Developmental Se

1. Developmental Sequences in
Learner Language
The Silent Period
In L1 acquisition, children go through a lengthy period of listening to
people talk to them before they produce their first words.
This silent period is necessary for the young learners to discover what
language is and what it does.
In L2 acquisition, the silent period is not necessary, since the learner
already knows about language, having already acquired one.
Yet, many L2 learners, opt for a silent period.
Saville-Troike (1988), reports that six out of nine children learning L2
English that she studied opted for a silent period.
Not all learners go through a silent period, as Saville-Troike’s study shows.
Many learners, particularly classroom learners, are obliged to speak from
the beginning.

2. Developmental Sequences in
Learner Language
The Silent Period
Gibbons (1985), reviewed the evidence in favour of a silent period in both
children and adults and found it inconclusive.
His own survey of 47 children learning English as an L2 in Sydney primary
schools revealed considerable individual variation, with a mean length of
just two weeks in silence.
There is some disagreement regarding the contribution that the silent
period makes to language learning.
Krashen (1982), argued that it provides an opportunity for the learner to
build up competence via listening while Itoh and Hatch (1978), refer to the
silent period as a ‘rejection stage’ in which the learner tries to avoid
learning English.

3. Developmental Sequences in
Learner Language
The Silent Period
The silent period provides learners with opportunities to prepare
themselves for social use of the L2 by means of PRIVATE SPEECH which they
engage in while they are ‘silent.
Saville-Troike, defines silent speech as speech that is produced at a very
low volume which is inaudible to anyone present and does not expect any
response.
In general, in L2 acquisition, early language is characterized by a silent
period although not all learners go through this period.

4. Developmental Sequences in
Learner Language
Formulaic Sequences
Formulaic sequences consist of expressions which are learnt as
unanalysable wholes and employed on particular occasions.
It differs from creative speech.
Two types of Formulaic sequences according to Hakuta (19760, Krashen
and Scarcella (1978)- ROUTINES and PATTERNS – refer respectively to whole
utterances learnt as memorized chunks (eg: ‘I don’t know’) and utterances
that are only partially unanalysed and have one or more open slots (eg: ‘Can
I have a__________?’)
Formulaic speech can also be observed in the speech of native speakers
(eg: ‘Can I come in?’, ‘What’s for dinner?’).
Formulaic sequences have been observed to be very common to all
learners in L2 acquisition, irrespective of their age, particularly in the early
stages.

5. Developmental Sequences in
Learner Language
Structural and Semantic Simplification
In comparison with formulaic speech, learners early creative utterances are
typically truncated, consisting of just one or two words, with both
grammatical functors and content words missing.
Hanania and Gradman (1977) gave the following examples produced by
their adult subject Fatmah:
library (= He is in the library)
clean floor (= give me something for cleaning floors.)
Ellis (1984) found further evidence of simplified speech in the speech of
three children learning English in a classroom setting.
Me no blue (= I don’t have a blue crayon)
Eating at school (= she eats meat at school)
These utterances indicate that both structural and semantic simplification
are taking place in learner language.

6. Developmental Sequences in
Learner Language
The Acquisition of Grammatical Morphemes : Order and Sequence
Much of the early research focussed on the order of acquisition while
subsequent research has increasingly paid attention to sequence of stages
evident in the acquisition of a single feature as well as order.
Morphemes are the smallest meaningful units of a language.
Eg: developmental = develop + ment + al
Early studies of the acquisition of grammatical morphemes such as plural –
s and articles produced mixed results.
The morpheme order acquisition is not the same in L1 and L2 acquisition.
Dulay and Burt (1974), studied the acquisition of 10 grammatical
morphemes by children learning English as a second language .

7. Developmental Sequences in
Learner Language
The Acquisition of Grammatical Morphemes : Order and Sequence
Using the ‘Bilingual Syntax Measure’ they counted morpheme use in
obligatory contexts, that is, a context where the item was obligatory in
correct native speaker speech.
They compared the acquisition order they obtained with the acquisition
order for the same morphemes obtained in both longitudinal studies and
cross-sectional of L1 English.
They found that the orders were different.
Articles, copula and auxiliary ‘be’ were acquired earlier by L2 learners
while irregular past tense was acquired later.
The process by which individual morphemes are acquired displays both
similarities and differences.
For example: both L1 and L2 learners omit pronouns and they both
overgeneralize individual pronouns.
In general , the morpheme acquisition order studies appear to show strong
evidence of a natural sequence, but there is also evidence that points to
differences.

8. Developmental Sequences in Learner Language
The Acquisition of Tense and Aspect
The morpheme studies belong to an early period in SLA (the 1970s and 1980s),
however, tense and aspect, both of which involve the acquisition of morphological
features, have been studied intensively in SLA in more recent years.
Studies of the acquisition of tense and aspect lend strong support to the existence
of developmental patterns in L2 acquisition.
Learners of different L2s manifest similar patterns of development when acquiring
tense and aspect.
Klein (1995), identified the following order of acquisition of English tense-aspect
morphological forms in a longitudinal study of an Italian learner:
Third person – s and present tense copula
Irregular past tense forms and verb-ing
Present perfect forms
Regular past tense forms
Future with ‘shall’ or ‘will’
Past perfect forms
Bardovi-Halig (2000) reported a similar order in her longitudinal study of 16
learners of L2 English from 4 different language back grounds.
past > past progressive > present perfect > past perfect

9. Developmental Sequences in Learner Language
The Acquisition of Tense and Aspect
Proposed ‘natural order’ for L2 acquisition

10. Developmental Sequences in
Learner Language
The Acquisition of Syntactic Structures - Negatives
A number of studies which examined the acquisition of negatives in English
and German provide evidence of a clear sequence of development.
The acquisition of negation shows clear transitional structures which
involves a series of forms which learners use en route to mastering the
target language form.
EXAMPLES OF ENGLISH:
no swim (at the beginning of the utterance) – external negation
I no can swim (the negative article comes inside the utterance) internal
negation
I can’t swim (negative is attached to modal verbs)
These forms are indicative of the developmental stages that learners pass
through on the way to TL competence.
Examples of negatives : no, not, don’t, doesn’t, didn’t won’t, can’t

11. Developmental Sequences in
Learner Language
The Acquisition of Syntactic Structures - Relative Clauses
Studies on the acquisition of relative clauses also provide evidence of an
order of acquisition.
There is evidence that learners solve it piecemeal by learning to modify
noun phrases before the verb, and then noun phrases that follow the verb.
Examples :
‘A beautiful girl who lives next door.’
‘I got a friend who speaks fluent English.’
Also, learners acquire the functions that relative pronouns can perform in a
fairly well-defined order.

12. Developmental Sequences in Learner Language
The Acquisition of Syntactic Structures
The ZISA project and research based on Pienamann’s Processibility Theory
have provided impressive evidence to show that learners acquire a range of
features in a predictable order.
Stage L2 Process Morphology/Syntax
6 Main and subordinate Embedded questions:
clauses ‘I wonder why he sold the
car.’
5 Subject-verb agreement 3rd person-s: ‘This man owns
a dog
4 Inversion Yes/no inversion: ‘Has he
seen you?’
3 Noun phrase agreement Plural: ‘He own many dogs’
Adverb: ‘He sleeps always.’
2 Plural/possessive pronoun Canonical order (Subject-
verb-object: ‘He buy car.’
1 Invariant forms Single constituent (including

13. Developmental Sequences in
Learner Language
The Acquisition of Vocabulary
Two broad approaches to the study of developmental patterns in the
acquisition of vocabulary can be identified:
1) Longitudinal studies of L2 learners productive vocabulary
2) Experimental studies of learners’ acquisition of individual words
 L2 acquisition, like the acquisition of grammar, is a slow and gradual
process.
 Learners gradually extend their lexicons while simultaneously accumulating
knowledge of lexical forms and meanings.
 However, there is little evidence of any order or sequence.
 There is some evidence that early acquisition is characterized by nouns and
adjectives, with verbs only appearing later.
 But there does not seem to be any clear hierarchy in learners’ acquisition of
the properties of individual words.
 It is important to note that vocabulary constitutes an open system that is
not subject to ‘rules’ in the same way as grammar or phonology.
 The acquisition of vocabulary is seen as involving item rather than system
learning and for this reason is inherently ‘variational’.

14. Developmental Sequences in
Learner Language
The Acquisition of Phonology
Similarities are also evident in the acquisition of phonology, despite the
fact that L2 learners are known to transfer features from their L1.
Abrahamson (2003), claimed that closed syllable structure is essentially the
same for L1 and L2 learners.
When faced with articulating a closed syllable such as ‘sad’ learners are
likely to either omit the final consonant (i.e. Say ‘sa’), add a vowel (i.e. Say
‘sadi’), or devoice the /d/ (i.e. Say ‘sat’)
Thus, learners’ acquisition of closed syllable structure shows a staged
progression from consonant deletion to epenthesis to feature substitution
to target form.