Well, why not  do it?  Especially in cases when the syntax, the order of the sentence is similar to their mother tongue? It helps them , definitely. But this shoudn't be a regular practice. when I explain past tenses, the sudents themselves say that its similar to our native language, because the verbsystem has been developed during the years. Also, lexical items. Loads of words has become international, and not only this, loan words rushed into our language in the last 20 years, so its not difficult to explain the meaning of the word making comparisons........ I can give you a lot of examples, if you are interested.

Hi Nik & Mmartinska etc.

I'm with you Mmartinska that as for vocabulary etc. international words comparisons with their likes in the mother tongue are just normal.

But I think what Nik was focusing on is grammar and syntax. And I can see the difficulty of whether or not to compare foreign language structure e.g. English with our studnets own language. Because even in closely related languages like in my case English and German thé question is: In just how far does it help? - Let's take an example: Geman and English differ quite a bit as to the usage of past tenses: German Präteritum (e.g. er sah) ressembles in form the English past (he saw), while German zusammengesetzte Vergangenheit (er hat gesehen) resembles in form the English present perfect (he has seen). So German students of English will - even without the teacher telling them to do so - spring to the conclusion that these formal correspondences function similarly. Which is not at all the case! - What I try to do is to teach them to pinpoint their choice of the right tense form on certain signal words like "yesterday" or "recently". - Maybe my students are just to lazy to learn these signal words by heart, but keep on coming up with questions why you can't translate word by word: eg. G: Gestern habe ich gesehen - E: "Yesterday I have seen." - So far, I have not been able not to revert to a little excursus into different grammatical structure of the two languages (maybe it's only my being too shy  about telling them off for not having learned their signal words by heart...)

well the whole question is a tricky one (like the one on metalanguage from the same author = moderator), I think there is not one answer only to it. Just for once, I would like to follow a very pragmatic approach: If you have enough time to spend, you can learn or teach the language without ever looking back at your mother tongue - just like toddlers pick up their mother tongue, or like people who emigrate and have to learn the foreign language from scratch just by constant immersion into the language community. - But for all those who only have a limited amount of daily/weekly hours to spend on the acquisition of a foreign language - a comparative going about is natural and in most cases helpful. You get something out of it - even if you only see that language is arbitrary, the grammar and the syntax is just as conventional as the vocab. So you will learn e.g. that there are languages which have a form for the future and others which only work by circumlocution or express future reference through time adverbials. Isn't that something worthwhile knowing? [that was meant as a philosophical question].

All the best,

Marylou

 Hi everybody,

 I compare grammar of the English language with  the Kazakh language

( if I am in Kazakh speaking group)or with  the Russian language

(If I am in Russian speaking group) only those materials which they

have no in their own languages.For example, Kazakh and Russian languages

have no strict word order.Their subjects may

stand everywhere before predicate, after predicate, after and before attribute and

adverbial modifier and  meaning of a sentence doesn't change .  According to

stereotype of these languages learners can give such sentences instead of

"A student reads a book" , they may give "A book

reads a student" or "A student a book reads".

There are so many differences between the Russian and the English languages

in spite of both of them belong to Indo-Europian family , the Kazakh Language

belongs to Turkish family in spite of Kazakh and English belong to different families

they have so many similarities.

And all these  differencies and similarities  should be taken into consideration.

hi all, i think when structures are "similar though not the same" is perhaps the best time to compare the structures in both language, so students can understand clearly what the pont  of difference is, often the similarity is deceptive. Of course it's not always necessary but at times a comparison can make all the differnse. As an exampple we can look at the use of "before" and "after" in English and Chinese. on the surface the sentences look almost the same:

I take a bath before I eat dinner. 

我   洗澡          之前         吃晚饭  (lit:I   bathe    before   eat dinner)

However the Chinese sentence has the opposite meaning to the English one. i have taught this a few times, with and without an explicit comparison between the two languages, and have found teaching this with the comparison and explanation that one must shift the position of the first and second action to be more 'successful' in gettingstudents to use these words correctly.

Hello Everyone:

     Regarding the question of whether or not it is necessary to compare the syntax of a student's L1 with the L2, research by Gerald M. Edelman has demonstrated that learning requires understanding new information in terms of what is already known.  Thus, comparing the syntax of a student's L1 and the L2 is one way in which to create a context in which a student can relate the new information to what the student already knows.  For example, the 10 basic sentence patterns in American English have the same word order and meaning as Mandarin.  With this as a starting point, the different positions of relative clauses, for example, can be explained in a context that allows students to comprehend the new information in terms of what they alread know.  The 10 basic sentence patterns are:

Basic English Sentence Patterns

The "be" Patterns

1.             NP                           be                            ADV/TP

            (subject)                (verb)                   (adverbial of time or place)

            The students          are                       upstairs

2.             NP                           be                            ADJ

            (subject)                (verb)                   (subject complement)

            The students          are                       diligent

3.             NP₁                         be                            NP₁

            (subject)                (verb)                    (subject complement)

            The students          are                         scholars

The Linking Verb Patterns

4.             NP                           linking verb                        ADJ

            (subject)                (verb)                                 (subject complement)

            The students          seem                                  diligent

5.             NP₁                         linking verb                        NP₁

            (subject)                (verb)                                  (subject complement)

            The students          became                               scholars

The Intransitive Verb Pattern

6.             NP                           intransitive verb

            (subject)                (verb)

            The students          rested

The Transitive Verb Patterns

7.             NP₁                         transitive verb                     NP₂

            (subject)                (verb)                                  (direct object)

            The students          studied                                 their assignment

8.             NP₁                         transitive verb                     NP₂                                         NP₃

            (subject)                (verb)                                  (indirect object)                 (direct object)

            The students          gave                                    the professor                      their homework

9.             NP₁                         transitive verb                     NP₂                                         ADJ

            (subject)                (verb)                                  (direct object)                    (object complement)

            The students          consider                              the teacher                         intelligent

10.           NP₁                         transitive verb                     NP₂                                         NP₂

            (subject)                 (verb)                                 (direct object)                     (object complement)

            The students           consider                             the course                           a challenge

From: Kolln, M. & Funk, R. (1998).  Understanding English Grammar. 5^th ed.  Boston: Allyn and Bacon

Dan Jenkins (Foreign Expert, English Department, China University of Mining and Technology, Beijing, China)