This question from Eric reflects the recent thread on the supreme role of the unconscious mind in learning a language. He asks a specific question, so if you have an answer please write it in a comment field below. Here is the question:
Ben, I’d love to have this posted and asked to the group: How do those teachers who know about the inalterable natural orders and developmental sequences defend a grammatical syllabus? Do they deny the existence of these orders/sequences? I really want to know. What is the justification? We’d have to also ask: Why? Why do these syllabi and textbooks try to alter the natural order? The only thing in their defense: I know we don’t have much of the morphology and syntax order mapped and most of the research has been on English orders. But the heterogeneity and different acquisition rates of a class would imply that you can’t standardize grammar sequences! You’re so right, Ben, that this is strong evidence of it being an unconscious process!