Phonemic Chart
Review of the ‘British Council – Phonemic Chart – TeachingEnglish’ noting inconsistency of rationale and specific errors (by Debbie Hepplewhite 29
th
July 2012)
The chart below is a copy of the symbols and word examples of the British Council chart and is not the original chart.
Phonemic chart
Submitted by TE Editor on 15 December, 2012 – 11:17
This is the new British Council phonemic chart. Help your students hear the sounds of English by clicking on the symbols below. Click on the top
right hand corner of each symbol to hear the sample words including the sounds.
BRITISH
COUNCIL
PHONEMIC CHART TeachingEnglish
vowels
i:
seat
green
tree
ɪ
sit
grin
fish
ʊ
good
foot
pull
u:
food
rule
shoe
diphthongs ɪə
year
beer
ear
eə
chair
where
there
e
head
bet
said
ə
teacher
observer
about
ɜ:
girl
nurse
earth
ɔ:
walk
door
four
əʊ
joke
vote
throw
aʊ
vow
lounge
out
æ
had
lamb
apple
ʌ
cup
love
money
ɑ:
heart
dark
fast
ɒ
hot
stop
want
eɪ
they
bathe
way
aɪ
thigh
dice
my
ɔɪ
joy
noise
choice
consonants p
pull
stop
apple
f
four
food
fish
t
tree
stop
want
θ
earth
thigh
throw
tʃ
teacher
chair
choice
s
stop
sit
fast
ʃ
shoe
fish
sure
k
walk
dark
cup
b
bet
about
beer
v
observer
vow
vote
d
door
food
said
ð
they
there
bathe
dʒ
joke
joy
lounge
z
observer
noise
president
ʒ
casual
measure
pleasure
g
grin
green
girl
h
hot
head
heart
m
money
lamb
my
n
grin
green
nurse
ŋ
sing
english
drank
r
rule
grin
tree
l
pull
love
rule
w
want
way
where
j
year
yes
yellow
About the chart
Pure vowels are arranged the same way as in the IPA chart: according to mouth shape (left to right, lips wide/round – top to bottom, jaw closed/open).
Diphthongs are grouped in rows according to their second sound.
Comment [D1]: I have previously
emailed the contact address for this
resource about the errors on the chart –
but there was no take‐up of this
information.
Comment [D2]: In the words ‘year’ and
‘beer’, the letter ‘r’ needs to be included in
the grapheme – to be the same as in the
word ‘ear’.
Comment [D3]: The ‘o’ in ‘observer’ is
likely to be pronounced as /o/ rather than
a schwa – this is probably not a good
example.
Comment [D4]:
In the words ‘door’ and
‘four’, the letter ‘r’ needs to be included in
the grapheme – thus ‘oor’ and ‘our’ as
code for the /or/ sound.
Comment [D5]:
Many people would
pronounce the letter ‘a’ as /a/ in the word
‘fast’. A better example would be ‘father’
where many people would pronounce the
letter ‘a’ as /ar/.
Comment [D6]:
In the word ‘bathe’, the
grapheme ‘the’ is code for the voiced /th/.
Comment [D7]:
In the word ‘lounge’,
the grapheme ‘ge’ is code for the /j/ sound
– not just the letter ‘g’.
Comment [D8]: In the word ‘noise’, the
grapheme ‘se’ is code for the /z/ sound –
not just the letter ‘s’. It is also surprising
that there is no word example with the
letter ‘z’ as code for the /z/ sound!
Comment [D9]: In the word ‘english’,
the first letter should be a capital E, and
the letter ‘n’ is code for the /ng/ sound –
not the letters ‘ng’.
Comment [D10]:
With the rationale
shown earlier in the chart where there is
no use of ‘split digraphs’ such as o‐e in
‘joke’ and ‘vote’, then the grapheme ‘le’
should be code for the /l/ sound – not just
the letter ‘l’ ‐ to be consistent.
Review of the ‘Table of phonemes’ noting inconsistency of rationale and specific errors (by Debbie Hepplewhite 29
th
July 2012)
The chart below is a copy of the ‘Table of phonemes’ with its word examples and not the original chart.
Table of phonemes
Consonants p
pop
port
snapper
b
bark
about
bobble
h
hoist
hurt
hunt
f
fast
fame
font
v
visit
avail
vine
m
mine
thumb
mob
t
taxi
stay
hunt
d
date
bed
deer
n
bin
nig
ht
queen
θ
girth
thirst
throng
ð
this
other
smooth
ŋ
sank
anger
sung
tʃ
nature
chair
batch
dʒ
judge
soldier
magic
r
right
trip
grin
s
stir
sing
fast
z
zero
noise
roses
l
light
vallet
pull
ʃ
rations
ensure
shift
ʒ
pleasure
vision
leisure
w
way
wet
one
k
key
walk
cup
g
girl
game
green
j
yet
use
yellow
Diphthongs
eɪ
bray
grey
face
aɪ
rice
apply
high
ɔɪ
joy
moist
buoy
əʊ
gloat
joke
grow
aʊ
cow
proud
scrounge
eə
their
flair
bear
ɪə
gear
peer
steer
ʊə
jury
cure
tourist
Vowels
i:
seat
fleece
machine
e
wed
fret
said
æ
map
lamp
tat
ɪ
kit
fish
ship
ʌ
money
cup
blood
u:
goose
blue
shoot
ɑ:
cart
father
heart
ɜ:
refer
nurse
earth
ʊ
pudding
hood
could
ɒ
plod
wash
flop
ɔ:
door
four
law
ə
teacher
about
America
This is a copy of the ‘Table of phonemes’ (based on some symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet) taken from the course: ‘Advanced training
materials for autism; dyslexia; speech, language and communication; emotional, social and behavioural difficulties; moderate learning difficulties’.
Comment [D1]: It would be helpful if
there was guidance on the online version
of the table to indicate that word examples
are available to see if the cursor is hovered
over the symbols.
What is the rationale for the words and
graphemes selected? Is it to illustrate the
focus sound in various positions in the
word, and/or to provide examples of
spelling alternatives? Or is there no
rationale per se? Some lists show only one
spelling alternative for the focus sound,
some lists show up to three spelling
alternatives. Some letters shown in red are
not good matches for the focus sound. Not
all sound matches are shown in red.
Comment [D2]: In the word ‘anger’, the
grapheme ‘n’ is code for the /ng/ sound
... [1]
Comment [D3]: In the word ‘batch’, the
grapheme ‘tch’ is code for the /ch/ sound.
... [2]
Comment [D4]: In the word ‘judge’, the
grapheme ‘dge’ is also code for the /j/
... [3]
Comment [D5]:
In the word 'soldier',
combining the letter ‘i’ with the ‘d’ ('di') as
... [4]
Comment [D6]: The grapheme ‘se’ is
code for the /z/ sound in ‘noise’ and not
... [5]
Comment [D7]: In the example ‘roses’,
we can identify a /z/ sound at the end of
... [6]
Comment [D8]: The word 'vallet' looks
like an incorrect spelling for ‘valet’ or
... [7]
Comment [D9]: In the word ‘ensure’,
‘su’ is given as code for /sh/ which leaves
... [8]
Comment [D10]: To be consistent with
‘soldier’ and ‘rations’, the grapheme ‘si’ in
... [9]
Comment [D11]: The grapheme ‘o’ in
'one' is code for two sounds /w+o/, not /w/
... [10]
Comment [D12]: The word ‘use’ is a
flawed example for the /y/ sound as the
... [11]
Comment [D13]: In ‘high’, the
grapheme ‘igh’ is code for the /igh/ sound
... [12]
Comment [D14]: Ambiguous choice of
word example for /oi/ as it could be ‘ouy’
... [13]
Comment [D15]:
The graphemes ‘oa’
and ‘ow’ are largely accepted as code for
... [14]
Comment [D16]: The words 'jury',
'cure' and 'tourist' are insecure word
... [15]
Page 1: [1] Comment [D2] Hepplewhite 29/07/2012 16:29:00
In the word ‘anger’, the grapheme ‘n’ is code for the /ng/ sound and the ‘g’ is code for the /g/ sound. It is an
error to colour 'ng' in red.
Page 1: [2] Comment [D3] Hepplewhite 29/07/2012 16:29:00
In the word ‘batch’, the grapheme ‘tch’ is code for the /ch/ sound. It is an error to colour only the 'ch' in red.
Page 1: [3] Comment [D4] Hepplewhite 29/07/2012 16:28:00
In the word ‘judge’, the grapheme ‘dge’ is also code for the /j/ sound and yet not shown in red. In contrast,
words like ‘bobble’ and ‘America’ have all the graphemes for the focus sound shown in red.
Page 1: [4] Comment [D5] Hepplewhite 29/07/2012 16:31:00
In the word 'soldier', combining the letter ‘i’ with the ‘d’ ('di') as code for the /j/ sound is valid but following
the same rationale, the ‘i’ should have been combined with the ‘s’ in ‘vision’ as 'si' being code for /zh/. The ‘i’
has been combined with the ‘t’ in ‘rations’('ti') so it is ‘vision’ which has a different rationale from the other
words.
Page 1: [5] Comment [D6] Hepplewhite 29/07/2012 16:31:00
The grapheme ‘se’ is code for the /z/ sound in ‘noise’ and not just 's'.
Page 1: [6] Comment [D7] Hepplewhite 29/07/2012 16:32:00
In the example ‘roses’, we can identify a /z/ sound at the end of the word too which indicates that the end 's'
should have been coloured in red.
Page 1: [7] Comment [D8] Hepplewhite 29/07/2012 16:32:00
The word 'vallet' looks like an incorrect spelling for ‘valet’ or ‘valley’.
Page 1: [8] Comment [D9] Hepplewhite 29/07/2012 17:07:00
In the word ‘ensure’, ‘su’ is given as code for /sh/ which leaves only 're' as code for /oo+r/. It would be better
for 's' to be coloured red as code for /sh/ leaving 'ure' as code for /oo+r/.
Page 1: [9] Comment [D10] Hepplewhite 29/07/2012 16:33:00
To be consistent with ‘soldier’ and ‘rations’, the grapheme ‘si’ in 'vision' would be code for the /zh/ sound.
Page 1: [10] Comment [D11] Hepplewhite 29/07/2012 16:33:00
The grapheme ‘o’ in 'one' is code for two sounds /w+o/, not /w/ alone.
Page 1: [11] Comment [D12] Hepplewhite 29/07/2012 16:12:00
The word ‘use’ is a flawed example for the /y/ sound as the grapheme ‘u’ is code for the /y+oo/ sounds
combined.
Page 1: [12] Comment [D13] Hepplewhite 29/07/2012 16:33:00
In ‘high’, the grapheme ‘igh’ is code for the /igh/ sound not just 'i'.
Page 1: [13] Comment [D14] Hepplewhite 29/07/2012 14:00:00
Ambiguous choice of word example for /oi/ as it could be ‘ouy’ that is code for the /oi/ sound.
Page 1: [14] Comment [D15] Hepplewhite 29/07/2012 14:08:00
The graphemes ‘oa’ and ‘ow’ are largely accepted as code for the /oa/ sound in words such as 'gloat' and
'grow', not just the grapheme 'o'.
Page 1: [15] Comment [D16] Hepplewhite 29/07/2012 16:34:00
The words 'jury', 'cure' and 'tourist' are insecure word choices. In particular, the word ‘cure’ has a different
sound from ‘jury’ and ‘tourist’. We can hear /k/ /y+oor/ in 'cure' but no /y/ in the other words.
