Spelling performance by spanish primary students using English as a second language: Analysis of the most common mistakes

• S. Antropova ^[1] ; F. Colt ^[1] ; M. Lafita ^[1]
  1. [1] Centro Universitario Villanueva
• Localización: EDULEARN19 Proceedings: 11th International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies (July 1st-3rd, 2019, Palma, Spain) / coord. por Luis Gómez Chova, A. López Martínez, I. Candel Torres, 2019, ISBN 978-84-09-12031-4, págs. 514-522
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This article reports upon findings drawn from a research project involving undergraduate student-teachers from Villanueva University Centre and a group of third-year primary school students, undertaken from March to December 2017. Learning to write in English is an emerging skill at this age, one which is influenced by various factors: the child’s reading and writing skills in their mother tongue and their oral competence in the English language. As a result, a strictly phonetic Spanish orthography conflicts with the irregularity and complexity of English spelling. The aims of the project were to enhance the writing skills in English of third-year primary school students, analyse their most common spelling mistakes, and delve into their origins. With this in mind, a taxonomy of mistakes was elaborated, divided into the five most common errors: letter omission, letter addition, phonetic spelling, L1 interferences and miscellaneous. This taxonomy was applied to 150 children’s writings on a sentence level. The results may have promising pedagogical implications. Two more types of errors were discovered: a changed grapheme order and separate/apart mistakes in compound words. We concluded that an incorrect phonetic spelling was the most frequent cause for these types of errors, followed by L1 interferences. Finally, a list of the most frequently misspelt words was elaborated.