scholarly journals Synchronic Account of Substitution among Educated Ohaozara Speakers of English

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 52-60
Author(s):  
Okechukwu Okorie ◽  
Joekin Ekwueme ◽  
Nkeiru Angela Ezeh
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
English Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Sampling Technique ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Second Language Speakers ◽  
Audio Recorder ◽  
Good Number ◽  
Problem Data

Substitution is a natural experience among second language speakers because it occurs in a situation where the target language presents segments that do not exist in the native language of speakers. Native speakers, therefore, unavoidably try to overcome the linguistic problem of having to articulate sounds that are present in the foreign language but unavailable in their mother tongue. It is against this linguistic pedigree that this study explored the synchronic account of substitution among educated Ohaozara speakers of English using the Natural Phonology Hypotheses (NPH) as its analytical tool. The study aimed to identify and account for the particular cases of phonological substitution as it affects Ohaozara educated speakers of the English language and thereafter, recommend workable and sustainable remedies that would mitigate the problem. Data for the study were collected through the use of audio recorder and a reading comprehension passage. One hundred (100) educated Ohaozara speakers of English, who were drawn at random, using the stratified random sampling technique, participated in the study. The data were analyzed quantitatively in accordance with the tenets of NPH. The results showed that the speakers exhibited acts of phoneme substitution in most of their spoken discourses in English as evidenced by both data. The study offered a good number of recommendations and suggestions to mitigate the problem.

scholarly journals Teaching English in India —The Use of Technologically Enhanced Realia in the Classroom

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 149
Author(s):  
Priya K. Nair
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
English Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Teaching English ◽  
Job Market ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Listening And Speaking ◽  
Speaking Skills

In India acquisition of English language is imperative if one wants to sell oneself in the increasingly competitive job market. With a booming population the nation is filled with educated, technologically literate youth. English is not merely a foreign language in India. As India is separated by a plethora of languages knowledge of English is imperative. As the teachers in India are not native speakers of English the language they teach is not free from errors. The articulation is quite problematic as the mother tongue influence is quite pronounced. Technology helps to reduce these errors. Movies as a tool can enhance the listening and speaking skills of our students. It is quite boring to work with disembodied voices and the recorded conversations available in language labs do not sustain the learner’s interest. However learners are often forced to listen to recorded conversations of people they never see, the conversation is often stilted and contemporary idiom is hardly used. However, a completely new dimension to aural practice can be added in the classroom by using movies. <br /><p><strong> </strong></p>

USE OF THE MOTHER TONGUE IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE INTERACTION

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 177-181
Author(s):  
Ekaterina Sofronieva ◽  
◽  
Christina Beleva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
English Language ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Language Education ◽  
Foreign Language Education ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Nursery Schools ◽  
Comprehension Skills ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
English Speaking

The article offers a brief historical overview of some of the main methods in foreign language teaching and focuses on the use of the native language in their application. A modern study conducted among children from nursery schools in Bulgaria shows that when language education is carried out only in the target language, children also use only this language in their language interactions and vice versa. Some of the research findings are that 42.2 percent of the children whose teachers communicate with them in both languages, also make use of Bulgarian when trying to convey meanings and messages in English language. In general, children’s comprehension skills are better developed than their English speaking skills. In conclusion, the research results show that at the present stage, the offered foreign language education of children in nursery schools as entertaining as it may be, is not effective enough. Working methods and well-established approaches should be applied in early foreign language education of children in order to develop their skills to communicate in a new language.

scholarly journals Pragma-linguistic Difficulties in the Recognition of Phrasal Verbs by Iraqi EFL University Learners

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 148
Author(s):  
Mohanad A. Amret ◽  
Sinan A. Yousif
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
First Language ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Phrasal Verbs ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
First Language Transfer ◽  
Culture Gap

The purpose of this paper is to recognize the level of pragma-linguistic difficulties Iraqi EFL university learners face when handling phrasal verbs. Despite the fact that phrasal verbs are easy to understand by native speakers of English, non-native speakers usually encounter some difficulties in understanding the meaning of a phrasal verb depending on the meaning of the root verb, or different phrasal verbs of the same root. The problem might be attributed to pragma-linguistic knowledge. However, culture gap could be the reason behind such difficulties. The aim of the study is (1) to evaluate the pragma-linguistic level of interpreting phrasal verbs as understood and used by Iraqi EFL university learners, (2) to check the level of difficulty they experience while recognizing phrasal verbs, and (3) to find out reasons behind such misinterpretations. It is hypothesized that (1) the pragma-linguistic interpretation of phrasal verbs tends to play an important role in understanding the message conveyed by the speaker; (2) cultural gap could be the reason that EFL learners recognize phrasal verbs incorrectly, and (3) mother tongue language might make it difficult for EFL learners to understand phrasal verbs. To verify the aforementioned hypothesis, a test has been constructed and administered to a sample of 100 fourth-year Iraqi EFL university learners, morning classes at the department of English Language and Literature, College of Arts, in Mustansiriyah University, during the academic year 2017 – 2018. The responses of the students have been collected and linguistically analyzed according to a model given by Richards and Schmidt (2010). It has been found that Iraqi students’ lack of cultural norms of the target language makes it difficult for them to understand phrasal verbs. The lack of this knowledge is considered as a factor of confusion and then failure. The influence of the first language culture on the recognition of phrasal verbs may be seen as a negative first language transfer. The reason behind this negative transfer is that the norms and principles of first language are different from the norms and principles of the target language. It has been concluded that Iraqi EFL university learners have difficulties in pragma-linguistic knowledge as far as phrasal verbs are concerned. Iraqi EFL university learners face great difficulties in using phrasal verbs while communicating with other people. While using phrasal verbs, Iraqi EFL university learners have been highly influenced by their mother tongue language.

On professional identity of English language teachers

10.12737/3591 ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 98-108
Author(s):  
Галина Чудайкина ◽  
Galina Chudaykina
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Personal Experience ◽  
English Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Foreign Language Teachers ◽  
Professional Background ◽  
English Language Teachers ◽  
English Speaking

A vast majority of English language teachers in Russia are not native speakers with no or inadequately little personal experience of living in an English-speaking country. What are the specifics of teaching in view of such an authenticity-lacking professional background, and how does the personality of a teacher reveal itself and is transformed in the course of teaching? How does language teaching affect self-identification? What should a teacher focus on attaining or, by contrast, avoiding in view of the above-raised issues? A significant number of foreign language teachers who are not native speakers demonstrate a clear non-target-language-specific accent, thus, either inadvertently or purposefully, revealing and asserting their national identity. The author of the article aims at identifying the problems that the teacher’s explicit target-language-alien accent may cause to both learners and teachers, and the root causes of the accent resilience.

scholarly journals The Functions of Code_Switching in EFL Classrooms

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 135
Author(s):  
Suthagar Narasuman ◽  
Ahmad Zahir Wali ◽  
Zahra Sadry
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
English Language ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Code Switching ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Cultural Issues ◽  
Interview Method ◽  
Language Classes ◽  
Multilingual Societies

Code-switching is a concept which has existed in bilingual and multilingual societies and it occurs quite frequently in English as a second or foreign language classes. Especially when the learners are all bilinguals or multilinguals and they have to switch back and forth between their mother tongue and a second or foreign language. This paper is driven by the three objectives. First, the study investigates the situations which trigger code-switching in EFL classes in Balkh and Kandahar Universities of Afghanistan. Secondly, it investigates the perception of Afghan EFL lecturers in these universities towards code-switching. Third, to find out how the EFL lecturers use code-switching as an effective strategy while teaching English in their classes. In this study, the qualitative research approach was used to collect data from four Afghan English language lecturers of the two universities via the interview method. The results of this study indicate that these Afghan EFL lecturers have a positive perception regarding code-switching and they are using it in certain situations which facilitate their teaching and students’ learning of the content, however they also hold negative perception towards switching while teaching. The findings also show that the lecturers use code-switching in different situations such as when dealing with cultural issues that tend to be difficult to explain only in the target language, explaining grammar and new vocabulary, giving clear instructions, and instructing English for Specific Purposes (ESP) classes.

scholarly journals ACQUISITION OF THE INFLECTIONAL MORPHOLOGY OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE: AN ERROR ANALYSIS APPROACH

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 19-37
Author(s):  
Emad M Al-Saidat
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
English Language ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Minor Role ◽  
Inflectional Morphology ◽  
Teaching English ◽  
Arab Students ◽  
A Minor

This paper aims to identify errors committed by Arab learners of English as a foreign language in the area of inflectional morphology. Errors are classified according to their type in comparison with what seems to be correct in the target language. In order to pinpoint the areas of difficulty and find what makes these areas difficult, the researcher classified errors with reference to their sources into intralingual, interlingual, ambiguous and other errors. The paper also aims at finding possible solutions for the difficulties learners encounter when learning a foreign language in general and English language in particular in a way that would help teachers overcome such difficulties when teaching English to Arab students. It concludes that learners’ mother tongue plays a minor role as the interlingual errors constitute less than 25% of the total number of learner errors; whereas, other factors such as overgeneralization and learning strategies play a major role in learning a foreign language as far as this sample is concerned.  

FIRST AND SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING THROUGH TEXTBOOKS IN ALBANIAN SCHOOLS (COMPARATIVE OVERVIEW OF ALBANIAN AND ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEXTBOOKS)

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (7) ◽  
pp. 2319-2324
Author(s):  
Rina Muka ◽  
Irida Hoti
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Second Language Learning ◽  
English Language ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
First Language ◽  
Grammatical Knowledge ◽  
Level Of Education ◽  
The Third

The language acquired from the childhood is the language spoken in the family and in the place of living. This language is different from one pupil to another, because of their social, economical conditions. By starting the school the pupil faces first the ABC book and then in the second grade Albanian language learning through the Albanian language textbook. By learning Albanian language step by step focused on Reading, Writing, Speaking and Grammar the pupil is able to start learning the second language on the next years of schooling. So, the second language learning in Albanian schools is related to the first language learning (mother tongue), since the early years in primary school. In our schools, the second language (English, Italian) starts in the third grade of the elementary class. On the third grade isn’t taught grammar but the pupil is directed toward the correct usage of the language. The textbooks are structured in developing the pupil’s critical thinking. The textbooks are fully illustrated and with attractive and educative lessons adequate to the age of the pupils. This comparative study will reflect some important aspects of language learning in Albanian schools (focused on Albanian language - first language and English language - second language), grade 3-6. Our point of view in this paper will show not only the diversity of the themes, the lines and the sub-lines but also the level of language knowledge acquired at each level of education. First, the study will focus on some important issues in comparing Albanian and English language texts as well as those which make them different: chronology and topics retaken from one level of education to another, so by conception of linear and chronological order will be shown comparatively two learned languages (mother tongue and second language). By knowing and learning well mother tongue will be easier for the pupil the foreign language learning. The foreign language (as a learning curriculum) aims to provide students with the skills of using foreign language written and spoken to enable the literature to recognize the achievements of advanced world science and technology that are in the interest of developing our technique. Secondly, the study will be based on the extent of grammatical knowledge, their integration with 'Listening, Reading, Speaking and Writing' as well as the inclusion of language games and their role in language learning. The first and second language learning in Albanian schools (grade III-VI) is based on similar principles for the linearity and chronology of grammatical knowledge integrated with listening, reading, writing and speaking. The different structure of both books help the pupils integrate and use correctly both languages. In the end of the sixth grade, the pupils have good knowledge of mother tongue and the second language and are able to write and speak well both languages.

GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES OF VERBS IN ENGLISH AND ALBANIAN

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (7) ◽  
pp. 2245-2249
Author(s):  
Suzana Ejupi ◽  
Lindita Skenderi
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Learning Process ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
English Language ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Part Of Speech ◽  
Grammatical Categories ◽  
Learning English

Working with English learners for many years, gives you the opportunity to encounter linguistic obstacles that they face while learning English language as a foreign language. Additionally, teaching for 13 years and observing the learning process, it enables you to recognize the students’ needs and at the same time, detect linguistic mistakes that they make, while practicing the target language. During my experience as a teacher, in terms of teaching and learning verbs in general and its grammatical categories in specific, it is noticed that Albanian learners find it relatively difficult the correct use of verbs in context and even more confusing the equivalent use of verbs in Albanian. Since verbs present an important part of speech, this study aims to investigate several differences and similarities between grammatical categories of verbs in English and Albanian. As a result, the Albanian learners of English language will be able to identify some of the major differences and similarities between the grammatical categories of verbs in English and Albanian; overcome the usual mistakes; gain the necessary knowledge regarding verbs and use them properly in English and Albanian.

The role of cross-linguistic stress pattern frequency and word similarity on the acquisition of English stress pattern by native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Post Silveira
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
American English ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Stress Pattern ◽  
Target Language ◽  
English As Second Language ◽  
Word Similarity ◽  
L1 Transfer

This is a preliminary study in which we investigate the acquisition of English as second language (L2[1]) word stress by native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese (BP, L1[2]). In this paper, we show results of a multiple choice forced choice perception test in which native speakers of American English and native speakers of Dutch judged the production of English words bearing pre-final stress that were both cognates and non-cognates with BP words. The tokens were produced by native speakers of American English and by Brazilians that speak English as a second language. The results have shown that American and Dutch listeners were consistent in their judgments on native and non-native stress productions and both speakers' groups produced variation in stress in relation to the canonical pattern. However, the variability found in American English points to the prosodic patterns of English and the variability found in Brazilian English points to the stress patterns of Portuguese. It occurs especially in words whose forms activate neighboring similar words in the L1. Transfer from the L1 appears both at segmental and prosodic levels in BP English. [1] L2 stands for second language, foreign language, target language. [2] L1 stands for first language, mother tongue, source language.

Translating ambiguous and nonambiguous Words in a foreign Language

2003 ◽  
Vol 139-140 ◽  
pp. 129-152
Author(s):  
Paul Bogaards ◽  
Elisabeth Van Der Linden ◽  
Lydius Nienhuis
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
University Students ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Lexical Ambiguity ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Bilingual Lexicon ◽  
The Individual

The research to be reported on in this paper was originally motivated by the finding that about 70% of the mistakes made by university students when translating from their mother tongue (Dutch) into their foreign language (French) were lexical in nature (NIENHUIS et al. 1989). This was partially confinned in the investigation described in NIENHUIS et al. (1993). A closer look at the individual errors suggested that many problems were caused by words with more than one meaning which each require different translations in the target language. In the research reported on in this paper, we checked our fmdings in the light of what is known about the structure of the bilingual lexicon and about the ways bilinguals have access to the elements of their two languages. On the basis of the model of the bilingual lexicon presented by KROLL & Sholl (1992) an adapted model is proposed for the processing of lexical ambiguity. This leads to a tentative schema of the mental activities that language learners have to perfonn when they are translating from their mother tongue into a foreign language, The second part of the paper describes two experiments we have carried out in order to find empirical support for such a schema. The last section of the paper contains a discussion of the results obtained as well as the conclusions that can be drawn.

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