Stages Of L2 Acquisition Research Articles

Production Errors and Interlanguage Development Patterns of L1 Malay ESL Learners in the Acquisition of the English Passive

Studies have shown that Malay ESL learners face difficulties in acquiring the English passive, but not much is known about their acquisition patterns as they advance in their proficiency in English. This study investigated the interlanguage development patterns of L1 Malay learners by examining the production errors of learners at varying English proficiency levels. Students from tertiary institutions in Malaysia completed tasks designed to elicit production of the English passive. The results indicated that overall, the main errors committed by the learners were related to the be-auxiliary and the past participle verb form, which are non-existent in their L1. Certain types of errors diminished at higher English proficiency levels, whilst certain others persisted in high proficiency learners. These results point to underlying differences in sources of errors where some types of errors are more resistant to change, while others may be resolved as the interlanguage system develops to approximate the target language. Differential pedagogical interventions may be indicated for learners at different stages of L2 acquisition.

Language Aptitude and Crosslinguistic Influence in Initial L2 Learning

Language-learning aptitude and crosslinguistic similarity between learners’ first language (L1) and the target second language (L2) are both known to facilitate successful L2 learning. However, these phenomena have rarely been investigated together in the same study. To address this research gap in second language acquisition, the present study was carried out with 92 international students of Swedish as a L2, with diverse L1 backgrounds. The participants first completed a language aptitude test upon entering a six-week introductory L2 course at the beginning level. Their L1 background was categorized in relation to the target language as either similar (Germanic L1) or distant (non-Germanic L1). At the end of the course, the participants completed a test of L2 achievement. Regression analyses of achievement scores, with language aptitude and L1 background as independent variables, revealed that crosslinguistic similarity explained at least as much variance in L2 achievement as did language aptitude. When comparing the effects of aptitude in the two L1 subsamples, language aptitude was found to be more important for the learners with a typologically similar L1, than for the learners with a more distant L1. In addition, the results provide support to theoretical proposals made in the individual differences literature that indicate that auditory processing ability may be of particular importance in the earliest stages of L2 acquisition.

Beneficial Effects of Musicality on the Development of Productive Phonology Skills in Second Language Acquisition.

Previous studies show beneficial effects of musicality on the acquisition of a second language (L2). While most research focused on perceptual aspects, only few studies investigated the effects of musicality on productive phonology. The present study tested if musicality can predict productive phonological skills in L2 acquisition. Sixty-three students with no previous exposure to Arabic were asked to repeatedly listen to and immediately reproduce short sentences in standard Arabic. Before the sentence reproduction task, they completed an auditory discrimination task in three different between-subjects condition: attentive, in which participants were asked to discriminate phonological variations in the same Arabic sentence that they were asked to reproduce later; non-attentive, in which participants were asked to detect beeps in the same Arabic sentences without paying attention to their phonological content; and no-exposure, in which participants performed the discrimination task in another language (Serbian). The first, third and seventh reproductions of each participant were rated for intelligibility, accent, and syllabic errors by two independent evaluators, both native speakers of Arabic. Primary results showed that the intelligibility of the reproduced sentences was higher in participants with high musicality scores in the Advanced Measures of Music Audiation. Moreover, the intelligibility of sentences produced by highly musical participants improved more over time than the intelligibility of participants with lower musicality scores. Previous exposure to the Arabic sentence was beneficial in both the attentive and non-attentive conditions. Our results support the idea that musicality can have effects on productive skills even in the very first stages of L2 acquisition.

Bringing parents together: an innovative approach for parental involvement in an immersion school in the Basque Autonomous Community

ABSTRACTIn this article, I analyse the programme and pedagogy of Karmelo Ikastola, a Basque immersion school that promotes parental involvement and language use within the family. The Karmelo case is noteworthy due to its success at effectively promoting the use of Basque among students inside and outside the school along with its promotion of curricular separation between L1 native speakers and L2 learners of Basque. With support from the EBETE language cooperative, Karmelo launched an innovative approach to increase parental involvement in 2008. The school considers distinct pedagogical frameworks for different profiles of parents: Basque-speaking parents, mixed families (in which only one of the parents speaks Basque), and Spanish-speaking parents. The Karmelo programme also fosters parental participation and engagement via curricular adaptations that differentiate the needs of L1 and L2 speakers. The focus group data offer insights into the programme’s approach to language instruction and acquisition, highlighting the role that linguistic attitudes and socialisation play during the various stages of L2 acquisition.

Referential, Quasi, and Expletive Subjects in L2 English of Persian Speakers

The present study sought to investigate the acquisition of referential, quasi and expletive subject pronouns, three different types of obligatory subjects in English, by adult Persian speaking L2 learners of English at different stages of L2 acquisition. A Grammaticality Judgment Test and a Translation Test were designed and developed to elicit the participants' knowledge of obligatory subjects in English. The results revealed that the L2 learners conformed to the natives in their performance on obligatory referential subjects and obligatory expletive subjects, but they did not conform to the natives in the case of obligatory quasi subjects. The obtained results can be accounted for by the fact that Persian as the L2 learners’ native language accepts referential and expletive subjects in certain structures, but no quasi subjects exist in Persian. This lends support to Smith and Tsimpli (1995) and Hawkins and Chan (1997) in that adult second language learners are not able to modify those functional features not already encoded in the entries of their native language.

Second Language (L2) English and Third Language (L3) French Article Acquisition by Native Speakers of Cantonese

This paper looks at the acquisition of articles and related nominal functional properties (the status of classifier, the singular–plural distinction) in English and French by native speakers of Hong Kong Cantonese. Two experimental studies are reported. In the generative SLA literature, there is disagreement as to which properties of the grammar will transfer from the first language (L1) at early stages of L2 acquisition and what the path of subsequent development might look like. We present L1 Cantonese–L2 English as well as L1 Cantonese–L2 English–L3 French data collected from learners of different proficiency levels on a variety of experimental tasks to shed light on these debates. Our findings largely support Full Transfer Full Access, a position that posits strong transfer and no impairment in SLA.

A Study of the Impact of Recasts on Tense Consistency in L2 Output

This article reports on a small-scale empirical study of recasts—a form of corrective feedback. The subjects were eight adult L2 learners of English, four of whom were randomly assigned to a recast group and four to a nonrecast group. The study adopted a pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest design, with eight pedagogical recast sessions between the pretest and the posttest for the recast group paralleled by eight regular sessions for the nonrecast group. Data collected consisted of written and oral narratives primed by cartoon strips and produced by the subjects in both groups. Recasts appeared to be successful in this study in that they heightened the L2 learners' awareness and led to considerable improvement in their tense consistency during oral and written performance. Importantly, the study identified four conditions that may be necessary for recasts to facilitate learning: individualized attention, consistent focus, developmental readiness, and intensity. Further studies employing data from multiple sources are needed to validate these conditions and to identify more clearly aspects and stages of L2 acquisition that are susceptible to recasts.

Inner Speech as Mental Rehearsal: The Case of Advanced L2 Learners

This paper is a follow-up study on the issue of L2 inner speech as it manifests in mental rehearsal among advanced L2 learners. The purpose of the study was to find out to what extent advanced L2 learners experience inner speech as mental rehearsal and to identify some of the characteristics and functions of such inner speech. Results show that advanced L2 learners experience inner speech in the second language to a great extent and that the frequency of L2 inner speech increases with proficiency. Advanced L2 learners, however, report using less inner speech than lower level learners for certain aspects of rehearsal, such as planning texts, self- and other-evaluation, storage and retrieval, self-instruction, and language play. It is argued that inner speech in the L2 is a developmental phenomenon associated with spontaneous rehearsal in the early stages ofL2 acquisition and with verbal thinking in the more advanced stages.

Access to Universal Grammar: The real issues

AbstractIssues concerning UG access for L2 acquisition as formulated by Epstein et al. are misleading as well as poorly discussed. UG accessibility can only be fully evaluated with respect to the steady state gram mar reached by the learner. The steady state for LI learners is self evidently the adult grammar in the speech community. For L2 learners, however, the steady state is not obvious. Yet, without its clear characterization, debates concerning stages of L2 acquisition and direct and indirect UG accessibility cannot be resolved.