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The Written Production of Ecuadorian Efl DEPARTAMENTO DE FILOLOGÍA INGLESA Y ALEMANA, TRADUCCIÓN E INTERPRETACIÓN THE WRITTEN PRODUCTION OF ECUADORIAN EFL HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS: GRAMMATICAL TRANSFER ERRORS AND TEACHERS’ AND LEARNERS’ PERCEPTION OF FEEDBACK Author: Paúl Fernando González Torres Supervisor: María del Pilar García Mayo Vitoria-Gasteiz, September, 2018 (cc)2018 PAUL FERNANDO GONZALEZ TORRES (cc by-sa 4.0) Acknowledgments To my parents, Tito and Yeni: because I owe it all to you. Many thanks! I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my advisor Prof. María del Pilar García Mayo for her continuous support of my Ph.D study and related research, for her patience and knowledge. Her guidance has helped me during all the time this research has taken and during the writing of this thesis. Besides my advisor, I would like to thank the people at Michigan State University (MSU), especially Dr. Charlene Polio, who guided me during my stay at that university. My sincere thanks also goes to all the people at the Universidad del País Vasco (UPV/EHU) who provided me with the opportunity to be a student in the Doctoral Programme in Language Acquisition in Multilingual Settings. I am also grateful to the people at Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja (UTPL), my other family members and friends who have supported me along the way. Thanks for all your encouragement! ii The Written Production of Ecuadorian EFL High School Students: Grammatical Transfer Errors and Teachers’ and Learners’ Perception of Feedback. Table of Contents Table of Contents ......................................................................................................... iii Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 1 Part I: Literature Review .................................................................................................. 9 Chapter 1: Writing Skills in ESL/EFL Environments .................................................... 12 1.1 Importance of writing skills .................................................................................. 12 1.2 Teaching writing skills in ESL/EFL environments .............................................. 14 Chapter 2: Language Transfer Errors ............................................................................. 19 2.1 Language transfer ................................................................................................. 19 2.2 Interlanguage: An overview .................................................................................. 23 2.3 Errors and mistakes ............................................................................................... 26 2.4 Error taxonomies ................................................................................................... 28 2.5 Sources of errors ................................................................................................... 35 Chapter 3: Methods of Analysis and Identification of Errors in L2 Writing ................. 46 3.1 Contrastive analysis .............................................................................................. 46 3.2 Error analysis ........................................................................................................ 51 3.3 Obligatory occasion analysis ................................................................................ 57 3.4 Other forms of identifying and analyzing errors .................................................. 66 Chapter 4: Previous Work on Language Transfer in Writing Skills .............................. 69 4.1 Language transfer in ESL contexts ....................................................................... 69 4.2 Language transfer in EFL contexts ....................................................................... 73 4.3 Influence of L2 proficiency on language transfer in writing ................................ 77 4.4 Influence of the type of writing task on language transfer ................................... 81 4.5 Gaps found in previous studies ............................................................................. 87 Chapter 5: Common Grammatical Transfer Errors Made by L1 Spanish-speaking EFL Learners .......................................................................................................................... 91 5.1 Grammatical transfer errors in the use of definite articles .................................... 93 5.2 Grammatical transfer errors in the use of nouns ................................................... 95 5.3 Grammatical transfer errors in the use of verbs .................................................... 96 iii 5.4 Errors in the use of pronouns ................................................................................ 98 5.5 Errors in the use of prepositions ......................................................................... 100 5.6 Other types of grammatical errors ...................................................................... 103 Chapter 6: Feedback on L2 Writing ............................................................................. 108 6.1 Feedback: An overview ...................................................................................... 108 6.2 Feedback strategies ............................................................................................. 109 6.3 Teacher feedback on L2 student writing ............................................................. 114 6.4 Research on the effectiveness of feedback ......................................................... 118 6.5 Perceptions on feedback ..................................................................................... 124 6.6 Summary of Part I ............................................................................................... 131 Part II: The Present Study ............................................................................................. 134 Chapter 7: The Study .................................................................................................... 134 7.1 The EFL context in Ecuador ............................................................................... 136 7.2 Rationale to carry out the study .......................................................................... 142 7.3 Research questions and hypotheses .................................................................... 144 7.3.1 First research question and hypothesis ......................................................... 144 7.3.2 Second research question and hypothesis .................................................... 145 7.3.3 Third research question and hypothesis ....................................................... 145 7.3.4 Fourth research question and hypothesis ..................................................... 145 7.4 Method ................................................................................................................ 146 7.4.1 Setting and participants ................................................................................ 146 7.4.2 Materials and procedure ............................................................................... 148 7.4.3 Data coding and analysis .............................................................................. 155 7.5 Summary of the chapter ...................................................................................... 162 Chapter 8: Results on Grammatical Transfer Errors in Writing by Ecuadorian EFL Learners ........................................................................................................................ 163 8.1 First Research question: What grammatical transfer errors are commonly influenced by Spanish in the written production of Ecuadorian EFL senior high school learners and how prevalent are these errors in comparison to lexical transfer errors? ....................................................................................................................... 163 8.1.1 Transfer errors in the use of articles ............................................................. 165 8.1.2 Transfer errors in the use of prepositions ..................................................... 169 8.1.3 Transfer errors in the use of pronouns ......................................................... 175 8.1.4 Transfer errors in the use of verbs (misuse of verbs) ................................... 179 iv 8.1.5 Wrong word order ........................................................................................ 182 8.1.6 Transfer errors in the use of adverbs (misuse of adverbs) ........................... 184 8.1.7 Transfer errors in the use of nouns (misuse of nouns) ................................. 185 8.1.8 Transfer errors in the use of adjectives (misuse of adjectives) .................... 186 8.1.9 Transfer errors in the use of negation (misuse of negation) ......................... 187 8.1.10 Transfer errors in the use of determiners (misuse of determiners) ............ 189 8.1.11 Transfer errors in the use of complementizers (misuse of complementizers) ............................................................................................................................... 190 8.2 Second research question: Will proficiency level in English have an impact on the amount and type of grammatical transfer errors found across three levels (A1, A2, and B1)? ........................................................................................................................... 193 8.3 Third research
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