The effectiveness of teaching synthetic phonics to EFL students Abstract The diploma considers the effectiveness of systematic and explicit Synthetic Phonics teaching methods in the EFL learning environment. The theoretical section examines foreign language methodology - the field of reading acquisition in young learners, especially English language pronunciation. It studies how systematic explicit Phonics approach can help in learning how to read and pronounce words correctly. It explores the similarities and differences between teaching Synthetic and Analytic Phonics, and compares them. Furthermore it discusses whether synthetic phonics is useful not only for native English speakers, but also for EFL students. The practical part focuses on testing two groups of children who have different experiences of phonics. The data were collected in Prague and the Hradec Králové region. There were 62 students tested out of whom 33 were in a control group and 29 were taught using a systematic Phonics approach. A specially designed test consisting of two different activities was applied. It tested word reading, non-word pronouncing and sight word recognition. The aim of the research was to find out whether explicit Synthetic Phonics teaching instruction helps not only native English speakers, but also EFL learners in...

The effectiveness of teaching synthetic phonics to EFL students Abstract This diploma thesis deals with the effectiveness of systematic and explicit Synthetic Phonics teaching methods in the EFL learning environment. The theoretical part of the text investigates the similarities and differences between teaching Synthetic and Analytic Phonics. Whether synthetic phonics is essential not only for native English speakers, but also for EFL students is examined. Furthermore, it introduces the changes and development in phonics teaching in a historical context. The practical section describes the test preparation and presents how the research methodology was applied. It also examines the data collected from testing four groups of Prague primary school children who have different experience of phonics. Last but not least, the empirical section presents the results of 60 students' readings and analyses their performances concluding with an assessment as to whether explicit Synthetic Phonics teaching instruction helps EFL students in pronouncing words or not. Key words: synthetic phonics, analytic phonics, phonemes, graphemes, pronunciation and articulation, spelling, reading, writing

Dysgraphia is a rather widespread learning disorder in the current society. It is well established that an early diagnosis of this writing disorder can lead to improvement in writing skills. However, as of today, although there is no comprehensive standard process for the evaluation of dysgraphia, most of the tests used for this purpose must be done at a physician’s office. On the other hand, the pandemic triggered by COVID-19 has forced people to stay at home and opened the door to the development of online medical consultations. The present study therefore aims to propose an automated pipeline to provide pre-clinical diagnosis of dysgraphia. In particular, it investigates the possibility of applying deep learning techniques to the most widely used test for assessing writing difficulties in Italy, the BVSCO-2. This test consists of several writing exercises to be performed by the child on paper under the supervision of a doctor. To test the hypothesis that it is possible to enable children to have their writing impairment recognized even at a distance, an innovative system has been developed. It leverages an already developed customized tablet application that captures the graphemes produced by the child and an artificial neural network that processes the images and recognizes the handwritten text. The experimental results were analyzed using different methods and were compared with the actual diagnosis that a doctor would have provided if the test had been carried out normally. It turned out that, despite a slight fixed bias introduced by the machine for some specific exercises, these results seemed very promising in terms of both handwritten text recognition and diagnosis of children with dysgraphia, thus giving a satisfactory answer to the proposed research question. / Dysgrafi är en ganska utbredd inlärningsstörning i dagens samhälle. Det är väl etablerat att en tidig diagnos av denna skrivstörning kan leda till en förbättring av skrivförmågan. Även om det i dag inte finns någon omfattande standardprocess för utvärdering av dysgrafi måste dock de flesta av de tester som används för detta ändamål göras på en läkarmottagning. Å andra sidan har den pandemi som utlöstes av COVID-19 tvingat människor att stanna hemma och öppnat dörren för utvecklingen av medicinska konsultationer online. Syftet med denna studie är därför att föreslå en automatiserad pipeline för att ge preklinisk diagnos av dysgrafi. I synnerhet undersöks möjligheten att tillämpa djupinlärningstekniker på det mest använda testet för att bedöma skrivsvårigheter i Italien, BVSCO-2. Testet består av flera skrivövningar som barnet ska utföra på papper under överinseende av en läkare. För att testa hypotesen att det är möjligt att göra det möjligt för barn att få sina skrivsvårigheter erkända även på distans har ett innovativt system utvecklats. Det utnyttjar en redan utvecklad skräddarsydd applikation för surfplattor som fångar de grafem som barnet producerar och ett artificiellt neuralt nätverk som bearbetar bilderna och känner igen den handskrivna texten. De experimentella resultaten analyserades med hjälp av olika metoder och jämfördes med den faktiska diagnos som en läkare skulle ha ställt om testet hade utförts normalt. Det visade sig att, trots en liten fast bias som maskinen införde för vissa specifika övningar, verkade dessa resultat mycket lovande när det gäller både igenkänning av handskriven text och diagnos av barn med dysgrafi, vilket gav ett tillfredsställande svar på den föreslagna forskningsfrågan.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T19:34:12Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Viviane Lima de Oliveira Gama.pdf: 1008718 bytes, checksum: 8590f9eb4a8fc2722db2af5081cf7434 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-04-25 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / This study is situated on the area of Portuguese Language Description and deals with the examination of the letters g and j , by means of verifying the existence of rules regarding the use of these letters in the orthographic system, contributing to the graphemic studies of the Portuguese Orthography. The carried out research is based on the proposal of Derrida (1967), on the studies of Nina Catash (1973) and on the research meetings carried out in France in 1973 and 1986. Thus, it is understood that the methods used by Phonology can be extended to Graphemics, as well as its theoretical models. It is justified once it is understood that the oral system presents distinct traces, different from the orthographic system in Brazil, where few studies under the prism of Graphemics had been carried out so far. It is stated as hypothesis that some rules can be described for the use of the letters g and j preceding the vowels e and i , where difficulties for the orthographic use occur. The acquired results indicate that: a) the letter g differs from the letters j as the former belongs to the Portuguese Language etymologic system and the latter to the phonetic system. Therefore, the letter g spells the poliphonologic values /g, / and the letter j , the poliphonologic value / /; b) there are commutative pairs between g and j , by means of considering them two graphemes of the Portuguese Language orthographic system: the grapheme g of the etymologic system, in complementary distribution with a , o , u and the grapheme g in complementary distribution with e , i . In this sense, the distinctive trace of the grapheme g + /a, o, u/ belongs to the Portuguese Language orthographic subsystem and g + /e, i/ to the phonetic etymologic system. The grapheme j spells the phoneme / / of the language phonetic system for new words, entries for the Portuguese Language; but j spells words of i, y etyma of origins other than Latin, for being palatal in the Portuguese Language entry; for this reason, they are the etymologic-phonetic trace; c) there is no graphemic change on word derivation, unless due to the complementary distribution, by means of spelling g for the etymologic-phonetic trace and j for the phonetic trace; d) in the Portuguese Language history, the latin etyma present a single letter to spell /g, /, depending on the vowel that follows; the grapheme j spells the palatization previous to any vowel, being it oral or nasal; e) Other considerations. Due to the existent confusion relating to the etyma of the Portuguese Language words, it was verified that there are two ways of spelling the same word, both with g and j . It is concluded, from these occurrences, that it is possible to deal with the Portuguese Language orthographic system through theoretical and methodological models of Phonology. However, due to the unawareness of etyma, specific studies in the area are necessary to guide future Orthographic Changes / Esta Dissertação está situada na área da Descrição da Língua Portuguesa e trata do exame das letras g e j , a fim de se verificar se há regras para o uso dessas letras no sistema ortográfico de forma a contribuir para os estudos grafemáticos da Ortografia Portuguesa. A pesquisa realizada está fundamentada na proposta de Derrida (1967), nos estudos realizados por Nina Catash (1973) e nos colóquios de pesquisa realizados na França em 1973 e 1986. Dessa forma, entende-se que os métodos utilizados pela Fonologia podem ser estendidos para a Grafemática, assim como seus modelos teóricos. E justifica-se na medida em que se entende que o sistema oral tem traços distintivos diferentes do sistema ortográfico no Brasil, em que poucos estudos até hoje foram realizados sob o prisma da grafemática. Tem-se por hipótese que há regras possíveis de serem descritas para o uso das letras g e j diante das vogais e e i , onde apresentam dificuldades para o uso ortográfico. Os resultados obtidos indicam que: a) a letra g difere da letra j pois a primeira pertence ao sistema etimológico da Língua Portuguesa; e a segunda, ao sistema fonético. Por esta razão, a letra g grafa valores polifonológicos /g, /; e a letra j , valor monofonológico / /; b) há pares comutativos entre g e j , de forma a considerá-los dois grafemas do sistema ortográfico da Língua Portuguesa: o grafema g do sistema etimológico, em distribuição complementar com a , o , u e o grafema g em distribuição complementar com e , i . Neste sentido, o traço distintivo do grafema g + /a, o, u/ é do subsistema ortográfico e g + /e, i/ do sistema etimológico fonético da língua portuguesa. O grafema j grafa o fonema / / do sistema fonético da língua para palavras novas, entradas para a Língua Portuguesa; mas j grafa palavras de étimos i, y de outras origens que não o latim, por serem palatais na entrada de Língua Portuguesa; por esta razão, são do traço etimológico-fonético; c) na derivação de palavras não há mudança grafemática, a não ser devido à distribuição complementar de forma a grafar g para o traço etimológico-fonético e j para o traço fonético; d) na História da Língua Portuguesa os étimos latinos apresentam uma única letra para grafar /g, / dependendo da vogal que segue; o grafema j grafa a palatização anterior a qualquer vogal, seja oral ou nasal; e) Outras considerações. Verificou-se que devido às confusões existentes, relativas aos étimos das palavras de Língua Portuguesa, que há duas formas de grafar uma mesma palavra, tanto com g quanto com j . A partir dessas ocorrências, conclui-se que é possível de se tratar o Sistema Ortográfico da Língua Portuguesa por modelos teóricos e metodológicos da Fonologia. Contudo, devido ao desconhecimento de étimos, são necessários estudos específicos na área para guiar futuras Reformas Ortográficas