Assignment - ATL

SUBJECTASSIGNMENT:
APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE IN THE CLASSROOM CONTEXT /

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.

Important:There is a night
you have for asleep.
to write your personal details and the subject name on the
cover (seeMoreover
the nextitpage). Theto assignment
may lead conflicting. that does not fulfil these conditions
will not be corrected. You have to include the assignment index below the cover.
I am not going to get married when I will graduation the school.

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 Assignment - ATL

Student’s full name: MARÍA TERESA FERNÁNDEZ BLANCO

Group: FP_TFL _2018-2

Date: 5/01/2019

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 Assignment - ATL

In the following pages, we will analyze considering the data provided, the possible
reasons why students from different native language backgrounds taken an intensive
course in English and with an intermediate level, have made mistakes in their
compositions.
Under these premises and before beginning with this analysis, we should take into
consideration the idea that learning a language is an ability that all human beings are
able to develop under normal circumstances, both biological an environmental.
However, according to Shekan, proficiency in a L2 requires that learners acquire both a
rich repertoire of formulaic expressions, which cater to fluency, and a rule-based
competence consisting of knowledge of specific grammar rules, which cater to
complexity and accuracy. Therefore, a complete language curriculum needs to ensure
that it caters to the development of both formulaic expressions and rule-based
knowledge.
What is of interest for our purpose is to pay attention to the concept of interlanguage by
Selinker in order to draw attention to the possibility that the learner´s language can be
regarded as a distinctive language variety or system. The system which the learners
build up by themselves has been called interlanguage. The core element is based on
the theory that while learning a second language, language learners build up a system
for themselves which is different in some ways from their first language and second
language systems.
Bearing it on mind and for the sake of the present assignment, there are different
factors to be considered which can affect students´ interlanguage in Second Language
Acquisition (SLA) such as the idea of transfer, fossilization, generalization and
overgeneralization. All these factors could help us in our present assignment.
Transfer involves the idea of students constantly transferring from L1 to L2. That is to
say, the features of one language are passed on to another. In the event of being faced
with any case of transfer in the sentences provided, we should consider it a negative
one as it is producing an error due to interference.
Fossilization was defined by Selinker in 1972 as a “mechanism that underlies surface
linguistic material which speakers will tend to keep in their interlingua (IL) productive
performance.” Selinker hypothesized that fossilization is a signature character of SLA,
tied to a unique cognitive mechanism called the Latent Psychological Structure(LPS).
In addition, the Selective Fossilization Hypothesis (Han 2009) led to four
generalizations to take into consideration: Fossilization is selective; it affects the
acquisition of target language(TL) structures; it is inspired by an L1 relativized mind,
reinforced by L2 input attribute and finally, it is more evident in spontaneous production.

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 Assignment - ATL

Generalization is a fundamental process in the construction of an Interlanguage and

according to Kate-Wolf Quintero from the university of Hawaii, it consists in “adjusting
an existing cognitive representation in order to incorporate new information into that
existing representation”.
The last factor to take into account is overgeneralization, which is characterized by
the extensive use of a grammatical form of the L2 in situations where another rule
applies. Following Ellis´definition of overgeneralization (1997:142), it is: “The
oversuppliance of an interlanguage feature in contests in which it does nor occur in
target language use…Overgeneralization result in errors.” And according to
Richards(1974), these errors are common to speakers of different languages.
Therefore, it is inferred that all learners of the same L2, irrespective of their mother
tongue, would produce the same kinds of errors. Lastly, we should bear in mind that
overgeneralization is a natural mental process which make students of a second
language tend to use regular forms where possible, known as regularization or simplify
elements and structures, known as simplification.
On the basis of the concept of overgeneralization, It can be noticed that this group of
students are overgeneralizing the use of –ing and –ed forms without making a
distinction between the use of past participles, gerunds and nouns.
Students are building incorrect sentences in their compositions as they are using verbal
forms and adjectives instead of nouns. In this sense, they have probably simplified
these elements.
We can notice that they have learned the use in English of the –ing and –ed forms and
all at once they have heard about the use of non-finite forms, but they have not
acquired it; in Krashen words from 2009, they have not been able to go from the
explicit to the implicit.
It is also possible that the question of fossilization is present as it has not been feasible
for these students to use the correct grammar forms.
Therefore, considering Ellis´ idea as mentioned above: “overgeneralizations result in
errors”, these students have probably developed hypotheses about the structure of the
target language. In the studied cases, they are wrong ones. All these errors are related
to the so called “open class” category: nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs which
were explained by Quirk and Greenbaum in their University Grammar of English.
Based on these basic premises, let´s analyze the errors of the forms in boldface in the
given data:
It is noteworthy that one of the huge problems of learning English as a second
language is lexicon or lexical items. According to the linguist Desalegn Belay, they are
one item from the list of words a language contains.

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At the same time, he explains that in the current Generative Grammar, tense,
agreement and aspect morphemes are also considered lexical items which could be
interesting for our present analysis.
Hence, these students may have faced up difficulties using vocabulary rightly. So as to
overcome them, they might have tried different strategies and in order to study them, I
will have a close look at the nine examples in the students´ compositions:
In the first sentence: Soccer is the most common sporting; I assume that we are faced
with an overgeneralization problem where the student has assumed that to create a
noun, the –ing suffix must be used. It has been probably done based on his/her
previous knowledge of nouns like skiing, snowboarding or fishing.
In sentence number 2: America refused continual supported our military request; my
hypothesis is that the student is simply associating the –ed suffix with the past tense.
But not only that, he/she is also generalizing by not paying attention to the verb refused
as followed by a non-finite verb form in –ing. This could be due to the lack of previous
knowledge of this rule by the student.
In the third sentence: When he was 7 years old, he went schooling; I consider that
there is a grammar error as the student seems to be misinformed about the idea that
the verb to go must be followed by a to + noun structure. Nevertheless, he or she may
be overgeneralizing based on their previous knowledge of structures such as: go
shopping, go swimming and so on.
In sentence number 4: About two hours driving eastern from Bangkok; What we can
detect is the wrong use of an adjective working as a noun. An error probably related to
the transfer from his/her L1.
In the fifth sentence: After finished my college studied, I went to my country; There is a
case of generalization using the suffix –ed with the root study owing to its closeness to
the other simple past form used just before: finished. In addition, There is another
possible explanation: there may be an idea of regularization on behalf of the student by
considering the suffix –ed as the correct one to form a noun in the English language.
In sentence number 6: Doctors have the right to removed it from him. In my view, it is
probably a simple misspelling mistake. The student has unconsciously add a –d letter
to the correct non-finite form “to remove”.
In the seventh sentence: There is a night for asleep. We may be faced again with a
misspelling mistake between the adjective asleep and the verb to sleep. However, we
could also think about it as a transfer from his/her mother tongue.
In sentence number 8: Moreover it may lead to conflicting, the student is probably
simplifying as he or she is aware of the idea that the structure lead to must be followed

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by a non-finite –ing form. However, he or she did not realize that he or she should have
used the noun conflict instead.
In the last example provided: I am not going to get married I will graduation the school.
We can notice the wrong use of a noun as an alternative to the verbal form graduate. It
will have probably been caused by a lack of awareness or lack of consolidation in the
use of the future simple forms in English.
Once I have hypothesized about the data provided, a question is raised: would it be
necessary any other additional information to test this hypothesis?. I firmly believe that
it would be of great importance to get information about some variants affecting these
students Interlanguage and Second Language Acquisition. Firstly, the students native
language and countries of origin as it could affect to the kind of errors in their
interlanguage related to generalizations and overgeneralizations: regularization or
simplification. Although if we follow Richardson´s ideas, it is inferred that irrespective of
their mother tongue, students of L2 will produce the same kinds of errors. However,
this point could be of huge relevance when we want to study cases of transfer from L1
to L2 or cases of fossilization. Regarding their origins, their historical and cultural
background could also affect the possible errors in Second Language Acquisition
(SLA). In addition, personal and social factors have also been proven as influential in it.
Secondly, it could be remarkable to know the content of the program as the type of
instruction used is essential to develop students´ interlanguage. It would be significant
to know if it is based on a traditional focus-on-forms approach, involving the systematic
teaching of grammatical features in accordance with a structural syllabus, or a focus-
on-form approach, involving attention to linguistic features in the context of
communicative activities derived from a task-based syllabus or some kind of
combination of the two.
Next, it would be good to know how the teacher acts in the lessons and the type of
techniques he or she uses for the students to form the new language. The instruction
given needs to ensure that learners focus on meaning, being necessary to distinguish
semantic meaning (i.e. the highly contextualized meanings of lexical items or of specific
grammatical structures) and pragmatic meaning (i.e. the highly contextualized
meanings that arise in acts of communication).
Thus, it is remarkable to point out that there is an important difference in the
instructional approaches needed for these two types of meanings. In the case of
semantic meaning, the teacher and the student can treat language as an object and
function as pedagogues and learners. In the case of pragmatic meaning, they need to
view the L2 as a tool for communicating and to function as communicators. As it
involves two different orientation to teaching and learning, it would be essential to

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know the role of the teacher in the classroom in order to make an accurate analysis of
his/her students´ errors.
What is more, the idea of having information about the activities develop in class could
be crucial as depending on them, the affective variables of motivation and emotion
could affect students SLA. In this sense and paying attention to Krashen´s affective
filter hypothesis from 1982, the lack of the learner´s sufficient motivation may explain
the phenomenon of fossilization. According to Yokochi (2003), in relation to the L2
classroom “extrinsic motivational factors such as the teacher, learning materials,
curriculum classroom language, etc, lower the standards and expectations of the
student”. On the other hand, we should also consider the idea of positive and negative
emotions in the classroom. Positive emotions are aroused by a comfortable, nurturing
classroom environment where the teacher fosters them.
The main negative emotion to take into consideration is anxiety. If students feel class
discomfort, they may not promote successful learning. Students consider that anxiety
impaired their post training performance and reduced their self-confidence and risk-
taking, decreasing motivation, which negatively influences the learning process.
In addition, it is extremely important to know about the activities developed in this
intensive course, as if we want to help learner improve their grammatical accuracy,
explicit focus on form should be embedded within the context of meaningful learning
activities and tasks that give learners ample opportunities for practice. I could also be
interesting to get information about the course length.
Lastly, I consider of vital importance to know in a deeper way about the previous
knowledge of the target language these students have; although, it is supposed all of
them are intermediate level students, the different factors affecting them particularly,
could show us a different kind of knowledge. In so doing, we can infer in a profound
form why students´ errors have occurred.
All in all, I would like to point out that the error has always been regarded as something
negative which must be avoided and teachers used to adopt a repressive attitude
towards it. Nevertheless, errors are deviations from the norm of the target language.
Therefore, it is essential to analyze them in order to help students to develop their L2
successfully. In Chomsky´s words “without error there is no progress.”
The focus of most SLA research on feedback has been on whether implicit or explicit
feedback is more effective in stimulating L2 development. According to Ellis(2008) the
research shows that teachers use different types of feedback, depending on such
factors as context, personal preference, and recommendations made in teacher
education courses.

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 Assignment - ATL

Under this analysis, we have seen the influence that the features of interlanguage have
in the students´ written production. These features benefit them as they can be
conscious of the type of mistakes they are making when transforming their input into
intake knowledge. Thus, they, with the aid of the teacher, could reach improvement in
the learning of L2 becoming more and more autonomous in their learning process.
In this sense, we have studied what interlanguage is and the linguistic processes in
the construction of it: transfer, fossilization or overgeneralization. We have seen that
learners of a second language tend to fossilize and overgeneralize through processes
of regularization and simplification and we have found examples of the three types of
errors defined by Richards: interference errors (the use of elements from one language
to the other), intralingual errors (overgeneralization of ignorance of rules restrictions)
and developmental errors (learners builds hypothesis about the target language based
on limited experience).
I would not like to finish without making reference to the idea of encouraging noticing in
classroom as one way of avoiding students making mistakes. Noticing is a complex
process. It involves the intake both of meaning and form, and it takes time for learners
to progress from initial recognition to the point where they can internalize the
underlying rule. Therefore, teachers should provide recurring opportunities for learners
to notice, since one noticing task is most unlikely to be sufficient. Although research
into noticing is still being introduced, it should be given its importance as a gateway to
language learning.
To conclude, I would like to highlight the idea that language learning, whether it occurs
in a naturalistic or an instructed context, is a slow and laborious process. In this
process, new errors or mistakes are not a negative indication as it is usually a sign that
students are exploring new uses of language or experimenting with new vocabulary to
reach an acceptable L2 knowledge. In this process the student as well as the teacher
are essential, being the latter `facilitator´ or `guide´ to `facilitate´ the former an
autonomous learning.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Batstone, R (1996). Key concepts in ELT. ELT Journal, volume 50/3. Oxford, Oxford
University Press.
- Belay, D (2018). What is a lexical item contribution. http://www.quorum.com.
- Díaz-Ducca, Jenaro A. (2012), Effects of affective variables on L2 fossilization in
adults: A critical literature review. Innovaciones educativas, 14(19), 64-74.
Retrieved 18-12 from 2016.

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- Ellis, R (1997) Second Language Acquisition, chapters 3-7. Oxford, Oxford

University Press.
- Ellis, R (2005). Principles of instructed language learning. University of Auckland.
Asian EFL Journal.
- Ellis, R (2008) The Study of Second Language Acquisition, chapters 3 and four.
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Language teaching, null, pp 133-171 doi: 10.1017/SO261444812000511.

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