scholarly journals Students’ Preferences on the Use of Mother Tongue in English as a Foreign Language Classrooms: Is it the Time to Re-examine English-only Policies?

2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emre Debreli ◽  
Nadire Oyman
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Educational Background ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
L2 Proficiency ◽  
English Only ◽  
Bilingual Teaching ◽  
Language Classrooms ◽  
Efl Classrooms

<p>In literature on bilingual teaching, different perspecttives exist for and against the use of first language (L1) in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms. There is a continuing matter of debate on whether L1 contributes to or precludes the learning of a second language (L2). Numerous studies have been conducted on this topic, but no clear consensus exists on whether L1 should be banned or its inclusion in EFL classrooms should be allowed. A significant body of literature has explored this phenomenon from teachers’ perspectives, and an adequate number of studies have explored the phenomenon from the students’ perspectives. However, few studies have identified the reasons for which students need such an inclusion. More importantly, no studies seem to have considered demographic variables that may directly influence students’ perceptions of the use of L1 in their (L2) classrooms, that is; educational background and their language proficiency level. This study primarily investigated whether students’ educational background and their L2 proficiency influenced their perceptions of the use of Turkish in their L2 classrooms as well as their perceptions and needs for the use of L1 in their classrooms. The study was conducted on a sample of 303 Turkish learners of EFL at English Preparatory School of European University of Lefke in Northern Cyprus. Data were collected using a questionnaire. Analysis of the data indicated that EFL students had high positive perceptions toward the inclusion of L1 in their L2 classes and that their perceptions were affected by their demographic characteristics. Students with lower level of L2 proficiency were also found to have more positive perceptions toward the use of L1. Furthermore, the particular issues where students needed L1 were also identified. Implications for language teachers and policy makers are discussed.</p>

Effecten en Didactiek van Tweetalig Voortgezet Onderwijs

2000 ◽  
Vol 64 ◽  
pp. 9-20
Author(s):  
Ineke Huibregtse ◽  
Wilfried Admiraal ◽  
Kees de Bot ◽  
Loes Coleman ◽  
Gerard Westhoff
Keyword(s):  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Evaluation Study ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
University Education ◽  
School Subjects ◽  
Foreign Language Proficiency ◽  
Display Behaviour

This paper presents the results of a recently completed longitudinal evaluation study of Dutch-English bilingual programmes in Dutch pre-university education. During several years the outcomes of these programmes were measured in order to find out whether pupils in bilingual education gain higher levels of foreign language proficiency without any detrimental effects on their mother tongue proficiency and their achievements in other school subjects. Beside this, lessons were observed in order to investigate to what extent language teachers and teachers of other subjects display behaviour that can be said to stimulate second language acquisition.

Latviešu valodas apguvēju korpusa datu ieguves un apstrādes metodoloģijas izstrāde

2020 ◽  
pp. 299-309
Author(s):  
Kristīne Levāne-Petrova ◽  
Ilze Auziņa ◽  
Kristīne Pokratniece
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Learner Corpus ◽  
Single Interface ◽  
Digital Format ◽  
Corpus Creation ◽  
Scanned Images

Popularity of learning Latvian as a foreign language is increasing. Latvian as a foreign language is being taught not only in the higher educational institutions of Latvia, but also in more than 20 universities outside Latvia (Šalme 2008; Šalme 2011; Laizāne 2019). Therefore, corpus-based and corpus-driven teaching materials are crucial for the international students that acquire Latvian both in Latvia and abroad. Since September 2018 the project Development of Learner Corpus of Latvian: methods, tools and applications have been carried out. During the project, based on the already existing experience of designing Learner Corpus of Latvian (LaVA), a corpus of students’ essays with different language backgrounds will be created. The newly developed corpus will be publicly available. Although the corpus creation pipeline includes text collection, digitization, and morphological and error annotation; this article will cover just the first phases of the creation of the corpus – the development of a methodology for data collection and digitization. The agreement form with data subject about data inclusion into the corpus and the metadata (gender, age, mother tongue, language proficiency level) collection form were developed. Guidelines for teachers on preferred topics have been prepared. The corpus is built on an integrated multifunctional platform that provides a single interface for uploading, annotating and search. Moreover, the web platform can also be used for storing scanned copies of essays, comparing texts entered by two independent digitizers, correcting texts, and error-annotated texts and making inter-annotator agreement. At least 1000 essays on different topics from students with different language backgrounds are planned to be included in the LaVA corpus. For data collection, multiple universities and language teachers have been contacted and have agreed to support the corpus creation process by providing it with their students’ previously developed assignments. Collected essays with metadata are handwritten; therefore, they need to be digitized for further data processing steps. The digitization is carried out in three steps: 1) scanning of the assignments and essays, 2) metadata input, 3) text rewriting in digital format. Scanned images of the assignments help to validate data correctness if such concern arises. Metadata is entered manually.

scholarly journals Explorando a construção de identidades nas interações entre professor e aluno na aula de língua estrangeira: reflexões para a prática didática

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberta Ferroni ◽  
Maria Helena Araújo e Sá
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Methodological Framework ◽  
Foreign Language Teachers ◽  
The Social ◽  
Language Classrooms ◽  
Pedagogical Approaches

Resumo O presente artigo propõe-se obter informações sobre o estilo pedagógico de um professor em formação a partir do estudo dos atos de identidade, com os quais os falantes, nas trocas comunicativas, revelam sua identidade e o papel social que almejam alcançar e que são produzidos pelos aprendizes de italiano língua estrangeira na aula de língua. Como referência teórica e metodológica, adotaremos uma abordagem interessada na observação do funcionamento interacional como espaço de mobilização e de construção das competências de linguagem em situações pedagógicas. A análise, realizada com base em macrounidade chamadas passos pedagógico-didáticos, nos permitiu identificar algumas necessidades do professor quanto aos aspectos que ele é capaz ou não de explorar em sala de aula e a consequente construção de planos globais de formação. Palavras-Chave: Atos de identidade. Interação. Formação.   Abstract This article studies acts of identity – the linguistic comments with which speakers, in communicative exchanges, reveal their identity and the social role they wish to play – produced in interactions between the teacher and the student, by learners whose mother tongue is typologically similar to the foreign language they are learning. The analysis of the identity roles performed by learners in foreign language classrooms, in relation to the pedagogical approaches, allow us to identify some necessary characteristics of the teacher as to the aspects they are able or unable to explore in the classroom and the consequent construction of global teacher education plans. As the theoretical and methodological framework, we will follow an approach based on references extracted from studies covering the training of foreign language teachers. Keywords: Acts of identity. Interaction. Teacher Education.

scholarly journals Adult Learners and the Use of L1 in the Foreign Language Classroom

2016 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 109-125
Author(s):  
Agata Słowik
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Adult Learners ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Classroom Environment ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Learning Preferences ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Language Classrooms ◽  
Worldwide Phenomenon

The aging population is a worldwide phenomenon. An increasing number of older adults are interested in learning languages but they often become disheartened because of strict rules imposed on them by language teachers blindly following the trend of “foreign language only.” For many decades following the end of Grammar Translation method, students’ mother tongue has been banned from language classrooms. Fortunately, however, this trend is beginning to shift giving place to more lenient approaches to teaching based on allowing and encouraging own-language use. Indeed, recent studies prove that there are a number of advantages resulting from permitting the use of translation, whereas it seems that there are hardly any real obstacles besides the ones existing as part of teachers’ own beliefs. Adults are not a homogeneous group and yet it is rarely acknowledged in studies on the use of mother tongue in language classrooms. As in case of any other age group, younger and older adults’ abilities, needs and learning preferences should also be taken into account to make their learning process more effective and more suitable. The aim of this article is to provide a foundation for future research on the adult learners and the use of their mother tongue in the classroom environment.

scholarly journals Towards LSP (II) – Language Teaching for Future Interpreters: Graduate Profiles

10.29007/wzmn ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather Adams ◽  
Laura Cruz-García
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Foreign Language Teaching ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Foreign Languages ◽  
Oral Performance ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Development Of Language

This paper presents some of the findings from research carried out among language teachers on translation and interpreting (T&amp;I) degree courses in Spain, who responded to a questionnaire aiming to obtain a clearer idea of how foreign language teaching in this field of studies differed from approaches in other areas. The main purpose was to compile data based on actual practice, rather than theoretical notions. While the questions posed tended to be framed in such a way as to draw conclusions more for translation than for interpreting, a number of them were conducive to eliciting responses relating to aural and oral performance. Our paper will set forth the ensuing findings that can be applied to the development of language- and culture-based competences for subsequent interpreting courses and practices, as well as exploring possible further areas of study in the area of the teaching of both foreign languages and the mother tongue based on the specific language competences required in the different modalities of interpreting. We are, of course, immensely grateful to all those teachers who took the time and trouble to answer our questions.

Linguistic Expats and Bounded Fluency

2019 ◽  
pp. 42-57
Author(s):  
Tsedal Neeley
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Culture ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
English Language ◽  
Home Country ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
English Language Proficiency ◽  
Conference Call ◽  
Remote Location ◽  
Japanese Employees

This chapter focuses on the Japanese linguistic expats and their linguistic shock, which initially presents a barrier to learning a foreign language. It provides the results of the seemingly insurmountable challenge at the mandate's announcement—base English language proficiency for the Japanese domestic workforce. Here, the term “linguistic expat” is used to describe employees like Kenji who live in their home country yet must give up their mother tongue when they enter their place of employment or sign into a conference call from a remote location. This chapter shows how this twist—a mismatch between language, nationality, and organizational culture—made the Japanese employees uncomfortable. Learning English, at least in the first phase, required that they form new perceptions of themselves, their company, and their jobs. The demands of the mandate made them feel anxious about their productivity and insecure about their future at Rakuten. Although the majority of the linguistic expats progressed in their acquisition of English, few were able to reach a level where fluency was automatic.

A contextualised examination of target language use in the primary school foreign language classroom

2004 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 104-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
David R. Carless
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Primary School ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Study Data ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Foreign Language Learners ◽  
Language Classroom ◽  
Classroom Language

Abstract This article discusses an issue which is of longstanding and central importance to foreign language teachers in a variety of contexts, namely teacher use of classroom language. It uses detailed qualitative case study data to explore how and why an expert practitioner uses English in her Hong Kong Primary school language classroom. Through the interplay between teacher beliefs, experiences and classroom transcript data, the paper develops a contextualised picture of classroom language use with young foreign language learners. The paper suggests that it is not necessarily the language proficiency of the learners which plays a major role in the quantity of target language use, but the teachers’ own proficiency, experience and beliefs.

Alternatieve Wegen Voor Gevorderde Taalleerders

1986 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 101-109
Author(s):  
Wil Knibbeler
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Integrative Approach ◽  
Educational Theories ◽  
Advanced Students ◽  
Language Classrooms ◽  
Foreign Language Classrooms ◽  
Community Language

Alternative or humanistic approaches to foreign language teach-ing such as the Silent Way, Suggestopedia, Community Language Learning and Confluent Education, have been generated by scholars who are not linguists. An analysis of the ideas underlying the respective approaches leads to the conclusion that they are suitable for advanced students as well as for beginners. Although humanistic approaches are not based on empirical research, they have their roots in sound educational theories. If language teachers want to introduce these approaches into their teaching, they do not have to opt for any of them, but they can select elements from them. An example fo such an integrative approach is The Explorative-Creative Way. Research on processes which occur in second or foreign language classrooms, should be done in accordance with qualitative procedures as wellas with quantitative ones.

An analysis of translation errors made by Brazilian students

1987 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 25
Author(s):  
Maria da Conceição Magalhães Vaz de Mello
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Communication Strategies ◽  
Foreign Language Learning ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Topic Avoidance ◽  
Foreign Language Learners ◽  
Brazilian Students ◽  
Translation Errors

This paper presents an analysis of the errors which occurred in translations from Portuguese into English written by Brazilian students. This topic has been chosen because there are few studies of errors made by Brazilian students In the process of learning English and also because many language teachers still consider interference from the mother tongue the only source of errors in foreign language learning. Errors due to interference from the foreign language itself have often been disregarded. In order to explain the causes of the errors five categories were established: errors due to LI interference, errors due to L2 interference, errors due to LI and/or L2 interference, errors due to communication strategies and errors of Indeterminate origin. Errors due to communication strategies were classified according to three different types, proposed by Tarone (1977). The first is topic avoidance, the second is paraphrase and the third is conscious transfer. Errors of indeterminate origin are unsystematic and cannot be assigned to any of the other four categories. My claim In this paper is that since the speech of children learning their first language contains many errors, foreign language learners should be allowed to make errors. By making errors learners provide the teacher with information about what they haven't learned. Este artigo apresenta uma analise dos erros que ocorreram em versões do português para o inglês feitas por alunos brasileiros. Este tópico foi escolhido porque ha poucos estudos sobre erros feitos por alunos brasileiros durante o processo de aprendizagem do inglês e também porque muitos professores de línguas ainda consideram a interferência da língua materna como a única fonte de erros na aprendizagem de uma língua estrangeira. Erros de interferência da própria língua estrangeira freqüentemente não são considerados. Para explicar as causas dos erros cinco categorias foram estabelecidas: erros de interferência da LI, erros de interferência da L2, erros de interferência da LI e/ou da L2, erros de estratégias de comunicação e erros de origem indeterminada. Os erros de estratégia de comunicação foram classificados de acordo com três tipos diferentes sugeridos por Tarone (1977). O primeiro é abstenção de tópico, o segundo, paráfrase e o terceiro, transferência consciente. Erros de origem indeterminada não são sistemáticos e não podem ser classificados de acordo com nenhuma das outras quatro categorias. Um dos objetivos deste trabalho é provar que, do mesmo modo que a fala de crianças aprendendo sua língua materna apresenta muitos erros, alunos aprendendo uma língua estrangeira também deveriam poder fazer erros. Ê através dos erros de seus alunos que o professor consegue informação sobre aquilo que eles ainda não aprenderam.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document