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Abstract
Numerous second language acquisition (SLA) researchers have tried to define grammatical difficulty in second and foreign language acquisition – often as part of an attempt to relate the efficacy of different types of instruction to the degree of difficulty of grammatical structures. The resulting proliferation of definitions and the lack of a unifying framework have made the easy–difficult distinction a muddled concept. This paper attempts to clear up some of the confusion by reviewing the definitions SLA literature offers and relating these to (student) teachers’ cognitions on grammatical difficulty, a perspective largely ignored in SLA publications despite its potential for a more integrative and holistic view on the topic. To this end, a total of 727 undergraduate and postgraduate student teachers of English were surveyed in two empirical studies. Quantitative and qualitative analyses – in combination with the findings from SLA literature – yielded a model comprising four interrelated categories of factors that determine grammatical difficulty: (1) grammar feature; (2) pedagogical arrangement; (3) teacher quality; and (4) learner characteristics. In addition, the resulting model is discussed as a basis for future research into the changing cognitions of student teachers as they become more experienced.
Acknowledgements
We wish to thank Gerda Geerdink for her contributions. Also, we owe our gratitude to two anonymous reviewers, whose comments helped us improve this article.
Notes
1. The 2 in L2 is used here to refer to any other language than the first.
2. In some cases, researchers use the terms difficulty and complexity interchangeably. In this study, however, difficulty is used as a holistic concept that includes more specific notions such as complexity of form, complexity of use, rule complexity, etc.
3. In essence, the Jonckheere–Terpstra test is the same as the Kruskal–Wallis test. The only difference is that it includes information about whether there is a meaningful order of medians (Field, Citation2013; Jonckheere, Citation1954; Terpstra, Citation1952).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Johan Graus
Johan Graus is a senior lecturer in linguistics and second language acquisition, and he is also the coordinator for the MEd programme Teacher Education in English. His research interests are teacher cognitions and grammatical awareness.
Peter-Arno Coppen
Peter-Arno Coppen is a professor of linguistics with a special interest in formal linguistics, semantics, computational linguistics, and grammar education.