Learners' Perception of Their Interlanguage of Engljsh as A F'oreign Language Second Year Co Llege Afaan Oromoo Speakers in Focus

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Date

2007-03

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Addis Ababa University

Abstract

English teachers in most Oromia colleges often level complaints at their students for being unable to write sensible sentences in composition which they downgrade as error-jilled, Ll -driven, fragmentary, illegible, inexpressive, frustrating and fossilized. In order to minimize Ll-FL incompatibilities or narrow down such ever-widening deviation from the intended standard, therefore, overruling causes of the learners' inexpressive ability will have to be explained from their perception and error analysis of their grammar, word power, orthography and cohesion. The very objective of the study is therefore, to discover learner-perceived (I) current ability of English in written composition, (2) the overriding causes and (3) some working solutions of second year Asella Teacher Education College Oromoo students ' deviant EFL expressivity from the standard English norm thence. To meet these objectives, multiple perspectives on learner, teacher, and applied-linguistics bases of error analysis model of Corder (1981). Data sources were (1) students ' spontaneous essays and (2) one questionnaire administered to both students and teachers who additionally took part in the third tool (3) focus group discussion for eliciting learner perception. Drawing on systematic random and purposive sampling techniques painstakingly, the data of 72 English sample learners and their 143 spontaneously written essays were processed to get base-line data to resolve the issue. The broader goals of the study were largely met by basically using the memorable model involving three condensed steps: identifYing errors, describing and explaining them. Indeed this has been attuned to a mild mix of quantitative descriptive statistical measures like percentages, frequencies and standard deviation and mean with perceivable simplicity. The qualitative procedures used for interlanguage error data elicitation and analysis include: codifYing errors, classifYing, comparing, tabulating and graphing, describing and interpreting. Ultimately, three distinct findings evolved from the learners' tapped perception and analyzed errors: (I) overall inadequacy of their current learning conditions of grammar in writing context have been discovered, (2) LI Afaan Oromoo error influence and overgeneralized English rules are the most predominant causal influences to their perception while learning-induced errors also stood out influentially in their writings, (3) top prioritized solution being the imperative call for preparing new learning materials. Hence employing multiple perspectives, and procedures, tools, piloting, impact evaluation, detailing background, and inter-rater agreement may intentionally add a degree of confidence or back reliability and validity. Conclusions and recommendations have also been drawn to redirect issues in filture.

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Keywords

Interlanguage of English

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