Positieve En Negatieve Interferentieverschijnselen bij het leren Van Meerdere Vreemde Talen

The author presents her experiences of teaching several languages in Holland and Argentina. She observed that the person who is studying his first foreign language finds himself psychologically in another situation than the student learning his second or third language. The former easily separates the components of a new language system from those of his basic language. For the latter the separation of two or more systems is a difficult task. The more the foreign language systems have in common, the more cognitive separation is necessary. If this is not possible, the active use of one of the languages is likely to be blocked suddenly. Students at advanced levels of a foreign language state that earlier acquired skills in the active use of other foreign languages come back as suddenly as they disappeared. The separation of two or more foreign language systems in the student's mind can be stimulated by different environments for each language. Therefore it is desirable to recall in the class room the natural setting of the foreign country. The author offers six hypotheses which may be tested.