<div> <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Right, Ted-- I think this is a terrific way both to address puzzles across languages and to engage the learner in active language learning. This, to me, is one of the soft skills teachers need or can use that Mary Ann Florez was discussing. <br>
Robin Lovrien Schwarz </font><br>
</div>
<div> <br>
</div>
<div> <br>
</div>
-----Original Message-----<br>
From: Ted Klein <taklein@austin.rr.com><br>
To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List <englishlanguage@nifl.gov><br>
Sent: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 8:41 am<br>
Subject: [EnglishLanguage 3210] Re: ESL Teacher Training<br>
<br>
<div id="AOLMsgPart_3_d14dbcf5-8335-4307-87ba-cd1ff359d1b8">
<div>Robin,</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I have found that the quickest route to understanding students' language
problems and solving these problems is active <strong>error
</strong>a<strong>nalysis</strong>. Here is an article that I wrote on the
subject from one of my newsletters. At this time I have speakers of four
unrelated languages in my adult class. I ask them questions about their
languages such as "What is the closest sound to this one in your language?" "How
do you say this in your language?" etc. and we do quick comparisons. Putting the
structures of English and L1 next to each other on the marker board is
productive. This seems to help a lot and students generally find it interesting
to see how different languages work. At the same time, I learn a lot abou
t how
different languages function to better help the students. It is not necessary to
be able to communicate in these languages, </div>
<div> </div>
<div>I am quite comfortable in Spanish and am functional in several other
unrelated languages. However, I tend to avoid using the students' languages in a
classroom situation. My aim is to create dependency on English, which can be
done very early in training.</div>
<div>It is not necessary to be able to speak students' languages. However, a
teacher who has learned any second language as an adult, gains great insight
into the whole language acquisition process first hand and is generally a better
instructor.</div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<div><b><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span></b></div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b><span style=""> </span>ESL Error Analysis
Classifications</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b> </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Errors made during the production
of a new language can serve as a key to improving instruction and the selection
of appropriate exercises and materials to accelerate the language acquisition
process. A conscientious instructor can do a better job of teaching by
finding out the causes of problem
s, in order to solve them. Errors fall into
three categories:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b><span style="font-size: 14pt;">L1-</span>First language
problems:</b><b><span style="font-size: 14pt;">
</span></b><span style=""> </span>These are problems on
the phonological, structural and semantic levels caused by basic differences
between the native and target languages. Since most ESL students in the
U.S.A. are Spanish speakers, we can
look at a few of the common problems of Spanish speakers learning English. Many
of these problems are <u>predictable</u> and most are fixable.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b></b> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b>Phonology-</b>Spanish has some
basic phonemes in common with English, but when these basic sounds are found in
different word/syllable environments they change their forms. These variations
are called <u>allophones</u>. For example voiceless stops /ptk<span style="font-family: 'SILManuscript IPA93';"><span style="">/</span></span>in
initial position are <b style="">aspirated</b> in
English and not in Spanish. A little puff of air follows them as in "pill, till
and kill." This feature is important <b style="">acoustically</b> to English speakers. The
entire vowel system is different. English has eleven vowel and three diphthong
phonemes and Spanish has five vowel phonemes. They are all different. None of
these vowel sounds are20produced the same way in both languages. Spanish speakers
have a difficult time distinguishing, identifying and producing; hid and heed,
hid and head, hayed and head, head and had, had and hod, hod and Hud, hawed and
hoed, hood and who'd. Common consonant problems include distinguishing between
Yale and jail, choose and shoes, etc.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b>Structure: </b>Spanish puts
adjectives after nouns, "el libro grande" is an example, which may result in
"the book big" in English. Spanish uses "no" as a negative in almost all
situations. English has "don't, doesn't, not, isn't, aren't," etc. in different
structural contexts. Spanish speakers will tend to use "no" in most English
structures. These are just a few examples. Speakers of other languages will have
some of the same problems, but not the same general inventory of problems.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="">Semantics-</b>English and Spanish have many
cognates, most from Latin, but often carrying different meanings or
implications. These are caused “false cognates” and can be problematical. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b><span style="font-size: 14pt;">L2-</span>Second language
(English general) problems:</b><b><span style="font-size: 14pt;">=2
0
</span></b>There are certain sounds and structures in English that are almost<b style=""> universally</b> difficult for speakers of
many languages including Spanish. A fairly large inventory of all of these
common problems could be made. <b>Phonology-</b>A common area of difficulty for
speakers of all languages is the English /<font face="Times New Roman">r/</font> sound as in "ring, very and near." Spanish
speakers will make a "flap," which means brief contact with the roof of
the mouth. Speakers of other languages may make flap, velar or uvular sounds in
its place. The /er/ sound of American English in words like ""nurse, world and
her" is also a problem for speakers of many languages. English is especially
rich in <b style="">final</b> consonant sounds. We
have many final fricatives such as<font face="SILManuscript IPA93"> </font><font face="Times New Roman">/f-th-s-sh-v-TH-z-zh./ Many languages, including most
Eastern Asian languages, have no final fricatives. Speakers of Asian languages
often have great difficulties both distinguishing and producing these sounds.
Most of their words end in vowel or nasal sounds. English has many final
consonant clusters in words like "threats, scratched and stitched." Many
languages have no final clusters. <b>Structure: </b>English has certain
structural features that in combination are unique to our language. Notable
features include "do, does, doesn't, don't <b style="">auxiliaries</b> necessary in used forming
many questions and negatives.<span style="">
</span></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b><span style="font-size: 14pt;">?-problems: </span></b>We
call these <i>"Who knows?" </i>problems, because there is no obvious reason why
they should happen. They are not consistent and can happen to any student at any
time! Causes of most problems can be tracked by patient ESL instructors. These
can't.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style=""> </span><b><span style=""> </span></b><i><u></u></i></div>
</div>
<div><font face="Script MT Bold" size="5">Ted</font></div>
<div><a target="_blank" href="http://www.tedklein-ESL.com">www.tedklein-ESL.com</a> </div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 5px; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 0px;">
<div style="font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: ; -x-system-font: none;">----- Original Message ----- </div>
<div style="background: rgb(228, 228, 228) none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: ; -x-system-font: none;"><b>From:</b>
<a title="robinschwarz1@aol.com"=2 0href="mailto:robinschwarz1@aol.com">robinschwarz1@aol.com</a> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: ; -x-system-font: none;"><b>To:</b> <a title="englishlanguage@nifl.gov" href="mailto:englishlanguage@nifl.gov">englishlanguage@nifl.gov</a> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: ; -x-system-font: none;"><b>Sent:</b> Monday, December 01, 2008 3:46
PM</div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: ; -x-system-font: none;"><b>Subject:</b> [EnglishLanguage 3185] Re: ESL
Teacher Training</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">This has been an
interesting discussion on teacher training. I believe the original
question was not whether a teacher needed to be bilingual or not, but whether
a teacher needed to know some basic concepts about learners' languages.
Much of the discussion veered off to the bilingual question and then to TESOL
preparation, which may or may not, in my observation, be sufficient to provide
a teacher with not just the knowledge, but the insight to examine a learner's
language to see where challenges for learning English may lie.
<br>
<br>
I think of a teacher I coached a few years ago who could not
understand why her student had so much trouble with a certain sound and
when I pointed out to her that the learner's language did not have that sound,
the teacher literally whined at me, " Do you mean I have to KNOW about my
learners' languages?" Or the speech pathologist who characterized a
student's inability to hear or pronounce the p/f contrast (which does
not exist in his language) a "speech impediment."
These are just the kinds of attitudes that very good question seemed to
address. <br>
<br>
In my own work looking at what causes adult ESOL
learners to struggle in learning, I have found that lack of awareness of
certain features of learners' languages often causes teachers to either teach
inappropriately to some students, or worse, as illustrated above, to seriously
misunderstand challenges learners face in dealing with English and with
instruction. For example, since we know that phonemic awareness
and mastery of the alphabetic principle is key to fluent and competent reading
in English, if a teacher is not aware that a learner may be literate in
a non-alphabetic language (which does not mean a language that uses different
letters than our alphabet, but rather a language that uses a writing system in
which individual figures represent larger chunks of sound tha
n just a
phoneme-- either a syllable or an entire word, as in some Chinese languages),
then the teacher may not understand why that student struggles with spelling
in English or with the c oncept of "sounding out words"--i.e.
phonics. Problems such as not understanding the concept of a
"middle sound" or of stringing sounds together to make words arise when the
phonemic concept is not understood. Quite a few languages have
diacritics (little marks) to indicate stress or even tone, where English has
none of those and learners are sometimes baffled by that difference.
There is research evidence to show that readers whose languages are highly
regular have a hard time learning to read English accurately because they do
not deal with the huge variety of irregularities in English spelling
well. Again, if the teacher is aware of this basic difference, he or she
can help learners who read in a highly regular language pay attention to and
figure out a way to remember baffling differences of pronunciation of simliar
spellings such as bomb, comb, tomb, etc. <br>
<br>
Other
features, such as grammatical order of words in sentences or certain concepts
of grammar, differ either a lttle or a lot from language to language and
depending on the learner, may pose significant problems in moving to the the
new language. Recently a teacher I have coached asked20a translator to
translate the concepts of subject, verb, object into the language of some of
her learners. When asked whether she thought she could do that, the
translator commented that those concepts don't translate directly because the
sentences in the language are not constructed on that principle. Thus
direct translation could further confuse rather than clarify things for the
learners. <br>
<br>
No one is suggesting that a teacher be fluent in all
the languages of the globe, but the awareness that the differences exist and
the willinginess to help learners explore the differences so both teacher and
learner can learn about how the differences need to be understood in the
language learning process can go a very long way towards more successful
learning and teaching. <br>
<br>
I have found that a reading of the
Wikipedia entry on alphabetic languages ( which includes a classification of
several kinds of non-alphabetic languages, too) is quick way to raise
one's awareness of these concepts without having to become expert in a given
language. <br>
<br>
Robin Lovrien Schwarz, Consultant in Adult ESOL
and Learning Problems <br>
<br>
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<pre style="font-size: 9pt;"><tt>----------------------------------------------------<br>
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