The place of mother tongue in foreign language classes

Abstract

There are various opinions about using students" mother tongue in foreign language classes. While most of the foreign language teaching methods suggest that only the target language should be used in foreign language classes, the others suggest that mother tongue can aid in the teaching of modern foreign languages. The recent studies on the subject reveal that a judicious and limited use of mother tongue is necessary and has a facilitating role in the teaching of modern foreign languages. The subject of this study is whether Turkish should be used in English langauge classes and the reasons for this. The views of foreign language teachers and students are taken. A total of 10 English language teachers and 148, 9th grade students participated in the study. The study was carried out by administering a questionnaire at the end of the second term of the academic year. The data obtained from the study show that most of the teachers and students are not against mother tongue, and that mother tongue contributes to language learning towards various aims and at different levels. As a result, it is suggested that being conscious about the subject and making use of the positive effects of the mother tongue is a better attitude than being totally against the use of mother tongue. 100 SUMMARYIntroduction: Using mother tongue in foreign language (FL) classes has long been seen as a taboo both by foreign language teachers and by researchers. The main reason for this is the theoretical underpinnings of FL approaches and methods. The two main aproaches which determine the extent to which mother tongue should be used in FL classes are; monolingual and bilingual approaches. As can be understood from the terms, the monolingual approach suggests that the only medium of in-class communication should be the target language but nothing else. Whereas the bilingual approach suggests that mother tongue can and should be used to certain extents in FL classes. Deller and Rinvolucri (2002) claim that there has been a shift in FL methodologies recently, and that the mother tongue is indeed "the mother" of a second, third or fourth language. They favour using mother tongue in FL classes in clearly defined situations and with carefully chosen activities. There are also some other scholars (names mentioned in the body of the article) who suggest that the monolongial approach has lost its appeal especially in the past 15 years. Another dimension for the subject is raised by Nunan and Lamb (1996) when they suggest that FL teachers who teach at beginner levels find it practically impossible to ban mother tongue altogether from FL classes. It is also suggested that mother tongue can aid and ease the teaching of FLs. Under the light of such scenerios FL teachers and researchers have started to re-examine the role of mother tongue and to explore how mother tongue can be effectively used in FL classes.

Students’ Preferences on the Use of Mother Tongue in English as a Foreign Language Classrooms: Is it the Time to Re-examine English-only Policies?

“…The first section of the questionnaire, which was prepared by the researcher, involved 12 questions to identify students' demographic characteristics. In the second section of the questionnaire, there were 7 questions that were adapted from the study by Sevik (2007), who has also adapted his questionnaire from the surveys prepared by Schweers (1999) and Tang (2002). The questions in the second section were related to the use of L1 in EFL, in this case; Turkish.…”

EFL Teachers’ Opinions on the Use of L1 in L2 Classrooms: Role of Experience and Context

“…Şevik (2007) found out in the Turkish high school context that students and teachers think that L1 should be used "sometimes", especially "the teaching of complex grammar points". Teachers see Turkish as a must to teach grammar in both K-12 and tertiary levels (İnal & Turhanlı, 2019;Kayaoğlu, 2012;Şen, 2010;Şevik, 2007) or to enrich the understanding of grammar rules (İstifçi, 2019). This result echoed in different contexts as well (e.g.…”