Nora:
The student’s vocabulary acquisition is very good for someone who has only been in the U.S. for 3 months. She is trying to use conversational language, which shows that she understands some of the nuances of English. She uses rudimentary language instead of sophisticated language and does not use enough academic diction. Her vocabulary is not broad enough to truly explain her experiences. She needs more extensive vocabulary to formulate a good question or be able to even ask for more details to help clarify what she is trying to convey. She needs more knowledge of definitions for vocabulary. Her vocabulary is simplistic but somewhat developed. To help her vocabulary acquisition she can: take the time to make an academic word family chart and be able to use the words effectively in a sentence, try to learn at least 10 new words a day (which is not too tedious), and use the vocabulary in her everyday language with others. She should always have some type of dictionary to help look up words that seem unclear. Also, having some type of specific instruction with an interlocutor learning target vocabulary would be beneficial. Finally, learning vocabulary, by reading English texts as often as possible, and watching some type of English programming that peaks your interest.
Pei-Ling:
Stress/Emphasis
| Words she said (wrong) | Words said should be (right) | The right stressed place should be |
| Biologi | Biology | Biology |
| Unnergraduate | Undergraduate | Undergraduate |
| Universaty | University | University |
| Biotechnolog | Biotechnology | Biotechnology |
| Somesing | Something | Something |
| Sink | Think | Think |
| Kentry | Country | Country |
| Kend | Kind | Kind |
| Americ | America | America |
| Everysing | Everything | Everything |
| Dus | Thus | Thus |
| Ferius | Furious | Furious |
*Underline=stress
Overall, her vocabularies and what she said it’s good, we were able to understand her. But some of the vocabularies, she had trouble with. She misspoke where the stress in a word should be. Therefore, when she spoke of a word, an accident will come out. Stress is the relative emphasis that is given to a certain syllables in a word or a sentence. If she did not give the right stress to the right syllable then the whole word would be weird.
Marzena:
Morphology
| 1. Using present tense instead of past tense when inserting copula “to be” | “My University was Henan Agricultural University, and my bachelor is Biotechnology” or “When I was a little girl, my parents are very busy” |
| 2. Using indefinite article “a” instead of definite article “the” | “I’m a only child” |
| 3. Using masculine pronoun ”he” instead of feminine pronoun ”she” | “My mother is a teacher and he teaches botany” |
| 4. Omitting the articles “the” and “a” in sentences | “When I was little girl” |
| 5. Problems with inserting inflectional morphemes, such as third person singular in present tense | “Every family only have one child” |
| 6. Problems with inserting inflectional morphemes, such as ‘s possessive | “After finishing my master degree, I will pursue the PH degree” |
| 7. 7. Incorrect usage of prepositions; inserting “for” instead of “with” | “My parents are very busy for their teaching” |
Syntax
| 1. Beginning the sentence with a conjunction “and “ | “And I come from China” | |
| 2. It seems like she’s using run-on sentences which are very long, and therefore, it is hard to understand her. Moreover, she is using too many conjunctions in one sentence. | “My undergraduate in University was Henan Agricultural University and my major in my bachelor is Biotechnology and than I took LS (?) and GRE and came here for my graduate study” | |
| 3. Beginning the sentence with “You know” | “You know, the one child policy in China” | |
| 4. Connecting two separate ideas together in one sentence | “My mother is a teacher and she is very kind teacher” | |
| 4. 5. Lack of commas and conjunctions in sentences | “In my country there are a lot of people who have PHD thus the competition is very serious that is the reason I want to pursue the PH degree here” | |
| 5. 6. Missing verbs in the sentences | “You know the one child policy in China” | |
| 7. This person sounds very monotonous when talking because her sentences are very long. She may divide 1 long sentence into 2 or 3 independent clauses instead of making it so long. | “My mother is a teacher and he teaches botany and she is very kind and when I was a little girl my parents were very busy for their teaching so to be honest (…)” | |
When listening to the recording, I definitely think that the person is at the advanced level of acquiring English as a second language. When she talks and makes an error, she seems to notice it right away. She is trying to correct herself. Her speech is sometimes monotonous because, as mentioned in the chart, she misses commas, periods, and conjunctions. Her sentences are very long, and sometimes, it is hard to understand them. The person also seems to connect the ideas within the sentences that are “separate” in meaning. She has problems with inserting definite and indefinite articles into sentences, as well as she tends to omit verbs when talking (I don’t know yet about writing). Sometimes, she has problems with inserting proper inflectional morphemes for plurals, possessives, as well as for a third person singular in present. However, as mentioned before, the person seems to realize she made a mistake, and therefore, she corrects herself right away. Sherry also has problems with using the correct tense when connecting the past event with something that is happening now, or will happen in the future.
It is important to note that my assumptions are only based on a speech sample. I don’t know whether she encounters same problems when writing an essay.
When talking about the strategies that can be used when tutoring Sherry, I definitely think that negative feedback may work for her. A conversation with a teacher that corrects the student in a polite way whenever the student makes an error would definitely help in this situation. For practicing inflectional morphemes (possessives, plurals, past tense, etc.), and masculine and feminine pronouns, I would provide the student with a word bank that contains different tenses and complicated sentences (she is in the advanced level), so that the student would have to figure out what works best for the particular situation. For practicing punctuation, I would ask the student to read the long sentences slowly, and pay attention to commas and periods. When tutoring this student, I would teach her the explicit rules first. The student’s vocabulary and comprehension are well developed, however, she lacks skills in production. According to De Keyser, teaching explicit grammatical rules may be helpful when tutoring a second language learner, and therefore, I would use this theory with my student who seems to have problems with applying grammatical rules into sentences.
Jack:
Phonetics/Phonology
| 1. Using the sound "ge" in the word biology | The pronunciation (B AY AA L AH JH IY). The phoneme (JH) ex. gee. Spelled [bahy-ol-uh-jee] and the the IPA is /baɪˈɒl  ədʒi/ |
| 2. Used the word '"of couse" instead of 'of course' where the "r" sound is missing | Missing the retroflex /r/ sound which is alveolar. Spelled of [uhv, ov; unstressed uh v or, especially before consonants, uh] and the IPA for "of" is /ʌv, ɒv; unstressed əv or, especially before consonants, ə/. Second part is course wich is spelled [kawrs, kohrs] and the IPA is /kɔrs, koʊrs/ |
| 3. Using the wrong nasal consonant /n/ sound unnergraduate which is missing consonant sound "d" | Has to use sound /d/ which is Alveolar voiced sound. Spelled [uhn-der-graj-oo-it, -eyt] and the IPA is /ˌʌn dərˈgrædʒuɪt, -ˌeɪt/ |
| 4. using the sound /a/ in the word University which is the front low sound "Universaty" | University /I/ front vowel. pelled [yoo-nuh-vur-si-tee] and the IPA is /ˌyu nəˈvɜrsɪti/ |
| 5. Using the wrong fricative consonant sound /s/ "sink" | Has to use sound /θ/ which is voiceless interdentally fricative. Spelled [thingk] and the IPA is /θɪŋk/ |
| 6. using the word "backgroun" | Missing the fricative voiced stop alveolar /d/ sound at the end of the word. Spelled [bak-ground] and the IPA is /ˈbækˌgraʊnd/ |
| 7. 7. Using the word "somesing" instead of "something" | Wrong sound choice. Pronounced /S/ sound instead of fricative voiceless interdental /θ/ sound. Spelled [suhm-thing] and the IPA is /ˈsʌmˌθɪŋ/ |
| 8. 8. Pronouncing "Botany" as Boatony | Spelled [bot-n-ee] and the IPA is /ˈbɒt ni/ |
| 9. 9. Pronouncing "kind" as "can" | Should use the vowel sound (diphthong) [aI] like in bye. Spelled [kahynd] and the IPA is /kaɪnd/ |
| 10. 10. Pronouncing my country as "my kentry" | Using wrong vowel sound "e" instead of /o/. Spelled [kuhn-tree] and the IPA is /ˈkʌn tri/ |
| 11. 11. Pronouncing in America as in "Americ" | Dropping the last vowel sound which is /ʌ/. Spelled [uh-mer-i-kuh] and IPA is /əˈmɛr ɪkə/ |
| 12. 12. Pronouncing PHd degree | Dropping /d/ sound in the word PHd . |
| 13. Pronouncing "Furious" as "Ferius" | Missing vowel "u" and vowel "o." The IPA is /ˈfyʊər iəs/ and the spelling [fyoor-ee-uhs] |
While listening to the recording of Sherry, I think that she is doing terrifically compared to other students that I have tutored in the past. When she speaks, she doesn't take a long time to find a particular word to build up a reasonable sentence. She does make certain errors and keeps repeating some of them. For instance, she pronounces the end of the words technology and biology dropping the 'y' letter which changes the sound of the word and it sounds more like the word "college". She also uses the sound s instead of th which is /θ/. When tutoring students from Asia, particularly from China, Korea, and Japan, I have noticed that they have difficulties with certain sounds such as S and θ/ð, Z and ʒ . For example, instead of pronouncing think they pronounce sink. Chinese speakers face a greater difficulty in learning English than speakers of German or Dutch. Another example is that Korean Japanese learners of English often have problems hearing and producing l and r because these sounds are not distinct in their language. Sherry does correct herself when she speaks, which makes a lot of sense to her in understanding errors because if the English learner is not able to recognize his/her errors it will be very difficult to learn and acquire language. Marzena has mentioned that negative feedback would be very helpful and useful for Sherry and I completely agree because she is the kind of person that hears someone correct her. She learns from it a lot quicker than other ESL students and does not get mad, offended, or irritated. I also think that it would be a lot easier for Sherry if she tried to practice certain sounds in order to master them, use correct vowels and consonants. Practice makes perfect, but based on how long Sherry has been in America, she is very progressive in her second language acquisition in acquiring the pronunciation of most of the words. I believe that she would be able to improve her hearing and ability to produce sounds by observing, listening, and paying attention to native speakers. She needs to spend extra time on the sounds that are difficult for her to pronounce because when she makes an error while talking she tries to correct herself. I have been tutoring ESL (English as a Second Language) for a long time, over six years, and based on the recording that I have listened to many times, I can come to a conclusion that Sherry has a talent in learning languages because not many people from China that I have met and tutored speak the way Sherry does. I think that if we help her with her difficulties, she will succeed.
