What do you do when students don’t know the alphabet? Gill Ragsdale explains how code breaking can help

Most native-speaker EFL teachers have adult students who can already read and write the Latin alphabet, either because it is part of their L1 or they have been taught it at school.

Most ‘beginner’ classes in private language schools are ‘false beginners’: students who have learned some English, know the alphabet and have smattering of vocabulary, but generally need to start from the beginning and at least revise the basics.

Native-speaker teachers do not generally expect to teach the Latin alphabet itself from scratch, and TEFL training courses generally do not prepare teachers to do so.

There are many situations, though, where a teacher might have students who are ‘real beginners’. In teaching refugees over the last 3 years I have often come across just this situation.

At first glance, you might think that you could teach English letters, reading and writing just as you would to native speakers’ children for the first time, perhaps using the same materials – and I often see this suggested. There are, however, two major problems with this.

Firstly, when English-speaking children learn the letters of the alphabet they generally learn them in sound clusters and associate each letter with one or more trigger words, such as ‘A is for apple’. They don’t need to be able to spell ‘apple’ – just recognise the sound of the word, and they don’t need to be taught what ‘apple’ means.

This is not a good way to teach adult real beginners learning English because they do not have anything like the vocabulary of the average pre-schooler’s L1 and they do not already recognise the key sounds. My daughter’s favourite alphabet book had such essential items as ‘K is for Kangaroo’ and ‘G is for Giant’. Which brings me to the second problem.

The content of children’s learning materials focusses on vocabulary that is rather less relevant to the needs and interests of teenagers or adults. You can use these kinds of materials (and I have) as long as you adapt and edit them to fit your students’ situation. The main reason materials in general can be useful at this level is as a source of pictures to refer to.

A key strategy for absolute beginners learning the Latin script for the first time, as outlined by Peter Viney, an experienced EFL teacher and materials writer, is the regular use of decoding tasks. Students learn to decode the sounds of words so that they can link the written and spoken words as, inevitably, their speaking and listening vocabulary range will far outstrip their reading ability. For example, a student may never have seen the written word ‘money’, but if they can decode the sound they will probably recognise the word.

“When I taught refugees in Calais, we regularly joked about ‘going to the 
UK on a sheep!”

This means focusing on decoding the sounds without necessarily learning the associated meaning, otherwise this part of the lesson will become unmanageably long and the vocabulary load to difficult. The decoding tasks should have a quick, game-like quality and occur alongside the more familiar drilling of similar and contrasting sounds, e.g. ‘ash, cash, crash’ and the endlessly amusing ‘ship vs sheep’ (when I taught refugees in Calais, we regularly joked about ‘going to the UK on a sheep!’). Decoding can be done in pairs or groups and comprise levels of difficulty for different skill levels.

It is easy to underestimate how difficult it is for a complete script beginner to decode even a three-letter word. This apparently simple skill needs focussed practice. Students who are literate in L1 may transliterate sounds and words into their own script as it helps them to remember the sounds and practice at home.

Teachers may feel especially anxious teaching an absolute beginner who has no literacy in any language. In my experience, if this is a problem it is not specifically due to the lack of writing experience. Starting with some practice on penmanship and making curves and shapes, these students can potentially progress as quickly as L1 literate students. It really depends on why they are not literate in L1. Students who have not had the opportunity to learn literacy may be very eager to get the chance and progress well. But just as with any class, some students may be less motivated or have some learning difficulties or health issues which are not immediately apparent. Students with no literacy skills may be unfamiliar with the general processes of learning and studying and need basic study skills (e.g. keeping a note book, doing homework, attending class regularly). But the biggest issue for these students is that they cannot make any notes or transliterations in their own script and it is very difficult to remember everything orally.

The absolute beginners’ learning schedule will need copious assorted short tasks, especially when learning the script, as there is little scope for role-play or discussion. The game-like quality of decoding tasks definitely helps to lighten the load and shorten the gap between reading and writing, and listening and speaking.