Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1989. 19/3. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 19)

Budai, László: Some Basic Assumptions Underlying Foreign Language Teaching Strategies

- 99 f) to master a language for practical reasons); (3) per

sonal

ity factor

s interrelated with motivational factors - such as self-c

onfid

enc

e (lack of anxiety, self-esteem, outgoing pershoes), attitude toward the cl

assr

oom and the teacher

s and an analytic orie

ntation, which is relatable to conscious learning, Natura

l Order hypothesi

s claims that "Second language acquirers acquire (not learn) grammatical structures in a predictable order" (Krashen 1980: 169), which seems to be supported by a series of morpheme studies. Krashen, however

, does not make himself very clear on what 'structure' is and makes no principled distinction between comparable and non-comparable 'structures'. He has no linguistic theory to relate to the data from the morpheme studies. In ttie absence of such a theory, there is no reason to assume that, say, third person -s and progressive -ing are comparable, let alone (r) and negation. Krashen seems to recognize that "a strictly linear view of ttie natural order hypothesis, that there is only one stream of progress that acquirers follow in strict sequence" is incorrect. Rattier, "several streams of development are taking place at the same time" (1982a: 53-54). "One definite consequence of allowing more than one 'natural order'

, however, is to vitiate Use Natural Order Hypothesis" (Gregg 1984: B5). The fact, that no one knows what the 'natural order' is and that Krashen himself seems to be in the dark about it tins not kept him and Tracy 0. Terrell (1903) from trying to adopt, a strategy based on the Natural Order Hypothesis. Terrell's Natural Appro

ach to foreign language teaching can be typified by: — extensive listening activities, — delayed speech, — massive vocabulary acquisition in early stages, and — minimal error correction. Well-founded as many of ttie criticisms of Krashen's hypotheses may he, 1 must admit that there is much truth in what Earl Stevick, one of his reviewers said, "potentially the most fruitful concept for language teachers that has come out of the linguistic sciences during my professional lifetime...". Krashen's theory really provides new insight into all areas of second language research and practice, challenging us