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Major Article 3

THE L1 IN THE L2 CLASSROOM

Secondary adult
Simon Gill, Czech Republic

[Editorial note: I am delighted to publish another article in HLT attacking the lunatic taboo
against
L1 in the L2 classroom. If Simon Gill's article interests you then I suggest you also
Click across to Humanising translation activities, Gonzales-Davies, Jul 2002 Yr 4 Issue 4
Using Language 1 in the L2 classroom, Lindsay Canfield, Jan 2003 Yr 5
Issue 1
Where's the Treason in Translation, David Owen, Jan 2003 Yr 5 Issue 1
You might also like to have a look at Sheelagh Deller's Using the Mother Tongue- making the
most of the learner's language,
Delta Books, 2003]

I have now been involved in the teaching of English as a Foreign Language for almost a quarter
of a century. For most of that time, the fact that the learners come to the classroom with one
language already in their possession attracted next to no attention in the literature; the L1, if
mentioned at all, was seen chiefly as a source of errors or, on a good day, transfer. Otherwise,
the position was as summed up by Vivian Cook, who writes of “a door that has been firmly shut
in language teaching for over a hundred years…however the assumption is phrased, the L2 is
seen as positive, the L1 as negative…recent methods do not so much forbid the L1 as ignore its
existence…most teaching manuals take the avoidance of the L1 as so obvious that no
classroom use of the L1 is ever mentioned” (Cook, 2001).

Atkinson (1987) was an early voice in the wilderness, and Duff (1989) wrote an entire book
about translation. Since then there have been a number of articles on the subject, varying
enormously in their length, depth, and degree of academic rigour, but all of them advocating the
principled use of the mother tongue. It is not my intention to go through them all here, but, if you
are interested in following them up, references are provided in a bibliography at the end.

More recently, and with a rather higher profile, we have also had a call for an explicitly bilingual
approach by Widdowson (2003). However, while emphasizing that the L1 has a role to play, he
has little to offer in the way of practical guidance beyond a reference to an interesting article by
Joseph and Ramani (1998). And then there was Deller and Rinvolucri’s (2003) collection of
practical classroom ideas in which the mother tongue plays a key role, which was the
springboard for this article.

Let me start by saying I like the book a lot. It was great to see a book which actually takes the
fact that the learners (and, often, the teacher too) share a resource of great precision and power
and uses that as the basis for a large number of classroom activities designed to exploit that
and which are presented in a user-friendly ‘recipe’ format. So far, so good.
However, one thing I really miss with the book was that it lacks a broader framework to describe
and delimit what the role of the L1 in the classroom should be and into which the teacher can
incorporate the ideas the book provides.

In the ‘Personal Prefaces’ at the start of the book, Sheelagh Deller writes of “the guilt feelings” of
teachers who break “the mother tongue taboo” and Mario Rinvolucri of “the bizarre ban on
mother tongue in the foreign language classroom”. Luke Prodromou, in his Introduction, states
that “the mother tongue has been used surreptitiously and haphazardly and, as a result, it may
not have been used to good effect”.

However, there’s another side to this story. I work at a teacher training college in the Czech
Republic. One of the topics my colleagues and I deal with quite early on in our methodology
course is the role of the native language, in this case Czech, in the foreign language classroom.
The position we take is that the mother tongue represents a powerful resource that can be used
in a number of ways to enhance learning but that it must always be used in a principled way. To
borrow a term from computing, we see English as the ‘default setting’, the language that should
generally be used, and that whenever English is not being used there should be a good reason
for this.

But when they go into schools to observe classes, my students have often commented
negatively on the amount of Czech being used by both the teachers and the kids they saw;
several of them have actually stated that the learners appeared effectively incapable even of
understanding, let alone using, spoken English because they were being given so little
experience of either. They, and I, found this horrifying. And not so long ago a Slovak teacher I
know went to see a French class in a school in London; she told me that precisely seven words
of the target language were used during the entire lesson.

I doubt that guilt, taboos, bans, and surreptitiousness played much of a role in the practice of
the teachers my students and my Slovak friend were so disappointed by, and I have a strong
suspicion that in many teaching environments (possibly the majority?) this kind of thing is very
common, if not the norm.

Let’s consider a spectrum. At one end, there are those teachers who reject the use of L1
altogether or fail to recognize any significant potential in it. At the other, there are those who
either massively overuse it themselves or are willing to accept such overuse from those they
teach. Each, in their own way, is abusing a resource of great potential and delicacy, and it is my
goal here to sketch out some ways in which the learners’ L1 has been profitably used in
classrooms around the world and which might be transferable to other contexts. There are, of
course, classrooms where there are ten first languages represented, none of which the teacher
speaks to any degree, but globally these are massively outnumbered by those where the
teacher and learners all share the same L1, and it is largely at the latter that these thoughts are
aimed.

Apart from what I saw in my own classroom and others I observed and data brought to me by
my students, my own research in this area consisted of reading all the articles I could find and
administering a questionnaire to teachers. Through the wonders of email communication I was
fortunate enough to get replies from literally all over the world. Most of the respondents were
teachers of English, but there were some who taught other languages, either their own or ones
which to them were foreign. Some were passionate in their hostility to the use of L1; they were,
however, in a minority. Wherever possible I have left their voices unedited (QR = Questionnaire
Respondent).
It is not my intention here to go through all the arguments for and against L1 use that exist but
rather to proceed from the assumption neatly put into words by Rao Zhenhui: “the best solution
is to make limited use of students’ native language at appropriate times and in appropriate
places” (Rao Zhenhui, 2000).

It is worth emphasizing the word ‘limited’. Weschler (1997) quotes Atkinson: “Teachers should
use English where possible and L1 where necessary. We can perhaps say that the questions
which teachers need to ask themselves are:
 can I justify using the L1 here?
 will it help the students’ learning more than using English would?”

So L1 is a consciously chosen option with an auxiliary role; it remains a means to an end. What,
then, are the “appropriate times and appropriate places” for this means to be taken? Here are
some general principles:

When compliance with the local educational tradition suggests it; this is a point explicitly
made by Rao Zhenhui (2000) and, presumably, relevant to the notions of ‘appropriate pedagogy’
of the last ten or so years.

When it seems realistic: “forcing the kids to speak English to each other is very artificial and I
would not recommend it.” (QR - Austria)

When it helps to engender security: “starting with the L1 gives a sense of security and
validates the learner’s lived experiences, allowing them to express themselves. The learner is
then willing to experiment and take risks with English.” (Auerbach, 1993, quoted by Schweers,
1999); “recent arrivals’ learning can be fostered by ‘baby steps’ in the first few weeks which
allow some support in L1. New life, new home, new food - add another language and it will
seem overwhelming. Mix in a little of the familiar, like home cooking and a little L1 in the
classroom, and you have a confident learner ready for new challenges.” (QR - USA)

When time needs to be used efficiently: “I have had strong feelings about [this] ever since I
watched a Norwegian teacher of English explaining the word ‘raven’ by saying ‘It’s a big black
bird. It lives in the Tower of London’ while he cawed and flapped around the classroom. As the
Norwegian for ‘raven’ is ‘ravn’, this all seemed rather unnecessary and over-enthusiastic.”
(Rhodri Jones writing on the ELTECS discussion group)

When the teacher is anxious to foster co-operation: “[the students] eventually sorted
themselves into L1 groups within the classroom so they could help each other…the ones who
came from countries where they were the only one of that nationality dropped out more quickly.
The ones with the ‘L1 support groups’ stayed till the end of the course.” (QR - USA) Of course, a
monolingual class has the potential to be one big support group, especially if the teacher is a
member too.

When learner-centredness is to be anything more than a fashionable buzzword: “we must

remember that the decision in favor of a lifelong acquisition of L2 is a student’s prerogative, not
a teacher’s mandate.” (QR - Philippines); “trying to eliminate L1 in the L2 classroom when the
students share the same L1 seems very artificial to me.” (QR - USA); “one aspect of this
question is the degree to which attempting to over-control natural human behaviour becomes a
form of infantilizing adult learners” (QR - USA); “[the no-L1] rule bottles up questions which
should be asked, closes off the most obvious channel of communication between learners who
share a mother tongue, and puts all the power into the teacher’s hands.” (Rhodri Jones on
ELTECS again)

And here are some specific contexts in which (subject to the ‘default setting’ caveat) the use of
L1 may fulfil the criteria laid down by Atkinson. I do not suggest that the list is complete, but I do
think it provides plenty to be going on with:

needs assessment – if you speak a language poorly, how well are you going to be able to
communicate through that language exactly what your needs are?

information provision – timetable or room changes, school trips, messages to parents…

explaining methodology and approaches – “it’s important to explain to students, especially

those who come from [different] learning backgrounds, what lies behind the methods we’re
using, and this can only be done at this level through the students’ own language” (Andrew
Morris on ELTECS)

record-keeping – reports, student records, registers…

classroom management – what are you going to do if you need to explain something which
would require language way above their present level?

maintaining discipline – if a fight or some other serious problem breaks out, are you really
going to insist on an English-only policy when dealing with it?

contact with individuals – when delicacy and empathy are required, which is going to be
better, L1 or L2?

scene setting – explaining the background to, for example, a textbook dialogue, a listening or
reading passage...

explaining certain concepts – there are aspects of English that may be totally alien to certain
groups of learners (eg, for Czechs, articles, perfect forms, shifting word stress...) and an
introduction in L1, involving a comparison with L1, can be invaluable for clarifying what these
are and how they work

presentation of grammar and language rules – metalanguage is frequently a lot more

complex than what it’s being used to describe and L1 can smooth the path and avoid
unnecessary terminology in L2

conveying and checking meanings – you can achieve far more subtlety and precision when
using both L1 and L2 to check on nuances than only L2

discussion of cross-cultural issues – there is much, not only linguistic but also lying deeper
than mere surface meanings, that can be surfaced through comparison and contrast and the
judicious use of the mother tongue (e.g. connotation, collocation, idiomatic usages, culture-
specific lexis, politeness formulae, sociocultural norms, the use of intonation, gestures etc.)

instructions or prompts – especially at lower levels, both time efficiency and learner
confidence can be greatly assisted by the use of the L1, with the L2 being introduced gradually
and built up
eliciting language – L1 can complement other strategies used in this regard and can act as a
trigger; “it could be argued that the most natural information gap of all is the one between what
the student knows in the L1 and what he wishes to express in the L2.” (Weschler, 1997)

developing circumlocution strategies – in other words, “I don’t know what you wanted to say
but what came out wasn’t right, so let’s start from your intended meaning and then consider how
to phrase that in English”

explanation of errors – when these are caused by L1 transfer, it surely makes sense to go
back to the L1 and then consider what went wrong and why

checking and assessing comprehension - “unless you can rephrase a statement in your own
first language such that the essence of the meaning is maintained, you really don’t understand
it. And understanding of meaning is the key to true communication.” (Weschler, 1997)

translation – although this has been out of fashion for quite some time now it is still a skill that
many language users need; exactly what kind of translation may be necessary is an issue for
individual teachers to deal with, guided by the circumstances they and their learners are in

code-switching activities – there has been growing awareness recently of the role that
experimentation and sheer fun have in language learning; for example, my stepdaughter (who is
studying in France) and I use a mix of English, French, and Czech in our regular email and ICQ
correspondence, and I once heard Claire Kramsch describing how she had her American
students of Spanish and German keep multilingual journals

using bilingual dictionaries – although there are a lot of excellent (and not-so-excellent)
monolingual dictionaries around these days, there are still a lot of learners using bilingual ones,
of varying quality; work that explicitly considers these rather than pretending they don’t exist is a
much better way of drawing out and dealing with problems

work with dual language texts – comparing and contrasting translations of poems, short
stories, passages etc (also work with videos/DVDs with L1 subtitles) can shed light on all sorts
of areas of both comprehension and production

As previously stated, I do not claim that this is a complete A-Z of areas in which the L1 can be
useful in the L2 classroom. It is a huge area, with ramifications throughout our work, and whole
books could easily be written on it, so a short article like this can do little more than scratch the
surface.

However, I do feel strongly that the L1 should not be used simply as an optional ‘spice’, like,
say, the use of video, or running dictations, or role play, or authentic reading texts taken from
today’s newspaper, to give a few examples. It’s much more basic than that; it is something that
every learner in every classroom possesses, and I believe that we, as teachers, need to be
clear in our minds, not about whether it should be used (by us, by learners, or by both),
because, whether we like it or not, it will be anyway, but about, first, when and why it should be
used, and then, once we’ve got that straight, how. And that is when the sort of recipes you’ll find
in the book can become really useful.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Atkinson, D (1991) Teaching Monolingual Classes London: Longman

Auerbach, E R (1993) ‘Reexamining English Only In The ESL Classroom’, TESOL Quarterly
27/1, http://www.ncela.gwu.edu/miscpubs/tesol/tesolquarterly/reexamin.htm

Belz, Julie A. (2002). Identity, Deficiency, and First Language Use in Foreign Language
Education. In Blyth, Carl (ed.), The Sociolinguistics of Foreign Language Classrooms:
Contributions of the Native, Near-Native, and Non-Native Speaker. Boston, MA: Heinle &
Heinle

Cook, V (2001) ‘Using the first language in the classroom’, Canadian Modern Language Review
http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~vcook/501-6.html

Deller, S & M Rinvolucri (2002) Using the Mother Tongue London/Addlestone: ETP/Delta

Duff, A (1989) Translation Oxford: OUP

Gabrielatos, C (2001) L1 Use in ELT: Not a Skeleton, but a Bone of Contention

http://www.gabrielatos.com/BoneOfContention.htm

Gabrielatos, C (2002) Translation Impossibilities: Problems and Opportunities for TEFL

http://www.gabrielatos.com/TranslationImpossibilities.htm

Hawks, P (2002) Making Distinctions - A Discussion of the Use of the Mother Tongue In the
Foreign Language Classroom, Hwa Kwang Journal of TEFL
http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Classroom/1930/

Prodromou, L (2001) From Mother Tongue to Other Tongue

http://www.thrace-net.gr/bridges/bridges5/From%20Mother%20Tongue%20to%20Other
%20Tonge.html

Rao Zhenhui (2000) ‘Effective Use of the Mother Tongue in TEFL’, Teacher’s Edition 3,
September 2000

Schweers, C W Jr (1999) ‘Using L1 in the L2 Classroom’, ELT Forum 37/2

Stanley, K, ed (2002) ‘Using The First Language In Second Language Instruction: If, When,
Why and How Much?’ TESL-EJ Forum Column, March 2002
http://www-writing.berkeley.edu/TESL-EJ/ej20/f1.html

Weschler, R (1997) ‘Uses of Japanese (L1) in the English Classroom: Introducing the
Functional-Translation Method’ The Internet TESL Journal III/11, November 1997
http://www.aitech.ac.jp/~iteslj/Articles/Weschler-UsingL1.html

Widdowson, H (2003 Defining Issues in English Language Teaching Oxford: OUP