Using learners’ mother tongue in teaching English as a second language: a study conducted in Ampara district

Abstract

The mother tongue (MT) also referred as the first language (L1) of the learners is no longer the doctrine of compromise but acknowledged as a pedagogical tool (Atkinson 1987, 1993; Harbord 1992). Given the realities of the ESL classrooms in Ampara district, there is no justification to promote L1 to scaffold second Language (L2) learning,also referred as target language (TL). The study aims to explore the extent to which the junior secondary learners are provided TL affordances via teacher talk to facilitate L2 learning. A qualitative research design was employed. In order to capture the verbal interaction that takes place in the classroom, data was collected through classroom observation and the classroom discourse was audio recorded. Selected language episodes (LE) of the classroom discourse were transcribed and analyzed using Myers- Scotton’s (1993) Matrix Language-Frame model to identify the dominant language. A word count of one hundred and fifty words of a lesson was considered to quantify the L1 and L2 used in the lessons of twenty five classrooms. As reflected in the finding, L1 use was 23-83 % which shows an average of 72% of the selected LE. This clearly indicates that L1 was the dominant language and its unrestrictive use did not act as a scaffold to facilitate L2 learning and perhaps English language was taught as any other content subject. Despite the guidelines given for teaching and learning in the Teacher’s Instruction Manual (National Institute of Education 2009, p.25) “target language should be the language of the classroom and mother tongue could be used sparingly, where necessary to make meaning clear”, the quantity of L2 used was lowwith a variation from 18-77% across the classroom contexts with an average of 27.71 % in each classroom.