Hah i ± and g r e a t i v i t y i n L a n g u a g e L e a r n i n g

,',,' U>,: , i MeC!lators lr~ Cc)9n~t~ve ' D r i l l s '

~q,~ te rm ', J,Q~l[t ive d r l l l s ' iS used here t o d i s l s i n g u i s h tr, ese e x e r , _ ~ tom the t , - , ~ i i t l o n a ] au toma t i c , d r i l l s in wh ic t l the s t u d e n t i e a r n s td snd le a s~ng le p a t t e r n by us i ng i t w i t h new words by a n a l o g y ~ i t q a

.j~ven exam~le. Cognitive d r i l l s , as we use them, enta i l e x p l i c i t ~m :,ign~ into gram~natical rules before tne stuaent can s ta r t , and c~>nsclo,4~ in te ] lec tua] decisions while doing them. There may be a lo t of sound objections to the .word ' d r i l l ' , but as long as there is no bet ter term ;expressing systematic pract ice while learning, we shall have to use i t .

[ne reSu]ts of the im i ta t i ve d r i l l s without ins igh t are confined largely Lo parro t ! ike fluency in a f i n i t e set of phrases, w~ich can only be repeated i f the same s i tuat ion presents i t s e l f to the learner, whereas ~ne real ~im of language ]earning should be a creat ive capacity to make one's own sentences, autonomously and f l e x i b l y , to communicate in an endless var ie ty of s i tuat ions. A t o u r i s t , for example,rat t l ing o f f some of these overlearned items may give the impression that he is s~eaking l i ke a nat ive, jus t as pigeons conditioned to play ping-pong :,:ay give the impression that they act l i ke real players. In both cases the subjects repeat a f i n i t e set of automatic movements. Their behaviour does not spring from the i r own inward capacity to act; i t has been merely a f f i xed to them outwardly; they jus t do 'as i f ' ; they don' t generate the i r own acts. And because they are not the masters of the i r own acts, tnese utterances are r i g i d , unfree, without f l e x i b l e trans- fer . The aim of second language learning is not to teach a stock of ready made phrases, which one can r a t t l e o f f from memory, but the capacity to make them and any other sentence.

Automatic d r i l l may be useful for t~ose aspects of language for whicn no rule can be given e.g. idiomatic phrases l i ke 'these las t few weeks' etc. They are what they are; they must be used in a certain way and in no other. Once one has dec~ded to take one of these phrases one has to fo l low the l inear chain of the phrase and the next word is chosen exc lus ive ly on the basis of the preceding one. But language seems to be more tnan mere l i n e a r associations. Especial ly at the level of syntax i t requires decisions that involve more complex processes than simple one-to-one associations. Sentences l i ke 'Did you drink any whisky yesterday7 Or 'Have you drunk any whisky ]a te ly? ' require severa] decisions of the speaker from the very beginning. I t has to be a qL~estion; in the f i r s t case the past tense must be used and therefore ' d i d ' . Such decisions can only be taken from the higher viewpoint that already envisages the end of the sentence before the F i r s t ,#ord i s s t a r t e d . Th is means t h a t , u n l i k e i d i o m a t i c responses~ the ~,e~<t word is r lo t chosen e x c l u s i v e l y on the b a s i s o f the p r e c e d l n g m e ; t i~ere is a more c o m p l i c a t e d i n i t i a l c h o i c e a t h i g h e r l e v e l wh ich

17

in turn sets in motion operations at lower levels. Hierarchical processes l i ke these cannot be explained as mere l inear associations of elements, condit ioned to each other by con t igu i t y ( i . e . the mere fact of f requent ly occuring together, as in Pavlov-s experiments f o r instance) as behaviorism has t r i ed to do, but by a synLhetic capacity which is able to embrace and create a l l the separate elements in to one structure or Gestalt .

In the nat ive speaker these synthet ic processes happen automat ica l ly ; he does not need to th ink e x p l i c i t l y about his utterances; he ' f ee l s ' how i t should be. For most adcl t learners, who have los t the ch i l d ' s a b i l i t y to learn a language i n t u i t i v e l y , i t seems to be more con- sonant with his adul t nature and more economical that they should take advantage of the i n t e l l e c t u a l capacit ies fo r more abstract rules which the chi ld does not ye t possess. As a provis ional ]earnin~ stage he can t ry to do consciously what the nat ive speaker does im- p l i c i t l y when generating sentences; the aim and the hope is that a f te r a s u f f i c i e n t amount of systematic pract ice he w i l l gradual ly become able to omit conscious thinking while speaking the foreign language. The behav io r i s t i c approach, excluding conscious choices in the automatic d r i l l s , immediately aims at forming f luen t speaking habi ts ; but i t omits to t ra in the t y p i c a l l y human element in speech, i . e . the capacity to work with h ierarch ica l processes, and i t is exact ly th is capacity that should be t ra ined in the learning process. Speech production, l i ke a l l human behaviour, is a mixture of what one has learned and of what one creates out of one's capacit ies. Speech utterances that are mere repe t i t i ons of what one has learned are r i g i d , b l ind automatisms. This is what happens to pigeons when they learn ping-pong wi thout having the capacity for i t ; and th is is what may eas i l y happen in second language learning when only low level associations are grooved in by means of automatic over learning wi th- out making an appeal to higher mental capaci t ies. In fact there is l i t t l e need to give special care to forming automatic habits in this sense; they w i l l come, even fas ter and more st rongly than the teacher may wish. Condit ioning in the behav io r i s t i c sense of the word, does occur, but these b l ind , l i near engravings are a caricature of what should be achieved in the learning process: rulegoverned c r e a t i v i t y . The problem is how to draw the higher h ierarch ica l levels of speech production in to the learning process. Merely 'doing' i t , i . e . saying phrases, w i l l not su f f i ce , because th is co~nes tO repeating or r a t t l i n g o f f a l i nea r chain; mere doing lacks the element of being created out of one' s resources. As long as the learner in the learning stage does not have-a na t i ve l i ke competence, enabling him to produce his own grammatical sentences, he can always make grammatical sentences by means of grammatical ru|es; these sen~nc.es w i l ] t ~ l e r ~ r c h i c a l l y organized as well as created by h~S own Capacity, to ~ degree that the production of them is based on hls own conscious ins igh t in to rules

Speaking however is more than thinking about the language; i t is doing the thing. Therefore a complex process of th inking and doing should be developed with a cogn i t i ve -ac t i ve strate~Ly. This w i l l be the main pract ica l problem: how to make the learner design his own sentences by means of ins igh t whi le speaking them a c t i v e ~ . This is d i f f e ren t from what happens, for example, in f i l l - i n exerclses: there the learner almost exc lus ive ly concentrates on thinking the r igh t form of a word

,m i le the a c t i v i t > ieve l is reduced to read]ag the ser, tence i-,~: S~,'~:iy ~.ere doing 4s no~ c r e a t i v e and ~ i l l not develoi~ c rea t i veness , ~e~ , i h i r~k~g ~s ,~n abst rac t . ion and ~ ' i l l not develop rea l speaking. But d~)ir~g a~;d eor~scious ~hinking at t~e same ti~)e may be the f i r s t step towards ger iu ra t ing urie's own sentences and deve lop ing and incorpsr~" j t i , i s c r e a t i v e capac i t y Lo the po in t where i t becomes a subconsc~ou s k i l l t ha t ~orks a~t ;o ina t ica l l y . Fhe exper iment we have c a r r i e d out tas shown tha t coascious i n s i g h t is not a super f luous or even hinderer; L in termedia,-y s tage, and tha t it. can be made to fade away gradua)! , towards a; ' : t 'macica) work ing.

~es~des being cognitive-creating and active there is a third essential equircment for a foreign language learning strategy. I t seems that

a pupil learns what we teach him: i f we only teach him to make grammatical transformations (put into the plural , past, passive) he may only have learned empty grammaticality but not the ab i l i t y to comfaunicate in real situations. Therefore the items of this course have been framed Ws short conversations in a given si tuat ion, en- abling the learner to respond to natural, s i tuat ional cues rather than to a r t i f i c i a l , grammatical ones. For the sake of systematic (active- cognitive) practice in the language lab many varying details of si- tuations had to be condensed into standardised models, so that the exercises are not fu l l y si tuational and in a certain way a r t i f i c i a l . The items w i l l be di f ferent from conversations one can overhear in the street or at home; they are too condensed grammatically; every verb has to be repeated four times etc. This unnaturalness would be a serious shortcoming i f the purpose of these exercises was to teach a stock of ready-made phrases (e.g. for the use of the tour ist) which the learner has to repeat from his memory in the real s i tuat ion. But here the learner w i l l not be expected to repeat what ne has learned in the lesson, but to make his own sentences on the spot. Moreover the prac- t ice in the language lab should be followed and completed by more situational and natural practice outside the lab, when the students converse on 'rule-centered' topics or act 'rule-centered' roles in simulated situations, The learners w i l l benefit more from natural conversation practice i f they have First achieved suff ic ient mastery over the structures by means of structured, 'unnatural' practice.

The actual form of the items has been imposed by the cognitive d r i l l strategy, the main concern being to f ind.a balance between cognition and doing, mixing them both into creative ac t i v i t y ; secondly gradually decreasing the rate of exp l i c i t thinking towards nat ivel ike automatiza- t ion. I t is essential for this method that the students should make the correct grammatical choices themselves, while keeping up a f a i r l y high level of fluency. I f the exercises are too easy the student w i l l f a l l back on parrot l ike repetit ions without consciously app]ylng rules and as a result only the lower levels of l inear associations wi l l be strengthened, which is a caricature of 'rulegoverned c rea t i v i t y ' . I t they are too d i f f i c u l t , not only w i l l the students be discouraged instead of challenged, but the fluency of speaking w i l l be broken up by the e f fo r t of thinking. I t is only the unity of ' thinking-doing' that has a chance of becoming trained to the point of becoming an automatically working s k i l l , not thinking and doing separately. As the d i f f i cu l t y of tnese exercises mainly depends on the fact that the students have to think and do them at the same time, the ideal level of d i f f i cu ] t y for these exercises wi l l mainly depend on the r ight balance between thinking and doirsg.

lg

/he level of d i f f i c u l t y car~ be manipu|ated by means of severa: devices. The use of ~ l im i ted number of f i xed models of sentence product ion w i l l make the work easier fo r the students because they can work by analogy as long as the s ~ e model occurs. The fewer the models, or the la rger the number of items for one modei, the easier w i l l be the task. On the other hand the complexity of sentence production is increased by the length and the number of the models, by t h e i r mixing and remodelli,~g. Each model usua| ly consists of f i v e ut terances, together forming a standardized conversat ion.

e.g. Look, Mr Brown is wea~ing a st raw-hat , i s n ' t he. (a) Yes, he is . (b) Does he of ten wear one? (c) No, l a t e l y he has mostly worn a bowler hat ; (d) years ago he scarcely ever wore anything. (el

This p a r t i c u l a r length f o r the models was chosen f i r s t o f a l l be- cause in parts b, c, d, e, of each mode) the students are made to work wi th cues l i k e ' o f t e n ? ' , ' l a t e l y ' , 'years ago' e tc . and s ta r t i ng from these 'mediators ' and the mater ia l given in par t (a) they have to bu i l d new sentences act ive1~ ( instead o f reading) whi le consciousI~ choosing the r i g h t st~-ucture ( instead o f repeat ing) . @e-c~IT-~Be~e-words 'mediators ' because they e l i c i t a conscious mediating stage which p r o v i s i o n a l l y , during the learn ing stage, takes the place of the h ie ra rch ica l processes working a u t ~ t l c a l l y in the nat ive speaker. In th is way the passiveness of most problem solv ing exercises is avoided as wel l as the l i n e a r , b l ind au tomat ic i t y of the t r a d i t i o n a l d r i l l s .

A second reason fo r choosing th i s length has to do with repeat ing the feedback. I f the sentence to be repeated is shor t the immediate memory w i l l su f f i ce to repeat i t . (The immediate memory span is about seven words). This may be a l l r i g h t when the aim is to ]earn a stock of phrases; but when the aim is to develop a c reat ive capaci ty , the phrase shou]d be so long tha t the learner has to resor t to an ac t ive use of his capaci ty in reconstruct ing the sentence. For tha t reason a feedback is not given a f t e r each p a r t , but only twice. F i n a l l y the models were i n t e n t i o n a ] l y and sys temat ica l l y constructed so as to apply severa] rules at the same time and thus cont rast them wi th each other and wi th i n t e r f e r i n g rules of the nat ive language. In the given models, f o r instance, the four main cases of present and (simple) past occur: is wearing, of ten wears, has worn l a t e l y , wore years ago.-The student has to use them in the proper s i t u a t i o n a l con- t ex t so tha t the s i t ua t i ona ] meaning of each s t ruc ture can be more c l e a r l y d iscr iminated. The d i sc r im ina t i ve value of th is d isp lay is f u r t h e r heightened by the varying d isp lay o f the st ructures in th~ other models. A f i nd ing of Gesta l t psycholo~LV is tha t Be t te r d iscr imina- t i on makes f o r be t t e r understanding, f o r be t t e r re ten t ion and more f l e x i b l e t rans fe r to other s i t ua t i ons . Bet te r d isc r im ina t ion consists in recognizing the cruc ia l element of a ru le in I t s relevancy f o r and a p p l i c a b i l i t y to a s i t u a t i o n . For most adu l t learners th i s can be most economical ly achieved by p re l im inary i ns igh t i n t o a ru le and i t s l i m i t s of app l i ca t i on . Ins t ruc t ion of abst rac t rules however should not be more abst ract than s t r i c t l y necessary, ne i the r be more time consuming tnan s t r i c t l y necessary. Our own experience is tha t the most e f f i c i e n t and economical way to assimi)ate rules consciously is to s t a r t immediately wi th the grammatica| - s i t u a t i o n a l c l a r i f i c a t i o n of the models, so tha t - a t a glance - one can see the relevance of a given ru le f o r a s i t u a t i o n , and d iscr iminate between several re la ted rules in t h e i r a p p l i c a b i l i t y to a s i t u a t i o n w i thout having to make successive

reason ing s teps. Moreover a success i ve , a b s t r a c t procedure in app l y i ng ru les would p robab l y make speech p roduc t i on less f l u e n t and s low down the necessary process o f a u t o m a t i z a t i o n . The re fo re the grammat ica l su rvey , p r i n t e d be fo re the models , w i l l be p r i m a r i l y usefu l as a background to the models , to be consu l ted in case o f d i f f i c u l t i e s .

Why several models? The f i r s t year we used this kind of conversa- tions we only took one model tot a l l items in a given section (for the simple reason that we had not thought of giving written indications to the students; working several models at once without written indications is simply impossible). Experience soon showed that the students learned the place of each structure in the frame and found the r ight tense not by insight into the crucial element in the si tuat ion, but by means of i ts unchanging location, probably obeying ' la loi du moindre e f f o r t ' : the materlal position of an element seems to be one of the f i r s t and easiest things learnt. Even rats in a Skinner box have no d i f f i cu l t y in learning the material place of the lever. This is in fact what happens in most t radi t ional d r i l l s . To rule out this low level of assimilation we introduced several models at once, and they were purposely constructed in such a way that the Structures systema- t i ca l l y occupy a di f ferent place in each.

The f i r s t lesson of a section usually starts with five models unmixed (5x3), the other models can be introduced in the second lesson (9x2). I f more models are given or i f they are immediately mixed from the beginning, the task w i l l be too d i f f i c u l t for the students; they w i l l hesitate, doing too much thinking at the expense of fluency. Moreover they w i l l become discouraged and bored. From the third lesson onwards the models can be gradually mixed; (9 ( I + I ) ) . Only experience can shOw which rate of mixing should be chosen. In our experiment, for example, the mixing rate used in version B turned out to be too slow: after some time the students had learned the models

- even when mixed - by heart and f e l l back on repeating them bl indly. I f the rate is too fast the overdose of thinking w i l l spoil the fluency of speaking and the development of competence.

In order to avoid r ig id engravings the original models shou]d be remo- delled af ter two or three lessons (g ( l " + l ' ) ) , so that the learner's competence is constantly set new tasks; ~he models should be l e f t aside l ike crutches and be replaced by a greater competence.

In the f i r s t lessons we use med ia to rs which are an i n t e g r a l p a r t o f the sentence: 'yesterday', 'at t~e moment','since last week', etc. Their use leaves the student in no doubt as to which tense or aspect is expected. The procedure w i l l not work with the future tenses or aux i l iar ies: 'tomorrow', for example, could be used equally ~ I I in several structures: ' I am playing tomorrow', 'he'11 be playing ton~rrow', 'she is going to play tomorrow', ' t hey ' l l play tomorrow'. The choice was either to return to repet i t ive exercises - non-cognitive, uncha)leng- ing and monotonous - or to adapt the mediators to the cognitive, active and situational needs of the part icular cases. Thus, in addition to the 'enclosed mediators' used in the f i r s t lessons, 'constructed mediators' have been employed for future tenses and auxi l iar ies. They contain,

2!

in a c o n c l s e , d i r e c t form, the c r u c i a l e lement in the s i tuat ic~r~al meaning o f a s t r u c t u r e . An o b l i g a t i o n : 'You . . . do these e x e r c i s e s ' , cou ld be i n t e r p r e t e d in seve ra l ways: 'you m u s t ' , 'you have t o ' , 'you are t o ' , e t c . , and the answer expec ted o f t e n remains ambiguous in s p i t e o f the presence o f a d d i t i o n a l i n f o r m a t i o n in the sentence. I f however , the sentence is accompanied by the e lement which is s p e c i f i c to the meanin 9 i n t e n d e d , t he re is no l o n g e r any room f o r a m b i g u i t y . ' I o o l i g e ' (o r : I O) can o n l y be expressed by ' m u s t ' , l i k e w i s e ' c i r c u m s t a n c e ' or ' t a s k ' o n l y by 'have t o ' . From the use of constructed mediators of this sort the student w i l l learn to discriminate more c lear ly between the d i f f e ren t aspects of obl iga- t i on , permission, p roh ib i t i on , v o l i t i o n , e t c . , which belong among the basic rules of the English language.

I t should be pointed out that constructed mediators are only intended as addit ional information,as concice as possible and printed above the l i ne , in order to take away the last grain of ambiguity about the meaning expected. For this reason the students are to ld f i r s t to look at the general meaning and context of the sentences and not to respond to separate constructs. A few examples, taken from the chapter on permission, p roh ib i t ion , p o s s i b i l i t y , may suff ice to i l l u s t r a t e th is . (see appendix) The actual form of the constructed mediators is based on a semantic-structural grammar: Leech, Meaning and the English Verb.

There may be theoret ica l objections especia l ly to these constructed mediators, as being superfluous, hindering, unnatural. From experiments by Dees, Noble, K~hler, Rock and others i t appears that addit ional words pictures or images can be considered 'coding l inks ' (Gagn~) and are very useful mnemotechnical devices. Mediators mediate on several leve ls . From the viewpoint of automatic speech production in the target stage, mediators are the basis for a cognit ive learning stage during which the learner does consciously - i . e. through~Qgnit ive mediation - what the native speaker does i m p l i c i t l y . T~expec ta t i on is that n a t i v e l i k e , automatical ly working compet~e w i l l be faster and better arr ived at through provisory, cognit ive mediation than by means of immediate automatic responding. As to the actual pract ice, mediators provide tne learner with cognit ive schemes for conscious insight into grammatical rules with which to t ranslate s i tua t iona l meanings into structures. The learner has to f ind the structure himself; the media- toms only give information about the s i tua t iona l meaning and so far are semantic and not s t ruc tura l . The semantic elements in the s i tua- t ions, co~esponding to a given structure, should be so c lear ly d i f f e ren t ia ted in the mediators that the learner is able to choose and to generate the r igh t structure for any new s i tua t ion . Therefore we preferred semantic, instead of s t ruc tu ra l , mediators, based on a semantic grammar.

The actual form of these semantic e x p l i c i t mediators should be so c lear that they are able to evocate the expected meaning-structure in an unambiguous, f luen t way. One reason why mediators may be unclear is that they must represent abstract rules. Indeed the great advan- tage of abstract pr inc ip les over merely analogical examples is that they are free of the l im i ta t ions adhering to concrete things and thus can be applied to an i n f i n i t e range of cases for which the rule is re levant . (This is precisely the dif ference between conscious, d iscr iminat ive appl icat ion of rules and in fe r r ing from examples by analogy). Nevertheless i t remains true that for the e f f i c i e n t solving

~f problems by n~eans of a ru}e, the rule to be applied should not be explained or represented more abstractly than s t r i c t l y necessary. From one uf G. Katona's now classic experiments i t appeared that the subjects who had been instructed by means of a rather long, abstract def in i t ion about the logical links involved, performed less sucess- fu l l y than those subjects who had d i rec t l y and discr iminat ively seen and understood the relevance of the abstract pr incip le for the given case. In other words the rule should be represented as much as possible in i ts d i rec t , almost v is ib le app l i cab i l i t y in the pa r t i - cular example. The concreteness of this approach is s t i l l d i f fe rent from analogy, as applied in repet i t ive d r i l l s , for example, as in the l a t t ~ case no conscious application of an abstract pr inciple is learned. The l a t t e r teaches examples, the former teaches 'by examples'

I t is especial ly important in language practice that the learner should be able to see and grasp the rule, as i t were, at a glance, ~therwise the f luent speed of production could be easi ly broken up by the elusiveness of the def in i t ions and the length of discursive reasoning. For this reason, during the preliminary instruct ion for a new chapter, we do not explain the rules with the help of the grammatical survey included, but d i rec t l y and extensively on model items (see appendix). The students are not requested to f ind the ru]es applied tnemselves; the self-discovery procedure would require too much time and is superfluous as the students have ample, creative, concrete practic afterwards. I f the student has grasped the principles involved in the concrete models he w i l l be able to avoid most of the mistakes usually made by t r i a l and error , even in the systematic remodellings during the further course of the chapter.

For the same reason o f d i r e c t a p p l i c a b i l i t y o f t he r u l e s the p r e s e n t mediators do not have the tree-diagrammed form of algorhythms. The use of this device in teaching has been advocated by the Russian psychologue Landa on the assumption that the functioning of the human mind could be compared to a computer. In Kul jutk in 's and Suchobskaja's experiment on recognizing objects, one group worked with an algorhythmic tree, the other group with a perceptual survey. Both performed s ign i f i can t ly better than the control group but i t turned out that nw)st former subjects had not used the tree but had reduced the algorhythmicsuccessive procedure by one dichotomic, simultaneous choice. Nearly a l l subjects who had worked with the perceptual survey were able to reproduce this model afterwards when asked for i t , but nobody in the f i r s t group was able to repro- duce the tree. ?~oreover the time needed by this group was so short that the successive procedure nad to be excluded. The conclusion of the experimentator~ was that the optimal approach must be sought in l ine

w i t h the factual,spontaneous approlch of the students. AIgorhythms may be v e r y u s e f u l f o r ~n~ a c q u i s i t i o n o f t hose new concep ts t h a t require an extensive, successive treatment, e.g. for very compli- cated processes. Perceptual displays are more appropriate for the acquisit ion of sk i l l s that require high, mechanical speed. Few or no conclusions in fact can be derived from the computer for the human mind. A computer, unlike the human being, is unable to ident i fy an object on the basis of one simultaneous perception. I f nevertheless i t works so fast , this is due to the tremendous speed with which the successive operations are performed, which the human mind cannot be expected to imitate. (C. van Parreren, Sovjetpsychologen aan het Woord, 1373, ] 2 0 - ] 3 0 )

23

In our given case a perceptual survey, though bet te r than algorhythmic trees, would s t i l l be too complicated for fas t , simultaneous i den t i f i ca t i ons and f luen t speech production: the chapter on permission, p roh ib i t i on , p o s s i b i l i t y contains too mar,y rules to be surveyed at a glance. The more or less insurveyable subject matter however can be s imp l i f ied in to smal ler, more manageable subtasks by means of a l im i ted number of standardized conversations, in which only a few structures occur and in a l o g i c a l , d iscr iminat ive contrast with each other. Once the stuQe~t has understood the semantic funct ion of the structures in the context of the models, he has some concrete~ tangible support in the l o g i c a l , l im i ted tasks themselves, so that he w i l l not have to go through the whole grammatical survey but can make fas t , simultaneous decisions. This is another reason why the grammatical explanation is not given by means of the survey, but d i r e c t l y on the models. Of course from about the th i rd lesson on, the items w i l l be remodelled so that the learner becomes independent of any p a r t i c u l a r , concrete model and, leaving them as old crutches, gains some more abstracted and more d i f f e r e n t i a t e d organizat ion of his verbal p o t e n t i a l i t i e s , But in the ea r l y lessons the d i f f i c u l t y level of the tasks should be manipulated in such a way - f o r the sake of f luency and automatization - that no more th inking should be required than s t r i c t l y necessary, and tha t the student can s ta r t wi th simultaneous decisions immediately or as soon as possible. Indeed from another Russian psychologist, $chechter, we know that in the gradual process of cognit ion automatizing in to s k i | | , cogni- t i on passes through several cogni t ive stages before reaching f u l l automatizat ion. I n i t i a l l y the subject w i l l i d e n t i f y an object by checking i t s features e x p l i c i t l y and maximally on the character is- t i cs of the general concept, i . e . by means of a 'broad' i d e n t i f i c a - t ion device, which is able to deal with the whole, unstruc- tured range of p o s s i b i l i t i e s . Af ter some time and gradually,how- ever, he w i l l use a 'narrow' device, which is attuned to a l im i ted number o f p a r t i c u l a r types, that can be recognized on the basis of one simultaneous, global perception. In chess, fo r instance, an experienced player w i l l be able immediately to recognize cer ta in types of problems and s t ra teg ies , wi thout having to resor t to e x p l i c i t and deta i led checking of the s i tua t ion and the pr inc ip les .

As w i l l be seen hereaf ter , and fo r s t i l l other reasons, the general, 'broad' rule fo r the use of 'must not ' w i l l be reduced to several , more pa r t i cu l a r types, indicated by words l i ke ' f o o l i s h ' , ' s t u p i d ' , ' impo l i t e~ e t c . , that help to i d e n t i f y a given context In one fas t , simultaneous perception wi thout having to check a11 the elements in the broad rule, stating that 'must not' is used when the speaker not o n l y re fuses permiss ion but p o s i t i v e l y f o r b i d s something as being p o s i t i v e l y wrong. (Leech, p. 134) In a s l m i l a r way the 'broad' ru le , con t ro l l i ng the use of the past and per fect tenses, is replaced by more concrete types l i ke ' l a s t week', ' l a s t year ' e t c . , and the speech utterances are organized round the d i r ec t connection of the meaning of these words with the corresponding st ructure,

Another advantage of using several , more concrete types instead of one mediator fo r the broad ru le is that one prevents the structure from being b l i n d l y mechanically conditioned to one word that a f t e r some time may eas i l y become meaningless. This danger is not hypothet- ica l in systematic pract ice such as cogn i t ive d r i l l s are. As i t appeared in two of our experiments, systematic pract ice, i f not systemat ica l ly var ied, constant ly runs the r isk of automatizing -p rematu re Iv - und i f fe ren t ia ted and unabstracted re lat ionships in to

very gl ib, but blind and rigid associations or habits, which are a caricature of the real learning process.

Even when the rule is not presented in an unnecessarily abstract and discursive way, the actual form may s t i l l be vague and elusive and fai l to evocate the meaning-structure expected. From the second experiment as well as from experience during practice i t appeared, for e~ample, that the mediator 'urgent' did fa i r ly well for 'have got to ' , but not 'epoli ' a compound of 'extra-polite informative query'for 'w i l l be coming', nor 'perstrO', meaning personal, strong obligation for 'must', a form of mediators that we had used during the f i r s t years. The problem may be resolved by making the media- tors 'pregnant', as defined by K. Duncker. (Zur Psychologie des Produktlven Denkens, 1963). A stimulus (Evokationsreisz), i . e. the mediator, is pregnant to the degree that i t tends to call up the content intended and only that particular content. E. g. 'Rome' is more l ikely to oe avocated by the description ('Signalement') 'the capital of I ta ly ' than by 'a mediterranean town'. As Ducker states; 'Das $ignalement musz dem Gegenstand gut sitzen', for which he distinguishes four conditions. A description wi l l be pregnant to the de~ree that i t is complete (vollst~ndig), concise (knapp), accurate (r ichtig) and appealing ( t r ( f t i g ) . IP- 96)

As the three f i r s t elements seem evident and need no further c lar i f ica- tion here we shall concentrate o~ the fourth e]ement. Something appeals to someone, when i t catches the eye (inward or outward), when i t is outstanding. In this sense a remark may strike you, go home. Two evoca- tors may be equally complete, concise, accurate, yet one may fai l to evocate a given content because i t fai ls to strike and catch the eye. (C. van Parreren, Psychologie van het Leren, 1970; Z/14g) In accordance with the laws of Gesta]t, a mediator should have its own face so as not to disappear in an homogeneous, unstructured f ie ld. I t should be vivid and dist inct from the rest, i t should stand out in sharp rel ief against the neighbourhood. There are severel ways of making a mediator more appealing. One way is to give i t a rich content so that i t acquires a face of i ts own and provides the learner with more cognitive support for simultaneous identifications, For example, the difference in prohibition between 'must not', 'may not' and 'cannot' is often stated as very strong, less strong, not strong, which is correct, but probably too colourless to bring the difference home. 'Positively forbidden' for 'must not' versus 'not allowed' (see Leech, p. 134) wi l l add some more co]our to i t , but not so strong as: 'you wou]d be foolish, impolite, reckless etc., i f you did so', abbreviated into ' foo l ish l ' , 'Impolite~'. We have already pointed to other advantages in connection with $chachter's findings.) In a similar way for (J.B. Allen'sl)general) 'necessitate',richer types for identifying obligation could be found, l ike ' I oblige' for must, or instead of 'external obligation' 'task' and 'circumstance'.

One special way of enriching the content is to represent the abstract meaning by a direct expression, e. g. for must 'obligation imposed by the authority of the speaker' by ' I oblige'; in querulous questions with an expectedly negative answer by 'YO? no' (=do you oblige me? p]ease no:). Similar]y ' I P' instead of permission on personal authority.

I) J.P.B. A11en, "Applied Grammatical Models in a Remedial English Syllabus", in S.P. Corder-E. Roulet, Theoretical Linguistic Models in Applied L i _ n ~ , 1973

25

I n f a c t s i m i l a r d e v i , : ~ s h a v e l o n g been u s e d i n k, e d a g o g y aF~d a r e nothing new.

These direct forms can be combined with a direct expression of the negation: 'not' instead of {as in O. B. A|len) 'neg'. Absence then of obligation, i. e. '! don't oblige you' cad De rendered by ~o~ ('~ot' is prlnted on the llne because it is p~%rt of the senter,ce to be constructed.)

Enriched mediators i i ke these, usual ly consis t ing of one wel l-chosen, re levant word, are much more appealing than vacant compounds l i ke ' e p o l i ' or ' pe rs t rO ' . They ce r t a i n l y br ing home the meaning-structure be t te r than purely abstract or conventional symbo|s l i ke characters and numbers.

In some cases i t may be d i f f i c u l t to f ind one re levant , unambiguous word in tne ta rge t language. In English o b l i g a t i o n , fo r instance, there is ( in most cases) a semantic d i f fe rence between 'he has t o ' , meaning he is ob l iged, and 'be needs t o ' , meaning fo r his own good he is required to. (Leech, p. 130).The l a t t e r meaning could maybe be rendered by 'necessary ' , but th is word has strong semantic connec- t ions wi th 'necess i ty ' and ' necess i t a t e ' , meaning ob l i ga t i on . The Dutch word 'nodig ' (n~t ig) has ~h6 same basic meaning as 'need t o ' , as d i s t i n c t from ' necess i t y ' , which would be t rans]ated by 'noodzaak', ' n o o d z a k e l i j k ' . In these except ional cases we don ' t see why there should be anything against the l im i ted use of an unambiguous nat ive word. In any case from our t h i r d experiment i t appears tha t the group cued with ' n o d i g ' , constant ly makes less mistakes than the group cued with 'neces' .

In th is case the be t te r performance of the 'nod ig ' -ass is ted group may have been caused by another, connected fac to r tha t is very important f o r making the mediators more appealing. Being a na t ive word i t is c l e a r l y set apart from the other mediators in the ta rge t language and makes the l i s t o f mediators less homogeneous and less susceptible to c lus ter ing (~ere ichsbi ldung) , as defined by W. K~hler-von Restor f f . For homogeneous mater ia l has a tendency to become an i n e x t r i c a b l e mass in which the various elements lose t h e i r i nd i v i dua l faces.(C, van Parreren, 1970, P. 2/157) The same in f luence of r e l i e f in the subject matter has been stated by the Russian psychologist Idaskin: elements in the subject matter that stand out by t h e i r nove l ty or unusualness have a greater chance of being assimi lated in spontaneous, automatic learn ing , i . e. even wi thout any e x p l i c i t learn ing i n ten t i on (C.van Parreren, 1970, p. 2/126). And in his experiments J. Nut t in found tha t heterogeneous word pairs were be t te r re ta ined than homogeneous ones

These constant f indings may answer a seemingly obvious ob jec t ion to in t roducing nat ive words as being inconsis tent . I t may be inconsis tent indeed as far as un i fo rm i ty is concerned, but unusual forms are more e f f i c i e n t and so fa r i t is more consistent from a pedagogical po in t of view.

By way of conclusion one could say tha t mediators must be abstract and represent abst ract ru les , otherwise they would miss the indispensable t r a n s f e r a b i l i t y of abst ract p r inc ip les to an i n f i n i t e number o f new, p a r t i c u l a r cases. On the other hand they must be decoded at a glance in to f l uen t speaking and appeal to the lea rner , otherwise he w i l l not know what meaningful utterance he is expected to generate. I f mediators meet these requirements they may be - during th is prov isory cogn i t ion- mediated stage - an appropr iate device fo r making the learner construct his own sentences, in an i n f i n i t e number o f new se t t i ngs , and meanwhile speak f l u e n t l y . A. Keuleers

Leuven Cathol ic Un ive rs i t y , Belgium

o~ I,TOD~LS

T~ r :

m 2 :

m J :

A~!~endix

Examples of r,~odels arld tasks.

i l s t pav~nt i B i l l fooIC ~o~ must not Keep Guinea pigs in our

cel lar , must he. (2d parent) ~o, ne mustn't do anything so foolish

permi (be so f o o l i s h , behave so f o o l i s h l y ) ; we not I won ' t l e t hin! keep

anything else but mice, w i l l we./ ( l s t parent) Oh mice? ne

annoy 1 r r l t a ~,~ might keep something cleaner; generaI£ could Sam keep any-

Pdone thing at that age?/ Yes, he was allowed to keep animals for

the f i r s t time at seven; his friends theyP can (are allowed, permitted

to) even keep rats.

(to policeman) YouP? ~Z_~ stop here, sir? unformal

You ~o~ can only do so behind the bend.

formal

No you ~o~ may not

P Oh but last time we

were allowed to stop here, weren't we?/ Yes, you generalP could do so

any time unt i l recently; you pos~ib might cause an accident now

(works one); SO you stupid:l mustn't stop here r ight now.

(Mr Rolls to Fred) Your friend Sam theXotP is not allowed to (can't)

catch strange cats and you ~o~ may not do so either, y p? n ' t Can't

I catch our neighbour's cat tnen? ,qo, you stupid~e~er must never

catch one of his cats; you possib might (could) drive him wild; but

i p you can catch rats, i f you l ike. You i p were allowed to do

that last year too.

6dZ permisssion, probit ion, poss ib i l i ty 9x2

1. (not very kind of you~) You reproach Whelp* these people, . Ye~ I d~e,.,

1 s ~ e s r ignt now. po~s~)le7 Hr Ford * Y/Oh yes, i f z°U°ask . he

possib . a lot ; he possib

2. (not very considerate) You

j u s t not °have the oppc;rtunity yet .

reprqa~m~n" * v i s i t * poor far Weight, . Yes ( I ~ ,

of course; I s u ~ s r ight now. possib? Mr Grade *?/Oh yes, i f ZuU~,as,,K

me possib . every week-end; he possib just not °have an opportunity yet.

3. ? YouP I * r ide*on that elephant, father? No, you f°°l i~o~ do reckless;

you possib Ofal I of f ; but you i p . on a donkey, i f you l ike, Oh but why

i

f °° lhot I * as Paul°last week?/Oh but (as yet) Paul never P ; and he

instrUCnot P noa either.

t 4.? Y P I *experiment*on rats, father? No, "not do nasty: p°ssib°be b i t ten;

but you i p on peas, i f o l ike. On but why f°°1~ot I * as Tom°last year?/

(as yet)T never P ; instrUCnot now either.