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Listening, speaking, reading and writing errors that ESL learners m ake Aspects of listening, speaking, reading and writing errors that E SL learners m ake
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The importance of the role of language in teacher education programmes and in children's learning is crucial. This study focuses on the use of English as the language of learning and teaching and its impact on the language development of English second language (ESL) student teachers and ESL learners. Against the background of major theories in sec...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... 5 of the questionnaire also probed the problems that ESL learners encountered when reading, writing, listening or spelling English. The fre- quency of encountered problems is reported in Table 2. ...
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From 1994, the South Korean government has implemented a series of innovations to change English language education from teaching about English to developing students’ communicative competence in English. This paper discusses the impact of a teacher certification scheme, one such innovation. The scheme is examined from three perspectives: its desig...
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... This has implications for the acquisition of Nawat pronunciation as the bulk of the Nawat input they receive comes from other L2 speakers. For this reason, it is important to assess the acquisition of Nawat phonology by the most experienced learners who are also Nawat teachers because the input they provide is vital in shaping the pronunciation of newer generations of speakers, especially those at the beginner level (e.g., Syed 2015;Trofimovich et al. 2012;Nel and Müller 2010;Flege and Eefting 1987). Finally, analyzing Nawat learners' acquisition process is important because it will allow us educators to identify the most challenging features of Nawat pronunciation. ...
... Finally, it is also possible that L2 input received by Nawat learners is affecting their acquisition of utterance-final vowel glottalization. Various studies highlight the important role of teacher input in the acquisition of L2 pronunciation in contexts in which the instructors themselves are not L1 speakers of the language they are teaching (Trofimovich et al. 2012;Nel and Müller 2010;Flege and Eefting 1987). For instance, Syed (2015) finds that a group of L1 ...
Nawat, the highly endangered indigenous language of El Salvador, is undergoing a revitalization process. This dissertation, conceived within this context, focuses on the second-language (L2) acquisition of features of Nawat pronunciation by learners who have Salvadoran Spanish as their first language (L1). Specifically, I assess the acquisition of one Nawat segmental feature and one prosodic feature through their production by L2 learners: 1) the Nawat velar stop phoneme /ɡ/, which has different allophones according to its surrounding sounds, and 2) Nawat utterance-final vowel glottalization, that is, the production of utterance-final vowels with increased constriction of the vocal folds to signal the end of an utterance. The goals of this dissertation are: 1) to explore whether L2 Nawat learners become more proficient in the production of these Nawat features as their years of Nawat study increase, 2) to identify the linguistic contexts in which the productions of these Nawat features by L2 learners differ the most from L1 Nawat speakers, and 3) to assess whether the progress in the L2 acquisition of these Nawat features is equally linear or if one aspect is more difficult to learn than the other.
For this purpose, a total of 21 L2 Nawat learners were recorded performing a reading task in Nawat and Spanish designed to elicit the sounds of interest in different contexts. A control group consisting of five L1 Nawat speakers were also recorded performing open-ended interviews and a picture description task to serve as a baseline. I find that, overall, L2 Nawat learners become more proficient in the production of Nawat /ɡ/ as their years of study increase. However, there are contexts in which productions of Nawat /ɡ/ by L2 learners and L1 speakers consistently diverge, namely, when word-initial /ɡ/ is in the post-lateral position and when word-medial /ɡ/ is in the post-approximant, post-lateral, and post-obstruent contexts. I argue that these differences are the result of L1 transfer and hypercorrection.
As for the L2 acquisition of Nawat utterance-final vowel glottalization, progress is observed but, unlike Nawat /ɡ/, even the most advanced learners do not produce Nawat utterance-final vowels at rates comparable to L1 speakers. In fact, most Nawat utterance-final vowels produced by L2 learners show weakened voicing rather than glottalization, which I interpret as L1 transfer. Thus, an asymmetry in the acquisition of these features of Nawat pronunciation is identified, which I attribute to the inherent complexity of prosody, the perceived similarity between the L1 and L2 sound systems, frequency, and the Nawat input received by L2 learners. This dissertation highlights the need to inform the Nawat teaching curricula to focus on the production and perception of utterance-final vowel glottalization and develop more effective pedagogical materials and practices to teach them.
... These researchers argue that when learners can speak and write in a second language, it does not automatically mean they have the ability to understand concepts, reason, or study successfully in the second language. Instruction in a second language not only leads to 20% of learners not understanding the instructions, having limited vocabulary, being unfamiliar with phonics and struggling with correct spelling, but also leads to errors that are transferred to learners by teachers who also are not proficient in the second language used (Nel and Müller 2010). New learning areas are also introduced in this grade, which require moving to different classes and different teachers during the school day. ...
... Low SES schools often struggle with one or more of these aspects, which can contribute to poor language education, which again can have a ripple effect on academic achievement. These include a lack of well-educated and well-trained second language fluent teachers (Nel and Müller 2010;Wright 2012); state-of-the-art textbooks; and adequate school facilities (Wright 2012). ...
Motor proficiency and socioeconomic status are considered critical role players in setting children on an early trajectory of academic failure or success. To determine longitudinal influences of motor proficiency (MP) and socioeconomic status (SES) on academic achievement of primary school learners, a mediating model was constructed and tested with structural equation modelling (SEM). Primary school learners (N = 381) took part in this 7 school year NW-CHILD longitudinal study, with baseline measurements in grade 1 and follow-up measurements in grades 4 and 7. Academic achievement was based on school, national, and provincial assessments, and the Bruininks Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency-2 (BOT-2) assessed MP. SES was operationalized as poverty classification which was based on school SES. Significant small to moderate correlations (r = .19 to r = .36) were confirmed between early MP and later academic achievement, with impaired academic achievement and MP (p < .05) in low SES participants. MP, SES and academic performance in grade 1 were all significantly related. A direct association between academic achievement in grade 1 and grade 7 were confirmed. Academic achievement in grade 4 did however act as mediator and indirectly associated SES (− .413; − .417), MP (.083; .093) and academic achievement in grade 1 (.401; .398) with academic achievement in grade 7. Grade 4 academic achievement portrayed the largest standardized regression coefficients with grade 7 (.693; .731). Low SES, and poor MP in first graders can contribute to compounded academic risk that are detrimental to academic achievement throughout the primary school years and should be addressed by timely interventions.
... location and availability of centres for learning which includes libraries, resource centres as well as schools (Pretorius, 2000; De Vries & Van der Merwe, 2004); how much reading is emphasised in school curriculums and in the schools themselves; how much time is devoted to reading in schools; the availability of reading materials for learners; class organisation in terms of the number of learners in the class, as well as teacher-learner and learner-learner interactions in the class; methods used for reading in class such as reading aloud, independently, and in groups; methods used for assessing reading progress; roles of principals in facilitating effective learning; communication between teachers and parents; attendance levels of both learners and teachers; parental involvement in children's academic life; parental reading abilities and attitudes; language spoken at home and exposure to the LoLT; learners' attitudes towards reading; the age of learners when they begin school; previous exposure to reading (Mullis et al., 2007;Howie et al., 2008); and level of education and training of teachers for teaching reading (Nel & Muller, 2010). ...
... Table 1 presents mean scores obtained for each comprehension task in Setswana and English, as well as the mean total of scores for tasks in Setswana and English for each school. learners' attitudes towards reading, as well as limited numbers of libraries in the schools (Mullis et al, 2007;Nel & Muller, 2010;Howie et al, 2008;Pretorius, 2000;Van Staden & Bosker, 2014;Wildschut, Moodley & Aronstam, 2016). The higher scores in Setswana found in this study align with evidence suggesting that use of the first language as LoLT yields better outcomes (Mabiletja, 2015;Cummins, 2006;Makalela, 2005). ...
... For these cognitive processes to develop, external facilitation, effective teaching by educators, provision of resources, as well as provision of support by the Department of Basic Education to learners and teachers is necessary. Factors identified as contributing to the development of reading abilities (Pretorius, 2000;De Vries & Van der Merwe, 2004;Mullis et al., 2007;Howie et al., 2008;Nel & Muller, 2010) need to be addressed in order to improve the poor literacy levels observed and the poor reading comprehension skills found in the current study. ...
The main aim of the study was to determine the reading comprehension performance of Grade 5 Setswana-speaking children in a rural province in South Africa, where the language of learning and teaching (LoLT) is English. Thirty-four Grade 5 learners from one province and from the same socio-economic background were selected through purposive sampling. The research design adopted was non-experimental, descriptive and quantitative in nature. Participants were required to perform reading comprehension tasks in English and Setswana. Four stories were utilised from the reading comprehension subtest of the GORT-4™ Test Form A. Two of the stories from the test were administered on completion of the English reading comprehension task. The other two stories were translated and adapted into Setswana. The mean raw scores of results obtained were calculated and comparisons at different levels were performed using t-tests. Results revealed poor overall reading comprehension scores in both languages; with scores below 55%. Furthermore, current results indicated better performance in Setswana reading comprehension, with higher scores obtained in the difficult Setswana story than in English. These findings were statistically significant (p<.05). Implications of the influence of home / first language on reading comprehension, if the LoLT is not the learner’s first language, are raised.
Key words: language, learning, multilingualism, reading comprehension, rural, schools, Setswana, teaching.
... There are numerous benefits of learning English as a foreign language. These include increasing communication skills (Lertola & Mariotti, 2017), enhancing competency on international language (Gan, 2013), getting employment (Kanno & Varghese, 2010), increasing workplace efficiency (Nel & Müller, 2010), increasing social network beyond the nation, and an overall personal and professional benefit. Taking into consideration the importance of EFL, many studies have already been conducted to analyze the pros and cons of EFL in EU, USA, Africa, Asia, and other parts in the World. ...
This study sought to identify the problems and challenges of teaching EFL to Syrian refugees, and the solutions to the problems. The qualitative research design was employed within a semi-structured interview with ten (10) Syrian refugees, one (1) director of resettlement agency, one (1) EFL manager, and one (1) EFL instructor. The data analysis results showed four (4) important challenges of learning and teaching EFL to Syrian refugees in Jordan. The challenges are social, educational, financial, and institutional. Most of the social challenges were as a result of financial crisis, concerns about immediate family members and other relatives still residing in Syria, childcare, lack of fulfilling basic needs, and mental hazards. Financial challenges came from the inability to afford the regular family expenses, such as food, clothing, and medicine. Educational challenges were mainly as a result of a poor educational background, discomfort with English Language, lack of knowledgeable teachers to deal with the Syrian refugees, and lack of motivation. Budget crisis for meeting the demands of additional learning materials, new class environment, scarcity of teachers and volunteers, and the poor academic background of Syrian refugees are major institutional related challenges. This study recommends that the curriculum of teaching EFL should be designed easily by using less sophisticated and learner-friendly teaching methods. If necessary, EFL teachers should pay extra attention to the teaching of EFL to Syrian refugees. For providing extra effort, the institution should pay extra compensation to motivate teachers.
... The fact that teacher's language competence deeply influence learning environment, and learner's language outcomes is presented in a number of studies. Nel and Müller (2010) researched practicing teachers who enrolled for the Academic English: Inclusive Education course in 2008 and 2009. The results reveals that the teacher's poor command of English negatively affects the learners' English language acquisition and academic progress. ...
Different factors are involved in the process of learners learning English as a second or foreign language. Some contribute to enhancing their English proficiency, others mitigate and or even delay the process of learners’ mastering the language. Throughout literature, many studies focus on one or several factors that have an impact on learners’ gain of English language proficiency. Few studies have been conducted to explore groups of factors together. The current paper reviews different studies on the issue to provide the whole picture of what may play a role in influencing English-as-a-foreign-language learners’ improvement of English proficiency. Three groups of factors are discussed including student-related factors, teacher-related factors and context-related factors. The paper also implies what different stakeholders can do to maximize and optimize learners’ gain and progress in English language learning.
... It seems the assumption is that the teachers already have the language competence, vocabulary, knowledge of phonics, reading fluency etc. that they need, and they only need to acquire practical knowledge of how to teach these things. However, assessment of South African teachers' knowledge (Nel & Müller, 2010) shows that these are not reasonable assumptions. ...
Within teacher education, there is ongoing debate about the nature and extent of the propositional and conceptual knowledge that teachers need. In this paper we interrogate the learning tasks detailed in six learning modules offered in a formal qualification for South African Foundation Phase (grade R-3) teachers. Our purpose is to analyse to what extent the in-text informal learning tasks foreground the conceptual object of study or the practice-based context, and thus the extent to which these tasks require teachers to develop systematic conceptual knowledge which is clearly related to practice. Tasks which make visible both the conceptual object of study and the practice-based context are most likely to enable teachers to systematise ideas, and thus build professional judgement. Our findings show that there are differences between the six modules, but that generally the conceptual object of study is not made strongly visible in the learning tasks, except in the mathematics education modules. We argue that this will have implications for the development of the student teachers' systematised knowledge and professional judgement. ARTICLE HISTORY
... Her self-criticism appears to index several discourses around (language) teaching in South African schools, more specifically in township schools. Firstly, in popular discourse in the media (Bolowana, 2014;Nkosi, 2016;Van der Berg & Spaull, 2017), as well as in some scholarly work on township teaching (Nel & Müller, 2010) and on parents' school choice in South Africa (Lombard, 2007;Maile, 2004;Msila, 2009), there is an implication that teachers are directly responsible for the often poor academic performance of learners, especially in rural and township schools. Insufficient training, low motivation and a lack of proficiency in English are attributes often assigned to South African teachers. ...
A Grade 4 English language teacher in a township school in Cape Town, South Africa, in her quest to equip learners with new target language resources, is not held back by the perceived boundaries dividing named languages. Instead she employs language in creative and goal-directed ways that we believe have not received enough focused linguistic attention in scholarship. While recognising the importance of research into code-switching, code-mixing and lexical borrowing among South Africa's indigenous languages, we draw on the work of functional linguists with an emphasis on the communicative function of linguistic signals and a de-emphasis on labelling languages. Central to this paper is the inchoative concept of translanguaging that is gaining ground in socio- and applied linguistics and aims at describing fluidity rather than reproducing established notions of separate languages. In township environments access to high-currency language resources (standard English) is often said to be absent due to teachers’ lack of linguistic and pedagogic capacity and schools’ lack of resources. Our main aim here is to focus on the presence of powerful language resources, rather than their absence, in such a highly scrutinised, purportedly deficient educational setting.
... These too are features of English which are known to cause difficulties for speakers of indigenous South African languages, where the pronoun does not always exist as an independent word and where there may be no article. These findings support the work of other researchers of South African varieties of English (Coetzee 2009;De Klerk 2006a, 2006bVan Rooy 2006 and learner errors (Nel and Muller 2010;Nel and Swanepoel 2010), suggesting that differences between the two corpora may partly have resulted from the influence of learners' L1. ...
... Binne die afgelope jaar het byvoorbeeld sowel die Universiteit van die Vrystaat as die Universiteit van Pretoria beleide aanvaar met Engels as enigste onderrig-en assesseringstaal, behalwe in gevalle waar fakulteite opleiding in Afrikaans ter voorbereiding vir spesifieke beroepe steeds as relevant ag (Petersen 2016, Universiteit van Pretoria 2016. Sprekers van die nege inheemse Afrikatale ervaar akademiese Engels as 'n uitdaging, hoofsaaklik weens hulle onderwysagtergrond, byvoorbeeld onderrig deur onderwysers met gebrekkige taalvaardigheid in Engels (Nel en Müller 2010), terwyl Afrikaanssprekende leerders wat hulle hele skoolloopbaan in Afrikaans deurloop het, voor die uitdaging te staan kom dat hulle sonder oorbrugging nuwe vakinhoud tesame met akademiese registers in 'n tweede taal -Engels -moet aanleer. 'n Vraag waarmee ek as akademiesegeletterdheidspesialis reeds 'n geruime tyd worstel, is of die proses van induksie in akademiese Engels vir Afrikaanssprekende studente vergemaklik kan word indien hulle toegelaat sou word om hulle eerste taal gedurende 'n oorbruggingstydperk op 'n funksionele en doelgerigte manier as 'n hulpbron te gebruik. ...
This article investigates the practice of translanguaging in the context of a group of Afrikaans-speaking first-year Construction Economics students enrolled for an academic literacy module in English, in 2016. The research was conducted with a view to describe the systematics of the practices followed, and the possible value of a descriptive model for future curriculum development. First, an overview is provided of linguistic and applied linguistic theories that support first-language usage in a second-language classroom. This is followed by a discussion of the difference between learner-centred and lecturer-centred translanguaging, which serves as a departure point for advancing a pedagogic framework for translanguaging. The empirical part of the article describes a case study of limited scope aimed at the translanguaging preferences and practices of first-year Construction Economics students. The data collected through pre- and post-intervention questionnaires were analysed using both quantitative and qualitative methods. It would seem that even prior to the commencement of the module, students were positively inclined towards using systematic translanguaging, and their attitude towards the intervention remained positive. During the intervention, lecturer-centred translanguaging was used for functions such as classroom management, clarifying grammar and vocabulary, and communicating with individual students. Learner-centred translanguaging took place particularly during interpersonal communication with fellow students and the lecturer, and for planning and discussions in small groups. Analysing the data highlighted two aspects of the pedagogics of translanguaging that previously did not receive adequate attention in the literature, namely the difference and interrelationship between translanguaging and translation; and the sometimes unilateral focus on translanguaging in the direction of the L1, compared to the inverse, translanguaging in the direction of the L2. Based on the research findings, a curriculum model is proposed, which could serve as a basis for planning translanguaging in contexts where new subject concepts are acquired together with the acquisition of a second language as academic language. This highlights the fact that applied linguistics focuses both on theoretical and on empirical methods in designing solutions to practical language problems.
... The limitations of CAPS are starkest for African language speaking children in the area of expectations for English as FAL. The curricular expectations during this phase are not calibrated to the reality that many additional language learners of English have little access to English inside and outside of school and that many teachers of English as additional language in such schools struggle with English themselves and use ineffective strategies to support language acquisition (e.g., Nel and Muller, 2010). The effect of this is that there is a big gap between curriculum expectations for English language acquisition and what can be achieved in these classrooms. ...
Two decades after the first democratic election, the patterns of inequality
in the landscape of public education in South Africa persist. The majority
of children living outside of middle class contexts are not learning to read,
write and work with numbers at grade level in the early years of education. While
the top quintile of schools in general meet curricular aspirations, the performance
patterns of the majority of schools are relatively flat, with little evidence of
independent reading and writing by the end of Grade 3.
Despite intentions, our system of primary schooling (re)produces learning
difficulties, resulting in significant learning delays and a massive need, yet to be
met, for remedial education programmes for a large number of our children. The
work of educational change is made that much more difficult by persistent poverty,
unemployment and inequality. While the potential contribution of education to
alleviating these socioeconomic challenges is frequently overestimated, it is hard
to see how they could be resolved outside of a public education system capable
of serving the majority of children.
Framed by educational design research and focused on the universe of the rural
foundation phase classroom, the study sought to better understand: a) instructional
practices in rural and poor classrooms; b) the factors that reproduce them; and c)
design principles that can be foundational in shifting practices. Amongst teachers,
learners and parents, the work became known as the Magic Classroom Collective
(MCC) – magic because teachers and children began to experience the magical
acts of early reading, writing and mathematics.
This report summarises the intervention experience, the lessons emerging from
it, and implications for policy and practice. The first sections of the report describe
the literature and formative work contributing to the study design. The points of
departure combine three premises. First, ‘mother-tongue’ based bi/multilingual
education - a system based on using a child’s strongest language(s) for teaching
and learning - is the most effective strategy to build successful foundation phase
classrooms in poor urban and rural South Africa. Second, the promise of mother tongue
based bi/multilingual education is currently undermined by an educational
knowledge project (in the form of instructional tools and teacher support systems)
that is not well aligned to the linguistic resources of the majority of children, nor to
their instructional contexts. And finally, the generation of an educational knowledge
project more accountable to children’s and teachers’ linguistic resources and
instructional contexts is likely to contribute to improved literacy and mathematics
results, sustained over time, in foundation phase classrooms.
