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SHOULD WE TEACH CHILDREN SYNTAX?
Author(s) -
Dulay Heidi C.,
Burt Marina K.
Publication year - 1973
Publication title -
language learning
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.882
H-Index - 103
eISSN - 1467-9922
pISSN - 0023-8333
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-1770.1973.tb00659.x
Subject(s) - syntax , morpheme , psychology , language acquisition , natural (archaeology) , linguistics , habit , second language acquisition , cognitive psychology , mathematics education , social psychology , philosophy , archaeology , history
Two research studies on child L2 acquisition were conducted sequentially over the last year. The first study used comparative error analysis to determine whether the actual L2 errors children make can be accounted for by “creative construction” or “habit formation.” The findings provided the impetus for the second study which compared the sequence of acquisition of certain grammatical morphemes in three different groups of children, using a cross‐sectional technique. The combined findings of the two studies suggest that, given a natural communication situation, children's innate ability to organize structure accounts in a major way for their acquisition of L2 syntax. Although we believe that an L2 teacher should continue to diagnose children's L2 speech, our findings suggest that we should leave the learning of syntax to the children and redirect our teaching efforts. Practical suggestions are offered to help create speech environments in the classroom that capitalize on the child's natural language learning processes.