A Comparative Study On The Effect Of Straight Spelling And Phonetic Method To Improve Children's Phonological Awareness

In foreign countries, phonological awareness is an important field in the study of educational psychology and psycholinguistics.The research proves that it,phonological awareness has a close relationship with children's ability of reading and writing. However, in practical English teaching in primary schools, teachers don't pay enough attention to phonological awareness, which is narrowly-defined as the training of pronunciation and intonation. Also, teachers lack the understanding of phonological awareness. This thesis defines the concept of phonological awareness in detail on the basis of literature review and data analysis.Phonics which is popular among teaching and the International phonetics used in the old days are good ways to improve the phonological awareness. This thesis is focused on how to imply the tow ways into practice so as to improve students'phonological awareness. The author carried out a teaching experiment in a primary school in the main urban area in Changzhou for five months. 127 students of three classes in grade three took part in the experiment. One class is the control group and the other two are experiment groups. The students in two experiment groups are trained in spoken English by phonics and the International phonetic while the students in the control group are taught in usual way. Students are tested by questionnaire and tests in phonological awareness before the experiment. After the experiment, students are tested again to check the effectiveness. The data and the results show that both phonics and the International phonetics can improve children's ability in phonological awareness. Students in experiment groups done better than those in the control group.What's more, phonics is a better way than the International phonetics in improving students' English learning ability.According to the research and the experiment, the author thinks that it is very important to foster students, ability in phonological awareness in primary school,based on which students can learn English better. Phonics and the International phonetics are good ways to improve the phonological awareness. Children can know phonological awareness in an all-round way. The result shows that phonics works better in English teaching than the International phonetics in primary schools. Phonics is more visual and easier, which is more suitable for students in basic stage of language learning. The International phonetic is difficult for one part of pupils.In the practical teaching, teachers can combine phonetics with rhymes and picture books into teaching plan so that students can easily remember words and apply the method in English learning. Through the consistent training, students can remember and recognize words by using phonological awareness. Thus,students lay a solid foundation in English learning and they can learn English easily.