CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS IN THE CLASSROOM Adam Wiohewis Usveriy, Fema ‘The paper which I presented st the conference in Karpacr last year oait wit varies “pedagogical Implications and eppliostims of con teastive studies in cormecton with the designing of syllabuses for txo= ‘guage course and the prepartion of teaching materials. Lately a nuraber Of artes and. papers have spocared which anisage the pedagogical Sprlletion of CS Jn emestially the some way, Le, for designing ey ‘uses aod preparg teaching materials, usoally emphasizing atthe same thme that i is stapoetble and coxtary to sound pedagogical Knowledge i thee ofa deliberate end aystematic ise of contraive analyls In the ‘lagen Now auy contention is thet CA has groat pedagogical value [precisely bo day-to-day touching in the clawsoom, as # use techrique For presenting language material to the learner sad se one of the char= tcleristiesxpctr of « method of teacllng. Tals poper ie a jusiietion 2¢ fey pant of view Certainly de pedagogial usetulness of this partelsr “pplication of CA which Ihave in mind ts only 2 hypothesis, but to fuse tify iT hall adopt « procedure charactertic of pedagogical methat- logy 4c, frat T shall show that my propond dees not contradict the find Ings of source auch as the perehology of learing and peythodinguistios and that, oa the contrary, itis supported by many fects diowvered by ‘hsee disciplines Then, 1 dll show that some of the statements which yan counter to my claim have no validity from the point of view of ‘Sntempormry inowledge. Finlly, T shall say a few more words about how {imagine the we of CS in the elasioom. Let me make one more ‘alot ot the Doping eonceraing the present confusion in the fekd of Tamguage teaching methodology. { em of the opinion that a Tot of this ‘confusion te unnecewrary, beewwe, although second language learning tha ts poste aspect, i hae many festores in cmon with other kinds ‘of learning, eepeculy in what concerns concept formation, asqulstlon Sf habits and shill, and the Working of memory. Any psychologist will fell us that quite « lot Se Known today sbowt these and other aspects of Tearning end, sotualiy, many aap have been lying around for quite some tine without letguege teachers making any use of them. T am, therefore, totally én oppostion to the ‘new erthadoxy” in language16 1, Marton learning and teaching, repeesonted by such scholars as Leon Jakobovtts “Leonard Newmark, David Relbel, and others, who claim that both fist land encend language Hearing ie some mysterious process following its ‘courme independently of the intentions of the teacher and learner, and ‘hat al we ean doi nat to interfere with i ‘One of the tain aarumptlons of my approsch is that the native language of the learner is 2 very powerful tactor in second language ‘acqlstion and ons which cannot be eliminated from the proces: of Tearing. 1am referring hore to the sttution of language teaching in four schools and various Imguage eourees, which, from & peychologes] point of view, fe completely ailfeent from the situation of learning 2 Jenguage in'the country whore it is spoken, or learning tn a very Intensive couree of total Immersion. in the bio cases of lesfing a lan= _Buage in the courry whore it apen ofa Interv course, there are ‘Plenty of opportunites for obeervntion sn teting ones detailed hype foes eoncernng verious ampects of the language. Bat aver in these ‘conditions it s very dubious that language habits ete formed automaticl- Ip and by mere exponire to language dats, especially in an adult learner Tn out schools, one of the most important langue learning problems 1s remembering the various features of foreign language letrat in clas for daring home study, In this respect the eruclal problem is that of otroactive Inhibition Certainly the use of the native language between the foreign language classes, or between a foreign language clas and an fecasanal ute of the foregn language in some other stuetlon, an Interpolated activity strothecing retreive inhibition. Reasoning io terms of sien end responces, we can assume that meenings which an Individual wants to exprear are stimu, end their encodings Into gos ‘ot particular Ianguage are respons ets probably safe to aay that po one would deny the exatance af ‘the powerful influence of Fetoactve inhibition, roganded by linguists 1s “Tinguirtic interfecencs", on sone language Yearning. Ii also becom ‘ng clearer and clearer bow strong and perdtent the habits of expressing ‘enings in the aetive language are, so that they even manifest them= Selves in Individuals who have spent long years in a foreign country functioning primarily in the language spolen in thet country. A. A. Leontiew, one of the top contemporary. Soviet peyholinguists and rethodologit, writes sboct thie problem (1870-19) rte poesammnon of rinsing sts and hatte of 9 sothrtongae ote a acema language take Pace depeneaiy of our eter to iit Urs spect metbee ex, ty a det mod. Tau bind af eater cesip ‘ool cs geet peneos of the tater of nove othe contraction a Shu Waites sone tneeon omaesig te sendy eng neta ‘a toa fon wate f aoe eo ah ‘whe question then suggests Stat whether it Ist better to use this Iabitual tranfer in some way rather then desperately trying to fight it end eradeate iy or oven to deny fis exitenoe. {think that using CA inthe classroom Would go a long wey towards controlling this powerful fendoney and making an ally of what bes long been considered ovr Seuss enemy. The perstence apd strength of langhage intetterence {Ereadily explained bythe well-established fact that retroactive inition ie qrestent where the atimult for the learned taek and the simi for the interpolated sctivity are the same, but the required responses are Aifferat This is exactiy the eat with second language Feacaing in school ‘stustlons, where the meanings we want to exprest in the native and Seonnd language are usually the same, but cal for different encodings. ‘Ae Borger and Seeborne (1860156) put lt, “Confusion is greatest when tn separate occasions poople are called upon to behave in diffrent ways Ander similar circutaweanoes”, What iy iowa about the working of seory al suggests that the proces of remembering things and storing Them in long-term memory cannot be Wkened to faithful recording on tape There seers to be receptive process involved hero which take in fd store new information ia teri of previously argaalzed material land which esult in progressive distortion of the lesroed material over {period of time (Borger and Sesborne 19667108). The sume idea hee teen sted by the Gestalt coal their concept of cognitive aractre, {nto which all new bits and ploces of knowledge are fitted in. This articular aspect of memory change has been emphasized by Bartlett {1832 Actually, the renulic of ha experimental sbaes imply mare than slowly that Tearned material is distorted during Ieening: the fistortion, or, in other words, sasiiltion to preexisting stractares ‘continucy afler semoval of the original material ‘Tale pointe to a more ‘fynamle aspect of language interference, which is often neglected by Tingists dealing With tho Brobem, Taking 4 paychologcal pont of view, svevcan say that there la novcr peaceful coeietenco botween the E00 Tanguage systems In the lester, but rather oostant warfare, and that ‘his warfare ig not Liited to the moment of cognition, but oontinaes usog the period of storing newly learat items im memory. Accordingly, tery Polish sentence T heer, speak, read, or ite impeira my Englzh, "The revere fo aleotrus, ut the spa! “tales interfecence” is not telly dongerous in the learning conditions which T have in mind, 20 Tail not deal ih it Sm the: pret paper. Tuking all of tis infoconsideration, we might conclude that as the proces of comparison is {golng to tke plac anyway, itis botter co make it concious and chanel 5 to profitable usss, at the seme time preventing distortion resulting rom dneoatroled asst, ‘Another interesting peychologlad fact is how much the atount of retroactive inhibition depends on the mathod of learning ised for the task material as compared to the method of Tearning used for the ‘ator polated material. Peperiuents by Jenkin ad Portman (1949) end by idhocka (1966) eleary sndieate that if the method for learning the {ntepolnted material is essentially the same as the method for learing ‘the task material, retronetive inhibition le rately increased Converscly, 1 the methods ar easly atferent, retroactive inhi i deersuned ewe assme that the use of the fi Iungsngr can be regarded as the practicing end learaing of the Interpolated activity, it bacomes obviowe that the claim made by muzerour methodologiats that sccond language learning should copy the proceact characterise of ‘frst language learning 1s not ax psychoogieally sound as it seen to be at fist sight. From this point of view, then it Se perhape desirable that e method for stomd language learning should be characterized by ongnitive elements ‘Which would differntite it from frst languge acquston. “Another impartantfecior Ieaenlng the mount of retrostive inition 1s the actor readiness of w learner to prevent ite interfering influonon, A clanscal experiment cartied out by Lester (1932) with four groups of ‘subjects differently Instructed and mide aware of tho oxistonee of inter- ference from interpolated aatvitica demonstrated very clearly that te subjects who were warned and shown where the interference would ‘ppeer ard who were aly instructed how to fight tt i ineomparebly better on the setesting of the lesmed material than the subjects who were not wo inructed, Tt follows that warning the learner of language louerference, showing him clearly and in sdvance whers It may sppee" land what he should Koep in mind to cusb i, may greatly facilitate second language leering. ‘These are only afew ofthe paychologial facts which might be cited to eupport the iden of using CA in the classroom, in the sage of the presentatlon of Ianguage material. Verio abjetions, homever, have been Frise to this kid of cognitive speeosch "ehoas ben clear hy now that this approach s alao characterized by the use of grammatical explanations and rules and their conscious op plication in language teaching and leaalng. Mort of the scholars and feachers voicing objections to thir method would treat any. contestive statements presente ¢o the Ieracr a8 Snerening the aot of verbelizae ‘ion and rules and, hence, detrimental to the acquisition of competence contention nai hia » tn the foreign language. The epee of those objets is thal any Somous spikation of verbalacd ruse maken opewch and tral Scomechendion inthe. forign language rellecive™ ad sow, and {hur render the soquaion of cra-aural sls impossible. This ert of fut well expesed by Sol Spore 1988:86), who writ, “Langs een Maine an ang nee SSR RIS Oak i fects wen spec ted bine De minien of te rot soe ‘A very cerious tod peresient migundertaning wndesea oll sich ‘Latmeate and objections, The miranderstoning oi rang Soules of cules and wanarative ssbemenia a tte and wochane™ Sie in cheecrer. Hyper that Seprta abd ther teovelars Tike ‘ie thik tht ita Towacr hg Teart aooelng about the target Tengunge vie ‘alg and vertliantins be mill have forever to recall al ‘he epproprae Fuse and vertlientiane in emcly tbe sme form 4 ‘hice fen tam where he wane sty smote in he {Engage But th yychologia fac sha all Rep rlte ad verbalize TSA ct oui fo tr own se hp maily to grin ie ond Unceratanng. aut the fisconag of some clement of the treet language at form + helpful crutch msily in the Sil sagen of language use. Then tho fue are reed Trough pectic ad prota, {S's ngs ete, wens ou completely and are toned a all in (ata te ofthe langage, although they maybe sowed, cea fo be reall, af some higher level of te comclow howledge about the Tunsunge Tt moons that te rove fen the give rule or etalon tas been spied io ral oc lated comamunsestion by the Tere, AH a ued he a el my Te apes do Bee {isry ie of the opinion thatthe oppotion mgoverne havi” and hae” i se, Bene fenguge rte are denipions 1 langsge hla ser recent fom She condos eppicstion Gt rate os able Av Ar Lemiow exper the same view when be Sees, 190) A bebih may be food in 2 bllretotop say, a 2 cet of satin, Sse roptoosnm wep, a a Hest of alomataton and reaston of Saonteter ‘Those statements ean be borne out by the experience of many forelan language Teamers, including ysl, who have Tearat their language ‘heengh the sonscoas aplication of rules, but ‘whoee language perform= ‘ance is Hot masked by any consdour ot reflective proceses, This Sst ke the equation of any ekill where, in any stage of leering, we Ihave e number of fully automated ectivities and al least one being2» ©. cnscously acquired, which becomes automata fa tars). All the objections {Uke the one given above ignore one of the fundamental peychologtal Tavs of learning. which my that the srry in which we leat something does not forever determine the way in which we put thie knowledge to tase later on. It follows then that the ging fom CA in the better “understanding and retention af the target language material do not have to be offset by slowing down the process of habit formation. Another ‘widespread abjectian to the gpproach I sm niggewting here ie that i Teads Zo compound bllingsaliam in which the native Ienaiage of the Jeamer is used as a matrix of reference for the use of his seeond language, But today the classical division of lerners into compound and coordinate bilinguals i becoming mare and mare dubious from pey- ‘chological point of view, -Aming peyeholinguists and. socloliagulte ‘concerns’ with the isue, the opinion prevls that we can tall not 20 ‘much sbow types of bilinguals, but rathar about Types of ilngsal functioning (Fishman 1086). Some paychotingists give ssp evidence {or the fact Ut even the dominance of a partiuler typo of bilingual fanctioning in an Individual ie « very uoetable thing and chenges ac ‘cording to eircumstances (Ingram, peroonal comminicston). Be that ‘st may, iis ficult to concave of «learner Keeping ht wo Ianguager ‘separate in ¢ situstion compersble tothe situation in which the Polish secondary school pupil finds himeel!. The concept of thinking in a foreign langange. stresed to such a degree by Byelyayey (1968) ie also quite levelevant to our considertions, a it confuse thinking in general and particularly operations] tinting — which i= never completely. verbal "wath inner speech or inner monologue. Granted, practicing ner speech in second language may very effectively help to mazter it, But ‘8s something that cannot be tzushi; it cen be only recommended, “Another objection i thst the experience with Uhe grammar-translation method has shown thatthe approach based on grammatial ancivte sad ‘translation ip Inefeetive, But it ia inetectve ftom the pot of view af today's objectives set up for the Innaunge Tosrmen, Le, the acquisition of auzel-oral skills Experimental studies by schslry wich as Scherer sad Westheimer (1964) and Smith (1010) have proved that there i no marked advantage in employing strictly aadto-lingvel techniques even Mf spesking and aural compreheasion are the eawntsh objectives Tt ‘anything, these studies have shown, as Caroll (1971) puts #, that *.-.sudent loern precisely what they are taught, or at lees that transfer ‘of Jearing ts a tworway street botween aural-oral and eeadingew7ting kil ‘The roasoning I have just presented is supported Dy site expicieal evidence, As the soope of this paper is sriely Tinted, let me only ontantivn anaes he eascam 2 reotion the experimental date described by Lambect, Garner, Bark, fi Tunstall (Lambert: 1967), who found. thet in 9. very intensive Tenguege course taught By 9 direct method, those students ho Kert their two languages functionally separated throughout the course did hot do ag well i= hele work ae those who permitted the semantic feature of Ute two lengua fo interact. "And now, finaly, a fow words about how I envisage the use of CS fm the claztoom. Hic of all, T think it should be based om eemantis: thot ii. the tencher ehotd show how certain megnings, est. expressing Tatuity, are realized eyntectcaly in Pollch and in English, snd not merely point out differences between Ianguage forms. tn introducing the use of tho Prevent Tense for expressing futurty In English, the fescher should () point out that iq Polish tho Present Tense is also ted forthe same purse, ten (2) how the simarties aod difterences fin usage in the two languages (9) se up che Tals for drawing analogies ‘and (warn about the areas of possible negative transfer and confusion [ll of thls should be done before the practising of the given structure 9 thot the habite are fatied on» comcous, cognitive bois. Prequent us of trandation as a perfect contrasive technique for learning gram fratieal structures would be one of the chavactristics ofthis approne, tlthough i would not bsenme the only or even the main technique Such en epplieation of CA should be carried out on all levels of gram= rate description, ie, on the ghonologice, lexical and syntactic levels, ‘The nypoltesls presented Here requves verification yr an expesiment or rather By putting to atest by a large numberof teachers In a Targe Sumber of courses, ‘This egain involves she neceaty of waiting a good Pedagogies! contrastive grammar which is the frst and moxt important tank in the area of the pedagogical opliation of CS. Language techers shoul aly be prepared for the use of CA in the clesroom through a ‘yatomatie study of CA of the two languages iavolved inthe process of {earning "This 1 why a course in CA should become = part af the fpllabus in all philological departments of our unuversties and in all invtervice teacher training course. I the approech ouliaed above is confirmed by experience in earing ond teaching under certain speciale circumstances, CS will be demons {rated to have greater pedagogieal value than wes ever claimed before cP. €. 198 Renomburng sa sy in experiment’ and seat pecan, ‘gdonCamacage Unie Pre tects Band AME Senne {0 The acoloy of leereio. Peo2 Marton odoorka, W. Ir Zateinat reoalet of eouab zene sie ateits 9 Sewn eters Prone Fe wea TESOL Ours 10 : eta, J. 180 "The. tnpleatins of inguin for aopuge ‘wcting ahd Enon run Tene lngeee hing, by Vln T2119 Jeni WO. ands Pst “An experimental enti Set eas ‘erosive hbiln w 4 foncn af hang se” Juret of Ezpereta Pasology 2860-13 amber Wo IW "Pryctologicl approaches (0 the study of tnganee “Forcoe tongue teaching astology, ee. By P. Haha, NS 58, Lowe asta, 0. Piet Aental st fn inion to vatoaive fables” Jurnal of epsrinenttPayetolny tt 0 Soper, 1088. “Apolied Hoar tod generative erammee. Trends tn lnesnee Teehing, by Vaan, 02 New You he Grae — H Scherer, ©. RC and Warten, 1k A pvc pein “reawtonougeteohng New Yenr Me Grae Hl ‘Smith Pt. 10%. A compurvo ofthe copuos aud easiignal erences {orton Tangege arucion Pnslsin Cer toe Came Bor