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Data Analysis of Two Non-Native Speakers: Written and Oral

Summarization of a Movie

Research Question: When summarizing a movie, will non-native speakers (NNS) use
grammatical verb tenses accurately, or will there be mistakes and errors?
Hypothesis: NNS cannot consistently/accurately use grammatical verb tenses when
summarizing a movie.
Introduction
This dataset provided two accounts for each NNS of English. These two learners
were native speakers of Arabic and Italian, and were at an intermediate proficiency level.
The participants were asked to summarize what they could remember from the movie
Little Man, Big City orally and in a written report. Through analyzing all four data
responses one systematic error was found in every account. There was inconsistent use of
past tense verb forms regardless of whether the participants were orally giving the report
or writing it down. The misuse of past tense and simple present tense verb forms occurred
even within sentences in the learners oral reports. The use of present participle vs. the
infinitive was another factor that varied between production activities. In all four accounts
there are possible explanations for the learners inability to maintain contextual
temporality, and this reasoning will be discussed in detail below.
Analysis
When coding the dataset I decided to highlight all the present tense verbs in yellow,
all the past tense verbs in green, the present participles in blue, and the infinitive verbs in
orange. I chose to highlight each verb produced to determine how often both learners used
past tense, which is typically used for when summarizing and what other forms they used.
Common errors found in this data dealt with irregular verb in the past tense such as
go-went or transitioning from summarizing to explaining their summaries. In analyzing the
data, close attention was directed towards the different verb tenses used in oral production
and how they varied from those used in the written reports. I began by looking through the
data for the correct use of past tense, moved on to the present tense, and then to the
present participles and infinitives since these were less frequent.
Analysis of Learner 1 (Arabic Speaker)
Oral Report
In Learner 1s oral report of the film, he began by using past tense irregular verbs
such as the movie began, he woke up, he found, he went, and regular past verbs such
as he wanted and he opened. Learner 1 used the past tense when explicitly referring to
the movie, as in the sentence, the movie also showed that the man not only disturbed in
his special apartment or special house, but in everything, in work, in street, in
transportation, even in the gardens and seashores. The next sentence Learner 1 switches
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to the present perfect, Man in the city has to wake up very early to go to the work and he
has to as the movie shows, he has to use any means of transportation, car, bus, bicycle, and
all the streets are crowded, and he has no no choice or alternatively to use and he is busy
day and night. Until this point, Learner 1s oral report used past tense but this sentence
transitions to the present perfect, which indicates a shift in time (Larsen-Freeman &
Celce-Murcia, 2016, p. 165). This shift may be explained as the learner using the concept of
a generic tense, which can be used to provide background information when narrating or
making side notes/comments on the scenario being recalled. It could also be explained as
signaling a turn of events or indicate the story is being told from a different perspective.
For example, in this oral report, Learner 1 goes from telling an overview of the movie, to a
description of the main characters actions, thus switching from the past to the present
perfect.
The verbs to have and to be are two of the most commonly used irregular verbs in
English, and are first typically learned in the present tense. While Learner 1 is able to
produce less commonly used verbs in the simple past (e.g. disagreed), Learner 1
systematically used to have and to be in the present perfect, which can replace of simple
past and maintain the present axis (i.e. present perfect, simple present, and future of the
present). The variability could also be affected by the task type since many NNS get anxious
about speaking. In this sentence, the learner began to delete articles and use repetition he
has to as the movie shows, he has to use he has no no choice, this could be an
indication that the learner is struggling with some performance anxiety causing hesitation
and errors. The oral report also included more detail than the written report, which
suggests that Learner 1 might have been circuitously summarizing out of nerves.
Written Report
report, Learner 1 showed systematic usage of the verb to be in the
In the written
present tense as well as incorporating the present participle with the infinitive to go. The
movie showed the daily life of a man in the city. He is very busy day and night. He had to go
to his work early by any means of transportation, car, bus, bicycle. The streets are crowded,
everything in the city is crowded Learner 1 used the past tense of the verb to have in this
section of the written report, therefore incorporating the past participle but not

conjugating the following verb into the past tense. The consistent use of the verb to be in
the present tense, in both the oral and written report, may be an indication of fossilization
or systematic variation since it occurs in two different contexts. This pattern could also be
caused Learner 1 demonstrates the acquisition of a range of irregular and regular verbs in
the simple past, but has not consistently acquired the verb to be in the simple past form.
Analysis of Learner 2 (Italian Speaker)
Oral Report
Learner 2 contrasts with Learner 1 in a several ways. Learner 2 used the present
tense in the oral report 8 times, and the simple past tense 7 times. The oral report included
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additional details not in the written report, such as and from a very common description
of life of modern life, of our pressure, of our stress, of our anxieties and of all the um
possible uh limits and uh rules we have to.. In the written report this sentences
equivalent was the author of the story tell us about general very common problems of a
modern city, where "civilization," industrialization and the consequent need for more
apartment buildings, have brought to serious damages to the environment. The added
details (e.g. pressure, stress, and anxiety), the repetition, and the tense variability between
the infinitive, simple present, and simple past, may indicate Learner 2 has more of an
affective filter regarding speaking and cannot maintain temporality like he can when
writing. An affective filter is associated with negative feelings a learner might have
regarding oral production such as anxiety, self-doubt, or lack of motivation (Akmajian,
Demers, Farmer, & Harnish, 2010, p. 402).
Written Report
Learner 2s written report was entirely in the simple present and present
progressive tenses, except for the introduction sentence of The film dealt mainly with.
This could be a sign of avoidance of the written past tense forms since it is clear that the
learner knows how to use it orally. Maintaining the use of one tense throughout a whole
narrative can be seen in many language learners narratives, since the English tense system
is usually taught one tense/aspect at a time, even though it is common for native English
speakers to switch between tenses in one piece of discourse. While Learner 2s written
report does not use past tense to summarize the movie, the oral report includes variability
between past and present tense, as well as a few agreement issues, such as he wakes up
and go to work. This could be caused by Learner 2s native language having a different
system for when and how verb tense markings are used (Larsen-Freeman & Celce-Murcia,
2016, p. 161).
Results and Discussion
Free variation is the first stage of linguistic competence when the language user
does not yet understand the different functions and purposes for each of these forms and
uses them sporadically. Next is systematic variation that occurs when a learner only makes
errors in a particular context and involves items that correspond in meaning and form, but
are being used interchangeably (Ellis, 2015, p. 23). As the learner progresses through
developing their syntactical knowledge and grasp of verb tenses they will eventually reach
the final stage where all the categories for verb tenses have become established and are
produced successfully. Systematic variation can be influenced by a number of factors,
including stress and anxiety. Since these participants were asked to summarize a movie
orally in English this could be categorized as a stress-inducing situation. Both learners
resorted to using the infinitive forms of verbs in their oral reports, possibly due to a lack of
confidence in their ability to conjugate the verbs correctly. When learning a new language
the form associated with the words translation is usually its infinitive or base form. So in a
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stressful situation when trying to recall details, a NNS may resort to the infinitive form
when they are focused on remembering and describing content.
Through close analysis of these four passages produced by native speakers of Italian
and Arabic, it is apparent that both learners have not acquired the language ability to
accurately use and transition between various tenses when referring to previous
knowledge. Outside factors, such as the task context and the individuals personality, may
affect how students learn and can be responsible for individual variation in the acquisition
outcomes. It appears that Learner 2s interlanguage is much more variable in the oral
report than in the written report, and this may be related to comprehensible knowledge of
the tenses in his approach to both reports. Some learners have more anxiety when
performing orally rather than writing, which can manifest itself in misuse of tense.
However, in the context of writing, Learner 2 consistently produced the present tense form,
but the tense varied between present and past in the oral report, which supports the theory
of systematic variation. Since we have two contexts in this study, written and oral, we can
see that Learner 1 only maintains temporality in the written report, but struggles with
consistency in the oral report resorting to the infinitive. Learner 2, who shows the same
variation in both contexts indicates free variation, which is less consistent than systematic
variation and is found early on in the process of understanding the English tense system. It
also appears that Learner 2 has not yet acquired the past tense of the verb to be.
Anxiety may influence a learners performance in particular situation. With this data
it appears that Learner 2 may have a form of anxiety due to the mistakes and hesitations in
his oral report. Since the learner demonstrates the capacity to formulate cohesive
sentences in the written report, one cause for the mistakes in his oral report may be trait
anxiety, which is when a learner is generally anxious and this is a part of their personality.
Another option would be state anxiety, which involves a specific situation, or in this case
when a learner must discuss a specific subject, such as giving a summarization of a movie
when they may not remember much. Data would have to be collected and analyzed in
further contexts to determine the causes behind Learner 2s anxiety.
Conclusion and Implications
In conclusion, both learners were unable to use and transition between verb tenses
accurately in summarizing a movie in written and oral reports. This is in accordance with
the hypothesis and answers the research question pertaining to this dataset. Both learners
had somewhat of an understanding of English tenses, but further attention and instruction
is needed to solidify when and how these tenses should be used. Incorporating short
paragraph writing exercises in class and having students read their work out loud, are
activities that may improve learners verb agreement understanding and oral skills. Also,
having assignments where students must find conjugation mistakes in passages gives
direct attention to proper tense usage as well as goes over verb tense rules explicitly so
students are conscious of what they are learning and may ask clarification questions.
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References
Akmajian, Adrian, Richard A. Demers, Ann K. Farmer, and Robert M. Harnish. Linguistics: An
introduction to language and communication (6th ed.). MIT press, 2010.
Celce-Murcia, M. & Larsen-Freeman, D. (2016). The Grammar Book 3rd edition. Boston, MA:
Heinle Cengage Learning.
Ellis, R. (2015). Understanding Second Language Acquisition 2nd Edition-Oxford Applied
Linguistics. Oxford university press.