The effectiveness of L1 use in promoting oral production in L2 across different proficiency levels

Abstract

The current study examines the impact of L1 use on EFL learners' L2 speaking skills as well as their perceptions of L1 use in fostering oral production in L2. The study was conducted for 10 weeks with 60 low intermediate and the high intermediate students at a high school of science in Turkey in 2018-2019 spring term. In each group, half of the students were designated as the experimental group and the other half as the control group. The experimental groups in each level group were exposed to a 10-week (40 hours of teaching) of L1 use in order to promote speaking skills in L2 while the control groups were taught through communicative language approach. In the study, the explanatory sequential mixed methods design was utilized. The analysis of a Paired-Sample t-test indicated that L1 use played a pivotal role in ameliorating students' L2 speaking skills. Semi-structured interviews revealed that students favoured L1 use through which they could attenuate cognitive load and experience stress-free classroom environment in order to improve speaking skills in L2. Lastly, the students exposed to judicious and systematic L1 use outperformed the students exposed to only L2 at low intermediate and high intermediate level as regards boosting oral production in L2 and developing students' positive perception of L2.Pedagogical implications are discussed.

Indonesian EFL Students’ Autonomus Learning Implementation in Online Learning

“…Based on the above results, respondents' most popular activities were speaking with Indonesian friends and speaking in groups. This result is in line with research done by Yüzlü & Derin (2020), who looked at how using L1 helped improve oral production in L2 at different levels of proficiency in Turkey. The study was done with 60 low intermediate and high intermediate students at a science high school in Turkey for ten weeks during the spring term of 2018-2019.…”

Factors Pertinent to First Language Use in Foreign Language Classroom: A Case of Content and Language Integrated Learning

“…For example, although Tajgozari's (2017) quantitative research has only disclosed mixed-level English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' favourable opinions of L1 use in classrooms without pointing out the negative correlation between students' L2P levels with their attitudes to L1, the data recorded in his paper can be used to verify that elementary learners agree with more L1 instruction than their advanced peers. This finding has been directly specified in Arab World English Journal www.awej.org ISSN: 2229-9327 181 classroom studies, suggesting that beginner language learners are more inclusive of L1 utilisation in a multilingual classroom than proficient learners (Aly, 2020;Yüzlü & Atay, 2020). Almohaimeed and Almurshed's (2018) research has presented the same result regarding advanced L2 learners' critical attitude to using L1 in FLT, but they have further found that elementary and intermediate learners' attitudes to L1 could be judicious rather than positive.…”

Applied linguistics and language education research in Turkey: 2016–2022

“…Looking at an EAP context, Demirkol et al (2021) indicated that giving speeches and asking and answering questions in conferences were the most difficult task for undergraduate learners in EMI universities. In addition to those studies that had a more experimental nature, for instance, looking at the role of extensive reading (Yakut, 2020), the use of Pecha Kucha technique (Solmaz, 2019), the use of L1 (Yüzlü & Atay, 2020), as well the effect of pressured online planning (Tuzcu & Yalçın, 2020) on L2 learners’ speaking and pronunciation, researchers have also adopted a more naturalistic approach to examine the ways in which EFL teachers promoted extended student talk (Gümüşok & Balıkçı, 2020) and provided oral corrective feedback (Ölmezer-Öztürk & Öztürk, 2016). Based on natural classroom observations, Kemaloğlu-Er and Özata (2020), for instance, revealed codeswitching in group work to be a builder of solidarity and a means of task achievement and interactional fluency.…”