I describe how theories and hypotheses of adults’ acquisition of L2 competence and ideas in pedagogy are based on the educated and literate to the detriment of the non-educated and non-literate and discuss exciting new research on such L2ers’ morphosyntax, syntax and phonology which is starting to fill this gap.
There has been very little research on the acquisition of syntax, morphosyntax or phonology in a second language by adults without formal education or literacy in their first language(s). This matters because ideas in SLA about adult learners’ acquisition of L2 competence are based on educated and literate individuals and have excluded non-L1-literate adults in the building and formulation of theories, hypotheses and models (Bigelow et al. 2006). It will remain unclear whether these are representative of the entire adult L2 population until the role of literacy is extensively examined. This also matters for those who work with non-L1-literate adults (often asylum seekers and refugees) to support their development of oral and literacy skills in the language of the society where they have resettled. Curriculum, approach, method and materials draw on ideas for educated and literate L2 learners but reports from practitioners indicate that pedagogy cannot uncritically be applied with non-educated and non-literate adults. SLA is witnessing the slow emergence of research, findings from which will, on the one hand provide new evidence for hypotheses such as Missing Surface Inflection (Haznedar & Schwartz 1997) and Orthographic Input (Young-Scholten et al. 1999) and on the other hand, suggest to practitioners and pedagogy specialists where adjustments can most usefully be made to better support the development of L2 oral language and literacy skills of non-L1-literate adults.
