DIGITAL LIBRARY
CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS AS A GUIDE FOR EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF ENGLISH
Delta State College of Physical Education (NIGERIA)
About this paper:
Appears in: ICERI2013 Proceedings
Publication year: 2013
Pages: 4624-4628
ISBN: 978-84-616-3847-5
ISSN: 2340-1095
Conference name: 6th International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation
Dates: 18-20 November, 2013
Location: Seville, Spain
Abstract:
Yearly reports by examination bodies such as West African Examination Council (WAEC) and National Examination Council (NECO) in Nigeria have shown a dismal performance on the part of candidates in English. This has been a cause of worry to various governments, teachers, researchers and parents. As such, different strategies and teaching methods are being designed to reverse the trend. This is because a good performance in English by students will inevitably enhance their performance in other subjects. This paper sees Contrastive Analysis (CA) as one tool that can be used for effective teaching and learning of English in Schools. Contrastive analysis studies the contrastive features of two languages in contact. The child learning English already has his or her mother tongue whose phonological, syntactic and semantic features, tend to interfere with those of English. CA helps in second or foreign language learning by establishing the similarities and differences that exist between two or more languages. The areas of difficulty constitute problems to the learner. This paper posits that for the learners to do well in English, the teacher should have knowledge of the contrastive features of the learner’s mother tongue and English. Recommendations will be made on how knowledge of CA can improve the teaching and learning of English in Schools.
Keywords:
Contrastive Analysis, English, Teaching, Learning.