Problems And Countermeasures Of English Phonics Teaching In Elementary Schools From The Perspective Of Convergent Teaching

For the first time, English Curriculum Standards (2011edition) has specified thatEnglish curriculum in the phase of compulsory education has dual characteristics ofbeing both instrumental and humanistic. These standards require that we build astudent-oriented, systematic and continuous English curriculum structure at the veryphase of compulsory education. For that reason, since elementary education is thefoundation of the whole coordinated education process, greater change has been madeon elementary English curriculum standards, and primary and secondary goals aregetting more and more explicit. However, the issue of how to implement new ideas ofthe Standards needs to be deliberated by every single educator, in order to boostEnglish teaching effectiveness and serve the purpose of students’ sustainable progress.English education in elementary schools in Xiangshan County set offacross-the-board in2002. Elementary PEP textbooks, published by the People’sEducation Press, have been adopted as the basic teaching material since2002.However, complaints kept coming from the English teachers of junior high schools,criticizing elementary English teaching, especially the students’ lack of basic spellingand speaking skills, and their lack of study habits and phonological competence.This research adopts the English Curriculum Standards, hypothesis of criticallanguage learning period, psychological linguistics, comparison between thepronunciation of English and Mandarin, second language acquisition theory,independent learning theory as its theoretical bases. By means of investigating andresearching the present situation of elementary phonics teaching, the author finds thatthere is some kind of connection between English scores and students’English-learning interest, learning-time spent on English speaking, phonetic symbols,word-memorizing strategy and learning habits. In addition, there is also some kind ofconnection between students’ phonological competence and teachers’ phonologicalaccomplishments, teachers’ guidance and evaluation. This paper also analyses theissues in existing elementary phonics teaching and related reasons such as flaws intextbooks, teachers’ phonic deficiency, and students’ age characteristics. Furthermore,to tackle these issues, this research also puts forward solutions including refiningcurrent local textbooks, enhancing teachers’ teaching skills, cultivating students’lifelong learning skills, providing various recipes to encourage and evaluate students.This research aims to arouse teachers’ awareness of how important it is tocultivate the phonic skills of their pupils. In the meanwhile, through the analysis ofthe local phonics textbook Enjoy Speaking English Series, the paper proposes what to do in order to help elementary school pupils acquire favorable pronunciation andintonation, good study habits, and such phonetic competence as spelling words bytaking advantage of the letter-combination pronunciation rules, which will of courselay a solid foundation for students’ sustainable progress.