Original scientific paper
Contrastive Approach to Teaching Existential Constructions in Croatian as a Second Language
Marijana Bašić
Abstract
This paper deals with the contrastive approach to teaching Croatian as a second language
on the example of analysis of existential constructions. It offers a short overview of
the studies on transfer errors from the German language during acquisition of Croatian as
a second language, and then analyses existential constructions in these two languages in
more detail, comparing them as well. What follows is an analysis of existential constructions
with regard to the students’ age or language proficiency. The first group consists of heritage
speakers of Croatian language in German speaking countries involved in the program of
learning Croatian abroad, while the second group consists of adult learners involved in
different programs of learning Croatian as a second language in the Republic of Croatia.
Since complex morphosyntactic structures cannot be entirely covered within one teaching
lesson, the proposition to cover them in terms of three different levels of command of Croatian
as a second language for both age groups has been offered, with the aim of preventing
or at least mitigating the negative transfer from the dominant language system to the target
language. Attention is being paid not only to the principle of appropriateness to students’
age or language proficiency, but to principles of gradualness and systematicness as well, so
the use implicit instruction of existential constructions has been suggested on lower levels,
and explicit instruction on higher levels.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
190978
URI
Publication date:
1.12.2017.
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