Real English: The alphabet and spelling

In this installment of Real English videos the alphabet is dealt with.

Watch the video to revise how to pronounce the alphabet.

Pay attention to the following:

As the speakers are American, they spell the letter Z as / zi: / and not / zed / as the British do.

The second speaker, Gillian (28"), gives us a very practical way to memorise the alphabet. She recites the alphabet according to the vowel sound the letter has:

/ei/ A H J K
/i:/ B C D E G P T V (Z)
/e/ F L M N S X Z
/ai/ I Y
/əʊ/ O
/u:/ Q U W
/a:/ R

Some of the spekers show a tendency to spell their names in groups of three letters, pausing for a split second to let the listener figure out the word being spelt.

You can watch the same video with subtitles on the Real English web page here.

Real English also provides this video to test our ability to understand words/names being spelt.

Again, you can watch the same video with subtitles on the Real English we page here.

New alphabet for kids

Learning the alphabet is fun. Singing the alphabet song has got to be one of the highlights of early life. When they started school many years ago, English students had to learn the ABC. Kids still do, but the only thing that stays the same is that A still stands for Apple!
This is a good opportunity for lower level students (Básico 1 and Básico 2) to revise the spelling of the alphabet letters, and compare the way even the alphabet itself has adapted to changing times.

Remember you can click on the Alphabet tag on the right to find a few more entries on this blog with specific work on spelling and the alphabet, some of which include sound.

Animated alphabet

Through The Spelling Blog I have discovered the Poison Rouge Animated Alphabet. You can hover over the letters to see a word and image for that letter as well as listening to the pronunciation of the word. What's more, if you click on an image a little animation or a game comes up.

Self-study activity:
To practise the English alphabet with Poison Rouge you can do the following with all the letters of the alphabet.
 / ʤeɪ / for jug.
/ a: / for rocket.

If you want extra practice, you can spell all the letters in a word:
jug / ʤeɪ /   / ju: /   / ʤi: /

If you need to revise how the letters of the alphabet are pronounced, try this Sesame Street video. It's good fun and makes the task easy.

Alphabet revisited

This is a really beautiful presentation by Weef. He must be an English teacher who teaches children, but we are extremely grateful to him for coming up with this wonderful slideshow.

Self-study idea:
The presentation can help us to revise the alphabet, that's its main purpose. But we can make the best of it by pronouncing the alphabet letters as we 'turn the pages' of the e-book:
A is pronounced / ei /
B is pronounced / bi: /
C is pronounced / si: /, etc.

To revise the pronunciation of the alphabet letters you can visit this entry http://mythatsenglish.blogspot.com/2010/09/english-alphabet.html

At the same time, we can get familiar with some basic vocabulary (bike, elephant, etc.) and with the expression 'get from one place to another' (get in this context means 'go'), which is studies in Module 2 unit 2.

A, E, I, O, U

From a Clil to Climb comes this mini-presentation that can help students in Básico1 level pronounce the vowel letters in English.

The English alphabet

Revise the pronunciation of the English alphabet with this video.



You can check how well you know the alphabet with this interactive game of National Museums Liverpool.




You can revise the English alphabet with the activities, games and songs from this site.