[etni] Visual Mnemonics for teaching ABC

From: Laurin Lewis <lewisl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Tue, 25 Oct 2011 22:48:53 +0200
Barry and all

Apropos of teaching the ABC, I wouldn't be too complacent about 
current methods. I heard of a study -- sorry, I've forgotten the 
source -- that showed that 20% of high school students in this 
country don't know the names of the letters that we use to write 
English. Oh, they know A and B and C and D all right,  but after that 
it begins to get fuzzy. They don't know the difference between U and 
Y. They don't know what W is. And so forth. My experience in teaching 
adults confirms this observation.

Visual mnemonics proposes a short-cut. Does it work better than the 
conventional way? Well, I don't really know. The way to find out 
would be to divide in half a class of, say, kita gimel kids. Teach 
one half ABC by the regular way and the other by visual mnemonics 
for, say, 3 hours and then test them, and see which group has learned 
better. And then re-test them after a week to see if there is a 
difference in retention.

Well, I'm pretty confident about what the result would be. But I 
don't see anyone about to perform this experiment. So for the time 
being, we'll have to rely on anecdotal evidence, and that suggests 
not discouraging teachers who want to try alternative strategies.

The artwork from my courseware, English for Beginners, can be easily 
converted to printed or poster form for use in the classroom. The 
material is free for any teacher who wants to give it a go.

And I'd like to remind Etians that the whole English learning package 
is currently free from my web site at www.english4students.com.  I 
mean free for teachers and for your school's computer lab. You just 
have to download the trial version and then contact me (at 
info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) for the access codes, which convert the 
trial version to the complete version.  Teaching the ABC by visual 
mnemonics is part of the package, but there are also 4000 words 
taught by context with images, and it reviews grammar too.

To borrow a phrase from the W.C. Fields movie: It's a Gift.

Laurin Lewis
Self-Access English Teaching Center
Jerusalem









At 10:46 AM 10/24/2011, you wrote:
>Hi.
>
>sorry if I was offensive.
>
>Most methods will work if they are consistent and the teacher cares 
>about the student.
>
>It is fairly easy to get them to rember Banana B,    Email E, Helicopter H...
>
>For  The few letter sound combinations, such as long A ,  that don't 
>have a cognate word ( whilehe lasts , the singer Akon)
>
>can also be memorized:    Acorn A
>
>It is the kids with the learning difficulties that we are making 
>this whole effort for;  and I think that bending over backwards to 
>conect to a mother tongue word is just making life harder.
>
>Barry
>
>----- Original Message ----- From: "Laurin Lewis" <lewisl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>To: "Barry Silverberg" <barisil@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Sent: Saturday, October 22, 2011 7:46 PM
>Subject: Visual Mmenomics for teaching ABC
>
>
>>Barry,
>>
>>The method of teaching the ABC by visual mnemonics is not
>>exactly original. It was inspired by the success, reported in an
>>academic journal, of an American university using this concept to
>>teach the Russian alphabet to American students. I had the idea that
>>visual mnemonics might work to teach the Latin (English) alphabet to
>>Israelis. I don't have any hard data about the method, but I used it
>>in a chug that I taught to elementary school kids a few years ago,
>>and I was impressed by the results. The method has solid theoretical
>>credentials and, in fact, was the subject of my M.A. dissertation in
>>Teaching English as a Foreign Language (London University). Anyway,
>>it's only a small part of our whole software package, which is yours
>>for the asking. If you don't like it, nobody is forcing you. And,
>>Barry, it wouldn't hurt to have a look at the method before rendering
>>an opinion about it, or about me, personally. (That said, we've met
>>at ETAI and I have a high personal regard for you.)
>>
>>Laurin
>
>
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[etni] Visual Mnemonics for teaching ABC

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