Teaching Young Learners

Phonology
Teens 13-17

Session Aims:
By the end of the session, trainees will have:
A greater awareness of the importance of phonology to language learners in general,
Experienced and evaluated a range of activity types suitable for use with Young Learner
(YL) students
Practiced identifying the phonological potential of a range of chants, songs and games for
use with YLs

Stage 1: Citation dictation to raise trainees awareness of how much information is

communicated through phonological features of the language.
Text with two potential interpretations:

Dear Rick

I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People
who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men.
I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when were apart. I can be forever happy --
will you let me be yours?
Gloria

Dear Rick
I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are
not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men I yearn. For
you, I have no feelings whatsoever. When were apart, I can be forever happy. Will you let me be?
Yours,
Gloria

Tutor dictates letter word by word, avoiding normal sentence stress, intonation or pausing so as to
limit the information given to trainees.
Ask if the trainees were able to hear each word clearly yes
Ask if trainees understand all the words that were dictated yes
Ask trainees to identify the gist of the text Is the writer expressing love or hate for the receiver?
Impossible to tell as both interpretations are technically possible.
Ask trainees why the message was unclear lack of phonological features to aid decoding (pauses
to indicate clauses / end of sentences, sentence stress for emphasis, intonation for tone).
Read both texts with phonological features then ask to identify the feeling behind the text.

(7 10 minutes)

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Stage 1b: Define the scope of the session (orally):

Individual sounds and clusters/blends of sounds

Syllables and word stress
Linking of words in connected speech
Sentence stress (on content words)
Contrastive stress
Emphatic stress
Intonation, for example in yes/no questions (rising), Wh questions (falling), question tags
(rising/falling with difference in meaning)

(3-5 minutes)

Stage 2: Activities focussed at the level of the phoneme / word

Trainees are told to evaluate the activities to decide if they are receptive or productive, a stirrer or a
settler and think about any potential problems/drawbacks.

a) Line-jumping Two letters are put on opposite sides of the board (t, d). Trainees line up in
front of the board and tutor and jump to the left/right according to initial / end sound. Start
very simply with initial letter (tiger, two, tent, telly, toy: doll, dog, duck,) move to final sounds
(sat, pot, but, nut, mud, lad, sad, bad) and more complex final sounds (watched, helped,
gained, rained).
EVALUATION: receptive, stirrer, may get noisy, what about those who are out?

b) Basketball divide trainees into 2 teams and give each team paper balls. Set up 2
bins/boxes labelled with letters or picture representations of sounds (demo with ). 2
contestants from each team stand at the throw line and listen to the tutor call out a word.
Contestants throw their ball into the appropriate bin/box and score points for their team.
EVALUATION: receptive, stirrer, may get noisy, what about those who arent
throwing?

c) Throwing a phoneme trainees sit in a circle with trainer. Trainer mouths a letter sound to
one trainee who must vocalise the sound. If they vocalise correctly they chose a new sound
to mouth to another trainee. This can easily be done with words and in pairs rather than
whole group. Demo T>Ss, T<>S, S<>S
EVALUATION: receptive and productive, settler, may be difficult to hold the attention
of the whole class, so better as a pair-work activity.

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d) Happy families Divide trainees into groups of 3 / 4. Each group divides a set of cards
between them (the cards contain lexis with specific sounds in) Trainees try to collect a set
of same sound cards by asking Have you got something beginning with __? (/ch/, /sh/, /f/,
/s/).
EVALUATION: productive, settler possibly stirrer depending on group (competition),
needs modelling drilling first.

e) Odd one out trainees identify which picture is the odd one out (e.g. house, mouse, shoe,
cloud)
EVALUATION: productive, settler

(20 - 25 minutes Stage 2 a-e + time to fill in evaluation sheet.)

Stage 3: Word/ sentence stress activities

Introduce the topic of word / sentence stress by asking students which of the following sentences
will take longer to say:

Phone Jack soon.

Telephone Alison afterwards.

Try it against a metronome or stopwatch and ask trainees to explain why they take about the same
amount of time to say (unstressed syllables).

a) How many sounds?

As vocabulary is introduced to the trainees the tutor demonstrates clapping out sounds and
gradually hands over the activity to trainees. (a demonstration can be done using the
names of animals as a lexical set)
EVALUATION: receptive, settling (stirring if made competitive), a technique for
raising awareness rather than an activity.

b) Rods or Dots
Use Cuisenaire rods to show the number of syllables and stress in a word. Divide trainees
into pairs and give out 4 rods, 1 large, 3 short, alternatively large and small dots can be
used. The tutor calls out a word and trainees mark the word stress using the rods or dots.
The large rod or dot denote where the stress lies in the word.
EVALUATION: receptive, settling (stirring if made competitive), be aware of the
choking hazard of small rods, team-working may be problematic.

c) Word sort

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The trainees place written vocabulary items into a table; the columns of which are headed
by patterns of dots to represent stress patterns.
EVALUATION: receptive & productive, settling, rather abstract / decontextualised,
better with older children.

(10 15 minutes stage 3a-c + evaluation)

Stage 4: Connected speech focused activities.

Start by humming the start of Twinkle, twinkle little star or another popular childrens song or rhyme
and let trainees complete it. Ask them to think about why the tune is so memorable and see if they
remember any other songs/rhymes from their childhood. (Rhythm is easier to remember than
content think of songs we dont know the words to but remember the tune of). As English has a
tendency to be stress-timed like we saw with the metronome activity using the rhythm can help us
as teachers help our students get their tongues around longer utterances or to memorise structures.

a) Chant from Brewster, Ellis & Girard, 2002 p76

Chop, chop, choppity-chop.
Cut off the bottom,
And cut off the top
What there is left we will put in the pot:
Chop, chop, choppity-chop.

Trainees evaluate what phonological features is it good for -- sentence stress

and linking (final consonant to initial vowel sound).

b) Who stole the cookie

Trainees participate in a whole class chant placing blame and denying using appropriate
stress and intonation.

Who stole the cookies from the cookie jar

____ stole the cookies from the cookie jar
Who me?
Yes, you.
Not me!
Then who?
________ stole the cookies from the cookie jar.

Trainees evaluate what phonological features is it good for; rising intonation to show
disbelief/surprise (Who me?) and falling intonation to deny (Not me).

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c) Wheres mine? Is this mine? (from Jazz Chants, Carolyn Graham 1979)
Trainees listen to song and identify phonological features for exploitation. (Falling intonation
on Wh- questions, rising intonation on Y/N questions, emphatic stress.)

d) Grandmas going to the grocery store (from Jazz Chants, Carolyn Graham 1979).
Trainees look at song and evaluate what it could be used for. (weak forms, linking)

e) Contradict me (adapted from Pronunciation games by Mark Hancock). Trainees give

false factual information to partner who corrects them using contrastive stress.

f) Ask me a question (from JET Speaking Activities) Trainees participate in activity and then
evaluate its uses with regard to phonology.

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How many sounds do these words have? Listen to your teacher and write
the words in the right column.

cinema supermarket caf park school library station hotel

street museum city hospital

_________ _________ _________ _________ ________ _________

_________ _________ ________

_________ _________

_________

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Which is the odd one out?

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Tigers have spots. Elephants have wings.

They dont have spots. They have They dont have wings. They have
stripes. tusks / a trunk / big ears.

Cats have feet. Lions have feathers.

They dont have feathers. They have

They dont have feet. They have paws.
fur.

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Receptive or Stirrer or
Name of Activity Any comments
productive settler
1) Line-
jumping

2) Basketball

3) Throwing a
phoneme

4) Happy
families

5) Odd one out

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Receptive or Stirrer or
Name of Activity Any comments
productive settler

6) Line jumping May get noisy. What to do with Ss who

Receptive Stirrer
are out

7) Basketball Receptive Stirrer May get noisy and messy.

8) Throwing a Receptive and May not be suited to whole class, as

Settler
phoneme Productive students will easily get bored.

9) Happy Stirrer/settler Needs language and task modelling

Productive
families depending on group clearly first.

Receptive
Productive if
students have to Settler (unless Pure sound/spelling basis rather
10) Odd one out write common done as team abstract, may not engage younger
sound or game) children.
vocalise
response

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Phonological features Topic/ language

Activity Language
for exploitation function

1. Chop, chop
chant

2. Who stole the

cookies

3. Wheres mine?

4. Grandmas
going to the
grocery store

5. Contradict me.

6. Ask me a
question.

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Phonological features
Activity Language Topic/ language function
for expoitation

Top bottom Linking

7. Chop, chop Sentence stress
Cut off Food preparation
chant
Put in

Food / theft
8. Who stole WH- question forms Rising falling intonation
the cookie Emphatic stress
Accusations and denial

Asking/answering questions
9. Wheres Wh- questions Rising / falling intonation
Identifying
mine? Y/N questions Stress for emphasis
ownership/location

10. Grandmas Wh- questions

Weak forms
going to the Going to future Shopping
Linking
grocery Food and Asking/answering questions
Sentence stress
store packaging lexis

Animal lexis
Descriptive
11. Contradict adjectives related Disagreeing / correcting
Contrastive stress
me. to animals information
Body words related
to animals

Rising / falling intonation

12. Ask me a Questions and Asking / answering questions
in question forms
question. short answers General knowledge
Weak forms

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Notes

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