It was wonderful to receive this feedback from an English teacher-trainer in Saudi Arabia - and I think we'll hear more from Tony as they roll-out Phonics International and he can report back on their findings.
I've also posted Tony's message on the 'Feedback' forum.
Tony wrote that he'd struggled to register on the PI message forum so, in the interim, he asked me to copy and paste this message below:
Implementing Phonics International with adult EAL learners in Saudi Arabia
Having run two previous intensive phonics courses with our own materials cobbled together from Jolly Phonics and our own adult-friendly worksheets, it was with great relief I came across PI a few weeks ago. I have been nominated to implement a much more comprenhensive course this time around but was informed the frequency of our learner in-take was to be increased significantly. Consequently, working on my own to create materials for hundreds of adult Saudi nationals ( many of whom have zero knowledge of the English Alphabetic Code or Roman Alphabet and are absolute beginners) in a few weeks was rather challenging.
I took out a single user license in order to evaluate the full programme for my centres needs and context. Realising the materials and two-pronged approach is ideal for our use, I presented the case for PI to our Training Manager. It took a whole five minutes to persuade him how easily the materials and pedagogy could be adapted for our context. He agreed to take out a multi user license and gave me the approval to set up the materials in our classrooms and prepare training for over 100 teachers.
My intention is to establish a systematic synthetic phonics course for our CEF A1 learners over 30 to 45 weeks. In addition, for our CEF B1 learners,a Spelling Intervention programme will be set up for teachers and learners to 'dip into' as required. Teacher taining will be arranged so that teachers can deliver phonics lessons both systematically and incidentally.
This is a case of 'Watch this space...' as they say!