Error-based interlinguistic comparisons as a learner-centred technique of teaching English grammar to Arab students

Mohammed, AMM

Abstract

English is taught as a compulsory subject in general
education and some higher education institutions in Sudan.
Students are totally dependent on the five to six hours per
week of language input provided through formal classroom
instruction. Besides limited exposure to the language, there
are other factors confounding the teaching and learning of
English such as large classes, lack of books, untrained
teachers, examination _oriented
teaching and learning, and
teaching grammarians' grammar. Such factors have contributed
to the decline of standards in English to the extent that the
pass mark in English has been reduced to 30 percent in the
secondary school certificate examination. The students'
interlanguage exhibits features indicating heavy reliance on
literal translation from Arabic. At least 50% of their
errors could be attributed to this interlinguistic transfer,
a strategy which is frequently employed due to the lack of
the requisite knowledge of the target language.
Of all the detrimental factors, the teaching of grammar
seems to be the one that is most directly related to the
deterioration of the standard in English. It usually takes
the form of giving rules, facts and explanations couched in
metalinguistic terms, which is at variance with the learners'
hypotheses formation process. Reciting rules and facts
about the language is the only one thing that untrained
teachers can do. Trained teachers also resort to giving
rules and facts due to the fact that the situation in the
schools and universities is not conducive to developing the
language as a skill.
Based on the fact that the effectiveness of foreign
language teaching in general and the teaching of grammar in
particular is greatly reduced when the focus is on giving
rules and complicated grammatical analysis, it is the purpose
of this study to explore the possibility that the teaching of
grammar could profitably be based on the findings of recent
studies on interlanguage and learning strategies. The study
focusses on the interlinguistic transfer strategy through
translation errors in an attempt to arrive at a learnercentred
technique of teaching grammar. Based on the analysis
of errors, providing students with simple contrastive
comparisons between the native and the target language was
articipated to be more effective than giving them abstract
rules and metalinguistic explanations.
The study provides empirical data verifying the
effectiveness of simple interlinguistic comparisons in
minimizing translation errors. An experiment was conducted
in eight secondary schools and the University of Gezira in
Wad Medani, Sudan. A total of 714 male and female Arabicspeaking
students were pretested, matched and divided into
two equal groups in each school. Based on the results of
error analysis, two lessons, one normal and one experimental,
were developed to teach the relative clauses in English. The
normal lesson followed the traditional format of examples,
rules and explanations couched in metalinguistic terms. The
experimental lesson included terminology-free comparisons of
relative clauses in English and Arabic. The two groups were
taught by the same teacher in each school and the university.
The same pretest was administered as a post-test. The
matched group t test was used to compare the means of the
active object relative clauses correctly produced by the two
groups in each school. A significant difference was observed
between the two groups. The experimental group performed
better than the normal group. The t values were 6.387
(df=83), 3.240 (df=54), 1.969 (df=29), 1.758 (df=28), 3.043
(df=41), 4.586 (df=35), 2.651 (df=23), 3.030 (df=14), and
3.747 (df=41). The probability that the difference was due
to chance was less than 5% in all cases. The findings
supported the hypothesis that the error-based interlinguistic
comparisons techniques would be more efficient than the
currently used traditional technique in minimizing negative
transfer errors. The implications of the findings on the
teaching of grammar, error correction, materials development
and teacher training are discussed together with the
limitations of the study and the need for further research to
confirm the findings before they can be generalized.

Citation

Mohammed, A. Error-based interlinguistic comparisons as a learner-centred technique of teaching English grammar to Arab students. (Thesis). University of Salford, UK

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Jun 25, 2009
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 25, 2009
• Additional Information: Additional Information : PhD supervisor: Dr Hassan Mustapha
• Award Date: Jan 1, 1991