Using L1 In The English Classroom

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Using L1 in the L2 Classroom

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Research findings

mong a number of professionals in the field of second language acquisition, there appears to be an increasing conviction that the first language (L1) has a necessary and facilitating role in the second and foreign language (L2) classroom. In my case, this convictioncomes from personal experience, recent literature I

have read, and presentations I have attended. This position may seem heretical in light of what most of us were taught when trained as ESL/EFL professionals, but I believe it is worthy of serious consideration.
cross-cultural issues; instructions or prompts; explanation of errors; and assessment of comprehension.
Research design

Inprovocative article, Elsa Auerbach (1993:29) gives a sociopolitical rationale for the use of the L1 in ESL classrooms. She primarily addresses the situation of immigrant ESL learners studying in the United States. Her conclusions, however, are applicable to any immigrant second language learners in any metropole. In this article, she states that “everyday classroom practices, far from being neutral andnatural, have ideological origins and consequences for relations of power both inside and outside the classroom.” Auerbach (1993:19) summarized her conclusion in the following way: “Starting with the L1 provides a sense of security and validates the learners’ lived experiences, allowing them to express themselves. The learner is then willing to experiment and take risks with English.” Piaseckaseconds Auerbach’s position when she states, “One’s sense of identity as an individual is inextricably bound up within one’s native language…. If the learner of a second language is encouraged to ignore his/her native language, he/she might well feel his/her identity threatened” (in Hopkins, 1988:18).
Uses for L1 in English classes

I teach English as a foreign language to monolingualSpanish-speaking classes in Puerto Rico. During the first semester of the 1997–1998 academic year, I designed and conducted research on the use of the mother tongue in English classes at the University of Puerto Rico, Bayamon Campus. Four of my colleagues kindly consented to participate in this project. My research consisted of recording a 35-minute sample from three classes at the beginning, middle, and endof the semester. I recorded the classes to see how frequently and for what purposes these teachers used Spanish in their classes. The teachers also filled out a short questionnaire about their attitudes toward the use of Spanish in the English classroom. The same questionnaire was also distributed to other members of my department. A total of 19 professors responded. I also handed out a similarquestionnaire to the classes of professors participating in my study and to my three sections of basic English. The results of these two sets of questionnaires are in Table 2.
Research results

David Atkinson (1987:241) lists appropriate uses for the L1 in the L2 classroom (Table 1). Auerbach (1993) suggests the following possible occasions for using the mother tongue: negotiation of the syllabusand the lesson; record keeping; classroom management; scene setting; language analysis; presentation of rules governing grammar, phonology, morphology, and spelling; discussion of

A high percentage (88.7%) of the student participants in this study felt that Spanish should be used in their English classes. All of the teachers reported using Spanish to some degree. Approximately 99 percent ofthe students responded that they like their teachers to use only English in the classroom. Very

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Suggested Uses for the L1 in the EFL Classroom
1. Eliciting language “How do you say ‘X’ in English?”

2. Checking comprehension “How do you say ‘I’ve been waiting for ten minutes’ in...