TEXT A

The Natural Order hypothesis is based on research findings (Dulay & Burt, 1974; Fathman, 1975; Makino, 1980 cited in Krashen, 1987) which suggested that the acquisition of grammatical structures follows a 'natural order' which is predictable. For a given language, some grammatical structures tend to be acquired early while others late. This order seemed to be independent of the learners' age, L1 background, conditions of exposure, and although the agreement between individual acquirers was not always 100% in the studies, there were statistically significant similarities that reinforced the existence of a Natural Order of language acquisition. Krashen, however, points out that the implication of the natural order hypothesis is not that a language program syllabus should be based on the order found in the studies. In fact, he rejects grammatical sequencing when the goal is language acquisition.

Available at < http://www.sk.com.br/sk-krash.html> access on June 28th, 2009

TEXT B

One source of deviation from a ‘natural’ order is the learner’s first language. Hakuta and Cancino (1977) have argued that the semantic complexity of the morphemes may vary depending on the learner’s native language. They cited research that indicates that where a second-language learner’s first language does not make the same discriminations as the target language, more difficulty in learning to use these morphemes occurs than is the case for learners whose first language makes the semantic discrimination. Thus, Korean children, whose language has no article equivalents, performed more poorly on the article in morpheme studies than did children whose language, such as Spanish, contains articles. Similarly, longitudinal research showed that a Japanese child had great difficulty with the English definite/indefinite article contrast, presumably because Japanese lacks this semantic discrimination.

Source: McLAUGHLIN, Barry. Theories of Second Language Learning: second language acquisition. London: Arnold, 1987, p 32-33.

Now, read the statements below considering the information in texts A and B.

I. Since evidence of transfer from the first language has been obtained in a number of studies dealing with acquisitional sequences, supporting the fact that children will use first-language structures to solve the riddle of second-language forms, and that the different system of their mother tongue does influence the way they acquire a second language, Krashen’s Natural Order Hypothesis does not have enough evidence to be fully supported.

II. Formal instruction does not interfere on learners’ natural course of linguistic development. This explains why errors occur, and why learning experiences are sometimes unsuccessful, no matter how differently the learning situations are presented.

III. The research presented in text B invalidates Krashen’s Natural Hypothesis, proving that it is not possible to predict the order of acquisition of language aspects.

IV. If the Natural Order Hypothesis is to be accepted, it must be in a weak form. It is plausible to say that some things are learned before others, but not always, since individual learning strategies, to name one example factor, indicate a much greater complexity than Krashen has acknowledged.

It is possible to say that the CORRECT statement(s) is (are)