ENGLISH IN PRIMARY SCHOOL: HOW TO OVERCOME DIFFICULTIES IN TEACHING SPELLING

ABSTRACT

The article reveals how to form spelling skills in primary school students. The author emphasizes the role of English spelling and writing skills as a crucial component of foreign language communicative competence. The article demonstrates linguistic difficulties of English spelling and the ways to overcome them by using teaching techniques and educational Internet resources.

АННОТАЦИЯ

В статье рассматривается процесс формирования орфографических навыков у младших школьников. Автор подчеркивает роль правописания и умений английской письменной речи как важнейшего компонента иноязычной коммуникативной компетенции. В статье демонстрируются лингвистические трудности английской орфографии и пути их преодоления при помощи педагогических методик и образовательных Интернет-ресурсов.

Keywords: English, building spelling skills, difficulties of English spelling, teaching techniques, educational Internet resources, primary school students.

Ключевые слова: английский язык, формирование орфографических навыков, трудности английской орфографии, образовательные Интернет-ресурсы, младшие школьники.

The crucial aim of learning a foreign language is to develop a multicultural linguistic personality that is ready to participate in the cross-cultural communication. As English is the language of international communication in various spheres of life, it can be placed in a special position compared to other languages, which makes it important for learning at school. Thus, in order to implement the act of cross-cultural communication in writing, “students need to be able to think, analyze and structure their texts using a foreign language as a communication tool” [5, p. 4]. Due to the increasing number of difficulties in teaching writing and spelling, teachers focus their attention on writing skills as an important component of foreign language communicative competence, while spelling skills are considered as a crucial aspect of a proper written communication. Since learning activity is leading in primary school, it is vital to devote time to building spelling skills at the initial stage of education to prevent difficulties in the future. Moreover, a special role should be given to the “phonetic sensitivity” that is directly related to the ability to establish associations between a letter and a sound [2, p. 50].

According to the requirements of the Federal State Education Standard, the subject results of mastering a foreign language should reflect “knowledge and understanding of spelling rules, mastery of spelling skills and writing techniques” [1, p. 45].

Due to the fact that mastering a written speech has been considered as the means of studying compared to its aim, there are some difficulties in mastering spelling skills. They are presented below.

1. There are many homophone words in the English language. For example, students may confuse the numeral “eight” and the past tense verb “ate”, the verb “buy” and the interjection “bye”.

2. There are similar graphemes in English that students may confuse. For example, students often mix up visually similar graphemes, such as “b” and “d”, “d” and “g”, “i” and “l”, “t” and “f”.

3. There are some features of writing the forms of gerund and participle in English. For example, students may have difficulties in writing gerund forms of verbs, such as “stop”, “dig”, “make”, “bake” (double consonants – stopping, digging; disappearing “e” – making, baking).

4. Sometimes, the same sounds are expressed in different graphemes in English. For example, students may confuse the graphemes “ch” and “k” in the words, such as “school”, “chemistry”.

5. There are also lexical units that are difficult for students to memorize. For example, students often make spelling mistakes in the words, such as “neighbour”, “entertainment”, “experience”.

The considered difficulties need to be taken into account promptly, as they can lead to significant gaps in the level of spelling skills at the following stages of education.

According to a survey conducted among 11 teachers of School 1272 (Moscow), 72% of teachers note that they face the problem of insufficient level of English spelling skills in primary school students. Therefore, the aim of the current study is to search effective methods to overcome the difficulties.

Figure 1. Survey results

The difficulties in teaching English spelling can be overcome by means of online tasks, which are primarily aimed at increasing student motivation, using a variety of effective tools, including gamification as a didactic system aimed at “student involvement and preference for application rather than acquisition of knowledge” [3, p. 384]. The tasks can be formulated as follows:

1. Match the lowercase letters to the uppercase ones;
2. Insert missing letters into the words;
3. Write a dictation based on the pictures;
4. Make as many words as you can out of mixed letters;
5. Complete the crossword puzzle;
6. Complete the fillword;
7. Name the pictures using the words from the vocabulary;
8. Make a list of things for travelling;
9. Make a list of products for a birthday party;
10.  Name the pictures and write out the products that are needed for cooking your favourite dish;
11.  Make a list of those personal qualities that your friend / classmate has;
12.  Give a short description of the pictures;
13.  Fill in the gaps with the missing words;
14.  Write a short letter or a birthday postcard to a friend;
15.  Write a short continuation of the story.

The above-mentioned tasks can be presented in the interactive form with the help of educational Internet resources, such as LearningApps, Wordwall, Etreniki, Moscow Electronic School, myQuiz, ISLcollective and others.

Thus, we concluded that building English spelling skills is an important aspect of foreign language teaching. The difficulties encountered in teaching English spelling at the initial stage of education require timely solutions by using online tasks in the form of a game. This solution can “significantly increase student motivation to learn a foreign language and master spelling” [4, p. 96].

References:

1. Federalnyj gosudarstvennyj obrazovatelnyj standart nachalnogo obshchego obrazovaniya. – Moscow, 2021. – 57 pp. – URL: https://fgosreestr.ru/uploads/files/14e6445c39109a753ec3b7d239e46fdb.pdf – Text: electronic. [in Russian].
2. Golovchanskaya, I. I. Specifika profilnyh foneticheskih disciplin v kontekste professionalnoj inoyazychnoj podgotovki: obzor metodicheskogo opyta / I. I. Golovchanskaya // Romanskie tetradi : pamyati professora Ally Viktorovny Shchepilovoj / Ed. L. G. Vikulova, L. V. Razumova. – Moscow: “Yazyki Narodov Mira”, 2020. – pp. 47–54. [in Russian].
3. Kovalenko, I. V. Game Technologies and Gamification Techniques in Teaching English: An Analysis of Pedagogical Experience / I. V. Kovalenko, I. P. Skvortsova // RUDN Journal of Psychology and Pedagogics. – 2022. – pp. 382–392. [in English].
4. Motivaciya kak istochnik aktivnosti i napravlennosti lichnosti na izuchenie inostrannogo yazyka (metodologicheskie i tekhnologicheskie aspekty). Monograph / Ed. G.V. Sorokovykh, T.I. Zharkova. – Moscow: “Perspektiva”, 2018. – 184 pp. [in Russian].
5. Ot zolushki metodiki do tvorcheskogo esse: innovacii v obuchenii pis'mu i pis'mennoj rechi. Monograph / Ed. G.V. Sorokovykh, T.I. Zharkova. – Moscow: “Perspektiva”, 2018. – 160 pp. [in Russian].