How to Teach the Phonemic Script

Because the spelling of English words often does not have an obvious link to the pronunciation, students really need another way to write how things are pronounced. One alternative is using usual English letters to represent the pronunciation, as in “dayter” for “data”. However, such alternative spellings are often ambiguous and difficult to remember. Transcriptions into L1-style spellings are usually even worse, as they can’t accurately represent all English sounds. Luckily, there is a special collection of symbols that represent the sounds of English words, and most of this phonemic script is fairly logical and easy to understand and to learn. However, there are some trickly symbols which can take time to master, and the logic of the system needs to be explained. This article gives some tips on how to introduce this vital script early and often in a way that will be manageable and memorable for students. The examples are based on the standard British English phonemic script, but the ideas will work just as well if they are adapted to other varieties such as American English equivalents. 

What students need to know about the phonemic script

What to say to students about phonemic symbols is dealt with in detail in another article, but the main points are:

• most symbols which look exactly like English letters have the expected pronunciation (/p/, /l/, etc)
• the exception is /j/, which is similar to the letter “J” in Germanic languages in representing the consonant in “yoyo” and “yellow”
• the vast majority of other symbols can be explained and made memorable by pointing out their similarities to each other and the English alphabet (that /ʊ/ looks like and pronounced like one use of the letter U, etc)
• /:/ means a long single vowel sound, as in the long sound /i:/ in “meet”
• unlike many other languages, short equivalents of long vowel sounds also have different mouth positions and so different symbols, as in /ʊ/ in “push” and /u:/ in “true”
• some symbols are made up of two parts from which the sound can be made, as in diphthongs (/aʊ/ in “now”, etc) and some consonants (like /ʧ/ in “cheese”)

Typical student problems with the phonemic script

Students and trainee teachers often mix up “phonetic script” and “phonemic script” like the one described here. A phoneme is a kind of unit of meaning that might have some range of pronunciations but is clearly different in meaning from other phonemes. For example, an English /r/ could be anything from a very rolled Scottish one in “Frrrrreedom” to a very soft, almost /w/-sounding one in “fwee dwinks”, but it is always represented by /r/ and is clearly different from other English phonemes like /l/. In contrast, a phonetic script like the IPA has a much wider variety of symbols that can show a whole range of sounds, representing very small differences and variations, including things like accents and speech impediments.

Difficulties with specific symbols that the activities below help with include totally unfamiliar symbols, the symbol /j/ having a pronunciation students might not expect, and problems with putting sounds together.

How to present phonemic symbols

The easiest and most useful way to introduce the phonemic script is to show pronunciations that students have difficulties with and/ or need to write down. To begin with, the meaning of these symbols should be shown each time by also adding words they are more familiar with. For example, if students are pronouncing “heard” like “weird”, you can write the symbol /ɜ:/ above “heard”, and then the word “her” and/ or the word “worse” above that, perhaps with explanation such as what the /:/ part means.  

When you have convinced students of how useful such symbols are, they might be ready for a quick review of the whole phonemic chart. This is useful both as a review of the ones they’ve seen before and an introduction to ones you’ll use later. Moreover, most phonemic charts are arranged in a logical order that makes the symbols seem more systematic and therefore manageable. For example, most charts pair up voiced and unvoiced consonants, and put similar vowel sounds next to each other. You should be able to run through the whole chart in under ten minutes, with plenty time in that for brief explanations and for drilling tricky ones.

As long you include enough symbols which are the same as the English alphabet, that are the same as students’ L1 and/ or which you have used quite a lot already, you can also have a more Test Teach Test-style task such as students matching transcriptions to familiar words and then using that to work out the pronunciations of any symbols which are new to them.

How to practise the phonemic script

Learning the phonemic script is basically like learning the alphabet/ spelling/ writing, so all activities that work for those points can be adapted for this purpose. For example, by using written word and/ or picture prompts, students can find things in a word search grid that has phonemic symbols instead of letters. Similarly, students could write phonemic transcriptions into a crossword, with sounds that words share in the intersections. Hangman can also be played by guessing sounds instead of letters.

It’s often best to teach a specific pronunciation point at the same time as teaching phonemic symbols. For example, if your students have problem distinguishing “firm” and “farm”, they can hold up cards or run and touch walls saying “/ ɜ:/” and “/ɑ:/”.

Similarly, phonemic transcriptions next to words with silent letters can help students work out or check which letters are not pronounced, then try to work out patterns such the silent k- in all the “kn-” words. This activity is particularly useful for features of fast natural speech such as intrusive sounds in connected speech and weak forms of words. For example, students can work out that “wɒʤəθɪŋk” is “What do you think?”, then use that and similar examples to find out why the sounds change compared to the spelling and/ or compared to slow careful speech.