44 Sounds of English

At J and N English Club in Japan we have developed a curriculum to teach 44 sounds of English to our elementary school age children. Teaching these 44 Sounds of English uses about 10-20 minutes of each 45 minute children's lesson. We'll add example elements of the curriculum to this web page during the remainder of 2001.

The teaching theory of the course draws upon Direct Instruction, Applied Behavior Analysis, and Precision Teaching.

The course is a pre-phonics one suitable for children who can't read any English at all. Children get to know and use the sounds of English, including those sounds that would not usually be introduced until much later in a phonics-based course (because of irregular spellings). Later, in our phonics programme, children will learn to connect these (now well-known) sounds to alphabet letters and letter combinations.

　
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44 Sounds of English Video

Part of the program we developed for our young learners includes a video produced for us in New Zealand. The video includes speakers from the following four countries - England, U.S.A., New Zealand, and Japan. The 20 minute video shows close-ups of the mouths of each of the four speakers as they pronounce 44 English words covering 44 phonemes of English.

Learners can compare their own pronunciation and mouth movements with the video's speakers. They can also compare the various accents. Children's parents and elementary school teachers can use the video to support children's learning or to work on their own English pronunciation.
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The video includes the spoken English words written on-screen, with each lesson's sound underlined. The video is also suitable for non-reading English learners who can understand word meanings from seeing the related pictures in the upper right corner of the video screen. The pictures are the same ones we use in each lesson to introduce a new sound.

　

Recent Addition to this page:

Imitating the successful presentation methods of Direct Instruction, we have been using scripted lessons to introduce and practice 44 sounds of English. The script includes Japanese explanations (written in romaji) by the teacher for the children. Japanese explanations are later dropped from the script as children's understanding grows.

The script has been tested for communicative clarity with elementary school children from 6-12 years old. Once teachers have learned the script, they are able to concentrate on children's responses, and upon the pacing of the lesson. As children become familiar with the stable format of lessons, they can enjoy an increasingly fast pace of interaction with the teacher.

To see or download (to download the pdf file, Windows users right-click the link; Macintosh users click and hold, then choose Save As... and choose "source") a sample scripted lesson, pdf format (220 kbyte), click here.

Practice Sheets: We use these to build up children's fluency (accuracy and speed) in saying the key sounds and words that we teach. Children who know the material so well that they can produce it automatically, are more likely to use it easily in 'real life'. Click here for a 40 kbyte pdf file.

Please note that all materials carry a copyright, 2001.

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Comments to Douglas Corin by fax (053) 523-1297. J and N English Club - Home