Closing the Gap: Student Attitudes Toward First Language Use in Monolingual EFL Classrooms

Abstract

This article challenges the widely held assumption in monolingual English as a foreign language (EFL) settings that students prefer their teachers to rarely use their mother tongue (MT)—the language children initially learn in order to communicate. Through an examination of data derived from eight classrooms in four private language schools in Cyprus, the author identifies 16 speech acts performed by the students' exploitation of the first language (L1)—MT and L1 are used interchangeably—and unveils the students' overall stance toward MT classroom integration. The findings reveal that the participants did not perceive L1 usage in the EFL classroom as imposing a learning constraint, with the majority of them accentuating its benefits and admitting the impossibility of alienating it from the classroom. Although they opposed an L1 usage prohibition, the participants also stressed the necessity to improve the oral input of their second language—the language students learn in addition to their MT. Studies that explore the student voice, the article concludes, should form a productive starting point for important EFL research areas because they can foster awareness on issues that are considered important by learners but are undervalued by teachers (and vice versa).