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Some Effects of a Foreign Language Classroom on the Development of German Negation
University of Hull
This paper investigates the development of German negation by 42 Scottish classroom learners aged 10–16. The purpose of the study is to establish whether there are any differences between naturalistic and classroom course of development which can be related to the nature of the classroom. In particular, we are interested in the effects of form-focused practice activities in the first few months of instruction which require learners to produce complex target-language forms which in naturalistic development emerge with frequency only at later stages. The results of our study suggest that learners are able to produce early complex target-like negation through memorization of complex forms in confined linguistic contexts. Target-like production decreases in linguistically more open contexts and over time, but there is some indication that a certain number of complex forms are retained and possibly used as a basis for extension of patterns. The results also suggest that the early production of complex forms leads to the first stage of naturalistic development being more or less skipped. A side-effect of formally constrained practice and emphasis on correct target-like production is the learners' reluctance to use communicative negative formulas. Finally, this paper raises a number of questions regarding the relationship between the memorization of complex forms and language development in classroom SLA on the one hand, and the renewed interest in the role of formulaic language in SLA in general.
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