September-october 2022
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7375780
69
Difficulties in teaching English spelling
Davletyarova N.I.
Tashkent pediatric medical institute;
department of foreign languages
The relevance of research.
In recent years, the role of writing in teaching a foreign
language has been gradually increasing, and, in a sense, writing is beginning reserve
in increasing the effectiveness of teaching a foreign language. Spelling literacy is an
integral part of the general language culture of a person, it ensures the accuracy of
the expression of thought and mutual understanding in written communication, and
because the written form of the literary language differs from the oral one in greater
complexity in its structure. Many methodologists have long concluded that the
spelling literacy of students does not reach a sufficiently high level.
Therefore, teachers are looking for the causes of low spelling literacy in order to
take effective measures to improve the situation in this component of education.
The purpose of the article
is to highlight the main difficulties that arise when
teaching English spelling and consider exercises to overcome them.
Spelling - spelling or a system of rules for using written characters when writing
specific words. The difficulties of the spelling of modern English lie in the fact that,
as a rule, it is not easy, and sometimes impossible, to write down a word by ear,
using the means that the graphic system of modern English has to display its
phonemic composition in writing.
According to the spelling features, the words of the English language can be
divided into 5 groups. Group I should include words that obey the phonetic writing
principle. For example, English: bed, not, sit. In these words, the number of sounds
and letters coincides, which ensures the rapid establishment of stable grapheme-
phoneme correspondences. In addition, these words are largely close to the spelling
of words in Russian, where one sound, as a rule, corresponds to one letter. It seems
appropriate to include monosyllabic and two-syllable words in which one consonant
sound transmitted by a stable letter combination of consonants to this group.
September-october 2022
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For example, English: bench, thus, shut, sock. Although there is no complete
grapheme-phoneme correspondence in these words, they can be classified as light.
The main object of training is a stable combination of consonants.
Group II includes words in which the letter spelled but does not have a sound
equivalent. For example, English: words with an open, conditionally open syllable:
nine, lake, rose.
Group III includes words containing letter combinations that convey one sound, but
themselves consist of different letters. For example, in English: [ə:] is conveyed by
the combinations ir, er, ur.
Group IV includes words containing typical letter combinations of vowels,
consonants, vowels and consonants. It should be noted that the analysis of the school
lexical minimum from the point of view of selected groups shows that in English the
most numerous
groups
is made up of words of IV, V groups.
Mastering the spelling of even simple words causes great difficulties for
schoolchildren at first. To overcome difficulties, students need a long training in
reading and writing in order to firmly master the grapheme-phoneme
correspondences. In order to facilitate the acquisition of reading and writing, at the
very beginning, students write in block letters, and then move on to cursive.
When teaching English, which distinguished by the complexity of grapheme-
phoneme relationships, the school uses print script, in which print and capital letters
are almost the same. Students write in cursive.
The difficulty that students face in mastering English spelling is that in addition to
the existing skills of phonetic writing, other writing skills should be formed. The
skills of mastering a holistic visual image of words, the correct spelling of which
does not correspond to their auditory image, as well as those words, the spelling of
which is not regulated by the rules existing in the English language.
To overcome the interference of already established skills, the teacher, when
teaching the spelling of these words, should use such methods of teaching spelling
in English, which would be aimed at forming the skills of memorizing a holistic
image of a particular word.
September-october 2022
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In the practice
of teaching foreign languages, copying with the letter-by-
letter name of words (English “oral spelling”) is used. It differs from the cheating
with spelling pronunciation discussed above in that the word is not read, but is
spelled. Spelling words is especially important when there is "a sharp discrepancy
between the sound and graphic image of words."
By spelling a word, the student mentally reproduces the visual image of the word,
associates it with the sound image, and thereby consciously fixes the spelling of the
word in memory.
However, when copying with letter-by-letter naming of a word, interference
of the name of the letter and its graphic image takes place, which makes it difficult
to master the spelling. For example, the English word “one” is pronounced ‘wan’
and is spelled as follows: ou, en, i:.
The next type of exercises that we provide are copying exercises with the insertion
of missing letters. According to M.V. Ushakov, this is “the most useful technique”
for teaching words that do not obey the rules of spelling. The pass mobilizes the
activity and visual memory of students, draws the attention of the writer to a certain
spelling difficulty.
As in the multiple cheating and cheating with spelling pronunciation discussed
above, in this exercise it is possible to provide a sufficient number of repetitions of
the word being processed, and in addition, when cheating is performed with filling
in the missing spelling in the words of the common root, a hidden contrast of
interfering graphemes occurs. But here you can also take into account the fact that
the language has words whose spelling differs by one or two graphemes, for
example: “father-farther”, “weather-whether”, etc. In order to correctly fill in the
gap in such words, the student must know the meaning of each particular word.
Therefore, in the exercises under consideration, words with a gap must be
accompanied by a translation or given in a sentence so that the meaning of the words
is clear from the context.
September-october 2022
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Conclusions.
An important component that makes up the content of teaching
writing is spelling, which is defined as spelling or a system of rules for using written
characters when writing specific words.
Spelling is one of the most problematic moments in teaching writing and it can
hardly be taught 100% all at once. Spelling errors are inevitable, but their number
can and should be reduced to a minimum if certain typological groups of difficulties
are taken into account and the students themselves develop self-control and
correction skills.
The article examined the difficulties faced by students, as well as ways to overcome
them. 5 groups of words were identified, the spelling of which students need to
master. We examined the points of view of various methodologists dealing with the
problem of teaching spelling at school.
Knowledge, and most importantly, the use of these theoretical foundations in the
process of teaching spelling is extremely important for teachers and students. But it
must be borne in mind that it is necessary to teach spelling in close cooperation with
other types of speech activity, within the framework of a single system of teaching
a foreign language.
Literature:
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Tennova N.I. Principles of teaching writing and the main types of spelling exercises: (On the
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Plakhotnikov V.M. Teaching the spelling of difficult words in English//Foreign. languages at
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Rogova G. V. et al. Methods of teaching foreign languages in secondary school G. V. Rogova,
F. M. Rabinovich, T. E. Sakharova, - M.: Education, 1991. - 287 sl.
4.
Nazarova L.K. Pronunciation and commenting, their place in teaching spelling // Primary
school. - 1964. - No. 8. - P.55-63.
5.
Ushakov M.V. The study of words that are not checked by the rules in V VIII grades. – M.:
Uchpedgiz, 1960. – 66 p.
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1966. - 307 p. Bogoyavlensky D.N. Psychology of mastering spelling. - M.: Enlightenment,
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