I know it seems like an obvious thing to say but...it really does. I just wanted to share my experiences on this from today.

Last school year I decided that my (3rd grade) students needed to be taught their ABCs and phonics. The books, when they even attempt the alphabet, do a crappy job. My poor kids (quite literally) were frustrated and unhappy with English class; because honestly how much would you like a subject when you can't understand anything except listen and repeat??? So, last term, I made an ABC workbook covering 3-4 letters per lesson. Finishing the book in one term. Interspersed in between were phonics worksheets and activities showing them the connectivity between letters - sounds - words. The result: An extraordinarily enthusiastic grade 3 with a fever for English. They loved their workbooks, and they would ask whenever we came to class, "Is it ABC time?"
Now that same grade 3 is now grade 4 and we will now teach them full on phonics. They have phonics workbooks that I got from here: http://www.funfonix.com/
We started the books today and to my CT's and my amazement they knew the words right off and they did the work no problem. They could read them and what's more they understood my instructions in English. They have also had the advantage of having 85% English classroom, where only complicated instructions are translated and the difference is amazing.
If you are teaching really low level and are struggling for them to understand classroom content, my suggestion is introduce the idea of phonics to your school...my students couldn't be happier and more well behaved.
It is a lot of work though and requires a good relationship with your CT. You also have to condense your book lessons to leave one class open per lesson to teach it.
If you choose to do it... I wish you luck and happy students!
If anyone needs any help or advice on this, just msg me!

I know it seems like an obvious thing to say but...it really does. I just wanted to share my experiences on this from today.

Last school year I decided that my (3rd grade) students needed to be taught their ABCs and phonics. The books, when they even attempt the alphabet, do a crappy job. My poor kids (quite literally) were frustrated and unhappy with English class; because honestly how much would you like a subject when you can't understand anything except listen and repeat??? So, last term, I made an ABC workbook covering 3-4 letters per lesson. Finishing the book in one term. Interspersed in between were phonics worksheets and activities showing them the connectivity between letters - sounds - words. The result: An extraordinarily enthusiastic grade 3 with a fever for English. They loved their workbooks, and they would ask whenever we came to class, "Is it ABC time?"
Now that same grade 3 is now grade 4 and we will now teach them full on phonics. They have phonics workbooks that I got from here: http://www.funfonix.com/
We started the books today and to my CT's and my amazement they knew the words right off and they did the work no problem. They could read them and what's more they understood my instructions in English. They have also had the advantage of having 85% English classroom, where only complicated instructions are translated and the difference is amazing.
If you are teaching really low level and are struggling for them to understand classroom content, my suggestion is introduce the idea of phonics to your school...my students couldn't be happier and more well behaved.
It is a lot of work though and requires a good relationship with your CT. You also have to condense your book lessons to leave one class open per lesson to teach it.
If you choose to do it... I wish you luck and happy students!
If anyone needs any help or advice on this, just msg me!

Just out of curiousity what age range are your kids? I'd love to teach phonics to my kids but I'm scared that they'll see the material and dismiss it because it looks to childish. (I am teaching middle schoolers) Any advice?

Hi there, thank you for the advice but at my school, I don't have a CT. I have to work alone and from a syllabus given by the school. The students have their Korean teacher and then me as the foreign english teacher. The problem is I have suggested ways to improve as I have  2 struggling students but the Korean teachers firmly believe in their syllabus. When there is spare time left I make them practice as a class words that they struggle with.

I teach grades 2 and 3 phonics.  They are very beginner and we have a book but I am suppose to cover 4 pages a day in 30 min and I usually don't have enough time.

I certainly agree-without learning phonics, which is the basis for literacy, my students are forever stuck in either "listen and repeat", dependent on hearing a word to know how it sounds (and if your co-teacher constantly speaks Konglish, that's what they'll learn) OR they will Konglish-translate with hanguel next to the vocabulary.
I'm trying to break my elementary students of these habits, so I've been teaching phonics and banning the use of hanguel as much as possible.
I try to convey the importance of this by telling my students/coteachers that when I was learning Japanese and Korean, I forced myself not to romanize the words as soon as possible-it's tough but well worth it, and why I am told by native/fluent speakers of both languages that although I might not be anywhere close to fluent, my pronunciation of what I do know is really good.

Yeah, I agree.  I definitely don't give the hangeul equivalent (for letters) unless it is an absolute equivalent. The worst culprits for mispronunciation are: ㄹ(for r), 이(for i), ㅂ(for v), and ㅍ(for F) And now that we're into phonics and not the alphabet anymore we do not use any hangeul in the classroom.

I am hav ing to teach phonics once a week for each grade level.  it is a challenge for both me and the students.....so I am hoping to find some tips on this website, and i also hope to have the same success that you have had.  thanks for sharing

Definitely consider using the books I liked to above in my original post, that have worked wonders with my students. I do caution though they must have a real good grasp on the alphabet first. We worked on that for almost a whole school year before introducing those books.

weirdgirlinkorea, would you be interested in sharing the alphabet workbook you made for your students? I'd be very interested in trying to implement this in my elementary classes, and try and get my grade 1-3's into this... I've been searching for something that would promote 'fun' for my students, but I've been struggling so far.

nzer-in-gyeongnam,

I'll have to scan it in, because I created it from a hodge podge of different things I found. I got the basic book from here, but I have to tweak it to suit my needs. I'll post it as soon as I can.

 

I definitely need to start focusing more on phonics. My third and fourth graders (it's a combined class) are very sharp, but they're taught spelling by rote--listen and repeat, "Goat" "Goat!" "Spell it" "G O A T". They know how to spell it and they know how to say it but they have no idea what the relation between the two is. It was easy to miss at first because they CAN do both. X|

They're pretty quick to declare just alphabet activities "not fun", though. I wish I knew a song for every letter that's as fun and catchy as "Vowel Bat"

Quote from: weirdgirlinkorea on May 07, 2012, 11:34:23 am

Quote from: nzer-in-gyeongnam on May 07, 2012, 08:17:04 am

weirdgirlinkorea, would you be interested in sharing the alphabet workbook you made for your students? I'd be very interested in trying to implement this in my elementary classes, and try and get my grade 1-3's into this... I've been searching for something that would promote 'fun' for my students, but I've been struggling so far.

nzer-in-gyeongnam,

I'll have to scan it in, because I created it from a hodge podge of different things I found. I got the basic book from here, but I have to tweak it to suit my needs. I'll post it as soon as I can.

 

If you can, that'd be great, if not, thanks anyway. It sounds like a great resource. I've tried using things like Starfall but my students just see it as a game, so I wont use it with them now, because they are too easily distracted by the pictures. I've tried making games using letters, and all sorts, but they just count through them on their fingers or guess, so I'm trying to find something more to encourage learning.

I've scanned them but I need to merge them into one PDF binder. I'll probably post tomorrow or Saturday. 

I know it seems like an obvious thing to say but...it really does. I just wanted to share my experiences on this from today.

Last school year I decided that my (3rd grade) students needed to be taught their ABCs and phonics. The books, when they even attempt the alphabet, do a crappy job. My poor kids (quite literally) were frustrated and unhappy with English class; because honestly how much would you like a subject when you can't understand anything except listen and repeat??? So, last term, I made an ABC workbook covering 3-4 letters per lesson. Finishing the book in one term. Interspersed in between were phonics worksheets and activities showing them the connectivity between letters - sounds - words. The result: An extraordinarily enthusiastic grade 3 with a fever for English. They loved their workbooks, and they would ask whenever we came to class, "Is it ABC time?"
Now that same grade 3 is now grade 4 and we will now teach them full on phonics. They have phonics workbooks that I got from here: http://www.funfonix.com/
We started the books today and to my CT's and my amazement they knew the words right off and they did the work no problem. They could read them and what's more they understood my instructions in English. They have also had the advantage of having 85% English classroom, where only complicated instructions are translated and the difference is amazing.
If you are teaching really low level and are struggling for them to understand classroom content, my suggestion is introduce the idea of phonics to your school...my students couldn't be happier and more well behaved.
It is a lot of work though and requires a good relationship with your CT. You also have to condense your book lessons to leave one class open per lesson to teach it.
If you choose to do it... I wish you luck and happy students!
If anyone needs any help or advice on this, just msg me!

So, when they were 3rd grader did you start them off with the intro to phonics first so that once they hit the 4th grade, you did the FULL phonics book?

Also when you said you were showing them the relation between word-letter-sound with activities, just what kind of activity did you do? All I can help thinking about is reading! :(  LOL. Sorry, first time teacher here and spanking new at this.  Thank you for your clarifications! :D Btw, I know you asked that we message you, but I wasn't sure how to do that on waygook.  Sorry! :D