L1: Friend or Foe (with Penny Ur)

TEFL Training Institute Podcast

All language students speak a first language, but what do we do with it? Some teachers ban it. Some teachers use it to teach English in. Some schools make students sign a pledge never to use it. Penny Ur tells us about what we can do take advantage of students first language, when to avoid it and when even to encourage it.

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Ross Thorburn: Hi, Penny. To start off, a lot of teachers ‑‑ I certainly count myself as one of these ‑‑ mix up, as Vivian Cook puts it, "Minimizing L1 in the classroom with maximizing L2 in the classroom."

Obviously, those two concepts aren't mutually exclusive. Less first language doesn't necessarily mean more English, does it? Are there any reasons that you think teachers might legitimately want to ban students' first language from their classrooms?

Penny Ur: “Ban”, certainly not. One of my slogans [laughs] is “never say never”. In education in general, language teaching in particular, there's nothing I can think of which include no recommendation, which would include the word never or always. There is a place for the L1 in the classroom. The question is what that place is, how to limit it, and what to limit it to.

The golden rule perhaps is, as Vivian Cook says, "The aim is to maximize the use of L2." If you're speaking the target language, and you're speaking it all the time and your students aren't understanding it, then they're not learning very much.

It makes sense to use the L1 here and there to facilitate understanding so that when you do use the L2, they understand. L2 should only be used comprehensively. If L1 use occasionally can help that comprehension, by all means, use it.

A classic example is introducing a new word in a monolingual class. If you know the students' mother tongue, it's so much quicker and easier to explain the meaning of that word by just giving a quick translation than it is by lengthy explanations in the target language at the end of which the students may not understand.

The end of which [laughs] very often one of the members of the class shouts out the L1 equivalent anyway. Why did you bother to go round the world trying to avoid it? I'd say there is a place. The main point is to make sure that L2 is used most of the time and that it is used comprehensively.

Ross: That's so true, isn't it? Most teachers, and certainly when I come across a word that I don't understand in my second language, what do I do? I translate it. I'm sure that's what most people do.

Penny Ur: Most people use bilingual dictionaries. They don't use monolingual dictionaries. If they want to find the meaning of a word in another language, they look up a dictionary that tells them what it is in their language. It's the most sensible and quickest way to do it.

Ross: Why then do you think so many teachers ban L1 from their classes or even schools? For example, where I've worked before have signs up saying, "No Chinese." Why do you think there's such an aversion to students' first language being used anywhere in language classrooms?

Penny Ur: Partly because it's a slippery slope. For a lot of teachers, once they start using L1, it's so easy to do that they slip into using it much too much. I've observed lessons where the teacher is using the L1 70, 80 percent of the time. There's not much time left for the target language.

What we need to get teachers to implement in the classroom is that the target language is the language we want to use most of the time. One of the reasons why teacher‑trainers discourage the use of L1 is because they're afraid teachers are going to overuse it. It is a well‑grounded fear because, as I said, I've seen it happen. It does happen in a lot of situations. That's one reason.

Another reason is that in modeling classes where you could use the L1, expatriate teachers coming from the UK or coming the States and teaching, say, in Europe, they simply don't know the students' mother tongue, so they can't use it. They make a virtue of necessity. I can't use your language so I shouldn't be using your language. It's better to use only English.

There's another rather insidious message coming across here that English is not only the target language, in the case of teaching English here, which is what we're mostly talking about. English is in some way the superior language, and we should be using it in some way. The students' language is inferior and should be taken out.

This is a very dangerous and not legitimate message coming across, particularly in these days when we're teaching students English in order to enable them to become multilingual users of English. In other words, or bilingual at least, where we're not teaching a Spanish speaker to become an English speaker.

We're teaching a Spanish speaker to remain a Spanish speaker who also has a good command of English and can use it, where necessary. We're training bilinguals, not imitation native speakers. Bilinguals' repertoire of languages, the first time it functions side by side with the new language, English, and therefore has a place also in the learning of their language.

Ross: A student studying English as a second language can never ever become an English‑speaking monolingual, can they? Why try to imitate that?

Penny Ur: No. It's a case of knowing where and when it's appropriate to insert a little bit of L1 or to use translation as one of the techniques for testing, or for explaining new vocabularies, as I said before. It's a fairly complex issue but you don't really gain anything by giving blanket instructions, like never use the L1.

Ross: For teachers who can speak the same L1 as their students, which I think is probably the majority of English language teachers out there, when might it be useful for them to use that?

Penny Ur: Legitimate uses for L1, apart from vocabulary, explaining a grammar point. Very often, you need to do this in L1. Again, I'm talking about monolingual classes whose language you understand and speak yourself. Explaining grammar. Often the grammar that you're explaining, the words you need to know to explain it are far more difficult than the grammar itself.

Explaining the difference in present simple and present progressive, for example. It's very, very common tenses and aspects that the language you need to explain the difference is much more difficult. Therefore, it makes sense to do it if you can in the students' L1. That's one place.

Another very useful use [laughs] of the L1 is contrastive analysis in order to avoid mistakes. A lot of mistakes that students make come from interference from their mother tongue. If you bring this up to the surface and explain to them, "Look, your mother tongue says it this way, English says it that way, and that's why you're making this mistake," you can help your students avoid mistakes.

For example, in Hebrew, which is my other language and the language of my students, after "afraid," they will always say "afraid from" because that's what it says in Hebrew. You have to teach them, "Look, Hebrew says 'afraid from,' English says 'afraid of.'" You've got to make sure you know the difference.

Another example, most languages where English uses the present perfect progressive, as in "We've been talking for several minutes," most languages would use the present tense in that context. Most of the languages I know about, anyway.

Most languages say, "We are speaking for several minutes." That's what students will tend to do unless they are made aware of the difference. That's another very useful aid using the L1. There are one or two more, but those are the main ones.

Ross: What about then for teachers who can't speak the same first language as their students? What can those teachers do? Is there any way that those teachers can somehow make use of their students' L1 in the classroom?

Penny Ur: Obviously, the teachers themselves can't because they simply don't know the language. To allow students to write down new words with the L1 equivalent themselves in their vocabulary notebooks or wherever they're noting the new words, to explain to each other if necessary using the L1.

Make it clear that the L1 is not an illegal, illegitimate thing to bring into the classroom. If it helps you, use it.

Ross: Those are mainly examples of what the teacher can do to use their students' first language or mother tongue to teach. What ways can teachers encourage students, maybe, to use their first language in the class to help with language learning, maybe in activities, or tasks, or elsewhere?

Penny Ur: One thing which I found students really enjoy ‑‑ again, we're talking about monolingual classes here where the teacher speaks the students' language ‑‑ is translating. Not translating entire passages because that gets a bit tedious, but for example, translating a sentence.

Or looking at the translation of a particular word or phrase within the context of how would you say this word or phrase in your mother tongue? Or the other way around. Here's a sentence in mother tongue, how would you say this in English? Helping them to get to the right answer in English. That's one which students really enjoy, even in a very elementary level.

I've done reading comprehension, for example. I've given them a short text to read with a picture. Something fairly short story or something. A little anecdote, a little joke. Then ask them the comprehension questions in their mother tongue and ask them for an answer in their mother tongue.

That way, I ensure that firstly, they spend most of their time just doing the reading and not doing the comprehension work, because the comprehension work, they do pretty quickly. Second, it gives me a very, very quick insight into whether they've understood or not. Reading the questions is also reading comprehension.

The trouble is that it's also a bit tedious. [laughs] It's boring. Whereas the texts themselves, the little stories are quite interesting to read. What I'm doing is by giving it in mother tongue, I'm letting the students spend most time on the reading, which is interesting and fun, and as little time as possible on the task which show me that they've understood or not.

A lot of teachers would not accept this, but that's my justification for doing the questions in mother tongue. That's another activity.

The third one, which I would look at again on the level of contrastive analysis is let's look at a couple of translations. Take a word. How would you translate this into your mother tongue? Let's explore the differences.

Perhaps, the mother tongue is more informal. The mother tongue one is matched to gender and the English one isn't. All sorts of things which can simply raise student's awareness of meanings of words in the target language.

Ross: Finally then, we need to end with some sort of a caveat that we obviously want most of our classes most of the time to be done in English. How can we avoid opening the L1 floodgates and students using too much of their first language in class?

Penny Ur: Opening the floodgates is a good metaphor for this. Firstly, the teacher needs to be very disciplined him or herself. If there's, say, an instruction which you want to give, and there's a word in the sentence which they don't understand. Say, "Put the words into columns," and they don't know the word "columns."

A tip to the teacher is: don't translate the entire sentence. If the only problematic word there is the word "columns," then say the whole sentence in English and just put in an oral gloss on the word "columns." Keeping to English as much as you can and only translating where it's necessary for comprehension. That's one.

Another one, doing oral daunting activities. The place where the floodgates do open, students lapse into L1, is when you ask them to discuss things in groups, and you're not there hovering over them. If they all speak the same L1, if they're doing the discussion task in groups, they're likely to lapse into L1. Teachers find this all over the place.

What can you do to stop this? Two main strategies here. One is make the task one which you know they can do using the language at their disposal. It has to be an easy task. Slightly i‑1, as it were in Krashen's terminology. A bit below the normal level that you're doing your reading comprehension in. Easy task you know only demands language which they can use.

The second strategy is within the group itself, appointing one language monitor whose job it is to jot down every time anybody says something not in the target language, not in English, or uses the mother tongue.

This has an amazing effect on students because if they know that their names are going to be written down every time they use the mother tongue, this is likely to deter them from doing so. It acts as a deterrent.