Assessing of English Morpheme Acquisition Order of Thai Deaf University Students

Abstract

The purposes of this study were to assess the acquisition order of nine English grammatical morphemes and to identify types of grammatical morphemes which seem difficult for Thai deaf university students. Thirty-seven Thai deaf university students completed 18 fill-in-the-blank questions. Data were analyzed by frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation. The results indicated that the English grammatical morpheme acquisition order of Thai deaf university students was as follows: 1) article (Mean (M) =1.38/3.00), 2) plural (M =1.36/3.00), 3) regular past tense (M =1.28/3.00), 4) progressive (M = 1.22/3.00), 5) the 3rd person singular simple present tense (M=1.16/3.00), 6) auxiliary (M = 1.53/3.00), 7) irregular past tense (M = 1.46/3.00), 8) copula (M = 0.41/3.00), and 9) possessive (M = 0.39/3.00). From the results, the 3rd person singular simple present tense, auxiliary, irregular past tense, copula, and possessive were considered difficult for the deaf participants. The findings from this study can be used for further pedagogical and curriculum development in teaching English grammatical morphemes to Thai deaf students.