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个性化一对一英语教学案例（原创） [学术论文] 发表于：2014-01-07 阅读：246次 One to One English Lesson Plan Section1 Learner Background 1.1 Language learning experience The learner is a Mexican woman at the age of 41. Her name is Patricia, she learned English when she was young and English is the only foreign language she can speak. However, she can understand Portuguese and Italian language as they are much close to Spanish, which is the official language of Mexico. She has been working for the government in Mexico for 12 years before she came to Sheffield. She found it quite difficult. After leaving school she did a secretarial course and spent some time working as a secretary. Running and swimming is her interest, as she said, they were her lifestyle. Moreover, in her spare time, she has a passion for cooking. She has been here (Sheffield) for only 5 weeks. She has several friends in Sheffield and all of them are Spanish speakers. However, she is eager to know more English people to improve her speaking skills. Patricia came to a local English language school (A plus) in Sheffield for the purpose of improving her English speaking and listening skills. She is happy that she came here to learn English and is looking forward to making friends with British people. She hopes to use English in the future and believes that good English skills will help her achieve well paid employment in Mexico. 1.2 Learner’s own commentary and reasons for the English skills Patricia rates her own skills on a scale from 1-5, as following figure shows: English Skills 1 2 3 4 5 Listening √ Speaking √ Reading √ Writing √ Grammar √ Vocabulary √ Pronunciation √ 1.3 Common problems of Mexican English speakers As has been mentioned in section 1, Spanish is the official language of Mexico. Williams (2003) concluded that Spanish speakers commonly have trouble when pronouncing English words beginning with consonant sound “s” as there are no Spanish words begin with the “s” sound. Moreover, Spanish speakers will have an “e” sound in front of the “s.” Here are some examples. The Spanish word for ‘desk’ is escritorio, and escuela for the English word ‘school’. espada (sword) espejo (mirror) Consequently, the problems would be caused in their English writing and speaking. To be specific, Spanish speakers are likely to choose ‘an’ in front of a noun (in English) beginning with “s” in their English writing. Similarly, when they are speaking English, article ‘the’ could be pounced as ‘ði’ before a word with the consonant sound ‘s’ while the correct pronunciation should be ‘ðə’ (e.g. the /ðə /school not / ði/ school). Swan and Smith (2001 p91) pointed out five common features of Spanish speakers of English, which are: ‘Difficulty in recognizing and using English vowels, Strong devoicing of final voiced consonants, Narrower range of pitch, Sentence rhythm without typical prominences of English.’ Another major problem of Mexican English learners are using correct verb tense. This proved to be the case with my students. When writing in English, their tendency is to default back to present verb tense when they are not sure. According to Morett and Macwhinney (2012), Spanish English speaker will often translate word for word from Spanish if they are unsure of the structure in English. Moreover, the most common syntactical mistakes of them is, as Morett stated, tense which is perhaps the most difficult task to master when learning a second language. Section2 Analysis of Spoken Data 2.1 Orthographical Transcription 1) Yes, My person purpose that I came to...to Sheffield and A plus English school is for 2)improve my English’s skills. En...I was...en...working in Mexico for the government until June, 3)so... came in...in...en...a...three hours and I started to...to...learn speaking English and to improve 4)my English’s skill here in A plus. It very closed to my and this is a very very very good English classes...en...good teachers...en..its because I needed to speak English better than I...I’m...I’m speaking now. 5) My purpose to be study in...Sheffield and in...the A plus English is because I would like to 6)improve my English because I need...en...a new job in Mexico when I come back on January. 7) My...my...my most big problem...my big problem is...my..the listening. I need to try to pay a lot of attention. 8) I have little problem with my...my foots but enjoy...I enjoy the sports its not not...a...its not...a hobby. 2.2 Overview of learner’s fluency and accuracy From the transcribed spoken data, it is apparently that there is certain amount of learner’s hesitations when she was speaking English (shown in underlined). Self correction is not very frequent in the one minute speech (Italic). Obviously, linking words or phrases could not be found in the learner’s spoken data. The learner is unable to organize her speech coherently by using different linking or connecting words (e.g. Moreover, In addition, Firstly, Secondly etc.). Some spoken speech seems to make no sense so that this would not lead to misunderstandings or unintelligent during the conversation. Moreover, there exist repeated grammar errors. For instance, in line 3, an auxiliary verb ‘am’ is needed between a subject and objective (e.g. I good to reading; I good writing). 2.3 Detailed analysis of spoken grammar Line Type of Error Error Correction Analysis 1 Grammatical Person purpose Personal purpose Learner has not recognized that person is not an adjective 2 Wrong use of Possession English’s skills English skills Learner has used a wrong possession because noun phrases with two nouns to express a part-whole relationship in Spanish language (Swan and Smith 2001). 3 Omission of pronoun Came here in I came here Subject personal pronouns are largely unnecessary in Spanish because the verb ending indicates person and number (Swan and Smith 2001). 4 Omission of Auxiliary verb and possession It very closed to my It is very closed to me In Spanish all verbs show the normal range of tenses and composite forms (Swan and Smith 2001). However, in English auxiliary verbs are used to help to indicate tenses, consequently, Spanish speakers may leave out the auxiliary verbs. 7 Using the wrong superlative forms of adjective Most big problem Biggest problem Swan and Smith (2001) pointed out that comparatives and superlatives are expressed by using the equivalent of more and most. Therefore, learner may over-generalize the rules which determine the superlative forms of adjectives (Parrot 2000). 6 Using the wrong preposition On June; In June; The central meaning of a preposition in one language not always corresponds to that in another (Swan and Smith 2002). Moreover, though some language closely related to English (e.g. Spanish), speaker may make no necessary distinction between ‘on’ and ‘in’ (Parrott 2000). 8 Choosing the wrong plural form of a noun I have little problem with my foots I have little problem with my feet Learner makes regular plural forms of a noun that are irregular. 2.4 Phonemic Transcription My purpose to be study in Sheffield and in the A plus English is because I would like to improve my English's skills because I need a new job in Mexico when I come back in January, my most big problem, my big problem is my listening, I need to pay a lot of attention. → → → → → ↗ → 1\| maɪ ①bɜːpəs tə bi ②istʌdi ɪn ③tʃefiːld ənd ɪn ði ə plʌs ɪŋɡlɪ’ʃ ɪz bɪkɒ④s aɪ ⑤gʊd laɪk → → → ↗ → → ↗ → ↗ → tu ɪmpruːv 2 maɪ ɪŋɡlɪʃɪs⑥ iskɪlz bɪkɒ⑦s aɪ niːd ə njuː dʒɒb ɪn meksɪkəʊ wen aɪ kʌm → → ↗ → → → → → bæk ɪn dʒænjʊri 3\| maɪ məʊs⑧d bɪɡ prɒbləm \| maɪ bɪɡ prɒbləm z maɪ lɪsn̩ɪŋ \| aɪ niːd → → ↗ 4 tə beɪ ə lɒt əv ətentʃn̩ \| Standard Pronunciation \| maɪ ˈpɜːpəs tə bi ˈstʌdi ɪn ˈʃefiːld ənd ɪn ði ə plʌs ˈɪŋɡlɪʃ ɪz bɪˈkɒz ˈaɪ wʊd ˈlaɪk tu ɪmˈpruːv maɪ ˈɪŋɡlɪʃɪz skɪlz bɪˈkɒz ˈaɪ niːd ə njuː dʒɒb ɪn ˈmeksɪkəʊ wen ˈaɪ kʌm ˈbæk ɪn ˈdʒænjʊri \| maɪ məʊst bɪɡ ˈprɒbləm \| maɪ bɪɡ ˈprɒbləm z maɪ ˈlɪsn̩ɪŋ \| ˈaɪ niːd tə peɪ ə lɒt əv əˈtenʃn̩ \| 2.5 Overview of Learner’s rhythm, intonation and intelligibility 2.5.1 Rhythm Standard pronunciation of English sentences has stressed words and rhythm which convey important information to provide certain acoustic clues to the structure and meaning (Swan and Smith 2001). Moreover, content words, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. However, when Patricia pronounces the above sentences, the transcription shows that she is likely to pronounce sentences with even stress and rhythm, consequently, these clues are missing. As the transcription shows above, no stresses were occurring throughout her speaking. For instance, when she was pronouncing come back in January, for the purpose of emphasizing or showing the information about her return time, these words should be stressed, however, Patricia has not stressed those words, therefore, the information was less likely to give out to the listeners. 2.5.2 Intonation When sentences are pronounced by Spanish speakers of English, the intonation nucleus will fall on the last stressed syllable in the sentence (Swan and Smith 2001). To be specific, if one element in the sentence to be stressed, it would likely to be moved to the end by the speaker. Taking an example from Patricia’s spoken sentences, there was an apparent tendency of stressing and rise intonation on the last few words in each sentence. 2.5.3 Intelligibility The spoken English sentences produced by Patricia are in general accurate although some segmental and suprasegmental features are not standard. As can be seen from the above transcription, the learner’s English is influenced by her mother language so that a Spanish accent has led to several consequences for the speaker. However, these non standard (or incorrect) pronunciations could not lead to significant misunderstandings for the listeners, Patricia’s speech is still comprehensive and showing higher intelligibility. 2.5.4 Detailed analysis of pronunciation Number/Line Error Correction Analysis ① and ⑨ /bɜːpəs/; /bei/ /ˈpɜːpəs/; /peɪ/ Initial voiceless plosives, such as /p/ and /b/ are not aspirated as in English so Spanish speakers of English usually pronounce the sounds like /b/ (Swan and Smith 2001). ③ and ⑩ /tʃefiːld/; /ətentʃn̩/ /ˈʃefiːld/; /əˈtenʃn̩/ Of the English phonemes /ʃ/, In Spanish language, it only has /tʃ/ so that Patricia use / tʃ/ instead of /ʃ/ when pronouncing words (Swan and Smith 2001). ② and ⑥ /istʌdi/; /iskɪlz/ /stʌdi/; /skɪlz/ When /s/ plus another consonant, as the words in Patricia’s sentence ‘Sheffield, skills’ will never occur at the begging of a word in Spanish. 1 ↗ [ə plʌs ɪŋɡlɪ’ʃ] ↘ /ə plʌs ɪŋɡlɪ’ʃ/ Patricia’s rise intonation could indicate that she unfinished the first clause, while in fact she had finished, creating uncomfortable pause. 4 ↗ [ɒt əv ətentʃn̩] ↘ [ɒt əv ətenʃn̩] Again, the rise intonation indicate a continuing speech, on the contrary, it has finished so that should be a fall intonation. Section 3 Analysis of written data 3.1 Overall learning skills The written text is taken from part of the learner’s letter. In the letter, she mainly talked about her English learning experience, working experience and hobbies. Overall, the writing has an academic tone in terms of register with only a few colloquial languages (e.g. I was feeling ok in my English skills). The learner’s handwriting is satisfactory with appropriate word spacing and line spacing. Besides, self-corrections on the use of punctuation and choices of words can be found in the written text. The whole texts are comfortable to read as in general, the sentence structure is correct and easy to follow. Moreover, the learner’s writing clearly described the information stated before (the first sentence) and the writing also discussed the specific points requested in the letter from me about my profile. In terms of punctuation, capital letters is another good aspect that should be mentioned here. As Swan and Smith (2001) state, Spanish speakers may have constant problems on using capital first letters for specific English words, such as months or national adjectives (e.g. Mexico, Spanish). However, it seems that this problem did not happened on the learner as the specific English words were all capitalized if it is necessary. 3.2 General standard of spelling and grammatical accuracy Spanish has high sound-spelling correspondences, so obviously the spelling of English does not come easily (Swan and Smith 2001). From the written data, it can be noticed that spelling mistakes take place very often (e.g. because-becose, start-star, experience-experiencie etc). Grammatical accuracy is also a problem for the learner. She cannot keep the tenses constantly and there are some inaccurate English words. For instance, the omissions of auxiliary verbs, which are a prevalent mistake, can be found frequently in learner’s writing. Besides, incorrect past tense, usage of wrong plural forms of irregular nouns as well as using wrong grammatical form by included words such as had and has. In terms of coherence, the learner did not organize her ideas into paragraphs. First, there is no connection between each paragraph with the previous one. Second, in each paragraph, transition words or linking words have not been used throughout the writing. Therefore, the linking of sentences is not coherent. Third, there is no substitution of words by using its synonym between the sentences. Beside these, the learner leaved out some key words such as nouns and auxiliary verbs. 3.3 Written data taken from the letters 1) All my family lives in Chihuahua, but I live only with younger sister because my parents live in other city. 2) After that, I was working in Chihuahua for one year for an american company. 3) I have studied English only since I was a young, but I can understand Italy and Portages because those lenguages are very close to Spanish language. 4) I use to go to the Goodwing Sport Centre at The Sheffield University everyday, where I swim and sometimes swim and spinning bike. 5) I have had studying English in A plus for 3 weeks and I will be studying for 2 weeks more. 6) I was in charge about the budget, I took control about haring people. I was also responsible about essential public goods. 3.4 Detailed Analysis of Learner’s Writing Line in text Type of Error Error Correction Analysis 1 Grammatical verb form/Subject verb disagreement All my family lives in All my family live in The general rule of noun-adjective agreement in Spanish is simple: Singular nouns are accompanied by singular adjectives, and plural nouns are accompanied by plural adjectives. 2 Capital letters for an american company for an American company Spanish do not use capital letters for days or national adjectives (Swan and Smith 2001). 3 Grammatical article use I was a young I was young Adjectives can stand without either a noun (Swan and Smith 2001). 3 Lexical spelling lenguaje languages Leaner has written the word as she hears or speaks the word. As Swan and Smith (2001) argued, Spanish has high sound-spelling correspondence. 4 Lexical (wrong word choice) Spinning bike Riding bike Learner translates word by word from Spanish language because she is unsure about the structure in English 5 Incorrect present perfect continuous tense Have had study Have been studying Learn was confused using present perfect tense and present perfect continuous tense. Have had actually means the learner has owned something. 6 Lexical Collocational Errors In charge about; take control about; was responsible about In charge of; take control of; Was responsible for Learner’s lack of knowledge of collocational patterns of lexical items makes her to be prone to all sorts of collocational errors. Section 4 Analysis of listening skills During the listening task, before starting the listen, Patricia asked me to give her 1 minute to read through each questions quickly and as she said, it could help her to get familiar with the background information about the listening material. Moreover, she stated that sometimes she can get the answer from the questions without having listened the materials. However, she could not find useful information to make a prediction of the topic. Besides, Patricia had been informed that the listening task was about an authentic interview (the host was an American and the interviewee was a British singer). When the listening task started, Patricia was highly focusing on the question (in a order from question 1 to question 9). She was trying to write down the whole sentence which she considered as an answer to some of the question, however, Patricia also have good habit of notes-taking when she was not confident with the answer and it could save time so that she could move to next question and follow up the speakers. I noticed that when the listening material was over, Patricia prefer to tidy up the notes rather than spend extra time and struggle with questions which she have no idea at all. Having checked all her answers, it could be found that Patricia could give correct answer to question 1, 2 and 3 which the speakers had pointed out in the listening material directly. However, with regard to the answers to some detailed questions (question 4, 5 and 6) which were conveyed in the spoken sentences that need analyze the language first then could be figured out by learner herself. Patricia could not figure out the answer, as she said, ‘I cannot find the correct the answer from the listening task and I don’t know what is going on in the interview’. It was interesting that Patricia argued that she could understand the host’s spoken language better than the British singer, which may because Mexican English speaker are more familiar with American English because that Mexico is geographically located adjacent to the U.S. From analyzing Patricia’s listening process, it can be noticed that there are clearly different stages during the listening task, which could be generalized as pre-listening (predicting the answer), while-listening (taking notes) and after-listening(tidy up the notes). The listening material is suit for the learner’s English level and she could understand the gist of the listening material but for the detailed questions, Patricia was unable to find out the correct information, as she said, ‘I was totally lost my way in following the speakers’. However, she was concentrating on the subject being talked by the speakers, in other words, the learner is able to maintain attention during their talking and could recall the significant ideas from what was being listened from the material. The main difficulties for Patricia was that she could not follow the speaker when their speech rates was becoming naturally faster, which tend to have a negative impact on her comprehension of material. Her note-taking was frequent but it also damaged the listening comprehension as she was urged to take notes and was unable to carry on listening in the meantime. Besides, when the information density became higher (e.g. the speaker talked about or refers different things within only one turn, moreover, some of them were of topic). She was also unable to notice the turn-taking between the two speakers where most important information could appear afterwards. What is more, there were number of complex sentences which made the learner’s comprehension more difficult. Section 5 Analysis of Reading skills Patricia was asked to read the article which I chose from a magazine with the topic of cooking as she said in the letter that cooking is her interest in spare time. After reading the article by giving the following orders like skimming, scanning, intensive reading and extensive reading, the analysis of each reading skills are as follows. 5.1 Skimming Patricia was asked to read and get the main idea of the article in a limited time (5mins). After reading she was expected to summarize a text about the general idea. During the first reading, it can be seen that many key words were highlighted and underlined, and she also gave a brief notes about the topic at the end of each paragraph. In general, she was staying focused on every paragraph during the reading. All these have contributed to the summary of the article. Therefore, Patricia had a good summary of the given text with only few language errors which could not lead to misunderstanding. 5.2 Scanning Comparing with Patricia’s skimming skills, scanning is less challenging for her. When asking to find some specific words (e.g. time, name). The learner did not read the articles from the beginning or start reading from left to right. She explained the reason for her reading ‘habit’. As she stated, ‘I am looking for individual words and sentences and it could be anywhere in the text and there is no reason to start at the beginning. However, she could not focus her concentration during scanning the text, and also shown some hesitation when choosing words due to anxiety. 5.3 Intensive and Extensive Reading Patricia found there was certain number of unknown vocabularies which could be obstacles for understanding the text. However, although in the text, there were something with a great deal of vocabulary and grammar may beyond the learner’s reading ability. She could choose the some of the right answers in the multiple choices by guessing or in other words, predicting the information conveyed in the unknown vocabulary and complicated sentences. The most difficulties Patricia encountered were the time, she had been given 5mins to complete the questions which in fact took about 9mins to finish them. She said when she was reading intensively under pressures so that could not rely on remembering what have skimmed through once. In addition, she was unable to recall what have just read and it took time to read one paragraph more than twice. Section 6 Rationale for one to one lesson From the above analysis on the learner’s four language skills (Speaking, Writing, Reading and Listening), particularly in her writing and listening, the data showed that he has problems on some grammatical items, for example, the most common problem is that learner is struggling with using adverbs, and she also have difficulties in using adjectives and nouns. As can be seen, grammar is one of the areas that Patricia should be improved, besides, as mentioned in the letter, she will work as an interviewer in the company so that she will use the past perfect simple and present perfect continuous forms to talk about the interviewee’s work experiences in an interview situation. Moreover, she will be preparing for the IELTS exam in next four moths and so will need a consolidation in all the grammatical forms to be able to produce a good written exam and perform well in the listening exam. I decided to begin the lesson with talking about the Patricia’s last weekend as well as mine in order to provide an opportunity for speaking. The topic will be cooking as it is her favorite hobby, therefore it could be an interesting topic for Patricia. This could be an engagement and will hopefully prepare Patricia for the listening by providing a clear context, for example, some useful vocabulary will be mentioned in advance during the stage of engagement. It will also activate their schemata and allow for some prediction and speaking. I have found a useful video about cooking Mexican food and designed 9 detail and gist questions (see Appendix) for Patricia in order to find out ‘will the listening context affect her performance during listening task’ because she mentioned in our first meet that topic of the listening will determine her performance in listening. To be specific, there will be a high percentage of right answers if she was familiar the topic. I have also designed three activities for the main body of the lesson. The first one was a speaking activity asking the learner to use the cooking ingredients in four pictures to cook a Mexican dish (see Appendix) which can motivate the learner in order to increase her speaking time. Another activity was designed with the aim to help Patricia understand the usage of Adjective and Noun as from the letter it can be found that Patricia is confused with using them in his writing (see Appendix). Following this, a worksheet was designed for the rest of the lesson, there it will ask Patricia to use adjective and nouns to describe the four pictures which were selected under the consideration of her background, namely, four pictures of Mexico (buildings, flag, food and traditional dance). Patricia will be first asked to introduce things in the pictures to me and then write one sentence for each to describe the pictures. By doing this small task, it will engage her to speak first and then practice writing skills for the purpose of helping Patricia to aware of the usage of Adjective and Noun. As there may have enough time after completing the above activity or task so that I could build up to an oral and writing production at the end of the lesson, which will ask Patricia to write the procedures about cooking a Mexican dish (has been talked about in the first speaking activity) I think it is important to develop her
英语-第二语言习得 [学术论文] 发表于：2013-10-24 阅读：62次 Second Language Acquisition (SLA) refers to both the study of individuals and groups who learning a language other than their first language, and to the process of learning that language (Saville-Troike 2006). The researches of the key theories of SLA, such as Universal Grammar, Behaviorist theory, Monitor Model, and Acculturation theory have provided language teachers and learners with an abundance of information and brought significant influence on teaching and learning. This essay will first discuss each of those influential theories of SLA, and then talk about the influence of those theories on language teaching and learning in the following sections. Nativist Theories of SLA The nativist theory deals with the biological belief that language is an innate feature of the infant (Larsen-Freeman and Long 1991). This theory asserts that humans are born with the instinct or "innate facility" for acquiring language. Researchers like Noam Chomsky and Stephen Krashen are firm advocates for this theory. Chomsky’s Universal Grammar Chomsky (1968) argues that children are born with an innate ability to learn language, additionally, he proposed the theory of Universal Grammar holds that all humans know without having to learn the target language, for there are certain basic structural rules that govern it (Chomsky 1968). In this view, the L2 acquisition process is seen as very similar to L1 acquisition, and learners do not to be taught grammar in order to acquire the second language. Mitchell and Myles (2004) agreed, stating that children have an innate faculty that instructs them while learning the second language. Moreover, Carnie (2002 p18) argues that “all speakers of human languages share the same basic innate materials for building their language’s grammar”. These arguments all strongly support Chomsky’s Universal Grammar theory. However, some linguists have a different view on Chomsky’s Universal Grammar. According to the Universal Grammar theory, learners know the grammatical rules of the mother language and can apply those rules in the acquisition of the second language and judge the sentence grammatically. However, the problem is nobody has ever taught them what is and what is not grammatical. In addition, when learner transfer the grammatical rules from L1 to L2, the outcome of the grammar transfer would be positive or negative, in other words, the L1 grammar may interfere the acquisition of L2 if the parameter settings are different (Saville-Troike 2006). Krashen’s Monitor Model (Input Hypothesis) Stephen Krashen's Monitor Model (Krashen 1982) is another nativist theory. The Monitor Model is probably the most cited theory of second language acquisition and it includes five central hypotheses, the Acquisition–Learning Hypothesis, the Monitor Hypothesis, the Natural Order Hypothesis, the Affective Filter Hypothesis and the Input Hypothesis (Krashen 1985). This essay will only focus on the most famous one, the Input Hypothesis. The Input Hypotheses puts primary importance on the comprehensible input that language learners are exposed to. Krashen asserts that there is only one way for the learners to acquire language, by exposure to comprehensive input (Lightbown and Spada 1999). The Input Hypothesis forms a foundation for the Natural Approach (Krashen and Terrel 1983), which aims to foster naturalistic language acquisition in a classroom for the purpose of better communication. According to Krashen (1985), if the language learners received understandable input, then the grammatical rules (language structure) will naturally acquired. It is easy to learn from Krashen’s views that the Input Hypothesis extremely emphasized unconscious language teaching by adopting a communicative approach, however, it shows decreased importance on conscious and explicit grammar teaching. Many second language researchers have criticized the untestability of Krashen's hypotheses. Swain (2005) states that what would develop parts of the process of second language learning are the output, speaking and writing. It has been known as the output hypothesis in contrast with Krashen’s input hypothesis. As it can be noticed, there is a need for implementing and improving the use of the two skills (speaking and writing), not only focus on the communicative learning. Influence on language teaching Both Chomsky and Krashen’s theories have had a certain degree of impact on the teaching methods and approaches in the language teaching area. The Universal Grammar view of language learning is consistent with the communicative language teaching (CLT) approach. CLT mainly focus on communication rather than teach learners grammar rules because their advocates both believe that learning will take place if enough natural input is present. Why explicit grammar teaching is not considered as an important part in second language learning? According to Chomsky’s Universal Grammar theory, it is a fact that learners know a set of principles that can be applied to all languages and parameters that vary from one language to another. (Chomsky 1976), for instance, they know how to combine words together to form sentences, and what is more, they also have the ability to judge sentences’ grammaticality. However, it is important to know that these two approaches developed indecently of one another. The view of UG of language learning argue that learners first understand how children acquire their mother tongue, and then being applied to L2 acquisition, while CLT being the result of the perceived failure of grammar-translation by teachers. However, there are certain works show the relations between them. CLT grew out of Krashen and Terrel's second language acquisition theory, the Natural Approach and based on Krashen's Input Hypothesis. It insists comprehensible input which could be further considered as that grammar should be taught inductively (learners figure out the grammatical rules gradually by themselves through using the target language) rather than deductively (teaching the rules explicitly). What is more, Krashen (1985) states, acquisition as the basic process, refer to the unconscious development of the target language system as a result of using the language for real communication. It indicates and stress that language learning comes about through using language communicatively, rather than through practicing language skills. Furthermore, from the observation class in Canadian immersion contexts (Swain 1985), the CLT approach has been found inefficient, and likely to promote fluency but not accuracy in second language production, for it largely focus on stimulating the learners’ communicative skills. In language teaching classroom, when apply the CLT approach in teaching, the teacher should understand that learning language through communication is only an approach in classroom instruction, and it does not mean that language is just learn for communication as the writing skills and speaking accuracy are mainly based on well-established grammar rules. So, whether and when it requires the grammar-based syllabuses to be set out or the explicit grammar instruction is a matter that need take into consideration by teachers when they are preparing their teaching plan. Behaviorist theory There is another prominent theory of SLA need to discuss in this paper, the environmental-oriented theory. The early works was based on the Behaviorism theory which primarily developed by B.F.Skinner and Ivan Pavlov. Behaviorist theory gave birth to a stimulus-response (S-R) theory which sees language as a set of structures and acquisition as a matter of habit formation. According to Skinner (1976), language is a set of behavior (habits) and language acquisition is the process of formation of such behavior. According to behaviorist theory, ‘the process of formation’ can be comprehended as the process to learn from the ‘patterns’ and ‘structures’ in the language system. As Howatt and Widdowson (2004) believe that language systems consisted of a finite set of 'patterns' which acted as models for the learner to produce the similar sentences. What is more, Skinner (1976) argues that to learn and establish the formation, learners should learn through imitation. Obviously, imitation plays a necessary role and should be highly emphasized through language learning. For example, teacher should teach the students the ‘basic patterns’ which can be considered as models for the production of similarly constructed sentences and then the learners could imitate to learn the target language. The behaviorists argue that any kind of internal mechanism should be ignored and the acquisition stimulus can only produced by environment. According to Ellis (1985 p293), ‘Behaviourist learning theory emphasizes environmental factors as opposed to internal mental ones.’ However, Chomsky (1968) states that children do not learn and reproduce sentences, but they are able to create new sentences that they have never learnt before. In other words, they internalise rules rather than strings of words. In this view, it seems that internalization should also be considered as significant process of language learning even though the environmental factors are strongly emphasized. Influence on Language Teaching and Learning From the above discussion, it is obvious that environmental factors are of great significance in second language acquisition. According to the behaviorism and acculturation theory argued above, the teaching methods or approaches associated with behaviorist views of learning can be adopted in language teaching and learning. The Audiolingual Method and Direct method are good examples which based on behaviorist views and acculturation. Behaviorism theory of language learning was taken up widely by language teachers, and has influenced the development of the audiolingual teaching method to a large extent. Williams and Burden (1997) points out that language can be seen as a behavior to be taught when applied behaviorism theory. From what have been mentioned above, it is obvious that ‘patterns’ or ‘structured sentence’ are necessary parts in language teaching. In fact, language will acquired gradually by imitation and repetition of the structural patterns. Shumann’s Acculturation theory The acculturation model, developed by Schumann, is based on social and psychological factors. In his view, SLA is the result of acculturation, which he defines as “the social and psychological integration of the learner with the target language group” (Shumann 1986). The acculturation model argues that learners will be successful in SLA if there are fewer social and psychological distances between them and the speakers of the target language. Trawinski (2005) claims, social and psychological distances determine how much input the learner will be exposed to, and how much input will be converted in to acquisition. According to Schumann (1990), social distance refers to the learner as a member of a social group that is in contact with another social group whose members speak a different language. Psychological distance is the result of various affective factors which concern the learner as an individual (Ellis 1986). For instance, the learners may encounter culture shock and feel confused when using the target language without much confidence. Therefore, to shorten the social and psychological distance in order that improve the language acquisition is the main goal in acculturation model. However, Schumann’s acculturation theory is also, not a perfect one. It should be noted that the acculturation model focuses on social and psychological factors and ignore other variables in SLA, such as age of the acquisition and intelligence. Cook (2008) believes that children are better at learning second language than adults. Besides, intelligence is strongly related to certain kinds of second language abilities than others (Lightbown and Spada 1999). The acculturation theory of SLA is also questioned by other researchers. Ellis (1994) claims, according to acculturation theory, social factor are assumed to have a direct impact on second language acquisition, however, they are more likely to have an indirect one. Influence on Language Teaching and Learning Culture difference is an important and inevitable factor within the SLA process. The social and cultural factors are at play in the students' lives and they are considered as the barriers in the learning process. Accordingly, teaching culture in acculturation model is of great importance. As language teachers, they should develop the curriculums that address the importance of social and personal difference in SLA. Menard-Warwick also points out the significance of teaching social and culture difference in second language class. As he states, teachers need to understand the culture difference that result in confusion for students and therefore they should design the pedagogical plan to teach learners directly by making social and personal difference in acquisition of second language difference and as topics for discussion in class (Menard-Warwick 2005). Language teachers should take social and psychological factors into consideration in the process of second language teaching. For example, when teaching in a class with target language speakers (e.g. native speakers), the teacher should take the responsibility of encouraging the learners to work together with the target language speakers as often as they can. Moreover, teachers need to learn as much as they can about their students' identities outside the classroom, and draw on those identities in classroom activities to encourage the students to continue their second language learning. Conclusion In general, it is oblivious that not one individual theory on its own can account for all the aspects in the second language acquisition of the learners. Each one has its valid points and shortcomings. The theories of second language acquisition above are not totally independent from one another. Besides, the crossover with language teaching and learning is clear and need to be noticed by linguists and language teachers. In the language teaching class, teachers have to take into account that learners are different, for they do not have the same characteristics, personalities, as well as the learning environments. Consequently, they do not all acquire the target language in the same way. Social background and age of the learners could affect the learners' learning abilities. From my perspective, it is significant for teachers to take most important aspects of each theory into consideration when planning their lessons. However, it is not necessary for the teachers to address all the SLA theories in language teaching. From a certain amount of teaching experience, the teachers will understand and get the best ideas of these SLA theories. References and Bibliography Chomsky, N. (1968). Language and mind. Cambridge, CUP. Cook, V. J. & Chomsky, N. (1988). Chomsky's universal grammar: an introduction, Blackwell. Cook, V. J. (2008). 4th ed, Second language learning and language teaching. London, Hodder Education. Ellis, R. (1994). The study of second language. Oxford, OUP. Ellis,R.(1986).Understanding Second Language Acquisition .Oxford, OUP. Howatt, A.P.R. & Widdowson, H.G. (2004). A history of English language teaching. Oxford, OUP. Krashen, S. D. (1982). Principles and Practice in Second language acquisition. Oxford, Pergamon Press Krashen, S. D. and Terrell, T. D. (1983). The natural approach: Language acquisition in the classroom. Hayward, CA: Alemany Press. Krashen, S. D. (1985). The input hypothesis: Issues and implications. London and New York, Longman Larse-Freeman, D. & Long, M. H. (1991). An Introduction to Second Language Acquisition Research. Longman. Lightbown, P. M. and Spada, N. S. (1999). How language are learned. Oxford, OUP. Menard-Warwick, J. (2005). International trajectories and sociopolitical context: Latina immigrants in adults ESL. TESOL Quarterly, 39(2), 165-185. Mitchell, R. & Myles, F. (2004). Second language learning theories, London, Arnold. Swain, M. (2005). The Output Hypothesis: Its History and its Future.[online]. Last accessed 16 Jan at: http://www.celea.org.cn/2007/keynote/ppt/Merrill%20Swain.pdf Saville-Troike, M. (2006). Introducing second language acquisition. Cambridge, CUP. Schumann, J.H. (1986).Research on the Acculturation Model for Second Language Acquisition, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, (7)5, 379-92. Schumann, J. H. (1990). Extending the scope of the acculturation / pidginization model to include cognition. TESOL Quarterly. 24(4), 667-684. Trawinski, M. (2005). An outline of second language acquisition theories. Krakow: Academic Pedagogic. Williams, M. and Burden, R. L. (1997). Psychology for language teachers: a Social Constructivist Approach. Cambridge, CUP.

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发表于：2014-01-07 阅读：246次

One to One English Lesson Plan

Section1 Learner Background

1.1 Language learning experience

The learner is a Mexican woman at the age of 41. Her name is Patricia, she learned English when she was young and English is the only foreign language she can speak. However, she can understand Portuguese and Italian language as they are much close to Spanish, which is the official language of Mexico. She has been working for the government in Mexico for 12 years before she came to Sheffield. She found it quite difficult. After leaving school she did a secretarial course and spent some time working as a secretary. Running and swimming is her interest, as she said, they were her lifestyle. Moreover, in her spare time, she has a passion for cooking. She has been here (Sheffield) for only 5 weeks. She has several friends in Sheffield and all of them are Spanish speakers. However, she is eager to know more English people to improve her speaking skills.

Patricia came to a local English language school (A plus) in Sheffield for the purpose of improving her English speaking and listening skills. She is happy that she came here to learn English and is looking forward to making friends with British people. She hopes to use English in the future and believes that good English skills will help her achieve well paid employment in Mexico.

1.2 Learner’s own commentary and reasons for the English skills

Patricia rates her own skills on a scale from 1-5, as following figure shows:

English Skills

Listening

√

Speaking

√

Reading

√

Writing

√

Grammar

√

Vocabulary

√

Pronunciation

√

1.3 Common problems of Mexican English speakers

As has been mentioned in section 1, Spanish is the official language of Mexico. Williams (2003) concluded that Spanish speakers commonly have trouble when pronouncing English words beginning with consonant sound “s” as there are no Spanish words begin with the “s” sound. Moreover, Spanish speakers will have an “e” sound in front of the “s.” Here are some examples. The Spanish word for ‘desk’ is escritorio, and escuela for the English word ‘school’. espada (sword) espejo (mirror) Consequently, the problems would be caused in their English writing and speaking. To be specific, Spanish speakers are likely to choose ‘an’ in front of a noun (in English) beginning with “s” in their English writing. Similarly, when they are speaking English, article ‘the’ could be pounced as ‘ði’ before a word with the consonant sound ‘s’ while the correct pronunciation should be ‘ðə’ (e.g. the /ðə /school not / ði/ school).

Swan and Smith (2001 p91) pointed out five common features of Spanish speakers of English, which are: ‘Difficulty in recognizing and using English vowels, Strong devoicing of final voiced consonants, Narrower range of pitch, Sentence rhythm without typical prominences of English.’

Another major problem of Mexican English learners are using correct verb tense. This proved to be the case with my students. When writing in English, their tendency is to default back to present verb tense when they are not sure. According to Morett and Macwhinney (2012), Spanish English speaker will often translate word for word from Spanish if they are unsure of the structure in English. Moreover, the most common syntactical mistakes of them is, as Morett stated, tense which is perhaps the most difficult task to master when learning a second language.

Section2 Analysis of Spoken Data

2.1 Orthographical Transcription

1) Yes, My person purpose that I came to...to Sheffield and A plus English school is for 2)improve my English’s skills. En...I was...en...working in Mexico for the government until June, 3)so... came in...in...en...a...three hours and I started to...to...learn speaking English and to improve 4)my English’s skill here in A plus. It very closed to my and this is a very very very good English classes...en...good teachers...en..its because I needed to speak English better than I...I’m...I’m speaking now.

5) My purpose to be study in...Sheffield and in...the A plus English is because I would like to 6)improve my English because I need...en...a new job in Mexico when I come back on January.

7) My...my...my most big problem...my big problem is...my..the listening. I need to try to pay a lot of attention.

8) I have little problem with my...my foots but enjoy...I enjoy the sports its not not...a...its not...a hobby.

2.2 Overview of learner’s fluency and accuracy

From the transcribed spoken data, it is apparently that there is certain amount of learner’s hesitations when she was speaking English (shown in underlined). Self correction is not very frequent in the one minute speech (Italic). Obviously, linking words or phrases could not be found in the learner’s spoken data. The learner is unable to organize her speech coherently by using different linking or connecting words (e.g. Moreover, In addition, Firstly, Secondly etc.). Some spoken speech seems to make no sense so that this would not lead to misunderstandings or unintelligent during the conversation. Moreover, there exist repeated grammar errors. For instance, in line 3, an auxiliary verb ‘am’ is needed between a subject and objective (e.g. I good to reading; I good writing).

2.3 Detailed analysis of spoken grammar

Line

Type of Error

Error

Correction

Analysis

Grammatical

Person purpose

Personal purpose

Learner has not recognized that person is not an adjective

Wrong use of Possession

English’s skills

English skills

Learner has used a wrong possession because noun phrases with two nouns to express a part-whole relationship in Spanish language (Swan and Smith 2001).

Omission of pronoun

Came here in

I came here

Subject personal pronouns are largely unnecessary in Spanish because the verb ending indicates person and number (Swan and Smith 2001).

Omission of Auxiliary verb and possession

It very closed to my

It is very closed to me

In Spanish all verbs show the normal range of tenses and composite forms (Swan and Smith 2001). However, in English auxiliary verbs are used to help to indicate tenses, consequently, Spanish speakers may leave out the auxiliary verbs.

Using the wrong superlative forms of adjective

Most big problem

Biggest problem

Swan and Smith (2001) pointed out that comparatives and superlatives are expressed by using the equivalent of more and most. Therefore, learner may over-generalize the rules which determine the superlative forms of adjectives (Parrot 2000).

Using the wrong preposition

On June;

In June;

The central meaning of a preposition in one language not always corresponds to that in another (Swan and Smith 2002). Moreover, though some language closely related to English (e.g. Spanish), speaker may make no necessary distinction between ‘on’ and ‘in’ (Parrott 2000).

Choosing the wrong plural form of a noun

I have little problem with my foots

I have little problem with my feet

Learner makes regular plural forms of a noun that are irregular.

2.4 Phonemic Transcription

My purpose to be study in Sheffield and in the A plus English is because I would like to improve my English's skills because I need a new job in Mexico when I come back in January, my most big problem, my big problem is my listening, I need to pay a lot of attention.

→ → → → → ↗ →

1| maɪ ①bɜːpəs tə bi ②istʌdi ɪn ③tʃefiːld ənd ɪn ði ə plʌs ɪŋɡlɪ’ʃ ɪz bɪkɒ④s aɪ ⑤gʊd laɪk

→ → → ↗ → → ↗ → ↗ →

tu ɪmpruːv 2 maɪ ɪŋɡlɪʃɪs⑥ iskɪlz bɪkɒ⑦s aɪ niːd ə njuː dʒɒb ɪn meksɪkəʊ wen aɪ kʌm

→ → ↗ → → → → →

bæk ɪn dʒænjʊri 3| maɪ məʊs⑧d bɪɡ prɒbləm | maɪ bɪɡ prɒbləm z maɪ lɪsn̩ɪŋ | aɪ niːd

→ → ↗

4 tə beɪ ə lɒt əv ətentʃn̩ |

Standard Pronunciation

| maɪ ˈpɜːpəs tə bi ˈstʌdi ɪn ˈʃefiːld ənd ɪn ði ə plʌs ˈɪŋɡlɪʃ ɪz bɪˈkɒz ˈaɪ wʊd ˈlaɪk tu ɪmˈpruːv maɪ ˈɪŋɡlɪʃɪz skɪlz bɪˈkɒz ˈaɪ niːd ə njuː dʒɒb ɪn ˈmeksɪkəʊ wen ˈaɪ kʌm ˈbæk ɪn ˈdʒænjʊri | maɪ məʊst bɪɡ ˈprɒbləm | maɪ bɪɡ ˈprɒbləm z maɪ ˈlɪsn̩ɪŋ | ˈaɪ niːd tə peɪ ə lɒt əv əˈtenʃn̩ |

2.5 Overview of Learner’s rhythm, intonation and intelligibility

2.5.1 Rhythm

Standard pronunciation of English sentences has stressed words and rhythm which convey important information to provide certain acoustic clues to the structure and meaning (Swan and Smith 2001). Moreover, content words, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. However, when Patricia pronounces the above sentences, the transcription shows that she is likely to pronounce sentences with even stress and rhythm, consequently, these clues are missing. As the transcription shows above, no stresses were occurring throughout her speaking. For instance, when she was pronouncing come back in January, for the purpose of emphasizing or showing the information about her return time, these words should be stressed, however, Patricia has not stressed those words, therefore, the information was less likely to give out to the listeners.

2.5.2 Intonation

When sentences are pronounced by Spanish speakers of English, the intonation nucleus will fall on the last stressed syllable in the sentence (Swan and Smith 2001). To be specific, if one element in the sentence to be stressed, it would likely to be moved to the end by the speaker. Taking an example from Patricia’s spoken sentences, there was an apparent tendency of stressing and rise intonation on the last few words in each sentence.

2.5.3 Intelligibility

The spoken English sentences produced by Patricia are in general accurate although some segmental and suprasegmental features are not standard. As can be seen from the above transcription, the learner’s English is influenced by her mother language so that a Spanish accent has led to several consequences for the speaker. However, these non standard (or incorrect) pronunciations could not lead to significant misunderstandings for the listeners, Patricia’s speech is still comprehensive and showing higher intelligibility.

2.5.4 Detailed analysis of pronunciation

Number/Line

Error

Correction

Analysis

① and ⑨

/bɜːpəs/; /bei/

/ˈpɜːpəs/; /peɪ/

Initial voiceless plosives, such as /p/ and /b/ are not aspirated as in English so Spanish speakers of English usually pronounce the sounds like /b/ (Swan and Smith 2001).

③ and ⑩

/tʃefiːld/; /ətentʃn̩/

/ˈʃefiːld/; /əˈtenʃn̩/

Of the English phonemes /ʃ/, In Spanish language, it only has /tʃ/ so that Patricia use / tʃ/ instead of /ʃ/ when pronouncing words (Swan and Smith 2001).

② and ⑥

/istʌdi/; /iskɪlz/

/stʌdi/; /skɪlz/

When /s/ plus another consonant, as the words in Patricia’s sentence ‘Sheffield, skills’ will never occur at the begging of a word in Spanish.

↗

[ə plʌs ɪŋɡlɪ’ʃ]

↘

/ə plʌs ɪŋɡlɪ’ʃ/

Patricia’s rise intonation could indicate that she unfinished the first clause, while in fact she had finished, creating uncomfortable pause.

↗

[ɒt əv ətentʃn̩]

↘

[ɒt əv ətenʃn̩]

Again, the rise intonation indicate a continuing speech, on the contrary, it has finished so that should be a fall intonation.

Section 3 Analysis of written data

3.1 Overall learning skills

The written text is taken from part of the learner’s letter. In the letter, she mainly talked about her English learning experience, working experience and hobbies. Overall, the writing has an academic tone in terms of register with only a few colloquial languages (e.g. I was feeling ok in my English skills). The learner’s handwriting is satisfactory with appropriate word spacing and line spacing. Besides, self-corrections on the use of punctuation and choices of words can be found in the written text. The whole texts are comfortable to read as in general, the sentence structure is correct and easy to follow. Moreover, the learner’s writing clearly described the information stated before (the first sentence) and the writing also discussed the specific points requested in the letter from me about my profile. In terms of punctuation, capital letters is another good aspect that should be mentioned here. As Swan and Smith (2001) state, Spanish speakers may have constant problems on using capital first letters for specific English words, such as months or national adjectives (e.g. Mexico, Spanish). However, it seems that this problem did not happened on the learner as the specific English words were all capitalized if it is necessary.

3.2 General standard of spelling and grammatical accuracy

Spanish has high sound-spelling correspondences, so obviously the spelling of English does not come easily (Swan and Smith 2001). From the written data, it can be noticed that spelling mistakes take place very often (e.g. because-becose, start-star, experience-experiencie etc).

Grammatical accuracy is also a problem for the learner. She cannot keep the tenses constantly and there are some inaccurate English words. For instance, the omissions of auxiliary verbs, which are a prevalent mistake, can be found frequently in learner’s writing. Besides, incorrect past tense, usage of wrong plural forms of irregular nouns as well as using wrong grammatical form by included words such as had and has.

In terms of coherence, the learner did not organize her ideas into paragraphs. First, there is no connection between each paragraph with the previous one. Second, in each paragraph, transition words or linking words have not been used throughout the writing. Therefore, the linking of sentences is not coherent. Third, there is no substitution of words by using its synonym between the sentences. Beside these, the learner leaved out some key words such as nouns and auxiliary verbs.

3.3 Written data taken from the letters

1) All my family lives in Chihuahua, but I live only with younger sister because my parents live in other city.

2) After that, I was working in Chihuahua for one year for an american company.

3) I have studied English only since I was a young, but I can understand Italy and Portages because those lenguages are very close to Spanish language.

4) I use to go to the Goodwing Sport Centre at The Sheffield University everyday, where I swim and sometimes swim and spinning bike.

5) I have had studying English in A plus for 3 weeks and I will be studying for 2 weeks more.

6) I was in charge about the budget, I took control about haring people. I was also responsible about essential public goods.

3.4 Detailed Analysis of Learner’s Writing

Line in text

Type of Error

Error

Correction

Analysis

Grammatical verb form/Subject verb disagreement

All my family lives in

All my family live in

The general rule of noun-adjective agreement in Spanish is simple: Singular nouns are accompanied by singular adjectives, and plural nouns are accompanied by plural adjectives.

Capital letters

for an american company

for an American company

Spanish do not use capital letters for days or national adjectives (Swan and Smith 2001).

Grammatical article use

I was a young

I was young

Adjectives can stand without either a noun (Swan and Smith 2001).

Lexical spelling

lenguaje

languages

Leaner has written the word as she hears or speaks the word. As Swan and Smith (2001) argued, Spanish has high sound-spelling correspondence.

Lexical (wrong word choice)

Spinning bike

Riding bike

Learner translates word by word from Spanish language because she is unsure about the structure in English

Incorrect present perfect continuous tense

Have had study

Have been studying

Learn was confused using present perfect tense and present perfect continuous tense. Have had actually means the learner has owned something.

Lexical

Collocational Errors

In charge about; take control about; was responsible about

In charge of; take control of;

Was responsible for

Learner’s lack of knowledge of collocational patterns of lexical items makes her to be prone to all sorts of collocational errors.

Section 4 Analysis of listening skills

During the listening task, before starting the listen, Patricia asked me to give her 1 minute to read through each questions quickly and as she said, it could help her to get familiar with the background information about the listening material. Moreover, she stated that sometimes she can get the answer from the questions without having listened the materials. However, she could not find useful information to make a prediction of the topic. Besides, Patricia had been informed that the listening task was about an authentic interview (the host was an American and the interviewee was a British singer). When the listening task started, Patricia was highly focusing on the question (in a order from question 1 to question 9). She was trying to write down the whole sentence which she considered as an answer to some of the question, however, Patricia also have good habit of notes-taking when she was not confident with the answer and it could save time so that she could move to next question and follow up the speakers. I noticed that when the listening material was over, Patricia prefer to tidy up the notes rather than spend extra time and struggle with questions which she have no idea at all. Having checked all her answers, it could be found that Patricia could give correct answer to question 1, 2 and 3 which the speakers had pointed out in the listening material directly. However, with regard to the answers to some detailed questions (question 4, 5 and 6) which were conveyed in the spoken sentences that need analyze the language first then could be figured out by learner herself. Patricia could not figure out the answer, as she said, ‘I cannot find the correct the answer from the listening task and I don’t know what is going on in the interview’. It was interesting that Patricia argued that she could understand the host’s spoken language better than the British singer, which may because Mexican English speaker are more familiar with American English because that Mexico is geographically located adjacent to the U.S.

From analyzing Patricia’s listening process, it can be noticed that there are clearly different stages during the listening task, which could be generalized as pre-listening (predicting the answer), while-listening (taking notes) and after-listening(tidy up the notes). The listening material is suit for the learner’s English level and she could understand the gist of the listening material but for the detailed questions, Patricia was unable to find out the correct information, as she said, ‘I was totally lost my way in following the speakers’. However, she was concentrating on the subject being talked by the speakers, in other words, the learner is able to maintain attention during their talking and could recall the significant ideas from what was being listened from the material.

The main difficulties for Patricia was that she could not follow the speaker when their speech rates was becoming naturally faster, which tend to have a negative impact on her comprehension of material. Her note-taking was frequent but it also damaged the listening comprehension as she was urged to take notes and was unable to carry on listening in the meantime. Besides, when the information density became higher (e.g. the speaker talked about or refers different things within only one turn, moreover, some of them were of topic). She was also unable to notice the turn-taking between the two speakers where most important information could appear afterwards. What is more, there were number of complex sentences which made the learner’s comprehension more difficult.

Section 5 Analysis of Reading skills

Patricia was asked to read the article which I chose from a magazine with the topic of cooking as she said in the letter that cooking is her interest in spare time. After reading the article by giving the following orders like skimming, scanning, intensive reading and extensive reading, the analysis of each reading skills are as follows.

5.1 Skimming

Patricia was asked to read and get the main idea of the article in a limited time (5mins). After reading she was expected to summarize a text about the general idea. During the first reading, it can be seen that many key words were highlighted and underlined, and she also gave a brief notes about the topic at the end of each paragraph. In general, she was staying focused on every paragraph during the reading. All these have contributed to the summary of the article. Therefore, Patricia had a good summary of the given text with only few language errors which could not lead to misunderstanding.

5.2 Scanning

Comparing with Patricia’s skimming skills, scanning is less challenging for her. When asking to find some specific words (e.g. time, name). The learner did not read the articles from the beginning or start reading from left to right. She explained the reason for her reading ‘habit’. As she stated, ‘I am looking for individual words and sentences and it could be anywhere in the text and there is no reason to start at the beginning. However, she could not focus her concentration during scanning the text, and also shown some hesitation when choosing words due to anxiety.

5.3 Intensive and Extensive Reading

Patricia found there was certain number of unknown vocabularies which could be obstacles for understanding the text. However, although in the text, there were something with a great deal of vocabulary and grammar may beyond the learner’s reading ability. She could choose the some of the right answers in the multiple choices by guessing or in other words, predicting the information conveyed in the unknown vocabulary and complicated sentences. The most difficulties Patricia encountered were the time, she had been given 5mins to complete the questions which in fact took about 9mins to finish them. She said when she was reading intensively under pressures so that could not rely on remembering what have skimmed through once. In addition, she was unable to recall what have just read and it took time to read one paragraph more than twice.

Section 6 Rationale for one to one lesson

From the above analysis on the learner’s four language skills (Speaking, Writing, Reading and Listening), particularly in her writing and listening, the data showed that he has problems on some grammatical items, for example, the most common problem is that learner is struggling with using adverbs, and she also have difficulties in using adjectives and nouns. As can be seen, grammar is one of the areas that Patricia should be improved, besides, as mentioned in the letter, she will work as an interviewer in the company so that she will use the past perfect simple and present perfect continuous forms to talk about the interviewee’s work experiences in an interview situation. Moreover, she will be preparing for the IELTS exam in next four moths and so will need a consolidation in all the grammatical forms to be able to produce a good written exam and perform well in the listening exam.

I decided to begin the lesson with talking about the Patricia’s last weekend as well as mine in order to provide an opportunity for speaking. The topic will be cooking as it is her favorite hobby, therefore it could be an interesting topic for Patricia. This could be an engagement and will hopefully prepare Patricia for the listening by providing a clear context, for example, some useful vocabulary will be mentioned in advance during the stage of engagement. It will also activate their schemata and allow for some prediction and speaking.
I have found a useful video about cooking Mexican food and designed 9 detail and gist questions (see Appendix) for Patricia in order to find out ‘will the listening context affect her performance during listening task’ because she mentioned in our first meet that topic of the listening will determine her performance in listening. To be specific, there will be a high percentage of right answers if she was familiar the topic.

I have also designed three activities for the main body of the lesson. The first one was a speaking activity asking the learner to use the cooking ingredients in four pictures to cook a Mexican dish (see Appendix) which can motivate the learner in order to increase her speaking time. Another activity was designed with the aim to help Patricia understand the usage of Adjective and Noun as from the letter it can be found that Patricia is confused with using them in his writing (see Appendix). Following this, a worksheet was designed for the rest of the lesson, there it will ask Patricia to use adjective and nouns to describe the four pictures which were selected under the consideration of her background, namely, four pictures of Mexico (buildings, flag, food and traditional dance). Patricia will be first asked to introduce things in the pictures to me and then write one sentence for each to describe the pictures. By doing this small task, it will engage her to speak first and then practice writing skills for the purpose of helping Patricia to aware of the usage of Adjective and Noun.

As there may have enough time after completing the above activity or task so that I could build up to an oral and writing production at the end of the lesson, which will ask Patricia to write the procedures about cooking a Mexican dish (has been talked about in the first speaking activity) I think it is important to develop her

英语-第二语言习得 [学术论文]

发表于：2013-10-24 阅读：62次

Second Language Acquisition (SLA) refers to both the study of individuals and groups who learning a language other than their first language, and to the process of learning that language (Saville-Troike 2006). The researches of the key theories of SLA, such as Universal Grammar, Behaviorist theory, Monitor Model, and Acculturation theory have provided language teachers and learners with an abundance of information and brought significant influence on teaching and learning. This essay will first discuss each of those influential theories of SLA, and then talk about the influence of those theories on language teaching and learning in the following sections.

Nativist Theories of SLA
The nativist theory deals with the biological belief that language is an innate feature of the infant (Larsen-Freeman and Long 1991). This theory asserts that humans are born with the instinct or "innate facility" for acquiring language. Researchers like Noam Chomsky and Stephen Krashen are firm advocates for this theory.
Chomsky’s Universal Grammar
Chomsky (1968) argues that children are born with an innate ability to learn language, additionally, he proposed the theory of Universal Grammar holds that all humans know without having to learn the target language, for there are certain basic structural rules that govern it (Chomsky 1968). In this view, the L2 acquisition process is seen as very similar to L1 acquisition, and learners do not to be taught grammar in order to acquire the second language. Mitchell and Myles (2004) agreed, stating that children have an innate faculty that instructs them while learning the second language. Moreover, Carnie (2002 p18) argues that “all speakers of human languages share the same basic innate materials for building their language’s grammar”. These arguments all strongly support Chomsky’s Universal Grammar theory.
However, some linguists have a different view on Chomsky’s Universal Grammar. According to the Universal Grammar theory, learners know the grammatical rules of the mother language and can apply those rules in the acquisition of the second language and judge the sentence grammatically. However, the problem is nobody has ever taught them what is and what is not grammatical. In addition, when learner transfer the grammatical rules from L1 to L2, the outcome of the grammar transfer would be positive or negative, in other words, the L1 grammar may interfere the acquisition of L2 if the parameter settings are different (Saville-Troike 2006).

Krashen’s Monitor Model (Input Hypothesis)
   Stephen Krashen's Monitor Model (Krashen 1982) is another nativist theory. The Monitor Model is probably the most cited theory of second language acquisition and it includes five central hypotheses, the Acquisition–Learning Hypothesis, the Monitor Hypothesis, the Natural Order Hypothesis, the Affective Filter Hypothesis and the Input Hypothesis (Krashen 1985). This essay will only focus on the most famous one, the Input Hypothesis.
   The Input Hypotheses puts primary importance on the comprehensible input that language learners are exposed to. Krashen asserts that there is only one way for the learners to acquire language, by exposure to comprehensive input (Lightbown and Spada 1999). The Input Hypothesis forms a foundation for the Natural Approach (Krashen and Terrel 1983), which aims to foster naturalistic language acquisition in a classroom for the purpose of better communication. According to Krashen (1985), if the language learners received understandable input, then the grammatical rules (language structure) will naturally acquired. It is easy to learn from Krashen’s views that the Input Hypothesis extremely emphasized unconscious language teaching by adopting a communicative approach, however, it shows decreased importance on conscious and explicit grammar teaching. Many second language researchers have criticized the untestability of Krashen's hypotheses. Swain (2005) states that what would develop parts of the process of second language learning are the output, speaking and writing. It has been known as the output hypothesis in contrast with Krashen’s input hypothesis. As it can be noticed, there is a need for implementing and improving the use of the two skills (speaking and writing), not only focus on the communicative learning.
Influence on language teaching
Both Chomsky and Krashen’s theories have had a certain degree of impact on the teaching methods and approaches in the language teaching area.
The Universal Grammar view of language learning is consistent with the communicative language teaching (CLT) approach. CLT mainly focus on communication rather than teach learners grammar rules because their advocates both believe that learning will take place if enough natural input is present. Why explicit grammar teaching is not considered as an important part in second language learning? According to Chomsky’s Universal Grammar theory, it is a fact that learners know a set of principles that can be applied to all languages and parameters that vary from one language to another. (Chomsky 1976), for instance, they know how to combine words together to form sentences, and what is more, they also have the ability to judge sentences’ grammaticality.
   However, it is important to know that these two approaches developed indecently of one another. The view of UG of language learning argue that learners first understand how children acquire their mother tongue, and then being applied to L2 acquisition, while CLT being the result of the perceived failure of grammar-translation by teachers. However, there are certain works show the relations between them.
CLT grew out of Krashen and Terrel's second language acquisition theory, the Natural Approach and based on Krashen's Input Hypothesis. It insists comprehensible input which could be further considered as that grammar should be taught inductively (learners figure out the grammatical rules gradually by themselves through using the target language) rather than deductively (teaching the rules explicitly). What is more, Krashen (1985) states, acquisition as the basic process, refer to the unconscious development of the target language system as a result of using the language for real communication. It indicates and stress that language learning comes about through using language communicatively, rather than through practicing language skills.
   Furthermore, from the observation class in Canadian immersion contexts (Swain 1985), the CLT approach has been found inefficient, and likely to promote fluency but not accuracy in second language production, for it largely focus on stimulating the learners’ communicative skills.
In language teaching classroom, when apply the CLT approach in teaching, the teacher should understand that learning language through communication is only an approach in classroom instruction, and it does not mean that language is just learn for communication as the writing skills and speaking accuracy are mainly based on well-established grammar rules. So, whether and when it requires the grammar-based syllabuses to be set out or the explicit grammar instruction is a matter that need take into consideration by teachers when they are preparing their teaching plan.

Behaviorist theory
   There is another prominent theory of SLA need to discuss in this paper, the environmental-oriented theory. The early works was based on the Behaviorism theory which primarily developed by B.F.Skinner and Ivan Pavlov. Behaviorist theory gave birth to a stimulus-response (S-R) theory which sees language as a set of structures and acquisition as a matter of habit formation. According to Skinner (1976), language is a set of behavior (habits) and language acquisition is the process of formation of such behavior.
According to behaviorist theory, ‘the process of formation’ can be comprehended as the process to learn from the ‘patterns’ and ‘structures’ in the language system. As Howatt and Widdowson (2004) believe that language systems consisted of a finite set of 'patterns' which acted as models for the learner to produce the similar sentences. What is more, Skinner (1976) argues that to learn and establish the formation, learners should learn through imitation. Obviously, imitation plays a necessary role and should be highly emphasized through language learning. For example, teacher should teach the students the ‘basic patterns’ which can be considered as models for the production of similarly constructed sentences and then the learners could imitate to learn the target language.
   The behaviorists argue that any kind of internal mechanism should be ignored and the acquisition stimulus can only produced by environment. According to Ellis (1985 p293), ‘Behaviourist learning theory emphasizes environmental factors as opposed to internal mental ones.’ However, Chomsky (1968) states that children do not learn and reproduce sentences, but they are able to create new sentences that they have never learnt before. In other words, they internalise rules rather than strings of words. In this view, it seems that internalization should also be considered as significant process of language learning even though the environmental factors are strongly emphasized.
Influence on Language Teaching and Learning
From the above discussion, it is obvious that environmental factors are of great significance in second language acquisition. According to the behaviorism and acculturation theory argued above, the teaching methods or approaches associated with behaviorist views of learning can be adopted in language teaching and learning. The Audiolingual Method and Direct method are good examples which based on behaviorist views and acculturation.
   Behaviorism theory of language learning was taken up widely by language teachers, and has influenced the development of the audiolingual teaching method to a large extent. Williams and Burden (1997) points out that language can be seen as a behavior to be taught when applied behaviorism theory. From what have been mentioned above, it is obvious that ‘patterns’ or ‘structured sentence’ are necessary parts in language teaching. In fact, language will acquired gradually by imitation and repetition of the structural patterns.

Shumann’s Acculturation theory
The acculturation model, developed by Schumann, is based on social and psychological factors. In his view, SLA is the result of acculturation, which he defines as “the social and psychological integration of the learner with the target language group” (Shumann 1986).
The acculturation model argues that learners will be successful in SLA if there are fewer social and psychological distances between them and the speakers of the target language. Trawinski (2005) claims, social and psychological distances determine how much input the learner will be exposed to, and how much input will be converted in to acquisition. According to Schumann (1990), social distance refers to the learner as a member of a social group that is in contact with another social group whose members speak a different language. Psychological distance is the result of various affective factors which concern the learner as an individual (Ellis 1986). For instance, the learners may encounter culture shock and feel confused when using the target language without much confidence. Therefore, to shorten the social and psychological distance in order that improve the language acquisition is the main goal in acculturation model.
However, Schumann’s acculturation theory is also, not a perfect one. It should be noted that the acculturation model focuses on social and psychological factors and ignore other variables in SLA, such as age of the acquisition and intelligence. Cook (2008) believes that children are better at learning second language than adults. Besides, intelligence is strongly related to certain kinds of second language abilities than others (Lightbown and Spada 1999). The acculturation theory of SLA is also questioned by other researchers. Ellis (1994) claims, according to acculturation theory, social factor are assumed to have a direct impact on second language acquisition, however, they are more likely to have an indirect one.
Influence on Language Teaching and Learning
Culture difference is an important and inevitable factor within the SLA process. The social and cultural factors are at play in the students' lives and they are considered as the barriers in the learning process. Accordingly, teaching culture in acculturation model is of great importance.
As language teachers, they should develop the curriculums that address the importance of social and personal difference in SLA. Menard-Warwick also points out the significance of teaching social and culture difference in second language class. As he states, teachers need to understand the culture difference that result in confusion for students and therefore they should design the pedagogical plan to teach learners directly by making social and personal difference in acquisition of second language difference and as topics for discussion in class (Menard-Warwick 2005).
Language teachers should take social and psychological factors into consideration in the process of second language teaching. For example, when teaching in a class with target language speakers (e.g. native speakers), the teacher should take the responsibility of encouraging the learners to work together with the target language speakers as often as they can. Moreover, teachers need to learn as much as they can about their students' identities outside the classroom, and draw on those identities in classroom activities to encourage the students to continue their second language learning.

Conclusion
In general, it is oblivious that not one individual theory on its own can account for all the aspects in the second language acquisition of the learners. Each one has its valid points and shortcomings. The theories of second language acquisition above are not totally independent from one another. Besides, the crossover with language teaching and learning is clear and need to be noticed by linguists and language teachers.
In the language teaching class, teachers have to take into account that learners are different, for they do not have the same characteristics, personalities, as well as the learning environments. Consequently, they do not all acquire the target language in the same way. Social background and age of the learners could affect the learners' learning abilities.
From my perspective, it is significant for teachers to take most important aspects of each theory into consideration when planning their lessons. However, it is not necessary for the teachers to address all the SLA theories in language teaching. From a certain amount of teaching experience, the teachers will understand and get the best ideas of these SLA theories.

References and Bibliography
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