Language Awareness for Second Language Teachers - Case Study Example

Student name Student number 7901LHS Language Awareness for Second Language Teachers Profile of a learner: Language Analysis and Informant Profile Word Count: 3495 Part One: Language Analysis/ Language Awareness for Second Language Teachers 1 “_Hey Chong most of us like playing games such as wideo games, computer games or mobiles games. So what kinds of games do you like_?” Grammar/Morphology Pronunciation /wɛɪ’dio:/ Syntax [-detdef] [-detdef] [ wo ] [ ref ] [ corr ] Lexical Choices [ wc ] [≠ wc (ifr)] Standard English “Hey Chong, most of us like playing games such as video games, computer games or mobile games. So what kinds of games do you like” 2 _Oh! Why? Oh…that is true I will go with you. Grammar/Morphology Pronunciation Syntax [ref] [corr] [corr] [corr] Lexical Choices Standard English [I see the point] I think you are right and will go with your ideas. 3 I like, I like music kame…yah because the background mudhic will be the most attractive thing for me. Grammar/Morphology [vt] Pronunciation /'keɪm/ Syntax [corr] [+conj] [≠adv] [-prep][?det] Lexical Choices [Ifr] [wc] [Ifr] Standard English I like music game because of the background music which makes it attractive. 4 So before I play that game it is called demo and it is a rhythm, So I top up much money for this game to buy the music rhythm game and it has _very beautiful background mudhic and each mudhic will cost you some money. Grammar/Morphology [vt] [vt] Pronunciation Syntax [ wo ] [ corr ] [detdef] [detdef] [detdef] [ ref … Lexical Choices [ wc ] [wc] [Ifr] [Ifr] Standard English So before I play [the] game there is its demo and its rhythm. The music rhythm has [a] very nice background and each song will cost some money. 5 So I top up much money for this game to buy the mudhic Grammar/Morphology Pronunciation Syntax [corr] Lexical Choices [word] [Ifr] Standard English So to get this game and enjoy music I top up much money. 6 So do you willing or will you be willing to top up money for your game? Grammar/Morphology [-vt] Pronunciation Syntax [corr] Lexical Choices [wc] Standard English so are you willing to top up money for your game? 7 Whath the kind of game do you alway play? Grammar/Morphology [ pl ] Pronunciation Syntax [Art/Det] [ref] Lexical Choices [wc] [ wc ] Standard English What kind of games do you always play? 8 Yes, because you know for me ah…for me before I got the money from my parents so I always purchase games and top up money for them but after working yah I found that money is not easily to be earned. Grammar/Morphology [ vt ] Pronunciation Syntax [ corr ] [Ø/Red.] [≠sub cl] [-adj/adv] [-prep] [WT] [O/-] Lexical Choices [wc] [wc] Standard English Yes, you know for me I used to get money from my parents so I would purchase games or top up money for [these] games but when I started working I realised money was [not easy to come by]. 9 so I cut back the amount of money and…and may be spends more time…ah playing games. Grammar/Morphology [plural] Pronunciation Syntax [corr ] [corr] Lexical Choices Standard English So I cut back the amount of money and spend more time playing games. 10 But after I have…having girlfriends yah, I think games becoming but…you know, you know that feeling? Grammar/Morphology [plural] [vt] Pronunciation Syntax [corr ] [corr ] Lexical Choices Standard English But after having my girlfriend yah, I think games have become…you know that feeling? 11 I may spend more money or more time wis my girlfriends and I think real life became more animal hard, how do you say, realistic yah? How about you? Grammar/Morphology [pl] Pronunciation /wis/ Syntax [ wo ] [wo] Lexical Choices [wc] Standard English I may spend more money or more time with my girlfriend and [but] I think this option is [becoming] [unrealistic?] How about you? 12 What do you have girlfriend? Grammar/Morphology Pronunciation Syntax Lexical Choices [wc] Standard English What? Do you have girlfriend? 13 What about your best friend ask you to do something rather than playing the game for example ask you to go sing or go swimming …yeah Grammar/Morphology [WW/LC] [WF] [WW/LC] [WF] Pronunciation Syntax Lexical Choices [wc] Standard English What if your best friend asked you to do something other than playing the game; for example, sing or go swimming…yeah? Key to Abbreviations Used: +__ ‘addition of un-needed__’ ?__ ‘unclear or unknown __’ -__ ‘missing __’ ≠__ ‘incorrect use of __’ adv Adverb prep Preposition corr Attempt at correcting a previous error pl Plural conj Conjunction ref Reformulation of an utterance det Determinant sub cl Subordinate Clause detdef Determinant: Definite Article vt Incorrect Verb Tense detind Determinant: Indefinite Article wc Word Choice ifr Interference from German wo Word Order ord Ordinal Number word Whole Word Art/Det Incorrect use of articles WO Word Order WW/LC Wrong Word/Lexical Choice WF Wrong Form ? Unclear O/- Omission/something missing (e.g. O: -Aux ‘did’) WT Wrong Tense (e.g. WT: -past ‘ed’) N Number – agreement (singular-plural) Ø/Red. Redundant – not needed (e.g. Ø: soon) Sub. Substitution (e.g. Sub: [æ] for [ə]) Prep. Preposition Pron. Pronoun LW Linking word – conjunction IS Incorrect stress placement IP Incorrect pitch/tone Background Information on the Participant Note: The actual names of the interviewee and interviewer have been omitted deliberately as one of the requests of the persons concerned. As such, the analyses will be referring to the participants as he/interviewee/interviewers The background information about the interviewer learning goals was obtained during an unstructured, unrecorded interview before the recording of the above extract took place. The short audio recording of this error analysis was produced by a Chinese student from Mainland China who started his English lessons from China at the age of 5 years until he joined university. The preliminary information regarding his process of learning English indicates that English was taught by Chinese every two days with learner tasked with the responsibility of memorising the vocabulary, and dialogue in the textbook. On the same note, it has to be noted that the programme was designed such that each week there was one English lesson that was taught by a native English teacher in as much as these lessons entailed simple and simple English conversations to get the learners started. Again, in most cases, the methodology of study that was adopted by the institution was periodical listening of English tape. In 2014 the interviewee (the Chinese student) moved to Brisbane, Australia where he achieved band 6 in IELTS, enrolled in Bachelor of Accounting. Through the processes of his undergraduate program the methodology of the study was basically listening to the lecture, talking to classmates, making friends with local, attending English classes and practicing English with friends, colleagues or members of public within the environment. The other side of the interviewee which is known to his parents, friends, classmates and co-workers is that he is reserved but social when it comes to interactions with regards to computer gaming, social life and sports. As a matter of fact, his current academic demands require him to deal with people from different social-economic backgrounds thus enabling his processes of English acquisition hastened. Such involvements have ensued in public arenas such as traditional teacher centred classroom, sporting events and social gatherings. Tracing back to his processes of learning English, the interviewee was basically motivated inwardly (intrinsic motivation) to learn English and such levels of motivation always meant that he was encouraged to explore essence of life; what English meant, how it was different to Chinese and the best way he could enrich English language to conceptualise different issues and literatures that were discussed in English. One big step towards mastering English language has been attributed to communicative competence especially when he aimed at attaining higher goals with his roles and duties in and outside school. As it has been noted in the audio interview provided, the interviewee currently spends most of his time in Brisbane and that means that in day to day processes of communication English remains the main language but the language may change when he is with close relatives or Chinese friends within the country. Furthermore, English remains essential when in social engagement and entertaining (for instance, the video game interactions and purchasing of music game as mentioned in the interview) are some of the instances when the interviewee finds English as the only language that can help in understanding the game, paying for the game and topping up the card for more features from the game. The conversation between the interviewee and the interviewer indicates clearly that though he is native Chinese speaker and currently struggles to communicate in fluent English (when compared with the native English speaker he interviews); he definitely feels that he is improving with regard to confidence in his expression of the language. The push factor in the process of mastering the language is that the student often view himself as the best or perfectionist and as such, strive to live up to the tag. However, this is not to mean that he has not failed in the process of learning. As can be noted in the interview, there are instances that he was embarrassed and a clear case is when he means girlfriend but says ‘has often have time for his girlfriends.’ But this has not prevented him from being a careful speaker especially when choosing his words. As it can be noted from the interview he retracts words he realises that are not fitting a given context and other than retracting these words he finds suitable replacements or asks for clarity. For instance, in this case; “I may spend more money or more time with my girlfriends and I think real life became more animal hard, how do you say, realistic yah? How about you?” Going by the statement above, there is indeed clear intent to learn and that has been exhibited by the urge to ask and make corrections where necessary. Based on the session of the interview and responses provided when he was asked to explain the kind of game he likes places the interviewer has moderate in the score and as such, places him at higher level, probably B1 in accordance with the rating scale that was proposed by Common European Framework for Languages (CEFR) (Council of Europe, n.d.). Hey Chong most of us like playing games such as video games, computer games or mobiles games. So what kinds of games do you like? The statement above conceptualizes his strengths and abilities in commanding English language despite the challenges that he has been. As such, he is better placed against CEFR (details of CEFR and the framework has been provided according to appendix one as attached at the end of the page). Researches that have attempted to categorise learners’ speech coherence have helped this analysis to place the interviewer’s competence with regard to his speech. According to Douglas (2000) one’s ability to score highly in terms of speech coherence is determined by aspects such as pronunciation, word rhythm, intonation which should deviate minimally from what this study considers to be Standard English. Relating this study to the statement from the audio file, the speech remains coherent with minor instances of poor punctuations and pronunciation especially when he said, So before I play that game it is called demo and it is a rhythm, So I top up much money for this game to buy the music rhythm game and it has _very beautiful background mudhic and each mudhic will cost you some money. This analysis recognizes that indeed the statement above has a number of errors and mistakes (as analysed in part one) but these mistakes are common to most of speakers. Again, these mistakes have been made with distinct examples where the user had correct usage in different other statements made within the same interview process. One clear example is a case where the interviewee pronounces the /θ/ and /ð. From the one hand, these mistakes and or errors may be attributed to early stages of learning which when reviewed at this point in time can help in the alleviation of the aforementioned mistakes (Mennen, Schaeffler & Dickie, 2014). The sections below now assesses the interviewer’s grammatical and phonological errors as expressed in part one. Grammatical Analysis The best approach of analyzing the grammatical instances is to assess category and frequencies as found. The highest category according to the analysis was word choice. Other categories that were common included word order, adverbs, and incoherent verb tense. Since the frequencies kept on changing it means that the interviewer’s ability to learn and benefit from the processes of learning was promising. Some of the common errors that concerned word choices could be as a result of addition of some sounds such as /th/ which is influenced by the speaker’s native language (Lantolf, Thorne & Poehner, 2015). Based on these challenges, it is apparent that subjecting him to more English words, socialization and understanding of clause structure would be essential in ensuring that such errors are eliminated. Specifically, the interviewer will greatly benefit from the understanding of conjunctions, subordinate clauses and relative clauses. It is apparent that Chinese language greatly influenced his pronunciation but these instances were followed quickly by constant attempts to re-word or re-structure or correct the words. These challenges remain miner and can be corrected by improving his levels of confidence. Phonological Analysis Areas marked yellow in part one helps in understanding the interviewer’s ability in pronunciations and other aspects of the language. To begin with the interviewer exhibits higher levels of pronunciation that meets minimum required standards. There are a number of words that have been shown in part one to have been pronounced incorrectly but these words were either pronounced so due to interference from native language or slips of the tongue which were in turn corrected promptly. Studies such as Chun, Smith and Kern (2016) have indicated that some phonological mistakes spoke by English as Second Language Learners are not intended but are done so as a result of factors that this part has identified. Indeed this position has been supported by research by Brown (2007) who noted that some of the mistakes could be as a result of mispronouncing these sounds: /ð/ as /z/ or /θ/ as /s/ (it is for this reason that the speaker could not pronounce “music” correctly. Mispronunciation of /θ/ as /s/ have been exhibited in the statement below (parts of the statement mispronounced have been identified in part one. “But after I have…having girlfriends yah, I think games becoming but…you know, you know that feeling? I may spend more money or more time wis my girlfriends and I think real life became more animal hard, how do you say, realistic yah? How about you?” The word ‘video’ was more than once pronounced as /wɛɪ’dio:/ suggesting that with concerted efforts especially on diphthong pronunciation a remarkable improvement will be noted. As much, aspects of speech such as intonation, rhythm, different patterns of stress and supra-segmental speech remains above average. Linking this conclusion to research based evidences, Mennen et al. (2014) took a case study on pattern of intonation from language as second language learners from German learners and observed that as far as intonation is concerned, students were likely to exhibit native-like patterns of intonation thus supporting reasons as to why the interviewer produced the patterns of intonation as noted. Recommendations The first step to consider in recommendation is the study method adopted especially in early years. They should be in line with observations proposed by Nunan (1991) so that teachings are geared towards speaking skills. This will in turn ensure that the learner would not only improve his command of the targeted language but improve aspects such as English-speaking experiences. Studies have noted that exposure to English materials such as books, stories; novels further improve English literacy (Nunan and Richards, 2015). As a teacher, helping the learner with expository materials, books, novels and competency in the grammar will be my priority. Based on the level of competency that the interviewer has exhibited, I will recommend that he engages himself in activities such as drama, cultural exchanges, debates, television programs, interactive video games and literature materials. These views are evidence based as studies such as Nunan and Richards (2015); Long (1981) observed that exposing learners to expository and convectional tasks as ones mentioned above improved their competencies. This recommendation is particularly targeting instances of mispronounced words which according to the analysis would require little attention as most of the words were actually pronounced correctly. Conclusion A notable concern in the analysis is the interviewer’s command of English which according to this analysis is already at higher level save for instances of native language interference which when analysed differently, only comes out in spoken but no written English. I would therefore wish that his efforts to grasp other elements of language be enhanced and taught in a structured format. Since the interviewer is already exposed and his stay in Brisbane or Australia in general offers more opportunity, proactive and independent studies need to be integrated. References Cited Douglas, B. H. (2000). Principles of language learning and teaching. Longman: Pearson education, 4, 7. Lantolf, J. P., Thorne, S. L., & Poehner, M. E. (2015). Sociocultural theory and second language development. Theories in second language acquisition: An introduction, 207-226. Chun, D., Smith, B., & Kern, R. (2016). Technology in language use, language teaching, and language learning. The Modern Language Journal, 100(S1), 64-80. Nunan, D., & Richards, J. C. (Eds.). (2015). Language learning beyond the classroom. Routledge. Brown, H.D. (2007). Principles of language learning and teaching. White Plains, N.Y.: Pearson/Longman. Council of Europe (n.d.). Common European framework of reference for languages: learning, teaching, assessment. Strasbourg: Language Policy Unit. Long, M.H. (1981). Questions in foreigner talk discourse. Language Learning 31(1). Mennen, I., Schaeffler, F., & Dickie, C. (2014). Second language acquisition of pitch range in German learners of English. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 36(2), 303-329. doi:10.1017/S0272263114000023 Nunan, D. (1991). Language teaching methodology: a textbook for teachers . Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall. Appendix One: Placement on the Common European Framework General Linguistic Range: B1: Has enough language to get by, with sufficient vocabulary to express him/herself with some hesitation and circumlocutions on topics such as family, hobbies and interests, work, travel, and current events, but lexical limitations cause repetition and even difficulty with formulation at times. Vocabulary Range: B1: Has a sufficient vocabulary to express him/herself with some circumlocutions on most topics pertinent to his/her everyday life such as family, hobbies and interests, work, travel, and current events. Vocabulary Control: B2: Lexical accuracy is generally high, though some confusion and incorrect word choice does occur without hindering communication. Grammatical Control: B2: Good grammatical control; occasional ‘slips’ or non-systematic errors and minor flaws in sentence structure may still occur, but they are rare and can often be corrected in retrospect. Shows a relatively high degree of grammatical control. Does not make mistakes which lead to misunderstanding. Phonological Control: B1: Pronunciation is clearly intelligible even if a foreign accent is sometimes evident and occasional mispronunciations occur. Coherence and Cohesion: B1: Can use a limited number of cohesive devices to link his/her utterances into clear, coherent discourse, though there may be some ‘jumpiness’ in a long contribution. Spoken Fluency: B1: Can express him/herself with relative ease. Despite some problems with formulation resulting in pauses and ‘cul-de-sacs’, he/she is able to keep going effectively without help. Appendix Two: Consent Obtained PLEASE INSERT THE CONSENT HERE 901LAL Assignment Two MARKING RUBRIC Part 1: Language Analysis (no more than 2,000 words) Part 2: The informant profile (1,500 - 2,000 words) Student name: Student Number: Student mark: out of 60 Analysis of a learner’s speech Outstanding High Satisfactory Unsatisfactory 1. A rich and detailed profile description of your selected speaker (12) An outstandingly clear and detailed profile that goes well beyond the minimum and provides a rich understanding of the speaker. A very clear and detailed profile that provides a rich understanding of the speaker. Some minor aspects may be lacking. A satisfactory profile with some detail that provides an understanding of the speaker. Some major aspects may be lacking. A limited to inadequate profile that provides little to no understanding of the speaker. 2. Ability to conduct a sound phonological analysis of the learner's speech (18) Demonstrates an outstandingly detailed understanding and accurate application of phonetic and phonological principles. IPA transcription is correct. Demonstrates a very good understanding and application of phonetic and phonological principles. IPA transcription may contain a few minor errors. Demonstrates a sound understanding and application of phonetic and phonological principles. IPA transcription may contain some major errors. Demonstrates little to no satisfactory understanding and application of phonetic and phonological principles. IPA transcription is incorrect or missing. 3. Ability to analyse morphological and syntactical features of the learner's speech (18) Demonstrates an outstandingly strong understanding and application of morpho-syntactical principles. No errors or inaccuracies. Demonstrates a very good understanding and application of morpho-syntactical principles. There may be some minor errors or inaccuracies. Demonstrates an adequate understanding and application of morpho-syntactical principles. . There may be some major errors or inaccuracies. Demonstrates an inadequate understanding and application of morpho-syntactical principles. 4. Effective analysis of the student's language learning needs based on your findings (8) An articulate, detailed and sophisticated analysis of the student’s learning needs. A detailed set of recommendations for future learning is provided. A detailed, logical, high level analysis of the student’s learning needs. A useful set of recommendations for future learning is provided but there may be aspects that have not been considered. An adequate analysis of the student’s learning needs. A sound set of recommendations for future learning but there may be aspects that have not been considered. A poor or inconsistent analysis of the student’s learning needs that is lacking in detail. Little to no useful recommendations for future learning. 5. Clear, effective presentation; follows formal academic writing style and APA 6th style referencing (4) Extremely high level of written expression throughout. Excellent organisation, structure and fluency. Complete and scholarly referencing; language conventions applied correctly (i.e. spelling, capitalisation, punctuation, agreement, pronoun usage, sentence structure). Very high level of written expression throughout. Very good organisation, structure and fluency. Mostly accurate referencing; language conventions applied correctly (i.e. spelling, capitalisation, punctuation, agreement, pronoun usage, sentence structure). There may be some minor flaws. Generally adequate organisation, structure and fluency. Correct referencing; language conventions generally applied correctly (i.e. spelling, capitalisation, punctuation, agreement, pronoun usage, sentence structure). There may be some major flaws. Literacy standard is poor in areas of paragraphing, syntax, punctuation and spelling / poor presentation; referencing inconsistent and/or incomplete. There may be some serious flaws. Marker’s overall comments: Read More