Jannis Kounatidis, Mainz University
The Implications of U-Shaped Learning and Restructuring for TEFL
When learners face new structures, one result assumedly is the destabilisation and
reorganisation of the established IL system (‘U-shaped learning’). From the Dynamic Systems Theory
(DST) perspective, one feature of this process is the emergence of variation. Uniting this assumption
with the concept of U-shaped learning, variability is one property of restructuring. However, some
questions remain unresolved. Are some structures in the acquisition process subject to a greater
extent of destabilisation, i.e. a greater decrease in the amount of correct responses, and if so, what
are the reasons? And does variability, keeping in mind what the DST holds, mean that learners
respond in more diverse ways, which I will call IL-variants, whenever they struggle the most with one
structure? Based on these questions, a study on verb inflection and negation was conducted with
German learners of English in their first year, which reflected the complex interaction of IL
morphology, orthography, syntax and semantics during the stages of acquisition. The data support
the assumption that one indicator of the learners’ difficulty indeed is a high number of IL-variants
and provide information for the improvement of teaching English. By means of systematising the
errors and analysing these variants and their distribution, it is possible to identify the error sources
and, hence, to focus on these by providing the according teaching material and support the
incorporation of the structure in question.
Keywords: Restructuring, IL variability, teaching, Dynamic Systems