This study investigates the effect of multilevelled semanticogrammatical consciousness raising procedures on fossilised verb structures. It is hypothesised that these procedures will reactivate grammaticisation processes leading to the destabilisation of fossilised structures. The study attempts to establish whether fossilised structures can be destabilised, how processes of grammaticisation may be activated, whether adult advanced learners are still able to improve grammatical accuracy levels, what cognitive processes operate in interlanguage change, and how ESL teaching in the primary school classroom may be improved. The subjects are first-year ESL teacher trainees who have been learning English in formal classrooms for eight to ten years. They are subjected to pretests, a ten-week consciousness raising intervention programme, and posttests. The consciousness raising activities are set in a primary school teaching context, thus establishing relevance. The varied strategies used are presented progressively on different levels of consciousness. The theoretical contributions of the study are the insights gained in respect of the psychodynamics of fossilisation and learning theory as it relates to semantico-grammatical consciousness raising within a Cognitive Theory paradigm. According to the findings the total number of verb errors are significantly reduced and self-monitoring and other-monitoring skills significantly improved after the intervention. The semantic value of verb structures evidently acts as a regulator of form: semantically significant structures are destabilised but semantically vacuous structures do not respond to semanticogrammatical consciousness raising strategies. By implication, semantic significance of structures promotes learnabili ty whereas semantic vacuity is conducive to fossilisation. A relatively invariant ability gap between self-monitoring and other-monitoring is also identified. Subjects are significantly better at monitoring structures produced by others than their own. Self-monitoring, which is a necessary prerequisite for interlanguage change, is improved by consciousness raising but is apparently affected negatively by conventional analytical rule-based teaching. This study concludes that multilevelled semantico-grammatical consciousness raising procedures may precipitate defossilisation and that fossilised structures are not necessarily immutable. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / D. Litt. et Phil. (Lunguistics)

This study investigates the effect of multilevelled semanticogrammatical consciousness raising procedures on fossilised verb structures. It is hypothesised that these procedures will reactivate grammaticisation processes leading to the destabilisation of fossilised structures. The study attempts to establish whether fossilised structures can be destabilised, how processes of grammaticisation may be activated, whether adult advanced learners are still able to improve grammatical accuracy levels, what cognitive processes operate in interlanguage change, and how ESL teaching in the primary school classroom may be improved. The subjects are first-year ESL teacher trainees who have been learning English in formal classrooms for eight to ten years. They are subjected to pretests, a ten-week consciousness raising intervention programme, and posttests. The consciousness raising activities are set in a primary school teaching context, thus establishing relevance. The varied strategies used are presented progressively on different levels of consciousness. The theoretical contributions of the study are the insights gained in respect of the psychodynamics of fossilisation and learning theory as it relates to semantico-grammatical consciousness raising within a Cognitive Theory paradigm. According to the findings the total number of verb errors are significantly reduced and self-monitoring and other-monitoring skills significantly improved after the intervention. The semantic value of verb structures evidently acts as a regulator of form: semantically significant structures are destabilised but semantically vacuous structures do not respond to semanticogrammatical consciousness raising strategies. By implication, semantic significance of structures promotes learnabili ty whereas semantic vacuity is conducive to fossilisation. A relatively invariant ability gap between self-monitoring and other-monitoring is also identified. Subjects are significantly better at monitoring structures produced by others than their own. Self-monitoring, which is a necessary prerequisite for interlanguage change, is improved by consciousness raising but is apparently affected negatively by conventional analytical rule-based teaching. This study concludes that multilevelled semantico-grammatical consciousness raising procedures may precipitate defossilisation and that fossilised structures are not necessarily immutable. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / D. Litt. et Phil. (Lunguistics)

MA (ELT) / Department of Engliish / Learning English as a second language by the South African learners of English First Additional Language (FAL) causes many challenges, such as committing errors in concord as there are differences between the learners’ mother tongue and the target language. Even at Grade 12 level, which is the exit point to institutions of higher learning or to the workplace, learners still display some deficiencies in the mastery of the English concord. This happens despite the fact that, in many South African schools, English is used as a medium of instruction and learnt as a First Additional Language (FAL) especially at high schools. Through the analysis of the written concord errors committed by the 72 of the 720 sampled Grade 12 English FAL learners in Vhembe District, the study answered to two questions which formed its cornerstone which are: what are the most common types of written concord/ subject-verb agreement errors which are committed by Grade 12 FAL learners and what are the causes thereof? The study employed both the quantitative and the qualitative methods to pursue the primary question. Learners responded to the questionnaires and the researcher also analysed their teacher-marked English FAL composition scripts with the focus on concord/subject-verb agreement usage. The findings were that concord/subject-verb agreement was a challenge to the majority of the participants. There was not even a single question which recorded a 100% correct entry. The question on collective nouns was found to be the hardest to the participants while comparatively, the singular indefinite pronoun question recorded the best results. The learners’ written compositions were also found to have been marred by concord/subject-verb agreement errors. In most instances, the learners had resorted to simple sentences avoiding the complex sentence construction as those would have required complicated application of concord/ subject-verb agreement usage. Based on the findings, the following recommendations were made: teaching of grammar should be intensified, and that teachers of English should be retrained even if it will be through the in-service programmes