This thesis aims at promoting primary school students’ phonemic awareness which can boost correct spelling。 Correct spelling plays a vital role in students’ English word acquisition。 Spelling improves reading and writing fluency and how it improves vocabulary and comprehension。 Learning to spell helps students to cement the connection between the letters and their sounds, and learning high-frequency “sight words” to mastery level improves both reading and writing。 This thesis focuses on the effective way of improving students spelling skill which is important to convey meanings。 If words that sound the same (e。g。, right-write; meet-meat) were spelled the same way, their meanings would be harder to differentiate。” So, correct spelling plays a vital role in students’ English word acquisition。
The research of thesis about phonics teaching can help primary school students to remember words and solve students’ problem in remembering English’s pronunciation and spelling and make a good foundation for further learning in English。 This method which is very popular in English speaking countries can help students pronounce the words when they see them, and write down words when others pronounce them。 According to the Barton Reading and Spelling System (Barton, 2000), phonemic awareness is the base of phonics teaching and the foundation of successful reading and spelling acquisition。 And the development of phonemic awareness is necessary for students who struggle reading in English as a second language to be able to pronounce and spell a word correctly。 This study helps forming a systematical phonics teaching model for English teachers’ practice in word teaching in primary school, which can promote students’ phonemic awareness and do good to their word acquisition, which is the base of English learning。
Relevant research and the practice in China is very few, only limited to some scholars and private training institutions, so this thesis is expected to provide the insights into further research in this field。 According to the National English Curriculum, vocabulary plays an indispensable role in the objectives of language skills including listening, speaking, reading and writing。 Students are required to learn to use about 1600 words and 200 idioms and fixed collocations, etc。 It is not difficult to see that words or vocabulary is the foundation of all the terms。 But actually, there are many problems in learning English for Chinese students who speak English as a foreign language。 When students start to learn Chinese characters, they first learn Pinyin, which has the same character patterns but different pronunciations as 26 letters in English。 This really influences students’ phonemic awareness of English。 Although Chinese students learn International Phonetic Alphabet which gives people a good way to pronounce a word, it still can’t set a good relationship between the pronunciation and spelling in English。 What’s more, the English textbooks for Chinese students such as PEP (People's Education Press), do not emphasize students’ phonemic awareness because there are no content of phonics in PEP until Grade 4 and there are few exercises in the textbook that related to phonics or phonemes and teachers usually attach little importance to it。 Students try to read and spell the words by signing Chinese characters rather than according to the pronunciation of every letter in the word。 It’s a very difficult task for them to remember the words, which influences students’ interest in English。文献综述
After the study, teachers can have an overall view about students’ phonemic awareness and find a more effective way in word teaching and students will also make a great progress in word acquisition。 It is very necessary to promote their phonemic awareness by applying phonics to English teaching in primary schools。 The subjects in this study are children from primary schools who are "better" language learners than adults because they just begin to study and can also imitate the pronunciation and intonation of native English speakers naturally。