Topic 10 STAY STRONG, PLS.

TOPIC 10:

ORTHOGRAPHIC COMPETENCE IN ENGLISH. SOUND-SPELLING CORRESPONDENCES.

PROPOSALS FOR THE DIDACTIC OF THE WRITING CODE. SPELLING APPLICATIONS IN WRITTEN
PRODUCTION.

Los códigos ortográficos de la lengua inglesa. Relación sonido-grafía…

0.INTRODUCTION
Even native speakers often have trouble with spelling. This curious fact makes us aware of the problematic
and the difficulty in teaching English orthography. The inconsistency between written and spoken English is
probably the main reason, but we are going to make a deeper analysis at the reasons behind this problem
and see how this topic can be taught best in class.

According to the Organic Law 3/2020, 29th December, which modifies the Organic law 2/2006, 3rd of
May, of education (LOMLOE), the final goal of foreign language teaching is to develop the student’s
communicative competence. According to Harmer, skills can be classified according to the medium: oral
skills (listening and speaking) and written skills (reading and writing). Moreover, depending on the way we
develop these skills we can distinguish between: receptive skills (reading and listening) and productive skills
(speaking and writing). Being competent in the four skills and using these skills for communicative purpose
acquire communicative competence. Moreover, the curriculum for Primary Education, in which the foreign
language area is included, is stated by the Royal decree 157/2022 of 1st of March and the Decree 61/2022
of 13th of July (for the Community of Madrid), establishing the three main/basic Learning Knowledges:
communication, interculturality and plurilingualism.

For this purpose, I will divide the topic into three main sections. First, I will analyse the orthographic
competence in English and sound-spelling correspondences. Second, I will state proposals for the didactic
of the writing code. Third, I will be dealing with spelling applications in written production. Finally, I will
give a brief conclusion and the bibliography used for the orientation of this topic

1. ORTHOGRAPHIC COMPETENCE IN ENGLISH

1.1 THE CONCEPT OF COMPETENCE

During the 20th century many linguists studied the process of 1st and 2nd language acquisition and different
theories aroused. Firstly, Chomsky developed a theory on language learning (Generative Grammar) based
on the learner’s competence so the speaker’s proficiency involved the acquisition and use of unconscious
grammar rules. Later, Dell Hymes contrasted Chomsky’s theory considering that a cultural and
communicative potential of language should be incorporated. Hymes coined the term communicative
competence that is defined as what a speaker needs to know to be communicatively competent in a speech
community.

1
 Topic 10 STAY STRONG, PLS.

Canale and Swain, in 1980s, expanded the Communicative Competence establishing four dimensions:
grammatical competence (the correct use of the linguistic code), discursive competence (the relationship
and combination of grammatical forms), sociolinguistic competence (the production and understanding of
messages adapting to the social context) and strategic competence (the effective communication through
verbal and non-verbal strategies). These are complemented by the socio-cultural competence (the
understanding the messages considering certain cultural factors).

1.2 ORTHOGRAPHIC COMPETENCE

Orthography studies how to write words properly and how to use punctuation marks appropriately. It is
essential to correctly represent in written language, the spoken language. On the one hand, the conventions
for spelling correspond to the sounds used in speech and on the other hand; the conventions for
punctuation help represent the pauses and intonation of speech.

The writing systems of all European languages are based on the alphabetic principles, although there are
languages that follow ideographic or consonantal principles. In order to develop our students’ orthographic
competence for alphabetic systems, the students should develop some micro-skills:
To recognise and produce the letters and the proper spelling of words.
To know and how to use punctuation marks and different typographical conventions.
To identify main logographic signs (@, &, #).

1.3 PUNCTUATION MARKS

In relation to the punctuation marks mentioned before, we are going to analyse the conventions for
punctuation used in written communication. Punctuation marks are graphic signs that have two main
functions, they separate units of written language, and they help convey feelings. In short, they make
reading easier.
We can distinguish the following graphic signs:
1. Abbreviations: a short form of a word or phrase. Adjective = Adj.
2. Acronyms: abbreviation formed from the initial letters of other words, and they may be composed of all
capital letters (USA) or of an initial capital followed by small letter (Aids). Moreover, it can be
pronounced as a word (NASA) or letters can be pronounced separately, which is called initialism (BBC).
3. Apostrophes (‘): it is used to signal the genitive (possessive) case of nouns. It is formed by adding an
apostrophe and an –s or just an apostrophe to form the genitive plural It is also used in a contraction
(I’m).
4. Comma (,): it is a common mark used to separate sentences in a variety of contents to isolate them or to
avoid misinterpretation.
5. Colon (:): it is used to introduce identification, examples or quotations and direct speech. The colon
separated two units: it is attached to the end on one unit and introduces the unit that follows.
Moreover, it can be used when expression the time, or in salutation for letters.
6. Semicolon (;): it separated two or more independent clauses that are placed next to each other within a
sentence.
7. Dashes (-): it separated two units. It also introduces a list or in representation of dialogue.
8. Full stop (.): it the most usual punctuation mark used to mark the end of a sentence.
2
 Topic 10 STAY STRONG, PLS.

9. Question and exclamation marks (?, !): these marks are place at the end of a sentence to signal that a
sentence is a question (?) or an exclamation (!). They also mark the end of a sentence. Moreover,
exclamation marks are used for certain kind of utterances: exclamatory questions, wishes, urgent
warnings, and vocatives.
10. Hyphens (-): it links words that form a compound word (role-play).
11. Parenthesis ( ): or brackets are used to enclose content that is does not interrupt the flow of the
sentence (references, translations, abbreviations...)
12. Square brackets [ ]: like brackets they enclose information but this information is related to editorials in
quotations.
13. Ellipsis points/periods (...): are used for omissions in quotations and for hesitations or suspense.
14. Inverted commas (“): or are primarily used to indicate the exact words or a speaker or writer in
quotations, including direct speech. Quotations marks come in pairs. They are also used to cite words or
expressions, for translations or paraphrasing.

2. TYPES OF WRITING SYSTEMS

The writing system of a language can be studied from two points of view: These relate to each othe in the
same way that phonetics and phonology do:
 GRAPHETICS: is a branch of linguistics concerned with the analysis of the physical properties of
shapes used in writing.
 GRAPHOLOGY: is the analysis of the physical characteristics and patterns of handwriting purporting
to be able to identify the writer, indicating psychological state at the time of writing, or evaluating
personality characteristics. It studies the units (graphemes) that make a difference in meaning.
Graphemes are usually transcribed between angle brackets < >. English has 26 graphemes that make
up the letters of the alphabet. Other graphemes include punctuation marks or special symbols.

In fact, there are several types of writing systems. The most useful approach to distinguish between those
which show a clear relationship between the symbols and sounds of the language (phonological system)
and those that do not (non-phonological systems). Both English and Spanish use phonological alphabetic
systems, which show a direct correspondence between graphemes and phonemes. But these languages vary
greatly in their graphemic/phonemic regularity. (the first one being marked by a degree of irregularity)

 Non-phonological systems: graphemes are recognizable pictures of entities, as they exist in the
world. They are pictographic systems and constitute the earliest system of writing. (emojis, memes)
 Phonological systems: we can distinguish:
o Syllabic system: each grapheme corresponds to a spoken syllable.
o Alphabetic system: there is a direct correspondence between graphemes and phonemes.
Most alphabets contain 20-30 symbols, depending on the complexity of the sound system.
Languages vary greatly in their regularity. A regular system uses one grapheme for each
phoneme (Spanish), while an irregular language uses more than one grapheme for each
phoneme (English). This is normally due to the changes in pronunciation that the language
has suffered or because the language is using an alphabet which was not originally designed
for it.
3
 Topic 10 STAY STRONG, PLS.

2.1 THE ENGLISH SPELLING CODE

Now that we have considered general concepts related to spelling and writing systems, we will specifically
examine the English spelling. There is a widespread impression that English spelling in chaotic and
unpredictable. The fact that the same spelling can be pronounced in many different ways, for example
<ough>, should be treated as an exception. In order to understand this degree of irregularity, we need to
study the historical reasons behind that because as Ferdinand Di Saussure expresses there are two points
of views to get to know a language:

2.1.1.- DIACHRONIC STUDY

English spelling usually leads students to have problems because of the different between the oral and
written form. English is an irregular language, which can be understood through the history of the language:

 The Anglo-Saxon period: one of the most significant changes took place when British missionaries
tried to develop a writing system for English using the Irish form of the Latin alphabet with 24
graphemes which had to cope with a sound system of 40 phonemes.

 The Norman period: French scribes introduced new orthographic conventions such as the <qu> for
<cw> (queen) and <gh> for <h> (night).

 From the 14th to the 16th century another significant change took place called the Great Vowel Shift.
It marked the beginning of Modern English, and it was the main reason for the diversity of vowel
spellings. Some letters also became silent during this period <k> (know). The Great Vowel Shift
produced:
- Long a: /a:/ raised and diphthongised in /ei/ as in make.
- Long e: /e:/ raised to long i: as in feet.
- Long i: /i:/ diphthongised in /ai/ as in mice.
- The vowel sound as in thought / ɔ: /raised and diphthongised in / əʊ / as in boat.
- Long 0 : /o:/ raised to long /u;/ as in book and long u /u:/ diphthongised in /au/ as in
mouse.

 In the 17th a good number of borrowings from French, Italian... came into the English language
(pizza). French scribes where responsible too of some new orthographic representations; <g, v, z, w,
q>.

 During the 19th century, Spelling Reforms Associations were founded in USA and Britain with the
aim of creating a more consistent orthography for the English language. The main advantages of a
spelling reform are: children would learn to read easily, and foreign learners would find easier to
learn the language, promoting the spread of the English language throughout the world. However,
the disadvantages outweigh the advantages: it would be difficult to implement the reform and many
people would be unwilling to learn a new alternative system.

2.1.2.- SYNCRONIC STUDY: SPELLING RULES

4
 Topic 10 STAY STRONG, PLS.

Before studying the relationships between phones and graphemes we will study the main varieties from a
synchronic point of view.

The differences between British and American spelling show that changes can be introduced. The majority
of these changes derive from the interest of the old American lexicographer Noah Webster (1869) in the
spelling reform. Examples of the spelling different appear in individual words. American English use the
grapheme <er> instead of the British <re> (center-centre) and the grapheme <or> instead of <our> (color-
colour). Another different appears in the doubled intervocalic consonants in British English (traveller-
traveler; marvellous-marvelous).

On the other hand, the main spelling rules of the English language are:

 Capital letters in days of the week, months, holidays, proper and place names; nationalities and
titles of books and films.
 Doubling of final consonants in words ending in –ed, -ing, -er and –est and when the stress falls on
the last syllable (omit-omitted; begin-beginning, big-bigger).
 Plural formation by adding –s to the singular or –es if the word ends in –s,-ch, -sh, -ss, -x, -z, -o (bus-
buses; box-boxes; tomato-tomatoes). Moreover, if the singular ends in –y, this is replaced by an i,
and the plural ending is then –ies (spy-spies). The singular also changes, with some exceptions, to -
ves is the word ends in –f or –fe (wife-wives). Finally, there are irregular plurals (man-men; child-
children; criterion-criteria) or nouns with zero plural (fish, sheep).
 Adjectives change into an adverb by adding –ly (careful-carefully, real-really). Sometimes the
adjective has to change its spelling (happy-happily, possible-possibly, domestic-domestically).
 Final –e can be dropped in words in which as suffix beginning with a vowel is added (make-making).
This does not happen in words ending in –ee (see-seeing) or in –ge, -ce when adding a suffix
beginning with a or o (replace-replaceable). Finally, the final –ie changes to –y- before –ing (die-
dying)
 Some words ending either in –ise and –ize in British English (realise/realize). In American English,
only –ize is used.

2.2. SOUND-SPELLING CORRESPONDENCES

After having analysed the first part of the topic along with the different writing systems and spelling rules, I
will now focus on the sound-spelling correspondences in the English Language. The main correspondence
between the sound of vowels, glides, consonants, semi-vowels and morphemes and their spelling are:

5
 Topic 10 STAY STRONG, PLS.

Vowels and diphthongs Exempla’s Consonants Examples

ʌ cup, luck b bad, lab

ɑ: arm, father d did, lady

Æ cat, black f find, if

E met, bed g give, flag

ə away, cinema h how, hello

ɜ:ʳ turn, learn j yes, yellow

ɪ hit, sitting k cat, back

i: see, heat l leg, little

ɒ hot, rock m man, lemon

ɔ: call, four n no, ten

ʊ put, could ŋ sing, finger

u: blue, food p pet, map

aɪ five, eye r red, try

aʊ now, out s sun, miss

eɪ say, eight ʃ she, crash

oʊ go, home t tea, getting

ɔɪ boy, join tʃ check, church

eəʳ where, air θ think, both

ɪəʳ near, here ð this, mother

ʊəʳ pure, tourist v voice, five

w wet, window

z zoo, lazy

ʒ pleasure, vision

dʒ just, large

6
 Topic 10 STAY STRONG, PLS.

The relation of sound-graph is the main reason for the discrepancy between written representation and pronunciation
in the English language, as mentioned above.

VOWEL GRAPHEMES

 Single-letter graphemes. “A E I O U”. These five letters are used to represent the 20 vowel phonemes that English
language uses.
 Vowel teams: When we find two vowels together. Double vowel letters also exist in English language, for instance,
EE as in tree, and OO as in boot. A, I and U are only doubled in names derived from other languages such as Haas.
 Vowel-r Combinations: A vowel followed by r, works in combination with /r/ to make a unique vowel, like in car,
sport, her…
 Vowel-Consonant-e: The vowel-consonant-silent e pattern is a common spelling for a long sound of the other
vowel, as in time, here, hope…
 The 12 vowel phonemes and their main graphic correspondence together with an easy representative word:
 Short vowels: /æ/ as in cat, /e/ as in egg, /l/ as in fish, /ɒ/ as in clock, /ʊ/as in bull, /ʌ/ as in up, /ə/ as in
computer.
 Long vowels: /a:/ as in car, /ɜ:/ as in bird, /i:/ as in tree, /ɔ:/ as in horse, /u:/ as in boot.
 Diphthongs: /eə/ as in chair, /i:/ as in hear, /ʊə/ as in tourist, /ai/ as in bike, /ei/ as in train, /ɔi/ as in boy, /aʊ/ as
in owl, /əʊ/ as in telephone

CONSONANT GRAPHEMES
 Single-letter. There are 21 consonant letters that can represent a consonant phoneme “B D F G H J K L M N P R S T
V W Y Z”. (not C, Q, X)
 Double consonant. When using two of the same letters to spell one consonant phoneme. All consonants are
frequent in English language and frequently doubled except h, j k, q, x and y. Ex: apple, summer, loss, dizzy…
 Digraphs. Two letter combination that stands for one phoneme, as in wh, sh, ch…
 Trigraphs. It is a three-letter combination. For example: -dge
 Silent letter combinations: On represents the phoneme, the other is silent. Like kn, ps, mn…

3. PROPOSALS FOR THE DIDACTICS OF THE WRITING CODE

After having analysed the sound-spelling correspondences in English, we will now consider the teaching of
visual writing skills.

Writing is a productive skill that consists of producing graphic symbols and closely intertwined with reading.
When students are familiar with the written form of a word, they will most likely write it correctly. It is a
slow developing skill, so in the primary stage students are asked to develop some basic writing skills related
to everyday use. Young children learning to write must cope with several aspects of the writing process
which could be summarised under five headings according to Matthews, 1991:

1. Graphic skills: include graphemes, spelling, punctuation and capitalization, and format.
2. Grammatical skills: variety of sentences patterns and constructions.
3. Stylistic skills: precise meanings in a variety of styles.
4. Rhetorical skills: use of cohesion devices to link parts of a text into logical sequence.
5. Organisational skills: use coherence, reject irrelevant information and summarise relevant
information.

7
 Topic 10 STAY STRONG, PLS.

3.1 STAGES IN WRITING PRODUCTION

In the early stages of learning and teaching English, our pupils will generally write very little and because
our curriculum stresses the importance of receptive over productive skills, they will normally be engaged in
copying forms. The process follows these gradient steps:
 Word-recognition stage: during this initial stage the students notice the word shape and the number of
letters in the word given, so that they can elaborate a mental picture of it. It includes activities like:
-Word square or putting the letters in a word in order, which will help the student to cope with the
different between the oral and written form.
-Associating the visual form with the word: essential at basic levels since they are the first contact
with the written word.
-Labelling pictures
-Games: dominoes, snap, and bingo to become familiar with letter combinations.
 Practice stage: during this stage the students start to think about the spelling of words by themselves
through activities such as crosswords, list of words in order, classifying items, dictations and punctuating
texts in order to learn basic rules about punctuation marks which are an essential feature of the written
language.
 Strategies to check spelling: the teacher must provide the students with strategies or resources to help
them improve their spelling. These strategies include the use of dictionaries to check spelling
independently or making personal dictionaries of the words they have learned. Moreover, classroom
displays can be used to highlight problematic spellings. (padlet)

Considering all of these stages, the typology of activities to work spelling should make our pupils
understand the importance of correct spelling in their written work but making them as purposeful and
contextualised as possible. To scaffold the process and use comprehensible input, considering three main
principles: EVERY WRITTEN ITEN MUST BE PRESENTED ORALLY previously, VISUAL BACKUP in activities and
FOLLOWING ATTITUDINAL GOAL, to foster the right attitudes towards the learning of written English.
Examples: consolidation (putting in order letters of a word, word-square activities or completing with
punctuation signs), parallel writing of a model text, completing a text with words, linkers, substitution drills,
dictations, reading comprehension questions about a text, consolidation grammar changing the tense of a
sentence and communicative activities (such as information gap activities, summarizing, translating or
guided composition).

3.2 CORRECTING WRITTEN WORK

When approaching correction of written forms and spelling, we need to consider the difference between
mistakes and errors. Mistakes are an accident. You know it's wrong, but the wrong word slips out. An error,
on the other hand, is something you don't know. It's grammar you haven't learned yet or vocabulary you
haven't learned the nuance of yet.

8
 Topic 10 STAY STRONG, PLS.

In general, errors must be seen as a positive evidence of the learning process. The mentalist theory or
cognitivism claims that errors are inevitable because they reflect the different stage in the language
development of the student (interlanguage).
The teacher’s positive attitude towards errors is of crucial importance for the learners. Apart from
correcting the mistakes of the written work, we should point out the way in which it is successful. Both, the
teacher and the pupil can do the correction of written word. According to Donn Byrne these are the main
correction procedures:
 Correcting all the mistakes: it is time consuming for the teacher and discouraging for the students.
 Correcting mistakes selectively: the teacher only corrects mistakes in certain areas to focus the
student attention in that specific point.
 Indicating mistakes so that students can correct them: the teacher underlines the mistakes and uses
a code-symbol to indicate the kind of mistake (S=spelling, G=grammar). This approach makes them
more aware of the kind of mistakes they are making. Apart from correcting the errors, we will give
some form of further explanation and intensive practice for the students in order to minimize the
possibility of further errors: substitutions tables, completing exercises...

4. SPELLING APLICATION IN WRITTEN PRODUCTION

4.1 THE SKILL OF SPELLING

The learning of the written language implies the acquisition of two skills: reading and writing. Spelling is a
productive skill, which requires good visual memory and awareness of linguistic structures. Spelling
involves two micro-skills:

Phonological strategies: spelling involves a conscious ability to form sequences of letters which
helps use cope with regular spelling patterns.
Visual strategies: it is used to handle the exceptions to regular patterns. Spelling should be
introduced after oral language (phonological stage).

Written skills should be introduced after oral skills. Moreover, the writing skill is the slowest to acquire
because of its graphic features. The difference between the oral and written form usually leads students to
having problems with English spelling. According to this, the English teacher should be sensitive when
teaching writing and the kind of written tasks we can expect from our pupils. In general, the introduction
of the writing code should be done in a guided way once the students have developed some basic motor
skills but in a constant and consolidated way as the foreign language learners are expected to reach the
orthographic phase by the end of the primary stage. As it has been said before, literacy is a slow process
that must be developed along with oral skills as they support each other and will lead to the development of
Communicative Competence as a whole.

4.2. SPELLING IN WRITING ACTIVITIES

Considering Brewster (1992), awareness activities must be followed by initial guide, oriented at both
word-and-sentence level.

Word-level:
Making list & Making personal dictionaries

9
 Topic 10 STAY STRONG, PLS.

Completing crosswords
Matching labels to pictures
Working on anagrams & Classifying words under headings

Sentence-level:
Writing captions for pictures & Writing sentences based on surveys
Matching halves of sentences and copying
Correcting mistakes
Writing speech bubbles for cartoons & Answering question

However, it is always better to use inductive learning through a lot of exposure and language training in
communicative situations. This approach is much more motivating, especially for children. Extensive
reading, for pleasure, if possible, seems very effective for improving visual memory. It is very important to
motivate our students to read, so vocabulary must not be difficult, and the topics must be interesting.
Learners may read stories, comics, and children´s magazines…

Apart from reading, there are several specific activities to practice spelling and punctuation in English.
 Dictation has been considered a spelling exercise. It involves three of the four communicative skills:
listening, reading and writing. The problem with dictation is that it is not a natural communicative
activity, so it should not be used too frequently. Word formation drills are also useful, particularly at
elementary levels.
 Word games are perhaps the most useful alternative. These can be word correction, word
distinction, word making (mastermind or “hangman”), puzzles, riddles, crosswords, quizzes, etc.
 Rhymes and songs are also very helpful with children. Young learners are very good at imitating
sounds and these sounds can be associated to spelling by reading the lyrics.
 Vocabulary games: such as “hide and seek”, the teacher presents some flashcards including
common and well-known words and sticks them on the blackboard. Next, students close their eyes
while one card is removed. Then, students try to write down the missing word. When students get
familiar with words presented, they write a sentence with them.
 Word puzzles: such as crosswords, word searches, Scabble. As a bonus, doing puzzles also reinforces
vocabulary.
 Using dictionaries: will help children remember spelling and meaning, as well as develop
autonomous learning strategies.
 One valuable method that makes learning how to spell somewhat easier is ICT’s for teaching English.
Several companies develop programs that children can use, either alone at home or in classroom, to
make learning how to spell a fascinating challenge. They are often designed as games or reading
programs for the grade-school years. Using these programs ensures children motivation and
interest.

Finally, it can be taught through its application in daily writing. The teacher should provide the adequate
feedback on right and wrong punctuation and spelling.

Once children have mastered some of the more basic skills in writing and spelling they should be encouraged
to produce writing for a specific context and audience. The students must be provided with a variety of
writing activities that range from controlled practice to free practice. As Joan Kang Shin & JoAnn Crandall
point out, young children do not understand the abstract rules of orthography, so the best way to

10
 Topic 10 STAY STRONG, PLS.

approach them is by contextualised immersion where children can acquire them through high-quality
input and materials.

5.- CONCLUSION

To conclude we can affirm that English spelling system is an amalgam of different traditions and presents
certain irregularities and two main varieties: BrE and AmE. Vowel sound and consonant sound in English
can be seen in written texts with different spellings. Some consonants are even silent in certain positions in
English. In order to teach writing skills to foreign language learners five sub-skills must be dealt:
grammatical, stylistic, rhetorical, organisational and visual. These visual skills include the orthography as a
main element.
Therefore, the FL teacher must provide the learner with intensive and systematic practise so they can
learn how to write English words properly.
Finally, to word on spelling and sound spelling correspondences, a variety of games and activities can be put
into practice As students progress in their development of writing skills, they will be engaged in guiding at
every word and sentence-level and will develop their communicative competence, which is the aim of the
current educational law,

BIBLIOGRAPHY
BREWSTER J.ELLIS G. GIRARD D. (1992) “the primary English teacher guide”
CRYSTAL D. 1987 “the Cambridge Encyclopaedia of language”
DAWNING, A and LOCKE D (2006) “English grammar .A university course”
HALLIWELL S. L. 1992 “teaching English in the primary classroom”
HARM ER 1983 ”The practice of English language teaching”
KRASHEN 1987 “second language acquisition and second language learning”
LITTLEWOOD 1981 “communicative language teaching”
NUNNAN 1991 “teaching methodology”

 Webster, N. (1869). An American dictionary of the English language. Merriam.

 Morin, M. F., Alamargot, D., Diallo, T. M., & Fayol, M. (2018). Individual differences in lexical and grammar
spelling across primary school. Learning and Individual Differences, 62, 128-140.
 Daffern, T., Mackenzie, N. M., & Hemmings, B. (2017). Predictors of writing success: How important are
spelling, grammar and punctuation?. Australian Journal of Education, 61(1), 75-87.
 Al-Sobhi, B. M. S., Rashid, S. M., Abdullah, A. N., & Darmi, R. (2017). Arab ESL Secondary School Students'
Spelling Errors. International Journal of Education and Literacy Studies, 5(3), 16-23.
 Westwood, P. (2020). Commonsense Methods for Children with Special Needs and Disabilities. Routledge.

 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1041608018300268

 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0004944116685319

 https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1154020

11
 Topic 10 STAY STRONG, PLS.

 https://books.google.es/books?
hl=es&lr=&id=vBIHEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=teaching+spelling+commonsense+strategies&ot
s=F00KNWtH0n&sig=UMmPVyoARcJdvP_K-WVWuRxobA4#v=onepage&q=teaching%20spelling
%20commonsense%20strategies&f=false

TO READ

In today’s globalised world, the learning of a foreign language is needed more than ever. It has been for some millennia
and people have always been interested in the best way to learn and teach a foreign language. Nowadays, the latest
neuroscientific discoveries must guide our practice in the English classroom.

In the present essay, the focus will be the historical contribution of linguistics to foreign language teaching, starting
with early Greek and Romans to today’s neurological findings. Moreover, some insights on how the learner processes
language learning will be fleshed out in light of the latest neuroscientific discoveries. Finally, some pedagogical
implications will be considered regarding those discoveries.

CONTRIBUTION OF LINGUISTICS TO FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING

First I would like to introduce the concept “linguistic” as the study of language as a system of human communication
with complex structure.

There has been an evolution in the application of linguistics to language learning.

Over time, several approaches and methods have appeared in the search for more efficient and more effective ways of
teaching languages.

Before the 17th century, language had been studied by ancient civilisations such as the Greeks and Romans. Greeks
were the first to classify words and name them, focusing only on written language. Romans took this model and
incorporated a model of grammatical description, which was the basis for the traditional approach to grammar. In
Roman times, Latin was the lingua franca and so its study was the model for foreign language teaching (FLT) until the
19th century. Its teaching was based on rules, declensions, translations and writing practice.

In the 18th century, languages other than Latin became objects of study all over Europe, but following the same
traditional method: grammar rules, lists of vocabulary and sentences for translation.

By the 19th century, this method was known as the Grammar-translation method:
 Its main aim was to learn a language to read its literature.
 Reading and writing were the main focus.
 Vocabulary was learned by heart.
 Translation was the way to learn.

At the beginning of the 20th century, two main approaches united to form the modern subject of Linguistics. Both
contributed to modernising FLT. The first was led by Ferdinand de Saussure, who studied the relationship between

12
 Topic 10 STAY STRONG, PLS.

language items. His main contributions to FLT were considering the sentence as the smallest unit when teaching,
disregarding the idea of teaching just isolated words; he emphasised speech over written language and dismissed
translation as a teaching method. The second was led by Leonard Bloomfield who used various techniques to identify
and classify features of sentence structure. He applied these techniques to FLT during WWII along with intensive
exposure to native language speakers.
This interaction would lead to the emergence of the next approach, Audiolingualism, whose main features were:
 Highlight speech over written language.
 Language skills were taught in an order: listening, speaking, reading and writing.
 Language structures were learned through imitation, repetitions and memorisation.
 Grammatical explanations were to be avoided and the idea arose that language is what its native
speakers say, not some rules.

Nevertheless, this method had important drawbacks, the main one being that students failed to connect what they
learned to the real world. This decline led to a revolution in linguistics and FLT in the 1960s with Noam Chomsky.

Noam Chomsky is one of the most influential linguists of the 20th century and developed the “Cognitive approach”.
This theory considers that language involves an active mental process. Chomsky developed the conception of
generative grammar and the Language Acquisition Device (LAD) by which speakers could learn any language spoken in
their close environment by sorting out rules on their own. Learners take an active part in their process of language
learning, by trial and error; therefore, errors must be considered as normal in the process of learning, as the learner
constantly attempts to solve problems when sorting out language rules.

Stephen Krashen is the other great linguist influencer of the 20th century and developed the Natural approach which
finds communication as the primary function of language.
He includes 5 hypothesis:
 Acquisition/learning hypothesis. There is a strict separation between acquisition and learning:
acquisition as a purely subconscious process and learning as a conscious process
 Monitor hypothesis. Language knowledge that is consciously learned can only be used to monitor
output, not to generate new language.
 Input hypothesis. Language is acquired by exposure to comprehensible input. Learners can
understand even if the level is higher.
 Natural order hypothesis. Learners acquire grammatical features in a fixed order, and that this is not
affected by instruction.
 Affective filter. Declares that a student's anxiety, low self-esteem, or lack of motivation can serve to
cause a mental block preventing the successful acquisition of a second language.

Michael Halliday contributed by viewing language in a more functional way, drawing attention towards the importance
of interaction when forming the linguistic system. He regarded language as a social and cultural phenomenon.
Language was seen as an interactive event between participants, as a discourse. The contributions to FLT are huge: he
incorporated the functional and communicative potential to language, focusing on communication rather than mastery
of structures. Followed by other authors, they shaped what we know today as the Communicative approach:
 Learning a language as learning to communicate, based upon communicative functions.
 Effective communication is sought, language is best learned through the process of struggling to
communicate, therefore, students are expected to interact with one another.

The Council of Europe has incorporated the Communicate Approach as a basis for a First Level Communicative
Language Syllabus.
Having dealt with the contribution of linguistics theories and approaches, I will examine some similarities and
differences between first language acquisition and foreign language learning.

THE LANGUAGE LEARNING PROCESS: SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN L1 AND L2

Similarities:

13
 Topic 10 STAY STRONG, PLS.

1. Same cognitive mechanisms: in learning L1, L2 or even L3. Students acquire both mother tongue and foreign
language in interaction, it is a social activity
2. Prior conceptual knowledge: Both L1 and L2 are constructed from prior knowledge.
3. Language skills: both go from receptive skills to productive ones.
4. Mistakes: as a part of the learning process

Differences:
1. Natural vs Artificial exposure: While L1 is learnt through natural exposure in real contexts, L2 is learned in an
artificial setting (the classroom).
2. Fossilisation: students internalise L1 structures and apply them for L2 learning. Don’t learn the right structure.
3. Transference: are the interferences from L1 to L2: word order, syntactic structures, phonological patterns…Ex:
false friends.
4. Lack of necessity: while students need L1 to express themselve on daily life activities, with L2 if the brain does
not see the point of utility, it can lose interest therefore learning decreases.

PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS

Joan Kang Shin and Joann Crandall list a number of considerations when teaching language. They follow Krashen’s view
and describe the important aspects of how children learn their first language in order to show how to approach
teaching children a second language.
 Children need a learning environment similar to that of their first language as children will acquire
language by recognising English phonemes, intonation and structures with ease. Teachers should
create a native-like environment in which children are highly motivated to learn because language
enables them to meet immediate needs such as socialisation or enjoyment. We can use activities
such as letter writing, e-mailing, reading recipes, watching plays, TV shows, playing board games or
role-playing.
 Children learn language through lots of meaningful exposure and practice. The input should be
comprehensible and just above the students’ current level of English. Understanding must be
supported by lots of visuals, realia, gestures and caregiver speech. Language should be used in a
number of different contexts and give students plenty of chances to practise using English both in the
class and outside the class. Students must work on their own rules of the language, as they would do
in L1. When children use their L1, teachers should always recast those utterances in English and
encourage students to reformulate their thoughts in English.
 Children do not learn through explicit grammar explanations. Children learn by doing. With
language, this means that learners need to experience the language through lots of exposure. They
will gain an understanding of the grammar implicitly through repetition and recycling of the language
in different contexts. This approach encourages them to notice the grammar rather than being
taught.

CONCLUSION:
As outlined in this essay, I would like to highlight that there is not a unique theory or methodology to teach foreign
language. Diversity and multi-learning must be taken into account.

We must offer a quality, real, meaningful, scaffolded foreign language at an early age, will the students acquire the
foreign language. The teacher should use English at all times and encourage children to use it as well, because if we
give them the opportunity to communicate in their mother tongue, they will not have any reason to use the foreign
language. The English classroom should resemble an immersive setting in which children find it challenging but
accessible to use of the foreign language, through meaningful activities such as crafts, role-plays, games, songs, videos,
stories, etc. in a highly contextualised setting.

14
 Topic 10 STAY STRONG, PLS.

--- TO READ --- --GET IDEAS --- EXTENDED --

In today’s globalised world, the learning of a foreign language is needed more than ever. Knowing the fundamental
blocks of language, such as sound-graph relation, orthography codes of the language and their application to written
language, is a basic skill for 21st century language teachers to improve their teaching.

In the present essay, the focus will be orthography: English orthography and the difficulties it presents for children; the
sound-graph relation and some ways to work on it in the classroom. Finally, some proposals for the didactics of the
written code and the application of orthography in the written production will be fleshed out.

ORTHOGRAPHIC CODES OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Orthography is the set of symbols used to write a language, as well as the set of rules describing how to write
correctly (including spelling, punctuation and capitalisation). English has an alphabet of 26 letters for both consonants
and vowels. However, each English letter may represent more than one sound, and each English sound (phoneme) may
be written by more than one letter.
English is notorious for its irregularity as it presents a great lack of correspondence between graphemes (symbols) and
phonemes (sounds). Although about 75% of the English language is regular, 400 irregular spelling words are among the
most frequently used words, giving an increased sense of irregularity of the language.

English orthography has some complicated rules, containing many inconsistencies between spelling and pronunciation
that can be difficult for young learners.

Let me examine some of the historical reasons for the irregularities.

According to Ferdinand Di Saussure, all languages can be studies from two different points of view:

● Diachronic: the study of the changes of language over time.

● Synchronic: the study of a language at a particular time.

From a diachronic point of view, the English language has been shaped over many centuries and it is the result of
many cultures: Anglo-Saxon, Latin, French, Spanish and Greek.
- In the 15th century, there was a Great Vowel Shift which was a massive change affecting long vowels,
resulting in a great diversity of vowel spelling. It was in this period when some letters became silent.
- In the 16th century, Latin and Greek etymology was reflected in the spelling of words, for example g
was included in reign.
- Finally, in the 17th century, a good amount of words were borrowed from French, Spanish and Italian.
This caused patterns of spelling like LL in “armadillo”.

15
 Topic 10 STAY STRONG, PLS.

From a synchronic point of view, it is possible to distinguish between multiple varieties of English around the world,
especially two: British and American English, where a great number of differences can be spotted, for example: color-
colour, center-centre.

Therefore, English is an amalgam of different traditions which resulted in today’s language.

English has some particular grammar rules that need to be taken into account when learning and teaching how to read
and write.
- In English, some words are always written in capital, such as the days of the week, months, languages
and nationalities.
- Only nouns have plural, not adjectives. Some plurals are formed with a final -s (cat-cats), some with
final -es (bus-buses), some with -ies (spy-spies), some with -ves (wife-wives) and others are irregular
plurals (fish-fish, child-children, man-men) – mutation
- Adjectives change into adverbs by adding –ly: nice-nicely.

Having seen some spelling rules, I will move on now to examine sound-graph relationships.

SOUND-GRAPHEME CORRESPONDENCE

The relation of sound-graph is the main reason for the discrepancy between written representation and pronunciation
in the English language, as mentioned above.

As said before, some sounds are represented by one letter or a combination of them.
English vowels can be pronounced in a variety of ways depending on their position in the word and on the letters that
precede and follow them. For example:
- Grapheme “a” can be found in: park, man, China, want, name,…
- Grapheme “e”: pet, me,…
- Grapheme “I”: sit, police, bird, right, …
- Grapheme “o”: pot, for, nose, ..
- Grapheme “u”: sun, church, put, ..

English consonant sounds appear in written texts with different spellings, for instance:

- the sound /k/ can be represented by c-cat, ck- clock, k-kite.

Some consonant sounds in English become silent in certain positions such as s in island, t in castle or w in who.

Even English native speakers have difficulties acquiring the orthographic code of their language, for this reason,
systematic synthetic phonics programmes, such as Jolly Phonics, Letterland, Read Write Inc are widely recognized and
applied in British or American schools.

16
 Topic 10 STAY STRONG, PLS.

Jolly Phonics is a child centred, fun and multi-sensorial method that gets children reading and writing from an early
age. These 42 letter sounds are phonic building blocks that children, with the right tools, use to decode the English
language.

After having analysed the sound-spelling correspondences, I will focus on proposals for teaching the written code.

PROPOSALS FOR THE DIDACTICS OF THE WRITTEN CODE

Presenting reading and writing to very young children will require respect for children's abilities and characteristics.
They need concrete, contextualised language. Therefore, the use of audiovisual scaffolding will be crucial, for example,
with flashcards to acquire new vocabulary in the written form. The use of games such as memory, lotto or finding the
pair, can help children develop grapheme-morpheme relations.

As for full structures, the use of stories and other literacy materials such as poems and songs has proven to be the most
effective and natural way to acquire written patterns. Giving appropriate models and providing children with sensory
materials to practise in the lowest grades of primary is essential. Whiteboards, creating pictionaries, crosswords, etc.
can help students practise full structures.

The key when introducing literacy with children is to do it progressively, according to their oral skills, using
contextualised and meaningful materials and giving them hands-on materials to practise writing. Through consistent
exposure, children will acquire those irregular forms and incorporate them in their neural networks through the whole
word channels.

Older students can be introduced to some grammar explanations and metalinguistic strategies, such as understanding
the order of sentences (using rainbow sentences, for example), deducting which regular verbs are pronounced /d/ and
which /id/, identifying some supra-segmental elements such as connections between sentences, etc. All of these will be
done progressively, through the use of language models and helping students infer by asking some guided questions.
We must stay away from repetitive grammar rules as in real life communication, no one can stop and think of the
grammar rule before producing a sentence. Therefore, the acquisition of these elements should be done through
hands-on materials, experimentation and playing with the language, for example, by writing emails, comics, inventing
stories…and being exposed to quality real reading materials.

APPLICATION OF ORTHOGRAPHY TO WRITTEN PRODUCTION

Foreign language learners are expected to reach the orthographic phase by the end of the primary stage. As it has been
said before, literacy is a slow process that must be developed along with oral skills as they support each other and will
lead to the development of Communicative Competence as a whole.

A good way to start to develop writing skills is to begin with literary texts that we have worked on and read together.
This way, children are familiar with the vocabulary. Plus, we can use models with some blanks so students can start
producing some guided writing activities.
17
 Topic 10 STAY STRONG, PLS.

Following Brewster (1992), on guided writing activities, we may find:

Word-level:
Making list & Making personal dictionaries
Completing crosswords
Matching labels to pictures
Working on anagrams & Classifying words under headings

Sentence-level:
Writing captions for pictures & Writing sentences based on surveys
Matching halves of sentences and copying
Correcting mistakes
Writing speech bubbles for cartoons & Answering question

From these kind of activities, we can move on to more freer practice as students become more cognitively prepared to
structure their ideas. We can offer the students models, such as texts with blanks, sentences to order, general outlines
for students to fill in with sentences, etc.

Teaching foreign language should always be done through contextualised and highly scaffolded activities. We can plan
activities following some stages.
- First, new vocabulary is presented through flashcards or realia: the teacher shows a picture and reads
it aloud, pointing at its written form. Children learn to match the word, the picture and the sound.
- Then, the teacher presents the word or sentence in a bigger unit, that is, a sentence or text.
The use of realia and authentic materials, such as picture books are regarded as the most effective materials to be
used in the English class. They can serve as a modelling point both for oral and written structures.

CONCLUSION: English orthography can be difficult for young learners of English as it is complex and a result of its own complex
history. There are many inconsistencies and irregularities, as well as the non-correspondence between sound-graphy.

As Joan Kang Shin & JoAnn Crandall point out, young children do not understand the abstract rules of orthography, so the best way
to approach them is by contextualised immersion where children can acquire them through high-quality input and materials such as
realia and picturebooks.

18