Better Late Than Never!

Kimberly Massie

Linguistics

Reflection #3

January 18, 2013

 

Review ~ What did you learn?

This chapter continued the debate between the learning and acquisition perspectives.  Those in the learning camp argue that parts of language can be taught in context or directly, and students will develop their skills through a variety of exercises.  The acquisition theorists feel that meaning is king, that students develop language control while learning to communicate.

The English language has approximately 39 phonemes, which are perceptual units.  Phonemes are not always pronounced the same way; the pronunciation depends on their position within a word and what sounds surround them.  Phonemes assimilate with their neighbors.  In the phrase “keep cool,” the /k/ phoneme is not pronounced the same for both words.  And while the /k/ phoneme has two allophones, there are six for /t/!  Depending upon where it is located within a given word, there are distinct pronunciation differences (top, pot, kitten, letter, train, stop).

Dialect, basically, is a variation of any given language.  They are marked by choices in pronunciation, vocabulary, and syntax.  It does not propose a problem if one subscribes to the acquisition view, but has potential issues for the word recognition camp.

Language differences have impact because there are phonological differences between languages and each language uses different sounds.  Problems can be minimized by focusing on making meaning.

Reflect ~ What did it mean to you?

I learned that it’s no wonder our EL students struggle so much with writing!  Very little in the English language is as it seems!  Imagine the frustration these students feel when trying to learn how to represent the long /a/ sound (hey/hay, ate/eight, made/maid, lay/lei, nay/neigh, wait/weight).  Our written language is a conundrum to native speakers/readers/writers, so I can only imagine it’s a complete nightmare for our EL students.

Reading this chapter made me realize how much harder I need to work to assist these students with their acquisition of writing skills.  I need to make sure that while I’m teaching strategies for spelling, those strategies are grounded firmly in meaning making.  If I ignore context I will be doing my EL students a huge disservice. 

Refine ~ How will you use the information in your classroom?

            This past week we were working on short /o/ word families, specifically –ob, -ot, -op and –ock.  We created anchor charts together and brainstormed where the words should go.  Here is an example of one of the charts:

Short /o/
-ot blot cot clot dot got hot jot knot lot not pot rot tot	Other caught haughty naught taught bought brought fought sought wrought squat yacht

As we added words to the chart, we talked about if they followed the –ot pattern, or belonged under the “other” spelling category.  We discussed the homophone partners, their meanings, and drew pictures next to the unknown/unfamiliar words to help construct meaning.  We talked about how many different ways we’d discovered for spelling this one sound.  The students decided that they needed to be careful when trying to write a word with the –ot sound, since we’d found at least 5 different spellings for it!

            On another day we worked on the –ob family.  Here is an example of what our chart looked like:

Short /o/
-ob blob Bob cob fob glob gobble hobby Hobby Lobby job knob lob lobby mob Rob/rob sob wobble	other Saab

We went through the same process as we had with the –ot anchor chart.  This time the children came to the conclusion that it would be a little easier to write words with the –ob sound, as it appears the spelling is almost always –ob.

            With any of our word family studies, the kids create their own visual representations of the words in their Word Study notebooks.  For unfamiliar words, I help by giving them context and examples.  We also discuss how some of the words we came up with aren’t necessarily ones they’ll need to use very often in their own writing (at least at this point – 1^st grade!).

Works Cited

Freeman, D. E., & Freeman, Y. S. (2004). Essential linguistics, what you need to know to teach reading, esl, spelling, phonics, and grammar. Portsmouth: Heinemann Educational Books.