Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning

    Table 4. Rank order correlations with the proposed "natural order"

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1.    Studies with nine countable grammatical morphemes:
                                                          Rank order
                            Study^a                        correlation^b
    Marta                                                    0.823
    Uguisu                                                   0.170
    Dulay and Burt, 1974b-combined                           0.770
    Dulay and Burt, 1974b-Spanish                            0.753
    Dulay and Burt, 1974b-Chinese                            0.827
    Dolores                                                  0.849
    Andersen, 1976                                           0.883
    Larsen-Freeman, BSM time I                               0.840
    Larsen-Freeman, BSM time II                              0.857
    Larsen-Freeman, Imitation I                              0.416
    Larsen-Freeman, Imitation II                             0.719
    Larsen-Freeman, Listen I                                 0.719
    Larsen-Freeman, Listen II                                0.606
    Larsen-Freeman, Read I                                   0.130
    Larsen-Freeman, Read II                                 -0.130
    Larsen-Freeman, Write I                                  0.217
    Larsen-Freeman, Write II                                 0.148

    for n = 9, significance at 0.05 level requires rho = 0.600 or larger.
               significance at 0.01 level requires rho = 0.783 or larger.

II.    Studies with eight countable grammatical morphemes:
                                                          Rank order
                            Study                         correlation
    Jorge 7                                                  0.878
    Jorge 11                                                 0.615
    Jorge 18                                                 0.725
    Jorge 20                                                 0.886
    Dulay and Burt, 1973-Sacramento                          0.939
    Dulay and Burt, 1973-East Harlem                         0.878
    Dulay and Burt, 1973-San Ysidro                          0.865
    Bailey, Madden, and Krashen, 1974                        0.939
    Krashen, Houck, et al., 1977                             0.779

    for n = 8, significance at 0.05 level requires rho = 0.643 or larger.
               significance at 0.01 level requires rho = 0.833 or larger.  

                                                             (continued)
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individual and grouped studies of second language performers. Admittedly, it is not a rigidly invariant order, as shown in Fig. 1. It is also far from random, however.

The task is far from complete in this area. As indicated in Table 1, more data should be gathered for adults longitudinally, and the effect of monitoring on the morpheme order deserves replication.