Significance for teaching

2.1. The teacher of foreign languages may wonder why he has to go through the painful business of comparing languages. Is it not his responsibility simply to teach a foreign language? Is it not enough that he should know that foreign language?

Not if our assumption is correct. We assume that the student who comes in contact with a foreign language will find some features of it quite easy and others extremely difficult. Those elements that are similar to his native language will be simple for him, and those elements that are different will be difficult. The teacher who has made a comparison of the foreign language with the native lan­guage of the students will know better what the real learn­ing problems are and can better provide for teaching them. He gains an insight into the linguistic problems involved that cannot easily be achieved otherwise.

In practice a teacher may be called upon to apply this knowledge under various circumstances. He may be asked to evaluate materials before they are adopted for use. He may be asked to prepare new materials. He may have to supplement the textbook assigned to his class. And he will at all times need to diagnose accurately the difficulties his pupils have in learning each pattern.

2.2. Evaluating the language and culture content of a textbook

On the surface, most textbooks look pretty much alike. Publishers see to it that their books look attractive and that the titles sound enticing. That is part of their business. If a teacher is professionally trained, however, he will be able to look beyond attractive illustrations and handsome printing and binding.

He should be able to see whether the book presents the language and culture patterns that form the system to be studied, and does not merely list disparate items from here and there. He should also be able to discern whether the book gives due emphasis to those patterns that are diffi­cult because they are different from those of the native language of the students.

Some books, advertised as panaceas for easy learning of a foreign language, simply present a few patterns that are similar to the native language and spend a good many chapters, sometimes an entire volume, on them. The un­trained teacher and student may get the impression that the book does simplify the learning of the language. But in reality it does not teach the foreign language; it merely entertains teacher and student in easy but unproductive activity. That weakness is immediately laid bare by com­paring the two languages.

Textbooks should be graded as to grammatical structure, pronunciation, vocabulary, and cultural content. And grad­ing can be done best after the kind of comparison we are presenting here.

2.3. Preparing new teaching materials

More and more the teacher is faced with the need to prepare textbooks and other teaching materials that are up to date and meet the needs of the particular students he is interested in. The most important new thing in the preparation of teaching materials is the comparison of native and foreign language and culture in order to find the hurdles that really have to be surmounted in the teaching. It will soon be considered quite out of date to begin writing a textbook without having previously compared the two systems involved.

Other advances in techniques of presentation of lan­guage and culture should not be neglected, but the linguistic comparison is basic and really inescapable if we wish to make progress and not merely reshuffle the same old materials.

2.4. Supplementing inadequate materials

Commonly, the teacher finds that he is given an assigned textbook that he finds inadequate both as to linguistic and cultural con­tent. The teacher who has systematically compared the two languages will be able to prepare supplementary exercises on those patterns which are important or difficult and have been overlooked or treated inadequately in the book.

2.5. Diagnosing difficulties

The teacher will at all times in working with his students be faced with the need to diagnose quickly and accurately the problems troubling a student. Much misinformation and many misleading expla­nations can be and are given students in the attempt to help them. Knowing not only what the pattern is, but knowing precisely what feature in that pattern is troubling the student and what different feature he is substituting can lead to a simple hint or pointer that may solve an otherwise baffling situation. The professionally trained teacher should notice not only a “foreign” accent or an “incorrect” form but a clear-cut, specific distortion of a sound, construction, or cultural pattern.