SLA - Analysis of Veronica's Story

Question 4: 

Give your subjects’ use of third person singular –s, what generalizations can you ake about other Korean Learners at your subjects proficiency level? What teaching approach / method / technique could you use to teach the third person singular –s.

Answer to question 4:

Veronica only used the third person singular sparingly throughout the transcript. Twice correctly, and once incorrectly by my count. 

e.g. 

S: She looks quite angry

S: Everyone looks like worried about her. (correct if you ignore the use of
'like' to aid description throughout the transcript)

S: And now she feel, how-do-you-say-like, scared.

Otherwise, she uses the present continuous almost exclusively to tell the story.

e.g:        S: She is locking the door.

                S: So Lilly is playing, like with the cat.

                S: She’s trying to get out.

                S: Yeah, so they’re saving now.

               

Most of my students at all age levels have problems with using the third person singular s. On reflection (I just did 80 speaking tests this past Monday and Tuesday) most of my younger learners drop the subject of their sentence and answer with a modified present continuous sentence.

e.g. I show the students a picture of a boy in a field with a soccer ball.

T: What can you tell me about this picture?

S1: Is playing.

S2: Is playing soccerball.

S3: Is soccering.

This modified present continuous form seems to be an easy fallback position through which most students can express themselves. With Koreans not often using subjects  in Hangul, it is easy to see that L1 influence creeping in.

A technique I could use to promote correct 3^rd person usage, would be to have the students take turns telling a story sentence by sentence. They would only be allowed to use the third person singular, and I would constantly remind them to try and visualize the protagonist as we advanced through the story.