Innovation in Language Learning

This paper will present an experiment targeting the null subject property of L1 Greek in the L2 acquisition of a non-null subject language like English. Moreover, based on the present data, it will discuss and compare possible ways of teaching the overt subject property of English, focusing mainly on traditional grammar drilling on the one hand and, on-site Moodle grammar drilling on the other, thereby attempting to combine second language acquisition research findings and teaching practices. 

The experiment reported examines null and postverbal subject structures, as well as subject extraction structures across the overt complementizer “that”.  Data was obtained by means of a Grammaticality Judgment Task and a Cloze Task. Three groups of intermediate, advanced, and very advanced learners, as well as a control group of English natives were used. The results showed that, in contrast with the successful L2 performance of English speaking learners of Italian/Spanish in the production of overt preverbal subjects, Greek learners even at advanced and very advanced stages of proficiency exhibit performance which is clearly distinguishable from that of the native controls: they allow/produce significantly more ungrammatical null and postverbal subjects, as well as that-t violation structures.

On the background of this data which supports the claim that syntactic differences between L1 and L2 lead to persistent learnability problems in L2 acquisition, and observing that the majority of the course books used with Greek learners do not address the issues raised by research findings like the present, we report on our attempts, as well as on the relevant results, to address the overuse of ungrammatical null subjects in L2 English by integrating Moodle grammar practice in an intercultural primary school classroom.