Overcoming Errors in English

Overcoming Errors in English
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Overcoming Errors in English
Introduction
In the module, students need to understand the difference between errors and misconceptions in educational settings in English and mathematics. They are also expected to apply theory in identifying errors or misconceptions and addressing these to support learners' progress. This case study will achieve two objectives. Firstly, LO3, support individuals or groups to overcome errors or misconceptions in English and mathematics. Secondly, LO4 evaluates the effectiveness of strategies and approaches used to address errors and misconceptions in English and mathematics. This case study will narrow down to English errors by reviewing the experience of a student named Dan (not his real name) who is struggling with subject-verb agreement. I will demonstrate the intervention I used and evaluate its effectiveness.
Context
The learner is an eight-year-old boy named Dan who is in grade 3. Dan performs fairly well in social studies and participates actively during particular lessons, often scoring above 60%. In the classroom, Dan is often distracted and disengaged, particularly when learning other subjects like English. He is relentless and frequently changes seats. It is common for Dan to avoid discussing and answering questions. Outside the classroom, Dan is not active in extra curriculum activities. At the same time, he finds it challenging to socialize with other students. Dan does not seem to keep friends for a long time, which keeps him isolated most of the time.
Dan is an average student. He scores relatively high marks in social studies and low in the rest. In particular, Dan gets the poorest grades in English and mathematics. The learner comes from a family of low-income Hispanics. Dan lives with his elder sister aged 10 and his younger brother now 2 years. His parents are immigrants from Mexico and work for long hours in low-paying jobs. The parents’ low-income jobs cannot support Dan with most of the major resources needed for schooling. At the same time, the parents’ tight schedule hinders them from getting adequate time to support Dan in his homework. The family lives in a densely populated neighbourhood. The place has a high incidence of crime and drug abuse. The neighbourhood also lacks adequate space for children's playgrounds. Dan also suffers from obesity because of consuming unhealthy foods at home and lack of exercise. The parents are unable to afford healthy foodstuffs and often rely on fast foods and carbonated drinks. Consuming unhealthy foods and inadequate exercise has made Dan obese.
Issues
Dan struggles with errors in English, particularly in subject-verb agreement. Errors are considered indications of insufficient learning. They indicate that an individual has not yet satisfied a language knowledge to warrant them avoiding linguistics misuse. Errors are different from mistakes that occur even though the learner has certain knowledge of linguistics (Nassaji, 2018). Dan lacks a strong understanding of grammar rules which makes him vulnerable to making subject-verb agreement mistakes. The subject-verb agreement is a complex grammatical rule and it can be challenging for some students to get it correctly without a solid understanding of grammatical rules. For example, Dan often says “The cats is playing” instead of “The cats are playing" and "The dog are barking" instead of "The dogs are barking.” Dan fails to pay attention to the details of a sentence. The student tends to write quickly, failing to ensure that the subject and the verb agree. Dan struggles to complete tasks requiring subject-verb agreement and often gets them wrong.
Dan’s errors in English can be attributed to various factors. Firstly, he is a second-language learner, with Spanish as his first language. Consequently, Dan lacks the same exposure to English as his native-speaking classmates. Students with English as a second language have language challenges compared to native English speakers (Alsalihi, 2020). Secondly, Dan tends to be distracted and disengaged in the classroom, especially during English lessons. The inability to concentrate limits a student’s ability to develop the skills needed to develop knowledge on specific subjects (Mupa & Chinooneka, 2015). Lastly, Dan lacks structured support to enable him to overcome errors in English. I handle other students, making it challenging to give Dan the attention he needs to perform well.
Intervention
After evaluating information about Dan, I decided to use individualized tutoring as an intervention to address the errors in English. The approach involved offering one on one instruction to Dan. According to Vaughn & Fletcher (2021), explicit instruction helps in addressing the needs of individual learners, which cannot be met in a usual classroom. I provided explicit instruction on subject-verb agreement together. The rationale for using the technique was to tailor instruction to the individual needs and learning styles of Dan. According to Mupa & Chinooneka (2015), students have different learning styles in the classroom. Dan is a second-language learner and lacks the same level of exposure to the English language as his native counterparts. Individual tutoring catered to Dan’s specific needs and offered him the support needed to improve his English skills (Lodge et al., 2018). Lastly, I used the technique to get immediate feedback about Dan’s progress. This would allow me to identify and correct mistakes as they occur.