The Accuracy Order of English Grammatical Morphemes of Saudi EFL Learners

T H E A C C U R A C Y O R D E R O F E N G L I S H G R A M M A T I C A L M O R P H E M E S O F S A U D I

E F L L E A R N E R S

K S A A LT T E S O L – R C – M I N I C O N F E R E N C E

M A R C H - 2 0 1 7

© Abdulaziz Assanosi 2017. View license deeds at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Abdulaziz B AssanosiPrince Sattam ibn Abdulaziz University

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Introduction Learner Language has been the centre of interest of researchers and linguists for long time.

A number of issues appeared in this regard:◦ The feature of the continuum between L1 and L2.◦ The influence of L1 on the linguistic system developed by learners.◦ The errors which committed by learners during this stage.

“One of the most powerful ideas to have emerged from this work was that L2 acquisition proceeds in a regular systematic fashion” (Ellis, 2010:72)

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Universal GrammarOne explanation of the regular predictable development of acquisition was the theory of Universal Grammar (UG)

UG argues that “humans are innately endowed with language-specific knowledge, or what Chomsky calls UG” (Larsen-Freeman and Long, 1991:228).

One of the outcomes of this theory (and of the innatism school) was the Natural Order Hypothesis.

NOH depends on the claim that “the acquisition of grammatical structure proceeds in a predictable order” (Krashen 1982:12).

NOH is concerned mostly with grammatical morphemes.

3ASSANOSI, A (2017). THE ACCURACY ORDER OF ENGLISH GRAMMATICAL MORPHEMES OF SAUDI

EFL LEARNERS. KSAALT TESOL MINI CONFERENCE, 2017

MorphemesA Morpheme is “the smallest, indivisible unit of semantic content or grammatical function from which words are made up” (Katamba and Stonham, 2006:20”.

Morphemes

Free

Lexical Child, teach

Functional and, the

Bound

Derivational re- -ness

Inflectional -’s, -ed

Figure 1: Types of Morphemes. Source: George Yule (2010)

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Morpheme Acquisition Order (MAO)It was assumed that L1 learners acquire grammatical morphemes in a predetermined order.

Brown (1973 ) found that children acquire grammatical morphemes of their L1 in the same sequence.

Inspired by these findings, many researchers investigated the order of acquisition of L2 grammatical morphemes.

It was also found that there are high rates of similarity between orders of acquisition by learners of different L1s and levels.



Examples of L2 English Orders of Acquisition

ING progressive

PLURAL

COPULA (to be)

AUXILIARY (progressive, as in “he is going”)

ARTICLE (a, the)

IRREGULAR PAST

REGULAR PAST

III SINGULAR -s

POSSESSIVE -s

Krashen (1977), claimed that the average order of English grammatical morphemes is as illustrated.

No sharp difference between morphemes in the same rank.

This rank order is adopted as a standard for many studies, mostly the resultant orders are similar to it.

Figure 2. Average Order of Acquisition of Grammatical

Morphemes for English as a second Language (Children and

Adults) (Krashen, 1982:13)

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Acquisition Order VS. Accuracy OrderThe concepts of acquisition order and accuracy order are used interchangeably in the morpheme acquisition literature.

This was based “on the ground that the more accurately a morpheme was used, the earlier it must have been acquired” (Ellis, 2010:91).

However, a methodological distinction can be put out as: acquisition should be measured longitudinally while accuracy is measured cross-sectionally.

Many researchers do not commit to this distinction. For instance, Behajatand Sadighi, 2011; Dabove, 2012; Ibrahim et al, 2013; and Murkami and Alexopoulou, 2015).



Modern StudiesMany recent studies investigated the Acquisition Orders of English grammatical morphemes by learners of different L1s.

Most of these studies found significant correlation to NOH hypothesis suggested by Krashen (1977).

Further studies investigated the effect of L1 on MAO, and other determinants.

Different data collection and analysis tools are elaborated and different size of sample were studied.

However very few studies investigated the MAO of learners with Arabic as L1.

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Questions and Hypotheses of the StudyAiming at filling the research gap in Arabic L1 learners’ MAO, and providing pedagogical implications about how to teach grammatical morphemes, The current study posits the following questions:◦ What is the MAO of Saudi EFL learners?◦ Does this order conforms with the NOH?◦ Is this order consistent among different proficiency levels?

It was hypothesized that the resultant rank order will conform with the NOH with little deviation due to L1 interference.

The rank order was expected to be the same regardless of students proficiency level.



ParticipantsThe study sample is consisted of 129 students of English language at college of Sciences and Humanities, PSAU, who are distributed as follows:

Level 1 Level 5 Overall

Male subjects 28 36 64

Female Subjects

28 37 65

Total 56 73 129

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Table1, Distribution of the subjects of the study

Data collection & Analysis To gather the data, the researcher developed a 24-item grammar judgement test intended to assess the subjects’ performance at six grammatical (verb and noun- related) morphemes as follows:

Type of morpheme

Morphemes Number of occurrences

Noun-related Morphemes

plural –s 3

possessive –’s, -s’ 3

articles (a, an, the) 9 (3 for each articles)

Verb-related Morphemes

progressive –ing 3

regular past –ed 3

3rd person –s 3

Total 6 24

• To analyse the generated data, a famous formula in the MAO literature (known as TLU) was used.

• TLU, stands for Target-Like Use, was proposed by Pica (1983) to measure learners’ performance at grammatical obligatory contexts.

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Table2, The structure of the research tool (the Test)

ASSANOSI, A (2017). THE ACCURACY ORDER OF ENGLISH GRAMMATICAL MORPHEMES OF SAUDI EFL LEARNERS. KSAALT TESOL MINI CONFERENCE, 2017

ResultsThe rank orders of the four groups of subjects were found to be as follows:

Level 1

Male Female Mrphm TLU % Mrphm TLU %

plu -s 48.8 plu -s 60.9

past ed 30.8 past -ed 48.8

prog -ing 27.3 prog -ing 44.3

3rdp -s 23.3 3rdp -s 25.5

poss -s 15.3 poss -s 16.2

articles 5.5 articles 14

Average 25.0 Average 34.9

Level 5

Male Female

Mrphm TLU % Mrphm TLU %

plu -s 62.7 plu -s 72.4

past -ed 42.6 past -ed 66.4

prog -ing 33.6 prog -ing 65.5

3rdp -s 17.5 3rdp -s 57.1

poss -s 11.7 poss -s 53.1

articles 10 articles 33.6

Average 29.7 Average 58.0

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Table3, MAO of the Low proficiency level group (level I) Table4, MAO of the high proficiency level group (level V)

ResultsIt is found that the Saudi EFL learners accuracy order is:

The difference between (past –ed) and (prog –ing) is slight ( TLU = 4.4%).

Following Krashen (1977), these 2 morphemes can be put in the same rank (the 2nd in the order).

Rank Morpheme Average TLU

1st Plural –s 61.2 %

2nd past -ed

prog –ing

47.1%

42.6 %

3rd3rdp –s 30.8 %

4thposs –’s , –s’ 24.0 %

5thArticles 15.7 %

1st • Plural -s

2nd • Past –ed

3rd • Prog –ing

4th • 3rd p –s

5th • Poss –’s

6th • Articles

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Figure 3. Average Order of Acquisition of English Grammatical Morphemes by Saudi EFL learners

Table 5, MAO of Saudi EFL learners and their average TLU)


Results

It is also found that the Saudi EFL learners MAO is correlated with NOH, however some deviations are found.

The most significant difference between the two orders is in the ranks of articles. (3rd in Krashen’s and 6th in the Saudi MAO).

The nature of articles in Arabic can be a convincing justification for this deviation.

The same reason can account for the close similarity between the ranks of the (plural –s) morpheme. However, this time positive transfer can be mentioned.

Krashen NOHThe generated order

prog -ingplu -s

plu -spast edprog -ing articles

past -ed3rdp -s

3rdp -sposs -s

poss -sarticles

• The Spearman coefficient of the generated order and KrashenNOH is 0.43 which means weak positive correlation.

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Table 6, correlation between Saudi MAO and Krashen NOH

Results

Regarding the third hypothesis, the generated order was consistent among the 4 different groups despite the fact that their TLU average are different.

This result conforms with most previous studies.

It also represents a powerful support to the NOH which claims that the MAO is not affected by instruction or proficiency levels.

It is worth mentioning, never the less, that across the four groups, female students outperform their male counterparts.

This fact, though out of the scope of this research, does worth consideration.

Morpheme Average TLU

male Female

plu -s 55.75 66.65

past -ed 36.7 57.6

prog -ing 30.45 54.9

3rdp -s 20.4 41.3

poss -s 13.5 34.65

articles 7.75 23.8

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Table 7, AverageTLU according to gender


Implications of the StudyAlthough there are no evidences that instruction can alter MAO of EFL learners, designing syllabi and lesson plans according to it can facilitate morpheme acquisition.

The researcher recommends extending research on this area and use the generated results for this purpose.

Raising teachers’ awareness about the concept of NOH and MAO studies is also an important recommendation to be considered.

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References Brown, R. 1973. A first language. Cambridge.

Ellis, R. (2010). The Study of Second Language Acquisition.Oxford

Krashen, S.(1982).Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition.

Larsen-Freeman, D., Long. M. H. (1991) An Introduction to Second Language Acquisition Research. New York: Longman.

Murakami, A., & Alexopoulou. (2015) L1 Influence on the Acquisition Order of English Grammatical Morphemes: A Learner Corpus Study. Cambridge

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Thank you for your Time and Attention



© Abdulaziz Assanosi 2017. View license deeds at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

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The Accuracy Order of English Grammatical Morphemes of Saudi EFL Learners