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RESOURCES .

Decoding
Decoding EnglishEnglish

alphabet itself from scratch, and TEFL training courses generally do
GILL RAGSDALE students who are ‘real beginners’. In teaching refugees over the last 3
not prepare teachers to do so.
There are many situations, though, where a teacher might have

years I have often come across just this situation.
At first glance, you might think that you could teach English
letters, reading and writing just as you would to native speakers’
children for the first time, perhaps using the same materials – and
I often see this suggested. There are, however, two major problems
with this.
Firstly, when English-speaking children learn the letters of the
alphabet they generally learn them in sound clusters and associate
each letter with one or more trigger words, such as ‘A is for apple’.
They don’t need to be able to spell ‘apple’ – just recognise the sound
An Afghan refugee transliterating English into Farsi of the word, and they don’t need to be taught what ‘apple’ means.
This is not a good way to teach adult real beginners learning English
What do you do when students don’t because they do not have anything like the vocabulary of the average
pre-schooler’s L1 and they do not already recognise the key sounds.
know the alphabet? Gill Ragsdale My daughter’s favourite alphabet book had such essential items as ‘K

explains how code breaking can help is for Kangaroo’ and ‘G is for Giant’. Which brings me to the second
problem.
The content of children’s learning materials focusses on vocabulary
M who can already read and write the Latin alphabet, adults. You can use these kinds of materials (and I have) as long as
ost native-speaker EFL teachers have adult students
that is rather less relevant to the needs and interests of teenagers or
either because it is part of their L1 or they have
you adapt and edit them to fit your students’ situation. The main
been taught it at school.
reason materials in general can be useful at this level is as a source of
Most ‘beginner’ classes in private language schools
A key strategy for absolute beginners learning the Latin script
are ‘false beginners’: students who have learned some English, know pictures to refer to.
the alphabet and have smattering of vocabulary, but generally need to for the first time, as outlined by Peter Viney, an experienced EFL
start from the beginning and at least revise the basics. teacher and materials writer, is the regular use of decoding tasks.
Native-speaker teachers do not generally expect to teach the Latin Students learn to decode the sounds of words so that they can

Fit in with the script
Fit in with the script
Before you begin to teach zero beginners who do not know Roman script, it can help to have some idea of the writing
system they use. It may be pictographic, like Chinese, or have a different character for each syllable, like Burmese and the
Devanagatri script used in Nepal. Or, it may use an alphabet to build words, like Arabic and Hebrew.

WIKIMEDIA WIKIMEDIA PIXABAY

Burmese syllabary
some time focussing on one-syllable
minimal pairs like bid, bad, bed, and show Arabic Alphabet
what happens when the vowel changes, also always written. In Arabic script, short
Chinese characters and when a ‘silent’ letter is added which vowels are often not written at all (causing
Some teachers find that Chinese-speakers changes the vowel such as bid, bide, bird, a similar but reverse difficulty for learners
respond well to a ‘whole word’ approach or bad, bade, bard. of Arabic).
to learning that begins with the overall “All aspects of writing in English cause
shape of the word preceding listening and Users of Arabic script, including speakers major problems for Arabic speakers, and
speaking (so the reverse of the usual ELT of Farsi, Urdu and Afghan languages like they should not be expected to cope with
practice). This mimics the way Chinese Dari, are not only learning a new alphabet, reading and writing at the same level
pictograms are learned. they have to read and write from left to or pace as European students who are
right instead of right to left and get to at a similar level of proficiency in oral
Teachers working with students who use grips with English vowel sounds which are English.” Swan M and Smith B, Learner
a syllabary might find it useful to spend not only very different in sound, but are English CUP 1987.

38 January/February 2019