ML students would have a harder time making these sounds, depending on their first language and the sounds that overlap with their first language and English. I think that this video is great to help students see all of the different sounds that English makes because the sounds do not always correspond with the letters. I also like her examples to help MLs see the sounds in various words. I am going to have my students practice with this video next week!

One activity from the article that resonates with me is having older students use pictures to sort into the phonetic sounds they make. I like this activity because I teach high school ESL students. Although their English proficiency may be low, they are capable of talking about more advanced topics. So, the pictures would help them practice the vocabulary that we are learning, while also learning phonetics at the same time. In addition, practicing the sounds would hopefully give them more confidence to use their new words while speaking.

After reading the article “Phonemic Awareness with ELLs” (A World of Language Learners, 2020), I noticed I facilitate some of these phonemic awareness activities with my middle school ESL 1 multilingual learners because I use a phonics intervention program. A key advantage of incorporating phonemic awareness is that the practice becomes routine and automatic for some students as they apply the strategies (e.g., blending, segmenting) to new words. While the article recommends age-appropriate visuals and attention to phonological differences across languages for older multilingual learners, I find it challenging to locate engaging activities that maintain middle schoolers' interest. Deletion, addition, and substitution of phonological sounds are effective in building phonemic awareness. Aside from using worksheets to independently practice phonemic awareness, middle school students find collaborative and cooperative activities (Wood, 2017, p. 123) more engaging because they developmentally gravitate towards group behavior and identity in middle school. A way to gamify these components for middle school multilingual learners is having students verbally build a word list using the above strategies to connect words. For example, the teacher can begin with the word “cart.” Then, the next student can use deletion by saying “art.” Next, a student can use addition to say, “heart.” Afterwards, another student can use substitution to say, “fart.” This phonemic awareness word list continues until the class cannot think of ways to add, delete, or substitute sounds. Students can be removed from the game if they do not follow the phonemic awareness components. A way to make this challenging is to provide time limits for each student’s response. This game format demonstrates that phonemic awareness instruction can be both academically rigorous and genuinely enjoyable for middle schoolers.

References

A World of Language Learners. (2020, April 20). Phonemic Awareness with ELLs. A World of 

Language Learners. https://www.aworldoflanguagelearners.com/phonemic-awareness/ 

How to Pronounce ALL ENGLISH Sounds: American English Lesson. (n.d.). Www.youtube.com. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpN9CPwZ-oE 

Wood, C. (2017). Yardsticks: Child and Adolescent Development Ages 4-14. CTR FOR 

RESPONSIVE SCHOOL.

A phonemic awareness activity that I resonated with was the “picture alphabet book” (A World of Language Learners, 2020). Although this was presented as a strategy to support older English-language learners I also see this being an effective activity that could be modified to best support the phonological development of any aged student. Personally, I thought about how I could incorporate this activity with my third and fourth grade students as they are introduced to new and challenging sounds through the Fundation’s program that is utilized in my district. Instructing students to locate these sounds through images and words presented in magazines and photographs is an engaging way to assess students' mastery and development with such specific sounds; and a tool for students to refer back to when reading, writing, and spelling!   

A World of Language Learners. (2020, April 20). Phonemic awareness with ELLs. https://www.aworldoflanguagelearners.com/phonemic-awareness 

Gilakjani, A. P., & Ahmadi, M. R. (2011). Why is pronunciation so difficult to learn? English Language Teaching, 4(3), 74–83. https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v4n3p74 

To make this type of practice practical for multilingual learners, I would embed it into authentic language experiences rather than teaching sounds in isolation for long periods of time. Activities such as songs, chants, read-alouds, and word games can provide repeated exposure to target sounds while keeping students engaged. I think short, consistent opportunities to listen for and practice specific sounds throughout the day would be more meaningful and effective than isolated drills, especially for younger learners.

One thing I learned from the article was that phonological awareness skills can transfer from one language to another. I was surprised to learn that for older multilingual learners who are already literate in their native language, instruction can focus primarily on the sounds that differ between English and their first language. I had not considered that these foundational literacy skills would transfer across languages, but it makes sense when thinking about individual phonemes and how language learners build on what they already know.

A strategy that resonated with me was creating a picture alphabet book with pictures organized by beginning sounds. This is a strategy I could see myself using in the classroom because it is engaging, hands-on, and supports multiple language skills at once. Students can practice identifying and producing beginning sounds while also learning new vocabulary. I like that it connects phonemic awareness to meaningful language learning rather than treating sounds as isolated skills.