ANALYSING ENGLISH SPELLING ERRORS BY LINGUISTIC FEATURES AMONG HINDI SPEAKING CHILDREN OF THIRD AND FIFTH GRADE

Abstract

The fundamental concern of education globally as well as in India is to build-up and strengthen children’s literacy skills. However, several national surveys conducted by government as well as non-government agencies and their reports indicate a brewing literacy crisis that exists in spite of various efforts made to counter this. There are umpteen researches on the issue of literacy acquisition, particularly focusing on the English spelling errors of the second language learners as English has become a language of global importance. There is, however, a paucity of research that examines the spelling experiences of Hindi background learners in English as a second language. In this context, this study analyses the nature of spelling errors by linguistic features among Hindi speaking children of third and fifth grade. A very limited number of studies have examined the concurrent impact of multi-level linguistic skills influencing spelling in English as a second language. On the contrary, Spelling entails an amalgamated and simultaneous working of multiple linguistic and socio-cultural factors. Therefore, the theoretical framework of this study has integrated theories from various areas of study, such as linguistics, psychology, and educational sociology. The objective behind constructing this theoretical framework by integrating theories from these disciplines is that it aids in developing a thorough understanding of the second language spelling process. The linguistic theories, hence, inform the nature and identity of the writing systems and the linguistic values of phonemes and graphemes. The same theories also assist in comparing the orthographic densities of both the English and Hindi writing systems. The psychological (educational) theories help in comprehending the complicated characteristics of the spelling development, whereas the concepts of educational sociology aid to understand the culture of learning and the educational settings in which the spelling process materializes. The data for the present study was obtained from sixty students of third and fifth grade. A researcherdesigned spelling test was administered to gather the misspelt words. The standard for selected items of the test was established by adhering to Minimum Levels of Learning (MLL) authorized by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT). An embellished version of the Phonological Orthographic Morphological Assessment of Spelling (POMAS) coding system was used to categorize errors into three broader categories namely phonological, orthographic, and morphological categories. These three broader categories were also merged together to get other ii broader categories. The errors categorized within these broader categories were further subcategorized into multiple subcategories which were based on the linguistic features showing qualitative differences within each error. The findings of the study revealed that in both third and fifth grade, the frequency of orthographic errors was highest among all the error categories. The richness in error diversity with multiple subcategorizations substantiated the fact that these children have knowledge about the different aspects of the spelling process. The error patterns indicated that children have tried using both the lexical as well as the non-lexical route to spell structurally heterogeneous words. However, at this level what they lacked is the proper and conventional mastery over the exceptional and irregular spelling norms. The misspellings in error categories like phonological and orthographic ranged from insertion to substitution and omission of vowels and consonants. One of the prominent reasons for these errors was the fact that the letters of English orthography symbolize numerous phonemes and conversely numerous phonemes can have a single letter representation. This experience provided active learners with an option to replace or omit the graphemes within a word. The analysis of the Hindi and the English writing systems showed the distinctive nature of the structural and functional properties they inherit. The nature of the English Writing System (EWS) is alphabetic because it uses phonemes as the minimal phonological unit that connects with graphemes, the minimal orthographic unit. The structural property of the Hindi Writing System (HWS), on the other hand, is such that at one level its minimal phonological unit functions as a syllabary and at the other level the same syllabary breaks into a further minimal phonological unit that represents the value of a single phoneme. The error analysis showed that the properties of the HWS have affected the understanding of learners regarding the English spellings. Children have transferred their L1 orthographic understanding to spell the words, mostly irregular words while using the letters of the EWS. The high orthographic transparency of the HWS was found to be the most crucial factor in influencing the English spellings. The observation of the culture of learning in the classrooms revealed that the concerned teachers mostly prefer the collective assessment which was one of the important educational factors that affected the children’s spellings as they did not get the individual attention for their spelling errors. These children did not get the proper lessons on the structural and functional properties of the iii phonological, orthographic, and morphological units of English spellings that had affected the children’s understanding about the general and exceptional English spelling rules. Moreover, children were encouraged by the teachers to memorize (an important cultural factor) the words having inconsistent sound-symbol correspondences. The pedagogical implications of the present study included that English spelling instructions should be emphasized, particularly focusing on the linguistic differences between English and Hindi. This will help children to understand that every writing system is unique and not necessarily be identical to their first writing system. The understanding of the functional and operational differences between writing systems will help children to overcome the difficulty in second language spellings.