F Copland and G Neokleous 2011 L1 to teach L2 complexities and contradictions.pdf

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L1 to teach L2: complexitiesand contradictions

Fiona Copland and Georgios Neokleous

This article uncovers the complexities and contradictions inherent in making decisions about L1 use in the English language classroom. Through an analysis of data from classrooms in a Cypriot context and from interviews with Cypriot

teachers, a number of functions for L1 use are identified, as are the teachers’rationales for using L1 for different functions. Teachers’ decision making, itemerges, is often complex, based on either what they perceive as their students’affective needs or on their cognitive processes. What is more, teachers often under-report or differently report their use of L1 in the classroom, contradicting beliefs bytheir actions. The construct of guilt is offered to explain these complexities and contradictions in the teachers’ use of L1 in this study. We conclude by suggesting that teachers should be supported in finding local solutions to local teaching problems, so that they better understand and exploit the resources available tothem.

Introduction Debates regarding the use of the first language (L1) in the classroom whenteaching English continue to attract interest and research (Brooks-Lewis2009). In academiccircles,thenexus ofinterest hasshifted from a judicioususe of the L1 to support the learning and teaching of the L2 to an interest inhow L1 can be used to maximize learning in L2 (Butzkamm 2003;Brooks-Lewis ibid.). Much of the discussion around the issue of L1 in thelanguage classroom, nevertheless, remains theoretical: Butzkamm (ibid.),for example, provides ten maxims for using the ‘mother tongue’ asa pedagogical resource, while Meiring and Norman (2002) examine theamount of teacher talk that teachers believe should be delivered in the L1.

These debates around L1 use have particular relevance for bilingual Englishteachers (from here, BETs), especially those who share a first languagewith their learners. These teachers are able to draw on two languages asresources in the classroom and so, it could be claimed, have an advantageover teachers who can only speak the L2. However, as Cots and Diaz (2006)argue,itisrarefor BETs’viewstobeheardinthedebates,andevenrarerthatdata from their classrooms be examined to reveal how L1 is exploited atthe chalkface.

This paper attempts to redress this imbalance through reporting on an

investigation into the use of L1 in private language schools in a Cypriotcontext. Through an analysis of classroom and interview data, it uncovers

270 ELT Journal Volume 65/3 July 2011; doi:10.1093/elt/ccq047 ªª The Author 2010. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.Advance Access publication September 22, 2010

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when BETs use the L1 in the classroom, why they do so, and how they feelabout their practice. It reveals that classroom language choice is complex,predicated on both cognitive understandings of language learning and theaffective realities of the language learning context. Teachers, it will beshown, recognize this complexity; however, they seem less aware of theamount of L1 they use in class or the purposes for which they use it, under-reporting and ‘differently’ reporting their L1 practices. This contradiction

between stated belief and classroom routines, it is argued, may be caused byfeelings of guilt as teachers struggle to reconcile pedagogic ideals withcontextualrealities, leaving them feeling damned if they useL1 and damnedif they do not.

The article concludes by suggesting that while debates about L1 usecontinue to flourish in academic circles, there is some way to go beforeBETs, such as these Cypriot teachers, feel confident about adopting a post-modern pedagogy that is particular to their own context (Kumaravadivelu2001). Some suggestions about how this might be achieved are given.

Participants andsetting

The paper draws on data collected in four classrooms in two after-schoolCypriot private language institutions ( frontistiria). Four teachers took part inthestudy, and each was observed teaching one lesson to strong intermediatelearners of English (studying for the Cambridge ESOL First Certificate inEnglish examination). The researcher made notes during the lessons andthese were later written up as field notes (Richards 2003). There were onaverage ten students aged 14 in each class and each class lasted one and ahalf hours. The lessons were all audio-recorded and later transcribed.Teachers were interviewed two weeks after the lesson had been observed bythe researcher (teachers were not shown transcripts and did not listen to the

recordings: instead they answered questions about their beliefs with regardto using L1 in the classroom). The interviews were conducted in Greek andlater transcribed and translated by one of the researchers. The teachers wereall female, and each teacher had at least five years’ teaching experience. Forthe purposes of this study, the teachers are named, Tina, Maria, Christina,and Lisa. While this is a relatively small data set, the researchers believe thatgiven the degree of homogeneity that exists in Cypriot frontistiria, they arefairly representative of the practices of English language teachers in thiscontext. Indeed, what emerged was that despite the small sample, teachersengaged in a variety of L1 practices and held different views about when and

how it can be used.

Data analysis The lessons were transcribed and then the instances of L1 use wereidentified and labelled as ‘utterances’. Whenever a Greek word was spoken,an utterance ensued. The utterance finished either when the teacher nextspoke in English or when a student spoke. The utterances were thensubdivided into categories, according to the function of the L1. Elevenfunctions were identified and these were

n logistics (organizing)n explaining/revising language skills and systems

n instructionsn question and answern reprimands

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n jokesn praisen translating

n markersn providing hintsn giving opinions.

There was some overlap between categories and in some cases L1utterances could have been placed in more than one category. However,a category was assigned according to what we felt to be its primary purpose,and each utterance was only counted once. These categories emerged as thedata were sorted and inevitably changed and developed during the process(Richards op.cit.).

While the classroom data enabled a picture of L1 classroom use to emerge,they couldnot in themselves account forteachers’ attitudesto employing thefirst language or their beliefs about its value. Field notes and interview dataproved invaluable in these respects. Of course, both these data sets are

interpretative in that theyare constructed from the researchers’ perspectivesin the first instance and between the researchers and teacher in the second.Nevertheless, they both provide perspectives on L1 use that could not begleaned from the empirical data alone (Richards ibid.).

Using L1: classroomfindings

The first finding surprised us: the amount of L1 used by the teachers variedconsiderably. In a total of 1,191 Greek language utterances, Tina had onlyone in her lesson, while Lisa had 634. In other words, Tina’s lesson wasconducted almost wholly in English, while Lisa’s was conducted almostwholly in Greek. The other two teachers, Christina and Maria, had 250 and206 utterances respectively, using Greek for a range of functions but for themost part conducting the lessons in English (see the Appendix for a breakdown).

Space does not permit a full exploration of the range and number of L1utterances. Instead, we focus on three categories which reveal complexitiesor contradictions in the teachers’ L1 use:

n translationn question and answern explaining/revising language systems and skills.

Translation When a teacher gave a Greek equivalent of an English word or phrase, thiswas labelled as translation. There was a total of 152 instances of translationsin the data. However, the decision whether to translate or not seemed to betaken more readily by some teachers than by others. Lisa, for example,translated 103 times in her lesson, providing a translation without alwaysbeing asked, apparently ‘second guessing’ the language needs of thelearners (see too Macaro 2005). The following extract of Lisa’s classroomtalk demonstrates how she uses L1 to teach English vocabulary to describepeople (a translation for the reader is shown in italicized text in squarebrackets):

272 Fiona Copland and Georgios Neokleous

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Extract 1

Lisa: Thin em so kepso2. Muscular?

Student 1: Mtxdg2.

[Muscular .]

Lisa: Xqaı well-built?

[Good well-built?]

Student 2: Ceqo

[Strong ]

Student 3: Kako

[Well ]

Student 2: delem o2

[Built ]

Lisa: Nai overweight?

[Yes overweight?]

This section was typical of Lisa’s teaching approach, with each English wordfirst introduced and the pronunciation modelled before a Greek equivalentwas sought or provided. In her interview, Lisa stated her belief thattranslating helped to motivate the students to learn as, ‘if you don’t teachthem what it means in Greek, they won’t be interested in knowing theword’.

Maria also exploited translation, using this strategy 45 times in her lesson.

Maria notes the pragmatic value of translation when she says:Not translating the whole text in Greek but I think use it when you judgeyou should and then by asking the students. Translation helps becauseyou cannot explain everything in a foreign language.

For Lisa and Maria, the decision to translate or not was based on the affectiveneeds of the learners and the contexts in which they worked. For them,translation was a strategy for maintaining interest and motivation. Thisseems to chime with work by Carless (2007: 3) who notes that ‘in order tomaintain students’ attention, interest or involvement, contributions in the

MT [mother tongue] needed to be permitted’.Tina and Christina, in contrast, used translation far less in their lessons. Werecorded three instances of direct translation by Christina and for Tina, onlyone. Indeed, as noted above, Tina only used Greek once in her lesson and itwas for the following translation:

Extract 2

Student 1: Ti em so wasp jtqıa;

[What’s a wasp Miss? ]

Tina: Like a bigger bee that stings you((7 second pause))

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Student 1: Dgkadg;

[Meaning? ]

Student 2: Poio2;

[Who? ]

Tina: It stings you and it hurts (.) It’s an insect.

Student 3: Mekirra;

[A bee? ]

Tina: It looks like a bee. It’s bigger. They fly too.

Wasp is ajqıda.

Tina’s decision to translate came only after many failed attempts to explainin English the meaning of the word. When the students still did notunderstand, she finally gave the translation. Tina, in her interview, spoke of her belief that translating from one language to another was not helpful,

citing a personal negative experience of learning Ancient Greek in this way.She also cited a cognitive reason for not providing translations:

I think that it’s better to let them think, process the meaning in their headrather than give them the translation at once.

Christina also voiced a pedagogical concern about using translation:

I wouldn’t recommend translation immediately . . . because dependingon the context . . . the meaning of what I am trying to say changes.

These teachers are not so much concerned with the affective needs of the

learners—keeping them interested in the lesson and providing a reason tolearn new words—but with the cognitive processes that turn input intointake. Because of this, they negatively evaluate the power of translation inthe learning process.

Question and answer Question and answer (from here Q & A) is a broad category, coveringquestions and answers asked by the teachers and students on a range of issues from grammar to what to do next. Generally, when a student askeda question in Greek, the teacher answered in Greek, even when theinteraction had been initiated in English, as in the following example:

Extract 3

Maria: Please change books with the person sitting next to you andtake a pen of different colour.

Student 1: Ktqıa le poiom ma akkanx ecx;

[Miss, who shall I change books with? ]

Maria: Poio2 em rso ıdio hqam ıo le rema;

[Who do you share a desk with? ]

Student 1: Touso2. ((deı vmei som dipkamo sg2))[With him . ((points to her classmate))]


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Maria: Me som Pesqo sose.

[With Petros then.]

However, there was also a number of instances of ‘the Greek sandwich’,where a question was asked in English by the teacher, answered in Greek bythe student, and responded to by the teacher in English again. This patternwas particularly prevalent in Tina’s lessons, as in this example:

Extract 4

Tina: So what do you think?

Student 1: A?

[Huh? ]

Tina: Why?

Student 1: E epeidg gsam eqxsgrg sfımg.

[Because that was a question.]

Tina: Yeah, it was a question but I’m asking why.

Student 1: Ciası em gsam ouse so C ouse so B.

[Because it was neither C nor B.]

Tina: Well, you’ll have to find what we’re looking for.

Despite her best efforts to create a second language learning environmentthrough using English throughout the class, students, for whatever reason,did not always comply with Tina’s approach, preferring to use Greek toaddress her. Tina, for her part, seemed more tolerant of her students’ L1 usethan she was of her own, rarely reprimanding her students when they failedto use English.

There were also examples of the teacher choosing to switch to Greek, evenwhen the extract had been initiated in English and the students seemed ableto maintain the interaction in the L2:

Extract 5

Maria: When do we use the first column of the verb?

Student 1: When we write it down.

Maria: Ti emm oeı2 osam so cqauotle so qgla;

[What do you mean ‘when we write it’? ]

Student 1: Ala cqauotle . . . cqauoulem so sfım o.

[When we write (.) write it ]

Maria: Nai akka re poio vqom o;

[Yes, but in which tense? ]

In this case, it seems that the teacher is finding it difficult to understand thestudent’s meaning when he/she speaks in English and so switches to L1(although this does not appear to lead to greater understanding).

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Decisions about when to use L1 and L2 in question and answer, then, arecomplex and seem to be based on both affective and cognitive aspects. Interms of affective factors, teachers respond to their students’ contributions,whatever language they use, in what seems to be an effort to create a stress-free learning environment. Cognitively, teachers provide input in the L2, inline with beliefs about best practice (see above), but most will switch to L1 if they believe that linguistic difficulties are preventing the students from

understanding.

Explaining/revisinggrammar

There is a good deal of research which highlights teachers’ preferences forusing L1 when working with language systems and skills (for example seeCook 1997; Macaro 1997). The present data provide numerous examplesof teachers using Greek to work with skills and systems in the classroom.In many cases, the level of complexity in the explanations is high,suggesting that a similar explanation in L2 might have been too difficult forintermediate learners, as seems to be the case in this extract:

Extract 6

Maria: Eıpale osi re sousg sg peqıpsxrg so if pamsa, pamsa hekei

dıpka sot so present simple opot sfai am emei. Eıse rsgm aqvg

emei eıse rso seko2. Aqa edx (deıvmei rsom pımaja sopaqadeicla) . . . edx bakotle lpqorsa so future sfai lesa sopresent.

[We said that in this case, if is always, always followed by presentsimple wherever it is placed; either at the beginning or at the end. So,here, ((points to the example written on the board)) (.) Here we

put future first and then present.]

Three of the four teachers explained they used Greek for this function as itsaved time, provided a more successful classroom experience, and reducedthe amount of stress their students felt. Again, all these reasons can belinked to the affective needs of the learners.

Only Tina, the teacher who only used the L1 once in the lesson, felt thatusing L1 was not a useful short cut. Once again, she provided a cognitiveexplanation, stating that ‘if you make them think [of a rule] in Greek, to see if it applies in Greek . . . it gets complicated’. Indeed, none of the teachers feltthat direct comparison between L1 and L2 was beneficial: one teacher

defined comparison as a ‘risky’ strategy as ‘there are not so many links’,while another categorically stated that ‘comparison does not help them atall’. The teachers’ beliefs contradict some of the more theoretical studies of L1 use in the classroom where direct comparisons are encouraged (see, forexample Butzkamm op.cit.). It also contradicts what many believe is aninevitable process in language learning and one which students will passthrough, in spite of teachers’ best efforts to prevent them (Harbord 1992).

Using L1 in theclassroom: beliefs

and practices

As can be seen in the discussion so far, attitudes towards using L1 in theclassroom were complex. All teachers held strong views about certainaspects of L1 useand were ambivalent about others. Even Tina, the strongestadvocate of an L2 only policy, allowed her students to use the L1 frequently,as we can see in Extract 2.


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Not only were attitudes complex, however, they were also contradictory. Forthree of four teachers, their ‘stated behaviour’ was different to their ‘actualbehaviour’ (Arva and Medgyes2000: 358), with teachers’ under-reporting or‘differently’ reporting theirL1 classroom practices. For example, whentheseteachers were asked about how they made decisions about the language inwhich to conduct Q & A sessions, they generally denied using Greek. Mariastated that ‘the number is only limited’; Christina suggested that ‘usually

teachers reply in English to the students’ questions’, and Lisa maintainedthat unless Q & A focused on grammar, she did not use Greek. However,Q & A accounted for by far the largest number of L1 uses, with it being used396 times by these three teachers over their three lessons.

In terms of frequency, by far the greater part of Lisa’s lesson was conductedin the L1 (with 634 occurrences) but in her interview, Lisa maintains thatGreek should only be used for teaching grammar and for some vocabularyand that ‘You should normally avoid using the mother tongue as much asyou can’. Her stated beliefs are widelydifferent from her classroom practice,as can be seen in Extract 1.

In terms of how the two languages are used, Maria constantly andconsistently code switched in her lessons, starting a sentence in onelanguage and finishing it in another, as in the following example:

Extract 7

Maria: Actually most verbs are irregular ci’ atso pqepei ma pqorevese.

[Actually most verbs are irregular so you need to be careful.]

When asked about this in the interview, she said that:

What I usually do is say it once in English and then repeat in Greek. . .

Ithinkit’sagoodideaifitbecomesahabitandtheylearntotalkinasimilarway.

However, there is somedifference between sayingsomething in onelanguageand thenrepeating itinthe other andstarting a sentence in onelanguage andfinishing it in the other. While the former has been lauded as an exampleof good practice (and even better if theL2 version is repeated; seeButzkamm(op.cit.) for a full description of Dodson’s (1972) ‘sandwich’ approach), itis difficult to see how the mid-sentence switch is supporting the learningprocessexcept affectively, throughbuildinginterpersonal relationships with

learners; note that the inducement to taking care is delivered in Greek whilethe information about the language is delivered in English.

Guilt and the BE T A construct that can help us to understand the contradictions and conflictsin the teachers’ attitudes, practices, andbeliefs is guilt, an emotion recognizedas significant by a number of researcherswith an interest in L1 classroomuse.Carless (op.cit.: 2) recognizes guilt as a particular issue for B ETs when heidentifies a paradox in how using L1 to teach L2 could be viewed, ‘[if] theteacher’s mandate is to improve students’ English language . . . how doesthis occur if students are conversing in the Mother Tongue?’ B ETs, in

particular, would seem to have many reasons to feel guilty when using L1.

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A feeling of self-reproach was manifest in the interview data. Despite allusing L1 (in some cases frequently), the teachers were all critical of theamount of L1 used, with Maria, Christina, and Lisa always listingdisadvantages of the practice before going on to give an explanation fordoing so. As Maria explained:

Surely, it is something that you cannot avoid completely but . . . alsosomething that you cannot do all the time. I feel that a mistake we[teachers] do in Cyprus is that, because we share the same mother tonguewith the students, we think [L1 use] is a simple solution and use itconstantly.

The ‘simple solution’—being able to communicate with the learnerseasily—is problematized by Maria rather than seen as advantageous toteaching and learning processes (see Brooks-Lewis op.cit. for a differentinterpretation of using L1 for communication).

Christina, too, problematizes using Greek frequently, stating:

I think one should try to use it as little as possible. . .

to try to avoid it inevery possible way.

Lisa, the teacher who used Greek almost exclusively, also criticizes thepractice:

I do not think that it’s the wisest thing to do because you are teachingthem a second language . . . you should avoid using the mother tongue asmuch as you can.

The four teachers all seem to regard L1 as a hindrance to learning L2, ratherthan as a resource for making learning easier. In doing so, they seem to

embrace:

The single tenet [that] has persisted throughout the Western languagepedagogy revolutions of the 20th century and beyond . . . that the use of L1is to be avoided in the FL classroom. (Liebscher and Dailey-O’Cain2005: 235)

It is hardly surprising, then, that they do not report accurately on theirclassroom practice. To do so would be to admit incompetence, and, perhapsmore damningly, would challenge their personal philosophies of learningand teaching. The teachers’ professed desires about L1 use are clearly in

conflict with their classroom realities, leaving them feeling damned if theyspeak L1 and damned if they do not.

Conclusion All the teachers in this study worked in similar contexts in the same city inGreek Cyprus. Their professed beliefs about the place of the L1 to teachEnglish demonstrated that they had a complex and even emotionalrelationship with its use, professing affective and cognitive reasons forusing or not using L1 in their classrooms. Nevertheless, all teachers werefairly unanimous in their belief that the L1 should be limited, which in somecases contradicted their practices.

What seems to be worthy of note is that despite the case for L1 teachinghaving been made fairly forcibly in the literature as a pedagogic tool(Butzkamm op.cit.; Macaro op.cit.), this finding does not seem to have


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reached these teachers, who here professed some unease about using the L1toteachtheirlearners.Whilethisisasmallandlimitedstudy,thefindingsof which cannot be used to generalize about BETs’ L1 beliefs and practices,anecdotal evidence suggests that many B ETs feel the same way (in a recentMA TESOL class held in the United Kingdom, out of a total of 18 overseasstudents, 11 stated that they felt guilty using L1 to teach L2). In other words,BETs continue to negatively evaluate perhaps their greatest asset: their L1

proficiency.A good deal more needs to be done to communicate findings regarding thevalue of L1 teaching, published in academic books and journals, to BETswho may not always be able (or willing) to access such publications, most of which are written in English in an academic register. This could be achievedto some degree through talks at local teachers’ conferences and throughopening debates in local teachers’ magazines. However, as we know, it is onething to hear and another thing to discover. If BETs are to engage with theissue fully and reach their own conclusions about L1 practice, thenclassroom research by the teachers themselves is the way forward. Such an

approach would go some way to ensuring that L1 use becomes part of a particular, practical, and possible pedagogy (Kumaravadivelu 2001),locally developedto respond to local problems, a goal whichall involvedwiththe learning and teaching of English would surely welcome.

Final revised version received May 2010

References

A rva, V. and P. Medgyes. 2000. ‘Native and non-native teachers in the classroom’. System 28/3: 355–72.

Brooks-Lewis, K. A. 2009. ‘Adult learners’perceptionsof the incorporation of their L1 in foreignlanguage teaching and learning’. Applied Linguistics 30/2: 216–35.Butzkamm, W. 2003. ‘We only learn language once.The role of the mother tongue in FL classrooms:death of a dogma’. Language Learning Journal 28/1: 29–39.Carless, D. 2007. ‘Student use of the mother tonguein the task-based classroom’. ELT Journal

62/4: 331–8.Cook, V. 1997. ‘Monolingual bias in second languageacquisition research’. Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses 34: 35–50.Cots, J. M. and J. M. Dı az. 2005. ‘Constructing socialrelationships andlinguistic knowledge through non-native-speaking teacher talk’ in E. Llurda (ed.). Non- Native Language Teachers: Perceptions, Challenges and Contributions to the Profession. New York: Springer.

Dodson, C. J. 1972. Language Teaching and the Bilingual Method. (Second edition). London: Pitman.Harbord, J. 1992. ‘The use of the mother tongue inthe classroom’. ELT Journal 46/4: 350–55.

Kumaravadivelu, B. 2001. ‘Towards a post-methodpedagogy’. T ES OL Quarterly 35/4: 537–60.Liebscher, G. and J. Dailey-O’Cain. 2005. ‘Learnercode-switching in the content-based foreignlanguage classroom’. The Modern Language Journal 89/2: 234–47.Macaro, E. 1997. Target Language, Collaborative Learning and Autonomy . Clevedon, UK:Multilingual Matters.Macaro, E. 2005. ‘Codeswitching in the L2

classroom: a communication and learning strategy’in E. Llurda (ed.). Non-Native Language Teachers:Perceptions, Challenges and Contributions to the Profession. New York: Springer.Meiring, L. and N. Norman. 2002. ‘Back on target:repositioning the status of target language in MFL

teaching’. Language Learning Journal 26/1: 27–35.Richards, K. 2003. Qualitative Inquiry in TESOL.Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

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The authors

Fiona Copland has extensive experience of teachingand training in Nigeria, Hong Kong, Japan, and theUnited Kingdom. She is currently Course Directorfor MSc TESOL programmes at Aston University.She holds a PhD in Education and her researchinterests include classroom interaction, post-

observation feedback talk, and teaching English toyoung learners.Email: [email protected]

Georgios Neokleous earned his BA from theUniversite Libre de Bruxelles and his Master’sDegree in TESOL from Aston University. He isnow a teacher in Cyprus, where he is also pursuinga long-distance PhD in Educational Studies withSaint Louis University. His main research interests

include the use of the mother tongue inEFL

classrooms and post-colonial literature.Email: [email protected]

AppendixNumber of times L1used to performdifferent functions

Functions Tina Christina Maria Lisa

Praise 0 13 11 34Jokes 0 14 11 39Explaining/revising language skills and

systems0 15 24 55

Hints 0 1 7 27Markers 0 16 1 8Translation 1 3 45 103Opinions 0 2 4 33Instructions 0 36 0 20Questions and answers 0 97 76 223Logistics 0 26 18 59Reprimands 0 27 9 33Total 1 250 206 634


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F Copland and G Neokleous 2011 L1 to teach L2 complexities and contradictions.pdf