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Post by Ricardo de Souza on Sept 12, 2016 14:29:52 GMT
Dear all,
The following video talks about a vastly accepted hypothesis concerning the causes of bilingual accents in an L2:
In this forum, we invite you to provide examples of bilingual speech that could illustrate such hypothesis that you have come across in your English language teaching experience.
We look forward to hearing from you!
Ricardo de Souza and Marisa Carneiro
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Post by Aline Santiago on Sept 13, 2016 16:53:11 GMT
One example I could come up with after watching the video, was one that always catches my students: the "re" sound at the end of some British words such as "centre". They usually can't pronounce it so there is always a need to compare the word with the American version "center", where they become much more comfortable to pronounce it. Another example I can remember is the ending "tion" as in "conversation", where some students produce the "T" sound instead of "shen" (read the "e" upside down as read in the phonological chart).
As for the syntax, I suppose the biggest transfer is in the adjective-noun order for the basic students, e.g. "She is a girl beautiful." as they would say in L1. Another complicated sentence formation for them comes with the possessive case ('s). E.g. "This is my grandmother's house." They often get confused concerning where the apostrophe should go and sometimes even misplace the order of the words.
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Post by Águida Sá on Sept 13, 2016 22:25:34 GMT
After watching the vídeo, I was remembering the texts we have studied during our classes related to transfers between L1 and L2 in the process of learning. And, as you said, Aline, I also think that the biggest transfer in syntax is the order of the adjectives and nouns in sentences like the one you remembered. They always organize the sentence thinking in the structure of L1. Another example I have noticed is related to use of pronouns like 'his' and 'her': "Her name is Kate." They are often confused about the correct pronouns and its order in the sentence. At the same time, they try to put an article when they start the sentence as in L1.
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Carolina Echevarria
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Post by Carolina Echevarria on Sept 14, 2016 15:25:45 GMT
As for the syntax, I suppose the biggest transfer is in the adjective-noun order for the basic students, e.g. "She is a girl beautiful." as they would say in L1. I guess that's the most common mistake among speakers of Portuguese; I often use English word order in sentences while speaking Portuguese,not only adjectives, but specially adverbs. I believe another regular interference of English syntax is the use of pronouns - I usually use them unnecessarily while speaking Portuguese, whereas students forget to apply them while speaking English. |
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Post by viviankarine on Sept 15, 2016 11:02:22 GMT
Helll there  Besides all my classmates' contributions, I remembered one mistake that most of my students make all the time: "I HAVE ELEVEN YEARS OLD", instead of using the verb To Be, and some of them are not able to understand why you can't use verb "to Have". |
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Post by viviankarine on Sept 15, 2016 11:03:28 GMT
Guys, sorry, I meant to say HELLO, THERE !!!  |
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Post by Wanius Carvalho on Sept 15, 2016 11:21:09 GMT
It was very interesting when he provided the word “sparkle” as an example. I have frequently seen Brazilian speakers of English pronouncing the word “snake” as if there was an “i" phoneme at the beginning, i.e., [isneIk] instead of [sneIk].
When asked if it was all right, a student of mine told me “until here it’s good” when he really meant “so far so good”. This is a case of transfer at the semantic level.
An explicit example of transfer from Portuguese to English, at the syntactic level, happens when a speaker tries to come up with an implied subject in a sentence as in cause clauses, for example: “She is studying hard because (?) wants to pass the test”.
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Post by Aline Santiago on Sept 15, 2016 21:59:36 GMT
Helll there Besides all my classmates' contributions, I remembered one mistake that most of my students make all the time: "I HAVE ELEVEN YEARS OLD", instead of using the verb To Be, and some of them are not able to understand why you can't use verb "to Have". Vivian that's a classical example! Well remembered. And this is a mistake that they still make even at an intermediate level. |
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Post by Liliane Carvalhaes on Sept 16, 2016 2:36:50 GMT
It was very interesting when he provided the word “sparkle” as an example. I have frequently seen Brazilian speakers of English pronouncing the word “snake” as if there was an “i" phoneme at the beginning, i.e., [isneIk] instead of [sneIk]. When asked if it was all right, a student of mine told me “until here it’s good” when he really meant “so far so good”. This is a case of transfer at the semantic level. An explicit example of transfer from Portuguese to English, at the syntactic level, happens when a speaker tries to come up with an implied subject in a sentence as in cause clauses, for example: “She is studying hard because (?) wants to pass the test”. Yes Wanius, well thought. Another classic is the sound of this same "i" phoneme at the end of the word hot. My students always say that and their attachment to L1 is very clear. Transfer occus constantly and I believe is a natural process. |
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Post by Wanius Carvalho on Sept 16, 2016 9:59:57 GMT
It was very interesting when he provided the word “sparkle” as an example. I have frequently seen Brazilian speakers of English pronouncing the word “snake” as if there was an “i" phoneme at the beginning, i.e., [isneIk] instead of [sneIk]. Yes Wanius, well thought. Another classic is the sound of this same "i" phoneme at the end of the word hot. My students always say that and their attachment to L1 is very clear. Transfer occus constantly and I believe is a natural process. Well said, Liliane. Regarding most of the silent sounds in English, I'd say that learners tend to use this extra phoneme after them. Another examples are: book(i), test(i), job(i), stop(i), and so on... I couldn't agree more with you when you claim that this is a natural process, but we have to raise awareness to such differences as the students' language level increases. Regards |
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Post by viviankarine on Sept 16, 2016 10:19:22 GMT
Some of my students sometimes say "I have two brothers" when they really meant to say "I have two siblings"; some of them can't get out of their minds that brother is just for boys and, they can't use as a general idea as in Portuguese. |
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Dayse Lucide Sacramento
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Post by Dayse Lucide Sacramento on Sept 16, 2016 13:48:57 GMT
Hello everybody!
well, I´m not teacher, but I remember when I started learning english in my mind I couldnt understand when I was talking about food I had to say "I´m having my breakfast/dinner or lunch" instead "I´m eating....".
There was a funny episode, once I was talking to my landlady in the kitchen and I was hungry, so I asked her: Mrs. Atrill, may I "take" some biscuits? She laughed and answered me: Dayse, you may "take" a taxi, a bus, a train but you never "take" biscuits, ok?" she was very kind and patient with all students that were living in her house, she could understand the mistakes and difficulties that each student had, which were due to a possible transfer from one language to another, to the English in the case.
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Carolina Echevarria
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Post by Carolina Echevarria on Sept 16, 2016 15:25:48 GMT
"When asked if it was all right, a student of mine told me “until here it’s good” when he really meant “so far so good”. This is a case of transfer at the semantic level." Interestingly,I'd like to share an activity I did with a group of upper-intermediate students not only in order to raise awareness of semantic differences, but also to make them ponder what the best language choices are when we know we will mostly be communicating with non-native speakers of English rather than native ones. My students often ask questions such as How do you say “encher linguiça”? “Encher o saco”? or “Encher a cara”? So I asked them to write a Brazilian expression such as those on paper. Even though I was working with adults, I monitored to ensure no bad words or offensive ideas would be part of the activity. Then I asked students to fold the slips of paper and collected their ideas. Later, I told learners to work in pairs, finding out good translations for the expressions, as well as examples. I advised them to look them up at www.englishexperts.com.br, www.teclasap.com.br, english4brazil.com, or www.inglesnapontadalingua.com.br, and to choose the most generic definitions. Next, learners randomly got the expressions and started to work. Finally, they mingled explaining the expressions and learning others. It took us some 15 minutes, but it was worthy. Learners realised how English and Portuguese work semantically differently, and how important it is to choose the appropriate words/ expressions to be understood by a higher number of people. |
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Post by Lívia Sampaio on Sept 16, 2016 20:39:06 GMT
Besides all the contributions and as for the syntax I agree when you mention that the biggest transfer and one of the first ones is the adjective and noun order. I also remembered another example; some students say : " I go play football on Saturdays." Some students tend to add "go" when talking about their daily activities.
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Post by Thainara Padrini on Sept 17, 2016 4:32:21 GMT
Hi again! Our first language can really influence the new ones that we are learning, after watching the video I can talk about some examples with transfer in second language acquisition that I have experienced for myself as a student (I am not a teacher yet). I have serious problems to pronounce the “TH” words in English it is very hard for me and I always end up saying just the “T” because it is this way in Portuguese the words “Thought” and “Sixth” are examples of it and I also have problems with the letter “R”, it is difficult to me like the word “rural” for instance my pronunciation sounds like a “caipira” Brazilian accent. Like my friends said above, I am also sometimes switching the order of the adjective and noun in a phrase.
Thank you.
Thainara Padrini
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