Developing phonological awareness in English language through poems and nursery rhymes

Abstract

Phonological awareness can be understood as the ability to recognize and manipulate the sounds that constitute speech (SCHERER, 2009). Looking through the prism of the formation of language, which is considered a human faculty inherent only to the rational man (GREENBERG, 1961), comes the desire of researching the structures sounds that make up speech, words and phrases that combine into harmonic rhythm in the language. Bringing up second language acquisition concepts, it is essential to correlate the theories that underlie language. In the phases of literacy, children are exposed to linguistic stimuli in their mother tongue, now Portuguese, however, these will also be subject to stimuli in a foreign language, in this case, the English language (ALVES, 2009). Therefore, this article is based on bibliographic research that addresses phonological awareness studies and the use of educational activities involving poems and songs (nursery rhymes) in English as metalinguistic resources contributing to the development of phonological awareness of children in the period of literacy.