A quantitative Approach to conditionals in the Interlanguage of Arab Learners: Instructional Level Impact and order of acquisition

Abstract

The present descriptive study attempts to investigate English if clauses in the interlanguage of Moroccan EFL university students. It aims in particular to explore the impact of the level of education on the process of the learners¢ acquisition. To achieve this goal, three instruments were adopted for data collection: both the translation task and the picture completion task aimed to exploit students' performance, while the grammaticality judgment and the correction task harnessed student competence. 81 Moroccan students from Ibn-Toufail University, English Department, Kenitra, served as a sample for the study; 40 students were in the first year and 41 students were in the third year. The reported results supported the hypotheses postulated in the present study. First, the "predictive" conditional was the most controlled by learners, being the unmarked form, thus confirming H1. Second, "Instructional level" revealed a strong impact on the developmental process of conditional acquisition that confirms H2: high-level students were found to be more competent learners than low-level students in all the conditional types considered in the study.