Discussion about van de Craats’ article
The role of the mother tongue in second language learning
Gé Stoks | The discussion took place at Babylonia’s office at Cantone Ticino. Participants were Decio Augugliaro and Raphael Stoll, both teachers of English at a liceo in Lugano. They both have several years of experience teaching English and completed the abilitazione for the liceo at the teacher-training institute in Locarno last year. We started the discussion with the question what kinds of errors students make. Both teachers agreed that, although interference errors are easily identifiable in learners with Italian as their mother tongue, more advanced learners seem to make more intralinguistic errors. The teachers also agreed that a lot of exposure the target language, which is not as prevalent in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland as in many other parts of Europe, is more profitable than a lot of explicit grammar teaching. Making mistakes is for both of them a natural element in the learning process, even though this may give rise to practical problems when it comes to marking tests. They both encourage students to use compensation strategies. |
Ti interessa il testo completo dell’articolo? / Le texte complet de l’article vous intéresse? / Sind Sie am vollständigen Artikeltext interessiert? / If you are interested in the entire article
- Abbonati! / Abonnez-vous! / Babylonia abonnieren! / Take a subscription!
- Acquista l’articolo in pdf! / Achetez l’article en pdf! / Kaufen Sie den Artikel in PDF-Format! / Buy the article in PdF! (CHF 6.-)