Let’s talk about Spanish phonics

 Phonemic and phonological awareness

 

To build competency in a foreign language, the UK government now requires pupils to gain systematic knowledge of the three pillars of language learning: phonics (sounds and spelling systems), grammar and vocabulary.

When we talk about phonics, we can either relate it to sounds or to different symbols that identify those sounds. As Spanish and English share the same alphabet, students might think that Spanish sounds are the same as those they use in English, so they might think that as long as they can read a Spanish word, they will know how to pronounce this. But this is not the case - Spanish pronunciation is different. This assumption can be a barrier to learning a foreign language, in this case Spanish, effectively.

In the same way that students develop a phonetic base to use their native language correctly, it is necessary to develop a phonetic base in the second language they are learning. With this in mind, I have been reflecting and doing some research regarding different approaches to teaching phonics to my Spanish students.

Reading different articles, both in Spanish and in English, regarding phonics, made me refresh my memory and my own experience about how I developed phonemic and phonological awareness when I was learning Spanish, as a child.

I still remember a phonics lesson with Mr Antolínez, in year 8. In a clear and simple way, he explained that when we speak, we produce sounds and each of those speech sounds is a phoneme. Phonemes, when combined, form syllables, then words and sentences.

He said that Spanish has 22 distinct phonemes, of which 5 are vowel type and 17 consonants. Since phonemes are an idealization of the real sound, it should be noted that, depending on the region, some of these phonemes can be made in slightly different ways, although without producing a change of meaning. This different pronunciation of the same phoneme is called an allophone. It does not change the meaning of the word, just the pronunciation, however we needed to tune our ear in order to be able to understand the Spanish spoken in different places.

  

Source: Facebook, Colonia Huilense. Opitas de corazón.

Mr Antolínez continued this explanation saying that a grapheme is a written symbol that represents a sound. In Spanish there are 27 graphemes, and they are represented by letters of the alphabet. There are also 5 diagraphs (ch, ll, gu, qu, rr) which are two letters that make one sound.

After retrieving these key concepts, Mr Antolínez pointed out that we had to develop phonemic and phonological awareness. Using a graph, he explained different places of articulation in our mouth and throat when we make speech and produce nasal and lip sounds, etc.  

 

 Developing phonological awareness favoured and facilitated my learning to read as well as to listening to different Spanish accents and being able to understand them accurately. It also helped me to master my writing. I was exposed to phonics throughout my time at primary school and during a fair part of my secondary school.

Using symbols to explain sounds is a very useful tool, however, if this is not done appropriately, this can discourage pupils from learning a second language, especially in an environment where languages are not valued, as this would demand additional work and effort.

A friendly approach to teach phonics, that is common in the classroom, is explaining the sounds when teaching vocabulary and asking students to repeat them several times. Some teachers also identify a list of words that have the same sounds and work on pronunciation. These methods are great, however, like when learning how to play a sport or a musical instrument, they are not fully effective if students do not practise them until the pronunciation of a sound is secure.

When teaching a language, there are so many aspects that we need to concentrate on that, at times, we do not always correct students’ pronunciation if we think that a sympathetic native speaker can understand what students say. We accept, for instance, “mi gusta” and “jotel” because they are pretty close to “me gusta” and “hotel”.

 How to develop phonemic and phonological awareness

Being exposed to the foreign language as much as possible is vital to develop phonemic and phonological awareness. Students need to listen to the radio, watch films and videos, read aloud, listen to music, communicate with native speakers and copy their pronunciation.

In the classroom we can use several strategies to support students to develop phonemic and phonological awareness, hence accurate pronunciation. Here are some examples:

1.) The magic sounds box: Make a list of words that your students are finding difficult to pronounce, write them on cards and put them in a box. Once a week ask students to choose cards from the box and to say the words correctly. This is a great activity to motivate students as the surprise element is included when picking the cards. You can also add difficult and long words to the box such as:   

Bucaramanga, Chiquinquirá, cromosoma, paralelepípedo, ferrocarril, Ribadesella, Teotihucán. Name of places are great to practise phonics. Specific sounds can be added too, for instance: ce, ci, ge, gi, ja, je,  ji, jo, ju, gue, gui, etc. 

2.) The broken phone: divide students in groups, give a sentence to one student in the group and they have to say the sentence to the next student and so on. The last student will come to the board and write the sentence. This also helps to develop memory.  

Example: Yo tengo tres años, pero mi hermano tiene trece y mi hermana tiene treinta.

3.) Bingo sounds: Make a list of words with the sounds that you want to practise. This can include syllables, words and images. You pronounce the sound and students identify the syllable, word or image on the card. Example:

 

 

4.) Tongue twisters: They are based on repetition of key sounds and they can be a fun activity. You can organise a class competition.

 

5.) The mirror is here.  You can teach the students how they must put their lips or tongue and what movements they have to make to produce a certain sound using a mirror. For instance, to say the word “Europa” students need to move their face muscles to say it correctly. They will notice they need to move different muscles than they do in English when they say Europe.

 6.) Chained words:  The famous game of chained words is also a creative and fun way to practise pronunciation. You say a word to students, and they have say another word that starts with the last syllable of that word and so on. 

Example:  trabajar, jardín, iniciar, arándano, nota, también, enemigo, goma, matemáticas …. This game is also fun and great to retrieve vocabulary.

 7.) The intrusive letter: Prepare a list of words that differ only by one sound. You can pronounce the word and ask students to write them on the board and show you what they have written. You can also give them two words on a card and ask students to show you the word that you have said. Examples:

    

 

8.) My cognates list. Give students a list of Spanish words that are written the same or similar to those in English and teach them the correct pronunciation.  This has a double benefit as it will also help students to improve their vocabulary.

Examples of perfect cognates:

Examples of near-perfect cognates:

 

Andrew Barr has written an interesting blog article about cognates and has included a great list of perfect and near-perfect cognates. To visit his blog, CLICK ON HERE.

9.) Dictation: You can either read a list of sentences that contain a certain sound that you want to practise, or a short paragraph. Students either fill in the gaps with the missing word or will write what you say.

Examples:

• Me gustaría tener un caballo amarillo.
• Tengo un perro marrón
• Mi hermano tiene un cobayo rojo.
• Me gustan los animales y mi mascota favorita es un pájaro.

Me gustaría tener un caballo amarillo, pero tengo un perro marrón, sin embargo, mi hermano tiene un cobayo rojo. Me gustan los animales y mi mascota favorita es un pájaro.

 10.) The dictionary: You can give students a list of words and ask them to find them in the dictionary. When they find it, they can write it on the board including the definition. You can choose the sound you want to consolidate including some homophones to surprise students.

For example: juvenil, jirafa, ciudad, gaviota, vegetal, huevo, pañuelo, ingeniero.

Homophones: votar, botar, hola, ola, hojear, ojear,

 

11.) Find the missing letter: Choose a list of words and remove either the vowels or the consonants. Ask students to find the missing letters and then say the word aloud. This exercise also aids memory.

Examples:  

J _ G _ R  (jugar)

 G_ _ G R _ F _ _ (geografía)

 _ E _ _ O (perro)

 

12.) Vowel and consonant sounds.  The basis of Spanish pronunciation is learning the pronunciation of the vowels and how they sound within syllables and between words. One must also know how to pronounce the consonants correctly. If there is clarity on this, students will be able to master the language accurately. To address this, I have developed a phonics course where I explain how to pronounce different sounds with examples. Colleagues can use these resources in lessons and can ask students to listen to the sounds over and over for homework.

Here is the first video VOWELS WITH CONSONANTS from a series of more than 20 videos. All videos can also be found in the phonics section of this blog and my YouTube channel.

I hope my course will support teaching and learning for phonics. As my Spanish language teacher, Mr Antolínez said: “Learning phonics will open your mind to a new world as you will be able to pronounce words correctly and at the same time you will be able to understand others without any problem. Your reading and writing skills will improve too.” This was said in a language lesson in my native country, Colombia, and this will apply to any context. Everything is about listening to different sounds, replicating them, tuning the ear to the sounds and letting the mouth figure out how to make them accurately

 

 Bibliography:

·       Del Castellano. (n.d.). Alofono. Available at: https://www.delcastellano.com/glosario/alofono/

·       EducaChild. (n.d.). ¿Por qué trabajar la fonética?

Available at: https://educachild.com/blog/por-que-trabajar-la-fonetica

·       EducaMadrid. (n.d.). Fonología: Sistema fonológico del español. Available at: https://www.educa2.madrid.org/web/alberto.juan/bachillerato/-/visor/fonologia-sistema-fonologico-del-espanol

·       Ecured. (n.d.). Fonema. Available at: https://www.ecured.cu/Fonema

·       ELE Internacional. (2021). La pronunciación en español en clase de ELE: Consejos para profes. Available at: https://eleinternacional.com/blog/la-pronunciacion-en-espanol-en-clase-de-ele-consejos-para-profes/

·       Real Fast Spanish. (n.d.). Spanish cognates. Available at: https://www.realfastspanish.com/vocabulary/spanish-cognates

·       Talleres Guacamayo. (n.d.). Fonemas y grafemas del español. Available at: https://www.talleresguacamayo.com/fonemas-y-grafemas-del-espanol/

·       Villafana, J.E. (2010). El Sistema ortográfico de la RAE: Un estado de cuestión. Docente del Departamento Académico de Lingüística de la Facultad de Letras y Ciencias Humanas de la Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Perú.

·       El Colegio de México. (n.d.). Frecuencia de los fonemas. Available at: https://dem.colmex.mx/Frecuencia/Fonemas