towards an analysis of errors made by university students ... - DSpace

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Assuming that our students have some problems with some of the
linguistic skills related to the foreign language, that
association cannot be accomplished successfully. If we assume
that our students have acquired communicative abilities in
their own language, Widdowson suggests that teachers
should
"remove these abilities from a dependence on
linguistic skills in the mother tongue and
associate them with linguistic skills in the
foreign language. We thereby represent
(without misrepresenting) foreign language
learning notas the acqui siti on of abilities
which, are new but as the transference of the
abilities that have already been acquired into
a different means of expression". 32
Since this transference implies an association of communicative
abilities, already acquired, with linguistic skills in a foreign
language, English ngps may be one of the factors which have
been
blocking the transference, for 'comprehending' is one of the
linguistic skills where our students need some help. The way our
students have dealt with English ngps in the texts which they
translated into Portuguese has proved that ngps are an aspect
of the 'comprehending' skill which needs special attention.
Although we recognize the importance of describing
the psychological processes which take place in reading, we are
inclined to view reading as one of the well-known language skills
to be practised in classroom situations. At present,
the
circumstances under which reading is achieved in EL I Course are
rather different, since one of the purposes in these courses is
to develop the students' ability to understand what they read
in English. Thus, comprehension is to be seën as the final
product of readi ng.