The role of mother tongue in english language teaching
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Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………….. 51 7. Resumé ……………………………………………………...…………………… 53 8. Bibliography …………………………………...………………………………... 57 9. Appendix ………………………………………………………………………… 62 1 1. Introduction In the process of teaching a foreign language, the teacher´s use of mother tongue can influence the learner´s acquisition of the target language. Throughout the history of English language teaching and second language acquisition, the role of mother tongue has been an important issue. The various views are reflections on the methodological changes in English language teaching, which have in such way brought different perspectives on the role of mother tongue. In this thesis I will discuss the role of mother tongue in teaching English as a foreign language. I would like to find out to what extent the mother tongue can play its role in the process of teaching a foreign language. On that account, the first part of the paper concentrates on the methods and approaches and their changing views on the use of mother tongue in a foreign language classroom throughout the history. I deal with the difference between acquisition and learning according to Krashen´s theory and in the next chapter I focus on the term communicative competence as one of the most important goals of foreign language teaching. The theoretical part concludes with the mother tongue in foreign language classroom where I deal with all the teaching skills as the base for successful English learning. Generally, my own experience of first observing and then teaching English at a primary school proved overusage of Czech language in English lessons. What actually happened influenced the choice of theme for my thesis. Generally, in lessons of English that I had a chance to observe, teachers used the mother tongue for all kinds of situations including giving instructions, doing translation or presenting foreign language structures. This happened mainly because some of the teachers feel that the use of mother tongue has always an active and beneficial role to facilitate foreign language learning. However, contrary is the case as I will try to present in this paper. Moreover also my own experience during the Clinical year practice confirmed my assumption of pupils´ exposure to abundant mother tongue use in the classroom. After watching the first audio and video recording of my own teaching I realized that the mother tongue is used very often because of the temptation to facilitate the teacher´s job but at the expense of pupils. This made me think 2 about other reasons why the mother tongue was used and about ways how to reduce the abundant use of it. After deeper analysis of what happened during the observations and my own teaching I was aware of the fact that the abundant use of mother tongue was in most cases ineffective since it was apparent that pupils did not need to hear mother tongue. In its place, other things to avoid the use of mother tongue should have been used including gestures, facial expressions or visual aids. Although some amount of mother tongue in monolingual foreign language class is acceptable, in the literature concerning the same issue, a good number of researchers stress the increasing methodological need in foreign language teaching for a more systematic and principled way of using the mother tongue in the classroom. It is said that the younger the pupils are the better they will absorb any foreign language they are ringed by, and they appear to learn the foreign language more easily than adults do. Therefore, I am sure that a few hours per week of foreign language teaching that are compulsory at Czech primary schools should not be filled with plentiful mother tongue use. I remember many lessons observed when I was wondering about the purpose for using the mother tongue. Not once teachers used the mother tongue to solve the off-task behaviour or had to put an extreme effort in getting pupils to focus on what they were supposed to do. And thus I ask myself to what extent is the teacher´s use of mother tongue in foreign language classroom effective and facilitating pupils´ learning? What are the current views for foreign language teaching concerning the use of mother tongue? How to implement these views into the teaching environment? On the basis of the theoretical part I will try to prove my hypothesis promoting the target language use as the main language in the foreign language classroom. The research will be undertaken in the classroom environment in order to find out whether the teacher trainees of English are willing to use mainly the target language or whether they overuse their mother tongue as I experienced. The research is based on observing and analyzing the audio and video recordings taken during the teacher trainees´ Clinical year practice to find out whether the mother tongue is used and if so in what particular situations. 3 2. Methods and approaches to language teaching This chapter deals with the notion of principal methods and approaches of second language teaching and provides a brief diachronic and synchronic historical overview. The concept of teaching “methods and approaches has had a long history in language teaching, as it witnessed by the rise and fall of a variety of methods throughout the recent history of language teaching.” (Richards and Willy, 2002:5). Since the terms such as method, approach and technique are used in this chapter here is one of their definitions. An approach, according to Anthony, was a set of assumptions dealing with the nature of language, learning, and teaching. Method was defined as an overall plan for systematic presentation of language based on a selected approach. It followed that techniques were specific classroom activities consistent with a method, and therefore in harmony with an approach as well (Anthony cited in Brown, 2002:9). Based on Anthony´s model, Richards and Rodgers state: Approach is the level at which assumptions and beliefs about language and language learning are specified; method is the level at which theory is put into practice and at which choices are made about the particular skills to be taught, the content to be taught, and the order in which the content will be presented; technique is the level at which classroom procedures are described (2005:19). It should be mentioned that the terms native and mother tongue are used interchangeably in this thesis. 2.1. Diachronic view on the role of mother tongue in ELT Nowadays, having a command of two or more languages is increasingly seen as a necessity. No doubt the ideal would be to produce perfectly bilingual - or even multilingual - people cepable of rewarding in-depth exchanges with people of different languages and cultures (European Commission, 1997:11). As Richards and Rodgers explain, foreign language teaching has throughout the history always been an important practical concern. Whereas today English is the world´s most widely studied foreign language, 500 years ago it was Latin, that in the sixteenth century, gradually became displaced as a language of spoken and written communication (2005:3). “ [ Both ] classical languages, first Greek and then Latin, were used as lingua 4 francas 1 .” (Celce-Murcia, 1991:3). However, teaching of Latin became the model for foreign language teaching from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. “Latin grammar, which was taught through rote learning of grammar rules, [ … ] translation, and practice in writing sample sentences, sometimes with the use of parallel bilingual texts [ … ] .” (Kelly and Howatt cited in Richards and Rodgers, 2005:4). In the sixteenth century some alternative approaches appeared with Roger Ascham and Montaigne and with Comenius and John Locke in the seventeenth century, but none of their ideas had yet the power to change the attitude towards teaching foreign languages. Nonetheless, I would like to mension some of the techniques that Comenius, according to Celce-Murcia, used: • Use imitation instead of rules to teach a language. • Have your students repeat after you. • Use a limited vocabulary initially. • Help your students practice reading and speaking. • Teach language through pictures to make it meaningful. (1991:4). In fact, these characteristics, “perhaps for the first time, made explicit an inductive approach to learning a foreign language, the goal of which was to teach use rather than analysis [ … ] .” (Celce-Murcia, 1991:4). Celce-Murcia further suggests that although Comenius´s views held back for a while, the systematic study of Latin reappeared once again throughout the Europe (1991:4). As ‘modern’ languages began to enter the curriculum 2 of European schools in the eighteenth century, they were taught using the same basic procedures that were used for teaching Latin [...] Students labored over translating sentences. By the nineteenth century, this approach [...] had became the standard way of studying foreign languages in schools (Richards and Rodgers, 2005:4). This approach became known as the Grammar-Translation Method, originated in Germany. As Larsen-Freeman explains, at one time, the Grammar-Translation Method was called the Classical method since it was first used in the teaching of the classical languages, Latin and Greek. However, it was recognized that students would never use the target 1 A lingua franca is any language widely used beyond the population of its native speakers (Internet 8). 2 Curriculum with many different conceptions includes any educational experience (Internet 8). 5 language (2000:11). The role of mother tongue in the Grammar-Translation Method is crucial since it is based on translation exercises into and out of the native language. The language used in the classroom is mostly the students´ mother tongue. Here are some of Grammar-Translation Method characteristics of the teaching process: • Students are taught to translate from one language to another. • Grammar is taught deductively 3 . • Students memorize native-language equivalents for target-language vocabulary. • Major focus is given on reading and writing. • Accuracy is emphasized. • Instructions are given in student´s native language. (Larsen-Freeman, 2000:17-18, Richards and Rodgers, 2005:5-6). According to Keith Johnson, the Grammar-Translation Method was dreadful (2001:165). “It is a jungle of obscure rules; endless lists of gender classes and gender-class exceptions, [ ... ] snippets of philology, and a total loss of genuine feeling for the language.” (Howatt cited in Johnson, 2001:165). However, Richards and Rodgers say that this method continues to be widely used in its modified form in some parts of the world today (2005:6). Towards the end of the nineteenth century, several factors, including rejection and questioning of the Grammar-Translation Method, contributed to the emergence of reforms in foreign language teaching practice. It is not accidental that so many reformers should have been engaged in the teaching of English as a foreign language. One reason, paradoxically enough, was the rather lowly status of English in the educational pecking order in Europe, which meant that ‘experiments’ were not immediately rejected as threatening to the established order (Howatt and Widdowson, 2004:132). The reforms that took place around this time resulted in development of various groups of methods. Johnson calls one group of these methods ‘natural’ as the word suggests some aspects of ‘natural’ first language acquisition, which is connected with specialists, such as the Frenchman François Gouin. F. Gouin captures his ideas with another group of methods at this time - Direct Method (2001:167). According to Johnson, there is not only one Direct Method, but the best known is bonded with a German who went to America in the 1870s (2001:168). “His name was Maximilian Delphinius Berlitz, and his method is still used in 3 Deductive teaching is teaching beginning with theories and progressing to applications of those theories (Prince and Felder, 2006:1). 6 many places today, with many cities of the world still boasting their own ‘Berlitz school’.” (Johnson, 2001:168). While the Grammar-Translation Method was not focused on the use of target language and the role of mother tongue was crucial here, the Direct Method was its complete opposite since the mother tongue is avoided altogether. It has one very simple rule, which is prohibition of translation. In fact, the Direct Method got its name from the fact “that meaning is to be conveyed directly in the target language through the use of demonstation and visual aids, with no recourse to the students´ native language.” (Diller cited in Larsen-Freeman, 2000:23). This approach had the following principles: • Instructions were conducted in the target language. • Oral communication skills were built up in a carefully graded progression organized around question-and-answer exchanges within a small group of teacher and students. • Grammar was taught inductively 4 . • Vocabulary was taught through demonstration, objects, and pictures or by association of ideas. • Correct pronunciation was emphasized. • Teachers could be native speakers or had nativelike fluency in the target language. (Richards and Rodgers, 2005:12). According to Richards and Rodgers, the Direct Method was quite successful in private language schools, but later declined in European noncommercial schools. It was criticized that strict adherence to Direct Method principles was counterproductive, since teachers had to use long explanations to avoid using the mother tongue, when sometimes a simple translation would have been more efficient way to comprehension (2005:13). Howatt and Widdowson add: “‘banning’ the native language altogether was [ … ] rejected by teachers who saw much less harm in translating the odd word or phrase than in leaving pupils to flounder around [ ... ] .” (2004:225). The fact is that the Direct Method was the first language teaching method that caught the attention of how the foreign language should be taught. As was said, the 4 Inductive teaching instead of beginning with general principles and eventually getting to aplications, the instructions begin with specifics. As the students attempt to analyze the data or solve the problem, they generate a need for facts, rules etc. at which point they are either presented with the needed information or helped to discover it for themselves (Prince and Ferer, 2006:1). 7 Grammar-Translation Method did not prepare pupils to use the target language, whereas the goal of the Direct Method was communication in the target language. While the Direct Method saw no place whatsoever for the first langauge in the classroom, the grammar translation method used the mother tongue so extensively and at the expense of target language practice that, even today, translation is in many instances regarded as an illegitimate practice because of its associations with this method (Ferrer, Internet 5). 2.1.1. Major language teaching trends in the twentieth century One of the examples of language teaching trends in the twentieth century is according to Mora, the Reading Method, where the translation reappears as a respectable classroom procedure related to comprehension of the written text (Internet 1). “Several techniques were adopted from native language reading instruction.” (Stern,1999:461). Period from the 1930s to 1960s refers to the Oral Approach or Situational Language Yüklə 356,71 Kb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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