Unit 1: Interlanguage: Learner’s language by Teresa Naves  from SLA FOR CLIL MODULE by C. Muñoz (UB), T. Naves (UB) (module co-ord) and Maria Pavesi (U Pavia). 56287-CP-1-98-IT-LINGUA-LA supported by the European Comission (DGXXII) through Lingua A of the Socrates programme

UNIT 1: Interlanguage: Learner’s language by Teresa Naves (UB) from

SLA FOR CLIL MODULE by C. Muñoz (UB), T. Naves (UB) (module co-ord) and Maria Pavesi (U Pavia). 56287-CP-1-98-IT-LINGUA-LA supported by the European Comission (DGXXII) through Lingua A of the Socrates programme
 

Links to Teresa Naves Web on AICLE-CLIL and Tie-CLIL  Project homepage
 

Table of Contents:

0. ObjectivesProceduresWorking Materials Expected Outcomes

1. Initial Activities (Pre-reading Activities):

1.1. Task 1: Are the folllowing statements about language learning true or false
1.2. Task 2: How much do you already know about these technical concepts?
1.3. TASK 3. Examing some excerpts from the readings
1.4. On line polls from SLA for CLIL e-group

2. WHAT IS INTERLANGUAGE? by Teresa Naves

2.1. Introduction to Interlangauge
2.2. Language Acquisition
2.3. Similarities between First language and SL acquisition
2.4. Interlanguage
2.5. Learners' errors
2.6. Developmental sequences
2.7. The acquistion of negation in English
2.8. The acquisition of interrogatives in English
2.9. The acquisition of relative clauses in English
2.10. Pienamann’s and Johnson’s Multidimensional Model

3. Tasks on the text

3.1. Task 1. Glossary of related SLA terms
3.2. Task 2. Discuss the relevance of CLIL in the following situations.
3.3. Task 3. Discuss the following teacher's complain
3.4. Task 4. Can we know the nature of a learner's error?
3.5. Task 5. Evaluate students interlanguage in an integrated class of science and English

4. Individual Reading (further reading)

Recommended readings
4.1. P. Lightbown & Spada, N. 1994 "Learners language" in How languages are learned?
4.2. Larsen-Freeman, Diane 1997 "Grammar and Its Teaching: Challenging the Myths"
4.3. McLaughlin, Barry 1992 "Myths and Misconceptions About Second Language Learning: What Every Teacher Needs to Unlearn"
Optional readings (on-line readings)
4.4. Rosa Trenchs "Lingusitic Profiling and Language Assessment" in E. Tragant, T. Naves and R. Ribé (forthcoming) ELT Methodology
4.5. Carmen Pérez "Are we teaching against all SLA research evidence?"  in E. Tragant, T. Naves and R. Ribé (forthcoming) ELT Methodology

5. Evaluation and Assessment

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0. ObjectivesProceduresWorking Materials Expected Outcomes Objectives : To identify the different characteristics of interlanguage (learners’ language) To distinguish and identify different types of learners’ errors: errors which are a necessary step in the acquisition process (developmental errors) and errors that can be attributed to L1 influence To reflect on the importance of developmental sequences in English Procedures: Initial activity Input text Tasks on the text for language teachers, content teachers and both; in group, pair-work text-based discussions, individual work Individual reading of recommended articles; class discussion Self-assessment Working materials :  "What is ‘interlanguage’?" by Teresa Naves P. Lightbown & Spada, N. 1994 "Learner Language" in How languages are learned. Oxford University Press:71-90 Larsen-Freeman, Diane "Grammar and Its Teaching: Challenging the Myths". ERIC Digest. Source: ERIC Clearinghouse on Languages and Linguistics Washington DC. http://www.ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Digests/ed406829.html Expected outcomes: Glossary of key terms Solutions to the problem solving situations discussed.

 

1. INITIAL ACTIVITIES

You may choose one of the following initial activities

1.1. TASK 1: Are the following statements about language learning true or false?

In this section you will find out the extent to which some of your expectations and beliefs about (a) how languages are learnt, (b) the type of errors learners make and (c) how teachers should deal with them, are either confirmed or disconfirmed by second language acquisition research findings.

Are the following statements true or false. Do you know why?
 

Are the following statements about language learning true or false? Initial Evaluation : Checking our own beliefs

1. In learning a Foreign Language (i.e. English), most of the errors students from different L1 background (Spanish / German / Italian / French first language) will be making are completely different from one another.

2. Most of the errors which foreign language learners make are due to interference / influence of their first language

3. One of the potential dangers of students talking to their peers is that they might pick up each others’ errors

4. The way each person learns a language is completely different from another. It depends on the language they speak, their attitude, their intelligence, motivation, etc.

5. An increase in the number of second or foreign language learners’ error is sometimes indicator of progress

6. The easiest a grammar rule is the easiest it will be acquired. For example, 3rd person -s for present simple in English is rather easy to state and it is fairly easy to acquire.

7. Learners’ knowledge about the language (i.e. knowing grammar rules) does not necessarily result in being able to use it in more open and free spontaneous contexts.

8. Languages are learnt mainly through imitation.

9. Both L1 and L2 learners in the process of learning the past, would start saying things such as mummy went, we saw, etc. before they may say mummy called.

10. Both L1 and L2 learners in the process of learning the past may be saying things such as We played cards yesterday but also in I buyed the book / She teached me…

11. Second language structures which differ most from the equivalent structures in a learner’s native language (L1) are also the most difficult to acquire and should therefore be given greatest emphasis in the syllabus.

12. Second language structures which are closer to the equivalent structures in a learner’s native language (L1) are the easiest to acquire and should therefore be given greatest emphasis in the syllabus.

13. There is a direct relationship between linguistic complexity and learning difficulty

14. The syllabus should present target structures to the learner in order of increasing complexity.

15.  Both in first and second language acquisition there are systematic and predictable stages or sequences of acquisition.

 

1. 2. TASK 2: How much do you already know about these technical concepts?

Below you will find some of the concepts and dichotomies you will be learning about in this unit.

Draw a vertical line on the right column as if it were a thermometer from 0º to 100º

0º means I don’t have a clue of what it is or might be about,

100º means I already know what this is about, how it works and I can provide lots of examples.

Assign each concept its corresponding temperature.
 

Thermometer. Some key terms
1.Acquisition and Learning
2. Interlanguage
3. Order of acquisition
4. Learners’ errors
5. Developmental errors
6. Transfer errors
7. Developmental sequences
8. Verb negation stages in English
9. Question formation stages in English
10. Relative Clauses stages in English
11. First language acquisition
12. Multidimensional Model

1.3. TASK 3. Before reading What is Interlanguage? and the articles suggested.

Examine the following excerpts  and decide the extent to which you agree with the author's opinions

• The problem is that we [teachers] are giving them [learners] lots of information in the order that seems logical to us, but that order is not the same in which they can process and acquire that information. They [learners] are solving the problem of the passive voice in odd verb tenses in the same way as  they solve mathematical problems: they take bits and pieces of sentences, put them together in a different order, apply some rules that they have learned by heart and there you have a beautiful, perfectly constructed passive sentence in the future perfect continuous! When it  comes to speaking, they simply don't have time to connect all those things -they are different abilities in different parts of the brain- and they go back to  the English they really know and forget all the things they can do with English words..

(Source: Rosa Trenchs 1997)

p 1. I completely agree     p 2. I mostly agree  p 3. I don't know p 4. I mostly disagree      p 5. I strongly disagree


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1. Grammar is acquired naturally; it need not be taught.
2. Grammar is a collection of meaningless forms.
3. Grammar consists of arbitrary rules.
4. Grammar is boring
5. Students have different learning styles. Not all students can learn grammar.
6. Grammar structures are learned one at a time.
7. Grammar has to do only with sentence-level and        subsentence-level phenomena.
8. Grammar and vocabulary are areas of knowledge. Reading, writing, speaking, and listening are the four  skills.
9. Grammars provide the rules/explanations for all the       structures in a language.
10. "I don't know enough to teach grammar."

(Larsen-Freeman, 1997)

For each of the Myths, write 1-5 next to them

p 1. I completely agree        p 2. I mostly agree
p 3. I don't know               p 4. I mostly disagree
p 5. I strongly disagree

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Myth 1. Children learn second languages quickly and   easily
Myth 2. The younger the child, the more skilled in
acquiring an L2.
Myth 3. The more time students spend in a second
language context, the quicker they learn the language.
Myth 4.  Children have acquired an L2 once they can
speak it.
Myth 5. All children learn an L2 in the same way.

( McLaughlin, 1992)

For each of the Myths, write 1-5 next to them

p 1. I completely agree       p 2. I mostly agree
p 3. I don't know              p 4. I mostly disagree
p 5. I strongly disagree

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1.4. Unit 1 On line polls from SLA for CLIL e-group by T. Naves. Vote on line and find out to what extent other people agree with you. Find out which is the most popular answer. Vote here

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2. WHAT IS INTERLANGUAGE? by Teresa Naves

2.1. Introduction to Interlangauge In this section we are going to consider learner’s language itself. We will examine the type of language second and foreign language learners produce in the process of learning the target language. We will examine the types of errors learners make and discuss what they can tell us about their knowledge of the language and their ability to use this knowledge. English children learning their mother tongue may say goed instead of went. We have also heard second language learners saying teached instead of taught. We will discuss the extent to which second and first language acquisition are alike in this respect. Most people seem to be aware of the fact that learners’ first language may influence the learning of a second one. What most people are not aware of, however, is the fact that learners with different language background in learning English as a SL will go through the same stages in learning some grammatical features such as verb negation. In other words, Spanish, Italian, German, Finish learners of English in the process of learning negation in English will go through the very same four stages. Please notice that the Spanish negation system is preverbal (Yo no lo quiero) (I don’t want it) whereas several of the other languages are not. The differences among those learners can be best understood in terms of rate (how fast they would move from one stage to the next ). An important SLA finding is that there are some learners’ errors that cannot be predicted nor attributed to learners’ first language, instructional setting (formal, informal) nor age.

2.2. Language Acquisition Although for most SLA researchers the terms acquisition and learning are interchangeable, for others acquisition is contrasted with learning. Acquisition is associated with the unconscious learning which takes place when the emphasis is on communication and there is no attention to form, whereas Learning refers to the development of conscious knowledge of the TL (target language)through formal study. For the second group of researchers, learning means the same as explicit knowledge When do researchers consider that something has been acquired? In the early 70’s researchers would say learners had acquired a given morpheme when they were able to use grammatically most of the time. Lately, however, most researchers would say learners had acquired a language form when they are able to use it in spontaneous settings whether in a target-like fashion or not, most of the time. One researcher in particular developed one of the latest models of acquisition based on the idea that a language form had been acquired if learners would use it at least in three obligatory contexts from the communicative tasks in which they were engaged, yet not necessarily target like. When learners are in the process of learning something they would attempt to use the language form in a wide variety of ways, overgeneralising its rule and also using it in non-obligatory contexts. For example when a learner is in the process of learning the –ed past the learner may say I saw you yesterday when I go beach but I didn’t saw Mia. I’m going to called her

2.3. Similarities between First language and SL acquisition Children do not learn their mother tongue simply through imitation and practice; instead, they produce utterances that are not like those they have heard. Children’s language seems to be created on the basis of some internal processes and knowledge which interact with the language they are exposed to, allowing them to find out how the language system works gradually. Children’s early language seems best described as a developing system with its own internal and systematic structures, not just an imperfect imitation of the language they are in the process of learning. Finally, children’s language reveals there is an order of acquisition of morphemes and also some other syntactic structures such as negation. For example English children invariably first start using –ing morpheme before they would ever come up with a plural –s form; or they start using the irregular –ed past of some highly frequent verbs such as saw and went before they start using the regular –ed morpheme. When they start using the regular –ed morpheme, they also tend to overgeneralise its use and apart from saying called, they would also say comed. In acquiring English negation, children also go though a series of stages, some of which are not target-like (grammatically correct). A stage 2, for example, children use pre-verbal negation in utterances like mummy no comb hair. SLA research also have found out that SL learners learn English morphemes in a given order of acquisition and that the plural –s morpheme is acquired much earlier than the third person –s morpheme. In fact, the 3rd person –s morpheme along with the –ed morpheme is one of the latest morphemes acquired by SL learners. SL learners would only start using those morphemes in spontaneous situations once they had already acquired other morphemes such as the plural –s.

 

2.4. Interlanguage Interlanguage is the learners’ language i.e. the type of language produced by SL learners who are in the process of learning a SL. Interlanguage is also defined as the learners’ developing SL knowledge. Analysis of the learners’ interlanguage shows that it has some characteristics of the learner’s native language, some characteristics of the second language and some characteristics which are very systematic, i.e. rule-governed and common to all learners. In language acquisition, learners’ errors are caused by several different processes

 

2.5. Learners’ errors SLA has identified three main types of errors. The first of these are developmental errors, which are similar to the errors made by children learning the language as their first language. Developmental errors are assumed to be a natural product of a gradually developing ability in the new language in the studies so far carried out, developmental errors make up the majority of errors exhibited by second language learners. Examples of developmental errors are the misuse of third person –s (she work hard), the –ed morpheme (she teached us last year), of negation (I not like it) and of interrogatives ( I wonder what is she doing) Transfer or Interlingual errors, or errors clearly attributable to first language influence, are said to be less frequent than the former. One example of a transfer error for Catalan L1 learners is adverb placement in examples like I have everyday a cup of coffee in the morning. The last type of errors cannot be classified as either developmental errors or transfer errors.

 

2.6. Developmental sequences. Research on SLA has revealed that there are important similarities between first language acquisition and second language acquisition. One important finding has been that in both first and second language acquisition there are sequences or ‘stages’ in the development of particular structures. That is, certain features of the language seem to appear relatively early in learners’ language while others are acquired much later. Developmental sequences are similar across learners from different language backgrounds, from different ages, or from different learning contexts (formal instruction vs. naturalistic). In other words, second and foreign language learners in the process of learning the target language, pass through a series of identifiable stages in acquiring grammatical structures such as, in the case of English, negatives, interrogatives and relative clauses. The language that learners produce (IL) provides evidence that they acquire different morphological features in a fixed order and also that they pass through a sequence of developmental stages in the acquisition of specific syntactic features. The existence of developmental sequences is one of the most important findings of SLA research to date. There is a general acceptance in the SLA research community that the acquisition of some features of L2 grammar occurs in stages.

 

2.7. The acquisition of negation in English. There are four stages second language learners of English regardless of their L1 go through in acquiring negation in English as a SL. At stage 1 learners may say things like no work / I not like/ No have money; that is the negative element, (usually no and not but also don’t) is typically placed before the word being negated and it often occurs as the first element in the utterance. Stage 2is characterised by the fact that don’t is introduced but it is used both for the 3rd person sing. as well as for past tense and modals. Typical utterances of stage 2 are the following: I don’t like it (either meaning I don’t like it or I didn’t like it), She don’t like it (for she doesn’t like it) and she don’t can come (for She can’t come). In Stage 3 learners begin to place the negative element after the copular verb and after modals but don’t is not fully analysed yet. Illustrative examples are I cannot come; I am not hungry; She don’t like it . It is not until stage 4 that don’t is fully analysed for person and tense (e.g. I couldn’t come. She doesn’t agree. You didn’t come.)

 

2.8. The acquisition of interrogatives in English All learners seem to pass through, regardless of age, native language or learning context the following sequences in the acquisition of interrogatives in English: 1. Rising intonation. Questions are formed by marking statements with rising intonation. Single words and chunks: Tired? Agree? Four cups? Your pencil? She out? Cat playing? S.V. You’re tired? She agree? You need four cups? It is your pencil? She is out? The cat is playing? Wh- / Do- Fronting: Do you are tired? Do she agree? Do you need four cups? Where it is your pencil? Do she out? Where the cat is playing? Do the cat is playing? 2nd Inversion in Wh+ copula / Inversion with and Yes/ No questions (except with the auxiliary ‘do’): Where is your pencil? Where are the cups? Is this your pencil? Is she out? Is the cat playing? Wh- Inversion What does she need? What is the cat doing? Overinversion Do you know what does she need? Do you know what is the cat doing? Differenciation and complex questions: Do you know what she needs? Do you know what the cat is doing? The cat is playing, isn’t she? Can you tell me what the cat is doing?

 
 

 

2.9. The acquisition of Relative Clauses in English The hierarchy of the acquisition of relative clauses in English is as follows: Sbj: the teacher who did not come yesterday… DO: The optional subject that I have chosen IO: The teacher who(m) I handed in my exam Object of preposition. I read the book that you told me about Possessive: I know the teacher whose daughter is in our class. Object of comparison. The teacher that Mary is more strict than is Mike.

 

 

2.10. Pienamann’s and Johnson’s Multidimensional Model   There are constraints on L2 learning that affect its teachability and learnability. There are sequences in English which are acquired under two conditions: first, in an order of increasing linguistic and psycholinguistic complexity and second, with respect to the learner readiness (i.e. learners must be at an appropriate developmental stage in their L2 leaning for them to acquire the next stage) Stage X : Canonical: This is your pencil? I no like She like it. Stage X+1: Adv.-Do- and Wh fronting: Yesterday I am tired. Do she need four cups? Why she not out? Stage X+2 The canonical order is disturbed. Grammatical knowledge is required for identification of movable elements with Yes/No questions, complementarizer insertion and particle separation: Have you four cups? I like to eat my friend house You can take it off. Stage X+3: Movement at this stage requires recognition of grammatical knowledge (aux second, ‘do’ second, reflexive pronouns, dative ‘to’, 3rd person singular –s): Why did you go? She does not know. She wrote it herself. She gave the book to the new librarian. She works too hard Stage X+4 Complex structures: She wants us to do it. She has never met him. She didn’t like it, did she?

 

3. TASKS on the Text
 
 

3.1. Task 1: Glossary of related SLA terms from the Tutorial

Look for definitions and explanations of the bold-faced terms and italicised terms in the Tutorial. Then write definitions for them using your own words. If possible, write down synonyms of those terms.

1. Working in heterogeneous pairs (subject-matter teacher and language teacher) read the following instructions and split the work between the two of you. Be ready to share and compare the results with other pairs. (1) Look the definition of interlanguage, developmental sequence up in an Applied Linguistics Dictionary.
(2) Are there any related terms provided? (3) Who coined the term?. (4) Are there any Applied Linguistics Dictionaries in your mother tongue? If so, look the term up (Platt & Platt famous dictionary on Applied Linguistics has recently been translated into Spanish by C. Muñoz and C. Pérez for example). (5) Then, look it up in a desk-reference bilingual dictionary English-Your mother tongue and see whether the term can be found. (6) Are there any related terms provided? (7) Also, find out how the term has been translated into your mother tongue. You may want to use some reference SLA manuals such as Larsen-Freeman and Long (1991) which might have been translated to your first language and check the term there (It has been translated to Spanish and Japanese at least) (8) Finally, find out whether there are any developmental sequences being described for your first language (There are developmental sequences being described for German (Phenomena) Italian, Spanish at least. Compare your answers with a different pair.
 
 

3.2. Task 2. Discuss the relevance to CLIL programmes of the different types of learners’ errors and of the developmental stages.
Why do language teachers as well as content teachers need to be aware of learner’s interlanguage? What is it that they may expect from your learners based on what you’ve read about learner’s interlanguage?

3.3. Task 3. Read the following complain by a language teacher and comment on it. This teacher severe criticises a couple of students that have been interviewing each other in order to find out some facts about each other’s friends. She interrupts them and says:

I have taught you the present simple tense, haven’t’ I? How many times have I told you not to forget the 3^rd person –s? Yet you seem to ignore what I said. Look, What is Mary, isn’t’ Mary a she? Isn’t Mary a third person singular? Why on earth have you said Mary work hard instead of Mary workS hard. We have spent over a couple of months ‘studying’ the present simple tense and asking and giving information about habitual actions, haven’t’ we? You haven’t’ learnt anything, have you?

• What is it that this teacher is not aware of?
• What is this teacher taking for granted?
• Is the 3^rd person –s one of the earlier morphemes acquired by SL learners?
• What is the difference between formal study, having learnt something and having it acquired something?
• What type of language does this teacher expect from their students? Why?
• One teacher listening to a students telephone conversation in order to make a complain about a flight focusses her attention on he the following learners’ interlanguage samples:
I call yesterday…and you told me that…My flight taked off… No, I saw it! Yes I am going to made to the complain office

And concludes the learner has not yet acquired the –ed past morpheme.

• What can you tell this teacher?
• Does the learner fully master the –ed past?
• Are all the –ed past morphemes used by the learner target like? Are all the –ed past morphemes grammatically correct?
• Are all the instances in which the learner uses an –ed past morpheme obligatory? In other words, whenever the learner uses an –ed past morpheme, is it necessary to use the past tense?
• Has the learner acquired the –ed past morpheme?

3.4. Task 4. How can you know whether a learner’s error is a developmental error or a transfer error?

SLA research literature has reported that Spanish, Catalan and French L1 learners tend to make the following error in learning English as a SL

I drink everyday three cups of coffee.

• Is this utterance grammatically correct? Is it target-like? Why not?
• If only some romance L1 learners such as Catalan, Spanish and French make this type of error while other L1 learners tend not to make this type of error, what can we conclude about the type of error this is?
• In Catalan and Spanish it is possible to say each of the following combinations. Find out in other languages such as French, Italian, Portuguese, what it is like. Also find out whether in non-romance languages such as German, Finish, etc. they see to have the adverb placement problem in learning English

(Jo) em bec, cada dia, tres taces de cafè (Yo) me bebo cada día tres tazas de café *I drink everyday three cups of coffee

Cada dia, em bec tres taces de cafè Cada día me bebo tres tazas de café Everyday, I drink three cups of coffee

(Jo) em bec tres taces de cafè al dia (Yo) bebo tres tazas de café al día I drink three cups of coffee everyday

One teacher notices that most of her students from Spanish and Catalan L1 background, keep making this type of error in learning English when engaged in communicative tasks

I no work… I not work …I not want it…She don’t work…She not work And she attributes these errors to the fact that Spanish as well as Catalan are pre-verbal languages, that is, that negation in Spanish and Catalan is made by placing the negative before the verb.

(Yo) no trabajo….. (Yo) no lo quiero….. (Ella) no trabaja

(Jo) no treballo…. (Jo) no ho vull…….. (Ella) no treballa and concludes that these errors are interlingual errors, that is transfer errors to be attributed to the transfer from learner’s L1 background.

• Is this teacher right? What can you tell this teacher?
• Has this teacher gathered enough evidence to support her claim? In order to reject her hypothesis, what type of data would you recommend this teacher collect?
• Are only Spanish and Catalan L1 the ones who would most likely make this type of error in learning the verb negation in English?
• German L1 learners of English are said to move faster from stage 1 in negation to stage 2. The rate is faster although the path is the same. How can we account for it? Is German also a pre-verbal language? If you do not know the answer, what would you predict based on the fact that German learners move sooner from stage 1 to stage 2 in learning verb negation in English?
• Find out other ways of negating in different languages.
• Would you expect the very same learners make the very same type of errors if instead of being engaged in communicative tasks, they were answering a more controlled written grammar exercise for which they had more time to plan and to rely on formal knowledge?. Why?

3.5. Task 5. Evaluate students interlanguage in an integrated class of science and English. These learners have been working on a science project to find out which type of detergents biological or non-biological detergents eliminates stains better. They are bilingual students. They are fluent Catalan and Spanish speakers. They have been designing their own experiments to find out the answer for three types of stains: coffee stains, orange juice stains and oil stains. The team of teachers composed by a science teacher and a foreign language teacher have been monitoring the experience. When it comes to report the results of the experiment this is what one group of students looking at the following grid of recording findings says
 

	Coffee stains	Orange juice stains	Oil stains
Biological detergent	X	OK	x
Non biological detergent	OK	X	OK

 

Std: Non-biological detergent remove coffe stains better than biological detergent. Non-biological detergent remove stains in oil better. Non-biological detergent don’t remove orange juice well

• What can you tell about this learner’s interlanguage?

4. INDIVIDUAL READING

4.1. P. Lightbown & Spada, N. 1994 "Learner Language" in How languages are learned. Oxford University Press:71-90

   From OUP catalogue  From  Amazon

 
 
 

4.2. Larsen-Freeman, Diane 1997 "Grammar and Its Teaching: Challenging the Myths". ERIC Digest. Source: ERIC Clearinghouse on Languages and Linguistics Washington DC.

Larsen-Freeman discuss the following myths about grammar:

1. Grammar is acquired naturally; it need not be taught.
2. Grammar is a collection of meaningless forms.
3. Grammar consists of arbitrary rules.
4. Grammar is boring.
5. Students have different learning styles. Not all students can learn grammar.
6. Grammar structures are learned one at a time.
7. Grammar has to do only with sentence-level and subsentence-level phenomena.
8. Grammar and vocabulary are areas of knowledge. Reading, writing, speaking, and listening are the four
skills.
9. Grammars provide the rules/explanations for all the structures in a language.
10. "I don't know enough to teach grammar."

4.3. McLaughlin, Barry 1992 "Myths and Misconceptions About Second Language Learning: What Every Teacher Needs to Unlearn" Published by the National Center for Research on Cultural Diversity andSecond Language Learning, University of California, Santa Cruz

In this article McLaughlin discusses the following five myths:

• Myth 1. Children learn second languages quickly and easily
• Myth 2. The younger the child, the more skilled in acquiring an L2.
• Myth 3.The more time students spend in a second language context, the quicker they learn the language.
• Myth 4.  Children have acquired an L2 once they can speak it.
• Myth 5. All children learn an L2 in the same way.

4.4. Rosa Trenchs "Lingusitic Profiling and Language Assessment" in E. Tragant, T. Naves and R. Ribé (forthcoming) ELT Methodology Text-guia d'Ensenyament de l'Anglès com a Llengua Estrangera. Barcelona: Publicacions de la Universitat de Barcelona

4.5. Carmen Pérez "Are we teaching against all SLA research evidence?" in in E. Tragant, T. Naves and R. Ribé (forthcoming) ELT Methodology Text-guia d'Ensenyament de l'Anglès com a Llengua Estrangera. Barcelona: Publicacions de la Universitat de Barcelona
 

5. EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT
 

Choose the best answers and justify them on the right column
Learners’ knowledge about the language (i.e. knowing a grammar rule) ÿ (a) always results in ÿ (b) usually results in ÿ (c) does not necessarily result in  being able to apply it and use it in more open and free spontaneous contexts.
In learning a Foreign Language (i.e. English), most of the errors students from different L1 background (Spanish / German / Italian / French) will be making are ÿ (a) completely different from one another ÿ (b) extremely similar from one another. (c) quite different from one another. (d) identical.
The way (path and rate )each person acquires a second / foreign language ÿ (a) is completely different ÿ (b) is extremely similar (c)depends mostly on their learning styles, their attitude, their intelligence, motivation, their age, how motivated they are, etc. (d) depends on the language they are learning
Most of the errors which foreign language learners make  are (a) due to (b) are not due to interference / influence of their first language
Students talking to their peers ÿ (a) will probably  (b) will not likely pick up each others’ errors
Languages ÿ (a) are acquired ÿ (b) are not acquired  mainly through imitation.
An increase in the number of second or foreign language learners’ error  can be an indicator of ÿ (a) failure ÿ (b) progress.
The 3rd person ‘s’ for present simple in English is ÿ (a) far more difficult to state ÿ (b) slightly more difficult ÿ (c) as difficult to state ÿ (d) much easier to state as the ‘s’ for plurals.
The 3rd person ‘s’ for present simple in English is ÿ (a) far more difficult to acquire than ÿ (b) as difficult to acquire as ÿ (c) much easier to acquire than the ‘s’ for plurals.
The –ed past and 3rd person ‘s’ are examples of ÿ (a) morphemes from the developmental sequences to be acquired rather late ÿ (b) morphemes which only children learning their mother tongue acquire rather late ÿ (c) structures so simple that explicit grammar teaching speed up the acquisition process

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Last Updated on 20 October 2000  by Teresa Naves