Investigating Developmental Stages of Acquisition of Phonological Structures Among EFL Students of Eastern Mediterranean University: A Case Study

Abstract

Doing a piece of research on acquisition of second language <br />phonetics theoretically will justify the exact stages of language trans- <br />fer and further predicts the existence of systematicity and difficulty <br />order (Eckman, 2008). The present research is an attempt to provide <br />new evidence for the efficacy of second language acquisition to devel- <br />opmental stages of acquisition of phonological structures among EFL <br />students of Eastern Mediterranean University. Accordingly, three Ira- <br />nian EFL learners, including two males and a female studying at East- <br />ern Mediterranean University are purposefully selected on the basis of <br />their performance in the interview. In continuation, interviews were con- <br />ducted three times within a range of four months with the interval of at <br />least one month. Each interview was sound-recorded and lasted from 15 <br />to 30 minutes. Next the pools were transcribed according to the latest <br />conventions. Further, to ensure the ethical aspects of the research, the <br />participants were informed about the fact that their interviews were be- <br />ing sound recorded. At the end, it was concluded that it is not possible <br />to monitor the developmental processes in the acquisition of phonolog- <br />ical structures in a time span of four months and that determining a <br />time scale for the acquisition stage was not possible.