TOPIC 10

O RT H O G R A P H I C C O D E S O F T H E E N G L I S H L A N G U A G E . S O U N D - G R A P H E M E
CORRESPONDENCES. PROPOSALS FOR THE TEACHING OF THE WRITTEN CODE.
APPLICATION OF THE ORTHOGRAPHY TO WRITTEN PRODUCTION.

INDEX

1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. JUSTIFICATION
1.2. LEGAL FRAMEWORK

2. ORTHOGRAPHIC CODES OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

2.1. SPELLING RULES

2.2. PUNCTUATION
2.3. CAPITALIZATION

3. SOUND-GRAPHEME CORRESPONDENCES

3.1. ENGLISH PHONEMES CLASSIFICATION

3.2. ENDINGS

3.3. SILENT LETTERS

4. PROPOSALS FOR THE TEACHING OF THE WRITTEN CODE

4.1. SPELLING LEARNING PROCESSES

4.2. PROBLEMS FOR EFL LEARNERS

4.3. APPROACHES TO TEACHING SPELLING

5. APPLICATION OF THE ORTHOGRAPHY TO WRITTEN PRODUCTION

5.1. DIDACTIC TRANSPOSITION: SAMPLE ACTIVITIES

6. CLASSROOM CONTEXT
6.1. METHODOLOGY
6.2. KEY COMPETENCES

7. CONCLUSION

8. BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. JUSTIFICATION
Orthography is an important part of English language acquisition as it is closely connected to reading
and writing.

Mastering pronunciation and spelling is not an easy target, mainly because of the lack of consistent
relationship between sound and spelling.

Teaching children the strategies, rules and concepts to grow their spelling knowledge is essential to
become confident communicators as well as better readers and writers.

1.2. LEGAL FRAMEWORK

The didactic application of this topic is based on the current Spanish and Andalusian Educational
Law, LOE/2006 and LEA/2007, and their national and state documents:

STATE REGULATIONS

- ROYAL DECREE 126/2014, which establishes the Primary Education curriculum

- ORDER ECD 65/2015, which describes the relation between competences, content and evaluation
criteria relation

- ROYAL DECREE 984/2021, which regulates evaluation and promotion

REGIONAL REGULATIONS

- DECREE 97/2015, which establishes the Andalusian curriculum

- DECREE 181/2020, which modifies Decree 97 on terms of autonomy, organization, and attention to
diversity.

- ORDER JANUARY 15th/2015, which develops the Andalusian curriculum

- INSTRUCTIONS MARCH 8TH/2017, which updates the protocol of detection and action for
students with educational needs.
2.- ORTHOGRAPHIC CODES OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Orthography refers to the set of symbols used to write a language, as well as its rules: spelling,
punctuation, and capitalization.

Following David Crystal, the English spelling system and its difficulties are the result of a process of
development which took over a thousand years.

The introduction of the Latin alphabet, the use of the printing press or the Great Vowel Shift made the
English system a mixture of several traditions, mainly Anglo-Saxon, French and Classical Latin/Greek.

Nowadays English language continues enlarging its lexicon and increasing it diversified graphology.

2.1. SPELLING RULES

The following set of spelling rules is usually taught to most English learners:

a) Doubling final consonant: run – runner

b) Omission of the final e: love – loving EXCEPTION: agree – agreed

c) Words ending in ce change the e to i before ous: space – spacious

d) When -full is added to a word the second l is dropped: beauty – beautiful BUT beautifully.

e) Words ending in -y change the -y to -i before any suffix, except with -ing: study – studied – studying

f) Always write i before e except after c: niece – receipt

g) Plurals and –s for the 3rd person singular of the present tense:

- words ending in / -s, -z, -x, -tƒ or -ƒ / add -es: box – boxes
- ending in consonant + y, it is changed to i and adds -es: enemy - enemies
- ending in -f / -fe change these to -ves: wolf – wolves
- Acronyms, numerals and capital letters add -s: PCs / Ts / 4s

2.2. PUNCTUATION RULES

Punctuation symbols indicate the organization of a written text and the intonation and pauses for its
reading. The following are the most relevant rules:

a) A single closing question/exclamation mark: Do you like fruit? I love fruit!

b) The comma is used:

- to separate items in a list. I like apples, pears, grapes and strawberries.

- to separate two sentences linked by a conjunction. I like bananas, but I prefer apples.

- after a long prepositional phrase. In spite of eating fruit at home everyday, she ordered some fruit
for breakfast too.

- after a subordinated clause placed before its main clause. If I go shopping, I will buy some fruit.
 c) The colon is used:

- to introduce a direct quotation: The man said: “I love fruit”

- to give details or further information: Fruit is good for several reasons: it is rich in fibre and
content a lot of water.

d) The semicolon is used:

- to separate two short sentences expressing similar ideas: She is a vegetarian; she doesn´t eat any
meat.

- to separate groups of words separated by commas: He eats a lot of fruit: bananas, for being high in
potassium; oranges, for being rich in vitamin C; and strawberry, for being a great source of
antioxidants.

2.3. CAPITALIZATION RULES

Some of the uses of capital letters in English differ from Spanish. The following words are always
capitalized in English:

a. The first person singular pronoun I.

b. Proper nouns: Mary

c. Adjectives derived from proper nouns: the Norman invasion

d. The days of the week, months of the year, languages and nationalities: Monday, April, French.

e. Publications: titles, chapters, headlines, have their own convention.

3.- SOUND-GRAPHEME CORRESPONDENCE

English is not a phonetic language as there are only 26 letters in the alphabet to represent 44
phonemes.

For this reason, the relation between pronunciation and spelling is not always consistent so, the use
of a system of written symbols to record spoken language is essential.

These phonetic symbols are used in transcriptions for different purposes:

-Phonemic transcription
It shows, between slashes, only those sounds that are distinctive phonemes in the English language.
Little - /´lɪtl/

-Allophonic transcription
It shows, between square brackets, phonetic details, like the aspiration or the length of sounds, by
using a wide variety of symbols and diacritical marks.
Little – [´litɫ̩ ´]
 3.1 ENGLISH PHONEMES CLASIFICATION

In English language we can differentiate 12 vowel, 8 diphthongs, 5 triphthongs and 24 consonant

phonemes.

a) Vowels
/ɑ:/ Calm / 3:/ Bird /ɒ:/ Law

/ᴧ / Come / e / Let /ɒ/ Want

/æ/ Cat /ɩ:/ See /u:/ Move

/ ə / The / ɪ / Bit /Ʊ/ Put

b) Diphthongs
/ɑ ɪ / Like /ɑ Ʊ/ House /eə/ Fear
/ eɪ/ Take /ə Ʊ/ Go /ɪ ə/ Here
/ɒ ɪ / Voice /Ʊ ə/ Tour

c) Tripthongs

/ɑɪə/ fire
/eɪə/ player
/ɒɪə/ employer
/ɑƱə/ our
/əƱə/ slower

d) Consonants
/b/ Bit /r/ Run,

/d/ Deep /s/ Soup

/f/ Fine /t/ Two

/g/ Gate /v/ Van

/h/ Home /w/ Woman

/j/ You /z/ Zoo

/k/ Can /ʃ/ Show

/l/ Let /ʧ/ Chair

/m/ Man /ʒ/ Leisure

/n/ No /ʤ/ Jump

/ŋ/ Young /θ/ Think

/p/ Put /ð/ the

3.2.- ENDINGS

The following group of endings have more than one pronunciation:

-ade
/-eid/ lemonade.
/-ad/ promenade.
Either: esplanade

-age
/-adʒ/ camouflage
/-ɪdʒ/ heritage
Either: garage

-ate
/-eit/ mainly in verbs: celebrate
/-ət/ in adjectives and nouns: certificate
/-ɪt/: climate

-ful
/fʊl/ in nouns: handful
/-fl/ in adjectives: grateful

-ment
/-ment/ in verbs: complement
/-mənt/ in nouns: government:
Exception: cement, comment.

3.4.- SILENT LETTERS

The following letters do not represent any sound at all:

<b> -mb: bomb -bt: debt.
<c> In words such as muscle
<g> -gm: diaphragm -gn: campaign gn-: gnash
<h> rh: rhetoric
- In initial position: honest
- In medial position: vehement
- In proper names ending in -ham: Durham
<k> kn-: knee
<l> -lk: folk -lm: calm In: calf, could, should, would.
<n> -mn: autumn
<p> In: coup, cupboard, raspberry, receipt.
<s> In: aisle, apropos, chassis, demesne, island, isle.
<t> -stle: castle -sten: chasten Also in French loanwords: ballet.
<w> wr-: wrist wh-: who Names ended in –wick and -wich: Warwick, Norwich
4. PROPOSALS FOR THE TEACHING OF THE WRITTEN CODE
Although the varieties of a language enrich and complete the learners' knowledge of it, when
teaching the written code it is necessary to choose a standard language to work with in class.

4.1. SPELLING LEARNING PROCESS

Learning spelling, as Vivian Cook states, is not just connecting sounds and words. It is remembering
words as visual wholes and, to achieve it, children go through the following stages:
-LOGOGRAPHIC
Children appreciate words and signs knowing what they mean but ignoring what reading is
about.
-ALPHABETIC
Children connect sounds and letters to evoke a word.
-PATTERN-BASED OR ORTHOGRAPHIC
Students look at spelling as visual combinations of letters in their own right.

4.2. PROBLEMS FOR EFL LEARNERS

The main spelling difficulties for EFL learners come from the English sound-grapheme
correspondence. Each English phoneme may be written by more than one letter, and each letter may
represent more than one phoneme.

A) PRONUNCIATION-BASED PROBLEMS
Due to their lack of knowledge of the English sound system, learners may use the wrong graphemes:
ship instead of sheep

B) SOUND-GRAPHEME CORRESPONDENCE PROBLEMS

- Consonant /vowel omission and addition: *hous, for house
- Consonant and vowel substitution: *dicided for decided
- Consonant doubling, both adding or omitting one: *excelent for excellent or *beautifull, for
beautiful...
- Confusion between homophone or near- homophone words: quiet / quite
- Transposition of letters, mainly <th>, <ie>, <le>: *strenght for strength

C) SINGLE WORD COMMON MISTAKES

Vivian Cook argues that there are around 43 words commonly misspelt both by native and non-
native speakers like “accommodating” or “because”.
The use of abbreviations and simplifications made in Instant Messaging or Marketing is also a
handicap when learning spelling.

4.3. APPROACHES TO TEACH SPELLING

We can differentiate two main approaches to teach spelling:

A) SYMBOL – TO – SOUND APPROACH

Students relate symbols to sounds step by step, learning the graphic representation of the
language in sequence.

B) SOUND – TO – SYMBOL APPROACH

Students practice and learn sounds first and then they see their graphic representation. It is
much more significant for PE children.
5. APPLICATION OF THE ORTHOGRAPHY TO WRITTEN PRODUCTION

Writing skill must be taught once the students have mastered a bit on it in their mother tongue. Writing
must be practice first at a word level to reinforce the learning of spelling and vocabulary, to later pass to the
sentence and text level.

Orthography is one more element in written production which involves the development of several skills:

-Motor abilities to handle with handwriting

-Visual skills to retain the spelling of words
-Auditory skills to associate sounds and letters
-Cognitive and meaning strategies for the overall process.
5.1. DIDACTIC TRANSPOSITION: SAMPLE ACTIVITIES

The following are a selection of activities to promote the conscious and unconscious acquisition of
orthography:

A. Focus on letters
Games as Spelling Bee, Hangman, crosswords or scrabble are useful to associate meaning and
spelling.
B. Focus on sounds.
Poems, rhymes and chants are very useful if we design spelling posters showing the relation
between the different sounds and words.
C. Focus on punctuation and capitalization
We can work on punctuation and capitalization through activities and games to correct short texts
or unscramble words or sentences.

ICT´s also offer a lot of interactive activities, resources and programs that children can use to
improve their orthography and develop writing skill in a motivating and amusing way.

6. CLASSROOM CONTEXT
6.1. METHODOLOGY
Following the orientations in the Order of January 15th, the methodology used in the EFL classroom
should be governed by the Principle of Attention to Diversity in order to respond to the different learning
styles, paces and backgrounds in the classroom and give them a personalized and individualized attention
to guarantee the maximum development of their talents. .
It will be based on the communicative approach to generate communicative situations in which
students will use the L2 to carry out meaningful tasks on scaffold, according to Bloom´s taxonomy, and
build up their own projects by working in groups to investigate, using ICT´s.

It is essential to create a positive and anxiety-free environment, according to Krashen, in which the
learner receives a lot of comprehensible input by using English as the vehicular language, and games will
be included to foster motivation, active participation and a desire for lifelong learning.

Students will be encouraged to take control over their own learning through the European Portfolio
of Languages, following a learner-centered approach, and reading habit must be encouraged from all the
different areas to ensure the development of key competences and soft-skills.

Cooperation among teachers is essential to ensure the development of key competences and to work
in an interdisciplinary way in the linguistic project and integrated curriculum.
 6.2. KEY COMPETENCES

The Foreign Language area contributes to the development of the 7 key competences, set in the
Order ECD 65, in several ways:

- LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE: using the foreign language for oral and written communication
- SOCIAL AND CIVIC: working in groups, respecting others
- DIGITAL: using ICT´s in a critical and responsible way
- SENSE OF INITIATIVE AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP: planning and managing tasks and projects
- LEARNING TO LEARN: organizing their own learning, both individually or in groups
- MATHEMATICAL: applying critical thinking to solve everyday problems
- CULTURAL: knowing and valuing other cultures

7. CONCLUSION

As developed throughout this topic, the study of the correspondences between English sounds and
spelling as well as its capitalization and punctuation rules are fundamental to guarantee the acquisition of
communicative competence.

Spelling learning requires instruction, regular practice and review, always in a fun and inductive way,
going from sounds to symbols through short, dynamic and communicative activities and games to foster
active participation, and always integrating ICTs to ensure meaningful and long-lasting learning.

8. BIBLIOGRAPHY

- LEGISLATION: Displayed in the section 1.2 of this topic

- KRASHEN, S (2009) “Principles and Practice of Second Language Acquisition” Pergamon

- HARMER, J (2015) “The Practice of English Language Teaching” Pearson Education.
- BROWN, H.D. (2015) “Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy” Pearson
Education
- BREWSTER, J; ELLIS, G (2002) “The Primary English Teacher´s Guide” Pearson Education
- CRYSTAL, D (2018) “The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of English Language” Cambridge University Press

- www.juntadeandalucia.es
- www.adideandalucia.es
- www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglishkids
- www.starfall.com