LEARNING THE IPA - Alan Davies

Alan Davies is keen for all those working in deaf education to be taught and tested on the International Phonetic Alphabet.

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a very useful pronunciation system for student teachers, teachers and speech therapists. It is particularly useful for those working in deaf education, including for those learning and using Cued Speech. The IPA uses a symbol for each of the 44 sounds (phonemes) of English. There are IPA symbols for the 24 English consonants and the 20 English vowels (seven short monophthongs, five long monophthongs and eight diphthongs).

Short monophthong – a single vowel phoneme (creating a syllable) in which the tongue remains in the same position, as can be heard in such words as - ant, bed, teacher, tin, frog, book, and bus.

Long Monophthong - a single vowel phoneme (creating a syllable) in which the tongue remains in the same position but is of greater duration than a short monophthong, as can be heard in such words as – car, me, fern, moon and fork.

Diphthong – a single vowel phoneme (creating a syllable) in which there is a movement of the tongue and the first phase is longer than the second, as can be heard in such words as – baby, hair, ear, tiger, nose, coin, moor and cow.

IPA symbols are used to record the different pronunciations of words (such as bow and row) or the different pronunciations given to words because of accent (such as for the words bath and up), deafness (because of an inability to hear high frequency phonemes, such as the unvoiced fricatives heard in fish, sun, shark and thumb) or a speech articulation disorder (perhaps having a difficulty with the phoneme /s/ in such words as sun, dress, horse, city and ice and/or the phoneme /r/ at the start of such words as rain, rhubarb and wrist). A fricative is a consonant phoneme made by forcing the air out through a narrow opening. Phonemes are either voiced (air passes through the vocal cords) or unvoiced. All the vowel phonemes are voiced but some of the consonant phonemes are unvoiced. The following words contain a voiced fricative – treasure, feather, voice and zip.

When children and adults read and spell common English words, the twenty-six letters of the alphabet do many different jobs. That is, they represent many different phonemes. For example, children are often, initially, taught that the letter ‘g’ has only one phoneme, such as can be heard at the start of the word gate and at the end of egg. Yet it represents at least ten other different phonemes, either on its own or in twos, threes or even fours – as can be heard in such words as giant, cage, laugh, bridge, king, light, eight, dough, plough, thought, through and Scarborough. That is, the letter ‘g’ is used in many different spelling choices (graphemes).

Sometimes one letter makes one phoneme. The term for a one-letter grapheme is graph. The ‘b’ at the start of bird is a consonant graph. The ‘y’ at the end of my is a vowel graph. Sometimes two letters make one phoneme. The term for a two-letter grapheme is digraph. The ‘g’ ‘e’ at the end of orange is a consonant digraph. The ‘o’ ‘r’ at the end of doctor is a vowel digraph. Sometimes three letters make one phoneme. The term for a three-letter grapheme is trigraph. The ‘t’ ‘c’ ‘h’ at the end of watch is a consonant digraph. The ‘i’ ‘g’ ‘h’ in the middle of light is a vowel trigraph. Sometimes four letters make one phoneme. The term for a four-letter grapheme is quadgraph (or quad). The ‘e’ ‘i’ ‘g’ ‘h’ in eight is a vowel quadgraph.

It is important that student teachers, teachers and therapists have a good explicit understanding of the phonemes and graphemes of English – so that they can give good help to children and adults when they speak, listen, read and spell. Therefore, I believe that all of these people should, during their training, be taught and tested on their knowledge of the IPA symbols - and their understanding assessed through a criterion-referenced test with observable standards of achievement in terms of time, grade and star rating. That is, they should be taught and tested on their ability to hear and identify the phonemes in words, including those that they would normally read and spell simply by sight. As a consequence, they (and others) would have a greater confidence in their ability to teach the phonemes and graphemes of English with accuracy.

Alan Davies is an educational psychologist and the Executive Director of THRASS UK. He is also the creator and designer of the English Phonics Test just IPA app and the free Phoneme Machine software. The images are screen grabs from the English Phonics Test just IPA app.

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magazine@BATOD.org.uk

Source: BATOD ASSOCIATION MAGAZINE

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