LIN 4200/6200, SPRING 2010SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

FINAL EXAM

Name: _Bethany Deibler_______________

Directions: Please download a copy of this Word file and type your answers directly onto the form. When you have completed the exam, print it out and bring it to class on June 7 to turn in. Good luck!

SHORT-ANSWER QUESTIONS (10 pts each)

Read the eight questions below and then choose FIVE to answer. Indicate which five you have chosen by leaving the full question before your answer—you may delete the three questions you choose not to answer. Please do not exceed 500 words in each answer.

1) Discuss and describe a language teaching method that is clearly premised on the belief that second language learning is similar to first language learning. (Chapter 2)

The Direct Method is directly related to the idea that people can learn their second language the same as the first. This method does away with all translation and explicit grammar lessons. The students are to simply listen and mimic the teacher. The teacher will start with very simple sentences and slowly change words and add new vocabulary for the students to learn. This is similar to first language learning in that children, when learning a language, have nothing to translate from and can only listen and imitate the sounds they hear around them.

This method is more practical for students who are looking for a course that will prepare them for living in a place where the language is spoken. However, for a student who is hoping to learn how to write or be involved in the academic side of the language, this method will not be satisfied. While they try to imitate first language learning, it can never duplicate it exactly because there are many factors that cannot be the same as the learners already have a first language. One of these factors is the fact that the adult already has a concept of language and a way to communicate.

2) Discuss two theoretical considerations (neurobiological, cognitive, affective, or linguistic) in explaining why/how children learn languages differently than adults do. (Chapter 3)

An Affective consideration as to why children learn differently from adults has to do with egocentricity. Children are very egocentric; everyone and everything revolves around them. They don’t care what other people think and often everything is “mine!” Language ego is a term used to talk about the identity a person has in their language use. Often

people are so proud of their language or accent in a different language that they do not want to change it. However, this also relates to children when they are building this language ego. They try out different words and ideas and aren’t afraid to make mistakes. As they grow older, other children begin to judge and make fun of them for mistakes and peculiarities. This causes them to become cautious and try not to make mistakes to avoid humiliation. This sticks with humans the rest of their lives, thus adults have a harder time experimenting with the language and making mistakes.

A Linguistic consideration is that adults already have a language, and the first language tends to interfere with the L2 learning process. Adults will have both grammatical and phonological difficulties with the second language as they have solidified the first language grammar and sounds already. Children do not have any other language skills yet and are able to make every sound possible, whereas adults have lost their ability to make certain sounds because they are not utilized in their native language. This is not to say that children learn perfectly and never make mistakes. In fact, adults often make the same mistakes as children do when learning a new language.

3) Discuss one aspect of why second language acquisition is necessarily tied to the process of second culture acquisition (e.g., culture shock and SLA, social distance and SLA, collectivist/individualist societies and SLA, etc.). (Chapter 7)

Culture is a big part of a language. Students can learn a language from a textbook with no cultural references, but if they try to use that textbook language in real life, they will most likely run into some problems. It is impossible to be fluent in a language with no knowledge of the culture. Not only do dictionaries leave out cultural connotations of words, but language changes over time as well. Formal and informal speech is also an important thing to learn with a new language. Other things that may vary by culture may be non-linguistic factors such as eye contact or distance from the person you are speaking to.

Teaching culture along with the language is important for students if they are going to live in said culture. It will help them to avoid or lessen the effect of culture shock. If students do not understand the culture or connotations of certain words, they could get into some serious trouble, but not understand a thing of what was going on. Culture is hard to teach, but it is important for students to be aware, especially if traveling to speak the language on a daily basis in a foreign country.

4) Provide an extended definition of “communicative competence” by explaining, in detail, Figures 8.1 and 8.2 (Bachman, 1990) on pages 221-222. (Chapter 8)

Communicative competence differentiates between organizational and Pragmatic competence. Organizational competence is how well the student understands the rule based side of the language. Grammatical competence falls under this category and has to do with the syntax, morphology, and phonology of the language; the linguistic side. Textual competence also falls under the organizational side and has to do with the larger

discourse part of the language. Can the student read and understand how full paragraphs or articles go together? Can the student produce a logically organized essay?

The Pragmatic side of Communicative competence has to do more with the meanings of words in a social or cultural context. Illocutionary and Sociolinguistic Competence are under this category. The Illocutionary aspect refers to the knowledge that the student has of how to use the language; as in, what the correct response is to a certain question. The sociolinguistic competence is the knowledge the student has of different dialects, how to properly address different people, and the different cultural meanings of words.

Another way to look at it is from the top down. Starting with the student’s knowledge of the world and combining it with the knowledge of the language, we can assess how the student will respond in a certain situation.

5) Write and answer your own question based on the material in Chapter 10. As long as the question asks about a major aspect of the chapter and your answer provides insight and careful thought, the question/answer will be accepted. (Chapter 10)

Pick one of the “hot topics” in SLA research from pp. 291-3 and explain why it is controversial. From your point of view, which side is right? Or is there a combination?

Awareness or conscious learning has been debated over the years. People debate whether it is important to know and understand that you are, in fact, learning something. Children and infants generally learn unconsciously and it often seems that when you try to teach them consciously, it doesn’t have an effect on them. Over the years people have argued that students should never be consciously aware that they are learning; this most specifically refers to the forms of the language. This would be similar to the Audio-lingual or Direct Method that do not explicitly teach the grammar rules. On the one hand, it is helpful for students to focus on the forms in the language some, but not so much that they can’t think about the meaning of what they are trying to convey. There needs to be a balance between the two.

In my personal experience, I have never thrived in a situation of learning a language without knowing grammar rules. I learned a couple of words and phrases, but it was a bit disconcerting that I didn’t know any rules. It seems that learning with no awareness of forms would take a much longer time and not be very efficient. On the other hand, I have often gotten so caught up in trying to remember the correct form of a word that I forget the rest of what I was attempting to communicate. Like many things in language learning, there needs to be a balance of awareness present in the students.

LONG-ANSWER QUESTIONS (25 pts each)

Read the three questions below and then choose TWO to answer. Indicate which two you have chosen by leaving the full question before your answer—you may delete the one question you choose not to answer. Please do not exceed 1000 words in each answer.

1) Imagine you are at the beginning stages of learning a second language. In your classroom learning contexts, would you prefer to be taught by a native-speaker or a non-native speaker of the target language you are learning? Does your answer depend on the specific type of learning context (ESL vs. EFL context, for example), the material you are trying to learn (material for an exam vs. pragmatic communication skills, for example), or the stage of learning you inhabit (beginning, intermediate, advanced)? Are there any other factors that determine your choice?

As a student, I would prefer to have a non-native teacher. First, the teacher will be able to relate to the difficulties of learning the language. Especially if the teacher is a native speaker of the same language as me, s/he can directly relate to the phonological problems I will have because s/he will have already gone through (and hopefully mastered) the process. Especially in the beginning stages of language learning, I would like someone to speak to in my own native language if I have questions. Perhaps when I get to the higher levels of language learning it would be nice to have someone who is a native speaker. Then I can learn better all the cultural connotations that words have as well as improve my accent in the language.

People may argue that they want native speakers to teach them so they can learn directly from the best of speakers, the real deal. Unless the students are ready to take up the challenge of being completely immersed in a new language with no previous knowledge, this situation would be very overwhelming and discouraging for students when they don’t understand anything. Many programs that are active today don’t necessarily care if the teacher sent from the native-speaking country has any concept about teaching, grammar, or language other than what they have grown up using. If native teachers come to teach, they should have proper training in teaching and some knowledge of the language group they are going to teach. Students should be able to ask questions to their teacher both in and out of class in the students’ foreign language in order to clarify and points that were misunderstood during class.

The setting of the classroom, whether EFL or ESL, depends on the motivation of the students. Students in the EFL setting will be the students who have moved somewhere possibly to get a job and learn the language; they will be up to the challenge of being in the previously mentioned situation of complete immersion. A native speaker is most practical for them in this situation as it forces them to use their target language the majority of the time. They would also benefit from a native teacher who can differentiate between dictionary forms of words and the slang or cultural uses that students are more likely to hear out of the classroom. The pragmatic

communication skills will be important to avoid misunderstandings due to word usage.

An ESL setting is where the students’ motivation might not be as strong. They may take the course just for the fun of learning a new language, or as a requirement for educational requirements. They will not be forced to use the language outside of the classroom and they are often much more low-key than EFL settings. In this case, a non-native speaker would be better to help the students along and possible provide more motivation for them to continue using the language. Students in this setting will most likely be taught how to pass a test in order to complete their education. They will be taught test knowledge, not pragmatic uses.

Overall, for beginning students, a non-native teacher will benefit the students much more; however, as they improve in their language skills, a native teacher may benefit them more as they get into the more complex pragmatic and pronunciation issues.

2) Perform an error analysis on a sample student essay (see the “Term Paper” tab in Blackboard and print off a copy of “Essay for Error Analysis”). In doing so, identify at least six errors in the essay and then use Lennon’s (1991) procedure (pp. 262-263) to analyze these errors, explaining, for each, the type of error, the level of language, whether the error is global or local, and the dimension. As a second part of this question, imagine that you will meet with the writer of this essay in a 20-minute one-on-one conference. Which errors would you discuss first and why? Which, if any, would you have the student self-correct (i.e., on his/her own for homework instead of explicitly in the conference) and why?

The first noticeable mistake is the extra additions of the plural forms (-s). “the most important things” could work, but the verb “is” does not match the plural form. “Alcohols” is a mass noun and generally referred to as just alcohol. “Advices” also is also a mass noun and should be just advice. This error is on of addition, the plural is not needed. This is a morphology error and is local, it can be understood what the student is trying to convey. The domain is at the word level, and the extent is the plural marker, s.

The second mistake noted is the incorrect endings on nouns. “Happily” in the end of the first paragraph and beginning of the second should just be happy. The student uses the correct for at the end of the second paragraph again, so it is strange that it is used earlier incorrectly. “Finishing” in the third paragraph, since it comes after “to”, it should be “to finish”. This error is a substitution error of grammar. However, it is a local error as the meaning is still understood. The domain is at the word level, and the extent is the endings of the words, -ly, and –ing.

The third mistake is the absence of the word “a”. At the end of the second paragraph it should be “a farmer” and in the middle of the third, “a power point slide expert”. This is

an omission error of the lexicon. It is local, and the domain is the phrase; the extent is the indefinite article.

A fourth mistake was a couple of spelling errors. The first, “feels” in the second paragraph should be field. Also, the word “advice” in the third paragraph should be advise. It is hard to tell if this is a spelling mistake or confusion of a noun and verb. This is an error of either substitution or ordering concerning the letters, but more specifically an orthography error. Generally these are local errors, as long as the word is still recognizable. The domain is on the word lever, and the extent is to get the spelling correct, possibly adding or changing letter order.

A fifth mistake is incorrect tenses. In the second paragraph, “you cannot get anything you wanted”, the “cannot” and “wanted” do not match. One of these words should be changed either both to past tense or present tense. The end of the third paragraph also has “he always help us”. This should be “helped” in the past tense. This error is a substitution error having to do with grammar. These two examples are local errors. The domain is in the phrase level, and the extent is the tense of the verb.

A sixth mistake is the use of vocabulary. In the third paragraph, “learn” should be attend, because you cannot learn a class. Two sentences later, “it will make you funny”. The meaning of this is a bit confusing. This error is a substitution error as well and has to do with the student’s lexicon. These types of errors are global. The first one, with learn can be understood; however “it will make you funny” is unclear. Funny has many different connotations, it can mean something that makes you laugh, or something isn’t quite right. It is unclear what the intentions of the student were. The domain is the phrase, and the extent is the vocabulary.

In a meeting with this particular student, first of all, I would point out the errors that were global. In this particular paper, there was only one with the use of the word funny. The student should either change the word, or explain what s/he means. I would also point out the spelling errors. This can quickly become global and affect the student’s meaning if not fixed. For the student to self-correct, I would underline either the word or sentence that had the error and let the student decide what the error was and fix it. If this process is to be repeated several times, the first couple one-on-one conferences, I would have the student self-correct during the meeting in order to get the idea of what is expected.