Interlanguage interference in adult acquisition of Korean as a second and a third language

This study investigated the interlanguage interference among adult English-speaking students who learned Korean as a second language (Group I students) and as a third language (Group II A students whose L2 proficiency levels are 1 or below and Group II B students whose L2 proficiency levels are level 1+ or above) and recommended remedial strategies for Korean learners. Data were collected from 212 students whose ages ranged from 18 to 34 years attending the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (the DLIFLC), San Francisco and Monterey, California during the period of 1988 through 1991. Data collected included the students' prior language proficiency level (the Student Self Assessment of Language Proficiency--the SSALP scores), language aptitude (the Defense Language Aptitude Battery--the DLAB scores), ages, and final graduation test scores (the Defense Language Proficiency Test Version III--the DLPT III).Group I students received statistically significantly higher Defense Language Proficiency Test Version III (the DLPT III) scores than Group II A students Group II B than Group I and Group II B than Group II A in their listening and reading tests. No statistically significant differences were found in both the Defense Language Aptitude Battery (the DLAB) versus DLPT II-listening correlations and the DLAB versus DLPT III-reading correlations between Group I students and Group II A students.Also, there were no significant differences in the DLAB and DLPT III-listening correlations and the DLAB versus DLPT III-reading correlations between Group I students and Group II B students and between Group II A students and Group II B students.The results support the assumption that the students with lower proficiency of L2 (Group II A) had more learning interference than those with higher proficiency of their L2 (Group II B) in their performance on both listening and reading tests. There were no significant differences in both age versus DLPT III-listening correlations and age versus DLPT III-reading correlations among all 3 groups, but the DLPT m scores of younger students on the average were slightly higher than older students in all 3 study groups.The multiple regression analysis showed that the best predictor of the DLPT III test scores was the prior language experience (the Student Self Assessment of Language Proficiency--the SSALP-proficiency levels). In this study, a hypothesis was postulated that Group II A students showed interference most in their learning Korean, because they were in the "fossilized interlanguage zone" in their learning Korean. Group II B students showed interference least in their learning Korean, because they were in the traits in which they transcended "interlanguage zone" into the target language (Korean) by their learning strategies and Group I students showed interference second in their learning Korean, because they were in the "neutral" traits in which they were less influenced from interlanguage fossilization.