Oral Language Analysis

Elizabeth’s behaviors reflect the description of a sequential bilingual. She has been exposed to English growing up and only later in life, starting in 7^th grade, she was exposed to Spanish for the first time. She uses English to communicate with peers and family members, except with her sister with whom she occasionally communicates in Spanish. English is her first language of exposure and communication and it is also her “dominant language.” An analysis of her speaking in both languages suggests that she has good control in both but she is much more fluent in English. This is perhaps a reflection of receiving English only instruction through 7th grade and only Spanish language instruction from 7^th grade until now that she is in 11^th grade.

In Spanish class, during first semester, Elizabeth used to communicate primarily in Spanish but as soon as she had an opportunity to work with a peer, she would try to switch to English. Since second semester, Elizabeth has only been using Spanish in the classroom. I believe this change in her oral communication is due to two reasons: 1. her self-confidence has increased and she is daring to stay 100% in Spanish for the entire class period and 2. my expectation for all my Spanish IV students has changed regarding their oral communication grade.[1] So it is likely that if speaking English was not strongly discouraged and penalized through a lower grade, Elizabeth would likely prefer to communicate in English when working with her peers. Also, if I ran into her in the hallway, she prefers to communicate in her native tongue. However, she understands that Spanish is the appropriate language to use in class.

In Elizabeth’s English sample, I found no examples of code switching or other non-standard linguistic behaviors. As a native English speaker, she grew up speaking English at home and at school with her relatives and her peers. She would likely be classified as a level 7. She is able to express and defend her points of view and can justify her responses. Elizabeth’s discourse shows signs of facility with needed vocabulary. She does not struggle to find the words she needs to communicate her message and can easily use specific and technical vocabulary. She uses idioms and a variety of sentences in varying complexity with ease.

In Elizabeth’s Spanish communication, language blending was not prevalent since Elizabeth is a sequential bilingual. She learned Spanish and English separately and, also, she grew up using English in her household and at school and only using Spanish in Spanish class. Semantic expressions were much more prevalent such as saying “temas” for “teams” instead of “equipos” or “no estoy positiva” when she was thinking of “I am not positive” instead of “no estoy segura.” Elizabeth most frequent errors were related to syntax. Through copying, Elizabeth used words from Spanish with the syntax of English, her dominant language when she said “la ciudad influencia” when she was trying to say “the city’s influence” o “la influencia de la ciudad.” Most of her other syntax errors had to do with subject-verb agreement. Since verb conjugation in English is simple when compared to Spanish’ complex verb endings, Elizabeth frequently missed verb subject agreement. These are a few examples: “mi hermana iban,” “yo ve,” and “nosotros vieron películas.” I also noticed oral approximations in the pronunciation of certain words that are cognates. Elizabeth applied the pronunciation of her dominant language when attempting to pronounce the word “comercial” in Spanish.  Furthermore, I observed a few instances of code switching, when she could not think of the word in Spanish and then she switched right back to Spanish. For instance she said “ella está en el stage” o “yo estaba muy bumped que no tenía más tiempo con ella”. Therefore, primarily her code-switching was tag-switching or intra-sentential to fill in the gaps of missing vocabulary words. Her errors, especially those related to code-switching, semantic expressions and copying make me wonder how often she is thinking in Spanish and how much she is still translating from English to Spanish to be able to communicate her message fully in Spanish.  

Using the Speaking Rubric for WIDA Consortium, Elizabeth’ Spanish language development might be described as a level 3, Developing. She showed examples of simple and expanded oral sentences and her responses showed emerging complexity to add detail. Occasionally, when she attempted to use more complex sentences, she relied on her linguistic resources in English to pull her through. I believe that Elizabeth’s solid base in English and her understanding of discourse in her native tongue facilitates her ability to communicate simple and more complex ideas in Spanish. Regarding Elizabeth’s vocabulary usage in Spanish, her performance in this particular activity ranks her at a level 2. She was mostly secure in high frequency vocabulary related to everyday situations, but she was groping for vocabulary when going beyond the highly For instance, she occasionally needed to search for some infrequent words in English such that are not in her everyday vocabulary in Spanish such as “prom” and “hot tub.” I considered Elizabeth’s language control in Spanish to resemble a level 3, Developing. Her message was certainly comprehensible, though occasionally, when attempting more complex oral discourse, her communication was impeded by groping for language structures or semantic errors. I believe that most semantic errors were due to interference from her first language.

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[1] Students need to earn “pesos” by speaking Spanish in class a minimum of 30 times per quarter to receive an “A” in their oral participation grade which represents 15% of their total quarter grade. Since second semester, every time students use English in the classroom, they lose a “peso” (unless they have asked for permission first or unless after saying something in English, they correct themselves and say the same in Spanish).