María Catalina Gutiérrez PeñaEnglish 8Code: 20111101420

Mother tongue in a foreign language classroom

The role played by the learner's mother tongue as well as the teachers’ usage of the

mother tongue during target language classes in the acquisition of another language has

been discussed and approached from various angles in studies throughout the history of

second language acquisition research. The main purpose of this essay consists of explaining

how to use the target language as the medium of instruction and just switching to the

mother tongue when it is really necessary.

What is more, EFL teachers working with monolingual students at lower levels of

English proficiency find prohibition of the mother tongue to be practically impossible. So

instead of looking at the students’ native language and cultural background as inferior or a

source of errors, they must be used as a tool to maximize foreign language learning. The

mother tongue represents a powerful resource that can be used in a number of ways to

enhance learning but it must always be used in a principled way. Sheelagh Deller and

Mario Rinvolucri’s book Using the Mother Tongue.

Strategies to make students aware of their learning acquisition have been used for

teacher all around the world. Consequently, strategies to decrease the overuse of the L1 in a

target language classroom are easy to be found. However, it has been evident one particular

solution, which is to make students aware of the overuse the mother tongue whilst in the

foreign language classroom.

The best way to deal with the problem (at least for some teachers) is to deny the

students’ use of the mother tongue and determine them to speak in English, according to

Voicu, 2004. In spite of what is mentioned before, to make students aware of the overuse

the mother tongue the plan or steps to carry out this easy and helpful solution could be the

following: the first step is to video record students, in order to show the video to students

later so they can evidence how much they overuse their mother tongue. This, so as to create

María Catalina Gutiérrez PeñaEnglish 8Code: 20111101420

an “English” or “Spanish” conscience since without this awareness, students would not be

able to reduce their use of L1 in a foreign language classroom.

Moreover, a more wide-ranging strategy yet is to be proactive. This sets the sights

on that the teacher should actively control and influence how and when the mother tongue

is used. Thus, the second step is based on class activities, meaning, the teacher should be

proactive and resourceful, that is teacher would implement games as a way to get students

motivated and focused on the use of the second language (L2). Now, there are possible

games aimed to promote the use of the second language such as, a Role play about a

restaurant, where students use their mother tongue menu so that natives have to explain the

dishes to target language speaking guests, Dubbing showing students a clip of a popular

mother tongue TV programme (e.g. a soap) and tell them they have been commissioned to

dub it into English for BBC, Conversation Starters using mother tongue newspapers for

conversation practice, and so forth, Interpreters which can be adapted to any oral pair work

situation. The students work in groups of three (minimum). One person is the interviewee

speaks only in L1and Translating pop songs students translate the lyrics (or small sections

of the lyrics) of their favourite songs into the mother tongue. Teenage magazines

sometimes include songs with mother tongue tranlations so you can use these to do it the

other way round as well, as Voicu (2004) mentions in her research study about Overusing

mother tongue in ELT.

In addition, this solution can be very effective for its simplicity. It is a low-cost

solution since nowadays a video recorder is a common device in the market and it is

possible to find it even in a cellphone. As a matter of fact, not only teachers but also

students have the same chance to access those electronic devices and if they do not, they

can go over the internet and get an application that offers them the same facilities.

As well as the video recorder, the other two steps are activities carried out in class

with an inexpensive budget hence all is needed to accomplish this phenomenal solution or

strategy is just students and teacher´s attendance. Since is worldwide known that going to

school is possibly the best way to learn and become better people.

María Catalina Gutiérrez PeñaEnglish 8Code: 20111101420

All in all, when making aware students of their, sometimes, exaggerated use of the

mother tongue (L1) in a target language (L2) classroom is possible to overcome by carrying

out simple class activities. And as it involves using the target language to give instructions

when possible and switching to the mother tongue when it is needed, this is a perfectly

satisfactory possible outcome. A rational and thoughtful use of L1 in English as a foreign

language classes can only be advantageous. Therefore, L1 use must be adjusted up with

effective target language teaching, taking into consideration the learners’ mother tongue

and cultural background and using them to the best of their interest.

References

Voicu, Cristina – Georgiana. OVERUSING MOTHER TONGUE IN ENGLISH

LANGUAGE TEACHING, “Apollonia” University of Iaşi, Romania

Corresponding author: voicucristina2004@yahoo.fr

Sheelagh Deller and Mario Rinvolucri’s book (2002)Using the Mother Tongue: making the

most of the learner’s language, Delta Publishing