Foreign language teaching based on the mother tongue has been the traditional vehicle of instruction in Russian classrooms from the primary to high school levels, at language schools as well in teacher-formation at pedagogical institutes as is evidenced by the results of information obtained through interviews to teachers, observation of the students' in-class behavior and revision of textbooks produced by national authors. Grounded on data (transcripts, essays, and real class examples) gathered during five years, the paper examines the effects of excessive mother tongue use in foreign language classrooms in Ekaterinburg, Russia. The three case studies as well as other classroom instances reported and discussed here illustrate how previous educational experiences have modeled the students´ learning style to such extent that limited progress in communicative skills in English and Spanish is achieved due to their constant reference to the Russian language system, despite having had enough controlled practice and performed well in the controlled application stages of the learning process. As a result, this varied in its manifestations perceived need on the part of the student to recur to Russian to communicate in the L2 originates time-consuming psycholinguistic processes that affect accurate and fluent language production. The paper also advances ideas on how to counteract this problem in class as well as the areas that require more attention on the part of the teacher. The study concludes that though the more than a century-old teaching dilemma concerning the role of the L1 in L2 foreign language pedagogy is still far from been resolved; one thing, however, is clear: excessive translation from and to the native language hampers greatly the outcomes of the instructional process.
Based on Selinker's hypothesis of five psycholinguistic processes shaping interlanguage (1972), the paper focuses attention on the Russian L2-learners' overreliance on the L1 as the main factor hindering their development. The research problem is, therefore, the high incidence of L1 transfer in the spoken and written English language output of Russian learners as an EFL issue largely ignored, and the research question, how much these learners' dependence on the L1 affect their interlanguage (IL) development. The objectives are to offer an account of Russian L2 learners' interlingual error incidence in free output, the L2 areas these error affects the most, and the effect of non-traditional remedial work in IL development. Thirty students out of a cohort of 123 were chosen for the study because of their little progress in the FL and later divided into two groups depending on their time of English-only L2 instruction. Their L2 spoken and written samples were used to determine their communication strategies and the output areas they affect the most. The study shows that time under L2-learning through the L2 does not modify significantly the students learning and communication strategies historically acquired through transfer of learning. The comparison with similar data from Spanish-speaking students, classroom observation, and introspection reveal the students use three L1-based strategies to cope with L2 communication demands. These strategies are so closely connected with their beliefs and language practices that non-traditional remedial work is ineffective unless the students understand the nature of their problems and willingly engage in overcoming them.
Based on a Vygotskyan sociocultural perspective, the paper is aimed at socializing an approach to small groups or individual learning situations when, after having been enrolled in several English language courses, the learners may have considerable knowledge about the language, yet cannot use it in communication. The approach makes use of contemporary concepts in language learning such as noticing (Schmidt, 1990(Schmidt, , 1993(Schmidt, , 2001(Schmidt, , 2010 Hulstijn & Schmidt 1994;Andrews, 2007), enhanced input (Sharwood Smith, 1993), intake, interlanguage (Selinker, 1972), and posits that of enhanced output as a conceptual category in the field. Enhanced input focused on meaning noticing leads to increased intake and gradual interlanguage development. Once certain preconditions are attained and enough opportunities for communication realization given, the result is likely to be enhanced output. Enhanced output is defined as accurate and fluent learner language used in foreign language communication. Learning how to learn and decreasing dependence on the mother tongue to produce the L2 are just two among those prerequisites while managing time effectively results in a different kind of lesson where the teacherstudent relationship is mostly devoted to communication in the L2. Two categories from the personality sphere in second language learning: self-regulation (Zimmerman, 1990(Zimmerman, , 2013 and self-confidence are considered to be central to the conception because both play a crucial role in fostering learning development. Finally, the paper describes the cases of three students that seem to validate the enhanced output proposal.
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