English is taught as a second language in Malaysian schools, and phonics is recognized as important for improving English proficiency. Phonics teaches students the relationships between letters and sounds to help with reading and spelling. While phonics has been used in other countries for years, it is now emphasized more in Malaysia. However, teaching pronunciation is not regularly done in Malaysian classrooms as teachers prioritize other areas like writing and grammar. Phonics can help students learn to read independently by decoding unfamiliar words using letter-sound relationships. It also aids spelling and increases reading speed. But Malaysian students may face difficulties with phonics due to differences between English and Malay phonics rules.

1. Introduction
English is taught as a second language in all Malaysian primary and secondary schools. The
mastery of English is essential for pupils to gain access to information and knowledge written
in English . In the line with the government’s policy in strengthening English, the curriculum
has been designed to produce pupils who will be proficient in the language. This curriculum
stresses more on the development of critical literacy. In Malaysia, phonics has been
recognised by the Ministry of education as a key instrument to improve English Language
among the younger generations. Teaching phonics for Malaysian primary students can build
essential reading and literacy skills in the classroom. The Malaysian Ministry of Education
(2011) English Standardized Curriculum for Primary Schools (KSSR) strongly recommends
the use of phonics when teaching students for the younger age of students. Although phonics
has been in education for many years in various countries however in Malaysia it is now
becoming the latest word in schools. Learning pronunciation in class is not done regularly
because teachers emphasize other components in English such as writing, grammar and
literature as they want their students to excel in their exams which focus on these
components. According to Chitravelu et al. (1995) in ELT Methodology: Principles and
Practice, phonics is a system of teaching children to read by paying special attention to help
children to see the relationships between English graphemes and their sounds, and blending
them together to make out meaningful words. Through the phonics approach, children will
first learn the isolated sound of each grapheme and then they put the sound together to form
the whole words.
The Effectiveness of teaching phonics
All the while the level 2 students (year 4 – year 6) been emphasized in teaching and learning
grammar, reading and writing. There will be a small component of sound system where
teachers need to teach the pronunciation for certain words given. Personally in my opinion I
think we should teach phonetics in our classroom. It is good for teachers to begin with basic
literacy skills in order to build a strong foundation of language skills. Basic listening and
speaking are introduced in order to help pupils enrich their understanding of the language.
The strategy of phonics is introduced in order to help pupils begin to read and a good
foundation in penmanship will help pupils acquire good handwriting. Teachers and parents
are now adding phonics to their method of teaching English to children. One of the main
benefits of learning phonics is to teach children to decipher words on their own, which means
they ultimately need less help with reading. When children learn the sounds that letters and

2. groups of letters make, they can decode words they have not encountered before in their
reading, which allows children to learn new words independently. A foundation in phonics
can also help children learn parts of words they can remember when they encounter new
words they have never seen before, which makes learning to read much easier. Additionally,
phonics can lead to whole-word recognition, which helps children read faster as they practice.
As children recognize whole sections of words without sounding out individual phonemes to
decipher each word, reading is much faster and more fluid. Children also tend to develop
their spelling skills as they learn which letters or combinations of letters create sounds in
words they write.
The Problems Faced by the Students
Students who are not literate in their own language or whose language does not have a
written form may not understand some concepts and need to be taught about the functions of
print (Peregoy & Boyle, 2000). Beside this students may have learned to read and write in a
native language in which the letters correspond to different sounds than they do in English, or
they may have learned to read and write in a language with characters that correspond to
words or portions of words. In contrast, vowel letters look the same in Spanish and English
but are named differently and represent very different sounds. Therefore, English vowel
sounds and their numerous spellings present a challenge to Spanish literate students learning
to read English because the one-to-one correspondence between vowel letters and vowel
sounds in Spanish does not hold true in English (Peregoy & Boyle, 2000).
In Malaysian context the students might have difficulties in learning phonetics because
letters and sound is regular and reliable in Malay language. Some English words can be
decoded sound by sound using the English graphophonics system and the meaning can be
learnt. Some English words appear to have the same letters and even meaning as the Malay
language. So these examples might confuse the children in learning and pronouncing the
words correctly. English and Malay are compulsory languages that are taught in the
Malaysian school system. Malaysian children will eventually be able to speak, write and read
in these two languages after entering preschool regardless of their ethnicity. Therefore,
knowledge of phonological properties of the languages used by Malaysian children will help
in understanding the phonological acquisition of these languages in terms of language

3. interference. Phonemically, English shared 18 consonants with either Mandarin Chinese or
Malay, with six consonants (v, z, θ, ð, ʃ, ʒ) distinct to English. It is worth remarking that
some of these consonants which are distinct to English also appear in the Malay language
(Phoon, 2010). The phonetic realization of voiced stops /b/ in English is similar to unvoiced
stops /p/ in Mandarin Chinese and Malay. The /b/ sound in Malay is pre-voiced. The phonetic
realization of /l/ in English and Mandarin Chinese is relatively dark [ɫ] but it is produced as
clear [l] in Malay. The phonetic realizations of /r/ in English, Mandarin Chinese and Malay
are respectively produced as approximant [ɹ], retroflex [ɻ] and trill [r]. As for vowels, English
shares five vowels with Mandarin Chinese and Malay. These shared vowels are mostly long
vowels. The number of unshared vowels which are specific to English is slightly more than
the number of shared vowels in Mandarin Chinese and Malay. Those unshared vowels are
predominantly short vowels. In fact, Mandarin Chinese and Malay regard all vowels as
neutral in length as there is no distinction of vowel length in either language (Phoon, 2010).
The following table (Table 1) shows the differences between English, Mandarin Chinese and
Malay in terms of consonants and vowels.

4. How phonics help with the acquisition of English?
Phonics involves learning the sounds heard in the English language and how to use these
sounds to read and write. The English language is made up of approximately 42 principal
sounds. Once children learn to hear these sounds in words and represent them with letter
symbols, they are well on their way to understanding the nature of the English language. The
children learn how to utilize their knowledge of sounds by blending the sounds together to
create a word. In fact, they are beginning to "crack the code" of the English language.

5. It is important to remember that phonics does not involve learning simply the letter names of
the alphabet. Instead, we must remember that phonics means learning the sounds of the
English language. For example, the word rain has four letters but only three sounds: r-ai-n.
Phonics is the word used to describe the sound the letters make. They are a system of
teaching reading that stresses on the relationship between the sounds of English letters and
the letters or combination of letters that produce them. The word bat for example can be read
from its three sounds /b/ /a/ /t/. The word thick is also made up of three sounds /th/ /i/ /ck/.
Phonics advocators argue that in order to learn to read, most children require a great deal of
explicit instruction in the rules of printed text (Wren, S., 2003).
Importance of standard English
Recently it was announced that the new English curriculum to be implemented in primary
schools in 2011 will be based on standard British English pronunciation (Satiman Jamin,
2010). From the view of certain teachers, using standard British accent is most welcome. It is
beneficial and it is good to use in Malaysia particularly focusing in teaching grammar and
formal language but to have the real British accent we need to bring the native speakers here.
In contrast, some teachers have different opinions in using Standard British English.
Teachers are claiming that our own Malaysian English pronunciation and accent are suitable
to use because other people from different countries able to understand when we are
communicating. The teachers‟ preference for a Malaysian accent but at the same time, on the
face of, it accepting the use of a Standard British English model suggests a conflict between
what they are comfortable with (Our English) and what they deem to be the correct variety
(Their English). This is not surprising if we consider the general tendency to equate
Malaysian English with the colloquial spoken variety (which tends to be more ethnically
marked) rather than considering Malaysian English as a continuum of overlapping varieties.
In fact, the students‟ and even the teachers‟ insecurities about their own English
pronunciation mirrors the underlying perception of Malaysian English pronunciation being
inferior to a native accent, in particular British English. Such a deficit view tends to
downplay the possibility of having a local norm for pronunciation, and instead extols the
virtue of an endonormative one such as British English.

6. Conclusion
The inclusion of phonics in education places an emphasis on "word attack skills" rather than
expecting children to learn thousands of words by memory. Teachers who follow a phonics
approach to reading and writing believe that it is much quicker and easier to learn 42 sounds
rather than thousands of words by sight. The children do not need to rely on the teacher for
teaching them correct English vocabulary. The children will be able to use their sounds to
read words for themselves. Once children learn sounds and learn how to blend them
together, they will be able to read approximately 90% of the words in the English language. It
is important to remember, however, that phonics should not be treated in isolation when
teaching the English language. Phonics itself, is a great tool for learning to read and write.
However, in an environment where English is a second or foreign language, teachers still
need to focus on helping the children develop a spoken vocabulary of English words. That
way, when they eventually learn how to blend sounds together to read and write words, they
will have more of an awareness for the meaning of the words they have created. Spoken
English needs to be used in conjunction with phonics.

7. References
Curriculum Development Council (1997). Syllabuses for primary schools: English Language
(Primary 1-6). Hong Kong: the Education Department
Peregoy, S. F. and Boyle, O. F. (2000). English learners reading English: What we know,
what we need to know. Theory Into Practice. Vol. 39, No. 4, pp. 237-247.
Purewal, S. (2008). Synthetic phonics and the literacy development of second language
young learners. University of Leeds. UK
Roach,P (2010). English Phonetics and Phonology (3rd Edition) Edinburgh Cambrige
University Press.
Satiman Jamin. (2010, February 13). Correct phonics to be part of new English curriculum.
New Straits Times. Retrieved on March 3, 2010 from http://www.nst.com.my.