Use of morphological analysis by Spanish L1 ESOL learners

Abstract

Three prominent strategies available to learners of English as a second or foreign language in English vocabulary recognition are relying on cognates in their native language (if available), relying on English morphology, and relying on context. A previous study found that students who were native speakers of Spanish made heavy use of cognate and context, but barely used morphology. This study attempts to discover whether this can most likely be explained by learners' lack of knowledge of morphological cues or by avoidance of their use. Adult Spanish speakers engaged in an English sentence completion task which involved use of morphological cues. Use of such cues was quite high, suggesting that ignorance of such cues cannot explain students' apparent usual nonuse. Implications for strategy training are discussed.