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Phonology: the word duck is composed of three phonemes

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Phonology is the study of the spoken sounds that are used and produced in a particular language (Paris et al., 2019; Levine & Munsch, 2013).

Why is it important?

Different languages use and produce different phonemes (the smallest unit of sound in a language), and several English phonemes are not present in ELL’s first language. An ELL’s ability to recognize and manipulate the fundamental parts of words is foundational to their English language and academic development. If ELLs cannot recognize and pronounce a sound that their native language does not have, they will struggle to read or spell it (Thompson, 2022).

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Morphology: words can be made up of a combination of morphemes

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Morphology is the study of words and word parts that carry meaning, including morphemes, the smallest units of language, such as suffixes and prefixes (Paris et al., 2019; Hickey & Lewis, 2013; Jozwik & Gardiner-Walsh, 2019).

Why is it important?

Morphology is important for language and academic learning for ELLs because the ability to analyze and recognize root words, word parts and word formation increases comprehension and helps build academic vocabulary (Jozwik & Gardiner-Walsh, 2019). For example, morphology helps us figure out the meaning of words that are made by combining morphemes: if we know “house” and “s,” we can recognize and understand “houses;” if we know “high” and “-est,” we can recognize and understand “highest.”

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During Say It Again, students hear a video or recording and then repeat the lines, imitating the character

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Phonology Classroom Activity: Say It Again

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Phonology Classroom Activity: Say It Again

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During this fun and engaging activity, students watch short videos and later on repeat the characters’ lines, trying to imitate their wording, pronunciation and intonation.

First, play the entire video, so that students comprehend the full story.

Next, produce a list of selected “memorable lines” that students can refer to during the activity.

Afterwards, replay the selected lines one at a time, while students pay attention to the wording, pronunciation and intonation. Have students take turns saying the lines, try to get them to act as much as possible as the characters they are portraying.

Differentiation:

Depending on the students’ English proficiency levels, the complexity of the videos and selected “memorable lines” should be adjusted.

ELLs at lower English proficiency levels should be exposed to simpler, and shorter lines, preferably containing everyday language that they are likely to be exposed to.

More advanced ELLs may be given a dialogue in which more than one student role play into the scene.

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During Echo Reading, the teacher first reads aloud with proper pronunciation, and students repeat after the teacher

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Phonology Classroom Activity: Echo Reading

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Phonology Classroom Activity: Echo Reading

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Echo Reading provides students with a strong model of not only how a word should be pronounced, but also how a good English speaker uses stress, intonation and pace to convey a message. As a bonus, the strategy also helps develop print awareness.

The teacher reads the whole text aloud focusing on what a fluent English speaker and reader sounds like.

Afterwards, the teacher goes back to the beginning of the text and reads a short section, also focusing on proper stress, intonation and pace. Next, the students read echoing what they just heard, trying to sound just like the teacher. The teacher and students continue through the text in similar fashion until the end of the text. A particular sentence or paragraph may be repeated if necessary.

Differentiation

Depending on the students’ English proficiency levels, the complexity the selected text should be adjusted.

ELLs at lower English proficiency levels should be exposed to simpler, predictable and shorter texts, preferably rich in images and containing everyday language.

More advanced ELLs may be given more complex texts, including academic vocabulary that they should be experiencing in their classes.

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A Minimal Pair is a pair of words that differ by a single phoneme. 

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Phonology Classroom Activity: Minimal Pairs

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Phonology Classroom Activity: Minimal Pairs

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Minimal Pairs are two words that sound almost the same, but they have one sound that is different, such as “head” and “hid”. For ELLs, vowels in particular can be tricky to recognize and produce, and minimal pairs can cause confusion when they believe they are saying a particular word and they are making the sounds for a different one. During Minimal Pairs, we isolate and focus the sounds that our students might find challenging.

The teacher prepares cards with a list of minimal pair words of the same family (pairs of words that are different in the same two sounds), including a graphic representation of the words.

The teacher first reads the words to the students, making emphasis on the key different sounds and pointing to the correct word while reading it.

Second, the teacher reads the words and checks that the students can point to the correct spelling.

Finally, the students take turns reading and pronouncing the sets of words.

Differentiation

Depending on the students’ first language, the tricky minimal pairs will vary: for example, Spanish speakers, the “v” and “b” might be tricky; for Asian students, the “r” and “l” sounds might need focus.

ELLs at lower English proficiency levels should be exposed to sets of words and concepts that they are likely to know, with clear images that they can recognize.

More advanced ELLs may be given minimal pairs sets with academic vocabulary that they should be experiencing in the different subject areas.

ESL/EFL Pronunciation Teaching Tip: Teaching Minimal Pairs (youtube.com)

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Homophones sound the same but they have different meanings

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Phonology Classroom Activity: Homophone Go Fish 

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Phonology Classroom Activity: Homophone Go Fish 

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Homophones are words that sound the same but typically are spelled differently and have different meanings, such as “hole” and “whole.” ELLs are often surprised when they find that the same word sound may not only carry different meanings (this happens in most languages), but also different spelling (which is not seen in many languages, such as Spanish). Once ELLs have achieved an intermediate level of proficiency, they will have learned several of these confusing words, such as “They’re over there in their car.”

The teacher needs to produce sets of word cards that include several homophones that students are likely to have been exposed to. The cards are shuffled and dealt to the students who take turns asking their classmates “do you have a word that sounds like “….”?

If the student being asked does not have a homophone, they respond “go fish!” If they do have a homophone, they hand the card over. The play continues as in a regular “go fish!” card game.

Differentiation

ELLs at lower English proficiency levels are likely to struggle with this game. They may be paired up with a more advanced student and the chosen words should have clear pictures that they can recognize.

More advanced ELLs should earn the right to keep the cards by using both words properly in a sentence or two. If they fail to produce the sentences, they should “go fish!”

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Cognates are words in English and another language that share a similar meaning, spelling and/or pronunciation

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Making comparisons and highlighting how languages are similar is a very helpful activity that taps on ELL’s existing linguistic repertoires and builds on it. Because the English language shares common roots with other languages (for example, Latin roots that are frequent in academic vocabulary are often shared with Spanish), these can be helpful to make connections between the two languages and facilitate learning.

Teachers can organize a cognate treasure hunt, to foster their awareness of cognates in texts. A bilingual picture book text is both a great source for cognates and an ideal medium for students to experience language similarities.

Reading through the texts, the students should make a list of cognates and later on use them to produce a graphic organizer.

Differentiation

ELLs at lower English proficiency levels will need to have the English text read aloud to them.

More advanced ELLs may be asked to focus on how the base words that form the cognates are combined with prefixes and suffixes in both languages and try to deduce rules. For example, students might realize that cognates ending in “tion” in English are written with “ción” in Spanish, such as in nation and nación.

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During Word Sorting, students focus on words' morphemic patterns 

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Morphology Classroom Activity: Word Sorting

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Morphology Classroom Activity: Word Sorting

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Activities that focus on sorting words according to particular sound patterns support students’ morphological awareness and improve their reading and spelling. Similar activities with a focus on morphological patterns are valuable tools helping ELLs recognize typical written patterns and therefore improve their literacy skills.

Teachers provide students with a list of words, and students work on sorting or categorizing them into common spelling patterns. Students learn to identify and spell typical morphemes and use this knowledge to decode more complex words.

Differentiation

ELLs at lower English proficiency levels should work on recognizing frequent and typical morphemes, such as “ing” and “able” endings.

More advanced ELLs can sort specific multimorphemic patterns that are used in the different content areas, such as “ology” endings.

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Morphology Word webs teach students to identify base words, affixes and word-building patterns

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Morphology Classroom Activity: Morphology Web

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Morphology Classroom Activity: Morphology Web

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A Morphology Web helps ELLs make connections between words that share a common root or base word. Morphology Webs are useful to teach word parts for any grade and English proficiency levels. They help students identify base words, prefixes, suffixes and spelling patterns.

Differentiation

ELLs at lower English proficiency levels should be given easier base words and be provided with a list of common affixes and suffixes.

More advanced ELLs can use Morphology Webs to improve content area vocabulary. For example they may be given the task of figuring how the words “respiration” and “expiration” are related, look for the base word and find more family members.

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RICHEST helps students make meaning from very long words

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The RICHEST strategy is used to teach ELLs how to make meaning from multimorphemic words that students often find in the content areas. Multimorphemic words are long, complex words that are made up of several morphemes.

RICHEST is an acronym that summarizes the strategy:

Read the sentence or paragraph to look for clues about the word’s meaning.

Isolate the component parts of the word.

Circle the word’s prefixes and suffixes.

Highlight the root word.

Examine what these word parts mean.

Sum the meanings of the word parts, combining them together.

Test the hypothesized meaning by rereading the sentence.

Teachers should provide explicit instruction on how to use this strategy through modeling and guided practice. The method’s strength lies in providing ELLs them with a strategy with a strong focus on self-regulated learning, which is key to vocabulary development.

Differentiation

ELLs at lower English proficiency levels will be limited in terms of identifying word parts and their meanings. They can better benefit from this strategy by working with words with cognate bases.

More advanced ELLs can significantly enhance their literacy skills with this tool. The self-regulating nature of the strategy can boost their confidence and take them to even higher language proficiency levels.

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Phonology Activity: Songs & Poems with Rhymes

Being able to recognize and produce the sounds of English is necessary for children’s literacy and language development. Families can use songs and poems that are rich with rhymes to help their children build phonological awareness. Listening and looking for words that have the same ending sound patterns is an easy and fun way for children to become aware of different frequent sounds and learn how to group them together.

This website has several activities that can be used at home to develop English language learner’s phonological awareness: https://sites.google.com/a/litchfieldschools.org/fun-with-phonological-awareness/home/what-is-phonological-awareness

Morphology Activity: El Tesoro de los Cognados

Cognates are words in English and another language that share a similar meaning, spelling and/or pronunciation. Read bilingual books at home and compare the texts in English and the home language, searching for cognates. Talk to your child about how English and your home language are similar in these particular words, and work together to find other words from the word family and their equivalent cognates.

Read about the importance of using cognates to help English language development: https://www.colorincolorado.org/article/using-cognates-develop-comprehension-english