Recently I was sent an email from an ESL teacher in our community. She has been using phonics to teach ESL students with great success. I wanted to share some of her experience in hopes her experiences could help other ESL English Teachers.
My name is Dodi Weiler and I work at the English Skills Learning Center (ESLC) in Salt Lake City, Utah. Here at the center I have been trained in the Reading Horizons method in order to best help our ESL students. I am now using the information that I receive from my training from ESLC with a group on I teach on Sundays. This group is mostly literate in Spanish but have various levels of English speaking skills. Several are trying to better their pronunciation of English words.
I have been going through the phonics letter groups with them and have just finished the last letter group. We will be starting on the blends next time. After class on Sunday, I had two students give me some feedback. One is very educated and is teaching ESL in an elementary school. She told me that the review and practice of the vowels sounds that I have her do in class sticks with her through out the week and helps her as she is trying to help her students with their pronunciations. She has a thick Argentine accent that she is trying to Americanize. She has told me many times previously how learning about phonics is helping her awareness of trouble sounds that she needs to work on.
Another student from Ecuador expressed her appreciation for the time spent on phonics and the focus on pronouncing the sounds properly. She is also in another more rigorous class trying to learn English, and she said she feels she is learning more with the method I am using. Of course I break up each hour class into sections focusing on speaking, listening, reading and writing. I generally do phonics last as part of the reading and writing, however, it really is a mixture of speaking and listening too!
The method and process that Reading Horizons has produced is already nicely balanced for teaching ESL students. I find that if I take the time to teach vocabulary as we create words from decoding that student’s learn words naturally that they are sometimes not familiar with.
As far as being an instructor goes, I am really enjoying using the Reading Horizons program. It is systematic and logical and lends itself to easy assessment of progress. I am looking forward to getting to the place where students will get to see how learning the basics of the three letter word will help them in deciphering longer words with multiple syllables. It is a great tool for teaching ESL students.
Try the Pronunciation Tool to improve your ESL students pronunciation of English.
Do you use phonics with your ESL students? Share your comments below.