SUBJECT ASSIGNMENT

APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE IN THE CLASSROOM CONTEXT

STUDENT: GLORIA MARTINEZ ESCOBAR

GROUP

DATE: APRIL 20, 2021

Table of contents

INTRODUCTION.............................................................................................................................3
TASK 1.............................................................................................................................................3
TASK 2.............................................................................................................................................6
TASK 3.............................................................................................................................................8
LANGUAGE GENERALIZATIONS............................................................................................10
CONCLUSIONS............................................................................................................................11
BIBLIOGRAPHY...........................................................................................................................12
INTRODUCTION

The good thing about teaching ESL or L2 is that learners are not only interested in their
school grades, but also worried about mastering their language skills and be able to
communicate with others efficiently. Learning a second language is also a way to learn
about people’s cultural settings and such cultural interaction keeps learners motivated and
happy as they develop some other tactics and learning styles to enhance their language
knowledge.

As long as the students become proficient in the second language, they will connect
language and cultural settings.

Moreover, the phenomena of inter-language is a product of a learner (L2) when learning a

foreign language. Larry Selinker a us scholar refer to “the linguistic system evidenced
when a second language tries to make him understood in the second language”

The interlanguage is seen as a bridge between the second language and the native
language (E. Tarone)

Viewing the second language from the sociolinguistic & psycholinguistic angles, we
highlight the Selinker’s analysis very important as he expresses that the L2 learners move
the latent psychological structure.

Such pupils, who keep on to attain a native-like command of the L2 activate the latent
language structure as well as the latent physiological structure (Funiber study materials:
09).

What is more relevant is the fact that students use a large variety of learning strategies
while developing what we call INTERLANGUAGE.

In summary, mistakes made by pupils indicate teachers how well they are developing their
language abilities
TASK 1
 Native language: Mixed
 Target language: English
 Background info: Intermediate level students
 Data source: Students writings

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 postulation this generalization the sentence written in their
compositions and writings in general, indicate a particular structural process in
progress, mistakes arise when the students have used their rules by
contextualizing every statement based on knowledge of the world and their own
hypotheses concerning structure patterns and vocabulary.
Some regulations help to determine the student comprehension and production
that is not clear in these examples.
Somehow, we have observed that such mistakes have pushed students to make
overgeneralization.
We all know there is a link between native language and the second one.
Through such evidence, we may infer that the interlanguage system and those of
the L2 are combined someway.
In theory, the type of structural errors are independent of the individual’s mother
tongue (FUNIBER, study materials: 07)
Richards (1974) says such mistakes were popular among learners of different
countries and languages while they were developing their own hypotheses on
grammar structures.
Jain (1974) highlights two kinds of what we call overgeneralization, which is related
to the native language’s level of proximity to the second language.
 Overgeneralizations made in a productive manner cause more mistakes.
 Overgeneralizations anchored on the second language lead to make less mistakes.

2. What strategy/strategies do you think these learners have come up with regarding
lexical use?
We limit ourselves to emphasize the ones that allow learners to acquire and
comprehend the language at some extend:
 Observing grammar patterns in the second language while linking it with their
native language.
 Through analyzing lexical /semantic comparisons between native language and
foreign language
 Guessing vocabulary in context
 Through literal translation from native language to the second one
 Randomly asking learners for the possible meaning of a word or words
 Using similar words
 Using transparent words (cognates)
 Using dictionaries

Through our classroom study material and resources, we agree with Ellis (1997-76-
77) who thinks that “learning strategies are those particular approaches or technics
that learner employ to try to learn an L2”. He identified three main learning
strategies: cognitive, metacognitive and social affective strategies, but they are the
ones to bear in mind through the learning process from our own opinion as
teachers.
3. What additional information, if any, would you like to have from theses learners to
test your hypothesis?

There are several factors committed in the process of learning a second language.
To begin with, students must expose to L2 and must be done in and out of the
classroom; keeping in mind that the input must be easy to understand so that
learners can internalize such information.
Learners need exposure to a specific typo of input if language acquisition is to be
facilitated (Funiber guise materials).

Needless to say, we may take into account personal aspects such as their age,
backgrounds, interest, learning strategies as they learn a second language.

TASK 2

 Native language: Spanish

 Target language: English
 Background information: teens, born in Colombia but live in US
 Data source: Responses to a picture story from a standard proficiency test.

DATA

You will find the “right” answers to recommended test and evaluation activities.

1. Charles needs to drink some coffee

2. The cat drank the coffee
3. The front desk clerk would have drunk it
4. It came

You find the “right” answers to the present exams by 4-6 ESL students (A-E)

A. 1. He needs to drink
2. The cat drank it B. 1. He need the coffee
3. The front desk clerk would 2. The cat drank
drink it 3. The front desk clerk drink
4. It came 4. They come
3. The front desk clerk will drink
C. 1. Charles drinks some coffee 4. It comes
2. The cat drank it
3. The front desk clerk would E. 1. Charles need….
have drank it 2. The cat drink-drank it
4. It came 3. The front desk clerk would
D. 1. The front desk clerk need…. drink it
2. The cat drink 4. It comes

QUESTIONS:

1. What features of English grammar is being tested in each of the test items?
a. Charles needs to drink some coffee  Present simple is tested
b. The cat drank the coffee  Past tense is tested
c. The front desk clerk would have drunk it  Conditional is tested
d. It came  Past tense is tested
2. Who appears to be the most advanced learner and why?
Student C is good because he’s got 3 correct responses (Questionnaire: 1-2-4)
The same student fails question 3 because he’s got troubles with the verb form
(grammar structures)
3. Who appears to be the least advanced learner and why?
We are sure student D seems to be the least advanced learner due to the fact that
all of his responses are wrong. We assume that the student has got issues dealing
with basic grammar patterns
4. What generalization can be made about the order of acquisition for learning these
constructions? Please note that you will be able to reproduce the matrix you have
for this question (in your study materials) in the vc you could use point form here.
We observe that students who have developed language skills are those who lived
and studied in an English speaking country. We dare to state such inference
anchored on previous studies along with learners background data. We are aware
that some students may commit errors, but they have an acceptable level of
communication skills. Teachers and scholars must understand that language
students learn and master a language at their own pace and develop their
language skills in the same manner too.
In addition, it would be advisable that teachers and ELT researchers look back on
some theorical studies concerning the acquisition of grammatical structures, which
go ahead in a predictable manner. In summary, there are predictable results
(products) as the learning of morphemes and syntactic structures are being
acquired and internalized in their store of words and grammar patterns.
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? Of course, the teachers can always correct their students’ mistakes and
help them to improve and know about their language issues when dealing with
grammar structures. We must encourage learners to do better at their own pace.
Furthermore, it is mandatory that teachers put into practice appropriate
approaches, useful strategies and effective techniques in order to teach grammar
in a viable and vigorous way in the ESL / EFL classroom.
Teaching such semantic structures should happen in a natural way.
In addition to all this, teachers may focus on the question and we observe a trend
to continue working on grammar structures, which may go from the easy to the
most complicated one. We have discussed the question mentioned above and we
all agree that this type of exams are not accurate source of information of the
students’ language abilities.
In fact, we can hardly state how good they are managing language skills to have an
acceptable proficiency in the L2.

TASK 3
 Native language: Colombian Spanish
 Target language: English
 Background info: Adult male
 Data source: Tape-recorded spontaneous speech

DATA:

You will read sample-exercises of this speaker’s use of negatives

1. No write 3. I me no speaka too much Englee,

2. No like it eh?
4. Me no like stay in the house
5. No es right 13. No onions, bro
6. I no want cucumba 14. No gringo
7. You no go out 15. The business is no good
8. My sis no go to school 16. No time for ya
9. No, ya no speak Spanish. 17. Maybe, you no like it
10. No, ya no work? 18. No problem, my friend
11. No in city 19. No possible today
12. No barbikiu 20. No now, please

QUESTIONS

1. Describe this learner’s knowledge of English negation

We notice that the student has got an evident interference of his/her native
language. He/She manages “no” in most of his/her examples, which show us that
such a learner has not understood the usage of negative statements. He/She might
find more convenient to elaborate those statements since the meaning is implied
even though it is not the right grammar form.
As Richards (1971) stated that in language learning process, simplification and
reduction are caused by the individual’s attempt to reduce the complexity of the
language system so we may think the message’s understandable despite the
grammatical shorten.
Furthermore teachers highlight that the student might reach up to a level of
fossilization taking into account inner factors such as age due to the fact that the
student is an adult male and the lack of cultural settings since the learner is
capable to interact with others and may feel at ease with that level of language
skills so he makes no efforts to learn and master the language adequately or
he/she might get positive cognitive feedback; he/she only cares about being
understood and sees no need to correct himself which ends up in what we call
fossilization.
2. At his 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 one? If so,
how? Not necessarily, but if happens that the student has elaborated many
examples of “I don’t know” maybe that the learner has internalized this phrase as a
drunk, but is not capable to work with the negative statements in other fragments of
speech, even though, he/she knows the meaning of “I don’t know”, the student
might not have the chance to acquire feedback in terms of time in relation to the
examples written above.

LANGUAGE GENERALIZATIONS

Generalization in this context refers to language construction made on the surface of its
grammar structure, which in the majority of cases depends on the learner’s assumption,
and inference of their native language (Golbert 2006). This theme is connected to second
language learners owing to the interlanguage existed between the L1 and L2 that the
individual possess. When the student is producing language structures in the second
language, everything that the L1 implies: lexicon, sentence construction, language
distribution, everyday language usage and words systematization, affects its acquisition in
one way or the other, so that generalizations that are practiced frequently, may become
mistakes and may cause interlanguage fossilization (Ellis, 1997).

Anchored on the previous data, it can be stated that generalization shown is about endings
such as suffixes; we also observe troubles dealing with prefixes. There’s a confusing
situation when working with the gerund suffix in order to create whether it is a noun, a verb
or a participle adjective, as a result the learner showed in this exercise the distinction
between learning and acquiring, they just use the ending ING or ED suffixes because they
learnt it before, but did not acquire its correct usage, they did not go from the explicit to the
implicit when using this form (Krashen, 2009).

Moreover, word construction on suffixes, a case of overuse is clearly depicted. Being

gerunds a common verbal form for students, it is recognized as a type of regularization
and misinformation of a grammar form (Ellis, 1997)

Going a little further, we may infer that it exist examples of overgeneralization from items 1
through 6; where one and three respectably refers to usage of gerunds; on the other hand,
items 2, 5 and 6 is linked to common verb forms in past tenses whereas 4, 7, 8 and 9 is a
typical case of misuse on lexical chunks perhaps caused by a transfer of training trouble or
a global simplification.
CONCLUSIONS
In summary, we highlight the following reflexions out of the present work:

1. The majority of scholars agree on the phenomenon called “special language” which
is the one between L1 and L2 (Funiber study material: 05)
2. The name “interlanguage” was created by Selinker in 1979 and since then, the
term has been used to describe the language system that appears the learning
language process.
3. A student’s developing skills is actually systematic and it links its personal rules
and logic.
4. Learners make and develop constructions through real uses of the language (Nick
C. Ellis). We must recognize that constructions are very important components of
cognitive linguistic and functional theories of language.
5. We have to remember the process of interlanguage: the effects and nature of
transfer, fossilization, overgeneralization, transfer of training and learning and
communication strategies.
6. Input and interaction are keys to successful learning.
7. Easy and understandable input is basic while learning a second language. We
have observed that when an input is clear and grasped by the student, then it can
be changed into intake.
8. We, teachers must keep in mind the key role of consciousness as well as the
importance of offering learners practical and useful activities which encourage
reconstruction and noticing that eventually will foster the reconstruction of learner’s
interlanguage.
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ellis, N. C. (2006): “Cognitive perspectives on SLA – The Associative Cognitive Creed”

University of Michigan, 101.

Tarone, E. (1994): “Interlanguage” Elsevier Ltd., volume 4, 1715/1719

Thornbury, S. (1997): “Reformulation and reconstruction: tasks that promote noticing”. ELT
Journal 51/4:326-335

Gebauer, S. K., Zaunbauer, A. C. M., & Moler, J. (2013). Cross-language transfer in

English immersion programs in Germany: Reading comprehension and Reading fluency.
Contemporary Educational Psychology, 38, 64-74.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2012.09.002

WEBOGRAPHY

Fossilization in language learning. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4zl-

raPnEQ

Interlanguage and Error Analysis. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=rrnYsi6sG8w

Interlanguage and language teaching. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=CBPhlF5du_w

What is interlanguage? Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqVRV1Wzthc