USING PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS ACTIVITIES TO TEACH ENGLISH FOR KINDERGARTEN STUDENTS AT IMMANUEL
KINDERGARTEN PONTIANAK
Henny Maria Heng, Sudarsono, Clarry Sada.
Masters Study Program of English Language Education Teacher Training and Education Faculty, Tanjungpura University, Pontianak
Email: angpau78@yahoo.com
Abstract : The purpose of this study was to teach English through phonological awareness activities for kindergarten students. The focus was on the using of phonological awareness activities in order to find the improvement in the teaching learning process, especially students’ improvement in speaking and listening skills. The data were gathered from parent surveys, students’ oral test, observation, and video recordings. The data were analyzed before, during, and after the phonological awareness activities were implemented to determine what impacts this activities had on students. The results show that there were numerous positive effects from the phonological awareness activities. Students made remarkable connection with the letter – sound relationships, were able to transfer their skill to listen and their ability to use and express oral language in English.
Key Words : Phonological Awareness Activities, Kindergarten Students
Abstrak : Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengajar bahasa Inggris melalui kegiatan kesadaran fonologi bagi siswa TK. Fokusnya adalah pada menggunakan kegiatan kesadaran fonologi untuk menemukan peningkatan dalam proses belajar mengajar, terutama peningkatan siswa dalam keterampilan berbicara dan keterampilan mendengarkan. Data dikumpulkan dari survei orangtua, tes lisan siswa, observasi, dan rekaman video. Data dianalisis sebelum, selama, dan setelah kegiatan kesadaran fonologi yang dilaksanakan untuk menentukan dampak kegiatan ini terhadap anak-anak. Hasil data menunjukkan bahwa ada banyak efek positif dari kegiatan kesadaran fonologi. Siswa membuat hubungan yang luar biasa dengan huruf - hubungan suara, mampu mentransfer keterampilan mereka untuk mendengarkan dan kemampuan mereka untuk menggunakan dan mengungkapkan bahasa lisan dalam bahasa Inggris.
s English has become the common language in the world and it has also become one of the components of tertiary, secondary, primary and even pre-school education in the English Foreign Language teaching contexts, so some kindergartens in Pontianak have begun to teach English language. In order to reach the teaching and learning goal of English at kindergartens, the English teachers need to know and to apply the theories of teaching English to young learners. Besides, they need to know what strategy can be applied to develop the language of the students. Sudarsono (2012, pp. 128-129) claims,
“ To obtain the maximum achievement, foreign language teaching-learning must be managed in such a way to reach the maximum quantity and quality. The teaching-learning success may be determined by how to integrate various factors like teaching-learning materials and learning styles into the children’s life.”
Children may find difficulty to use and to talk in a foreign language. Thus, teachers must be able to provide appropriate activities that match with age of the students in the classroom to teach language. It is also important to think about how to improve the students’ abilities in learning language. Cameron (2001, p. 6) state that the ability to learn through instructions and mediation is the characteristics of human intelligence. With the help of adults, children can do and understand much more than they can on their own.
The teacher should think the methods and the strategies that may cover the students’ various learning styles. So, the students will get interested in learning, especially the foreign language.
Phonological awareness play an important role in the language development during early childhood, especially from ages of four to six. Phonological awareness is one component of a larger phonological processing system used for speaking and listening. Listening as a foundation to master speaking, so from the kindergarten age, the children should have introduced to the listening skills. For learners, listening is how spoken language becomes input. Speaking and listening are the first two skills acquired during human language development.
Immanuel Kindergarten which is located on Gajahmada Street has applied the English subject for the Kindergarten students. The English teachers have used some strategies to teach English as a foreign language to the kids and to enhance the five and six year-old children’s language acquisition. The curriculum of Immanuel Kindergarten that is arranged by the teachers focuses on listening and speaking skills, concrete and familiar objects. The aim of the teaching English Subject are to introduce basic knowledge about English language to the students and also prepare the students to continue their study to an elementary school especially to Immanuel Bilingual Class that requires the students to speak English. However most of the students have difficulties in learning English.
improvement of the students’ ability to express oral language, the improvement in their vocabulary, confidence in manipulating letters and sounds.
This research was used to help other teachers in Immanuel Kindergarten to improve their teaching strategies especially phonological awareness.
METHOD
This research study was designed to discover how phonological awareness activities are improved to increase listening skills of kindergarten students. This study is an action research. According to Miller, Greenwood & Maquire (2003, p. 11), an action research challenges the claims of a positivistic view of knowledge which holds that in order to be credible, a research must remain objective and value-free. Hine (2013, p. 152) urges that the main goal of an action research is to determine ways to enhance the lives of children, at the same time, an action research can enhance the lives of those professionals who work within educational systems.
According to Hensen cited in Hine (2013, p. 152), action research (a) helps teachers develop new knowledge directly related to their classrooms, (b) promotes reflective teaching and thinking, (c) expands teachers’ pedagogical repertoire, (d) puts teachers in charge of their craft, (e) reinforces the link between practice and student achievement, (f) fosters an openness towards new ideas and learning new things, and (g) gives teachers ownership of effective practices. While Eilleen, (2000, p. 1) refers action research to a process in which participants examine their own educational practice systematically and carefully, using the techniques of the research.
In this research, the researcher had emphasized on the implementation of phonological awareness activities and its influence on the teaching learning process. The researcher has identified the problems, tried a different way of doing things, reflected on that was happening. During and after the implementation of phonological awareness activities, the researcher has observed and evaluated progress by establishing procedures for making judgment about what happening.
The students who had participated in this research were five to six years old students of Immanuel Kindergarten in the academic year 2015/2016. The number of the students were eight. They consist of six girls and two boys. Three of them have followed Kindergarten for almost two years since they were in Play Group Class. Three of them have followed for a year since they were in Class A, and two of them are just followed since July 2015 in Class B. This study adopted the popular cyclical of action research by Kemmis and Mc Taggart cited in (Burns, 2010, p. 8). It consists of four steps: planning, acting, observing, reflecting. The steps are discussed as follows.
The researcher as the teacher provided a teaching learning activity to solve the problem based on the information collected from the elementary school teachers, most students still have difficulties in reading and writing skills, although the students had had English Subject in Kindergarten before. The students were eager to learn, but they faced difficulty in learning English or the materials they learnt was not interesting. So it needed to adjust the activities in teaching English in the classroom. In order to investigate those problems, the tools or things that the researcher prepared were parents survey, oral test, lesson plan, observation sheet, smartphone to record, and field notes 2. Acting Phase
In this study, the researcher acted as the practitioner who implemented the proposed strategy by referring the activities done in class. Every day during the project, students were guided to focus on phonological awareness activities such as creating compound words, counting syllables, reciting nursery rhymes, identifying rhyming words, and practicing tongue twisters.
The following framework were the phonological activities used in each cycle:
Table 1
The Phonological Activities (1st cycle)
29th October
2015
Identifying Rhymes
- Teacher greeted the students and asked the students to say out their name
- Teacher asked the students to sing the ABC song together.
- Teacher introduced the sound of the alphabet by using flash cards.
- The students followed the teacher. - The teacher introduced the rhymes.
- The teacher asked the students to listen to the words that mentioned by the teacher.
- The students tried to identify whether the words rhyme or do not rhyme.
- The teacher tried to help the students to identify the rhymes by using game.
- The students will put their hands on their head when they listened to words did not rhyme.
3rd
- Teacher asked the students to sing the ABC song. - Teacher and students reviewed the beginning
sound.
- Teacher pronounced the names of the students, syllable by syllable, while clapping it put before inviting the students to say and clap the names. - Teacher asked the students to clap the beat and
count the beats/syllables of their names.
- The students said out one word that they know and count the beats /syllables of the words.
17th
- Teacher asked the students to repeat the beginning sound by using flash cards.
- The teacher and the students sing the song “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”
- The teacher played the song “Old Mc Donald” by playing the lap top.
- The teacher and the students sing the song “If you happy and know it”
- By singing the above songs, teacher introduced the sound to the students.
- Teachers asked the students to read the words from the flash card by reading the sound (blending).
Table 2
The Phonological Activities (2nd cycle)
25th
- The students would turn around when they hear the rhyming words but it was not, the students would stop.
- Other game. The students will put their hands on their head when they listened to words did not counting the beats of the names of the students. - Teacher showed the box that had been prepared,
- Teacher asked the students to count the beats/syllables of the word.
- Teacher asked one by one student to take one thing from the box, say out the name of the thing and count the syllables.
- After all things had been taken out, teacher asked the students to review by doing the same things. - Teacher asked the students to tell any things in the
classroom and say out the word and count the beats/syllables.
8th
December 2015
Nursery Rhymes
- Teacher greeted the students.
- Teacher taught the students the rhymes I have a pen, my pen is blue.
I have a friend, my friend is you
- Teacher played the video of nursery rhymes, students followed the song to sing.
- Students mentioned the name of the things that they saw from the video.
3. Observing Phase
Observing had done during the teaching learning process in the classroom. In the observing phase, during the implementation of phonological awareness activities, some parts of teaching learning process was recorded using smart phone in order to get the certain data to be analysed. Besides, when the researcher as the teacher was teaching the students, the collaborator played the role as the observer to record and took note of anything that occurred in the teaching learning process . In conducting the observation, the observer were equipped with observation sheet and field notes to record the required data. Thus, the data of this research were obtained from the result of the observation and parents survey.
4. Reflecting Phase
In this phase, the researcher had reflected on, evaluated and described the effects of the action for revised plan for the following cycle. The result of the observation sheet, field notes, the result of students’ pre and post oral test, and the parents survey were analyzed and discussed in order to know what points had been successfully achieved or not. The important feedbacks or results of the reflection were used to determine what to be improved in the next cycles. The researcher expected to find out the benefit or the strength as well as the weakness of the process. After knowing the weakness, the researcher decided what action / planning should be applied in the following steps. It could change a certain action/treatment or add some more in order to improve the teaching learning process.
The aim of this study was to discover using phonological awareness to teach English for Kindergarten students. The focus was how phonological activities improve kindergarten students in learning English especially in listening skills.
The previous problems found (in pre-research) were the students’ passiveness in learning English. They faced difficulties in learning English because it is a foreign language for them, and the materials they learnt was not interesting. The students lost their motivation in learning English although the English teacher had tried their best to motivate the students to learn English.
However throughout the phonological awareness activities process, all the students were actively engaged in learning English and gave positive feedback in class.
The data were collected throughout the course of research project. Three major activities emerged. The first was identifying rhymes. This activity helped the students to develop phonological awareness through play full activity (games). The second was introducing the students to the nature of syllables by leading them to clap and count the syllables in their names and other familiar words. The third was providing nursery rhymes by playing video through the laptop and LCD.
In each activity, the teacher introduced the students the first sound of words by using flash cards in order to link them to the phonological awareness activities. For the first activity, the majority of the eight students were not able to say out the first sound of the word that was showed by the teacher. After the second and the third activity, they demonstrated growth in the ability to make or to say out the sounds correctly.
Identifying Rhymes, based on the reviewing of the pre oral test, almost all the students do not know anything about rhymes. Although three of the eight students can guess the words. It was difficult for them to understand the rhymes because it was a new activity.
To help the students to know about rhyming, the teacher taught the students to identify the rhymes using games. Based on the observation notes, in the first cycle, the majority of the students were not able to identify the rhymes. Before playing the game, the teacher said out the rhyming words, and the students repeat after teacher. When they heard the different sounds of the words that were read out by the teacher, the students put their hands on their head. However, the students were not able to play the game well and they looked confused. They were not interested in that activity, probably the children did not understand the rhymes. So, the teacher continued to the second cycles, by adding some games to identify the rhymes.
For the second cycle, the teacher asked the students to turn around when the students hear the same sounds, but when the sound was sounding different, the students would stop. The teacher also changed the way, when the students heard the words with the rhyming words, they would walk in their place, but if the words were not rhyming words, the students would turn down.
enjoyed the games after they did it several times. Most of the students could do the games well.
From the result of the Post-Oral Test, the improvement students made in this activity were incredible. The students have been able to identify the rhyming words. They just got a little confused to identify which word does rhyme of dog – bug – frog. Because of the limited time, so the researcher had not found the problem why the students got difficulty to differentiate the rhyme of dog – bug – frog.
Natural Syllables Findings, back to the pre-oral test that had been given before the researcher gave them the activities, two of the questions were “How many beats or syllables do you hear in these words? and “How many beats or syllables are in your name?”. From the observation, only two students of eight students can count the syllables well without making mistakes. The others could do because the teacher helped them.
When introducing the activities that emerged to the students’ ability to count the syllables of their names and other words that were familiar to them, the students got confused. Early on the project, the students had little knowledge about syllables and some could hardly know the syllables of their names. As the weeks went by, and the research began to take shape, students demonstrated growth in their ability to count the syllables of their names and other words mentioned. They could also say out the words that they know and count the syllables of the words. The students could say out the amount of their names’ syllables, by saying out their names, and clapping to count the syllables.
After introducing the concept of counting the number syllables in words, the teacher had taught the students the methods of breaking down words by their syllables by either clapping out the syllables in a word and putting out the words into the syllables boxes based on the number of the syllables. The students participated in counting games.
The students liked this activity very much. They enjoyed the games happily, especially when the teacher asked them to take out things from the box that had prepared by the teacher. After they picked out the things, they said out the name of the things and told the teacher the number syllables of the word. The teacher also asked the students to look for anything in the classroom, when they had found the thing, the students said out the word and the number of the word’s syllables.
After reviewing the notes of the observer and video recordings with syllables work, it was clear that the students was correctly able to clap their hands to represent the proper number of syllables in a word. The students really enjoyed the work with counting syllables and the concept made sense to them. They were able to use their skills of syllables counting to break downs words which appeared to make them very proud.
negative)? If so, what changes have you seen?” Almost all the parents said they noticed positive changes in their child’s language skills. The parents said they noticed larger vocabularies from their child. Another parents said they noticed their child had a big eagerness to learn English, liked to ask anything regarding the English words.
Nursery Rhymes, throughout the course of the data collection, the researcher administered the pre-oral test in October and the post-oral test in December. One of the question on the test was: Can you sing an English rhyme or song for me? Back in October, only two of eight students were able to accurately complete this task. There were also very little variety of nursery rhymes that the students attempted to try. Most of the students tried to recite “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, other student tried “Ten Little Indian Boy”. There is one student tried to sing the Indonesian that had been translated into English “ Satu-Satu, Aku Sayang Ibu”, “One and One, I Love My Mother”. Although this song is not English nursery rhyme, the teacher let her sing that song, because she could not sing another one.
During the post-test in December, the same question was asked. This time however, all eight students were able to accurately recite a nursery rhymes of their choice. In addition to almost all students mastering this task, there were much more variety in the rhymes students decided to attempt. One student still chose the rhymes, “Twinkle-Twinkle Little Star, and the other one still tried to recite “One and One I Love My Mother” while the other six recited “Fly-Fly the Butterfly”, “The Wheel on The Bus Goes Round and Round,” Rain-Rain Go Away”, “Johny-Johny”, “Apple Round”, “Rainbow”.
The researcher also used nursery rhymes as a bridge to introduce the concept of the rhymes. By listening to, acting out, and reciting nursery rhymes, the students learn about rhyming words and phonemic awareness such as segmentation by using the tune of “Twinkle-Twinkle Little Star”, sound isolation (beginning sound and middle sound) by using the tune of “Old Mc Donald Had A Farm” ,and blending by using the tune of “If You’re Happy”.
Letter-Sound Connection Findings and Ability to use English, when analyzing the data that were collected, students showed good improvement in their abilities to connect letters and sounds and the ability to express oral language. Through the analysis of the parent surveys, the researcher concluded that the parents also noticed the improvement of their children in learning English. Most of the parents said they noticed the positive changes in their child’s language skill. The parents said that their child knew more, spoke more, asked more about English, although their pronunciation were not 100 % correct. One parent wrote, "Bethsy applied some of the songs at home, invited to play guessing goods taken in a container using English, and get to know some new vocabularies, such as comb, iguana, and others that she has not learned over the years."
Students’ Positive Attitudes toward the Phonological Awareness
Through the use of phonological awareness activities and letter sounds, the students have made very positive gains in letter identification and are making astonishing connections between letter and their sounds in numerous situation.
Based on the findings gathered through students’ oral test, observation, as well as parents’ surveys, it is clear that the implication of phonological awareness activities has increased the students’ language skills especially listening skills.
The students’ phonological awareness activities improvement can be noticed based on the result of the pre-oral test and the post – oral test as the supporting data.
Table 3
The Students’ Phonological Awareness Activities improvement based on the Pre and Post Oral Test
Name of Students (By Coding)
Phonological Awareness Activities
Nursery Rhymes Identifying Rhymes Counting Syllables
Pre Post Pre Post Pre Post
GA MB BSB MB BSH MB BSB
RCBP BSH BSB BSH BSH BSH BSB
JAT BSH BSB BSH BSH BSH BSB
DR MB BSH MB BSH BSH BSB
SEL BB BSH MB BSB BSH BSB
MBALW MB BSH BSH BSB BSB BSB
MET MB BSH MB BSH BSH BSB
NH MB BSH MB BSH BSH BSB
Legends:
BB = Belum Berkembang (under developed). MB = Mulai Berkembang (developing).
BSH = Berkembang Sesuai Harapan (developed according to the expectation).
BSB = Berkembang Sangat Baik (developing very well). Nursery Rhymes :
BB = The student did not want to sing
MB = The student was able to sing with many un appropriate words. BSH = The student was able to sing with a very little mistake. BSB = The student was able to sing without making mistakes. Identifying Rhymes :
BB = The student identified 0 – 4 correct items of the oral test. MB = The students identified 5 -11 correct items of the oral test. BSH = The students identified 12 -14 correct items of the oral test.
BB = The student identified no correct items of the oral test.
MB = The students identified 1 – 3 correct items of the oral test with help..
BSH = The students identified 4 -5 correct items of the oral test without help.
BSB = The students identified 6 correct items without help. (all items in the oral test).
Discussion
After reviewing the findings from this action research project and analyzing the data of observational notes, parents survey, and oral-test suggested that students improved their skill to connect letters to the sounds they make. Pullen & Justice (2003, p. 88) point out that without a strong understanding of phonological awareness, the concept of the alphabetic principle makes very little sense to children. Because of the strong focus on phonological awareness that was emphasized, the students were able to understand the concept of the alphabetic principle and therefore understand the specific relationship between sounds and written letters.
The analysis of data also concluded that students developed more confidence in their abilities to express and use oral language. Practice with oral language in the form of reciting or singing nursery rhymes encouraged students to have fun with language and the rhyme and repetition of the nursery rhymes made them easy for children to learn. According to Sayakhan & Bradley (2014, p. 85), the rhythm in many nursery rhymes invites listeners to react immediately. They may, for example, clap their hands, or jump up and down to music of lines. Furthermore Sayakhan & Bradley ( 2014, p. 86) explain that listening to and reciting nursery rhymes enhances early reading skills and phonemic awareness which is said to predict a child’s reading success.
The conclusions that has been drawn from this action research project could have some important implications for the field of Early Childhood education. Phonological awareness activities in the classroom can contribute to an increase to in literacy acquisition in young children. Young children come into the world full of curiosity and eager to learn.
Teachers should incorporate a variety of developmentally appropriate games and activities to support and increase these phonological awareness skills. Practice that occurs in a natural, fun way will guarantee that children will develop a strong foundation of phonological awareness, and this foundation will make learning to read and write a much simpler and more enjoyable tasks. There are numerous activities that children can be involved in to promote different phonological awareness skills such as reciting nursery rhymes (songs), participating in clapping rhythms.
Another study which support the above claims also come from Carolyn Jean (2011, p. 46) who proves that implementing daily phonological awareness time certainly helped strength the ability of the students in the classroom to transfer their knowledge to new situations.
There are a lot of researches that stress the importance of taking time to explicitly teach these basic phonological awareness skills because they seem to be directly related to a child’s ability to become literate. As more and more studies show that teaching phonological awareness really is valuable and important.
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION Conclusion
The following conclusion are based on the research findings; the researcher draws the conclusions as follow: (a) Students demonstrated a greater ability to make letter-sound connections. They had the abilities to recognize letters more frequently as well as connect specific letters to their letter sound; (b) Another result of phonological awareness activities included an increase in student’s ability to use and express the oral language after they listened to the teacher. The children were more confident recite the nursery rhymes or song very well. Parents survey also supported this conclusion, they said that they noticed positive changes in their language skills; (c) Phonological awareness activities impacted children’ listening skill and literacy acquisition in a very positive way. Students developed stronger letter-sound connections, increased their oral language and abilities to transfer knowledge, and even improved at making their own self-discoveries about language; (d) Parents noticed children using phonological awareness skills they learned at school in their home environment, such as clapping the syllables in their family’s name, saying out the name of the things they saw in English, singing the nursery rhymes more, or identifying rhyming words on their own;(e) It should acknowledge that this study had a number of limitations. First, the small number of participants allows for no generalization. Second, although the students were satisfied with the activities, applying more variety activities could have been allowed; and finally, the time constrain created some limitations for this action research project. If there were more time, there would be more flexibility with the schedule.
Suggestion
teachers know when the students have mastered the skill; (c) When instructing the phonological awareness activities, it is very important to do so in a quiet, distraction-free environment. Since phonological awareness depends on the child’s ability to identify, manipulate, and distinguish between various sounds, it is crucial to help them develop their ability to listen carefully early on in an environment that is conducive to listening; (d) While the research conducted seems to show that phonological awareness activities in the classroom creates positive results in relation to literacy acquisition, there may be certain questions that world be worth investigating.
REFERENCES
Burns, A. (2010). Doing Action Research in English Language Teaching. A Guide for Practitioners. New York : Routledge.
Cameron, L. (2001). Teaching Languages to Young Learners. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
Carolyn Jean, S. (2011). Using Phonological Awareness Activities to promote Literacy Acquisition in Four-Year-Old Kindergarten. Wisconsin: Carroll University Waukesha.
Eilleen, F. (2000). Action Research. US: LAB Northeast and Islands Regional Educational Laboratory at Brown University.
Hine, G. S. (2013). The Importance of Action Research in Teacher Education Programs. Issues in Educational Research 23 (2), 151-162.
Pullen, P. C., & Justice, L. M. (2003). Enhancing Phonological Awareness, Print Awareness, and Oral Language Skills in Preschool Children. Intervention in School and Clinic, 87-98.
Sanderful, Gamble, Warren, & Hicks. (2006). Phonological Awareness. Project Resources For Early Educator Learning.
Sayakhan, N. I., & Bradley, D. H. (2014). Nursery Rhymes as A Vehicle for Teaching English as A Foreign Language. International Journal of Literature and Arts, 84-87.
