12 Chapter 4

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CHAPTER 4 ASPECTS OF SKILLS
4.0 Introduction:
Language Skills: Acquiring a new language comprises of four skills. They
are listening, speaking, reading and writing (LSRW). The two former skills are
known as oracy and the remaining two are known as literacy; both oracy and
literacy form linguacy. Within these four skills, listening and reading are used
as the channels for receiving information. Thus these two skills are called as
receptive skills. The remaining two skills, speaking and writing, are used as
channels for sending information; subsequently these two skills are labeled
productive skills.
4.1 Listening Skill:
Listening is a prerequisite to all skills of language. The activity of listening is

not an act of just recording the speaker's utterances and repeating them as with
tap recorders they are. It is a process of making meaning out of spoken
language. Listening involves: 1] receiving the systematic sounds of the
language, 2] processing and constructing sounds into words, 3] giving meaning
to the words and getting meaning from the words received, 4] ability to
interpret and comprehend the speaker's utterances.
Generah Listening is the first and foremost language mode that children
acquire which provides the basis for the other language arts (Lundsteen, 1979).
The activity of listening plays an important role in the process of acquiring /
learning language whether it is a first or second language. Any impediment in
the listening activity, will affect the linguistic development of other modes. In
the process of acquiring the first language, children naturally listen to the
language spoken around them. That is, they involve in the activity of listening
passively for about one year right from the birth, and then they actively
participate in the linguistic society in which they dwell. But in the process of
learning L2, the listening is voluntarily made activity. Thus, in the deliberate
learning, learners are made to involve in listening to L2 where the linguistic
nuances are taught step by step. The linguistic items such as phonemes,
morphemes, lexical items, grammatical items, syntax and semantics are taught
by listening in order to develop other modes of language - viz., speaking,
reading and writing.
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4.1.1 Listening Process:
Listening is a complex, multistep process by which spoken language is

converted into meaning in the mind" (Lundsteen, 1979:1). Wolvin and Coakly
(1985) have identified three steps in the process of listening, which are
receiving, attending and assigning meaning. In the first step, listeners receive
the aural stimuli or the combined aural and visual stimuli presented by the
speaker. In the second step, listeners focus on, or attend to select stimuli while
ignoring other distracting stimuli. Because, so many stimuli surround students
in the classroom, they must be attractive to the speaker's message, focusing on
the most important information in that message. In the third step, listeners
assign meaning to or understanding of the speaker's message. Further, Andreson
and Pamela (1986) have identified three phases or stages of listening process-
perception, parsing and utilization. In the perceptual phase, language learners
focus on the sounds of language and store them in their echonic memory. In the
parsing phase, listeners use words and phrases to construct meaningful
representations. They recognize the formation of words as meaningful units that
can be stored in short term memory. The size of the chunk that listeners retain
depends on several factors including knowledge of language, knowledge of
topic and the quality of the signal. In the final phase or utilization phase the
listener probe long-term memory to connect what they hear with what they
already know. Stored information is in the form of schemata. They must
therefore rely on the quality of their background knowledge.
4.1.1.1 The Process of Encoding and Decoding:
An act of communication requires encoder-the speaker and decoder-the listener.

The speaker encodes the concept or message through a set of codes. The
listener decodes the concept or message from the set of codes used by the
speaker. The act of encoding involves cohering the sounds into words, words
into sentences, sentences into discourses. On the other hand, the act of decoding
involves identifying the sounds, understanding the utterances and their
meanings, and recognizing the prosodic features such tone, intonation, pitch,
stress, etc. used by the speaker.
Listening Comprehensive Process: Richards (1990) draws a two way

process of listening comprehension: bottom-up and top-down processing.
Bottom-up process is the use of incoming data as a source of information about
the meaning of the message. The top-down process is the use of background
knowledge in understanding the meaning of a message.
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4.1.1.2 Speaker Meaning : Hearer Meaning:
It is a common notion that the speaker provides meaning and the listener
receives it. The speaker conveys meaning and the listener receives the meaning
as it is conveyed by the speaker. In certain contexts, the listener cannot
understand the speaker's utterances; because he takes direct literal meaning of
words instead of contextual meaning. Where the speaker's meaning differs from
the listener’s meaning, in a conversational discourse, both the speaker's and the
hearer's co-operation in sending and receiving meaning is important. If the
speaker is deviant from the context, where the listener's responsibility is less
than the speaker's. Segardahal (1996) has distinguished two types of meaning;
One is constant linguistic meaning and the another one is varying situational
meaning.
Linguistic systems of
sentences
Speaker Hearer
Constant linguistic meaning
Varying situational speaker-meaning
Figure 7: Speaker Meaning : Hearer Meaning [Adapted from Segrdahal,

1996:111] In a given context, the linguistic element provides one meaning; the
constant linguistic meaning, to the listener. In another context, the listener takes
another meaning, contextual meaning, to the same linguistic element used in the
another context.
4.1.1.3 The Speaker-Listener Polarity:
The event of communication very much depends on two polarities - the speaker
and the listener. These two polarities are essential requirements of
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communication. Communication is in fact a confrontation between two

individuals with a view of exchanging some information or getting some
intention fulfilled. For the effective exchange of information, both the speaker
and the listener are expected to be equipped with the competence of the
language which is used. The same level of competence is expected from the
listener and the speaker as well. Any shortcoming in the linguistic competence
of the listener or the speaker, would affect the communication. Both the
polarities should be more or less equally equipped with the linguistic
competence of that language for effective and efficient communication.
4.1.1.4 Relationship between Speaking and Listening:
Speaking and listening are interdependent processes. The activity of speaking

requires at an audience. The speaker speaks certain objectives in mind.
Speaking involves conveying meaning using a code and listening involves
understanding the meaning with the help of code that the speaker used. If it is
transaction, one way listening, the speaker does not receive feedback, but if it is
interaction, two ways listening, the speaker receives feedback from the listener.
In transactional or conversational discourse, sending-receiving and receiving
sending are an alternative phenomena. The relationship between speaking and
listening is schematically represented as given diagram below.
Figure 8: Diagram Representing The relationship between speaking and

listening
Ora 1C ammunicatian
One way
Speaking ^ Listening
Transaction
Speaking Two way Listening

Listening Interaction Speaking
*—
4.1.1.5 Sub-Skills of Listening:

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Each skill of language comprises a large number of sub skills, of which the
value and relevance from one situation to another. Rosts (1990) has
distinguished two kinds of clusters of microskills of listening: 'Enabling skills'
(those employed in order to perceive what the speaker is saying and to
interpret the intended meaning) and 'Enacting skills' (those employed to
respond appropriately to the message).
4.1.1.6 Enabling Skills
A] Perception; Recognizing prominence within utterances, including:

■ Discriminating sounds in words, especially phonemic contrasts.
■ Discriminating strong and weak forms, phonetic change at word boundaries.
■ Identifying use of stress and pitch (information units, emphasis, pause, pace
and rhythm etc.)
B] Interpretation; Formulating content sense of utterance, including :

■ Deducing the meaning of unfamiliar words.
■ Inferring implicit information.
- Inferring links between prepositions.
Formulating a conceptual framework linking utterances, including:
■ Recognizing discourse markers (clarifying, contrasting).

* Constructing a theme over a stretch of discourse.
■ Predicting content.
■ Identifying elements that help to form an overall schema.
■ Maintaining and updating the context.
Interpreting (possible) speaker intention, including:
• Identifying an 'interpersonal frame speaker-to-hearer.

■ Maintaining charges in prosody and establishing consistencies.
■ Noting contradictions, inadequate information, ambiguities.
■ Differentiating between fact and opinion.
C] Enacting Skills: Making appropriate response (based on the above)

including: • Selecting key points for the current task.
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■ Transcoding information into written form (such as, notes).

• Identifying which points need clarification.
■ Integrating information with that from other sources.
■ Providing appropriate feedback to the speaker (Adapted from Rost, 1990 :
152-153).
4.1.1.7 Difficulty Factors in Listening:
Research over years has attempted to define which factors contribute to

making a particular listening passage difficulty or easy to comprehend.
Among the most notable works are those of Brown (1986, 1995b) and Rubin
(1994). Rubin's excellent review of listening identified characteristics that
affect listening: l]Text characteristics, 2] Interlocutor characteristics, 3] Task
characteristics, 4]Listener characteristics, 5] Process characteristics.
By way of illustration, here is a brief synopsis of Brown's characterization of

the first of those characteristics, those related to the text itself. It has been
shown that a listening text will be easier:
■ If there are few speakers and objects.

■ If the speakers and objects are distinct and different from one another.
■ If the order of telling the events matches synchronization of events.
• If the inferences called for are those that one would have predicted.
■ If the context of the text fits with what the existing information (exploiting
and existing schema).
* It is to be remembered that research indicates that most students have
difficulty with listening skills, even when listening to their native language.
Among other factors, because of the phenomenon of stress (some syllables of
a word may by stressed while others may not be), most learners of English
have difficulty in mastering the correct placement of the primary and other
stresses in English. (This could lead to misunderstanding the meaning of a
word, phrase or sentence.) As a consequence, listening proficiency in English
is to be cultivated with great care.
4.1. 2. Error identification and explanation:
Testing Listening Skill: The test items, Comprehension, news, sentences,

words, word pairs, years and days were used to test listening comprehension
of the students under observation. These test items aim at evaluating the
ability and skills of listening such as, predicting text based information,
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deducing meaning of unfamiliar words, recognizing prominence with in

utterance including discriminating sounds in words especially phonemic
contrasts, phonetic changes, deducing the meaning of unfamiliar words,
recognizing grammatical errors in sentences, recognizing word boundaries,
The following table shows the number of test items used and purpose of
testing.
Table : 26 l est items for listening skill
SI. No. Test Items Purpose
1. Dialogue Inferring the text based information

2. News Inferring implicit information,
deducing meaning of unfamiliar
words
3. Sentence Grammar error recognition
4. Words Discriminating phonetic change
5. Words Recognizing the phonemic contrast

(voiced, voiceless)
6. Word pair Recognizing the phonemic variation
(aspirated and unaspirated fricative)
7 a. Number Recognition of number boundaries and
recalling
b. Telephone numbers Discriminating numbers in a series and
recalling
c. Years Recognition and recalling
d. Days Recognition and recalling
4.1. 2.1 Data analysis:
Test Item 1: [ This test item was offered to group of standard 6to 7]
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Given text: The English scholar reads out the passage from the story
of “The Woodcutter”
Instructions: Listen carefully to the dialogue and answer the question

that follow each.
Question 1. The woodcutter was walking down apath in a

forestOptions : a) cage b) forest c) narrow d) big
Expected response: c
Students responses : d / a /b
Question 2. He was in search of
Options : a) tiger b)wood c] door of the cage d] dry wood
Expected response : d. Students responses: c / a / b
Question 3. The tiger pleaded with him saying,
Options : a) get me out of this cage b) “please, please get me out of this
cage” c) let me out of this cage d) please get me out of this cage
Expected response : b], Students responses: a / c / d
Question 4. The opened the door of the cage.
Options: a] tiger b] woodcutter c] forest d] servant

Expected response: d] servant, Students responses: a/ b/ c
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Table:27 Comments on test item : 1

Performance in %
Mode
Test Given Task
of Partially
item text involved Correct Incorrect Un
correct
questioning response response answered
response
Inferring text
based
information
1. Conversation Objective 30 40 20 10
Only 30% of the students had selected the correct responses, 40% of the
students had answered partially, 20% of the students have responded
incorrectly, and remaining 10% of the students have left without answering the
questions. The reasons for the correct responses are that the given
comprehension is very simple one, and the words which are used in the
conversation are not hard ones. It is evident that the easy and simple words
make the learners to observe the information easily from the conversational
discourse.
Test Item 2 [The following test items were offered to students of std 8th to
10th]
Given text: News item

Instruction: Listen to the news item and answer the questions that follow.
The Olympic games are now being held in Athens, Greece, their original home.
The games predate the Christian era. They are supposed to have begun around
776 B.C. until abolished (after the Roman conquered Greece) by Theodosius,
the Roman Emperor; in A.D. 393. The Olympic in those days was a festival,
with athletic, literary and musical competitions, held at Olympia, every four
years. [Thursday august 19, 2004 Deccan Herald Education]
Question 1: The Olympic games are now held in Athens,

Greece, their ___________ home.
Options: a) Previous b) Present
c) Original d) Roman
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Expected response : c
Students responses : a / b /d
Question 2: They are suppose to have begun aroundB.C.
Options: a) 776 b) 667
c) 767 d) 393
Expected response: a
Students responses: b / c / d
Question. 3: The Olympic in those days was a festival held at Olympia

every.
Options: a) 5 years b) 6 years c) 4 years d) 3years
Expected response: c
Students responses: a / b / d
Table : 28 Comments on test item-2
Performance in %
Test Given Mode of Partially Incorrec
Task involved Correct
item text questioning correct t
response response response
Inferring the
implicit
information and
2 News Objective 32 51 17
deducing
meaning of
unfamiliar words
32% of the students had answered correctly and 51% of the students had
answered partially. Of 51%, majority of the students had responded incorrectly to
the first and third questions due to failure in understanding the meaning of the
sentences. 17% of the students had responded incorrectly to all of the questions.
Due to poor comprehending ability.
Test Item 3: Given text: Sentences

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Instruction : You will hear five sentences read out once in sequence; write
down correct or incorrect depending on the grammar of the sentences.
Given sentence 1: One of my sisters are coming to school.
Expected response: Wrong

Students responses: Wrong / Right
Given sentence 2 : He have been going to market
Expected response : Wrong
Students responses: Wrong/ Right
Given sentence 3 : The beautiful red roses are in the garden
Expected response: Right
Students responses: Right / Wrong
Given sentence 4: Although he is intelligent, he is simple

Expected response : Right
Students responses Right / Wrong
Given sentence: 5. He play cricket yesterday
Expected response: Wrong

Students responses: Right / Wrong
Performance in %
Test Given Mode of Task Partially
hem text questioning involved Correct Incorrect
correct
response response
response
Findout the given
Recognition of
sentences right or
3. Sentence Grammar 30 21 49
wrong depending
error
on grammar
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Only 30% of the students had responded correctly. 21% of the students had
answered partially and remaining 49% of the students had responded
incorrectly. The students were not able to recognize the grammatical errors
which were found in the given items due to the poor grammatical knowledge of
the students.
Test Item: 4
Given text: Words Instruction : Listen carefully and identify from

the following group of words differs in pronunciation.
1. Read out words : bought, fought, ought, taught, doubt

Expected response : doubt
Students responses : doubt / ought / taught
2. Read out words : head, heard, learn, search,earth,
Expected response : head
Students responses : head / learn / search
3. Read out words : care, near, clear, fear, dear
Expected response : care
Students responses : care / near / clear / dear
4. Read out words : tower, pour, cover, power, hour
Expected response : pour
Students responses : power / tower / hour
Performance in %
Test Given Mode of Partially
Task involved Correct Incorrect
item text questioning correct
response response
response
Trace out the Discriminating
4. Words add word in phonetic 25 40 35
pronunciation change
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There were 25% of the students responded correctly, 40% of the students had
responded partially and remaining 35% of the students had responded
incorrectly. This is because of the fact that the students were unable to
discriminate the slight variations in the pronunciation of the words or phonetic
changes of the words.
Test Item 5
Given text - Word
Instruction : You will hear the following sentences readout once in each
sentence, the speaker will use one of the underlined words. Listen carefully and
encircle the word you hear.
Given sentence : I had a dove, and the sweet dove died /tied.
Readout word: died

Students encircled words :died/tied
Given sentence : The servant had his pay / bay from his boss.
Readout word: pay
Students encircled words :bay / pay
Given sentence : He was driving the car / guard

Readout word: car
Students encircled words : car / guard
Given sentence : The keys / geese are on the door.
Readout word: keys
students encircled words geese /keys
Given sentence : Will you come/gum with me to the market.
Readout word : come
Students encircled words: come/gum
Given sentence : I will tie a strong robe / rope to the tree
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Readout word : rope

Students encircled words: robe / rope
Given sentence : I saw a thin/ then bird in the garden.
Readout word ; thin
Students encircled words thin /then
Performance in %
item text questioning
correct
response response
response
Recognition of
Encircling
Phonemic
5. Word the readout 38 20 32
contrast (voiced,
word
voiceless)
38% of the students had answered correctly, 20% of the students had responded
partially and remaining 32% of the students had responded incorrectly. Reason
for the incorrect response was the failure to clearly recognize and differentiate the
voiced and voiceless sounds.
Test Item 6
Given text: Word pair

Instruction : You will hear six pairs of words. Each pair will be read out once,
decide whether the two words are the same. Write [S] for same or [D] for
different in the space against the number of the set
1. Pair read out sip/ship

Expected response D
Students responses D/S
2. Pair read out fan/ pan
Expected response D
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Students response : D/ S
3. Pair read out : fine/ vine
Expected response :S
Students response : D/S
4. sin /shine, 5. thin/ then. 6.zoo/ shoe (Students responses D/S)
Performance in %
Test Given Mode of Task
Partially
item text questioning involved Correct Incorrect
correct
response response
response
Deciding the
Recognition
Word words whether
6. of phonemic 41 27 33
pair same or different
variation
in pronunciation
41% of the students had responded correctly. 27% of the students had answered
partially, and remaining 33% of the students had given incorrect responses.
Reason for the poor performance may be failure in recognizing the difference
between aspirated and un-aspirated fricative sounds.
Test Item 7a
Given text: Numbers
Instruction: Listen to the recording and write down what you hear on the tape.
Further, the items should be. written in letters or words (The test items were
readout once one after one with time gap).
a) The readout items:

1. thirty 2.eighteen 3. One thousand nine hundred and forty two
4. twenty 5. three hundred and eighty
Students responses for item 1

Correct response : i) thirty
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Incorrect responses: ii) three iii) thirteen etc, iv) 30, etc

Correct response: i) eighteen
Incorrect responses: ii) eighty iii) eight iv) 80, etc;

Correct response: i) One thousand nine hundred and forty two
Incorrect responses: ii) One thousand nine forty two iii) One thousand nine
forty iv) four hundred two v) 1942, 1940, etc.

Correct response: i) fifty
Incorrect responses: ii) fifteen iii) fifty two iv) five v) 50, etc.

Correct response : i) seven hundred and nine
Incorrect responses : ii) seven hundred iii) seventy nine iv) seven hundred nine
v) 709, 790
Table : 33 Comments on test item -7a
Performance in %
Mode
Test Task Partially
Given text of Correct Incorrect
item involved
questioning correct
response response
response
Write down Number
what you recognition
7a Numbers 28 60 11
have head and
on tape recalling
28% of the students had responded correctly to all the items readout; 60% of the
students had answered partially, and remaining 11 % of the students had given
incorrect responses to all the questions. The wrong responses occurred due to
the failure and recklessness of students in listening the numbers read out
accurately. Further, they failed to differentiate the endings of numbers like
forty, fourteen twenty, and so on. Of the 11%, 2% of the students had answered
in numbers instead of answering in words without considering the instruction
given.
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Test Item 7b
Given text: Telephone numbers

The readout test items:
i) two eight double zero three nine
ii) two three five one nine three
iii) two six three eight zero one
iv) three one four three zero double two
v) four one four two eight double one
Students responses for test item 1

Correct response : i) two eight double zero three nine
Incorrect responses : ii) two double zero eight three nine iii) two three zero
nine
iv) 280339 etc.

Correct response : ii) two three five one nine three
Incorrect responses : ii) two three two nine three iii) two five nine one three
iv) two three five nine one v) two three one five nine vi) 235193, etc.
Students’ responses for test item 3
Correct response : i)) two six three eight zero one.
Incorrect responses: ii) ii) two six three eight zero three, iii) two six
eight one three, iv) ) two three six eight one. v) 236180, etc.

Correct response: I) three one four three zero double two
Incorrect responses: ii) three one zero three double two iii) three one
zero double two iv) three one four zero double three v) 3143022, etc.
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Correct response : i) four one four two eight double one
Incorrect responses : ii) four one four two double two iii) four one four
two eight double eight iv) 4142822, etc.
Table : 35 Comments on test item 7b
Performance in %
Test Given Mode of Task
Partially
Item Text questioning involved Correct Incorrect
correct
response response
response
Telephone
Write down
number
Telephone what you
7b recognition 19 46 35
numbers hear on
and
tape
recalling
19% of the students had responded correctly, 46% of the students had answered
partially and remaining 35% of the students had given wrong answers. Further,
they had deleted certain numbers and changed the order of the number which
were read out. Of 35%, 5% of the students had responded in number instead of
answering in words.
5.14.10. Test Item 7c
Given text: Years
The read out test items : i) Nineteen ninty ii) Nineteen thirteen iii)
Nineteen seventeen iv) Thirteen fifteen v) Two thousand- three

Correct response: i) Nineteen ninty
Incorrect responses :ii) Nineteen nineteen iii) Ninety nine iv) 1990, etc.

Correct response: i) Nineteen - thirteen
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Incorrect responses :ii) nineteen thirty iii) ninteen thousand three

iv)1913, etc
Students responses for the test item 3

Correct responses : iii] Nineteen - seventeen
Incorrect responses: i) Nineteen-seven ii) Nine one seven iii) 1917, etc
Students responses for test the item 4

Correct response: i) Thirteen fifteen
Incorrect responses : ii) Fifteen thirty iii) Thirteen fifty iv) 1315, etc.

Correct response: i) Two thousand- three
Incorrect responses : ii) Two thousand thirteen iii) Two thousand thirty
iv) Thousand twenty three v) 2003 etc.
Table : 35 Comments on test item-7c
Performance in %
Item Text questioning correct
response response
response
Recognition
Write down
of word
7c Years what you 29 46 25
boundaries
hear on tape
and recalling
30% of the students had responded correctly. 45% of the students had
responded partially to the read out items and remaining 25% of the students
responded incorrectly. The poor performance may be because of the difficulty
in recognizing the word endings. (Ninety, thirteen, seventeen, fifteen)
Test Item 7d
Given text: days
The readout items: i) The fifteenth of August ii) The second of October
iii) The twenty - third of the month of July iv) Tenth of May v) The thirteenth
of December
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Students responses for the item 1

Correct response: i) The fifteenth of August
Incorrect responses: ii) The fifteen August iii) The fifty August
iv) The five August v) 15, August, etc.

Correct response: i) The second of October
Incorrect responses:
ii) The second October iii) October second
iv) The October second v) 2, October, etc

Correct response : i) The twenty-third of the month of July
Incorrect responses: ii) Twenty third July iii) July twenty third iv) 24 July
etc.

Correct response : i) Tenth of May
Incorrect responses: ii) May tenth iii) May ten
iv) Ten May v) 10, May etc,
Students responses for the item 5

Correct response: i) The thirteenth of December
Incorrect responses ii) December three iii) Three December
iv) The December three v) 13, December etc.
Table : 36 Comments on test item-7d
Performance in %
Test Given Mode of Task Partially Incorrect
Item Text Correct
questioning involved correct responses
responses
responses
Write down Recognition
7d Days what you and 40 49 11
hear on tape recalling
40% of the students had responded correctly. 49% of the students had
responded incorrectly and remaining 11% of students had responded
incorrectly. Of 49%, 20% of the students had missed certain grammatical items
i.e 'the' and 'of and changed the orders of items pronounced due to the
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recklessness in listening the words pronounced and ignorance of the importance

of ordering the date and month while recalling or writing them in words.
4.1.2.2. Suggestions on teaching of listening skill:
Teaching English as a second language, it is useful to approach the teaching

process as that of the teaching of various language skills. There are, in general,
four language skills, each based upon the modality of emphasis. These are the
Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing skills.
It is emphasized that the order of teaching should be listening, speaking,

reading and writing. However, in real life situations of language
communication, these skills are interdependent in many ways, even though they
can be taught independently to some extent.
Listening skill: Interpreting oral English is the result of applying listening

skills. Listening in English is attending to and interpreting oral English.
Listening is necessary to develop speaking skills. The student listens to oral
speech in English, then separates into segments the stretch of utterances he
hears, groups them into words, phrases, and sentences, and, finally, he
understands the message these carried. Listening prepares the students to
understand the speech of the native speakers of English.
There are three approaches to listening: Interactive (listening to a message

and responding accordingly.) one-way communication [non-interactive] (just
listening and retaining the message, in activities such as conversations
overheard, public address announcements, recorded messages, and self-talk.
Listening to radio and watching TV and films, public performances, lectures,
religious services, generally reflect non-interactive listening. Responding to
commands given reflects interactive listening, which, in fact, is equally
widespread in communicative situations. Self-talk is also an important process
by which internal thinking and reasoning is carried out. All these three modes
or approaches to listening may be included in our English listening
comprehension training.
In the classroom, students listen in order to repeat and to understand. In

listening to repeat, students imitate and memorize linguistic items such as
words, idioms, and sentence patterns. This is an important initial task and focus
of listening exercises. It is listening to understand that is real listening in its own
right. Students listen to understand as part of using English for communication
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purposes. In listening to understand, students may be involved in the question-

oriented response model of learning or in the task-oriented model of learning. In
the question-oriented response model, students may be asked to listen to a
sentence, a dialogue, a conversation, a passage, or a lecture and asked to answer
questions, which may be presented in the form of true/false statements,
multiple-choice questions, fill in blank, or short answers. In the task-oriented
response model, students may be asked to listen to a passage and accomplish
the task described in the passage through interaction with others or by
themselves.
Listening comprehension: In the classroom atmosphere, students listen to

the teacher who gives directions and instructions and to their peers during
discussions and to someone reading stories and poetry aloud. Listening is not
neglected; however, the students are in need of teaching listening strategies or
instruction. Teaching listening can be categorized into two modes. The first one
is teaching linguistic nuances like phonemic variations, discrimination of
similar sounds in words, recognizing word boundaries, recognizing morphemes,
distinguishing grammatical and lexical items in sentences. The second one is
teaching how to listen in a context, how to deduce meaning of an unfamiliar
word, how to recognize theme over discourse. These two modes are important
and inseparable for teaching of listening comprehension. If any shortcoming is
found in teaching of either of these modes, the consequences will be seen in
other skills of language
The listening skill is the most neglected one in the school that I visited, both in
first and second language teaching. Teachers tend to focus on the rudimentary
elements of listening briefly, and pass over to other aspects of language
teaching. Discrimination of sounds and intonations often form the major part of
listening practice in the classroom. Listening for content is often assumed. In
reality, the listening skill is fundamental to the entire process of mastering and
using a language, whether first or second.
Listening is like painting, like color, in day-to-day environment. You don’t

notice, but it is always there in every linguistic activity. Listening is important
for casual chats, face to face encounters, telephone messages, for enjoyment of
radio and television programs, formal lectures, and many other activities and
sharing of information.
In the past, listening was labeled as a passive skill, along with reading. No
doubt, it is a receptive skill as is reading. Speaking and writing were considered
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to be the productive and active skills. While this categorization is somewhat

justifiable because the focus of listening is on reception of information,
listening itself cannot be fully and correctly characterized as a passive skill.
There is a need for an active involvement of the self for the efficient
performance of listening. The listener is often forced into guessing an
approximation to what the speaker is communicating. The listener expects and
anticipates what may be the form and content of the immediate message being
delivered. He actively avoids the redundancies in the process of listening,
focuses himself on the relevant, interesting and/or crucial points, and engages
himself in some critical analysis of content. Listening becomes the stepping-
stone for action. In view of all these and other activities that are involved in
listening, it we should be considered that listening is an active skill demanding
active participation of the listener.
It is to be remembered that fluent listening results only from wide exposure to

the target language. Listening, like other language skills, is acquired only by
participation. Listening is an integral part of any type of language performance.
For this reason it should be taught initially. It should not be postponed for
special treatment at a later date or for special occasions. Fluent listening is
important from the beginning, if a student is to succeed in English class and
succeed using English outside the class. Teachers should enable the students to
listen to native speakers’ from the beginning.
More often than not, English is taught through the eyes rather than through the
ears in Third World countries. As a consequence, students master reading and
writing with some relative competence, but their skill in listening to natural and
native English will be poorly developed. Listening Comprehension can be
practiced in all places and in all situations. It should begin with the
identification of natural listening under all circumstances situations both inside
the classroom and outside.
Students are always required to listen to the teacher’s instructions and

questions, and answer them. They may listen to conversations between a
student and the teacher and understand what is going on and may like to
participate in a discussion between students and understand what is being
discussed. They may like to listen and enjoy the story told by the teacher, and
answer questions raised by the teacher. They may also listen to simple questions
eliciting information about them and their families and understand what the
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speaker wants to know from them. They may enjoy the jokes told both in the
class and outside.
Outside of the classroom, students have many needs, which can be met only by
listening to the speech around them and by expressing what they need. They
need to understand the native speakers of English they encounter across in their
day-to-day life, if they are studying and/or working in an English speaking
country. Where there is no opportunity for them to come across native English
speakers, they will need to listen and comprehend the native English used in the
movies and TV programs but should exercise caution !!!
Listening comprehension can be practiced in all places and in all lessons and in
all language skills (although at advanced levels of other language skills the role
of listening could be minimal). There may be listening comprehension exercises
on the phonological elements when pronunciation is taught. And there may be
exercises for listening comprehension when exercises in grammar are done, as
well as in vocabulary teaching. When varieties of speech in various
communicative contexts are introduced, there will be ample scope for listening
comprehension exercises.
Begin with the identification of listening situations appropriate to the need and
age of the students and the level of English competence already achieved by
them. Start with a focus on an ability to understand the formal code of
classroom style English, because this is what is essential for the learner to
benefit from classroom instruction. Focus on the goal of learners and progress
towards achieving that goal in small graded steps. Proceed to less formal
varieties of spoken English to enable students to understand people outside of
the classroom.
Often a simple progression is suggested: classroom style, outside spoken

English, how to listen to lectures and take notes, comprehend native speakers in
all situations, including radio and TV, cultural language, etc.
Identify the listening medium: is it face-to-face interaction, or is it a movie or a

TV program? Or is it a lecture situation? Or is it a telephonic conversation?
Face to face interaction requires a different listening orientation than watching
(and listening) to a movie.
Simple principles of teaching listening skill: It is important that a teacher

of English should have definite goals regarding teaching listening
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comprehension. In the early stages of listening, the students may have to be

taught and exposed to discrimination of sounds used in English in isolation as
well as in combination, not simply as sounds in themselves in isolation, but as
units of meaningful words.
Pit and bit are two different words with significantly different meanings. The
students who listen to these words should be able to distinguish these words not
only in terms of the context in which they occur in a phrase or sentence, but
also as sound units occurring in words, even without any context. Students
should be able to identify the difference between voiceless [p] and [b].
Confusion arises because of the identical point of articulation. I had great
difficulty distinguishing between p and b in English words, when I began to
learn English in my elementary school. My mother tongue does not use p and b
in identical position to discriminate between words and their meanings.
Therefore this problem is easily understood.
Many students with Bengali (a language spoken in Bangladesh and India)

background have difficulty in discriminating between s, and sh. The Japanese
free variation between 1 and r is quite well known. The auditory habits followed
in the native language of the student may come to influence his perception and
production of the quality of sounds in English. In such conditions, some
knowledge of the phonology of the native language is helpful.
The goals of teaching listening comprehension to a beginner student of English

are different from those when teaching English to an advanced student. The
advanced student has already mastered the discrimination of sounds and their
combinations as well as various other aspects of phrases and sentences such as
the significance of pauses between words and phrases, sentence intonation, etc.
Therefore, the student is geared towards following the flow of content of the
message in such a way that he is not conscious of the mechanics or the
processes of listening.
In essence, listening is not mere recognition of linguistic units and their

meanings. It comprises an ability to predict information based on linguistic
context, and the situation and topic of the message conveyed by the linguistic
code, as well as the expectations about the world. Listening helps also to
understand and act according to the emotional state of the speaker.
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First of all, one should be clear about ones goals in teaching a lesson for
listening comprehension. These goals must be made explicit and explained to
the students so that the learning process becomes meaningful to them.
Secondly, one should plan for a careful step-by-step progression in the material
and, in teaching the same in the class, direction should be given to the students.
You should give direction to the students as to what they should listen for,
where to listen, and how to listen.
Thirdly, one must insist on active overt student participation. They should
provide some written or physical response. Listening is done silently, but needs
to be demonstrated through some other overt manifestation.
We should organize the lesson in such a way that there is a need for students to
develop concentration while listening and for remembering (and reproducing)
what they have listened to. This does not mean that one should clutter the lesson
with facts, figures and details. Even with very little details, it may be possible to
create a need to listen intently, if the material is based on a communicative
need.
For example, in a shopping context in a grocery store commonly found in the

Third World countries, the shopkeeper has the need to remember and present
the number and quantity of items the buyer has asked for. In a post office, the
counter clerk has to listen to the patron carefully and remember exactly the
quantity and denomination of the stamps the patron has asked for. The
communicative urgency and the need to listen carefully and remember what has
been listened to should come from the lesson itself.
It is important that students consciously develop their memory span while

listening to a message. Their auditory memory span must be strengthened and
expanded in progressive steps in English. While personality factors play a very
important role in deciding how successful a listener a student could become, the
learners need to have some minimal competence in listening to the speech of
native speakers. In due course they should be able to listen and remember
relatively lengthy sentences and phrases.
In natural contexts, no one deliberately speaks in very long sentences. Often we

tend to use certain sentence patterns more frequently than others. The number
of adjectives in a noun phrase often is limited and these often follow a certain
order. Teachers can take advantage of such structural information to build their
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classroom listening practice. Listening, thinking, and remembering go together.

They are not separate acts. Initially, the student may tend to focus on these as
independent items. The Teacher should organize the lesson and its presentation
to the class in such a way that listening, thinking, and remembering are
integrated in listening comprehension.
Neither the teacher nor students should think that listening comprehension
exercises are miniature tests. They generally come in the form of questions to
be answered, action to be performed, or objects to be identified, because this
format demands response in the form in which tests are generally prepared and
presented, there is a tendency to treat the exercise as a test. Consider listening
comprehension only as practice and look for progress in student performance.
Brief listening comprehension exercises with content interesting to the student

and which focus upon and incorporate communicative needs will develop his
listening comprehension to a satisfactory level. Students need to be attentive to
the tone of the conversation, and should ask questions whenever they find it
difficult to understand the conversation.
Even with limited vocabulary and sentence structure, listening comprehension

exercises may be built on a variety of content. Do not ask questions on every
little detail presented in the passage. Focus upon the major and significant
items, because users of language, tend to ignore what is considered insignificant
and less interesting, and focus upon what is significant and interesting. While
doing so, continue to develop and retain an ability to reconstruct at least some
of the details of what was ignored, if called upon to do so.
Generally followed form of listening comprehension exercises: Students are

given a specific task such as answering questions or solving problems. They
listen to the teacher or recorded material and perform the task. The teacher as
well as the materials on tape/cassette recorders become the major means to train
students in listening comprehension.
We should use a cassette recorder as often as possible, because the cassette

recorder gives a chance for students to listen to a variety of voices apart from
the teacher’s. It is a simple way of bringing native speakers’ voices into the
classroom. In countries where there is only a limited number of native speakers
of English and when even these may not be readily available to model English
before the class face to face, recorded materials become more useful for
listening to dialogues, interviews, and discussions. Students, however, will have
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greater difficulty listening to the cassette recorder, because face to face listening
provides harder to hold attention therefore there are no dynamics. The cassette
can be stopped and played back several times for reinforcement. Focus should
be on exposure to the speech of native speakers in contexts that are relevant to
the second language learner’s goals in learning English.
In developing or choosing materials for listening appropriate to students,

Morley (1991:90-92) suggests three important principles: relevance,
transferability/applicability, and task-orientation. The materials must be
relevant to the interests and level of the students of the class. The content,
structures, and words used in the listening materials should be of such a nature
that these are transferable and can be utilized in other classes and outside the
classroom.
Task-orientation materials focus on performance based on what is presented as

listening material. There are at least six types of task-oriented use: Listening
and performing actions (“Simon Says”); Listening and performing operations
(listening and constructing a figure, drawing a map, etc.), Listening and solving
problems (riddles, numerical, spatial or chronological problems), Listening and
transcribing (taking telephone messages, writing notes), Listening and
summarizing information. Interactive listening and negotiating meaning
through questioning and answering routines. It is to be noted that every one of
these items can be used as exercise types.
A recent publication (Nunan and Miller 1995), looks at the classroom

techniques for developing listening under seven major headings: Developing
cognitive strategies (listening for the main idea, listening for details, and
predicting), Developing listening with other skills (Listening and speaking,
listening and pronunciation, and listening and vocabulary), Listening to
authentic material (such as weather reports, television daytime dramas, News,
discussions, advertisements, etc.), Using technology (Phone mail, recording
messages, etc.), Listening for academic purposes, and Listening for fun.
A generally followed format of listening comprehension lessons

includes the following:
1 .Selecting the teaching point for the listening comprehension lesson.

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2 Introducing the topic before the class begins to listen to the passage. In this
manner the teacher brings the students’ attention to focus on the material to be
listened to.
3 Giving one or two guiding questions before students begin to listen to the
passage.
4 Dividing the listening into stages, such as listening for the main idea only at
the first instance, then answering some guiding questions. This may be followed
by a second listening in which students listen for details.
5 Dividing the passage into several sections and check comprehension after
each section.
6 Students listening to the passage and completing the set task.
7 Presentation of feedback on the performance of the students.
8 If necessary reading the passage once again so that students may follow the
passage more fully.
More often than not, a well-graded listening comprehension lesson selects the
teaching points (that is, the material to be listened to) from all the components
of language. Listening does not focus only upon the sounds in isolation or in
combination, even though such training to discriminate between various sounds
of the English language may be necessary at early level. It may begin with the
discrimination of sounds and may proceed to the discriminations of sounds in
combination, words, phrases, clauses and sentences. It focuses on the
discrimination of various intonation patterns, and grammatical structures.
However, the ultimate goal of listening is to listen for information.
There are several kinds of listening comprehension exercises.
1. A rudimentary but important form of listening comprehension exercise is the

use of the terms in English for class management in English. The teacher
frequently uses instructions such as Everybody sit down; Listen carefully;
Answer; Again; and Repeat. When these are uttered with appropriate gestures,
the students begin to understand them very soon. But will they respond ?
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2. While use of the class management terms is continued, introduce as part of

our lesson Physical Response Activities. Commands should be given by the
teacher and the students would give appropriate physical responses: Stand up;
Walk to the window; Open the Window. We as teachers of English as a
foreign/second language can initially demonstrate the act intended to be carried
out by the students.
It is to be noted that the Physical Response procedure can be repeated as many

times as necessary when new actions and vocabulary are introduced to the
students. However, we should choose only those words, which lend themselves
for Physical Response.
The tasks given to the students can be made more complex in successive stages.
We should ask the student to close the door, but, while the student goes to the
door, he might pick up the pencil on the floor. Or, instructions may be given to
the student to draw a picture and this will involve learning the dimensions, parts
of the object being drawn, etc. Or, introduce exercises which focus on shapes
and colors, in which new terms would be learned while performing the task.
We have to bear in mind the following factors when we wish to have Physical
Response activities in our class: Complexity of the task. 2. Length of exercise.
(Do not give lengthy ones.) 3. Length of Sentences. 4. Lrequency status of
vocabulary used. (As much as possible, we have to give prominence in our
teaching to those words that are more frequently used in a particular context.) 5.
Speed of delivery instructions.
3. Limited Verbal Response Activities. The response in these exercises is

limited to yes/no, true/false, simple answers to WH-questions, usually answers
that consist of one word. We should not emphasize production of complete
answers.
4. Sound Discrimination Exercises. In English, consonant discrimination is

more easily learned than vowel discrimination. Teaching of English stress is
important in contrastive contexts and understanding of stress discrimination
should be encouraged. In English, a contrastive stress (typically louder and
often pronounced on a higher pitch) is regularly placed on new information in a
context. Compare the following: 1. John h'it Bill and then Jo'e hit him. 2. John
hit B'ill and then J'oe hit him. In sentence 1 Bill gets hit twice, first by John and
then by Joe. In sentence 2 Bill gets hit by John, but then John is hit by Joe. The
difference is caused by the location of the word
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It is to be remembered that the intelligibility of spoken English is reduced more

by errors in stress than in mistaken sounds. It is to be remembered also that
teaching and learning the stress system in English is considered to be the most
difficult exercise by many, both teachers and students.
5. There are many one-syllable words such as and, to, for, than, the, was, etc.,
which, when buried in sentences, are unstressed and, as a consequence, cause
listening problems to the second language learners of English. This problem is
not generally recognized in the classroom, but in actual conditions of language
use it hinders listening. One way to overcome this problem is to teach some
nursery rhymes which abound in unstressed syllables and words: One for the
money, Two for the show, Three to get ready, And four to go. It is to be noted
that all the underlined items are unstressed words (Bowen, et al. 1985:86).
Since unstressed syllables and words cause listening problems and consequent
misunderstanding of what is being listened to, continually provide students with
exercises for listening to the unstressed syllables and words. Some of the
following exercises may be used: Checking every time we hear and. Checking it
every time we hear to. Checking every time we hear for, and similar exercises
for the unstressed items. Another complex exercise would be to ask the students
how many times more insignificant words such as “ for” (etc.) occur in the text?
6. Often we tend to focus less attention upon teaching the segmental sounds and
their combinations in English. However, mastering some of the segmental
sounds and their combinations could pose some difficulty to second language
learners. For example, I have come across learners who have difficulty in
distinguishing between p-b, 1-r, j-z, s-z, p-f, a-ha and similar sounds. A simple
exercise of minimal pairs of words may be designed where these distinctions
would be drilled. Listening in order to discriminate the sounds is the top
priority.
7. There are also difficulties faced by learners in mastering combinations of

segmental sounds. Often, the clusters of sounds in the word’s initial position
may pose some difficulty. For example, many Punjabi speakers have difficulty
in mastering the pronunciation of the clusters such as st-, si-, sp-and sk-. Once
again a contrastive minimal pair drill in which the contrast between the
occurrence of single sounds and their combinations could be designed: sick vs.
stick. It is to be noted that we are not talking about producing the sequences of
sounds, but about listening to discriminate the sequences of sounds.
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It would be highly useful to have had some idea of the nature of the phonology
of the source language of students. This would give some insights into the
difficulties students posed by some concrete illustrations as to why It would be
beneficial to design some concrete illustrations. [ they have difficulty in
listening to particular speech sounds and/or their combinations.]
8. While certain intonation patterns (sentence melody), based upon the

universality of emotions in some sense, may be easily recognized by the
students, others, which carry communicative nuances such as sarcasm,
cynicism, wonder, doubt will be easier to follow. Hence there is a need to teach
your class a variety of intonations that native speakers of English generally use
in their day to day language.
Once again, a contrastive approach of first presenting an ordinary statement

which conveys somewhat a literal sense should be presented, then followed by
modifications of intonations on the very same sentence which would convey
various communicative shades of meaning. For example, we can start with an
ordinary declarative sentence, change that into an interrogation, then change
that into an exclamatory sentence. Contrast a matter of fact sentence with the
same words but in the mode of expressing doubt and other intonations.
Listening is not just listening to sounds, words, phrases and sentences.

Listening is listening to meaning, the progress of meaning of the utterance, the
logic and rationale and goading into action, etc. So, while the basics of listening
focus upon sounds and their combinations, words and their combinations, and
sentences and their combinations, the goal of listening lies beyond the elements
and forms of language. Listening needs to be automatic, and in a speed that is in
consonance with the speed of the incoming utterances.
9. The student is required not only to comprehend native English spoken but
also to comprehend it with a speed that somewhat matches the speed of
comprehension in a natural language situation in English. Accordingly, a
listening exercise should have some room for development of “listening
speed.” An important step towards this is to ask the learners to make intelligent
guesses about the meaning based on the context of other words in the
utterances.
10. Communicative Classroom activities. There are several types of exercises

that could be introduced here.
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i. Asking the students to listen to a short passage (an excerpt of a lecture) and
then asking them to answer questions. This is to test the listening
comprehension of the students.
ii. Another exercise is called close dictation. This takes the form of asking the
students to listen to a paragraph and to write the missing words. Leave the first
few sentences as they are so that a proper context is established for subsequent
blanks in other sentences.
iii. We have to follow this with an exercise which demands some inferential
skill from the listener: The student listens to the lecture and then evaluates
following statements as true or false. The student is not only asked to listen but
also to think over the matter and draw conclusions in this type of exercise.
iv. Another inferential skill exercise focuses upon the nuances. Sometimes
people say something they don’t really mean. The insincerity may be signaled
by intonation
v. Listening to radio plays and advertisements is yet another interesting
activity.
vi. Story telling or story reading. Follow this with questions, asking for factual
information and inferential statements.
11. Community Interaction Activities. Students learn listening in the classroom

for purposes outside of the classroom. They need to take their skills into the
community and into their daily lives. There are several good listening
comprehension exercises for this purpose.
i. Eavesdropping is a good way to inform oneself of community activities as

well as to sharpen one’s listening comprehension. Anywhere in crowds is a good
place to eavesdrop: department store, on a municipal bus or in a theater. This is
generally possible only if we are teaching English in an English-speaking
country.
ii. The Telephone is another device that can give realistic practice in listening.
The telephonic conversation needs verbal feedback (Uh huh; Yes; Is that so; etc.)
or some brief indication that the listener is still there and attentive. Also this leads
to an exercise in note-taking, when the person called is not readily available.
Thirdly, the student may reconstruct a conversation of which he heard only half,
and that too from across the room. This involves guessing, and this skill is very
much necessary for a successful listener pre-empting.
iii. We should ask students to listen to pre-recorded messages of various sorts
and give them comprehension questions to answer after listening to the messages:
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Time, weather messages, movie announcements, airlines flight information,

aquarium and planetarium programs, library hours, and so on.
iv. Recorded lessons on tape in the language lab. Language lab exercises are
effective for minimal pairs recognition, paraphrasing of what is listened to. The
student can be given a series of choices, such as selecting the best paraphrase of
two possibilities, making a congruence decision and he can be directed to write
these down. After the student has committed to paper his judgments on a series of
items, the voice on the tape can reel off a list of correct responses, so the student
can tally the items he got correct and have an evaluation of his own performance
(Bowen, et al. 1985).
It is to be remembered that listening is an important part of the competence of a

successful learner of any language. Listening can be dealt with in isolation,
through exercises which focus on listening aspects only. However, even as we
focus on it as an independent skill in the learning of English, it is important to
integrate listening with speaking through all lessons. This may be better
accomplished if some listening exercises deliberately introduced in all lessons.
A Summary list of listening comprehension exercises: 1. Exercises at

the phonological level of English. These will include the following: Aural
discrimination exercises for segmental sounds, Aural discrimination exercises for
supra-segmental such as stress and intonation, Vowel reduction exercises which
demonstrate the relationship between the spoken and written forms of English,
and Stress placement exercises. All these may be used in dialogue form.
i. Listening comprehension exercises which relate to listening in the process

of reading a material. In these exercises, we may ask the students to number the
words in the order in which they heard them, ask students to cross out what is not
correct for the passage, ask students to identify the words with the sound
specified, ask students to identify whether the words and phrases they heard in
pairs are the same or different (same-different drills), and ask students to identify
the grammatical categories of patterns to which they have just listened. It is to be
noted that not all these exercises would be interesting or relevant in our class,
ii. Dictation is an excellent drill for developing listening comprehension, as it
helps in the development of rudimentary writing skills. Begin with spot dictation
in which a few simple words from the text are read/pronounced to the students
and request them to write what they heard. In another type of spot dictation,
students may be asked to fill in the blanks, when a passage is read. Yet another
dictation method is to dictate a complete passage at normal speed. For this, it is
always helpful to first read the whole passage aloud at normal speed. Then, read
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the same passage again with pauses allowing students to write. These pauses
should fall in natural breaks between phrases and sentences. After the dictation is
done, reread the passage at normal speed for checking the responses given by the
students. In order to keep the level of difficulty and complexity of the passage
given for dictation appropriate to the level of students, it is better to select these
passages only from the lessons already completed in class.
iii. It is possible to use dictation for “grammatical” listening as well.
iv. Recoding exercises in which we may ask the students to circle the sentence
which has the same meaning as the one they hear may be given for listening
comprehension practice.
6. Listen to the passage and check all the appropriate answers.
7. Listening for the message is focused upon when students listen to entire
passages. We can read from a well-graded book or play a message on tape and
ask students to say or write the essential parts of the message they just heard. Let
the students concentrate on the general theme or the central message, instead of
on specific words or phrases.
8.1n Problem Solving listening comprehension exercises, students listen to the

description or presentation of a problem and solve it, by doing what is required of
them.
9.Listening to an uncontrolled passage (a passage in which neither vocabulary

nor sentence structure nor content is controlled or graded) and taking notes is an
important listening comprehension skill that students must have if they wish to
use English for purposes of higher education. Students need to understand the
lecture, follow the lecture with ease when the content progresses in complexity,
and be in a position to recall what was heard earlier for purposes of
understanding what is being discussed by the lecturer at a later moment.
Listening and Note Taking Competence is very much needed in college
instruction.
10.This skill may be developed in the second or foreign language learner of

English through several graded steps:
1. Students are introduced to the mechanics of note taking. They will be given a
list of common symbols used as abbreviations for words and ideas. They should
also be introduced to the processes and forms of outlining a content.
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2. Students may be given an outline with the basic points of the content of the
lecture. Along with these basic points, there will be blanks which students are
required to fill in as they listen. At the end, they will answer some comprehension
questions as well.
3. In the next graded step, students may be given a bare outline and a set of
comprehension questions. They are required to fill the outline, but take their own
complete set of notes, and answer questions.
4. The next advanced step will present only the major headings of the outline of
the lecture, and the students are required to take their own complete set of notes,
and then answer some comprehension questions.
5. In this step, students are given only comprehension questions. They are
required to answer them after listening to the lecture. At this level, lectures may
last for an entire class period of 40 minutes.
6. It is important to include listening comprehension exercises to teach variations

of style in English. English is greatly marked by such variations in usage. Such
exercises help students understand the English spoken outside the classroom. For
this it is important to use dialogues. Discuss the factors concerning the style of a
particular passage given for listening comprehension. Focus on the speakers,
situation, content, mood, channel, etc. Focus upon the variations on a theme, on
sound, grammar, and vocabulary, and ask students how the dialogues differ.
Through such exercises students will become sensitive to style differences.
General suggestions: General suggestions for the selection and presentation

of listening comprehension exercises are in order here. As already pointed out,
we have to select teaching points for listening comprehension from various
language components. While the presentation is made, assist students to focus
their attention on the presentation. Alert the students to what they are going to
do. Give them written material to complete the task before they listen to the
passage.
This will help the students to understand what is expected of them after listening
to the passage. Are they going to answer comprehension questions? Are they
going to draw pictures or other physical response activities, or are they going to
do problem-solving exercises? Are they going to involve others in performing
physical tasks, or are they going to the answers (oral answers)? Are they going to
write the answers, or are they going to collate and narrate?
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It is also important that to give a model question and a model answer at the
beginning of the exercise. While asking students to listen and complete a set task,
the presentation should be given in normal speed and intonation. We should not
reduce the speed. Read the exercise again, if requested. The length and difficulty
of the exercise will decide the number of repetitions. If it is necessary to focus
upon recalling facts, we may repeat the exercise several times.
Feedback on the performance of students in listening comprehension exercises is

better done by giving an answer key so that students themselves will check their
answers. We can discuss the progress with students to demonstrate their progress
so that they will know how well they are progressing in listening to native
English.
Listening is an important skill which facilitates the mastery of other language

skills. Continued exposure to native English speakers both in face to face
communication and audiovisual means will help foster the listening skill. The
unstressed vowels and the process of vowel reduction make listening a difficult
process to understand. If students have a better listening skill they are more likely
to have better pronunciation.
4.2.0 Speaking skill:

Speaking is a more complex skill than listening. It is an act of creativity.
In addition to knowing the language, the speaker must think of an idea he wishes
to express, either initiating the monologue, or conversation or responding to
previous speaker. The activity of speaking involves:
- The consciousness of the grammatical, lexical and cultural features of the

language,
■ ability to speak without grammatical errors,
■ where, when, why, how, what to speak awareness,
■ correct pronunciation and ability to present in understandable way, etc.
English is a global language; Because English being so widely spoken, it has

often been referred to as a "global language". While English is not an official
language in many countries, it is currently the language most often taught as a
second language around the world. It is also, by international treaty, the official
language for aircraft/airport and maritime communication, as well as being one of
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the official languages of both the European Union and the United Nations, and of
most international athletic organizations, including the Olympic Committee.
Dialects and regional varieties
English dialects
British Isles British English | East Anglian English | English
English | Estuary English | Hiberno-English
(Ireland) | Highland English | Manx English | Mid
Ulster English | Midlands English | Northern
English | Received Pronunciation | Scottish English
Welsh English | West Country dialects
United States American English | African American Vernacular
English | Appalachian English | Baltimorese |
Boston English | California English | Chicano
English | General American | Hawaiian English |
Maine-New Hampshire English | Mid-Atlantic
English | New York-New Jersey English | North
Central American English | Pacific Northwest
English | Southern American English | Utah English
Yooper
Canada Canadian English | Newfoundland English | Quebec
English
Oceania Australian English | New Zealand English
Asia Hong Kong English | Indian English | Malaysian
English | Burmese English | Philippine English |
Singaporean English | Sri Lankan English
Other Bermudian English | Caribbean English | Jamaican
countries English | Liberian English | Malawian English |
South African English
Miscellaneous Basic English | Commonwealth English | Euro-
English | Globish | International English | Llanito
(Gibraltar) | North American English | Plain
English | Simplified English | Special English |
Standard English
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The mobilisation of the British and the Americans has spread English throughout
the globe. Because of its global spread, it has bred a host of English dialects and
English-based creole languages and pidgins.
The major varieties of English in most cases contain several subvarieties, such as
Cockney slang within British English. Newfoundland English, and the English
spoken by Anglo-Quebecers within Canadian English, and African American
Vernacular English ("Ebonics11) within American English. English is considered a
pluricentric language, with no variety being clearly considered the only standard.
The Scots language developed largely separately from the same origins, but
following the Acts of Union 1707 usage converged and whether it is a language
in its own right or an English dialect better described as Scottish English is
disputed. Pronunciation, grammar and lexis differ, sometimes substantially.
Because of English's wide use as a second language, English speakers can have
many different accents, which may identify the speaker's native dialect or
language. For more distinctive characteristics of regional accents, see Regional
accents of English speakers. For more distinctive characteristics of regional
dialects, see List of dialects of the English language.
Just as English itself has borrowed words from many different languages over its
history, English loanwords now appear in a great many languages around the
world, indicative of the technological and cultural influence wielded by English
speakers. Several pidgins and creole languages have formed on an English base -
Tok Pisin was originally one such example. There are a number of words in
English coined to describe forms of particular non-English languages that contain
a very high proportion of English words - Franglais, for example, is used to
describe French with a very high English content (spoken mostly in the border
bilingual regions of Quebec).
4.2.1 Constructed varieties of English
• Basic English is simplified for easy international use. It is used by some

aircraft manufacturers and other international businesses to write manuals
and communicate. Some English schools in the Far East teach it as an
initial practical subset of English.
• Special English is a simplified version of English used by the Voice of
America. It uses a vocabulary of 1500 words.
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• English reform is an attempt to improve collectively upon the English

language.
• Seaspeak and the related Airsoeak and Policespeak. all based on
restricted vocabularies, were designed by Edward Johnson in the 1980s to
aid international co-operation and communication in specific areas. There
is also a tunnelspeak for use in the Channel Tunnel.
• English as a lingua franca for Europe is a new variant of the English
language created to become the common language in Europe, spoken in the
United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland.
• Manually Coded English — a variety of systems have been developed to
represent the English language with hand signals, designed primarily for
use in deaf education. These should not be confused with true sign
languages such as British Sign Language and American Sign Language
used in anglophone countries, which are independent and not based on
English.
Table : 37 English phonology
English phonologyVowels
IPA Description word
Monophthongs
i/i: Close front fsoreadlunrounded vowel bead
Tsemi soreadl Near-close near-front

i bid
unrounded vowel
e Open-mid front unrounded vowel bed
ae Near-open front unrounded vowel bad

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a: Open back rounded vowel Bod, bath 1
Ooen-mid back rounded vowel pawed2

D
y.
Onen back rounded vowel caught
u Near-close near-back rounded vowel good
u: Close back rounded vowel booed
Ooen-mid back unrounded vowel. Near-

A bud
ooen central vowel
Ooen-mid central unrounded vowel bird3

a:
9 Schwa about4
e Close central unrounded vowel roses 5
diDhthonss
Close-mid front unrounded vowel i i 6

ei bayed
Close front unrounded vowel
Close-mid back rounded vowel 6

/ft,,/
/uu/ Doae
Near-close near-back rounded vowel
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Open front unrounded vowel

ai buy
Near-close near-front rounded vowel
Open front unrounded vowel

au bough
Near-close near-back rounded vowel
Ooen-mid back rounded vowel

Di boy
Close front unrounded vowel
CENTERING DIPHTHONGS
Id Half-open central unrounded vowel here
£d Half-open central unrounded vowel bear
Ud Back rounded centralized vowel poor
Dd Rounded centralized vowel pour
Notes: It is the vowels that differ most from region to region.Where symbols
appear in pairs, the first corresponds to the sounds used in North American
English, the second corresponds to English spoken elsewhere.
1] North American English lacks this sound; words with this sound are
pronounced with /a/ or /o/. According to The Canadian Oxford Dictionary (1998),
this sound is present in Standard Canadian English. 2] Many dialects of North
American English do not have this vowel. See Cot-caueht merger. 3]The North
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American variation of this sound is a rhotic vowel. 4] Many speakers of North

American English do not distinguish between these two unstressed vowels. For
them, roses and Rosa's are pronounced the same, and the symbol usually used is
schwa /e/. 5]This sound is often transcribed with Hi or with Id. 6]The diphthongs
leii and ion/ are monophthongal for many American speakers The letter U can
represent either /u/ or the iotated vowel /ju/.
Consonants: This is the English Consonantal System using symbols from

the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Table : 38
post-
bilabial. . .dentalalveolar palatal velar glottal
dental alveolar
plosive p b t d k g
nasal m n o'
flap r2
fricative fv 0 63 s z x5 h
Jz4
affricate tjd34
approximant
W6
r4 j
lateral
approximant 1,
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Notes: l.The velar nasal [ij] is a non-phonemic aliophone of Ini in some northerly
British accents, appearing only before /g/. In all other dialects it is a separate
phoneme, although it only occurs in syllable codas.
2. The alveolar flap [r] is an aliophone of It/ and Id/ in unstressed syllables in North
American English and increasingly in Australian English. This is the sound of
"tt" or "dd" in the words latter and ladder, which are homophones in North
American English. This is the same sound represented by single "r" in some
varieties of Spanish.
3. In some dialects, such as Cockney, the interdentals /©/ and Id/ are usually merged
with Ifl and /v/, and in others, like African American Vernacular English. 16/ is
merged with Id/. In some Irish varieties, IQI and 161 become the corresponding
dental plosives, which then contrast with the usual alveolar plosives.
4. The sounds IzJ, ld^/, and Irl are labialised in some dialects. Labialisation is never
contrastive in initial position and therefore is sometimes not transcribed.
5. The voiceless velar fricative lx/ is used only by Scottish or Welsh speakers of
English for Scots/Gaelic words such as loch /lax/ or by some speakers for
loanwords from German and Hebrew like Bach /bax/ or Chanukah /xanuka/, or in
some dialects such as Scouse (Liverpool) where the affricate [kxj is used instead of
IkJ in words such as docker . Most native speakers have a great deal of trouble
pronouncing it correctly when learning a foreign language. Most speakers use the
sounds [k] and [h] instead.
6. Voiceless ‘w’ is found in Scottish and Irish English, as well as in some varieties of
American, New Zealand, and English English. In all other dialects it is merged
with /w/.
4.2.2 Voicing and aspiration:
Voicing and aspiration of stop consonants in English depend on dialect and

context, but a few general rules can be given:
• Voiceless plosives and affricates (/p/, /t/, and Dd) are aspirated when they
are word-initial or begin a stressed syllable—compare pin [pin] and spin
[spin], crap [kraep] and scrap [skraep].
o In some dialects, aspiration extends to unstressed syllables as well,
o In other dialects, such as Indian English, most or all voiceless stops
may remain unaspirated.
• Word-initial voiced plosives may be devoiced in some dialects.
• Word-terminal voiceless plosives may be unreleased or accompanied by a
glottal stop in some dialects (e.g. many varieties of American English)—
examples: tap [taep], sack [saek].
• Word-terminal voiced plosives may be devoiced in some dialects (e.g.
some varieties of American English)—examples: sad [saed], bag [bag]. In
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other dialects they are fully voiced in final position, but only partially
voiced in initial position.
4.2.3 Regional Differences and Dialects in Indian English:

Every state (and virtually every Union Territory) in India has its own dialect
of English, which is product of many of the rules of pronunciation of the
local language being applied to what is generally termed Indian English.
Note that rural India hasn't as many English speakers as urban India, and that
there too extensive a difference between the way people from these two
greatly-varying worlds would speak to record each and every village's
personal spin on the state dialect. This article, therefore, addresses the
regional dialects of Indian English in the context of only urban India.
For all the following dialects/differences in Indian English, the following are
deemed continuously common unless specified otherwise:
• Absence of diphthong in the short o, as in "coat." The Indian short o is

rather like the Scottish equivalent, only not as stretched.
• Hard ts and ds;
• Nonexistence of the "th" sound in "the" (as in British/American English
and Arabic); dental’d' instead;
• Nonexistence of the "th" sound in "thing" (0 - as in British/American
English and Arabic); regional variants instead;
• Presence of "y" sound in "news", so that it sounds like the British
"nyooz" rather than the American "nooz";
• Nonexistence of Western dark L: three of the four southern states use the
retroflex L in their English in a slightly similar manner (see below);
• Unaspirated p, t, and k and £-sound consonants.
4.2.4 General Indian English :
General Indian English, though not specifically termed so, is the dialect of
Indian English most common in the Indian media. It refers to both the accent
and the formalness of the dialect as displayed by mostly all senior (Indian
English) journalists in the country. It is akin to Received Pronunciation in
Britain, more so in the context of it being fairly synonymous with the BBC in
past times. General Indian English is even further similar to RP in that it has
been noticed that most of the alumni of the Indian equivalent of British public
schools, such as The Doon School, are seen possessing this accent.
218
Throughout the country, it is generally associated as being a product of upper-

middle-class education. It is characterised by the following features:
• Non-rhoticity, as with "standard" British English. Which means that "cars"

is pronounced "cahs" and "parking", "pahking," though not with as long an
a as the British broad a. Moreoever, unlike RP, there is neither the linking
r nor the intrusive r. "India and China" is not pronounced "Indyer-and-
China" as it would in RP; the linguistic hiatus is always present. This may
in part be due to the fact that rs in this are generally the Sanskrit r, which is
similar to the Spanish r, only not rolled.
• The ts and ds that are commonly "hard" consonants in all other dialects of
Indian English are much softer; not to the extreme extent of them turning
dental, however.
• Syllable-timing is never employed. Stress and intonation are used as
"normally" as it is with British English.
• French words such as cliche or bouquet are generally prounounced as they
would in French, with appropriate stress wherever required.
• The "th" sound in the word "thing" is the Hindi "th": a dental t followed by
a moderately-prominent h, one that has the potential to sound like spitting
with the teeth.
• Vs aren't "hard" at all. They're most pronounced with the Sanskrit
equivalent of the consonant - as a result, (generally) 'vine' and 'wine' are
homonyms, 'verb' is prounounced 'werb'; however, words like "work" are
always pronounced properly.
4.2.5 Kannadiga English:
Kannadiga English resembles the General Indian Accent the most, with only
minor differences:Non-rhoticity, but unlike North India, the linking r (but not
the intrusive r) is existent. So while "It is possible for-us to go" is normal,
"Pauler-Abdul" is not.
• Rs are trilled, and are rolled when following hard ts and ds.
• The "th" sound (in "diing"), as it is in the rest of South India, is a plain
dental t, so that the sentence thus becomes "I tink so."
• There is a slight difference between 'v' and 'w.'
• Ts, ps, and ks are sometimes aspirated, but slightly heavier than in
British/American accents, and to avoid its slight alienness in the rest of
India, it is avoided most of the time.
• Slight syllable-timing as opposed to General Indian Accent's stress-timing.
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4.2.6 Difficulties for learners:
Most of the difficulties which learners face in the study of English are a
consequence of the degree to which their native language differs from
English. A native speaker of Urdu for example, faces many more difficulties
than a native speaker of Kannada.
Learners of any language usually produce mistakes resulting from the

influence of their mother tongue, such as using grammatical patterns from
their mother tongue, difficulty in pronouncing certain sounds or confusion
between false friends. This is known as L_i interference.
Although the grammar of English is not particularly difficult to learn, there

are several features of English which are relatively complex and therefore
create difficulties for the majority of learners.
Pronunciation : Consonant phonemes - English does not have more

individual consonant sounds than most languages. However, /0/ and /S/ (the
sounds written with th), which are common in English {thin, thing, etc.; and
the, this, that, etc.) are relatively rare in other languages, Some learners
substitute a [t] or [d] sound, while others shift to [s] or [z] depending on what
is more natural for them in their native language. Even practiced second
language speakers, such as francophone Canadian politicians, retain this
pronunciation long after mastering vocabulary and grammar. Another sound
that is relatively uncommon in other languages is /q/ (as in singing). Speakers
of Asian languages often have difficulty distinguishing [r] and [1]. The
distinction between [b] and [v] can also cause difficulty for native speakers of
kannada.
• Vowel phonemes - The precise number of distinct vowel sounds depends

on the variety of English: for example, Received Pronunciation has twelve
monophthongs (single or "pure" vowels), eight diphthongs (double vowels)
and two triphthongs (triple vowels); whereas General American has
thirteen monophthongs and three diphthongs. Many learners, such as
speakers of Spanish. Japanese or Arabic, have fewer vowels in their
mother tongue and so have problems both with hearing and with
pronouncing these distinctions.
• Syllable structure - In its syllable structure. English allows for a cluster of
up to three consonants before the vowel and four consonants after the
vowel (e.gstraw, desks, glimpsed). The syllable structure causes
220
problems for speakers of many other languages. Hindi, for example,

alternates consonant and vowel sounds so learners from North India often
try to force vowels in between the consonants (e.g., desks /desks/ becomes
"desukusu" or school becomes isku:l.
• Learners from languages where all words end in vowels sometimes tend to
make all English words end in vowels, thus make /meik/ can come out as
[meiku]. The learner's task is further complicated by the fact that native
speakers may drop consonants in the more complex blends (e.g., [mans]
instead of [manGs] for months).
• Unstressed vowels - Native English speakers frequently replace almost
any vowel in an unstressed syllable with an unstressed vowel, often schwa.
For example, from has a distinctly pronounced short 'o' sound when it is
stressed (e.g., Where are you from?), but when it is unstressed, the short 'o'
reduces to a schwa (e.g., I'm from karnataka.). In some cases, unstressed
vowels may disappear altogether, in words such as chocolate (which has 4
syllables in its native Spanish, but only 2 as pronounced by Americans:
choc-lit.) Stress in English more strongly determines vowel quality than it
does in most other world languages (although there are notable exceptions
like Russian). For example, in some varieties the syllables an, en, in, on
and un are pronounced exactly alike. Native speakers can usually
distinguish an able, enable, and unable because of their position in a
sentence, but this is more difficult for inexperienced English speakers.
Moreover, learners tend to overpronounce these unstressed vowels, giving
their speech an unnatural rhythm.
• Stress timing - English tends to be a stress-timed language - this means
that stressed syllables are roughly equidistant in time, no matter how many
syllables come in between. Although some other languages,e.g., German
and Russian, are also stress-timed, most of the world's other major
languages are svllable-timed. with each syllable coming at an equal time
after the previous one. Learners from these languages often have a staccato
rhythm when speaking English that is disconcerting to a native speaker.
• Connected speech - Phonological processes such as assimilation, elision
and epenthesis together with indistinct word boundaries can confuse
learners when listening to natural spoken English, as well as making their
speech sound too formal if they do not use them. For example, in RP eight
beetles and three ants /eit bi:tlz aend 8ri: aents/ becomes
[eidbi: tlzaenGri:j sens].
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Grammar : Tenses - English has a relatively large number of tenses

with some quite subtle differences, such as the difference between the simple
past "I ate" and the present perfect "I have eaten." Progressive and perfect
progressive forms add complexity.
* Functions of auxiliaries - Learners of English tend to find it difficult to

manipulate the various ways in which English uses the first auxiliary verb
of a tense. These include negation (eg He hasn't been drinking.), inversion
with the subject to form a question (eg Has he been drinking?, short
answers (eg Yes, he has.) and tag questions (has he?). A further
complication is that the dummy auxiliary verb do /did is added to fulfil
these functions in the simple present and simple past, but not for the verb
to be.
• Modal verbs - English also has a significant number of modal auxiliary
verbs which each have a number of uses. For example, the opposite of
"You must be here at 8" is usually "You don't have to be here at 8," while
"must" in "You must not drink the water" has a different meaning from
"must" in "You must not be a native speaker." This complexity takes
considerable work for most learners to master.
• Articles - English has an appreciable number of articles , including the
'definite' article the and the 'indefinite' article a, an. At times English nouns
can be used without an article; this is called the 'zero article'. Some of the
differences between definite, indefinite and zero article are fairly easy to
learn, but others are not, particularly since a learner's native language may
lack articles or use them in slightly different ways than English does.
Although the information conveyed by articles is rarely essential for
communication, English uses them frequently (several times in the average
sentence), so that they require some effort from the learner.
Vocabulary
* Phrasal verbs - Phrasal verbs in English cause a lot of problems for most
learners. This is because many phrasal verbs have several meanings and
different syntactic patterns. There are also a number of phrasal verb
differences betweeen American and British English.
* Word derivation - Word derivation in English requires a lot of rote
learning. For example, an adjective can be negated by using the prefix un-
(eg unable), or in- (eg inappropriate) or dis- (eg dishonest).
• Size of lexicon - The history of English has resulted in a very large
vocabulary. (Schmitt & Marsden claim that it has one of the largest
222
vocabularies of any known language.) This inevitably requires more work

for a learner to master the language.
4.2.7 Process of communication: The term "communication" can be defined

as the process through which inner speech of the communicator is conveyed to
others. This process can be termed as human communication or oral
communication. The activities of the communication maintain eco-balance,
co-operation, tolerance, and bring the people in a common line.
Speech is the great method through which human co-operation is brought

about. It is the means by which the diverse activities of man are co-ordinated
and correlated with each other for the attainment of common and reciprocal
ends (DeLauguna, 1927: 19).
The complete communicative process is the hierarchial arrangement of the

various components of communication. They are as follows:
a. Intended message
b. Encoder
c. Signals
d. Decoder
e. The received message
In order to explain the above components in a nut-shell, it can be thought that

the intended messages can be abstract ideas and feelings of speaker who
wishes to communicate. The encoder is the person who has intended messages
in the form of words and gestures. Signal is the encoded message transmitted
in the form of the mechanical impulse. Channel is the medium through which
a signal travels. Decoder is the person who receives communication signals
into meaning and ideas. Received message is the result of decoding
communication signals. Physiologically speaking, after receiving the message,
the nervous system of the receiver is activated and subsequently interpreted,
and appropriate meanings are assigned to the received codes to make the
communication process complete.
4.2.8 Communicative Competence: The term 'communicative competence' is

viewed by the scholar (Hymes, 1961) as the competence in communication
which covers all modes of competence in linguistic behaviours by the speech
community. This includes both social and grammatical behaviours. The term
'all modes of communication' (Hymes, 1962) can further be explained as the
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language competence that has total comprehension, and total verbal exposition
in all modes of society, which includes group interaction - interpersonal
interaction involving different dialectal areas. Also, the verbal exposition will
encompass the non-verbal behaviour which has cultural compatibility. As it is
evident from the above, one can think of two different kinds of competence,
namely, grammatical competence and communicative competence.
The term grammatical competence is one which can be achieved by way of

exposing one to the structure of language; whereas, the communicative
competence can be achieved by exposing oneself both to the structure of the
language as well as the social behaviour which pivots around certain
conventional rules as put forth by the society.Richard (1979: 169) says that
linguistic competence is a part of communicative competence as explained
diagrammatically.
CC - Communicative competence
LC - Linguistic competence
Figure 8A: Shows Linguistic competence is a part of communicative

competence
Hence, communicative competence is not just concerned with the tacit

knowledge of language structure, but to expose them through performance in
producing and understanding an infinite sets of sentences in real day-to-day
life situation using the social experience.
4.2.9 Teaching / Learning of sneaking skill:
The development of spoken language is not merely the expressing of the

structure of language. It involves the development of pragmatic usage in
addition to the development of pronunciation, constructing words, phrases,
sentences and discourses. Discourse in learning of second language, plays a
vital role. The teaching of second language fulfills when the learner comes to
224
know how the second language works in discourses. Bams and Seidlhofer
(2001: 211) say that 'learning speaking involves developing subtle and
detailed knowledge about why, how and when to communicate, and complex
skills for producing and managing interaction such as asking question or
obtaining in turn'. It is viewed commonly by the applied linguists that the
second language is learned as the first language learning. The stages of the
learning the speaking skill of L2 are same as learning of speaking Lj. The
problems encountered by the learners in the process of learning subtle, and
detailed knowledge, show the gradual development of spoken language. The
purpose of learning second language is fulfilled when the learners use
language with real people for real purpose.
Communication Strategy: Communication strategy is a systematic

attempt by the learner to express or decode meaning in the target language in
the situations where the appropriate systematic target language mles have not
been formed (Tarone et al., 1983: 5). Earlier it was called by Tarone and her
colleagues (1976) as production strategy. Ellis (1985: 182) defines
'communication strategies are psycholinguistic plans which exist as part of the
language user's communicative competence. They are potentially conscious
and they serve as substitutes for production plans which the learner is unable
to implement'. In the process of learning speaking, the learners adopt some
kind of strategies like drawling, self repairing semantic avoidance, etc., to
conceal their linguistic inadequacy as well as to achieve the task of
communication. Various scholars (Tarone, 1980, Blaly Stock, 1984, Fzerch
and Kasper, 1980) have formulated different typologies for the types of
communication strategies adopted by the learners.
Cook (2001) says that the learners adopt certain strategies when they try to
express things beyond their current level of functioning L2. Further, he says
communication strategy of L2 learners will enhance the learning', and the
learners' strategy indicates that the learners are encountering the linguistic
problems in the process of learning. The learners knowingly and unknowingly
use the inter and intra lingual strategies to convey their message to others.
But, they fail to convey the message as they are intended due to their
linguistic inadequacy. By using the strategy they get satisfaction, assuming
that they have conveyed the meaning completely to the questions asked by the
researcher. The learners adopt the strategies whenever they encounter
problems at all the levels of language like phonological, morphological,
syntactical and discourse.
225
Further, Cook says that the conceptual strategies are not same as those used in
native speech when speaker cannot remember the word he wants to use. That
is, while describing the parts of his car need to be repaired to a mechanic, he
says there is oil dropping from the sort of junction in the pipe behind the
engine. This is an analytic strategy; this strategy allows him to communicate
without knowing the correct words. This does not mean that the speaker
adopts the strategy not because of his linguistic inefficiency. But the strategies
followed by the L2 learners are different from the native speaker's strategy
cited above.
Learning Strategy: Learning strategy is an attempt to develop linguistic

and sociolinguistic competence in the target language (Tarone 1983 : 67). The
strategy of learning adopted by the learner is different from communication
strategy. The strategy of learning differs from learner to learner. However
O'malley and Chamot (1990) have defined three types of strategy used by L2
students:
1. Metacongnitive strategies involve planning and thinking about learning

such as planning one's learning, monitoring one's own speech or writing,
and evaluating how well one has done.
2. Cognitive strategies involve conscious ways of tackling learning, such as
note-taking, resourcing (using dictionaries and other resources) and
elaboration (relating new information to old).
3. Social strategies mean learning by interacting with other's, such as working
with fellow students or asking the teacher's help.
Strategy - Process: Strategy is being used interchangeably with process .

Strategy refers to the way the learner arrives at a certain usage at a specific
point in time. Process being used with reference to the systematic series of
steps by which the learner arrives at the same usage overtime. Bialy Stock
(1978) distinguishes process from strategies by the criteria obligatory /
optional. Process being obligatory, strategies, optional mental activities.
Similar criteria are used by Fravefelder and Porqurer (1979) who classify
process as universal, strategies as optional mechanism employed by individual
L2 learners. Other researchers also defined process as continuing development
involving a number of changes.
4.3.0 Testing of speaking skill:

226
In second language research, a great deal of attention has been paid to related
area of communicative behaviour. So, this chapter concentrates on
communication strategies of the L2 learners. Further, communication strategy
is not dealt with in this chapter as a learner's ability to communicate
effectively and efficiently. It is only a tactic followed by the learners to
conceal a gap in their communication. So, the objectives of the chapter is to
test and identify when and how the learners make use of such strategies in
speech
4.3.1. Study of learner language:

Through the descriptive study of learner language, SLA researchers seek to
better understand the process of language learning without recourse to factors
outside learner language. Researchers in this area may adopt an interlanguage
perspective, exploring learner language as a linguistic system, or they may
study how learner language compares to the target language. Research in this
area is centered on the question: What are the unique characteristics of
learner language?
4.3.1.1 Error data analysis:

The field of error analysis in SLA was established in the 1970s by S.P. Corder
and colleagues. A widely-available survey of the field can be found in chapter
8 of Brown, 2000. Error analysis was an alternative to the existing field of
contrastive analysis, a technique influenced by behaviorism through which
applied linguists sought to use the formal distinctions between the learners'
first and second languages to predict errors. Studies in error analysis showed
that contrastive analysis was unable to predict a great majority of errors,
although its more valuable aspects have been incorporated into the study of
language transfer. A key finding of error analysis has been that many learner
errors are produced by learners making faulty inferences about the rules of the
new language.
Error analysts distinguish between errors, which are systematic, and mistakes,
which are not. They often seek to develop a typology of errors. Error can be
classified according to basic type: omissive, additive, substitutive or related to
word order. They can be classified by how apparent they are: overt errors such
as "I angry" are obvious out of context, whereas covert errors are evident only
in context. Closely related to this is the classification according to domain, the
breadth of context which the analyst must examine, and extent, the breadth of
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the utterance which must be changed in order to fix the error. Errors may also
be classified according to the level of language: phonological errors,
vocabulary or lexical errors, syntactic or grammatical errors, and so on. They
may be assessed on the degree to which they interfere with communication:
global errors make an utterance difficult to understand, while local errors do
not interfere with understanding. In the above example, "I angry" would be a
local error, since the meaning is apparent.
From the beginning, error analysis was beset with methodological problems.
In particular, the above typologies are problematic: it is often impossible to
reliably determine what kind of error a learner is making, based on linguistic
data alone. Also, error analysis can deal effectively only with learner
production (speaking and writing) and not with learner reception (listening
and reading). Furthermore, it cannot control for learner use of communicative
strategies such as avoidance, in which learners simply do not use a form with
which they feel uncomfortable. For these reasons, although error analysis is
still used to investigate specific questions in SLA, the quest for an overarching
theory of learner errors has largely been abandoned. In the mid-1970s. Corder
and others moved on to a more wide-ranging approach to learner language,
known as interlanguage. Error analysis is closely related to the study of error
treatment in language teaching. Today, the study of errors is particulary
relevant for focus on form teaching methodology.
Interlanquaqe: Interlanguage scholarship seeks to understand learner

language on its own terms, as a natural language with its own consistent set of
rules. Interlanguage scholars reject, at least for heuristic purposes, the view of
learner language as merely an imperfect version of the target language.
Interlanguage is perhaps best viewed as a point of view on language
acquisition, and not a distinct discipline. By the same token, interlanguage
work is a vibrant microcosm of linguistics. It is possible to apply an
interlanguage perspective to learner pronunciation (interlanguage phonology),
but also to language-use norms found among learners (interlanguage
pragmatics)
4.3.1.2 Classification of phonological and morphological errors
Phonological errors : In the area of phonology some data has been

collected from the oral test given to std 8th to 10th for 45 students. The
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sample words had been selected from their conversation. It will be

interesting and useful to analyze those errors. The sample words are listed
below.
Table: 39 Errors in consonants
Sl.No Words Incorrect pronunciation Correct pronunciation

1 Hall a:l, ha:l h31
2 nothing natiq nA0iq
Pit pitt. pit
3
bed bedd bed
4
Busy, exam, busi,biji,egja:m,ji:ro bizi,igzaem, zi:ro
5
zero
asks a:ks, a:sks
6
Ship, station Jip, stain
7
sip, shif, stasan,
8 Walking,drawing wa:kiq,wa:kingu,draing WDlkiq, drDliq
9 Picture, teacher, picar, ti:car, ga:rl,birad; piktfa, ti:tj ,fa:ma, g3:
brother
brAda
10 Father,of,laugh pad_ ,la:p,farmer fa:da, la:f, fa:ma
11 yes yas jes
12 very weri veri
The discrepancy between the spelling and pronunciation is not understood by

many students. Lack of knowledge of the sound system of English is very
much evident here as it is in the case of vowel sounds too. Most of the
Kannada learners of English are prone to make these errors. They know the
five vowel letters but are not familiar with the 20 vowel sounds consisting of
pure vowels and diphthongs. They seem to be ignorant of diphthongs
especially /ou/, /Di /, and /ei/. For instance look at the following table:
Table : 40 Errors in vowels

Words Incorrect pronunciation Correct pronunciation
s.m
i have, am, and, at, an yaw, ya:m, ya:nd, ya:t, haev, asm, aend, aet, sen
yam
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2 make, take, rain, day, me:k, te:k, de, ge:v, tude meik, rein, dei, geiv
gave today tadei
3 brother, but birader, bat brAda, bAt
4 go, coat, go g9u
5 alone, a, yelon, ye alaun
6 everyday yevride evridei
7 call, ball ka:l, bail kD:t, bD:l
8 year yiyar jiar
9 food fAd find
10 boy bai bai
11 thirteen thertin 0erti:n
It was found that there are 78% of the students had adopted intralingual
strategy. Of the 78%, 48% of the students had adopted strategies of
phonological interferences, errors in diphthongs and vowels. Many of the
teachers interviewed expressed that teaching phonetics at lower classes is
not given much adequate importance. Many teachers are not sure of the
phonetic sounds. The periods allotted for English teaching aren’t sufficient,
and as a result students have developed faulty pronunciation. The Rest of the
errors committed by students were related to their ability to learn.
Morphological errors : The students were asked to construct four

sentences. The researcher asked five questions to the students. The
following errors were identified.
A) Prolongation : Prolongation is lengthening of sounds. This gives time

for the user to organize it and to decide what will be spoken next.
1. my father issss... is farmer.
2.1 will try to helping mmm... mother..
3. My home busss... bus stand.
4. she wass....... walk on.........mmm.. .rrrrr.. .road.
5. a.... I going home.

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The speakers had lengthened the syllables like 'isssss', 'm.....'busssss', etc.,
which had given them time to organize the next elements as shown in the
samples. It was found in the learners' data that not all of the syllables are
prolonged but the sounds like voiceless fricative [s] drill [r] and the vowel (a:)
only are prolonged. It was found that 25% of the learners had adopted this
strategy in their communication.
B) Word Coinage: The learners create or coin certain new words in order to
communicate a desired concept or whenever they find gap in the mental
lexicon for expressing communication.
Ko:li+faram > Koliform for poultry farm

Progash + card > progashcard for progress report
Driver+kelasa > Driverkelsa for driver’s job
There are 10% of the students who have invented new words in the sentences
[other errors in speaking had been dealt with IN THE PREVIOUS ‘ASPECTS OF
SPEECH’CHAPTER SO I WON’T BE DEALING ON IT AGAIN HERE I’LL BE DEALING ON
DEVELOPMENT OF ORAL LANGUAGE SKILL]
4.3.13 General strategies to develop oral lansuaee
1. Seat the student near the teacher and away from environmental noises.
2. When teaching or speaking to the student, face him, pause between phrases
for processing time, limit sentence or clause length, and use simple
vocabulary. Give the student an opportunity to request repetition or
clarification.
3. Limit sentence length and complexity when speaking to the student.
4. Be aware of the linguistic complexity of the language you use in
instructions, questions, and test items. Encourage the student to ask you to
restate difficult instructions or questions using simpler vocabulary.
5. Be aware of when the student has become inattentive or looks confused.
Repeat what you have said or otherwise reinforce the message.
6. Directly teach the student to request repetition or rephrasing of
instructions, questions, or statements when necessary.
7. Allow the student to ask you to paraphrase test questions. Frequently the
student may know the content but not understand the question.
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8. If, when called on, the student does not appear to know the answer to a
question, repeat it verbatim. If the student still does not appear to know the
answer, rephrase the question in simpler terms.
9. Call on the student soon after posing a question. In a long wait period, the
student is likely to forget the question and/or the answer he had wanted to
give.
10. When calling on the student tin class, provide him with as much time as
necessary to organize his thoughts and formulate a response. He may know
the answer but need extra time to find the words. Privately, alert the student
to this plan so that he does not feel pressured to come up with an answer
quickly.
11. As the student’s word-retrieval problem interferes with the fluency of his
oral reading, do not require the student to real aloud in the classroom. Call on
the student if he volunteers.
12. Never assume that the student has prior knowledge or previous experience
of the words or information you are using to teach new concepts.
13. Modify assignments to accommodate the student’s language impairment.
For example, to accommodate a weakness in formulating sentences, reduce
the length of an assigned report.
14. When grading the student’s papers, make allowances for the effect of his
specific language difficulties. For example, overlook grammatical errors in a
paper with good conceptual content.
15. Waive foreign language requirements for the student.
16. Encourage the use of newly learned language skills in the classroom.
Structure situations that require the student to use the skills he is working to
develop. Reinforce the student for use of new language skills by recognizing the
value of the information he has offered or the clarity with which it was stated.
Teaching principles to develop oral language:
1. Introduce activities and tasks by explicitly stating the focus and purpose
what the student is meant to learn and why.
2. Provide ample examples of a new concept or skill that relate the new
information to what is already known.
3. Help the student organize and relate new and known content area
information and skills by using metacognitive strategies such as the K-W-
L-S (Know, Want to Find Out, Learned, Still Need to Learn) Strategy.
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4. Begin language remediation for the student in contextualized language

(speaking about things in the immediate environment and pertaining to the
current situation) and move gradually into de-contextualized language.
5. Use reading and writing as models for oral language skills as well as for
reinforcement.
6. Integrate oral language, reading, and writing for all language skills taught.
When presenting any new skill or concept, move from pictorial stimuli to
print (reading/writing) and oral language (listening/speaking). For
example, when teaching cause/effect terms, use pictures that clearly depict
the relationship, then offer printed sentences that denote the relationship.
Move into oral comprehension, oral expression, and writing.
7. When teaching any new process or skill, provide slow, step-by-sep
instruction.
8. When introducing a new concept, skill, or language pattern, use simple
sentence structures and familiar, concrete vocabulary so that the focus of
attention is on the new information.
9. Draw the student’s attention to new concepts, words, or constructs by
placing vocal stress on them when speaking.
10. When initially introducing a new concept, present the information more
slowly than you would when speaking about a familiar concept.
11. Provide redundancy and repetition in teaching any new concept. Repeat
important statements verbatim and explain the concept in a variety of
ways.
12. Teach new concepts and skills within thematic units so that all new
learning is interrelated conceptually. The thematic unit provides a
consistent framework and familiar context to facilitate the introduction of
new concepts and skills.
13. Within thematic units, use many contexts to highlight the concept or skill
you are introducing. For example, if teaching temporal relationships in
social studies, you might read about how ancient people using interesting
rock formations and discuss the sequence of events in the story. For
science, you might do experiments with different types of rocks, using the
specific temporal terms you are teaching in your instructions as well as in
class discussions after the experiment.
14. Encourage reading in the classroom. Use incentives for the student if
necessary. Reading will help the student improve their vocabulary and
syntactical knowledge.
15. Do not exclusively use reading materials that are highly dependent
on word families and specific phonic elements. The necessity of
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maintaining particular word forms restricts the use of meaningful, familiar

language, making it difficult for the student to predict upcoming words and
syntactic forms.
Multimodalitv Instruction to Support Oral Language:
1. Present all types of verbal information accompanied by visual stimuli that

clearly illustrates the concept being taught. Examples are pictures, charts,
graphs, semantic maps, and videotapes. Simultaneous visual-verbal
presentation is necessary for the student’s comprehension and retention of
the information.
2. Teach the student to create a visual image of what is heard or read so that
they can produce a visual input to supplement verbal information.
3. If the student is unable to take in auditory and visual information
simultaneously, direct the student to look at the complete visual display,
and then direct them to the portion of it about which you will be speaking.
When he has had adequate time to look at the illustration, give a brief oral
explanation. Then, direct the student to look at the visual again.
4. When possible, involve the student in concept or skill learning tactile-
kinesthetically or experientially.
5. Be aware that the student’s ability to benefit from any activity that is
purely auditory, such as round-robin reading, is extremely limited.
Lecture Strategies to Support Oral Language:

i i i ' —... -■■■■■....... imn.iiii.u.a.......... .... ..... ......—..
1. When lecturing, present ideas in an organized and logical sequence. Keep

the points as simple as possible and group related information.
2. When presenting lectures, use an overhead projector to highlight the
important points.
3. Prior to beginning a lecture, write on the board the important points to be
covered and review the major points at the end of the lecture. This will
help the student recognize and retain the critical information.
4. Provide the student with an outline of questions to follow during a lecture.
Go over the questions before beginning the lecture and guide a discussion
of the answers after the lecture.
5. For increased comprehension of lectures, provide the student with a study
guide that identifies the critical information. Encourage the student to
complete the study guide and then use it to study for exams.
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Strategies for Teaching Students to Follow Instructions & Support Oral Language:
1. Use barrier games to develop the awareness that careful listening is

necessary for following instructions.
2. Teach the student to monitor his understanding of instructions so that he
recognizes when there is the need to ask for clarification. Some techniques
for this purpose are barrier games and giving instructions that have
ambiguous or nonsense statements in them.
3. In order to teach the student when to recognize the need for clarification of
instructions, present instructions in which information is either missing,
unclear or incompatible with another statement. Teach the student how to
ask specific questions for clarification.
4. Teach the student to comprehend the sequence of instructions, the terms
used to denote sequence, and a strategy to remember more than two steps.
5. Use barrier games to practice following directions using spatial terms, such
as right top, below, and center. Tape-record the instructions given by the
teacher and the student. In the case of a disagreement about the wording of
instructions given, the tape may be played back.
6. Once the student has learned basic spatial terms, teach him to follow
spatial directions on a map. Start with maps of familiar areas, such as the
student’s house.
7. Teach the student to write lists of things he has to do or remember.
Vocabulary Building Strategies to Support Oral Language:
1. To increase vocabulary, emphasize building general knowledge.

2. Directly work on vocabulary development in reading, writing, and oral
discussion. Ensure that oral vocabulary continues to develop and that new
words are pronounced and used correctly.
3. Correct mispronunciations by teaching the student the correct spelling of a
word.
4. Expose the student to multiple repetitions of new words in many different
contexts and settings.
5. When teaching vocabulary, do not use passive learning activities such as
looking works up in the dictionary and memorizing their definitions.
6. When teaching vocabulary, activate the student’s awareness of his
familiarity or lack of familiarity with the words.
7. Teach all new vocabulary by association with known concepts.
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8. Focus on building receptive and expressive vocabulary skills through

vocabulary games based on any unfamiliar words the student finds in his
reading or hears during the day.
9. Introduce new vocabulary by expanding the student’s statements. For
example, if the student says, “The house is old and ugly,” the teacher might
say, “Yes, that house looks dilapidated.”
10. Use interesting pictures to foster and reinforce vocabulary development.
The book Animalia (Base, 1986) present numerous objects and activities in
detailed pictures. Each page represents a letter; all of the pictures on the
page begin with that letter.
11.Read stories to the student that are on or slightly above his language level.
Discuss any unknown words using pictures or known synonyms. Provide
ample practice in using the new words.
12.Directly teach the student that words can have more than one meaning.
Teach multiple meanings and provide practice in using them.
13.Teach the student to use a thesaurus for writing.
Concept Building Strategies to Support Oral Language:
1. Play games that focus on word meanings. These include thinking of words
that go together, making collages of pictures that go together, and
discussing how the words or pictures are related. Later, incorporate the
concept of opposites.
2. Play games with the student while driving in the car or when taking a walk
that will require him to categorize words. For example, you may say, “Tell
me everything you see that looks like a circle” or, ‘Tell me everything you
see that is a machine.”
3. Play games in which the student tells how two or more objects or groups of
objects are similar.
4. Teach the student the meaning of question words (e.g. what, when, where,
why, and how). During play activities, ask questions using these words
and guide the student to the appropriate answer. Later, use the question
words in less experiential settings, such as before, during, or after a story is
read (e.g. “Look at the picture. What is happening? Why do you think the
boy is doing that?”)
5. Devise activities to develop the idea of sequence in daily events, in the
different parts of one event, and in the events within the story. Use
sequence words (e.g. “first,” “second,” and “finally”) to describe the events
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and set up situations in which the student demonstrates comprehension of

these words (e.g. “What did we do second?”)
6. Plan experiences with the student in which he helps to decide the necessary
sequence of activities. Within these situations, teach comprehension and
expression of temporal and sequence words (e.g. “first,” “before,” “later,”
“last”).
7. Teach/reinforce positional (e.g. first/last), directional (e.g. right/left) and
quantitative (e.g. more, fewer) concepts by using them in a variety of
experiential contexts.
8. Directly teach the concepts antonyms and synonyms and provide many
activities for practice in finding antonyms and synonyms for given words.
9. Use all possible situations to teach the student words for feelings. Ask
what he is feeling during or after specific activities and conflicts.
10. Teach the student to comprehend the linguistic relationships signaled by
temporal, spatial, cause/effect, analogous, exceptional, and comparative
terms. Teach the student a variety of specific terms for each of these
concepts.
Word Retrieval Strategies to Support Oral Language:
1. Ensure that all new words presented are well integrated into a conceptual
framework and firmly understood.
2. Provide activities to reinforce integration of recently learned and familiar
words within a strong conceptual framework. Strong associations with
known words and concepts might help to prevent word-retrieval
difficulties.
3. Teach the student to recognize when he is having difficulty retrieving a
word so that he may use a retrieval strategy.
4. Teach the student to visualize the object or the spelling of the word to
prompt recall of the verbal label.
5. Teach the student to think of a category for the target word and mentally
list associated objects to try and prompt recall.
6. Teach the student to visualize a different context for the word and mentally
describe it with a sentence.
7. To facilitate word retrieval, encourage the student to try to recall and say
the first sound of the word.
8. To facilitate word retrieval, teach the student to “talk around the word,”
describing its appearance, function, and/or category.
9. If the student cannot recall a word, encourage him to use a synonym.
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Organizational Structures for Narrative and Expository Writing Strategies in

Support of Oral Language:
1. Teach the student to use a story grammar for following, retelling, and
generating narratives.
2. Until the student becomes more familiar with expository structure, present
informational material in narrative structure.
3. Select reading and listening materials with clear organizational structures.
For example, it may be easier for a student to understand and recall a story
containing all the elements of a story grammar (e.g. setting, problem,
internal response, attempt at resolution, consequence, ending) than to infer
those elements from a story written in repeated language such as “The
House that Jack Built.”
4. Teach the student to recognize the structure of the type of discourse and
text you are using in the classroom. For example, if working with stories
in a narrative structure, teach the student to recognize the elements of a
story grammar. For expository discourse or text, teach structures such as
comparison/contrast and enumeration.
5. Teach the student the differences between narrative and expository styles.
As a basis for discussion, give the student a paragraph written in narrative
style and another written in expository style, but with similar information.
Discuss with the student the stylistic differences.
6. Directly teach the student to understand the organizational structure of
expository material. Examples of expository paragraph structures include:
sequence (main idea and details which must be given in a specific order),
enumerative (topic sentence and supportive examples), cause/effect (topic
sentence and details telling why), descriptive (topic sentence and
description of attributes), problem solving (statement of problem followed
by description, causes, solutions), and comparison/contrast (statements of
differences and similarities).
7. Teach the student different ways information might be organized and draw
a visual pattern to illustrate that type of organization. For example,
contrast might be depicted as a divided square with two subheadings and
blocks down the side for categories; description might be depicted as a tree
with small branches coming off each major limb; and cause/effect might be
depicted as a circle or number of circles with an arrow leading from one
circle to another; chronological sequence might be depicted as a timeline.
Subsequently, teach the student to recognize these patterns in reading
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material and orally presented information and to use these patterns to

organize information for writing.
8. Use simple semantic mapping to help the student organize information for
a short oral report. First the student can base the report on notes written
from the semantic map; later he should learn to organize thoughts into a
mental semantic map to guide expression of ideas.
9. Ensure than any strategy the student learns for oral comprehension is
generalized to speaking and writing.
Generation of Ideas through Strategies to Support Oral Language:
1. Facilitate the student’s ability to generate ideas by using a variety of
techniques including: (a) story starters, (b) expansion of one sentence by
using reporter questions (e.g. who, what, when, where, why, how), (c)
story structures with specific questions to facilitate each element, and (d)
brainstorming with retention of only those sentences that can be related to
each other, adding details or story elements as needed.
2. Use story or movie retellings to facilitate generation of ideas for speaking
or writing.
3. To facilitate generation of ideas, provide the student with an outline of a
story or report on a familiar topic. Have the student fill in missing
information. Gradually decrease the amount of information given in the
outline.
4. Teach the student elaborate on explanations and information he gives to
others by recognizing the extent of or lack of shared knowledge and
providing more detail accordingly.
Sentence Structure Strategies to Support Oral Language:
1. Provide visual cues for teaching morphological markers. For example, to
highlight the concept of plural s, you could use a picture of two cats with
an s after the second cat. To illustrate the concept of ‘er’, use a picture of a
can of paint with ‘er’ written after it followed by an equal sign and a
picture of a person painting a house.
2. When correcting the student’s syntactic errors and modeling correct word
order, speak slowly and change as little as necessary to make the sentence
correct. Write the sentence and have him read it or say the sentence
correctly and ask him to repeat it.
3. Use pictures to accompany activities in oral sentence comprehension.
4. Use written sentences or phrases to accompany activities in oral sentence
comprehension.
239
5. Repeatedly expose the student to complex sentence structures in stories

before introducing these sentence structures out of context for remediation
activities.
6. Teach the student strategies for interpreting complex sentence structures.
7. Specifically teach the student the meaning of transition words and how
they signal the relationship between dominant and subordinate clauses.
Teach the student to write complex sentences and then to use them in his
expressive language.
8. When teaching the meanings of and providing practice in the use of
specific connecting words, maintain awareness of the difficulty of complex
sentence structures, probable versus non-probable event sequences, and the
level of vocabulary and concepts.
9. Provide a variety of activities in which the student combines given phrases
and selected transition words into complex sentences.
10.Provide extensive oral practice with sentence combining exercises. Present
the student with several clauses or short sentences and have him generate
as many sentence patterns as he can by using a variety of connecting
words. As an alternative activity, provide the student with a specific word
or words to use in joining several clauses or sentences.
11. Once the student is proficient with a basic level of complex sentences,
teach him to understand and use sentences containing relative clauses (e.g.
clauses embedded in a sentence that begin with the words such as who,
what, where, that).
12.Teach the student to comprehend passive voice by constructing active
sentences out of word cards. Show the student how to re-sequence them,
adding cards for was and by to create passive sentences or omitting was
and by to create active sentences.
13.Due to the student’s dependence on using an “order of mention” strategy to
interpret sentences, teach the student that word order does not necessarily
imply sentence meaning. Provide training to move the student from
semantically oriented comprehension to syntactically oriented
comprehension.
14.Teach the student to interpret sentences in which the order of mention does
not match the order of events.
Sentence Formulation Strategies to Support Oral Language:
1. Teach the student how to sequence his ideas mentally so that he can state
them in an organized fashion. For example, before speaking, he should
ask, “What is the beginning of what I want to say? The middle? The end?”
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2. Use elaboration to model how the student might add details and
information to his statements.
Inference Strategies to Support Oral Language:
1. Guide the student to infer the feelings of classmates and characters in
stories and movies.
2. Give the student practice in determining what materials, tools, or pieces of
information are missing in given situations. First, use actual situations.
Later, have the student consider situations that are familiar but are not
actually happening. Finally, use situations that are less familiar, requiring
more generalization from what he already knows.
3. Use pictures and devise activities to given the student practice in
interpolative thinking - inferring the middle event when told the first and
last event.
4. Teach the student to infer information that is not given in instructions and
stories.
5. While reading stories, watching videotapes, and conducting simple science
experiments, encourage the student to predict the outcome. Afterwards,
ask him to evaluate the prediction.
6. Provide activities to help the student develop an “inferential mind set,” the
understanding that inferences based on prior knowledge are necessary for
understanding of reading/listening material. These activities are often best
done in a small group.
7. Use techniques to activate prior knowledge before introducing new
concepts, reading material, or oral information. Directly teach the student
the necessity of using his own prior knowledge and experience to help
understand the information.
8. Use predicting strategies in listening and reading activities to increase the
student’s comprehension and retention of implied information.
9. Teach the student how to recognize when information is missing from
discourse or text and the type of information that needs to be inferred.
10.Teach the student how to make inferences within sentences before teaching
inference across sentences.
Strategies to Teach Figurative Language while Supporting Oral Language:
1. Teach the student to understand and use figurative language such as

metaphors (e.g. the teacher watched him with an eagle eye), similes (e.g.
the teacher watched him like a hawk), idioms (e.g. he threw away a
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wonderful opportunity), and proverbs (e.g. necessity is the mother of

invention).
2. Teach the student to understand humor such as jokes and riddles. Use
direct explanation, many examples, and pictures, where appropriate.
3. Teach the student to recognize the humor in intentional ambiguity (e.g.
won’t you join me in a cup of tea?).
4. Teach the student to recognize ambiguity in his own sentences and provide
clarification, or, in someone else’s sentences, ask for clarification.
Teaching Elements of Style In Support of Oral Language:
1. Teach the student to write in a more literate style. Use practice in literate
writing as a basis for practicing a literate style of speaking.
2. To facilitate writing and speaking in a more literate style, teach the student
to differentiate between oral and literate language. A sequence of activities
requiring increasing skill may include: (a) dividing pairs of sentences into
categories of style (oral and literate), (b) labeling a given sentence as oral
or literate in style, (c) rewriting sentence from oral to literate style based on
previous practice in complex sentence structures and cohesive devices, and
(d) rewriting passages in a variety of styles.
Strategies to Build Pragmatics In the Support of Oral Language:
1. Provide situations in which pretend play and role playing are encouraged.
2. To teach pragmatic language skills, use a combination of modeling, direct
teaching, and videotaping.
1. Teach the student how to take the existence or lack of a shared context into
account when speaking to someone else.
2. Develop awareness in the student of the need to provide the listener with
sufficient information when introducing and discussing experiences.
3. Teach the student to be aware of what information the listener could be
expected to have. Teach him to explain people and places he discusses in
narratives.
4. Teach the student to be sure that the referent for each pronoun and deictic
term he uses (e.g. here, there, this, that) is clear.
Strategies to Build Social Language in the Support of Oral Language:
.......... ...............i i ...... «■»# — ■................ | | i ■»#' <«■#
1. Teach the student how to change his manner of speech depending upon to
whom he is speaking.
2. Teach the student to interpret the social language of his peers and how to
use social language in a variety of situations.
3. Teach the student how to take turns in a game, discussion or conversation.
4. Teach the student how to maintain the topic in a conversation.
242
4.4.0 Reading skill:

Reading is one of the language skills and one of the gateways of getting worldly
knowledge. Traditionally, reading was considered as a passive skill, but it is
today considered as an active one, and one's reading ability decides his academic
success. Education of a child is incomplete unless he is equipped with the ability
to read, to decipher, to interpret and to understand properly the content of a
reading material. The intellectual advancement of a child is strictly limited, if he
is unable to read (Yadov, 2002 : 45).Reading is a good source of self education.
By reading, a person can keep himself informed of all the news and knowledge,
literature and science of world.
Psychologists and Sociolinguists Views of Reading: Psychologists

consider that reading is a guessing game and a sort of thinking activity. Reading
activity includes perception, recognition, association, understanding,
organization, and finding meaning, so the process of reading is complex in nature
and related to mental ability of the reader. Hence, reading is a psycholinguistic
process. It starts with a linguistic representation encoded by a writer and ends up
with meaning, which a reader constructs. Thus, it is an interaction between the
language and thought. The writer encodes thought in the form of language
through the words. If the reader is not able to interact with the words, the
meaning will be lost. According to sociolinguists views, the experience of the
reader, interests and efforts play a role in decoding process. When a reader starts
to read, he feels comfortable, and he easily understands the meaning. Hence, he
gets meaning, and easily matches the information he gets from the text with that
which is within his fund of knowledge he possesses.
4.4.1.1 The Reading Process : Reading is a visual process. It is the ability to

see symbols clearly with the eyes. It is a perceptual process-perception meaning
that our thought process are able to take these symbols and to invest them with
meaning. It is an experimental process; because, without experience the mind
will be unable to invest meaning to the symbols that we see. Reading comes
about when we take meaning to the printed page, not just the act of taking
meaning from the printed page (Berg, 1971 : 10).
Reading is a transactive process in which readers negotiate meaning or

interpretation. During reading, the meaning does not go from the page to the
reader; instead, it is a complex negotiation between the text and the reader that is
243
shaped by the immediate situational context and broader socio linguistic contexts
(Weaver, 1988). The immediate situational context includes the reader's
knowledge about the topic, the reader's purpose for reading, and other factors
related to the situation. Broader socio linguistic contexts include the language
community that the reader belongs to and how closely it matches the language
used in the text, the reader's culturally based expectations about reading, and the
reader's expectations about reading based on his other previous experiences.
Figure 9 :The Reading Process
Adapted from Weaver, 1988: 30.

1. Reader; 2. Transaction; 3. Text; 4. Immediate Situational Contexts and
5. Broader Socio Linguistic Contexts.
Bottom up and Top down Processing in Reading: In the case of reading, as with
other cognitive process, psychologists have distinguished two kinds of
processing. They are bottom up and top down processes. Bottom up processes are
those that take in stimuli from the outside world-letters and words, for reading
and deal with that information with little recourse to higher level knowledge.
With top down processes, on the other hand, the uptake of information is guided
by an individual's prior knowledge and expectations. Teriman (2001) says that in
most situations, bottom up and top down processes work together to ensure the
accurate and rapid processing of information.
244
Reading and Reading Skill: Reading in general is an ability. The reader decode
meaning from the printed or written words. In the process of reading, the reader
employs his reading skill. The degree of reading skill varies from person to
person according to the linguistic competence and background knowledge he
possesses. However, the following are some of the important components of
reading skill.
1. Recognition of the graphemes.

2. Recognition of the correlation of graphemes within words.
3. Recognizing word boundaries and sentence boundary.
4. Recognizing the meaning of words and its relationship in sentence.
5. Recognizing relationship between and among sentences in a discourse.
6. Deducing meaning of unfamiliar words
7. Inferring implicit and explicit information and ideas of text, etc.
Reading Comprehension :Reading means reading with comprehension. In

the process of reading comprehension, the printed words are not just decoded as
it is, but it is decoded by a reader using his linguistic competence, socio linguistic
and existing knowledge about the topic. Reading is not only the activity of
merely decoding the writer’s meaning, but also it is the activity of more than that.
Sometimes the reader goes beyond that or understands nothing from that. One’s
comprehending ability can be decided by the internal and external factors. Under
the internal factors, linguistic competence (what the reader knows about the
language) motivation (how much the reader cares about the task at hand as his
general mood about reading), schooling and accumulated reading ability, how
well the reader can read are included.
Under the external factors, the elements on the printed page, the qualities on
the reading environment, factors related to textual characteristics like text
readability and text organization are included. Further, the qualities of the reading
environment include factors like teacher activity that incorporates what a teacher
does before, during or after reading in order to help the students understand the
information found in the text. Moreover, the way peer groups react to the reading
task and the general atmosphere in which the reading task is completed are also
included.
4.4.1.2 Types of reading:

Reading may be classified as oral and silent reading, informational and
recreational reading, observational, assimilative, reflective and creative readings.
245
Yoakem (1955) has classified reading according to the form, purpose and the
psychological process involved. On the basis of ’form’, reading is categorized as
silent and oral reading. The reader either reads to himself or to others. On the
basis of the factor ’purpose’ reading may be classified as recreatory or leisure
reading and informational or educational or professional reading. Further, on the
basis of psychological process, reading can be classified into four types. The first
one is observational reading, where the reader makes note of what the writer
intends to write but makes no special efforts to analyse it or to remember the
words or ideas. The second one is assimilative reading, where the reader tries to
understand fully and remember what he reads. The third one is reflective reading,
where the reader reads with a critical attitude. The last one is called creative
reading, where the reader tries to discover ideas so that he can use them
subsequently in oral written expression.
Figure 10: Classification of reading (Yoakem)
Reading
1
Form
J
Purpose Psychological Process
/\
Silent Oral
/\
Recreatory Observativ 1
Assimilative Reflective Creative
reading Informal e (noting) (understandin (critically (using)
reading g- evaluating
remembering )
)
In another way, reading is classified as skimming, scanning extensive and

intensive reading. Skimming involves quickly running one’s eye over at text to
get the jist of it. Scanning involves quickly going through a text to find a
particular piece of information. Extensive reading is nothing but reading longer
text usually for one’s own pleasure. This is a fluent activity, mainly involving
global understanding. Intensive reading involves reading shorter texts to extracts
specific information. This kind of reading is otherwise known as reading for
details.
Science of reading: Reading is a fairly new science, much of the research in

reading has been done in the past years unlike other sciences which have a long
heritage of research. The first study of how people learn to read was done by
245
Yoakem (1955) has classified reading according to the form, purpose and the
psychological process involved. On the basis of 'form', reading is categorized as
silent and oral reading. The reader either reads to himself or to others. On the
basis of the factor 'purpose' reading may be classified as recreatory or leisure
reading and informational or educational or professional reading. Further, on the
basis of psychological process, reading can be classified into four types. The first
one is observational reading, where the reader makes note of what the writer
intends to write but makes no special efforts to analyse it or to remember the
words or ideas. The second one is assimilative reading, where the reader tries to
understand fully and remember what he reads. The third one is reflective reading,
where the reader reads with a critical attitude. The last one is called creative
reading, where the reader tries to discover ideas so that he can use them
subsequently in oral written expression.
Figure 10: Classification of reading (Yoakem)
Reading
r~ 1
Form r
Pnrpo.ee
^
Psyc lwlogic sil Process
^ ^
Silent
/\ Oral
/\
Recreatory Observativ Assimilative Reflective Creative
residing Informal e (noting) (understandin (critically (using)
residing g- evaluating
remembering )
)
In another way, reading is classified as skimming, scanning extensive and

intensive reading. Skimming involves quickly running one's eye over at text to
get the jist of it. Scanning involves quickly going through a text to find a
particular piece of information. Extensive reading is nothing but reading longer
text usually for one's own pleasure. This is a fluent activity, mainly involving
global understanding. Intensive reading involves reading shorter texts to extracts
specific information. This kind of reading is otherwise known as reading for
details.
Science of reading: Reading is a fairly new science, much of the research in

reading has been done in the past years unlike other sciences which have a long
heritage of research. The first study of how people learn to read was done by
246
JAVAL in 1879. He studied the eye-movements in reading. He discovered that ,

the eyes move in discrete jumps across the line of print. The eye does not sweep
across the page smoothly. Rather it moves and stops, then moves and stops. The
eyes focus and stop, see what they stop on, and then move to the next word or
words and stop again. The eyes move and stop as many as five or six or seven
times across a line of print. Then there is a return sweep. Then the eyes repeat the
action. There is also a duration of fixation - That is, the time the eyes stay still
during a fixation. The eyes must remain stationary in order to record words. They
jump to the next point and then there is another duration of fixation and so on.
The average length of fixation, when the words are seen is from 1/8 to 1/4
second.
Effective reading : The reader’s proficiency depends upon his linguistic

competence, background knowledge about the subject and the words employed in
the text. A successful reader is a person who can handle large amount of written
material. The following are the characteristics of a successful or effective reader
(Berg, 1971:7-8). A reader is one who
■ • has purpose
■ • can concentrate
■ • comprehend what he reads
■ • remembers what he reads
■ • has a good vocabulary, and
- • can read rapidly, but with rate depending on the material.
Further, he says that knowing how to select the right combination of skills for a
particular purpose - to change the rate of reading in a co-ordinated reaction to
purpose and difficulty is the mark of the effective reader. This skill is called
flexibility.
The flexible reader is a purposeful reader. He knows how to skim for previewing
an article before reading, and he knows how to scan for specific information in a
selection. He learns from his preview skimming, to know whether to read the
selection rapidly, at an average rate, or slowly.
Poor reading : One's reading capacity normally fails due to his inability of
recognizing words and deducing its meanings. Apart from word recognition, the
knowledge about the subject of the written matter also controls the reading ability
of the reader. Berg (1971: 5-7) says that the following are the causes of poor
reading habits:
247
■ • lack of effective techniques

* • lack of effective practice
- • not a direct translation between word symbol and comprehension; word is
compared to one in the more common spoken language
■ • insufficient background
* • technical details which demand a slower reading and
* • visual problems.
4.4.1.3 Teaching / Learning of reading skill:

One cannot become an effective or fluent reader as soon as he enters into the
school. One has to pass through several stages to become an effective reader.
Generally the stages of learning of reading are categorized that at the first stage,
the learner learns to read the alphabetic orders ABC upto XYZ. Then he learns to
read its combinations (like h.e, s.h.e). In the third stage, the learner learns to read
the words and its combinations with other words in a sentence and understand its
meaning. In the fourth stage he extent his reading ability at the sentence level.
In the fifth stage, he begins to comprehend the discourses. Only at this stage, he
uses his both linguistic and socio linguistic knowledge for complete
understanding of the text.
The learning of reading is a conscious process which is taught to learn

deliberately. However, reading is taught by adopting different methods in school
curriculum which are categorized (Yadov, 2002) as:
1] alphabetic method 2] syllabic method 3] word method 4] phrase method
6] sentence method 7] story method and 8] phonic method.
In the alphabetic method, the name of the letters are taught to the students in
alphabetic order and then combination of two or more letters and words
combination in sentences. In the syllabic method, the unit of teaching is the
syllable not the letter. Syllables are used directly and words and sentences are
framed combining syllables. In the word method, word is the unit of teaching and
as well in phrase method, phrase is the unit of teaching. In the sentence method,
sentence is the unit of teaching. In the story method, the students are taught story
in four or five sentences which are illustrated with pictures. The story is learnt by
rote and then the students reads it. The students recognize sentences and then
words. The last one, the phonic method, this method is based on phonology and
248
is used in combination with the alphabetic method. The unit of teaching is sounds
of letters. However, every method has its own merits and demerits.
4.4.2.0 Testing of reading skill: To test the reading comprehension ability

of students, three test items were given. The items were a passage from text book,
sentences, and words. Two types of questions were asked. They were text based
questions and knowledge or competence based questions. Text based questions
expected from the students’ answers of different types:
1] Selection of appropriate answers from the given answers, 2] Deciding the

statements given are true or false, 3] Eliciting the answers from the text.
Knowledge based questions required the students to recognize the components of

the sentences, to complete the incomplete sentences and recalling vocabularies
and grammatical information from memory.
Table : 41
Test Mode of answering

Type of the Text Type of skill
item or questions
1. Passages of the Reading the passage Text based

text book.
2. Sentence Pickout the segment that has Competence based
error in the given sentences
3. Sentence Labelling the parts of Competence based
the sentences
4.4.2.1 Data analysis of phonological errors in reading: I] [From std

8th to 10th] The students were given following words to read. The phonological
errors identified are as follows:
Table : 42 Phonological errors
English words Incorrect pronounced forms Correct form

[samples]
1 zero joi, ji:ro, ziarau
2 find fend faind
249
3 Future futor futja

4 Against agemst aqentst
5 would wuld wud
6 Could kould, kuld kud
7 Listen lisen, listen, lesan lisan
8 Should Juld, sud Jud
9 People Pe:pl pi:pl
10 handy endy haendy
11 busy biji,busi bizi
12 magazine magasin,magjin maegazi:n
13 Rage reg, re:g Re:ds
14 Know kno,knaw nau [nou]
15 Knife knaif, naip naif
16 Often a: fen ,often, open 3:fan
17 Laugh la:f, la:p la:f
18 Comparison Komprisan,kampae rijin kampaerisan
19 Station, Ste:san, Ste:/an
20 examination egjaminijan igzaminei/an
Mispronunciation of consonant sounds: z, tj, ts, /, d3, f, S
Vocalization of silent consonants; 1, t, k
Incorrectly pronounced vowel sounds: a, U, <£ , 3, I, I
Incorrectly pronounced diphthongs: ai, ei, au,[ou]

II] The students from Std 5th to 10th were required to read a lesson from a text.
The following errors were identified while reading.
250
STD V: Phonological errors in reading Table : 43

English words Incorrect pronounced form Correct form
[sample]
1 Sheep jip,sipp fi:P
2 You yu ju
3 Sharada,shaking sa:r9da, se:kiq, Ja:r9da, feikir)
4 Hello, hands alo, elo,ends helau.hends
5 Glad,am gla:d glaed
6 Bought,all bot, a:l b3:t ,3:1
7 Nearly niyarli nidli
8 Give giu giv
9 With wit,with wi5
10 Call ka:l kD:l
The students of std.5th had difficulty in pronouncing the following sounds;

/J/h/ /r/ /v/ [consonants] /ae/,/I:/ vowel sounds and semi-vowel /j/. Of the
12students 3students were able to read. 5 students struggled to read. 4 students
were not able to read. It was noted that students need a lot of practice. Oral
reading is not given adequate importance. Students were in the initial stage of
learning English, most of them could not recognize the alphabet properly, and
were struggling to join the letters to read. They were not able to make sense while
reading. The teachers themselves do not have good pronunciation of English. Out
of the 5 higher primary teachers who were interviewed, three were not trained for
the subject. This is one of the reasons for poor quality of learning English at
lower level classes. The oral reading appeared to be a string of words and lacked
a sense of continuity.
Table: 44
STD. VI: Phonological errors in reading
English words Pronounced form Correct form
1 farmer fa:rmar, niyarli fa:ma,niali
2 Ate, sat, am, glad, an, yet, hat, set, en, a, ket, set, saet, aem,
cat, and, began hend, yend, yem, gle:d, glaed, aen,kaet, aend,
begin bigaen
3 shaking sekii] Jekiq
4 Hands, hello, house ends, alo, aus Hends, helSU
251
5 Meet you mi:til] you, minit mi:t ju,

6 All, brought, called,big a:l, bo:t, ca:ld D:l,bD:t,lo:ld
7 Now naw nau
8 0, of, wo, a:f, a:p
wo, d:v
9 a, ye, ei
10 Of ,Vani a:p,wani D:v,va:ni
11 lamp le:m laemp
The students of std.6th had difficulty in pronouncing the following sounds;

j/J/,/f/,/v/ /h/r/ /p/b [consonants] and /a/, /ae/, /o/, / D:/, /au/ vowel sounds. Some
students were not able to read and relied on guessing [eg:No.5 meet you.]Out of
the 12 students 3 students were able to read. 5 students struggled to read. 4
students were not able to read. Students require a lot of practice. Reading is given
inadequate importance. They have not grasped the sounds or the meaning of
words.
Table : 45
STD. VII Phonological errors in reading
S.N. English words Pronounced form Correct form

1 poor puwar pu r [pu a]
2 A ye
3 Voice,was,lived vais, vaz, lift, liwd vais [w az] livd
4 Decided disid, disaid disaidad
5 Saw all,called,of, sa:, ha:l, ka:ld, a:f, sd:, ha:!, kD:Id,
caused kosed d:v, ko:zd
6 Narrow, and had, at, nero, hand, he:d, yet, naerau, aend
and hend
7 dry dri drai
8 What, walked wa:t, wa;ked w D:kt
9 Surprised sarprised, surpris sapraiz
10 Suddenly sadanly sAd anli:
11 Dear, farmer diyar, fa:rmar dia, fa:ma
12 house hos hauz, [haus]
252
The students of std.7th had the difficulty in pronouncing the following

sounds; /J/,/f/,/v/ /h/r/ /p/b/z/ [consonants] and /a/, /ai/, /ae/, /a/, /3 /, /au/, /A/ vowel
sounds. Some students ignore past tenses while reading. Some do not read the ‘t’
“ed” sounds. The silent sounds were often pronounced .[Eg; r, t, 1] Of the
11 students 3 students were able to read. 4 students struggled to read . 4 students
were not able to read. Students need a lot of practice. Reading is not given much
importence in the class it should. Even if they are made to read they do not practice
at home. They have not grasped the sounds or the meaning of words. They read
without understanding.
Table: 46
STDVIII: Phonological errors in reading
S.N. English words Pronounced form Correct form
1 Know no, keno nau [nou]

2 Have, has ya:v, eyaz h aev, haez
3 Of,on af, ap, an 3:V, D:17
4 Role,, rod, rud [roul]
5 Communication,earlies Komunike:/an, iyrliest, ear kamunikejan,
for,modem far, modern,modern, 3diast
From madarn,fram
f a:, modan, fram
6 Our,pronounced auwar, pranasd a:r, pranautsed,
7 Centuries sentus, semtlriez,
8 One, Flourished wan, flourished, folos wAn, flAriJt
9 Famous,trade, day femus, pemus, tred,de, pleid feimas, treid, dei
10 rivers modem riwers, riwerss, modem riva, modan
11 Depended dipend, dipondad dipended
12 World, werd, wald wadd
13 Civilization, centuris livijens, kivilisajen sencuris sivalaizeilan
14 People pi:pal pi:pl
15 that, and, valley, as, dyatt, eyand, hend weli, es 5aet, send ,vaeli, aes
[sez]
16 Great, foreigners, geat, earliest, earlist greit, 3diast,
term, earliest forijiners, term
253
fo:rin,t3:m
17 Life li:p,li:f laif
18 Being big bi:q
19 Methods metads meOads
The students of std.S* had difficulty in pronouncing the following sounds;

/0// irj/ lllJfJJvl /h/r! /p/b/z// 3:/ iq [consonants] and /a/,/ai/ /ae/, /ou/, /<=:/, /au/ /A/
ei/ vowel sounds. Some students ignore past tenses while reading. Some do not
pronounce the “ed” ‘t’ sounds of the past tense. The silent sounds are
pronounced most of the time.[Eg;r,t,l] Of the 14 students 4students were able to
read. 6 students struggled to read. 4 students were not able to read. Students
need a considerable practice. Reading is not given adequate importance in the
class. Even if students are required to read they do not practice at home. The
students had not grasped the sounds or the meaning of words. They read without
understanding
Table: 47
STD IX: Phonological errors in reading
S.N. English words Pronounced form Correct

form
1 Birthright,were berthrait,we:r b3:0rait, W3:r
2 Shall sal, shad Jal
3 Of, on, tormented,wrongs, af,an, a:g®st, tormented, c:f / c=n,
India,against ra:qgs, indiya 9g:entst
tcment9d,r c
:qs, indid
4 Mahadev,whole, his madev, wol, is maha:dev,
hod
5 Thirteen,served ther:ti:n, sarved 0 3:ti:n, S3:vd
6 Year, martyer Yiyer, yier, mairtiyer, ji: 0r, ma:t0
meriter
7 laid Lein, led leid
8 Rose,against, a, ro:s, yage:nest, agnest,ye ro:z,[rouz]
3ge:ntst,
9 have, arrogant he:v, ya;v, ergent, aerojent haev,
aeragent
254
10 Done dan dAn

11 Quit kwait kwit
12 Boiling blip b«=iliq
13 re:ge re:g reid3
The students of std.^ had dil 'ficulty in pronouncing the fol owing sounds;
/0// ig/ /J/,/f/,/v/ /h/r//p/b/z// 3:/ dg [consonants] and /a/,/ai//as/, /a/, /o/, /c:/,
/au/ /A/ ei/ vowel sounds. Some students ignore past tenses while reading. Some
do not pronounce the “ed” ‘t’ sounds of the past tense. The silent sounds are
pronounced most of the time.[Eg;r,t,l] Of the 15 students 4 students were able to
read. 7 students struggled to read . 4 students were not able to read. Students
need a considerable practice. Reading is not given adequate importance in the
class it should. Even if they are made to read they do not practice at home. The
students had not grasped the sounds or the meaning of words. They read without
understanding.
Table: 48
STD:X -Phonological
- - ------
errors in reading
pJk!____________________________________ _
S.N English words Pronounced form Correct form

1 at, et, yet aet
2 Dear diyer did
3 Cute kAt, kwit kjuit
4 Look lu:k luk
5 Monkey moqki maqki
6 Caused, what, from, kazed, wait, fram, af, aipis k3:zd, D:fis
of, office
7 Share se:r
8 Handy endi, hendi, herd hsendi, haed
9 Another, troublesome enather, enoder trablsam an959,trAbls9m,
adapted adaipted
10 Yes yas jes
11 Don’t, know dunat, kno ddunt, nau [nou]
12 Novel novel nDVdl
13 Samuel samyuyel saimjuwel
14 Incidents insidents, insidends intsident
15 Friends,factors, Prend, fektor, masks, frendz,
makes maiks fektaz,meiks
255
16 Singularly siplarli sipgjularli

17 Everything yewrithing evri 9ir)
18 Knack Kna:k naek
The students of st<±10th had the difficulty in pronouncing the following
sounds; /0// i 13/ /J7,/f/,/v/ /h/r/ /p/b/z// 3:/ [consonants] and /a/,/ai/ /ae/, /o/, /c:/,
/au/ /A/ ei/ vowel sounds. Some students ignore past tenses while reading. Some
do not know to read the “ed” ‘t’ sounds of the past tense. The silent sounds are
pronounced most of the time.[Eg;r,t,l k] Out of the 16 students, 6 students were
able to read. 6 students struggled to read . 4 students were not able to read.
Students need a lot of practice. Reading is not given much importence in the
class it should. Even if they are made to read they do not practice at home. They
have not grasped the sounds or the meaning of words. They read without
understanding
4.4.2.2 Error Categorization : Results;
The total number of error types that were found while reading the lessons were
115 Here they are, in the graph below, divided according to the different
categories:
Figure 11: Graph Representing Phonological error categories
STANDARD Consonant error types Vowel error Consonant+vowel
types error types
V 6 3 12
VI 10 7 17
VII 9 11 20
VIII 12 8 20
IX 12 9 21
X 14 11 25
=a
e
1 11 -
□ consonant error type
□ vowel error type
> --------
L T| □ both
2.
std .v std.vi std.vii std.viii std. ix J
std. X
256
Figure 12: Graph shows Performance of students: Total number of

students: 80 Among these 31 students were able to read . 36 students had
difficulty in reading. 23 students were not able to read.
Performance of students
Test Given text Mode of Performance of students
item questioning Correct Partially Incorrect
response correct response
[able to response [not able
read] [difficulty to read]
in
reading]
1 Passages of Reading the 31 36 23
the text passage
book
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
std v std vi std vii std viii std ix std x
Figure 12: Graph Represents Performance of Students
4.4.1.2 Data analysis of morphological errors in reading:

TEST ITEM 1. Instruction : Pickout the segment in which there is an error
in the following sentence. If you do not find any error write: D
GIVEN ITEM 1; Andy make you laugh
A B C
2JS*
Students responses: A/B/C/D
Correct response: B
GIVEN ITEM. 2: River have played a great role .
ABC
Correct response: A
GIVEN ITEM 3. Civilization flourished on the Indus
A B C
Students responses :A/B/C/D
Correct response: D
GIVEN ITEM 4.1ndians were boil with rage.
A B C
Correct response: B
GIVEN ITEM 5. Naravan is a thirteen year old boy.
A B C
Correct response: D
44.2.4 Error categorization of morphological errors:

O O
h
25S
Students responses :A/B/C/D
Correct response: D
OIVEN ITEM 4.1ndians were boil with rage.
A B C
,'orrect response: B
ilVEN ITEM 5. Naravan is a thirteen year old boy.
A B C
iudents responses: A/B/C/D
rrect response: D
2.4 Error categorization of morphological errors:

Table : 49 Performance of students on test item : 1
Performance in %
Given Mode of
Text Questioning Expected Partially
Irrelevant
response correct
Spot the Pick out the error
error from the sentences 31 32 37
given
he students had responded correctly, 32% of the students had answered
and the remaining 37% of the students had responded incorrectly. This
because the students had poor grammatical knowledge. The learners
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could not identify the erroneous parts given in the test items. In the test items 1, 2
and 4 the errors are in the B, A, B parts of the sentences respectively. Thus, the
plural marker ’s’ is missed in the verb and noun forms like ’Andy makes you laugh’
‘Rivers have played a great role’, In the 4th sentence the error is in the verb.
‘Indians were boiling with rage’[ In the present continuous tense]. Failure in
recognizing the grammatical features of the noun forms, verb forms and tenses
indicate poor reading comprehension skill and linguistic incompetence.
4.42.5 Data analysis of syntactic errors:

Syntactic errors in reading: The following test was conducted on
45 students of std viii, ix and x .
TEST ITEM 2
Instructions; Label the parts of the sentences
Given item 1: Ramu killed the cat
Students responses: al Ramu killed the cat
S V 0
bl Ramu killed the cat
S V 0
cl Ramu killed the cat
S V 0
Correct response: a 1 Ramu killed the cat
S V 0
Given item: 2; I will come tomorrow

Students responses: a ] I_ will come tomorrow
S V 0
bl I will come tomorrow
S, V 0
clL will come tomorrow
S 0 V
Correct response: I_ will come tomorrow
S V O
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Given item: 3. The rose is beautiful

Students responses : A] The rose is beautiful
S V Adj.[0]
B] The rose is beautiful
s V O
Cl The rose is beautiful
S V Adjective
Correct response: The rose is beautiful
S V Adj.
Given item; 4. I went to the market

Students responses: I went to the market
S V 0
I went to the market
S V 0
I went to the market
S 0 V
Correct response: I ent to the market
S 0 V
Given item 5 : She gave her book to him
Students responses: A1 She save her book to him
S V O
B] She save her book to him
S V Od Oi
Correct response: She gave her book to him
S V Od Oi
[Od=direct object], [Oi= indirect object]
4.4.2.6 Error categorization of syntactic errors

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Table : 50 Performance of students on test item : 2
Performance in %
Test Given Mode of
item. Text Questioning Correct Partially
Irrelevant
response correct
Lable the Lable the parts of
2 parts of the sentences given 29 35 36
sentences
29% of the students had labeled all the given sentences correctly, 35% of the
students had labeled partially and remaining 36% of the students had labeled
incorrectly. Reason for incorrect labeling is due to the students’ poor
grammatical knowledge. That is, the students could not distinguish the
difference between “ verb” in the “verb phrase”; the students had labeled for the
“will come” two phrasal words as only verb. Similarly, they could not
distinguish the difference between object pronoun (him) and possessive
pronoun (his), and they had failed to differentiate the direct object and indirect
object as indicated in the samples given above.
4.4.3.0 Summary on Reading Skill:
Findings : It was found that in the test of reading the lesson, 72.5% of the
students had failed to read correctly. The reason for the incorrect response was
the ignorance of the grammatical functions and ignorance of the conjunctions,
such as co-ordination conjunctions, subordinating conjunctions, etc. used in the
sentences. Labeling the parts of the sentences: 71% students had labeled
incorrectly. This was due to the poor grammatical knowledge of the students,
the difference between “ verb” in the “verb phrase”; the students had labeled for
the “will come” two phrasal words as only one verb . They failed to distinguish
the difference between objective pronoun (him) and possessive pronoun(his)
etc.
The wrong responses were found to occur because of complex and / or

unknown words, like 'ultimatum', 'flourished’, 'adapted’, literature’, ingenious,
civilization etc., were found in the testing passage. It can be concluded that the
use of phrasal verbs, hard words, complex sentences, lengthy sentences,
unknown contexts, etc. in the reading materials of the students hinders the
students in understanding the concepts of reading materials.
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the reading comprehension of the students. The score difference between LIG
and MIG is 5%, between MIG and HIG is 14.6% between male and female is
4% and between LIG and HIG is 19.6%. It is evident to strengthen the point
that parental economic position plays an important role in the development of
reading comprehension.
It can be concluded that parental education and economic position

significantly contribute to the learning achievement of students especially in
second language learning. However, the gender had less influence over the
process of learning reading comprehension of the students.
4.4.3.1 Suggestions on Reading Skill;

We begin with oral reading or reading aloud when we teach young children to
read. Young children associate the letters with the sounds these letters represent.
They read aloud the letters and their combinations. Often young children read
aloud the letters in a word as if the word consists of independent letters. Soon
they recognize or realize that the letters and the sounds they represent stand for a
group or series of sounds which occur somewhat sequentially and that this group
constitutes the word. The reading aloud goes underground so to say in silent
reading.
However, the relationship between sound and letter in a reading process is very
complex indeed. Here I have deliberately characterized the reading process in
simplistic terms. Reading is a very complex activity which is mastered by the
child, by God’s abundant grace, with some ease. We must remember that
reading is closely related to the development of writing. Since, more often than
not, our second/foreign language learner has some reading skill in his/her first
language, he/she brings this skill to bear upon his reading ability in English.
Oral reading and silent reading refer to the features somewhat related to the
mechanics of reading. But reading is “appreciating the sense of what is written:
we read for meaning” (Crystal (1987:209). The ultimate goal of reading is not
the process'of reading itself, but the unraveling of the meaning represented by
the words, phrases, and sentences. Sometimes, “reading between the lines” is
demanded. In the latter case, the association between the letter and the sound
does not often play a crucial role.
Basically two questions are raised as regards the bases of reading: Do we read
by ear or do we read by eye? All of us will agree readily that we read by eye,
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because use of the eye for reading is so obvious to us. On the other hand, the
sound is never far from reading, and hence both in oral and silent reading, we do
often move our lips and perhaps the tongue and other sub vocal mechanisms.
What we see by eye is to be converted into some sound values (Crystal
(1987:209).
As we pointed out earlier, children do read aloud first, converting the letters and
words into sound units. At this level then it is the sound that dominates reading.
Even at the reading aloud stage, words are not spelled, and letters are not
pronounced all alone, but words are sought to be read as single units by
themselves. When silent reading is established, single sounds or letters will no
more become the focus. We often see words, and not individual letters. We
often produce words as oral utterances, and not the sounds which constitute the
words.
4.4.3.2 Methods for Teaching the Mechanics of Reading:
Essentially there are two kinds of methods which take care of the mechanics of
reading: the whole word method, and the linguistic method. Students are
given the whole word to read in the first method, whereas they are first
introduced to the elements which constitute the word in the second method, and
then asked to combine them. Signs such as Exit, Entrance, Gentlemen, Ladies,
No Entrance, Cafeteria, Fifteen Items or less (Express Line in grocery stores),
Open, Closed, etc., will be given without any analysis of the constituent
elements. Students will associate the entire sound(s) with the entire written
form.
In the linguistic method, students are introduced to the sound-symbol

correspondences first in the word, and then they are enabled to combine the
sounds to produce the word. “There is no conclusive evidence that either the
Whole Word or the Linguistic Method for introducing reading texts works best
with all students. Nor is there any assurance that when reading, a student will
practice only one or the other exclusively.” However, there is no escape from
using the linguistic method in the later steps of reading, since not all words of a
language can be introduced using the whole word method. The learners often
break the words and arrive at the underlying forms in some intuitive manner.
Words may be derived from other words. Also the forms may have the same
spelling but their reading pronunciations may differ from one another. These
and many other characteristics of the structures of English make it imperative
that we make a proper blend of these two strategies.
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It is important that second/foreign language learners of English are taught to

recognize sight vocabulary in an automatic manner, without spelling such
vocabulary. There are about two to three hundred words in English which
account for a good part of all the words used on a written page. We should
enable the students to recognize these words such as articles and prepositions in
an automatic fashion. Teach them to recognize also the punctuation marks
along with the conventions such as spacing and indenting, which go with the
use of such sight vocabulary. There are also set phrases in English which
function as sight vocabulary. The students should be enabled to recognize these
also as sight vocabulary. It is to be remembered that in the initial stages of
reading it is always useful to insist on students reading aloud. This helps them
improve their reading pronunciation, and develop a sensitivity to how words are
pronounced in English. When they come across a new word, this reading aloud
practice will help them to attempt more or less a correct pronunciation of the
word.
The teachers have been using a variety of materials to help students read with
better pronunciation, and to motivate them to read in order to meet their needs.
They often tend to use materials which the second/foreign language learner of
English may have to use frequently, materials such as public announcements
(No classes next Friday, Report for duty at 6:00 A.M.), invitations to parties and
weddings, telephone messages, guidelines to perform a task, instructions to
assemble toys, recipe, etc. The materials which focus on the learners’ survival
needs, social needs, and personal needs are presented to them for reading.
Reading Games which use catchy phrases in ads, T-shirts, campaign buttons,
posters, stickers, etc., are presented to the beginning reader, even when he/she is
struggling to master the mechanics of decoding the English alphabet.
The initial texts given for reading are often written with such words that are
commonly and frequently used in English. However, frequency of occurrence
alone should not be considered when we choose words for the beginning
reading texts. “Beginning reading materials should be constructed with a
sensitivity to the utility, interest, and value of the words that make up the text.
But in case of conflict the text comes first.” In the beginners’ lessons, “students
learn to read names, addresses and telephone numbers important to them,
common street signs, and other public labels. Other items of interest:
advertisements, direction on food and medicine labels, instructions on vending
machines, simple how-to-do-it instructions and menus.”
Proverbs in English, metaphors, and similes will be introduced as part of the

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reading material towards the end of the beginner’s level or in the beginning of
the intermediate level of reading. A variety of reading materials such as
commercial texts, teacher-written recombination’s of materials covered in class,
student-written materials, using the Language Experience Approach, narrative
games such as strip stories, and group-written stories are other materials
recommended by Paulston and Bruder (1976), Bowen, et al. (1985) and Celce-
Murcia (1991).
Once the reading mechanics relating to the decoding of the alphabet is well
established, once the mastery of adequate sight vocabulary is also
accomplished, the reading texts may focus on familiarizing the students with
the phrase and sentence structure in the reading materials. Students need to
learn the differences between a phrase and a sentence in the texts to read. While
the sentence is the required minimal unit in written English, phrases function as
breath groups. “Phrase reading exercises can be useful in weaning the reader
from word-for-word reading, and can help increase speed.” Some of the
exercises which can be used to develop phrase reading are: “repeat-and-copy
exercises, the use of flash cards, lists on the blackboard, matching phrases, etc.”
Focusing on phrases and sentences for reading will help students not only to
foster better speed in reading, but it will aid them in learning more English
structures for practical purposes.
The students must be helped to develop a sensitivity to the English word

structure. For this, the students will begin reading the most regular and the most
productive word patterns in English, and then they will be exposed to the
reading of irregular forms. If they internalize the regular patterns they will
begin to look at the derived and inflected words such as past tense forms,
adjectives, adverbs, etc., as single entities. The irregular patterns will be learned
as sight words or phrases. It is to be remembered that reading is now exploited
not only to learn more meanings and forms (words and affixes) in English, but
also to gain a knowledge of the structures of English. From mechanics to
structures, and then from structures to content is the way the reading exercises
proceed. There is a mix of all the three in every exercise.
The reading lesson: Here are four steps followed in a reading lesson:
1. Introduction. The teacher explains the purpose for reading the target
passage, gives the students a setting for the text to be read, presents a
background of appropriate information for the text to be read, and selects
and introduces the new vocabulary necessary to comprehend the main ideas
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in the text.
0. The reading. This is generally an oral exercise for the beginners, usually
consisting of listening to the passage read aloud, or listening and following
along. Later on reading is silent.
0. Comprehension tasks.
0. Review and related exercises.
The following behavioral steps may be followed in the class:
1] Teacher reads while students listen. 2] Discussion.
3] Teacher reads while students listen and read along. 4] Discussion.
4] Student(s) read aloud (in small groups or in dyads). 5] Discussion.
5] Students read silently, or practice reading aloud individually.
Three types of questions are employed for discussion: information (what, when,
where, who, how many, etc.), inferential (Did Rehan know English when he
came to school? How do we know? Does Rehan know how to drive?),
interpretive (questions relating to author’s opinion, reader’s judgment
concerning the content of the article, etc.)
Elementary Reading ; Some teachers would like to distinguish between the

beginner’s level reading and the elementary level of reading, assigning the
beginner’s level only to the mastery of the mechanics of reading. Both these
stages have been combined here under the heading Beginnings Level.
It is important to recognize that reading is an essential part of the classroom.

Reading helps to acquire and internalize vocabulary and structures, even as it
helps the pronunciation and speaking. It reinforces writing as well. More
reading leads to increasingly better performance in the use of English. “At
present sufficient reading practice is not given in classes. Reading can be
developed only through practicing reading. So we have to give more time to
reading in a reading class.” We should have separate class periods for reading,
incorporate reading as an integral part of the course, and give reading
assignments to the students everyday.
Selecting Materials ; Good textbooks are available in plenty. However, the

teacher should select his or her own textbook based on the usefulness of the
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book for his or her students, and their interest. Level of difficulty should also be
considered. Unfortunately, textbook selection is not in the hands of the teachers
in most schools in India. No book is ever perfect. Teachers may have to make
several adjustments to the content, words, sentence patterns and other items of
the lessons they teach from out of the selected textbook.
Silent Reading : Adult students tend to read silently even in their beginning
level. This must be discouraged. There is a need to develop an association
between the form (words, phrases, and sentences) and its corresponding sound
representation. This is better achieved by oral reading. Success with oral
reading helps also the success with speaking. So, encourage your adult students
to read aloud as often as possible. Towards the end of the elementary or
beginner’s level, students may be allowed to read silently to some extent.
To develop silent reading, start with phrase reading. We have to encourage our
students to read the phrases at a single stretch, not going from word to word.
Flash cards with phrases may be shown for them to read the individual phrases
at a single stretch. Flash the card for a brief while and they should catch the
phrase and read it. Choose the phrases from the text or from common
expressions frequently used in spoken English.
We have to show them only a partially written phrase and encourage them to
guess the full phrase. Rearrange the words in a phrase and ask them to give the
correct phrase from memory. Give them a list of words and ask them to put
them together into as many phrases as they can. Or specify a number. Give
them two or three sentences and ask them to read silently and time the reading.
Then give them another set of sentences of same length and ask them to read
silently, and time their reading. Step by step, increase the number of sentences.
And increase the number of words in individual sentences. Time their reading.
Intermediate reading: In the Intermediate Reading level, the emphasis is

on overall comprehension, and reading with purpose. This requires
development of study skills. At the intermediate level of reading, the materials
should be so chosen as to introduce the students subtly to the grammatical and
stylistic conventions of English. Reading is exploited in these passages to help
students internalize the grammar (structures) of English. The structures of
English are linked to the reading process and the goals of reading. For example,
students come to know through reading practice that certain phrases predict the
transition in information discussed in the reading material.
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Kitao (1993) lists the following phrases as marking transitions in the

information contained in the reading material. Acquaintance with these phrases
helps students anticipate and predict the turns in the material.
Additional information: and, furthermore, moreover, in addition, also

Expected information: of course, naturally, surely
Unexpected information: surprisingly, amazingly
Intensified information: in fact, as a matter of fact
Restatement: as I mentioned before, in short, in other words, i.e., that is
Example: for example, for instance, to illustrate, such as
Consequence: so, therefore, as a result, consequently
Cause/effect: because, due to, thanks to, on account of, as a result of, in view of
Contrasting information: however, but, although, even though, nevertheless
Order: first, second, then, next
Conclusion: in short, therefore, in conclusion, in summary, on the whole
Brown (1993) suggests asking the students to do the following ten things before
reading begins.
] Look at the title and the headings for each section.
]1] What do you think this passage is going to be about?
.2] Look at the pictures. What do you think this passage is going to be about?
3] Read the first and last paragraphs and the first sentence of each paragraph.
What do you think this passage is going to be about?
4] Read the title. Now quickly scan the passage and circle all the words that
have a connection to the title.
5] Scan the passage and cross out all the words you don’t know. After you read
the passage again carefully, look up the words in a dictionary.
6] After looking at the title, pictures, and so on, brainstorm the specific words
you expect to see in the passage.
7] After looking at the title and pictures, make up some questions you think this
passage might answer.
8] What kind of passage is this? (fiction ? nonfiction—what kind?) Why would

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somebody read this? For information? Pleasure?
9] Choose words from the passage and write them on the board. Ask students to
scan the passage and circle them.
10] Tell a story about the background of the reading passage, that can always
make innovations and improvisations to meet the reading needs of our students.
Extensive Reading : To help foster extensive reading, students should be

given materials that are interesting to the students. Commercial graded readers
for ESL serve the purpose well. Give them new materials to read aloud.
The most important intermediate reading skills are (Bowen et al. 1985:240):
• Reading with incomplete information (Reading a passage with a sizable

number of unfamiliar vocabulary items).
« Organizing for careful reading (skimming and scanning).
> Organizing information (specific time to preview).
• Reading critically.
■ Developing effective personal reading strategies.
■ Setting effective reading speeds for different kinds of reading.
Success at the intermediate level of reading depends a lot on the initiative the
learner takes and the positive attitude he or she has towards reading. The learner
should recognize the pivotal role reading plays in improving his/her diction and
pronunciation, even as it helps him/her internalize the structures of English. The
learner should find for himself or herself how studious reading habits help
him/her perform better in English at all the levels - speaking, listening, and
writing. Reading materials are abundant in all the surroundings and it is for the
learner to take advantage of all these reading materials in his/her surroundings.
Reading is gateway to culture and literature. If the material is relevant,

and thus meets the learner’s needs, it will help instigate an interest in reading in
the learner. At the intermediate level the focus is also on developing appropriate
reading speed.
Advanced reading: English for Special Purposes (ESP) is the chief focus of
the advanced level of reading. For individualized self-learning, there is no better
method than encouraging the students to read on their own whatever that
interests them. Through reading, diction, grammar, and communicative
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efficiency improve. Through reading, students develop an empathy not only for
the language but also for the content of the text they read, as well as the best
traditions of the culture the language comes to represent in their understanding.
Through reading what is noble in English thought is appropriated.
4.43.3 Stages in teaching reading: According to my experience I have

observed the following stages in reading.
1. Beginning or elementary reading: The students are exposed to the

association of the letters of the English alphabet with their relevant sounds in
appropriate contexts. In this process, they discover the relationship between the
alphabet and the spoken language. Students are given groups of simple words,
phrases, and sentences with focus on one or two letters and their combinations.
They are introduced to the correspondence between the individual letters and
their combinations in graded steps. They come to internalize, in an inductive
manner, the possibilities of sound values for each letter, or combination of
letters. Emphasis is thus on decoding graphic information from the words,
phrases, and sentences. Based on what they have been exposed to, students
begin to read new combinations of vocabulary and sentence-level structures.
They develop an ability to predict the sound values represented by the letters
and their combinations in contexts
2. Intermediate reading: The intermediate reading stage fosters interest in

reading, and develops the actual reading skill practiced throughout one’s life
beyond mastering the association between letters and sounds. Students no more
read aloud. They are comfortable with predicting the sound values of letters and
their combinations, and they begin to read for the purposes for which they
originally enrolled themselves in the class. Emphasis here is on developing
additional reading skills. They begin to read advanced English passages.
Reading with purpose is the focus here.
3. Advanced reading: Most students are quite satisfied with what they have
accomplished in the intermediate stage. However, reading is a continuing
process, and they need to be introduced to the reading of authentic materials for
specific purposes. Stories re-told, and abridged and adapted versions are the
focus in intermediate level. But at the advanced level originals are presented
Kinds of reading: According to my observation reading can be classified

into three kinds: extensive reading, intensive reading, and oral reading.
Extensive reading is used “to refer to the teaching of reading through reading.
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In this approach, there is no overt focus on teaching reading. Rather, it is

assumed that the best way for students to learn to read is by reading a great deal
of comprehensible material.” Intensive reading is used to refer to the actual
teaching of reading skills in an instructional setting. Students are exposed to a
variety of materials and asked to perform activities such as answering
comprehension questions on the passage read. They may be trained to look for
critical information in the passage they read, and make inferences, etc. Intensive
reading is instruction-based and forms the core of teaching reading in the
classroom. Oral reading does attract much attention from many teachers, but it
is “an integral part of the teaching of reading, especially in ESL [English as
second language]
Reading Readiness: Reading readiness exercises help students to

recognize and read the letters and words. Reading readiness exercises may or
may not use linguistic materials, but whatever materials are used, these should
be easy to handle and are familiar to the students. The goal of reading readiness
exercises is to help foster a congenial atmosphere for learning reading and to
develop some favorable attitude toward reading.
Visual Discrimination. Auditory Discrimination, and Memory Training are

some of the reading readiness exercises given to the students.
Visual Discrimination: Directions like same, different, top, bottom,

middle, first, second and last referring to objects, letters, and words are
presented in these exercises. In English, for example, the students need to
distinguish between p and q, between d and p, and so on. Names and general
shapes of the letters of the alphabet that English uses, different forms of the
same letters (upper and lower case forms, etc.), ability to tell whether two
letters or groups of letters are the same or different are all focused in these
exercises. Some possible discriminations: What is at the top, at the bottom, in
the middle of the page? Which object is the first, the second, the last? Are any
of the objects, letters, or words the same as the one in the box? Pair the capital
and lower case letters as shown in the example.
Auditory Discrimination: Although the auditory discrimination exercises

are part of the preparation for listening, these need to be presented even as
reading readiness exercises. This is important for those students who hear or
repeat a sound persistently wrong. There is a close relationship between the
auditory image of the word and its reading and reproduction in writing. Each
word has its own auditory image, and this auditory image should be retrieved
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correctly in the reading process. Otherwise it could lead to misreading and

misspelling. Some possible exercises:
a. Minimal Pairs: Are the sounds the same or different?
b. Initial Sounds: Do the names of any of the objects shown in the big box begin
with the same sound as the object in the small box?
c. Rhyme words: Say the names of the object in the big box to yourself. Answer
yes if it rhymes with the object in the small box, no if it does not.
d. Similar Sentences: Which sentences say the same thing?
e. Minimal Differences: Which sentence of three or more is different?
Memory Training: This training helps students to hold something in the

mind for a length of time. Some exercises:
- We should repeat the first sentence of three after all have been heard.
-We should give the order of events in a story heard.
-Name as many of the objects from memory as possible after a picture, or an

array of objects, has been shown for a limited time and then removed from sight.
-Reassemble a picture series in the order first shown.
These exercises help the students to focus on the form of the words (spelling).
Once the form is internalized, it is possible for the students to predict what the
other parts of a word would be when he/she is given a word. In other words,
he/she does not go from one letter to another in his/her reading process. He/she
is able to predict and thus read the word in its entirety. This helps increase the
reading speed also. Remember that although spelling a word is an important
first step towards reading, it is only a first step. Spelling a word must be
dropped in favor of reading a word in its entirety.
A student may be said to be in control of the basics when he:
- regularly makes appropriate eye movements for English.

* recognizes and discriminates among the vowel and consonant sounds in
English.
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■ associates vowel and consonant sounds with letters.

recognizes and discriminates among consonant blends and consonant
combinations.
■ recognizes and discriminates among vowel combinations.
■ recognizes vowel sounds with /r/.
■ recognizes selected sight words.
■ recognizes rhyming words when not spelled with the same letter pattern
recognizes upper- and lower-case letters and the basic punctuation marks.
It is to be noted that the knowledge of the orthographic structure is central to the

reading process. It is to be noted also that any exercise we may give to the
students to develop the association between the letters and their combinations
with the sounds should be always done with words, phrases, and sentences
meaningful to the students. It is important to give exercises not only with
groups of words but also with groups of phrases and sentences.
4.5.0 Writing skill:

Introduction : Writing is a conscious, deliberate, and planned activity. A
mono literate is a person who can read and write in a language and a biliterate
or multi literate can read and write in more than one language. A literate person
in a language can convey his inner speech through written mode. That is to say
that one may be literate in one language and illiterate in another language. To
become a literate in an another language he must learn the written form of that
language. For learning written mode of second language, in addition to Lj, one
requires an additional ability and time. For learning writing of L(j one need not
learn words and their meaning but their coherence. Thus, one can convert his
inner speech into writing without any kind of hindrance if he has literacy skill
in Lj to correlate the sounds with graphemes and to sequence the graphemes
into words, and words into sentences, cohering the sentences with meaning and
ability to organize them in a readable manner. But, for learning writing of L2
one requires to learn deliberately and consciously each and every linguistic
element through instruction or proper guidance. Further, the learning experience
of Li is different from that of L2. In the process of learning L2 writing, previous
experience (that is Lj) gets in the way of learning of writing in all the levels of
L2. But for learning of Lj writing there is no such experience.
Writing and Writing Skill: Writing is an outcome of a writing skill which

refers to the writer’s linguistic ability in making use of the mechanics of writing.
Writing is permanent, but writing skill is transitory. The use of writing skill
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differs according to mental ability and language proficiency of the writer. A

writer cannot produce the same kind of work which he already produced a few
years back. The external experience realized by the five senses of writer and the
intellectual delight attained by the five senses of the writer develops or
undergoes some changes. As this is the backbone of the writing skill, the
outcome also changed accordingly. As a writer learns new themes by every
moment that new knowledge makes him to change his views and approaches
while practicing the writing skill. This in turn, enables him to steer the language
in the written medium in an innovative fashion. Due to this, his writing style
assumes various shapes.
In many cases, the earlier writings of the writer are not as good as his latter
works. The experience he obtains in new writings cultivate the writer to handle
different techniques for bringing out varieties of writing. But the changes that
occurred in the manipulation of the writing skill do not necessarily lead to
positive results, some times conceptual loss or loss of using the right word in the
right content may also occur. Urban A lavery quotes one example from the life
of the Jeremy Bentham, the father of English law, that during his earlier years he
wrote clearly and well, but as the years went by and grew older, he gradually
lost his sense of style until his latter works become most difficult to read. But in
the case of Shakespeare, the latter works are mostly comedy and matured plays
enriched with style and theme. Thus writing skill is not static but dynamic.
The writing skill includes a number of subskills. The subskills are (Sobana,
2003 : 26):
0. Mechanics - handwriting, spelling, punctuation

0. Word selection - vocabulary, idioms, tone
0. Organization - paragraphs, topic and support, cohension and unit
0. Syntax - sentence structure, sentence boundaries, stylistics, etc.
0. Grammar - rules of verbs, agreement, articles, pronouns, etc.
0. Content - relevance, clarity, originality, logic, etc.
0. The writing process - getting ideas, getting started, writing drafts,
revising etc.
0. Purpose - the reason for writing, justification
Learning Process of Writing: Learning of writing is conscious and is thus

non-spontaneous process (Thirumalai, 1990: 74). Learning of writing is often
regarded as the learning of the mechanics of translating, either speech into
writing, or meaning into visual symbols (Kress, 1982:5). Lado (1971: 143-47)
275
says that learning to write a foreign language is learning to put down at a speed
greater than that of drawing the conventional symbols of the writing system that
represent the utterances one has in mind. Further, he has divided the learning
process of writing into five stages as: 1. prewriting, 2. copying read texts, 3.
transcribing, 4.composition and 5. literature. 6. Prewriting.
The task of preparing students to learn to write in a foreign language varies

according to what the students know from their native language writing. Being
sufficiently prepared involves knowing the symbols that will represent the
utterances they have in their mind and how to put them down.
« Copying Read Texts

Pre school children or the beginners are taught different forms of printed
letters and to copy them.
■ Transcribing
A more advanced practice in learning to write is to put down utterances in
script without written text as a model. This requires the association
between language units and script be recalled not merely recognized.
- Composition
Students at first learn to write; Then they write to inform. They still learn
but in a more advanced stage. They already know the language, and they
know how to represent it in script. Thus, it is believed that the higher
secondary students under study are in this stage.
■ Literature
Since it is assumed that writing literature is beyond the students level, it is
excluded.
Learning of second language writing is not an easy task. In the process of

writing, there are number of factors which influence the learner’s writing both
positively and negatively at every stage of learning process of writing.
Sometimes, in addition to the complexity of the second language structure, the
first language influences negatively at every stage of learning process. The L!
influences all the levels like grapheme, words and sentences in the learning
process of writing.
The Writing Process: The task of writing is not a single stage process. After
writing down one’s inner speech on paper, it should be polished properly.
Topkins and Hoskisson (1995: 211-22) provide five stages of writing process.
They are : prewriting, drafting, revising, editing and publishing.

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Prewriting is the stage of getting-ready-to-write. In this stage, the student or

young writer chooses a topic, considers function, form and audience and
generates and organizes ideas for writing. The second stage, drafting stage is the
time to pour out ideas with little concern about spelling, punctuation and other
mechanical error. The third one is revision stage; in this stage, the writer refines
ideas in his compositions. The word revision means ’seeding again’ and in this
stage writer sees his composition again with the help of classmates and teachers.
Activities in this stage are reading the rough draft, sharing the rough draft in a
writing group and revising on the basis of feed-back. Next, the editing stage is
the state of putting the piece of writing into its final form. Until this stage the
focus has been primarily on the content of writing. The writer moves through
three activities in this editing stage: getting distance from the composition, proof
reading to locate the errors and correcting errors. The final stage is publishing;
in this stage, an young writer brings his compositions to life by publishing them
or sharing them orally with an appropriate audience. When he shares his
writings with the real audience of classmates, other students, parents and the
community, the student comes to think of himself as an author in this stage.
Mechanics of Writing: Mechanics of writing plays an imperative role in the

productive skill of writing. In the process of writing, mechanism of writing
involves the following activities.
1. ability to shape the letters (graphics),

2. knowledge of right combinations of letters (spelling),
3. skill of cohering words (sentence),
4. skill of composing sentences (discourse) and
5. control over punctuation (Stop, semicolon, colon, comma, etc.)
However, in the mechanism of writing, the mechanism of reading is also found.

That is, one can acquire a particular letter after acquiring to read that one.
Acquiring to write a letter without acquiring to read will be merely a process of
copying: one of the mechanics of writing.
Types of Writing: The purpose of writing is to convey one’s inner speech to

others. According to the purpose, the writing methods vary. Writing a research
article to a journal and writing a letter to the editor of a journal are not handled
in the same way. So, each and every type of writing has its own method of
execution. Further, depending upon the time and space, the same matter by the
same author may be presented in different forms to the audience. Some of the
frequently used types of writing are:
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1. Letter writing, 2. Essay writing,

3. Descriptive writing, 4. Narrative writing,
5. Informative, 6. Report writing,
7. Greetings, etc.
Moreover, a writer tends to adopt a form and a method of writing from the
beginning to the end of his writing. There are certain rules and formal
regulations to be observed in many written correspondences and all other
writings. The formal expressions in letter writing are noteworthy. For example,
expressions like ’sincerely’, ’faithfully’ are traditionally expected to be used
before signing. Thus the conventional rules have to be followed in determining
the type of expression employed.
The Loss in Encoding and Decoding Process^: While transforming

the ideas conceived in the mind to the written mode, one cannot write exactly
what he intends to write. The external factors like knowledge over the use of
vocabulary, grammar, style, fluency etc. will affect one’s writings. Some times
the writer feels the transmission loss. In certain cases the writings are
misunderstood and the readers do not comprehend the meaning. This
transmission loss occurs in both the decoding and encoding process. In many a
case, either because of the inability of the writer or because of the incapability of
the reader, the expected message becomes difficult to receive. As a result, the
purpose or intention of the writer is lost. This type of transmission loss will be
called as loss in the decoding process.
4.5.1 Errors in Writing; Errors are the real indicators of the problem
encountered by the learners. By identifying the errors committed by the learners,
the researcher can easily point out such areas which need to be focused more. It
is generally regarded that the students commit errors in all the levels of
language, namely,
1. Graphological level,
2. Morphological level and 3. Grammatical level
Further, it has been generally mentioned that the following are some of the
reasons for the errors in the students’ writing in addition to the complexity of the
target language rule.
1. Analogical creation / overgeneralization, 2. Inappropriate use of the

rules,
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3. Simplification of the existing rules, 4. Mother tongue influence,

5. Non-learning, etc.
4.5.1.1 Testing of writing skill: Testing the learners’ writing, implies

identifying the errors and the mistakes found in writing of the students. Error
analysis is followed to test and evaluate the responses of the informants to detect
the processes involved in using the word, phrasal, syntactical, semantical
categories of the language. Through identifying the areas of the errors, the areas
where more concentration needed to be focused by both the teacher and the
learners can be realized and relevant remedies can be suggested by which the
difficulties and problems can be eliminated.
4.5.1.2 Data analysis of morphological errors in writing:
Morphological errors were identified through various tests. The details of the
errors are as follows:
Articles : The forms like ’a’, ’an’ and ’the’ are usually called as articles. In
English, articles belong to a subclass of determiners, ’a’ and ’an’ are indefinite
articles, and ’the’ is definite article. Usage of both the indefinite and definite
articles depends upon the nature of the words that follow. The indefinite article
’a’ is used before a word beginning with consonant or a vowel with a consonant
sound, and ’an’ is used before words beginning with a vowel (a,e,i,o,u) and
words beginning with mute 5h\ The definite article ’the’ occurs in the position
where a person or thing or one already referred to. The following are some of
the contexts in which the definite article ’the’ occurs.
-When a singular noun is meant to represent a whole class, with the names of
gulfs, rivers, seas, oceans, group of islands and mountain ranges,
- Before the names of certain books,
- Before the common nouns which are names of things unique of their kind,
- With superlatives,
- With ordinals,
- Before musical instruments, etc.

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The students were asked to construct sentences using the following words:
send, teach, find, leave, sometimes the following errors were identified.
Wrong substitution
i) ’an’ instead of ’a’
an unique table, an university, an European country
ii) ’a’ instead of ’an’

a honest man , a hour , a umbrella
The data shows that the article ’an’ is used before words beginning with vowels
and ’a’ before words beginning with a consonant without considering the quality
of letter or phoneme which begins the word. It is evident that ’an’ is used before
the consonant h’ which is mute in the beginning of a word, and ’an’ is used
before the vowels which have sound quality of a consonant. The reason for the
incorrect substitution is that the ’strong pressures of the continuously drilled
rules that ‘an’ is used before nouns beginning with a vowel (Agnihotari, 1992)
and vice versa due to such habit formation, the students extend these rules as: a
sun, a world, an Atlantic ocean
Addition of 'the'
1. The father send my book. 2.1 get the less marks in school
3.1 took die leave for school. 4.My daddy teach die new words, [my daddy
teaches new words to me.]
III Omission of 'the'

1.1 will playing sometimes in -free period. 2.1 will eat in my house sometime
in - afternoon. 3.1 found new book in- library. 4. My pen is in- bag.
IV Addition of 'a' and 'an'

1.1 am watch a T. V. sometimes. 2.1 told an advice to my sister
3.1 saw a_Many types in library books. 4. Some times I take a leave.
VI. Omission of 'a' and 'an'

1.1 am - student [....... a ] 2. My mother sent - book to me. [------a]
3.1 will become - doctor [------a] 4. elephant is - animal [-------an]
5.1 saw - very poor boy [------a]
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Above samples indicate that the definite and indefinite articles are
indiscriminately used before noun phrases / nouns and are unnecessarily omitted
where they are required. The article ’the’ has not been used where it is
necessarily required in the place of cataphorical reference. These types of errors
have appeared due to the ignorance of the grammatical features of articles,
influence of L] and simplification strategy. It is found that ’a’ is predominantly
used by the students rather than ’an’ and ’the’. This may be because of the fact
that ’a’ is simple as well as a first learned element. The students however found
certain situations in which an article of some kind is required; whenever they
encounter such context or such gap, it is generally filled with ’a’.
Preposition : Preposition as ’a word’ or group of words’ (e.g. in, from, to, on

behalf of) is often placed before a noun or pronoun to indicate place, direction,
source, method , it connects a noun or pronoun with some other words in a
sentence and makes clear the relationship between the two. Errors pertaining to
the use of prepositions found in the students performance are classified into four
categories as stated below.
i) Wrong selection of preposition: Sample

Incorrect selection------Correct selection
1.1 had a book on my bag ------in
2.1 can’t sleep in night------at
3.1 saw her in Monday....... on
4. They stay in my house on march last sometimes------in
5. She is suffering in fever since a day.........from, for
6. My father sent my brother for market sometimes....... to
7.1 go to school with bicycle------by
8.1 found my uncle traveling in bus........by
The wrong selection of prepositions may be because of the semantic multiplicity

of prepositions; for example, the preposition ’of has sixty three meanings listed
in the Oxford dictionary, and other prepositions have almost as many meanings
as ’of has. In addition to the semantic multiplicity of the target language, the Li
too interferes due to the dissimilarities found between Li and L2. For example,
case markers in Kannada language, which is the mother tongue of most of the
students under observation, occur as post positions which are morphologically
conditioned or governed.
For example : maneyAlli------‘in the house’

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maradAlli----- ‘on the tree’

sanjeyAlli----- ‘in the evening’
ka:dige----- ‘to the forest’
ehakuvininda------*by the knife’
Kannada equivalents for some English prepositions

SI. No - English - Kannada SI No - English - Kannada
1. -— in-------- - Alii 2. -— at------ ---- Alii
3. -— by--------— Alii 4. -... 0f------ — Alii
5. -— on------- — Alii 6. -— at------- — Alii
7.-— for.............. Mli 8.- — to....... ---- Allige
9. —-- with---- ....... dige, jotege 10. -— of------ ---- adara
In certain contexts, the Kannada case marker ’Alii’ is equated with many English
prepositions like in, at, by, of and on. consequently, the Kannada speaking
students studying English can not form a clear cut role to use all these
prepositions in correct contexts. As a result, they consider all these prepositions
as free variant forms and use them sporadically.
ii) Extension of the preposition ’on’

1.1 went Bangalore on yesterday. 2. On tomorrow my teacher teach new lesson
3.1 lost my book on last month I find it today. [In English, the preposition ’on’
is used before the days of the week like ’on Monday’ ’on Sunday’ etc. So, this
rule tends to extend the use of that preposition where it is not possible in
English, like ’on yesterday’, ’on tomorrow’, on last month’.]
iii) Dropping of preposition----- Dropping

1. Our mother send us ------to
2. Teachers teach some lesson children----to
3. My parents teach us behave well----- to
iv) Addition of preposition

1. In holidays I send the letter to my sister of my school day celebration.
2.1n literary period in our class sometimes we conduct a skit.
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In English certain verbs co-occur with prepositions while certain other verbs do
not. The verbs, which do not occur with a preposition, can occur with article in
the same slot (I bought a book, I went to Raichur). The students could not
distinguish and differentiate these two types of verbs and have used them
identically. Consequently in many a context, they have deleted the preposition.
It was identified from the data that the students tend to learn certain co
occurring elements as a unit, this has resulted in using two prepositions in their
writing. However, one can attribute improper learning, and semantic multiplicity
as the reasons for not performing well in the aspect of preposition.
Pronoun : A pronoun is a word that can be used in sentence in place of a noun.

Pronouns can be classified as subject, object, genitive and reflective pronouns.
Pronouns agree with the subject and object in number, a pronouns are used as
substitutes for nouns. They must bear the same number, gender and person as
the nouns for which they stand.
Table : 52 Pronouns
First person Second person Third person

Category
Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural
Subject I we you you she/he/it they
Object me us you you her/him/it them
Genitive me/mine our(s) your(s) your(s) her(s)/his/its their(s)
Relative myself ourselves your self yourself herself/himself/itself themselves
I] Wrong usage of pronouns: [Samples are given below]

1. My studying in ninth standard. 2. Ml bought to by cycle
3. Library will be very useful myself 4. My went to market to ball take.
The students had wrongly substituted ’my’ instead of ‘I’ and ’myself instead of
’me’. This is attributed to the lack of practice and ignorance of their linguistic
features and meanings. It should be mentioned that the third person pronouns
(he/she/it) are generally used properly by the students, and they no problem
using them. The reason is that the students follow the strategy of positive
transfer from Kannada. The Kannada pronouns also carry gender as that of L2.
For example: He------avanu. She-------avaiu. It-------adu

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Pronouns had been wrongly used and substituted by 12% of the students
understudy; However, the majority of the learners had used the pronouns
correctly.
Adjectives : Adjectives are typically described as words or phrases that

modify nouns. The adjectives usually appear between the determiners and the
nouns. Nouns are not only modified by the prototypical adjectives but also
words from many grammatical classes like verbal participles and noun heads.
The use of adjectives has been found to be very limited in students writings;
However, some incorrect usage of adjectives as found in data are given as
follows. I] Using noun instead of adjectives
Sample: 1. It is nature place to speak in class sometimes, [natural]
2. We arranged a tour bus when leave, [tourist]
3. The teacher teaches about education tour, [educational]
Errors of this type rarely occur in the writings of students under review. This is
because both in English and Kannada languages, noun + noun combination and
adjective + noun combination are relatively identical in the semantic aspect.
This gives room for using N+N instead of Adj+N. It may also be claimed that
this error is found to exist as the students follow the positive transfer of their
first language structure. Consider the Kannada data.
1] ondu---- olle----- kelasa 2] ondu-----hosa----- pustaka

a---- good----- work a-----new----- book
Here, the adjective appears before the noun and after the determiner. Moreover,
the predicate adjective of Kannada does not precede the noun as in English. [Idu
pustaka hosadu.- ’this book is new5] These kinds of structural similarities
between Lj and L2 favour the learning of a second language.
II] Wrong use of adjectival intensifier : The intensifier very’ is used

before the gradable adjectives and adverbs but in Kannada the intensifier
'tAmbaa' ‘baha!a’ which is equivalent to 'very / much' is used before both noun
and verb forms as well as before adjectives and adverbs as: tAmba: odAttene -
'read much' (before verb) Bahala oHeyavaru - 'very good person’ (before verb)
tAmba: sundara hu:vu - 'very beautiful rose' (before adjectives)
tAmba: be:ga bareyutte:ne - write very quickly (before adverb)
Because of this strategy available in Kannada, the students have used the
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intensifier ’very’ before the verbs of L2. The examples are given below.
1] I very enjoyed the holiday. 2] teacher is very teaching
3] It very raining in rainy season. 4] I find the book, but now very bored to read.
Table:53 Formation of plural nouns

Singular form Addition ofplural morpheme Plural form
Elsewhere at the end
boy S boys
place s places
flower s flowers
-es after - s/sh/ch/x
bus Es buses
dish Es dishes
church Es churches
box es boxes
Singular form Addition of plural morpheme Plural form
y-ies
baby ies babies
party ies parties
if-fe-ves
shelf Ves Shelves
wife ves wives
-en,ren
ox en oxen
child ren children
Irregular plural forms
Singular Plural Root modification
tooth teeth oo-ee
woman women a-e
datum data um-a
terminus termini us-I
mouse mice ous-ic
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Nouns : Nouns or noun phrases typically function as subjects, direct objects,

indirect objects and subject complements (NPS also function as the object of
preposition) A noun that denotes a single person or thing is said to be in
singular form and one which denotes more than one person or thing is said to be
in plural form. Plural nouns are formed by the addition of the suffixes which are
otherwise called as plural morphemes (like -s’ -es’ -en’ -ren’ etc) to the singular
form of the noun.
In learning to use a noun, one needs to pay attention to a variety of grammatical

factors, In particular or, one needs to know whether a noun is countable or
uncountable and if countable what will be the plural form. It is quite complex
and difficult to learners to process all the nuances of noun simultaneously In
learning to use a noun, one needs to pay attention to a variety of grammatical
factors. In particular, one needs to know whether a noun is countable and to
select a particular noun to use in a particular context.
The errors committed by the students in this context are presented below.
i) Overgeneralization of noun forms

The students tend to over generalize the rules where there is an irregularity in
forming plurals as:
Sample-----Correct form
childs[ childrens]---- children
mans------- men
foots---- feet
lifes-----lives
furnitures-----furniture
knifes------------ knives
Further, learner’s first language also interferes in the manifestation of L2 noun

forms. In Kannada, the plural suffix '(k)ka!u'or £ga!u’ is phonologically
conditioned which is added to all the countable nouns uniformly. For example:
Singular-----Addition----- Plural
magu------mAkka!u------children
ka:lu------ ka:luga!u'...........feet
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ji:va —.... -ji:vagalu............lives
Chu:ri----churigalu-------knives
The words like news, furniture etc. are treated as countable in Kannada but they
are uncountable in English. Because of this difference in the morphological
process of Kannada to English, the English learners whose mother tongue is
Kannada make a negative transfer on certain elements to English morphology
unknowingly importing from Kannada morphology unknowingly.
Verb: The verb (phrase) is the heart of the sentence. English sentences contain
at least one verb. Verbs carry a great deal of information, they describe actions,
events, the state of which are placed in a time frame. They state whether actions
or events, have been completed or going on and they say whether a state is
current or regulative. They help to command, request, speculate, wish and
predict. The students had not applied the verbs with accuracy in most situations.
Most of the sentences produced by the students had lost their meanings and
functions due to inappropriate use of the verb forms. Such types of erroneous
sentences are as follows.
i) Use of double past in negative sentences

1 .Sometimes I did not felt to study.
2.1 did not fount my book in the class.
ii) Double past in interrogative sentence

1. When did you completed examination?
2. When did your father came to Raichur?
3. Did you returned to home yesterday?
4. Did you wrote examination?
5. Did they came yesterday?
The samples 1 and 2 show the use of double past; a peculiar type of error, found
in the student’s writing. This type of error occurs because of the fact that in
Kannada, tense is expressed in main verbs without splitting the verbs whatever
the sentence type. In negative or interrogative sentence of English, the tense is
expressed with the help of both auxiliary and main verb (did + pronoun + verb
or did + not + verb). The learners knew the rule of using tense in auxiliary.
However, by the influence of Kannada language, the learners are satisfied only
when tense is expressed through main verbs. Thus, they use double tense in their
writing, especially while writing interrogative and negative sentences.
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iii) Use of past form where the past participle required

1.1 had tooked leave for my sisters marriage.
2.1 and my family had went to Mangalore sometimes.
3. Has he send the book.
4. Had he buyed the pen.
This type of error had appeared in the writings of the students under observation
due to the fact that in English, some verbs have certain identical forms for the
categories of past tense and the past-participle, (work-worked - worked) most of
the verbs have this pattern. Learners extend this rule to all types of the verbs and
consequently, ’a past tense’ form is substituted for a past participle form of
irregular type also (see-saw-seen).
4.5.1.3 Error categorization: It was found that 65% of the students had
committed errors in articles. Of the 65%, 30% of them had wrongly substituted
the articles and remaining 35% of the students unnecessarily had added the
articles where it is not required and had omitted where it is necessarily required.
73% of the students under study had used the preposition wrongly. With in 73%,
46% of the students had wrongly selected the prepositions, and 12% of the
students had overgeneralized the preposition as given in the sample 1, and
remaining the 15 of the students had unnecessarily added and dropped the
prepositions. It has been observed that 65% of the students had committed errors
in using the adjectives, with in 65%, 35% of the students had used nouns in the
place of adjectives and remaining 30% of them had used the adjectival
intensifier incorrectly or inappropriately. From the data, it was found that 62%
of the students had committed errors in the use of nouns.
4.5.1.4 Lexical errors in writing;
I] Wrong lexical selection

1.1 bought the book from library and then read in the house (borrow)
2.We find many types of flowers, [kinds]
3.1 sent message to my friend by my father’s mobile.[through]
4. In our class we conduct skit.[perform]
5. If we are sick we put leave to school.[take]

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6. Sometimes we will get less marks in exams [score]
7. Sometimes My mother cooks very nice, [well]
In any language, certain linguistic elements share commonness semantically,

that is to say that all languages have synonymous, words but there will not be
any complete synonyms in that language. Certain words can be used in certain
contexts. The students under observation have also incorrectly substituted one
word for another. This tends to occur only in the initial period of learning. It is
considered as developmental error.
II] Overgeneralization of the irregular verb forms
Sample -- Correct form
becomed - became
binded - bound
bited - bit
tooked -took
beated -beat
buyed -buy
Sample - Correct form
thinked - thought
cutted - cut
seeked - sought
writed - wrote
finded - found
buyed - bought
seed - saw
sayed - said
Learners tend to over-generalize verb forms due to the irregularity found in the
formation of the past tense. Some English verbs do not follow the regular
morphological process. Instead of taking-’ed’ as past tense marker they internally
get changed or they take zero-morpheme of the formation of past form. Because
of this deviant morphological process, the learners tend to over-generalize
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already learned rule of affixing -ed with the present verb form to the make past
form.
Adverb: Adverbs specify the mode of action of the verbs. In English, many
adverbs are signaled by the ly’ ending. An adverb is ’a word used to add
something to the meaning of the verb’. The function of an adverb in a sentence is
significant because of its impact on the verb it modifies. The effectiveness and
vitality of the action reflected by the sentences is denoted by the use of adverbs.
Some times adverbs qualify the adjectives also. The errors in the use of adverbs
are given below.
i) Over generalization of - ly ending

Sample
1. It rained heavily
2. He ran to school speedly
3. The bus came fastly
ii) Adjectives used as adverb

1. Today I came to school quick
2. She write beautiful.
These types of errors may be considered as developmental errors. The above

data establishes a fact that the students experienced some confusion with regard
to the grammatical categories viz. adverb and adjective. The students required
functional distribution of the above two categories.
Auxiliary Verbs : An Auxiliary verb is subordinate to the main verb. It helps

to make distinctions in mood, tense, aspect, voice etc. It is used to frame
questions especially tag questions. Normally a verb phrase consists of a main
verb preceded by one or more auxiliary verbs. In a sentence, the appropriate
selection of the auxiliary verb form is important for maintaining subject - verb
agreement. Students have difficulty in using the auxiliary forms also. The errors
found in the students writing are classified and presented below.
i) Addition of auxiliary verb — Addition

1.1 am went to the school-----am
2.1 am saw the teacher in class-----am
3.1 am bought mangoes in the market---- am
4.1 am study everyday am

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The students under observation had unnecessarily added the auxiliary verb ’am’
in between the subject T and verb (past form). The student’s intention was to
convey the past event or action. He had conveyed the sense what he has done in
the past, but ’am’ is wrongly used with 1’. This is due to the fact that the copula
verb ’am’ functions as a main verb in certain contexts (I am a student). Because
of the impact of this structure, learners unconsciously use ’am’ whenever they
have to use 1’ in a subject position.
II] Deletion of auxiliary verb — Deletion
1. When - you go home? — ’do’

2. When - you come from market? — ’did’
3. How - you come from school? — ’did’
4. Where - you see market? — ’did’
The sample shows that the students had deleted the auxiliary verbs in the
interrogative sentences (when + sub+ verb+ noun). This deviating structure is
unacceptable. The reason for the deletion of auxiliary verb in interrogative
sentences is the mother tongue interference. In Kannada, the interrogative
sentences can be framed as:
Yavaga bandiri
when come -past-PNG
Yavaga shalege bandiri

when school-case come-past.PNG
or
yaivaga bandiri shalege

when school+past -PNG school-case
Only pronoun, verb and noun (when + verb + noun) are used in the Kannada
interrogative sentence. No auxiliary verb is used in it, so this structure appears in
L2 also, iii) Wrong substitution of auxiliary verb
Given instruction: Fill in the blanks with suitable auxiliary
Sample----------Correct form
1.1 am working when she came.---- ’was’
2. Now he was writing a letter to his friend.---- ’is’
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3. They were going to a meeting tomorrow evening.---- ’are’

4. Six students are in class yesterday ’were’
The wrong substitution of auxiliary verbs ’am’ instead of ’was’, ’are’ instead of
’were’ and vice versa is due to the ’ignorance of the linguistic features of
auxiliary verb and failure to understand the meaning of the given sentences. As
soon as the students see the verb in the ’ing’ form, they tend to use auxiliary
without considering the tense which is implied by the adverb.
Concord : Concord is the grammatical agreement between words in number,

gender, subject, verb etc. In English, number is a feature associated with nouns,
demonstratives, personal pronouns and verbs. Nouns have singular or plural
numbers and present tense verbs when they come with 3rd person singular will
occur in agreement with the subject (noun). Errors identified in the students
writing are classified and presented as follows.
I] Demonstrative adjectives and noun agreement

Sample: 1. This pens causes mess in paper sometimes
2.Mother found this books in the shop.
3. My friends makes me happy these thing makes me happy sometimes.
The errors in the aspect of agreement between the demonstrative adjective and
noun may occur because of the ignorance of the functions of the demonstrative
adjectives and interference of the first language.
i) In Kannada, there is no singular and plural distinction in demonstrative

adjectives as in English. For example: Intaha, idu -these, this
antaha,adu-that,those
intaha pustak ’this book’ (singular)

intaha pustakagalu ’these books’(plural)
antaha pustaka ’ that book (singular)
antaha pustakagalu ’those books’ (plural)
ii] Subject and verb agreement
1 .The students finds my book which is lost

292
2.0ur parents sends us to school for study.
2. Our teachers teaches us good morals

3. The classes leaves at 4.o’clock.
The above sentences show the agreemental problem between verb and noun.
The students have used the third person singular marker 's' (es) without
considering the noun which proceeds the verb. The words like 'vehicles,'
'Industries' 'gases' and 'preventive measures' are in plural forms which require
plural verb form but students have predominantly used the singular verbs form.
So, the third person singular marker is over-generalized where it is not required.
iii) Relative pronoun and verb agreement

Sample:
i. The pens which writes nicely I find them today.
ii. In our school we have teachers who teaches good habits.
This type of agreemental errors has appeared due to the ignorance of the
linguistic feature of the relative pronoun, 'which'. In the above examples 'which'
and ‘who’, function as the relative pronoun and it share the grammatical features
of noun which precedes to it. The students consider the relative pronoun 'which'
and ‘who’ as a singular linguistic element, so this kind of misconception leads to
the use of singular verb after the relative pronoun whatever the noun preceded to
'which' and ‘who’.
4.5.1.1Error categorization
It was found that 69% of the students committed errors in concord. Of 69%,
30% of the students had committed errors in the agreement between
demonstrative adjective and noun. 29% of students had committed errors in
agreement between subject and verb and remaining 10% of the students had
committed all types of errors. It was found that there were 62% of the students
wrongly used the auxiliary verbs. Of the 62%, 32% of the students had wrongly
added and deleted the auxiliaries, and remaining 30% of them had wrongly
substituted the auxiliaries. 30% of the students had over-generalized- ly- ending
and 22% of the students had used the adjectives as adverb in their writings.
4.5.1.2 Data analysis of syntactical errors in writing skill:

Syntax includes the ways words are combined into larger structures including
293
sentences. The distinction between the subject and predicate is the basic division
within the sentence. The generative grammar of the 1970s exploited tree
diagrams in which the subject (called the NP for noun phrase) branches left and
the predicate (called VP for verb phrase) branches right stands for sentence.
The syntactical errors committed by the students are categorized and presented
below: i] Mother tongue influence on syntax
Sample :l.In our school our teacher are teaching well
2. Yesterday I got fever so I took leave .
The students had used the adverbs like In our school’ Yesterday’, as the subjects
in the place of subject positions and the required subjects are deleted. This kind
of expression may be due to the mother tongue influence.
In Kannada, sentences can be produced without a subject and the adverb is

placed in the place of subject position. The subject can be realized in the PNG
marker, for Example: i] l.na:le barAtte:ne
[tomorrow, I am coming]
tomorrow coming PNG
2.ninne hodanu
[Yesterday he went]
Yesterday went PNG
So, this type of L] syntactical structure appears in the L2 learner performance as

shown above. Example ii]: 1. Next evening home work do
2.1 will going body clean doing
3. My happy sometime at morning time Kannada language news paper reading.
Example 2 indicates that the verbs are placed in the end position of the
sentences. This reflects Kannada syntax pattern. In Kannada both SOV and SVO
patterns are possible, but mostly the SOV pattern is followed in the formal
context as
1. na:nu beligge Kannada pattrike o:dAttene

294
I morning Kannada newspaper reading PNG

[I read Kannada news paper in the morning ]
2. na:nu beligge shalege barAttene

I morning school coming.PNG
[I come to school in the morning]

It is evident that the similar Lj structure appeared in the L2 learners’ writings
as shown in sample 2. This type of error is considered a transfer error.
ii ] Order change in question:

1. Where he was going?
2. When you will come from Raichur?
3. Why you didn’t come yesterday?
4. Why you didn’t told the reason for master?
The sample shows that the interrogative sentences have been used in the reverse
order as where + sub + aux + verb (where he was going) instead of where + aux
+ sub + verb (where was he going). This is due to the influence of spoken form
of writing. The deviant word order of question found in the learners
performance is least acceptable in the spoken mode of Indian English and it is
also expressed through intonation using the similar pattern. The previous one is
an unacceptable order in the written mode.
(iii) Incomplete sentences

1. My bought to the by cycle
2.1 am decide to the bag to market
3. Renuka is told the Sudha teach
4. She decide the play tomorrow leave
5.1 ran to the mother sometimes
4.5.1.7 Error categorization of syntactic errors:
61% of the students had committed errors in the sentence level. Of the 61%,
30% of the students had changed the order of the interrogative sentence, 21% of
the students had committed errors due to the influence of Li, and remaining 10%
of the students merely omitted the linguistic elements in an illogical fashion.
295
4.5.1.8 Suggestions on teaching writing skill:
Writing an individual effort but more rule-bound: Writing is an

individual effort. Individuals often compose their thoughts in privacy and then
reduce their thoughts to writing, using the strict conventions followed in the
language. Writing is an individual effort or work, but it must follow rules. The
development of writing even in native English speaking children is conscious
and is non-spontaneous. As It was discussed elsewhere (Thirumalai 1977),
written language differs from oral language in structure and mode of
functioning. The acquisition of oral speech by itself is the acquisition of signs
(symbols). The acquisition of writing is a step further and the learner must now
transfer the symbolization acquired in the process of speech acquisition to
written language. Vygostsky (1962) compares this to the acquisition of algebra
which is harder than arithmetic. Added to this problem is the fact that writing
needs no interlocutor.
In writing, the discrete nature of linguistic signs should be appreciated

consciously. The learner must recognize the sound structure of each word,
dissect it and reproduce it in alphabetical symbols, which must have been
studied and previously memorized . This same deliberate preparedness is needed
to put words in a certain sequence to form a sentence (Vygostsky 1962;
Thirumalai 1977).
Teaching writing to native speakers of English has always been a major concern
of education. More often than not, most students, both native speakers and
second language learners of English, feel inadequate in the face of a writing
task. The modem world demands some efficiency in writing skills. However,
when one can learn to speak the first or second language with little or no
conscious thought, the switch from the spoken to writing poses difficulty.
“Writing is more an individual effort than speaking, while at the same time more
rule-bound and therefore more error-prone. . . The speaker does not have to
pronounce each word exactly according to one standard of pronunciation or one
model of stmcture, while the writer is expected to produce according to one
model of spelling, and usually a reduced range of structures, with 100 percent
accuracy” (Bowen et al. 1985:252). Everyone will agree with Bowen et al
(1985:253) when they declare that “writing is more mle-bound than speaking.
Considering the control of the orthographic system, the careful organization, and
296
the linguistic conservatism required, writing is the most demanding of the

language skills.”
The writing classes have the potential to help consolidate and improve the
students’ speaking and reading skills. However, it is important to remember that
writing is an important skill which can be taught as an end in itself, although
none of the language skills is far removed from the other language skills.
Focusing on writing as an independent skill helps us to identify the specific
problems faced by the learners, and to identify the specific needs of the learners
relating to writing. Mechanics of writing are distinct from the mechanics of
other skills such as speaking and reading. While reading involves seeing and
pronouncing, writing involves association of sounds with mental composition of
thoughts and their orderly presentation, and hand movements.
Writing can be viewed and taught as a developmental process as is reading. It

also can be viewed from four perspectives: Mechanics, emphasized in the low
beginner stages (beginning); Extended Use of Language, emphasized in the high
beginner and low intermediate stages (elementary); Writing with Purpose,
emphasized in the high intermediate and low advanced stages (intermediate);
and Full Expository Prose, emphasized in the terminal stage (advanced) (Bowen
1985).
Raimes classifies approaches to teaching writing into five types: controlled to

free, free writing, paragraph pattern, grammar-syntax-organization,
communicative, and process approaches. In the controlled to free approach,
“students are first given sentence exercises, then paragraphs to copy or
manipulate grammatically by, for instance, changing questions to statements,
present to past, or plural to singular. They might also change words or clauses or
combine sentences” (Raimes 1983:6).
In the free writing approach, students are asked to “write freely on any topic
without worrying about grammar and spelling for five or ten minutes. . . . The
teachers do not correct these short pieces of free writing; they simply read them
and perhaps comment on the ideas the writer expressed” (Raimes 1983:7). In the
paragraph pattern approach, “students copy paragraphs, analyze the form of
model paragraphs, and imitate model passages. They put scrambled sentences
into paragraph order, they identify general specific statements, they choose or
invent an appropriate topic sentence, they insert or delete sentences” (Raimes
1983:8). In the communicative approach to writing, students are asked to
assume the role of a writer who is writing for an audience to read. Whatever is
297
written by a student is modified in some way by other students for better

communicative effect. In the process approach to writing, students “move away
from a concentration on the written product to an emphasis on the process of
writing” (Raimes 1983:10). They ask ‘not only questions about purpose and
audience, but also the crucial questions: How do I write this? How do I get
started?” (Raimes 1983:10).
It is to be noted that a proper blend of these approaches to writing will give best
results. For example, the controlled to free approach to writing helps us to focus
on proper mechanics in the initial stage, whereas communicative approach to
writing will be very effective once students have some control over the
mechanics and have acquired a good number of words and sentence structures to
help match these with their thoughts. Successful texts and teachers have tried to
take the best and relevant aspects of every method to suit the learner’s level and
need.
Beginning writing [ emphasis on mechanics of writing]: At the

initial stages the focus is on learning the alphabet, the left-to-right direction of
English writing, printing, cursive writing, upper and lower case letters,
alphabetizing, basic spelling patterns of English, rules for capitalization, and
word and sentence punctuation.
The basic skills include writing letters, numbers, words, phrases, and sentences
correctly. All these should be accomplished by providing writing exercises
which use real words (and phrases and sentences). Students may begin with
copying what is given to them, but soon they should begin to write from
memory, be these items words, phrases, or sentences. In such “free writing” they
may be given non-linguistic visual prop in the form of pictures of objects or
objects themselves. They will see the pictures or objects, recollect from their
memory the words for such pictures or objects, and write these words. In other
words, right from the beginning some form of free writing is encouraged, even
while the mechenics of writing are being mastered.
Writing Readiness: A checklist for introductory writing skills is as follows.

Motor skills needed for producing legible printing.
Left-to-right orientation.
The ability to produce shapes which are the building blocks of English
letters.
Knowing and printing the alphabet.
298
Naming while copying and then spelling out loud the words copied.
Recognition and production from written form: vowels, consonants and
blends. Words and syllables, upper and lower case letters, basic spelling
patterns, common, Sight words, rhyming words, punctuation, phrases and
sentences. Motor skills needed for producing legible cursive writing.
Copying words and sentences is an important low level writing activity. The
alphabet is mastered using copying. At the sametime proper hand movements
for writing letters and words are also established using copying. The fluency in
writing is improved through appropriate copying exercises. Copying assists with
the recognition and use of punctuation marks. Young students begin with
copying, and copying becomes a game, for them. The adult students may not
relish much copying, and yet some amount of copying is important even to
retain memory of what has been learned. Encourage your class to do some
copying exercises. We have to use words for writing practice from the student’s
immediate environment, and later on from speaking and reading activities. After
learning to say and read words, and then to copy them, the student may perform
other writing tasks, such as filling in missing letters and missing words. Bowen
et al. (1985) suggests the following: When the student is able to write words
from memory, he may be asked to
-list objects in pictures.-draw and label his own pictures.
-make personalized stationery by drawing a personal letterhead.
-make a monthly calendar or birthday card for a classmate.

-draw a picture map of his neighborhood or another familiar area.
Alphabetizing tasks provide writing practice. These include the following.
List five words that begin with.......

Rearrange the following words in alphabetical order:
Write a girl’s name that begins with.
Find two objects in the picture whose names begin with_______ _ .
Rearrange the letters in an alphabetical order.
As the beginner’s knowledge of English increases through what he is learning to

say and read, and to generate new words, phrases, and sentences, he may be
asked to -make topical vocabulary lists.
299
-make associational pairs or groups of words.
-prepare antonyms.
-prepare synonyms.
-make familiar paradigms like the days of the week or the months.
-make personal lists, such as items on a shopping list, food

served at a meal, and packing lists. At this stage the student may practice his
signature in cursive form.
From words students go on to short word groups such as phrases. From the
above steps, we have to proceed to extend phrase writing into sentence writing.
Students may be given pictures and asked to identify the objects and events and
write about them. This will be an extended writing exercise. They may be asked
to write the sequence of tasks depicted and/or inferred from the picture. While
doing this, they will be engaged in sentence combining, paragraph assembly,
paragraph completion, controlled composition (such as rewriting the paragraph
in a different tense, modification of names and pronouns, etc.), guided
composition (which provides some tips or ideas and the students write short
sentences and paragraphs on a topic based on items provided), and questions and
answers (Raimes 1983).
Correction; It is important that errors are corrected at the early level so that
some standards in spelling and expression are set for the learners. Raimes (1983)
suggests that we “use errors in students’ writing to plan ahead: What do the
students need to work on next? What are they having trouble with. . . . give our
students time and opportunity to correct errors before we do. ... (if our students
focus is on meaning) question only the real major errors, like jumbled sentences,
which interfere with communication so much that we can’t work out what the
student is trying to say.”
Most textbooks written by well-known authors often de-emphasize the need to

correct the writings of second language learners, and place an emphasis on
meaning and free writing, or fluency in writing. However, I personally feel that
if teachers do not correct the students’ writings, a sense of self-sufficiency sets
in and the students will not recognize the errors they have committed. As Bowen
et al. (1985) suggest, “Look for problems such as reversed letters, transposed
letters or words, incorrect uppercase or lowercase letters, lack of paragraph
300
indentation, lack of familiarity with the basic spelling patterns, and illegible
handwriting.’The students should begin to write for an audience and seek
feedback. This will encourage more free writing. But, let such demands be
within the current level of the grammatical ability of the second language
learner. Most of the exercises suggested above, although controlled, lead on to
simple form of free writing.
Emphasis on extended use of language:At the end of the beginning

level, the ESL student may have a vocabulary of fewer than one thousand words
and a limited number of sentence patterns. To increase the mastery of additional
sentence patterns, we may ask the students to do parallel writing. “Parallel
writing is, in a way, the freest kind of controlled writing. Instead of making
changes in a given passage or writing according to an outline or given sentences,
students read and study a passage and then write their own on a similar theme,
using as a guide the vocabulary, sentence structure, cohesive devices, and
organization of the model passage” (Raimes 1983:109). Students should be
asked to plan, polish, rewrite their passages several times.
Intermediate writing [emphasis on writing with a purpose]: At the

intermediate level, students acquire a lot of words, and begin to write English
for specific purposes. They will continue to demonstrate errors in their writing.
They begin to focus on the use of pronoun links, connecting words for the
progress of the thoughts they express, such as also, therefore, but, however, use
of specific grammatical points such as conditional clause with or without
negation, double negatives, modals, tense, etc. Punctuation, arrangement of
sentences within a paragraph, transformation of one sentence type into another
with or without change in the meaning, stylistic improvements, summarizing the
ideas found in a passage in their own sentences, completion of sentences and
paragraphs to match the ideas contained therein or they want to express, writing
with the appropriate tone, style and organization for the topic focused upon, are
some of the things which will be considered in the intermediate level. All this
may be achieved with some guided practice. Bowen et al. (1985) suggest that
students organize their thoughts in three main types: “1. Take content from
one’s own experience or the results of one’s own information gathering, and
arrange it into a logical format. 2. Analyze a prose model, reconstruct its outline,
and use the outline as a model for writing another passage, using parallel or
analogous information. 3. Follow an outline prepared by someone else, e.g.,
teacher or textbook.” Raimes (1983) suggests that we give training to students to
write in English speculating on the focus of the given text. She also recommends
301
“students can be given tasks that encourage them to speculate about the text
itself, about its content, context, organization, and the writer’s choices of words
and syntax.” Raimes (1983) suggests writing skits and records of guided
discussion and interviews. At the intermediate level, the technique of dicto-
comp is recommended. ‘The teacher reads a passage all the way through, not
broken into segments. Students listen to the passage two or three times. Then
they pick up their pens and write down as close a version as possible. This
makes them pay attention to the meaning of the passage more than to the form
of the individual words or the structure of the individual sentences. At the end of
the passage, the students gather in small groups to compare what they have
written down. After they have assembled everything they can remember, they
listen to the passage again, make revisions and then check their grammar,
spelling, and punctuation” (Raimes 1983:77). Note-taking and story-telling are
two other ways in which the students are encouraged to do some free but
controlled writing. “When elementary level students take notes, they can be
given a skeleton outline to work with and expand, so that their listening is more
directed. Advanced students can listen to long passages and make notes as they
listen. Both groups need to be alerted to the signals that speakers use: pauses,
raising the head and the voice to make an important point, or using words like
first, finally, most important to signal separation and priority of the points
made” (Raimes 1983:79).
Filling in forms of general nature, filling in money order forms, forms for
registered or certified mail in the post office, writing letters to friends,
newspapers, and other organizations, writing business letters, writing
instructions for some one to perform a particular task, writing a journal, and
even writing some creative short stories are all given at the intermediate writing
level. Indian textbooks do not really focus on the use of English for functional
purposes. Usefulness of guided composition, parallel writing, preparing lists of
objects and other inventories, sentence combining and parallel writing has
already been discussed. These will continue to be used in developing writing at
the intermediate level. Most students are reluctant to write. Apart from the fact
that writing needs more deliberate involvement than reading, students are afraid
that what they write may be full of errors in a language with which they have
just begun to gain some acquaintance. They may have a lot of reluctance to
write even in their first language. Students will face great difficulty in
composing their thoughts in English, a second or foreign language to them. As
standards of writing are more stringent than in other skills, students need to be
trained to proceed from writing short passages to longer essays. They need a lot
302
of encouragement, and appreciation, need good models, and modeling. They

need to be exposed to standard written materials. The form and the character of
such materials need to be explained.
Increased Speed in Writing: At the high school level, there should be

some focus on writing faster, in the same way there would be some focus on
reading faster and more accurately. If the students are too slow in writing, they
will have great difficulty in performing better in timed test situations. Also it
will become increasingly difficult for them to match the speed of their thoughts
with their writing speed. It is important that dictation exercises are given
progressively increasing its speed. It is also important that we give our students
timed writing on given topics. Yet another way to increase speed in writing is to
ask them to perform some cloze exercises. In this exercise, “students copy an
incomplete short passage and then complete it in their own words. The objective
is not to increase the number of words per minute, but to increase the speed of
organizing thought in a second language and of judging and producing in a style
that will be compatible with the first part of the passage” (Bowen et al. 1985).
Advanced writing: Students will enter the advanced level with a good
knowledge of sentence structure, vocabulary, and idiom. They are already
exposed to a variety of forms of writing. They can meet almost every need at the
end of the high school level. However, they may have had not much exposure to
the specialized literature. They may have no skill in writing articles in the
format in which these are demanded for publication in standard journals. They
may not have much acquaintance with the specialist vocabulary in English from
their fields of specialization. Thus at the advanced level of writing in English the
focus is more on English for specific purposes. Different fields require different
levels of the knowledge of English. For example, if a student wants to study and
specialize in law or business, a more elaborate and deeper knowledge of the use
of English is required. If a student’s focus is on physical sciences, there may not
be a high demand on him to have an excellent control over English. The students
will be required to have good skills in organizing information and ideas in his
field of specialization. He will be required to follow the stylistic and rhetorical
conventions adopted in English, which apply to his field of specialization. He
should have adequate skills in self-editing his own writing. The writing
conventions of a particular field are usually expressed clearly and succinctly in
the style sheets of major publications in that field.
At this stage, we no more deal with teaching English. We are called upon to
teach the appropriate rhetoric of the field using English. Rhetoric and logic play
303
a more crucial role than linguistic structures. However, it is always important

and useful to refresh the second/foreign language learner of English about the
spelling, vocabulary and diction, and structure errors he continues to commit.
Students will continue to commit linguistic errors even as they try to master the
rhetorical and logical expressions. There are quite a few books in the field which
focus upon various aspects of advanced writing in English. These textbooks
“treat the writing task as problem solving, and set the prospective writer the task
of identifying characteristics of writing and then using their discoveries about
writing in actually composing new essays” (Bowen 1985).
4.5.1.9 Conclusion: The variables (Sex, Parental Education and Income)

plays an important role in the development of second language skills.
Table : 54 Performance of students in % in the Aspects of Skills

Error types Performance of Economic Parental
Students position education
LISTENING SKILL M F Total LIG MIG HIG UED ED
Phonological 45.0 30.0 75.0 30.0 25.0 20.0 40.0 35.0
Morphological 50.0 30.0 80.0 40.0 30.0 11.0 40.0 41.0
Syntactic 40.0 30.0 70.0 30.0 30.0 10.0 40.0 30.0
Average 45.0 30.0 75.0 33.3 28.3 13.6 40.0 35.3
SPEAKING SKILL
Phonological 39.0 39.0 78.0 30.0 30.0 18.0 48.0 30.0

Morphological 12.0 13.0 25.0 10.0 10.0 5.0 15.0 10.0
Average 25.5 26.0 51.5 20.0 20.0 11.5 31.5 20.0
READING SKILL
Phonological 40.0 34.0 74.0 30.0 30.0 14.0 44.0 30.0

Morphological 40.0 39.0 79.0 40.0 20.0 19.0 39.0 40.0
Syntactic 40.0 35.0 75.0 30.0 35.0 10.0 40.0 35.0
Average 40.0 36.0 76.0 33.3 28.3 14.3 41.0 35.0
WRITING SKILL
Morphological 30.0 43.0 73.0 20.0 43.0 10.0 43.0 30.0

Lexical 32.0 39.0 71.0 30.0 30.0 11.0 41.0 30.0
Syntactic 31.0 30.0 61.0 31.0 20.0 10.0 29.0 32.0
Average 31.0 37.3 68.3 27.0 31.0 10.3 31.6 30.7
Total average 34.37 32.32 62.7 28.4 26.9 12.4 37.5 30.2
M - Male, F - Female, LIG - Low Income Group, MIG - Middle Income Group,
HIG - High Income Group, UED - Uneducated, ED - Educated.
304
Performance of students: The variables shown in each skills of language

in this chapter, prove that the students who come from well economical and
educated background are better in the achievement of the skills of English
language. In writing, male students are better than female. In Reading, female
students are better than the male.
In listening, female students are better than the male. However, in speaking,
male and female students have more or less got equal scores. The empirical
evidence shows that the cited variables play significant role in the achievement
of skills of language. If a student is better in listening, he will be better in
speaking only, and if a student is better in reading he will be better in
writing only.
On the basis of the mean score of students performance received from each skill
of language, it is found that the students who are better in listening are not only
better in speaking but also in reading. The students who are better in reading are
not only better in writing but also in listening and in speaking. Thus, as far as
second language learning is concerned, both the listening and reading pave the
way to acquire good command over the spoken English and also to have good
performance over written English. It cannot be said that if a student is better in
listening will be better in speaking only, and if a student is better in reading will
be better in writing only. In the process of learning a second language, all the
skills are interrelated.

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173

CHAPTER 4 ASPECTS OF SKILLS

4.1 Listening Skill:

Listening is a prerequisite to all skills of language. The activity of listening is

4.1.1 Listening Process:

Listening is a complex, multistep process by which spoken language is

4.1.1.1 The Process of Encoding and Decoding:

An act of communication requires encoder-the speaker and decoder-the listener.

Listening Comprehensive Process: Richards (1990) draws a two way

4.1.1.2 Speaker Meaning : Hearer Meaning:

Varying situational speaker-meaning

Figure 7: Speaker Meaning : Hearer Meaning [Adapted from Segrdahal,

4.1.1.3 The Speaker-Listener Polarity:

communication. Communication is in fact a confrontation between two

4.1.1.4 Relationship between Speaking and Listening:

Speaking and listening are interdependent processes. The activity of speaking

Figure 8: Diagram Representing The relationship between speaking and

Speaking Two way Listening

4.1.1.5 Sub-Skills of Listening:

4.1.1.6 Enabling Skills

A] Perception; Recognizing prominence within utterances, including:

B] Interpretation; Formulating content sense of utterance, including :

Formulating a conceptual framework linking utterances, including:

■ Recognizing discourse markers (clarifying, contrasting).

Interpreting (possible) speaker intention, including:

• Identifying an 'interpersonal frame speaker-to-hearer.

C] Enacting Skills: Making appropriate response (based on the above)

■ Transcoding information into written form (such as, notes).

4.1.1.7 Difficulty Factors in Listening:

Research over years has attempted to define which factors contribute to

By way of illustration, here is a brief synopsis of Brown's characterization of

■ If there are few speakers and objects.

4.1. 2. Error identification and explanation:

Testing Listening Skill: The test items, Comprehension, news, sentences,

deducing meaning of unfamiliar words, recognizing prominence with in

Table : 26 l est items for listening skill

SI. No. Test Items Purpose

1. Dialogue Inferring the text based information

5. Words Recognizing the phonemic contrast

4.1. 2.1 Data analysis:

Instructions: Listen carefully to the dialogue and answer the question

Question 1. The woodcutter was walking down apath in a

Question 2. He was in search of

Options : a) tiger b)wood c] door of the cage d] dry wood

Expected response : d. Students responses: c / a / b

Question 3. The tiger pleaded with him saying,

Expected response : b], Students responses: a / c / d

Question 4. The opened the door of the cage.

Options: a] tiger b] woodcutter c] forest d] servant

Table:27 Comments on test item : 1

Given text: News item

Question 1: The Olympic games are now held in Athens,

Question. 3: The Olympic in those days was a festival held at Olympia

Options: a) 5 years b) 6 years c) 4 years d) 3years

Table : 28 Comments on test item-2

Test Item 3: Given text: Sentences

Given sentence 1: One of my sisters are coming to school.

Expected response: Wrong

Given sentence 4: Although he is intelligent, he is simple