Relevance of Phonological Awareness Intervention to a Jordanian EFL Classroom

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Published: May 31, 2017
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5750/bjll.v9i0.44

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Yasser Al Tamimi
Alfaisal University

Abstract

Building on Tamimi and Rababah (2007), the present study is an investigation of the effectiveness of explicit phonological awareness intervention in contrast with formal classroom instruction on developing phonological awareness skills for Jordanian EFL second-graders in a governmental school. Based on some views (Adams, 1990; Yopp, 1992; Stanovich, 1994; and Chard and Dickson, 1999) a phonological training program was designed with focus on five phonological awareness skills, viz., segmentation, isolation, deletion, substitution and blending, and their respective sub-skills. On measures of Robertson and Salter's (1997) Phonological Awareness Test (PAT), the experimental group that had undergone 15 40-minute phonological awareness sessions outperformed in deletion, substitution and blending skills the control group which continued to receive formal classroom instruction based on Action Pack 2. The findings corroborate previous research conclusions favoring explicit phonological awareness interventions; thus giving less credit to formal classroom instruction. The study also calls for integrating phonological awareness interventions in Jordanian basic stages' curricula.                                                         

Article Details

Issue
Vol. 9 (2016)
Section
Articles
Author Biography

Yasser Al Tamimi, Alfaisal University

Dr. Yasser Al-Tamimi is an Associate professor of Linguistics at the English Department of Alfaisal University in Saudi Arabia. He received his PhD degree in phonetics and phonology from the University of Reading in the United Kingdom in 2002. He teaches a number of English language and linguistic courses, and his research interest includes language acquisition, speech pathology, applied linguistics, in addition to phonetics and phonology.

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