gunmajet.net

Lesson Point:
Introduction of Phonics

The Plan:
The first thing that you need to do is to explain to the students that reading Japanese and reading English are a bit different. The characters in Japanese have the same sound as their name. In English, the names of the letters are NOT how the letters are read in words. Therefore, knowing just the names of the English letters will not mean that you'll be able to read English. You have to know the sounds that they represent.
Then, go through each of the letters of the alphabet and say their names and teach the normal sound that each of the letters represents. The vowels tend to be pronounced differently by people with different accents, but some basic examples can be given. Note also that the normal pronunciation of the qu combination is not k but kw, (queen, quiet, etc.) though sometimes it is pronounced as k (quiche). Many of the phonics CDs out there only teach the k sound, though.
X as the first letter of a word has also been left off entirely as the words are so rare, and not of particular use to Japanese school kids. There may one or two kids in a class that know of words like xylophone or xerox.
The explainations for how to form all of the basic consonant sounds are given in Japanese on the worksheet. The vowels have been left with asterisks next to them and an explaination at the bottom saying there are lots of ways to pronounce these letters, so to please listen carefully to the ALT.
This is only the most basic set of phonics for English, but it can be a helpful start.
*You will need this font to print the worksheet correctly.