The all-English approach has prevailed in EFL and ESL settings as the ideal classroom practice that is supposed to promote both fluency and accuracy in the target language. However, many teachers who find themselves in contexts in which they share the same mother tongue (MT) with their learners often continue to rely on the MT when teaching English.

Increasing numbers of EFL and ESL teachers work with linguistically and culturally diverse student populations. Teaching in multilingual classrooms is one of the main challenges that EFL and ESL teachers face today. In these settings, students come from various countries and speak various MTs. The increasing number of classrooms with students from different cultural backgrounds has strengthened the idea of implementing an all-English approach, thus further diminishing the positive impact of using the students’ MTs on the development of proficiency in English. The main argument for the exclusive use of English is that using students’ MTs could waste the valuable time designated for teaching and learning English. In fact, the debate on whether teachers should code-switch between English and MT remains one of the most important theoretical and pedagogical questions facing both the researcher and the practitioner communities today (Macaro, 2009). In recent years, however, there has been a gradual shift with research supporting the bilingual approach, which seeks to create a balance between English and MT use (Ellis & Shintani, 2014).

Despite the prevailing negative attitudes toward bilingual teaching, research underscores the importance EFL teachers, and also learners, place on the use of the MT. Studies have demonstrated that learners rely heavily on their prior knowledge of their MT to acquire a second language. Teachers, too, admit that they employ their MT to teach English. In a survey we administered to EFL teachers in Norway, 92% of the participants reported that they use their MT in their EFL classes. They stated that they employ their MT to introduce new words, teach grammar, introduce activities, and foster student motivation. In another recent study that we conducted in Norwegian EFL classrooms, the teacher participants evaluated the practice of code-switching between the students’ MT and English as essential. They rationalized that their groups included students who were learning English as a third language, and their second language, Norwegian, was not sufficiently developed to use it as a means of instruction. The teachers explained that reliance on their MT enabled deeper processing of meaning. In addition, the teachers highlighted that the MT contributed to decreasing student anxiety levels. Likewise, participants in a recent study, conducted in multilingual EFL classrooms in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, underlined the necessity for instructors to use their MT as students struggled heavily with complex grammar explanations and instructions in English (Ismaili, 2015).

Research conducted over the past decade reports extensive teacher and student MT use in monolingual classrooms (Neokleous, 2017). Yet, most, if not all, of the findings are reported from classrooms in which students and teachers share the same MT. As a result, the teaching recommendations that some of the studies promote are not necessarily seen as relevant to settings in which the MT is not shared among students. To help EFL and ESL teachers and learners feel more comfortable about integrating MT as a useful scaffold when learning English in multilingual settings, we would like to provide some teaching practices and tips whose purpose is to heighten the feeling of security and deepen understanding through increased reliance on the MT(s) in the EFL classroom.

A. Collective Translation

You can write difficult instructions and/or explanations in English on the board, and students who share the same MT can work together to come up with a collective translation. Students in the MT groups can take turns and give presentations of a grammar point or false cognates in their own language to deepen each other’s understanding. In this way, students can see clear distinctions between their own language and the target language. To further enhance their understanding of repeated language errors, the rest of the class can point out the difference(s) between what a student thinks he or she is saying and what his or her classmates actually hear. Encouraging students to reflect on their learning and to engage more deeply with their MT optimizes the learning experience.

B. Students as Teachers

Whenever a vocabulary or grammar question arises, instead of the teacher answering it at once, students can assume the role of the teacher. They can ask each other questions about the material that was covered in class, and if they are unable to cover the message in English, you should encourage them to use their MTs. Similarly, to activate background knowledge on a topic prior to the main activity, you can ask students to get in groups and discuss the topic with each other in their MT. Students are more willing to express themselves in smaller groups, and being able to do this in their MT prompts them to ask clarification questions, thus strengthening their comprehension. As a result, students are empowered to become experts on the topic, and their MTs are validated and recognized as a medium of knowledge.

C. Providing Visual Support

As it is not possible for teachers to master all their students’ MTs, you can use written and visual materials to supplement classroom communication. Specific phrases or keywords that students speaking the same languages agree on can be written on flashcards to assist in the acquisition process. These phrases can include metalinguistic concepts. Students who share the same MT can use SOS flashcards (i.e., cards that they can raise to call for help whenever they are faced with comprehension difficulties). Flashcards with notes such as I don’t understand what this word means or Why can’t I say it in a different way? trigger group work and discussions in which students who share the same MT can help each other clarify problematic issues. Alternatively, you can have high-achievers prepare flashcards with keywords or explanations for low-achievers. Students are able to retain information better if they are given explicit opportunities to scaffold each other.

D. Fostering Translanguaging

In its original sense, translanguaging referred to a pedagogical practice that invites language learners to process input in one language and then reconstruct the meaning in another language. More recently, translanguaging has been redefined as the use of various languages in a person’s linguistic repertoire to maximize communicative potential. We often see fostering translanguaging as an underlying attitude regarding the use of MT rather than a specific learning and teaching strategy. It is absolutely crucial that both teachers and learners of English see MTs present in the classroom as a valuable resource and that learners are encouraged to use other languages they know freely to help them communicate and learn English. Strict separation of languages goes against the natural linguistic behaviors of multilinguals and suppresses linguistic development. On the contrary, accepting translanguaging as the norm leads to increased motivation, and student participation strengthens self-esteem.

In brief, although the English-only approach has persisted as the dominant pedagogy for decades, research on multilingualism shows that language learners benefit from drawing on their existing language knowledge in the acquisition of an additional language. Although some teachers may still see it as a goal to create an English-only environment, both learners and teachers appear to agree that the MT is a valuable resource. We hope that the strategies presented in this article will help EFL and ESL teachers make the final leap from validating their students’ MTs to fully utilizing the potential MTs have for English acquisition.

References

Ellis, R., & Shintani, N. (2014). Exploring language pedagogy through second language acquisition research. New York, NY: Routledge.

Ismaili, M. (2015). Teaching English in a multilingual setting.Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 199, 189–195.

Macaro, E. (2009). Teacher codeswitching in L2 classrooms: Exploring ‘optimal use’. In T. Yoshida, H. Imai, Y. Nakata, A. Tajino, O. Takeuchi, & K. Tamai (Eds.), Researching language teaching and learning: An integration of practice and theory (pp. 293–304). Oxford, England: Peter Lang.

Neokleous, G. (2017). Closing the gap: Student attitudes toward first language use in monolingual EFL classrooms. TESOL Journal, 8(2), 314–341.

Georgios Neokleous is associate professor of English at the Faculty of Teacher Education at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway, where he works with pre- and in-service EFL teachers. His research focuses on the use of the mother tongue in monolingual classrooms, English for academic purposes, and classroom anxiety.

Anna Krulatz is associate professor of English at the Faculty of Teacher Education at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway, where she works with pre- and in-service EFL teachers. Her research focuses on multilingualism with English, pragmatic development in adult language learners, content-based instruction, and language teacher education.

Kristin Solli Wold is a student in the Department of Teacher Education at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway. In her BA thesis, she focused on EFL teachers’ perceptions of the use of the MT.