THE DEVELOPMENT OF VERB MORPHOLOGY AND ......•Correct 3rd person pron + finite verb: il adore la pizza 18 LIMITLESS POTENTIAL | LIMITLESS OPPORTUNITIES | LIMITLESS IMPACT RQ3: CHUNKS/FORMULAIC

LIMITLESS POTENTIAL | LIMITLESS OPPORTUNITIES | LIMITLESS IMPACTLIMITLESS POTENTIAL | LIMITLESS OPPORTUNITIES | LIMITLESS IMPACTLIMITLESS POTENTIAL | LIMITLESS OPPORTUNITIES | LIMITLESS IMPACTCopyright University of Reading

THE DEVELOPMENT OF VERB MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX IN YOUNG LEARNERS OF

FRENCH AT KEY STAGE 2

Dr Louise Courtney

LADELI Primary Languages in the Classroom

workshop

22-23 June 20171

Institute of Education

The development of verb morphology and

syntax in young learners of French at Key

Stage 2

LIMITLESS POTENTIAL | LIMITLESS OPPORTUNITIES | LIMITLESS IMPACT

BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

• Foreign language teaching has been compulsory in English

primary schools, with an expectation that learners will make

substantial progress in one foreign language in terms of

both lexical (vocab) and grammatical knowledge of the

second language (L2).

• Curriculum objectives state that learners should develop a

basic knowledge of grammar including the conjugation of

high-frequency verbs.

• little research into the linguistic development of early

instructed learners of French and what level of proficiency

we can realistically expect by the end of primary school.

2


• Paucity of research on how young learners’knowledge and production of verbs develops over time

• There have been a few longitudinal studies of French morphosyntactic development in young instructed learners– Cable et al (2010), David (2008a, 2008b), Housen et al. (2008), Myles (2003)

• Progress shown to be slow and inconsistent – some learners never master the verb system which it is argued hinders overall language development –Myles (2005; 2012), Rogers (2010), Rule & Marsden (2006),

WHY STUDY VERB DEVELOPMENT?


WHAT DO LEARNERS HAVE

TO LEARN?

• French is morphologically rich compared to English

• French verbs can be divided into finite and non-

finite forms and regular and irregular verbs.

• Finite forms show agreement with the subject (e.g.

noun or pronoun) and express such tense, mood

and aspect

• Non-finite forms do not have an overt subject and

do not show morphological agreement with one.

(Rowlett, 2007)4


STAGES OF VERB DEVELOPMENT

1. verbless stage – no verbs produced

2. non-finite stage – verbs appear but in non-

finite (infinitival) form e.g. regarder, parler

3. finite stage – verbs are produced in finite

(tensed) form e.g. je regarde, il parle

(David et al 2009, Myles 2005; 2012, Rogers

2010 Rule & Marsden 2006)

5


CHUNKS/FORMULAIC SEQUENCES

“….is a multiword semantic/functional unit that

presents a processing advantage for a given

speaker, either because it is stored whole in their

lexicon or because it is highly automatized”.

(Myles & Cordier 2017 p.10)

French examples: j’aime le football, j’adore la danse

6


CHUNKS/FORMULAIC SEQUENCES

• Previous studies have shown that beginner learners rely on

them heavily as they enable learners to engage in

communicative activities (such as role plays)

• Evidence to suggest that chunks play an important role in

grammatical development

• Process of breaking down chunks is slow and development

is inconsistent across learners

• Production is not evidence of acquisition of the structure.

Inaccurate, non-fluent expressions are better evidence of

progression

(Myles 2012)

7


RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. When do verb phrases first emerge and what

form do they take?

2. What are the characteristics of learners

production of finite and non-finite verb forms and

how does this develop over time?

3. What is the role of formulaic language (chunks)

in the development of verb morphology?

4. What is the role of individual factors in the

grammatical development of young learners of

French?8


OUTLINE OF RESEARCH METHODS

• Participants - 26 children (16 girls, 10 boys)

• 3 data collection points

– end of Y6 (aged 10-11) 130 hours of French teaching

– end of first term of Y7 (aged 11-12) 165 hours

– end of Y7 – 210 hours

• Longitudinal data of the from 3 tasks:

– Paired semi-structured oral role play task

– Oral photo description task

– Email response written task 9


DATA ANALYSIS

• The data were transcribed in CHILDES CHAT (Codes for

HumanTranscription) format (MacWhinney, 2000a, 2000b).

• A total of 234 transcriptions were analysed in CLAN

(Computerised Language Analysis [MacWhinney, 2000a,

2000b]).

10


RQ1: ANALYSIS & RESULTS

• Measures analysed to answer this research question:

• number of propositions produced

• number of verbs produced

• % verb/proposition ratio

• A proposition is an utterance that normally be expected to

contain a verb e.g. nom Poppy (name Poppy) instead of

‘elle s’appelle Poppy’ (she is called Poppy)

• Single word utterances in response to clarification requests

or repetitions were not included in the analysis11



Measure Round 1 Round 2 Round 3

Mean No. of propositions 36.31

(6.34)

39.12

(5.69)

48.62

(8.71)

Mean No. of VPs 17.04

(6.08)

25.12

(6.31)

38.81

(8.63)

% verb/prop ratio 46.57

(12.89)

64.12

(13.39)

79.88

(10.36)

12



• Mainly produced verbs of preference: aimer (like), adorer

(love), détester (hate)) or verbs to discuss personal details

(s’appeler (to be called), habiter (to live)

• Influenced by nature of the task but there was ample

opportunity to produce a variety of verbs such as: danser

(to dance), porter (to wear), jouer (to play), chanter (to sing)

but were only produced by a very small number of learners

in later rounds

13


RQ2: FINITE VS NON-FINITE VERBS

14


No. finite verbs Mean 17 25.1 38

Total 442 653 988

No. non-finite verbs Mean 0.39 0 0.5

Total 1 0 13


RQ2: FINITE VS NON-FINITE VERBS • P13 produced the only non-finite verb in rounds 1 and 2:

‘onze personnes écouter la musique’* – 11 people listen to

music

(onze personnes écoutent la musique)

• 12 of the 13 non-finite verbs produced in round 3 were bare

VPs with no subject

• ‘jouer la guitar’ – (to) play guitar (P11)

• Most frequently produced non-finite verbs were regarder (to

watch) (Myles 2005; 2012), écouter (to listen)15


RQ3: CHUNKS/FORMULAIC SEQUENCES

• Majority of finite (tensed) verbs produced were categorised

as chunks or formulaic sequences.

• Longer and more complex than other productions, more

fluent and less hesitant and frequently over-generalised or

used inappropriately, grammatically accurate

• Some examples from the data are:

• J’aime la pizza – I like pizza

• J’adore les maths – I love maths

• Je déteste le francais – I hate French

• Je m’appelle Tom – my name is Tom16



• Second half of role play task designed to elicit third person

forms

• Learners not exposed to these as frequently as 1st person

forms

• Insights into communicative and linguistic strategies used to

compensate for insufficient linguistic knowledge

• Asked to recount information obtained from partner role

play responses

17



• Strategies used:

• Bare noun phrase: la pizza

• 1st person chunk: j’adore la pizza

• Subject doubling: il j’adore la pizza* (he l love pizza)

• Subject-less verb: adore la pizza*

• Il/elle only: il pizza*

• Correct 3rd person pron + finite verb: il adore la pizza

18




Bare Noun

Phrase

Mean 6

(3.39)

5.12

(3.23)

2.73

(2.54)

Total 156 133 71

Chunk (1st

person)

Mean 3.04

(2.14)

5

(3.19)

6.58

(3.25)

Total 79 130 171

Subject

doubling

Mean 0 0 1.42

(1.86)

Total 0 0 37

19



20


Subject-less

verb

Mean 0.12

(0.36)

0.5

(1.48)

.346

(0.98)

Total 3 13 9

Il/Elle only Mean 0 0.15

(0.78)

1.27

(1.67)

Total 0 4 33

Correct 3rd

person form

Mean 0 0.19

(0.98)

1.88

(3.08)

Total 0 5 49


Round Learner P11 Learner P4

1 Robert, âge quinze, une frère

onze, deux chiens, le vélo,

téchnologie, tv

je m’appelle Sophie, cinq ans, trois

frères, j’aime la roller et la vélo,

j’aime le chocolat gâteau, j’aime le

maths, j’aime la musique

2 Je m’appelle Name, j’ai onze

ans, deux sœurs, j’ai une chien,

j’adore la danse, j’adore

banane, je n’aime pas le

pomme, j’adore le dessin,

j’adore la musique

s’appelle Name, dix ans, une frère

huit ans, une chat, elle aime le

foot, elle déteste une gâteau, elle

aime une pizza, elle aime le

science, elle aime la musique

3 Il s’appelle Name, il est une

frère, il est un lézard, il j’adore

la football, il déteste le vélo, il

j’adore les bonbons, déteste le

pizza, histoire super, déteste le

English, il j’adore le ordinateur

déteste vélo

il s’appelle Name, il a douze ans, il

a un frère, il a une chien, il adore

le tennis, il aime les sciences, il

déteste le français, il aime la

musique et télévision, il n’aime pas

la pêche. 21


INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

Round Measure L1 Literacy Motivation Vocabulary

(G)

1 Bare NP -.505** -.217 -.227

Chunks 1st person .380 .241 .187

Correct 3rd person * * *

2 Bare NP -.059 -.120 .159

Chunks 1st person -.194 .116 -.314

Correct 3rd person .220 .027 .147

3 Bare NP -.546** -.397* -.350

Chunks 1st person -.625** -.380 -.610**

Correct 3rd person .314 .264 .499**

22


CONCLUSIONS

• All learners made progress across transition

• Performed at a comparable level to learners in

other studies, although knowledge remained

limited

• Learners progressed along same developmental

path

• However, a slower, slowed-down version of

linguistic development

23


CONCLUSIONS

• Rate of progress sped up after transition to year 7

(as opposed to low exposure in primary

• Great deal of variation in outcomes

• English reading and writing levels best explained

the variability in performance and gap widened

between most and least able

24


IMPLICATIONS

• Evidence suggests that primary pedagogy supports

vocabulary development but, less so, grammatical

development

• Phonological realisation of verbal inflection in spoken

French is relatively poor

• While graphically distinct in the majority of cases they are

not audibly different

• It is the subject that disambiguates the verb form in oral

input for regular verbs

• Encountering written form of verbs and some explicit

instruction would arguably be beneficial

25


IMPLICATIONS

• Greater differentiation required at all phases and

support provided for less able learners

• Teaching of chunks supports grammatical

development but input should be more varied e.g.

not just 1st person forms of a limited range of verbs

• Expectations need to be realistic for what can be

achieved with minimal input at primary school

• Significant progression achievable with fine-

grained measures

26

Documents

THE DEVELOPMENT OF VERB MORPHOLOGY AND ......•Correct 3rd person pron + finite verb: il adore la pizza 18 LIMITLESS POTENTIAL | LIMITLESS OPPORTUNITIES | LIMITLESS IMPACT RQ3: CHUNKS/FORMULAIC