Title: Learner Language
Find a non-native speaker of English who is prepared to be interviewed for your assignment.
You will need to explain to your participant why you are doing the interview and ask them to sign a consent form.
The participant could be a fellow student at Leeds on a course other than TESOL or a member of your family or friendship group. Make an audio recording of the interview. The interview should cover:
i) Why they decided to do their current job or course of study and any interesting or problematic experiences they have had while they have been doing this job or course of study here;
ii) A description of an historical event that relates to their home country or has a personal connection to them;
iii) A discussion of a current issue or story from the news
You will need to record and transcribe the interview, typically recording more data than you will actually use and then selecting approximately 5 minutes of data for each section, i, ii and iii, for transcription. Transcription of this amount of data is likely to take approximately two hours.
Undertake a systematic comparison and contrast of the learners’ use of the most important features of phonological, grammatical, vocabulary and pragmatic competence in the three tasks, identifying both strengths and weaknesses;
discuss how the strengths and weakness you identify can be attributed interlingual factors such as L1 transfer, or intralingual factors such as processing strategies (e.g. simplification and overgeneralisation), or other factors.’ and
consider implications for your subject’s continuing language development.
For this assignment you can use your reading related to language development and from language description in EDUC5934.
Presentation of essay
The paper should include
a brief introductory outline,
A review of the literature related to language development;
an account of the task;
an analysis of the transcript data drawing on EDUC5934;
a discussion of possible reasons for the strengths and weaknesses in the learner’s language
a discussion of implications for the learner’s language development.
You should include the transcriptions of the tasks in an appendix. The transcripts are not included in your word count. You should also include a copy of the signed consent form in an appendix.
