EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY AND ELT

Proactive interference

This is a type of transfer which occurs when someone wants to learn different tasks. In this case
the strategies work well in the first task but they interfere in the learning of the second task.

For example, when a student learns a second language he tends to use the grammatical features
of his native language to learn this new language. In the case of an English learner, if his mother
tongue is Spanish he could get confused to think that the plural of man is mans because in Spanish
the –s is added to the noun to get the plural form.

Retroactive interference

It occurs on vice versa because what the student has learned in the second task interferes when
he tries to do the first task again. It occurs, for example, when a child learns something new every
day at school, he learns one day the names of the bones, the following day the names of the
muscles, the next day he wants to remember the names of the bones again but he only can
remember the names of the muscles.

Lacey Lisbeth Conde Carhuancho