alice’s posterous

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1_phonics.ppt (901 KB)

When Suzi Bewell talked to me about phonics, I didn't know what she was on about! She explained to me what it was and did a explanatory presentation on strategies for teaching French phonics (also Suzi Bewell set up a blog for her school which is amazing! http://www.allsaintslanguagesblog.typepad.co.uk/):>

I thought it was a brilliant idea to improve students' pronunciation. Most of the time, we teachers assume that our students know how to pronounce words in the target language, but in fact they don't. They are very confused when we correct them and then their motivation to learn another language starts to decrease! That is why I am thinking of planning strategies to teach my students Spanish phonics next year, although I do think Spanish is very easy to pronounce (compared to French!). For most of the words, you just pronounce them as you read them apart from some letters like "jota" for example. Rachel Hawkes did a lot of work on how to teach Spanish phonics and her blog is full of excellent ideas. I found one of her Powerpoints on ideas to teach phonics (just see above).

What are you thoughts? Have you tried teaching phonics to improve your students' pronunciation?

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There was a time in France during the summer holidays when children would have a "cahier de vacances" which was an exercise book to revise the curriculum covered during the year and to start the new school year in September well prepared! I can clearly remember myself, my brother and sister and my cousins working on the dining table in the morning  in Arcachon so that we could then go to beach in the afternoon! We would often see some "poorer" children studying their "cahiers de vacances" on their beach towels being watched over by their sadistic parents or even grand-parents!



Well... Times have changed as this year the French government has realized it is the 21st century and is providing resources and exercises online for free (I forgot to mention that our parents had to pay for these "cahiers de vacances")! YES, believe it or not, they have created this online academy. You can access the resources either by subject or by level. I had a look at the exercises and they look fun and engaging although the explanations at the start are a bit tedious! There are lots of resources that might be useful for French teachers and also Spanish teachers.
If you are teaching French phonics to help your students improve their speaking skills, follow this link, there are lots of activities related to sounds. I played them with my 3 years old son and he enjoyed them.
If you cannot find the activities, make sure you scroll down the page and click on "Accéder aux activités".

What about you? did you have to carry on working during holidays when you were a child?

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