Evidence of variation in the mastery of German morphosyntax independent of learning strategies
a study on L2 acquisition
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4151/S0718-09342025011801168Keywords:
German morphosyntax, L2 learning strategies, second language acquisition, language distance, C-testAbstract
Variation in second language acquisition (L2) has been extensively studied within the context of language teaching, yet less attention has been given to learners themselves and their specific learning processes. We investigated the relationship between German morphosyntax mastery and the use of learning strategies for German as an L2, using version 7 of the Oxford Strategy Inventory of Language Learning (1990, 2003) to measure the use of language learning strategies, and a C-Test by Arras et al. (2002) to assess morphosyntax mastery in 146 third-year secondary school students from three German schools in Chile. Analysis through mixed models revealed that the variability in C-Test items affected participants' results independently of the strategies used. We interpret our results as evidence that the complexity of particular morphosyntactic structures is more relevant for the acquisition of German as an L2 than the use of learning strategies. We discuss these results in the light of differences in the acquisition difficulty of various morphosyntactic structures.
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