11. Interlanguage Just as children develop their native language in gradual, systematic stages, adults, too, manifest a systematic progression of acquisition of sounds and words and structures and discourse features. The interlanguage principle tells us that:
Second language learners tend to go through a systematic or quasi-systematic developmental process as they progress to full competence in the target language. Successful interlanguage language development is partially a factor of utilizing feedback from others. Number of general classroom implications deserve your attention:
(1) Thy to distinguish between a student's systematic interlanguage errors (stemming from the native language or target language) and other errors; the former will probably have a logical source that the student can become aware of.
(2) Teachers need to exercise some tolerance for certain interlanguage forms that my rise out of a student’s logical developmental process.
(3) Don't make a student feel stupid just because of an interlanguage error; quietly point out the logic of the erroneous form ("I can understand why you said, 'I go to the doctor yesterday,' but try to remember that in English we have to say the verb in the past tense. Okay?").
(4) Your classroom feedback to students should give them the message that mistakes are not "bad," rather that most mistakes are good indicators that innate language acquisition abilities are alive and well. Mistakes are often indicators of aspects of the new language that are still developing. Some mistakes in the classroom should be treated by you, but when you choose to treat them, do so with kindness and empathy so that the student will not feel thwarted in future attempts to speak.
(5) Try to get students to self-correct selected errors; the ability to self-correct may indicate readiness to regularly use that form correctly.
(6) In your feedback on students' linguistic output, make sure that you provide ample affective feedback—verbal or nonverbal—in order to encourage them to speak.
(7) As you make judicious selection of which errors to treat, make sure that your feedback doesn't thwart further student attempts to speak.