Phonics lesson plans: new series

We’ve released a new set of phonics lesson plans called letters & sounds.

As ESL teachers, we all know the importance of reinforcing correct pronunciation. We’ve all seen intermediate or advanced students with strong grammar yet their pronunciation is still causing communication challenges. For ESL beginners, learning how to spell and pronounce words correctly is a key building block to greater fluency.
We’ve often had trouble locating phonics lesson content online that is well suited to private lessons and tutoring sessions. Most of what we’ve found online is focused on Young Learners and the traditional classroom. Flashcards, classroom exercises and games are not typically useful for one-to-one lessons or small groups.
This lack of appropriate lesson content motivated us to release our phonics lesson plan series called letters & sounds. You’ll find them here. Here is a summary of what we’ve included:

Lessons 1 to 3 (Alphabet 1 to 3):

First, we focus on the alphabet. We start with Alphabet-1 and assume the student has no prior knowledge of the subject. Each letter is introduced by placing it at the beginning of commonly used nouns.

In Alphabet-2 we repeat the familiar nouns, though not in alphabetical order. In Alphabet-3 we reinforce the alphabet with four additional nouns per letter. We chose not to use phonetic symbols because it creates unnecessary confusion for most learners. In an effort to make the plans more user-friendly we introduce the sounds as elements of commonly used nouns.

Lessons 4 and 5 (Consonant 1 and 2):

In the consonant section we cover all major consonant sounds in the English language. In Consonant-1 we focus on phonemic pairs and we use minimal pairs to contrast the sounds where possible. Each sound is first taught individually (single words and an example of alliteration), then taught as a minimal pair comparing two similar sounds.

In Consonant-2 we focus on challenging sounds (e.g. history, yellow) and the juxtaposition of often-confused pairs (e.g. map/nap, fat/hat).

Lesson 6 and 7 (Vowels 1 and 2):

In our vowel series we introduce and practice all vowel sounds, including diphthongs:

We hope that you enjoy weaving our phonics lesson plans into your ESL tutorials. If you do, please let us know how you’re using them!