Why is it important for primary school students to learn English phonetic symbols?

A teacher with 12 years of English teaching experience tells you: Why is it important for primary school students to learn English phonetic symbols?

I believe this is a common topic for many people! But I still want to talk about it, because it will help many people avoid taking a lot of detours and wasting a lot of time! 1. Why should we learn phonetic symbols? Can I not learn it? My answer is Nope! (Of course, if you stay abroad for a few years, you don’t need to learn it because of the language environment.) The phonetic symbol is equivalent to the bottom floor of a building. If the bottom floor is not strong, if it is not strong, it will be built higher in a hurry. As you build it, you will find that the building is getting more and more crooked, and the more it is built, the more it looks like it will fall down. In the end, we have to build it from the bottom. I believe many friends have had similar experiences! I kept learning, but found that my phonetic notation was flawed, and finally I had to pick up the phonetic notation and learn it all over again! 2. What are the functions and benefits of phonetic symbols?

(1) Phonetic symbols can make it relatively easier to memorize a large number of vocabulary words in the future. This will be very beneficial to future English learning. I remember that when I was in junior high school, I could memorize words quickly and accurately. I didn’t know why at that time. Now I know, because my mother taught me phonetic symbols when I was in elementary school (I never learned English in elementary school). After entering junior high school, every word has a phonetic symbol behind it. Even if you forget how to read the words taught by the teacher, you can still read them according to the phonetic symbols. My friends will ask, use your mobile phone to check! I didn’t have a smartphone at that time, and I didn’t have a computer at home! Because I learned phonetic symbols well, I didn’t have any trouble learning English and my grades were pretty good. When I went to college, I found that I could read a new word roughly even if it didn't have phonetic symbols (after learning the phonetic symbols to a certain extent, you can reach the level of natural spelling). (2) Learning phonetic symbols well can improve the accuracy of English pronunciation. This is a very important point. Pronunciation is the most intuitive criterion for evaluating the level of English proficiency, and good pronunciation has a good promotion effect in various aspects such as speaking speed. Why do you say that? First of all, the most basic thing is to be able to read the phonetic symbols of a word accurately. Secondly, the higher level is the pronunciation between words, which refers to continuous reading, weak reading and abbreviated reading. Why are there these pronunciation rules? Because they can make spoken sentences more coherent, smoother, and save time! To give a very simple example: put it on, if you don’t know how to pronounce it, you will read it word by word. But if you can pronounce it consecutively, it will be pronounced as putiton or pudidon (the letter t is voiced into d). If you don’t know phonetic symbols, even if others tell you these pronunciation rules, you will be confused and it will be particularly difficult to learn. The reason why foreigners speak so quickly is because they can save as much as they can and continue as fast as they can. This is why my friends always can’t understand foreigners! (3) Learning phonetic symbols well will make you more confident in speaking English! Many students are not very confident when reading or speaking English because their phonetic notation is not solid enough, and they always stumble! The English I usually speak is Chinglish. To give a very simple example: Thank you. Many students directly read it as Sankeyou. In fact, the sounds of you and th are not found in Chinese, so you need to learn the phonetic symbols. Not understanding the phonetic symbols or not learning them well can lead to such reasons. In fact, many students know that what they said is wrong, but they don’t know how to correct it. Of course, someone who knows phonetic symbols speaks English differently. He knows in his heart that his pronunciation is correct. So he will be very confident! And more importantly, people who pronounce accurately will also have very good hearing! (4) Learning phonetic symbols well will get twice the result with half the effort! Because you have mastered the phonetic symbols, you know every word.

Once you know the words, it becomes easier to translate sentences! Because the sentences are easy to remember, your English reading and speaking skills will not be bad!

How to learn phonetic symbols well?

So how to choose a good English training school? Therefore, Principal Chang of Yinchuan Literary English School gives the following main aspects for your reference based on his 11 years of experience in the industry:

Teaching and research aspects

(1) Need for rich experience Regarding teaching experience and teaching management system, there are many small institutions on the market with only about 1-2 years of experience in running schools. Compared with traditional and established institutions, these institutions lack teaching experience and have relatively unscientific curriculum systems;

(2 ) It is best to have a professional teaching and research team with an average teaching experience of more than 5 years in order to develop targeted English teaching materials and handouts based on the specific conditions of Ningxia;

(3) Children's learning In English, speaking ability is important, and grades are equally important. A good institution is to balance the two, but most institutions are unable to achieve this.

English teaching model

Chinese teachers and foreign teachers cooperate to carry out full-immersion English teaching. This is the most ideal state, so that students can learn from test scores and oral communication. Ability has been improved. When many people choose an English training institution, they pay special attention to whether there are foreign teachers. Practice has proven that learning English from a foreign teacher is helpful in correcting and cultivating children's interests and accent, but the role of the Chinese teacher is also very important. The teaching of grammar and word memorization still need to be completed by the Chinese teacher. At the same time, the size of the class is also very important. A small class teaching method of about 15 people will allow students to achieve learning results more effectively.