Chapter One

1.1 Introduction

The closer the world gets together, the more there is

a need for communication with people who speak different

languages. Speaking second or third languages fluently is

one of the biggest desires for those who wish to succeed.

Furthermore, the fact that one can use a second language

will be very common among people. Therefore, the

importance of investigating second language acquisition

(SLA) is clearly supported given this tide, and therefore,

scholars have developed various areas of research in SLA

and as a result, this study has become a central research

area of linguistics since the 1970’s. Even though they

adopted various ways to investigate how people acquire

second languages or what makes it possible to learn second

language efficiently, their core questions were similar. A

central theme has been “Is there any sequence in order of

acquisition of certain languages?” or “Why do some language

features emerge earlier than others?” (Hatch)1.

Among the various fields that researchers have

examined include studies on developmental sequences.

Throughout these studies, developmental sequences can be

defined as “the order in which certain features of a

language…are acquired in language learning” (Lightbown and

Spada)2. These are very interesting to look at because it

seems to be almost impossible to define a general image of

developmental sequences in second language acquisition in

spite of its clear concept.

In the following section, several key words will be

explained to clarify the idea of developmental sequences in

second language acquisition: These questions are

1) what do developmental sequences mean? and,

2) where can researchers find developmental patterns?

1.2 Developmental Sequences

Developmental sequences always occur when people

learn any kind of language as first or second. In first

language acquisition, which generally happens at the early

stage in childhood, there can be seen a general

developmental pattern for certain grammatical elements such

as the present progressive, plurals; irregular past;

possessive “’s”; copula; articles; regular past; 3rd person

singular; simple present auxiliary and so on.

Children acquire their native language using several

methods, not only by imitating adults but also experiencing

and discovering the structures of their own L1. It is very

interesting that almost all children pass through certain

stages similarly in L1 acquisition in spite of their

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different environment. For example, for grammatical

features, most of the children will acquire present

progressive -ing earlier than the copula, and plural -s is

earlier than possessive ’s. In negation, first, they start

using negatives alone or as the first word in the

utterance, then gradually, they combine the negatives and

create more complex phrases or sentences.

There are many studies that reveal second language

learners also pass through sequences of development like

first language learners, and the process that L2 learners

acquire their L2 is very similar to that found in L1

acquisition. One of the examples is that the features

acquired in the early stages by one learner will be also

learned in the early stages by others even though there may

be slight time differences. There are, however, noticeable

differences in developmental sequences for L1 and L2

acquisition.

The apparent difference between developmental

patterns in L1 and L2 is the stability of the sequences.

While L1 learners will consistently all have a similar

order, the order of L2 learners’ acquisition is not always

clear enough to propose a general picture of developmental

sequences.

The point which should be considered is that there

are a great number of influences from L1 occurring in L2

acquisition, and Developmental Sequences in L2 will be

changed according to the learners’ L1s. Therefore, for

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instance, L2 learners of English whose native language

shows somehow completely different processes from those

whose L1 is German. From this point of view, it cannot

determine that there is a universal Developmental Sequence

which applies to all language learners whose L1 is

different.

Furthermore, there can be gaps among L2 learners,

who are acquiring the same L1, and with different

environments such as family, educational background,

school, personal experiences, and so on. In second language

acquisition, to some extent, it depends on the learners’

characteristics and how carefully the learners will pay

attention to the second language systems, and this result

will greatly affect the researcher’s ability to analyze

developmental patterns that appear in the process of

learning languages.

About 40 years ago most linguists believe that the

incompleteness of second language acquisition was simply

due to their first language. At that time the major method

used to study language acquisition in this field was

Contrastive Analysis (Lightbown and Spada)3. Its aim was to

clarify the differences and similarities between L1 and L2

and sought potential errors that learners may produce based

on L1 interference. The idea was that where major

differences were found (for example if an L1 was SOV and

the L2 was SVO, then there would need to be a lot of care

and attention paid to this difference. If however, both

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languages shared articles, then the need for heavy

instruction was not needed. This was common practice until

the end of 1960s and was shown in the many drills and

repetition exercises common at the time.

During the late 1960’s and early 1970s, a new method,

error analysis, was developed to make more detailed

analyses of second language acquisition. The belief was

that errors that are produced by L2 learners are not always

due to the first language, but also other elements. This

method is based on observations from cross-sectional

studies, which studied subjects at different ages, and

longitudinal studies which examined the language

development of a small number of the same learners over

time. Error analysis focuses on errors produced as a result

of the process that learners try to discover the rules and

structures of their target language, rather than assuming

potential errors.

Out of this kind of analysis we came to see that L2

speakers repeatedly made the same kinds of mistakes and in

similar ways. Moreover, the kinds of mistakes they made

seemed to be occurring regularly. For example, L2 learners

at one level of ability consistently said I goed to the

bank or I buyed a book whereby they are using a past tense

formulation rule consistently but wrongly. This suggested

that these errors were in fact a separate system from the

L1 and the L2 because the words goed and buyed are not L1

or L2 items. This system came to be known as Interlanguage.

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The concept of Interlanguage was provided by Larry

Selinker4, who defined Interlanguage as “the learner’s

developing second language knowledge” (Lightbown and

Spada5). When we consider second language acquisition,

Interlanguage is a most remarkable function because it has

both some characteristics of the learner’s first language

and some characteristics from the process of language

learning. However, it is true that there are difficulties

conducting targeted studies to identify developmental

sequences in second language acquisition.

Generally, when researchers try to research

developmental sequences in both L1 and L2, they focus on

analyzing errors from free production either in

conversations or essays for example. We shall now look at

the differences between errors and mistakes to provide some

clear background for the studies of developmental patterns.

1.3 Mistakes and Errors

It is necessary to discuss the differences between

mistakes and errors because it is quite hard to distinguish

them when they occur in free production. The basic

processes of how mistakes and errors happen are described

in the following figures.

Figure 1: The process of making mistakes

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Each category is a function, which is necessary to take for

language learning. Input means the information that a

learner obtains by listening and reading. Learning process

works to analyze the input, and output is a result from the

learner’s trials using acquired knowledge. Output is

usually in the forms of writing and speaking. Monitor

system is the function, which focuses on producing correct

output, and this system greatly depends on individual

learners.

In Figure 1, a learner produces utterances (shown as

an arrow) through the learning and output stages, and then,

this utterance goes through the monitor process. When the

learner notices that he made a mistake, he will self-

correct and the utterance will go back to the output stage.

For example, if a learner says, “She go to the school,” and

he will find that he made a mistake. He corrects it by

himself, and produces the correct sentence, “She goes to

the school.”

Figure 2: The process of making of errors

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Learning Output

Monitor

Input

Learning Output

Monitor

Input

Errors have very a similar process to mistakes. The

process of making errors can be explained with following

example.

A: Can I lend your dictionary?

B: You mean “can I borrow it?”

A: Oh, we say borrow not lend do we? Can I borrow

your dictionary?

This conversation describes that A did not realize she made

a mistake until B pointed it out. Therefore, external

correction was necessary in this process.

As the above suggests, the biggest difference between

mistakes and errors is the correction: self correction

occurs in the process of making mistakes through production

monitoring while external correction is done for errors. In

other words learners may know they have made a mistake and

can correct them but they do not know they have made an

error.

Second language Errors can be divided into four major

categories due to their characteristics:

i) Developmental errors

ii) L1 interference,

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iii) Overgeneralizations

iv) Simplifications

Examples of error

Developmental errors

(1) I told my mother that it is more

interesting than study.

This error is considered a developmental error because

these types of error often happen typically to the learners

whose L1 does not have a “tense agreement” system. This

Japanese learner produced “is,” instead of saying “was,”

because people do not need to consider that system in their

native language, which is Japanese.

L1 interference

(2) My brother also enters the badminton club.

L1 interference error is literally caused by the learners’

first language. This example may be easily understandable

for learners whose L1 is Japanese, because people use the

same word hairu when try to say both going into and

join/take part in in Japanese. This word usage in L1

influenced production in L2.

Overgeneralization

(3) …she will be surprising and exciting….

This sentence shows an example of overgeneralization, which

L2 learners use certain grammatical features even though

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the occasion is not required. In this case the words

surprising and exciting should use the past participles

surprised and excited, however, this learner used the

present progressive.

Simplification

(4) Do you have [some] money?

Simplification is an error where elements of a sentence are

left out. This example shows that a learner skipped an

element, some, or any when she produced this sentence.

Developmental errors reflect “the learner’s gradual

discovery of the second language system,” (Lightbown and

Spada)6 and they are very similar to the errors that

children learning their L1 often make. On the other hand,

L1 interference is directly influenced by the learners’

attempts to transfer some of their L1 characteristics into

L2 learning processes. Overgeneralization errors occur when

learners try to “use a rule in a context where it does not

belong,” and simplification means to extract essential

elements of a sentence (Lightbown and Spada)7.

Errors consist of two bases according to when they

appear: competence and performance. “Competence” refers to

linguistic knowledge or understanding, which exists in our

ability, and “performance” means the actual usage of

language in speaking, or writing.

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Each leaner has their own “competence,” therefore,

one can acquire certain grammatical morphemes faster than

others. Naturally, there are learners who can follow their

classes where mainly they learn in the L2, and other

learners who tend to be behind the contents of the classes.

In such cases, what can happen when these L2 learners are

asked to produce something (performance) during the class,

and also after the class such as some kind of homework?

They may supply some similar production during the class,

however the later they produce an item, the more different

results researchers may get. This is because ..

For instance, if the learners learn the third person -

s in the classroom, during the class they will produce very

accurate and similar productions. However, when they do it

for homework or examinations after a week or so, some

learners will say, she go to school, or Does Tom eats

lunch?, while others may retain their stable production

like she goes to school, and Does Tom eat lunch? These

kinds of gaps between learners are often observed.

One who has enough and rich competence to acquire L2

will show stable developmental patterns while the other

whose competence is poor may supply random pattern results,

which is difficult to conclude that both subjects have

experienced similar developmental patterns.

1.4 Free production

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Investigating free production is one of the most

reliable methods to look at developmental stages in second

language acquisition. The difficulty of this type of study

is, however, that there is a great amount of missing data

that researchers want to have, in both analyzing speaking

and written production.

Verbal oral production can provide reliable and

spontaneous data, which are purely self-produced.

Therefore, the distinction between mistakes and errors can

be made clear. Compared to this, there is another type of

production which is written production.

Written production, for example from essays, seems to

be easier to obtain, hence, more convenient. However, this

type also has several inevitable disadvantages if we look

carefully.

1.5 Conclusion

In Chapter Two a simple study will be conducted

highlighting some of the main developmental patterns in

second language acquisition. The study will help to reveal

the main theme of this thesis which is to investigate the

validity and reliability of conducting studies which aim to

generalize developmental patterns with data obtained from a

simple case study.

In Chapter Three the results of the study will be

analyzed and discussed to discover some of the main

problems in conducting this type of research. Chapter Three

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will also identify some of the guidelines that future

researchers should pay attention to when they try to

conduct more valid studies aiming to examine developmental

orders.1 Hatch, E.M., p. 18.

2 Lightbown and Spada, p. 174

3 Lightbown and Spada, p.72-73

4 Selinker, L. 1972

5 Lightbown and Spada, p.74

6 Lightbown and Spada, p.173

7 Lightbown and Spada, p.75

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Chapter Two

The Study

2.1 Introduction

In Chapter One the basics for understanding

developmental sequences and its research were discussed. In

Chapter Two we will conduct a case study based on the

points which were explained in Chapter One. Then in Chapter

Three we will analyze these results focusing on some major

problems that influence the investigation of developmental

orders in second language learning.

This study was conducted in order to identify several

problems that occur when conducting studies of

developmental patterns. Although there are many different

kinds of methods which investigate developmental sequences,

it was obvious that the results from those studies did not

provide us with the entire picture of patterns for L2

acquisition. To discover the common problems of conducting

this type of research, obligatory occasion analysis was

used.

Obligatory occasion analysis is one of the most

common methods L2 acquisition researchers use in this kind

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of research. This will be explained later. The study

provides detailed results from two subjects, and there is

also a discussion of this simple study.

The aims of this study are to discover whether

a) developmental sequences can be found in the data

of two subjects, and

b) these data can be collected reliably

2.2 The study

In this section the study will be described.

2.2.1 Subjects

Two subjects volunteered to supply data for the study

of their developmental sequences. These are Subjects A and

B. The subjects were a college student and a High School

student in Okayama, and this was a convenience sample.

Subject A was 21-year-old senior at university

majoring in English. She has been learning English since

the age of 12 when the English education usually starts,

and this is her 10th year of learning English. Before she

began to learn English at school, however, she had been

strongly interested in English and influenced by music and

movies in English. Therefore, English was not a completely

new resource for her to learn.

Subject B was an 18 year-old-male, going to a High

School. Similar to A, Subject B also started learning

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English at the age of 12. When he was 14, he began to go to

a private English cram school which was focusing on English

grammar.

Subject A and B have studied English mainly through

classes at schools, and this research is based on their

notebooks or papers taken during those classes.

2.2.2 Instrument and Procedure

This study was based on the resources from Subject A

and B throughout the term of their learning. These

resources were the written free production such as

compositions, essays, and papers. These were chosen in

order to see the developmental sequences as was explained

in Chapter One. It is very important to focus on the free

production because the function of Interlanguage will

clearly appear in free production more than the restricted

or controlled production such as repetition and pattern

practice drills.

The errors found in these resources were divided into

four categories according to the specific characteristics

of errors: third person -s and copula, tense, and countable

and uncountable. Each subject provided their notebooks and

papers, and the researcher looked through those resources,

checking the numbers of errors in each category and looking

for the obligatory contexts.

2.2.3 Obligatory Occasion Analysis

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Obligatory occasion analysis was used as the primary

tool for investigating the data produced by the subjects.

It is one of the major methods used widely in the studies

of L2 acquisition. In short, obligatory occurrences are

occasions when a certain form must be produced and is the

only correct form that can be used. For example, in this

sentence “It is a book” only ‘book’ not ‘books’ can be used

as the sentence demands the singular form. If the sentence

‘It is a books’ were supplied and the obligatory form is

‘This is a book’, the supplied form is wrong. In other

words the obligatory occurrence was not supplied.

By looking at the percentage of correct suppliances

for obligatory occasions we can see how well a learner has

a acquired a particular form. If the learner always

supplies the obligatory form we can clearly say the learner

has acquired it. This is less certain when the percentage

is much lower, such as at say 50% or even 90%.

According to Ellis (1994)8 referring to Brown (1973),

there are three basic steps to collect these data. First,

“samples of naturally occurring learner language,” which

are freely produced, are supplied. Second, obligatory

occasions for each specific category of L2 are examined:

negation, questions, grammatical morphemes such as tense

and copula, and so on. Finally, “the percentage of accurate

use of the feature” is compared with obligatory occasion

numbers, considering “whether the feature in question has

been supplied in all the contexts in which it is required.”

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We shall now look some more at examples of these

obligatory and supplied occurrences.

(Example 1) Obligatory occasion in tense

Obligatory: The box has never been opened since 1900 .

Supplied: The box is never opened since 1900 .

(Example 2) Obligatory occasion in countable and

uncountable

Obligatory:

My brother broke glass of our room. –Uncountable

I don’t like wearing glasses…. –Countable

Supplied:

Finally, and I got three glass [glass cups]. –

Countable

We can see that in Example 1 the obligatory tense is the

Present perfect, but the present simple passive is used.

Therefore in this example the subject will score 0/1. In

other words for one occasion when the correct form was

required the subject did not supply it. Similar

calculations can be provided for example 2. Example 2 shows

the obligatory occasion for countable and uncountable

nouns. The supplied noun glass should be plural since the

learner mentioned about glass cups, however she used glass

[cups] as a material glass, which always remains singular,

and supplied by mistake.

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Based on the idea of obligatory occasions, the total

number of suppliances per feature were identified as

follows. For the sentences that included (or should have

included) third person -s and copula were counted in the

first category. Secondly past, future, and present and past

perfect tense obligatory and correct suppliances were

counted. Nouns, except pronouns, proper nouns, and numbers,

were collected as countable and uncountable, as mentioned

before. To prevent overestimating these results, each

feature, especially tense and third person -s and copula,

was counted once per clause. The method of analyzing these

results is shown in Examples 1 and 2.

Example 1

The treaty was founded on the presupposition that there is

nuclear relation between the US and the former Soviet Union.

Example 2

If it were not for the newspaper which tells us world ’ s

daily news, we would feel our daily lives inconvenient.

The first example shows that there are two clauses in the

sentence. The treaty was founded consists one past tense

feature, and one noun (countable), therefore, there are two

elements to count in part A. This suppliance is

grammatically correct, and therefore, the subject will

score 1/1 in both categories: tense and countable and

uncountable. Same as this calculation, the second one

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provides three clauses with tense, third person -s, and

countable and uncountable correctly. According to this

result, the subject will get 1/1 for each feature in

Example 2. All data supplied by two subjects were

calculated followed by this method.

2.2.4 Results

According to the research, each feature of the

developmental sequences of subject A and B was summarized.

Tables 1 and 2 show the distributions of errors from each

category.

Table 1. Total number of suppliances that we analyzed by

feature for Subject A.

Type Total

3rd person& Copula. 122

Tense 104

Countable and

Uncountable

151

Total 377

Table 2. Frequencies and Percentages of Correct Suppliance

for Subject A

Junior High

3rd

Grade

High School

2nd

Grade

High School

3rd

Grade

University

2nd

Grade

University

4th

Grade

S.R. % S.R. % S.R. % S.R. % S.R. %

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3rd person

and Copula11/33 66.7 17/27 63.0 13/17 76.5 18/22 81.8 19/23

82.

6

Tense 7/21 69.2 18/26 69.2 15/22 68.2 15/20 75.0 13/1586.

7

Countable

and

Uncountabl

e

13/34 62.5 17/29 41.4 16/31 51.6 22/40 55.0 12/1770.

6

Total 31/88 54/82 44/70 55/82 44/55

N.B. The S.R. column refers to the number of correct suppliances

for that number of obligatory occasions. E.g. the first item shows

that 6 of the 11 obligatory suppliances were correct.

Figure 1. The percentage of correct suppliance by

grammatical feature over the 5 years for subject A.

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Junior High3rd Grade

High School2nd Grade

High School3rd Grade

University 2ndGrade

University 4thGrade

3rd Person &CopulaTenseCountable & Uncountable

Subject A provided her resources over 10 years, and

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the total number of suppliance among three grammatical

features was 377 (Table 1). Table 2 shows the numbers and

the percentages of correct suppliances at the obligatory

occasions. For example, the first item shows that 6 of the

11 obligatory suppliances were correct, and its percentage

was 66.7%. Subject A produced a total of 31 correct usages

out of 88 obligatory occasions in Junior High 3rd grade.

Figure 1 (based on the data in Table 1) shows the

percentage of correct suppliance over 5 years. Countable

and Uncounrtable shows obvious up-and-down between Junior

High 3rd, High School 2nd, and High School 3rd years,

compared to other two features.

Table 3. Total number of suppliances that we analyzed by

feature for Subject B.

Type

3rd person& Copula.

Tense

Countable and Uncountable

Total

Total

137

107

112

356

Table 4: Frequencies and Percentages of Correct Suppliance

for Subject B

Junior High

1st Grade

Junior High

3rd Grade

High School High School

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1st

Grade

3rd

Grade

3rd person&

Copula.

25/36 75.0 18/40 45.0 18/25 72.0 31/36 86.1

Tense 16/18 88.9 27/40 32.5 15/20 75.0 23/29 79.3

Countable

and

Uncountable

21/24 87.5 24/33 72.7 14/29 48.3 20/26 76.9

Total 62/78 69/113 47/74 74/91

N.B. The ‘suppliance’ column by school year refers to the number of

correct suppliances for that number of obligatory occasions.

Figure 2. The percentage of correct suppliance by

grammatical feature over the 4 years for subject B.

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Junior High 1st Grade Junior High 1st Grade High School 1st Grade High School 3rd Grade

3rd Person & CopulaTenseCountable & Uncountable

Table 3 shows the total number of suppliances over 4

years for subject B. The total number of suppliances is

356, consisting of 137 from third person and copula, 107

from tense, and 112 from countable and uncountable

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categories. Table 4 also shows the frequencies and the

percentages of subject B, and Figure 2 shows the graph for

each grammatical figure. Subject B supplied more complex

behavior and less stability compared to subject A.

Countable and uncountable similarly goes up-and-down over

time while the other two features also show great decreases

and increases, which could not be found in Figure 1.

2.3 Discussion

This simple study provided us with several important

findings. First of all, it clearly showed that the actual

patterns of acquisition for L2 could not be obtained. Even

thought some predictions about developmental sequences in

second language learning can be possible, such as tense and

3rd person “-s” and copula will be acquired easier and

faster than nouns, the results from this study should not

and cannot be generalized into a whole picture of

developmental sequences in second language acquisition.

This was expected as was discussed in Chapter One.

Mostly, the correct suppliances of two subjects have

increased over the learning terms (Figure 1 and 2). Subject

A seemed to have quite a stable increase while subject B

showed more up and down. There are several reasons we need

to consider these result carefully. Firstly, subject A had

more stable competence and performance than B. Secondly,

subject A might have had richer input to develop her

understanding of her L2 structure. Thirdly, the quality and

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quantity of data that subject A and B provide were

unbalanced.

The most noticeable point in these tables is that

both subject A and B experienced a large decrease on

countable and uncountable nouns, which are very difficult

for Japanese native speakers to master. Subject A got the

worst percentages of correct use when she was in High

School second grade, and also B got only 48.3% of correct

use in High School first year.

There are two possible reasons for this, a) the

amount of nouns that subjects had to deal with increased

rapidly in High School education and b) the subjects

started to explore and discover the rules of nouns,

producing language more spontaneously, therefore the number

of errors increased. This is well known as the intermediate

plateau whereby learners re-organize their language systems

at this stage and seem to show apparent and temporary

decreases in ability.

Another point to look at is the high percentages of

correct usages in Junior High School. This may be because

of the educational system in Junior High School. First, in

Junior High School the grammatical contents of English are

comparatively low and easy at Junior High School, and also

teachers often monitor learners to make them learn

“correct” English. Secondly, at this early stage of

learning second language, school teachers do not require

learners to produce much language in the way of free

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production. Many exercises done in this period of learning

are mainly grammar drills. Therefore, there are few data

that can be useful to observe patterns of development, and

correct suppliances are produced under limitation or

controlled from outside in line with the teacher’s wishes.

2.4 Summary

This chapter discussed a study examining two subjects

in order to describe developmental patterns in second

language acquisition. Even though the scale of the study

was not large and detailed enough, there were some points

that need to be discussed regarding the research methods.

In Chapter Three the problems found throughout the process

of this study will be discussed.

8 Ellis R, p. 74-75.

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Chapter Three

Problems Doing Developmental Sequences Research

3.1 Introduction

It is clear that developmental sequences are

considered one of the more important processes through

which all language learners go through as mentioned in

Chapter One. Consequently, the previous chapter described a

study which was conducted to highlight developmental

sequences in second language acquisition and reveal

problems occurring in the process of conducting the

research. This chapter will focus on and investigate some

of the major problems which were found in the previous

study. These will be categorized into two types of

problems: methodological problems and analyzing problems.

Finally, a brief guideline for researching developmental

sequences in second language acquisition, specifically for

case studies, will be given.

3.2 Methodological Problems

As mentioned in the first chapter, there are two

types of study: cross-sectional studies and longitudinal

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studies, and in both methods, sampling is the first problem

to overcome before we can proceed with these kinds of

studies. In case study research, which tends to focus on a

small number of subjects and often is longitudinal, usually

one to two subjects are studied like the study in Chapter

Two. This may seem to be sufficient, however there can be a

problem when the results from these subjects are completely

different as shown in the study. Thus to get generalizable

results, it is important to consider the subjects’

backgrounds when sampling is conducted in order to lead to

more reliable results concerning developmental sequences in

second language acquisition in case studies.

Similar suggestions apply to group study research

that deals with a larger number of subjects in a cross-

sectional study. In addition, the relationship between the

number of the subjects and the reliability of the results

should be clarified, and by doing this, sampling will be

more specific and targeted.

Another concern is how long subjects have been

learning the language. There seems to be a strong case to

suggest there should be a threshold amount of learning

before one can conduct experimental studies on

developmental patterns. Especially in longitudinal studies,

the data researchers can get directly depends on the length

of time the subjects’ have been learning.

The most noticeable point here is that subjects are

all unique and different, therefore the data which are

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supposed to show their developmental order may not be valid

beyond that learner no matter how long researchers collect

their data. One subject may supply remarkable data over 10

years of learning a second language while the other seems

not to develop L2 structure as clearly. This is seen in

Chapter Two, Figures 1 and 2.

There are other difficulties concerning the length of

subjects’ learning L2 when collecting data. First, it takes

quite a long time to get enough data to discover certain

patterns that researchers would like to have. In the

previous study, data over more than six years of learning

English were provided, however there were a lot of missing

data. If researchers want enough data to identify

developmental patterns, they have to spend both a lot of

time and a lot of money to collect data. This can include

recording, data storage, and so on.

Secondly, it is important to collect a great amount

of data frequently. This can be done by changing the points

or the questions to ask in order to get enough data to

accurately see the acquisition processes in second language

acquisition. A small amount of data means that there is

almost no validity and reliability to identify the

processes at work. Even if a great deal of data are

collected, it is laborious to reexamine the data over and

over because if the data were collected a long time ago

even the subjects may not recognize what kind of

productions they are, or whether they were errors or

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mistakes. Furthermore, there can be limitations or controls

coming from the context where the data is collected even

though the researcher can get enough data.

In Chapter One, the significance of collecting and

analyzing free production was discussed. Free production is

very reliable data when it is determined as purely produced

by subjects themselves because there is a great possibility

that researchers can misjudge tutored production such as

teacher-monitoring of essays as free production, especially

in longitudinal studies. Such teacher monitoring will of

course affect the data.

There is also a big disadvantage in research dealing

with language production in that it is almost impossible to

record a subject’s every spontaneous utterance so that

researchers may collect good language data and patterns. In

addition, recording all productions is both expensive and

time consuming. Moreover, it is quite difficult to

recognize whether they are mistakes or errors because

written production can be erased, and researchers may

misjudge mistakes as errors and vise versa, because of this

difficulty.

There is also a possibility that subjects do not

correct their errors intentionally because they are lazy or

they just forget. Subjects may also avoid using some

grammatical features, which seem to be more difficult and

complicated to use. This is just a small list of possible

errors that learners may make which may confound attempts

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to analyze recorded productions.

As pointed out before, longitudinal case studies look

at the same individual subjects over a period of time. The

older the data become, the harder it is to determine that

the data were produced freely by the subjects.

Consequently, the reliability of the study itself will be

lower.

Considering these points it seems to be very

difficult to collect enough freely produced data, which

researchers want to have in a longitudinal case study.

Moreover, a case study which focuses on too few subjects to

find out general and clear definition for developmental

sequences in second language acquisition. Moreover, these

problems are magnified in group studies, which have to deal

with many more subjects and with much more time. This makes

it difficult to expect reliable data.

3.3 Analyzing Problems

As well as methodological problems, analyzing

problems can occur very frequently, and are also difficult

to resolve. The first point to take into account when

analyzing the data is about the subjects. As suggested in

the previous section, subjects are often chosen

conveniently, therefore, the differences in their

background information, which will largely influence a

study’s results, tend to be given insufficient attention.

It is important, however, to notice this and how these

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differences emerge and to recognize what kind of problems

they will create.

First, each subjects’ educational and language

learning background has to be discussed referring to the

study. These include the contents of classes, time span,

the method of teaching, personal motivation, and amount of

exposure. Because the two subjects in the study were

Japanese students, the results may reflect the educational

system in Japan. In Japan, English education in the early

stages, such as Junior High and High School, mainly aims at

the acquisition of English grammar, and eventually, a large

proportion of class content is spent on grammatical

exercises like translation or patterned drills rather than

speaking or listening.

Both subjects A and B experienced “grammar-based”

classes, however A took several classes which were based on

free communication with native English speakers over two

years. B, on the other hand, practiced English grammar by

going to a private cram school throughout his Junior High

years. Even though two subjects were in the same

educational system, they and their developmental sequences

were influenced by different class content or extra

curricula activities which seemed to be small but continued

over certain periods of time.

The time span when the data were created is also

important to consider. We can assume that the sooner the

subjects produced the data after learning certain

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grammatical morphemes, the more often and accurate they use

them in their production. To investigate developmental

sequences, it can be said that the freer the data are

produced, the more apparent the sequences will be.

Therefore, production created during or right after classes

may not be reliable data because there is a large

possibility that it is greatly influenced by the contents

of the classes. Researchers need the data, which are freely

created, and from this point, production performed after

classes, or a certain amount of time later, is more

preferable (Chapter One). If 80% of the data was created in

the classroom, for instance, while 20% was performed as

homework, the data cannot be completely relevant. In the

previous study, however, it is difficult to judge when

those data were created because they have the same massive

problems mentioned in methodological problems section.

Concerning the problem of time span when resources

are produced, the amount of exposure is another key point.

The amount of exposure means how often subjects experience

second language learning. Clearly the frequency of the L2

learning strongly affects their understanding of L2

structures and their acquisition. If researchers hope to

see the general picture of developmental sequences in

second language acquisition, they need to find subjects

with approximately the same amount of exposure, which seems

to be very difficult.

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The two subjects in Chapter Two had different amounts

of exposure. The numbers of classes in school through

Junior High and High School were basically the same (three

classes per a week in Junior High, and four per a week in

High School), however, as mentioned in Chapter One, B went

to a private cram school twice a week while A did not have

special extra English lessons. Obviously, their length of

exposure is different, and the results from their data

should not be discussed without taking into account this

difference between the subjects.

Secondly, the subjects’ individual characters

including their interests toward language learning is

another point to look at even though it is very difficult

to measure the subjects’ interests exactly. Lightbown and

Spada9 also mentioned, second language acquisition was

greatly related to the learners’ characteristics. These

were classified into five features - motivation, aptitude,

personality, intelligence, and learner preferences.

However, in this regard there were several problems when

collecting the data. Firstly, there is a lack of reliable

methods measuring these five qualities, and secondly there

are problems of misinterpreting or overgeneralizing the

relationships between the five aspects as well as language

proficiency.

The subjects’ environment is one of the elements that

create those qualities, and concerning this point, the

variety of input that the subjects have obtained in a

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particular environment affects second language learning.

Researchers need to know what kind of input subjects have

experienced or can get because observation and the

hypothesis we can make from these processes are based on

what they read and listen. To see developmental patterns in

second language learning emerge naturally, quite a lot and

rich input is necessary. General developmental stages that

would apply to many L2 learners will not appear if input is

too hard or poor, and again, it is not possible to know

what input the subjects have had before their data are

collected.

3.4 Guidelines

Throughout this chapter, the problems of this study,

both methodological and analyzing problems, were discussed.

In both categories it was obvious that time greatly and

directly affected research results and caused difficulty

that made it difficult to identify a clear image of

developmental patterns. As described throughout the

methodological problems section, time prevents researchers

from collecting valuable data as errors or mistakes

especially in longitudinal case studies. In addition, a

longitudinal study is not strong enough to provide a

general picture of developmental sequences since it deals

with quite a few subjects. One of the difficult processes

is to identify whether they are “errors,” which can be

useful information to see developmental sequences, or

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“mistakes” (Chapter One).

One of the suggestions to reduce these indefinite

elements for longitudinal study is to conduct another type

of study. For example, Marilyn Adams suggested a different

kind of research as her study design (Hatch)10. This may be

　 a pseudo-longitudinal study which is designed so that

one may work simultaneously with children of different

language-experience groups, each having utterances

representing various levels of development: a composite

picture of different levels simultaneously. (p.279)

She combined a pseudo-longitudinal study and a longitudinal

study, and conducted a study, which was supposed to

discover more detailed and complete results in less time,

and better generalizations for developmental sequences.

In the case of Adams’ design, there were many

advantages that researchers could compare between different

L1 speakers and people who have different age. Moreover,

this type of research requires less, and more targeted,

time than usual methods such as a longitudinal study. There

are, however, some unresolved problems. Researchers may not

be able to see clear patterns or to get useful data. In

addition, there is still a difficulty with the subjects

themselves such as their background, their history of

input, personality, and so on. It is certain, however, that

such attempts to discover other study designs is very

- 36 -

worthy and significant in spite of the difficulties.

As described in Chapter One and Three, it is very

difficult to distinguish errors from mistakes, especially

if the time after collection is lengthy, and also,

collecting only errors is an incredibly time and cost

consuming process. Actually, the most efficient way to

collect errors based on free production needs some sort of

external pressure. For instance, if a teacher requires

subjects to write essays without using an eraser in classes

over certain periods, they may produce very useful data.

However, the learners may take more time to produce things

more carefully and this also can affect naturally produced

data. Even outside the classroom, a teacher or a researcher

can ask them to tape their own conversation for studies.

Without any external pressure or effort, it is almost

impossible to get variable data. However, subjects’

personalities and feelings must be taken account of the

results of their data.

3.5 Summary

Chapter Three analyzed some of the problems in

conducting a research dealing with developmental sequences

in second language acquisition. It also suggested

guidelines that future researchers have to consider when

they take this type of research.

It is very difficult to find a new efficient method

to provide a general picture of developmental sequences.

- 37 -

Since English education in Japan is based on the classroom,

researchers may find some difficulties to deal with

subjects. In other words, there is a great possibility to

obtain efficient and useful data if they can work with this

particular situation, specifically Japanese subjects.

9 Lightbown and Spada p. 76.

10 Hatch, p. 279-280.

- 38 -

Bibliography

Ellis, R. “Developmental patterns: order and sequence in

second language acquisition” The Study of Second

Language Acquisition . Oxford: Oxford University Press,

1994.

Fromkim, V. A. (Ed). Errors in Linguistic Performance—

Slips of the Tongue, Ear, Pen, and Hand-- . New York:

Academic Press, 1980.

Klein, W. Second Language Acquisition. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1986.

Lightbown, P.M., and Spada, N. How Languages are Learned.

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Hatch, E.M. (Ed). Second Language Acquisition.

Massachusetts: Newbury House, 1978.