The Application Of Phonics To The Teaching Of Reading And Spelling In Junior School English Classes

Vocabulary is the foundation for the English learning. How to acquire a large vocabulary is a problem many English learners are eager to solve. For English learners,an effective way of learning vocabulary will make their English learning much easier.IPA is a way to teach phonetic and word which is being widely used in primary and middle school in China. In a short time, IPA will improve the students' interest in learning English to some degree. Moreover, it is also of help to improve the students' ability in pronunciation and spelling. But in the long run, the IPA ignores the relationship between the sound of the word and its form, which leads to the fact that students can remember the words mechanically, but they can't spell the words accurately, so words become their obstacle in English learning. As a result, many students gradually lose their interest and motivation in English learning.In 2000, a new vocabulary teaching method-phonics was first introduced in Hongkong and Taiwan. Phonics enables the learners to build up the perception of letters and letter combinations via studying of 26 letters and the pronunciation rules of the letter combinations, which ensures a fantastic effect that when the students see the words, they can identify them. When they hear the words, they can distinguish them. So whether phonics can also effectively improve the spelling and pronunciation ability of junior middle school students and activate their interest in English.This thesis is an experimental research, having two classes of Grade Seven students as its objects from a junior middle school in Xinyang city, Henan province. There are 42 students in each of the comparative class and experimental class. Questionnaires and tests paper are employed as experiment instruments. During the experiment implementation stage, the teacher uses the phonics to teach words in experimental class, while using IPA method in another class. The phonics teaching has been carried out in three stages. Thefirst stage is an introduction to the pronunciation rules of letters and letter combination.The second stage focuses on spelling. The third stage specializes in pronunciation.Finally, the conclusion of the experiment has been drawn through the analysis of the data with the limitations of the research and suggestions for the later research. Based on the data analysis, there are two findings from this research. On the one hand, phonics can greatly arouse the students' interest in English learning. On the other hand, phonics can also significantly improve students' ability in spelling and pronunciation.