Genre-based Literacy Project

Course Context

1.      Identify the context:  Advanced ELLs in a college writing class. The class contains students from all over the world with a variety of native languages and backgrounds.  The class also includes both undergraduates just starting their education, students who have graduated once already and are working on a second BS or BA and graduate students. The primary focus of the class is on academic writing.

2.      Develop an aim:  The purpose of this course is to help non-native speakers of English with writing for academic purposes in their courses at the university.  This course will explore the process of writing and help students to be more successful writers.

3.      Note event sequences: attending class, diagnostic testing and assessments, syllabus and requirements, journal writing, essay writing, peer-review, essay exam, finding reference/research materials, selecting a research topic, citing sources, outlining, and writing a research paper.

4.      List the texts required:  The writing textbook:

-          Checkett, L., & Feng-Checkett, G. (2001). The write start with readings: Paragraphs to essays. NY: Longman.  

-          Assessment test papers

-          In class handouts.

-          Peer review outlines

5.      Outline sociocultural knowledge:  Students need knowledge of – classroom practices and genre knowledge and an advanced level of English.

6.      Gather text samples:  Written texts: 

-          Checkett, L., & Feng-Checkett, G. (2001). The write start with readings: Paragraphs to essays. NY: Longman.  

-          Pages 178 to 204 contain the Persuasive Essay portion of the textbook.

-          Newspaper articles.

7.      Develop units of work and unit objectives: The students will be able to independently produce a Persuasive essay (there would be more than just one type of essay in the whole course, but this is the objective for this particular unit).

a.       Setting the context – Read sample persuasive essays on pages 191, 195 and 197 in the textbook, these include samples written specifically for academic purposes and read persuasive articles in the context of a newspaper.

b.      Modeling – The breaking down of the text to examine key features.

c.       Joint construction – The teacher assists the students in producing a persuasive essay.

d.      Independent construction – The students will independently produce a persuasive essay and revise based on feedback from the teacher and peers.

e.       Comparing – Compare the persuasive essay to other essays already studied, such as the cause/effect, compare/contrast and process essays.

Genre Based Lesson Plan Objective: The students will be able to produce a persuasive essay.

Setting the context: The teacher and the students will discuss the different kinds of persuasive writings.  These different types may include newspaper articles/editorials, movie reviews and advertisements.  The teacher and the students will also read and discuss the sample essays in the textbook and how they apply to academic writing.  The teacher may ask a student to talk about his/her major and discuss how persuasive writing may be used in that context. 

Modeling: The teacher and the students will look at different persuasive texts together from both the textbook and the newspaper to breakdown the persuasive writing.  The students should look for the text stages, arguments for a belief or arguments against a belief, topic sentences and their relation to the entire text, answering the opposition techniques by the author, the author referring to an authority, predicting consequences in the writing, the author using facts and the author providing examples.  The teacher and the students should also look at some of the vocabulary choice features of the texts.  These features may include verbs like should/should not, is/is not and must/must not.  The features also may include transitional expressions such as, according to, although, nevertheless, of course, on the other hand, others may say, consequently, in conclusion, therefore, thus, another, next, because, since, finally, last, first, second and for.

Joint negotiation: The teacher should model the essay writing using the writing frame and plan below.Persuasive Essay outline:  The teacher should write the persuasive essay outline on the board and ask the students for a topic.  The teacher should then ask the students to assist in filling in the outline.
Topic:________________________________________________________
 Pro                                                                   Con
 1._________________             1._____________________ 
2.____________________       2.______________________
 
3.____________________        3.______________________
 
4.____________________        4._______________________
 
5.___________________          5._______________________
 
Thesis statement:  Using the outline the teacher should ask students to assist in creating a thesis statement for the Pros and a thesis statement of the Cons.  The teacher should write the thesis statement on the board (the thesis statement should contain language familiar to the persuasive essay with words like must, must not, should, should not, is, is not, etc…).

Persuasive writing activity:  Divide the students into groups of two or three and assign each group a topic.  The topics may include:
- Working while in college
- Men and women training together in the military
- Allowing controversial organizations to advertise in campus publications
- Requiring students to study a foreign language in high school
- Drinking age of 18 years old
- Legally designating English as the official language of the U.S.
- Allowing single adults to adopt children
- Allowing prayer in public schools
- A one world government
Allow the students to choose their topic, but each group must have a different topic and the teacher should briefly explain each topic to the students. 

Persuasive writing activity continued:  In their groups the students should fill out the persuasive writing outline in its entirety and present it to the rest of the class using an overhead or document cam.  The presentations should be brief (no more than 5 min. per group) and only explain the points on the outline.
 
Topic: ________________________________________________
 Pro                                                                 Con
 
1.____________________        1._______________________
 
2.____________________       2._______________________
 
3.____________________       3._______________________
 
4.____________________       4._______________________
 
5.____________________        5._______________________
 
 Topic Sentence:_______________________________________________
 ____________________________________________________________Thesis Sentence/Essay Map:_____________________________________
 ___________________________________________________________
 Body Paragraph 1 Topic Sentence: ____________________________
 _______________________________________________________ 
Body Paragraph 2 Topic Sentence: ____________________________
 ______________________________________________________
Body Paragraph 3 Topic Sentence: __________________________

Independent construction: The students should now use the writing frame to produce their own persuasive essay outline and then complete the entire persuasive essay.  The outline provides prewriting brainstorming as well as an easy outline for the students to initially follow.  After the students have completed their essays they should be put into groups of two and review each other’s essays.  The students should look for clear stages of writing as well as the modeled features of persuasive writing.Comparing texts: The teacher and the students will now look at other styles of writing that they have already produced in the class and compare those with the persuasive essay.  They will also look at the different brainstorming/outlining techniques and compare those to the one used with the persuasive essay.

Writing Assessment Rubric

Course Objective	The student should be able to create a persuasive essay.
Writing Task (genre)	Persuasive text/writing
Rubric (instructions to learners) Time limit  Length of expected response Format (essay vs. short answer, typed vs. handwritten, etc.)  Evaluation criteria (what will be evaluated and the relative weighting of the criteria)	The students have one week to complete the essay. The essay should be 1.5 – 2 pages in length. The essay should be typed using 12 point, Times New Roman or Courier New font and be double spaced. The essay should contain:-          Introduction with a clear thesis statement-          Three body paragraphs with a topic sentence for each paragraph-          Conclusion that summarizes the essay
Prompt (The test content used to elicit a response from the learner)	Write a persuasive essay concerning one of the following topics:-          Working while in college-          Men and women training together in the military-          Allowing controversial organizations to advertise in campus publications-          Requiring high school students to study a foreign language-          Drinking age of 18 years old-          Legally designating English as the official language of the U.S.-          Allowing single adults to adopt children-          Allowing prayer in public schools-          A one world government
Expected response (a description of the expected response to the task and the criteria for judging the quality of task performance)	The student should produce a five paragraph persuasive essay that addresses one of the topics listed above and contains all of the required elements.  See the modified Jacob’s scale below for the assessment rubric.

  

Modified Jacob’s Scale ESL Composition Profile  Student                                 Date                                       Topic

	Score	Level	Criteria	Comments
Content		25-20 19-15  14-10 9-5	Excellent to Very Good: knowledgeable, substantive, thorough development of thesis, relevant to assigned topicGood to Average: some knowledge of subject, adequate range, limited development of thesis, mostly relevant to topic, lacks detailFair to Poor: limited knowledge of subject, little substance, inadequate development of topicVery poor: does not show knowledge of subject, not pertinent, or not enough to evaluate
Organization		20-18  17-14  13-10 9-7	Excellent to Very Good: fluent expression, ideas clearly stated/supported, succinct, well-organized, logical sequencing, cohesiveGood to Average: somewhat choppy, loosely organized but main ideas stand out, limited support, logical but incomplete sequencingFair to Poor: non-fluent, ideas confused or disconnected, lacks logical sequencing and developmentVery poor: does not communicate, no organization, or not enough to evaluate
Vocabulary		20-18  17-14 13-10 9-7	Excellent to Very Good: sophisticated range, effective word/idiom choice and usage, word form mastery, appropriate registerGood to Average: adequate range, occasional errors of word/idiom form/choice/usage but meaning not obscuredFair to Poor: limited range, frequent errors of word/idiom form/choice/usage, meaning confused or obscuredVery poor: essentially translation, little knowledge of English vocabulary/idioms/word form or not enough to evaluate
Language use		25-22  21-18    17-11   10-5	Excellent to Very Good: effective complex constructions, few errors of agreement/tense/number/word order function/articles/pronouns/prepositionsGood to Average: effective but simple constructions, minor problems in complex constructions, several errors of agreement/tense/number/word order function/articles/pronouns/prepositions but meaning seldom obscuredFair to Poor: major problems in simple/complex constructions, frequent errors of negation agreement/tense/number/word order function/articles/pronouns/prepositions and or fragments/run-ons/deletions, meaning is confused or obscuredVery poor: virtually no mastery of sentence construction rules, dominated by errors, does not communicate or not enough to evaluate
Mechanics		10-8 7-5 4-3  2-1	Excellent to Very Good: demonstrates mastery of conventions, few errors of spelling, punctuation, capitalization, paragraphingGood to Average: occasional errors of spelling, punctuation, capitalization, paragraphing but meaning not obscuredFair to Poor: frequent errors of spelling, punctuation, capitalization, paragraphing, poor handwriting, meaning confused or obscuredVery poor: no mastery of conventions, dominated by errors of spelling, punctuation, capitalization, paragraphing, handwriting illegible or not enough to evaluate

           

Genre-based Literacy Project Narrative

Creating lesson plans that effectively scaffold the students’ learning are difficult to do well in any subject, but developing a lesson plan that is specifically created to assist ESL students in learning to read and write in their second language is even more complex.  There are many intricate parts that go into the genre-based literacy lesson plan and each part contains an important role for both the teacher and the learner.           

Hyland (2007) assists the teacher in creating a genre-based literacy lesson plan and covers a number of areas that need to be addressed when producing the lesson plan.  In the production of my genre-based lesson plan I have followed the procedures recommended by Hyland and now I will explain and defend my lesson plan as it relates to Hyland and other research that has been done in the field of second language literacy.           

The first component of the literacy based lesson plan, or any lesson plan for that matter, involves the context of the course.  I used the outline by Burns and Joyce (1997) in order to specifically design my lesson plan to cater to the needs of my students.  I am currently teaching a college ESL writing class and I thought it would be appropriate to produce my lesson plan in relation to my current students who are advanced English language learners (ELLs) from a number of different backgrounds and countries.  The students are also different ages and may be studying for their bachelor’s degree or master’s degree.  All of the students are motivated to improve their English and do well in their classes.  The overall aim of the course is to help the ELLs improve their writing for academic purposes in the university.  The text book used in this lesson plan is the same text book that I currently use in my ESL class.  This particular lesson plan was developed to assist students in writing a persuasive essay with the intent that the students will eventually be able to produce their own persuasive essay without the help of the teacher.  I feel that the persuasive genre is very common in academics and very common in everyday life, therefore making it one of the most useful genres to teach.  The units of work within this lesson plan include setting the context, modeling, joint construction, independent construction and comparing.  These different units are defined by Hyland (2007) as a teaching cycle that will show the process of learning a genre and give support as the learner moves toward understanding the text.           

The genre based literacy lesson plan consists of the teaching cycle listed previously.  The first part of this cycle is setting the context.  Setting the context is very important when dealing with ELLs, because if the student is unfamiliar with the context or even the culture this could greatly affect the students’ comprehension (Singhai, 1998). Setting the context can be done in many different ways.  Spack (1993) sets the context by asking students questions about their experiences before they ever even read the genre or text to be studied.  Hyland (2007) recommends looking at the different uses for the genre and how the language works within that context.  I have decided to use a little from both Spack’s model and Hyland’s model and start by discussing persuasive writing in general outside the confines of the text to be read, perhaps relating persuasive writing to the students’ own culture or major, and then reading different examples of persuasive writing from the academic standpoint (from the textbook) and journalistic standpoint (newspaper articles).            

The second part of the cycle is modeling.  Modeling is simply the teacher critically looking at the text and explaining its features to the students.  This portion may involve discussion of the text and looking at its different stages.  Checkett and Feng-Checkett (2001) give a clear list of the different features that should be looked at within persuasive writing and some of the clear language features.  I have included all of Checkett and Feng-Checkett’s features in my lesson plan to be identified or looked for by students.  Checkett and Feng-Checkett also list some common vocabulary words that can be used as transitional expression within the genre that are helpful to identify and teach.  I think I find this portion of the lesson plan the most difficult for me personally.  I feel like I don’t know enough about the English language and its construction to explicitly teach genre features, but with the help of this class and the textbooks I am certainly becoming more confident and understanding more about the different genres.           

The third part of the cycle is joint negotiation.  Joint negotiation is my favorite part of the lesson plan, because I have used this type of procedure in classrooms before and I have been very successful.  In this part I have included a writing frame that I have changed and adapted from Checkett and Feng-Checkett (2001).  The writing frame helps students look at any topic and brainstorm in order to find the pros and cons related to the topic.  After the students brainstorm they are equipped to choose whether they want to argue for or against something and then to outline their subject.  I have included modeling by the teacher at the beginning of this cycle while moving towards a small group activity.  The writing frame includes the brainstorming outline, thesis statement and body paragraph topic sentences.  I believe these features are the most important for my students to place in their outline, so they have an idea of how all of the stages relate.  The students are to then present their outline to the class and explain their points.  I find that when doing a lot of small group work it’s important to have the students do some type of presentation (even if it’s just brief) to ensure that the task gets finished completely and well.  Hyland (2007) also suggests creating a number of different texts through joint negotiation to build the students’ confidence and create awareness.           

The forth part of the cycle is independent construction.  The name certainly gives away the meaning and this part of the cycle is simply the students producing their own persuasive essay individually.  Hyland (2007) notes the importance of this part of the cycle by saying, “All writers, regardless of their proficiency in English, need opportunities to create texts.  In fact, independent, extended writing is the ultimate goal of the L2 writing class, for while writers do not learn to write only by writing, they cannot learn to write without writing” (p. 136).  I find Hyland’s view to be accurate even though others seem to believe strongly in collaboration.  Hirvela (1999) promotes a writing program that appears to almost involve collaboration exclusively.  I think that both small group work and independent work should be utilized in the ESL classroom to assist the ELL in every facet of writing.  Included in this part of the cycle I have also decided to have the students assist each other through peer-review.  Through this peer-review I want the students to pay special attention to the organization of their persuasive essays and make sure that it’s comprehensible.             

The last part of Hyland’s cycle is comparing the texts.  As a class and then in small groups the students will review some of the other genres that have been presented in class and the brainstorming techniques that have been utilized.  The students will then compare the persuasive genre to the other genres and there will be a discussion to analyze the findings.  I think this is a great way for students to be able to categorize different genres and really see the differences.  I also think that this is a great way to review different genres by comparing them to the genre just studied.           

In accordance with the persuasive writing lesson plan I have modified the Jacob’s scale rubric to be used to evaluate the students’ writing. This rubric will provide assessment for the persuasive essay task and will assess the writer’s content, organization, vocabulary, language use and mechanics.  The only modification made to the regular Jacob’s scale is the adjustment of points from the content section to the mechanics section.  The reason for this is because I feel that the Jacob’s scale does not give enough emphasis to the mechanics of writing.  It is obvious to me that most content area teachers (sciences, math, etc…) tend to look at a lot of the mechanics of writing rather than the content (whether or not they should is another matter) and therefore I want my students to be aware of that and focus on their mechanics a little more.  The reason I chose the analytic style of rubric is so I can not only see the different areas my students need help in, but also so they can see the different areas themselves and work on the specific things that they struggle with.  A holistic scale is good, but it does not offer the same quality of feedback to the students that the analytic scale provides.  The rubric is fairly straight forward in the scoring procedure.  Each area (content, organization, vocabulary, language use and mechanics) provides a detailed description of the criteria for the points to be scored.  There is also room for specific comments in each section that can be used to give the students quality feedback on their writing.           

In conclusion, I feel that my genre-based literacy lesson plan meets all the criteria outlined by Hyland and supported by others.  Upon creating this lesson plan I was excited to discover that I already do a lot of things in my writing class that are recommended by Hyland, but now I feel that I have the knowledge and tools to make my classes even better and assist my students in many more ways.  I look forward to using this type of lesson plan in the near future and making it a part of my own teaching style.

REFERENCES

Burns, A., & Joyce, H. (1997). Focus on speaking. Sydney: NCELTR.

Checkett, L., & Feng-Checkett, G. (2001). The write start with readings: Paragraphs to essays. NY: Longman. 

Hirvela, A. (1999). Collaborative writing instruction and communities of readers and writers. TESOL Journal 8, 7-12. 

Hyland, K. (2007). Genre and second language writing. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.  

Singhal, M. (1998). A comparison of L1 and L2 reading: Cultural differences and schema. The Internet TESL Journal, 4. Retrieved September 8, 2007, from www.iteslj.org 

Spack, R. (1993). Student meets text, text meets student: Finding a way into academic discourse. In J. Carson and I. Leki (Eds.). Reading in the composition classroom: Second language perspectives. (pp. 183-196). Boston: Heinle and Heinle. 

The Reading of Church Bulletins

This project is complete, but I haven’t put the graphs in or finished editing the post – sorry!

 

In everyday life there are various written works or genres that are observed and read by people. Most of the time native speakers of the language for which the genres are written don’t even notice the characteristic styles that are evident within these genres. However, there is in fact a system by which most genres are written or put together in order to meet the needs of the writer or the audience the specific genre is intended. In accordance with this order, the genre is meant to be read or looked at in a certain way by its audience in order to gain maximum comprehension or efficiency.

Here in the United States of America the church bulletin is a common genre that many people have experienced at one time or another in their lives. The church bulletin is made up of many features and requires the reader to have at least some contextual knowledge and culture of the church in order to fully comprehend the genre. In the following paragraphs and pages of this paper the church bulletin will be the primary focus and, in particular, how people read and comprehend the church bulletin.

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the sections of the church bulletin and the organizational features contained within the bulletin for various reasons. The author of this paper also seeks to find out how people who are familiar with this genre derive information from it and comprehend it and how people unfamiliar with this genre try to understand the information within. Perhaps this research will be useful to churches who seek to make their information as clear as possible to everyone or to those who design and organize church bulletins. Insight into how people in general read this type of genre is the number one goal of this project.

Methods

A number of bulletins were acquired from a church in Mankato, Minnesota with the sole purpose of giving them to people in order to complete a survey. The surveys were conducted in three different locations. The first location was in a classroom at Minnesota State University, Mankato, Minnesota. The participants in the first survey were international students with various religious and cultural backgrounds. Many of the participants in this survey had never seen a church bulletin before or any other genre similar to it, but were happy to look through the bulletin and complete the survey. The second location was in the author’s home located in North Mankato, Minnesota. The participants in this survey were all people who were familiar with the genre, but not with the particular church that the bulletin was from and varied in age from 26 years old to 81 years old. The final group of participants consisted of members from the church where the bulletin was created and varied in age and background. The survey was taken by a particular Sunday school class during the church’s Sunday school hour. All of the participants understood the reason for the survey and were happy to give their insights.

BULLETIN SURVEY QUESTIONS FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS

Bulletin Survey 1. What’s the first thing you notice about the bulletin? 2. What do you think this bulletin is for? 3. What sections does the bulletin contain? 4. Do the sections help you read and understand the bulletin? 5. Did you read the entire bulletin? If yes, why? If no, what sections did you read?

Figure 1. These are the survey questions that were asked to international students about the church bulletin.

BULLETIN SURVEY QUESTIONS FOR CHURCH MEMBERS

Bulletin Survey 1. What’s the first thing you notice about the bulletin? 2. Do you read the entire bulletin? If yes, why? If no, how do you decide what information to read? 3. What do you normally read first? What’s your reading sequence? 4. What sections does the bulletin contain (in your opinion)? 5. Do you feel that the sections help you decide what to read?

Figure 2. These are the survey questions that were asked to church members about the church bulletin.

Results

The survey of the international students showed various details about how they processed the information in the bulletin. The answers to question one included: a religious theme, colors, prayer, information/schedule of church, the cross and inserts. “A religious theme” was the most popular answer as five out of the fourteen students who answered the question wrote this answer in the survey.

QUESTION I

INTERNATIONAL STUDENT GRAPH

Figure 3. This graph shows the international students’ responses to question number one of the survey.

The answers to question two included: to attract people, classes, worship/prayer and information. “To attract people” was the most popular answer as eight out of the fourteen students wrote this answer.

QUESTION II

INTERNATIONAL STUDENT GRAPH

Figure 4. This graph shows the international students’ responses to question number two of the survey.

The answers to question three were all different and, therefore, only show that the sections of the bulletin were not very clear to this group. The bulletin has clearly defined sections within it, but the international students may have thought that the sections meant the inserts as well. The answers to question number four included thirteen “yes” answers and one “no” answer. For the most part the students found what they perceived to be the sections helpful in the reading process.

QUESTION IV

INTERNATIONAL STUDENT GRAPH

Figure 5. This graph shows the international students’ responses to question number four of the survey.

The answers to question number five included three “yes” answers with their reasons being that they found the bulletin interesting and to be able to fully answer the questions in the survey. The sections that the participants read include: the bookmark, welcome/news, Holy Communion, schedule, green insert and events. The most popular section read was the welcome/news section as four out of eleven people chose this section.

QUESTION V

INTERNATIONAL STUDENT GRAPH

Figure 6. This graph shows the international students’ responses to question number five of the survey. The students were asked, “Did you read the entire bulletin? If yes, why? If no, what sections did you read?

The survey of the regular church goers also gives some insight into how people who are familiar with this genre process the information in a church bulletin. The answers to question one included: inserts/pages, the cross, location/date, items that relate, color, verse and outline of events. The “inserts/pages” answer was the most popular, as five out of thirteen people wrote that answer.

QUESTION I

CHURCH MEMBER GRAPH

Figure 7. This graph shows the church members’ responses to question number one of the survey.

The answers to question two included ten “yes” answers and only three “no” answers. It appears that most people who are familiar with this genre feel the need to read the entire bulletin. All ten of the people who said that they read the entire bulletin read it in order to be informed, while those who do not read the entire bulletin only read what relates to them or the scripture/prayer list for the week.

QUESTION II

CHURCH MEMBER GRAPH

Figure 8. This graph shows the church members’ responses to question number two of the survey. The church members were asked, “Do you read the entire bulletin? If yes, why? If no, how do you decide what information to read?”

The answers to question number three include: front to back, handouts/coming events/missions/praise and prayer/sermon notes, upcoming events/rest, first the inside page, first the prayer list and weekly activities. The most popular answer was “front to back” as eight out of the thirteen people wrote this answer.

QUESTION III

CHURCH MEMBER GRAPH

Figure 9. This graph shows the church members’ responses to question number three of the survey.

The answers to question number four included: news, what?, general outline/upcoming activities/news/sermon notes/church employees, contents/calendar/news/sermon/inserts, worship/mission/information and today/events/news/prayer and praise/sermon notes/youth stuff/inserts. The most popular answer was “What?” As six out of fourteen church members wrote this answer. The question may not have been worded correctly, because it is obvious that the majority of the church members did not understand it. It is also possible that the majority of the church members have never taken the time to really look at the bulletin and discover that it is broken up into sections.

QUESTION IV

CHURCH MEMBER GRAPH

Figure 10. This graph shows the church members’ responses to question number four of the survey.

The answers to question five were included nine “yes” answers and four “no” answers. This is somewhat surprising due to the fact that the majority of those surveyed did not understand that the bulletin was divided into sections. It is possible that they believed the bulletin was divided into sections, but did not know what to call those sections, thus the confusion.

QUESTION V

CHURCH MEMBER GRAPH

Figure 11. This graph shows the church members’ responses to question number five of the survey.

Conclusion

It is understood that the data obtained was limited in its scope. However, one can draw a few different conclusions. The majority of the international students after reviewing the bulletin came to the conclusion that the bulletin was designed to attract people to the church. This directly contrasts with the church members’ reasoning for reading the bulletin, which was in order to be informed. It could be that the international students have seen many flyers or advertisements having the same shape and size of the bulletin and, therefore, came to the conclusion that the bulletin must be associated with this type of genre. It is also interesting to note that the majority of church members, that is, those familiar with the genre read the entire bulletin, while the majority of international students only read different portions of the genre. This could be due to the fact that the church members knew the genre contained information in it that was pertinent to them, while the majority of international students believed that the bulletin was an advertisement of some sort and felt that they didn’t need to read it. All that being said, it is obvious that much more research into the reading of church bulletins needs to be done in order to obtain quality research and conclusions.

CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS

BETWEEN ENGLISH AND SOMALI

By

Alan Clipperton and Chia-Fang Chang

INTRODUCTION

The pronunciation of any language is an important feature that cannot be overlooked. If a person pronounces any given word incorrectly the meaning can be changed or the word may not be understood at all.

In recent years the state of Minnesota has attracted immigrants from a variety of different countries, but the people of Somali will be the focus of this study. Relatively little information has been written on the Somali language as a whole and even less information has been published pertaining to the phonetics produced. In this paper we seek to locate the phonetics produced by the Somali language and compare them to the phonetics within the English language, therefore, discovering the sounds that native speakers of Somali are most likely to have problems with when learning to speak English.

It is the goal of this research that the data obtained might serve the ESL teachers in Minnesota by helping them know the key pronunciation problems that native Somali speakers are most likely to have. The research will also help the Somali student understand why they cannot pronounce or have problems with certain sounds, making their language learning experience much smoother.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Not surprisingly there is relatively little published information pertaining to the Somali language or, more specifically, the phonetics of the Somali language. This might be due to the rich oral tradition of the Somali people and the values of the culture that have been passed down through generations through poetry, stories and proverbs without a written word.

The Somali language did not have a written form until 1972 (Farid, 2004). The Somalis debated over whether to use Arabic script or Roman script. It was argued that it would be easier for those who already could read and write in Arabic, because of the Qur’an, to apply the same system to Somali, but those who insisted upon the Roman script stated that current printing equipment being used by the government was already equipped to produce Roman letters (Farid, 2004). In the end, those who wished for a Roman script received what they wanted.

The written word did, however, come with its own costs. Farid (2004) states, “The benefits of the written word are immense, but they have come at the expense of the listening and memorization skills fostered in oral cultures” (p. 4).

Although there is some debate over the actual sounds, the Somali alphabet consists of twelve vowel sounds and twenty- one consonants (Putman & Noor, 1993). Somali uses all but three consonants (/p/, /v/, and /z/) of the English alphabet and uses a form of phonetic alphabet for the vowel sounds consisting of /a/ as in “tart,” /aa/=/a/ as in “father” (note: the /a/ sound is drawn out a little bit longer), /ay/ as in “pie,” /ey/ as in “say,” /e/=/ey/ as in “way” (but the “ay” sound is shorter), /ee/=/ey/ as in “payday” (note: the “ay” sound is drawn out a little bit longer), /ɪ / as in “wit,” /ii/=/iy/ as in “see,” /o/=/ow/ as in “boat,” /oo/=/ow/ as in “sew” (note: the “ew” sound is drawn out a little bit longer), /u/=/uw/ as in “coo,” and /uu/=/uw/ as in “noon” (note: the “oo” sound is drawn out a little bit longer) (Putman & Noor, 1993). The vowel sounds that English has, but Somali does not, consist of /æ/ as in “cat,” /ʌ/ as in “up,” and /ɛ/ as in “end” (Putman & Noor, 1993). It is also worthy to note here that Somali, like most other languages, does not contain the voiced (/ð/) or unvoiced (/θ/) /th/ sound and the /r/ sound in Somali is trilled, like a stronger version of the Spanish /r/ sound.

SOMALI VOWELS

a

aa

ay

ey

E

ee

i

ii

o

oo

u

uu

Figure 1: The vowels of the Somali language (Somali-English picture

dictionary)

SOMALI CONSONANTS

b	t	j	x	kh	d	r	s	sh	dh	c	g
f	q	k	l	M	n	w	h	y

Figure 2: The consonants of the Somali language (Somali-English picture

dictionary)

It is evident from the above study that Somali does not contain all of the same sounds of English, thus creating pronunciation problems for the native Somali speakers. Christian, Genesee, Lindholm-Leary and Saunders (2006) state, “According to the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis, learners will have difficulty acquiring aspects of a second language that differ from their first language, but their acquisition of a second language will be facilitated by similarities between their first and second languages” (p. 66). Based upon the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis the native Somali speakers should have problems pronouncing the consonant sounds, /p/, /v/, /z/, /th/ (voiced and unvoiced), and un-trilled /r/. The native speaker of Somali should also have problems pronouncing the vowel sounds /æ/ as in “cat,” /ʌ/ as in “up,” and /ɛ/ as in “end.”

The purpose of this study is to interview native speakers of Somali and compare the pronunciation difficulties that are found with the difficulties that the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis indicates. It is believed that the participants will have the pronunciation problems listed above, but also believed that it is possible that more problems may be found not only in individual word pronunciation, but also in English intonation, word stress and sentence stress.

METHODOLOGY

Participants

The participants in this research were one male and one female (see Figure 3). Bashir attends Mankato East High School in Mankato, Minnesota and Hanna studies nursing at Minnesota State University in Mankato, Minnesota.

DESCRIPTION OF PARTICIPANTS

 

	Participant 1	Participant 2
Name	Bashir	Hanna
Gender	Male	Female
Age	18	22
Number of years lived in the U.S.	1 year	5 years
Number of years/months studied English	8 months	5 years
Personal rating of English ability on a scale of 1 to 5 (1=very poor, 5=very good)	2	3
Most difficult English sounds believed to produce	p, ch, th	b, f, p, v, z

Figure 3: Description of the participants involved in this research

Procedures

Bashir was given the opportunity to read 29 different flash cards (see Appendix A) containing short, common English words, then Bashir was asked to read the same flash cards again, but this time was recorded.

The tape recording was listened to carefully and the pronunciation problems were carefully recorded onto paper.

Hanna was given the “Diagnostic Passage” (see Appendix B) to read and a picture (see Appendix C) to describe in her own words. At the same time she was tape recorded. After that the tape recording was listened to carefully and the English pronunciation problems were recorded carefully onto paper.

DATA ANALYSIS/RESULTS

BASHIR’S WORD PRONUNCIATION INVENTORY

 

Sample words	Should be	Heard
good	/gʊd/	/gʊd/ vowel is longer
live	/lɪv/ or /layv/	/lɪv/
get	/gɛt/	/gʌt/
jump	/dʒʌmp/	/dʒʌm/
cell	/sɛl/	/kal/
queen	/kwiyn/	/kwiyn/ vowel is extra long
cat	/kæt/	/kʌt/
out	/awt/	/awt/
help	/hɛlp/	/həlp/
think	/θɪnk/	/θɪnk/ ɪ=little longer
the	/ðə/	/ðaw/
end	/ɛnd/	/ænd/
egg	/ɛg/	/æg/
up	/ʌp/	/æb/
bed	/bɛd/	/bæd/
back	/bæk/	/bæk/
With	/wɪθ/	/wɪθ/
Them	/ðɛm/	/ðɛm/
Thin	/θɪn/	/ðɪn/
What	/wʌt/	/wʌt/
Rose	/rowz/	/rowz/ trill r
Ruler	/ruwlər/	/rowlər/
Vase	/veys/	/fæs/
Very	/vəriy/	/væriy/ also trill r
Zoo	/zuw/	/zuw/
Please	/pliyz/	/blɪs/
Put	/pʊt/	/bʌt/
Rod	/rad/	/rad/ trill r
Hi	/hay/	/hay/

 

Figure 5: Results of Bashir’s word pronunciations

 

 

 

BASHIR’S INDIVIDUAL SOUNDS PRONUNCIATION INVENTORY

 

	Bashir
Vowels(times used)
ʌ=3	ʌ=ʌ (2), ʌ=æ(1)
ɛ=7	ɛ= ɛ(1), ɛ=ʌ (1), ɛ=a(1), ɛ=ə(1), ɛ=æ(3)
a=1	a=a(1)
ɪ=4	ɪ= ɪ(3), ɪ=little longer(1)
ʊ=2	ʊ=ʊ but longer vowel stress(1), ʊ=ʌ (1)
ə=3	ə=ə(1), ə=aw(1), ə=æ(1)
æ=2	æ=æ(1), æ=ʌ (1)
ey=1	ey=æ(1)
ow=1	ow=ow(1)
aw=1	aw=aw(1)
ay=1	ay=ay(1)
iy=3	iy=iy(2), iy=iy extra long stress(1)
uw=2	uw=uw(1), uw=ow(1)
Consonants(times used)
b=2	b=b(2)
d=4	d=d(4)
dʒ=1	dʒ=dʒ(1)
g=3	g=g(3)
h=2	h=h(2)
k=4	k=k(4)
l=5	l=l(5)
m=2	m=m(2)
n=4	n=n(4)
p=5	p=p(1), p=b(3), p=no sound(1)
r=5	r=r(2), r=trill r(3)
s=2	s=s(1), s=k(1)
t=5	t=t(5)
th (voiced)=2	ð=ð(2)
th (unvoiced)=3	θ=θ(2), θ= ð(1)
v=3	v=v(2), v=f(1)
w=3	w=w(3)
z=3	z=z(2), z=s(1)

Figure 6: Results of Bashir’s individual sounds of English pronunciation

 

HANNA’S PRONUNCIATION INVENTORY

(a) When a student from another country comes to study in the United States, he has to /kɛntriy/ /kʌm/ /steyt/ find the answers to many questions, and he has many problems to think about. (b) Where /ænsər/ /brabləmz/ should he live? (c) Would it be better if he looked for a private room off campus or if he /brayvət/ stayed in a dormitory? (d) Should he spend all of his time just studying? (e) Shouldn’t he /dormətriy/ try to take advantage of the many social and cultural activities which are offered? (f) At   first it is not easy for him to be casual in dress, informal in manner, and confident in   speech. (g) Little by little he learns what kind of clothing is usually worn here to be   casually dressed for classes. (h) He also learns to choose the language and customs which /klæs/ /kʌstəm/ are appropriate for informal situations. (i) Finally he begins to feel sure of himself. (j) /əbrowbriyət/ But let me tell you, my friend, this long-awaited feeling doesn’t develop suddenly—does   it? (k) All of this takes practice. /bræktɪs/

Figure 7: Results of Hanna’s English pronunciation inventory

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HANNA’S PRONUNCIATION INVENTORY ANALYSIS

 

Intonation	Should be	Heard
Rising intonation (2)	(d) Should he spend all of his time just studying?	(d) Should he spend all of his time just studying?
	(e) Shouldn’t he try to take advantage of the many social and cultural activities which are offered?	(e) Shouldn’t he try to take advantage of the many social and cultural activities which are offered?
Vowel substitutions	Sample words
ʌ à ɛ	country
Omission of vowel	Should be	Heard
/o/	/dormətoriy/	/dormətriy/
Consonant substitutions	Sample words
p à b	problems, private, appropriate, practice

Figure 8: Results of Hanna’s English pronunciation analysis

DISCUSSION

ENGLISH CONSONANT CHART

		bilabial	labiodental	interdental	alveolar	alveopalatal	velar
Nasals		m			n		ŋ
Retroflex					r
Lateral					l
semi-vowels		w				y	w

Figure 9: Description of English consonants (Avery & Ehrlich, 1992)

 

One can see by looking at the consonant chart above (Figure 9) why Bashir and Hanna have problems with the consonants /p/, /v/, and /z/, and why they replace them with the consonants /b/, /f/, and /s/. The /p/ sound is a voiceless bilabial stop making the /b/, a voiced bilabial stop, the closest sound already used by the Somali language. In contrast to the voiceless characteristic of the /p/ sound, the /v/ and /z/ sounds are both voiced, but again, it is easy to explain why Bashir and Hanna would substitute the /f/ sound and /s/ sound; being that the Somali language contains the voiceless labiodental fricative and the voiceless alveolar fricative, which are the closest to their voiced counter parts.

Interestingly, Bashir and Hanna do not seem to have many problems producing the voiced and voiceless /th/ sounds. This may be that the sounds are so new to the native Somali speakers that within their mind there is nothing to confuse with a similar sound. There is no previous information for the Somali speakers to associate their tongue placement or mouth formation, making the whole experience of producing the voiced and voiceless /th/ sound entirely new and much easier for them to hear as compared with the other consonant sounds that are contained within the Somali language, but in either a voiced or voicelss form (/p-b/, /v-f/, /z-s/).

The trilled /r/ sound is often used in the Somali language and seems to be a much stronger version than the trilled /r/ sound that one often hears in the Spanish language. Because of the strength of this sound, major word pronunciation problems can often be traced back to it as a root cause. Bashir and Hanna were no different then most native Somali speakers in that the most over powering sound heard while listening to them speak was the trilled /r/ sound. The native Somali speakers must make a conscience effort not to trill the /r/ when producing the phonetic in speech.

Once again, the vowel sounds that the Somali language does not produce include /ʌ/ (up), /æ/ (at) and /ɛ/ (end). Based on the data above, Bashir does not seem to have any problems producing the individual sounds, but only with the knowledge of where a particular sound needs to be produced both within a given word and within the mouth. By looking at the chart below (Figure 10) one can see that /ʌ/ (up), /æ/ (at) and /ɛ/ (end) sounds are all produced in a somewhat similar region of the mouth. The /æ/ sound is a low front lax vowel. The /ɛ/ sound is a mid front lax vowel and the /ʌ/ sound is a mid central lax vowel. One can also see that all three vowels are known as lax vowels, both the fact that the sounds are made in a similar region of the mouth and are all lax vowels could dictate that Bashir believes all three sounds are almost indistinguishable from one another and therefore, selects the sound that comes naturally to him when saying the word that contains either an /æ/, /ɛ/, or /ʌ/ sound.

ENGLISH VOWEL CHART

		front (unrounded)	central (unrounded)	back (rounded)
low	lax	æ (at)	a (pot)

 

Figure 10: Description of English vowels (Avery & Ehrlich, 1992)

 

Based on the information above it is clear that both Bashir and Hanna have trouble producing the sounds /p/, /v/, /z/, and /r/ because the Somali language contains a voiceless, voiced or trilled (in the case of /r/) counterpart. Bashir and Hanna do not have trouble producing the voiced and voiceless /th/ sounds because the Somali language contains nothing similar to the /th/ sound allowing them to hear the phonetics. The foreign vowel sounds of /æ/, /ɛ/, and /ʌ/ are all clearly producible by Bashir, although one can not distinguish whether he is consciously using one of the three sounds in a particular spot or just using a lax vowel from the same proximity that feels natural to him.

Within the words “good” and “queen” it was obvious that Bashir placed more emphasis on the double vowel sounds, this could be that in the Somali language whenever there are two of the same vowels together the sound is pronounced longer.

It can be seen from the data that Hanna had relatively few problems with English stress and intonation. She only made two intonation errors and both of them can be easily explained. In both Hanna’s errors she believed the questions were “Wh-questions,” ending with a rising/falling intonation pattern, but in reality she should have used a rising intonation to express doubt. Hanna’s English is native like in almost all aspects, with the primary exceptions of the /p/, /v/, and /r/ sounds.

The Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis states that language learners will struggle with aspects of their second language that are not included in their first language (Christian et al., 2006). It is obvious that in the case of the native Somali speakers who were interviewed for this research project that the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis needs to be adjusted. A much better hypothesis in this case would be: the native Somali speakers will struggle to produce consonant sounds which contain multiple similarities to different sounds with which they are already familiar and will not have a relatively difficult time producing consonant sounds that have no similarity to their native tongue; the native Somali speaker will also be able to produce vowel sounds with relatively little difficulty that have few similarities with their native tongue, but will have trouble distinguishing the difference between those vowels.

It is obvious that more research in this area needs to be done, especially within the area of English stress and intonation, because Hanna was clearly very advanced in her English ability, before one can draw final conclusions relating to the affect that the Somali language has on English language learners.

CONCLUSION

The phonetics of the Somali language have been discussed and compared to the phonetics of the English language.

It is clear that native speakers of Somali will have problems producing some sounds in English that are not found in their native tongue. It is also clear that Somali speakers have no problems producing some sounds in English that are not found in their native tongue. The Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis states that the native Somali speakers will have significant problems producing the consonant sounds /p/, /v/, /z/, voiced /th/, unvoiced /th/ and /r/ (without a trill) and have equal difficulty producing the vowel sounds /æ/, /ɛ/, and /u/. It has been found that the native Somali speaker has problems producing the /p/, /v/, /z/, and /r/ (without a trill) sounds, but that the native speaker has relatively little difficulty producing the consonant sounds, voiced /th/ and unvoiced /th/, and all the vowel sounds. Meaning that in this instance the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis is only partially correct.

This study needs to be done on a much larger scale including a number of participants who have studied English from one to four years. More data needs to be obtained pertaining to the phonetics of the Somali language and the stress and intonation of the Somali language in order to give the researcher a clearer picture of the native tongue. The data provided in this study can only give the reader a glimpse of what the larger Somali population might produce when learning English.

 

REFERENCES

Avery, P. & Ehrlich, S. (1992). Teaching American English pronunciation. New York:

 

Oxford University Press.

 

Christian, D., Genesee, F., Lindholm-Leary, K., & Saunders, W., (Eds.). (2006).

 

Educating English language learners: A synthesis of research evidence. New

 

York: Cambridge University Press.

 

Farid, M. (2004). Accommodating and educating Somali students in Minnesota schools:

A handbook for teacher and administrators. Saint Paul: Hamline University Press.

Putman, D. & Noor, M. (1999). The Somalis: Their history and culture. The Refugee

Service Center: Washington, DC.

 

Somali-English picture dictionary. Saint Paul: Office of Instructional Services.

 

APPENDIX A

Good	Live	Get
Jump	Cell	Queen
Cat	Out	Help
Think	The	End
Egg	Up	Bed
Back	With	Them
Thin	What	Rose
Ruler	Vase	Very
Zoo	Please	Put
Rod	Hi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

APPENDIX B

(a) When a student from another country comes to study in the United States, he has to

find the answers to many questions, and he has many problems to think about. (b) Where

should he live? (c) Would it be better if he looked for a private room off campus or if he

stayed in a dormitory? (d) Should he spend all of his time just studying? (e) Shouldn’t he

try to take advantage of the many social and cultural activities which are offered? (f) At

first it is not easy for him to be casual in dress, informal in manner, and confident in

speech. (g) Little by little he learns what kind of clothing is usually worn here to be

casually dressed for classes. (h) He also learns to choose the language and customs which are appropriate for informal situations. (i) Finally he begins to feel sure of himself. (j) But let me tell you, my friend, this long-awaited feeling doesn’t develop suddenly—does it? (k) All of this takes practice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

APPENDIX C