Assignment - ATL

SUBJECT ASSIGNMENT:
APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE IN THE CLASSROOM CONTEXT

Student: Antonella Serrano Costa

Group: 2022 Jan

Date: Jan 8th/2022

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 Assignment - ATL

GENERAL INFORMATION:

This assignment must be done individually and has to fulfil the following conditions:

- Length: between 6 and 8 pages (without including cover, index or appendices –if there
are any-).
- Type of font: Arial or Times New Roman.
- Font size: 11.
- Line spacing: 1.5.
- Alignment: Justified.

The assignment has to be written in this Word document and has to follow the instructions
on quotes and references detailed in the Study Guide.

Also, the assignment must be submitted following the procedure specified in the
document: “Subject Evaluation”. Do not send it to the tutor’s email address.

It is strongly recommended to read the assessment criteria, which can be found in the
document “Subject Evaluation”.

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 Assignment - ATL

Assignment instructions:

See the data collected below and answer the following questions:
1. Work out an IL generalization that might account for the forms in boldface. Give your
reasons for postulating this generalization.
2. What strategy/strategies do you think these learners have come up with regarding
lexical use?
3. What additional information, if any, would you like to have from these learners to test
your hypothesis?
4. How do these tests and results relate to the concepts studied in this subject?

Do not answer the questions one by one, but address all of them in essay form.

SUBJECT’S BACKGROUND

Native Languages: Mixed.

Target Language: English.

Background Information: Intermediate level, students on an intensive

course.

Data Source: student compositions.

DATA:

Soccer is the most common sporting.

America refused continual supported our military request.

When he was 7 years old, he went schooling.

About two hours driving eastern from Bangkok.

After finished my college studied, I went to my country.

Doctors have the right to removed it from him.

There is a night for asleep.

Moreover
Important: you it may
have to lead
writeto conflicting.
your personal details and the subject name on the cover (see the
next page). The assignment that does not fulfil these conditions will not be corrected. You have
I am not
to include the going to get
assignment married
index below when I will graduation the school.
the cover.

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 Assignment - ATL

Introduction

The acquisition and learning of a second language involve a long process that the learners
develop through trial and error, the creation and testing of hypotheses about the new language
and strategies which help them internalize it. As a result, each learner starts to build their own
version of the new language called interlanguage or IL. This term, introduced by the American
linguist Larry Selinker, refers to the linguistic system evidenced when a second language
learner attempts to express meanings in the language being learned. Therefore, the
interlanguage is viewed as a separate linguistic system, with its own grammar, its own lexicon,
its own phonetic rules, etc., which is different from both the learner’s ‘native language’ (NL)
and the ‘target language’ (TL) being learned, but linked to both NL and TL by interlingual
identifications in the perception of the learner (E. Tarone). Students preserve some features of
their mother tongue, or in other cases overgeneralize creating new innovations, it is a kind of
individual dialect that the student creates in his mind since he doesn’t have all the necessary
knowledge to speak properly. Selinker (in Ellis 1994:351) states that the development of IL
rests on five central processes.

- Language transfer: some items are transferred from the mother tongue.
- Overgeneralization of target language structures: Any error which can be attributed to
the application of a rule of English in any inappropriate situation, It can happen with target
language rules and semantic features.

- Transfer of training: some elements derive from the way learners are taught.

- Strategies used in second language learning: approaches the learner use to try to learn a
second language.

- Communication strategies: Techniques the learners use to communicate with other

speakers.

In the following essay, I will analyze some data obtained from learners’ written compositions in
order to see what features of their interlanguage are portrayed in them and the strategies that
might have been present in the production of them.

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 Assignment - ATL

To begin with, we have to bear in mind the context in which these sentences were produced.

SUBJECT’S BACKGROUND

Native Languages: Mixed.

Target Language: English.

Background Information: Intermediate level, students on an intensive

course.

Data Source: student compositions.

We are provided with some crucial information such as the students’ L1 (mixed), TL (English),
language level (Intermediate) and data source (written compositions) which is extremely
necessary to analyze the immediate environment and conditions where students are getting the
language from. However, it is not enough to have the “whole picture” of the teaching/learning
process, consequently it would be hard to name all the mistakes only with this information. It
would be also important to know as much as possible about student’s background and their
individual factors such as, number of students, age, interests, Mother tongue literacy levels
among others.
Regarding the age, it would be important toto know since different kind of activities may
emerge. Also, as Ellis (1986) states, “rate and success of SLA appear to be strongly influenced
by the age of the learners, giving age a key role in the learning process. The mother tongue and
literacy level are also two key elements on the IL analysis, knowing their mother tongue can
help the teacher to expect certain kind of errors and identify the interference or negative
transfer for grammar, vocabulary or pronunciation. In this case, it is more complicated because
these students do not share a common mother tongue. What is more, it is not the same to deal
with students who formally had language instruction than those who leart it in a natural
environment, as Long states there are some structures unable to be learned unless they are
taught formally. It is crucial to get to know well our students, so in that way we can personalize

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the learning experience. Even though we lack some background information, in the following
pages, I will analyze the given sentences.

As soon as I read the sentences, I thought about the errors I’ve been hearing during my short
experience as an English teacher. Before moving on, sentences must be restructured in the
correct way so as to be classified correctly.

1. Soccer is the most common sporting.

Soccer is the most common SPORT.

2. America requested continual supported our military request.

America requested continual SUPPORT for our military request.

3. When he was 7 years old, he went schooling.

When he was seven years old, he went to SCHOOL.

4. About two hours driving eastern from Bangkok.

About two hours driving to EASTERN Bangkok

5. After finished my college studied, I went to my country.

After finishing my college STUDIES, I went back to my country.

6. Doctors have the right to removed it from him.

Doctors have the right to REMOVE it from him.

7. There is a night for asleep.

There is a night for SLEEP.

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 Assignment - ATL

8. Moreover it may lead to conflicting.

Moreover, it may lead to CONFLICT.

9. I am not going to get married when I will graduation the school.

I am not going to get married when I GRADUATE from school.

As we can notice, most of the mistakes (errors) derive from the overuse of verbs instead of
using the corresponding nouns, (sporting- sport -studied – studies), in other cases the verb
tenses are the problem or assigning the wrong function to a certain part of speech (using
adjectives as nouns). These errors could be classified as developmental errors,
overgeneralization errors, simplification errors, misuse of formulaic expressions or interference
errors.

Several reasons can be attributed to these mistakes, but according to the nature of the errors in
the above examples, I believe that it is a case of overgeneralization, Frith (1977) claims that
learners who overgeneralize create deviant structures on the basis of their limited exposure to
the TL rules. They tend to make analogies with previously learned structures. In this light,
errors emerge because the learners have applied their rules by contextualizing each sentence
based on their previous knowledge and their own hypotheses in regard to semantic and lexical
terms. Such “rules” determine their comprehension and production which is not accurate in
these examples. The fact that students have different mother tongues, gives us a hint since
overgeneralization has a universal character and independently of the L1, learners tend to make
the same mistakes. Richards (1974) states that these errors are common to speakers of different
languages when they developed their own hypotheses about the structure of the second
language. Based on the given sentences it can be stated that the generalization presented is
mainly on suffixes and prefixes. The learners show in these examples, the distinction
established by Krashen (2009) between learning and acquiring; Students may have learnt the -
ing/ed suffixes because, but did not acquire its actual use, they did not go from the explicit to
the implicit when applying this form. Besides, word construction on suffixes, a case of overuse
is clearly depicted. There are two main features of overgeneralizations: regularizations, that is,
the tendency to use regular forms where possible and simplification, i.e. to simplify elements
and structures (Funiber, 2021: 18). Being gerunds a common verbal form for students it is
identified as a case of regularization and misinformation of a grammar form (Ellis, 1997). More
specifically, it can be said that there is a case of overgeneralization of the gerund use in
sentences 1 and 3. Sentences 2, 5 and 6 might be a case of regularization of a common verb
form in past tense and sentences 4, 7, 8 and 9 could be the result of a misuse on lexical chunks

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 Assignment - ATL

perhaps caused by a transfer of training issue or even a global simplification. The first sentence,
might refer to the extensive use of the form with -ing to talk about sports or recreational
activities. In the third sentence, the -ing is used to form a noun, same as in sentence 8. As we
can see, learners have problems with the use of the present progressive or the uses of gerunds in
English, something caused by overgeneralizing the rules a transfer of learning or bad use of
learning strategies which led to fossilization. Sentences 2, 5 and 6 might be cases of
regularization. Students used the suffix of the past tense for regular verbs -ed to replace a noun
(2 and 5) or they misplaced the past (6). Sentences 4, 7 and 9 tend follow a similar pattern. In
sentence 4, the adjective (eastern) is used inappropriately, in 7 an adjective (asleep) is used as a
noun and in 9, a noun (graduation) is utilized as a verb maybe because it is easier to remember a
noun or an adjective than a verb. These mistakes show the process the students undergo when
they are testing their hypothesis about the language. It is important that students get some
feedback otherwise they will be unable to correct their mistakes. Students need to become aware
of their mistakes and apply certain strategies to improve their language skills.

As we have seen, lexical is crucial in order to be able to communicate. This seems to be very
problematic when learning English. The examples examined show that most of the lexical
deviations are traceable to both problems with the target language itself and transfer effects
from the native language. In order to overcome these difficulties, they might have resorted to
different strategies. Ellis (1997:76-77) defines strategies as “those particular approaches or
techniques that learners employ to try to learn an L2”. He also identified three main learning
strategies: cognitive, metacognitive and social/affective strategies, but these are aspects to keep
in mind through the learning process from our perspective as teachers. Among other strategies
we can mention those that allow them acquire and understand the language at some extent for
instance, we can include, literal translation from L1 to L2, students can guess meaning from
context, analyze patterns in L2 and make connections with L1, appeal for assistance by asking
their classmates or teacher for help, and word coinage, etc.

The tests and results are closely related to the subject. The study the Interlanguage phenomenon
and its developmental processes in its construction helped me to identify and analyze in depth
the mistakes produced by the students. We have to bear in mind that each student is different
and teach in a personalized way. We also saw how the L1 can affect in positive and negative
ways and the process of fossilization. What is more, we have seen the importance of input,
output, interaction and feedback in the learning process.

Conclusion

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 Assignment - ATL

In the above analysis we have seen the influence of different features of interlanguage in the
learners’ oral and written production. These features may facilitate or hinder language
acquisition. We saw the concept of interlanguage, which sees learners as constructing their own
grammatical systems. These systems are centered on the learner, that means that the learner
make their own progresses through the use of strategies, some may lay on their L1, some others
are based upon their desire to communicate. We have also seen that learners of a second
language tend to fossilize, retaining certain errors during their progress. At the lexical level,
general words are substituted for particular words which might be easier to remember or more
frequent. Throughout this essay
Sentences were classified in different groups according to the type of error they had. Also, I
presented and explained some strategies that were thought to be used, were presented and
explained. I also included some additional information that would have been relevant when
analyzing the examples and the arguments exposed. To sum up, all the concepts studied in
Approaches to Language in the Classroom Context served as a strong base to analyze the
sample sentences and to judge them more accurately in trying to demonstrate the processes of
generalization, hypothesis- testing and more of the interlanguage (IL). All in all, in this activity,
we saw the theory of interlanguage in practice.

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Bibliography

Ellis, R. (1997). Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press cited in
Lennon and de Prada.

FUNIBER (2021). Approaches to Language in the Classroom context. (España)

Seliger, H. (1983). Learner Interaction in the Classroom and its Effects on Language
Acquisition, in H. Seliger and M. Long. Classroom Oriented Research in Second Language
Acquisition. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House cited in Lennon and de Prada.

Selinker, L. (1972). Interlanguage. IRAL- International Review of Applied Linguistics in

Language Teaching 10: 209-231.

Swain, M. (1995). Three functions of output in second language learning, in G. Cook and B,
Seidlhofer. Principle and Practice in Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
cited in Lennon and de Prada.

Wolfe-Quintero, K., Inagaki, S., & Kim, H.-Y. (1998). Second Language Development in
writing: Measures of Fluency, Accuracy and Complexity. Technical report 17. Manoa,
Hawai'i US: University of Hawai'i Press.

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