Communicerende Vaten

Abstract

Theories about mother-tongue teaching and second language teaching (L1 and L2 teaching) converge on a number of aspects, viz. 1) com-municative orientation, 2) functional orientation, and 3) preference for authentic materials. Both LI and L2 theorists agree that the main teaching objective must be to give the pupils a certain level of com-municative capacity in L1 and L2 respectively (although opinions vary a great deal as to how to define the desired proficiency-level). The aim of the teaching is thus a functional, society-oriented one. L1 and L2 theorists are similarly agreed that methods and techniques employed in the teaching programme must also be functional vith respect to the main teaching objective. This goes also for the materials used, the dominant feeling being that these should be as much as possible authentic. Authenticity is more easily realized, it would seem, within LI teaching, as the pupils already possess a high degree of proficiency in their ovn language. One way of going about it would be to integrate LI teaching to a large extent in the teaching of other school-subjects. In L2 teaching this is obviously rather difficult, since the pupils in fact start from scratch. This latter fact means that In spite of the parallels that can be found, L3 and L2 teaching have completely different starting points, Since the whole acquisition process must take place within the L2 teaching situation, no L2 teaching programme can afford to overlook the grammatical aspects of the language taught. In the opinion, of certain L1 teaching theorists, on the other hand, mother-tongue teaching can very well do without grammar. The result is that in some approaches all the emphasis in LI teaching Is on the social aspects of language6 and attention to the language as a linguistic system is virtually nil. In such an approach L1 teaching becomes an emaneipatory, liberating process, From the point of view of L2 teaching this has some drawbacks, because in the teaching of grammatical aspects of L2 (be it explicitly or implicitly) awareness of a kind of structural and functional aspects of the grammatical system of the mother tongue can no longer be taken for granted. It is suggested that this is an undesirable situation and that steps should be taken by the appointed bodies to work out sorae kind of minimum grammar programme.