Mai Mohamed Rizk, Egypt
I use Arabic a lot in class especially in explaining grammatical rules, I tried to use English but the lesson took double the time assigned to it. I do though, try not to use it very often in explaining vocabulary, & rarely in classes of reading comprehension, this helps students to practice meaning inference, negotiaton of meaning & self-expression in the TL.

Richard Spurgeon, USA
My second language is Spanish and the majority of my English learners speak that language and either Trique, Mixteco, or Zapotec. I use Spanish very sparingly, only to paraphrase an important statement. California is virtually English only now, and I think that children, non-native speakers and low ES students, who had not been served well by bilingual education or whole language, are now learning the language they need to take advantage of the educational benefits of living here. There certainly is an effect on the language and culture of my students, but their roots are deep in their language and culture and they are geographically near to their homelands.

Suhaili, Malaysia
I think it depends on the level of proficiency of the students you're teaching. In my case, most of my students have quite limited vocabulary. Sometimes I found it is more efficient to use L1 to explain abstract vocabulary than to dwell in long and painful explanation in English. I also acknowledge students' contribution in class although it's given in their mother tongue. Sometimes by not being too strict in the use of L1 can motivate students to participate more in class. On the other hand, I also caution students not to rely too much in bilingual dictionary as direct translation do not normally work well in learning English effectively.

Mariusz Szewczyk, Szczytno, Poland
I used to teach English without using our mother tongue, but this was causing lots of problems with understanding the subject, especially in beginner or elementary groups. Explaining grammar I use Polish as well as English right now and this seems to be the best way. Students don't ask each other about particular words and structures and get it much easier. In upper-intermediate groups we talk in English and that's not a problem - we don't have to explain vocabulary or grammar in Polish. So it's the matter of the language advancement in English. This way of teaching is much more efficient.

Ewa Komorowska, Poland
On a a very restricted basis, use of the mother tongue can be very helpful, particularly in explaining some more complex linguistic structures, lexical problems, etc. I mostly treat it as a shortcut - instead of spending 20 minutes discussing a problem in class with no guarantee I have been understood by every single student. I'd rather use the mother tongue, spend 5 minutes and proceed with the lesson. Otherwise, the use of the mother tongue is out of question. During outings to museums, art gallerys, etc, I usually decline to have professional guides, do some reading on the subject and serve as a guide myself, doing all the talking in English, having students ask questions in English as well. Surprisingly, they seem to like the idea of being "foreigners" in their own country and insist on us carrying on this way of exploring the world around them.

Salima Baltagi,Tunisia
Almost the majority of the students learning a foreign language need some explanations in their native tongue, however they should know that this will not help them assimilate the L2 in the appropriate way. In Tunisia for example, teachers are not allowed to use any other language when teaching English. They have to use different techniques to convey the message such as pictures, miming etc....

Ayxan/Azerbaijan
I used to teach English in Japan at various levels. Teaching English or any other language in Japan is quite a tough deal. Almost all students need the teachers to make explanations in Japanese. And it was up to us to make them believe that "We-talk-English-only" would accelerate their English skills, especially those of Communication. Speaking and understanding is the hardest point in Japan. I think English should be taught only in English for the better effect.

Juan M. Rubio, Spain
I consider that it is necessary to use Spanish when I'm teaching English grammar because it makes everything easier and faster. However, English native speakers may have problems with the mother tongue of the country they're teaching in.

Kasia Kimel, Poland
In some classes in Polish public schools we have even up to 28 students (mixed abilities) so to be able to conduct any kind of lesson I have to use Polish (unfortunately)

Ehsan Majidi,Iran
When I'm teaching some difficult words I can feel that some of my students are sweating! then I can easily understand Mother tongue is useful.

Rafael Rey de Castro, Colombia
I have found a branch of a well known international ELT network that openly bans the mother tongue in their classrooms. This practice obviously places them in a separate group altogether, as they are a radical position among those who only use English with their language students. It may be interesting to see how widely spread this trend is.

Sheena Bennett, Northern Ireland
I'm just starting out in this complex field and I'm aware that many around me have years of experience. At the moment I am learning German which I hope will facilitate my teaching, however, I am realistic and know I will never reach the standard to offer complex explanations. However, I do see it as a useful aid and hope that it will help with my integration and acceptance by the pupils of the class.

Amr Said, Egypt
A teacher should use mother tongue in introducing new vocabulary only for abstract nouns

Eva, Sweden
I agree with those who think it's a waste of time to explain grammar and more complicated or abstract words in English. There are always students who don't understand explanations in English well enough and these students are mostly the ones who really need the grammar practice. With this exception I believe we should try to speak English as much as possible during the English lessons even if I know that it's difficult sometimes when the students persist in speaking their mother tongue.

Gita Kharicha, England
I teach English as a second language to adults who are going to live in England. I never use my L1 (Gujarati) in the class. I feel it hinders sts from using other learning methods, listening outside classroom.

Yadana, Myanmar
It's really frustrating when I teach English to my students. As a matter of fact, they are my close friends. I thought they might follow up if I use English. But it takes very long time and finally I find myself fluctuating in Myanmar language. On the other hand, I think I'm outnumbered.

S.R.Nair, India
I am a teacher of the English language as were my parents. I have to use the mother tongue sometimes, but my parents used only English in their classes in the 50s-80s. They were easily understood then. Why is it different now? We must go back to monolingual teaching if we are to get anywhere with the students.

Hassan Ben Hadjamor, Tunisia
Mother tongue should be avoided as much as we can in order to avoid transfer and interference of the mother tongue and, thus, to adapt learners' audio-articulatory mechanism to the new motor activity. In some instances, we resort to mother tongue only to check precise comprehension.

Eva Gibicsar, Hungary
This question certainly depends on the age and the level of the class. I think mother tongue should be used only in case of grammar teaching. In an advanced level there is no need to use mother tongue, I think. But in case of beginners or very young students, teachers cannot avoid the use of mother tongue otherwise there will be chaos in the classroom. My experiences show that if somebody cannot understand something, he or she interrupts the lesson by asking the others - so sometimes mother tongue should be used to not waste time.

Amna Yousif, Saudi Arabia
The mother tongue is an aid to teaching particularly in explaining abstract vocabulary or ideas which consumes a lot of time if explained in the target language.

Cinara, Brazil
I really believe we should try to speak English all the time but using the mother tongue sometimes is really profitable. So, in my opinion, if you are aware of the real purpose of using the mother tongue, it's not a sin to use it. Awareness is the key word for me.

Malta
I feel that when the mother tongue is used, it is like we are taking the path of least resistance.

Robert Wearn
I feel that it depends on the level of the students' English regarding on how much the teacher uses the mother tongue. It is important to be understood when explaining points

CWS, Italy
In fact I ask the YL students to use it to help other students or to explain to weaker students eg a vocab item. With higher levels, I ask them to think of similarities with words, tenses or phrases in their own language. I try to avoid it myself but put the onus on the students themselves.

Farahnaz Jafari, Dubai UAE
In my opinion, use of students' mother tongue in a monolingual class, is a great tool in teaching abstract vocabulary just to ensure induced errors are avoided. It is a last resort for the teacher to spot check on the students and to further avoid frustration by slow learners. In this way, the teacher, himself, doesn't have to speak the mother tongue but can ask one or two of the students to say the word or expression in their L1 for the better understanding of their peers.

Soumen Mukherjee, India
I teach English to the Engineering students here. Since English is not the mother tongue of the majority of Indians, so it becomes difficult for many students to comprehend the meaning of many English terms and phrases. Here lies the requirement of mother tongue to make them understand those portions where they are totally in the dark. So you cannot ignore the shadow of mother tongue, while teaching English Language to the non- English speaking students.

Marie Brand, New Zealand
I only use English in our Chinese-monolingual class-room because I can't speak Chinese. And we have quite a strong pressure on everyone to speak only English (Pre-Intermediate upwards). However, if energy and courage are flagging, and incomprehension is dominant, I sometimes announce that I'll be out of the room for a minute or two and invite everyone to help each other while I'm out. Invariably I return to a grinning, participatory and re-energised class...

Marilo , Spain
I work for an English school in Spain and my experience and knowledge from research tells me we learn through hypothesis. This is; we make a hypothesis and eventually, we believe it to be true unless someone proves us wrong. In a none english speaking country there are few opportunities to confirm hypothesis except for the school environment. Teachers do not always correct mistakes (it is impossible) and there isn´t a bakc up system. Usually this back up system in an English speaking country is provided by the home and society. What I am trying to say is; my students,many times, believe false hypothesis to be true and the only way to help them is to use the mother tongue. Reading comprehension is a prime example. Especially, when they encounter false friends and /or words which simply resemble a spanish word they know. Sometimes I really wonder about what some of them really think or understand after a lesson of for example a Roman Villa or egyptian life style. Teaching without the traditional back up system needs another back up system, resorting to the mother tongue, sometimes. I have voted number 2 which has been voted by the majority of readers.

Carlo Cucchi McCoy, USA
If you want to teach people to think in the target language, you should teach almost exclusively if not exclusively in the target language. This is how I learned my Italian and my Spanish. It doesn't work to keep code switching or translating things, and it only teaches students to translate rather than think in their new language.

Hatice Salih Kerimgil, North Cyprus
I only use mother tongue when it is absolutely necessary for example abstact ideas. Students become dependent upon MT if you alllow it to be used too much. A problem I often face is when students who know English better than the others translate. It is v difficult to stop, but eventually I succeed. I try to find other ways of explaining,such as gestures, drawings, photographs, pointing and showing, acting out. You do not have to be a good actor, but be brave you will find it's a great way to get students to understand and often fun.

Barbara Roy, Switzerland
For many of my students here in the German part of Switzerland, I am the first native English speaking teacher they've had. Most have commented on how much they love it. My German is too limited for me to use it in class. In the rare instance, that my FCE students do not understand something, I do let those students who do understand, explain the point in Swiss German, their mother tongue.

Miguel, Spain
I use English when I want the students to get an appropriate knowledge of grammar

Wanda Allison, France
I agree that using the MT does occasionally prevent wasting time on one word, but am convinced it should be relied upon very rarely, as the concept of total immersion, even in a one-hour lesson, is far more effective in the long run. In my own language learning, I studied French in a situation that absolutely prohibited the use of any other language and from a learner's perspective, I know that I assimilated - and retained - far more language in that manner than in situations where translation was standard procedure.

R.G.Renes, The Netherlands
Sometimes I use Dutch to explain difficulties about grammar and pitfalls:words and idioms resembling Dutch words and expressions but with a completely different meaning. All other things are done in English. The students are allowed to use dictionaries, hand and feet and every thing else to tell me what they want or need. In these situations they are not allowed to speak Dutch or Turkish or Moroccan or whatever language is their native tongue.

el mokhtar, Mauritania
The use of Mother Tongue is indispensible for teaching vocabulary. Instead of spending whole classes or essays explaining "genorosity", "cowardness" and "faith" one would rather give their equivalents in Mother Tongue. This applies more beneficially with adult learners.

Eleonora Antonini, Italy
Using MT sometimes prevents wasting too much time trying to explain one single word and/or phrase.

Octavio, Mexico.
I have to use a lot of MT when I want the class to understand some difficult themes like talking about the past or narrating experiences of their own. In any other themes, I use a lot of drawings that I can make very quickly on the board and the class enjoys guessing the meaning of them.

Nicholas Alexander Garbacz, Germany
All of my students are adults. A vast majority of them have had English in the past. And many of them have negative classroom experiences. Given this (and other) psychological baggage, I've found my use of German has been really useful. It's a double-edged sword, though. Especially with my false beginners, I find that after a few months, I really have to wean them off the mother tongue. When I start a new class now, I define some basic classroom "commands" right away. I think the suggestion by Reza Niroorang, Iran, was excellent. In my implementation, I write the German word on the board, but I never say it. In fact, if I can, I write it in advance. When it's time to introduce the command in its context, I verbally model the word and simply point to the German word on the board. I drill it a bit and then write the English word next to the German. (I train my students pretty well to write -whenever- I write on the board, too.) I also try to associate hand gestures when possible. It's a bit basic, I know, but I've been having success with it so far. Sorry, if this is a bit verbose. I just wanted to share and would love hearing about other techniques. Thanks!

Dennis Moradkhan, Iran
I don't think it is advisable to deprive the language students from one (and only one) of the ways of getting the meaning across. However, this needs to be done with extreme care so this will not result in 'teaching about the language' rather than the language and communication itself. The professional literature recommends 'judicial use of L1'. Whatever that means, like many other controversial aspects of language teaching, should be left to the competent teacher to decide based on the situation.

Maria Fucci, Italy
At beginner level, translation should be used after students have really learnt and can really use language; it may be one of the means the teacher has to check his/her way of teaching and his/her students' learning. At upper level translation can be a module in the syllabus but students use 100% foreign language during lessons.

Parvin, Iran
In Iran we have very little time in class,two hours aweek in high schools, so we have to use farsi most of the time.

Eunice, Kenya
Although some language teaching methods adovate non-use of mother tongue in English language lessons, sometimes a simple explanation in MT can be most useful in the ESL/EFL classroom.

Ildikó Zanati, Hungary
I think, mother tongue can help in understanding complicated grammatical structures, it's not worth wasting time on explaining them in English.Eg. 'present perfect' does not exist in Hungarian language, so when I teach it I use Hungarian sentences just to show the difficulties in translation.

Manuel Ramia, Spain
If classes are secondary school classes where English is a subject in the curriculum, the mother tongue is useful for learning structures and word families in vocabulary.

M.A.Shaikh, India
Use of the mother tongue should be a rare practice as it may become a bad habit and cause damage to our ability to learn the target language.

Muhammad Abubakar, Kaduna, Nigeria
Mother tongue should be avoided when teaching English language, the teacher should demonstrate and use pictures to pass his message across to the children

HES, UK
Our function is to TEACH a foreign language (in this case, English); not merely to facilitate the pupil's acquisition of the knowledge by "picking it up". One of our many tools is the examination of similarities and differences between English and the pupil's mother tongue (not least in the comparative idioms, for the more advanced pupil).

Brian Porter, France
Your voting question is difficult to answer. Personally I use much more French with beginners than with intermediate levels; at upper intermediate and advanced levels it's 100% English (or 99.9%)

F. Brandstätter, Austria
When I began teachers' training, the use of the pupils' mother tongue had to be avoided at all cost. Only a few voices were heard that this means a loss of valuable teaching time if a word or one sentence in the mother tongue can convey a message in no time and make sure at the same time that the message comes across correctly. It depends on the aim of the particular situation whether you opt for the use of your mother tongue.

Reza Niroorang, Iran
By using pictures, charts and other teaching aids it's possible and easy to show the meaning but how can the students understand difficult words? I sometimes write the meaning of hard terms on the board without talking about it in the mother tongue.

Ben BT, Japan
I use the mother tongue with levels below intermediate to explain points of grammar which otherwise would be incomprehensible, and to provide the meanings of vocabulary when searching through a dictionary would take too long. I tend to use English throughout with intermediate or above, though it depends on the students attitude to this.

Marcus, South korea
One of the advantages of NOT speaking your students' first language is that you can't use it in class. My classes have always been 100% English and always will be. My best students have all learnt English entirely through English; I really don't see how using L1 would have helped at all.

Carmen Rhor, Peru
I hold a Translation degree (French and English) and for years believed that translation shouldn't be used in class; consequently, I was much more inclined to the idea of doing my very best in order not to translate a word in ELT lessons. At present, I believe that translation is in fact most useful for the following reasons: first in order to save time, next to be more direct (there are cultural aspects that have to be translated) and finally to help students actually grasp and understand more easily the meaning of new words. So, I say yes for translation in monolingual classes as long as you don't abuse and transform your ELT lessons into Translation courses.

Annamaria D.Kalmar, Hungary
I use mother tongue when teaching English if it is extremely necessary for making clear the meaning of collocations of words, the word order and also the using of prepositions. I prefer to repeat three-four times the things in English with miming and pointing to the things named. I teach EFL at a vocational secondary school of commerce where a medium level proficiency of General and Business English is required as a goal of a 5 years educational period.Using English in major part of the lessons is essential for achieving this goal.

Alejandra Flores, Mexico
Especially with real beginners L1 can be very useful for certain grammar points. Apart from that, I use L2 all the time. It can also save time on occasions. Sometimes, when I feel that students aren't quite sure about the meaning of "could" for example, I tend to wait until the end of the lesson so I don't break the "english environment" and I ask one of the students the direct translation of it in L1.