Phonics and Syntax in English Education

By Hur Kyung-hwa

It's been a while since I started teaching English part time as a pastime. Before landing this job, I had a lot of different jobs, such as merchandiser, a paralegal, a translator, a claim adjustor, an insurance law instructor, and a bancassurance trainer, etc.

I had thought that my new job would be far from challenging and rewarding. Teaching English was challenging but not rewarding. Since I was used to teaching highly motivated job seekers and on-the-job trainees, I had a hard time teaching unmotivated and distracted children. Furthermore, no matter how hard I tried, it seemed impossible to bring about a substantial improvement in their English fluency, proficiency and confidence in using the language.

So what makes the English barrier a tough one to hurdle?

We cannot blame antiquated teaching methods, shy students, and a shortage of native instructors and other facilities any more. English classrooms are equipped with computers and other state-of-the-art facilities, and there are several English villages and an entire English-only town where children are able to practice their language skills. The Web has made it possible for students who may find themselves beyond the reach of these facilities to study English online with just one click of a mouse.

Our students are highly literate, hardworking, and resourceful. They aren't lazy about learning English at all. Some students whose parents have a keen interest in English start learning when even their native tongue is not yet fully developed. Other students are supposed to start to learn English at the age of 10 in elementary schools at the latest. Almost all students take extra English lessons outside of school, which makes it difficult for Korean parents to make ends meet with the salaries they are given.

The reality is, however, after such long intensive schooling, there are still many students who can hardly put simple sentences together in English with confidence. Most students faced with a question that requires them to think rather than just repeat look the other way, giggle in embarrassment, bite their fingernails, or play it safe by sitting in silence.

Who or what is to blame for such non-productive investment and wasteful practices? When we're not getting the results we want for such a long time, it means something is missing.

I think, from my learning and teaching experience, we should start at the very beginning. Under the current curriculum, phonics and basic sentence grammar are almost ignored and not taught enough either in regular schools or cram schools. What they are being taught is incomplete, and isn't always enough.

How to pronounce 26 English alphabetical letters is first and foremost. If students can pronounce the letters accurately, they could easily learn other things, such as reading, speaking, listening, and memorizing vocabulary, etc. Those students who skip the phonics course tend to feel pretty self-conscious when they speak English, and find it hard to listen because native speakers pronounce the same words differently. Some students are so unfamiliar with the phonetic symbols that they can't pronounce the words without the help of true voice pronunciation by a native speaker offered by an electronic or online dictionary.

Emphasis must be placed on the processing of the sounds of the language, as phonemic awareness is an essential aspect of the development of initial literacy. Teachers may draw attention to how words are articulated by exaggerating the movements of the lips, chin and tongue, demonstrating how the sounds are formed and having pupils copy. If possible, native teachers should spend a lot of time correcting student's pronunciation. Non-native teachers are encouraged to use audio and video aids to help students utter words in the same manner of native speakers. I would like to see a phonics course designed to take one full school year to complete.

The next step is to identify the different sentence structures between Korean and English and to be more familiar with basic sentence patterns in English through a variety of oral and written exercises and activities. The sentence-focused grammar should stress practical modern usage instead of obscure reading passages or grammar points, which will enable students to access the productive skills such as speaking and writing.

Speaking and writing skills which require students' own initiative and interest are far more difficult than the passive nature of reading and listening skills. If I urge middle and high school students to acquire these productive skills, I would have a blurred understanding of the current exam-oriented education system that is intended to test students' reading comprehension, knowledge of English grammar, and listening.

High scores in exams can lead to studies at elite high schools and universities, so lots of students get stuck in good academic pursuits resulting in good career pursuits. One of the consequences of such an exam-oriented learning approach is, however, that learners conceive of learning as a cognitive activity involving memorization and reproduction of discrete knowledge. Such being the case, I'd like to suggest elementary school students who are relatively free from pressure for good grades try this productive course, starting at the very beginning.

An arrow toward globalization left the bow a long time ago. It's about time we think over the elementary school curriculum again and help the arrow hit the bull's eye called ``productive English".

The writer works as a freelancer. She can be reached at honestwoods@hanafos.com.

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