MULTIMEDIA TOOL FOR BASIC LITERACY: ADOPTING APPLIED

PHONETICS

Farah Nadia Azman, Mohamad Lutfi Dolhalit, Faaizah Shahbodin

Faculty of Information and Communication Technology,
Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (UTeM), Melaka.
farah@utem.edu.my
lutfi@utem.edu.my
faaizah@utem.edu.my

Abstract
In Malaysia, a child is expected to be able to read by the age 7 before they entered formal
schooling system. This shows that an effective teaching and learning method should be taken
in coaching basic reading skills conducted in preschool. Some method has been implemented
incorporate multimedia approach in teaching reading. While this is a good achievement, an
e-learning environment will not be successful without a meaningful instruction. A principled
method should be identified in developing an interactive educational multimedia tool in
assisting students to read. In this paper, the phonetic approach is proposed in teaching
reading skills presented with the power effect of multimedia and efficient instructional
design. We first observe printed media sold nationwide that apply phonetic approach. We
then borrow the basic ideas from the observed materials and classify lists of content
equivalence. If applied phonetics are understood and used effectively, an immediate impact
could be achieved in using multimedia assisted learning in classroom environment.
Keywords: Interactive Courseware, Multimedia Instruction, Phonetics, Educational Tool

1. Introduction

Official statistics from the Malaysian Minister of Education had reported by Sapidin(2005)
about 100,000 of local students are not able to read, write or count. This results shown that a
dedicated effort must be executed to overcome illiteracy among children. Motivated by views
from Ab. Ghani et al (2009) on the transformation of the Malaysian academic system that
emphasis on the usage of ICT in teaching and learning, the integration between multimedia
technology and education is an expandable prospect that remains to be explored. The current
courseware/CD based learning tools have obvious attraction such as visually appealing
presentation. Nonetheless, Howles dan Pettengill (1993) expressed that an effective learning
experience using computer technology could not be achieved without the ability to
incorporate pedagogical tools correctly.

In order to ensure the success of designing a multimedia tool for teaching Bahasa Melayu, a
systematic theoretical orientation should be applied to educate basic literacy skills. Therefore,
this research is conducted to develop an interactive courseware prototype that relatively
adapts the basic fundamentals of applied phonetics. This method is chosen due to its
advantages compared to traditional literacy teaching method that rote a list of syllables.
Yee(2007) explained that the rote method caused students to recurrently confuse with sound
and symbol. Students have a hard time reading and spelling words joined to prefixes as they
progress to intermediate level.

Hence, by applying phonetic theories, the courseware may reduce difficulties of

distinguishing sound combination into their individual parts. This is done by limiting students
to focus on sound of symbol letters by sight without memorizing the name of the letters. This

1
interactive tool can also be considered as an assistive electronic teaching tool for Bahasa
Melayu teachers. This research will focus on “basic” pronunciation rules for instance those
practices in phonics reading program.

2. Applied Phonetics

Theoretic or pure phonetics and phonemics are close related fields and are discussed together
in this research to sustain the aim exemplified in applied phonetics. Generally, phonetics is a
discipline of linguistics which centralizes on the research of the sounds produced and used in
human speech. While phonemes is the auditory procedure of categorizing the sounds to
match up printed letters with their proper sounds which is explicitly presented using / / slash
lines to mark off symbols. Considering Samsudin’s findings (2007), by concerning the
inventory and structure of sounds in a language, phonemic transcription is formed to describe
pronunciation in a standard form.

In Malay language, segmental analysis identified that there are 24 pure phonemes and 10
borrowed phonemes. Zahid et al (2006) elaborated that from the 24 pure phonemes, there are
6 vowels (/a, e, ə, i, o/) and 18 consonants (/p, t k, b, d, g, c, j, s, h, 1, r, m, n, ɲ , ŋ , w, y/)
listed. These phonemes were given symbolic letters in spellings which also includes
combined letters such as /kh/, /gh/, /ng/, /ny/, /sy/ and one phoneme for each letters.
According the new spelling system by the government's Language and Literacy Agency
(Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka) demonstrated the letter ‘e’ symbolized two phonemes which are
and /e/ and /ə/. Statistics by Yopp (1995) has established significant benefaction to command
in reading with phonemic awareness. We rely on these general rules of in Malay phonemes
in the content design of our multimedia application. By reducing the number of symbolic
letters with standard modern Malay alphabet writing system considerably, it would be
possible to express syllables as segments of consonants and vowels phonemes.

3. Existing Materials

Observations were carried out towards printed materials that loosely adopt basic phonetics
method in teaching Bahasa Melayu for preschool aged children. Some of these book series
are widely used in language classes in Malaysian preschools. The purpose of this survey is to
examine and classifies what are the key similarities between the content of the books series.


The titles observed are listed as below:


Siri Cepat Membaca Bacalah Anakku Kaedah Fonetik (9 books)


Pakej Cepat Baca Kaedah Fonemik (2 books),


Buku Besar Pantas Membaca(8 books)


Siri Bistari Pantas Membaca(8 books)


Siri Pintar Membaca(8 books)
Kaedah Mudah Membaca Adikku Bijak Membaca(single book)

Our content analysis discovered that most of the book series use two major colors to
differentiate between a vowel and a consonant which are red and black. Two colors are also
used to divide between two or three pairs of syllables in a word. Two of series include
parental guide to assist trainers to prominence on letter sounds and pronunciation of
combined letters and syllables. Unlike the rote method which harps on syllables that are
rarely used such as ‘va, ve, vo, vi, vu’ , the lesson stimulates constantly used letters and
syllables in Malay words. Learners are not required to memorize the name of the alphabets
but the sound of the symbol letters instead.
 Proceedings 3

The lesson usually begins with introduction to all 6 vowels phonemes. Then, the lesson will
focus on Malay regularly used vowels which are /a/, /i/ and /u/. Next, a group of consonants
which consists of two to three letters was established such as /m/ and /n/ or /b/ and /k/ and
more. With limited number of letter sounds needed to be memorized, it comparatively gives
learners better command of structuring syllables. Before new reserved consonants and vowels
are initiated, the lesson continues with constructing short words that on average consist of
two syllables.

Consequently, the learners were taught to read short meaningful sentences which delimited to
two to four words. As the students have shown strong grasp on the existing letters, they will
progress to the next module with more introduction of unused consonants from the previous
lessons. The process repeats with structuring syllables and words using the newly introduced
consonants, vowel phonemes and diphthongs.

By completing the series, learners are expected to be able to spell simple words and short
sentences. However, advanced Malay grammar such as words formation and affixes are not
covered in the books.

4. Courseware Prototype Development

Exploiting the ideas from the observed books, we develop our courseware prototype based on
the understanding of essential segmentation of consonants and vowels which result a word.
The proposed courseware was developed in personal computer in Windows platform. Based
primarily on Clark and Mayer’s research (2003), we develop our prototype comparatively
cater to their compiled multimedia principles. The multimedia design issues and
consideration are discussed and summarized in accordance with these elements.

Educational Content
Letters and disyllables are strategically selected as the stimulus items. Particular attention is
given to these syllables and words that contain affricate consonant-vowel structures (CV or
CVCV). A quantitative meta-analysis evaluation conducted by Ehri et al (2001) reported that
phonemic awareness instruction improved reading in a session lasted between 5 and 18 hours
rather than longer.. Therefore, in order to provide more meaningful purposes for reading the
texts furthermore, these syllables are reused for short sentence formation. The primary
selected vowels are /a/, /i/ and /u/ followed by /m/ /n/ or /b/ and /k/ consonants and the rest of
letter vowels and consonants. Diphthongs letters firstly used are /ai/ and /au/ while /ng/ and
/ny/ are selected as Malay initial combined letters in the prototype.

Interface Design
The multimedia courseware comprises of three main section modules which are single
alphabets (vowels and consonants), open and free syllables, words and short sentences
construction along with two extra modules which are exercise module and parental guide.
Students are expected to navigate and conclude each lesson modules at his or her own pace
and may choose to progress to other modules until the entire section is completed. Exercise
module is an optional module to evaluate students’ accomplishment. The parental guide page
shows list if function buttons used in the courseware.

Text
The text element has a vital role to play in basic literacy learning. In the prototype, consistent
serif font type is used for the main spelling lesson. Lowercase characters are used for the
entire lesson. The colour combination is described as below for each occurring sessions:
  Single letter: Each letter symbol is displayed in red colour.
 Single syllable: First letter symbol is displayed in red and the second letter symbol is

 Two paired disyllables(form a word): First form of syllable is displayed in red and
displayed in black.

 Three paired disyllables (form a word): First form of syllable is displayed in red,
the second form of syllable is displayed in black.

the second form of syllable is displayed in black and the third form of syllable is
displayed in red.
These colour standards are also applied for open and free syllables and sentences.

Figure 1: Single letter pronunciation display

Audio
Another highly important media in the courseware is the audio element. Pre-recorded speech
segments are integrated with each lesson modules which correspond with the letters,
syllables, words and short sentences displayed in the page. Students are anticipated to
carefully listen and retain the symbols and sounds they learned throughout the lessons.
Narrator voice is triggered to instruct the students to the whole process of learning and
navigation. Lively background music is only played during the splash page to generate
student’s attention.

Graphics and Animation

Graphics are minority used in the prototype to avoid irrelevancies from the actual reading
lesson recommended Sindhu et al (2006). However the texts are presented inside a white
block similar to printed flash cards. A straightforward motion tween animation is projected,
showing how two symbol letters are merged to produce a syllable. Both letter blocks will
move from their original locations (left and right) to the center until the blocks are attach
alongside one another. The same animation is utilized to blend the syllables into words. A
cheery montage animation is played in the splash page of the courseware.

Interactivity
In the guided lesson modules, students deal with linear navigation structure with basic back,
previous, play again and return to main page buttons. Students are allowed to repeat as many
series of modules until they are comfortable to proceed to the next phase of the lesson. For
constructive learning processes, the exercise module is created to test students’ command on
the topics covered in the courseware. The students need to match either single symbol
alphabets, diphthongs or combined letters with their correct sounds. This exercise does not
include assessment of syllables, words and sentences topics.
 Proceedings 5

Figure 2: Syllables Exercise Module

5. Implementation and Results

Implementation is carried out involving three preschool class students aged between 3 to 6
years old at Sekolah Kebangsaan Pedah, Jerantut, Pahang. As Hughes (2003) explained, test
impact is considered as one of the most crucial process in acknowledging the effectiveness of
language teaching and learning. School language teachers have played a significant role as
testing authorities in our research.

First, printed pre-test questions are distributed to the students which access the students to
pronounce the sounds of selected symbol letters, syllables and words on the papers. By doing
this, we can expect to further clarify the existing level of students’ spelling skiils. Following
the test, the language teachers will mark the scores made. Afterwards, guided by the teachers,
the students are initiated to run and work with the lessons in multimedia application. Finally,
the students are asked to answer the pro-test questions to compare their achievement after
learning from the courseware prototype.

During the execution of the courseware prototype, the language teacher has suggested to add
lips movement synchronized to the sound and text. According to the teacher, this will provide
an additional method for the kids in learning the alphabets by following the lip movement.

Figure 3: Pretest Results

The results are presented informally excluding analysis of significance as the data is collected
from low amount of test subjects. Therefore, preface results are explicated. Figure 3illustrates
the result from Pretest questions. Section A refers to sounds of single alphabet. Section B
and C comply with open and free syllables while Section D presents single words.
Figure 4: Posttest Results

Figure 4 describes the result from Posttest questions. From the experimental results,
differences in scores on pretests and posttests give some indication of learning. The students
have shown significant improvement with the number of correct pronunciations of symbol
letters compared to syllables and words after exploring our courseware prototype. However,
inaccuracy may arise from the results as the students may have already been familiar with the
letters or words before the experimentation is conducted.

Summary
We have studied and explored how general phonetics rules are relatively applied in decoding
words with consonant blends and letter combinations. We associated specific areas for
improvement of the courseware prototype for our future works. One of our main directions is
to structure and reformulate the applied phonetic rules that are more effective in multimedia
application reading lesson. Other goal is to find the solution to design a phonetic based
language teaching content that includes reading words with combination of lowercase and
uppercase characters.

Empirical studies have pointed out from potential test subjects that the multimedia
courseware has positively influence the learner’s reading skills. Considering the facts and
results given, we concluded that phonetics is an efficient method in shaping the learners’
understanding in recognizing sound of letters and words. Our prototype has demonstrated that
with innovative computer based teaching tool, it would equip young learners with the most
basic skills needed for identifying and transcribing a range of words. By integrating accurate
multimedia design principles and powerful language teaching strategy, a decent contribution
can be accomplished in assisting children to reading acquisition in a period of time.

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Farah Nadia Azman (First Author)

Farah Nadia Azman holds the position as a lecturer at the Department of Interactive Media,
Faculty of Information and Communication Technology. She educationally received her
Masters of Information Technology at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Her chief interest is
in the intersection between entertainment computing, e-learning, e-commerce, multimedia
courseware, web application, web based open source, applied game design, 2D & 3D
animation and digital art.

Mohamad Lutfi Dolhalit (Second Author)

Mohamad Lutfi Dolhalit is an academician at the Department of Interactive Media, Faculty
of Information and Communication Technology. He holds a Master of Information
Technology (Multimedia) at Universiti Sains Malaysia. His primary interests include virtual
reality, audio and video production, multimedia applications and multimedia networking.

Faaizah Shahbodin(Third Author)

Dr. Faaizah Shahbodin received her Degree in Computer Science in 1994 from Universiti
Utara Malaysia (UUM), and Master in Computer Science in 1997 from Queensland
University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, Australia. She joined KUTKM as a senior
lecturer at the Department of Interactive Media in January 2003. She was a researcher, and a
project supervisor for several computer in education projects in UNIMAS, Kolej Latihan
Telekom (Kolej Multimedia) and UTeM for 12 years. She obtains her PHD in Multimedia
Education Systems at University Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). Her research interests are
primarily on Problem Based Learning, multimedia applications and User Interface Design.