US German Majors' Knowledge of Grammatical Gender

To receive a degree in a foreign language from an accredited US university, students must demonstrate a high level of language mastery, which includes their ability to communicate effectively in the target language. For majors who are working in a second language, reaching professionally required levels of proficiency is a daunting task. For example, the state of Michigan requires that language teachers score a minimum of Advanced Low on a Simulated Oral Proficiency Examination (SOPI) in order to teach in public high schools. It is important to address the needs of these second language learners by assessing their outcomes upon degree completion and adjusting our programs to optimize this outcome (Carroll, 1967). Each language confronts the learner with unique learning challenges. Learners of Chinese must master a large number of characters to read a newspaper. Conversely, speakers of some foreign languages find the correct usage of English articles to be an ongoing challenge. For L2 German, one of the greatest hurdles is learning to understand, process, and produce the differing gender, number, and case markings in determiner phrases (DPs) (Bobb, 2008; Delisle, 1985; Desrochers, Wieland, & Cote, 1991; Hopp, 2012; Kuchenbrandt, 2008; Lemhofer, Schriefers, & Hanique, 2010; Reiss, 1999; Rogers, 1987; Sabourin, 2001; Sabourin, Stowe, & de Haan, 2006). DPs in German always show marking on their non-root parts, i.e., articles and adjectives. In some cases, an indefinite article may not receive overt marking, but the lack of marking does, in fact, provide case and gender information as it is understood within the morphological paradigm. The following example shows how German DPs are marked within sentences. For clarity, DPs are underlined and overt marking is bolded: