The Learning of the Grammatical Gender in a Second Language

Abstract

This study investigates why and where within a sentence, non-L1 Spanish students still make mistakes when classifying the grammatical gender after being exposed to the grammar explanations. Thirty-six L1 and non- L1 English speakers from two Spanish beginner college level class were asked to complete five different experiments, in which students had to match the gender of the noun with the correspondent article and make the gender of the nouns agree by writing or selecting the correct descriptive adjective. Results showed that (1) at a very early stage, students' Cultural Language Perception could interfere with the learning of the grammatical gender. (2) Students will have difficulty when making gender agreement in a nominal phrase rather than in an adjective phrase