Interlanguage Development in Early EFL Learning in Croatia: An Insight Into Individual Learner Profiles

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to gain insight into the individual lexical and syntactic development of learners' interlanguage in early EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learning in Croatia. The total sample included 108Croatian L1 primary school learners (mean age 11-13). In this research, we selected 12 focal learners from two project schools, whose interlanguage development was observed over a period of three years. The research was based on the recordings of individual oral production when the students were at the end of their second, third, and fourth year of EFL learning. The quantitative analysis of the collected data included the number of utterances and morphemes count, mean length of utterances (MLU), and type/token ratio (FREQ). To gain better insight into student's individual development, learners' profiles were constructed consisting quantitative data analysis. The initial hypothesis is that students' oral production shows clear progress which supposes an increase in the mean length of utterances and in type/token ratio as indicators of linguistic and lexical diversity. We also assume that there is a decrease in the use of L1 in learners' oral production throughout the years of EFL learning. The research results confirmed the initial hypothesis, i.e., due to the exposure to EFL learning, participants' overall language proficiency gradually increased. The findings also showed expected interlanguage variations in early EFL learning.