The Tutoring Book - California State University, Sacramento

work with students who seem to speak a certain level of English whereas their writing shows a very
different level of English.
How the Proficiency of L1 Affects L2
(by Rexford Osei-Ansah)
Tutoring in the Writing Center can be more effective and productive in providing assistance to
students if the educational, cultural and socio-linguistic background, and more importantly the L1 of the
students are made available. Every individual begins to talk from infancy before learning to speak other
languages. This language of infancy is the first language (L1). The second language (L2) is the language a
person learns after the first language (L1). Human beings are born with the ability to learn and form
associations so a child acquires language form by imitating what he hears the parents speak. Adult L2
learners who learn a second language begin from scratch and in the learning process, they find different
ways to facilitate the mastery of the language. An example is repetition which is similar to a child’s first
language learning process.
I am writing this article based upon what I observed from an analysis of a Russian-speaking ESL
student’s writing as a requirement for one of my TESOL classes and from my personal experience as an
ESL student so many years ago. In the course of the analysis, I noticed that some error patterns which I
found to be the result of transfer from L1 which is the Russian language. This student had difficulties with
the use of certain elements of the English language that are not in the Russian language. I would like to
point out that Russian is a case language whereas English is SVO (it follows the “Subject Verb Object”
order of arrangement). For example, “Peter kicks the ball.” Peter is the subject, the verb is kick, the action
performed by Peter, and the ball is the object that received the action.
By analyzing the errors, I found out that errors occur often due to the difference between L1 and
L2. For example in Russian, the definite and indefinite articles “the” and “a” do not exist. In a sentence
like “Peter is a boy”, the student wrote “Peter boy”. By writing “Peter boy” the student is transferring
directly from Russian because they are not familiar with the use of the definite and indefinite articles.
Certain errors were made in the use of auxiliary verbs as well. I noticed structures in which the student
wrote “that why” “he the boy that came to the school”, “I been” etc. Another one of the characteristics of
the Russian language is that the auxiliary verbs “to be” and “to have” don’t exist. For this reason, the
student deleted “is” from the sentence -another example of transfer interference.
When I lived in Ghana, Twi, one of the Akan languages, was used together with English from
first grade through the eighth grade. Because of its limited use in the classroom, there was limited
opportunity for students to practice the use of English language through direct interaction with people. I
came to United States as an international student only to realize how handicapped I was in the use of the
English language. I could write well, but in the middle of conversation I got lost when others spoke fast. I
was classified as “biliterate” because I already had a basic education in my L2 but I had many
deficiencies as far as grammar, structure and organization were concerned. I had a hard time adapting to
writing styles in America. Even though I thought I had considerable words in my English lexicon, some
of them were spelled differently. For example in America, words like “defence” and “labour” are spelled
”defense” and “labor” respectively. Also, I found out that in high rise buildings, people use an “elevator”
but not a “lift” to move from one floor to the other. Words like “lorry” and “articulated truck” have been
replaced by “truck” and “eighteen-wheeler truck”. The transfer from the Twi language (L1) into English
language (L2) contributed to most of the linguistic differences.
Ear Learners vs. Eye Learners
(by Jamie Ferrando)
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