Organic Grammar as a measurement of development
Martha Young-Scholten
University of Newcastle (England)
Colleen Ijuin
Georgia Perimeter College
Anne Vainikka
Johns Hopkins University
Contact address
Martha Young-Scholten
School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics
University of Newcastle
Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU
England
daytime phones +44-191-222-7751/334-3015
evening phone +44-191-386-5130
fax +44-191-222-8708
martha.young-scholten@newcastle.ac.uk/martha.young-scholten@durham.ac.uk
Biosketches
Martha Young-Scholten’s work ranges from the adult second language acquisition of
morpho-syntax and phonology to unschooled adults who learn to read for the first time in
their second language. She is senior lecturer and an MA director at the University of
Newcastle in England.
Fluent in Arabic, Persian and Japanese (as well as her native English), Colleen Ijuin
teaches ESL at the Dunwoody campus of the two-year George Perimeter college system
where she is leading efforts to find better placement and promotion tests.
Anne Vainikka is a researcher at Johns Hopkins University. She works on theoretical
syntax (primarily Finnish) and language acquisition, and has co-authored a series of
articles with Martha Young-Scholten on the L2 development of morpho-syntax.
Organic Grammar as a measurement of development
Abstract (new – please read)
This paper reports on a study applying a combined measure of morphological and
syntactic complexity to assess the written proficiency of 47 community college ESL
students at three program levels. Based on oral production data from both child and adult
second language learners, the theory of Organic Grammar (OG) holds that morphosyntactic development is primarily driven by innate linguistic mechanisms. Under OG,
route of development is common across learners from different native language
backgrounds, and proceeds in stages defined by both syntactic and morphological criteria.
We claim that these criteria can straightforwardly be applied as an assessment tool.
Although similar syntactic criteria were proposed by Pienemann et al. in 1988, even
subsequent refinements of their Rapid Profile (e.g. Pienemann 2001) have involved
assessment of oral production entailing special training. Based on our written production
data, we make three claims: (1) a tool involving both inflectional morphology and syntax
provides finer grained delineation of stages of development; (2) these stages translate into
ESL program levels; (3) application of a limited set of clear criteria to written samples
dispenses with the need for any special training, indicating potential for adoption by
classroom practitioners.
INTRODUCTION
In this paper we explore the usefulness of morpho-syntactic analysis as a tool to assess
the written production of adult English language learners. While this is by no means the
first such attempt, the method of analysis we adopt is distinctive in its application of both
morphological and syntactic complexity to the assessment of second language
production. We begin our paper by discussing current practice in the assessment of
writing by English as a second language (ESL) learners and suggest that the prevailing
view is that neither holistic evaluation nor discrete item tests are adequate. We then move
on to a review of the research findings on the second language acquisition (L2A) of
inflectional morphology and syntax that underpin the assessment tool, based on the
theory of Organic Grammar, which our study investigated. In so doing we take up the
challenge in TESOL Professional Papers #5 to base assessment ‘on current educational
research, especially in the areas of first and second language acquisition’ (Principle 2 of
8; 1998:7). The heart of our paper is a case study of 44 adult ESL learners at a US
community college from whom written samples were obtained during Semester 1.
Applying Organic Grammar stage criteria to the data we show that assessment is accurate
for 42 of these learners in terms of their program level in Semester 2.
ASSESSMENT in ESL
Qualitative assessment in ESL writing
Two diametrically opposed types of assessment seem to exist in ESL assessment with
little in the middle. At one end of the spectrum are norm-referenced, standardized discrete
item tests (e.g. parts of the TOEFL) and at the other end the practice of qualitatively
assessing written or spoken samples. The latter constitute standardized measures only
when highly trained assessors are used as for the IELTS. Because we are interested in
assessment in the type of ESL context from which our written samples come, we only
consider here the literature on the qualitative assessment of written production by
teachers rather than trained assessors. Brown (1998) is a volume presenting examples
from programs around the world of the qualitative assessment of second language
learners. The following terms appear in connection with the ranking of written production
(all italics added):
1) Terms used in holistic assessment
the students have ‘adequately described the situations…’ p. 39
‘words are phrases combined effectively’ p. 43
‘words and phrases exhibit good patterns of language’ p. 43
‘focus your evaluations on the quality of the sentences they make’ p. 162
Morpho-syntax appears as the explicit focus of assessment, where accuracy is evaluated
using the following relative terms (in italics) in connection with learner level (p. 180):
2) elementary = very limited grasp of grammatical and relational patterns
intermediate = limited grasp of grammatical and relational patterns
upper intermediate = moderate grasp of grammatical/relational patterns
advanced = competent grasp of grammatical and relational patterns
special purpose = confident and generally accurate use
In rating the intelligibility of a sample of writing, the terms adopted are also usually
relative rather than absolute (p. 181), where the learner demonstrates:
(3) simple meanings
basic meanings
familiar topics can be handled, but not detailed explanations
competent communication
communicates well in general and specialised areas
When errors are the focus, this appears to situate assessment at the discrete item testing
end of the spectrum, yet the use of relative terms belies this.
4) under spoken grammar (p. 364)
unacceptable: no control, except with simple stock phrases
adequate: some control of basic constructions yet major or repeated errors
good: generally good control, with some grammatical errors
excellent: sporadic minor grammatical errors
Our study is based on the conclusion that there is a need for a classroom assessment tool
that goes beyond holistic evaluation yet does not penalize learners for committing errors
in the process of complexifying their morphology and syntax. There other alternatives
similar to what we will propose here: Pienemann, Johnson and Brindley’s (1988) Rapid
Profile is one such tool, and a more recent proposal by Kozloski and Donahue (2005) is
another. However, a syntax only measure such as Pienemann et al.’s is less useful, and
Kozloski and Donahue’s combined measure is more complex than required.
Current assessment practices in one ESL program
The students from whom our writing samples were obtained represent a population of
ESL learners typical of those attending community or junior colleges in the USA. Recent
demographic data indicate the following status of ESL learners at the metropolitan area
community college system from which our sample comes: 58% permanent residents;
18% student/F-1 visa holders; 15% naturalized citizens; 8% visitor/on non-immigrant
visa holders; 2% refugees. Citation for these data. Representing a range of different
language learning and academic histories, the ESL program attracts (1) students who will
have completed secondary school in their native country; (2) students who will have
completed secondary school in the USA, but who were not born in the USA and for
whom English is not their native language; and (3) students whose secondary education
was compromised due to the circumstances that led to their immigration.
For admission to the community college system, non-native English speakers
must meet a threshold, as determined by the college’s board of regents: either 330 on the
SAT verbal component or 460 on the TOEFL. An applicant with an SAT verbal score
below 480 (certainly below 460 – my typo, probably) must take a college-designed
(Correct Colleen?) ESL placement test whose components are a reading task and a timed
writing sample; there is no oral component. Progression through this ESL program
involves at the two intermediate levels and an advanced level. Courses (three at the
intermediate level and two at the advanced level) are context based. Promotion from one
level to the next level is by the program-internal assessment of a written sample along
with a reading test. need to say a bit more about the 2004-2005 departmental assessment
measures – esp. the reading This ESL program illustrates both ends of the spectrum with
respect to the assessment of written production. At the quantitative end, assessment of the
written sample is in terms of attempts vs. errors, and at the qualitative end, the same
relative terms shown above in (1) – (4) such as ‘control’ are used. Teachers on the
program have observed a situation where based on their scores, students who demonstrate
the ability in the classroom are not promoted to the next level based, and students lacking
the ability are prematurely promoted. Considerable variation exists within the two
intermediate levels, where teachers on the program express concerns not only about the
assessment used for progression but also for initial placement. We propose that research
findings from the last several decades from the study of second language (L2) acquisition
can fill the gap between discrete-item testing and holistic evaluation.1
L2 DEVELOPMENT
Since Dulay and Burt’s (1974) and Bailey, Madden and Krashen’s (1974) landmark study
of the development of grammatical functors or morphemes by child and adult ESL
learners, respectively, numerous studies of the acquisition of various second languages
have pointed to the conclusion that all L2 learners follow a predictable route of
development largely independent of the learner’s age at initial exposure, their native
1
One might ask why if these research findings are indeed pedagogically relevant, ESL professionals rarely
hear about them. We believe the answer is sociological. Throughout the 1970s, researchers working on
second language acquisition felt obliged to consider the pedagogical implications of their findings. But
since the 1980s, the establishment of (i) separate journals such as Second Language Research and (ii)
separate conferences such as GASLA (Generative Approaches to SLA) along with (iii) the increasing
location of MA TEFL programs outside of departments of linguistics have led to the current situation,
where SLA research findings are neither readily available nor accessible to outsiders. While much of the
SLA research carried over the last 25 years has initially had no obvious pedagogical implications, when
findings turn out to be robust nowadays they fail to get conveyed because the old paths of communication
are no longer there.
language, the type of exposure or educational background (Hawkins 2001). This and
other studies carried out at the time involved the analysis of errors in terms of absence or
suppliance of forms in so-called obligatory contexts as in Lily eat_ scrambled egg_ for
breakfast where the two obligatory contexts are for third person singular –s and plural –s.
This idea originated in Roger Brown’s (1973) longitudinal study of three children
learning English as their first language who were found to develop 14 grammatical
functors, ranging from the bound morphemes –ing and third person singular –s to the free
morphemes copula be and articles, in a common order despite external differences such
as environmental input.2 Based on a cross-sectional study by deVilliers and deVilliers
(1973) confirming Brown’s longitudinal order, Dulay and Burt’s and Bailey et al.’s crosssectional studies found a common order in L2 English based on learners’ suppliance of
grammatical functors in obligatory contexts. Along with 1970s studies of English
learners’ development of negation and question formation (see Hawkins 2001 for a
review) were studies of European studies syntactic development by adult guest-workers
and immigrants acquiring target in addition to English languages. These studies – always
of oral production data collected through interviews/conversation or elicitation tasks such
as picture description and narrative (e.g. silent film) retelling - have driven debate in adult
second language acquisition research.
Table 1. Major adult second language acquisition studies
Study
L1 and L2
learners
type of
study
Bailey et al. 1970s
2
L1 Spanish and
11 other L1s
L2 English
73 adults
crosssectional
Issues/hypotheses
introduced
Interlanguage and Error
Analysis replace the
Contrastive Analysis
Thirty years on the conclusion that no fundamental differences exist across children in their development
of morphology (and syntax) still stands.
Cazden et al.
1970s
L1 Spanish
L2 English
2 children
2 adolescents
2 adults
45 adults→
ZISA
1980s
(Clahsen & Muysken;
Pienemann)
L1 Spanish,
Portuguese and
Italian
L2 German
ESF
1990s
(Klein & Perdue;
Schwartz & Sprouse)
LEXLERN
1990s
(Clahsen, Vainikka &
Young-Scholten)
VYSA
1990s/2000s
(Vainikka & YoungScholten)
six L1s
five European
L2s
40 adults
2 ½ years
longitudinal
L1 Korean,
L1 Turkish
L2 German
17 adults
crosssectional
L1 English
L2 German
3 adolescents
1 year
longitudinal
12 adults→
10 months
longitudinal
crosssectional
2 years
longitudinal
Hypothesis
Social factors (Schumann’s
Pidginization Hypothesis)
Do adults and children use
same mechanisms?
Universal Grammar Access
vs. Fundamental
Differences; Processability
The Basic Variety;
Full Transfer/Full Access
Role of L1 reconsidered:
Minimal Trees; significance
of morphology: Structure
Building
Organic Grammar
Linguistic development under Organic Grammar
In the spirit of Bailey et al.’s ideas on a common path of development as determined by
production of certain grammatical morphemes, and based on further ideas from the study
of first language acquisition (e.g. Clahsen (1990); Radford (1995), Vainikka and YoungScholten (1994) posited that the second language learner’s initial state of development
involves only the basic syntactic relations obtaining between the non-finite verb and its
complement, that is the syntactic phrase VP. They claim that as the L2 learner develops,
s/he ‘builds up’ syntactic structure much like children do, based on the interaction
between the ambient, linguistic input and the learner’s internal, innate linguistic
mechanisms (i.e. Universal Grammar; Chomsky 1981). Under Organic Grammar,
inflectional morphology emerges in connection with syntax.3 Across the columns in
3
In Clahsen and Muysken (1986), Klein and Perdue (1997) and Pienemann (1998) the development of L2
German is presented without this well-attested early L1-based stage. Schwartz and Sprouse (1996) on the
other hand, claim that the entirety of the learner’s L1 constitutes the initial state and view subsequent
Table 2, development is shown to be a process of increasing morphological variety and
complexity and that parallels increasing syntactic complexity in the target language (TL).
Table 2. Organic Grammar: Criteria for stages in L2 English
Stage
word order
types of verbs
verbal
pronouns
agreement;
tense marking
initially
thematic (main)
none
subject,
1
resembles that verbs only
object
of the native
pronouns
language
absent
no longer
thematic verbs;
none
pronouns
2
resembles the copula ’is’ appears
forms begin
native
to emerge
language
declaratives
thematic verbs,
no agreement; more
3
resemble the
modals; copula
some tense,
pronoun
target
forms beyond ‘is’
some aspect,
forms, but
language
but not
they can
productive
still be
missing
resembles the thematic verbs,
productive
pronouns
4
TL apart from modals, copula
tense, aspect; obligatory,
complex
forms beyond ‘is’
some
‘there’ and
syntax
and auxiliaries in
agreement,
existential
all forms and tenses esp. forms of
‘it’ emerge
emerge
‘be’
always
complex
tense,
forms are
use of
5
resembles the aspect forms;
usually
‘there’ and
TL
passives; range of
correct, apart ‘it’ beyond
thematic verb,
from newly
stock
modal, auxiliary
attempted
phrases
forms
ones
complex
syntax
None
formulaic or
intonationbased Qs
formulaic whQs; yes/no Qs
w/o inversion;
conjoined
clauses
productive
wh-Qs, but all
Qs may lack
inversion;
simple
subordination
all Qs with
inversion;
complex
subordination
One can observe that beginning L2 learners both in naturalistic and classroom contexts
produce verb-less or single word utterances (see Myles 2005). These utterances could be
said to reveal an initial stage of development much like the child’s one-word stage, but
development as a process of overcoming L1 influence. They offer no explanation for the well-attested
emergence of inflectional morphology.
about which little can be said regarding syntax or morphology. Stage 1 is characterized
by the production of multiword utterances, along the lines of the young child’s two-word
and ‘telegraphic’ stages. Under Organic Grammar, this stage is also referred to as the
‘minimal tree’, and it also involves a sub-stage when the learner’s native basic word order
within the VP (e.g. object – verb vs. verb-object) does not match that of the target
language tree. At this stage, L2 learners, especially instructed ones, also produce longer
memorized (unanalyzed) chunks such as My name is X (see Myles 2005).
Data from a Japanese boy acquiring English (Yamada-Yamamoto 1993) show
the influence of Japanese at his earliest stage of syntactic development. In Japanese, the
object precedes the verb, while in English it follows the verb. Hence this boy’s first
minimal tree in English displays Japanese word order. After several months of additional
English input, the boy reaches a second sub-stage where his minimal tree switches to
English word order, with the verb preceding the object (see also Hazendar’s 1997 similar
findings from a Turkish boy learning English). At both sub-stages, the boy produces nonfinite forms, either (presumably, but see below) bare forms like ‘eat’ or participles like
‘eating’.
(6)
Stage 1a: Japanese object-verb (OV) order
bread eat
bananas eating
Stage 1b: English verb-object (VO) order
eating banana
wash your hand
The rich verbal morphology of German allows us to observe much more clearly than in
English the morphological development that parallels the L2 learner’s syntactic
development from these simple minimal trees with their non-finite forms to more
complex syntax and elaborated morphology. In fact, the richness of German morphology
along with the variety of verb positions propelled research on the L2 acquisition of
German into prominence, as shown in Table 1, where four out of the six major studies
were either entirely on German or included German.
Data from a smaller, cross-sectional study by Dimroth (2002) of immigrants in
Germany includes eight Stage 1 learners. Story retelling data from the Russian adults
provide a mirror image of the Japanese learners of English where in the least advanced
Russian-German inter-language, the minimal tree is Russian, i.e. VO (speaker R31), and
in slightly more advanced Russian-German inter-language, the tree becomes the German
OV (speaker R10).4 Unlike English, where only third person singular is marked for
agreement with the verb (and all other present tense main verbs resemble bare forms),
German has a full paradigm, allowing the researcher to conclude that the main verbs in
(7) are non-finite (in this case infinitive) forms, showing no agreement with the
(intended) subject.
(7)
Stage 1a
Gehen Wald.
(learner R31)
go –INF forest
[Er geht in den Wald.]
‘He's going into the forest.'
Stage 1b
4
German has mixed headedness in its syntax and differs from Japanese in that finite verbs appear in second
position in matrix, declarative clauses, as in the target utterance in (7) Er geht in den Wald. These facts
about German have made it an extremely interesting language to study the development of.
Rote man Bier trinken.
(learner R10)
red man beer drink -INF
[Der rote Mann trinkt Bier.]
‘(The) red man is drinking beer.'
Under Organic Grammar, after the learner’s initial reliance on his/her native language,
inflectional morphology and syntax begin to develop following a common order for all
learners of a given language. The syntactic development of all language held to be driven
by internal linguistic mechanisms, in response to the linguistic input the learner hears (or
reads). Crucial for the application of these stages to the assessment of any L2 learners is
the idea that development of inflectional morphology entails the development of the
syntax associated with that morphology. The examples in (8) from a cross-sectional study
of primarily low-literate Somali-speaking learners of English (Young-Scholten and Strom
2004) illustrate further, post-minimal tree development in English, where functional
morphology begins to emerge with the development of syntactic complexity starts to
develop. At Stage 4 additional functional morphology emerges along with simple
subordination involving relative clauses and complementizer clauses without that. These
clauses are adjuncts – their absence does not result in an ungrammatical sentence. And at
Stage 5, there is a range of productive functional morphology and complex syntax,
including purpose clauses (adjuncts with complex internal structure), as well as
complementizer clauses with that and clauses following seem. The latter two clause types
are arguments of a higher verb (He thinks that….); their absence results in an
ungrammatical sentence. Passives are included here, too, as they involve a displaced
element: the object becomes the subject. Stage 5 also includes wh-object questions such
as What did you see? and inverted yes/no questions. Importantly, the production of a new
form does not equate with its productivity, one gauge of which is the use of a form to
consistently distinguish a different meaning (see e.g. Wagner-Gough 1978 on form use
without meaning distinction in child L2 acquisition). Continued non-target use of forms
at Stage 4 and Stage 5 may partly be the result of the absence of a particular grammatical
feature in the learner’s first language. Hawkins (2001) claims such features (e.g. articles
for Chinese learners of English and grammatical gender for English learners of German),
are not acquirable by adult L2 learners.5
(8)
The initial functional syntax stage (Stage 3)
The woman is cry. auxiliary, without –ing
Because too bad. subordinating conjunction, without a verb
Elaborated functional syntax (Stage 4)
Someone’s die because he have accident. present perfect, -ed missing
productive simple subordination
Car hit the kid that’s lie down on the street. progressive, -ing missing
subject relative clause
Target-like functional syntax (Stage 5)
The young boy was having fun with his bike. past progressive.
When you reverse, you have to see anybody behind. complex subordination
He doesn’t did that. variety of forms of do, confusion of tense/non-finite forms
5
In testing this hypothesis, it appears that it is not borne out. Adult German learners of Spanish, for
example, have problems with gender marking in that language. Our own data (see below) suggest that
feature absence simply increases a difficulty already present for all adult second language learners (also
proposed by Zobl 1980). If this observation is correct, this may contribute to the necessary elaboration of
Hawkins’ (2001) Modulated Structure Building, which allows for some continued first language influence.
These examples reveal a further characteristic of development: it is not linear. As new
forms and structures emerge, they often destabilize the learner’s current grammar,
resulting new errors, and apparent backsliding. Every set of examples in (8) reveals
destabilization where the learner omits an obligatory verb or complementizer or produces
non-target non-finite forms. An assessment tool based on the analysis of errors illequipped to recognize the learner’s progress amidst such errors. Indeed since the decade
in which error analysis was the height of fashion (see e.g. Richards 1974), researchers
have recognized the non-linear characteristics of linguistic development; see for example
Lightbown (1985) on the relevance of research to teaching and Pienemann et al. (1988)
on non-linearity and assessment.
MORPHO-SYNTAX-BASED ASSESSMENT
As noted in our introduction, ours is not the first attempt to apply research findings from
the acquisition of morphology and syntax to the assessment of language learners’
production. Older ideas include Crystal, Fletcher and Garmen’s (1976) language
disability assessment tool, and more recent proposals such as Scarborough’s (1990) Index
of Productive Syntax (IPS). The latter, for example, is based on emergence rather than
mastery of both syntax and morphology, where emergence is signified by two productive
(non-formulaic) uses of a form or construction. Applying the IPS to oral samples from
two-to-four-year-old children, Scarborough was able to account for their later reading
progress.
Discussed briefly above, the Rapid Profile is a similar proposal, but for adult L2
assessment. Like Organic Grammar, Pienemann, Johnston and Brindley’s (1988) ideas
originate in the study of the acquisition of L2 German by adults. Rapid Profile parallels
Organic Grammar in several additional ways. Both RP and OG-based assessment assume
for all L2 learners of a given language a common path of development, marked by
progression through well-defined stages. Development is marked by emergence of
complexity rather than disappearance of non-target structure. The further assumption that
both approaches share is that stages are implicational, where arrival at stage Y implies
passing through stage X. Several important differences between these two proposals
favor Organic Grammar-based assessment. The first difference has already been
mentioned: Organic Grammar assessment includes both morphology and syntax,
allowing finer-grained assessment. Equally important is a final difference between Rapid
Profile and Organic-Grammar-based assessment: practicality. Unlike the oral samples
Rapid Profile is applied to (by trained assessors), written samples are easy to collect.
Moreover, given the key contribution of writing to academic success, it is reasonable to
expect that teachers will prefer a tool that assesses written proficiency over one that
assesses oral proficiency. Organic Grammar criteria comprise a sort of ‘natural class’,
where certain morphology is connected to certain syntactic projections.. If our suspicions
are correct, knowledge of theoretical syntax is unnecessary for application of the criteria
to samples of learner production. The combination of knowege ESL teachers possess
about language and their experience with learner data allows them to readily make sense
of OG criteria. 6
6
Both assumptions could, of course, be grounded in empirical data. However, the aim of this paper is to
first determine the initial validity of OG-based assessment.
Organic Grammar as an assessment tool
The first application Organic Grammar criteria to the assessment of ESL learners’
production (oral in this case) was Young-Scholten and Strom’s (2004) cross-sectional
study of 10 Somali and 7 Vietnamese adults with little or no primary schooling (see
examples in (8). The study investigated cognitive and linguistic factors contributing to
reading progress, where reading level was determined by scores on a matrix of reading
sub-skills, and linguistic proficiency was based on the stages of Organic Grammar. And
using OG as a measure of syntactic development but only single word reading as a
measure of reading development, a significant overall correlation was found, and for the
Somali group at p <.01; low numbers prevented reliable calculation for the Vietnamese.
Table 3. Morphosyntax level and reading level
Learner/sex/age
V1
f 51
V6
f 70
V2
f 64
V5
m 34
V7
m 53
V4
f 43
V3
f 31
NL school ESL in USA
0
0
2 yrs
1; 4 yrs
5 yrs
3 yrs
3 yrs
1 yr
1 yr
2 yrs
½ yr
½ yr
½ yr
4 yrs
S2
S10
S9
S8
S4
S6
S5
S7
S3
0
0
0
0
0
2 yrs
2 yrs
5 yrs
0
2 yrs
1 ½ yrs
1 yr
4 mns
3 yrs
1 yr
1 yr
1 ½ yrs
2 wks
f
f
f
f
f
f
f
f
m
47
66
54
31
38
24
32
30
30
20 yrs
2 ½ yrs
8 yrs
¾ yr
3 yrs
13 yrs
12 yrs
5 yrs
3 yrs
4 yrs
9 yrs
9 yrs
2 yrs
2 yrs
9 yrs
2 yrs
reading level
1
1
3
3
3
3
4
syntax stage
2
1
1
1
1
2
5
1
1
1
1
2
2
3
3
4
1
2
2
2
2
2
1
3
5
S1
m 26
4 yrs
0
1 yr
5
5
Although sample size is small, the data in Table 3 suggest that neither ESL instruction
nor length of US residence is related to reading or syntax level. For example, of the eight
unschooled adults, six were non-readers with no ability to read either single words in
isolation or a paragraph, and all were at OG Stage 1 or 2, despite ESL classes ranging
from 4 months to 1 ½ years and residence of ¾ of a year to 12 years. S3 somehow
managed during his two years of US residence to reach level 4 in English reading
(without the ability to read Roman-alphabet-based Somali) and OG stage 5 with only two
weeks of ESL classes and two years’ US residence at the time of testing.7
THE STUDY
At the community college context where the study took place, we sought to apply
Organic Grammar stage criteria to a sample from the population of intermediate ESL
students at that particular campus, where teachers had expressed concerns about current
methods of assessment. Our aim was to determine the reliability of Organic Grammarbased criteria for level placement and progression, in order to consider it as an alternative
possessing both intuitive appeal and practicality. The challenges such mixed background
7
This learner’s impressive achievements underscore the need for continued investigation by researchers of
the linguistic development of immigrant adults who make rapid progress without the support of educational
institutions. While longitudinal studies of this sort of population exist (see Table 1), we are aware of no
longitudinal studies that track the linguistic development of completely unschooled adults. None of the
longitudinal studies of immigrants tracked the literacy development of learners in their sample who might
have had less than five years native language schooling. Thus while the linguistic achievements of S3 are
not unexpected by those familiar with the studies in Table 1, his literacy achievements seem miraculous.
adult ESL learners present in the classroom become more manageable if the teacher has
linguistically informative criteria to apply in the tracking of each individual’s progress.
Methods and materials
Despite the practice of collecting oral production data from adult learners to determine
linguistic competence which the studies shown in Table 1 invariably adopted, we chose
to collect written data. There were several reasons – all equally important - for this. First,
although the route of development proposed under Organic Grammar is based on oral
production, there is no a priori reason why OG criteria should not apply to written
production. Certainly when writing the test subject may have more time to plan
production than would be the case when speaking, and might therefore be expected to use
constructions or forms not part of his/her linguistic competence. Here the question of
whether a given construction or form is part of the learner’s linguistic competence
becomes methodological. In an Organic Grammar-based analysis of a sample, use of
multiple criteria and a productivity metric can override the effect of the learner’s
production of constructions that may have been memorized. The second reason for our
choice is that written expression is fundamental to academic success, and examining
written assessment must be our starting point. The third and final reason we opted to
collect written data relates to the ultimate application of Organic Grammar by teachers: a
procedure that involves the collection and analysis of written samples is considerably less
time-consuming than the collection and analysis of oral samples and thus more likely the
one adopted by teachers.
We were, however, aware of the possibility of achieving some level of
spontaneity even in written production, therefore sought to deflect our test subjects’
attention from our real aim in asking them to write something. We therefore treated the
written exercise the students were given as a memory task. To limit the range of lexical
items and constructions the test subject might choose (thus facilitating data analysis), we
used picture description.
Our focal sample consisted of 44 intermediate-level ESL students from a variety
of native language backgrounds along with 3 advanced ESL students and 4 nativespeaker adolescent control subjects expected to be comparable to non-ESL community
college students. At the ----- of ---- quarter [Colleen to add], data were elicited from test
subjects in groups of --- to ---- [Colleen to add group sizes]. Students were told they
would first see a set of pictures in a PowerPoint slide show, and that they would have to
write (in complete sentences) what they had just seen. They were told that they would see
the slide show again and could then write down (in complete sentences) what they had
forgotten after viewing the slide show for the first time. The slide show contained a series
of photographs showing a river at flood stage, with a boat flipping upside down under a
bridge and then righting itself, and the slide show concluded with a set of unrelated
photographs. The two descriptions were combined for each student, resulting in written
samples ranging in length from 48 to 195 words; sample size turned out to be unrelated to
program level or OG stage. We also elicited biographic details from all test subjects,
along with TOEFL, SAT and program in-house tests. The nature and general aims of the
study were explained to the test subject, and each signed a consent form agreeing to
participate.
Data analysis
In 5.2 the main thing has to do with initial non-subject measure and the
there/it measure. --section 5, first line: missing 'to' (sought -- apply) --section 5.1, line 10 from
end: -ing missing from 'after seeING the pictures' --section 5.2, 1st para: maybe write like this:
(1) syntactic complexity in terms of (a) simple vs. complex coordination, (b) a non-subject (or
purely grammatical subject) in initial position... and (c) constructions that involve displacement...
Also, maybe (b) is not needed? The non-subject measure was useful in German, but for
English (c) would already include anything that might fall under (b), right? Nor is it as easy to
have a non-subject initially in English, unless we have a complex CP-structure, or passive. Also,
I'm not sure about collapsing the non-subject with it/there subjects... may not be a useful measure
-- but from the tables I see that the two were not collapsed. I'm a little confused.
On the top of the next page, could we either list or define more precisely what belongs to (2)?
(9) looks fine.
After (9), 6 lines down: the first "produced" -produced where? Little unclear what the two parts of
the ratio are.
--section 5.3 -- very nice! (but again, did the there/it and the initial non-subjects columns tell you
guys much? If we keep them, there should at least be some discussion on them somewhere)
--section 5.4 -- nice! but we should include a sentence about the vocabulary measure, the last
column (the article discussion is good)
We considered both written samples (after both picture viewings) combined from each
learner in terms of the Organic Grammar criteria as follows: (1) syntactic complexity in
terms of simple vs. complex subordination, a non-subject (or purely grammatical subject)
in initial position (relative to total declarative clauses in that sample) and constructions
that involve displacement of elements from their canonical position (passives) and (2)
morphological range of productive forms, including those that under Organic Grammar
correlate with syntactic development. The examples in (9) illustrate our application of
some of the criteria. The nature of the task meant that test subjects could choose between
the narrative present and the past tense, and the actual unfolding of the event and the
scenes depicted in the other pictures further lent themselves to use of progressive aspect.
Both factors led to a degree of temporal reference shifting by many of the (particularly
lower level) test subjects such that it was not always possible to determine for verbs such
as hit (which turned out to be heavily used to describe the boat incident) whether the test
subject’s intention was to indicate past tense (correct) present tense (incorrect). In (9a) it
is clear from Subject 10’s use of looked that ‘hit’ is correct, while ‘fall’ is not. We
concluded, however, from the entire sample that this learner’s morphology is limited.
For example, his/her use of ‘fall’ for ‘fell’ represents a very early stage of past tense
development (Berko 1958) prior to the point at which –ed is overgeneralized to irregular
verbs such as ‘fall’, resulted in ‘felled’ or ‘falled’. This learner uses verb form
invariantly, not marking tense or agreement. In other words, inflectional morphology is
not productive. S5, on the other hand, produces both past tense (‘saw’) correctly and
third person singular (‘goes’). While S18 produces a form (‘pass) incorrect with respect
to either present (not marked for agreement) or past, his/her use of correct forms along
with a relative clause indicate a learner more advanced than S10. Subject 20 is the most
advanced: she exhibits a range of (mostly correct) morphology, and she produces a
complex subordinate clause, with the complementizer ‘that’.
(9)
Stage 3- type utterances: Limited morphology; co-ordination:
a) Boat hit the bridge and fall down and people looked that boat. (S10)
Stage 4-type utterances: Some morphology; simple subordination
b) First we saw the white ship goes to hit the bridge. (S5)
c) I see a ship which was down to the river and pass the bridge and come out
to other side river. (S18)
Stage 5-type utterances: Morphological range; complex subordination
d) I am so happy that I found my grandfather and grandmother in their store.
e) I was in the river contoured with beautiful green trees. (S20)
We looked at two additional factors – vocabulary and article use - in the sample on
assumption that these two factors might turn out to be indicators of level. Our idea was
that a relatively larger range of vocabulary might compensate for a lower level of
morpho-syntactic development or it might actually mask a lower level of development.
As a measure of vocabulary range we looked at the number of different nouns the learner
produced relative to the total number of nouns they produced in the entire sample. A
learner for whom the ratio exceeded 2:1 was considered to have a good vocabulary range.
As a morphological feature not present in many of the learners’ first languages, the article
has been considered to be particularly difficult to acquire by L2 learners. Hawkins
(2001) proposes that the absence of a feature in the learner’s native language results in
its resistance to acquisition in a second language. To measure the acquisition of articles,
we adopted methodology dating back to Brown (1973) and tabulated article suppliance in
the obligatory contexts created by each student as they wrote their picture descriptions.
As noted in Section 2.2., the impetus for this study was dissatisfaction at
Georgia Perimeter College with the current holistic-criteria-based assessment used for
both initial placement and for level progression which had led to the misplacement of
students. In the process of placing the learners at stages, the second author only revealed
which learners she knew to be misplaced after learners had been placed at three Organic
Grammar stages or levels. Let us now turn to the results.
5.3. Results
Our two sets of control group subjects, the advanced students and the native speaking
adolescents, fully met the criteria for Organic Grammar Stage/Level 5 confirming the
reliability of Organic Grammar-based assessment. While the non-native speakers made
some lexical errors as in (10a), such errors were rare, and naturally not made by the
native speakers (10b) who used a higher proportion of complex constructions and more
precise and abstract vocabulary than the non-native speakers.
(10)
a) A ship passing by goes under the bridge and somehow gets banged with the
bridge (S63).
b) The pictures at first were related to the same event and then were of random
origin (S65)
We take Intermediate level (I) at GPC to equate with OG Stage 4, and High Intermediate
(HI) with (unstable) Stage 5. The difference between High Intermediate and Advanced
GPC ESL students is that the former have just entered Stage 5, while the latter will have
firmly established the complex syntax and morphological range and can begin to take the
sort of control of their writing craft that native speakers typically gain in college
preparatory classes in secondary school. We will see that that of the 44 intermediate
learners, xxx are not at the level at which they should be if Organic Grammar Stages
equate with GPC levels. (See the Appendix for all students’ sample sizes, TOEFL, SAT
and GPC test scores.) Importantly, our analysis reveals that most students are at the right
level. But what Organic Grammar allows us to do is ground the intuitions that holisticcriteria give rise to.
We began our analysis by placing students at levels solely on the basis of their complex
syntax on the basis of their production of no subordinatation (Table 4), simple
subordination (Table 5) and complex subordination (Table 6). By these criteria, four of
the 44 students in our sample should not even be at the Intermediate Level. For two of
these students, the Intermediate Learner S7 and the High Intermediate Learner S26, there
were suspicions based on observations of their performance in class that neither belonged
in the GPC ESL program. [Colleen to add more details.] If we look more closely at their
syntax and also consider morphology, a case can be made that learners S10 and S31 are
(low) Stage 4 learners. Both produce ‘it’ and/or ‘there’ subjects, both produce at least
some initial non-subjects, and they display some range of morphology. We shall have
more to say below about articles and vocabulary.
Table 4. GPC students with no subordination
Subjects
S7/
GPC
there
level
/it
I
none
I
it
Initial
subordination
non-
.
morphology
article
vocab
errors
subjects
simple
complex
range
errors
0
0
0
some
errors
1/12
10/20
1/9
0
0
some
many
8/16
15/19
Amharic
S10/
Korean
S26/
errors
HI
none
2/11
0
0
good
few
1/17
13/23
it;
5/10
0
0
some
errors
1/23
17/26
Russian
S31/
I
Spanish
there
Turning to the table showing learners placed at the Intermediate Level based on their
production of simple subordination, we find that morphology plays an even more
important role. Learners are arranged here in order of morphological range, from none at
the top (S110 to learners who produce passives at the bottom of the table. All those for
whom there was a morphological range that tended to also include passive or present
perfect were either at the High Intermediate level (as shown on the table) at the time of
testing or were subsequently promoted to this level the quarter following data collection.
In this group there are also two learners that an OG-based criteria would not place at the
High Intermediate level, yet who were also at that GPC level: S4 and S28. S28 it turns
out should not be at that level [Colleen elaborate], and the data support this. S4 is less
clear; based on OG criteria she is at Stage 4. However, it may be that her vocabulary
range and her lack of article errors indicate a high level of overall proficiency. Thus, in
addition to correctly placing eight Intermediate Level and four High Intermediate Level
students, Organic Grammar criteria successfully identified the six learners who were
promoted to High Intermediate, and one who should not have been.
Table 5 GPC students with simple subordination
Subjects
S11/
Vietnamese
GPC
there
initial
level
/it
non-
I
It
subordination.
morphology
article
vocab
errors
subjects
simple
complex
5/8
5
0
range
No
errors
0/12
12/18
S2/
I
there
5/7
6
0
some
few
2/13
11/17
I
it/
7/10
4
0
some
few
2/20
20/28
there
5/11
5
0
some
none
0/15
16/22
it/
10/14
5
0
some
few
0/26
18/35
8/12
5
0
some
errors
3/16
23/34
Fula
S3/
Russian
there
S4/
HI
French
S6/Farsi
I
there
S15/
I
it/
Polish+
there
S28/
HI
there
3/12
1
0
some
errors
6/13
14/24
I
0 yes
1/20
13
0
some
few
13/19
14/36
Korean
S12/
Turkish
pass
S38/
pass.
I
there
2/11
2
0
good
errors
7/34
17/36
I
there
5/13
3
0
good
none
7/24
18/32
I
it
12/17
5
0
yes
few
0/36
23/44
HI
it,
10/21
2
0
yes
few
1/28
22/42
none
0/9
8/10
few
1/25
25/33
some
1/16
14/21
Korean
S44/
Korean
S1/
Fula
S13/
Wolof
there
pres
perf
S16/
HI
there
4/8
3
0
some
Urdu
pass.
S19/
HI
there
2/13
1
0
yes
Korean
pass.
S22/
Gujarati
HI
it,t
5/10
5
0
yes
here
S24/
I
it
pass
2/6
5
0
yes
some
1/12
16/20
some
14/24
17/43
some
0/24
17/31
some
3/21
16/24
few
2/21
21/26
Russian
pass
S25/
I
0
1/16
8
0
yes
Farsi
pass
S35/
I
it
1/13
10
0
yes
Vietnamese
pass
S37/
I
it/
2/9
3
0
yes
Vietnamese
there
S41/
I
there
pass
5/6
6
0
some
Spanish
pass
Finally, Table 6, which shows learners categorized on the basis of their production of
some complex subordination in addition to simple subordination, consists almost
completely of learners who subsequent to testing were promoted to High Intermediate
(indicated by shading). S42 was not promoted to High Intermediate, but this was due to
his failure to turn in assignments rather than his English. Students are again arranged in
order of their morphological complexity. However, unlike for those learners who only
produce simple subordination, this does not result in an additional division among them.
Table 6. GPC students with some complex subordination
Subjects
GPC
there
initial
level
/it
non-
subordination.
simple
complex
morphology
range
errors
article
errors
vocab
subjects
S5/
I
it
3/17
3
1
Chinese
S18/
HI
I
0
0
1
1
it/
7/12
5
2
there
I
Vietnamese
S9/
it/
I
1/24
25/38
it
2/7
*0
1
some; few
1/10
13/19
2/17
16/30
2/23
19/42
1/15
13/21
3/19
22/41
2/11
20/26
errors
I
there
6/14
6
1
Chinese
some; many
errors
I
0
0
3
1
some, with
errors
HI
there
4/12
4
1
good; some
errors
I
it
2/15
3
2
good; some
errors
I
it/
2/11
3
2
there
I
Farsi
S42/
19/33
there
Tigrinian
S39/
2/27
some; errors
Indonesian
S36/
limited; some
2
Chinese
S33/
18/21
3
Vietnamese
S23/
6/11
7/12
e
S34/
limited, but no
errors
Cantonese
S21/Chines
17/41
errors
Spanish
S8/
3/35
errors
Korean+
S29/
little, with
it/
good; some
errors
7/14
4
2
good; errors
2/24
21/33
2/5
8
1
good, but errors
1/26
16/31
there
I
there
S43/
I
0
3/9
4
1
good, but errors
11/25
22/36
I
it/
4/7
6
1
good; no errors
0/19
12/22
5/11
7
3
yes; some
0/22
19/24
2/18
15/26
6/20
15/25
Farsi
S40/
Spanish
S27/
there
I
Vietnamese
S30/
it/
there
I
there
errors
6/12
6
3
Spanish
S32/
yes; some
errors
I
there
11/13
3
2
Korean
passives; with
errors
5. 4, Discussion
The syntactic and morphological Organic Grammar criteria have successfully identified
the GPC level at which 43 of the 44 students in our study belong. This is no small feat
when one considers the relatively limited piece of writing each student produced as
compared with what students produce for writing tests or what learners produce for oral
samples (e.g. 100 utterances). Yet based on the notions of productivity and emergence
along with the concept of implication, we have shown it is possible to accurately assess
learners using a simple to administer elicitation procedure which yields data that are
straightforward to analyze. Importantly, neither morphological nor syntactic criteria
alone would have sufficed to accurately assess all learners in the study. The idea
underpinning Organic Grammar is that inflectional morphology and syntax are
intimately related to each other during development.
In looking at the results presented in Tables 4,5 and 6, we can also note that there
is little evidence of support for Hawkins’ prediction that articles will be impossible to
acquire by those learners who native language backgrounds lack them. Those learners
whose native languages have articles invariably make the fewest errors while those
languages do not make the most (e.g. Spanish speakers vs Turkish speakers), yet it is not
the case that every speaker of article-less languages makes more errors than speakers
whose languages have articles. Compare for example Korean speaker S19 and Spanish
speaker S41, who made 1 and 2 article errors, respectively. The great majority of article
errors all learners committed were omission errors rather than confusion of indefinite,
definite and zero article.
CONCLUSION
We have taken an initial step in re-introducing Pienemann et al.’s idea of implicationalhierarchy- or stage-based analysis to ESL assessment. By adopting a more recent
analysis of linguistic development that incorporates morphology and syntax, namely
Organic Grammar, we have been able to fill the gap between standardized discrete-item
testing and holistic-criteria-based analysis of elicited written samples. Doing so does not
require sophisticated equipment or programs to sort through scores of constructions
produced by the learner. There is potential for refinement of our testing instrument
through elicitation of more contexts for complex syntax, such as Wh-questions, and for
further exploration of the accuracy of OG-based assessment through collection of a
greater range and quantity of cross-sectional data. We envision that with such fine-
tuning, OG-based assessment will be a highly usable tool for the assessment of both oral
and written language for program placement, progression and exit.
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Appendix GPC student data in subject-number order
Subject
number+ NL
TOEFL/
GPC
total
there/it
initial non-
simple
complex
morphology:
article vocab
SAT
reading/
words
subjects
subjects
subordination
subordination
range; accuracy
errors
12/17
5
0
yes; few errors
0/36
23/44
writing
S1/Fula+
T473
189/30
182
it
S2/Fula+
T377
117/30
85
there
5/7
6
0
some; few errors
2/13
11/17
S3/Russian
S340
306/20
103
it/there
7/10
4
0
some;few errors
2/20
20/28
S4/French
T513
270/30
92
there
5/11
5
0
some; no errors
0/15
16/22
S5/Chinese
T490
252/20
171
it
3/17
3
1
little, with errors
3/35
17/41
S6/Farsi
T463
216/30
156
it/there
10/14
5
0
some; few errors
0/26
18/35
S7/Amharic
T490
261/10
68
0
0
0
0
some;errors
1/12
10/20
S8/Vietnamese
S280
189/30
156
it/there
7/12
3
2
some; errors
1/24
25/38
S9/Cantonese+
T467
207/30
86
it
2/7
0
1
some; few errors
1/10
13/19
S10/Korean
T467
306/20
53
it
1/9
0
0
some; many errors
8/16
15/19
S11/Vietnamese
T477
207/20
79
it
5/8
5
0
no; errors
0/12
12/18
S12/Turkish
T413
189/30
193
0
1/20
13
0
some; passive
13/19
14/36
S13/Wolof+
T487
189/40
167
it, there
10/21
2
0
pres perf; few errors
1/28
22/42
S14/Arabic+
T460
225/30
105
0
4/8
5
3
yes; few errors
1/20
11/21
S15/Polish+
T470
279/30
146
it/there
8/12
5
0
some, with errors
3/16
23/34
S16/Urdu
S390
324/30
51
there
4/8
3
0
pass. limited;errorless
0/9
8/10
S17/Spanish
T470
234/30
189
there
7/17
3
2
passive, but errors
0/23
19/33
S18/Korean+
T463
234/30
66
0
0
1
1
limited, but no errors
6/11
18/21
S19/Korean
S440
333/30
129
there
2/13
1
0
passive; few errors
1/25
25/33
S20/Arabic+
T470
243/30
48
it,there
4/16
4
1
passive;some errors
0/18
20/23
S21/Chinese
T483
234/30
131
there
6/14
6
1
some; many errors
2/17
16/30
S22/Gujarati+
S390
234/30
102
it,there
5/10
5
0
passive; some errors
1/16
14/21
S23/Chinese
S300
207/30
87
there
4/12
4
1
good; some errors
1/15
13/21
S24/Russian+
-
270/20
89
it
2/6
5
0
passives; some errors
1/12
16/20
S25/Farsi
T470
135/30
153
0
1/16
8
0
yes; passive; errors
14/24
17/43
S26/Russian+
S250
207/40
82
0
2/11
0
0
good; few errors
1/17
13/23
S27/Vietnamese+
S310
234/20
120
it/there
5/11
7
3
yes; some errors
0/22
19/24
GPC students‘data cont’d
subject
number+ NL
TOEFL/
GPC
total
there/it
initial non-
simple
complex
morphology: range;
article vocab
SAT
reading/
words
subject
subjects
subordination
subordin
accuracy
errors
writing
S28/Korean
T487
315/30
85
there
3/12
1
0
some; errors
6/13
14/24
S29/Spanish
T487
261/20
151
it/there
7/12
5
2
limited; some errors
2/27
19/33
S30/Spanish
S290
198/30
132
there
6/12
6
3
yes; some errors
2/18
15/26
S31/Spanish
T537
288/20
111
it/there
5/10
0
0
some, with errors
1/23
17/26
S32/Korean
T470
225/20
112
there
11/13
3
2
passives; with errors
6/20
15/25
S33/Indonesian
T483
243/20
195
it
2/15
3
2
good; some errors
3/19
22/41
S34/Vietnamese
T480
234/20
132
0
0
3
1
some, with errors
2/23
19/42
S35/Vietnamese
T513
306/20
133
it
1/13
10
0
passive, some errors
0/24
17/31
S36/Tigrinian
S220
171/30
146
it/there
2/11
3
2
good; some errors
2/11
20/26
S37/Vietnamese
S320
162/30
109
it/there
2/9
3
0
passive; errors
3/21
16/24
S38/Korean
T533
351/20
121
there
2/11
2
0
good; errors
7/34
17/36
S39/Farsi+
T520
207/30
153
it/there
7/14
4
2
good; errors
2/24
21/33
S40/Spanish
T480
189/20
90
it/there
4/7
6
1
good; no errors
0/19
12/22
S41/Spanish
T563
306/20
115
there
5/6
6
0
limited (passive) few errors
2/21
21/26
S42/Chinese+
T467
243/20
142
there
2/5
8
1
good, but errors
1/26
16/31
S43/Farsi
T433
207/30
146
0
3/9
4
1
good, but errors
11/25
22/36
S44/Korean+
T467
279/20
115
there
5/13
3
0
good; no errors
7/24
18/32
Advanced learners: two (S61; S63) of the three in our sample exhibited use of complex subordinate clauses or other complex syntax (use of
‘seem’ and of passives). S64 did not exhibit such syntax.
The three native speaking adolescent controls (S65, 66, 67, 68) produced passives, ‘appear to’ clauses and ‘that’ complementizer clauses, i.e.
complex syntax.
NOTES
1. Native language = a ‘+’ indicates at least another
2. T= TOEFL/S=SAT, where TOEFL score is given when student has taken TOEFL and SAT; otherwise SAT is given. A dash indicates
neither test has been taken.
3. GPC reading/writing test scores
4. Total words in sample, as an indication of student’s written fluency
5. it/there = instances of subject ‘it’ or ‘there’ indicate emergence of more complex syntax
6. Non-subjects in initial position relative to total declarative clauses. This count includes existential and weather ‘it’ and ‘there’. Syntax
involving such subjects is more complex than syntax with full noun or referential pronominal subjects.
7. Simple sub-ordinate clauses refers to subject relative clauses
8. Complex sub-ordinate clauses refers to ‘that’ complementizer clauses, use of ‘seem’, purpose clauses, etc. which involve the highest
syntactic projection (the most complex syntax)
9. Morphology = no/little/some/yes refers to the range of tense and aspect marking which for this sample included simple present, present
continuous, simple past (regular and irregular verbs), past continuous, present perfect and passive. many, few, some and no refers to level of
accuracy.
10. Article errors = based on obligatory contexts for articles (zero article, as in the plural, was not included) typically involved omission;
omission may persist to otherwise high levels of proficiency, depending on their presence in the learner’s L1
11. Vocabulary = different nouns produced as a function of total nouns produced