Abstract

Errors take places in the second language learning regardless the students’ level, and their analysis has become
one of the major topics of interest in the field of Applied Linguistics in order to aid the language instructors to not
only be aware of them, but also to know how to identify, classify, but mostly, correct them. On the grounds of
that, this paper aims to develop an error analysis which helps the learners from the Basic levels to avoid the
common errors made when using the Genitive Case. This will be accomplished by selecting a target population
in the Centro de Enseñanza de Idiomas in FES Acatlan, administering an instrument which will reveal the most
common errors produced by the learners, identifying and classifying the errors, so a proposal to correct them
can be designed. This process is essential for the language instructor’s as it helps them in the development of
error correction techniques used to make the learners proficient in the second language.

Keywords: error analysis, second language learning and teaching, Applied Linguistics, Genitive Case

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 1. Problem description
Language learning; or in this case, English language learning involves certain aspects that any language
instructor should take into consideration; take approaches, methodology, and techniques for example;
nonetheless there are other features which should be considered as the most important ones concerning the
students, such as motivation, purposes, background, age; but in the case of this paper: first language. The
students’ first language will either aid them or prevent them to learn certain aspects of the target language; on
the other hand, it can determine how fast or slow something is comprehensible for them so they can use it; and
how long it would take them to stop making certain errors.

In order to select the correct methodology, and to develop the appropriate techniques which will help the students
to become proficient users of the second language, not only is it essential for the teachers to understand, to
some extent, how the first language acquisition and the second language acquisition or learning happen taking
into account the great number of theories which concern this; but also to know which errors students are likely
to make during the second language learning process. To achieve this, an error analysis should be carried out
with the main objective of helping the learners to either prevent or correct their most common mistakes

As for this project, the focus of the error analysis concerns the Genitive Case, as well known as the Possessive
Case in the basic levels on the grounds that, based on experience, it is one of the common topics students
struggle with when they are in this level. Because of the misunderstanding of this topic, it seems that some
students in the basic levels tend to avoid the usage of this form of possession, using the preposition of constantly,
misplacing the ‘s in the subject, and there are cases in which they even confuse the possessives with the
contraction of the verb to be. In addition to this, there are as well some students who do not completely
understand the rules which govern the genitive case; therefore, they do not write it if the subject finishes with s
or they write ‘s if the subject is composed by two nouns.

1.1. General objective

As said before, the objective of this project is to identify the common mistakes students make when using the
Genitive Case; therefore, the syntactic level of the English language is to be analysed for the development of
this paper. Not only will the errors be identified and described, but a proposal for the students to overcome this
error will be provided.

1.2. Nature of the problem

The level in which this project is placed is the syntactic level as it will deal with the rules which govern the Genitive
Case. As Crytal (1980: 66) says syntax is “the study of the rules governing the way words are combined to form
sentences”. The main basic unit of this level is, as explained in Crystal’s definition, the sentence which is
composed of a clause that has, at least, one subject and verb. As it can be noticed then, the project will aim to

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identify the errors the students might make due to the misunderstanding or lack of knowledge of the rules of the
Possessive Case. As for this case, which is defined as “a grammatical category used in the analysis of world-
classes to identify the relationship between words in a sentence” (Crystal: 1980, 66) that in this case is a
possession.

Regarding the possible sources of the problem, Coe (2001: 106) explains that meanwhile possession is
expressed in English by “cases of nouns”, take John’s car for example; in Spanish, the preposition de followed
by a Noun Phrase is used, such as El carro de Juan (the car of John). It is important to mention that although
this possessive form is not completely incorrect in English, it is commonly used with inanimate nouns, such as
in the yard of the school or the window of the house. As for this type of error, it might be considered that this is
caused by transfer, which Alfonso (as cited as cited in Guerrero, 2014: 14) defines as “the influence of the L1 on
the learning of the L2”. Moreover, it can be said that this is caused because of the “word-to-word translation”
(Corder, as cited in Guerrero 2014: 14) the students tend to do when indicating possession.

Another type of error the students tend to make concerning this type, involves the misplace of the ‘s which main
reason is the –s ending within words or in plural nouns¸ such as Morris’ dog or My sisters’ home. This type of
errors might be caused by the complexity of the rule of the L2. Gumbaridze (2012: 1661) suggests that this
happens “when mislearning takes place and students get distracted by too many variables”. As for the Genitive
Case, it could be said that when students learn to place the ‘s, they do not completely understand the rules,
believing that the ‘s should be either repeated or completely erased from the subject.

As for the ´s in the plural subjects, it could be considered overgeneralization as the main cause.
Overgeneralization or developmental error happens when a student learn the correct grammar form, but they
continue applying it incorrectly since they try to use this rule in all the forms they learn (Gumbaridze, 2012: 1661);
therefore, when students learn to locate the ‘s after the subject, they tend to believe that every subject in a
sentences who possesses something needs to have ‘s, producing sentences such as
(1) Mike’s and Rodrigo’s mom

As it could have been noticed, these errors could be produced by some of the different theories behind errors
that have been developed, and at least two of them regards of them form of the Genitive Case, which are
Periphrastic Case use and the plural subjects; whereas the ´s in words ending in –s seem to concern the
pronunciation patterns. Based on that, it could be said that, in order to solve this problem, the lesson which could
be developed might be divided into two sections: one regarding the form and the second the pronunciation in
which an emphasis is made on the way the genitive is produced when there are words ending in –s.

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 2. Review of related literature and studies
Before attempting comparing two languages, which is the objective of this project; it is considered important to
clarify, firstly, what language is. Additionally, the science which this human feature, Linguistics, has to be
explained as well, in order to make the reader recall the importance; and the many branches of this science,
which aim to make clear the vast majority of the questions that concern language. Among those branches, the
area of the Linguistics which is to be used in order to develop this project will be as well defined; so the objective
might be even clearer for the reader.

2.1. Language
Language is defined by David Crystal (1980: 265) as “the systematic, conventional use of sounds, signs or
written symbols in a human society for communication and self-expression”. Taking into account this definition,
it can be said that language; as most linguistics agree on, is uniquely human. Additionally, language is as well
creative and social, which means that people can create an infinite number of expressions understood in a
specific region.

Even though language has been said to be exclusively human; there is a discussion among linguists about
whether the way animals communicate can be regarded as language; thus, in order to set a description of what
language really is, Hockett (as cited in Cascado & Escandell, 2011), and other linguists, developed a list of the
key features of the language. Such properties are:

 Arbitrariness: it concerns the lack of connection between the meaning and the linguistic form; for
example, the word cat does not have any physical feature which makes people call it as such; therefore,
it is said that the name given to the objects is an arbitrary symbol.
 Cultural transmission: it indicates that language is acquired by means of exposure; hence, it is crucial
that children interact with people in order to develop their ability to communicate.
 Discreteness: It states that language is produced through a variety of sounds that make different
meanings.
 Displacement: it refers to the capability of people to talk about events and places in different moments
of the time; therefore, past, present, future, and even imaginary situations can be indicated with language.
 Immutability: The connection between the meaning and the linguistic form is established by each
linguistic community; therefore, no one can change that connection and pretend to be understood by the
members of the community.
 Linearity: It states that every utterance formed in the speech forms a “chain”.
 Mutability: It refers to the fact that the connection mentioned before might be changed; however, it is a
modification established by the time and evolution.

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  Productivity: it regards the way in which language allows people to produce and interpret messages
which they have neither produced nor interpreted in the past; meaning that language is not finite.

2.2. Linguistics

It can be assumed that language is an interesting feature of the human kind that has been studied for a long
time now in many perspectives and with many objectives; and the discipline which carries out its study is the
Linguistics science (Crystal: 1993). As Escandell and Marrero (2011) suggest, due to the great variety of linguistic
phenomena, and questions which the Linguistics science aims to analyse and solve, it has been divided into
different branches with a different focus to study. Broadly, there are two main divisions or areas known as the
macro-linguistics and micro-linguistics.1

The first division includes those branches which study the role of the language in different fields. Such disciplines
are Sociolinguistics, Neurolinguistics, Psycholinguistics, Anthropological Linguistics, and Applied Linguistics,
which is the branch which concerns to this project. As for Sociolinguistics, according to Crystal (1993: 440), its
focus is the relationship between language and society. On the other hand, Neurolinguistics, also known as
Neurological Linguistics, carries out the study of the “neurological basis of language development and use”.
Psycholinguistics, another branch concerning the language and the brain, deals with the connection “between
linguistic behaviour and the psychological processes”. As for the Anthropological Linguistics, the object of study
is the role of language in the different cultural patterns and beliefs. Finally, Applied Linguistics is the linguistic
branch that uses all the linguistic theory and methods in order to solve issues regarding language learning and
acquisition.

2.3. Applied Linguistics

Although Applied Linguistics has been a term difficult to describe, Corder (as cited in Sridhar 1993: 3) suggests
that it “refers to a set of related activities or techniques mediating between the various theoretical accounts of
human language on the one hand, and the practical activities of language teaching on the other.” Another useful
description is done by Luque (2004) who suggests that Applied Linguistics is a “mediating discipline constituted
by a central triangle” formed by language, learning, and teaching. Additionally, Luque (2004) considers six areas
of this science, which are:
1. second language teaching
2. specific purposes
3. psychology of language
4. sociology of language
5. contrastive linguistics, translation and interpretation

1Authors as Crystal refer to them as use area of linguistics, which are the macro-linguistics; and structural area of linguistics,
which are the micro-linguistics.
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As Vez (cited in Luque: 2004) mentions, this term has been used previously during the history of language
teaching; take, for instance, McCarthy (2001) mentioning the word applied during the half of the seventeenth
century. It is considered, however, the term was publicly used after the publication of Language Learning: A
Journal of Applied Linguistics, in which it was aimed to see language teaching as a science. Nonetheless, it was
not until 1964 when the International Congress in Nancy, when Applied Linguistics was not really recognised as
an interdisciplinary branch of the Linguistics science.

Luque (2004) mentions some external and internal factors that gave this discipline its institutional recognition.
Among the external factors, the Second World War is considered since it was during this time in which a
necessity of communication was produced among the forces. They needed to learn other languages in a rapid
and effective way; hence it was one of the linguists’ duty to develop more efficient methods to teach the target
languages. Taking into account another factor regarding politics, Fernandez (as cited in Luque, 2004) considers
the independence of many African, Asiatic, and American countries that caused language planning and the
development of a material which aim to teach the languages.

As for the internal factors, it is claimed that they concern the difference between theory and practice, originated
from the duality of Pure Linguistics and Applied Linguistics. Nevertheless, it is considered that the external factors
were the cause of the recognition of this science, as they were the main topic in many international conferences
about Applied Linguistics.

As it can be seen through the history of Applied Linguistics, it is a term that has been used since a while;
nevertheless, it is still difficult to describe, as said before, because the fields in which it might be used are broad.
Some authors, such as Corder (as cited in Luque, 2004), consider Applied Linguists deal with all the topics which
refer to language teaching, such as Psychology, Sociolinguistics, Pragmatics, and Investigation; whereas others
take into account as part of this science, discourse analysis, grammar, vocabulary, second language acquisition,
translation, curriculum design, etc. In 1995, Cook and Seidhofer integrated speaking therapy, communicative
interaction, linguistic politics, learning and teaching language as part of Applied Linguistics. Luque takes into
consideration all of those fields in which Applied Linguistics has a role and classifies them into different groups.

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 Acquisition and learning of a second language
 Second language acquisition
 Adult language learning
 Autonomy language learning
 Educational technology and language learning
Second language teaching
 Foreign language teaching and teacher education
 Mother tongue education
 Literacy
 Language planning
 Immersion
Language for specific purposes
 Language for specific purposes
 Communication in the professions
 Forensic languages
Psychology of the language
 Sign language
 Child language
 Psycholinguistics
Sociology of language
 Discourse analysis
 Rhetoric and stylistics language and the media
 Sociolinguistics language and ecology
 Language and gender
The contrast among languages, translation and interpretation
 Interpreting and translating
 Contrastive and error analysis
 Lexicography and Lexicology

2.4. First Language Acquisition

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Almost every child, regardless where they are from, acquires his first language in the same process as the rest
of the children in the world. This process begins with the first intelligible utterances the child produces when he
is around two or three months’ and he is able to respond to some sounds; then, it is considered to be finished,
at least at the phonological level, when the kid is about seven to nine years old when all the features of speech
are developed. From that moment, the kid keeps learning vocabulary and syntactic rules.

Many studies and theories have been carried out in order to explain how this process takes place. Some of those
theories are to be developed in the following chapters.

2.4.1. Behaviourism
Behaviourism, which main supporters are Skinner and Pavlov, is a psychological learning theory really influential
during the 1940’s and 1950’s in which was stated that language learning results from imitating, practising, having
feedback, and forming habits. Therefore, it is believed that children imitate the sounds they hear in their close
environment which they continue doing as long as they are given positive reinforcement, and this process
continues until the kid is able to form a “habit” of good communication. According to this theory, the quality and
quantity of the input, i.e. the language the child is exposed to, determine the kid’s language learning process

As it has been said, the main core of this theory is the imitation and practice which might be defined as the “word-
for-word repetition of someone else’s utterance”; and the repetitive manipulation of those utterances.
Nonetheless, these imitation and practices are not random, as children do not imitate every sound or pattern
they listen to; rather, it seems a selective process in which the children pick those utterances which concern
what they are correctly learning. Moreover, the pure imitation and practice would not allow the children to create
new patterns based on what they have learnt before.

Although this theory seems to explain certain aspects of the language learning process, it is considered by some
theorist, such as Chomsky, to be insufficient to explain the acquisition of more complex language structures; that
is why other theories were developed.

2.4.2. Innatism
The idea that children are born with a device that allows them to learn any language they were exposed to, was
developed by Chomsky (1959) who believed that provided children were well brought up, they would be able to
learn their first language in a similar way they develop other skills, such as walking. Therefore, it could be said
that he believed the linguistic environment, as well as the interaction between the children and the society, play
a crucial role in the language acquisition
These ideas emerged as an opposition to the behaviourists ideas, as he did not believe that the children were
born with an “empty mind” which was going to be filled by imitation and practice; as said before, he stated that

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children are born with the special ability to discover the rules of their first language system, which he referred to
as Language Acquisition Device (LAD) that is, somehow, “activated” when the children are exposed to samples
of real language and help them discover the structures of the language. As for the role of the environment,
Chomsky believed it varieties the rates in which each child acquires certain aspects of the language;
nonetheless, every child is believed to follow the same schedule regardless the language they are acquiring,

Chomsky's ideas about the LAD and how language acquisition is similar to other skills are supported by Erick
Lenneberg who considers the same regarding this language acquisition process.

2.4.3. The interactionism position

Another language acquisition theory regards the influence of the linguistic environment in the child’s language
learning process. It is believed that in this theory, the linguistic environment is claimed to play an important role,
more than it does in the rest of the theories; therefore, the interactionists believe that language should be
modified for the child to succeed in the language learning process, what they call the direct speech. Moreover,
they believe the acquisition process is similar to the acquisition of other kinds of skills and knowledge and it is
somehow linked to their cognitive abilities and, as said before, the environment which they are exposed to.

One of the supporters of this theory is Jean Piaget who is famous for having studied the children’s development.
It is said that Piaget thought the language was one of the systems which are developed during the childhood.
On the other hand, Lev Vygotsky (1978) also is considered to have an interactionism perspective of the language
acquisition process as he developed the sociocultural theory of human mental processing during the 1920’s and
1930’s in which he stated that language is developed from social interaction. Vygotsky claimed that the children
are able to increase to a higher level their language skills provided they are in constant interaction with others,
and what the kid would be able to do during that interaction was named as the zone of proximal development.
Provided these two theorists’ ideas are compared, it can be said that meanwhile, Piaget believed the language
was the symbols which described the children’s knowledge, Vygotsky considered it was as well prove of
satisfactory interaction with society.

2.5. Second language acquisition

Second Language Acquisition is the term used to refer to the process of learning any other language apart from
the L1 (Garibaldi 2013: 2). This process might take place in a school in which the target language is given to
students as part of the school program, or when the learner goes to the place the language is spoken and learns
by exposure; regardless which is the reason the process takes place, many theories regarding how it occurs
have been developed in order to help language instructors how this happens and the procedures they can follow
in order to help the language learners to increase their process. Some of those theories are the Behaviourism
and the Innatist approach which are to be explained in the following chapters.

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 2.5.1. Behaviourism: Second Language Acquisition Theory
As said before, the theory suggests that language is acquired through imitation and practice, which develops a
reinforcement that makes the learners repeat the action, and then, they form a habit. When it comes to Second
Language Learning, it is used in the techniques of mimicry and memorization of dialogues which are expected
to help the learners to learn patterns that will aid them in the second language process avoiding interference
from their L1.

This theory aimed in the development of methods such as the Audiolingual and Total Physical Response (TPR)
which were expected to help learners in the habit formation which would lead them to the L2 acquisition, and it
is as well linked to the Contrastive Analysis Theory (CAH) which claims that the more differences there are
between two languages, it would be more difficult for the learners to acquire the second language.

2.5.2. The innatist approach

This is a theory supported by Chomsky (1980) who proposed the theory of the Language Acquisition Decide
(LAD), which later was referred to as the Universal Grammar (UG) and is considered to arise from Chomsky’s
innatist perspective of the language. As said before, and in general terms, this idea suggests that people are
born with a device which allows them to acquire the principles and structures of any language they are exposed
to during the critical period (Silvino et. al. 2015: 39).

Unless this theory was originally developed to explain the process in which the first language is acquired, it is
considered as a good method to explain the process of the L2 acquisition as the route these processes follow
seem similar (Myles, as cited in Silvino et. al. 2015: 40). On the other hand, there are also some linguists who
do not agree with that statement on the grounds that it is considered to leave behind certain aspects of the
learning acquisition process.

According to Silvino et. al. (201his theory claims there are two models of the L2 acquisition process: the Direct
Access Model and the Indirect Access Model. In the first, it is stated that the UG is available for the learners
during the L2 process, which opponents such as Cook (as cited in Silvino et. al. 2015: 41) the processes do not
resemble completely. On the other hand, in the second model it is claimed that the UG is at the learner’s disposal
through their first language; in other words, the learner is thought to learn the L2 by relying on his first language.

A theory that is related to Chomsky’s UG, is Krashen’s (1970) Monitor Model in which is described in terms of
five distinct hypotheses: the Monitor Hypothesis, the Natural Hypothesis, the Input Hypothesis, and the Affective
Filter Hypothesis. The former hypothesis states the idea that, due to the UG, the learner is able to polish and

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correct his own utterances whenever he makes a mistake. The Natural Hypothesis argues that there is a
sequence all learners follow in the second language acquisition and that almost all of them, tend to make the
same errors in the process. As for the Input Hypothesis, it is claimed that the real language acquisition process
takes place when the learner is exposed to comprehensible language input that is slightly higher than his
proficiency level (i+1). Lastly, the Affective Filter Hypothesis mentions the emotional factors that take place in
the L2 acquisition process which prevent the learner to successfully acquire the second language.

Based on these theories, some methods and techniques have been developed such as the Communicative
Language Teaching and some other implications of these theories have been seen in the second language
teaching.
2.6. Contrastive analysis
Contrastive analysis, also known as Contrastive Linguistics, is one of the objects that the Applied Linguistics aim
to study; as said before. According to Crystal, it can be defined as “a general approach to the investigation of
language” in which topics such as foreign-language teaching and translation are studied. Concerning the
language teaching, the main objective of contrastive analysis, as its name indicates, is to contrast two languages
regarding their structure in order to:

1. Provide instances of the similarities and differences between the languages

2. Explaining and predicting problems during the second language learning process.
3. Developing materials which are based on the scientific description of the target language.

Based on the fact that this discipline has helped to foresee the possible problems L2 students might face during
the learning process, many theories have risen towards this aspect; being the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis
(CAH) the most known. This theory seems to have two versions, according to Oller and Ziahosseiny (2006) who
cite Lado’s version, considered as the strong version of CAH. Lado says that the L2 students will have more
difficulties provided there are many differences between the target language and their native language; therefore,
interference will tend to appear even more depending on how great the differences are. In their paper, Oller and
Ziahosseiny (2006) take into consideration Newmark’s version as well, who suggests that “when the student
does not know how to say something in the target language, he ‘pads’ from his native language”. As Newmark
claims, these errors are caused by the lack of knowledge of the student concerning an aspect of the language,
rather than interference.

2.6.1. Error analysis

It is one of second language teachers’ most important job to know how to identify learner’s errors; described by
Dulay (as cited in Kanshir, 2012) as “systematic deviation from a selected norm or set of norms”; classifying
them according their source, but most importantly, to know how to correct these errors. This duty needs to be

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based upon a branch, which in this case is Error Analysis, defined as “the technique for identifying, classifying,
and systematically interpreting the unacceptable forms produced by someone learning a foreign language, using
any of the principles and procedures provided by Linguistics”; therefore, it is assumed that error analysis is as
well part of Applied Linguistics, as shown in the chart in chapter 2.3.

Kanshir (2012) mentions that this branch was originated in the sixties as a reaction of the CAH which according
to many linguists, only aims to describe the problem, but does not provide resources to solve it; on the other
hand applied error analysis, as Erdogan (as mentioned in Kanshir, 2012) does not only help in the description of
the error, but it also organizes the different remedies to this problem and give the necessary materials and
sources teachers might find useful to prevent or fix them based on the previous description and analysis.
Additionally, it can be said that Error Analysis studies in depth the errors the learners make as well as the target
language itself and considers many other reasons behind those errors, such as:
 Overgeneralization of a rule when the learners make an error in the structure due to their previous
experiences regarding other structures of the language.
 Ignorance of rule restriction this happens when the learner does not know the exceptions to the rules
governing the structure of the language.
 Incomplete application of the rule. It happens when students do not achieve developing the structure
required to produce a correct sentence
 False concepts hypothesized: this is the result of the lack of comprehension of differences in the target
language.

Among the uses of Error Analysis, it might be found that it is really useful when it comes to remedying the errors
made by learners by providing teachers with the necessary information to develop syllabus and books or
materials which focus on the problematic areas. As Richards (as cited in Kanshir, 2012) mentions, this branch
is as a good tool which aid in (1) the identification of strategies in which students rely on when they are learning
a second language, (2) the identification of errors’ causes and (3) the collecting of information on common
difficulties in language learning which aid in the development of the material for second language learning.

2.7. Interlanguage
The Contrastive Analysis and the Errors Analysis have in common the study of the Interlanguage, a term
introduced by Selinker in 1969 which is defined as “a separate linguistic system whose existence we are
compelled to hypothesize, based upon the observed input which results from the (second language) learner’s
attempted production of a TL2 norm.” (as cited in Guerrero 2014: 15). On the other hand, Celce-Murcia and
Hawkings (as cited in Guerrero 2014: 15) claim it is concerned with the description and comprehension of the
total system the second language learner uses when he tries to communicate in the TL. As it might be observed

2
TL stands for target language, or second langue
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in these two descriptions, both authors conceive Interlanguage as a system resulting from the interaction
between two languages, which in this case are Spanish and English.

It is also considered that this system becomes complex and more elaborated as long as the learner’s level
increases; therefore, a process of restructuration as well is considered to take place in the Interlanguage. This
process, also conceived as a Recreative process by Dulay and Burth (as cited in Guerrero 2014: 15) has five
processes which Selinker (1971) names:

1. Language transfer: an influence of the learner’s L1 on the learning of the L2

2. Transfer of training: the addition of elements acquired in the teaching stage.
3. Strategies of the second language: a specific approach to the material to be learned may be caused
by some elements in interlanguage.
4. Communication strategies the elements result from the way communication with native speakers is
learnt.
5. Overgeneralization of TL data: the overgeneralization of rules and structures of the TL.

2.8. Fossilization
According to Selinker (Guerrero 2014: 15), this occurs when the speaker of an L2 “keeps certain linguistics items,
rules, subsystems in their interlanguage, no matter what amount of instruction they receive in the target
language”. In other words, the L2 learner does not fix the errors they make in the first stages of their L2 acquisition
process.

Selinker (as cited in Wei 2008:1) distinguishes two different categories of fossilization which he calls: individual
fossilization and group fossilization. As for the first one, it is defined as “the persistence of individual learner’s
interlanguage development”; whereas the second refers to the “diachronic development of a community
language”.

Wei (2008: 1) states that the individual fossilization falls as well into two categories which are: error appearance
and language competence fossilization. The error appearance refers to the incorrect utterances that continue
occurring regardless the learner’s level; e.g. the omission of the –s ending in the verb conjugation for the third
person. On the other hand, the language competence fossilization is the term used to describe “plateau” in the
second language competence, which is commonly found in people who have been learning an L2 for a long
period of time

Another classification for fossilization is as well developed by Selinker (as cited in Wei 2008: 2) and it concerns
the temporary and the permanent fossilization. The former distinguishes those inhibitions of the L2 learner’s

13
development for a short or long period of time; whereas the permanent occurs due to “social, psychological, and
interactive variables.”

Finally, among the types of fossilization, Wei (2008: 2) distinguishes:

1. Phonological fossilization: refers to the repetition of phonological errors resulted from the incorrect
acquisition of L2 pronunciation.
2. Morphological fossilization: it concerns those errors which are made in the formation of words, such
as the –s ending that varies according to the ending of the word.
3. Syntactic fossilizations: these are the repetitions of errors in the structures of the L2 language; for
instance, the errors made when structuring a sentence in the present perfect tense.
4. Pragmatic fossilizations: they take place in the cross-cultural communication and refers to the “inability
to understand what is meant by what is said”; therefore, errors made may consist of erroneous utterances
in specific situations which might lead to misunderstanding, embarrassment, and even insult.

2.9. Comments
From the chapters developed so far, it has been understood that language is a human feature which main
purpose is to enable communication among people; thus, it might be as well considered as a social aspect of
humans. Its study, which is duty of the Linguistics science, does not only permit the comprehension of what
language is and what its components are, but it also develops the necessary theories that permit knowing how
first, and in the case of this project, second language acquisitions occur which let experts develop the methods
and techniques that will enhance the acquisition process.

Amongst those theories, there it is the error and contrastive analysis, that will aid in the process of this project to
create a proposal which main aim is to help the students improve their proficiency in the English language. It is
considered relevant on the grounds that; contrary to what was believed in the past, language teaching is not
about providing the learners with all the grammar rules, structures and vocabulary, it is about using all the theory
explained before in favour of the efficient language teaching, which will not only aid the students by improving
their skills, but also will let them know those areas where they will have to pay more attention which are the
errors.

Error are considered to have an important role in the L2 learning process, and although they should stop being
seen as something prejudicial, it is also important to give them the appropriate treatment; in such a way the
students can avoid problems in later stages such as fossilization, that in the end will impede the main aim
language was created for: communication.

14
 3. Possession
Possession is a global term which means that not only does it exist in the whole world, but also every language
has a different form to express it. According to McGregor (as cited in Cifuentes 2014: 13) the domain of
possession might be defined as a concept that indicates several types of relationships between entities, such as
whole-part relations; take body parts for instance; human relationships, such as friends or family; or possessive
relationships between products, objects, etc. Heine (as cited in Herslund and Baron 2001: 2) classifies these
relationships in seven different types named as:

1. Physical Possession: the possessor and the possessum, i.e. the object or person being possessed,
are physically associated with each other at a reference time; as in I need to borrow Carlos’ pen.
2. Temporary Possession: the possessor can dispose of the possessum for a limited time without claiming
ownership; for example, the car I use to get to the office is the Company’s
3. Permanent Possession: the possessum is a property of the possessor, as in Carl’s car is new.
4. Inalienable Possession: the possessum is a conceived as inseparable of the possessor; for instance,
My brother’s blue eyes are gorgeous.
5. Abstract Possession: the possessum is a not visible concept, such as a disease, feeling, etc; as in their
love seems to be eternal.
6. Inanimate Inalienable Possession: the possessum is conceived as a subpart of the inanimate
possessor; for example, the apartment has three rooms.
7. Inanimate Alienable Possession: the possessum and the possessor are inanimate but they might be
separable (Kowalik 2016: 4-5); for instance, the books of the library are pretty old.

Baron and Herslund (2001: 12) consider that, in order to indicate possession, Spanish and English have two
types of constructions which are named as attributive possessive constructions that include modifiers such as
possessive adjectives, for instance, my house; and the predicative constructions which consist of clauses as in
that dog belongs to me. As for the attributive possessive, which is mainly the construction that is analysed for
this project, the alienable and inalienable possessions are salient.

In each language, those types of possessions or relations are marked using the same type of construction
according to their own rules; as for English, it will be noticed that the possessive is shown by an inflected
construction which is the possessive function of the Genitive Case, or the Periphrastic Case; whereas in Spanish,
possession is shown with the preposition de (of), and it follows the same structure of the Periphrastic Case in
English. Moreover, both languages share the possessive adjectives; mi, tu, su, nuestro in Spanish¸ and my,
your, his, her in English. Those are used as well to indicate the relationship after the possessum has been
previously indicated; for instance:

15
 (1) El carro de Ricardo es nuevo. Su carro tiene buen kilometraje
(2) Richard’s car is new. His car has good mileage.

The differences between each construction in both languages, as well as the way they should be used, are to
be developed in the following chapters.

3.1. Genitive Case in English

Crystal (1993: 66) defines the case as “a grammatical category used in the analysis of word-classes (or their
associated phrases to identify the syntactic relationship between words in a sentence”, such cases include the
Nominative, Accusative, and Genitive Case. Nonetheless, the English language only considers two of those
cases which are the Common Case (which include the accusative and the nominative cases), and the Genitive
Case (Gadalla and Abdel-Hamid, 2000: 2). As for the last one, Crystal (1993: 210) defines the Genitive Case as
a noun phrase “which expresses grammatical relationship by means of inflections”; those relationships, apart
from the one of possessive, are described by Quirk et al. (1972: 318) in the following chart.

Usage Example Description

Objective Genitive The criminal’s release… The criminal was released by someone else;
therefore, the criminal is the object of an action.
Genitive of origin My boyfriend’s letter My boyfriend wrote a letter.
Descriptive Bachelor’s degree A major, a university degree
Genitive
Genitive of Two year’s work experience The experience in a particular job lasted two
measure years.
Genitive of The athlete’s discipline The athlete was disciplined, the athlete has a lot
attribute of discipline
Partitive Genitive My mom’s curly hair My mom has curly hair. It denotes a part-whole
relation.
Temporal Today’s class The class given today.

3.1.1. The ‘s construction

The apostrophe ‘s is the inflectional affix used to represent the Genitive Case. The addition of this affix follow
some rules that mainly consist of the pronunciation and its written representation. Those rules are the
following:


This function is developed by Downing and Locke (2006: 424)
16
 Singular nouns In singular nouns, an apostrophe (´) followed by an s, Carla’s cell phone
must be added. My father’s resolution

Plurals and The Zero Genitive (Quirk 1978: 219) is used when a James’ car
singular nouns noun finishes in –s or the word consists of a regular plural My parents’ grandchildren
ending in –s noun, the apostrophe (´) should be included alone in
order to avoid too many s sounds.

Indefinite nouns In order to take in the Genitive Case in the indefinite Everyone’s attention.
nouns (everyone, anybody, etc.) the apostrophe and the Anybody’s fault
s are added.

Hyphenated When the subject is formed by a composed noun or two My mother-in-law’s daughters
words or subjects, the apostrophe and the s, are incorporated at Coca-Cola’s foundation
organizations and the end of the word. Harry and Jeremy’s friend
joint possession
When the second word in the subject is a possessive Carl’s and my friends
*Exception adjective (my, your, etc.) the first name should include
the apostrophe and the s.

Individual When referring to two subjects that have two distinct Carl’s and Tom’s mothers.
possession relationships, the apostrophe and the s are included in
both names.

Minute, hour, day, When words referring to time are used as possessive A minute’s work
etc. as adjectives, they are followed by the apostrophe and the Three day’s rest
possessive s.
adjectives

Finally, concerning its production in oral speech, there are three forms which the Genitive Case takes, which are
/z/, /s/ and /ɪz/ and follow the same rules as the s inflection for plural nouns and verbs conjugation, which are:

1. In words that end in a voiced sound, such as /b/, /r/, /d/, etc. the sound of the ‘s will be the /z/, as in Chad’s
/ ʧædz/.
2. If the name ends with a voiceless consonant sound; for instance, /t/, /k/, /p/, etc. the sound of the ‘s will
be the /s/ sound as in Mike’s /maɪks/,

17
 3. In words ending in /s/, /z/, /ʒ/, /ʃ/, /ʧ/ or/ʤ/, the ‘s will be /ɪz/, as in Marge’s /ˈmɑrʤɪz/.

3.1.2. The Periphrastic Genitive (of phrase)

When it comes to indicating relationships in English, the Genitive Case is not the only marker; the Periphrastic
Case (Gadalla & Abdel-Hamid 2000: 4), also called the of-phrase is considered another marker of relations which
consists of a noun phrase composed by a head noun, the preposition of followed by a noun phrase:

(1) the house of the dog.

Although this relation marker might not be included in the “discussion of the Genitive Case (Gadalla & Abdel-
Hamill 2000:4); on the grounds that it is a “structure of post-modification” rather than an inflection; it could be
said that the Periphrastic Case might be useful to indicate the same relationships the Genitive Case does
(Zackoka 2016:16); nonetheless, its usage depends on certain parameters (Gadalla & Abdell-Hamid 2000: 4)

3.1.3. Genitive Case or Periphrastic Case

Although the Genitive and the Periphrastic Case serve as relation markers, it is important to differentiate the
situations in which each one could be used. According to Gadalla and Abdell-Hamid (2000: 5), the choice
between them depends on the meaning of the modifying noun; therefore, it could be said that the selection
seems to be more a semantic classification. Quirk et. al. (as cited in Gadalla & Abdell-Hamid 2000: 6) explains
that the main reason for the choice of one over the other depends on whether it is an inanimate or animate
possession; therefore, when it is an animate possession the Genitive Case is generally used; meanwhile the
inanimate possession is denoted by the Periphrastic Case. In the following list, the noun classes which take the
Genitive Case to indicate possession or relationships are mentioned:

a) Personal names: George’s party or Emma’s dress.

b) Personal nouns: the child’s toys or my sister-in-law’s husband.
c) Collective nouns: the army’s weapons or the government’s policies.
d) Higher animals: the dog’s tail or the lion’s broods.

There is as well other classification of nouns that use the Genitive Case (Quirk et. al. 1978: 324). Those nouns
are:
e) Geographical names: which include continents, countries, states, cities, rivers, and universities. For
example Europe’s touristic places, Mexico’s citizens, Indiana’s museums, Mississippi’s waters, Harvard’s
students.
f) Locative nouns: that denote regions, heavenly places, institutions, etc. They’ are similar to the first
classification. For instance: the moon’s surface, the country’s population, the house’s roof.

18
 g) Temporal nouns: the weekend’s plans, yesterday’s party.
h) Nouns of special interests to human: activities that denote parts of the body, cultural activities, means
of transport, etc.; such as train’s schedule, my life’s aims, in freedom’s name.

On the other hand, Thomson and Martinet (as cited in Gadalla & Abdell-Hamid 2000: 8) enlist other two situations
in which the Periphrastic Case is used in order to denote a relation. Those cases are:
a) When the genitive noun is followed by a phrase or clause, as in The Prime Minister of Canada or the car
of the man we saw.
b) Inanimate nouns, except for means of transport; for instance, the glasses of the window, the back of the
chair.

Finally, Lemtaiche (2010: 22) states that the Periphrastic Case should be as well used when new information is
included in the speech; for instance:
(1) American presidential candidate Robert Kennedy was assassinated in 1968, he was the younger
brother of former president John Kennedy.

3.2. Possessives in Spanish

In the Spanish language, there is a great variety of constructions considered as having genitive functions or
which express a relationship between elements. Some examples of them are possessive adjectives (su,
nuestra), possessive pronouns (tuya, mío), the possessive dative (le, se), relative pronouns (cuyo); as well as
some verbs which denote possession such as tener (to have), pertenecer (to belong), poseer (to possess).
These structures are shown in the following sentences:
1. a. Su casa está hecha de madera (His/Her house is made of wood).
b. Nuestra escuela está grande (Our school is big)

2. a. Ese carro tuyo es muy lujoso (Your car is very fancy)

b. El mío es el pantalón negro. (The black trousers are mine)

3. a. La chica, cuyo nombre no recuerdo, está en el parque (The girl, whose name I don’t
remember, is in the park)
4. a. Juan levantó los/sus brazos (Juan raised his hands)
b. Se rompió un dedo (His/her finger got broken)
c. Le cortaron el cabello (He/She got his/her hair cut)
5. a. El cabelllo de mi mamá (My mom’s hair)
b. Un señor de rostro afilado (A man with a thin countenance)
6. a. La casa tiene dos ventanas (The house has two windos)
b. Hay cuatro chocolates en la mesa (There are four chocolate bars on the table)

19
 c. Mi mamá tiene un millón de pesos (My mom has a million pesos)

As noticed in 5 (a) and (b), in the Spanish language there is as well a construction which is used in order to
denote the different functions of the Genitive Case developed by Quirk et. al. (1978: 318); nonetheless, this
construction consists of a Noun Phrase followed by a preposition de (of) and a name or another noun phrase,
as in:
La mamá de Rodrigo (The mom of Rodrigo)

It could be observed that the construction is similar to the Periphrastic Case in English that is formed by the
preposition of. In Spanish, there are many usages of this preposition, apart from the possessive function; for
example:
1. La casa de cristal (The house made of crystal): It reflects what material the house is made of.
2. El señor de Venezuela (The Venezuelan man): It indicates where the man comes from.
3. Un vaso de agua (A glass of water) It refers to the substance in the glass.
4. El libro de matemáticas (The maths book): It makes reference to the topic of the book.
5. La rigurosidad de la tela (The fabric is rough): it indicates a characteristic of the fabric.

When it comes to the usage of the preposition de to denote possession, Picallo (1999: 980) considers this
construction as part of the posesivos antepuestos which indicate the possessum before the possessor.
Regarding the Spanish’s structure, this construction is considered as a complemento adnominal, a noun phrase
which determines the noun with a preposition (Crystal 1993: 281). This type of construction might be formed in
different ways, one of those is replacing possessor’s name for a possessive adjective; for instance:

El carro de la mamá de Rodrigo or El carro de su mamá.

Rodrigo’s mom’s car or His mom’s car.

In this example, the possessive adjective to be used is su that corresponds to the posessive adjective his; or her
if the personal pronoun were she. Other possessive adjectives that can be used are mi, used for yo (I, in English);
tu (your) which is the possessive of tú (you), nuestro or nuestra (our) for the personal pronoun nosotros (we),
and sus that matches up with ellos (they). It is noteworthy that this structure should be used after the person
which su refers to, i.e. Rodrigo, has been already mentioned and it is not desired to sound repetitive in the
speech.

20
4. The field work
This chapter, that is considered as the core of this project, deals with the description of the target population in
which the instrument was administered as well as the description of the instrument and the corpus collection
obtained from it. Moreover, each instrument was organised and the numbers of correct and incorrect answers
were counted in order to accomplish the error analysis. This chapter will give enough information in order to
develop the proposal which aims to solve the errors identified regarding the Genitive Case.

4.1. Contextual Framework

The National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), is one of the most renowned universities in Mexico,
being in charge, since 1551, of the education at the High School level at Escuela Nacional Preparatoria and
Colegio de Ciencias y Humanidades, as well as the academic studies, offering 116 bachelor’s degrees in the
fields of Physics, Mathematics and Engineering, Biological Sciences and Health, Social Sciences and
Humanities of Arts.

Not only are UNAM’s bachelor’s degrees, PhD’s, and masters imparted at Ciudad Universitaria, its most
important headquarters; but students might also apply for one of its five Multidisciplinary Units or the twenty
schools that the University administers; one of those is Facultad de Estudios Superiores Acatlan (FES-A), where
undergraduates are provided with higher degrees in the areas of Legal Sciences, Design and Construction,
Mathematics and Engineering, Socioeconomics Sciences, and Humanities of Arts.

Amongst other services, FES-A’s students and the external community are offered courses of over 10 languages
at the Centro de Enseñanza de Idiomas (CEI), including English, Arabic, Chinese, English, Finnish, French,
German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Portuguese, Swedish, Turkish, and Spanish for foreigners;
additionally, CEI offers classes of indigenous languages such as Nahuatl and Otomi. Those courses are given
in two different modalities: Reading Comprehension, and Global Plan that might be taken either on weekdays or
Saturdays.

As for the English language, the levels at CEI cover from the basic levels (A1, according to the Common
European Framework of Reference for the Languages) to the advanced levels (B2), in the Global Plan which
lasts four months. In this modality, the students are to use the American version of Life by National Geographic
for them to complete every level of the program; therefore, for Basics and PG01 the learners use Life 1; after
that, in PG02 and PG03 they require Life2, followed by Life 3 in PG04 and PG05; they continue with Life 4 for
PG06 and PG07, and they finish their levels PG08 and PG09 using Life 5. According to CEI’s program, the
students are expected to get their requirement test at the end of the course named PG06, which corresponds to
the B2 level; nonetheless, they might continue with the courses in order to obtain a certificate in the levels of B2
or C1.

21
For this project, the target population belongs to the Basic level on the grounds that it is the level in which the
topic is introduced to the students. This level corresponds to the Breakthrough (A1) level of the CEFR which
states that learners:

“Can recognise familiar words and very basic phrases concerning family and immediate concrete
surroundings when people speak slowly and clearly. Can understand familiar names, words and
very simple sentences, for example on notices and posters or in catalogues. Can interact in a simple
way provided the other person is prepared to repeat or rephrase things at a slower rate of speech
and help them to formulate what they are trying to say. Can ask and answer simple questions in
areas of immediate need on very familiar topics. Can use simple phrases and sentences to describe
where they live and people they know.” (Council of Europe, 2001:24)

As the program of the course shows3, the learners are to begin with the most elementary contents which are the
personal pronouns with their verb to be in affirmative, negative and interrogative; the possessive ‘s, possessive
adjectives, prepositions of place, can and can’t to express abilities, and some basic verbs to express possession,
likes and dislikes. As for the vocabulary, they are taught the alphabet, numbers, colours, prepositions and
different sets of words which are expected to aid them in the objective of talking about themselves and their most
proximate surroundings.

Regarding the evaluation, the learners are to take two exams, one partial exam at the middle of the course,
which consist of the 40% of their grade and it is administered when they have covered the first three units of the
course, and a final exam, which is the 60% of the students’ grade, at the end of the course. These two exams
take into consideration all the grammar aspects the students have been provided with, a writing task appropriate
for each level and a listening activity as well. As for the oral evaluation, the teacher in charge of the group might
decide whether to evaluate each student individually or to set a specific activity in which the students’
performance can be evaluated, i.e. a presentation, video, recording, etc.

4.1.1. The target population

For this project, the target population is formed by two groups of the Basic level. The first group (group) takes
classes on Mondays and Wednesdays from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.; whereas the second group (group) attend
classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the same hour.

3
Go to Annexe to see the contents of the Course.
22
The results obtained by the need analysis administered along with the instrument (see Annexe) show that the
53% of the population are women, while the 47% of the group are men. All of them are students at FES-A in the
different areas which are to be shown in the following graphics; moreover, all the students speak Spanish as
their first language. As for their ages, they range from 18 to 26.

Population Age
18
21% 14%
19
men
47% 20
53% 14%
women 34%
21
17%
21+

Regarding the areas of knowledge, it was found that the students are taking their bachelor’s degrees in the fields
of Mathematics and Engineering, Design and Construction, and Socioeconomics Sciences and Humanities. The
graphic below shows the distribution of all the areas the students are into.

Other MAC
7% 6% Areas of knowledge
Politic
Sciences Economy MAC
10% 10%
Economy

Actuary Actuary
6%
Laws Comunication Science
Comunication
17%
Science Sociology
Sociology
3% Graphic Design
International 17%
Relations Architecture
10%
Architecture Graphic Design International Relations
7% 7%

Concerning their background regarding the English language, the vast majority of them have taken English
classes during Middle School, High School or both from around three to six years. On the grounds of that, it
might be understood that some of the students are false beginners, who might be defined as a student that has
had contact with the English language through formal English classes, music, television, etc. This is important
to know before attempting to create a class of beginners as it will let the instructor know which type of activities
he or she can develop for the class. Additionally, it helps in the error analysis as it determines whether the false
beginners can use the target topic accurately, and which could be the reasons why they cannot.

23
 Students who…

23% studied English

before
didn't study
English before
77%

Finally, the need analysis showed that the vast majority of the learners are willing to learn the language because
they believe it will give them more work opportunities; on the other hand, other students are just interested in
getting their certificate for their degree, whereas others claim they like the language and they believe it is an
important language.

4.2. The instrument and its application

In order to collect the information about the students’ errors regarding the Genitive Case, an instrument
(Appendix) was designed in order to identify those errors. In general, the instrument consisted of three sections;
the first part was the need analysis that aimed to gather the students’ background regarding the information
described above, and the next following sections were the instrument itself.

4.2.1. The instrument

In the first section, the students had to complete five sentences with three options, one correct answer and two
distractors which are based on the errors the students commonly make when using the Genitive Case. The
sentence, answer, and distractors of each item are to be described.

In the first item, the students had to complete the sentence What is it? It is ___________ cell phone with the
options (a) Carlos’, which was the correct answer, (b) Carlos’, and (c) Carlos’s. This item aimed to evaluate
whether students could place the ‘s after a word ending in –s.

The sentence Is this your Jacket? No it’s ____________ had to be filled with the correct answer (a) Mike’s
Jacket, or the distractors (b) The Jacket Mike, and (c) Mikes Jacket. In this item, the objective was to know
whether students could differentiate when to use the Periphrastic Case and the Genitive Case.

The third item with the sentence Is he ______________________ father? Yes, he is. His name is Richard had
to be answered with (a) The father of Jacky and Philip; the correct response (b) Jacky’s and Philp’s, and (c)
Jacky’s and Philip’s. in this item, the purpose was to evaluate if the learners knew how to place the ‘s in a joint
possessive.

24
The sentence in the fourth item was ________________________ boyfriend is in Miami and should be filled
with (a) Sonia, the answer (b) Sonia’s, or (c) It’s Sonia’s. This item was designed in order to know how many
students tend to write a determiner or pronoun before the Genitive Case.

Finally, the fifth item What is ___________? It’s Maria had to be answered with the options (a) Sophia’s mom’s
name, the right answer, (b) Sophia moms’ name or Name of Sophia’s mom. The last item aimed to evaluate
whether students could place the double ‘s in a sentence.

In the second section, the students were asked to complete ten short answer items in which they had to indicate
two people’s relationship in a family tree using the Genitive Case. In this section, the aim was to know whether
the students could use the Genitive Case appropriately. It is noteworthy that the instructions in this section did
not mention they had to use The Genitive Case, as it was thought that would have made the sections easier and
fewer errors would be made by the students.

In the first item the students had to indicate the relationship between siblings, therefore, it could be answered in
four different ways, which are: Claire is Mitchell’s sister, Mitchell’s sister is Claire, Mitchell is Claire’s brother, or
Claire’s brother is Mitchell.

The second item showed a grandfather-granddaughter relationship that the students could indicate as Jay is
Alex’s grandfather, Alex’s grandfather is Jay, Alex is Jay’s granddaughter and Jay’s granddaughter is Alex.

In the third item, the students could as well give four different responses, which are Cam is Mitchell’s husband.
Mitchell’s husband is Cam, Mitchell is Cam’s husband and Cam’s husband is Mitchell.

In the fourth item the relationship to be shown was between a mother and a son; therefore, the possible
responses were Gloria is Manny’s mom, Manny’s mom is Gloria, Manny is Gloria’s son and Gloria’s son is
Manny.

The fifth item consisted of a father-daughter relationship and could be established with these four answers: Haley
is Phil’s daughter, Phil’s daughter is Haley, Haley’s father is Phil and Phil is Haley’s father.

In the sixth item the learners were asked to indicate a relationship between a grandmother and a grandson;
hence, there were as well four answers the students could provide, which are: Luke is Dede’s grandson, Dede’s
grandson is Luke, Dede is Luke’s grandmother and Luke’s grandmother is Dede.

The relationship in the seventh item to be indicated is a wife-husband concordance that should be stated by: Jay
is Gloria’s husband, Gloria’s husband is Jay, Jay’s wife is Gloria, and Gloria is Jay’s wife.

Item 8 had as well a father-daughter kinship that had four different responses which are Lily is Michell’s daughter,
Mitchell’s daughter is Lily, Lily’s father is Mitchell, and Mitchell is Lily’s father.

25
As for the ninth item, the students had to establish a relationship between mother and daughter; thus, the
possible answers are Alex’s mom is Claire, Claire is Alex’s mom, Claire’s daughter is Alex, and Alex is Claire’s
daughter.

Finally, in the tenth item the students had to set a relationship between father and daughter and the possible
answers were Lily’s father is Cam, Cam is Lily’s father, Lily is Cam’s daughter, and Cam’s daughter is Lily.

4.2.2. Corpus collection

The instrument described above was administered on two different dates; as for the first group, they took their
instrument on April 23rd. The first group consisted of 15 students who did not seem to have problems with the
instrument; after the teacher asked them to listen to the instructions the stakeholder mentioned, they were given
their instruments and they completed them in about 15 minutes. As for the second group, the instrument was
administered on April 24th; likewise, they were 15 students that neither show any difficulty when completing the
task, nor show any reluctant on it. The same procedure was followed with the same group, but in this case, the
stakeholder was as well the teacher in charge of that group.

Once the instruments were administered, the next step to take was to evaluate each exam and know how many
of the students got the right answers in both sections. The charts below show that 20% of the students answered
correctly the exams, having just one error; however, the other 20% only could answer correctly to only 3 of the
items in the exams; thus, it could be claimed that students still need practice in some aspects of the Genitive
Case in order to become more proficient in their level (A1).

Correct answers Students

15 1 Scores
14 6 7
6
13 4
5
12 1 4
11 0 3
2
10 1
1
9 0 0
8 2 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

7 1 students

6 1
5 0
4 3
3 6
2 4
1 0
26
4.3. Error analysis

This process, as said before, is the main core of the project as it will aid in the process of revealing the most
important errors the students made concerning a specific aspect of the second language in order to develop the
necessary techniques which will help the instructors, but mostly, the students to either fix or avoid those errors.
As for this project, the error analysis consists of the detection and location of the errors, which means that it is
going to say which structures the students had made in the exam are erroneous and the reason why; the
description of them, that mainly consists of indicating exactly where the learners made the mistake comparing it
with the correct form; and their classification in which the errors are categorized according to the source or type
of errors they are.

Before starting, it could be said that in general terms, the vast majority of the students, i.e. 97% of them, still
have problems indicating possession with the Genitive Case; whereas only 3% of them, which corresponds to
one student, seems to not have problems with the grammar topic. The errors they had in each item of the
instrument, the description and classification of each one is to be developed in the following chapters.

GENERAL RESULTS
Correct Incorrect

3%

97%

4.3.1. Error detection and location

In the first section of the instrument, in which the students’ ability to recognise the correct use of the Genitive
Case was assessed, it was found that only 13% of the learners were able to answer all the items correctly;
meanwhile, the 83% of them had between one to five errors. These errors might be due lack of attention or
miscomprehension of either the sentences or the options. It is important to remember that the vast majority of
distractors the learners were shown in this section, were based on the errors they usually make when using the
Genitive Case, what is more, some of the items were based on their previous exams in which they had already
provided the same erroneous answer

27
 SECTION 1
All correct items Incorrect answers

13%

87%

On the other hand, the second section was expected to be more challenging for the learners as they were not
given any example they could use as a base to complete the task; nevertheless, 60% of the students were able
to construct the possessive function of the Genitive Case without problems. Yet, those students who did not
complete the task successfully presented almost the same errors, such as misplace or omission of the Genitive
Case, as well as other errors that do not have to do with the grammar topic.

SECTION 2
All correct answers Incorrect answers

40%
60%

As seen in the previous graphics, the vast majority of errors were found in the first section of the instrument as
only 13% of the test takers answered acceptably, while the 87% did not identify the accurate usage of the
Genitive Case.

4.3.2. Error description

For this section, it is important to analyse every item of the instrument in order to know exactly the errors the
students made; so, the final proposal includes practice on them. Only those errors which regard the Genitive
Case are to be described.

28
As seen in the previous graphs, the vast majority of the errors were found in the first section of the instrument in
which the learners had to identify the accurate uses of the Genitive Case. As for the first item, it was evaluated
the students’ ability to recognise the correct usage of the Zero Genitive, i.e. when the possessive function is only
denoted by the apostrophe (‘) after words ending in –s. The results showed that 53% of them do not have
problems with placing the Zero Genitive correctly as they gave the correct response (a); nonetheless, 20% of
the students believe that the possessive should not be marked at all, and the 27% indicate the ‘s in this type of
words, despite the –s ending of the word. It is noteworthy that this error seems to concern more about the
pronunciation of the Possessive Case.

ITEM 1
a b c NA

0%
27%
53%
20%

The second item, which only assessed the students’ ability to place the ‘s after the possessor, had 93% of the
test takers answering correctly, which means that they opted for option (a) Mike’s jacket, yet 7% of the students
did not know how to mark the possessive answering either (c) Mikes jacket, or not answering at all. It should be
as well noticed that any students decided on option (b) The jacket of Mike, in which the Periphrastic Case is
used.

ITEM 2
a b c NA

0%
3%
4%

93%

29
The third item was designed in order to evaluate whether the learners could identify a joint possession and its
correct construction, which is to place the ‘s after the last possessor’s name. In the graphic it is shown that 77%
opted for the correct answer (c) Jackie and Philip’s, which means the vast majority of them already know the
correct construction; nonetheless, there are some other students (10% of them) that believe the ‘s should be
placed after each possessor’s name; and other 10% of the learners did not answer the question. Finally, the 3%
of the learners selected option (a) The father of Jackie and Philip, which is erroneous on the grounds that the
possessors are animated (they are people), and when choosing this option, the sentence does not make sense.

ITEM 3
a b c NA

3% 10%
10%

77%

The fourth item aimed to know whether the learners recognised the wrong utterance in which a determiner or
pronoun is placed before the Genitive construction. As shown in the graphics, a significant part of the population,
the 64% avoid the error by choosing (b) Sonia’s boyfriend, whereas the 30% of them opted for (c) It’s Sonia’s
boyfriend, which means they believe it is necessary to indicate a determiner or pronoun as in the Spanish
language es, or el/ella es which they represented in this item as it’s. On the other hand, 3% of the learners
selected the option (a) Sonia, where the Genitive Case was not marked; and the resting 3% did not provide an
answer.

In the last item, the students’ ability to mark a double possession using the Genitive Case was evaluated. It could
be noticed that this item showed more confusion for the learners on the grounds that 33% of them chose the
option (b) Sophia mom’s name, that is incorrect on the grounds that the possessive marker for Sophia is not
stated. On the other hand, most of the learners (37%) opted for (c) Name of Sophia’s mom, which is wrong since
the noun phrase refers to an animate possessor which according to Quirk et. al. (1978: 324) should be marked
with the Genitive Case; moreover, in this construction a determiner is needed. It could be observed as well that
a good percentage of the students, i.e. the 27% of them, picked out the correct answer. Finally, the resting 3%
did not give a response.

30
 ITEM 5
a b c NA

3%
27%
37%

33%

The second section of the exam seemed to have more students answering accurately than in the first section,
regardless they were not provided with an example to follow before completing the task. In this section, not only
were omission and misplacing of the Genitive Case found, but also the absence of the verb to be, and the
addition of the personal pronoun with the verb to be it’s; additionally, some test taker omitted the ‘s and wrote
the sentence in the wrong order. There were as well learners who did not use the Genitive Case at all and they
completed the task by indicating the relationships as brother and sister, husband and wife, etc or with incorrect
constructions. This type of errors might be due they were not provided with any type of example beforehand. It
is important to say that, regardless the last type of errors do not concern the Genitive Case, they should be
considered in the error analysis since they cover aspects of the language the students have already checked in
the course.

In the first item, the relationship to be indicated was between siblings; therefore, it could be answered in four
distinct ways (see Annexe). The results for this item shows that 54% of the test takers completed the task
successfully; whereas, 23% used different vocabulary or constructions (VOC), that were even erroneous to
complete the task, such as it’s brothers. Those learners who omitted the Genitive Case (OGC), as in Mitchell’s
Claire brother, were less than predicted (3%). The errors that were not considered for this section were the of

SECTION 2, ITEM 1
OGC WO RVTB APP VOC CORRECT

3%
10%
7%
3%
54%
23%

31
replacement of the verb to be using and (RVTB), such as Mitchel and Claire’s brother, which was made by 7%
of the test takers; as well as the personal pronoun it’s which 3% of the learners added in their sentences, as in
Mitchel it’s Claire’s brothers. The second item, which showed a grandfather-granddaughter kinship, had less
correct answers, i.e. 48% out of the total provided responses; nonetheless, it is still a significant percentage of
students answering correctly. On the other hand, the number of the student using different vocabulary or
constructions is the 20%, which is more than the first one. The omission of the Genitive Case increased by the
13%; and the word order (Jay is grandfather Alex’s) was reduced in this item, being 7% out of the total.
Nonetheless, it was in this item in which 3% of the learners started using Spanish as in nieta which might be due
to the fact they do not remember the vocabulary build-up used for the activity. Finally, the same percentage of
learners as in the previous item (7%) replaced the verb to be with and, as in Alex’s and Claire’s daughter.

SECTION 2, ITEM 2
OGC WO RVTB APP VOC CORRECT SPANISH

3%
13%
7%
7%
47% 3%

20%

The third item, in which the learners had to establish the relationship between a couple. The results demonstrate
that the. 46% of them, were able to respond accurately to the item. Other errors that were consistent is the use
of either different vocabulary or constructions (it’s marriends), done by 27% of the test takers; as well as the
addition of the pronoun it with the verb to be (Cam it’s Mitchell’s husband) which represents the 3% of the total
answers. As for the word order (Cam’s husband Mitchell4), 10% of the learners made that error, just as the
replacement of the verb to be (Cam and Mitchell’s husband) which was also produced by 10% of the test takers.

4
In some of the errors which were grouped in this category, lack the Genitive Case as well.
32
 SECTION 2, ITEM 3
OGC WO RVTB APP VOC CORRECT

7%
10%
7%
46% 3%

27%

The fourth item, consisting of a mother-son relationship had 55% of the learners answering accurately, which is
slightly more than in the previous items; yet, the same errors were found, such as the omission of the Genitive
Case (Gloria’s Manny mom) which is the same as the last item (7%), the word order (Gloria’s mother Manny)
which in this item represents only the 4%; hence, there were fewer learners making that error; the usage of it’s,
as in (Gloria it’s Manny’s mother), remains the same (3%) as in the last three items. It can be observed that the
students using another vocabulary or constructions (mom and son) were less than in the previous items, as they
now represent the 17%. In this item, 7% of the students misplaced the Genitive Case in the sentence, such as
Gloria is mother’s Manny or Gloria’s mother is Manny. As for the replacement of the verb to be keeps
representing the 7%.

SECTION 2, ITEM 4
OGC WO RVTB APP VOC MGC CORRECT

7%

4% 7%
3%
55% 17%

7%

33
In the fifth item, the kinship to be established is a mother-father concordance which 5% of the learners did
correctly. The errors that did not change from the last item are the omission (Hayley’s Phil daughter), the
misplacing (Hayley’s daughter is Phil) of the Genitive Case, and the replacement of the verb to be as they also
represent the 7% out of the total answers; as well as the use of addition of it’s in the construction of the Genitive
Case, as in Hayley it’s Phil’s daughter which represents the 3%. As for the erroneous vocabulary or
constructions, as in it’s father of Hayley, fewer students used it (13% compared to the 17% in the last item).

SECTION 2, ITEM 5
OGC WO RVTB APP VOC MGC SPANISH CORRECT

7%
7%
7%
3%
53%
13%
3%7%

The sixth item had a grandmother-grandson kinship which 50% of the test takers established successfully. More
students, the 10%, omitted the Genitive Case (as in Luke’s Dede grandson); and errors such as the use of
erroneous vocabulary and constructions, as in it’s grandmother of Luke (13%); the misplacing of the Genitive
Case, as in Luke is grandson’s Dede (7%); the replacement of the verb to be, such as Lucke and Dede’s
grandson (7%), and the wrong order, as in (7%) kept the same.

SECTION 2, ITEM 6
OGC WO RVTB APP VOC MGC SPANISH CORRECT

10%
7%
7%
50% 3%
13%
7%
3%

34
In the seventh item, the 44% of the test takers could establish the relationship; nonetheless, some errors were
more repeated than in the last item, such as the wrong vocabulary and constructions (it’s husband) which
increased to 23%, the replacement of the verb to be (Gloria and Jay’s wife) that became the 10% out of the total
wrong responses. On the other hand, the omission of the Genitive Case (Jay’s Gloria husband) reduced to 3%.
Finally, the addition of it’s (Jay it’s Gloria’s husband), the wrong order (Jay’s husband Gloria) and misplacing of
the Genitive Case (Jay is husband’s Gloria), stayed the same (7%)

SECTION 2, ITEM 7
OGC WO RVTB APP VOC MGC SPANISH CORRECT

7%
3%
10%
44% 3%

23%
3%7%

The eighth item had a father-daughter relationship to be established, which 54% accomplished. In this item, the
use of wrong vocabulary or constructions (it’s father of Lily) were again reduced to the 13%, as well as the
misplacing of the Genitive Case (Lily is daughter’s Mitchell’s) that in this item represents the 3%; as for the
omission of the verb to be (Lily and Mitchell’s daughter) decreased to the 7% compared to the seventh item.
Other errors such as the omission of the Genitive Case (Lily’s Mitchell daughter) increased to the 10% compared
to the last item, Finally, the wrong word order, as in Lily’s daughter Mitchell (7%), the addition of it’s (Lily it’s
Mitchell’s daughter) and the usage of Spanish words (Lily’s “hija” Mitchell) kept the same as the last item (3%
each one).

SECTION 2, ITEM 8
OGC WO OVTB APP VOC MGC SPANISH CORRECT

10%
7%
7%
54% 3%
13%
3%
3%

35
The penultimate item showed a mom-daughter relationship that 54% of the test takers could establish with any
problem. As in the previous item, the 10% of the students omitted the Genitive Case, 13% of the students used
the incorrect construction or vocabulary, 7% (each one) had disordered sentences or omitted the verb to be; and
the 3% (each one) of the learners used Spanish words, misplaced the Genitive Case, or added the it’s in the
sentence (Alexit’s Claire’s daughter).

SECTION 2, ITEM 9
OGC WO OVTB APP VOC MGC SPANISH CORRECT

10%
7%
7%
54% 3%
13%
3%
3%

Finally, the tenth item had a father-daughter kinship established by 5% of the learners. In this item, 10% of the
students did not write correct sentences (Cam is father Lily’s), which is more than the last item. Nonetheless,
fewer students (7%) omitted the Genitive Case (Cam’s Lily father). The errors that kept similar as the lasts items
were the omission of the verb to be (Lily and Cam’s father), the usage of it’s in the sentences (Cam it’s Lily’s
father), the misplacing of the Genitive (Cam is brother’s Lily), and the usage of incorrect vocabulary and
constructions (it’s daughter of Cam). Nonetheless, in this item, there is no usage of Spanish words.

SECTION 2, ITEM 10
OGC WO OVTB APP VOC MGC CORRECT

7%
10%
7%
3%
57%
13%
3%

4.3.3. Error classification

36
This is the stage of the error analysis in which the error identified in the previous chapter are to be categorised
according to their source or type. There are many taxonomies developed in order to accomplish this
classification, but for the errors of this project, it was decided to use the Surface Strategy Taxonomy as it
concentrates on the ways in which surface structures are altered. Dulay et al. (1982: 150) consider the following
classification of errors in this taxonomy:

a. Omissions: the absence of an item that must appear in a well-formed utterance.

b. Additions: the presence of an item that must not appear in a well-formed utterance.
c. Misformations: the use of a wrong form of the morpheme or structure.
d. Misordering: the incorrect placement of a morpheme in an utterance.

In the first section of the instrument, there were three classifications in which most of the errors belong to, which
are: omission, which was found in the first, second, fourth, and fifth item in which either the ‘s or a determiner in
the Periphrastic Case were omitted; addition, in which the ‘s was added to the construction regardless the word
has an –s ending or it is a joint possession; moreover, the addition of it’s in the sentences were as well considered
in the classification of addition, and they are found in the first, third, and fourth items. As for the misformation, it
was found in the third item in which the construction to indicate possession was not accurate. Based on the
Comparative Taxonomy, the error the jacket of Mike belongs to the interlingual errors since the learners
transferred a structure from their native language to the L2.

Item Wrong answers Classification

1. - Carlos Omission
- Carlos’s Addition
2. - The jacket of Mike Interlingual*
- Mikes jacket Omission
3. - The father of Jackie and Philip Misformation
- Jackie’s and Philips’ Addition
4. - Sonia Omission
- It’s Sonia’s Addition
5. - Sophia mom’s name Omission
- Name of Sophia’s mom

The second section of the instrument had different errors which were classified according to their similarities.
Although only two types of those errors, the omission and misplacing of the Genitive Case, concern the grammar
topic, the rest of the errors were as well considered on the grounds that they cover aspects of the language the
students had already covered before they took the exam, which are the word order, the replacement of the verb
to be by the link and, the addition of the pronoun it’s, the usage of Spanish words, and the construction of wrong
structures or use of incorrect vocabulary. As shown in the chart, the omission of the Genitive Case belongs to
37
the omission classification, on the grounds that, as it names indicates, the students did not include the element
needed to indicate the possession. As for the misplacing of the Genitive Case, the wrong word order in the
sentences, the replacement of the verb to be, and the wrong construction of the possessives or incorrect
vocabulary fit in the misformation classification as the use of wrong forms or structures is evident. Finally,
considering the Surface Strategy Taxonomy, the addition of the personal pronoun it’s is considered as an addition
for the reason that the pronoun should not be present in the sentence. Finally, according to the Comparative
Taxonomy, the usage of Spanish words belongs to the Interlanguage errors since the students are taking rules
or words from their L1 to the L2.

Type of error Sample Classification

Omission of the Genitive Case Claire is Alex mother Omission
Misplacing of the Genitive Case Jay is grandfather’s Alex Misformation
Word order Gloria is mother Manny’s Misordering
Replacement of verb to be Phil and Haley’s father Misformation
Addition of pronoun Cam it’s Mitchell’s husband Addition
Spanish Gloria’s “hija” Mitchell Interlanguage
Incorrect vocabulary or construction It’s daughter of Cam Misformation

5. Proposal

Once the errors the students make when they use the Genitive Case have been identified and classified, it is
important to design a proposal which aims to help the students avoid these errors. This proposal consists of a
two-hour class in which the learners will be given the general rules that govern the use of the Genitive Case,
they are going to practice and produce a final task which will be useful to evaluate whether they were able to
use the Genitive Case with minimum or no errors at all. (To see the structure of this lesson go to Annexe)

The objective of this lesson is for the students to provide information about their partner’s family using the correct
construction of the Genitive Case; therefore, it is important that the learners recall the family members which will
be accomplished by the first activity (lead-in) in which the learners will be shown a picture of a family and they
will indicate the kinships among the people. For this activity, the students are expected to use the verb to be, the
vocabulary necessary to talk about family, and the possessive adjectives they have already checked. It is
possible that the learners do not indicate the correct possessive adjectives due they might have forgotten them
or they still confuse his and her; therefore, the instructor will use one of the error correction techniques which is
pinpointing; for instance:

- Jay is his husband

- Jay is…
- Jay is her husband

38
Some learners still might make the same error; then, the instructor will use another technique such as asking
the learner, such as:

- Haley is his daughter

- His or her?
- Haley is her daughter

Although these types of errors do not exactly belong to the Genitive Case, they are considered important as,
based on experience, they are the most common errors the student make in this level and they affect the meaning
of their utterances.

The next activity consists of a review of the members of the family, at least the most basic ones (grandmother,
grandfather, mother, father, son, daughter, brother, sister, etc.). The instructor will draw a chart next to the picture
and the students will be asked to come to the board and write some of the family members they mentioned,
classifying them according to their gender. The chart might look similar to this:

Father Mother
Brother Sister

In this level, it is still common that the learners have problems with the spelling of some words; and in the case
of family members, it was found out that the word some students struggle with the most is daughter; hence, a
review of the spelling of this words will be useful for the learners.

Once the students have reviewed the vocabulary build-up, they can continue to the next activity which consists
of a reading in which they will be exposed to the Genitive Case. They will read the text in which the family from
the first picture will be introduced by one of the members. This text (See Annexe) was designed in order to be
read from the perspective of one member of the family which seems to be the same age as the learners on the
grounds it is believed it will help them to identify the appropriate vocabulary for them to talk about their family.
After they have finished, they will respond to some questions in order to check comprehension and they will
compare with a partner.

The next activity consists of the reviewing the grammar topic by taking the samples of the Genitive Case in the
reading. The instructor will write those samples which are based on the errors found in the instrument, such as
the place of ‘s after words ending in –s and in joint possessions, such as

My parents’ wedding is today.

Gloria is Manny’s mom.

39
 Michell and Cam’s daughter is Lily.

Firstly, the instructor and the students will deal with the correct structure of sentences as it was one of the most
common errors found out in the instrument (WO). The instructor will locate with flashcards, or write on the board,
the words Subject (S) Verb (VTB) and Complement (C) and the students will decide whether the sentences on
the board follow the same structure. It is important to tell the students this is the most common and accurate
order of words in a sentence in English. After that, the learners will answer the questions about the Genitive
Case, which are:

- Indicate the verb to be and the possessive ‘s in the sentences

- What’s the last sound in the subject of the first sentence? How is the possessive ‘s indicated??
- Who is the subject of the second sentence?

The first question aims to make the students aware of the difference of the possessive ‘s and the contraction of
the verb to be which might have as well caused some problems for the learners who did not use it appropriately
when completing the task in the instrument. The objective of the second question is for the students to identify
properly the location of the ‘s when they have words ending in –s, including the regular plural nouns. As for the
last question, the purpose is for the student to recognise a joint possession and locate the ‘s correctly.
Subsequently, the students are going to be given a worksheet in which the rules governing the use of ‘s are
explained and the instructor will ask the learners to give some examples from the text. (See worksheet in Annexe)

In order to use the grammar topic to indicate different family relationships, the learners will be given a worksheet
with the family tree of the family in the picture of the lead-in. The students will write ten different sentences using
the Genitive Case and they will compare with a partner. Afterwards, the students will be asked to come to the
board and write one of their sentences in order to check whether they could construct the Genitive Case. It is in
this part of the lesson in which the learners might either make again the same mistakes as in the instrument or
the might even use the Periphrastic Case; hence, it is important to follow the next step which is the error analysis
developed by the students in which they will be asked them to do peer correction; and if they use the second
construction, they must be told the main difference between them, i.e. that the Genitive Case is mostly used
when referring to human relationships and the Periphrastic should be employed when referring to inanimate
nouns.

In order to check the pronunciation and spelling of the ‘s ending, the students will be divided into two teams,
Group A and Group B. Each team will be given a cardboard with the same family tree with different missing
names. The students will write down the cardboard the questions they will need to ask the other group in order
to complete their tree. They will attach it to the board and the whole group will check. Once the questions have
been evaluated and corrected, the instructor will ask the students to repeat the questions with them in order to
copy the pronunciation and the other group will be asked to drill the answers as well copying the pronunciation.
It is important the students do not feel frustrated when they are trying to produce their own output; therefore, it
40
is considered that, if the students keep mispronouncing the ‘s sound, the instructor writes the errors on the board
and try them after the learners have finished their activity; in that way, the activity will not take long and the
students will not be frustrated.
Thereupon, it is necessary to evaluate the pronunciation and construction of the Genitive Case individually;
therefore, the learners will work in pairs and they will be provided with a handout similar to the cardboard in the
previous task. They will formulate their own question and answers using the Possessives. The instructor must
monitor the students in order to catch all the errors they might make; then, the instructor will ask the learner the
correct pronunciation or construction of the Genitive Case, for example:
- Alex is Claire daughter
- Claire or Claire’s?
If it is possible, it would be highly recommended to check all the errors the students produce at the end of this
activity.

The final activity consists of an assessment task in which the learners will ask their partners specific questions
about their family, the students will pick those questions they find more interesting about their family, they will
write down that information and they will compose a small piece of writing with that information. The final step
for this activity is for the students to share their information with another pair, so they can correct each other.
The students will be asked to hand in that piece of writing as it might be used as evidence to check whether the
proposal was successful in avoiding and fixing the errors found.

41
Conclusions and final comments
As second language teachers, it is important to aid the students in the progress of becoming proficient in using
the English language as a communicative tool. For many years, it was believed that in order to achieve this, the
learners should be provided with big chunks of grammar structures, rules, and vocabulary; nonetheless, it has
been discovered that it goes beyond that. Not only do students need to know the morphological, syntactical,
phonological, or semantic aspects that make up the English language, but they should be able to use it accurately
in order to convey meanings in their second language; but what is more, they should be also aware of the errors
they should avoid or fix.

In this project, the aim was to accomplish what was said before: to find an aspect of the language the learners
seem to have problems with and develop the proper tools, i.e. the instrument, to evaluate to what extent it was
a problem for the second language learners. After that, the errors were identified and classified in order to know
exactly their type and source, so they would be treated based on that classification. This last procedure was
used to develop a proposal which aimed to aid the learners to recognise and avoid those errors, which in the
case of this specific project was the Genitive Case used to denote possession.

From this procedure, as well as from the Error Analysis course, it was learnt that not only should language
instructors stop believing errors are fatal, but they must “honour the error as a great opportunity of learning” on
the grounds that it will make the students aware of the correct utterances they have to produce in order to convey
intelligible meanings in the second language, by making, but mostly, by recognizing and learning from errors,
the learners will be able to increase their level in the L2. As for teachers, the errors will give them the chance to
know better the students’ progress in the learning process and to aid them with the appropriate material, lessons
and tools to improve those aspects that might make their progress weaker.

Although this project seemed long and quite laborious, it is believed to represent only a portion of the great
number of duties the language teachers are in charge of; since, as said before, teaching a second language is
not only about coming to the classroom and provide the students with an overwhelming amount of information.
Several techniques and procedures should be always carried out and found out in order to always try to improve
the information the students will be exposed to; as, in the end, the students will keep that to themselves, and it
is full responsibility of the instructors how this information is given.

Finally, it was learnt as well that any error should be underestimated as they might in the future impede the
students’ ability to communicate; and, although not all errors should be always corrected at one time, it is
important to find the key moments to do it; it might be at a certain level or when the students are learning a
specific topic. It is true that students will keep making mistakes regardless their level, nonetheless, it is

42
considered as a teacher’s duty to reduce the most common and worst errors they might make, and which might
be prejudicial for their learning process.

43
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https://books.google.com.mx/books?hl=es&lr=&id=Nac9AAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR1&dq=spanish
possession grammar&ots=G3vQEYlmPh&sig=aLiL81Xu_PR8likFiFN1f_YZt6Q#v=onepage&q&f=false.
 Khanshir A. Error Analysis and Second Language Acquisition. Theory and Practice in Language Studies,
vol. 2. No. 5, 2012. 1027-1032 pp. doi:10.4304/tpls.2.5.1027-1032
 Khansir, A. (2012). Error Analysis and Second Language Acquisition. Theory and Practice In Language
Studies, 2(5). http://dx.doi.org/10.4304/tpls.2.5.1027-1032
 Luque Agulló, G. (2004). El dominio de la lingüística aplicada. Revista Española De Lingüística Aplicada.
157-159.

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 Michael, Swan, et al. Learner English. 2nd ed., vol. 1, Cambridge Univ. Pr., 1987,
assets.cambridge.org/97805217/79395/sample/9780521779395ws.pdf.
 Mohammad H. A. A Review Study of Interlanguage Theory. International Journal of Applied Linguistics
and English Literature, vol. 4, no. 3, 2015, pp. 2–43., doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.3p.123.
 Naoko, K. (n.d.). Some Notes on the Development of the Genitive -s Marker in Englis. Retrieved May 02,
2018, from http://www.bunkyo.ac.jp/faculty/lib/klib/kiyo/lit/l1802/l180202.pdf
 Nordquist, R. (2018, February 04). Common Case in English Grammar. Retrieved May 20, 2018, from
https://www.thoughtco.com/common-case-grammar-1689766
 Nuestros idiomas (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.acatlan.unam.mx/index.php?id=158
 Oller, John & M. Ziahosseiny, Seid. (2006). The contrastive analysis hypothesis and spelling errors.
Language Learning. 20. 183 - 189. 10.1111/j.1467-1770.1970.tb00475.x
 Richard, K. (2016). Predicative possession in South Saami (Doctoral dissertation, Stockholms
Universitet) [Abstract].
 Sabrina, Lemtaiche. Errors in Applying Rules for English Possessive Case. The Case of 3rd Year
Students, Constantine. Academic. Mentouri University Constantine, Ministry of Higher Education and
Scientific Research, 2012, bu.umc.edu.dz/theses/anglais/LEM1165.pdf.
 Silvino E, Paz, D., Briones H., Jara K., Lillo D., Morales J., Muñoz B., Yumha E., (2015) Second Language
Acquisition Theories: their Application in the Ministry of Education’s Curriculum and their Expected Impact
on Teacher Training Programs from three Chilean Universities. Retrieved April 1st, 2018, from
http://repositorio.uchile.cl/bitstream/handle/2250/130555/Second-language-acquisition-
theories.pdf?sequence=1
 Sridhar, S. N. (1993). What is applied linguistics? International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 3(1), 3–16.
https://doi.org/10.1111/J.1473-4192.1993.TB00040.
 Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://quazar.acatlan.unam.mx/licenciaturas/
 Wei, X. (2008). The implication of IL Fossilization in Second Language Acquisition. English Language
Teaching, 1(1), 1-3. doi:10.5539/elt.v1n1p127

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Annexe 2: The instrument

UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL AUTÓNOMA DE MÉXICO

FACULTAD DE ESTUDIOS SUPERIORES ACATLÁN

LICENCIATURA EN ENSEÑANZA DE INGLÉS

Este cuestionario no es parte del examen, pero sí es muy necesario que seas honesto al momento de
contestarlo

Edad: _______________ Género: M _______F ________ Ocupación: _______________

Carrera o nivel de estudios __________________

¿Hablas o estudias otro idioma, aparte del inglés? _______________ Indica cuál idioma es si tu respuesta
es afirmativa: _______________

¿Habías estudiado inglés con anterioridad? Sí ____ No _____

Indica donde estudiaste inglés si tu respuesta es afirmativa _______________

¿Por cuánto tiempo? _______________

¿Por qué quieres aprender inglés? _____________________________________________

Possessives

Complete these sentences with the correct option. Complete ALL the sentences.

1. What is it? It is ___________ cell phone

a. Carlos’
b. Carlos
c. Carlos’s
2. Is this your jacket? No, it’s not. It’s _______________
a. Mike’s jacket.
b. The jacket of Mike
c. Mikes jacket

3. Is it ______________________ father? Yes he is, his name is Richard

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 a. The father of Jacky and Philip
b. Jackie’s and Philip’s
c. Jackie and Philip’s
4. ________________________ boyfriend is in Miami
a. Sonia
b. Sonia’s
c. It’s Sonia’s
5. What is ___________? It’s Maria
a. Sophia’s mom’s name
b. Sophia mom’s name
c. Name of Sophia’s mom

Look at this family tree and write the relationships.

1. Mitchel and Claire: _Mitchell’s Claire’s brother /Claire’s brother is Mitchell / Claire’s Mitchell’s sister /M
Mitchell’s sister is Claire
2. Jay and Alex: Jay’s Alex’s grandfather / Alex’s grandfather is Jay / Alex’s Jay’s granddaughter / Jay´s
granddaughter is Alex.
3. Cam and Mitchel Cam’s Mitchell’s husband / Mitchell’s husband is Cam / Cam’s husband is Mitchell/
Mitchell’s Cam’s husband.
4. Gloria and Manny: Gloria’s Manny’s mom / Manny’s mom is Gloria/ Manny’s Gloria’s son /Gloria´s son
is Manny.
5. Hayley and Phil: Hayle’s Phil’s daughter / Phil’s daughter is Hayley / Hayle’s father is Phil / Phil’s
Hayle’s father.
6. Luke and Dede: Luke’s Dede’s grandson / Dede’s grandson is Luke / Luke’s grandmother is Dede /
Dede’s Luke’s grandmom.
7. Jay and Gloria: Jay’s Gloria’s husband / Gloria’s husband is Jay / Gloria’s Jay’s wife / Jay’s wife is
Gloria.
8. Lily and Mitchel Lily’s Mitchell’s daughter / Mitchell’s daughter is Lily / Lily’s father is Mitchell / Mitchell’s
Lily’s father.
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9. Alex and Claire Alex’s Claire’s daughter / Claire’s daughter is Alex / Claire’s Alex’s mom / Alex’s mom is
Claire.
10. Cam and Lily: Lily’s father is Cam / Cam’s Lily’s father / Lily is Cam’s daughter / Cam’s daughter is Lily.

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Annexe 4: Material

1. Picture Activity Lead-In

Haley

Phil
Mitchell
Manny
Jay

Cam
Claire
Alex
Gloria Luke
Joey
Lily

2. Worksheet: A Modern Family

Hello! My name is Haley. I am 20 years old and I am from the United States. This is my family. They are a modern
family because they are very different from other families I know.

First, there is my grandfather Jay, he is a businessman, and the woman there is Gloria, my grandfather’s new wife. She
is Colombian, and really beautiful (her English is not that good). Then, there is Gloria’s son: Manny. He is weird and
nerd, and I think he is in love with me. Jay and Gloria’s new son, my uncle (WHAT?!) is Joey.

My favourite members of my family are my uncles Cam and Mitch. They live together and they have a daughter. My
uncle Cam and Mitchell’s daughter is Lily; she is from Vietnam. My aunt Mitchell’s and my uncle Cam’s parents, are
divorced. My aunt Mitchell’s mom (my grandmother) is Dede, but she is not here.

My nuclear family is fun too. There is my mom, she is overprotective and strict, but she is nice. My dad, Phil is really
distracted, but he is nice. My sister, Alex is a nerd, and Luke is extrovert and creative. Today is my parents’ wedding
anniversary and we are in a photo session.

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 3. Family tree

Give a look to the family tree of Haley’s family and indicate 10 different relationships.

1. __________________________________________
2. __________________________________________
3. __________________________________________
4. __________________________________________
5. __________________________________________
6. __________________________________________
7. __________________________________________
8. __________________________________________
9. __________________________________________
10. __________________________________________

4. Family tree 2: Pronunciation

Rachel

Williams Diana

Sebastian Hannah

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5. Family tree 3: Communicative activity

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