Reinforcement of Grammatical Structures through Explicit Instruction in Palenquero Creole: A Pilot Study

The Afro-Hispanic creole, Palenquero, has been spoken (together with Spanish) in the village of San Basilio de Palenque, Colombia, for centuries. Until recently, Palenquero was endangered due to prejudice, but language revitalization efforts are underway, and younger speakers learning little reinforcement out school. school instruction involves no grammatical explanations, almost student production, or critical feedback. Adult usually do not address thus leaving school-acquired forms suspended without reinforcement. This represents a unique scenario heritage acquisition bidirectional communication between adult speakers. present study focuses on use preverbal particles prenominal plural marker by before after explicit instruction. Communication activities explicitly presented ma particles, such as zero morpheme (simple present), asé (habitual), ta (progressive), (perfective/simple past) tan (future). Participants performed better at post-test results suggest that explanation rules, practice, repetition, corrective feedback improved usage tan. result lines up previous studies posit amount time exposure learners need order acquire complex morphology.