Patterns and Sentences

A grammatical pattern is an arrangement of parts having linguistic significance beyond the sum of its parts. The parts of a pattern are expressed by words or classes of words so that different sentences often express the same pattern. All the sentences of a language arc cast in its patterns.

John telephoned, The boy studied.

We understood are different sentences expressing the same statement pattern in English.

A pattern is not a sentence, however. Sentences express patterns. Each sentence illustrates a pattern. To memorize a sentence does not imply that a pattern has been memorized. There can be countless sentences, each unique, yet all constructed on the same pattern.

Patterns and Grammar

Children learn the grammatical patterns of their language before they study grammar in school. When a child says goed instead of went or knowed instead of knew, he is applying the regular preterite pattern on the analogy,

open: opened = go: goed

Patterns arc learned in childhood. Adults no longer have to learn new patterns; they learn new words that are used in old patterns. That the old patterns are alive is shown by putting unknown words and phrases into them.

And what is the role of the native language in learning the patterns of a foreign language?

Native Language Factor

The most important factor determining ease and difficulty in learning the patterns of a foreign language is their similarity to or difference from the patterns of the native language. When the pattern in the target language is parallel to one in the native language, the student merely learns new words which he puts into what amounts to an extended use of his native pattern. Since his word learning capacity is not lost, he makes rapid progress. When, however, the native language pattern does not parallel that of the target language, the student tends to revert to his native language patterns through habit.

Grading the Patterns

There is no single grading scale for teaching the patterns of a foreign language. Any systematic cumulative progression, taking into account the structures that are difficult, would be satisfactory from a linguistic point of view.

Pattern-practice

Approach The mimicry-memorization exercise tends to give the same amounts of practice to easy as well as difficult problems. It also concentrates unduly on the memorization of specific sentences, and not enough on the manipulation of the patterns of sentences in a variety of content situations. For those patterns that arc functionally parallel to the native language, very little work needs to be done, and very little or no explanation is necessary. On the other hand, for those patterns that are not parallel in the two languages, more specific understanding of the grammatical structure points at issue is needed while the sentences are learned and not before or after. And more practice with the pattern is necessary before it is learned, that is, used without

attention to its structure.

Basic sentences

The memorization of sample sentences that con­tain the grammatical problems to he mastered is common to both pattern practice and mimicry-memorization. For this practice there is ample justification in linguistics and in psychology. The utterances have to become readily available if the student is to use them in the rapid sequence of conversation.

Teaching the patterns

A sentence can be learned as a single unstructured unit like a word, but this is only the beginning. The stu­dent must acquire the habit of constructing sentences in the patterns of the target language. For this he must be able to put words almost automatically into a pattern without changing it, or to change it by making the necessary adjustments.

Teaching a. problem pattern begins with teaching the specific struc­ture points where a formal change in the pattern is crucial and where the student is not able to manipulate the required changes. The steps in teaching problem patterns are (1) attention pointer, usually a single sentence calling the students' attention to the point at issue; (2) ex­amples, usually minimally contrastive examples showing a pair of sen­tences that differ only on the point or points being made; (3) repetition by the class and presentation of additional examples of the same contrast;

(4) comments or generalization elicited inductively from the students and confirmed by the teacher; (5) practice, with attention on the problem being taught.

These steps an intended to clarify the crucial point of contrast at the time when sentences are being learned. They should take only a small portion of the class time—no more than 15 per cent.

Robert Lado accents that many teachers make the mistake of trying to explain everything at length while the class listens passively. Long explanations without active practice arc a waste of time, and even with practice they are inefficient. Most of the class should be devoted to practice. The following are brief descriptions of some of the more effective types of exercises.

The more effective types of exercises according to R.Lado:

• Listening

It is understood that the student does not invent the target language. He must listen to good models. Random listening helps, but selective listening following instructions is more effective. Listening is assumed to he most effective when it is in preparation for speaking.

Listening can be combined with other activities.

• Oral repetition In this practice the student repeats the pattern sentences provided orally by the model. This is the most basic and important of all exercises. It begins with the presentation of the very first sentence of the pattern, the basic sentence, and continues through all other examples of the pattern taught for speaking.