Error Analysis Task
LING 702
For this task, you are asked to contact, and request a written essay from, an ESL student at the age and level that you are likely to teach in the future; then, perform an analysis of this student's essay for the purpose of diagnosing what his/her learning needs are; and finally, meet again with the student for a total of 10 hours to give them feedback and instruction based on the essay. Your ultimate task is to write a paper in which you explain the process you followed, how you performed your analysis (why you chose the errors you chose, and how you analyzed them), how you explained these forms to the student, how they performed on the exercise/s or activity/ies which you developed to help this student improve his/her ability to use this form, and the insights you gained from the entire experience.
Provided with these instructions is a sample of ESL student writing which contains a number of lexical and grammatical errors. NOTE: Although there are also other types of issues a teacher should give feedback to students on (content, organization, etc.), and other types of errors in this essay (spelling, essay organization, punctuation, etc.), the focus of your response on this assignment should be on this student's lexical and grammatical knowledge and errors only.
Specific Steps to Follow:
1. Identify and contact an ESL student; determine the student’s L2 English level; find out some information about them; obtain a writing sample from them: Find an ESL student at your work or fieldwork placement (preferably someone at an age and level you intend to teach in the future!) and ask if they would permit you to work with them for a session or two on their writing. Particularly good students to look for are those who seem to need extra help or have special needs, or those whose teacher feels could benefit from some one-on-one work with a teacher. The student should be at least at the Intermediate level and above Grade 5, since you will need to obtain a writing sample of significant length from them in order to analyze it. If the student is a child, be sure to obtain permission (from their teacher, parents, principal, etc.) to work with the student in this way. Determine the student’s overall English language level by obtaining evidence from as many of the following sources as possible: 1) a standards-based language assessment like the TOEFL, NYSESLAT, NYSITEL, LAB-R, BEST or other test they have taken; 2) the grade or ESL level of the class they are in; 3) the judgment of the student’s teacher or former teacher; 4) other school processes, such as an Individual Education Plan (IEP); or 5) specific qualities you notice in the student’s oral and/or written language; background information from the student’s parents. Be aware of various issues of assessment such as linguistic, cultural (TESOL Standard 2e), or political factors or bias and any possible special education or SIFE needs (TESOL Standards 3.a, 3.a ) or accommodations that so that you can take them into consideration as you provide their instruction; address how they may influence your ESL student’s test results compared to his or her actual ability, based on the information you have from the multiple sources (TESOL Standard 4a) from which you have collected it.
Ask the student to let you have a sample of an essay they have written in English (or, if you know the teacher, s/he may be able to provide you with a writing sample). If necessary, give the student a topic to write about (see below for some suggestions) and ask them to write on that topic for 30-60 minutes. Explain that you would like to analyze the essay, and then you would like to meet with them again to give them some feedback on its vocabulary and grammar, and to explain these things and provide some practice in the areas in which they need additional help. NOTE: Since the focus is on identifying grammatical and lexical errors in writing, in eliciting this writing sample it will be important that you obtain as long a writing sample as they are able to produce, within reason. Thus, it will be important to find an ESL student at least proficient enough in English that they can provide you with a significant amount of writing, optimally, about 1 (handwritten) page in length. Beginning students or very young children (below 2nd grade) would NOT be suitable candidates for this assignment. Short written answers to a list of individual questions also are NOT appropriate for this assignment.
2. Analyze the writing sample: Once you receive the writing sample, make a copy of it (don’t forget to block out the student’s name), and also type up the essay, taking care to preserve exactly the spelling, word choice, punctuation, and grammar from the student’s original essay (you may have to watch that Spell Check and Grammar Check don’t change things without your knowledge!). Then analyze it, focusing only on those areas of their language use that we have studied in our class. NOTE: Although it is likely that they will have other types of errors in their essays, PLEASE DO NOT FOCUS on errors in spelling, punctuation, essay organization, articles/determiners, relative clauses, homophones, prepositions, etc. for this assignment—they are either unrelated to this course, or we haven’t studied them in this class. Then, analyze their lexical and grammatical knowledge and errors as follows:
3. Before you begin your analysis, if there are any parts of the essay you don’t understand, ask the student what s/he was trying to say. Here is a suggested list of principles to follow when doing your analysis of the essay:
a. Ask the student to explain his/her intended meaning before proceeding with any corrections.
b. Draw the student’s attention to places where there is a mismatch between their intended meaning and their linguistic choices. Ask specific questions about what the student was trying to express.
c. Give the student opportunities to self-correct surface errors before providing any detailed feedback.
d. Focus on helping the student learn to say/write the things s/he wants to express, NOT the things that s/he expressed incorrectly. In other words, rather than explaining what was wrong, focus your explanation on how to express their intended meaning correctly.
e. Do not try to correct all of the errors in the essay—just 3 lexical and 3 grammatical errors.
Then keeping that in mind, analyze the essay on your own, focusing only on those areas of their language use that we study in our class this semester.
Part A: Overall Analysis of the Student’s Language Knowledge (TESOL Standard 1a)
Begin by reading over the entire essay carefully several times. Identify what the student already understands about English, and what s/he was able to do well. Notice if some aspects of grammar were done correctly in some places, but incorrectly in others (this is common in language learning). Explain to the student several things about what s/he did well in the essay.
Part B : Lexical Errors (TESOL Standard 1a)
Identify 3 lexical errors that you find in this essay. These may include any of the following:
? Incorrect Word Choice/Understanding of Semantic Features: Choice of words used in a context where a different word (with a slightly different meaning) would be more appropriate
? Incorrect Syntactic Features: Words used without understanding the syntactic requirements for using that word or incorrect accompanying morphological forms
? Incorrect Collocation: Vocabulary used with other words that do not normally co-occur (and which cannot be explained grammatically)
? Incorrect Register: Vocabulary that might be too informal or too formal for the rest of the essay (depending upon the writing task). Most writing should involve the use of academic language and academic written conventions.
Part C : Grammatical Errors (TESOL Standard 1a)
Identify 3 grammatical errors from the essay that you feel are the most serious. The grammar points you choose should be structures that we will have studied about in our class by the end of the semester. (Don’t worry about any other ones we haven’t studied.) In particular, you should consider error types from among the following:
· Subject-verb agreement
· Particular verb tenses or aspects (address only one at a time)
· Basic Phrase Structure
· Modals or Phrasal Modals (address only one at a time)
· Passives
· Various Types of Questions
· Complex/Compound Sentences
· Negative forms
· Information structure
· Basic sentence structure
· Existential It/There
Part D : Analyze each of the 3 lexical errors and the 3 grammatical errors you have chosen. Be SURE that the “errors” you have chosen are REALLY errors (to be sure of this, we recommend talking with others in your class to see if they think the usage in question is an ERROR). Your analysis should show a sophisticated understanding of language as a system, in particular, the nuances of the form, meaning, and use (including pragmatics) of the lexical/ grammatical items). Be aware that some of their errors could come from how they have heard English used in oral language, so be sensitive to phonological and/or pronunciation issues as possible sources of error as well (TESOL Standard 1a). Be sure to use information we have discussed in class about language acquisition research and findings in your analysis (TESOL Standard 1b). For this analysis, we would suggest that you obtain the feedback of at least one other person in this class, or anyone else you feel has an understanding of English grammar and usage (Beware of non-grammarians and their opinions about English grammar!!). Identify and plan carefully HOW you would recommend these language samples be rephrased, and HOW you would explain them to the student so they can understand your explanations, and learn how to avoid those errors in the future.
3. Meet with the ESL student for a total of 10 hours :
Arrange to meet for additional sessions with the student in order to give them feedback on their essay. First, if there are any portions that you didn’t understand, be sure to ask the student what they were really trying to say—be careful NOT to change the ideas that the student was trying to convey. Remember, this is their essay, not yours. Then, start out by explaining some of the aspects of the essay that the student did well. What areas of knowledge does s/he already have some understanding of? Then provide them with more appropriate ways of saying what they wanted to say, thinking carefully about how you phrase your explanation. NOTE: Try to focus on what they wanted to say, more than on what they actually wrote.
In your explanations of the errors, pay careful attention to the student’s age, level of ability and level of writing in their essay—make sure that your explanation is not aimed too high or too low for their level of ability and understanding. Note also that the ways in which you explain the lexical errors should be different from how you explain grammar errors! Your explanation and activities should be developed with sensitivity to the students’ cultural background and values (TESOL Standard 2 e ), as well as any special needs (special education, SIFE) they may have (TESOL Standard 3a , 3a). The activities you develop for them should employ a variety of materials for language learning, including books, visual aids, props, technology, and realia (TESOL Standard 3c, 3c ), and result in his or her understanding the targeted errors and having a sense of how to use the structures in a more target-like way for listening, speaking, reading, and writing in social and academic purposes.
Then provide the student with at least one exercise or activity that you developed yourself incorporating authentic language (TESOL Standard 3b) to practice each type of error you address, and go through it with them to help them understand better what you explained to them. Note that the ways in which you will explain lexical errors should be different from how you explain grammar errors! Your work with the student should be designed specifically for this particular student (TESOL Standard 3a ) and make use of what you know about language teaching materials and resources/technology, and result in his or her understanding the targeted errors and having a sense of how to use the structures in a more target-like way for listening, speaking, reading, and writing in social and academic purposes (TESOL Standard 3c).
4. Administer a Follow-up Assessment Task to Assess the Student’s Development and Impact on Instruction:
In your final meeting, ask the student to produce for you a second open-ended writing task or other type of post-assessment (depending upon what you focused on in your feedback) to assess their development (TESOL Standard 4.c )—so you can see how well they are able to do what you taught them, and to assess your impact on their learning. Although you may not be able to guarantee that they will produce the same forms as they did on the first essay, with a carefully-designed assessment/writing task, you may be able to elicit at least some of the kinds of language that you addressed together. This second essay should be an open-ended task in which the student is asked to demonstrate what they learned from your feedback—without any scaffolding or assistance from you. After they do it, be sure to have allowed some time so that you can review the essay together, and you can discuss how they did on the issues you had given feedback on. In your analysis of this follow-up task, analyze it carefully for how the student’s language has developed—especially on the specific points you addressed with them—and contrast it with the original essay as preparation for your write-up of the experience.
***NOTE: If the Follow-up Assessment portion of this assignment is NOT completed or reported on in this paper, the final grade may be reduced up to a full grade.***