1. A LESLLA corpus Ineke van de Craats i.v.d.craats@let.ru.nl i.v.d.craats@let.ru.nl Radboud University, Nijmegen Research funded by NWO (355-70-017) LESLLA 2010 - Cologne

2. Why LESLLA? LESLLA learners differ from highly educated learners. LESLLA learners may process spoken language differently (Petersson et al. 2000; Reis & Castro-Caldas, 1997) Language pedagogy to LESLLA learners should take into account that: - abstract words and function words are not viewed as words (e.g. Kurvers, 2002; ) - words with little meaning are difficult to recall (e.g. Tarone et al. 2007) - LESLLA-learners have little metalinguistic and strategic skills (e.g. Kurvers 2002) - they may understand feedback /recasts differently (Tarone et al. 2007) - reading and writing skills are lacking or restricted.

3. LESLLA learners by accident LESLLA corpora ‘avant la lettre’ Longitudinal: - Heidelberger Forschungsprojekt (Klein & Dittmar 1979) -ZISA project (Clahsen et al. 1983) –ESF project (Klein & Perdue, 1992; Perdue 1993) Cross-sectional: -Lexlern project (Clahsen et al. 1991) Is acquisition possible solely on the basis of aural input?

4. LESLLA learners at purpose Minneapolis Somali literacy study (Tarone, Bigelow & Hansen 2007; 2009) What is the impact of literacy on oral L2 use and development? 3 studies, on: corrective feedback, elicited imitation oral narratives (learners focussing on meaning) LESLLA-corpus (van de Craats 2009;2010) longitudinal: 3 semesters (15-18 months) How does the low-literate learner proceed in the classroom?

5. LESLLA corpus Purpose of the project: Is the L1 morphosyntax an essential factor of stagnation in L2 acquisition of these learners?

6. LESLLA corpus Research questions: Is there still impact from a low literacy level or from another phonetic script? Low-paced development for morphosyntax? Is that caused by transfer from L1?

7. LESLLA corpus - design Longitudinal study of 3 semesters/cycles (1.5 years) Same tasks administered in each cycle. Two language groups: L2: Dutch L1: Turkish, Moroccan Arabic CEF level at start: below A1 with a very basic vocabulary. Elicitationmaterial: Reading task Receptive tasks Productive tasks Metalinguistic tasks

8. Turkish participants (at start) AgeSchoolingStay in NL stagnating TU - Neth. years Zilfi30 5 1;5 11no Hülya19 50;7 0.5no Emine28 50;8 13no - yes Hilal19 51;8 2yes - no Ayfer37 50;8 18yes Nazife31 50;6 1yes Hatice45 50;6 26yes Özlem31 62;0 5yes Mean30 51;0 9.5

9. Moroccan participants (at start) AgeSchoolingStaying NL Stagnating MA - Neth. Mina23 0 2;0 4no Zohra41 5 0;7 8no Soad34 4 0;8 12no Najat25 4 1;6 4yes - no Hayat22 5 2;0 2yes Nezha38 0 1;3 3yes Fatima27 7 1;8 5 yes Mean303.6 1;3 5.4

10. Reading skills Moroccan participants AgeSchoolingArabic literacy course Roman script Mina23 0yesyes Zohra41 5 yesno Soad34 4yesno Najat25 4 yesyes Hayat22 5 yesyes Nezha38 0 yesyes Fatima27 5+2yesno Mean30 3.6

11. Literacy level 3 tasks: text; self paced reading; drag and drop task

12. Reading time for an L2 text (in sec.) Cycle I II III Mean Zilfi 131 108 111 117 Hülya 86 110 100 99 Emine 116 133 137 129 Hilal 143 103 132 126 Ayfer 122 194 140 152 Nazife 117 98 99 105 Hatice 145 183 137 155 Özlem 182 107 90 126 Mean 130 129 118 126 Cycle I II III Mean Mina 148144 129 140 Zohra 141 - 138 139 Soad 127 152 119 133 Najat 172 174 165 170 Hayat 217 244 174 212 Nezha 307 264 225 265 Fatima 120 123 161 135 Mean 176 183 158 172 Turkish Moroccan

13. Self-paced reading task Instruction: Read the sentence aloud and recall the last word. Push the button. Read the next sentence (12 and 16 syllables) etc. 3 pairs of 2 sentences 3 pairs of 3 sentences 3 pairs of 4 sentences Say the last word of each sentence in the right order.

14. Self-paced reading task (16 syllables) Reading time TurkishMoroccan learners 2 sent.-pair 121 sec30 sec 2 sent.-pair 220 sec36 sec 2 sent.-pair 322 sec41 sec Mean per sentence10 sec18 sec 3 sent. mean10 sec.16 sec 4 sent. mean10 sec.16 sec (for 10 Turkish and 10 Moroccan learners in Cycle 1)

15. Transfer and reading L1 L2 Order within the noun phrase

16. Drag-and-drop task Purpose: What is the influence of the L1? Semi-controlled task Adapted version of the drag-and-drop task: The learner has more blocks to drag and drop than required for the task. This opens the way to investigate: - pro-drop and/or topic drop - choose between an L1 and an L2 structure.

17. Drag-and-drop task Possessive relationship in the noun phrase Turkish order: possessor – possessee Hassan’s car (Hasan-in araba-si) Moroccan Arabic:possessee – possessor the car (of) Hassan Dutch:1.Hassans auto Hassan z’n/zijn auto zijn auto 2.de auto van Hassan de auto van hem

18. Adapted drag-and-drop task Hassan Dat is …………………………………………………. Hassanautoz’nvan Target: Hassan z’n auto Not correct: auto van Hassan (correct: de auto van Hassan) Number of moves and reaction time were registrated.

19. Results for 10 possessive noun phrases TUMAdifference Cyc.1Moves 45,1540,29 5 RT sec.286.83387.18100.35 sec Cyc.2 Moves49.2540.99 8 RT sec.246.7294.4 47.7 sec Cyc.3 Moves58.2140.1718 RT sec.293.58310.5817 sec Number of moves increases for Turks, stable for Moroccans. Number of seconds decreases for Moroccans, not for Turks. Turks start manipulating the word order, Moroccans not (they read faster than before).

20. Easiest and most difficult possessive NPs Moroccan Turkish Easiest NP 2.95 moves 3.16 moves jouw kado mevr. Larbi d’r man your present mrs. Larbi’s (her) husband Most difficult NP5.5 moves 6.58 moves Freeks ouders de opa van Bas Freek’s parents the grandpa of Bas Transfer of the L1 becomes clear in the P’sor-P’see order.

21. Bas’ grandpa (de opa van Bas) Most frequent variant of Turkish learners: Bas-van de opa(Turkish genitive) Bas-van z’n de opa (stimulus: Dat is …. /Bas/ de opa/z’n /van) De opa van Bas: 12,5 % correct for the Turks (mean:6,5) also in 14 / 20 / 22 moves, or in 3 or 5 moves. All Moroccans do it 100% correctly, but they need too many moves (mean: 4) and too much time (mean: 30 sec.) Abstract function words play a crucial role. Syntactic development is slow.

22. Transfer and reading L1 L2 Order within the sentence V finite

23. The finite verb 1.In the drag and drop task Turkish: SOV finite Moroccan Arabic: SV finite O Dutch:SV finite O Make a sentence: …………………………………………………………………………….. | get | Freek | a fine | gets | krijgenFreekeen bonkrijgt

24. The finite verb 1.In the drag and drop task TurkishCycle I II III Freek een bon krijgt/en. 50% 37% 37% Moves (mean) 3,8 4,4 3,8 RT (mean)in sec. 17 19,9 18,5 Moroccan Freek een bon krijgt/en. 0% 14% 0% Moves (mean)3,1 3,6 3,8 RT (mean)in sec.3527,9 20,7

25. Narratives Development of morphosyntaxis in a relatively free task: film retelling and picture telling story.

26. Bare verbs Do these literacy learners produce abstract, grammatical (semantically redundant) morphemes, such as -inflectional endings (3sg) and -grammatical free morphemes (copulas, modals, auxiliaries)? that are difficult to process, or mainly bare verbs?

27. Turkish learners

28. Turkish and Moroccan learners compared

29. Conclusions The Turkish group produced more bare (long) forms than the Moroccan learners, although they were literate learners. The picture is opposite for the Moroccan group, although they were the moderate/advanced literacy learners with more short forms. Cause?? Not literacy, but interplay between L1 and L2 is at issue. The short forms are mainly default forms

30. Default forms Beginning learners use default verb forms. Moroccan learners of Dutch prefer other default verb forms than Turkish learners. The L1-L2 interplay is the motivation for this preference. –Turkish learners take long forms (infinitives), Moroccans short defaults (‘finite’). –Turks have to acquire movement of the verb. –Moroccans have to learn what an infinitive is.

31. A ‘finite’ default form kan niet [ VP gaat fiets] Najat can not go.3sg bike een vriendin is zij [ VP zegt “kom”] Soad a girlfriend is she say.3sg come ik ga buiten [ VP speelt] Fatima I go-1sg outside play.3sg For Moroccan learners the default form is short and ‘finite’.

32. The finite verb in picture telling task Zilfi (Turkish) Vader niet komen Cycl. 1 Vader is niet komen father is not come. INF Cycl. 2Vader is niet kom come. 1SG/STEM Cycl. 3(pro) kom niet die vader (v.d.Craats 2005, 2009) dummy auxiliary

33. The finite verb in picture telling task Moroccans: Sneeuwman ga kijken tableaus snowman go look paintings Dan ga loop naar de raam Then go walk to the window Number of ga-patterns 7 Turks : 10 7 Moroccans: 313 another dummy auxiliary

34. Dummy auxiliaries Dummy auxiliaries may: Emerge when (bound) verb morphology has not fully been acquired yet; Realise one of more grammatical features normally part of a lexical verb. Disappear after a specific developmental stage. Typically (??) emerge in the speech of vulnerable learners such as LESLLA learners, SLI children.

35. Conclusions Decoding fluency may influence results of written tasks with low- educated learners, but will have disappeared at A2-level (CEF). Low-paced development of these LESLLA-learners shows the small steps such as insertion of dummy auxiliaries to overcome composite morphosyntactic changes (L1 influence is persistent). Difficulty of grammatical morphemes has more to do with salience in an L1-L2 interplay. Lack of meaning is one aspect of salience (unstressed is another). Literate learners are also intended to skip grammatical morphemes in sentence imitation. The morpheme learning steps: lexical item – free functional item – bound functional item are also observed in literate learners (e.g. VanPatten 1995). More comparative research between literates and non/low-literates is necessary., e.g. about insertion of dummy auxilairies.