Expository
Smarthinking Tutor Response Form
Your tutor has written overview comments about your essay in the form below. Your tutor has also embedded comments [in bold and in brackets] within your essay. Thank you for choosing Smarthinking to help you improve your writing!
Hello, I'm Marie C., and I look forward to working with you on this Essay Center Review to improve your writing today. Let's get started!
*Writing Strength: You provide background information about second language learning in your introduction. By doing so, you prepare your readers for the rest of your discussion. Main Idea/Thesis I'm concerned that your essay lacks a clear thesis. You end your introduction with cited information from Mocciaro and Young-Scholten. This sentence doesn't clearly establish your main idea, so the focus of your essay might not be immediately evident. Therefore, I recommend that you develop a clear thesis and present it in your introduction (ideally at the end). Take a look at this example: > An adolescent's self-image is affected by their upbringing, their social interactions, and the ideas that they encounter. The thesis above shows that the essay discusses the factors that affect an adolescent's self-image. Now, what about immigrants' second language learning do you discuss in your essay? Use the example as a guide, and develop a clear thesis. * 11848397, you requested help with Content Development: I also noticed that some ideas about learning the English language can still be further explained. For instance, in your second body paragraph, you cite information from Ionin and Wexler: According to Ionin and Wexler (2002), the learners with tense errors have a common understanding of the use of suppletive inflection and instead employ affixal inflection, coupled with overgeneration of the “be” auxiliary forms, thus unable to create progressive participles resulting in tense errors. However, you don't explain this cited information, so your readers might not fully understand why second language learners often commit tense errors. I suggest, therefore, that you expound on these ideas. To explain Ionin and Wexler's point, you can consider answering these questions: > What is "suppletive inflection?" What is "affixal inflection?" > Why do second language learners often employ affixal inflection? Answering these kinds of questions should help you further develop your essay. Remember that your essay has a maximum allowed word count, so you should keep your explanations succinct. *11848397, you requested help with Grammar & Mechanics: Finally, I'm concerned that some ideas in your essay aren't properly cited. Let's take a look at this sentence from your third body paragraph: Moreover, the findings reveal that L1 bilingual learners are yet to develop significant sensitivity to the “be” grammar paradigm and inflection regarding thematic verbs. You refer to findings, but your sentence doesn't have an in-text citation, so your readers might get confused about what you're referring to. Hence, you should properly cite your sources in text. Remember that you should cite your source whenever you quote, paraphrase, or summarize information from it. Take a look at this example: > Perry et al.'s (2019) findings reveal that student-centered learning enhances students' classroom experience. The sentence above clearly establishes the source of the findings. Now, use this example as a guide, and properly cite your sources in text. Summary of Next Steps:
· Develop a clear thesis.
· Further explain some ideas about learning English.
· Properly cite sources in text.
Thank you for submitting your essay for a review. I enjoyed helping you with this step in the revision process. Have a good day! ~ Marie C.
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Please look for comments [in bold and in brackets] in your essay below. Thank you for submitting your work to Smarthinking! We hope to see you again soon.
EXPOSITORY ESSAY 1
Expository Essay Tense Errors in English Second Language
English Composition w/Research
Introduction
"Tense errors in English among the English second language immigrant learners in America.”
English grammar among the immigrant learners in America is essential in providing basic oral proficiency for communication, reading, and understanding comprehensions. According to Jacobson and Schwartz (2005), learning a second language among learners follows identical developmental patterns regardless of their age and educational background. Learning English as a second language to immigrants in America provides the immigrants with the opportunity to develop communication tools that will enhance their acceptance and coherent co-existence in the American society without experiencing language disparities and communication problems. Formal schooling for the American immigrants has been noted to provide the chance for learners of a second language to learn better and improve their English to enhance communication and working relationship with others in America. Budiharto (2019) points out that possessing a second language for immigrant students gives them skills and the ability to create a structured, orderly, and error-free pieces of essays, composition write-ups, and the ability to make fluent communication which constitutes a vast extent of hope and wish for many EFL teachers in formal schooling systems of America. He notes that many EFL learners undergo multiple problems in learning English as a second language and thus make numerous errors in EFL writing competitions and competency tests. These errors are primarily caused by the learners’ native language, educational background, and schooling form (Dulay & Burt, 1974; Adebayo, 2017). In a cross-linguistic study to understand the role of the native language on the second language acquisition among English and Italian students, Mocciaro and Young-Scholten (2022) noted that learners’ subconscious application of the mental mechanisms influenced the creativity in the construction of the new language from the inputs received even post-puberty.
Tense errors
Tenses constitute a significant part of language grammar competence. Learning grammar may be influenced by the learning process (formal or informal) and other background factors like a native language. Immigrants in America have a diverse influence on the native languages, which constitute varied structures and aspects that might influence the acquisition of a second language. According to Mocciaro and Young-Scholten (2022), misuse of tenses among Italian immigrants and English students with formal or informal schooling backgrounds occurred naturally but improved tense use as they advanced to higher learning levels of English as a second language. [←Expound on this point. What does this information imply about immigrant learners?] According to Jacobson and Schwartz (2005), bilingual children revealed diverse patterns of the morphology of English paste tense conceptualization among the students. Using regular, irregular, and novel verbs among the first language (L1) and 15 students in a typically developing group reveals different error patterns. The accuracy of the use of past tense differs depending on the verb type and error pattern traits.
Many learners experience tense errors due to verb categories, which influence their ability to distinguish the different interactions between the verb type and the group. Large numbers of the L1 learners from diverse ethnic backgrounds learning English as a second language omit verb inflection, thus contributing to the inaccurate English tense or morphology agreement. According to Ionin and Wexler (2002), the learners with tense errors have a common understanding of the use of suppletive inflection and instead employ affixal inflection, coupled with overgeneration of the “be” auxiliary forms, thus unable to create progressive participles resulting in tense errors. The bilingual learners in L2 are better advanced in the two areas above and thus produce limited tense errors. These findings echo what Jacobson and Schwartz (2005) stated about learners' second language learning process following similar development patterns without a significant influence of age and educational background.
Moreover, the findings reveal that L1 bilingual learners are yet to develop significant sensitivity to the “be” grammar paradigm and inflection regarding thematic verbs. This implies that learning English as the second language among the immigrants in America needs to be restructured to emphasize the verb types and groups so that the learners can restructure their mental ability to conceive the tense accuracy based on the verb inflection. This is revealed by the great extent of the tense identified among the L2 English learners compared to L1 among immigrants in America.
English second language learners need a formal learning process that should emphasize the language surface morphology and the “be” auxiliary. In a Spanish learner’s study, English as a second language faced problems of tense matching and contextualization of language aspects (Garrido and Rosado Romero, 2012). Using the proper tenses implies that the learners have developed the ability to match the verbs in the correct category and context. Therefore, the formal schooling system for the EFL learners needs restructuring to implement essential English language verb type identification and tense matching. Taking learners through language morphology and developing the ability to identify and match English contexts creates students the ability creates the correct tense of the verb types used. Improving the EFL teachers’ knowledge of the laxities in the formal schooling system might improve the learners’ ability to learn English grammar rules as the initial steps for developing English competency as a second language in American society.
Although the American education system is designed, taking care of the diverse cultural diversity of the immigrants is critical in achieving English language proficiency among the immigrants. As noted above, native language and educational backgrounds significantly influence English second language learning among immigrants. This implies that immigrants' formal schooling system should identify the diverse EFL teaching methodologies that will be keen on the influences native languages cause on the student's ability to contextualize English language aspects and tenses. Making the formal English learning systems culturally competent might also increase the immigrants' ability to learn English as a second language fluently and faster. This is noted by Mocciaro and Young-Scholten (2022). They stated that over time, the English language becomes more apparent to L2 learners than to L1 as the contextualization of the language’s aspects becomes realistic to the learners’ new setting. Therefore, learning English as a second language among the immigrants to America faces the challenge of the structure of the education system and the background influences. Nevertheless, evidence reveals that learning English as a second language among the American immigrants is attainable with formalized culturally competency education system.
Conclusion
Errors in tenses in English as a second language are shared among the immigrants, originating from the influence of the native language and educational background. [Clearly reiterate your main points here. In what ways do native language and educational background impact immigrants' learning of English?] This implies that American immigrants can learn English as a second language fluently with a proper introduction to the language aspects and surface morphology. Again, the EFL teachers need on-job training to identify native languages' grammar structures and intertwine them in learning the new English language so that the students easily contextualize English aspects in their setting, improving their ability to make the correct verb tenses and use them in the proper context. Therefore, immigrants may need sufficient time on the elementary English language verb types and construction of tenses based on auxiliary “be.” Although tense errors are expected, progressive learning levels eliminate the tense errors among the immigrants and make the bilingual language learning process more realistic and practical.
References
Adebayo, C. U. (2017). Analysis of mother tongue (l1) interference in students’ written English: A case study of Nigerian secondary schools. Retrieved September 8, 2018, from http://othes.univie.ac.at/48223/1/50917.pdf
Dulay, H. C., & Burt, M. K. (1974). Natural sequences in child second language acquisition. Language Learning, 24(1), 37–53. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-1770.1974.tb00234.x
Garrido, C. G., & Rosado Romero, C. (2012). Errors in the use of English tenses. Íkala, revista de lenguaje y cultura, 17(3), 285-296.
Ionin, T., & Wexler, K. (2002). Why is ‘is’ more accessible than ‘-s’?: acquisition of tense/agreement morphology by child second language learners of English. Second language research, 18(2), 95-136.
Jacobson, P. F., & Schwartz, R. G. (2005). English past tense use in bilingual children with language impairment. https://pubs.asha.org/doi/full/10.1044/1058-0360%282005/030%29 [←This reference entry isn't properly formatted. Remember to cite all needed elements such as the name of the journal. Look at this example:
Chavan, V., Penev, L., & Hobern, D. (2013). Cultural change in data publishing is essential. BioScience, 63(6), 419–420. https://doi.org/10.1525/bio.2013.63.6.3]
Mocciaro, E., & Young-Scholten, M. (2022). Why and How Grammar Matters for Post-puberty Immigrants with Limited Formal Schooling. In English and Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education (pp. 321-339). Springer, Cham.