This study examines the effects of teachers' language use—first language Korean (L1) or second language English (L2)—on the vocabulary acquisition and retention of two age groups: elementary school children after only a few years of English study (n = 443) and adults at university with demonstrably higher levels of proficiency (n = 286). Its context is the frequent recommendation by policy makers that L2 teachers should maximize the use of the target language and do so from the very beginning of instruction. We focused on the effects of language use on vocabulary learning because vocabulary teaching frequently involves L1 use even in an otherwise L2 communicative classroom. Our findings suggest that both age groups benefit from links being made with the L1, but that young learners benefit more and that differences in L2 proficiency levels, which often accompany age differences of L2 instructed learners, are a possible contributing, though not a deciding, factor in this conclusion.

Using research data on teacher codeswitching in South Korea, this article investigates the attitudes and perceptions among Korean learners of English as a foreign language towards English-only instruction as opposed to instruction which contains some switching to the learners' first language. The study was in part operationalized by exploring learners' attitudes towards teachers who were native or nonnative speakers of English. The authors explored a number of variables to these attitudes and perceptions, of which the most important was the students' age. From a total sample of 798 students, 311 were adults at university and 487 were children in the last year of primary school. The researchers collected data via questionnaire and, using a subsample, via interviews. Findings suggest that although both groups of learners had no clear preferences for either teacher type, neither group favoured the total exclusion of the first language from the classroom interaction. Adults were more likely to be comfortable with English-only instruction, possibly due to their greater experience in language learning, although the possibility that their acceptance was also due to higher proficiency cannot be excluded.

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The present study examined the interaction effects between teachers’ choice of language in lexical explanation and second language (L2) learners’ proficiency level on the learning of phrasal verbs and listening comprehension in a meaning-focused listening activity. Undergraduate L2 learners with two different levels of proficiency (intermediate and advanced) were assigned to three different conditions. These conditions included (1) code-switching, in which teachers briefly switched to learners’ first language for vocabulary teaching purposes, (2) L2-only, in which teachers maintained L2 for overall instruction and vocabulary teaching, and (3) control condition, in which learners were not given instruction about target vocabulary. The results revealed that teachers’ instruction about target vocabulary brought about more gains in learning of phrasal verbs than lack thereof. In addition, teachers’ use of code-switching benefited intermediate-level learners most, who were able to gain similar levels of vocabulary learning and listening comprehension to advanced learners.

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