:
June 19 th , 2014

Conclusion
References
Table of Contents Pg
Student’s background
English Studies
3
Interview
Phonetic transcription
4
6
Analysis
General Analysis
Phonetic Analysis
Grammar Analysis
Proposal
7
8
10
11
12
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2

3
S
TUDENT’S BACKGROUND
The learner’s name is Cristian Velquén; He is a Twenty year old first year student of English Pedagogy at the Universidad Católica de la Santisima Concepción. He is from Ancud, but he is studying here in Concepción this year. Furthermore, he lives with his sister in a boarding house, and his parents live in his hometown.
When we asked him about English Pedagogy, he liked the idea of teaching and learning English, he seemed excited about it, but also he was fond of music.
ENGLISH STUDIES
Cristian Velquén studied English for the first time in primary school; his school was called ‘Anexa’, where he started learning English at in fifth grade. After that, he continued studying English in Secondary school at Liceo Domingo Espiñeira
Riesco where he developed an interest in the English language. Nowadays, he really enjoys watching English TV shows, movies and he also likes English music which makes him look really interested in learning English and in developing his
Second Language.

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INTERVIEW
Q: Good afternoon, my name is Michael Ruiz and this is Jaime Ross. We are going to ask you some questions about your personal life and your academic life.
1.-A: ok
Q: Could you please introduce yourself?
2.-A : yeah, my name is Cristian Velquén, ahhh, I’m 20 years old, I’m from
Ancud and I study English Pedagogy
Q: Do you like English Pedagogy? Why?
3.A: amm, I don’t know, I just like to teach and…
Q: alright…I understand, did you study English in your high school?
4.A: yeah I… ah…in fifth grade I guess, and Anexa school I guess.
Q: Alright. Did you like it?
5.-
A: yeah I like… the language, I like to teach. That’s the main reason I guess.
Q: Have you noticed any change in your level of English?
6- A: Yea h, I noticed because I have a class… Phonetic and that’s help me alot with my use of English I guess.
Q: Why did you choose to study English Pedagogy?
7- A: Hmm… at the first times I think in study another career, but… I don’t know
Q: It’s a tough decision right?
8- A: yes
Q: did you have any other options?
9- A: yes, I’d like to study music pedagogy at the first time but it’s okay.
Q: It’s okay… alright. Music is your hobby…
10- A. yes
Q: it’s like a lifestyle for you?
11- A: Yes, I like to play the guitar, listen music, some movies.
Q: Could you tell me about the members of your family?
12- A: Actually, I live with my sister and my parents live in Ancud. They’re a businessman and on Telephone Company.
Q: Do you think English is important in your life?
13- A: yeah, is not just for me, I guess, in life work is very important because you need this language to project yourself and… that’s it.
Q: Where do you see yourself in ten years from now?

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14- A: I think I would like to finish the English pedagogy career and teach in some school…I don’t know, I’d like to travel another country. I don’t know.
Q: Why?
15- A: Because I’d like to knew new cultures, new people.
Q: What’s your opinion about the university
16- A: I don’t know, is, it’s good for me, the teachers are good, the people are friendly…
Q: I’m going to ask you 2 personal questions. What’s your favorite music and why?
17- A: I like the rock music and especially the grunge, and I don’t know that’s my favorite type of music.
Q: What’s your favorite TV show?
18- A: Actually game of thrones, I like it so much, because…I don’t know, the main character always dies, it’s funny, it’s unexpected.
Q: What’s your favorite character?
19- A: I don’t know… Jon Snow.
Q: Alright, Thank you Cristian.
20- A: Thank you too.

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION
According to the record:
Answer 6:
/jea a: aɪ aɪ aɪ ˈnɒtɪs bɪˈkɒz aɪ hæv a klɑːs e fɒˈnetɪk æm ðæt helmi: e ælɒb wɪð maɪ juːzˈɒf ˈɪŋ.ɡlɪʃ aɪ ɡes/
As it had to be pronounced:
/jes aɪ ˈnəʊ.tɪst bɪˈkəz aɪ hæv ə klɑːs fəˈnet.ɪks ðæt help miː ə lɒt wɪð maɪ juːz əv ˈɪŋ.ɡlɪʃ aɪ ɡes/
Answer seven
/m a: ʌt ð ə fɪrstaɪms aɪ aɪl aɪ aɪ ˈθɪŋkɪn ˈstʌdi aˈnɒter ˈkʌrɪer bʌd ˈ aɪdɒnɒʊ/
As it had to be pronounced:
/ ət.ə ˈfɜːsˈtaɪm aɪ θɪŋk ɪn ˈstʌd.i əˈnʌð.ə r ˈkær.i.ə r bʌt aɪ dəʊnt nəʊ /
6

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ANALYSIS
General Analysis
The first year student that we interviewed had different kind of problems, first of all he had problems with his vocabulary, he was not a very talkative, and when he tried to express an idea, he repeated some words, and also he could not express an idea completely because he did not know the words which made his answers shorter than expected.
Secondly, he had some grammar mistakes; he had problems with tenses, the use of some words, some expressions and collocations, and also the omission some words. It is also probable that he was feeling nervous or also tired because we interviewed him at 7 pm. and he was not too concentrated to express his ideas properly.
Thirdly, on phonetics he sounded normal as a first year student, he did not have too many errors in the way he sounded, and in some words he seemed to have an influence of his L1. In addition, he also omitted final sounds, which is a very common mistake of a first year student.

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Phonetic analysis (examples and analysis)
Cristian has some problems with the pronunciation of vowels that is caused by the influence of L1 in the spelling of words. He pronounced vowels and diphthongs as if these were Spanish phonemes, ignoring that Phonetics in the
English Language has 12 different types of pronunciation for its vowels and 8 diphthongs.
During the interview he made long pauses in his speech using the Chilean phoneme for /e/. Besides he never pronounced the sound “schwa” which is represented by / ə
/, he replaced it by / ɒ
/ for instance: / bɪˈkɒz/ or /əv/ (of) which was said as /ɒf/ (off), inasmuch as he was influenced by his mother tongue.
Consonants:
Cristian has some problems with consonants in terms of ending (final sounds) or at the beginning, omitting or adding phonemes. It is present in the answer 6 where he omitted the final sound of noticed /
ˈnəʊ.tɪst
/ (he said /
ˈnɒtɪs/
) making it sounds as a present tense or in the answer 7 where he added an /s/ in time, making it sounds as plural instead of singular.
Other corrections are:
Word but
: Phonetic transcription Student
/bʌt
/ / bʌd/ lot lɒt lɒb
In both cases, an alveolar stops phoneme /t/ was badly replaced by a stop bilabial phoneme /d/.

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These are usually use to join words into one, the main common example to explain it is “a cup of tea”, in terms of phonetics this is called “consonant to vowel linking” because schwa / ə
/ which act as a vowel, will be linking to cup, making the popular Brit ish expression of “ a cupev ti ”.
Cristian made what he could in this area, but despite of his effort, he made some mistakes and the most visible is in the answer 6: / helmi:
/ which should mean
“help me” with the next phonetic transcription / help miː
/. Therefore, this is a mistake because words cannot be linking each other by different consonant
Elision
Phonetics has certain amount of phenomena in matter of connected speech, to make a change in the pronunciation of words in order to create a pleasant sound in what we are speaking. Elision is one of the commons; it is basically the disappearance of one or more phonemes.
Words: at the first
Phonetic transcription (word by word): / ət/ /ðə/ /ˈfɜːst/ /taɪm/ time
Correction: / ət.ə ˈfɜːsˈtaɪm
/
Student: / ʌt ð ə fɪrstaɪms/
One of the rules of elision is: “if the phoneme /ð/, /d/ or /t/ is between consonants, it disappears. As the student did in the last part /aɪdɒnɒʊ/ (which correct pronunciation is /aɪ dəʊnt nəʊ/) deleting /t/ as American English does.

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Grammar Analysis
“4.-A: yeah I… ah…in fifth grade I guess, and Anexa School I guess.”
Firstly, he omitted the verb studied before fifth grade, to indicate that he studied in that year. Also, he omitted the preposition ‘at’ before Anexa School. Moreover, he used ‘and’ to connect the idea, instead of that he would have replaced and for at, but it is more difficult to do that in speech than in writing. Finally, he repeated I guess, but this is normal on speech the repetition of words which Brown calls
‘Redundancy’.
Correction: yeah I studied in fifth grade I guess, at Anexa School.
“6- A:
Yeah
, I noticed because I have a class… Phonetic and that’s help me a lot with my use of English I guess.”
Firstly, he omitted the auxiliary verb ‘have’ before the verb noticed, because of the use of the tense in the question (present perfect). Secondly, he did not use the auxiliary verb ‘has’ to continue the present perfect tense, instead of that he used is as a contractive form, and also he did not use the tense again this time with the verb ‘help’, in order to be present perfect it had to be helped.
Correction:
Yeah, I have noticed because I have a class… Phonetics and that has helped me a lot with my use of English, I guess.
“
7-
A: Hmm… at the first times, I think in study another career, but… I don’t know”
Firstly, he did not use the right collocation ‘at the first time’, we would have used other options such as ‘at first, as a first instance, initially or at the beginning’.
Secondly, the use of the past tense instead of ‘think’ he should have used
‘thought’, because hes talking about something in the past, also the right collocation is ‘think about something’, and he used ‘think in’. Finally, he made a common mistake with the word ‘career’, which he was referring to ‘degree’.
Correction: at first, I thought about studying another degree, but… I don’t know
“9- A: yes, I’d like to study music pedagogy at the first time but it’s okay.”
Firstly, he used the contractive form of the verb would which is used as ‘i used to’ in the past, but he wanted to say that ‘he wanted to study’. In addition, he used again the wrong collocation ‘a the first time’, he should have used ‘at first’ or ‘at the beginning’.
Correction: yes, I wanted to study music pedagogy at the beginning but it’s okay.
“11- A: Yes, I like to play the guitar, listen music, some movies.”
Firstly, he didn’t use the preposition to that goes always after the verb listen.
Moreover, he omitted the verb watch before some also we thought that the connector and is necessary to connect the last clause.
Correction: Yes, I like to play the guitar, listen to music, and watch some movies

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PROPOSAL
First of all, the objective that all analysis pretends is not just a finding for mistakes without the chance to improve them. Cristian Velquén, our objective of study needs to work a lot in relation to grammar and pronunciation. The level of
English that he have is a quite basic, even though sadly that is the level standard in first years students, and we understand that this problem is not their fault, because he have been learning from his fifth grade, so what have teachers been teaching?
There are different ways to improve different skills. Grammar for instance, is to know the grammatical rules present in a written text or any activity which concern symbolic language. For a first year student Grammar for English
Language Teachers: With Exercises and a Key by Martin Parrot, this is a good alternative to understand the basic grammatical contents. However, the book used by him in class, “Straightforward”, will help him to enlarge the amount of vocabulary, reading different types of text and understanding the functions of the language.
Listening skill can be improved by practice, if there is no practicing, there will be no improvement. It does not matter where or why, the students have to be close in terms of native speaker, could be movies, music or TV shows, but he has to practice as a duty if he wants to be better. There are some webpages that we use in our first year, http://saberingles.com.ar/listening/ , such as: http://www.esl-lab.com/ , http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/general/ , among others.

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CONCLUSION
The analysis that we carried out of a first year university Second Language Learner made us realize the different difficulties that the Language Learners present at the time of learning a new language. That is said; the student that we analyzed had different problems that were common in first year students. Also, this showed us the influence of different factors that the students present at the time of speak, such as anxiety (affective filter), or redundancy (, the lack of ideas or vocabulary.
On top of that, also the influence that the mother tongue has on the L2 at the time of speaking such as pronunciation, structure and false cognates.

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Reference:
Larsen-Freeman, D. (2003). Teaching Language: From Grammar to Grammaring.
Boston:Thomson/Heinle.
Brown, D. (2007). Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language
Pedagogy (3 rd edition).
Michigan: Michigan University.