English Language Training Unit

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Acquisition of English Prepositions by the ESL Learners of Sri Lanka
(the International Conference on Postcolonial Societies in Transition, 2015) Jayasinghe, R.R.
Sri Lanka inherited English Language from its last colonizers, the British and a positive interest was taken by British in teaching English for the Sinhala speaking students since then. Today, in postcolonial era, formal teaching of English as a second language (ESL) is introduced in government schools from Grade 3 onwards. Teachers of English in Sri Lanka are well aware that English prepositions are one of the most difficult areas for them to teach ESL students. Moreover, Thilakaratne 1992 shows that in English, prepositions are words, while in Sinhala they are represented as spatial postpositions or suffixes (locative, ablative Case) and create learning difficulties for ESL learner. The study examines the acquisition of prepositions by Sinhala speaking learners of English with respect to the four fine-grained categories of prepositions, where the evidence for the existence has been found by Littlefield (2006) through first language acquisition using five English speaking children (aged 1;2-2;3). The present study aims to validate or disprove this type of fine-grained approach to preposition on the basis of Sinhala speaking ESL learners’ responses in a dictation task. A total number of 65 Sinhala students from Grade 4 from two government schools will be examined for the test and a sentence battery of 40 sentences with10 sentences each for adverbs, semi-lexical prepositions, and functional prepositions will be used in the dictation task. Elicited imitation method is used to collect data and will be analysed statistically by using SPSS. Based on the findings, the order of acquisition of prepositions in comprehension would be detected, and this order could be suggested as a user friendly guideline to teach English prepositions in the ESL class-room.
Acquisition of English prepositions by ESL learners in Sri Lanka: A comparison between Grade 4 and Grade 6 of Government schools
(Annual Research Symposium conducted by the National Centre for Advanced Studies in Humanities & Social Sciences Sri Lanka, 2015) Jayasinghe, R.R.
Research and simple observation indicate that English prepositions are a problem for learners at every level of proficiency (Cowan, 2008). Littlefield (2006) has investigated the existence of four fine-grained categories of prepositions in the domain of prepositions by analyzing first language acquisition of five children (aged 1;2-2;3) using naturalistic speech data as follows: (1) Adverbial prepositions [+ Lexical, -Functional], (2) Semi-lexical prepositions [+Lexical, +Functional], (3) Particles [-Lexical, - Functional], (4) Functional Prepositions [- Lexical, + Functional] Littlefield considered as [+Lexical] those that contribute semantic content, and as [+Functional] those that are able to check the Case of their complements.The overall objective of the study was to validate the existence of these fine-grained categories of the domain of English prepositions by using ESL learners in Grade 4 (aged 9- 9;11) and Grade 6 ( 11- 11;11) of two government schools in Sri Lanka and to compare the order of acquisition of English prepositions in Grade 4 with Grade 6. A dictation task was administered to 65 students from each Grade in two schools. Ten sentences each with each category of preposition were recorded, played to the students and requested them to write them down. The findings were quantified and analyzed using SPSS. . The findings of the study validated Littlefield’s 2006 study that there are four categories of prepositions in the domain of English prepositions. The results showed that in both grades there is a significant difference in the acquisition of adverbial prepositions with particles and functional prepositions. There is no significant difference between the other categories of prepositions in both grades. The findings also showed that the order of the acquisition of English prepositions in Grade 4 and Grade 6 were similar and the sentences with [+Lexical] prepositions are imitated better than the sentences with [-Lexical] categories. The observations conclude that the existence of four fine-grained categories of preposition is validated by ESL learners of both Grade 4 and Grade 6. Both Grades showed the same order of acquisition of English prepositions and it differs from the native speakers’ order. The order of acquisition of English prepositions, found in this study is recommended to the teachers of English to use at the ESL classroom to facilitate teaching English prepositions in schools effectively.
Acquisition of Prepositions by ESL Learners through Dictation Tasks
(KALYANI Journal of the University of Kelaniya, 2018) Jayasinghe, R.R.
The study examines the acquisition of English prepositions by Sinhala speaking learners of English with respect to four fine-grained categories of prepositions found by Littlefield (2006) using first language acquisition of English speaking children. The acquisition order of these four categories found by Littlefield: adverbial prepositions [+Lexical, -Functional] , particles [-Lexical, -Functional] , semi-lexical prepositions [+Lexical, +Functional] , and functional prepositions [¬Lexical, +Functional] , showed an advantage of [-Functional] features over the [+ Functional] features. One of the aims of the study was to find out whether this ranking was good for learners of English as a Second Language (ESL) in tasks that tap comprehension knowledge (dictation task). The second aim was to see whether at initial stages of learning, there was an advantage of either [+Lexical] features or [-Functional] features, which disappeared at later stages of learning. 316 Sinhala speaking learners of English studying in Grades 4, 6, 8 and 10 answered a dictation task with 40 sentences, 10 each with adverbial prepositions, semi-lexical prepositions, particles and functional prepositions. Sentence length and structure was controlled and sentences differed only in the category of preposition used in them. The main findings of this task were as follows: (1) ESL learners imitated the four categories of prepositions differently in the dictation task. (2) [+Lexial] prepositions were better imitated than [-Lexical] prepositions initially, and this 'lexical' advantage disappeared in Grade 10 with all categories being used with comparable accuracy. These findings are recommended to be used in the ESL classroom to facilitate teaching prepositions
A comparison between the acquisition of phrasal verbs and spatial prepositions by Sinhala speaking ESL learners
(8th Research Conference, the Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka, 2015) Jayasinghe, R.R.
The phrasal verbs are phrases which consist of a verb in combination with a preposition. They are not only used in spoken and informal English, but also in written and even formal English. According to Fraser 1965, 1976; Bolinger 1971, the prepositions in phrasal verbs trigger an aspectual or idiomatic meaning as follows: (1) The small girl ate up the biscuits (aspectual-finished sense). (2) Women drink skim milk to shape up their bodies (idiomatic). Here up gives an unpredictable meaning and the meaning of shape up cannot be gathered by adding the meanings of the two words: shape and up Spatial prepositions show the spatial relation between two entities, for example, The box is under the bed or the path of movement of one object with respect to another entity, for example, The man swam across the river. The study examines the acquisition of phrasal verbs and spatial prepositions of Sinhala speaking ESL learners in Grade 4 and Grade 6 by using elicited imitation data. The study aims to investigate which category of these prepositions should be introduced first in the ESL class-room through listening comprehension tasks. A dictation task will be administered for about 60 students from each grade from two schools in Colombo. A sentence battery containing 10 sentences each with phrasal verbs and spatial prepositions will be used in this study. Students will be instructed to listen to these 20 sentences carefully and write them in the given answer sheets. Elicitated imitation data will be collected, and quantitative statistical analysis will be applied using SPSS to examine whether there is a significant difference between the acquisition of two categories of preposition within and across the grades. The findings would be used to make necessary suggestions for teaching phrasal verbs and spatial prepositions for Sinhala students. If the acquisition of one of these two categories of preposition shows an advantage over the other, that particular category must be introduced earlier than the other in the ESL class -room.
Error Analysis on Prepositions Used by the Learners of English as a Second Language in Writing
(International Journal of Social Science and Technology, 2018-06) Jayasinghe, R.R.
This study examines omission errors, substitution errors and addition errors in the usage of prepositions by the learners of English as a Second Language (ESL) in writing tasks. The main purpose of the study Is 10 investigate: whether the school children in lower grades tend to omit prepositions more often than in highs? grades whereas in higher grades, they show more substitution and addition errors. A pool of 260 Sinhala speaking students from four grades (Grade 4, Grade 6, Grade 8 and Grade 10) participated in this study, picture story writing task where prepositions needed to be abundantly used was administered, and errors the use of prepositions were analysed. The main findings concluded; although more omission errors were found in the lower grades significantly, the increase in substitution errors towards higher grades is not w sharp. These findings can be used in the ESL classroom to facilitate teaching English prepositions.