Writing High-Frequency Words at Early Stages of L2 Acquisition: Gender and School Differences (original) (raw)
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Revista de Investigación Educativa, 2023
Within the field of education, there is controversy as to whether the gender of students and the type of school they attend have an impact on the processes of teaching and learning a second language. The aim of this study is to determine whether these elements might be related to the writing of certain high-frequency words in English, which appear in both the Dolch and Fry lists, in 623 Spanish students aged 8 and 9 years. Based on the SPSS analysis of the errors made by these students, a subsequent and more in-depth study was carried out. For this purpose, the following instruments were used: the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test to identify the significant differences; the Kruskal-Wallis test to compare errors according to schooling (single-sex and co-ed schools); and the Mann-Whitney U-test to compare the errors according to students' gender. The results show that the type of school that students attended influenced the spelling of certain high-frequency words more than their gender. To have a stronger basis for conclusions, further collaboration among EFL teachers in all types of school and a systematic follow-up on the writing of high-frequency words over the course of the following school years would be necessary.
EDULEARN Proceedings
This article reports upon findings drawn from a research project involving undergraduate studentteachers from Villanueva University Centre and a group of third-year primary school students, undertaken from March to December 2017. Learning to write in English is an emerging skill at this age, one which is influenced by various factors: the child's reading and writing skills in their mother tongue and their oral competence in the English language. As a result, a strictly phonetic Spanish orthography conflicts with the irregularity and complexity of English spelling. The aims of the project were to enhance the writing skills in English of third-year primary school students, analyse their most common spelling mistakes, and delve into their origins. With this in mind, a taxonomy of mistakes was elaborated, divided into the five most common errors: letter omission, letter addition, phonetic spelling, L1 interferences and miscellaneous. This taxonomy was applied to 135 children's writings on a sentence level. The results may have promising pedagogical implications. Two more types of errors were discovered: a changed grapheme order and a mistake in compound word separation. We concluded that an incorrect phonetic spelling was the most frequent cause for these types of errors, followed by L1 interferences. Finally, a list of most frequently misspelt words was elaborated.
Spelling errors by Spanish children when writing in English as a foreign language
Reading and Writing
English orthography differs from that of other European languages in terms of complexity and regularity. This difference may impact the development of accurate spelling in English, especially when it is learned as a foreign language in school. In this study we wanted to explore spelling development patterns of Spanish speaking children learning English at school. To do so, we analyzed spelling errors from a free narrative task from 136 children in fourth, fifth and sixth grades. We classified errors following a two-level procedure based on the Triple Word Form theory (Phonology, Orthography and Morphology) and the POMAS (Phonological, Orthographic, and Morphological Assessment of Spelling) system. While results showed almost no change in accuracy across grades, there was evidence of more errors related to orthography as compared to phonology and morphology. This points to an incomplete knowledge of English orthography. This study sheds light on the spelling development of foreign la...
Linguistic Factors and the Spelling Ability of Spanish Heritage Language Learners
Frontiers in Education, 2019
Spelling is an aspect of literacy that causes significant difficulties for Spanish heritage language learners (HLLs). Because little is known about how spelling skills are developed in this population, instructors often struggle when attempting to teach spelling rules, leading to frustration among both teachers and students in heritage language courses (Beaudrie, 2012). The current research study targets one of the most problematic areas of Spanish orthography: substitution of "s" and "c" letters to represent /s/. An experimental dictation task was designed in order to test two linguistic factors hypothesized to impact spelling accuracy: target letter ("s" vs. "c") and cognate status of the word (cognate vs. non-cognate). Participants (n = 72) were young adults, Spanish HL learners, who completed the dictation task in addition to a standardized measure of proficiency. The results indicate a main effect for cognate status (suggesting facilitative transfer from English), but no effect for letter. These results suggest that "s" is not the default letter for representing /s/, contrary to what had been found in a number of previous studies. We discuss the data in the broader context of pedagogical proposals for targeting spelling among college-aged HLLs.
The researchers would like to convey their sincere gratitude to the following individuals for giving them the inspiration and assistance for the completion of this study. To Mrs. Mildred Crisostomo, for guiding and advising them throughout the editing and finalizing of the thesis. To Mr. Robin Dimla, for being their statitistician on the analysis and interpretation of the data. To the panelists and teachers, for encouraging and assisting them to believe and uplift their potentials and abilities. To their beloved families, for supporting and helping them along the course of this venture by giving unconquerable encouragement and providing the moral, financial and emotional support needed to complete their thesis. To the English major Students of DHVTSU, for participating in their collaborative inquiry and for sharing their precious time to answer the questionnaires. To the BSED 4-C, for providing encouragement and suggestions to come up with the thesis topic. Most of all, to the Lord Almighty, for showering His knowledge, ability and courage. The researchers will not be able to create even just a single piece of writing without His approval.
The effect of orthographic complexity on Spanish spelling in Grades 1–3
Reading and Writing, 2018
This study was designed to identify a continuum of orthographic features that characterize Spanish spelling development in Grades 1-3. Two research questions guided this work: (1) Is there a hierarchy of orthographic features that affect students' spelling accuracy in Spanish over and above other school-level, student-level, and word-level factors? and (2) If there is such a hierarchy, do students master these orthographic features in a knowledge-based continuum that supersedes grade placement? The authors used logistic regression modeling to demonstrate that the orthographic features tested in this study represent a developmental hierarchy, moving from sound-based features to context-dependent pattern-based features and finally to meaning-based, or morphological, features. Results showed that the probability of correctly representing specific spelling features decreases as a student moves along the continuum of orthographic knowledge, regardless of the student's spelling ability, although the probability of spelling any given feature correctly is greater for students with higher levels of overall spelling development. The authors controlled for school-, student-and word-level factors other than orthographic features that might affect students' spelling in Spanish (i.e., school placement, student grade level, student gender, word frequency, and word length).