Blanca Coma Spring 2010 Error Analysis 1: Simple Past Tense Student and Data Description Ella (pseudonym)

is a freshman at SFSU who is taking a CMS 208 class, where I am a Teachers Assistant. She has lived in the USA for five years. She came to the US with her family, and she lives with them. At home, they speak Taishan, but she also speaks Mandarin and Cantonese. In High School, she was placed in ESL classes, and she stayed there until she graduated last spring. Since Ella and her family are living in the US permanently, one of her main reasons for learning English is to integrate and acculturate. Furthermore, since her goal is to get a degree at SFSU, she wants to master academic English. We meet every Thursday for an hour. Ellas English is comprehensible; however, her writing (both formal and informal) shows problems with word choice, determiners, and verb tense. Ella is very aware of her verb tense problems, and she is very vocal about reminding me that this is her main concern. My data samples consist of two informal texts and the final draft of her latest essay for the class. The emails are part of an ongoing conversation we have been having. Ella tells me what she did over the weekend, and then we discuss it during our session. The essay is an assignment that is loosely based on a short piece the students read at the beginning of the semester: Letting in Light by Patricia Raybon. The prompt for the essay asks students to describe a small task or job they learned when they were younger, explain where and who they learned it from, and discuss if they enjoy doing it. Ellas topic is doing the dishes at home.

Coma Error Identification1 There are several types of errors in the data (e.g. preposition use, sentence boundary, word choice/collocations, etc.), but the most salient one, and the one Ella is most worried about, is verb tense. For this error analysis, the focus will be Ellas use of the simple past tense. In the sample data, Ella has 37 instances of correct use. Below are some examples of correct use from her essay: 1. Correct: I saw my mother was really tired when she finished. 2. Correct: She saw all the dishes were very clean. 3. Correct: I tried to wash about four to five dishes, I felt tired doing this job. And from her emails: 4. Correct: Therefore, I was very terrible to correct grammar because I didnt know when I can use different tense. 5. Correct: In the buffer restaurant, there were almost fifty choices I can choose to eat. 6. Correct: The foods were taste. In the data provided, Ella has 38 instances of incorrect use of the simple past tense (i.e. using it when she should not or not using it when she should). Here are some examples from her essay where Ella is speaking about her experience when she was eight years old: 7. Incorrect: I felt very shameful because my mother has to wash dishes every day and has to go to work. [In both cases, it should be had]. 8. Incorrect: As my own experience, I still remember that I help my mother to wash dishes in eight years old. [It should be helped]. 9. Incorrect: Then I was stood in front of my mother and said, I will help you to wash dishes today, you could go and take a break. [It should be stood]. And from her emails, where she tells me about her past weekend:

See Appendix D for error key.

Coma

10. Incorrect: These were one more assignment that makes me crazy which is revising the essay (Eng208). [It should be made and was]. 11. Incorrect: [Referring to the day before] My sister knows how to drive but she doesnt know the location. [It should be didnt know]. 12. Incorrect: i was totally forgot to send you an e_mail. [It should be forgot]. The number of Ellas correct uses of the simple past tense may have been inflated by the irregular verbs. For verbs that use the same form for the simple present tense and the simple past tense, it is difficult to ascertain if she is in fact using the past. For instance, in her essay, she writes, Second, I put all the dishes in the sink and My mother let me wash dishes. Based on the context, both instances should be in the simple past tense, but, after checking with Ella, she seemed confused as to why let did not have an s-ending. She knows only the present has this inflection, so she did not understand why her teacher had not marked it as an error. Error Analysis Linguistic Description: Simple Past Tense Like most ESL students, Ella seems to struggle with the intrinsic meaning of the simple past tense. According to Knowles, distinguishing between past and present tenses requires understanding the core meaning (Knowles 1979 as cited in Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman 1999, p. 112) of the forms. This idea of core meaning is described as the most central, primary, or invariant (Hatch and Brown 1995 as cited in Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman 1999, p. 112) meaning of the form. For the simple past tense, core meaning can be described by two concepts: 1. remoteness (tense) (Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman 1999, p. 113): The action has occurred before the time of reference; and 2. completeness (aspect): The event has to have started and finished at a particular moment in the past. For example, in the sentence Rita studied French at UC Berkeley, it is

Coma understood that Rita did so at a specific time in the past (remoteness) and that she is no longer studying French; she completed her action in the past (completeness). Relevant Grammar Rules In English, the combination of tense and aspect brings about twelve possible ways of expressing a

finite verb. For this analysis, the focus is on one of these combinations: past tense (remoteness) and simple aspect (completeness). According to Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman, there are six accepted uses of the simple past tense: A concrete action or event that has been completed in the past: I lost my keys last night. An action or event that is repeated habitually in the past: I lost my keys once a month last year. An action or event that was relevant in the past with the understanding that it is no longer relevant: He studied at UC Berkeley for five years. With stative verbs in the past: I knew the truth right away. In the subordinate clause of a hypothetical conditional that refers to the present: If he had enough money to buy a house, he would spend it on a trip around the world. For social distancing or politeness in the present time: Did you want to take a look around the store before trying this dress on? Biber, Conrad, & Leech add another one, In reported speech, the original speech or thoughts may have been in present tense, but past tense is usually used for the reports (2009, p. 153). The present and past tense can appear in four different combinations: And then the next morning she said she didnt want to ever talk to him again. And then the next morning she says she didnt want to ever talk to him again. And then the next morning she says she doesnt want to ever talk to him again.

Coma And then the next morning she said she doesnt want to ever talk to him again. Analysis Sometimes, Ella is able to correct simple past tense mistakes on her own because she can identify time markers. However, she seldom uses time markers in her writing, and most of her errors with the simple past tense seem to occur in sentences where she does not specify the time of the action with a time expression. For instance, in her essay, the second paragraph should be narrated in the

past, since she is explaining what took place when she was eight years old. However, since there are no markers of time, she describes the action in the simple present tense. Not having an equivalent concept of verb tense in her other languages, Ella probably finds the very concept of showing remoteness and completeness in just one word (the verb) quite abstract and random. For this reason, using time markers could help her recognize the tense and aspect needed for each sentence by framing the action. Another noticeable error pattern in Ellas writing is that, sometimes, as in example 12, she adds was to the simple past tense form, as if it were the passive voice. She writes, i was totally forgot to send you an e_mail instead of using, I totally forgot to send you an email. She also does this in her essay, for example, she writes, At first, I was collected all the dirty trash instead of writing, At first, I collected all the dirty trash. I believe this is a reflection of Ellas hyperawareness about verb tense issues: she overcorrects. She knows she needs to use the past, and she makes it double past. During a recent tutoring session, she confirmed my belief. She told me she was trying to make sure it was in the past, so she wrote it twice. As a result of our conversation, she seemed to become aware that the simple past tense form is sufficient by itself to show remoteness and completeness. During my last tutoring session with Ella, I noticed that, when she included time expressions, she was able to assess when to use the simple past tense. Once we discussed how she could use these

Coma expressions, she was able to correct most of her simple past tense errors on her own. Also, as mentioned earlier, her use of was plus the simple past tense form to make the past twice was also something she could correct on her own when she understood there was no need for it. For these reasons, I believe her errors are becoming performance errors, which she can self-correct. Feedback and Follow up Explanation of Grammatical Rule Since Ella seems hyperaware of her problems with the simple past tense and uses very negative language when speaking about her own writing and errors, I would start by helping her notice how many times she uses the tense and form correctly, and how she is able to correct on her own. She seems so focused on her errors that I believe she does not notice her achievements, and her confidence is being affected. I have noticed she likes to work with her own writing, so I would suggest we look at some of the instances when she has used the tense correctly and some of the errors her teacher has marked. Focusing only on simple past tense, I would ask her if she could explain to me what may be wrong (or right) and why. I would ask her questions that addressed the completeness and remoteness concepts. For example, I would ask, When did the action happen? How do you know? Is the action still going on? When did it end? I would also use a timeline chart with her to be able to express time in relation to the present time. She is familiar with this kind of charts, so I would ask her to draw it and explain it as needed. In class she has learned one of the most common uses of the simple past tense (e.g. an activity or situation began and ended at a particular time in the past) (Azar 2002, p. 26), but sometimes her errors may relate to other uses of the simple past tense. In order to help her understand some of these other uses, I would introduce them as needed and then provide examples.

Coma Besides analyzing her work, I would recommend practicing with other texts. To this end, I would present some activities: Controlled Practice 1 In order to help Ella notice time words and expressions, I would give her a worksheet with a text where she would have to underline all the time expressions and then fill in the correct verb tense (mostly, simple past tense). For an example, see Appendix A. Controlled Practice 2 Since Ella likes working with her own writing, I would have her bring a clean copy of her essay. First, I would ask her to underline all the time expressions. Then I would ask her to circle all finite

verbs and check their tenses. As she did this, I would ask her questions to promote her awareness of tense. I would then suggest that she added time expressions to her sentences to help her (and the reader) keep track of time. This activity could be a confidence-booster for Ella, since it would promote independent learning. Guided Practice I would give Ella a worksheet with a list of suggested verbs, locations, and people to write a story. She would have to make choices and create a coherent story. For an example, see Appendix B. Communicative Practice I would propose that we create a movie poster. This task would take more than one session, but we would dedicate the last ten minutes of each session to this project. First, we would make up the movies story, and then we would create a poster together. The story would have to have taken place in the past to elicit the use of simple past tense. This task would involve negotiation and creative language since we would have to come to an agreement for each step of the process. For an example, see Appendix C.

Coma References Biber, D., Conrad, S. & Leech, G. (2009). Longman student grammar of spoken and written English, 8th edition. Essex: Pearson. Celce-Murcia, M. & Larsen-Freeman, D. (1999). The grammar book: an ESL/EFL teachers course, 2nd edition. Boston: Heinle & Heinle. Schrampfer Azar, B. (2002). Understanding and using English grammar, 3rd edition. New York: Pearson Education. Washington Pollock, C. (1982) Communicate what you mean: Grammar for high-level ESL students. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Appendix A: Controlled practice 1 Read this text and underline all the time words and expressions you find. Then read it again and complete the gaps with the correct verb tense and form: Last week, on Wednesday, we ________________ (have) our first grammar test. It _____________ (be) a test on the tenses. The instructor ______________________ (no/be) very happy with the results because not enough students ____________________ (receive) high grades. As a result, on Thursday, she _____________________ (review) the test with the class. While we _________________ (talk) about the test and the correct use of the tenses, I _________________ (think) about how difficult it ______________________ (be) to learn to use the tenses spontaneously. I ____________________(be) a little disappointed with my grade because this test _______________________(be) the first grammar exam that we _________________________ (have) so far, and I really _______________________ (want) to get a good grade. Exercise adapted from Washington Pollock, C. (1982). Appendix B: Guided practice Choose a couple of these characters and write a fictional story about where they went on their last vacation and what they did there (at least ten sentences). Remember to add time expressions.

Characters: Lady GaGa, Beyonce, Brad Pitt, Zack Effron, you, __________________ Locations: Hawaii, Vallejo, Oakland, Vancouver, New York, Manila, _______________... Suggested verbs: travel, get lost, relax, worry, laugh, enjoy, read, sleep, _______________...

Coma Appendix C: Communicative practice We are going to make a poster for a movie. First we need to create the story, which took place thirty years ago in San Francisco. The story needs to have the following elements: A main character An enemy A secret A surprise

Then we are going to make the poster.

Appendix D: Error data key SPT Simple past tense error (either it should have been used, or it is used when another tense should be usednot marked for verb form errors) Correct use (underlined) Incorrect use (underlined)

____