The Development of Grammar Categories in Spanish by Anglo Children Learning a Second Language

The purpose of this study was to investigate the hypothesis that second language learning in children is similar to first language learning. The subjects were twelve Anglo second graders in the Spanish Immersion Program in Culver City, California. Two Spanish morphology tests, the Bilingual Syntax Measure, an Oral Storytelling Measure, a Repetition, task, and a Reflexive Elicitation task were used to elicit speech. Spontaneous speech was also recorded, and five hours of teacher language in the classroom was taped. A detailed error analysis was performed on the elicited natural speech data. Results indicated that subject-verb number and person agreement, adjective-noun gender and article-noun gender were tenacious morphological problems. Object pronoun omission and misuse, and the expression of tense were other problem areas. The low frequency of object pronouns and tenses other than present in the teacher input data was suggested as a reason for the children's problems in these areas. Overall, the study found similarities between first and second language development data, but the differences tended to disconfirm a strong version of the L1 = L, hypothesis, which would claim that the acquisition order and learning strategies shown in second language acquisition would be identical to those shown in first language acquisition.