WSU Morphology and Syntax in An Arabic Learner Report

 Title –

Examples:

• L2- English morphological development in a Spanish- English bilingual
• Acquisition of English syntactic structure in an Italian migrant
• Morphological analysis of L2- English in a native Japanese speaker
• L2-English developmental stage of an Arabic learner

Introduction

• General introduction to the topic link all of these questions
• The purpose of this study
• Why is SLA important to study?
• Are all learners equally successful when it comes to L2 learning?
• What factors affect SLA?
• Literature Review
• Overview of the previous studies and relevant theories (e.g., Processability theory) Give general ideas of about three studies and if you agree with them why, or why not?
• Gap in the literature
• Aim and research question(s) of the present study: What does this study seek to investigate?
• What developmental stage in L2- English morphology (and/or syntax) has the learner reached according to Processability Theory?
• Can the learner’s productive use of L2- English be explained in light of Processability Theory?
• Can be formulated as a question or a statement (The aim of this study is to investigate……)

Methodology –

• informant
• Age, gender
• Country of birth, L1
• Length of residence in Australia, etc.
• Background information
• Data
• What types of data was collected?
• How was the data collection handled(recording, transcription, processing, devices and programs used)
• Some basic information about the data collected: interview duration, total number of turns
• Procedure
• Ethics statement
• How and where did you conduct the interview? Were there any interruptions? (Interview setting)
• What tasks did you use? ( bear picnic and finding the differences between the pictures)

Results –

• What theoretical framework did you use to look at your results? (Hint. PT….)
• Morphology table or syntactic tables or both
• Describe your findings depending on the above criteria(please, do not just put the tables
• Recall that in Processability theory strict emergence criteria are used
• Accuracy measurements are encouraged but not mandatory
• We can say that a structure is acquired when the learner shows they can use it productively:
• Morphology:

– Lexical variation; cats and dogs

• Form variation: one cat and three cats
• Syntax
• First emergence of a structure plus one more occurrence with different lexicon to ensure that the single occurrence is not formulaic. Or else, a different structure at the same level.
• The notion of emergence here is ‘positive evidence’ for the structure. So, for any of one syntactic structure, a couple of clear occurrences would amount to sufficient evidence for the emergence of that structure.

Important: Make sure that the two occurrences are not exactly the same words, formulas or repetitions!

I.e. repeated from what the other speaker said in the previous turn

Discussion and Conclusion (put it as one section)

• Remind the reader about the purpose of your study and your research questions
• Relate your findings to your research questions
• Identify the learner’s stages of morphological and syntactic development
• Make suggestions/ recommendations for improving their L2- mastery
• Briefly outline implications of the present study as well as its limitations
• Make suggestions for future research in this area

Citations 

Appendix

• Appendix A: Transcript (with numbered turns)
• Appendix B:
• Appendix C:
• Appendix D: