the linguistic distinction as a whole has at least two realities: (1) as a split in educational philosophies for teaching beginning literacy acquisition and development and (2) as a rather heated political debate taking place in English-speaking countries (the situation is arguably most divisive in the United States). I will examine the concepts of phonics and language as a whole in relation to these two contexts, and then attempt to show how these concepts might prove meaningful and useful for EFL literacy. Phonics is a way of teaching reading and spelling that emphasizes symbol-sound relationships, used especially in beginning teaching (Harris & Hodges, 1995, p. 186). Of course, this definition refers specifically to initial literacy instruction in the native language. There are a wide range of different phonics approaches to such teaching, including: analytical, clustered, deductive, explicit, extrinsic, implicit, inductive, intrinsic, letter, synthetic and whole word (Harris & Hodges, 1995, p..