Evaluating Learners

It is important to use appropriate techniques to help English-as-a-second-language learners understand, internalize, and use grammatical rules. Learners also need to understand the nature of cohesion and coherence in formal writing, The following suggestions are drawn from "a repair manual for English" written by Marina K. Burt and Carol Kiparsky in 1972 (The Gooficon). Burt and Kiparsky make a distinction between global and local errors in learner language. Errors reflect gaps in a learner's knowledge because s/he has not received appropriate linguistic input or contextualized negative feedback that might allow the learner to notice the error. For example, if a learner writes or utters the following, "she nice but talk too much," the teacher-in-training would be able to identify two different types of errors: (1) verb omission (to be), and (2) third person -s deletion or lack of subject-verb agreement. These are, however, local errors. In other words, these errors do not interfere with the hearer's ability to comprehend the utterance or message. Some minor errors do interfere with the comprehensibility of an utterance. For instance, in the following example, the learner has substituted a relative pronoun (which) for the appropriate conjunction (that): "I know which you left early." It is hard to make sense of what the learner means in this case.

Burt and Kiparsky recommend that teachers and teachers-in-training distinguish between local errors or minor goofs within clauses, and global errors, or overall goofs that interfere with the meaning of the sentence, as illustrated by the following sentences: (1) Since the harvest was good, was rained a lot last year; and, (2) The harvest was good since was rain a lot last year. By placing the conjunction since before the verb to rain, we have improved the meaning of the whole sentence. We can then go on to fix two local errors, the omission of it and the use of the past tense (rained). We now have, "The harvest was good since it rained a lot last year."

It is important for the teacher to be able to bring both local and global errors to the learner's attention (consciousness). Learners should be given ample opportunities to practice what they have learned and improve their second language written and oral performance. It is also very important to encourage collaborative task-based activities among second language learners. Whenever possible, native speaker-non-native speaker language learning partnerships should be promoted. (Please refer to The Gooficon, a repair manual for English, by Marina K. Burt & Carol Kiparsky, Newbury House, 1972). With respect to assessment of second language writing, please refer to Liz Hamp-Lyons book, Assessing Second Language Writing in Academic Contexts, Ablex Publishing, 1993.

Read the following excerpts and identify "global" and "local" errors in one of these interlanguage samples. Please prepare charts similar to those displayed below in order to keep track of the specific type of learner errors (e.g., grammar, mechanics, vocabulary). Which are the most frequently occurring types of errors? Can you discern a pattern? Is there evidence of first language transfer or are these primarily developmental errors? You should read the samples carefully and examine the overall organization of each paragraph or essay. Does the essay achieve coherence? Do students use transition signals effectively? What can you say about the writer's stage of interlanguage development?

Student's Name Essay#1	Examples of Errors: Sentence Structure (main & subordinate clauses): Fragments: "Because their socieites is not like our society." Word order: " in which i never was intrested."	Explain nature of learner's errors and possible sources of errors.	Developmental Patterns: Describe and explain leaner's stage or level of interlanguage development.
Comment on essay organization and coherence. Recommend learning activities or language tasks for the learner.

Student's Name Essay#	Types of local errors: Prepositions/conjunctions/articles	Word Choice (vocabulary)	Mechanics: punctuation & spelling
Describe and analyze local errors. General comments and recommendations.

My most favorite female ancestor is my grandmother. She is not in a special position in this society. She is just a housewife, my mother's mother, and my grandmother. However, I really admire her from the bottom of my heart. There are a lot of reasons that I admire her, but the biggest reason is she has the courage to live her life according to her own beliefs. During World War II, my grandmother's hometown Nagaya was attacked by the United States, and all children had to be evacuated to rural places. Nevertheless, my grandmother did not let her children go there. It was the very small town along the Bay of Ise, and she thought her children might be struck by Tsunami when a typhoon came. The town was very famous for a big damage of typhoon; moreover, when she had let her children go there, it was summer. Therefore, she rejected the order from the government that let all children go to rural places. Then, she and her children evacuated to her relative's house in Kanayama town which is in mountains. After that, unbelievable thing was happened. All the children who evacuated the the town along the Bay of Ise were struck by a typhoon as my grandmother expected, and they died. Old people really care of neighbors. Therefore, it should be very hard for her to make the decision that was being against other people. As a result, she was ignored by all the neighbors around her house. However, she did, and helped her children. There are more stories that were very similar to this story. She is just a housewife, my mother's mother, and my grandmother; however, she is the person who is respected by many people, and I really admire her. The people who must be admired are not only politicians, doctors, teachers, or the people in high positions, but also the normal people such as my grandmother, In addition, the reason she is my most favorite ancestor is whenever I need someone to talk to, she is there always, and I love her for anything.

The tradition problems between parents and children existed always. I came from the country there all religions were prohibited for a long time, lots of people were murdered for believing. In Kazan, there i lived was fithty percent of russian, thirty fith of tatar (islamic nationality) and several percents of jewish. But there were only couple of churches in my sity, absolutly no sinagogues, and couple unworking mechets. So my parents and of course me and my sister were rased as unbelievers. I knew something about God about mistirios things, but i never thought seriously about it. But in my family was some traditions like sitting all together in silence before any trip, or serious deals. Then i was sexsteen years old lots of my friends decided to go to the church. I was curious about it and i decided to come and see what it is all about. It was protestanic church and it was very interesting for because all i knew about christianity was Russian Orthodocsal Church, in which i never was intrested. It was the one of the bigest decision in my life, but i decided to become a christian. My parents of course didn't take it seriously, but later they changed their minds. I remember lot of arguing after that, because i changed and i thought and still think that faith must be in your heart, tradition will never save you. One of the bigest problems was that i didn't want to keep that "sitting before road" tradition. But later i understood that i can think anything but i have to remember, that my parents will always be my parents, and i can't hate or treat them bad for what they are and for what they want to believe.

The tradition which made your family and you weren't believers .But what do you think about tradition? In some coutries you can not change your tradition .You always have to do whatever which your grand or your parent did. You think it is good? I think it was good but it had something not good. You can not do everything which they did about 50 years or longer so. Because their socieites is not like our society. You should change it if it is not good. Why not? You change it to mean you make your tradition better. I think you made a right decision. Because I think every religion teach us better. How to behave with everyone around you. If everyone behave each other like what religion teach then I think our society will be perfect. What do you think about it?

I've never thought about my ethnic heritage or my origin until I came here because Japanese people don't have an opportunity to think about it. Japanese are Japanese. It means 100% pure Japanese. There are few immigrants in Japan so, we ought to have Japanese last name. Since I came here, I have many opportunities to think about my origin. I need to identify who I am and where I'm from. I became that I'm proud of being Japanese. If I kept staying in Japan, I wouldn't think about it. I think I'm having good opportunities. People who live in Japan need to have an opportunity to think about it. It is very important. I thank my ancestors for being here and being Japanese. I also thank my parents very much. I really need and want to learn much more about my origin and my ethnic heritage. And I've just started to do it.

If I have the chance to travel to other country, I would go to China. I have many reasons why I choose China. As we know, China is the biggest population country in the world. Also China has developed a very strong economy especially in Asia. The civilization started in China long time ago; for example, they invented paper and compass. Moreover, China has many very beautiful sites to see. The well-known Great Wall of China is one of the places that you have to visit. It was ordered to build by chinese emperor many years ago to protect them from enemy's attack. It is now impossible to build such great wall. Chinese language is quite difficult to learn because it has millions of words which one character can have two meanings if you pronounce it with different intonation. China has many different etnics in every province so that you will find many different cultures. From my personal view, I'd like to go to China because my ancestor came from China so that I want to learn and know more about my root especially the language and culture.

We think it is necessary to learn a second language because it gives you more opportunities and flexibilities in all fields. Being bilingual nowadays is very important. It is obvious that America is a melting pot. A second language is very useful at work places, in public, at schools ,and at home as well. For example, at work you have more responsibilities because you have to handle everything related to that second language. Moreover, you can travel and represent efficiently your company because you can communicate with your opponent. In public, you can be very helpful for people who cannot speak English very well in case of emergency. At school, you have the chances to learn a second language and a different culture. For another thing, you have more knowledge and it is enjoyable to learn something new. You learn a second language also from your parents with another cultural background. It is also another way to keep in touch with your original background so that you can adopt the positive aspects of that original background. It gives the whole family a secret code which keeps the family together. For these reasons, we definitely agree with those who want to introduce a second language in school or in college.

Life in a refugee camp is not easy. There are several reasons. For one thing, there are not enough Foods to eat. Many people in refugee camp suffered from malnutrition. Some people, especially young children and elderly people even died from this. Therefore, they had to ask the government for some aids. Fortunately, this condition is getting better. Now, people get basic needs including breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Furthermore, we have many other problems that we have to solve. One problem is that water is scarce for drinking or washing. Therefore, each person has drinking and cooking water for limited amount. So many people suffer from dehydration and other diseases. For the water for washing, people have to collect the rain, so it takes long time to do their laundry. For another thing, we only have limited space. Therefore, we have to share a small room with more than five people. There is no privacy. Because there are so many people in a small room, there are conflicts between some people. So we can not have great relationships with other people in our room. Also, there are no utilities, such as electricity and running water. Therefore, we have to go to sleep as soon as the sun goes down. Because of this, even though I want to study at night, I have to wait until the morning to finish what I was planning to accomplish. Also, to get the fresh water, we have to go to the well, every morning to get a bucket full of water. I think from reading this passage, people understood how hard it is to live in a refugee camp.

Actually, many events happen in our life that make us more independent and responsible. For example when we are born some of the most important rites that we recece are baptism and first communion. These are important and mean responsibility to church. When we start to go to school at about five or six years old, it is a big experience for us because we have to leave our house and family and stay with people that we do not know. When I obtainned my driver's license, I felt freedom, because I could go out alone and did not have to wait for anybody to take me to the places, I will like to go. Events are any step that we did in our life. That help us to learn about life, new things and get eperiences. experiences that could help us in the future to not make that same mistake over and over.

In this biography I will talk about myself. Where I come from and many other things so in this way you could know more about me. My name is Lisena M. I was born in Cuba in a place called Matanzas. I did elementary school in Pedro A. Campus, a beautiful school. In my free time I was always playing with my friends. Sometimes I liked to go with my father to the hospital because he worked as a doctor there. I came to the United States in 1995 with my parents, my brother and my sister. We went to live in Union City because there were all my father's family. I met my uncles and aunts for the first time because they left Cuba when I was only 9 months so that's made me feel a little better because I was missing my country, my family and all my friends. I went to Union Hill High School. There I met a lot of people from Cuba and from another countries. I made a lot of friends in the three years that I was there and was so hard for me when I left the school. I will never forget the graduation day because that was one of the most beautiful things that happened in my life and I will never forget all my friends and teachers. Now I'm in college and I want to study because I want to be somebody, but also because I want my parents to be proud of me. Briefely I just told some important parts of my life. I hope you find interest reading my biography.

In my opinion, the money can't buy happiness. we can't life without money, but we can't get happiness, because for have been happiness people need spiritual sentimentalism, good values and other things that are necesary for happiness. I think that a person is happy in different form: for example a person can be happy doing activities that for the other person dosen't have the same significate, so this person dosen't have happiness doing this activities but can be happy doing other thing. Also I know alot of people that have much money but don't have happiness because in their family there are different problem that make unhappiness. For example they can buy whatever they want, but they can't say sweet words. They work with the money, not with the hart.

When I came to the US, I lived at a duplex house in Paramus. I have been at the next door several times to ask something about house equipments. The man who was the landlord of the duplex house was in the kitchen and he was cooking or doing something in there. In my country, it is so hard to see a man doing like that. Of course, there is a man cook but it is just a job. But even the man cook must mind going to the kitchen in my country. Because the thought that housekeeping is only for women has come down from generation to generation. My husband helps me willingly but he has never cooked until now. The narrow and horrible tradition must be changed soon. Fourtunately the young generation differ from the old because of the effect of lots of massmedia.

History of Ethnicity is a controvertial and difficult topic to talk about. It is because many lives and hard personal experiences are involved in this topic. However we do not have to avoid the past but to learn from it. In my country we have a terrible history about racism and intolerance. Many people are still so angry with "the conqueres", and they cannot understand that many generations have past and that Spanish people are not the same that five centuries ago. The Conquer of Latin America is a fact, and many indigenous people dead. Intolerance, ignorance and racism governed the minds of those people who killed many indians in America. However we cannot continue crying those facts but learning from them. I agree with Franklin when he says that this last centuries have been so difficult to the History of Ethnicity; but I consider that we have to be optimist and to try to change this situation in this moment. History is nothing if we do not bring it to our everyday lives, and if we do not see how do those terrible experiences can be changed or how can we avoid other possible experiences that our racists, intolerants and ignorants attitudes can propiciate. Every day is a new day, a new opportunity to start again. Why do we have to wait until others decide to start a new world? We can start changing these terrible situations that manking has had. If we think that it is not possible to do it, it won't be possible. But if we think that it is possible and we start with our personal relationships, we can change the world...

The main idea of this story is that you can't deny your race, ethnic group and can't show people how white or how american you supposed to be. The real thing is that even if you are nice person some people don't even want to talk to you, because of you race or nationality. This woman, Rosa Wakefield, tried to do the best she could in her life. Everything that she did was perfect, she helped her relatives, friends, worked hard, everybody knows that she is the best cook and the best housekeeper. She says a lot about differences between black and white people. One thing is even that the white people think a lot about everything, they are not always successful. She says that if she was thinking about everything like this, she'd burn her cakes and scorch skirts. I can't say that this is not true, because there were so many situations then i was doing one thing and in the same time thinking about another and the result was,that i did wrong my job and i was depressed in my mind. She also says that people love her and treat her like the best friend, because she helped them a lot. Also she says that whites treat blacks like "the second kind of people". "They can't stand the idea of anything good being black. If a black person does something good, they say he did that because of the white in him." She is right, even if we don't think that we are racists, this thought goes through our minds.

Roughly the issue on hand here is differneces between humankind, when people discriminate against each other they are trying to protect their well-being; when a person finds another person doing well while that other person has a different color or background it becomes an issue, and that same person start thinking, most of the time, about getting a head in life without even considering being fare to the other person....and that what I think creates friction and problems between people in general. So going back to Franklin; I think he had to know that through history people had problems dealing with each other, espacialy when race or religion on hand, and people tend to be out-spoken about it if they had a group of people who would listen to the nonsense they had to say. Problems will always exist between humans regardless of race or ethnic backgorund or anything, it is part of human existance equation. The situation existed in the last three hundred million years and will last forever. I don't know exactly if I am supporting Franklin or not, but I am just stating my opinion!