Bharati Vidyapeeth’s

College of Engineering

Communication Skills Case Study

Topic:- Analysing Speaking Errors of

Engineering Student
Course:- B.tech
Branch:- ECE – II
Submitted to:- Ms. Vandita Sharma
Submitted by:- Group-1
Group Members

1. Mehak Dhawan(06711502819)
2. Ankit Goel(06811502819)
3. Satyam Dalai(06911502819)
4. Yashika Aggarwal(07011502819)
5. Utkarsh Singh(07111502819)
6. Vedanshi Saini(07211502819)
7. Mukul Patwal(07311502819)
8. Lakshay Manchanda(07411502819)
9. Kritika Aggarwal(07511502819)
10. Ujjwal Negi(07611502819)
Contents
1. Abstract
2. Introduction
3. Framework
4. Inference
5. Conclusion
 
 

               
 Abstract

The case study is an attempt to understand and analyze

the problems and errors made by the engineering
students whose L1 is Hindi and other Indian languages
and trying to learn English as a second language in
India. It is realized that the proficiency and effective
communication can be developed among the learners if
they are instructed correctly.
Introduction
Having good communication skill is very important in
present society. Without proper communication skill we
cannot express our ideas, thought, etc. Even scientist
need to have good communication skill to explain his
theory and logics to the world. In the realm of business
communication, correct and effective spoken English
acquires an even greater significance, for it provides an
almost universal medium to express properly the
knowledge and the experience, which for the lack of
words, may remain in oblivion. English language has
become a potent tool of socio-cultural andknowledge
exchange as well as an effective soft skill of enviable
marketvalue. Communication skills in English considered
highly important for personal as well as professional
growth. Globalization directly affects industry’s need; a
global engineer must have sound communication skills as
well as good technical knowledge. For employers getting
work done effectively is more important than having most
knowledge.
Based on language testing book, the criteria of evaluation of
testing speaking have five criteria, including:
● Pronunciation
● Vocabulary
● Structure
● Comprehension
● Fluency
Framework

ERRORS
Errors are part of the students Interlingua. That is the version
of the language which a learner has at any one stage of
development and which continually reshaped as he or she
aims towards full mastery.
Indeed, error cannot always be easily identified, because the
notion of error presupposes a norm, and norms, in the turn,
are dependent on amongst other things, the medium (spoken
or written language), the social context (formal or informal)
and the relation between speaker and hearer (symmetrical or
asymmetrical). Hence, as a teacher must prepare promptly
before teaching and she/he can analyze what error his/her
students have made.
Mistakes typically random and readily corrected by the
student when his attention is drawn to them. Errors on the
other hand are systematic, consistent deviances characteristic
of the learner’s linguistic system at a given stage of
earning.10 So in this point, errors are influenced by
competence factors, that means students doesn’t understand
yet about the linguistics system used or in other words,
students need the teacher or other people to correct their
errors.
TYPES OF ERRORS

1. Use Of Fillers
The use of fillers by second language learners is yet another
problem that besets ELT. Many students tend to use fillers in
an attempt either to speak fluent English or to cover up the
inadequacy of their lexicon. It is interesting to find that many
factors are responsible for the use of fillers. One of the
foremost reasons is MTI as the tendency of human brain is to
give first priority to mother tongue as a choice for the thought
process itself. While using a second language for
communication the brain translates the thought to be
expressed from mother tongue to the second language which
results in a time gap that is filled by mostly meaningless and
impertinent fillers. Further, there is primary influence of
mother tongue on the subconscious and therefore an
individual automatically retorts to use of mother
tongue/fillers while attempting to speak fluently or when the
mind cannot conceive of the equivalent word in target
language.

2. Wrong Sentence Constructions

Faulty sentence constructions often mar spoken English. On

account of lack of knowledge or inadequate knowledge about
the grammatical rules, students commit the errors in simplest
of sentences. Some of the examples are given below:
 • I is going to school.
• They had went to school.
• How is you?
• Do you agrees with me?
• Why are you tell a lie?
• I will see you latter.

A good number of students struggle with grammatical

rules and cannot understand them in first or second
reading. These challenges make it important for any
English language teacher to undergo formal training in
teaching methods and practices. It is not enough to have
sufficient skills in listening and understanding the
language. Even a native speaker of the English language
requires a methodical and intensive training program to
qualify as a good teacher of English as a foreign
language. Many of the skills like understanding specific
problems related to particular regions and building basic
communication skills in students etc can only be acquired
through a formal learning of the same. Furthermore,
now-a-days the prolific usage of web lingo by youth has
started transgressing its boundaries and is breaking free
from IMs (instant messages) and SMSs into the foray of
written English as repeated usages of typing-comfortable
but technically incorrect language might be establishing
the erratic language pattern into their subconscious.
Errors lie in not just sentence constructions but correct
spellings as well. So much is the ambiguity in this usage
that sometimes it becomes very difficult to even correctly
comprehend what is being said.

3. Grammatical errors

Mistake # 1
Use of double negative. Since most of the us try to
translate a sentence to English from our native language,
thus, we end up adding double negative while speaking
out. This is wrong.
For example:
We say - “I don’t know nothing.”, this means that we
know something, but the correct one is
Correct - “I don’t know anything.”

Mistake # 2
Use of the wrong tense. Many of us have the tendency to
use the wrong tense. For example:
We say - “I didn’t cried when I saw the movie.” Here the
word didn’t is never followed by a past tense verb. So,
the correct one is
Correct - “I didn’t cry when I saw the movie.”

Mistake # 3
Use of two comparatives/superlatives together. A
sentence must not have two superlatives or comparatives
together. For example:
We say - “This could never have turned out to be more
better.” Here, better is the comparative of the adjective
good and more is the comparative to the adjective much.
Thus, the correct one is
Correct - “This could never have turned out to be
better.”

Mistake # 4
Me v/s I. Clear it in your mind that “I” is the subject and
“me” is the object. We usually confule between the two.
We say - “They are going to send my wife and I a
package.” Here, if we remove the the person and
preceding the I. It would sound; “They are going to send
I a package.” This is wrong!
Correct - “They are going to send me a package.”
Similarly, if we say “Jim and me are going to the gym.”
what’s wrong here? When we remove Jim and. The
sentence becomes “Me am going to the gym”. This is
also wrong. The correct one is
Correct - “Jim and I are going to the gym.”

Mistake # 4
Say v/s tell. While we speak in English, most of use make
mistake differentiating between say and tell. For
example:
First with “Say”
We say - “Say me your name.” Here, “say” is not the
appropriate word because it is basically used to express
something in words. Whereas, the sentence demands to
say something. The correction done is as follows:
Correct - “Tell me your name.”

Now, with “Tell”

We say - “So I told what a good idea.” Told is the
inappropriate word, because here, the sentence wants to
express the phrase “what a good idea”. So, the correct
one here is:
Correct - “So I said what a good idea.”

Mistake # 5
Fewer v/s less. The word fewer is only used for items that
can be counted, whereas less is used for the uncountable.
For example:
We say - “Today, the market has less people.”
Correct - “Today, the market has fewer people.”

Mistake # 6
Using ‘s’ unnecessarily after every word. This is a very
common mistake we usually make. For example:
We say - “Unless you gets your act right.” This is wrong!
Only if you is replaced by he/she and your is replaced by
his/her. The correct sentence is:
Correct - “Unless you get your act right.”

Mistake # 7
Does v/s do. “Does” is used for the singular form of the
subject, while “do” is used to indicate the plural form of
the subject.
We say - “Why does they bother you a lot.”
Correct - “Why do they bother you a lot.”

Mistake # 8
Blunder and mistake. Another common mistake we make
while speaking is mixing blunder and mistake. Blunder is
the synonym for mistake, thus it cannot be used together.
For example:
We say - “It was a blunder mistake”
Correct - “It was a blunder”, or “it was a mistake.”

Mistake # 9
Cope up v/s cope with. It is a common mistake that
people make while speaking. This is a common mistake
that we usually make. We generally use both cope up and
with together.
We say- “let’s cope up with the classmates.”
Correct- “Cope with the classmates”

Mistake # 10
Revert back/ reply back and revert/reply. This mistake is
mostly made by all of us. We always use ‘revert back.’
However, meaning of both the word are similar.
We say- “Please revert back or reply back to the mail.”
Correct- “Please revert or reply to the mail.”

4. Pronunciation
The first major challenge before a language teacher
invariably is to inculcate proper pronunciation in
students. While conducting this study, it was found that
most of the students/second language learners tend to
make some common mistakes in speaking English words
correctly and, owing to erroneous grammatical
understanding, correct English sentences as well. For
our purposes, we have taken into account three major
features, which largely contribute to the right
pronunciation of word. These are aspiration, r-deletion
and gliding errors. In English, we usually aspirate the
sound represented by p, t and k (voiceless consonants),
when they initiate the word (that is, release these sounds
with an extra “puff” or “h” sound). This is called
aspiration. However this rule of phonetics is often
violated by students and most of the students fail to
aspirate the word. As per the rule of R-deletion, r sound
occurring in the final position in a word is deleted while
articulating words. Gliding refers to the shifting/gliding
from one vowel sound to another during the articulation
of word. Again these rules are generally flouted by
second language learners. As proposed by Selinker
(1972), these errors occur due to either the interlingual
error or the language transfer. Sometime these errors
are described as ‘performance errors’. The current
study is conducted on six students who are trying to learn
English as a second language in a class for
communication building.
 INFERENCE
We propose the following measures for improvement:

1. Rule based training of English for communication

skill building.
2. There should be at least one session when speakers’
speech will be recorded and compared with
conventional speech of English and results along
with graphs must be shown to them. This will help
them in understanding and learning the language in
a better way.
3. Using film clips and videos to enable students to
understand English language better.
4. Reader-response technique should be used.
5. Increase vocabulary of students by using flash cards
and other audio-visual aids.
6. Continuous practice.
7. Focus on prescriptive grammar: ensuring that at
least there is one grammar class per week to
strengthen the basics of students.
8. Knowledge and understanding of IPA symbols.
“insert Chart of IPA symbols here”
9. Training the students to prefer speaking short
sentences which minimises the chances of error.
10. Students should be trained to structure their
thoughts in English before speaking them aloud.
 Conclusion
The Study thus highlights the major errors and its
analysis in spoken English. It can be safely concluded
that with a sincere attempt on the part of teacher and
learner, the inadequacies in spoken English can be
rectified. Any learner bestowed with effective speaking
skills can be an asset to the organisation he serves and
shall always have a very charismatic personality. Making
learners aware of the advantages that accrue to effective
and correct spoken English can go a long way in
generating the desire on part of learners, to know and
learn by heart.
Based on the researches and description of research
finding, the writer draws some conclusion as follows:

1. Knowing the correct transcription is one of the ways

to minimize the errors on student speaking
performance especially in their pronunciation.
2. The correct pronunciation which is pronounced by
the teacher as a good model can be followed by the
students with correct pronunciation.
3. Students’ speaking activity majority conducted to
practice in the classroom in pronouncing the words
to minimize the errors on students’ pronunciation.
If these factors were conducted in teaching speaking in
the classroom, we would not find the errors on students’
speaking performance especially in students’
pronunciation. However, based on the research there is
error on students’ pronunciation at segmental phonemes
at final consonant due to the students’ not knowing the
correct transcription and lack of practice pronouncing
words.