Download 7 Common Mistakes Made by English Learners and Implications for

7 Common Mistakes Made by English Learners
and Implications for Instruction
Mistake: Misuse of “in” and “on”
These prepositions are fairly close in meaning and can be especially
troublesome for Spanish speakers, since there is one word (en) in
Spanish that means both.
Instruction: Give students repeated practice to master the
positional implications of “in” and “on,” e.g. “Is the trash IN the trash can
or ON it?” “Did you lay your paper IN the table or ON the table?”
Teach in/on with time phrases and also with transportation terms (in the
morning, on Christmas Day; in the car, on the train).
Also, teach these prepositions with their collocations, e.g.:
IN my head
ON purpose
just IN case
work ON it
IN the nick of time
ON top of that
IN spite of
take ON a responsibility
For more examples of collocations with “in,” see the website below.
http://www.eslhandouts.com/worksheets/phrases-with-in-collocations-whopper/
Mistake: “Say” vs. “tell” vs. “ask”
“Say” and “tell” are easily confused, since the main difference is the
implication of the word “tell” that another party is involved. An example
of student misuse of these words would be: “She said me that she lost
her book.”
In English we consistently use the word “ask” to indicate a question is
involved, while in other languages a more general word meaning “say”
may be used; this results in mistakes like: “I told the teacher if I could go
to the bathroom.”
Instruction: Teach the implications of each word. “Say” means
some words are spoken, whether anyone is actively listening or not. In
order to indicate that words are spoken to a listener, we have to use the
preposition “to.”
Example: She said to her daughter, “Be quiet!”
“Tell” almost always implies the words are directed at a listener (it has an
indirect object) and does not require the use of the preposition “to.”
“Ask” means a question is spoken.
One possible activity to address mistakes involving these words is a
sentence sort. Provide sentences with blanks where one of the three
words in question should go.
Students can sort them in a chart similar to the following one:
S. Torres, SCS
2012
Say
I ___ that I need more time.
Tell
Chris didn’t ____ his mom
about the broken vase.
Ask
You need to ____ your friend if
he needs help.
Mistake: “Do” vs. “make”
Other languages (Spanish in particular) may have only one word that
means both “do” and “make.” This can be confusing for English learners
and they may interchange the two words, saying things like: “We made a
party for my little brother,” or “Can we do a piñata?”
Instruction: Give explicit instruction with these two words,
pointing out that “make” often involves constructing a product and “do”
involves an action or task. Give many different examples of correct usage
for each. Also, show students idiomatic phrases using these two words.
The following webpage is helpful for ideas for teaching “do” versus
“make”:
http://www.learnenglish.de/grammar/doormake.htm
Mistake: Leaving out auxiliary verbs in questions or negative
statements
Native English speakers know that in order to correctly form a yes/no
question or a negative statement, we must use a form of the word “do” or
“be,” but we do not always follow the rule in conversation (e.g. “You want
to go to the movies?”). English learners do not always learn this rule
implicitly and need direct instruction for it to become part of their
grammar system.
Instruction: Writing questions and negative statements on
sentence strips and cutting them apart for students to put back together
can be a helpful way to practice this skill. Playing something like 20
Questions or having students conduct interviews of classmates is a fun
way to practice writing questions correctly.
Mistake: Saying “waste” instead of “spend”
English learners and in particular native Spanish speakers often
mistakenly use the word “waste” when they mean “spend.” They may talk
about buying an item and say “I wasted twenty dollars at the store.”
Instruction: Teachers must teach students the negative
connotations of the word “waste.” One activity for practice with this
concept would be a sort using pictures or sentences to differentiate
between wasting and spending.
S. Torres, SCS
2012
Mistake: Misuse of “for” to express purpose
Many ESL students mistakenly substitute the word “for” in place of “to”
or “so” when speaking of purpose or cause and effect relationships. The
most prominent example from student speech would be a statement
such as: “Can we get the markers for we can color our pictures?”
Instruction: As usual, explicit grammar instruction is needed.
Using examples in the context of everyday speech or text, point out the
ways each word – to, for, and so – are used.
“To”: used with the infinitive form of verbs; e.g. “We used the ruler to
draw a straight line.”
“For”: used before the –ing form of verbs to tell the purpose of something;
e.g. “You will need a protractor for measuring the angles.”
“So”: used before clauses expressing purpose; e.g. “She had her mom
send a note so she could go home with a friend.” One activity to help with
this mistake is to give several example sentences, correct and incorrect,
and have students find the ones that are wrong and fix them.
Mistake: Incorrect formation of negative statements or questions in
the past tense
Again, the auxiliary verbs throw English learners a curve. In many
languages you simply change the inflection of the verb to indicate past
tense, whether a statement is affirmative, negative, or interrogatory. In
English it is a little more complicated because we have to use auxiliary
verbs AND use the infinitive form of the main verb.
Examples of errors:
“I did not saw her on the bus this morning.”
“I not do” or “I not did my homework.”
“Did you went to your cousin’s house last night?”
“Did he told you he got kicked off the team?”
Instruction: For older students, a formula may be helpful for
forming these sentences correctly:
Negative sentences: subject + did + not + verb in infinitive
Questions: did + subject + verb in infinitive
For younger students, a possible activity is using sentence strips to cut
apart and put back together in the correct order. You could also give
them word cards for several different nouns (subjects) and verbs that
students can switch out to create new sentences.
S. Torres, SCS
2012