Page 162 - Teaching English as a Foreign Language for Dummies 2009

Chapter 10: Taken as Read: Teaching Reading Lessons
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Make sure that your students have a copy of the alphabet in the correct order as well. They need it when using the dictionary.
Practise the alphabet in a fun way by using popular acronyms or abbrevia- tions and see if the students know what they mean. Try these for example:
✓ ATM: Automated teller machine
✓ BBC: British Broadcasting Corporation
✓ BMX: Bicycle motorcross
✓ DVD: Digital versatile disc
✓ SMS: Short message service
✓ UNICEF: United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund
Reading whole words
Remember how you were taught to recognise individual words back in pri- mary school? The teacher would hold up flashcards and the kids shouted the words out. Well in EFL, lower-level students learn word by word too.
Write new words on the board as soon as the class has repeated the pronun- ciation. At the same time, help your students to read well by pointing out spelling patterns. After all, English is notoriously difficult to spell and pro- nounce even for native speakers, so reading aloud can be very daunting for EFL students.
These simple examples of English spelling rules make a world of difference to people learning to read in English:
✓ The letter e after a vowel and consonant together softens/lengthens the vowel sound. Compare rid and ride, mad and made, or cut and cute.
✓ When the letter ‘s’ is between two vowels, it’s pronounced like a z – rise /raiz/, present /prezənt/ and pose /pəυz/.
✓ At the beginning of a word gn, kn, and pn are pronounced /n/.
✓ Wh is pronounced /w/. There’s no need to pronounce the ’h’.
✓ Wr is pronounced /r/. The ‘w’ is always silent.
You probably know all these rules instinctively but your students need you to spell them out. If you think of any other rules, make a note of them as your students will be eternally grateful.