CSUSB M.A. in English Composition Comprehensive Examination Sample Responses: TESL mixed examination (On-campus component) The following are passing student responses for the Fall 2006 TESL mixed exam. The mixed exam constitutes one-half of the on-campus component of the comprehensive examination. As you read the questions and student responses below, please keep in mind that: 1) the questions for the TESL mixed exam will be different each quarter that the exam is given. 2) The criteria for passing responses are listed in the "Pass/Fail Grading Rubric" on the M.A. program website <english.csusb.edu/grad>. 3) you may contact the TESL Coordinator, Sunny Hyon (shyon@csusb.edu), if you have questions about why these are considered passing responses. Short Answer Concept Explanation In this section, students were asked to select X number of concepts from a list on the exam and, for each concept they selected, to write a brief paragraph defining the concept and explaining its significance. The following are passing responses for the concepts of face (positive and negative) and "ear learners" vs. "eye learners." Face (positive and negative): The concept of face accompanies the Politeness Principle and indicates the ways in which politeness and threats to politeness operate in discourse. Positive face is the need that people have to be or feel included. Negative face is the need that people have to feel autonomous or be left alone. These two face needs often work in conjunction in discourse. A face-threatening act is an act that puts one of these face needs in jeopardy and therefore is somehow usually mitigated. The concept of positive and negative face therefore provides a reference for the discursive decisions that interlocutors make. Ear learners vs. eye learners : This dichotomy explains a key difference between two types of language learners. Ear learners are typically 1.5 generation students who have had ample 1
practice with spoken English and often even idiomatic usage and cultural references. However, they have a relative lack of exposure to written English. Eye learners, by contrast, are often international students who have a certain mastery of grammar and written English comprehension. However, they do not have as much competence in the domains of speaking or listening due to their lack of exposure to speech. It is important to differentiate between these two types as they have unique needs and abilities that should be addressed in a language-learning environment. Interlanguage Analysis Included below are the directions for this question, following by the student response. The following spoken discourse sample was produced by a female second language learner of English, whom we will call "Leysa" and whose first language is Ukranian. In preparation for writing your essay, identify all of Leysa's errors in the transcript below and the types of errors they are. For example, what errors does she have in tense-aspect? morphology? lexical choice? other aspects of her grammar? To help you do this, you can mark each error on the transcript and make a note about the type of error it is. Then, write a well organized, well developed essay in which you analyze two or three patterns in Leysa's errors and possible sources of these error patterns. You should support your analysis by describing the frequency of the different error patterns that you identified, illustrating the error types with examples from the transcript, and discussing possible sources of the errors. Sample of Leysa's Speech 1. I lived in Ukraine--all my life, ah, and last eighteen months I live in America. 2. Ah, my brother--lived, left, left Ukraine about ten years ago, He was a refugee? 3. Yes, because, ah, when he liv-lived in Ukraine he worked at factory 4. and he, ah, studied at university, but eh, uni-universities um, 5. government um, ex, ex, umm (I forget that word), 6. --kick him from university, because he was, ah, Christian, Christian mmm hmmm 7. You know, don t let people read bible, bibles and ah, 2
8. he couldn't ah continue to study at university, 9. and he got sta-status refugee, and he moved to America. 10. He prepared paperwork, paperworks for my family 11. and eighteen month ago I my family moved to America 12. and we are happy here. 13. Ah, my husband worked in Ukraine ah, rail, rail, railroad (I forget) engineer 14. but here, he, he work, he works. 15. at K-Mart Corporation Distribution Center 16. (I forgot what ah, occu-occupation how would name). 17. Ah he needs, ah, to learn English, 18. and then he can, he will, can work, ah, at railroad. 19. He likes this job. 20. We lived in Ukraine in big city, that is capital city, Donetsk, 21. uh,--but ah, when I married with my husband, 22. we moved to little cit-city near Donetsk, 23. This little city but, um, it has a very big railroad station Student Response Leysa s speech demonstrates a couple of error patterns that may reveal certain aspects of her interlanguage. The two patterns that I have chosen to highlight are her use of tense and aspect and her use (or lack) of articles. Throughout the speech, Leysa utilizes past, present, and future tense/aspect, but at a couple of points she has trouble producing the right form. This can be seen first on line 1 of the 3
speech, where she says, last eighteen months I live in America instead of have lived. Another example is on line 6, as she says, kick him from university instead of the past tense in referencing her brothers past-time experience in Ukraine. In other areas of her discourse, she exhibits a preference for simple past, present, or future over tense/aspect constructions such as the perfect and progressive aspects. A possible source for this error and avoidance pattern is that she is more comfortable with the simple tense/aspect constructions in her speech, or that she has not mastered the other constructions to the point that she can include them in her speech while focusing on the content of her utterances. Furthermore, there may be transfer issues depending on verb constructions in her native language. Another error pattern exhibited throughout the speech is Leyna s lack of article usage. Most opportunities to provide articles are not utilized, leaving many gaps in her article usage and therefore many examples of this error. These missing articles can be seen, among numerous other places, on line 3 s he worked at factory, in line 15, with, at K-Mart Corporation Distribution Center, and line 20, with, in big city, that is capital city. A possible source of her lack of articles is that her native language lacks articles or has different rules for article usage (I believe it is the former). This transfer pattern is quite strong throughout her speech. She appears to be speaking at a point in her interlanguage that has begun acquisition of indefinite article usage, as seen in her utterance on line 23, it has a very big railroad station, but even it seldom appears and definite articles are totally lacking. Thus, she appears to be at the early stages of acquisition for these forms rather than at the point of producing them inaccurately at times and accurately at other times. 4
Written Text Analysis Included below are the directions for this question, following by the student's response. Examine the following text, a tribute called Remembering Teachers that Professor Yvonne Atkinson wrote about a former chair of the CSUSB English Department, Professor Harry Hellenbrand. The tribute was first written and then presented orally by Professor Atkinson at the department s fortieth anniversary celebration in May 2006. In a well-organized, well-developed essay that draws on relevant theory and research, analyze the discourse features of this text in terms of one of the following three frameworks: 1) narrative evaluation (both internal and external) 2) given and new information 3) foregrounding and backgrounding Important: Within your response, explain how the features you analyze contribute to this text. I first met Harry as an undergraduate transfer student back when the English Department was in the library. As a new student, I was required to be advised by a member of the English faculty. As I was walking up the stairs to the English Department this skinny guy in tight shorts ran past me. I thought it odd that in what I perceived as the hallowed halls of academia, there was an obvious loon running loose. A few minutes later I arrived at the office of my academic advisor, Harry Hellenbrand. I knocked, entered, and there sat the loon. I got to know Harry during my years as an undergrad and graduate student. I found out he was not as crazy as I first thought; he had enough sense to be an avid Lakers fan. I remember when we sat together in the student lounge and watched Magic Johnson announce that he was HIV positive and would be retiring from basketball. Don t get me wrong; I never reached the point where I believed that Harry was your average, everyday academic (whatever that is). That could never happen when Harry insisted on attending graduations in academic regalia that was wadded up in an old shirt box on a shelf in his office. He took it out moments before an academic event, shook it once and donned it over his running shorts. I have never seen so many wrinkles and folds in my life, but he didn t seem to notice and neither did the students he congratulated at commencement ceremonies. For all his interesting quirks, Harry was one of the finest teachers I had the privilege of learning from at CSUSB. When I took his American literature class, I noticed how he moved around the class engaging the students in the conversation. Students felt comfortable in his class and so there was a lot of discussion. Our class was in the library in an odd room that had once been two rooms. Apparently a wall had been removed and, voilà, one room. Of course, the room ended up being very long and the doors were in the wrong place. The other interesting thing about the room was that if the students and instructor sat still, the lights would go out. It became a sort of game for the students to count how many times the lights went off in that room. But when Harry taught in that room, the lights never went out. He was constantly moving: walking down the rows of 5
desks, pacing across the front of the class, or simply swaying from side to side. Another thing that kept the lights on was that when he handed back papers, he placed them in stacks at the front of the class. Students would charge to the papers and grab theirs while stepping over others who were crouching over the stacks. Harry: running shorts, Lakers fan, wrinkled regalia, and exceptional teacher. Student Response Yvonne Atkinson s tribute to Harry Hellenbrand exhibits many of the common frameworks that accompany narrative; among these is her use of foregrounding and backgrounding. This framework often makes use of tense-aspect to organize the details within a narrative. Typically, the backgrounded information is exhibited through the use of the perfect and the progressive aspects and modals. It allows the distinction between the sequential foreground elements of the narrative and the background information upon which the sequential information is building. At the beginning of Atkinson s text, she describes her first encounter with Hellenbrand. In doing so, she provides the background information, As I was walking up the stairs, and then follows it up with this skinny guy in tight shorts ran past me. She follows that first foregrounded element of her text with more foregrounding, saying, I thought it odd, there was an obvious loon running loose, I arrived at his office, and I knocked, entered, and there sat the loon. All of the foregrounded elements follow the simple past tense, while the background information is in the past progressive. Backgrounding and foregrounding of information can also be seen in the final paragraph of the text, as she describes the old English department rooms in the library. She backgrounds the narrative first by writing that her class was in an old room that had once been two rooms. Apparently a wall had been removed. She then gives further background information, noting 6
the room ended up being very long and that if there was no movement, the lights would go out. Thus, to background the information in her narrative here, she uses the perfect and the progressive aspects, and the modal would. In foregrounding information, she returns to the simple past tense, saying, when Harry taught in that room, the lights never went out. Returning to background information, she recalls, He was constantly moving: walking down the rows of desks, pacing across the front of the class, or simply swaying from side to side. She then returns once again to foreground information, saying, when he handed back papers, he placed them in stacks. Thus, throughout her narrative, she constantly moves from background to foreground in order to provide relevant details. This framework contributes to the text by providing background information as support for the main, foregrounded information of the narrative. This is important because the background information is typically non-sequential while the foreground information is in a sequential pattern. Therefore, utilization of this framework helps the reader or listener to follow more clearly to chronology of the narrative as well as understand the relevant background information that helps to make those details more relevant. 7