SOME PECULIARITIES OF TEACHING GERMAN AS A SECOND FOREIGN LANGUAGE TO NON-LINGUISTIC STUDENTS

Teaching a second foreign language has its specifics since it is influenced not only by the learners` mother tongue but also by their first foreign language. Observing the speech of Russian-speaking students who start learning German after English shows that the influence of English on learning German turns out to be stronger than that of their mother tongue.

At the given stage of research we consider the phonetic aspect of this influence since the other levels of language should be given separate consideration. 

This paper contains a brief typology of mistakes often made by students in their studying German after English. We survey special features of the English phonetic system that cause the occurrence of these mistakes and give some tips to eliminate them. 

Mistakes at the phonetic level are primarily connected with the incorrect pronunciation of individual sounds. Mistakes connected with the violation of the reading rules are considered in the paper as well. All the mistakes in question are due to the effect of the English articulation basis and pronunciation rules. 

Pronunciation mistakes often lead to the distortion of a meaning of individual words and as a result to a communication disruption. Therefore, one of the teacher`s aims is to contribute to the decrease of mistakes in learners` speech. In order to achieve this aim at the phonetic level, some methods of working with students are offered. These methods are supposed to improve learners` pronunciation skills. At the same time the teacher should make their students aware of the fact that at the initial stage of learning German English could rather hinder than support the acquisition of the former. For this reason, one of the first skills which students should acquire is the ability to abstract from their knowledge of English for a while.