How Students Mistake the s-Genitives and the of-Genitives in a Local Ecuadorian Context Learning

Abstract

Considering a local action research in English learning approach may be the right way to help teacher to manage some of the daily issues they face in their classroom since one of its principle is bridging the traditional divide between educational theory and professional practice (McNiff, 2017). This contribution aims to map the different mistakes students may produce in their learning process in a TESOL[1] context regarding the use of the Saxon genitive or the of-genitive form (Lyons, 1986; Tratz & Hovy, 2013) when expressing ownership of something or talking about things that belong to other things. Since the action research approach is a collaborative systematic inquiry done by teachers to gather information about, and subsequently improve, the ways their particular educational setting operates, how they teach, and how well their students learn. The analysed data are collected through a participatory dynamic process in which students fill in a questionnaire. Before answering the questionnaire, Tourism students in the Amazon State University have been put in contact with the common previously identified mistakes usually made using the possessive / genitive case form in order to identify the situated problem and its causes, and suggest the required corrective actions to undertake. Several sociolinguistic factors such as mother tongue, gender, and cultural background have been identified as possible causes reflecting the geographical location and social proximity of the language in contact approach (Muhvić-Dimanovski, 2005; Hickey, 2013). A discussion, dealing with the result interpretation and the suggested corrective actions, will take place in order to improve the learning process.