APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE - Assignment

SUBJECT ASSIGNMENT: APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE

GENERAL INFORMATION: The subject assignment consists of doing three short exercises. To do so, keep the activities statements and answer just below them. This assignment must be done in groups of two (the corresponding tutor will choose the groups members during the tutorials) and has to fulfil the following conditions:

- Length: between 6 and 8 pages (without including cover, index or appendices if there are any-). Type of font: Arial or Times New Roman. Size: 11. Line height: 1.5. Alignment: Justified.

The assignment has to be done in this Word document. In order to make the correction easier, please, do not write the answers in bolds, and it will be easier to distinguish between them and the activities statements. On the other hand, the assignment has to fulfil the rules of presentation and edition, as for quotes and bibliographical references which are detailed in the Study Guide. Also, it has to be submitted following the procedure specified in the Study Guide. Sending it to the tutors e-mail is not permitted. In addition to this, it is very important to read the assessment criteria, which can be found in the Study Guide. The assignment mark is 100% of the final mark, but the participation in the activities performed during the tutorials can improve this mark.

APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE - Assignment

Names and surnames: Olenka Erika Villavicencio Carranza & Fiorella Giselle Terry Torres Logins: PEFPMTFL82521 & PEFPMTFL677501 Group: 25 Date: 5 February

APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE - Assignment

ASSIGNMENT TASK 1

Native Languages: Mixed. Target Language: English. Background Information: Intermediate level, students on an intensive course. Data Source: student compositions.

DATA: 1. Soccer is the most common sporting. 2. America refused continual supported our military request. 3. When he was 7 years old, he went schooling. 4. About two hours driving eastern from Bangkok. 5. After finished my college studied, I went to my country. 6. Doctors have the right to removed it from him. 7. There is a night for asleep. 8. Moreover it may lead to conflicting. 9. I am not going to get married when I will graduation the school. QUESTIONS: 1. Work out an IL generalization that might account for the forms in boldface. Give your reasons for postulating this generalization. 2. What strategy/strategies do you think these learners have come up with regarding lexical use? 3. What additional information, if any, would you like to have from these learners to test your hypothesis? TASK 2

Native Language: Spanish. Target Language: English. Background Information: Pre-adolescents, born in Mexico, living in United States. Data Source: Responses to a picture story from a standard proficiency test.

DATA: Below are the "correct" responses to standardised test items. 1. He wants to eat some food. 2. The dog ate the food. 3. The king would have eaten it. 4. It fell.

APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE - Assignment

Below are the responses to these test items by five ESL learners (A-E). A. 1. he wants to eat 2. the dog ate it 3. the king would eat it 4. it fell B. 1. he want the food 2. the dog ate ... 3. the king eat ... 4. they fall C. 1. he wants to get some food 2. the dog ate it 3. the king would have ate it 4. it fell D. 1. he want ... 2. the dog eat ... 3. the king will eat ... 4. it fall E. 1. he wanna eat ... 2. the dog eat-ate it 3. he would eat it 4. it fall QUESTIONS: 1. What feature of English grammar is being tested in each of the test items? 2. Who appears to be the most advanced learner and why? 3. Who appears to be the least advanced learner and why? 4. What generalization can be made about the order of acquisition for learning these constructions? Please note that you will not be able to reproduce the matrix you have for this question (in your study materials) in the VC. You could use point form here. 5. Tests of this type are designed primarily to elicit spontaneous utterances in a controlled setting. What limitations are there in doing order of acquisition analysis based on data of this sort?

TASK 3

APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE - Assignment

Native Language: Mexican Spanish. Target Language: English. Background Information: Adult male. Data Source: Tape-recorded spontaneous speech.

DATA: Following are examples of this subject's use of negatives: 1. No write. 2. No like it. 3. I me no speaka too much Englee, eh? 4. Me no like stay in the house. 5. No es correct. 6. I no like tortilla. 7. You no go Calexico? 8. My brother no go to school. 9. No, ya no work. 10. Me no comin. 11. No in town. 12. No cheese. 13. No now. 14. No American. 15. The operation ya no good. 16. No money. 17. Maybe no good for me. QUESTIONS: 1. Describe this learner's knowledge of English negation. 2. At this same time, this non-native speaker produced many examples of "I don't know". Does this alter your hypothesis about the pattern described in question 1? If so, how?

APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE - Assignment

ASSIGNMENT Before proceeding to analyse the errors in the selection of learner language provided, we would like to define some terms according to Ellis (1994; 1997). Some people classify errors into four types:

1. Omissions.- when an element in a sentences is left out (i.e. article or the -s plural) 2. Additions.- when unnecessary elements are included in the sentence. (e.g. I like me
chocolate).

3. Misordering.- when the word order is incorrect. (e.g. I go often to the club.) 4. Misinformation.- when a grammar form is used in place of another.
It is important to know that taxonomy divides errors into transfer and overgeneralisation, which in turn are subdivided as follows: 1. Transfer Overextension of analogy.- when the learner misuses an item because it shares Transfer of structure.- when the learner utilises some L1 feature (phonological, features with an item in the L1 (false friends) lexical, grammatical, or pragmatic) rather than that of the L2.

Interlingual/intralingual error.- when a particular distinction does not exist in Transfer of training.- errors caused by the way in which learners are taught.

the L1 (e.g., the use of make and do) 2. Overgeneralisation

camed)

Regularisation.- the tendency to use regular forms where possible (e.g. peoples, Simplification.- the tendency to simplify elements and structures in an attempt

to reduce the complexity of the language system (e.g. no understand) Errors can also be classified into

1. Global: when the overall structure of the sentence is violated making it difficult to
understand.

2. Local: when only a single constituent in the sentence is affected (e.g. the verb)

APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE - Assignment

TASK 1 According to us, the nine examples are errors of misinformation, as well as local errors except for examples 2 and 7 where the meaning is obscured, so they are global errors. Examples 1 and 3 are overgeneralisations of the gerund. Examples 2, 5 and 6 are overgeneralisation resulting from regularisation of the past tense. Examples 4, 7, 8 and 9 are the result of misuse of lexical chunks probably caused by transfer of training. 1. Now we will proceed to analyse each example separately in order to determine what strategies the learners might have used in order to produce with these errors:

In number 1 the learner seems to have thought that because most sports end

with -ing (sailing, skiing, cycling, etc.), when talking about sports in general the -ing form should also be used. The correct sentence must read: Soccer is the most common sport.

In number 2, the main verb refused is in the past; the second verb is also

placed in the past. This overgeneralisation may be due to misinformation or as a result of an avoidance strategy. What this student was trying to say is probably that America refused to continue supporting our military request. As a result, he might have been exposed to the rule in connection with the use of -ing/infinitive after certain verbs and is hesitant about it because its a late acquisition. paraphrasing the sentence resulting in a global error. Hence, he tries to avoid it by

In number 3 this learner seems to have learnt that after the verb to go (in any

tense) the -ing form follows (go cycling, go swimming, etc.), thus he / she generalises the rule and used went schooling, which is a local misinformation error. The correct sentence should be He went to school when he was 7 years old.

In number 4 the learner is probably acquainted with lexical chunks such as

Eastern Europe, western countries, etc. and thus has generalised the rule that the -ern ending is used when next to a place (in this case Bangkok) and not when the word stands alone as in the Middle East, the West. According to Richards, this could be considered an error resulting from a false concept hypothesised.

In number 4 apparently the student has taken studies not as a noun but as a verb,

and since all the other verbs in the sentence are in the past, he put it also in the past referring to an action that has already finished. This error is similar to # 2. The correct sentence should read After finishing my college studies, I went back to my country.

APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE - Assignment

In number 5 the student must have learned that when an action is in the past the

verb should be in the past. Maybe he is talking about the removal of an organ for a transplant after receiving the corresponding authorisation. The removal has probably already taken place; so he uses that verb in the past, not noticing that the main verb is have which seems less significant than remove. The correct sentence is The doctors had the right (authorisation?) to remove it from him.

In number 6, this student has apparently learned the expression to fall asleep as

a lexical chunk, and has overgeneralised the form in for asleep, which has a similar sound. Its a global error so its difficult to determine which should be the correct sentence. There is a night to sleep early (??) Maybe they are talking about an itinerary where there are things to do the rest of the nights.

In number 7, the learner is probably acquainted with lexical chunks such as

conflicting opinions or conflicting interests and decided to omit the second part of the chunk to simplify it.

In number 8 this student is probably familiar with the expressions school

graduation and graduation ceremony and has decided to use the same word as a verb, inasmuch as the -tion ending sounds very English because of the abundance of words with that ending. The correct sentence should read Im not going to get married as soon as I graduate from school. In general, it is difficult to determine what caused these errors just by analysing the examples out of context. However, it seems to us that they have been recently exposed to the use of the -ed/-ing forms, and are using these forms as much as possible. Maybe what they pretend is to get feedback from the teacher to verify if they are using them correctly or not. Apparently they think that by adding -ing they can make a noun out of a verb, as in examples 1 and 8. In addition, they seem to have learned some words in a certain form and they are using them as memorised, regardless of the appropriate part of speech needed.

2. In order to test our hypothesis, the additional information we would like to have is 1) the L1
of each of the students in order to determine whether the errors are the result of negative transfer. 2) The context where these sentences were taken from, so as to determine whether they are errors, mistakes or slips. We also need the context in order to determine the systematicity of the error (whether they are presystematic, systematic or postsystematic

APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE - Assignment

according to Corders classification - Ellis, p. 56). 3) What grammar structures the students have been learning previous to this exercise. And 4) the students age.

APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE - Assignment

TASK 2

1.

In these items the main area that is being tested is TENSE, including: present simple

tense, present perfect tense, past tense; and inside the past tense irregular verbs are the most recurrent tools. On the other hand, it can also be observed that the usage of formal English prevails in the teaching and learning contexts, except for the last case of Learner E who used wanna instead of want to. 2. The most advanced learner of the group is learner A because: First of all, s/he shows that s/he manages the agreement between subject and verb. In this case we can apply the contrastive analysis (CA) by comparing the target language (English) with the mother tongue (Spanish). As we know in English we add an s or es for the third person in singular, which in Spanish is a little different and may result in interference if knowledge is not learned appropriately or repeated and reinforced. Second of all, she/he knows the rule for the past tense or irregular verbs. As we know, many students have trouble when dealing with irregular verbs. It is common to see that students with low learning of English tend to overgeneralise some grammatical rules. For example, the past tense of eat is ate, but some students would say eated because they kept the theory that verbs in the past tense are added d or ed. Third of all, s/he knows how to use would, which is present in intermediate levels. Although s/he has not used would in the present perfect tense, s/he applied the rule for would effectively. Finally, the learner again shows command of irregular verbs in the past tense, and did not confuse the verb to fall with another one like to feel or fill, which usually happens when learning irregular verbs. To conclude we can observe that the learners language, i.e. interlanguage, is adequate for his/her age. This can be due to the fact that s/he lives in the United States because s/he is educated and raised in an English speaking context and is surrounded by native speakers. We can observe that the learner has taken advantage of his living in the U.S.A.

3.

The least advanced learner of the group is learner D because:

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APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE - Assignment

First of all, apparently s/he only knows the base form of verbs. S/he is not able to conjugate the verbs in third person singular. S/he has only retained verbs in their base form, which leads to incorrect S-V agreement. Second of all, s/he does not know the past tense of irregular verbs and uses the base form for present and past tense, without distinction. To conclude, maybe this learner does not have as much contact as necessary with native speakers, and maybe s/he is not surrounded by English speaking people, maybe s/he has not found motivation for learning English. On the other hand, maybe his/her interlanguage is maintained with these mistakes, thus this would be an explanation for fossilization. According to such theory, the learner stops making efforts to adopt the L2 rules and norms due to factors such as pressure, lack of learning opportunity, and the type of feedback received.

4.

As we saw in previous chapters, the order of acquisition when acquiring some English 1 3rd. person -s Learner A Learner B Learner C Learner D Learner E X X wanna 2 irregular past X eat-ate (?) 3 have X X X X 4 irregular past X X X

morphemes may vary. would X will eaten X X X X X

From the above, we can make the following generalisations:

Learner A has already acquired the 3rd person -s and the irregular past. He knows

the conditional but only in its simple form, not the perfect. Learner B hasnt learnt any of the forms yet, as his use of the irregular past is

random. Sometimes he gets it right, sometimes not. Learner C has already acquired the 3rd person -s and the irregular past. He is also

familiar with the conditional perfect but confuses the past participle with the past simple in view that in regular verbs and many irregular verbs both past simple and past participles are the same.

Learner D hasnt acquired any of the forms, but at least knows that he cannot use

the present for item 3.

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APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE - Assignment

Learner E has avoided the use of the 3rd person -s by using a lexical chunk which is

normally acquired late. Since hes a pre-adolescent, hes probably heard this form in songs or in informal environments. His use of the irregular past is random, and hes acquainted with the simple form of the conditional. Also it is important to consider, the article the seems to have been acquired first in this group of learners.

5. This type of test is only testing form and the analysis of the order of acquisition is only in
connection with certain grammar items, disregarding the fact that there is much more to error analysis than form (e.g. prosodic features, orthography and punctuation, etc.) By analyzing the order of acquisition based on these data it is generalized that all learners of a given language will learn the grammatical features of that language in roughly the same order, which is not necessarily like that because many factors determine acquisition.

TASK 3

1. To describe the learners knowledge we have to consider first the cultural background
of the learner. He speaks Spanish from Mexico. As we know, Spanish varies depending on the region we are talking about; one of these variants belongs to Mexico. In this case, the learner is using a template from his native language. In Spanish we express negation with no, which is accompanied by a verb, noun, adverbials, among other cases. This differs from English in that several auxiliaries are used to express a negative idea plus not, for example, is not, do not, are not, etc. Obviously, interference is present in this learner who applies the same Spanish rules for English. This is also evidenced by the use of words in Spanish in sentences written in English, which is due to the lack of vocabulary and non confidence of the learner to express himself. One reason for this could be the age since it has been demonstrated that the sooner people start learning a second language the more successful will be their learning process. A child has more chances to learn faster and better an L2, while an adult, as in this case, has more difficulties. Another problem that can be observed is the misspelling of some words. His spelling skills have not been developed, and it seems that he writes what he listens. However, a positive factor is that he has recognized well the rules for capitalizing proper nouns and nationalities, like American. This is produced by the constant repetition and practice in class, so then this knowledge becomes implicit.
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APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE - Assignment

These difficulties can be overcome with the help of the teacher who has to create the ideal context in class and transfer training, and consider the needs and weak points; and the learner himself who needs a great motivation for learning an L2, be conscious of what that will entail, interact in class, and produce the required output.

2. The fact that he produces many examples of I dont know does not alter our hypotheses
above because this is a lexical chunk usually acquired very early. In samples Not too much, No, not it and Not too good, the learner got the right forms because he seems to have acquired these expressions early as lexical chunks, just in the same manner as the expression I dont know above. However, in sentence 2 when referring to something which in Spanish is feminine (e.g. milk, luck), he wants to differentiate the gender by adding a to much as it is done in Spanish. In number 3, he might have added the t for the same reason that he adds other sounds in words such as eate sugar, and speaka too much in the previous examples, i.e. its easier to pronounce that way. If this were adult taking English lessons in a formal setting his IL could improve to certain extent. At least, he would stop mixing English and Spanish, he would acquire more lexical chunks such as I dont like it, and his use of the subject pronoun would be more consistent. However, knowing that this person is an adult male using English in a natural setting for 31 years, we confirm that this is a serious case of fossilisation probably due to internal factors (age and, especially, lack of desire to acculturate); hence, no great improvement will appear in his IL.

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APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE - Assignment

REFERENCES Krashen, S. (1979), 'The Monitor Model for second language acquisition,' in R. Gingras (ed.) Second Language Acquisition and Foreign Language Teaching, CAL ELLIS, R. (1994): The Study of Second Language Acquisition. OUP. ELLIS, R. (1997): Second Language Acquisition. OUP. LIGHTBOUM, PATSY M., AND SPADA, N. (1999): How Language are Learned. OUP Dr. Shih, Doris. Models for Language Acquisition Theory http://www.etweb.fju.edu.tw/esl_method/student_activities.htm

Fabisz Natalia. ANALYSIS OF KRASHENS THEORY OF SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION http://webspace.webring.com/people/ap/panandrew/sla.htm

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