USING PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS ACTIVITIES TO TEACH ENGLISH FOR KINDERGARTEN STUDENTS AT IMMANUEL KINDERGARTEN PONTIANAK

USING PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS ACTIVITIES TO TEACH
ENGLISH FOR KINDERGARTEN STUDENTS AT IMMANUEL
KINDERGARTEN PONTIANAK
Henny Maria Heng, Sudarsono, Clarry Sada.
Masters Study Program of English Language Education Teacher Training and
Education Faculty, Tanjungpura University, Pontianak
Email: angpau78@yahoo.com

Abstract : The purpose of this study was to teach English through phonological
awareness activities for kindergarten students. The focus was on the using of
phonological awareness activities in order to find the improvement in the teaching
learning process, especially students’ improvement in speaking and listening skills.
The data were gathered from parent surveys, students’ oral test, observation, and
video recordings. The data were analyzed before, during, and after the phonological
awareness activities were implemented to determine what impacts this activities
had on students. The results show that there were numerous positive effects from
the phonological awareness activities. Students made remarkable connection with
the letter – sound relationships, were able to transfer their skill to listen and their
ability to use and express oral language in English.

Key Words : Phonological Awareness Activities, Kindergarten Students

Abstrak : Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengajar bahasa Inggris melalui
kegiatan kesadaran fonologi bagi siswa TK. Fokusnya adalah pada menggunakan
kegiatan kesadaran fonologi untuk menemukan peningkatan dalam proses belajar
mengajar, terutama peningkatan siswa dalam keterampilan berbicara dan
keterampilan mendengarkan. Data dikumpulkan dari survei orangtua, tes lisan
siswa, observasi, dan rekaman video. Data dianalisis sebelum, selama, dan setelah
kegiatan kesadaran fonologi yang dilaksanakan untuk menentukan dampak
kegiatan ini terhadap anak-anak. Hasil data menunjukkan bahwa ada banyak efek
positif dari kegiatan kesadaran fonologi. Siswa membuat hubungan yang luar biasa
dengan huruf - hubungan suara, mampu mentransfer keterampilan mereka untuk
mendengarkan dan kemampuan mereka untuk menggunakan dan mengungkapkan
bahasa lisan dalam bahasa Inggris.
Kata kunci: Aktivitas Kesadaran Fonologi, Murid Taman Kanak-kanak

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A

s English has become the common language in the world and it has

also become one of the components of tertiary, secondary, primary and
even pre-school education in the English Foreign Language teaching
contexts, so some kindergartens in Pontianak have begun to teach English
language. In order to reach the teaching and learning goal of English at
kindergartens, the English teachers need to know and to apply the theories of
teaching English to young learners. Besides, they need to know what strategy
can be applied to develop the language of the students. Sudarsono (2012, pp.
128-129) claims,
“ To obtain the maximum achievement, foreign language teachinglearning must be managed in such a way to reach the maximum
quantity and quality. The teaching-learning success may be
determined by how to integrate various factors like teaching-learning
materials and learning styles into the children’s life.”
Children may find difficulty to use and to talk in a foreign language.
Thus, teachers must be able to provide appropriate activities that match with
age of the students in the classroom to teach language. It is also important to
think about how to improve the students’ abilities in learning language.
Cameron (2001, p. 6) state that the ability to learn through instructions and
mediation is the characteristics of human intelligence. With the help of adults,
children can do and understand much more than they can on their own.
The teacher should think the methods and the strategies that may cover

the students’ various learning styles. So, the students will get interested in
learning, especially the foreign language.
Phonological awareness play an important role in the language
development during early childhood, especially from ages of four to six.
Phonological awareness is one component of a larger phonological processing
system used for speaking and listening. Listening as a foundation to master
speaking, so from the kindergarten age, the children should have introduced to
the listening skills. For learners, listening is how spoken language becomes
input. Speaking and listening are the first two skills acquired during human
language development.
Immanuel Kindergarten which is located on Gajahmada Street has
applied the English subject for the Kindergarten students. The English teachers
have used some strategies to teach English as a foreign language to the kids
and to enhance the five and six year-old children’s language acquisition. The
curriculum of Immanuel Kindergarten that is arranged by the teachers focuses
on listening and speaking skills, concrete and familiar objects. The aim of the
teaching English Subject are to introduce basic knowledge about English
language to the students and also prepare the students to continue their study
to an elementary school especially to Immanuel Bilingual Class that requires
the students to speak English. However most of the students have difficulties

in learning English.
To overcome the above problem it was interesting to do an action
research study to improve how phonological awareness activities succeed in
having the kindergarten student’s literacy acquisition including the

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improvement of the students’ ability to express oral language, the improvement
in their vocabulary, confidence in manipulating letters and sounds.
This research was used to help other teachers in Immanuel
Kindergarten to improve their teaching strategies especially phonological
awareness.

METHOD
This research study was designed to discover how phonological
awareness activities are improved to increase listening skills of kindergarten
students. This study is an action research. According to Miller, Greenwood &
Maquire (2003, p. 11), an action research challenges the claims of a positivistic
view of knowledge which holds that in order to be credible, a research must
remain objective and value-free. Hine (2013, p. 152) urges that the main goal

of an action research is to determine ways to enhance the lives of children, at
the same time, an action research can enhance the lives of those professionals
who work within educational systems.
According to Hensen cited in Hine (2013, p. 152), action research (a)
helps teachers develop new knowledge directly related to their classrooms, (b)
promotes reflective teaching and thinking, (c) expands teachers’ pedagogical
repertoire, (d) puts teachers in charge of their craft, (e) reinforces the link
between practice and student achievement, (f) fosters an openness towards new
ideas and learning new things, and (g) gives teachers ownership of effective
practices. While Eilleen, (2000, p. 1) refers action research to a process in
which participants examine their own educational practice systematically and
carefully, using the techniques of the research.
In this research, the researcher had emphasized on the implementation
of phonological awareness activities and its influence on the teaching learning
process. The researcher has identified the problems, tried a different way of
doing things, reflected on that was happening. During and after the
implementation of phonological awareness activities, the researcher has
observed and evaluated progress by establishing procedures for making
judgment about what happening.
The students who had participated in this research were five to six years

old students of Immanuel Kindergarten in the academic year 2015/2016. The
number of the students were eight. They consist of six girls and two boys.
Three of them have followed Kindergarten for almost two years since they
were in Play Group Class. Three of them have followed for a year since they
were in Class A, and two of them are just followed since July 2015 in Class B.
This study adopted the popular cyclical of action research by Kemmis
and Mc Taggart cited in (Burns, 2010, p. 8). It consists of four steps: planning,
acting, observing, reflecting. The steps are discussed as follows.

1. Planning Phase

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The researcher as the teacher provided a teaching learning activity to
solve the problem based on the information collected from the elementary
school teachers, most students still have difficulties in reading and writing
skills, although the students had had English Subject in Kindergarten before.
The students were eager to learn, but they faced difficulty in learning English
or the materials they learnt was not interesting. So it needed to adjust the
activities in teaching English in the classroom. In order to investigate those

problems, the tools or things that the researcher prepared were parents survey,
oral test, lesson plan, observation sheet, smartphone to record, and field notes
2. Acting Phase
In this study, the researcher acted as the practitioner who implemented
the proposed strategy by referring the activities done in class. Every day during
the project, students were guided to focus on phonological awareness activities
such as creating compound words, counting syllables, reciting nursery rhymes,
identifying rhyming words, and practicing tongue twisters.
The following framework were the phonological activities used in each
cycle:
Table 1
The Phonological Activities (1st cycle)
th
29
Identifying - Teacher greeted the students and asked the students
October
Rhymes
to say out their name
2015
- Teacher asked the students to sing the ABC song

together.
- Teacher introduced the sound of the alphabet by
using flash cards.
- The students followed the teacher.
- The teacher introduced the rhymes.
- The teacher asked the students to listen to the words
that mentioned by the teacher.
- The students tried to identify whether the words
rhyme or do not rhyme.
- The teacher tried to help the students to identify the
rhymes by using game.
- The students will put their hands on their head when
they listened to words did not rhyme.
rd
3
Counting
- Teacher greeted the students.
November Syllables
- Teacher asked the students to sing the ABC song.
2016

- Teacher and students reviewed the beginning
sound.
- Teacher pronounced the names of the students,
syllable by syllable, while clapping it put before
inviting the students to say and clap the names.
- Teacher asked the students to clap the beat and
count the beats/syllables of their names.
- Teacher extended this activity with other words
familiar to the students.

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17th
November
2015

Nursery
Rhymes

- The students said out one word that they know and

count the beats /syllables of the words.
- Teacher greeted the students.
- Teacher asked the students to repeat the beginning
sound by using flash cards.
- The teacher and the students sing the song
“Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”
- The teacher played the song “Old Mc Donald” by
playing the lap top.
- The teacher and the students sing the song “If you
happy and know it”
- By singing the above songs, teacher introduced the
sound to the students.
- Teachers asked the students to read the words from
the flash card by reading the sound (blending).

Table 2
The Phonological Activities (2nd cycle)
th
25
Identifying - Teacher greeted the students.

November
Rhymes - Students reviewed the sound of the alphabet by
2015
using flash cards.
- Teacher reviewed the rhymes.
- Teacher explained the rhyming games to the
students.
- The students would turn around when they hear the
rhyming words but it was not, the students would
stop.
- The students tried to identify whether the words
rhyme or do not rhyme.
- Teacher tried to help the students to identify the
rhymes by using other games.
- The students would stand up if they hear the
rhyming words, and sat down when it was not
rhyming words.
- Other game. The students will put their hands on
their head when they listened to words did not
rhyme.
rd
3
Counting - Teacher greeted the students.
December Syllables - Teacher and students reviewed the beginning
2015
sound.
- Teacher reviewed the syllables, by clapping and
counting the beats of the names of the students.
- Teacher showed the box that had been prepared,
teacher took one thing from the box, said out the
word and asked the students to follow.

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8th
December
2015

Nursery
Rhymes

- Teacher asked the students to count the
beats/syllables of the word.
- Teacher asked one by one student to take one thing
from the box, say out the name of the thing and
count the syllables.
- After all things had been taken out, teacher asked
the students to review by doing the same things.
- Teacher asked the students to tell any things in the
classroom and say out the word and count the
beats/syllables.
- Teacher greeted the students.
- Teacher taught the students the rhymes
I have a pen, my pen is blue.
I have a friend, my friend is you
- Teacher played the video of nursery rhymes,
students followed the song to sing.
- Students mentioned the name of the things that they
saw from the video.

3. Observing Phase
Observing had done during the teaching learning process in the
classroom. In the observing phase, during the implementation of phonological
awareness activities, some parts of teaching learning process was recorded
using smart phone in order to get the certain data to be analysed. Besides,
when the researcher as the teacher was teaching the students, the collaborator
played the role as the observer to record and took note of anything that occurred
in the teaching learning process . In conducting the observation, the observer
were equipped with observation sheet and field notes to record the required
data. Thus, the data of this research were obtained from the result of the
observation and parents survey.
4. Reflecting Phase
In this phase, the researcher had reflected on, evaluated and described
the effects of the action for revised plan for the following cycle. The result of
the observation sheet, field notes, the result of students’ pre and post oral test,
and the parents survey were analyzed and discussed in order to know what
points had been successfully achieved or not. The important feedbacks or
results of the reflection were used to determine what to be improved in the next
cycles. The researcher expected to find out the benefit or the strength as well
as the weakness of the process. After knowing the weakness, the researcher
decided what action / planning should be applied in the following steps. It
could change a certain action/treatment or add some more in order to improve
the teaching learning process.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
Findings

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The aim of this study was to discover using phonological awareness to
teach English for Kindergarten students. The focus was how phonological
activities improve kindergarten students in learning English especially in
listening skills.
The previous problems found (in pre-research) were the students’
passiveness in learning English. They faced difficulties in learning English
because it is a foreign language for them, and the materials they learnt was not
interesting. The students lost their motivation in learning English although the
English teacher had tried their best to motivate the students to learn English.
However throughout the phonological awareness activities process, all
the students were actively engaged in learning English and gave positive
feedback in class.
The data were collected throughout the course of research project.
Three major activities emerged. The first was identifying rhymes. This activity
helped the students to develop phonological awareness through play full
activity (games). The second was introducing the students to the nature of
syllables by leading them to clap and count the syllables in their names and
other familiar words. The third was providing nursery rhymes by playing video
through the laptop and LCD.
In each activity, the teacher introduced the students the first sound of
words by using flash cards in order to link them to the phonological awareness
activities. For the first activity, the majority of the eight students were not able
to say out the first sound of the word that was showed by the teacher. After the
second and the third activity, they demonstrated growth in the ability to make
or to say out the sounds correctly.
Identifying Rhymes, based on the reviewing of the pre oral test,
almost all the students do not know anything about rhymes. Although three of
the eight students can guess the words. It was difficult for them to understand
the rhymes because it was a new activity.
To help the students to know about rhyming, the teacher taught the
students to identify the rhymes using games. Based on the observation notes,
in the first cycle, the majority of the students were not able to identify the
rhymes. Before playing the game, the teacher said out the rhyming words, and
the students repeat after teacher. When they heard the different sounds of the
words that were read out by the teacher, the students put their hands on their
head. However, the students were not able to play the game well and they
looked confused. They were not interested in that activity, probably the
children did not understand the rhymes. So, the teacher continued to the
second cycles, by adding some games to identify the rhymes.
For the second cycle, the teacher asked the students to turn around
when the students hear the same sounds, but when the sound was sounding
different, the students would stop. The teacher also changed the way, when the
students heard the words with the rhyming words, they would walk in their
place, but if the words were not rhyming words, the students would turn down.
Based on the note of the observer and the reviewing of the video
recording, there showed the students made improvement. The students seemed

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enjoyed the games after they did it several times. Most of the students could
do the games well.
From the result of the Post-Oral Test, the improvement students made
in this activity were incredible. The students have been able to identify the
rhyming words. They just got a little confused to identify which word does
rhyme of dog – bug – frog. Because of the limited time, so the researcher had
not found the problem why the students got difficulty to differentiate the rhyme
of dog – bug – frog.
Natural Syllables Findings, back to the pre-oral test that had been
given before the researcher gave them the activities, two of the questions were
“How many beats or syllables do you hear in these words? and “How many
beats or syllables are in your name?”. From the observation, only two students
of eight students can count the syllables well without making mistakes. The
others could do because the teacher helped them.
When introducing the activities that emerged to the students’ ability to
count the syllables of their names and other words that were familiar to them,
the students got confused. Early on the project, the students had little
knowledge about syllables and some could hardly know the syllables of their
names. As the weeks went by, and the research began to take shape, students
demonstrated growth in their ability to count the syllables of their names and
other words mentioned. They could also say out the words that they know and
count the syllables of the words. The students could say out the amount of their
names’ syllables, by saying out their names, and clapping to count the
syllables.
After introducing the concept of counting the number syllables in
words, the teacher had taught the students the methods of breaking down words
by their syllables by either clapping out the syllables in a word and putting out
the words into the syllables boxes based on the number of the syllables. The
students participated in counting games.
The students liked this activity very much. They enjoyed the games
happily, especially when the teacher asked them to take out things from the
box that had prepared by the teacher. After they picked out the things, they said
out the name of the things and told the teacher the number syllables of the
word. The teacher also asked the students to look for anything in the classroom,
when they had found the thing, the students said out the word and the number
of the word’s syllables.
After reviewing the notes of the observer and video recordings with
syllables work, it was clear that the students was correctly able to clap their
hands to represent the proper number of syllables in a word. The students really
enjoyed the work with counting syllables and the concept made sense to them.
They were able to use their skills of syllables counting to break downs words
which appeared to make them very proud.
The researcher also found the support data of the improvement of the
oral language skills while analyzing the parents’ survey that were sent and
returned in December 2015. One question: "Do you see any change in the
English literacy skills of your child over the last few months (positive or

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negative)? If so, what changes have you seen?” Almost all the parents said they
noticed positive changes in their child’s language skills. The parents said they
noticed larger vocabularies from their child. Another parents said they noticed
their child had a big eagerness to learn English, liked to ask anything regarding
the English words.
Nursery Rhymes, throughout the course of the data collection, the
researcher administered the pre-oral test in October and the post-oral test in
December. One of the question on the test was: Can you sing an English rhyme
or song for me? Back in October, only two of eight students were able to
accurately complete this task. There were also very little variety of nursery
rhymes that the students attempted to try. Most of the students tried to recite
“Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, other student tried “Ten Little Indian Boy”.
There is one student tried to sing the Indonesian that had been translated into
English “ Satu-Satu, Aku Sayang Ibu”, “One and One, I Love My Mother”.
Although this song is not English nursery rhyme, the teacher let her sing that
song, because she could not sing another one.
During the post-test in December, the same question was asked. This
time however, all eight students were able to accurately recite a nursery rhymes
of their choice. In addition to almost all students mastering this task, there were
much more variety in the rhymes students decided to attempt. One student still
chose the rhymes, “Twinkle-Twinkle Little Star, and the other one still tried to
recite “One and One I Love My Mother” while the other six recited “Fly-Fly
the Butterfly”, “The Wheel on The Bus Goes Round and Round,” Rain-Rain
Go Away”, “Johny-Johny”, “Apple Round”, “Rainbow”.
The researcher also used nursery rhymes as a bridge to introduce the
concept of the rhymes. By listening to, acting out, and reciting nursery rhymes,
the students learn about rhyming words and phonemic awareness such as
segmentation by using the tune of “Twinkle-Twinkle Little Star”, sound
isolation (beginning sound and middle sound) by using the tune of “Old Mc
Donald Had A Farm” ,and blending by using the tune of “If You’re Happy”.
Letter-Sound Connection Findings and Ability to use English,
when analyzing the data that were collected, students showed good
improvement in their abilities to connect letters and sounds and the ability to
express oral language. Through the analysis of the parent surveys, the
researcher concluded that the parents also noticed the improvement of their
children in learning English. Most of the parents said they noticed the positive
changes in their child’s language skill. The parents said that their child knew
more, spoke more, asked more about English, although their pronunciation
were not 100 % correct. One parent wrote, "Bethsy applied some of the songs
at home, invited to play guessing goods taken in a container using English, and
get to know some new vocabularies, such as comb, iguana, and others that she
has not learned over the years."
Students’ Positive Attitudes toward the Phonological Awareness
Activities, during the implementation of phonological awareness activities, the
teacher found the children became much more aware of language skills, and
they are now better able to use their knowledge to build upon those skills.

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Through the use of phonological awareness activities and letter sounds,
the students have made very positive gains in letter identification and are
making astonishing connections between letter and their sounds in numerous
situation.
Based on the findings gathered through students’ oral test, observation,
as well as parents’ surveys, it is clear that the implication of phonological
awareness activities has increased the students’ language skills especially
listening skills.
The students’ phonological awareness activities improvement can be
noticed based on the result of the pre-oral test and the post – oral test as the
supporting data.

Table 3
The Students’ Phonological Awareness Activities improvement
based on the Pre and Post Oral Test
Name of Students
Phonological Awareness Activities
(By Coding)
Nursery Rhymes Identifying Rhymes Counting Syllables
Pre
Post
Pre
Post
Pre
Post
GA
MB
BSB
MB
BSH
MB
BSB
RCBP
BSH
BSB
BSH
BSH
BSH
BSB
JAT
BSH
BSB
BSH
BSH
BSH
BSB
DR
MB
BSH
MB
BSH
BSH
BSB
SEL
BB
BSH
MB
BSB
BSH
BSB
MBALW
MB
BSH
BSH
BSB
BSB
BSB
MET
MB
BSH
MB
BSH
BSH
BSB
NH
MB
BSH
MB
BSH
BSH
BSB
Legends:
BB = Belum Berkembang (under developed).
MB = Mulai Berkembang (developing).
BSH = Berkembang Sesuai Harapan (developed according to the
expectation).
BSB = Berkembang Sangat Baik (developing very well).
Nursery Rhymes :
BB = The student did not want to sing
MB = The student was able to sing with many un appropriate words.
BSH = The student was able to sing with a very little mistake.
BSB = The student was able to sing without making mistakes.
Identifying Rhymes :
BB = The student identified 0 – 4 correct items of the oral test.
MB = The students identified 5 -11 correct items of the oral test.
BSH = The students identified 12 -14 correct items of the oral test.
BSB = The students identified 15 correct items. (all items in the oral test).
Counting Syllables :

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BB = The student identified no correct items of the oral test.
MB = The students identified 1 – 3 correct items of the oral test with
help..
BSH = The students identified 4 -5 correct items of the oral test without
help.
BSB = The students identified 6 correct items without help. (all items in
the oral test).
Discussion
After reviewing the findings from this action research project and
analyzing the data of observational notes, parents survey, and oral-test
suggested that students improved their skill to connect letters to the sounds
they make. Pullen & Justice (2003, p. 88) point out that without a strong
understanding of phonological awareness, the concept of the alphabetic
principle makes very little sense to children. Because of the strong focus on
phonological awareness that was emphasized, the students were able to
understand the concept of the alphabetic principle and therefore understand the
specific relationship between sounds and written letters.
The analysis of data also concluded that students developed more
confidence in their abilities to express and use oral language. Practice with oral
language in the form of reciting or singing nursery rhymes encouraged students
to have fun with language and the rhyme and repetition of the nursery rhymes
made them easy for children to learn. According to Sayakhan & Bradley
(2014, p. 85), the rhythm in many nursery rhymes invites listeners to react
immediately. They may, for example, clap their hands, or jump up and down
to music of lines. Furthermore Sayakhan & Bradley ( 2014, p. 86) explain that
listening to and reciting nursery rhymes enhances early reading skills and
phonemic awareness which is said to predict a child’s reading success.
The conclusions that has been drawn from this action research project
could have some important implications for the field of Early Childhood
education. Phonological awareness activities in the classroom can contribute
to an increase to in literacy acquisition in young children. Young children come
into the world full of curiosity and eager to learn.
Teachers should incorporate a variety of developmentally appropriate
games and activities to support and increase these phonological awareness
skills. Practice that occurs in a natural, fun way will guarantee that children
will develop a strong foundation of phonological awareness, and this
foundation will make learning to read and write a much simpler and more
enjoyable tasks. There are numerous activities that children can be involved in
to promote different phonological awareness skills such as reciting nursery
rhymes (songs), participating in clapping rhythms.
The above claim is supported by Sanderful, Gamble, Warren, & Hicks
(2006, p. 3) who argue that phonological awareness activities help children
recognize the sounds, rhythm, of spoken-words, not written-words or letter
names.

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Another study which support the above claims also come from Carolyn
Jean (2011, p. 46) who proves that implementing daily phonological awareness
time certainly helped strength the ability of the students in the classroom to
transfer their knowledge to new situations.
There are a lot of researches that stress the importance of taking time
to explicitly teach these basic phonological awareness skills because they seem
to be directly related to a child’s ability to become literate. As more and more
studies show that teaching phonological awareness really is valuable and
important.

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
Conclusion
The following conclusion are based on the research findings; the
researcher draws the conclusions as follow: (a) Students demonstrated a greater
ability to make letter-sound connections. They had the abilities to recognize
letters more frequently as well as connect specific letters to their letter sound;
(b) Another result of phonological awareness activities included an increase in
student’s ability to use and express the oral language after they listened to the
teacher. The children were more confident recite the nursery rhymes or song
very well. Parents survey also supported this conclusion, they said that they
noticed positive changes in their language skills; (c) Phonological awareness
activities impacted children’ listening skill and literacy acquisition in a very
positive way. Students developed stronger letter-sound connections, increased
their oral language and abilities to transfer knowledge, and even improved at
making their own self-discoveries about language; (d) Parents noticed children
using phonological awareness skills they learned at school in their home
environment, such as clapping the syllables in their family’s name, saying out
the name of the things they saw in English, singing the nursery rhymes more,
or identifying rhyming words on their own;(e) It should acknowledge that this
study had a number of limitations. First, the small number of participants
allows for no generalization. Second, although the students were satisfied with
the activities, applying more variety activities could have been allowed; and
finally, the time constrain created some limitations for this action research
project. If there were more time, there would be more flexibility with the
schedule.
Suggestion
Based on the findings and the conclusion of this research, here the
researcher would like to provide some suggestions for the teacher other
researchers, as follows: (a) In order to implement effective phonological
awareness activities programs in the classroom, teachers need to be educated
first. Teachers need to understand how phonological awareness develops; (b)
Time needs to be devoted to developing students’ phonological awareness
skills on a daily basis. This activities implemented need to be carefully thought
out and planned out and students’ progress should be monitored so that

12

teachers know when the students have mastered the skill; (c) When instructing
the phonological awareness activities, it is very important to do so in a quiet,
distraction-free environment. Since phonological awareness depends on the
child’s ability to identify, manipulate, and distinguish between various sounds,
it is crucial to help them develop their ability to listen carefully early on in an
environment that is conducive to listening; (d) While the research conducted
seems to show that phonological awareness activities in the classroom creates
positive results in relation to literacy acquisition, there may be certain
questions that world be worth investigating.

REFERENCES
Burns, A. (2010). Doing Action Research in English Language Teaching. A Guide
for Practitioners. New York : Routledge.
Cameron, L. (2001). Teaching Languages to Young Learners. United Kingdom:
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