Arzu - a detailed analysis
of a language learner
by Kendall Peet
- 7

Productive Skills:

Speaking

Speaking was assessed informally using an integrative format, and is based on the tapescripts provided.

Strengths

Arzu says that she loves speaking in English and feels that her speaking level has improved. She speaks actively in class and with teachers during the break. She attempts to communicate her ideas even when she finds it difficult and is happy to take the time to look up a word in a dictionary, or to ask for help in finding a word. She speaks with a sense of awareness and often self-corrects. Her accent, though not native, is clearly intelligible.(29) She also uses tone and stress in a way that is, in most circumstances, natural and appropriate. She manages both interactional and transactional conversation well in short turns, especially on familiar topics relating to family, friends, and work.(30)

Weaknesses

1. The most noticeable weakness appears when Arzu tries to speak in longer turns, especially in longer transactional turns. In particular, fluency breaks down, which is attributable in part to the absence of cohesive devices common in native discourse, such as anaphora, lexical substitution, lexical chaining, and conjunction, etc.: the only conjunctions to appear regularly were and, because and occasionally but ; these findings are consistent with the results correlated from the diagnostic tests.

2. Arzu also tends to be overcorrect in her speaking, which is a point that Brown and Yule make, when they write that correctness can actually hamper the communication process; the best example of this is the absence of weak forms and light presence of contractions; only can’t and it’s appeared throughout; I’m was used just four times in 200 lines; don’t,didn’t,she’s, and that’s, once each.

3. Other features apparent in Arzu’s speech, causing a slight strain on the listener, include redundancy, repetition, and hesitancy. One obvious example of redundancy present throughout is her tendency to restate a question before answering.

4. There was also an over-reliance on certain words, such as maybe and I think – perhaps indicating a lack of confidence and hesitancy with the language, common in early stages of language acquisition.

5. Summary of grammatical errors present:

• Incorrect use of tense, especially in regard to the perfect tense because there is no perfect tense in Turkish. The perfect tense was identified as a problem area in the diagnostic tests;
• Incorrect use of the progressive or continuous aspect;
• Incorrect verb form;
• Omission of a verb, especially auxiliary verbs;
• Omission or incorrect use of a preposition;
• Omission or incorrect use of a determiner, mainly articles, due to the fact that there are no articles in Turkish;
• Incorrect word order, typically subject-object-verb, which is the result of L2 transference;
• Incorrect use of the reporting verb say; Arzu only scored 2/6 for reported speech in the take-home test;
• Incorrect use or omission of modal verbs, omitting would and have to, and mistakenly using can’t and didn’t for couldn’t; modals were identified as an area of weakness in the diagnostic tests.

There is also an inherent lack of idiom in the tapescripts, which is, in my experience, the norm for learners who have just completed pre-intermediate level.

Pronunciation

In the two hundred lines of tapescript, there were only three pronunciation errors which imposed a strain on the listener: one of these was caused by two words being pronounced without a pause; another was caused because the Turkish word /veni/, short for Venezia (Turkish for Venice) was used. The only other serious error in combination with other less serious pronunciation errors are those which are caused because the formation of the sound is not present in the L1 language, such as / θ / and / ð /, which tend to be replaced by an over-aspirated /t/ and /d/, and the fricative sounds such as /w/, which often comes out like a /v/ or vice versa ( fricatives are not used in Turkish). There are also variations in the vowel sound, though not so bad as to affect comprehension. Arzu also tends to roll her /r/.

29. Jenkins, J. “Global English and the teaching of pronunciation”. Jenkins argues that intelligibility rather than native correctness should be the end aim in L2 acquisition; this is especially true for learners not intending to integrate into an English speaking country.
30. Brown, G. & Yule, G. (1983). Teaching the Spoken Language. Cambridge University Press. They define transactional communication as that which is primarily concerned with the transmission of information and interactional communication as that which is aimed at establishing and maintaining social connections, such as when people meet for the first time at a party, or bus stop, or any situation where small talk predominates.

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