The Acquisition of Grammar

When Learning a Second Language

As native English speakers, we have a subconscious understanding of the rules that govern the ways in which we speak and write in the English language. These rules, otherwise known as grammar, are how we form language so that it can be comprehended by those who listen to us as we speak and those who read that which we write. Despite our understanding of these rules, we often struggle to explain how we know to use them. This is even more true for those who are learning English as a second language. Through this research, I seek to find the ways in which grammar is learned and understood by non-native English speakers and how factors affect the ways in which they use English grammar both correctly and incorrectly, specifically how native Spanish speakers who are learning English as a second language. By researching this topic, I hope to answer three questions in regard to the acquisition of English grammar rules. What are the differences, and similarities if they exist, between the grammar rules that govern the Spanish and English languages? How do Spanish speakers apply English grammar rules while translating Spanish into English? What can ESL educators do to improve the acquisition and understanding of English grammar for their students?

“The Influence of the Spanish Language in the Learning of English for Secondary Education Students.” Source #1 Summary

This academic journal seeks to show the influence that a native language speaker has when trying to learn a second language. In the case of this source, it seeks to find how Spanish speakers are influenced by their native language when trying to learn English. The objectives in this study were to find the influence the mother tongue has on the learning and acquisition of a second language, how this influence helps to support or delay the learning of a second language, and to do an analysis of errors to find ways in which educators can profit and benefit from those errors. In order to test this, they formed the hypothesis, “to demonstrate how the learners tend always to look for the recurrence in the L1 in front of any doubt, false friend, grammatical concept (Rodríguez).” Essentially, the hypothesis states that when second language learners are faced with challenges in the language they are learning, they will refer to their knowledge from their first language in order to try to solve the issue. 

In order to test this hypothesis, a six-questions questionnaire along with a story was given to the students who would have to translate it. The design for this assessment was made with consideration of the fact that the language students were between the ages of thirteen and fifteen. The questionnaire was made to be casual and the story was meant to be funny, with the intent of having the students be more motivated to do the assignment and find enjoyment in it since they believe these to be factors that are crucial to education. The questions students were asked to answer were to tell their (1) nationality, age, and school year, (2) explain what their favorite subject is and why, (3) how many english lessons they have per week, (4) the languages they speak and any other languages they are learning, (5) what they find easy and difficult in English, and (6) and to fill in the gaps in the the story (Rodríguez). The story in question is an interactive one that follows an alien who came to earth and learned Spanish, but now needs help understanding things that are in English. The students fill in the gaps of the story by “explaining to the alien” what these things are and mean in English.

Based on this questionnaire, they were able to record their findings on the influence of the first language on second language learning. They found that the classroom as a collective, had more difficulty with speaking and oral expression, and grammar. Where the students were most successful was vocabulary, especially when the terms were similar to words in Spanish. Based on these results, they found that spelling problems, language equivalents, false friends, which are words that are similar in the native language of the speaker but have a different meaning, and syntactic order were the four features that were affected by the influence and interference of the mother tongue on language learning (Rodríguez). Examples from these four features included (spelling errors) misspelling words that are similar in Spanish, like spelling ‘difficult’ as dificult’, (language equivalent) using prepositions like ‘for’ the same way ‘por’ is used in Spanish, (false friends) incorrectly translating words like ‘actual’ and ‘actually’ in the wrong semantic form, and (syntactic order) misplacing adjectives and adverbs in the order of their sentence translations (Rodríguez). Based on these results, it was concluded that the Spanish language influenced and interfered with the lexicological, morphological, and grammatical side of the English language.

“The Influence of the Spanish Language in the Learning of English for Secondary Education Students.” Source #2 Response

The study conducted in this source correlates with my research topic, as I am seeking to find the ways in which English language learners acquire an understanding and practical use of grammar. The most prevalent point made in this regard was syntactic order in which the students were translating their answers from Spanish. As is stated in the study, placing a noun after an adjective and placing adverbs before or after a verb are acceptable in Spanish. However, when attempting to translate these forms into English, a direct translation can obstruct the syntactic order, and therefore produce grammatical issues in English. As an example, one could say, while describing a car, “Un auto limpio.” A direct translation of this would be “A car clean,” while the correct translation would be “A clean car.” As sentences become more complex, the inability to translate and arrange the sentence form correctly would lead to more grammatical issues and prevent second language speakers from properly communicating the meaning of their utterances. 

In my personal experience, I have seen how this has influenced the way members of my family and others within the Spanish community have interacted with me when conversing in English. Sentences are often kept short and simple to avoid making grammatical mistakes when speaking. Especially when the speakers are aware of these mistakes, it often discourages them from speaking in English and they often revert back to speaking in Spanish. As my goal is to find ways to properly teach the English rules for grammar to students learning the language, this lack of confidence is something that grabs my attention. In order to prevent students from lacking the confidence to practice speaking due to the potential or errors  and to also ensure that students can understand the grammatical rules of the language, grammar should be given more focus in teaching scenarios. Ensuring that students learn the lexical categories of words, the form they are to take, and the function words have, allows for language learners to better understand English grammar and how to use it in practice. 

“Comparing Methods for Assessing the English Grammatical Development of Spanish-Speaking English Learners.” Source #2 Summary

This paper was written to identify valid and informative ways to assess English learners' grammatical development. They test two approaches on a group of 18 preschoolers and kindergarten students by using standardized norm-referenced assessment and grammatical feature coding from story retell narratives. Using these two approaches, the researchers assess the ways in which both of these means can be used to evaluate the English grammatical development of Spanish speaking English learners. The purpose for this study is due to the ways in which grammar can be used to indicate atypical language development as well as a way to serve as a developmental marker for progress monitoring (Fitton). 

The testing occurred with the subjects during the 2016 through 2017 academic year. The tests included hearing screenings, the Primary Test of Nonverbal Intelligence, the morphosyntax and semantic subtests of the  Bilingual English-Spanish Assessment in English and Spanish, and story retell narratives (Fitton). The Primary Test of Nonverbal Intelligence (PTNI) is a picture based test that was meant to test the nonverbal cognitive abilities of the students. Instructions in the students' primary language were limited and the students did not have to respond verbally in order to answer (Fitton). For the Bilingual English-Spanish Assessment (BESA), it was a standardized test that was used to target eight specific grammatical structures. Those structures being possessive -s, third person singular present -s, regular past tense -ed, plural -s, present/past progressive (auxiliary + progressive -ing) copula, negatives, and passive forms (Fitton). For this test, students were able to respond in either English or Spanish. For story retell narratives, the students would have a story read aloud and follow along using a wordless picture book. Afterwards, they would have to retell the story back to the examiner which was recorded for analysis (Fitton). The results from these tests were then gathered to examine the results.

The results from the PTNI showed that the students showed nonverbal cognitive abilities within the normal limits (Fitton). On the BESA, students' scores on average were higher on the Spanish semantic portions of the test than they were on the English semantic portions. The average scores on the Spanish portions were 100.59 compared to the 99.18 on the English portions of the test (Fitton). In regards to grammar, the results were similar in that the average score on the Spanish portions was 91.00 compared to the 86.82 average on the English portions (Fitton). In the story retell narratives, the average for the students was 13.44 utterances that were considered to be fully intelligible. This score was higher than the standard deviation for this test at 10.94 (Fitton). Based on these results, it was concluded that the narrative based assessments resulted in higher accuracy for grammatical form. Where this type of assessment falls short to that of a formal standardized task is that tests like the BESA are able to elicit specific discrete grammatical form. With this in mind, the researchers concluded that both forms of assessment are not interchangeable in the learning process, and each should be used to assess students' progress in grammatical development.

“Comparing Methods for Assessing the English Grammatical Development of Spanish-Speaking English Learners.” Source #2 Response

The results from this study helps to answer my question on ways that educators can help ESL students with understanding grammar. While the examples from the study are tests meant to assess progress of grammatical development, it can also be used to generate and create ways to implement grammar lessons into the classroom. Formal standardized forms can be used when educators wish to elicit a specific grammar principle. For example, if an educator's goal is to teach students the past and present tense of verbs, then allowing them to retell a story may not be the most viable approach. Instead, an activity like a worksheet with a “fill in the blank” format can be used to focus on that specific aspect of grammar. In contrast to this, educators can rely on the retell narrative device as a way to have students practice grammatical form more freely, being able to switch between it using different aspects of grammar in spoken form. 

When considering the teaching of grammar to language learners, as the research suggested, both forms of assessment should be used to gauge grammatical development. Just as students learn in different ways, different forms of testing like the formal standardized and the retell narrative story structures have different potential for learning. They can not and should not be considered to be interchangeable or even replaceable by the other. In order to ensure that English language learners can develop the grammar skills needed to speak and write in a manner in which can be understood by native speakers, different approaches to learning should be used rather than just one single approach. The results from the study showed net benefits to both forms of assessment, and should therefore serve as an example and reason as to why both forms are needed in the learning and assessment of progress in grammatical development. 

Conclusion 

Based on these sources, I was able to find answers to the questions I asked when developing this research topic. What are the differences, and similarities if they exist, between the grammar rules that govern the Spanish and English languages? Based on the first source, a clear difference was shown in the way Spanish and English sentences can be constructed. Spanish allows for more freedom where modifiers like adjectives and adverbs can be placed in regard to a noun or verb, which can cause some confusion for Spanish speakers when they attempt to translate Spanish into English. How do Spanish speakers apply English grammar rules while translating Spanish into English? The studies showed a variety in the way these rules are applied. In some cases, the errors were seen as the subjects were unfamiliar on where to use modifiers in a sentence, but also how the subjects were successful in standardized and narrative assessments of grammar. What can ESL educators do to improve the acquisition and understanding of English grammar for their students? The study from the second source shows how grammar development can be assessed in different ways, and this can be used to develop ways to develop grammar. Using a similar formal standardized or narrative approach to class assignment and activities can help to develop all aspects of English grammar understanding, rather than focusing on one approach. Considering all that was presented, it is clear that the approach to teaching grammar to English learners is one that must be open. Considering my goals to teach ESL in the future, I found that this research helped to highlight some of the areas of grammar acquisition that require attention on the part of an educator. In the future, I hope to use this knowledge I have acquired to help English learners develop the grammar skills needed to become effective English speakers. 

Works Cited

Cristian Tugues Rodríguez. “The Influence of the Spanish Language in the Learning of English for Secondary Education Students.” Revista EntreLínguas, vol. 4, no. 2, July 2018. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.29051/rel.unesp.v4.n2.2018.11783

Fitton, Lisa, et al. “Comparing Methods for Assessing the English Grammatical Development of Spanish-Speaking English Learners.” Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups, vol. 2, no. 16, Nov. 2017, pp. 45–60. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1044/persp2.SIG16.45.