This paper argues for the re-examination of the time-honoured view that the first language should be avoided in the classroom by teachers and students. The justifications for this rest on a doubtful analogy with first language acquisition, on a questionable compartmentalization of the two languages in the mind, and on the aim of maximizing students' exposure to the second language, laudable but not incompatible with use of the first language. The L1 has already been used in alternating language methods and in methods that actively create links between L1 and L2, such as the New Concurrent Method, Community Language Learning, and Dodson's Bilingual Method. Treating the L1 as a classroom resource opens up several ways to use it, such as for teachers to convey meaning, explain grammar, and organize the class, and for students to use as part of their collaborative learning and individual strategy use. The first language can be a useful element in creating authentic L2 users rather than something to be shunned at all costs.

This article argues that language teaching would benefit by paying attention to the L2 user rather than concentrating primarily on the native speaker. It suggests ways in which language teaching can apply an L2 user model and exploit the students' L1. Because L2 users differ from monolingual native speakers in their knowledge of their L2s and L1s and in some of their cognitive processes, they should be considered as speakers in their own right, not as approximations to monolingual native speakers. In the classroom, teachers can recognise this status by incorporating goals based on L2 users in the outside world, bringing L2 user situations and roles into the classroom, deliberately using the students' L1 in teaching activities, and looking to descriptions of L2 users or L2 learners rather than descriptions of native speakers as a source of information. The main benefits of recognising that L2 users are speakers in the own right, however, will come from students' and teachers' having a positive image of L2 users rather than seeing them as failed native speakers. L anguage professionals often take for granted that the only appropriate models of a language's use come from its native speakers. Linguists look at the intuitions of native speakers or collect quantities of their speech; language teachers encourage students to be like native speakers. This article argues that the prominence of the native speaker in language teaching has obscured the distinctive nature of the successful L2 user and created an unattainable goal for L2 learners. It recommends that L2 users be viewed as multicompetent language users rather than as deficient native speakers and suggests how language teaching can recognise students as L2 users both in and out of the classroom. Davies (1991) claims that the first recorded use of native speaker was the following: "The first language a human being learns to speak is his DEFINING THE NATIVE SPEAKER

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The term multicompetence describes “the compound state of a mind with two grammars” (Cook, 1991a, p. 112). This paper reviews evidence addressing two questions: 1. Do people who know two languages differ from people who know only one in other respects than simply knowledge of an L2? L2 users differ from monolinguals in L1 knowledge; advanced L2 users differ from monolinguals in L2 knowledge; L2 usershave a different metalinguistic awareness from monolinguals; L2 users have different cognitive processes. These subtle differences consistently suggest that people with multicompetence are not simply equivalent to two monolinguals but are a unique combination. 2. Do people who know two languages have a merged language system rather than two separate systems? The L1 and L2 share the same mentallexicon; L2 users codeswitch readily; L2 processing cannot be cut off from LI; both languages are stored in the same areas of the brain; L2 proficiency relates to L1 proficiency. This evidence suggests merged systems at some level in some areas, even if some of it is open to other interpretations. A final section discusses more general issues. Much SLA research is biased by adopting the monolingual as a norm rather than the multicompetent speaker. Multicompetence distinguishes diachronic transfer during the learner's acquisition from synchronic transfer between the two languages at a single moment of time. Multicompetence starts when there is systematic knowledge of an L2 that is not assimilated to the L1. Holistic multicompetence is seen as an offshoot of polylectal grammar theory applied to monolinguals. Language teaching should try to produce multicompetent individuals not ersatz native speakers.

This paper examines the consequences of the fact that human minds may know more than one language for the poverty-of-the-stimulus argument that speakers know more than they could have learnt. Qualifications to the argument are necessary because not all L2 learners attain the same compe tence as L1 speakers; types of evidence are potentially available that can be ruled out for the Ll. The way in which L2 learning has been concep tualized in terms of access to UG and of a black box metaphor makes the L2 grammar seem separate from the L1 grammar rather than one over all system contained within a single mind. What is needed is the idea of 'multicompetence' - the compound state of a mind with two grammars. Multicompetence is the norm for the human race in that most minds know more than one language. Hence the logical problem of language acquisition is how the mind acquires a grammar with one or more settings for each parameter, rather than the special case of a mind that knows only one language. This has implications for all uses of the poverty-of-the-stimulus argument, not just in L2 learning.

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