The written production of ecuadorian efl high school students: grammatical transfer errors and teacher's and learner's perception of feedback

346 p.El objetivo de esta tesis doctoral es investigar los errores gramaticales de transferencia en la escritura en inglés como lengua extranjera de alumnos de secundaria ecuatorianos (n=180) y su grado de prevalencia en comparación a los errores léxicos de transferencia. Así mismo, se intenta comparar la variación de los errores gramaticales de transferencia obtenidos en tres grupos de alumnos clasificados de acuerdo a su nivel de dominio de inglés según el Marco Común Europeo (A1, A2, B1) y la variación de dichos errores entre dos tipos de ensayo: narrativo y argumentativo. Finalmente, se desea conocer las percepciones de los estudiantes y profesores con respecto a la retroalimentación en la escritura de inglés como lengua extranjera proporcionada en las clases. Todo esto se realiza con el propósito de contribuir a tratar de cumplir una parte de las metas del Ministerio de Educación del Ecuador relacionadas a la búsqueda de una mejora en el nivel de dominio de inglés como lengua extranjera en estudiantes de educación secundaria

Effective Use of Chinese Structural Auxiliaries for Chinese Parsing

PACLIC 23 / City University of Hong Kong / 3-5 December 200

DEVELOPING SELF-CONFIDENCE IN EFL BEGINNER LEARNERS THROUGH EFFECTIVE ERROR CORRECTION - A CASE STUDY OF THE SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN LITTORAL, BENIN

This research work aims at highlighting the inadequacies associated with the teaching of the English language in Beninese secondary schools. In order to find out some approaches of solutions likely to help teachers better correct students' errors and mistakes during English speaking activities in EFL classes, so as to develop confidence in them, this research uses a methodology focused on a questionnaire addressed to 30 teachers, 5 class visits and interviews with 10 teachers. The data collected show that an increasing number of Beninese EFL teachers ignore the appropriate methods for correcting students' errors during speaking activities and fail in motivating their learners to speak English effectively. As an attempt to redress this situation related to English teaching and learning processes in our secondary schools, the research suggests the organization of adequate training for secondary school teachers who must complete at least a bachelor's degree before being recruited as EFL teachers. In the same perspective, teaching inspectors must intensify their class visits so as to make the EFL teachers aware of their roles as informants, motivators and correctors.Cet article vise à faire ressortir les insuffisances liées à l’enseignement de la langue anglaise dans les cours secondaires publics au Bénin. Dans l’optique de formuler des approches de solutions susceptibles d’aider les enseignants à corriger les erreurs et fautes commises par leurs apprenants d’une part et d’autre part à développer en ces derniers la confiance en soi pendant les activités orales, la méthodologie de recherche utilisée s’appuie sur un questionnaire adressé à 10 enseignants d’Anglais Langue Etrangère. Aussi des interviews ont été réalisées avec 10 enseignants d’Anglais et des visites de classe ont permis d’observer des 5 enseignants en situation de classe. Les résultats des enquêtes montrent qu’un nombre important d’enseignants d’Anglais ignorent les méthodes pédagogiques appropriées susceptibles de les aider à corriger les erreurs et les fautes commises par leurs apprenants au cours des activités orales afin de les encourager à s’exprimer couramment en anglais. Afin de palier à cette insuffisance de l’enseignement dans les cours secondaires publics au Bénin, cette étude suggère l’organisation de formations pédagogiques adéquates à l’intention de tous les enseignants du secondaire avec l’exigence de la licence comme diplôme minimum au recrutement d’enseignants d’Anglais langue étrangère. Cette recherche recommande aussi l’intensification des visites de classe par les inspecteurs aux fins de mieux faire connaître aux enseignants leurs rôles d’informateur, de motivateur, de correcteur.  Article visualizations

The effect of teacher´s error correction strategies on students´writing, 7th grade, Public School Instituto Nacional de Camoapa, Boaco II Semestre, 2013

The main role of English as Second Language (ESL) writing teachers is to help their students improve their writing proficiency in accordance with students needs and objective. How to best achieve is the concern of many ESL writing teachers and researchers (Polio, 2003). Providing feedback is viewed- both by teachers and students- as an important part of ESL writing instruction (Enginarla, 1994). One type of feedback that ESL writing teachers provide is error correction. It is perhaps the most widely used method for responding to students writing. For teachers, it represents the largest allocation of time they spend as writing instructors; and for students, error correction may be the most important component that will contribute to their success as writers (Ferris, 2003). Learning a foreign language is a lifelong process and it is often a challenging experience for language learners. Most if not all writing teachers would agree that composition writing is one of the most difficult subjects for foreign language learners. Providing written feedback is indispensable because it plays an important role in guiding, motivating, and encouraging students to improve their accuracy in second language (L2) writing. From this point of view, it is clear that teachers´beliefs, which influence their L2 writing instruction, and students´attitude and preferences regarding error correction, are important (Journal of Education, 2012). Effectivenes

Written Corrective Feedback in Academic Writing Class: How Does Experienced Teacher Lead the Effective Practice?

AbstractThe research aimed to investigate an Indonesian academic writing teacher’s practice on written corrective feedback (WCF) in academic writing class. A case study involving an experienced Indonesian academic writing teacher and teacher students were employed. To gather data, a semi-structured interview was conducted. The data were then analyzed using the content analysis method. The findings indicated that the teacher’s practice on WCF was mediated by her language learning experience. Thus, the teacher provided WCF on her students’ writing drafts by considering the students’ personalities and their level of writing ability. In correcting student writing errors, the teacher used several types of WCF; direct and indirect correction; metalinguistic clues to the errors; and the reformulation of the wrong words. The relevant pedagogical implications for teachers in conceptualizing WCF and in learning and practicing it on their daily instruction based on their knowledge, experience, and reflection-on-practice. AbstrakPenelitian bertujuan untuk mendeskripsikan praktik dosen Indonesia dalam penulisan akademik tentang umpan balik korektif tertulis (WCF) di kelas penulisan akademik. Penelitian termasuk studi kasus yang melibatkan seorang dosen Indonesia dalam menulis akademik yang berpengalaman dan mahasiswa. Untuk mengumpulkan data, dilakukan wawancara semi-terstruktur. Data tersebut kemudian dianalisis dengan menggunakan metode analisis isi. Temuan menunjukkan bahwa praktik dosen pada WCF dimediasi oleh pengalaman belajar bahasanya. Dosen memberikan WCF pada draf tulisan mahasiswanya dengan mempertimbangkan kepribadian mahasiswa dan tingkat kemampuan menulisnya. Dalam mengoreksi kesalahan menulis mahasiswa, dosen menggunakan beberapa jenis WCF; koreksi langsung dan tidak langsung; petunjuk kesalahan metalinguistik; dan perumusan ulang kata yang salah. Implikasi pedagogis yang relevan bagi dosen dalam membuat konsep WCF dan dalam mempelajari serta mempraktikkannya pada instruksi harian berdasarkan pada pengetahuan, pengalaman, dan refleksi pada praktik yang dilaksanakan

Grammatical Errors in Indonesian University Students’ Posters in Yogyakarta

This study aims to investigate grammatical errors in posters published byIndonesianUniversitystudents’ inYogyakarta. The errors are classified based on the Surface Strategy Taxonomy by Dulay, Burt, and Krashen (1982) mixed with linguistic categories. Based on the data analysis on 97 posters from 7 universities inYogyakarta, there are 201 errors found. The highest frequency of errors is Omission in terms of number with 122 occurrences (60.69 %), followed by Omission in subject-verb concord with 45 errors (22.38 %), and Omission of preposition with 6 occurrences (2.98 %). In total there are 182 (90.56%) Omission errors, while the other errors only occur less than 10%. The result shows that there are tendencies to omit necessary items rather than add, misform, misorder, or misuse items

Lexical and Syntactic Errors in the Written English Texts Uploads and Comments of Nigerian Facebook Users

Errors are part of learning as they could be precursors to a full mastery but they become bad when they are left uncorrected. This also applies to language learning and using a second language like the English language. If errors in the process of learning and using the English language are left uncorrected, they could lead to a breakdown in communication. It is on this basis therefor that this study pays attention to the lexical and syntactic errors of Nigerian Facebook text uploads. This study is done in order to unravel these common errors and proffer solutions by correcting them through re-writing them. The study due to space available for the research, extracted ten (10) Facebook posts of Nigerians and marked the lexical and syntactic errors in them for analysis and correction. At the end, the study presents amongst other findings that most Nigerian Facebook users do not care so much about applying punctuation marks especially the full stop in their posts and that there is a high level of spelling errors emerging from two causes; the first being the auto correct feature in most mobile devices and the hastiness, laziness or laxity on the part of the users to edit before posting. Keywords: errors, lexical, syntactic, ESL, Facebook posts