Using mother tongue in foreign language teaching

This time I would like to raise some issues which, strangely enough, do not often arise though I would say they are central to the teaching process.

I will return to the theme of walls discussed to some extent in my previous post. In one of this year’s sessions, I asked my students to think of walls and what they mean –in general and to them personally—and following this exchange of ideas I gave them all a Greek poem called Walls and written by the well-known Greek poet Konstantinos Kavafis, whose life and works spanned the 19^th and 20^th centuries. (Τα τείχη του Κωνσταντίνου Καβάφη)

I gave it to them in English translation, which I found online, and asked them to identify the poem and the poet. They did not, which is not surprising as they are aged 13 to 15 and they have not been introduced to Kavafis’ poetry yet. I then handed out the original and invited them to interpret the poem. ( I cite the poem at the end of the post.)

The issues that I am raising are the following:

• ·       Is it a legitimate method to use stimuli in the learner’s first language to elicit content in the foreign language?
• ·       Is it acceptable to use the first language to explain grammar or fine points which would take ages to explain in the target language and would bring no real benefit to the learner?

I would dispatch the second question forthwith with an unconditional “yes”. It has worked in my experience and it has saved me a lot of wasted time. This by no means suggests there is a substitute for exposure to the target language and monolingual practice.

I recall a time in my career when it was a “punishable offence” to use anything but the target language no matter what the objective was.

To my mind, learning a foreign language is part of learning in general. Therefore, anything that challenges, stimulates the learner’s interest or encourages them to think and participate is perfectly acceptable. It saddens me to think that sometimes language teachers disregard the fact that without content there is no language learning. When we teach we constantly create content and convey information; this information is added to the learner’s reservoir of general knowledge.

 Conversely, lack of factual information on the part of the learner is one of the major stumbling blocks for language teachers, which is underestimated if not unacknowledged in discussions on language learning. As I often say there is no way you can make bean soup without beans. Along with this deficit of world knowledge goes the lack of maturity or experience of the world, which is often the reason why learners fail exams though their English may well make the grade.

At this point I should clarify that I mainly teach homogeneous groups of students – mainly Greek. Some of my students are children of immigrants in this country but they speak fluent Greek, go to Greek school and many of them do not know the language of their country of origin.

Κωνσταντίνος Καβάφης «Τείχη» 

Χωρίς περίσκεψιν, χωρίς λύπην, χωρίς αιδώ
μεγάλα κ’ υψηλά τριγύρω μου έκτισαν τείχη.

Και κάθομαι και απελπίζομαι τώρα εδώ.
Άλλο δεν σκέπτομαι: τον νουν μου τρώγει αυτή η τύχη·

διότι πράγματα πολλά έξω να κάμω είχον.
A όταν έκτιζαν τα τείχη πώς να μην προσέξω.

Aλλά δεν άκουσα ποτέ κρότον κτιστών ή ήχον.
Aνεπαισθήτως μ’ έκλεισαν από τον κόσμον έξω. 

C. P. Cavafy translation

With no consideration, no pity, no shame,

They have built walls around me, thick and high,

And now I sit here feeling hopeless.

I can’t think of anything else: this face gnaws my mind—

Because I had so much to do outside.

When they were building the walls, how could I not have noticed

But I never heard the builders, not a sound.

Imperceptibly they have closed me off from the outside world.