Resumen Segunda Prueba de Grado

7/31/2019 Resumen Segunda Prueba de Grado

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Language society and culture

Speech community: is a group of people who share a set of norms, rules andexpectations regarding the use of language.

Sociolinguistics: in general terms, sociolinguistics deals with the inter-relationships

between language and society.

Social dialects: are varieties of language used by groups defined according to class,education, age, sex and a number of other social parameters.

Overt prestige: is the generally recognized better or positively valued ways ofspeaking in social communities.

Covert prestige:this hidden type of positive value is often attached to non-standardforms and expressions by certain sub-groups.

Social factors

Social class and education: In some dialect surveys, it has been found that, amongthose leaving the educational system at an early stage, there is a greater tendency touse forms which are relatively infrequent in the speech of those who go on to college.Expressions such as those contained in Them boys throwed somethingare much morecommon in the speech of the former group than the latter.

The social classes also sound different. A famous study by Labov combined elementsfrom place of occupation and socio-economic status by looking at pronunciationdifferences among salespeople in three New York City department stores, Saks (highstatus), Macys (middle status) and Kleins (low status). Labov asked salespeoplequestions that elicited the expressions fourth floor. He was interested in thepronunciation (or not) of the [r] sound after vowels. There was a regular pattern: thehigher the socioeconomic status, the more [r] sounds, and the lower the socio-economicstatus, the fewer [r] sounds were produced. So, the difference in a single consonantcould mark higher versus lowah social class.

Age and gender: many younger speakers living in a particular region often look at theresults of a dialect survey of their area (conducted mainly with older informants) andclaim that their grandparents may use those terms, but they do not. Variation accordingto age is most noticeable across the grandparent-grandchild time span. Grandfathermay still talk about the icebox and the wireless. Hes unlike to know what rules, whatsucks, or whats totally stoked, and he doesnt use like to introduce reported speech, as

his granddaughter might do: Were getting ready, and heslike, lets go

Variation according to gender. One general conclusion from dialect surveys is thatfemale speakers tend to use more prestigious forms than male speakers with the samesocial background. For example, I done it, it growed and he aint can be found moreoften in the speech of males, and I did it, it grew and he isnt in the speech of females.In some cultures, quite different pronunciations of certain words in male and female


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speech have been documented in some North American Indian languages such asGros Venture and Koasati.

Ethnic background: within any society, differences in speech may come aboutbecause of different ethnic backgrounds. More generally, the speech of many African-Americans, technically known as Black English Vernacular (BEV), is a widespreadsocial dialect, often cutting across regional differences. When a group within any asociety undergoes some form of social isolation, such as the discrimination orsegregation experienced historically by African American, then social dialect differencesbecome more marked.

Idiolect: this term is used for the personal dialect of each individual speaker of alanguage.

Style: there is a gradation of style of speech, from the very formal to the very informal.Going for a job interview, you may say to a secretary Excuse me. Is the manager in hisoffice. I have an appointment. Alternatively, speaking to a friend about another friend,

you may produce a much less formal version of the message: Hey, is that lazy dog stillin bed? I gotta see him about something.

Register: variation according to use in specific situations is also studied in terms ofregister. There is an religious register in which we expect to find expressions not foundelsewhere, as in Ye shall be blessed by Him in times of tribulation.

Jardon: technical vocabulary associated with a special activity or group. In social terms,jardon helps to connect those who see themselves as insiders in some way andexclude outsiders. If you are becoming familiar with surfing talk, you will knowwhether the following answer to an interview question was yes or no.

Diglossia: this term is used to describe a situation in which two very different varietiesof language co-exist in a speech community, each with a distinct range of socialfunctions.

Language and culture: (culture: socially acquired knowledge) many of the factorswhich give rise to linguistic variation are sometimes discussed in terms of culturaldifferences. In the study of the worlds cultures, it has become clear that different groupsnot only have different languages, they have different world views which are reflected intheir languages.

Linguistic determinism: stated in this way, you have a theory of language which, in itsstrongest version, holds that language determines thought. In short you can only

think in the categories which your language allows you to think in.

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf producedarguments, in the 1930s, that the language of American Indians; for example, let themto view the world differently from those who spoke European languages. Led us look atan example of this reasoning. Whorf claimed that the Hopi Indians of Arizona perceivedthe world differently from other tribes because their language led them to do so. In thegrammar of Hopi, there is a distinction between animate and inanimate, and among the


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set of entities categorized as animate were clouds and stones. Whorf concluded that theHopi believe that clouds and stones are animate (living) entities that it is their languagewhich leads them to believe this. Now, English speakers do not see the world in thesame way as the Hopi. In Whorfs words, we dissect nature along lines aid down by ournative languages.

Language Universals: all languages have certain common properties called languageuniversals.

Sociocultural Factors

Culture is a way of life. It is the context within which we exist, think, feel and relate toothers. It is the glue that binds a group of people together. Culture might also be definedas the ideas, customs, skills, arts, and tools that characterize a given group of people ina given period of time.

From stereotypes to generalizations: Mark Twain gave us a delightful biased view ofother cultures and other languages in the innocent abroad. In reference to the Frenchlanguage, twain commented that the French always tangled up everything to thatdegree that when you start into a sentence you never know wether you are going tocome out alive or not. In a tramp abroad, twain noted that German is a most difficultlanguage: a gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronunciation) in30 hours, French in 30 days and German in 30 years. How do stereotypes form? Ourcultural milieu shapes our world view-our weltanschauung- in such a way that reality isthought to be objectively perceived through our own cultural pattern, and a differingperception is seen as either false or strange and is thus oversimplified. If peoplerecognize different world views, they will usually adopt a positive and open-mindedattitude toward cross-cultural differences. A close-minded view of such differences oftenresults in the maintenance of a stereotype-an oversimplification and blanketassumption. A stereotype assigns group characteristics to individuals purely on thebasis of their cultural membership.

Attitudes: stereotyping usually implies some type of attitude toward the culture orlanguage in question. It seems clear that second language learners benefit frompositive attitudes and negative attitudes may lead to decreased motivation and in alllikelihood, because of decreased input and interaction to unsuccessful attainment ofproficiency.

Second culture acquisition: second language learning implies some degree oflearning a second culture.

Acculturation: it is involves the acquisition of a new identity. This creation of a newidentity is at the heart of culture learning, or what some might call acculturation.

Culture shock: refers to phenomena ranging from mild irritability to deep psychologicalpanic and crisis. It is associated with feelings of estrangement, anger, hostility,indecision, frustration, unhappiness, sadness, loneliness, homesickness and evenphysical illness.


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It is common to describe culture shock as the second of four successive stages ofculture acquisition:

Stage 1: is a period of excitement and euphoria over the newness of the surroundings.

Stage 2: culture shock emerges as individuals feel the instruction of more and more

cultural differences into their own images of self and security. In this stage individualsrely and seek out the support of their fellow countrymen in the second culture takingsolace in complaining about local customs and conditions seeking escape from theirpredicament.

Stage 3: it is called culture stress. Some problems of acculturation are solved whileother problems still continue for some time.

Stage 4: represents near or full recovery, either assimilation or adaptation, acceptanceof the new culture and self-confidence in the new person that has developed in thisculture.

Social distance: refers to the cognitive and affective proximity of two cultures thatcome into contact within an individual.

John Schumann described social distance as consisting of the following parameters:

Dominance: in relation to the target language group, is the L2 group politically,culturally, technically or economically dominant, non dominant, or subordinate?

Integration: is the integration pattern of the L2 group assimilation, acculturation, orpreservation? What is the L2 groupss degree of enclosure-its identity separate fromother contiguous group?

Cohesiveness: is the L2 group cohesive? What is the size of the L2 group?

Congruence: are the cultures of the two groups congruent-similar in their value andbeliefs systems? What are the attitudes of the two groups toward the other?

Permanence: what is the L2 groupss intended length of residence in the targetlanguage area?

Culture in the classroom: teachers who follow an experiential or process model ofculture learning in the classroom can help students turn such an experience into one ofincreased cultural and self-awareness. Perhaps the best model of the combination ofsecond language and second culture learning is found among students who learn a

second language in a country where that language is spoken natively.

Geert Hofstede (1986), who used four different conceptual categories to study thecultural norms of fifty different countries. Each category was described as follows:

Individualism: individualism cultures assume that any person looks primarily afterhis/her own interest and the interest of his/her immediate family (husband, wife andchildren) Collectivist cultures assume that any person through birth and possible later


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events belongs to one or more tight in-groups, from which he/shecannot detachhim/herself.

Power Distance: as a characteristic of a culture defines the extent to which the lesspowerful persons in a society accept inequality in power and consider it as normal.

Uncertainty Avoidance: as a characteristic of a culture defines the extent to whichpeople within a culture are made nervous by situations they perceive as unstructured,unclear, or unpredictable situations which they therefore try to avoid by maintainingstrict codes of behavior and a belief in absolute truths. Cultures with a stronguncertainty avoidance are active, aggressive, emotional, compulsive, security-seeking,and intolerant.

Masculinity: as a characteristic of a culture opposes femininity. The two differ in thesocial roles associated with the biological fact of the existence of two sexes, and inparticular in the social roles attributed to men.

Language Policy and Politics

The relationship between language and society cannot be discussed for long withouttouching on the political ramifications of language and language policy. Virtually everycountry has some form of explicit ,official or implicit, unofficial policy affec ting thestatus of its native language(s) and one or more foreign languages.

World Englishes : The rapid growth of English as an international language (EIL) ofcommunication has stimulated interesting but often controversial discussion about thestatus of English in its varieties of what is now commonly called world Englishes.

ESL and EFL: learning ESL-English within a culture where English is spoken natively-,

may be clearly defined in the case of, say, and Arabic speaker learning English in theUSA or the UK. Learning EFL, that is, English in ones own culture with few immediateopportunities to use the language within the environment of that culture (for example aJapanese learning English in Japan.) may at first also appear to be easy to define.

Language Though and Culture: we saw in the case of first language acquisition thatcognitive development and linguistic development go hand in hand, each interactingwith shaping the other. Culture is an integral part of the interaction between languageand thought. Culture patterns of cognition and customs are sometimes explicitly codedin language. Conversational discourse styles, for example, may be a factor of culture.

Planning lessons and units the planning of a speaking lesson

English as a foreign language in the Costa Rican Educational system: English isconceived of as a linguistic and cultural tool for communication, which allows the learnerto complement his/her whole education.

English as an object of study: the object of study of the English language in ourcurriculum is written and oral communication, emphasizing the four basic linguisticskills: listening, speaking, reading and writing.


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Basic structures of the subject matter: for the purpose of studying the Englishlanguage, we have divided the subject matter into three components: formal,functional and cultural.

Formal component: it has been called the grammatical component.

Functional: refers to the communicative purpose for which we use the language.

Cultural: knowing the features of the target culture makes easier to understand thelanguage itself. Some of the cultural features that should be taken into account are:values, attitudes, behavior, patterns, points of view, ways of thinking, appreciation, etc.

General guidelines for the mediation of learning: education is considered as a socialprocess in which human beings meet human experiences. Learning is described as acomprehensible, dynamic and meaningful process for those who learn.

Cooperative language learning:

Cooperative learning: Is group learning activity organized so that learning isdependent on the socially structured exchange of information between learners ingroups and in which each learner is held accountable for his or her own learning and ismotivated to increase the learning of others.

Approach (theory of language):

Premise 1: All normal children growing up in a normal environment learn to talk. Weare born to talk.

Premise 2: Most talk/speech is organized as conversation.

Premise 3: Conversation operates according to a certain agreed upon set ofcooperative rules or maxims

Premise 4: Is that ones learns how these cooperative maxims are realized in onesnative language through casual, everyday conversational interaction.

Premise 5: Is that one learns how the maxims realized in a second language throughparticipation in cooperatively structured interactional activities.

Theory of learning: as we have indicated, a central premise of CLL is that learnersdevelop communicative competence in a language by conversing in socially orpedagogically structured situations. CLL also seeks to develop learners critical thinking

skills, which are seen as central to learning of any sort.

Learning advantages for ESL students in CLL classrooms:

Increased frequency and variety of second language practice through different types ofinteraction

Possibility for development or use of language in ways that support cognitivedevelopment and increased language skills


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Opportunities to integrate language with content-based instruction

Opportunities to include a greater variety of curricular materials to stimulate language aswell as concept learning

Freedom for teachers to mater new professional skills, particularly those emphasizing

communication

Opportunities for students to act as resources for each other, thus assuming a moreactive role in their learning

Design

Objectives: foster cooperation rather that competition, to develop critical thinking skills,and to develop communicative competence through socially structured interactionactivities.

The syllabus: CLL does not assume any particular form of language syllabus, since

activities from a wide variety of curriculum orientations can be taught via cooperativelearning.

Types of learning and teaching activities

Johnson et al. describe three types of cooperative learning groups:

Formal cooperative groups: These last from one class period to several weeks.These are established for a specific task and involve students working together toachieve shared learning goals.

Informal cooperative learning groups: These are ad-hoc groups that last from a few

minutes to a class period and are used to focus student attention or to facilitate directinstruction.

Cooperative base groups: These are long term, lasting for at least a year and consistof heterogeneous learning groups with stable membership whose primary purpose is toallow members to give each other the support help, encouragement and assistancethey need to succeed academically.

Olsen and kagan propose the following key elements of successful group-basedlearning in CL:

Positive interdependence: Occurs when group members feel that what helps one

member helps all and what hurts one member one member hurts all. It is created by thestructure of CL tasks and by building a spirit of mutual support within the group.

Group formation: Is an important factor in creating positive interdependence. Factorsinvolving in setting up groups include:

-Deciding on the size of the group: it will depend on the task, age of the learners andtime limit. Typical group size is from two to four.


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-Assigning students to groups: can be teacher selected, random, or student selected,although teacher selected is recommended as the usual mode so as to create groupsthat are heterogeneous.

-Student roles in groups: each group member has a specific role to play in a group,.Such us noise monitor, turn-taker monitor, recorder or summarizer.

Individual accountability: Involves both group and individual performance, forexample; by assigning each student a grade on his or her portion of a team project or bycalling on a student at random to share with the whole class, with group members, orwith another group.

Social skills: Determine the way students interact with each other as teammates.Usually some explicit instruction in social skills is needed to ensure successfulinteraction.

Structuring and structures: Refer to ways of organizing student interaction anddifferent ways students are to interact such as Three-step interview or Round Robin.

Cohelo describes three major kinds of cooperative learning focus, each of which hasmany variations:

Team practice from common input-skills development and mastery of facts:

All students work on the same material

Practice could follow a traditional teacher oriented-directed presentation of new material

The task is to make sure that everyone in the group knows the answer

Anyone in the group may be called on to answer for the team.

This technique is good for review and for practice tests.

Students can form new groups every day.

Jigsaw: differentiated but predetermined input-evaluation and synthesis of factsand opinions:

Each group member receives a different piece of the information.

Students regroup in topic groups. Composed of people with the same piece

Students synthesize the information through discussion

Each student produces an assignment of part of a group project

This method of organization may require team-building activities for both home groupsand topic groups.

This method is very useful in the multi-level class


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Information-gap activities in language teaching are jigsaw activities in the form of pairwork.

Cooperative projects: topic/resources selected by students discovery learning

Topics may be different for each grouip

Students identify subtopics for each group member

Steering committee may coordinate the work of the class as a whole

Students research the information

Students synthesize their information for a group presentation

Each group presents to the whole class

This method places greater emphasis on individualization and students interest.

Students need plenty of previous experience with more structured group work for this tobe effective.

Olsen and kagan describes the following examples of CLL activities:

Three-step interview

Roundtable

Think-pair-share

Solve-pair-share

Numbered heads

Learner roles: The primary role of the learner is as a member of a group who mustwork collaboratively on tasks with other group members. Learners are also directors oftheir own learning. They are taught to plan, monitor, and evaluate their own learningwhich is viewed as a compilation of lifelong learning skills. Thus, learning is somethingthat requires students direct and active involvement and participation.

Teacher roles: The teacher has to create a highly structured and well-organizedlearning environment in the classroom, setting goals, planning and structuring tasks,establishing the physical arrangement of the classroom, assigning students to groups

and roles of selecting materials and time.

Error correction

Students make mistakes: in his book on mistakes and correction Julian Edgesuggests that we can divide mistakes into three categories:

Slips: that is mistakes that students can correct themselves once the mistake has beenpointed out.


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Errors: mistakes which they cannot correct themselves.

Attempts: that is when a student tries to say something but does not yet know thecorrect way of saying it.

It is now widely accepted that there are two distinct causes for the errors which most if

not all students make at various stages:

L1 Interference: when L1 and the target language come into contact with each otherthere are often confusions which provoke errors in a learners use of English.

Developmental errors: for a long time now researchers in child language developmenthave been aware of the phenomenon of over-generalization. Foreign language studentsmake the same kind of developmental errors as well. This account for mistakes like sheis more nicer than him.

Assessing student performance

Teachers assessing students: assessment of performance can be explicit when wesay that was really good or implicit when, during a language drill for example, we passon the next student without making any comment or correction. Because theassessment we give is either largely positive or somewhat negative students are likelyto receive it in terms of praise or criticism.

Apart from tests and exams there are a number of ways in which we can assess ourstudents work:

Comments: commenting on students performance happens at various stages both inand outside the class.

Marks and grades: when students are graded on their work they are always keen toknow what grades they have achieved. Bad grades cam be extremely disheartening.

Reports: at the end of a term or year some teachers write reports on their studentsperformance either for the student, the school, or the parents of that student.

Students assessing themselves: they frequently have a clear idea of how well theyare doing or have done, and if we help them to develop this awareness, we may greatlyenhance learning. We can also ask students at the end of an activity how ell they thinkthey have got on-or tell them to add a written comment to a piece of written work theyhave completed, giving their own assessment of that work. A final way of formalizing anassessment dialogue between teacher and student is through a record ofachievement ROA. Here students are asked to write their own assessment of theirsuccess and difficulties and say how they think they can proceed.

Feedback during oral work

Accuracy and fluency: we need to decide whether a particular activity in the classroomis designed to expect the students complete accuracy- as in the study of a piece of


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grammar, a pronunciation exercise, or some vocabulary work for example- or whetherwe are asking the students to use the language as fluently as possible.

Feedback during accuracy work: as suggested at the beginning of this chapter,correction is usually made up of two distinct stages. In the first, teachers show studentsthat a mistake has been made, and in the second, if necessary, they help the studentsto do something about it.

Showing incorrectness: this can be done in a number of different ways

Repeating: ask the student to repeat what they have say.

Echoing: we repeat what he has said emphasizing the part of the utterance thatwas wrong

Statement and question: we can say Thats not right or do people think thatscorrect?

Expression: a simple facial expression or a gesture may be enough to indicatethat something that not quite work.

Hinting: is to give a quiet hint. Reformulation: an underrated correction for the teacher to repeat what the

student has said correctly.

Getting it right: we can say the correct version emphasizing the part where there is aproblem. Or we can say the incorrect part correctly.

Feedback during fluency work: the way in which we respond to students when theyspeak in a fluency activity will have a significant bearing not only on how well theyperform at the time but also on how they behave in fluency activities in the future. Justas there are ways we can respond to our students once such activities are over.

Gentle correction: if communication breaks down completely during a fluencyactivity, we may well have to intervene. If our students cannot think of what tosay, we may want to prompt them forwards.

Recording mistakes: we frequently act as observers, watching and listening tostudents so we can give feedback afterwards. Such observation allows us to givefeedback to our studenton how well they have performed, always rememberingthat we want to give positive as well as negative feedback.

After the event: we might want to give an assessment of an activity, saying howwell we thought the students did in it, getting the students to tell us what theyfound easiest or most difficult. When we write examples of what we heard on theboard, it is not generally a good idea to say who made the mistakes since thismay expose them in front of their classmates.

Feedback on written work: the way we give feedback on writing will depend on thekind of writing task the students have undertaken, and the effect we wish to create.When students do workbook exercises based on controlled testing activities, we willmark their efforts right or wrong, possibly penciling in the correct answer for them tostudy.


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Written feedback techniques

Responding: one way of considering feedback is to think of it as responding tostudents work rather than assessing or evaluating what they have done. Whenwe respond, we say how the text appears to us and how successful we think ithas been-and , sometimes, how it could be improved.

Coding: some teachers use codes, and can then put these codes either in thebody of the writing itself, or in a corresponding margin.

Contrastive analysis and error analysis

Faults analysis: recognition, description, explanation, correction.

Error analysis:

Errors: an error is a sure sign that the learner has not mastered the code of the targetlanguage. If an error indicates faulty knowledge of the grammar of the 2 language, wemust define the error as something which arises as a result of second language learningand is not, therefore, to be found in the L1 user.

Mistake: in contrast, both L1 and L2 users of the language make mistakes socialgaffs of varying degrees of seriousness but the native is far more likely to realize thathis behavior has been judged to be socially unaccepted and is also far more likely totake steps to remedy the mistake than is the L user.

Lapses: since face to face communication is a real time activity, all speakers whethernative or not make slips or lapses as we are calling them here and the teacher can forall practical purposes ignore them.

Recognition: taking the learners sentence as our input data, we ask first is thissentence possible in the target language? If our answer to this question is negative, wehave found a sentence which contains at least one error. To discover whether we arelooking at a mistake rather than an error we ask the second question, is the sentenceacceptable in this context? A negative answer here defines for us a mistake; anutterance which though grammatical, breaks some social rule for the use of thelanguage. Once we have asked the first two question we leave the stage of recognitionand move on through the description stage.

Description: the first step is describing the nature of the mistake or error to ask, is thelearners sentence intelligible? can we work out what he intended to mean? If we canunderstand what he was trying to say, we can compare his sentence with that which

would be produced by a native and, with such a comparison, list the errors or mistakes.If, on the other hand, we cannot understand, we may need to refer to the learners L,since this may give us a clue to his intentions.

Explanation: when we attempt to explain the appearance of a particular error or moregenerally, type of error in the speech or writing of a learner, group of learners orcategory of the learner, we are asking why did he say-write this. To attempt to answersuch a question is to bring us back to the second of the fundamental questions with


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which we began this book How do people learn languages? Since our explanation willbe a reflection of our answer, stated or merely assumed to that question.

Attitudes to error: how should we view errors? Bluntly, do we feel that they are goodor bad. We are about to look at two views on this: the structuralist which assumed thaterrors were bad and the more recent TG influenced view that, far from being bad errorsare a necessary part of learning and therefore good.

Structuralist Views: structuralist linguists belief that to learn is to change habits. Errorsin their view:

Occur when new habits have to be acquired or old ones modified or replaced.

When the features of the L2differ from those of the L1 the learner. Conversely, wherethe structures are the same there will be no problems.

Consist of failing to respond with the correct response to a particular stimulus.

It is important to analyze how do features of the L1 transfer into the L2? Thephenomenon, termed interference at the time is presumably some kind of process, howdoes it work? This brings us to a subdivision of interference in phonology into four sub-types. Each of which we shall illustrate with Englishitalian examples.

Sound substitution: the most straightforward form of interference is the substitutuionof a sound from the L1 for one in the L2.

Underdifferentiation: the learner has failed to recognize in the L2 a phonemicdistinction which exist only at the allophonic level in the L1.

Overdifferentiation: it can occur when the L1 contains phonemic contrasts which are

lacking in the L2 but are imposed on it by the learner in his attempts at producing it.

Reinterpretention of distinctions: since the phoneme has always been thought of aconsisting of a complex of sounds, or better features, the learner may well seize oneone which is crucial in his L1 and use that to make a phonemic distinction which he hasperceived when in fact, the feature he has selected plays only a secondary role in theL2.

Post-structuralist views: with the emergence of TG in the late 1950s and its denial ofboth structuralist linguists and its associated behaviourist psychology came areorientation of the discipline which was to have profound effects not only on linguisticsitself but also on applied linguistics.

CROSS-LINGUISTIC INFLUENCE AND LEARNER LANGUAGE

This treatment will first consider, in historical progression, an era of preoccupation withstudies of contrast between the native language and the target language (contrastiveanalysis) and the effect of native on target language (now called cross linguisticinfluence)


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The contrastive analysis hypothesis: CAH, it claimed that the principal barrier tosecond language acquisition is the interference of the first language system with thesecond language system, and that a scientific, structural analysis of the two languagesin question would yield a taxonomy of linguistic contrasts between them which in turnwould enable the linguist to predict the difficulties a learner would encounter.

A well known model was offered by Stockwell, Bowen, and Martin 1965, who positedwhat they called a hierarchy of difficulty by which a teacher or linguist could make aprediction of the relative difficulty of a given aspect of the target language.

Clifford Prator captured the essence of this grammatical hierarchy in six categories ofdifficulty. Prators hierarchy was applicable to both grammarical and phonologicalfeatures of language.

Level 0 Transfer: no difference or contrast there is between the two languages. Thelearner can simply transfer (positively) a sound, structure, or lexical item from the nativelanguage to the target language. Examples: English and Spanish cardinal vowels, word

order, and certain words (mortal, intelligence, arte, americanos.)

Level 1 Coalescence: this requires that learners overlook a distinction they havegrown accustomed to. Examples: English third person possessive require genderdistinction (his/her), and in Spanish they do not (su); an English speaker learningFrench must overlook the distinction between teach and learn, and use just the oneword apprendre in French.

Level 2 Underdifferentiation: an item in the native language is absent in the targetlanguage. The learner must avoid that item. Examples: English learner of Spanish mustforget such items as English do as a tense carrier, possessive forms of wh-words(whose), or the use of somewith mass nouns.

Level 3 Reinterpretation: an item that exists in the native language is given a newshape or distribution. Example: an English speaker learning French must learn a newdistribution for nasalized vowels.

Level 4 Overdifferentiation: a new item entirely, bearing little if any similarity to thenative language item, must be learned. Example: an English speaker learning Spanishmust learn to include determiners in generalized nominals (man is mortal/El hombre esmortal), or, most commonly, to learn Spanish grammatical gender inherent in nouns.

Level 5 Split: one item in the native language becomes two or more in the targetlanguage, requiring the learner to make a new distinction between Spanish indicative

and subjunctive moods.

FROM THE CAH TO CLI (CROSS-LINGUISTIC INFLUENCE)

The attempt to predict difficulty by means of contrastive analysis is what RonaldWardhaugh (1970) called the strong version of the CAH. The weak version recognizesthe significance of interference across languages, the fact such interference does exist


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and can explain difficulties, but it also recognizes that linguistic difficulties can be moreprofitably explained a posteriori- after the facty.

The so-called weak version of the CAH is what remains today under the label cross-linguistic influence CLI suggesting that we all recognize the significant role that priorexperience plays in any learning act, and that the influence of the native language asprior experience must not be overlooked.

The conclusion that great difference does not necessarily cause a great difficultyunderscores the significance of intralingual (within one language) errors, which are asmuch a factor in second language learning as interlanguage (across two or morelanguages errors).

Markedness and universal grammar: markedness distinguishes members of a pair ofrelated forms or structures by assuming that the marked member of a pair contains atleast one more feature than the unmarked one. For example: in the case of the Englishindefinite articles (a and an) an is the more complex or marked form (it has an additional

sound) and a is the unmarked with the wider distribution.

Eckman showed that marked items will be more difficult to acquire than unmarked, andthat degrees of markedness will correspond to degrees of difficulty.

Other researchers focused on the applicability of notions of universal grammar tosecond language acquisition. As we saw in chapter 2, many of the rules acquired bychildren learning their first language are presumed to be universal. By extension, rulesthat are shared by all languages comprise this UG. Such rules are set of limitations orparameters of language.

Markedness theory and UG perspectives provide a more sophisticated understanding of

difficulty in learning a second language than we had previously from the earlyformulations of the CAH, and fit more appropriately into current studies of CLI.

Learner language:

In recent years researchers and teachers have come more and more to understand thatsecond language learning is a process of the creative construction of a system in whichlearners are consciously testing hypothesis about the target language from a number ofpossible sources of knowledge: knowledge of the native language, limited knowledgefrom the target language itself, knowledge of the communicative functions of language,knowledge about language in general and knowledge about life, human beings and theuniverse.

A number of terms have been coined to describe the perspective that stresses thelegitimacy of learners second language systems. The best known of these isinterlanguage, a term that Selinker adapted from Weinreichs term interlingual.Interlanguage refers to the separateness of a second language learners system, asystem that has a structurally intermediate status between the native and the targetlanguages.


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Nemser referred to the same general phenomenon in second language learning butstressed the successive approximation to the target language in his term approximationsystem. Corder used the term idiosyncratic dialect to connote the idea that the learnerslanguage is unique to a particular individual, that the rules of the learners language arepeculiar to the language of that individual alone.

Error analysis: human learning is fundamentally a process that involves the making ofmistakes. Mistakes, misjudgments, miscalculations, and erroneous assumptions forman important aspect of learning virtually any skill or acquiring information.

Researchers and teachers of second languages came to realize that the mistakes aperson made in this process of constructing a new system of language needed to beanalyzed carefully, for they possibly held in them some of the keys to the understandingof the process of second language acquisition.

Mistakes and errors: in order to analyze learner language in an appropriateperspective, it is crucial to make a distinction between mistakes and errors, technically

two very different phenomena. A mistake refers to a performance error that is either arandom guess or a slip, in that it is a failure to utilize a known system correctly. Allpeople make mistakes, in both native and second language situations. Native speakersare normally capable of recognizing and correcting such lapses or mistakes. Mistakescan be self corrected, errors cannot be self corrected.

The fact that learners do make errors, and that these errors can be observed, analyzed,and classified to reveal something of the system operating within the learner, led to asurge of study of learners errors, called error analysis.

Errors in error analysis: in our observation and analysis of errors for all that they doreveal about the learner we must beware of placing too much attention on errors and

not lose sight of the value of positive reinforcement of clear, free communication. Whilethe diminishing of errors is an important criterion for increasing language proficiency,the ultimate goal of second language learning is the attainment of communicativefluency.

Another shortcoming in error analysis is an overemphasis on production data.Language is speaking and listening, writing and reading. The comprehension oflanguage is as important as production.

Over the years studies have shown that error analysis fails to account for the strategy ofavoidance; a learner that for a particular reason avoids a particular sound, word,structureThe absence of errors therefore does not necessarily reflect native likecompetence because learners may be avoiding the very structures that pose difficultyfor them.

Identifying and describing errors: the first step in the process of analysis is theidentification and description of errors. Overtly erroneous utterances are unquestionablyungrammatical at the sentence level. Covertly erroneous utterances are grammaticallywell formed at the sentence level but are not interpretable within the context ofcommunication.


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A number of different categories for description of errors have been identified inresearch on learner language:

1. the most generalized breakdown can be made by identifying errors of addition,omission, substitution and ordering following standard mathematical categories. InEnglish a do auxiliary might be added (does can he sing?)

2. Within each category, levels of language can be considered: phonology ororthography, lexicon, grammar and discourse.

3. Errors may also be viewed as either global or local. Global errors hindercommunication; they prevent the hearer from comprehending some aspect of themessage.

4. Finally, Lennon suggest that two related dimensions of error, domain and extentshould be considered in any error analysis. Domain is the rank of linguistic unit (fromphoneme to discourse that must be taken as context in order for the error to becomeapparent, and extent is the rank of linguistic unit that would have to be deleted,replaced, supplied, or recordered in order to repair the sentence.

Sources of error: this is the final step in the analysis of erroneous learner speech .

Interlingual transfer: it is a significant source of error. The beginning stages of learninga second language are especially vulnerable to interlingual transfer from the nativelanguage or interference.

Intralingual transfer: researchers have found that the early stages of languagelearning are characterized by a predominance of interference (interlingual transfer), butonce learners have begun to acquire parts of the new system, more and more

intralingual transfer (generalization) within the target language is manifested.Context of learning: refers for example, to the classroom with its teacher and itsmaterials in the case of school learning or the social situation in the case of untutoredsecond language learning. In a classroom context the teacher or the textbook can leadthe learner to make faulty hypotheses about the language, what Richards called falseconcepts and what stenson termed induced errors because of a misleading explanationfrom the teacher, faulty presentation of a structure or word in a textbook, or evenbecause of a parttern that was rotely memorized in a drill but improperly contextualized.

Communication strategies: learners obviously use production strategies in order toenhance getting their message across, but at times these techniques can themselves

become a source of error.

Stages of learner language development: there are many ways to describe theprogression of learners linguistic development.

The first is the stage of random errors, a stage that Corder called presystematic, inwhich the learner is only vaguely aware that there is some systematic order to a


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particular class of items. Inconsistencies like John cans sing, John can to sing andJohn can singuing all said by the same learner within a short period of time.

The second or emergent, stage of learner language finds the learner growing inconsistency in linguistic production. In general, the learner is still, at this stage, unableto correct errors when they are pointed out by someone else.

The third is a truly systematic stage in which the learner is now able to manifest moreconsistency in producing the second language. While those rules that are stored in thelearners brain are still not all well-formed, they are more internally self-consistent an, ofcourse, they more closely approximate the target language system.

A final stage, which I will call the stabilization stage, in the development of learnersystems is akin to what Corder called a postsystematic stage. Here the learner hasrelatively few errors and has mastered the system to the point that fluency and intendedmeanings are not problematic.

Variability in learner language: some variability in learner language can be explainedby what Gatbonton described as the gradual diffusion of incorrect forms of language inemergent and systematic stages of development. First, incorrect forms coexist withcorrect; then, the incorrect are expunged. Context has also been identified as a sourceof variation. In classrooms, the type of task can affect variation. And variability can beaffected, in both tutored and untutored learning, by the exposure that a learner gets tonorm.

Tarone suggested four categories of variation:

Variation according to linguistic context

Variation according to psychological processing factors

Variation according to social context Variation according language function

The emphasis on the context led us consider carefully at the conditions under whichuncertain linguistic forms vary. For example, suppose a learner at one point in timessays (a) he must paid for the insurance, (b) he must pay for the parking fee. Anexamination of the linguistic (and conceptual) context (the first of the Taronescategories) might explain the variation. In this case, sentence (a) was uttered in thecontext of describing an event in the past, and sentence (b) referred to the presentmoment. Thus the apparent free variation of the main verb form in a modal auxiliarycontext is explained.

Fossilization: the relatively permanent incorporation of incorrect linguistic forms into apersons second language competence has been referred to as fossilization.

Vigil and Oller provided a formal account of fossilization as a factor of positive andnegative affective and cognitive feedback. They noted that there are two kinds ofinformation transmitted between sources (learners) and audiences (native speakers)


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Affective Feedback:

Positive: keep talking, I am listening

Neutral: Im not sure I want to maintain this conversation

Negative: This conversation is over

Cognitive Feedback:

Positive: I understand your message; Im listening

Neutral: Im not sure if I correctly understand you or not.

Negative: I dont understand what you are saying; its not clear.

Form-Focused instruction:any pedagogical effort which is used to draw the learnersattention to language form either implicitly or explicit ly

It is difficult to generalize the diverse findings on FFI over the years, but it may bereasonable to conclude the following:

Most of the research suggest that FFI can indeed increase learners levels ofattainment, but that the Neandearthal practices (grammatical explanations, discussionof rules, rote practice) of bygone years is clearly not justified.

Very few research studies have been able to identify particular stages in which learnersare more ready than others to internalize FFI.

The possible number of linguistic features in a language and the many potentialcontexts of learning make this question impossible the answer.

The wide-ranging research on learner characteristics, styles, and strategies supportsthe conclusion that certain learners clearly benefit more than others from FFI.

Error treatment: should errors be treated? How should errors be treated? When? Bothaffective and cognitive feedback can take place simultaneously. (A green light heresymbolizes noncorrective feedback that says I understand your message. A red lightsymbolizes corrective feedback that takes on a myriad of possible forms (outlinedbelow) and causes the learner to make some kind of alteration in production. To pushthe metaphor further, a yellow light could represent those various shades of color thatare interpreted by the learner as falling somewhere in between a complete green lightand a red light, causing the learner to adjust, to alter, to recycle to try again in someway.

Error treatment options can be classified in a number of possible ways but one usefultaxonomy was recommended by bailey who drew from the work of allwright. Sevenbasic options are complemented by eight possible features within each option.

Basic options: to treat or to ignore. To treat immediately or to delay. To transfertreatment (to, say, other learners) or not. To transfer to another individual, a subgroupor the whole class. To return, or not, to original error maker after treatment. To permitother learners to initiate treatment. To test for the efficacy of the treatment.


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Possible features: fact of error indicated. Location indicated. Opportunity for newattempt given. Model provided. Error type indicated. Remedy indicated. Improvementindicated. Praise indicated.

Describing learners

Age: the age students is a major factor in our decisions about how and what to teach.People of different needs, competences, and cognitive skills.

Young children:

they respond to meaning even if they do not understand individual words

they often indirectly rather than directly.

They have a need for individual attention

They generally display an enthusiasm for learning and curiosity.

Adolescent: teenagers are in fact overall the best language learners.

Adult learners:

They can engage with abstract thought.

They have a whole range of life experiences to draw on.

They have expectations about the learning process.

Adults tend to be more disciplined.

Learner differences

Aptitude: some students are better at learning languages than others.

Learner styles: a preoccupation with learner personalities and styles has been a major

factor in psycholinguistic research. Are there different kinds of learner? Are theredifferent kinds of behavior in a group? How can we tailor our teaching to match thepersonalities in front of us?

The methodologist Tony Wright describes four different learner styles within a group:

The enthusiast: looks to the teacher as a point of reference and is concernedwith the goals of the learning group.

The oracular: also focuses on the teacher but is more oriented towards thesatisfaction of personal goals.

The participator: tends to concentrate on group goals and group solidarity.

The rebel: while referring to the learning group for his or her point of reference,is mainly concerned with the satisfaction of his or her own goals.

Keith Willing, working with adults students in Australia, produced the followingdescriptions:

Converges: these are students who are by nature solitary. Prefer to avoid groups, andwho are independent and confident in their own abilities.


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Conformist: they prefer to emphasize learning about language over learning to use it.They are perfectly happy working in non-communicative classrooms doing what theyare told.

Concrete learners: they are interested in language use and language ascommunication rather than language as a system.

Communicative learners: they are perfectly happy to operate without the guidance ofa teacher. They are comfortable out of the class. They are risk-takers and prefer socialinteraction with other speakers of the language.

Learning styles

Field independence

Ability to perceive a particular, relevant item or factor in a field of distracting items.This style enables you to distinguish parts from a whole to concentrate on something(like reading a book in a noisy train station.)

Left- and Right-Brain Functioning

As the childs brain matures, various functions become lateralized.

Ambiguity tolerance

This style concerns the degree to which you are cognitively willing to accept ideas andpropositions that run counter to your own belief system (second language learning:words that differ from the native language, rules that not only differ but that are internallyinconsistent because of certain exceptions, and sometimes a whole cultural systemthat is distant from that of the native culture.

Reflectivity and impulsivity

Psychological studies have been conducted to determine the degree to which, in thecognitive domain, a person tends to make either a quick or gambling guess at ananswer to a problem or a slower, more calculated decision.

Visual and auditory

This kind of learners prefers reading and studying charts, drawing, and other graphicinformation; while these other type learners prefer listening to lectures and audiotapes.

StrategiesThe field of second language acquisition has distinguished between two types ofstrategy: learning strategies and communication strategies.

Learning strategies were divided into three main categories: metacognitive, cognitiveand socioaffective.


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Metacognitive: is a term used in information-processing theory to indicate anexecutive function, strategies that involve planning for learning, thinking about thelearning process as it is taking place, monitoring of ones production or comprehension, and evaluating learning after an activity is completed.

Cognitive: strategies are more limited to specific learning tasks and involve more directmanipulation of the learning material itself.

Socioaffective: strategies have to do with social-mediating activity and interacting withothers.

Communication strategies: potentially conscious plans for solving what to anindividual presents itself as a problem in reaching a particular communicative goal.

Communication strategies: Avoidance and Compensatory.

Avoidance strategies: syntactic or lexical, phonological and topic.

Compensatory strategies: prefabricated patterns and code switching.

The application of both learning and communication strategies to the classroom learninghas come to be known as strategies-based instruction

Personality factors

Is a personal judgment of worthiness that is expressed in the attitudes that individualshold towards themselves: self-esteem

Three types of self-esteem: general or global, specific or situational and taskself-esteem.

Set of defenses build to protect the ego: Inhibition

Learners have to be able to gamble a bit, to be willing to try out hunches about thelanguage and take the risk of being wrong: Risk taking

It is associated with feelings of uneasiness, frustration, self-doubt, apprehension orworry: Anxiety

Debilitative anxiety: harmful

Facilitative anxiety: helpful

Is the process of putting yourself into someone elses shoes, of reaching beyond theself to understand what another person is feeling: Empathy

Is the extent to which a person has a deep-seated need to receive ego enhancement,self-esteem, and a sense of wholeness from other people as opposed to receiving thataffirmation within oneself: Extroversion

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