How American English Is Taught

There are the 26 letters. A-Z.



There are consonants and vowels. Consonants are like B. Vowels are like A, sometimes Y. The usual rule is that Y at the beginning of a word is a consonant [j].



Vowels are taught to be either long or short (not phonetic length, but actually phonetic quality). All other sounds are just assimilations of the vowel to the consonant or stress pattern.



Okay. We can keep all of the 26 letters. Each is required. All vowels are needed. All consonants are needed, yes, even C and K and S and X. C is used for CH [tʃ] (the point is to make as few teaching changes as possible...this does not include spelling changes). We're taught CH is [tʃ] and that won't change. Other than in that digraph, C is never used. K is its replacement. S remains. X does 'cause it is a short alternative to writing KS or CS. Y is only to be used for its consonant value (difference in teaching method). Any assimilation is not to be given a different representation; e.g. S is typically voiced between vowels but will remain an S, not a Z. There are no additions, like eth, or thorn, or esh, or ezh, we need the same alphabet and will keep those sounds via the digraphs TH, DH (new digraph for voiced TH), SH, and ZH (new digraph for voiced SH). Anytime there is a [kw] sound, the representation is QU.



One could argue to use C for CH and Q for QU but that's a difference from modern teaching that I'd like to avoid. It is longer to write, however. Cin vs. chin for chin, and qēn vs. quēn for queen.



When teaching a language, you want to keep the learner as far away as possible from phonetics and grammar. All of that is clutter and jargon.