Seven secrets to teaching spelling to ‘real beginners’
1 Tell them about the English system of spelling. Their own system may be very different. For example, you could tell them that English has 44 sounds but only 26 letters.
2 Teaching some metalanguage may save a great deal of ongoing explanation, even with zero beginners. For example it may be useful to refer to ‘consonants’ and ‘vowels’. Choose only those terms that you can use regularly.
3 Find out which sounds are the most troublesome. For example, Arabic speakers find vowel sounds difficult, as they are very different in English.
4 You may not want to use the phonetic alphabet – yet another script. But you can just choose those symbols that clarify key troublesome sounds. I find the schwa very useful – it miraculously transforms pronunciation and students can hear the difference themselves immediately.
5 Allow students to transliterate English sounds and words into their own script. Transliteration is commonly used when learning Arabic and I’ve tried learning Arabic both ways. When I look back at my notes, I can easily follow my colloquial Egyptian Arabic, which is written three ways: in Arabic script, English transliteration and English translation. My Modern Standard Arabic teacher was much stricter and my notes are only in Arabic – now I can hardly understand a word.
6 Spend time on learning and comparing the letter shapes. Grouping letters by shape may be more useful than by sound. And remember that writing by hand rather than typing helps students learn the shapes.
