浅谈自然拼读法在英语学习中的重要性-开题报告

Ⅰ. Literature Review

Research purpose, significance

For a long time, Chinese people have been suffering a great pain in memorizing English phonetic symbols and words. Owing to this old pattern, many of them gradually are not interested in English learning any more and eventually become silent English learners. A new English learning method——phonics, have shown us a new way: 1. No need to memorize words using phonetic symbols; 2. we can learn how to pronounce, how to spell a new word through recognizing the letter and letter combination and their represented sounds. Thus, the problem of memorizing English words could be smoothly or easily solved. And then we will be put a positive impact and effect on our reading, writing, learning confidence and strategy.

Key concepts

Phonics is defined as the knowledge about the letter-sound correspondence Relationship. “Phonics, which is the relationship between letters and their corresponding sounds, is very much a part of learning how to read”  (Lapp, 1997:696). As for teaching approach , “ Phonics instruction intend to help learners to understand the fundamentally alphabetic nature of our writing system and, through that understanding, to internalize the correspondences between frequent spelling patterns and the speech patterns --- the words, syllables, and phonemes---- that those spelling represent” (Adams, 1990).

Thus, we know that learners with the competence of spelling, his concept of phonics must be completed and clear. Meanwhile, according to the basic ability, it is not hard to infer that the easier language talent could be obtained. “Phonics, method of teaching reading, but is an essential ingredient of reading instruction”  (Heilman, 1998). “Phonics aims to provide with a strategy for working out pronunciation of previously unseen words”  (Stuart, 1995:46).

Overseas Research Status

Phonics, having a history of more than one hundred years in the United States, is one of the compulsory courses for native children in America and Canada. Proper Phonics, has always been considered to be one of the most effective, the most direct method of teaching mother tongue reading for English-speaking world. Therefore, Phonics is undoubtedly one of required course for learners in foreign countries.

    Foreign Studies show that, “Phonics is a method for teaching reading and writing of the English language by developing learners' phonemic awareness—the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate phonemes—in order to teach the correspondence between these sounds and the spelling patterns (graphemes) that represent them. The goal of phonics is to enable beginning readers to decode new written words by sounding them out, or in phonics terms, blending the sound-spelling patterns. Since it focuses on the spoken and written units within words, phonics is a sub-lexical approach and, as a result, is often contrasted with whole language, a word-level-up philosophy for teaching reading.” And an interesting finding is that “Since the turn of the 20th century phonics has been widely used in primary education and in teaching literacy throughout the English-speaking world. More specifically synthetic phonics is now the accepted method of teaching reading in the education systems in the UK and Australia.”（Wikipedia,2015,9）

Domestic Research Status

Through searching "phonic" at internet, in the area of Taiwan, China, there is a set of natural Pinyin material named KIDS PHONICS, which is introduced originally from the United States. This is one of the popularity textbooks of learning English in Taiwan. In domestic, Natural phonics is gradually being recognized and accepted by an increasing number of parents. Therefore, many internal training agencies treat natural phonics as the content of their training, by using the original imported materials from the west as the main slogans. For instance, Ask tang straight spelling in shanghai is one of the most representative materials in this respect. 

About phonics material, Domestic market has a variety of versions and brands such as smart phonics, New step textbook——phonics, Westergren straight spelling in Tongliao area of Inner Mongolia and Hanno straight spelling and so forth. And it should be made clear that Natural phonics belong to the behavior of the non official training institutions at home. 

Current research findings

As far as the phonics, it has been used for a long period of time (more than ten years)…in Taiwan and H.K. But there are no explicit or consistent guidelines for school teachers. At the beginning, it was conducted by cramming school for English learning. Excellent effects could be found on these elementary students. Learners are taught to familiar with the rules that the combination of the alphabets how to pronounced with sufficient oral and listening inputs. “Teach children 44 sounds of English and how they are spelled. Then they can sound out each word from left to right and read it off the page”  (Flesch, 1955: foreword). With the abounding inputs, learners can know more words pronunciation and spelling by what they read and saw. “What effective readers do when they use the phonics system is (1)visually recognize known patterns of letters; (2) translate those patterns into the sounds they represent; and (3) blend the patterns together to see if it forms a sensible, recognizable word” (May, 1998:176). Learners can pronounce and spell well by practicing look-reading method from one-syllable to multi-syllable words. This approach follows the way of the native teaching method in the United States.  

Summary evaluation

      As a matter of fact, More than 80% of the words in English (as a kind of alphabetic language), are in accordance with the rules of reading and spelling. For this feature, more and more experts believe that Phonics is the best way to solve the problem of the pronunciation of English learners. In addition, Phonics can not only greatly enhance our ability to read words, and it can also improve the speed and accuracy of our words memorization. In this way, Our English learning level will be finally and most rapidly improved in the near future. Based on above，this paper think that phonics, as an important learning method of English language, should also plays an equally important role as traditional phonetic symbols does.

Ⅱ. Outline of this paper

1. Introduction

   1.1 Research background

   1.2 Research object

2. Traditional learning method——phonetic symbols   2.1 General knowledge about phonetic symbols

2.2 Advantages of phonetic symbols

2.2.1 Help do word recognition accurately

2.2.2 Help do autonomous learning

2.3 limitations of phonetic symbols

2.3.1 Have few of relationship between sound and letter

2.3.2 Destroy the fluency of reading

2.3.3 Add burdens to learners

3. New learning method——phonics 3.1 Definition of phonics

3.1.1 Elements of Phonics（44 sounds）

3.1.2 Role of Phonics in Reading

3.2 Features of phonics

3.2.1 Can read most of words encountered

3.2.2 Can spell most of words be listened

3.2.3 No need to memorize words mechanically

3.2.4 No need to use phonetic symbols

3.3 Applyment of phonics in English learning

3.4 limitations of phonics

     3.4.1 Relationship between pronunciation and spelling is not always predictable

 3.4.2 Phonics skills do not lead to comprehension

 3.4.3 Not conducive to the recognition of some words 

3.5 Why is phonics important?

3.5.1 Build our English study interest and confidence

3.5.2 Have correspondences between the sounds and letters

3.5.3 Use the positive transfer of Pinyin effectively

3.5.4 Avoid the burden of phonogram in learning English

3.5.5 Improve the ability and efficiency of memorizing words

3.5.6 Help make reading easier

4. Differences and connections between phonetic symbols and phonics

5. Conclusion

5.1. The reason why this topic is important  

5.2. How might this topic affect me or other people

5.3. What can we learn from this topic

Ⅲ. References

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 ://english.glendale.cc.ca.us/phonics.rules.html，/17 Oct 2015

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