Interlanguage Continuum
Interlanguage Continuum
Ss need to move along this continuum if they are to learn the L2. How can they do this? Let’s imagine, S makes this error:
John cans go. His T may correct him, or he may read the sentence or hear it. After a while he’ll start to realise his rule isn’t
entirely accurate + needs refining. So, one way S can learn this is to make an error, i.e. try out a hypothesis + see if it is
correct or not according to the feedback.
This happens continually - interlanguage gradually improves (gets nearer to L2 set of rules)!
‘By a gradual process of trial & error + hypothesis testing, learners slowly and tediously succeed in establishing closer &
closer appropriateness to the system used by Native Speakers of the language.
P.168--Principles of Language Learning & Teaching, Brown
Sources of errors:
overgeneralization
language transfer ( or interlingual transfer)
fossilization
CONCLUSION
Opportunities to make errors are crucial: NO GAIN WITHOUT PAIN.
errors give Ss data on which to base improvements of their interlanguage rules
BUT, too much correction can lead to a lack of motivation:
we need to be encouraging + not over correct, but not let too many important errors go uncorrected
we need to point out important errors, but not so much that the L is discouraged from speaking at all.