Fonix

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Fonix

• Fonix

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Why phonics?

• Helps with pronunciation
• Helps with unfamiliar words
• Helps with spelling

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Misconceptions

• Doesn't need much time
• Must be frequent
• Vocabulary is not necessary

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Problems for Japanese learners

• It's hard to hear and pronounce sounds that don't
  exist in Japanese

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Sound inventory

• Some sounds have no close counterpart
• R/L
• th
• v
• Others do, but exist between Japanese sounds
• but/bat
• on/or
• shark/Sherk

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Combinations of sounds

• In Japanese, syllables must end with a vowel
• racket ? raketto
• Some combinations in English don't exist in
  Japanese
• too ? tsu
• see ? shi

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Problems for Japanese learners

• It's hard to hear and pronounce sounds that don't
  exist in Japanese
• Katakana is BAD BAD BAD!

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Katakana

• It's a syllabary, which means that it can only
  represent the combinations of sounds used in
  Japanese
• It cannot represent many English sounds
• woman ? ????
• very ? ??
• told ? ???
• adventure ? ???????

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I hate katakana

• Teaching with katakana develops bad,
  hard-to-break pronunciation habits
• If students understand phonics, they don't need
  katakana for use as a memory aid

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Problems for Japanese learners

• It's hard to hear and pronounce sounds that don't
  exist in Japanese
• Katakana is BAD BAD BAD!
• Form of some loanwords make distinguishing
  singular/plural difficult

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English loanwords

• To fit the Japanese sound system, some words
  exist only in the plural form
• shirt(s) ? ???
• fruit(s) ? ????
• sport(s) ? ????

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Problems for Japanese learners

• It's hard to hear and pronounce sounds that don't
  exist in Japanese
• Katakana is BAD BAD BAD!
• Form of some loanwords make distinguishing
  singular/plural difficult
• Understanding romaji can be a first step

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romaji

• Since only certain combinations exist, you can
  type Japanese with weird spellings
• sushi ? susi
• Kamiichi ? kamiiti
• Tsuji ? tuzi

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romaji

• Show the students how these weird spellings are
  pronounced and how to spell correctly
• They learn how to spell Japanese words in English
• They can understand the connection between letter
  combinations and sounds

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Starting Phonics in Elementary School

• Pros
• Develop good habits at an early age
• Keep students interested and on track when
  interest in English is at its peak
• Build a better understanding of the parts of
  English before grammar is introduced
• Cons
• Inability to read and write (if applicable) can
  make teaching phonics challenging

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Starting Phonics in Junior High School

• Pros
• Students can read and write to some extent
• This allows for more approaches to phonics
• Cons
• Students may have already developed bad habits
• Learning phonics and grammar simultaneously could
  be a heavy load
• Interest in English may have dwindled