Teaching Module

For
Lower Primary School

PHONICS
Content Page
1.0 Introduction
1.1 What is Phonetics
1.2 Why study Phonetics
2.0 Overview of the human speech mechanism
3.0 Teaching Notes
3.1 Vowel
3.2 Consonants
3.3 Pronunciation Guide
4.0 Tongue Position
5.0 An Alphabetic Code hart for English with the
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
6.0 Phonics Actions
7.0 Phonics Blending and Segmenting




1.0 Introduction
We begin with phonetics, a system for describing and
recording the sounds of language objectively. Phonetics
provides a valuable way of opening our ears to facets of
language that we tend to understand by reference to their
written rather than their actual spoken forms. Phonology
concerns itself with the ways in which languages make
use of sounds to distinguish words from each other.

Teachers should be knowledgeable about the phonetics
and phonology of English because (1) the sound system
is primary and the basis for the spelling system; (2) they
may have to teach English pronunciation to students who
are not native speakers of English; (3) they may have to
teach poetry, which requires that they teach about rhyme,
alliteration, assonance, and other poetic devices that
manipulate sound; (4) it is important to understand
accents and language variation and to react appropriately
to them and to teach appropriate language attitudes about
them to students (see our chapters on Language and
Society and Usage in Book II); (5) we are so literate that
we tend to hear the sounds of our language through its
spelling system, and phonetics/phonology provides a
corrective to that; and (6) phonetics and phonology
provide systematic and well-founded understandings of
the sound patterns of English.
1.1 What is Phonetics
1.2 Why we learn Phonetics
2.0 Overview of the human speech mechanism
3.0 Teaching Notes
3.1 Vowel
3.2 Consonant
3.3 Pronunciation Guide
4.0 Tongue Position
Youll recall that the basic way in which vowels and consonants
differ is that, whether its voiced or voiceless, producing a
consonant involves some sort of constriction above the level of the
glottis, with ensuing airstream turbulence. The obstruction may be
partial (as for s), intermittent (as for a trilled r) or complete (as
momentarily for p). But consonants, unlike vowels, always
involve a supra-glottal constriction of some kind.
Consequently, although consonants are also classified according
to three parameters, these are different from the ones you have
been studying for vowels. One consonant parameter has already
been described in 2.04: voicing.
There are two others: place of articulation and manner of
articulation. Respectively they specify where the airstream is
constricted and how its constricted.

Where, for each consonant, is the point of narrowest constriction
along the vocal tract? Compare three pairs of consonants which
occur in all European languages:

[p, b], [t, d], [k, g].

[p] and [b] are both produced by means of a constriction involving
the lips, as is obvious if you just say [apa], [aba] slowly to yourself.
The vocal folds continue to vibrate in the case of [b], but not in the
case of [p]: otherwise theres no difference between them, and the
following diagram, which doesnt show the vocal folds, applies equally
well to both.
5.0 An Alphabetic Code hart for English with the
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
6.0 Phonics Actions
7.0 Phonics Blending and Segmenting