Feedback on Identifying Spoken Errors Task

First of all, I’d like to highlight how impressed I’ve been with the comments in this section. Everyone has
given a thorough analysis of Valentino’s errors, and many people also suggested the areas they would work
on with Mr. Rossi if he were their student.

Regarding level, I agree that he is in the B1 bracket. He speaks confidently, expresses his ideas well and is
intelligible throughout the interview (Frogskin VR46 excepted!). However, he would need to work on
several issues before I would be confident putting him in for the PET exam. For example, although there
was not much opportunity to assess this in the interview, Irene rightly comments that his past tense seems
‘unstable’ (I really liked that way of putting it).

These are the errors I picked out for the interview section of the clip (1:09-end):

Error Correction Comments

my father… was a is a former rider Nit-picking here! I don’t regard this as a serious
former rider error as intelligibility isn’t affected. However, it
would be a good opportunity to work on used to for
past habits, a structure which is clearly not in
Valentino’s productive repertoire.
bring me with rally cars… took me (or even better Many people identified this as the most serious
around my house when I used to take me) mistake and I agree. He clearly has difficulty with
was very young the past tense. Again, introducing used to would be
beneficial.
The choice of verb is less serious, and the discussion
on the forum about this was indeed interesting.
Different varieties of English often have variations of
usage with verbs like this.
near my house Is this really a mistake? Around can be used in the
sense of in the vicinity (cf. around here). It does
sound a little funny here though as it gives the
impression they were doing laps of the house.
Maybe they were??? A bit ambiguous.
What drives you to be misunderstands the Frankly it’s a rather silly question, but I guess this is
sicker than everyone question?? how they speak at Oakley. This is sick in the good
else? sense – like bad some years ago, or like wicked – I
think we’re probably all too old to get away with
saying it without sounding terribly uncool!
It’s really not clear (to me) from his answer whether
he understands or not.
Mah, Well, He would certainly benefit from adding to his
battery of English discourse markers (if he wants) to
make his English sound more natural.
stay with my friend spend time This is a typical ‘mistake’ for Italian speakers. It
could, l suppose, lead to misunderstanding in
certain contexts as native speakers usually use stay
with friends to mean stay over at their house.
friends I’m sure he has more than one friend! Could be a
pronunciation problem as maybe he has difficulty
with the final ‘-s’ morpheme. This would be a
shame, as it has so many uses in English –
possession, plurality, third person singular marker. I
 would prioritise this for remedial work.
make some… sport do Wrong collocation, but perfectly understandable. A
priority if Valentino decides he wants to take a
Cambridge exam, otherwise probably not.
go with the snowboard go snowboarding Intelligible again, but I’d be more likely to chose this
to work on as it’s such a usefully productive
structure (go skiing, go surfing, go riding, go
shopping – all useful forms for this ‘student’)
close to a race similar to It could be useful to point out that close to is used
for physical proximity (and relationships), and
similar to for comparison or likeness.
Boh! Er…/ a shrug of the Another case of an Italian discourse marker, just a
shoulders shame that the English equivalent is so
disappointing in comparison!
stuff (staff?) I assumed stuff because The /æ/ versus /ʌ/ causes great problems for Italian
he then says “great speakers (and not only). It’s very difficult to work on
people”, but I could be as the vowels are so subtly different in terms of
wrong. place of articulation. Most of the time, context
provides us with enough information to get over it.
Certainly Jenny Jenkins doesn’t recommend
prioritizing these vowels. If we do decide to deal
with it (and there are valid arguments in favour) I
think we have to be aware that it may be a long and
torturous road for the student.
Open my bag, take the Wrong on so may levels! What can I say? A typical Italian man! I think it’s up
dirt clothes, clothes, and to his mum to correct in this case.
bring to my mum for
washing.
bring to my mum for give/ take them to my Stereotyping aside (forgive me, I’ve been living in
washing mum Italy for six years now) the error here is the lack of
direct object, which is required for these verbs.
dirt clothes dirty clothes Wrong part of speech, not too serious as he’s
chosen the right head word and we can understand
him.
I like both vacation. I like both types of In Italy there are only two types of holiday: beach or
vacation. mountains.
I like a lot I really like it This is a transfer error from Italian, where the
expression is mi piace molto. I’m sure this is the
same for speakers of many languages. I would chose
to teach this form as it can make a student’s English
sound more natural and is a very common phrase.
Also, the dummy pronoun it is required. I probably
wouldn’t tackle this with an intermediate student.
when in Italy is winter it is winter Another transfer error. Italian is a pronoun-drop
language, and so the subject pronoun is usually
omitted. Because of the ubiquity of this type of
error, I would chose to work on it.
I like stay staying Not an error that will impede understanding, but
again one that would be important to pass an exam.
in a… beach on a beach Oh those pesky prepositions! Not the end of the
world here. Again, I would let the objectives of the
student decide whether this was important to work

I like also the snow
go in the mountain with
the snowboard
You’ve been mistaken
for…?
understand the right
amount of time that I
have
I like pasta, pizza and all
the things.
I like a lot the, a food.
I like the snow too.
going snowboarding in
the mountains
misunderstands the
question
understanding
all the usual things
I like food a lot. / I really
like food.
on or not.
Although this sentence would be grammatically
correct with also placed before the verb, the more
natural correction would be to use too.
The Italian equivalent is in montagna, so Valentino
is halfway there, having used the. He just needs to
remember that in English we use mountains, plural.
(like + ‘-ing’ and go with the snowboard have
already been mentioned)
As Jon pointed out, this is rather a random question
to be faced with. Couple that with the fact that the
Italian expression for I’ve made a mistake or I’m
wrong is mi sono sbagliato and there’s no wonder
he misunderstood. He would benefit from some
work on the English expressions to avoid future
misunderstandings.
Use of the gerund as the subject. Again, causes no
communication problems so not an absolute
priority.
Not really a mistake, maybe he just doesn’t finish his
sentence?
He seems to have a bit of a doubt about what article
to use here, but as food is uncountable, none is
necessary. This is another difficult area for students
whose L1 has a different article system (i.e. all
students!). In Italian the definite article would be
used here.

I have also posted a full script of the interview section of the clip (1:09-end) for those interested.

Some people also commented on the preceding section, particularly:

1. as more as possible (much) – suggests work on comparatives might be useful

2. Pronunciation of ‘VR’ – /vu/ is Italian for the letter ‘v’ and /er/ is the Italian ‘r’ with the final vowel
chopped off.

I haven’t spoken at length about pronunciation, but Valentino does have quite a strong Italian accent,
which might cause problems for non-Europeans. Many of the typical problems are there, e.g. inserting
vowels after final consonants, voicing the /s/ in consonant clusters with /n/ or /m/, the usual difficulty with
/θ/ and /ð/ (not very problematic for intelligibility), the /æ/ versus /ʌ/ distinction mentioned above… The
list goes on and all of the problems were mentioned by at least one of you in the discussion so I’ll cut it
short.

Well, that’s it for now. I hope this discussion has been useful for everyone. There wasn’t really time for me
to comment on all of your posts individually, but if you still have any doubts or comments, feel free to post
and I’ll do my best to address them.