INTEGRATION OF FUN ACTIVITIES IS CRUCIAL FOR CORRECT

PRONUNCIATION OF WORDS AMONG WEAK PUPILS

Introduction

SK Sembulan is an urban primary national school in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. It is a 2 session

school, has 28 classrooms and a pupil population of 1000 pupils. Most of the pupils come from
poor families with an average monthly income of RM600. The pupils’ parents are mostly
fishermen or labourers. The pupils’ racial composition is 80% Bajau Suluk, 10% Malays and
10% Kadazan Dusun. The school has 70 teachers and only 10 of them are English optionists. In
the classroom, pupils can read and articulate words loudly and correctly when they are taught.As
an English teacher teaching pupils who come from non-English speaking families, I always
emphasize on reading sessions where pupils have to read aloud paragraphs clearly and
confidently. However, in my Year 3 Cekal class, I found that there are three pupils who struggle
to cope with my reading lessons. These pupils that I find struggling with my reading lessons are
Haliza, Khadijah and Balqees. They tend to articulate words using their mother tongue
pronunciation. There would be times where they would try to hide their faces behind their books
so that I will not call them to read aloud texts.

Whenever these pupils come across words that they are not familiar or words that they have
forgotten the pronunciation, they tend to spell and pronounce the words using their mother
tongue sound. I find this problem irritating because although I have taught the pupils on
pronunciations and articulations, using Jolly Phonics, they still find it difficult to articulate words
correctly. This prompted me to find a strategy on how to help these 3 pupils to remember the
correct pronunciation of words taught.

According to Deanna Mascle (How To Raise A Reader: Lessons In Literacy), “The primary
reason many children struggle with learning to read is because they simply do not have enough
experiences with language, books, and print. They need more time at home and in their early
childhood programs devoted to helping them develop the skills that lead to reading. A lack of
developmentally appropriate skill-building at an early age can significantly limit the reading and
writing level a child attains.”

I plan to integrate different activities in my reading sessions instead of reading aloud only with
pupils to help them pronounce words correctly. I want my pupils to enjoy their reading aloud
sessions with me instead of dreading the moment where I would call up a pupil or two to read
texts or passages loudly.

Implementation

I started this research by first looking into the background of these 3 pupils. I find that they come
from lower income and non-English speaking background. However, these 3 pupils enjoy
learning English as a second language, which led me to find out ways to make my lessons more
interesting and non-dreading to them.

The first step was to get the 3 pupils interested in reading English Language books. I brought
them to the library, where I encouraged them to read English storybooks. I have prepared a
worksheet where pupils have to write down the title of the book, the author and what they like
most about the book. They can draw or write down parts of the story which they like because
they still cannot write sentences correctly. After a few visits to the library, I found that Khadizah
and Balqees like to draw while Haliza copied some dialogues from the book.

My next step is to teach the 3 pupils to read and pronounce words correctly, emphasizing on the
articulation and stress on the word. During my reading aloud sessions, I would first teach them to
read in word level, then proceed to phrase level. After they have mastered the correct
pronunciation, I would go to sentence level, where I would try to get them to read the sentences
loudly. I used the “Peer Tutoring” technique, whereby if they make mistakes in pronouncing the
words, instead of me correcting them, I would get their peers to correct them. Peer tutoring links
high achieving pupils with lower achieving pupils or those with comparable achievement for
structured learning. It's an effective educational strategy for classrooms of diverse learners,
including pupils with disabilities, because it promotes academic gains as well as social
enhancement.
This has proven to be effective because the peers gave encouragements and tips to them on how
to pronounce the words correctly. I carried out this process for two reading lessons and found
that the 3 pupils have improved their articulation. However, when I asked them again about the
articulation of the words in the next lesson, Haliza still made mistakes in pronouncing the words,
whereas Khadijah and Balqees could read aloud words but without confidence.

For the third step, I integrate activities like Role-play and dialogue in my reading aloud sessions.
I created simple dialogues using simple sentences, where the words that they have difficulty in
pronouncing exist. At first, Haliza was still hesitant. But with a little encouragement from her
friends, she braved up and participated in one of my activities of the day, which was role-play. I
noticed that she could memorize sentences well. To my amazement, she was able to articulate
words and read sentences correctly and confidently.

To make sure that my strategy really had worked, I conducted the lesson using the old way,
where they would have to read aloud texts individually. I find that pupils became tense and
restless because they couldn’t remember the correct articulation of words. However, when I
switched back to the new method, pupils were eager to join the activities conducted and they
could articulate words correctly without hesitation.

Findings

Throughout the process and implementation of this action research, I find that all three pupils
that had difficulty in reading aloud words correctly, made improvement when reading aloud
sessions are integrated with fun activities. According to my findings through interviews with the
pupils after implementing my strategy, pupils say that they can remember more well on
pronunciation of words because they can recall back the activity that they have done. Besides
that, I also notice improvement in involvement of pupils who are weak and shy in expressing
themselves. When they are confident, they dare to speak up and answer my questions even
though their answers are only in short sentences.

Reflection

In conclusion, I found out that these 3 pupils need to be given different activities and tasks in
order to catch their attention, which will lead them to read aloud words correctly in the context of
sentences. They were only able to read aloud the words in the context of sentences correctly if
they practice using them in activities such as dialogues and role-play. They need a purpose in
order to improve their pronunciation and also improve their confidence.

Recommendations

I found out that time constrain is my main problem that I face while doing this research. I feel
that I should be given more time and less academic tasks in order to achieve the objective of this
research. Besides that, I would recommend future researchers to include more pictures or video
clips of the pupils’ activities so that we can identify whether our strategy has succeeded.

Reference

Taylor, J. (1997). Making “Show And Tell Time”, Interactive & Learner-Centered.
Action Research for ELT Teachers. Kuala Lumpur
Dr.Mohd Sofi Ali. English Language Teaching In Primary Schools : Policy and
Implementation Concerns. International Languages Teacher Training Institute Lembah Pantai,
Kuala Lumpur
Mary Dicker. Using Action Research to Navigate an Unfamiliar Teaching Assignment.
Action Research For ELT Teachers 2013.Kuala Lumpur
http://www.makinglearningfun.com/themepages/ActivitiesListing.htm. 5 August 2013.
http://www.readingrockets.org/atoz/reading_aloud/. 6 August 2013.

http://www.teaching-children-to-read.net/children-read-aloud-research.html. 5 August 2013.