Phonics

Teacher Research Group [TRG]�

Date updated: 1/6/20

Teacher research group sessions

Session aims

• Develop an understanding of the rationale for teaching phonics in a foreign language and the research evidence underpinning this
• Consider a range of ways in which Phonics teaching might be put into practice in your school context
• Understand the ways in which you will work with the Lead Schools to develop practice in this area

Robert Woore

Teacher Research Group Sessions

Session outline

• Presentation and discussion: Research evidence relating to the teaching of phonics in MFL
• Addressing possible concerns
• Our target Symbol-Sound Correspondences (SSC) and how we chose them
• Explore a range of teaching approaches and resources
• Explore ways of assessing your students’ SSC knowledge
• Working with Lead schools to develop good practice

Robert Woore

Rationale for teaching phonics

Read through ‘Handout 6: Rationale for teaching phonics’

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Any comments or questions on any of this?

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Concerns?

• At this stage, do you have any concerns about teaching Phonics in MFL? Do you have any worries or foresee any problems?
• Here are some possible objections that we envisaged. How do you feel about these points?

I think it will confuse my lower attaining learners.

There’s no point teaching Phonics. They will pick it up on their own.

Ideally, I would like to teach this, but there is no time in the Scheme of Work.

I can see the point in Spanish and German, but in French it is too complicated.

My students would find this boring or babyish

This is not my priority – my students are already OK at reading. The other skills are more important to focus on.

Robert Woore

Choice of target SSC

• We lack clear research evidence on which SSC are the most important to teach, and in what order
• We have based our selection on a ‘bang for buck’ principle, drawing on evidence concerning:

• Difficulty – how hard is it for students to decode the SSC accurately

• Frequency – how often the SSC occur in the language

• Teacher expertise and judgment

• We have also adopted a ‘cumulative’ principle in ordering sounds and their ‘source words’
• We have made a ‘working selection’ – this may be refined over time (with help from your feedback!)

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SSC difficulty

• In your experience, which are the most difficult French SSC for students to pronounce (i.e. which do they get wrong most often)?

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• How do your intuitions match the following empirical data?

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Data from Woore (2006)

• N=188 Year 7 and Year 9
• One comprehensive school
• English L1

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SSC frequency

• Analysis of two small corpora:
• first 200 words of six ‘featured texts’ from an on-line magazine for French young people (www.geoado.com)
• Analysis of words in Dynamo 1 Module 1

Robert Woore

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Target SSC in French

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Target SSC In German

1) The long vowels a,e,i,o,u in German are less straightforward than the short vowels. They are presented together for contrast purposes. Later they can be contrasted with the trickier ä, ö, ü.�2) Likewise the ‘er’ unstressed sound is very similar to the –er at the end of ‘mother’, but the ‘er’ stressed is a rather different sound, so the two are presented together. �3) A tentative, suggested time frame might be to spend 10-12 minutes each lesson on phonics. So, for example, a / e would be lesson 1, ei/w/z in lesson 2. The following week would revisit all of these, before starting in Week 3 with Group 2. This would put the initial introduction and practice phase at 16 weeks, just over one term. After that, specific contrasts would be practised regularly: u/ü, o/ö, a,ä, ei/ie, z/s-, sch/st/sp, v/w and sch/ch, as well as other tasks that combine several SSCs. This would run over the spring term. The summer term of Y1 would continue to develop and apply SSC knowledge, including through the use of more extended, authentic texts.�4) Diagnostic assessment of pupils’ development would also inform the re-visiting of specifically challenging SSCs.�

Robert Woore

Target SSC in Spanish

1) Spanish is clearly a much shallower language, phonetically. The pace of introduction and practice is likely to be somewhat quicker than in French, as a result.�2) * Note that some straightforward SSCs are introduced, predominantly to contrast with other less straightforward ones (ll/l, n/ñ, r/rr). �3) ** B is presented with V because these are the same sound – different spelling pair.�4) A tentative, suggested time frame for teaching might be to spend 10-12 minutes each lesson on phonics. So, for example, each group would be introduced and practised in lesson 1, and further practised in lesson 2. In week 2, we would present and practise group 2. After that, specific contrasts would be practised regularly, as well as other tasks that combine several SSCs. This fairly controlled introduction/practice would probably run until the end of the spring term. The summer term of Y1 would continue to develop and apply SSC knowledge, including through the use of more extended and richer texts.�5) Diagnostic assessment of pupils’ development would also inform the re-visiting of specifically challenging SSCs.

6) Seseo / ceceo. Whether the ce / ci/ z are pronounced seseo (e.g., as in Latin America/the Canary Islands) or ceceo (e.g., as in most parts of Spain) does not make a difference to meaning or to the SSCs, but learners should be exposed to and understand both versions at later stages. Given GCSE requirements, ‘ceceo’ is probably the most sensible starting point.

Robert Woore

Target SSC in other languages

• In any other languages you teach: what do you consider to be the key SSC to teach, and why?

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• What information (if any) would you need in order to feel more confident in this decision?

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Teaching approaches & resources

• What approaches / resources are you currently using to teach phonics in MFL?

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• What do you consider to be their strengths / limitations?

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Teaching approaches & resources

• Awareness raising

• Introducing new SSC

• Consolidating SSC knowledge

• Applying SSC knowledge

Browse the NCELP Phonics resources in the different categories

• What do you think are the key strengths / limitations of these resources?
• Which do you think are the key resources you could use?
• What changes (if any) might be needed?

Robert Woore

Assessing & monitoring progress

• What approaches / resources are you currently using to assess your students’ phonics knowledge (phonological decoding) in MFL?

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• What do you consider to be their strengths / limitations?

Robert Woore

Assessing & monitoring progress

Two main approaches:

Reading aloud

• Greater validity: direct measure of the construct we are interested in
• Time consuming to administer and mark

Pen-and-paper test

• Quicker and easier to administer and mark
• Difficult to create valid tests of this kind

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Cf. Year 1 Phonics Screening Check in English primary schools

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• Beware pitfalls of reading aloud. How can this be handled sensitively?
• E.g. individual work with teacher; paired reading; self-recording (homework)

Robert Woore

Assessing & monitoring progress

Two main classes of item:

• Familiar real words

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• Pseudowords
• Unfamiliar real words

< chat >

< ulmaire >

• Familiar words: students may have pre-stored phonological forms which they can access as wholes.
• Unfamiliar words / pseudowords: students have to generate the phonological forms by applying SSC knowledge.
• To test SSC knowledge, tests need to include unfamiliar items
• Decontextualized (isolated) words: this prevents the use of context to identify words, and therefore isolate decoding skills
• Phonological decoding (reading aloud) of flowing text is also important!

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Woore (2018)

Familiar versus unfamiliar words

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Assessing & monitoring progress

• Consider sample tests provided by NCELP (more will follow)

• (How) could you use these tests?
• What changes (if any) might be needed?
• How could you use the test results to inform teaching and learning?

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Developing good practice in school hubs

Phonics teaching discussion proforma: principles and use

Summary and next steps

• Have we covered everything you wanted us to cover?

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• Do you have any other questions?

Robert Woore

Conclusions and next steps

• Feed back to your department�Share the key messages (and resources) from today’s TRG with the rest of your department.
• Plan and resource�Following the TRG, keep in touch with your lead school and each other, sharing anything you use (create or adapt from an NCELP resource). More resources will be added frequently to the website (and from end March to the Resource Portal). Send resources to your hub school, using Resources@ncelp.org.uk in the first instance – we are happy to help with copyright free images / audio recordings / formatting etc. Even the inklings of an idea for a resource are worth sharing, so don’t worry about emailing something that is unfinished!
• Teach and reflect�Make phonics teaching the focus of your next planned visit with your lead school ST, whether you are visiting them or they you. Use the observation schedule as the framework for feedback. Share the document with us via Enquiries@ncelp.org.uk .
• Video parts of lessons where you focus on phonics�Many of us are camera shy, but please do take short videos of particular lesson segments that focus on any aspect of phonics teaching (presentation, revision, application). The easiest way to do this would be for the ST or you to video when you are observing. (STs can then upload to VEO and tag).
• Remind yourself of your next key dates: Vocabulary Half-Day CPD and Vocabulary TRGs

Thank you for coming ☺ �Please complete the (very) short online phonics survey.�Safe journey home.

Robert Woore