*The pictures don't relate to the story in anyway, but are somewhat more interesting. If you want better quality photos of the images seen in the film, please request in the comment section.
Introduction of subject:
I interviewed Dmitry Shitov as the subject of the storytelling task. He is a 25 year old Russian native speaker from the Far-East province of Russia. He is currently a student. He studied English for 4 years in high school and mainly practices English by watching and singing along to heavy metal music videos and talking to friends.
Transcript:
1- S: Hello Mr. Dmitry.
2- D: Hello Mr. Sean.
3- S: Can you look at these pictures and ask me some questions?
4- D: Okay. So Sean, what's ha-happening the first picture?
5- S: The girl is pointing at a cat.
6- D: Okay, second one?
7- S: What's your question?
8- D: What's uh going on on the second picture?
9- S: The mother is leaving the apartment.
10- D: Hmm. What's about the third picture? What is there?
11- S: The girl is looking out the window and the cat has escaped the building.
12- D: Mmm. What is the girl doing on the picture number four?
13- S: She appears to be climbing out the window.
14- D: And picture number five?
15- S: She appears to be standing on the ledge outside of the window.
16- D: And what the man is doing in the picture number six?
17- S: He's grabbing her.
18- D: Oh. And picture number seven? Same guy. Is it same guy? Right?
19- S: It is the same guy. He appears to be a police officer.
20- D: Okay.
21- S: So would you like to tell me a story looking at all of these seven pictures.
22- D: Okay. At the first picture the girl is pointing to the cat.
23- D: And the second picture the mom leaves apartments.
24- D: At the third picture the cat is going outside the apartment.
25- D: Uh picture number four the girl appears to step out the window.
26- D: Picture number five, the girl, uh, walking on the step outside the apartment.
27- D: Uh picture number six the policemen grab the girl.
28- D: And picture number seven the policeman holds the girl's hands.
29- D: And that's m-my story.
30- S: The end?
31- D: The end. [that was a boring story (third party voice).]
32- S: Thank you Dima.
Basic analysis:
Dima likes to answer very straight forward open-ended questions for the most part. He asked one question per picture and most questions were the same. His storytelling consisted of one statement per picture and his narrative included mentioning exactly which picture related to his statement. According to the comment of a bystander at the end of his story, it was 'boring', I concur. He has trouble pronouncing his [th] sounds, usually using a z for voiceless [th] and an s for voiced [th]. He had many grammatical errors specifically in regards to prepositions and determiners in particular articles.
Task Analysis:
Dima made mistakes in line 10, 16, 26 and 27 regarding the use of the three types of [s] morphemes. On line 10, he used what's when he should have simply used what. On line 16 he did not include is after what when he should have. On line 26 he used uh after girl instead of is. This means he made 3 auxiliary verb mistakes. He correctly got the auxiliary verb right 5 times. He correctly got the 3rd person right 3 times. He used two examples with copulas and got them both right. His correct use of 3rd person singular and not auxiliary is probably due to L1 similarity and is in contrast to the theory of development. His line 10 mistake is due to an attempt at casual speaking. His line 16 mistake involves SVO order not being changed for a question. His line 26 mistake involves substituting uh for is. No clear pattern emerges. On line 27 and 28 his pronunciation of policemen versus policeman isn't clear, but since he always had third person singular verbs right, we will give him the benefit of doubt. My conclusion is this subject has more problems with auxiliary verbs than with third person singular verbs. He could be unique or it could be a result of his L1. More Russian speaking subjects would have to be interviewed. Compared to the first interview subject, his English language skills are poorer, but I wonder if due to them both being Russian speakers (primarily), would they both exhibit this behavior? There weren't any examples of third person and not enough examples of auxiliary verb use to make a conclusion regarding the first interviewee.
Question Analysis:
Mr. Shitov asked a total of 11 questions. There were 2 Y/N questions and 6 Wh- questions asked.
1 (9%) question was a level 1a question. 3 (27%) questions were level 1b. 2 (18%) questions were level 4a. 1 (9%) questions was level 4c. 4 (36%) questions were level 5a.
1. 5A: 4- What's ha-happening the first picture?
2. 1B: 6- Second one?
3. 5A: 8- What's uh going on on the second picture?
4. 4A: 10- What's about the third picture?
5. 4C: 10- What is there?
6. 5A: 12- What is the girl doing on the picture number four?
7. 1B: 14- And picture number five?
8. 5A: 16- And what the man is doing in the picture number six?
9. 1B: 18- And picture number seven?
10. 4A: 18- Is it same guy?
11. 1A: 18- Right?
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