Phonics - the basis for everything

I don't have a copy of Heather Rendall's CILT Pathfinder "Stimulating Grammatical Awareness" (1998) because as fast as I bought them, I gave them away to student teachers. It really was the best book at the time. And the one thing that stands out in my memory, from a book on Grammar, was its emphasis on the sound-spelling link. The sound-spelling link as grammar - systematic knowledge that can be deployed in order to use language successfully. 

 Good knowledge of phonics unlocks successful language learning in every area. And poor knowledge of phonics blocks it at every turn. Pronunciation and spelling are obvious beneficiaries. But also independence in learning words correctly. And Listening (correctly turning a stream of sound into intelligible words). And Reading - whether it be reading aloud or silent reading for comprehension. If reading in your head is like listening to poorly pronounced language, then it won't be easy to understand. And teaching: having to drill all individual items, repeating words after the teacher, instead of being able to move onto the next stage. 

Being able to speak with good pronunciation was a prime objective of language teaching in the 90s. But this was often explicitly done at the cost of developing knowledge of the sound-spelling link. Teachers were told not to show the written word because the pupils' brains were so used to English spelling patterns, that it would corrupt their pronunciation in the new language. As a result, pupils made up their own "written" versions (pwason and wazo?!) because sounds alone are ephemeral and hard to hang on to without a rationalisation or visualisation. 

All the sounds of Spanish from Amigos 2

At the time, Spanish was taught much less than French, but teaching Spanish, it was obvious that crunching the sound-spelling link was one of the advantages Spanish could have over French. A simple
conversation with greetings, a quick personal introduction, and a character called Ángela or maybe Jorge, can teach all the major Spanish sound-spelling features in one lesson. A version of this ended up in the Oxford Amigos 2 text book.   

Not to be able to do so in French was frustrating. In part because of the way teachers themselves had been taught. Those of us who succeeded in French did so by working out the rules for ourselves. Although some rules, for example the pronunciation of "Divin enfant", were learned through other contexts such as music. And others such as the pronunciation of Michel-Ange and other metro stations remain a mystery. So Heather Rendall's Pathfinder was very much a call to arms to tackle this. And of course at the time, teachers were working in isolation, without the easy access to networks we take for granted now, apart from (for example) the once a year Language World conference. 

We started by identifying words that learners met early on which contained key sounds. These were displayed as posters and referred to in lessons. These are pictured here to the left (dated by the inclusion of a certain French footballer who had just signed for Arsenal), and there is a link to them on Dr. Rachel Hawkes' phonics page. 

Comberton's Francophoniques

This is ironic because we soon made the decision to move away from using these key words, and adopt Rachel's school's own system known as Francophoniques. This again chose key words for key sounds, this time matching them to actions. They were deliberately not words that learners would necessarily meet, which adds the fun and excitement of learning more interesting low frequency words such as sorcière or gorille. 

But the key feature was the use of actions. Firstly perhaps to use the combination of text, image, sound and action to stimulate memorisation. (Remember this was in the days before Multiple Intelligences somehow transmogrified into single Learning Styles.) But mainly because having an action allows the teacher to correct or anticipate pronunciation without "giving" the pupil the sound by saying anything. I mentioned in an earlier post on the coherence of the curriclum, the use of the "fish" hand signal to anticipate the pronunciation of "coiffeur". Of course the "fish" action goes with the francophoniques keyword "poisson" and is learned at the start of Year 7 for the sound "oi". If the teacher had to pronounce the "oi" sound, the pupil would just copy it. Making the action forces the pupil to recall the oi sound and apply it to the word "coiffeur".

And it works. Spectacularly. Pupils enjoy learning it in Year 7. It creates a good dynamic for establishing routines and participation. A focus on texts for phonics gets over some of the issues of Primary-Secondary transition with pupils having different levels of comprehension. But most importantly it has a permanent and noticeable affect on pupils' ability to read aloud, deal with new words and spell correctly.

Although we have been doing this for over a decade, sometimes we end up with an unwanted "experiment". Maybe a teacher is away at the start of the year, or we have a new teacher settling in to a new way of doing things. Or for some other reason a class isn't taught phonics in quite the way we would like. Well, the positive thing is that if I pick up a class in Year 9 or if I am observing a class, you can instantly see all the pupils who were taught phonics in Year 7, because of their confidence in pronunciation and in dealing with new words. If I were to headline the important thing that pupils learn in Year 7, it would, without a moment's hesitation, be the sound-spelling link.

That would be a lovely place to stop. Especially given the emphasis of this blog on "Being Nice." I will though add one small footnote:

Small footnote: Hmmm. That's a bit too small.

Slightly larger footnote:

Phonics test in the proposed new GCSE. I worry that what is proposed sounds like a nice check to make sure that pupils are secure with the basics of the sound-spelling link. That's not the purpose of a GCSE. The exam has to give a spread of grades from 9 to 1. The fundamental premise of an exam is that pupils have to get questions wrong. A Grade 6 pupil on the Higher Tier has to get about half the questions wrong. A reading aloud test and a dictation in which most pupils have to get many questions wrong, is not a friendly phonics check. It's going to have to be a tricksy and potentially evilly devised trap-laden nightmare. There are so many benefits to teaching phonics, for Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing, that a reading aloud test and a dictation shouldn't have to be the way to make sure teachers are tackling it.