meet soon again.
Nancy
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