TeachingEnglish
Language Teaching
Submitted by orlandobrasil on 3 October, 2009 - 20:19
How much of our students' mother tongue should be used when teaching them a second language?
Please, answer this post based on your own observation as a language teacher and/or learner. It would be interesting if you could share some of your experiences as well.
Thanks in advance,
Orlando (Sao Paulo, Brazil)
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Drawing from my experience of 8 years as a trainer, let me tell you that the use of mother tongue should be restricted to the bare minimum in the class.
Down here, English is the second language. I have been training people across all age groups and one huge gap which was common across all batches, was the limited vocabulary and the use of a specific set of structures to get across their message in the English Language. These students come from excellent family backgrounds and are exposed to the English Language at a very young age. It is also mandatory for students to communicate in the English Language when they are going through their schooling. Once they finish their schooling at the age of 15, they enter college. College life is looked upon as the time to freak out because the atmosphere and culture is totally different. It is here that the major transition takes place, wherein students tend to use more of slang to be accepted by their group and be labelled as cool.
When they finally graduate after 5 years, you find them standing at the same level in terms of the English Language. The learning process stops at the age of 15 years.
In view of this, you need to make it compulsory for students to communicate in the English Language. Your first task should be to make them come out and speak boldly irrespective of grammatical errors. Have this speaking activity everyday. You can also tell them that the mastery over their mother tongue came purely by listening to their parents speak. This is precisely how the English Language also needs to be learnt. Once you find the whole group coming and speaking out boldly, you can introduce grammar and take them along with you at the right pace. It goes without saying that the methodology used to teach Grammar needs to be very interesting.
Lastly tell them that the English Language is an ocean by itself. We need to be students of the English Language throughout our life.
The Techniques in teaching a second language to a student would vary according to the age of the learner. The younger students are more eager to grasp and their focus in the beginning is more on cramming the vocabulary, sentences and simple phrases. Thus, with the passage of time their familiarity with the subject increases and its easier to teach them directly in the second language itself. The students in this age group are more reliant on their teachers and the surrounding environment and thus if a proper English speaking environment is created they are eager to get modelled into it without much resistance. Although, caution should be followed with few students as their inability to grasp may turn them hostile towards reception and they may loose their confidence in the language.
As far as teaching a second language to an adult is concerned the approach must be different. Because of their worldly experience and self esteem they might be more reserved in accepting the language easily. These students have problem regarding cramming as told by the teacher and because of their outer exposure, formation of a close English speaking environment is also not possible. They hesitate a lot in speaking the second language and they might also suffer from mother tongue influence in pronunciation of the second language. Thus, it becomes imperative to go slow with them and generate a confidence in them. They have a better understanding of the structure and their ability to grasp words is also good but because of their own experiences they might show reluctance in acceptance and might be argumentative in accepting few things unlike the younger learners. They are in a transition stage from a language which they have been speaking for the better part of their life and thus their whole understanding is modelled in that language itself. Starting with the second language directly as followed by few institutions results in direct barrier for the students. They can't be initiated like this.
The first language has to be the basis of the language to a greater part of the learning. Once the teacher is sure that the students have started showing their confidence in the language they must be asked to reduce the usage of their first language and start expressing in the second language itself. It should be kept in mind that they can not straight forward go out and interact in the second language because of the lack of people interacting in that language so their fluency might not be very rapid. so the teacher has to be patient.
I firmly believe that you should use L1 as little as possible. Once students know that you speak their mother tongue they expect to speak to you in L1 when with a little effort they can use English. With very young students it is still possible to use very little L1. They learn much quicker.
I would love to teach all my classes only through English. As much as possible, I do. I greet the students in English. My instructions are in English. I insist on answers in English. However, I need Japanese to keep the lessons moving smoothly. I let students translate some of my instructions for other students. I respond to in detail questions in English and Japanese. And I allow and encourage a lot of Japanese banter to keep the lessons happy and engaging. With a top level class, we can get by purely in English, but as the majority of my classes start with a poor disposition towards English, some even with phobias, the Japanese banter and exposition is essential to their smooth running.
For example, imagine you are teaching students how to get through a customs check for their school excursion. First, how are you going to explain to students who can barely introduce themselves what "declare" means in the sense of "Do you have anything to declare?" in English? Even if you did, would it deserve that expense of time? Secondly, nearly all the students have never been to another country before, and few of them understand the purpose of customs; which language are you going to use to explain the system of tariffs and duty, in order to make it interesting and stimulating to the students? Without a doubt, with my classes, it must be their mother tongue.
As for stimulation, there is nothing to keep the students intent on what each other are saying as a teacher who - with the best possible intentions at heart - will laugh enthusiastically at their most dangerous mistakes and explain to the whole class what little Taro accidentally said. "In America, "autumn is "fall" not "fool." We don't say, haru, natsu, baka, fuyu! [trans. spring, summer, stupid, winter!]"
Finally, from my experiences, I observe pre-adolescent learners are very comfortable immersed in the foreign language, depending upon their age and background, mixing the languages or purely speaking the new language; adolescent learners need 1. security and 2. cognitive learning, both of which require high level language skills, usually meaning their mother tongues; and adults tend to be happy either way.
hope this helps,
giganick
I think the use of Mother tongue should be only when it is a dire necessity. There are certain things which are culture specific for which we can use the mother tongue term but other than that one should try to convey the meaning and explain the things as much as possible in th target language. That way not only we will give
them more practice,
different ways in which a thing can be explained,
more exposure but also make it more challenging.
Therefore making it mentally stimulating and involving them in understanding the meaning.
There may be times when it can be frustrating but then we should remember that the amount of exposure that they get in the class they do not get that everywhere. We cannot always serve everything ready.
This way they would themselves learn the art of infering meaning in the long term.
The use of the students mother tongue has the following positive effects:
1. It can be used as an ice breaker to bring students into the fold
2. It can be used to build confidence in the students to talk
3. The student is confident that he/she can depend on you if there's anything that he/she does not understand
4. It makes the student feel comfortable and he/she knows that you will understand
5. The student feels assured that you will not laugh at him/her when he/she makes mistakes
The use of the mother tongue will be more during the beginners or elementary stage. However as the student progresses on to the lower intermediate level the use of the mother tongue should be reduced and dropped completely by the intermediate and upper intermediate level.
Whether students' mother tongue should be used and to what extent while teaching a second language, I think, depends on many factors. If you can create a totally English Speaking Environment and all cooperate sincerely while teaching English, there is hardly any need to use their mother tongue. But in some regions, this is an ideal situation and practically it does not exist at all.
I would just cite my own example. In rural Gujarat, both students and teachers have poor background of spoken and practical English. Grammar points are taught purely mechanically rather in the context of their use in day to day life. As a result, students mug up where they have to put a or an or be+past participle or of or on without understanding what it means. Students learn English as a second language without ever identifying what they are learning.
In this scenario where we have almost no environment of spoken English even in the classroom, we have to use students' mother tongue to make things clear. Also, we have to use students mother tongue while differentiating certain usages in English compared to their counterparts in their mother tongue. For example, sentences like 'I was sitting' - Cont Past are expressed in Perfect Past in languages like Hindi, Gujarati and Persian. We have to use students' mother tongue while explaining such things and we have to warn them not to translate literally. Otherwise they might be tempted to use 'I had sat' where they are supposed to use 'I was sitting'. But such things need to be done in situations like ours. Otherwise constant touch with Spoken English without the use of mother tongue is the best thing and it will teach them subconsciously better as they have learnt their own mother tongue without any grammar rules.
Of course, this takes a considerable amount of time and sincere efforts on the part of the teacher and that is what we are lacking in and why we are poor in understanding and expressing ourselves in English. Only a drastic change in the system can improve the situation.
Thank you for asking the question of mother tongue in second language teaching. I must say that I started with no mother tongue in teaching grammar to adult students in EFL, BA level, and discovered in one term that the students who had had the highest assessment were weak on some points of grammar and usage in communication.
This stopped me as I realised that I had to introduce the harder terms at least in their native language and to explain more difficult questions and some illustrative examples with reference to the mother tongue. In other words, I realised that the mother tongue would encourage them and make learning easier. There is a different, to me, how much of mother tongue the teacher requires in ESL and in EFL.
In ESL, the mother tongue may be dispensed with if the students are bright, but it can never be ignored in EFL, in which a single extra term in the students' mother tongue may throw a lot of light on any question and accelerate learning. Besides, teaching the same grammar course, I have had several occasions in which I wanted very much to ask the students to translate a phrase or two, a sentence or two, again for the clarity of the question. I could not do it on the spur of the moment because I have been weak in their mother tongue and had to prepare such tasks in advance.
I am sure that the students' mother tongue is a supporting factor in EFL whether in language practice classes or in teaching a particular subject. I do resort to it occasionally and I know that this helps my students in following my instruction and in learning. My students are not the brightest available.
Thank you. Marija Liudvika Rutkauskaite
There are many ways of building students confidence . If the teacher is really good sooner or later the the students would understand that he or she can always rely on you. The teacher should make the students understand in the beginning it self that the classroom is like a lab where everybody can make mistakes and the teacher is always there to support and clear their doubts.
Rather I believe there should be some real genuine reasons to use mother tongue. Many of the times it also leads to serious confusions. For example prepositions can never be equated with mother tongue equivalents. For four different prepositions in English there is only one preposition n Kashmiri language. There it becomes all the more difficult job for the teacher to equate and then clarify.
i m not against using MT but judicious use is must and minimal it should be.
Hi Priyamvada,
I would like to teach purely in English, and I have made a group of high level students who are taught so voluntarily after school, but otherwise, in my present school, I have had to use the student's language to make the lessons work.
What age are your students? How big are the classes? What are their intrinsic motivations for studying? When you start teaching them, how good is their English? How motivated are they in other subjects? Do you have an external curriculum and schedule dictating your lesson content?
Let me answer for myself:
What age are your students? 15-18.
How big are the classes? 35 to 40 students.
What are their intrinsic motivations for studying? At the lower range in every class, there are MANY students who want to avoid a fail and retaking the year.
When you start teaching them, how good is their English? Most can write the alphabet and recognise key words and a few simple sentences. In each class, there will be a half dozen who are capable of reading complex passages and creating simple sentences.
How motivated are they in other subjects? The same as in English, some a little more, some a little less.
Do you have an external curriculum and schedule dictating your lesson content? Yes, and it isn't appropriate to their abilities, nor do I believe is it well planned.
Thank you,
Giganick.