Assignment
Case Study
• Interview your partner about their SLA. If English is not their first language, interview them about learning English; if your partner is a native English speaker, ask them about one second language they have learned for all of the questions below.
• Write an APA-style paper discussing all of the factors below. If there are additional factors related to SLA that you would like to mention, please feel free to do so.
• The first draft of your paper should be approximately 10 pages in length, including title page and references. Be sure to include an introduction and conclusion section to your paper. The final draft of your paper may be 12-15 pages long as you add theory to support your analysis of the case study.
• You will be exchanging papers with your partner. All submissions are due on the dates given. No exceptions will be made because your partner depends on your revisions for their own work. Ten points will be subtracted for each day the assignment is late.
• These questions are to guide your interview. They are not the names of your first-level heads. The first-level heads should be only a couple of words to indicate each section. You must choose heads for the sections of your paper according to the content you write. Remember that each section should be composed of several paragraphs and each paragraph should have 5-8 sentences. You may not have a section comprised of only one paragraph. Each section should begin with an explanation of the theory defined by that section and then go into examples of that theory as illustrated by your partner's SLA, followed by your interpretation of your partner's SLA based on the theory and their personal experience-this is what makes it a case study. You should add quotes from your interview and quotes from your partner's discussion board posts that illustrate the theory being examined in each section of your paper. Do not repeat the same quotes from your partner later in other sections.
• If you have any doubts about APA formatting, please see the OWL Purdue website.
• You are to conduct an interview with your partner on Skype, in person, by phone, etc. Write their responses and put them together into academic research paper format. See the sample documents on Blackboard for guidance. YOUR PARTNER SHOULD NOT JUST WRITE OUT THE ANSWERS AND SEND THEM TO YOU FOR YOU TO PUT INTO REPORTED SPEECH.
• Interpret your partner's answers according to the theory in the Saville-Troike book. You need to cite the theories according to the original authors as summarized by Saville-Troike. Do not cite Saville-Troike unless she is the author associated with the theory you are discussing. See the Owl Purdue website to cite secondary sources correctly.
Interview Questions:
o Contrastive Analysis: GIVE 3 EXAMPLES OF AREAS THAT ARE DIFFERENT BETWEEN YOUR PARTNER'S L1 AND ENGLISH. YOU DO THE RESEARCH TO DO THIS CA. YOU CAN GET IDEAS FROM YOUR PARTNER, BUT IT IS NOT THEIR RESPONSIBILITY TO PROVIDE YOU WITH THIS INFORMATION.
o At what age did your partner learn English? Did they start learning before or after the Critical Age (i.e., puberty)? (Note: the critical age is period around puberty. It is not a specific age.) How did this affect their SLA? The theory DOES NOT state that it is more difficult/impossible to learn a language after the critical period.
o Describe your partner's motivation for learning English (i.e., instrumental, integrative, intrinsic, extrinsic. For example: invasion or conquest of one's country by speakers of another language; a need to contact speakers of other languages in economic or other specific domains; immigration to a country where use of a language other than one's L1 is required; adoption of religious beliefs and practices which involve use of another language; a need or desire to pursue educational experiences where access requires another language; an interest in knowing more about people of other cultures and having access to their technologies or literatures, etc.) How did this affect their SLA?
o Does your partner feel that their performance matches their competence? Why or why not? Explain!
o How does your partner feel about their communicative competence vs. their linguistic competence? Why? Give examples.
o Did your partner acquire or learn the language? How does your partner perceive this to influence their English language performance?
o Does your partner feel fossilized in any areas in English (i.e., specific grammatical items, pronunciation)? Why do they think this occurred?
o Individual differences- What is your partner's preferred learning style? How has he/she been able to work with this while learning English? Was his/her preferred learning style addressed in the classroom when he/she was learning English? How did this affect their SLA?
o How does your partner feel that acculturation influenced his/her language acquisition? Discuss social as well as individual factors as described in Saville-Troike. How did this affect their SLA?
o Does your partner believe that their relative level of success as a language learner is due primarily to linguistic, psychological, or social factors (social may include type of instruction, contexts of learning, or attitudes toward the L1 and L2)? How did this affect their SLA?
o Sociocultural factors-Does your partner think that any specific sociocultural factors contributed to or detracted from his/her language learning? Discuss at least two sociocultural factors.
o Formal/informal learning-Did your partner learn English in a formal or informal setting, or both? How does your partner think that this affected his/her SLA?
o Did your partner learn English in a communicative or grammar oriented way? How did this affect their SLA?
o Were there any teachers or textbooks that were part of your partner's language learning experiences which he/she thinks particularly influenced his/her language learning? Explain. How did this affect their SLA?
o Innate capacity-Does your partner feel that he/she has an innate ability for learning languages? Or does he/she feel that they have more strengths in other types of intelligence (spatial, logistic, mathematical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic, musical, etc.)? How did this affect their SLA?