Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[FionaCumbria]

Hi everyone! can you help me with my english project?

I am a native speaker of English from the north of England in my final year of high school. For my English project I am analysing emails from my Dutch, French and Japanese penpals, who write to me in English.

All of my penpals speak English as a second language with different levels of success, and so the emails contain many errors. I have no trouble finding the errors but i don't really know where to go from here.

Can any of you think of an interesting angle for the project? What could be my focus? Maybe I could look at how their native languages influence (or hinder) their use of english? Help!!! I'm stuck!!!!

It would also be very useful for me to hear about problems any of you have with writing in english. Does grammar cause more problems than vocabulary, for example? I know i have a lot of problems with French!!

Thanks everyone in advance.

Fiona

[bud]

Hi Fiona,

Your idea sounds great. Do you notice different kinds of errors depending on the native language? I tutor mostly Spanish speakers, and I often see that they use their native grammar with English. Although it is often correct, it is also often unusual. For example, "the house of my friend" instead of "my friend's house." Maybe your penpals tend to make differnt types of spelling errors? Sounds like an interesting project.

Good luck!