english only in the classroom

Productive use of L1 in the classroom | Jake | October 8th, 2001

In the past few years I feel like I've been indoctrinated or somehow pressured to adhere and/or accept the concept of "English only" in the classroom. Learning English through English is quite a popular phrase these days and I wonder about its merits.

I'd like to describe the class I had today. It was a class of manageable middle schoolers who aren't studious but are not troublemakers either. Today before trying a role-play of a short comic book scenario, I had them gather in groups to first practice the language in L1. I went to the back of the room to observe quietly and to my delight and surprise they all helped each other navigate the story, even debating the pragmatic and sociolinguistic nuances of the story in their L1.

My first thought was .....oops, they don't really know as much as they appear to know. All this time I've been glossing over stuff that in hindsight maybe I should have been giving them more time to go over in their L1.

I've been working on the SLA module and the idea of this only came to me while brainstorming ways to incorporate strategies into the curriculum.

Later in the day I tried something similar with a lower level but it didn't work out nearly as well because few students could help each other attend to langauge use.

Anyway, any opinions on English-only? Anyone have an experience allowing L1 in the classroom as a useful tool for learning language or are we all bit draconian in our insistence on English only.

I used to think "English as much as possible" especially because they have little chance for practice outside the classroom. Considering my recent observations, I suspect much of what I've been doing has been for naught if the students didn't even actually understand what they're talking about in the first place (Well, gee, I thought they understood).

I am mindful of the fact that I don't know or understand all of their L1 but I do know whether or not they're working on the task at hand. I do think there's a place for constructive L1 use.

Any comments or experience regarding L1 use?

Jake in Korea

Re: L1 use | Francesca | October 8th, 2001

Jake,

I certainly believe there is a place for the use of L1 in the classroom.

I use it regularly to check if students have understood the meaning of lexis or a grammatical structure (how would you express that in Portuguese?).

Also, with low levels, to check complicated instructions, for a game for example, (I give the instructions in English and then ask one of the students to recap in Portuguese). Another time I allow L1 is during the first ten minutes 'social chat' part of the class when a low level learner has something important to tell the others that is just beyond his level. In this case, the group sharing and dynamics is foremost in my mind. Likewise, I might go into Portuguese to joke or chat at the end of the class to show a kind of solidarity with the students.

I'd never thought of having a whole role play preparation in L1, but it seems like a good idea, again with low levels.

I spoke to a colleague recently who is teaching CPE and asking students to translate paragraphs from the Economist into Portuguese. He says the technique works well to see if students understand the nuances of the language. I sometimes give translation tasks as homework, L1 to L2 or vice versa of songs, poems or short texts from the Internet and my students react well to this and enjoy comparing and discussing their texts. With Portuguese, they are the 'experts', so relationships of power become more balanced.

Another colleague of mine has shown a section of the latest soap opera in Portuguese to students who then need to reenact it in English.

There are certainly times when we should take advantage of the fact that our students have the same L1 rather than trying to ban it from the language classroom. Of course, it goes without saying, that the dominant language in use should be the L2.

Francesca

Re: L1 in the classroom | Jerry Talandis Jr. | October 8th, 2001

Hi Jake,

This is Jerry, from Toyama, Japan. Nice message. Very thought provoking. I've thought a lot about this issue myself. I've also been indoctrinated into the "English Only" camp, to the point that I get really frustrated when my students use L1 in class. Upon further examination of this phenomenon, however, I realized that a big reason why Ss use L1 is because they reach the limits of their vocabulary soon and don't know how (or care) to overcome this barrier. I'm currently thinking about how to help my Ss deal with this situation. I haven't thought about letting them so a task in L1 first, and then getting them to do it in L2. That sounds interesting. Can it really work?

I just read an interesting article in Willis & Willis ("Challenge and Change in Language Teaching") by Pauline Foster entitled "Doing the task better: how planning time influences student's performance." The basic gist is that when Ss are allowed to plan for a task, the more difficult the challenge, the more complex level of L2 they are able to produce. This seems to make sense. Now, if that planning time were done in L1, would the level of L2 be even higher? Sounds like a good question to me.

I think that if you have a reasonable idea that you think may be of benefit to your students, you should test it out and see if it works. Don't be bound by prevailing attitudes and arguments- they all may be right, but at least by testing out your idea you can come to that conclusion by yourself. Perhaps this can help take away that "indoctrinated feeling".

Good luck, and let us know how it goes.

Jerry

Re: L1 use | Brigitte Reber | October 9th, 2001

Hi everybody,

L1 use in the English classroom is a big issue for me, too. I teach complete beginners, age 13/14, some with learning disabilities, highly motivated though, at a state school in Switzerland. I also teach them History using L1 of course. When we meet in the hall during breaks we greet each other in L1, the most natural thing to do. During lessons they usually use L1 for all that is not part of the actual language-learning task (e.g. asking for the neighbor's pencil sharpener or in a lower voice how last evening's hockey match was). During role-plays, organizational matters are done in L1. So, L1 is used for most real-life communication in and of course outside the classroom.

Can you remember Hancock from the FND articles? (TESOL Quarterly 31/2, 217-235). His thoughts helped me to analyze my classes in more depth and become aware of some mechanisms. I now use my insights for teaching, e.g. make students aware of the fact that for the most authentic interaction in the classroom they hardly ever use L2, teach useful phrases for organizing a role play like "it's your turn" or allow them time during lessons to have a chat like the hockey one above in L2 with no teacher listening, in Hancock's terms no referee, etc. It worked. As soon as students realized they could have learnt more and more interesting stuff (what they wanted to say not what coursebook writers think teenagers want to say) they tried their best to use as much L2 as they could. And they enjoyed it. The good thing I think was that I did not ban L1 from the classroom but tried to find ways of encouraging L2 use, such an approach may be vital with teenagers.

Well, this is in short how I tried to address this "problem" (I'm not sure if it is more of an opportunity than a problem).

Hope it helps.

Brigitte Reber

Re: MET (feedback, L1 in class) | Pinkie | October 12th, 2001

In reply to Jake's query about L1 in class- just like to report my situation, in which we don't speak English at all in class, because my classes are single-nationality and mixed-level, and deal exclusively with writing skills. Not that this is of much relevance to those of you (the immense majority, I guess) who are concerned with verbal interaction!

Pinkie
Spain

Re: L1 use in class | Ted | October 12th, 2001

Hi all,

I've been following your discussions on this and remember my days in Italy when a few choice words in Italian could solve a language problem in seconds- very efficient.

However, now I'm back in Blighty with mixed nationalities. As the discussion so far seems to have been dominated by those whose students all speak the same L1, I thought I'd introduce a couple of issues that I'm contending with at the moment. Firstly, the teacher can't possibly speak all the students' languages so that if L1s are used the teacher generally hasn't got a clue what's going on. Secondly, L1 use by the majority nationality can seriously disrupt classroom dynamics by alienating minority nationality students. As a result of all this, L1 use is problematic in mixed groups regardless of any benefits it may bring.

As for feedback on written work, I was wondering how you all deal with writing tasks done in class. How can a teacher seriously respond to every students work when time is so limited? (e.g., 15 students x 5 minutes = 1 1/4 hours - a HUGE chunk of a lesson). I've never found an answer to this one!

Ted

(In sunny Manchester- honestly it was sunny today, the first time this has happened in October since records began- which leads me back to Italy, where I seem to have started this message!)

Re: L1/L2 content | John Bartrick | October 15th, 2001

Hi David,

I hope you don't mind but I thought I'd send this to the whole group, as there has recently been some discussion of L1 in the classroom.

Further to your e-mail of 24/09/01 (personal correspondence).

You said:

"One of the ideas that I discussed with Fiona was investigating how students interact in their native language, and to use transcriptions of this as a means of consciousness raising of the processes of language interaction".

I talked about this a bit in my assignment. Fiona's feedback said she liked the idea of learners doing the task in their own language because of the different levels of contrastive analysis that are present. On the one hand learners compare their L2 performance with Native Speaker output, and then they compare their L1 performance with that of Native Speakers. The latter is particularly useful for highlighting paralinguistic features, such as body language, eye-contact. To get the most out of this type of analysis, you probably need to video record them doing the task. My guess would be that there is a lot more paralinguistic signaling going on when in L1 mode, such as the increased movement which coincides with turn-taking or interruption type moves.

Fiona also liked the idea of learners transcribing their own tapes in L2 for conscious raising. I found it a motivating experience for many learners as a kind of "discovery" process. "Oh no! Is that what I said!" was the type of comment often made, "I'll do it better next time!". The reaction reminds me of my own cringing when I transcribe parts of my own teacher-talk!

Another idea would be to transcribe the data in L1 and use this to highlight interaction patterns. Again turn-taking could be compared with learners being shown, for example, their greater use of "co-operative interruption" when using L1. In L2 mode my learners tended to produce "mini-speeches" and then hand over the ball to their partner. In L1 mode their contributions were shorter but more frequent.

I hope I've been of some use. I would be interested to hear what you find.

All the best

John Bartrick