Language Learning - Interview Analysis - Assignment Example

?Introduction There are several considerations in the teaching and learning of the English language. Elements such as phonological, grammatical, vocabulary, and pragmatic competence would be the main discussions in this study. It aims to investigate whether explicit instructions in these four areas of the English language would aid Arabic-speaking adults improve their ability to learn English easily, which would eventually lead to enhanced reading, listening, and speaking skills in English as another language. Brief Background of the Study It is a universal truth that adults have mastered communicative competence in their native tongue. This holds true even to students of a second language, notwithstanding the fact that it is a foreign or secondary language in their native lands. This competence involves the knowledge that a listener or speaker has of what makes up accurate, proper, and effective language behaviour in relation to specific goals in communication (Ellis, 1994, p. 47). It is a common desire of students of a second language to understand and be understood by the native speakers of the target language whenever they communicate orally (Bailey, Long, & Peck, 1983, p. 17). Accent, diction, pronunciation, and enunciation are all considered significant elements of smooth and effective communication between a native speaker and a non-native speaker. It is also true that adult students of a second language, who mastered communicative competence in their mother tongue, tend to apply the rules of their mother tongue when trying to communicate using the target language. However, applying rules from one language to another language results in negative transfer (Krashen & Terrell, 1983, p. 53). Previous studies show disagreement among linguists regarding the effectiveness of a formal classroom set-up in teaching adults a second language (Krashen & Terrell, 1983, p. 56). However, some studies contradict this argument by enumerating the significant role of a classroom instruction in teaching a second language (Doughty & Long, 2003, p. 27-8). Supporters of the latter claim assert that language rules are more effectively learned and understood when presented with clear instructions and supported by practice and example (Ellis, 1994, p. 48-9). Literature Review This study examined whether explicit instructions in the four areas of competence in the English language, namely, phonology, grammar, vocabulary, and pragmatic, would aid students of the second language, particularly native Arabic speakers, in improving their English reading, listening, and speaking skills. Second Language Acquisition During the early 80s, the Input Hypothesis was proposed by Krashen in an attempt to answer questions related to acquiring a second language. He asserts the importance of focusing and understanding the meaning in the content. However, he also mentions that it is not enough. Another study claims that people cannot hear dissimilarities between sounds unless they learn to make these differences. It is therefore saying that people identify sounds based on the manner they produce these same sounds (Ladefoged, 1967, p. 98). However, one should understand that this particular process is not as simple as it sounds. Levelt’s Speech Production Model in 1983 identifies that communication skills requires a process of utilizing words from the lexicon (vocabulary), implementation of grammatical coding (grammar), and then conveying a phonological coding (phonology). Pragmatic competence is acquired after all these processes, coupled with the proper balance of memory and control mechanism, are learned (Ellis, 1994, p. 51-2). Methodology Thorough analysis of errors made by language students aids in identifying teaching areas that need improvement (Corder, 1974, p. 32). Error analysis is utilized for this study, wherein the errors learners made were given focus. Particularly for this research, a native Arabic speaker was interviewed. Fatima has been studying English in the UK for over 4 months. However, it needs to be considered too that for second language students, there is a great chance that most of them speak their native tongue at home with family and outside home with friends. In this interview, Fatima was asked for the reasons why she decided to study in England. She was asked to talk about the different experiences she went through while studying. She was also encouraged to discuss a recently watched English television show or film, and a recent article she read from an English newspaper. Data Analysis As step 1, a Classification for Error Analysis was developed based on the literature focusing on the following categories: phonological (stress patterns, rhythm patterns, intonation patterns, tone patterns, vowels, consonants, etc.), grammatical (parts of speech, subject-verb agreement, verb tenses, irregular verbs, articles, modals, prepositions, etc.), lexical (vocabulary or word choice), and pragmatic (relationships between words or sentences and the situations and contexts) (Corder, 1974, p. 32-3 and Richards, Platt, Platt, & Candlin, 1993, p. 284-5). A little exploration on speech crutches will also be discussed. Results by Error Category The total number of errors found in the 13-minute interview was 325. See the figure below. Figure 1 There were 103 phonological, 54 grammatical, 42 lexical or vocabulary, 99 pragmatic, and 27 speech crutches in the duration of the face-to-face interview. The errors were more of transfer interference than developmental. Discussion Phonological Errors The phonological errors found in this interview predominantly fall under insertion type. As mentioned earlier, second language students mastered communicative competence in their mother tongue, therefore, language interference is constantly present. Arab students of English find several English syllables difficult since they do not exist in the Arabic language (Doughty & Long, 2003, p. 63). Onset is an essential part in the formation of any syllable in the Arabic language. In addition, it should always be with a consonant. This means that no word is allowed to start with a vowel sound (/?/). This also means that if there are two consonants meeting at the beginning of a word, they are separated by a vowel sound (/?/). The coda (end) of the syllable is elective since some kinds of syllables are open, for instance, ending in vowel. Therefore, the coda can be zero, but up to no more than two consonants (Doughty & Long, 2003, p. 64-5). Examples: “Now I s(/?/)tudy level four..maybe two..or..th(/?/)ree mon(/?/)ths.” “What is the meaning p(/?/)rob(/?/)lematic?” “I .. the s(/?/)chool education is very busy..we wait five week to put my chil(/?/)d in the s(/?/)chool.” “It is fil(/?/)m of Ram(/?/)bo for the famous Syl(/?/)ves(/?/)ter S(/?/)tallone.” “Maybe win(/?/)dy or c(/?/)loudy.” Vowels drag words, therefore, it is difficult to produce a string of consonants without vowels. Additionally, since Fatima has been studying English for just a few months, it is still difficult for her to move from one place of articulation to another, especially if the articulators are, if not in contact, very close to each other. Second language acquisition takes place through stages of development. Her first language influence (FLI) will be slowly modified as she creates a structure of conceptual linguistic rules that underlies production and understanding of the target language. According to studies, this system is called interlanguage, which occurs when a second language student adapts by addition and deletion of rules, and reformation of the whole system (Ladefoged, 1967, p. 44).   As shown in the data analysis, it is clear that the type of pronunciation errors were caused by the participant’s first language influence or interference. Although the stage of development may be considered, FLI is still more predominant than the latter. Some teaching procedures that could aid both students and teachers in overcoming pronunciation difficulties, particularly related to consonant sequences, are the following (Ladefoged, 1967, p.47-9): Students should be introduced to the native tongue syllable pattern Teachers should introduce the target language (English) short syllable patterns first Teachers should introduce long syllable patterns after the introduction of the short ones Comparison should be made to pinpoint the differences of the native tongue from the target language Emphasize on the second language syllable patterns to avoid the number of known errors Grammatical Errors Grammar causes unexpected difficulties in second language acquisition when students of a second language have not worked out the relationship between language function and grammatical structure (Alderson, 2007, p. 389). For example, during the interview, Fatima said: “Now is ok.” “And see what they think will be next day or next week.” These two statements (phrases) cannot stand alone. There were no clear ideas communicated by these lines. Without the context clues from the preceding and succeeding sentences, these statements would have been meaningless. Prepositions also proved to be an issue for the participant. Previous studies claim that prepositions normally pose an issue among second language students (Chujo & Utiyama, 2006, p. 255). This is because several English prepositions have similar grammatical functions. Consequently, when students get confused as to which preposition to use in particular phrases or sentences, they often compare the phrases or sentences with the native tongue equivalent and give a transliteration of the native tongue preposition in English. The dilemma here is prepositions seldom have a one to one correspondence between Arabic and English (Alderson, 2007, p. 392). Here are a few prepositional errors in the interview: “It is a flat..on the river.” “We cannot go out (of - missing) the house.” “Will have no money in the end of month.” “Yes I remember last week one old film came in the television.” “I like it..and it is funny also because in that time when Afghanistan fighting with Russia.” Proper use of the articles “a, an, and the” was also inconsistent throughout the interview. For instance: “We find (a) good house.” “Maybe I go to another house if we find (a) good and big (one).” “This is (a) very big problem.” “It is (a) very good film.” “He is busy a lot all (the – should be omitted) day.” It should be noted though that in Arabic, some abstract words pertaining to qualities, attributes, and ideas are preceded by a definite article equivalent to the English “the”. Thus, errors of this type are common among native Arabic speakers when communicating in English. Some other common errors throughout the interview are subject-verb agreement, verbal tenses, and proper pluralisation of nouns. For example: “Also this kind of film(s – should be omitted) is very funny.” “My husband don’t like shopping very much.” “Me and my husband was looking for houses a lot.” “His work send him to Britain.” “When I first coming.” “Maybe I (will) go to another house if we find good and big.” “I..study level three two month(s).” “We wait(ed) five week(s) to put my child in the school.” Lexical Errors Vocabulary competence of the participant is also flawed and there are a couple of vocabulary errors in the interview, which fall under two sub-categories: 1) “covertly erroneous” or grammatical words that do not clearly communicate the exact meaning intended by the speaker or are not fitting in the context, and 2) “overtly erroneous” or mistakes that are absolutely considered by native speakers as improper or ungrammatical (Zareva, Schwanenflugel, & Nikolova, 2005, p. 568-9). A few examples of these lexical errors committed are as follows: Covertly Erroneous: “I was very afraid from study.” ? Here, the statement could mean that something about the “study” frightened her (Fatima). However, she meant she was “anxious” of her situation since she has to study in the England. This could be considered as both lexical error (due to improper choice of word) and grammatical error (inappropriate use of preposition). “So I go out and make shopping.” ? The proper word to use here should be “do” instead of “make.” Technically speaking, “do” and “make” have similar definitions --- as with create, build, construct, produce, etc. --- but appropriate use is necessary to convey the speaker’s exact meaning (Vermeer, 2001, p. 223). “My living now is ok.” The appropriate word choice in place of “living” should be “situation.” Any person not hearing the rest of the participant’s statements (after this one) can easily misinterpret the meaning as either talking about “life situation” or “livelihood.” “Say thank you for interview with me.” ? Here, the statement could mean that the speaker (Fatima) is telling the listener to offer thanks (to the former) for the interview. However, the speaker meant she “wants to say thank you” for the interview. “The school education is very busy.” ? Here, the appropriate word in place of “education” should be “system”. “That Rambo go to Afghanistan to get out some prisoners that Russian army keep in their place in Afghanistan.” ? Here, the appropriate word choice in place of “keep” should be “detain”, in order to express the accurate meaning of the statement. Overtly Erroneous: Compared to the examples given above, the statements below are considered understandable in nature, but worded inappropriately. Just like the definition provided earlier, these are overtly erroneous statements, which are considered grammatically incorrect and unacceptable by native English speakers (Zareva, Schwanenflugel, & Nikolova, 2005, p. 568). “What is the meaning problematic?” “Countries fight and make a lot of troubles and killings and destroy others.” “Because when you look in the true.” “But now I am in Britain..it makes the BBC.” “Here especially the televising have many cooking programs.” Pragmatic Errors Pragmatic competence by the speaker is, more or less, the combination of knowledge in all the areas of English communication. It is the knowledge of the use of language, specifically the relationships between contexts and situations to sentences. It includes an understanding of how words and expressions are interpreted by the listener (or reader), how speakers (and listeners) understand and utilize English utterances, and how the relationship between the speaker and listener influences the sentence structure (Brown & Levinson, 2010, p. 73-5). There are several transfer and interlingual factors that cause pragmatic errors by students of a second language. For example, in Arabic, items in a series are preceded by “wa”, an English equivalent to “and”. On the other hand, in English, items in a series are separated by commas, and the conjunction “and” is used just before the last item. Also, the is no capitalization in the Arabic letters, and punctuation conventions are very different from the English language rules (Alderson, 2007, p. 403). These factors explain the reason why Fatima, in her statements, do not necessarily form “straight English sentences”. Here, it is obvious that Fatima is trying to do a direct translation of colloquial Arabic to English. There are also inappropriate usage --- either improper placing within the sentence or improper use per se --- of conjunctions. For instance: “Ah..no bad experience..aaa..but some problem in..umm..to find good house..not expensive..umm ..clean near shops..and..before I come here I ask many friends came here before and rent houses..they..aaa help me a lot when I came.” “As you see..the weather here..there is a big change every day..one day snow..next day sun..maybe windy or cloudy..and of course..very cold every day.” Moreover, the statement: “So I go out and make shopping.” ? Requires appropriate word to convey the speaker’s exact meaning. Pragmatic competence is what would make the statement correct (Brown & Levinson, 2010, p. 78). A native speaker, or a person who has communicative competence would know that the statement should be worded as: “So I go out and do some shopping.” Speech Crutches / Fillers The speech crutches (or fillers) “aaa” and “umm” that were prevalent during the duration of the interview demonstrate the speaker’s oral communication process. As mentioned earlier, Levelt’s Speech Production Model says that communication skills --- oral, for this study --- is a process of using words from the vocabulary, forming these words in correct structure and grammar, and expressing them orally with correct pronunciation (Ellis, 1994, p. 51-2). Having fillers in between sentences and phrases demonstrates the “gaps” within and between these processes, denoting the lack of fluency and fluidity in the three communication processes. Since pragmatic competence is the last to be acquired among these competencies, it is reasonable to conclude that an individual who lacks these first three skills would considerably commit errors in pragmatics. Teaching Suggestions Oral-Situational Method This method was developed by British applied linguistics. It is an alternative to the audiolingual method in the US (Richards, Platt, Platt, & Candlin, 1993, p. 244). It was originally based on a behaviourist learning concept. This theory views language acquisition as similar to other types of learning. It stresses on the concept of habit-formation. Habits are developed when students learn the appropriate responses to stimuli through constant practice. According to this method, grammar is acquired inductively, therefore, clear explanations of grammar rules are of no value and unnecessary. This was rooted in the grammatical competence or linguistic competence theory (Doughty & Long, 2003, p. 63). Notional-Functional Method The notional-functional method focuses on language descriptions and concepts that stresses on the social and practical sides of competence. This method consists of a list of notions (like possibility and past time) and functions (requesting and apologising) together with the linguistic models necessary to achieve them in communication. This method involves the Type A method where the objectives are identified beforehand. This method has different teaching contents from the oral-situational method. The notional-functional method was rooted in the practical exponents of language and communicative competence theory. This method caters to the teaching of the practical areas of language, such as how and when to greet people, ceremonial and cultural topics, and the linguistic tools essential in exhibiting politeness (Krashen & Terrell, 1983, p. 107-8 and (Doughty & Long, 2003, p. 65). The Task-Based Approach Contrary to the two methods above, the task-based method to second language teaching does not aim to specify the language forms and contexts to be taught. The content instead is specified in terms of tasks. Tasks can involve writing, reading, speaking, or an amalgamation of all these competencies. This method requires focus not on the meanings, but on the forms (Krashen & Terrell, 1983, p. 109). This method requires learners not to try to communicate by their own non-linguistic and linguistic resources, but to operate on the language presented to them. It requires students of a second language to treat language as a tool, and gives importance to fluency rather than correctness. However, to realise acquisition of language, this method has to be used in an environment where major consideration is given to meanings Richards, Platt, Platt, & Candlin, 1993, p. 127-8). Conclusion Per Von Humboldt, teachers cannot really language per se. Teachers merely create conditions in which it will develop spontaneously in the mind on its own (Corder, 1967, p. 17). It is safe to say that most second language students face two types of problems in the acquisition of a second language: incomplete learning of English rules and first language interference or influence. The simplest way to slowly allow language to be absorbed by the students is to increase the number of assignments to allow students to do a lot of research and during their free time, which could help in making students read English materials and think in English. One has to remember that the communication process begins mentally. Implementing “team work” in classes would also aid in getting the students work in teams, practice together, and possibly correct each other’s mistakes. However, these mentioned practices, no matter how good, are definitely not enough. Students of a second language need to practice not only in class, but also at home and outside school, where they spend most of their time. Students need to acquire a skill that would allow the language to establish itself into the student’s system, and this can only be made possible by constant practice. It is therefore concluded, through this study, that a combination of the three methods are necessary in having the best possible acquisition of a second language, age and start of learning notwithstanding. References ALDERSON, J. C. (2007). Judging the Frequency of English Words. Applied Linguistics. 28, 383-409. BAILEY, K. M., LONG, M. H., & PECK, S. (1983). Second language acquisition studies. Rowley, Mass, Newbury House Publishers. BROWN, P., & LEVINSON, S. C. (2010). Politeness some universals in language usage. Cambridge [u.a.], Cambridge Univ. Press. CHUJO, K., & UTIYAMA, M. (2006). Selecting level-specific specialized vocabulary using statistical measures. System. 34, 255. 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Relationship between Lexical Competence and Language Proficiency: Variable Sensitivity. Studies in Second Language Acquisition. 27, 567-595. Read More