TEACHER’S USE OF THE MOTHER TONGUE  IN EFL COMPULSORY SECONDARY EDUCATION

 

Piedad Isabel Garrido Ruiz

Ph.D course’s student in ‘Estudios de Filología Inglesa’ at the University of Alicante (November 2004- January 2005)

 

 

ABSTRACT.

The teacher’s use of the mother tongue in  EFL education is considered  positive for some and negative for others depending on circumstances. This paper describes the teacher’s use of the mother tongue in EFL  compulsory secondary education  in grammar and vocabulary teaching. It was carried out with the intention of discovering in which one of them  the mother tongue is used to a greater or lesser degree.  It was found that the teacher in her grammar lessons makes more use of the mother tongue than in vocabulary teaching. This highest use of the mother tongue in grammar teaching can be interpreted as  the teacher’s concern about the difficulty of understanding grammar and, also because  it saves time and facilitates the expression, the immediate comprehension  being assured.

Article Outline

1.INTRODUCTION.

2.DESCRIPTIVE STUDY.

            2.1.  Analysis of mother tongue’s use  teaching vocabulary and grammar.

                        2.1.1. Grammar

                        2.1.2. Vocabulary.

2.3. Results of the comparison of the use of the mother tongue in grammar and vocabulary teaching.

3.CONCLUSION.

 

1. INTRODUCTION.

            The use of the mother tongue by secondary foreign language teachers  has been the focus of many studies in order to expound its disadvantages and advantages for the students.  We refer, on one hand, as mother tongue (MT), to the first language learned at home in childhood and still understood by the individual at the time of the census. On the other, English as a foreign language (EFL) to the teaching of English to students whose first language is not English. In other words, the ‘process of learning another language after the basics of the first have been acquired, starting about five years of age and thereafter’ (Dulay, H., M. Burt & S. Krashen, 1928: 10)

Orthodox thinking over the past forty years in the US, UK and Europe has been that the use of the mother tongue should be excluded from the foreign language classroom. In other words, in the development of English Language Teaching (ELT) the place of the mother-tongue has been subject to violent swings of the pendulum, depending on which theory of learning or which methodology happened to be in the ascendancy at the time. At present, the official guidelines in many countries recommend that lessons be planned to be as monolingual as possible, drawing on the mother tongue only when difficulties arise. A consensus has been reached in favour of a kind of monolingualism with small concessions: "There is little point in trying to stamp it out completely" (Harmer, 2001: 132). The mother tongue is generally regarded as being an evasive manoeuvre which is only to be used in emergencies.

Until recently, according to Prodromou (2002: 6) the mother tongue in the EFL classroom has been a skeleton in the cupboard.  The metaphor is apt insofar as we have for a long time treated the mother tongue as a taboo subject, a source of embarrassment, and on the part of teachers, a recognition of their failure to teach properly, i.e. using ‘only English’. However, a skeleton in the cupboard is something most people probably have, in one form or another; the irony in ELT since direct methods became the official orthodoxy is that most non-native speaking teachers of English have quietly been using the L1, to a lesser or greater extent. The skeleton has been there all the time, we just haven’t wanted to talk about it – because perhaps we have not had the psycholinguistic or pedagogic framework in which to do so, and we could not do so without feeling that we were going against common sense and the received wisdom in language teaching. 

The issue of whether to use or not to use the mother-tongue is however complex. The complexity is reflected in the following metaphors, which may help put some flesh on the skeleton. The mother-tongue in the classroom is :

1. a drug (though with therapeutic potential, it can damage your health and may become additive)
2. a reservoir (a resource from which we draw)
3.  a wall (an obstacle to teaching)
4. a window (which opens out into the world outside the classroom; if we look through it we see the students’ previous learning experience, their interests, their knowledge of the world, their culture)
5. a crutch (it can help us get by in a lesson, but it is recognition of weakness).
6. a lubricant (it keeps the wheels of a lesson moving smoothly; it thus saves time).

From  Luke Prodromou’s research with teachers, the overall rationale for this procedural use of L1 is that it is necessary to keep the lesson from slowing down or because things just can not be done any other way.

Sheelagh Deller and Mario Rinvolucri (2002) contention is, on the contrary, that mother tongue is indeed the mother of the second, third and fourth languages. It is from this womb that the new languages are born in the student's mind, so to exclude MT from the English classroom is like trying to wean a baby on day one of their life. What they propose is that teachers use the students' mother tongue in clearly-defined circumstances and in the carefully crafted activities that make up the main body of their book: Using the  Mother Tongue Making the most of the learner's language. Its overriding aim  is that our students should willingly come to reduce their dependence on MT. Paradoxically, this will come about earlier in their learning process than would be the case if MT were all 'banned' from the classroom.

Mario Rinvolucri  a very convincing, advocate of the use of L1(first language) in L2 (second language) acquisition believes that by rejecting students’ mother tongue we reject the use of a whole set of strategies and resources. Using L1 to learn L2 is natural like learning anything else, we start with something we already know, with something familiar to us. In the case of L2 learning, it is only natural to start off by referring to L1.

Mario’s handout was a small article written by Luke Prodromou defending the wise and creative use of the mother tongue as a tool for second language teaching. Gillian Lazar who attended a lecture by Mario Rinvolucri says that she agrees completely with both Mario and Luke. She  uses her students’ mother tongue to contrast L1 and L2 language use (which she finds extremely helpful), sometimes to check understanding and clear up doubts and sometimes just to talk to her students about their lives and learning processes. She feels that when you want to come closer to a student and you share his/her L1, it is absolutely unnatural to use the L2.

In general, the teachers that were present in the workshop appreciated the ideas and suggestions Mario shared with us. However, there is still some resistance against the use of L1 L2 in classes, this remains one of the taboos in ELT.

In Teaching Monolingual Classes (1993), Atkinson suggests 'a careful, limited use of L1' to help students get the maximum benefit from activities which in other respects will be carried out in the target language. The mother tongue may be useful in the procedural stages of a class, for example:

• setting up pair and group work
• sorting out an activity which is clearly not working
• checking comprehension

Beyond these basically managerial functions of L1, Atkinson also suggests using the L1 for translation as a teaching technique.

Finally, Hammerly (1991: 151) estimates that the judicious use of the MT in carefully crafted techniques "can be twice as efficient (i.e. reach the same level of second language proficiency in half the time), without any loss in effectiveness, as instruction that ignores the students' native language."

In contrast to the abundant  publications on the disadvantages and  advantages of the use of the mother tongue teaching foreign languages and on  the more than a hundred teaching suggestions involving the use of the mother tongue by S. Deller & M. Rinvolucri (2002) and, the way  non native speaking   teachers of English currently use the mother tongue in their class has not received attention.

In this paper the main focus of  study is the teacher’s use of the mother tongue, Spanish, teaching English as a foreign language that occurs in a class of the fourth year of Compulsory Secondary Education (4^th  E.S.O.) in the  High School of Calpe (Alicante). In this class there are seventeen students. This is the most reduced group in the 4^th  ESO level and  has been formed because of the optional subjects students chose. In this class only three of the students are foreigners. They  come from the North of Europe (Holland, Belgium and Germany) and the rest of the students are Spanish whose mother tongue is Spanish. They have from  a low intermediate to an intermediate level in the English language and most of them aim to pass the subject in order to study  ‘Bachillerato’. They attend 50-min  classes delivered by an English second-language teacher  who has Spanish nationality. Their teacher finished her degree in English Studies in 1991, and she already has ten years of experience teaching in Secondary Education. She is very interested in giving her classes only speaking English, however, she makes use of the mother tongue, Spanish.

The present study started as a project that intended to  expose  how much use of the mother tongue is made by current non-native speaking teachers of English since many previous studies in other contexts focus on   whether the use of the first language teaching a foreign one benefit or not   the students. In the specific  context of the investigation, the students have limited possibilities of putting their linguistic knowledge into practice; in many cases this practice occurs solely within the classroom. Consequently, the belief is that we must optimise  the probability of student input within the classes for improved comprehension and for aiding communicative competence. We set out to describe the teacher’s use of the mother tongue in vocabulary and grammar teaching  that take place in one group of the 4^th year of E.S.O. Initially, a comparison of the two types of teaching content  was carried out with the intention of discovering to what extent the mother tongue is used in each one of them. Thus, this paper will report on the descriptive study.

 

2. THE DESCRIPTIVE STUDY.

 

            To analyse the use of Spanish , mother tongue, teaching English as a second language  it was necessary to develop a corpus of classes.  Thus, I went to the high school of my city, Calpe. There, I met one of the  English teachers of that centre and I explained to her that I was studying a Ph.D and for one of the subjects (The Learning and Teaching of English: Research and Discourse Analysis) I needed to record some classes in order to study something that called my  attention.  Fortunately, she gave me permission in order to record and transcribe her classes. In total, 6 classes were recorded in her regular classroom and the students did not react  negatively and behaved, according to the teacher, as they  usually did. Subsequently,  I focused my attention on those classes dealing with vocabulary and grammar. Finally, these classes were used to find  the different  teacher’s use of the mother tongue teaching vocabulary and grammar.

 

2.1.  Analysis of mother tongue’s use  teaching vocabulary and grammar.

Before analysing  separately the teacher’s use of mother tongue in  grammar and vocabulary teaching  we are going to establish   on one hand, the common activities  in which   teachers more frequently use ( or abuse of ) the L1 in its communicative function or allow (or encourage)  the students  to use translation and, on the other hand, in which of these activities  our teacher of 4^th year of E.S.O.  uses and does not  use the L1.

-Activities  in which  teachers more frequently use the L1:

Two  teacher’s functions in the use of the L1:

1)Use of the L1 in communicative function:

a) organization and class leading.

• Greetings.
• Maintenance of discipline.
• Instructions.
• Allocation of tasks (for the class or homework).
• Paradoxically,  invitation to speak in L2.
• Socio-personal macro-functions.

b)Explicit knowledge.

• Phonetics, grammar, lexis and L2 pragmatic explanations.
• error’s correction.
• Comprehension’s checking.
• Formulation and clarification of doubts.
• Contrastive analysis

c) Learning techniques and strategies .

• Explanations about strategies in the L2 use.
• Advice about the strategies in the L2 use

2) Use of the L1 in didactic function: the translation.

-Activities  in which our teacher of 4^th year of E.S.O. uses and does not use the L1:

When the teacher arrives and leaves the class always greets her students in English. For the socio-personal macro-functions, to maintain the discipline in her class, and comprehension’s checking  she only uses the English language. However,  in order to give instructions, to invite  the students to speak, to allocate tasks, phonetic explanations, error’s correction, formulation and clarification of doubts, contrastive analysis and to  explain  or advise strategies she uses firstly the English language and when she observes that students do not understand  something she  repeats  it  again but this second time in Spanish. Finally, she mainly uses the translation to explain  lexis and, the use of the English language  to explain  grammar is practically inexistent. 

After analysing  the classes recorded, I realised that this teacher  considers that  in order to  be able  to express themselves  with fluency in the English language her  students need to have a good vocabulary and grammar knowledge. From her point of view, vocabulary and grammar are the main weapons  to be successful listening readings, speaking and writing. Thus,  she tries to developed  in her students  the knowledge and skills that will allow them to meet  their  social and work duties with responsibility and competence emphasizing grammar and vocabulary teaching.

 

2.1.1. Grammar.

The reflections about the language lessons in this class of the 4^th year of E.S.O.  I have recorded follow the same pattern, that is, students are given the grammar explanation in the mother tongue of the teacher and most of the students. Students practise the grammar by means of  the translation of sentences into English  to practice the topic described and, finally, the sentences are corrected. To correct the sentences the teacher  only uses the English language,  but the explanations she gives about each sentence are  in the mother tongue.  In other words, this teacher’s way of presenting grammar in her class is  by means of a  grammatical point’s explanations and to practise it by  translating Spanish sentences into English.  Here we find the teacher’s use of the second language is practically inexistent because her use of the mother tongue is spread over the explanations . In this way, the English language  use is just limited, on one hand, to the  translation’s corrections of the sentences  done and, on the other, to the use of words such us:  yes, of course, well, now, ok, go on, that is, etc.

As it was said before in the grammar lessons that were  recorded, we can appreciate that the teacher’s use of  the English language is minimum. However, here there is an example  with the most extensive  use of the English language:

T- Today we are going to deal with the first type of conditionals.

T- You have to choose between wto tenses; simple present or simple future.

• Una vez explicada toda la teoría podéis hacer todo el tema cinco.

T- Lo que me interesa es que sepáis que tenemos que poner un sujeto y un verbo en el futuro, ok? El futuro se forma muy sencillo con el auxiliar “will”  y luego el infinitivo.

S- ¿Para todas las personas?

T- Es igual. Es una de las ventajas que tiene el inglés. Todas las personas tienen la misma forma.  En el futuro, eh? No pasa lo mismo que en el presente que he, she, it lleva una –s o –es a veces.

T- Now we are going to translate some sentences into English:

1. Si fumamos, tendremos problemas de saludo en el futuro.
2. Si saco buenas notas, mis padres estará muy felices.
3. Nos iremos a Mallorca el próximo verano, si conseguimos suficiente dinero y gente.
4. Etc.

2.1.2. Vocabulary.

            This teacher’s way of presenting vocabulary in her class is, on one hand, by means of readings and, on the other, by means of  listenings and, in both ways we find the teacher’s use of the mother tongue.

 

a)The  teacher’s use of the mother tongue  working the vocabulary with readings.

In the records analysed  she presents texts or handouts  to work the vocabulary in different ways, concretely,  three ways were found. In the first class analysed,  she orders  the students to read and she interrupts the reader  each time a difficult word appears to asks them for its meaning.  In the second class,  the teacher asks the students for the meaning of the difficult words that have appeared in the text after reading  it completely. Finally, in the last one, she is the one who reads the text and when she finds a difficult word she repeats it to get students translations. In all the cases she asks the meaning in English and if  students do not know the answer she gives its translation. It is also important to underline, that she   translates de whole text into Spanish after finishing working with it in order to make sure that her students have grasped its  full meaning .

Ex.:

T: What is carols?

T: Villancico

 

b) The  teacher’s use of the mother tongue  working the vocabulary with listenings.

            In the records analysed  she presents songs and texts that students have to listen  to in order to work the vocabulary. For example students had to listen to one text about Guy Fawkes, and a song  entitled ‘Because we want to’. After listening to them twice the teacher asks them the meaning of some words she thinks they do not know and others to check their previous knowledge in vocabulary. Her use of the mother tongue presenting vocabulary by listenings is the same she does presenting it by readings. That is, she asks for the words and when students do not  know them  she translates them.

            Ex:

T: What does  old fashion clothes mean?

                        T: ropa antigua

We can say that teaching vocabulary she  uses the mother tongue:

• to translate the new vocabulary that appears in the  readings or in the listenings

Ex.:

            T: How do you say Christmas tree?

            T: Árbol de navidad

• to translate  the whole text and,
• at the end of the class when she wants to make sure the students have memorized it, and in this case she uses the mother tongue to say the new word learned.

Ex.:

T: How do you say in English villancico?

T: How do you say uva in English?

T: How do you say castañas?

Although her most frequent  habit is to translate  the vocabulary into the mother tongue, we can also observe several explanations about the vocabulary in the English language without giving the translation. It is important to underline, that  we  have only found one vocabulary explanation using both the mother tongue, Spanish, and the second foreign language and, never a vocabulary explanation only in Spanish.

 

• Example of vocabulary explanation using only the second foreign language, English.

T: There is a tradition that all Spanish have and it is the Three Wise men. English and American don’t have this tradition.  They only have Father’s Christmas.  But we’ve got Father Christmas and the Three Wise men.

 

• Example of vocabulary explanation using the mother tongue, Spanish, and the second foreign language, English.

T: Sandra can you read, please?

T: Go on!

S:  (She starts reading) Christmas Eve

T:                                                   [Wait, wait

T: Christmas Eve, what is that?

S: Eh… noche de verano

T: no, no, no

T: Christmas Eve is that night before Christmas what in Spanish we call Nochebuena y, significa víspera. La víspera de Navidad. Nochebuena en español y, en inglés Christmas Eve

T: ¿ Y como se diría Nochevieja? La Nochevieja es la víspera del año nuevo.

T: New Years Eve, ésto para decir Noch vieja.

T: Let’s go on!

S: (The student continues reading)

 

2.3. Results of the comparison of the use of the mother tongue in grammar and vocabulary teaching.

In all the  lessons  recorded   we can appreciate the teacher’s use of the mother tongue. However this use is greater in teaching grammar than in teaching vocabulary.

Teaching grammar she uses the mother tongue in all the explanations she does using only the English language to correct the sentences she orders to translate into the second language and in words such us;  yes, of course, well, now, ok, go on, that is, etc.

However, in vocabulary teaching the use of the mother tongue is  less frequent. The teacher only translates into Spanish those words students do not know although sometimes she explains them without giving the translation.

 

3. CONCLUSION.

In this short study of the use of the mother tongue by a current non-native speaking teacher of English in vocabulary and grammar teaching, an attempt has been made to determine in which kind of lesson the mother tongue is used to a greater or lesser degree.  It was found that the teacher in her grammar lessons makes more use of the mother tongue than in vocabulary teaching. This greatest use of the mother tongue in grammar teaching can be interpreted in the way that the teacher is concerned about the difficulty of understanding grammar and, even more when these explanations are done in a foreign language to students  who have a lower-intermediate and intermediate level of English.

There are a number of reasons why the use of the mother tongue is often frowned upon in the language classroom. The most convincing of these is that there is a danger that students will come to rely on translation and mother tongue explanations when trying to acquire new language when they need to be more actively involved in working things out for themselves. However, teachers justify the use of the mother tongue because it saves time and facilitates the expression  the immediate comprehension being  assured. This is also said by Lewis (1993: 192)  with these words: “ Speaking in English in L1 (first language or mother tongue) can be faster and more efficient, Why make life difficult?” On the contrary, we can place those who consider the use of  L1 deprive the student of a good chance or occasion to hear and to practice  the second language (L2) that is the aim of the student learning.

At this time of our knowledge the necessity of proportioning  to the student the widest possible   exposition to the L2  should stay  out of discussion because in contexts of L2 as foreign language the class constitute the only systematic dealing with the learning object. Therefore, when comprehension problems appear in the students, teachers should  recur   to strategies  such as  paraphrasing,   slow repetition or  synonymy before rushing into using the L1.

            Some observations:

1. Using the communicative function, the L1 should  disappear  in the measure in which students understand better the L2. From one day to another it is not possible to try to keep  discipline or to stop giving the instructions in the L1; the process should start by expressing in L2 the  easiest instructions and messages and to continue in this way progressively (Ellis 1992).
2. The activities of organization and  class dealing (greetings, instructions, discipline maintenance, socio-personal  relationships, etc.) are usual  and  conventional  manifestations of the language use, so, it is convenient to express them as soon as possible in L2 (Ellis 1992).

            From my point of view each group  of  students is  completely different   because, for example, they do not behave  in the same way and  teachers cannot either  address   them equally. Therefore, a  further study related to the teacher’s use of the mother tongue teaching English as a foreign language that I would like to carry out in the future would  be to contrast  a teacher’s use of the mother tongue in different  groups of the same level. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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