A case study is a detailed study of a learner’s acquisition of an L2.It is typically longitudinal, involving the collection of samples of the learner’s speech or writing over a period of time, sometimes years. The two case studies which we will now examine were both longitudinal. One is of an adult learner learning English in surroundings where it serves as a means of daily communication and the other of two children learning English in a classroom.
A case study of an adult learner
Wes was a thirty-three year-old artist, a native speaker of Japanese. He had had little formal instruction in English, having
left school at fifteen. While he remained in Japan his contacts with native speakers were few and far between. It was only when he began to visit Hawaii, in connection with his work, that he had regular opportunities to use English. Wes, then, is an example of a ‘naturalistic’ learner—someone who learns the language at the
same time as learning to communicate in it.
Richard Schmidt, a researcher at the University of Hawaii,studied Wes’s language development over a three-year period
from the time he first started visiting Hawaii until he eventually took up residence there. Schmidt asked Wes to make recordings in English when he went on trips back to Tokyo. He then made written transcriptions of these monologues, which lasted between one and three hours. In addition, Schmidt made recordings and transcriptions of informal conversations between Wes and friends in Honolulu. Among other things, Schmidt was interested in how Wes’s
knowledge of English grammar developed over the three years. To this end he focused on a small number of grammatical features, such as the use of auxiliary be, plural -s (for example,‘spoons’), third person -s (for example, ‘comes’), and regular past tense (for example, ‘jumped’). He looked to see how accurately
Wes used these features in his speech at a time near the beginning of his study and at a time near the end.
What might constitute evidence that Wes was acquiring the grammar of English? Strong evidence would be if Schmidt could show that Wes had learned to use the grammatical features with the same level of accuracy as native speakers of English. In fact,Wes could already use some of the features with native-like accuracy at the beginning of his study. However, Schmidt suspected that Wes had not really acquired these. For example,although Wes did succeed in using progressive -ing when it was required, as in:All day I’m sitting table. he also supplied it in sentences when it was not required:So yesterday I didn’t painting. Furthermore, there were very few verbs which Wes used in both the simple form (for example, ‘paint’) and the progressive form (for example, ‘painting’). He generally used each verb with just one of these forms. Clearly, Wes did not have the same knowledge of progressive -ing as a native speaker.
In fact, Wes had little or no knowledge at the beginning of the study of most of the grammatical structures Schmidt investigated. Moreover, he was still far short of native-speaker accuracy three years later. For example, he continued to omit -s from plural nouns, rarely put -s on the third person singular of verbs, and never used the regular past tense.
It would be wrong, however, to think of Wes as a complete failure as a language learner. Although he did not learn much
introduction services and goods over the period of study. Requests can be performed in a variety of ways in English, for example:
Give me your pencil.
Can I have your pencil?
Would you mind giving me your pencil?
They can be relatively simple, as in the above examples, or they
can be quite complex, as when the speaker offers a reason for
making the request:
My pencil’s broken. Would you mind giving me yours?
Because English was the medium of communication in these
learners’ classrooms there were numerous opportunities for them
to hear and to perform requests. I collected samples of the two
learners’ requests by visiting their classrooms regularly and writ-
ing down any requests they produced.
When I analysed J’s and R’s requests, I found clear evidence of
development taking place. Moreover, the two learners appeared
to develop in much the same way. Initially, their requests were
verbless. For example, when J needed a cut out of a big circle in a
mathematics lesson he said:
Big circle.
while, in a different lesson, R just pointed at a piece of card to let
the teacher know that he wanted him to put a staple in it, saying:
Sir.
A little later, both learners began to use imperative verbs in their
requests:
Give me.
Give me a paper.
Some time after this, they learned to use ‘Can I have ____?’:
Can I have one yellow book, please?
The next stage of their development of requests was marked by a
general extension of the linguistic devices they used. For example,
R made use of ‘want’ statements:
Miss, I want. (R wanted the teacher to give him the stapler.)
J used ‘got’:
You got a rubber?
introduction
SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
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Occasionally, both learners used hints instead of direct requests.
For example, when J wanted the teacher to give him a different
coloured piece of paper he said:
This paper is not very good to colour blue.
Finally, the learners began to use ‘can’ with a range of different
verbs (i.e. not just with ‘have’):
Can you pass me my pencil?
A number of points emerge from this. One is that both learners were capable of successfully performing simple requests even when they knew very little English. Another is both learners manifested development in their ability to perform requests over the period of study. In particular, they acquired alternative ways of performing them. A third point is that many of their requests seemed formulaic in nature. That is, they used fixed expressions like ‘Can I have a ____?’ or ‘Have you got a ____?’ A fourth point is that both learners progressed in much the same way despite the fact that they had different native languages.
By the end of the study, therefore, the two learners’ ability to use requests had grown considerably. However, it was equally clear that this ability was limited in a number of respects. Their requests tended to be very direct (i.e. they mostly took the form of commands with an imperative verb) throughout, whereas native speakers would tend to use more indirect requests (for example,they make requests by asking questions or giving hints). The learners’ requests were generally very simple. They rarely modified a request and, if they did so, relied more or less exclusively on the one modifier ‘please’. Also, whereas native speakers of English vary the way they perform a request with different addressees to ensure politeness, the two learners used the same range of request strategies irrespective of whether they were talking to the teacher or other students. In short, despite ample opportunity to master requests, the two learners were still far short of native-like competence at the end of the study. What do these case studies show us? First, they raise a number of important methodological issues relating to how L2 acquisition should be studied. Second, they raise issues relating to the description of learner language.