Debbie's review of the DfE phonemic transcriptions chart

[debbie]

http://alphabeticcodecharts.com/Debbie_ ... _chart.pdf

I have suggested to the Department for Education (England) that it would be useful to combine an alphabetic code chart with a comprehensive range of spelling alternatives and easy-to-use symbols for the sounds along with the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) - and I include an example of my suggestion.

You can find this review at www.alphabeticcodecharts.com on the Free Charts page.

[debbie]

http://alphabeticcodecharts.com/One_sid ... ymbols.pdf


Meanwhile, I haven't waited for the DfE to provide such a chart - they probably won't - so I've provided one via my Free Charts webpage.

I've also provided the Alphabetic Code Charts designed for student-teachers with the IPA symbols alongside the easy-to-use sounds notation (that is, the letters and letter groups within the slash marks).

I decided that if the DfE was using the IPA symbols in its draft National Curriculum for English, then the expectation was that teachers should learn about the IPA symbols.

So, the student-teachers' Alphabetic Code Chart is surely the best place to add the IPA symbols!

Do check out these charts - and I encourage universities to approach us about using them in their literature for student-teachers like some universities have in England.

You can see the three new charts here:

http://alphabeticcodecharts.com/free_charts.html

[debbie]

http://www.syntheticphonics.com/DH_Revi ... charts.pdf

I thought I might as well add two further reviews of phoneme charts which I did some time ago.

One review is of the British Council phoneme chart and the other review is of a DfE phoneme chart for a special needs course:

‘Advanced training materials for autism; dyslexia; speech, language and communication; emotional, social and behavioural difficulties; moderate learning difficulties’.

Hmmm.......

[debbie]

I've been giving more thought to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet.

There is a role to be played by its use - but there is an even bigger role to be played by what I now call the 'easy-to-use' symbols.

The 'easy-to-use' symbols allow the teaching adults, or supporting adults, to apply the regional or local dialect, or accent, to the spelling alternatives and example words.

It is impossible to create a 'definitive' alphabetic code chart, but we can all use alphabetic code charts with a similar format - and I suggest the units of sound are listed down the left column/s and the spelling alternatives which are code for the sounds are listed across the rows.

The IPA symbols provide 'too much' precision without allowing for the many regional and national accents applied to the English language.

The IPA symbols suggest a precise 'sound' for the various spelling alternatives therefore, in effect, suggest that there is only one acceptable sound universally - and yet this is simply not the case.

The 'easy-to-use' symbols are often taken from one of the spelling alternatives and can be interpreted more flexibly according to accent.