It was such cris de coeur that
persuaded me that I needed to find out more about how to teach spelling
to our EFL students, especially those whose oral and aural skills are
considerably better than their written ones.
(The quote above comes from a student who coped well in an upper
intermediate class, until he had to write, that is.)
Although poor spelling is not their only obstacle to better
writing, it is a stubborn one that I feel is often brushed over. Many of these
students, are intending to go on to British universities. They need to be able to spell.
As a teacher I felt that it was an area that I knew very little
about and one that is all but ignored in EFL literature.
I confess I have been guilty of the worst kind of ‘teaching’:
telling students that they are not very good at something and then not
being able to really help them to improve. Colleagues expressed similar
feelings of helplessness and guilt.
In the course of this project I researched EFL literature and
materials on spelling, but also looked briefly at how spelling is taught
to children in schools and to adults in Basic Education schemes (Adult
Literacy). I interviewed
some of our students at Bell Norwich who consider that they either are or have been poor
spellers. Teachers also
filled in a questionnaire on the subject.
The problem for students
First let us consider how students perceive the problem.
I interviewed 7 students who confessed to being or having been
poor spellers. Five of
these were Arabs, the other two were from the Far East. All the students
I interviewed claimed that spelling was no problem in their own language
and they did believe that their English spelling was improving, but
nearly all felt that considerable further improvement was essential.
The main reason given was to be able to cope with future academic
study in Britain.
Let us consider for a moment why we need to be able to spell well,
in both academic and everyday life.
-
Writing is an important method of
communication in certain situations and it is helpful if the reader can
easily decipher what the writer means.
-
People are often judged by their spelling – if that shows care
then they are assumed to be conscientious in other areas of life.
It can be embarrassing to be unable to spell simple words,
especially when trying to express complex ideas.
-
It gives the writer more self-confidence
and from this grows a willingness to experiment more with language.
-
If students hear a new lexical item and can make a realistic
guess about its spelling, they can check its meaning in a dictionary. Also
writing it may help them to ‘fix’ it in their minds.
Accepting these reasons, my students complained that English
spelling was so difficult. They perceived it as not representing the
pronunciation of words; there are silent letters, and so many different
ways to spell one sound (and ways to sound one spelling).
This cannot be denied. Invaders
from abroad and early printers have bequeathed us odd remnants of
language that we have assimilated. We also have a rather inadequate
alphabet, only 26 letters for about 44 sounds.
However, English spelling is not as irregular as it at first
seems, in fact it is generally estimated to be over 80 per cent regular
(providing ‘regular’ is taken to mean that most words are
constructed according to a rather complicated system of patterns
relating to their sounds). Frustratingly
however, it is the
commonest words which are most likely to be irregular.
Another difficulty that relates specifically to learners of
EFL is not being able to identify pronunciation distinctly enough to
spell words. This is a
particular problem with vowel sounds and other sounds that do not have
direct equivalents in students’ own language e.g. /p/ and /b/, /l/ and
/r/, or /f/ and /v/.
There are added problems of course for students whose languages
use a different alphabet or have a non-alphabetic system, such as
Arabic, Japanese and Chinese. They
have a great deal more to learn than those who also use the Roman
alphabet, but the latter also have problems where a letter has a
different sound value, eg in German the letter v = /f/.
Those with very phonetic languages such as Italian may over
generalise about spelling based on phonetics.
Sometimes we cannot blame the language or the L1 difference, some
students are just weak spellers. Margaret
Peters, writing about native speakers, identifies two reasons for poor
spelling, weak visual memory and weak auditory memory, and compares
these with the performance of good spellers:
[i]
|
Good spellers
|
Students with a weak visual memory
|
Students with a weak auditory memory
|
|
§
hear new words and can associate
them with the right letters
§
can break words into parts and
write those parts
§
probably see a word in their minds
and can read it off
§
just need to
proof-read carefully – can often see their errors
|
§
have a clear idea of symbol-sound
relationship
§
do not remember how a word should
look
§
are not necessarily poor readers
§
make attempts that are
recognisable e.g. cof for
cough
§
are the most common types of poor
spellers
|
§
can not relate sounds to symbols
§
can not hear distinct parts of
words
§
make random arbitrary guesses at
spelling
§
are probably poor readers
|
Peters also identifies 5 kinds of error that poor spellers often
make:
-
wrong initial letters – this indicates a serious problem and
suggests that the student probably is unable to read. They
may need some work on phonics.
-
using wrong phonic alternatives- student uses a ‘legal’
spelling pattern for this sound but has chosen the wrong one for this
word (eg pensil) or an ‘illegal’ one that is, however, phonetically appropriate eg perfikt
-
misspelling affixes – often because they are not seeing the
affix as a separate identifiable part of the word
-
misspelling of an unstressed syllable –this may be because they
are not clear which vowel is represented, especially when there is a
schwa sound, or they miss it out completely.
-
confuse single and double consonants
[ii]
Specific
problems of Arabic Speakers
“All
aspects of writing in English cause major problems for Arabic speakers,
and they should not be expected to cope with
reading and writing at the same level or pace as European
students who are at a similar level of proficiency in oral English.”
[iii]
Swan and Smith in Learner English
Arabic spelling follows a simple system and is virtually phonetic.
One sound equals one letter.
Arabic has 32 consonants and 8 vowels (including diphthongs), so
a lot fewer vowel sounds than English and the short ones are almost
allophonic. Meaning is
carried by consonants and long vowels only. Arabic words never start
with a vowel. In fact
vowels are often not shown in Arabic writing (except for example in the
Koran and in books for children). When
they are shown this is by means of small marks above or below the word. For this reason Arabic speakers tend to confuse or gloss over
short vowel sounds and as a consequence have problems writing them.
The most common confusions are between /I/
and /e/ (bit and bet), / Q /
and / O:
/ (cot and caught) , /eI/
and /e/ (laid and led) and /@U
/ and /Q
/ (hope and hop). If students cannot distinguish between these sounds orally
and aurally they are unlikely to be able to write them. As far as
consonants are concerned /p/ and /b/ are allophonic as are /v/ and /f/.
/g/ and /k/ are often confused and / T
/ and /D/
(thin and that) may cause problems. In
some dialects there is no / tS /
‘ch’ sound. In
Arabic the /r/ is pronounced much more strongly so they may not hear it
in English and therefore not write it.
Some initial consonant clusters such as 'spr',
'str'
do not occur in Arabic and students may insert a short vowel letter.
They also have the challenge of reading from left to right and
when writing they may transpose two or more letters e.g. 'tow'
for ‘two’ or 'waht' for ‘what’. In
addition, students often experience problems keeping their writing on
the line, which makes it more difficult to recognise if the word is the
correct shape.
The aspects of spelling that the Arab students I interviewed said
they found particularly difficult were:
§
all vowel sounds,
§
/p/ and /b/,
§
double/single letters,
§
digraphs (eg -ch, -ph “in
my language c is c and h is h!”),
§
silent letters,
§
the letters g, c and k.
The problem for
teachers
Several Bell Norwich teachers answered a questionnaire on how we could
help students with spelling.
Most teachers felt they did not or could not give enough systematic help
to weak spellers, as a result some students reach a high level class
without being able to spell. Several
very experienced teachers admitted that they did not know how to go
about teaching remedial spelling (myself included).
Teachers felt strongly that they needed more training in this
area. There was also a need, many felt, for more self-access materials,
though it was pointed out that sometimes the students with the most
serious problems were the least likely to use them.
The idea of special low-level reading and writing options was
also felt to be useful. One
further suggestion was displaying posters with spelling rules on
classroom walls.
What’s involved in learning to spell?
In order to be able to spell well a number of language
processing skills are needed.
1.
Students need to know the alphabet and sounds that letters represent,
discriminate between similar looking letters and be able to copy.
2.
Students need to be able to hear and probably pronounce the word they
want to spell. However
research suggests that deaf children spell better than hearing children
of the same reading age as they rely more on strategies of visual
perception. This is encouraging news for our students as poor listening
is seen as a handicap to spelling.
3.
Then learners have to remember the phonemes in the right order
and the which letters represent those phonemes.
They have to call to mind ‘rules’ about spelling patterns.
Good spellers recognise the probability of letters occurring in
certain sequences. Plenty
of handwriting practice reinforces the ‘muscle memories’ of these
letter sequences.
4.
If the phonemes can be represented by alternative spellings learners
have to decide which to choose for a particular word and learn these.
5.
There may be irregularities, such as silent letters, that they need to
learn. These spellings just
have to be memorised, an onerous task as they include many of the most
common words. Students
therefore need to employ strategies to remember these just as they
remember names, perhaps symbols in their own written language (eg
Chinese) or any other information.
6.
They often need to think about associated words they know with the same
root or a similar meaning and be able to consider the affixes
separately. In other words
students need to learn to look at the internal structure of words.
7.
The appropriate spelling of homophones is needed for the context: Too
is a correct spelling of /tu:/ but not in I
have too brothers.
Most of the Arabs I spoke to said that they had learnt spelling in
their own countries by memorisation rather than any rules or cognitive
strategies. One Japanese
student said she had had a similar experience but when a private teacher
had later explained some rules to her, her spelling improved greatly. Experience suggests that we mainly spell by memorisation but
refer to rules we have learnt when we cannot remember.
This seems to be the key to
learning spelling.
Suggestions
for Teaching Spelling in General English Classes.
A multilingual general English class usually comprises a mix of
learners with different levels of spelling and varying needs.
So below I will outline some general methodological hints I have
gleaned from my research that we might usefully apply to all classes.
|
Hints
|
Why?
|
|
Encourage
students to hand-write new words and practise longer pieces of
writing.
If
students use spellcheckers or learn spelling any other way on
computers they also need to hand-write the words
|
The
more often students write the more they will develop a ‘muscle
memory’ of sequences or strings of letters that are often found
together. By
hand-writing words they are more likely to fix patterns in their
mind.
|
|
Encourage
extensive reading
|
Somebody’s
skill as a reader may not make them a good speller, but it can
suggest to them when they might have made a mistake.
|
|
Draw
students’ attention to the internal structure of new words, e.g.
-
how parts of the word are similar
to parts of other words with a related meaning.
Get them in the habit of associating unknown words with
known ones.
-
any affixes
-
any ‘hard spots’ – i.e. parts of the word that they
may find difficult to spell like silent letters
(All
this of course depends on the word and can usually be done very
quickly)
|
Before
students copy new words into their vocabulary books they need to
notice features that will help them to remember.
For example, pointing out the similarity between the
spelling of sign and signature may help them to
remember the silent g. By
being able to recognise affixes in a word they can break it down
into manageable parts. The
‘hard spots’ can be underlined or overwritten with a different
colour to help fix it in the visual memory.
|
|
Make
sure students know the names of letters of the alphabet and can
talk about vowels and consonants (remember y, w and u can
represent both)
|
Learners
need the tools to be able to discuss spelling.
|
|
Teach
some spelling rules/patterns that:
-
apply to a large number of words
-
have few exceptions
-
you can describe simply but
exactly
(see
below for useful ones to teach)
|
There
are many helpful rules and patterns which help students who are
unsure of a spelling, but there are many irregularities as well.
Some rules are so complicated that they are unlikely to be
remembered or perhaps even understood.
|
|
When
correcting spelling errors in written work draw attention to why
a word is wrong, e.g. underline or overwrite the problem part of
the word. Then write the whole word (unless you want the student
to self-correct) rather than just indicating where they should
insert letters with a ^.
|
“The
teacher’s job is not to correct mistakes the pupil has already
made but to help him not to make the mistake next time” (Torne)
[iv]
Students
are more likely to remember a correct spelling if they see the
whole word written correctly as well as having the specific error
pointed out.
|
|
When
students are writing in class and one asks for a spelling,
-
get the student to try writing it
him or herself.
-
ask the student if it looks right
-
if it is wrong (and you think it
is a useful word for them to know how to write) write the word on
a piece of paper or the board and get the learner to memorise it
without writing.
-
Remove the word before they write
it.
-
Check their spelling.
|
By
trying to write the word students are going through a useful
process of thinking about its structure.
They should be encouraged to exercise their visual memory
by trying to recognise if the word looks correct
If
students just copy a word or have it dictated to them they do not
have to use any processing skills. If they have had to learn the word even for a few seconds
it forces them to notice features of the word and are more likely
to remember in the future.
|
|
Spend
some time on learner training:
q
Students put problem words on
cards and keep them in their pockets and test themselves.
q
Encourage them to analyse how they
memorise anything in their own language.
q
When students learn words they can
try this commonly taught system:
·
LOOK – say it to
yourself, trace the word with your finger, explore the ‘hard
spots’
·
COVER
·
REMEMBER – try to
see word in your head or trace it again from memory
·
WRITE – from
memory.
·
CHECK the spelling and repeat the
process if necessary.
q
When students have learnt new
spellings they should try to use them later in the same day, in
their diaries for example.
q
They should try words out on scrap
paper to see if they look right
q
Encourage them to guess first
letters so they can look words up in a dictionary
When
written homework is returned students should identify misspelled
words, decide which are important and then learn these spellings
as above.
|
We
do not want to just teach spelling but also strategies for
improving spelling skills and working out how to spell difficult
words
|
Suggestions for
Teaching Spelling in Low Level Reading and Writing Classes.
All the points above
should be borne in mind, but
as there will be a much greater emphasis on developing spelling skills
and assuming that all the students in the class struggle with English
spelling, here are some further points to consider.
|
Hints
|
Why?
|
|
Students
need to understand that
1.
there are more sounds (44) than
letters (26)
2.
patterns can be learnt
3.
knowledge of vowels and consonants
is important
4.
there are lots of strategies to
help them improve their spelling
5.
the spellchecker on the computer has limitations – it is
only really useful when students can spell well enough for
alternatives to be considered,
6.
they can relate how they remember
spelling in English to how they remember anything in their own
language
|
Learners
with spelling problems have often been told or perceive from
experience that the English writing system is so chaotic that
learning it is just about impossible, an insurmountable task.
A teacher can show that this is not so and there are
ways of tackling it
|
|
Even
more work on the visual characteristics of words, such as looking
at the overall shape. Helping
them notice that the shape of the word 'baby' looks
different from the shape of the word 'paper'.
Cuisenaire
Rods could be used for this
|
Lots
of different ways to try to help students exercise their visual
memory.
|
|
Do not try to teach them the whole
phonemic alphabet. A
few symbols to clarify differences may be useful,
(Some Arabic students write the English words phonemically
in Arabic script, which is fine if they have a good ear for the
sounds as most of us cannot check their transcriptions)
|
Knowledge
of the phonemic alphabet would be very useful but impractical with
students who are already struggling with symbols.
|
|
Encourage
students to keep spelling logs.
These differ from vocabulary books in that they can be
arranged by types of spelling patterns and just include words for
active use that they may find difficult to spell. This could be started in class and students could add words
that they come across belonging to particular spelling patterns.
It could form a separate section of their vocabulary books.
|
Spelling
logs can be used for a student’s own reference when he or she
wants to write a word again and for learning spellings.
It is also useful to be able to group words of different
spelling patterns or sounds.
|
|
Teach
commonly occurring spelling patterns and rules.
Acknowledge that there are exceptions, but only teach
common ones.
|
Patterns
and rules will help students attempt spellings they do not know
and help them recognise whether their attempts are right or not.
It is more helpful for them see the language as having some
regularity and patterns than to dwell on its difficulties.
|
|
Get
students in the habit of noticing common factors affecting
spelling patterns in new words as this makes them more memorable.
Some useful clues:
1.
Does the spelling depend on a short or long vowel e.g. can/cane
2.
Is this spelling pattern found in single and
multi-syllable words, e.g. –ic
not in single syllable words
3.
Position of spelling patterns – e.g. qu-
never ends a word.
4.
Is this spelling pattern usually
accompanied by another letter
|
Hopefully
students will start to pick up patterns or letter strings that
make up words so they can make better informed guesses about what
is and is not right
|
|
Try
to integrate other skills into spelling lessons.
Use
games, personalisation, etc.
|
Listening
will strengthen visual-auditory recognition (phoneme awareness) of
the aspect of spelling you are focusing on.
It
will all be much more meaningful and motivating than dry spelling
lessons. Students may
struggle with spelling because of negative affective factors
arising from boring repetitive lessons in the past.
|
|
Make
these classes as visual as possible
Make
layout and whiteboard work very clear.
Use different coloured pens to highlight spelling patterns
for example.
|
So
students do not need to cope with difficult text in order to
understand your lesson
|
|
If
ability is mixed in the class ask learners to “do as many as you
can” or “do at least….”
|
Poor
spellers usually produce worse work when they feel under pressure
or hurried.
|
|
If
you give spelling tests focusing on a particular spelling pattern,
1.
give marks for getting the pattern
right as well as marks for getting the whole word right.
2.
You could give some unfamiliar
words incorporating the same pattern in this type of test too, but
nothing too difficult.
3.
Also include some words from
patterns previously learnt (warn students of this).
4.
Get students to keep records of
their spelling test results.
|
1.
This is a way of rewarding
students for having learnt the pattern without penalising them too
much for making errors elsewhere.
2.
If students have learnt a pattern
they should be able to apply it to unfamiliar words too.
3.
Recycling is important.
4.
Students feel more motivated if
they can see their progress and know that their tests are being
taken seriously.
|
|
Dictations
are a useful type of achievement test, but a few points:
1.
use at the end of the learning
process when students are likely to do well.
2.
if the dictation is purely to test
spelling, repeat the text slowly and clearly as many times as they
need.
3.
when they have finished they could underline the words they
think they have spelled wrongly – the teacher then needs to
concentrate on those that are wrong but they thought were
right!
4.
A variation on this: they tick
words they are sure about, circle them if not sure and underline
if they know they are wrong.
|
1.
Dictations given as diagnostic tests can be very
demotivating, as can tests where students do very badly.
This reinforces the idea that they will never be able to
spell.
2.
If it is only spelling being tested, don’t test
listening, although the text should sound as natural as possible
e.g. include weak forms and contractions.
3
& 4. Students can
learn to focus more on their spelling attempts and think about why
they may be right or wrong. By
identifying words they are unsure of they can apply strategies
(such as breaking a word into parts, looking in a dictionary etc.)
to check them. The
teacher also gains a lot of information.
|
|
Where
the focus is on spelling, let students read aloud.
Make sure the words sound at least recognisable.
This could be done as pair work.
|
Reading
aloud helps spelling as it paces the reader, forcing the student
to look carefully at the word.
|
|
Students
count number of sounds in a word e.g.
m-a-tch =3
|
To
heighten phoneme awareness
|
|
Teach
basic dictionary skills. They
need to know:
1.
the alphabet and how words are
listed according to 1st, 2nd then 3rd
letters
2.
how to use guide words at top of
pages
3.
that words have different meanings
and spellings
4.
some likely positions of patterns
eg gh for /f/ not at the beginning of words
|
Good
dictionary skills are essential for learner independence, but we
often take it for granted that students know how to use one
effectively.
Of
course many students use bilingual electronic dictionaries, but
they still have their own challenges.
|
|
To
teach spelling of new words try this sequence:
1.
write word clearly on the whiteboard
pointing out patterns and hard spots.
Break longer words into syllables
2.
students pronounce the word
3.
wipe the word off the board and students write it from
memory. Check
spelling.
4.
students turn over paper and write it again.
Check spelling.
5.
students use the word again soon in context
|
1.
let students work these features out after a while so they
are more likely to remember.
Breaking the word down makes it more manageable and helps
them learn all parts of the word.
2.
they make the link between the visual and auditory
representation of the word
3.
memorising rather than copying the word will aid retention
4.
this will reinforce the memory retention
5.
recycling in context also helps fix the spelling in
students’ minds
|
|
For
irregular spellings teach some mnemonics, e.g. “necessary
has a coat and two socks”,
then encourage students to make their own.
|
Some
spellings just have to be learnt and students should explore
different ways to do this. Making
their own mnemonics will be more motivating and memorable.
|
|
Use
games which involve finding words within words like “Find an
animal in separate” (rat)
but avoid anagrams and crosswords.
|
Finding
letters in sequence that make words aids memory of spelling but
anagram-type games where the letters have to be mixed can cause
extra confusion and are only fun and useful for good spellers.
Arabs are generally unfamiliar with crosswords.
|
|
Only
teach one spelling pattern per lesson
|
To
avoid overload and confusion
|
Some specific areas
of study
|
Area
of Study
|
Activities
or Hints
|
Notes
|
|
phoneme
awareness hearing ,identifying and writing sounds in words E.g.:
all
vowel sounds
/b/
and /p/
/v/
and /f/
/k/
and /g/
|
If
students cannot distinguish between different sounds, they need
pronunciation work, including minimal pairs).
They could also write short rap or comic poems all
containing the target sound.
If learners have problems hearing final consonants, play
Last Letter, First Letter (one student gives a word, the next
gives a word starting with the last letter of the first word etc)
|
Tree
or Three or Ship and Sheep very useful. See also Pronunciation Games and Pronunciation
Tasks.
|
|
Different
pronunciations of a letter e.g. –c=/s/ or /k/.
This is often influenced by another letter (see notes >)
so students need to use the correct following letter.
The
‘magic e’ is the most
common and important as it changes the vowel sound.
|
Dictate
lists of words containing e.g. /s/ and /k/ sounds- students deduce
spelling
Mnemonic:
“when e comes at
the end of the word the vowel says its name”.
|
c
+ i, e
or y = /s/
otherwise
/k/
g
+ i, e
or y =/dz/, otherwise /g/
(some common exceptions – girl, get)
Vowel
+ consonant + e = long vowel sound
|
|
Where
a sound has more than one spelling students have to choose the
right letter eg e or ea
for /e/.
Students
should be encouraged to guess spelling by associating words to
other related words they know as stems generally stay the same
|
Where
there are no rules words have to be memorised.
One way to do this: show a word for 10 seconds (on a
flashcard?), cover and students remember for 10 seconds.
Then they write. Show
card again for them to check.
Students
keep logs of words with similar patterns
|
Teaching
English Spelling: A Practical Guide
by Ruth Shemesh and Sheila Waller (CUP) is excellent for this huge
area of work
Also see Joanne
Kenworthy’s Teaching English Pronunciation (Longman )pp106 –9
for information on digraph vowels
Use
mnemonics for those that are difficult to remember e.g. i before
e except after c.
There is a practice exercise on i.e./ei
in Feedback (p41) by Jane Sherman (OUP)
|
|
Composite
consonants (or digraphs) pronounced as a single phoneme eg –ch,
ph, sh.
|
Students
just need to be taught these almost as if they are extra letters
of the alphabet.
|
|
|
Homophones
(complete or near) and homographs
|
Do
not initially teach them together, though you may want to contrast
them later in the course
|
British
vs American spellings – best to teach only one system and
acknowledge other spelling if students mention it
|
|
Silent
letters
|
These
need to be memorised, but there are certain common patterns to
look out for.
|
See
Teaching English Spelling p259 -268
|
|
Letter
strings or patterns – some letters are commonly found together
whereas others are rarely juxtaposed.
If students recognise these they can make more informed
guesses about spellings that they don’t know.
Some of these strings also appear only in certain positions
in the word, e.g. wh- is never at the end, -gh for /f/ is never at
the front.
|
A
game called “Don’t Say the Word”: one student gives a
letter, the next student must give a letter that can follow (other
students can challenge if they think a word cannot be made from
this combination of letters).
The aim is not to finish the word as play continues around
the class.
Students
keep notes of words with certain strings in their spelling logs
and add to them.
|
|
|
Double
vs. single consonants. In
English doubling a consonant does not affect the pronunciation of
that consonant sound but may change the preceding vowel sound.
|
Rules
for doubling consonants (cvc) are reasonably simple when adding
–ed,-ing,-er and -est.
These need to be taught
|
This
is one area of spelling that is dealt with quite thoroughly in EFL
materials, so should not be difficult to find
|
|
Endings:
suffixes etc. Students have to know how to spell the suffix and any
changes to the stem (for example dropping the e or if words end in
y).
full
becomes ful in suffix
plural
s endings, f >
ves
|
Give
students words with the ending and they write the stem word.
Then vice versa.
|
Adding
suffixes to words ending in y
see Feedback p70
some
confusing endings –
ible/able
ence/ance
ous/eous
sion/tion
le/el
|
|
Beginnings
of words are important if students want to use dictionaries.
Some are particularly difficult, such as words beginning
with p where the 2nd
or 3rd letter is
r
di or
de
in or
en
|
Memorisation
via mnemonics and other means already mentioned
|
|
|
It
is important that students can identify syllables so they can
break words up into more manageable chunks.
|
Beat
or clap the syllables out so students can learn to recognise them.
Regularly
ask students how man |
