A paper presented at KSAALT TESOL Conference, Riyadh. Saudi Arabia. It addresses the morpheme acquisition order of Saudi EFL learners compared with the Natural Order Hypothesis by Stephen Krashen.

1. T H E A C C U R A C Y O R D E R O F E N G L I S H
G R A M M A T I C A L M O R P H E M E S O F S A U D I
E F L L E A R N E R S
KSAALT TESOL – RC – MINI CONFERENCE
MARCH - 2017
© Abdulaziz Assanosi 2017. View license deeds at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Abdulaziz B Assanosi
Prince Sattam ibn Abdulaziz University

2. Introduction
Learner Language has been the centre of interest of researchers
and linguists for long time.
A number of issues appeared in this regard:
◦ The feature of the continuum between L1 and L2.
◦ The influence of L1 on the linguistic system developed by learners.
◦ The errors which committed by learners during this stage.
“One of the most powerful ideas to have emerged from this
work was that L2 acquisition proceeds in a regular systematic
fashion” (Ellis, 2010:72)
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3. Universal Grammar
One explanation of the regular predictable development of acquisition
was the theory of Universal Grammar (UG)
UG argues that “humans are innately endowed with language-specific
knowledge, or what Chomsky calls UG” (Larsen-Freeman and Long, 1991:228).
One of the outcomes of this theory (and of the innatism school) was the
Natural Order Hypothesis.
NOH depends on the claim that “the acquisition of grammatical structure
proceeds in a predictable order” (Krashen 1982:12).
NOH is concerned mostly with grammatical morphemes.
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ASSANOSI, A (2017). THE ACCURACY ORDER OF ENGLISH GRAMMATICAL MORPHEMES OF SAUDI
EFL LEARNERS. KSAALT TESOL MINI CONFERENCE, 2017

4. Morphemes
A Morpheme is “the smallest, indivisible unit of semantic content or grammatical
function from which words are made up” (Katamba and Stonham, 2006:20”.
Morphemes
Free
Lexical
Child,
teach
Functional and, the
Bound
Derivational re- -ness
Inflectional -’s, -ed
Figure 1: Types of Morphemes. Source: George Yule (2010)
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5. Morpheme Acquisition Order (MAO)
It was assumed that L1 learners acquire grammatical morphemes in
a predetermined order.
Brown (1973 ) found that children acquire grammatical morphemes
of their L1 in the same sequence.
Inspired by these findings, many researchers investigated the order
of acquisition of L2 grammatical morphemes.
It was also found that there are high rates of similarity between
orders of acquisition by learners of different L1s and levels.
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ASSANOSI, A (2017). THE ACCURACY ORDER OF ENGLISH GRAMMATICAL MORPHEMES OF SAUDI
EFL LEARNERS. KSAALT TESOL MINI CONFERENCE, 2017

6. Examples of L2 English Orders of Acquisition
ING progressive
PLURAL
COPULA (to be)
AUXILIARY (progressive, as in “he is going”)
ARTICLE (a, the)
IRREGULAR PAST
REGULAR PAST
III SINGULAR -s
POSSESSIVE -s
Krashen (1977), claimed that the
average order of English
grammatical morphemes is as
illustrated.
No sharp difference between
morphemes in the same rank.
This rank order is adopted as a
standard for many studies,
mostly the resultant orders are
similar to it.
Figure 2. Average Order of Acquisition of Grammatical
Morphemes for English as a second Language (Children and
Adults) (Krashen, 1982:13)
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7. Acquisition Order VS. Accuracy Order
The concepts of acquisition order and accuracy order are used
interchangeably in the morpheme acquisition literature.
This was based “on the ground that the more accurately a morpheme was
used, the earlier it must have been acquired” (Ellis, 2010:91).
However, a methodological distinction can be put out as: acquisition
should be measured longitudinally while accuracy is measured cross-
sectionally.
Many researchers do not commit to this distinction. For instance, Behajat
and Sadighi, 2011; Dabove, 2012; Ibrahim et al, 2013; and Murkami and Alexopoulou, 2015).
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ASSANOSI, A (2017). THE ACCURACY ORDER OF ENGLISH GRAMMATICAL MORPHEMES OF SAUDI
EFL LEARNERS. KSAALT TESOL MINI CONFERENCE, 2017

8. Modern Studies
Many recent studies investigated the Acquisition Orders of English
grammatical morphemes by learners of different L1s.
Most of these studies found significant correlation to NOH hypothesis
suggested by Krashen (1977).
Further studies investigated the effect of L1 on MAO, and other
determinants.
Different data collection and analysis tools are elaborated and different size
of sample were studied.
However very few studies investigated the MAO of learners with Arabic as L1.
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9. Questions and Hypotheses of the Study
Aiming at filling the research gap in Arabic L1 learners’ MAO, and
providing pedagogical implications about how to teach grammatical
morphemes, The current study posits the following questions:
◦ What is the MAO of Saudi EFL learners?
◦ Does this order conforms with the NOH?
◦ Is this order consistent among different proficiency levels?
It was hypothesized that the resultant rank order will conform with
the NOH with little deviation due to L1 interference.
The rank order was expected to be the same regardless of students
proficiency level.
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ASSANOSI, A (2017). THE ACCURACY ORDER OF ENGLISH GRAMMATICAL MORPHEMES OF SAUDI
EFL LEARNERS. KSAALT TESOL MINI CONFERENCE, 2017

10. Participants
The study sample is consisted of 129 students of English language at
college of Sciences and Humanities, PSAU, who are distributed as
follows:
Level 1 Level 5 Overall
Male subjects 28 36 64
Female
Subjects
28 37 65
Total 56 73 129
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Table1, Distribution of the subjects of the study

11. Data collection & Analysis
To gather the data, the researcher developed a 24-item grammar judgement test intended to
assess the subjects’ performance at six grammatical (verb and noun- related) morphemes as
follows:
Type of
morpheme
Morphemes Number of
occurrences
Noun-related
Morphemes
plural –s 3
possessive –’s, -s’ 3
articles (a, an, the) 9 (3 for each articles)
Verb-related
Morphemes
progressive –ing 3
regular past –ed 3
3rd person –s 3
Total 6 24
• To analyse the generated data, a
famous formula in the MAO
literature (known as TLU) was
used.
• TLU, stands for Target-Like Use,
was proposed by Pica (1983) to
measure learners’ performance at
grammatical obligatory contexts.
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Table2, The structure of the research tool (the Test)
ASSANOSI, A (2017). THE ACCURACY ORDER OF ENGLISH GRAMMATICAL MORPHEMES OF SAUDI
EFL LEARNERS. KSAALT TESOL MINI CONFERENCE, 2017

12. Results
The rank orders of the four groups of subjects were found to be as follows:
Level 1
Male Female
Mrphm TLU % Mrphm TLU %
plu -s 48.8 plu -s 60.9
past ed 30.8 past -ed 48.8
prog -ing 27.3 prog -ing 44.3
3rdp -s 23.3 3rdp -s 25.5
poss -s 15.3 poss -s 16.2
articles 5.5 articles 14
Average 25.0 Average 34.9
Level 5
Male Female
Mrphm TLU % Mrphm TLU %
plu -s 62.7 plu -s 72.4
past -ed 42.6 past -ed 66.4
prog -ing 33.6 prog -ing 65.5
3rdp -s 17.5 3rdp -s 57.1
poss -s 11.7 poss -s 53.1
articles 10 articles 33.6
Average 29.7 Average 58.0
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Table3, MAO of the Low proficiency level group (level I) Table4, MAO of the high proficiency level group (level V)

13. Results
It is found that the Saudi EFL learners accuracy
order is:
The difference between (past –ed) and (prog –
ing) is slight ( TLU = 4.4%).
Following Krashen (1977), these 2 morphemes
can be put in the same rank (the 2nd in the
order).
Rank Morpheme Average TLU
1st
Plural –s 61.2 %
2nd past -ed
prog –ing
47.1%
42.6 %
3rd
3rdp –s 30.8 %
4th
poss –’s , –s’ 24.0 %
5th
Articles 15.7 %
1st • Plural -s
2nd • Past –ed
3rd • Prog –ing
4th • 3rd p –s
5th • Poss –’s
6th • Articles
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Figure 3. Average Order of Acquisition of English Grammatical Morphemes by Saudi EFL learners
Table 5, MAO of Saudi EFL learners and their average TLU)
ASSANOSI, A (2017). THE ACCURACY ORDER OF ENGLISH GRAMMATICAL MORPHEMES OF SAUDI
EFL LEARNERS. KSAALT TESOL MINI CONFERENCE, 2017

14. Results
It is also found that the Saudi EFL
learners MAO is correlated with NOH,
however some deviations are found.
The most significant difference between the two
orders is in the ranks of articles. (3rd in Krashen’s and
6th in the Saudi MAO).
The nature of articles in Arabic can be a convincing
justification for this deviation.
The same reason can account for the close similarity
between the ranks of the (plural –s) morpheme.
However, this time positive transfer can be
mentioned.
Krashen NOHThe generated
order
prog -ingplu -s
plu -spast ed
prog -ing articles
past -ed3rdp -s
3rdp -sposs -s
poss -sarticles
• The Spearman coefficient of the
generated order and Krashen
NOH is 0.43 which means weak
positive correlation.
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Table 6, correlation between Saudi MAO and Krashen NOH

15. Results
Regarding the third hypothesis, the
generated order was consistent among
the 4 different groups despite the fact
that their TLU average are different.
This result conforms with most previous
studies.
It also represents a powerful support to
the NOH which claims that the MAO is
not affected by instruction or proficiency
levels.
It is worth mentioning, never the less, that across the
four groups, female students outperform their male
counterparts.
This fact, though out of the scope of this research,
does worth consideration.
Morpheme Average TLU
male Female
plu -s 55.75 66.65
past -ed 36.7 57.6
prog -ing 30.45 54.9
3rdp -s 20.4 41.3
poss -s 13.5 34.65
articles 7.75 23.8
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Table 7, AverageTLU according to gender
ASSANOSI, A (2017). THE ACCURACY ORDER OF ENGLISH GRAMMATICAL MORPHEMES OF SAUDI
EFL LEARNERS. KSAALT TESOL MINI CONFERENCE, 2017

16. Implications of the Study
Although there are no evidences that instruction can alter MAO of
EFL learners, designing syllabi and lesson plans according to it can
facilitate morpheme acquisition.
The researcher recommends extending research on this area and use
the generated results for this purpose.
Raising teachers’ awareness about the concept of NOH and MAO
studies is also an important recommendation to be considered.
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17. References
Brown, R. 1973. A first language. Cambridge.
Ellis, R. (2010). The Study of Second Language Acquisition.Oxford
Krashen, S.(1982).Principles and Practice in Second Language
Acquisition.
Larsen-Freeman, D., Long. M. H. (1991) An Introduction to Second
Language Acquisition Research. New York: Longman.
Murakami, A., & Alexopoulou. (2015) L1 Influence on the Acquisition
Order of English Grammatical Morphemes: A Learner Corpus Study.
Cambridge
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18. Thank you for your Time and Attention
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ASSANOSI, A (2017). THE ACCURACY ORDER OF ENGLISH GRAMMATICAL MORPHEMES OF SAUDI
EFL LEARNERS. KSAALT TESOL MINI CONFERENCE, 2017
© Abdulaziz Assanosi 2017. View license deeds at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/