Contrastive typology and methodology of teaching English

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LECTURE 7: CONTRASTIVE TYPOLOGY AND METHODOLOGY OF TEACHING ENGLISH

Summarizing the study of Typology of English and Ukrainian, it is necessary to state the importance of Typology of a foreign language for the aims of teaching. language teacher foreign exercises

Teachers of English often come across many mistakes which students make, it concerns pronunciation as well as the structure of the 1anguage, especially in oral and written speech. Often one word is used instead of another without any consideration given to the correlation of these words, which may differ from such in the mother tongue.

As the analysis of mistakes shows, they may be divided into two groups: 1) mistakes of casual character which usually occur because of non-sufficient training. Such mistakes may be eliminated by means of a special system of exercises. These mistakes are usually of an individual character. 2) mistakes of a steady character, which are made if not by all then by a majority of students due to the influence of their mother tongue. Thus, for example, Russian students often pronounce [e] instead of [ж], confusing words [bed] and [bжd]. Sometimes learners of English omit indefinite or definite article, because such linguistic phenomena are absolutely alien to Ukrainian. Mistakes of mis nature are very difficult to eliminate. They are considered to be typical, steady.

To organize the learning activity aimed at correcting mistakes the teacher of English must first of all realize the sources of these mistakes, secondly, he has to think over and find necessary and the most effective measures to prevent the occurrence (emergence) of these mistakes. If mistakes still occur, the task of the teacher is to work out the system of exercises aimed at correcting, eliminating these mistakes. Thirdly, all necessary aids must take into account all the difficulties connected with the studying of a foreign 1-ge. Such aids must facilitate the acquirement of correct 1-ge skills. Fourthly, the teacher has to conduct (carry out) well-grounded selection of 1-ge and speech material and at the same time to present it in necessary quantity in accord with the real abilities of students.

Let us consider these points in more detail. The studying of a foreign 1-ge, English in our case, presupposes the acquirement of all peculiarities of its structure. Thus, two 1-ge systems are contrasted: the system of the mother tongue and the system of the foreign 1-ge. All regularities of the foreign 1-ge structure collide with students' native 1-ge. Here two 1-ge systems are intermingled: on the one hand, the foreign 1-ge demands from every student the restructuring of certain stereotypes formed on the basis of the native 1-ge structure. During this restructuring the student will bring the regularities of his mother tongue into his speech in a foreign l-ge at all levels of the 1-ge system. It is naturally that all speakers of this or that native 1-ge will make the same mistakes, which can be called typical, or to be more precise, typological. This can easily be observed on those components of a foreign 1-ge which are absent in students' native 1-ge or which are different from those represented in their mother tongue.

On the other hand, students' mother tongue will constantly impose its norms on students' speech in a foreign 1-ge, and thus it will be a regular source of steady mistakes at all levels of foreign 1anguage structure. This phenomenon is called the interference of 1-ges.

Typological study of English and Ukr helps to state the structurally and functionally isomorphic and structurally and functionally allomorphic features of both 1-ges.

The structurally and functionally isomorphic features can't serve as me source of steady mistakes, because functional similarity of corresponding 1-ge phenomena guarantees the absence of such mistakes. Here the mistakes of another type may occur, caused by non-sufficient learning (mastering) of materially different but functionally close elements of 1-ge structure.

Thus, the allomorphic features of both 1-ges are considered to be the strongest source of students' mistakes. Many mistakes occur when the norms of the mother tongue are imposed (transferred) on the structure of a foreign 1-ge. For example, such typological feature of the English 1-ge as the existence of two main types of vowels (long and short) in its phonological system and the absence of such phenomena in Russian cause many mistakes in students' pronunciation, when [i] and [i:], [u] and [u:], etc. are confused thus leading to incorrect sound forming of words and wrong perception. Another example, the existence in the Ukrainian 1-ge of two sets of consonant sounds (hard and soft/palatalized) and the absence of this typological feature in English is the usual source of mistakes in pronunciation of English consonants followed by front vowels, when [sit] sounds like [c'ит], [ri:d] like [pи:т].

Typology of phonological systems of native and foreign 1-ges helps to consider all typological differences of both 1-ges and gives an opportunity to theoretically definenhose difficulties which may arise in mastering the phonological system of the foreign 1-ge; it helps to select phonetic and phonological difficulties and to work out corresponding sequence of sounds to be studied as well as the necessary system of exercises.

The developed phonological and phonetic minimum of English will vary for speakers of different native 1-ges according to the phonemic structure of the native l-ge (например, в фонематический минимум татар, башкир, казахов не войдет заднеязычная фонема [з], поскольку она существует в фонемном составе данных языков).

Typological differences in morphological structures of both 1-ges also serve as a source of regular mistakes. The most vivid example is the use of Article by learners of English, where the main difficulty is caused by the absence of the category of determination in Ukr.

A lot of mistakes are made by students while structuring the sentence. It is caused by typological differences of English and Ukr. The analytical structure of the English 1-ge demands a strict word order: subject -- predicate -- direct object -- indirect object -- adverbial modifier of place -- adverbial modifier of time. In Ukr which is a synthetic 1-ge the word order may vary, because inflections may clearly show all the existing relations between different parts of the sentence irrespective of their place in the sentence. The 1-ges of agglutinative type have a fixed word order but it greatly differs from that in English or Ukr: the adverbial modifier of time -- the adverbial modifier of place - subject - indirect object - direct object - predicate.

Given schemes of simple extended s-ce in English and native 1-ges, which show the differences in the structures of these 1-ges, give reasons for well-grounded predictions of arising difficulties for learners of English; that is proved by their regular mistakes. Thus, Ukr students constantly make mistakes in arranging subject and predicate, predicate and direct object, adverbial modifier of place and time, placing them in accord with the norms of Ukr syntax. Speakers of Turkic 1-ges put the predicate on the last place, according to the regularities of their mother tongue.

Summarizing everything said and also practical examples observed in the process of mastering a foreign 1-ge it is necessary to stress that contrastive typology of native and foreign 1-ge treats not separate elements of the 1-ge but the structure and the system of the 1-ge taken as a whole. This creates theoretical grounds for investigating such basic problems as: 1) probability and improbability of arising of certain elements in the 1-ge; 2) occurrence of some 1-ge elements in the case of existence of other ones (например, отсутствие парадигмы склонения влечет за собой выработку твердого порядка слов в предложении, к широкому употреблению предлогов в грамматической функции и т.д.).

Contrastive typology helps to investigate the structures not only of related (kindred 1-ges), but also of genealogically unrelated 1-ges (изучается, например, положение зависимого компонента в препозиции в тюркских или в германских языках в атрибутивных сочетаниях).

The study of typology of a given 1-ge helps to solve many methodological problems:

1) the problem of diagnosing the difficulties at phonological, syllabic, morphemic, morphological and syntactic levels, with which the learners of a foreign 1-ge will come across and will have to overcome in the process of mastering this 1-ge;

2) the problem of selecting necessary 1-ge and speech material which must take into account all structural peculiarities of both 1-ges, as well as the problem of correct arrangement of academic material;

3) the problem of methodological prediction and further development of effective system of methodological techniques aimed at more understandable explanation (presentation) of l-ge material and adequate (efficient) system of exercises;

4) the problem of scientifically sound (grounded) system of text-books and practical courses of foreign 1-ges.

Thus, Contrastive Typology helps to solve general methodological as well as particular problems in teaching a foreign l-ge in varying situations (e.g. nationality of learners), among such we find theoretical justification (grounding) and working out of methods and techniques of teaching particular sounds and their variants, certain grammatical forms and specific phraseological units of a foreign l-ge in accord with the main peculiarities of the mother tongue.

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