The role of mother tongue in teaching English to the first year students at Thai Nguyen University of Education

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERISTY – HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE AND INTERNATIONAL STUDY FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES ------ĐỖ THỊ NGỌC PHƯƠNG THE ROLE OF MOTHER TONGUE IN TEACHING

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERISTY – HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE AND INTERNATIONAL STUDY

FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

- -ĐỖ THỊ NGỌC PHƯƠNG

THE ROLE OF MOTHER TONGUE IN TEACHING ENGLISH TO THE

FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS

AT THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION

VAI TRÒ CỦA TIẾNG MẸ ĐẺ TRONG VIỆC GIẢNG DẠY TIẾNG ANH CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC SƯ PHẠM THÁI NGUYÊN

M.A MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 601410

SUPERVISOR: Dr DƯƠNG THI NỤ

HANOI - 2012

TABLE OF CONTENT

Part 1: Introduction

1 Rationale 1

2 Aim of the research 2

3 Scope of the research 2

4 Significance of the study 2

5 Organization of the thesis 2

Part 2: Development Chapter 1: Literature Review 1.1 Second language use and learning 4

1.2 Language choice 5

1.2.1 Mother tongue or second language? 5

1.2.2 Factors in language choice 7

1.3 L1 use in the classroom 8

1.4 L1 transfer - linguistic theory of the role of the first language 10

1.5 Grammar -translation Teaching versus Communicative Language Teaching .11

1.6 The Monolingual Approach versus the Bilingual Approach 13

Summary 15

Chapter 2: Methodology 2.1 Subjects of the study 16

2.2 Data collection instrument 16

2.3 Data analysis 17

Summary 18

Chapter 3: The Result of the Study 3.1 The situation of English Teaching and the Learning at Thai Nguyen University of Education 19

3.2 Results of the survey questionnaire 21

3.3 Results of teachers' interview 28

3.4 Results of classroom observation 32

Summary 35

Chapter 4: Discussion and Implications 4.1 Discussion 36

4.2 Implications in teaching 37

Part 3: Conclusion 1 Conclusions 40

2 Limitations and suggestions for further research 41 References

Appendices

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS

Tables

Table 1: Reasons for the learning of English

Table 2: The use of mother tongue in second language class

Table 3: Situations for the teachers to speak in the first language

Table 4: Situations for the students to speak in the first language

Table 5: Reasons for using mother tongue in the English class

Table 6: Percentage of mother tongue - speaking time to be used by the teachers and students

Table 7: Teachers' years of experience

Table 8: Teachers' opinion about the situations in which mother tongue should be used Table 9:Teachers' opinion about the percentage of time per a lesson for the mother tongue to be used in the language class

Table 10: Results of classroom observation on the purposes of using mother tongue Table 11:The percentage of mother tongue - speaking time used by used by the

teachers and the students in the class observation

Charts

Chart 1: Students' years of learning English

Chart 2: Frequency of using mother tongue in class

Chart 3: Aspects of second language to be taught in mother tongue

Chart 4: The importance of mother tongue in the English class

PART 1 INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

In the history of language teaching, while many methods have been created in order to help learners study a second language (L2) People have started questioning whether using mother tongue in English classes is useful or not The attitude towards this problem has changed dramatically over centuries and has been the subject of much debate and controversy It is known that there must be different teaching and learning methods for different learners of different levels The way the teachers use to teach the beginners cannot be the same with the teaching method for the advanced learners

However, many teachers and curriculum designers think that creating communicative environment for learners is the best choice It is true that in most language classes, the teachers always create opportunities to help the students practice and get familiar with the target language as much as possible The communicative environment here may be in the middle of the lecture when the teacher is lecturing or communicating with their students in English It will be quite easy for the higher levels but to the beginners who have a limited range of vocabulary or grammar rules of the target language, whether this method is useful is a problem The modern teaching methods focus on the practice and use of the target language as much as possible, which will help the learners get familiar with the language they learn as well as motivate them in the study It is important to note that at the beginning level, the learners do not have enough vocabulary and structures to understand and catch up with the lesson in English The questions are whether the first language plays an important part in teaching the second language and how they are applied in teaching

Being aware of those problems, the researcher would, therefore, like to conduct this research to explore the impact of the mother tongue on the learning and teaching

of a second language with some hope that both the learners and teachers can find an easier and more effective teaching and learning method

Typically, the questions to be answered in this study are as follows:

1 What are the impacts of mother tongue on the teaching and learning of English?

2 What are the degree and situations for the use of mother tongue in the teaching and learning of English ?

2 Objectives of the study

From the rationale above, the aims of the study were set out in order to specify the research as follows:

 Identifying the role of mother tongue in the teaching and learning of English at Thai Nguyen University of Education

 Investigating the students' attitudes towards the use of mother tongue in teaching and learning of English

 Suggesting the suitable degree and situations for using mother tongue among the 1st year students at Thai Nguyen University of Education

3 Scope of the research

The research is confined to language use in classroom, especially the use of mother tongue in teaching English However, due to the time constraint, the study only concentrates on the impact of mother tongue, namely Vietnamese and how to use it to teach English for the first year non-English major students at Thai Nguyen University

4.Significance of the study

This study is significant for several reasons Firstly, it provides an overview of the use the mother tongue in teaching the second language in general and in teaching English in particular Secondly, the author hopes this study can help the teachers to find

a suitable method to teach English as well as change their stereotype on the use of mother tongue Finally, this study also provides some suggestions on how to use the first language in an appropriate way to avoid its negative effects on the students' learning

5 Organization of the thesis

The graduation paper consists of three parts Part 1, Introduction, introduces the rationale, the scope and the ai ms of the study Part 2, Development, consists of four chapters: Chapter 1 provides the theoretical basis which supports the study, including some mother-tongue – related discussions Chapter 2 presents the issues of methodology including the subjects of the study, data collection instruments and the

procedures of data collection Chapter 3 presents the results of a survey conducted for the investigation of the use of the mother tongue in teaching English in classrooms at Thai Nguyen University by means of analyzing the students‟ responses to questionnaires and interviews with the teachers as well as classroom observations Following the results of chapters 2 and 3 is chapter 4, which gives some discussion for the results and the implications in the teaching and learning English Part 3 of the thesis, Conclusion, includes the summary of the main findings of the study, conclusions, limitations of the study, and suggestions for further study

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter deals with different points of views on the first language and its use in teaching and learning a second language Besides, some teaching methods and some kinds of language classes in which the mother tongue can be used are also mentioned It is strongly believed that those different opinions about the use of the mother tongue in class will make some contributions to this research

1.1 Second language use and learning

The use and practice of the second language is not that easy to most learners when the L2 is rarely used in their society It is generally accepted that that learning a language without frequent use and practice is not effective As Lightbown and Spada (1993) ever noted, the second language learners also have to "pass through sequence

of development" Fortunately, it is the fact that the learners have a little opportunity to use the second language (L2) outside the classroom Therefore, it is important to maximize the use of L2 in the language classroom through different activities in class However, it should be remembered that not all students have the same levels and competence in using the target language Lightbown and Spada (1993) enlightened that even in the same classroom setting, there were still be some students that progress more rapidly in learning a new language It will be impractical if the same amount and level of the language are used for different types of learners For the low - level learners, the requirement of the use and practice of the target language should be suitable and should not be too difficult As being mentioned in the introduction section, there should be different ways of using the language in class for learners with different levels of English It is known that advanced learners are good at listening and interacting with difficult words and phrases in class without the explanation or help of the teacher The elementary level learners require a much simpler way of using a foreign language in teaching

In many situations in which the learners share the same first language, there is a tendency that the tasks which should be done in L2 (e.g conversation preparation, discussion, preparation for writing.) can be done in L1 Many teachers may disapprove

of the use of the first language in the language classroom However, according to Paul Nation (2003) there are some reasons for the use of the first language Firstly, it is easier and more communicatively effective to use L1 because some of the learners do not have enough knowledge of the language they are learning to express their ideas Secondly, that the teacher‟s frequent use of L2 in class may be incomprehensible for shy and low-level learners, thus they become inactive in discussions

1.2 Language choice

1.2.1 Mother tongue or second language?

Basically, the mother tongue is learnt first and the second language is learnt after a period of time in human beings' life A child often learns a language naturally However, those who learn a second language later in their life are often influenced by many other factors outside the classroom One of those is the prior knowledge of the language which they have learnt In other words, it is widely believed that someone who has a good knowledge of their prior language can learn another language more easily Or, as we can say, the way babies learn a language (mother tongue) is natural but the way that school children or adults who have different or developed cognitive, mental and conceptual capacities pick up their a language is not as natural as babies

do It is generally argued that what a person has learnt from their previous language will have great influence on their current target language Therefore, when we talk about second language teaching we should take into account the knowledge and skills

of their first language that the learners bring into their target language It is what we call the switching or transform from L1 to L2 In the past, most methods in L2 teaching pedagogy dictated that L1 should be minimized or prohibited in the classroom However, in the real practice of English language teaching, it proves that this attitude is not totally effective Lynn Cameron (2001) stated the gap between that theory and practice According to the researcher, those approaches seem to "ignore the possibility that certain use of a common mother tongue might also contribute to

foreign language learning" The question of whether students' first language should be used in the teaching of foreign language has been debated for many years Many people support the idea that mother tongue should be used in class in order to help the learners to understand the lesson better In a monolingual classroom, the target language is supposed to be the only language used in class which can offer the learner opportunity and learning environment to study the language However, it is misjudgment to say that the L2 learners will not think in their mother tongue Otherwise, there are many controversial points of view that mother tongue should not

be used in language class Those people who agree with this stated that mother tongue can prevent the students from the frequent use of the target language In other words, the rationale for the use of L2 in class is that the more the students use the target language in class, the more quickly they can learn and also it can help them to think in English Therefore, teachers are told not to use L1 for the benefits of their learners Douglas Brown, admitted that "the facilitating effects of the native language are surely powerful in the process or more so, even though they are less observable." And to avoid the "first language crutch syndrome", he somehow agreed with the idea of the

"direct use of the second language in class However, in practice, this approach seems practical and true only for the advanced learners and those who have a good knowledge of the target language they are learning The non-native teachers of low- level students find that L2 only is rather ideological than pedagogical There are many situations in which even the EFL teachers and learners, in practice, cannot handle the situation in teaching and learning without the help of mother tongue To those people, first language is said to be the switching or transference from mother tongue to foreign language use When learners study a second language, it is necessary for them to have

a certain experience and knowledge of the communication in their mother tongue The reference to the mother tongue is necessary and useful in the learning of another language so that it can help the learners not to feel unfamiliar with the new language and handle the situation in communication more easily In the course book " Practical techniques for Language teaching", Lewis once stated that despite the danger of word -

to -word translation in using English, there are also situations in which first language

is of great importance in learning and teaching second language

1.2.2 Factors in language choice

The level of the learners: It is the most important factor that decides whether to

use first language or target language in the classroom According to Lynn Cameron, the amount of the first language to be used in class depends on the learners' ability rather than the teachers' proficiency For instance, with the learners who have a low level of language,

it is impractical for the teachers to use the target language all the time For many years, learners - centered approach has been considered important to all educators Hence, the amount of knowledge that the learners can pick up is really of great importance In this case, students with different levels of English will have different levels of competence in comprehending what is being said during the lesson Whether the learners with a low level

of English can understand English only lesson is a big question

Emphasis: Another important factor that may influence the way of choosing

the language in language classes is the emphasis of the lesson In other words, as Lynn Cameron said, the choice of the language in the lesson depends on the importance of what is being said Additionally, she also emphasized that the use of the first language may reflect the seriousness of the problems in order to help the learners have clear understanding of the problem As being mentioned, this way proves to be the most suitable for the low-level learners who have a poor knowledge of the target language

In order to avoid the misunderstanding in the process of study, the teachers sometimes can use the mother tongue to explain

Alignment: It is necessary to create the feeling of being aligned with the

students It is the fact that most beginners of English often feel shy and unconfident in class when they are forced to speak in the target language It is natural when a student with a poor knowledge of the language is lazy in participating in class activities The passiveness in the class can cause the demotivation in learning On the other hand, there is a fact that most teachers appreciate the English only policy in class and try to speak in the target language all the time It will be suitable for the learners who are at advanced levels or have a good knowledge of English in order to comprehend the

whole lesson The English only policy sometimes will make the learners feel unfamiliar and unconnected to the class Lynn Cameron has shown that the choice of language can reflect the teachers' alignment to the students, or, in other words how much the teacher is "on their side"

1.3 L1 use in the classroom

It cannot be denied that in order to master a language, the practice and frequent use of the language play an important part However, to the beginners ò language, using a second language in the initial stage is difficult According to Brian McMillan (2009), the use of the mother tongue is considered as "contravening the basic premises

of immersion" Each teacher has her own way of teaching the ESL learners in order to help them pick up the target language effectively It is widely believed that the most usual way of starting from the easiest thing to the most difficult one will be suitable for learners with certain levels By this means, the use of L1 in the classroom is the same

"The amount used was not dependent on teacher's proficiency since they could all use English fluently and confidently Rather, the different seems to come from the teachers' perception of their pupils' ability and the status of the school"

(Lynn Cameron, p.201)

It is the student's ability, as Lynn Cameron ever stated, that decides the amount

of the first language to be used It means that in the process of preparation for the lesson, the teacher should investigate and change the way of using the language in the classroom so as to help the students anticipate in the lesson With high-level or academic students, first language should be less used On the contrary, to those who have a poor knowledge of English and low levels, the amount of the mother tongue is certain to be bigger However, it is not recommended that the first language is always used in the whole lesson According to Lynn Cameron, despite the low level of the students, "the core of language content" remains in the target language

However, as being said above, the use of the first language can bring negative influence There are reasons for the teachers to be cautious of the use of the first language In fact, the beginners of English often rely on their previous language knowledge to help them understand the structure, organization and principles behind

the target language First language in the classroom should be used with care because its wrong use can lead to a wrong direction and bad result in the learning process

"When to use", "where to use" and "how to use" should be questioned exactly and carefully before the decision on the amount of the first language is made

According to Lewis (1985), there are some situations in which the first language is useful In class, if the students have a difficult problem, it will be natural for both the teacher and students to speak in the first language He also emphasized that the teacher does not need to make the situation become more difficult to the students just by insisting them to talk in English

What will happen in the classroom cannot be predicted The teacher himself/herself should prepare for each difficult situation to happen Although there are some techniques that can reinforce the students' motivation in learning, it is not recommended to use the mother tongue all the time in class However, "ignore the mother tongue in the monolingual classroom is almost certainly to teach with less than maximum efficiency" (Atkinson, 1987, p243-244) So, in which situation should the mother tongue be used?

 Giving suggestions: Using students' native language to elicit language can be really helpful in some ways For example, when the teacher wants to give suggestions to the students to say something or ask about the vocabulary like

"How do you say X in English?" In stead of using any kind of illustration or pictures, there is some kind that takes less time and less ambiguity

 Checking comprehension: According to David Atkinson, mother tongue can be used to check comprehension of the concept behind the structure or comprehension of the listening or reading text

 Giving instruction: Atkinson's reason for using mother tongue in this case is " Give the instruction in the target language and ask for their repetition in the students' language to ensure that everyone fully understands what to do."

 Group discussion: Atkinson suggested that both the languages should be used in group discussion for the early level because in the foreign language there may

be some aspects that are "unfamiliar or initially unacceptable to some students."

1.4 L1 transfer - linguistic theory of the role of the first language

There are many researches on the relationship between mother tongue and second language learning The aim of those studies is to find out the influence of the mother tongue on the process of second language teaching and learning It is important to remember that the students do not step into the classroom with empty heads but they have lived and communicated in their mother tongue for a long period of time Also, it is not a coat that can be taken off easily and thrown away before a student enters a foreign classroom What the learners have learnt from their mother tongue is firmly printed in their minds Consequently, it is not easy to ignore the transfer of their mother tongue and only use English to think It is natural for them to consider the mother tongue as a medium to link the foreign language and their thinking together In order to have a clear look at the previous points of views of the L1 effects on L2 learning, it is important to clarify its effects on L2 learning in terms of linguistic views

According to Ellis (1998), L1 transfer refers to the "influence that the learners' L1 exerts over the acquisition of a L2" It is known that the first language has great effect on the way a person picks up a new language To the beginners of L2 who are not familiar with the rules of the target language, it is natural to bring the rule of their first language into the target language in the process of learning Therefore, the content

of the mother tongue is very easy to influence the use of the foreign language However, it is not a best solution to force the beginners to speak the target language and follow those unfamiliar rules The pedagogical experts suggested a "L1 transfer" period for the L2 learners which can help them to get used to a new language According to Ellis, L1 transfer can have both positive and negative effects

When the relevant units or structures of the two languages are the same, the L1

transfer can lead to a correct language production It is called positive transfer In other

words, it is likely to occur when learners recognize common features among concepts, principles, skills, structures of the two languages Then the theory which is applied to this language learning can also exist in the other One common feeling and thoughts of all language learners is that they have tendency to be shy and afraid of taking part in the lesson if they do not know anything about what they are learning By this means, those

similarities among different languages in the world and the first language, or what we call "language transfer", can facilitate learning Many teachers' explanation of the reason for using language transfer in the classroom is that the ESL learners tend to feel more confident and motivated if they know "something" about the target language Positive transfer is very helpful to foreign language teachers and learners That is to say, the learners‟ mother tongue can facilitate their foreign language learning

On the other hand, when the language characteristics of the two languages are not completely similar, the mother tongue will not help the students to learn well It can

even result in their big errors in the process of learning which is called negative transfer The negative transfer is most likely to occur when the learner incorrectly

believes that these are common features and improperly links the information while encoding it, or incorrectly sees some value in using information from one setting to another It is also known as negative interference When there are differences in a structure between two languages, the different points will always be the difficulty for the learners Rob Ellis, in his "second language acquisition", stated that in the early day of second language teaching, negative transfer was considered "the result of interference" That is why first language was "supposed to prevent the learners from learning the habits of second language." (Ellis, 1997)

However, in fact, the result of positive transfer seems to be unnoticed According

to Ellis (1997), "the differences between the target and native languages do not always result in learning difficulty" Generally speaking, the more similar the two languages are, the more the learners will be aware of the relation between their structures, vocabulary, linguistics, the more input the learners can have

1.5 Grammar -translation Teaching versus Communicative Language Teaching:

In the era of technology and communication nowadays, each person is required

to know at least a foreign language in order to communicate with other people from many countries That demands from the society has given the learners many new challenges The change in the world of work also makes all schools change their ways

of teaching For centuries, the foreign language has been taught with Grammar translation method, which was first called the classical method (Douglass

-Brown,1994) To put it more simply, this method was used to teach foreign language for the sake of being scholar in that language, not for oral competence This classical method, which was first used before the nineteenth century is still in practice in many schools nowadays under the name of grammar -translation teaching method In Grammar translation method, the influence of the mother tongue on second language learning and teaching is partly an important factor It is known that the first language is formed first and, to some extent, affects the way of thinking and use of the foreign language The language transfer, according to many experts, has great influence on the way of learning a foreign language On the one hand, it can help us understand the influence of one language on the other; for example, how the errors appear in the process of learning because of language transfer By this means, understanding those influences, the students will be able to avoid such errors in producing and performing second language In other words, first language transfer can have some positive influences on the learning of the second language So, how is the Grammar Translation method used? Douglas Brown (1994) once agreed with the characteristics listed by the two experts Prator and Celce-Murcia before that classes should be taught in mother tongue with the little use of the second language Richards (2001) also agreed with the contribution of the mother tongue in teaching second language in Grammar translation method but he considered the use of first language as "the medium of instruction" He also emphasized that mother tongue is only used to " explain new items and to enable comparisons to be made between the foreign language and student's native language"

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is the learner-centered method

and it emphasizes communication and real-life situations The role of the teacher in CLT is quite different from traditional teaching methods In the traditional classroom, the teacher is in charge and “controls” the students In CLT, the teacher serves as more

of a facilitator, allowing students to be in charge of their own learning The main difference is that In CLT classroom, the students are required to use the second language all the time in order to practice using the target language It is considered as

"English only" classes However, Lewis (1985) said that although using mother tongue

in class can bring a lot of danger in the process of learning a foreign language, the

teacher should not be afraid of students' mother tongue As being mentioned above, the use of second language must depend on the student's level Lewis also thought that the best way is to use both the languages in class For example, in a discussion activity, some students may not have enough English vocabulary to express their ideas while the others can be good at it Both of those kinds of students can share ideas, help and learn from each other He emphasized that the students' native language should be used

in some "clearly defined areas" to make the activities in class more interesting and to achieve "a higher standard of English" Mother tongue can be regarded as the bridge or the means for the students of low level of English to express what they want to say According to Atkinson (1987), after knowing what the learners want to say the teacher then can "encourage them to find a way of expressing their meaning in English, or, if necessary, help out"

1.6 The Monolingual Approach versus The Bilingual Approach

Communicative language teaching is becoming the most effective teaching method nowadays Many people have realized its benefits when using CLT in teaching and learning second language

In the previous section, the opposite views of the use of L1 in L2 classroom have been stated as a current problem in teaching methodology In many English classrooms, mother tongue is becoming useless Native teachers are considered better than the EFL teachers The English only policy is the best choice in language classes Those who support the monolingual approach in language classroom state that L1 can give the hindrance to the students in the process of learning L2 However, as mentioned, the support for the use of L1 in language classroom has been increasing which indicates that the appropriate use of L1 can lead to a significant success of teaching and learning language So, what are Monolingual approach and Bilingual approach?

In many Asian countries where English is considered the second language and a compulsory subject in many universities, the teachers are encouraged to use "English only" policy in the classroom This English only policy is what we call monolingual approach As discussed in the previous section, this approach is supported by those who consider L1 as a hindrance in teaching and learning second language Krashen (1982)

Fsuggested the "first language interference" as the "major source of syntactic errors in adult second language performance" or the "indication of low acquisition" In other words,

in monolingual classes, the target language is the only language that is allowed to be used This approach is often conducted by the native-speaker teachers who believe that it can provide the best language environment for students to learn the target language Students

in monolingual classes are assumed to be able to learn English faster and to have better performance

In contrast, according to Phillipson (1992), monolingual approach seems to be

"impractical" and "seldom carried out through" in practice and "its very existence puts the teacher into false position" The low-level students have a small vocabulary, limited to a narrow range of topics, with a limited knowledge of colloquial use, and confused about the word orders None of these situations are rare in English-only classrooms, but the important is the level of the language here; for example, a vocabulary of 500-1500 words in the target language compared to 2500-4000 in English The teacher in a monolingual classroom can assume that students have a good knowledge of English and can make use of that knowledge In many cases, EFL teachers of the monolingual class at lower levels of English can find prohibition of the mother tongue to be practically impossible in teaching Instead of looking at the students' native language and cultural background as inferior or a source of errors, they accept the native language to be used as a tool to maximize foreign language learning The mother tongue represents a powerful resource that can be used in a number of ways to enhance learning but it must always be used in a principled way

To put it more simply, bilingualism is about two languages or the ability to speak and write in both languages (productive competence) According to Baker (2006), many teachers see bilingual "as two monolinguals in one person" It means the ability to use two languages at the same time First language has long been considered as a lower language and a source of errors in teaching and learning This view is now being criticized because EFL teachers have become more aware of the significance of L1 Richards (1994) agreed that in bilingual classrooms, the bilingual approach can help the teachers to" successfully

communicate his or her intensions, maintain student's engagement in instructional tasks and monitor students' performance on class"

In fact, most language classes consist of a large amount of non-native speaker students who have a low level of English, so most of them often have limited understanding of what is being said in "English-only" class The teacher in the bilingual classroom can be reasonably sure that the learners' knowledge in the target language is not good enough to understand the difficult English structure

Summary

In the foreign language teaching, it has been suggested that we should create a

"pure foreign language environment It is no doubt that it is helpful to make the students improve their foreign language level However, is it suitable for the students who only have a poor knowledge of the target language or just start learning it? The differences of the language ability between low-level and advanced learners cannot be denied In this cases, the mother tongue can be helpful to motivate or play as a "language transfer" in the second language learning The debate on whether it is helpful to use mother tongue

in English class is still fierce The ESL teacher should be careful in choosing language and the amount of using the first language in class There is always two sides of one thing, but there is no doubt that the first language is quite essential for low-level non-native students of English

CHAPTER 2 METHODOLOGY

This chapter presents the issues of methodology, which provides the audience with the methods that the researcher used to collect and analyze data, including the subjects of the study and the instrument for data collection The explanations of how the work was conducted as well as the reasons for the choice of the methods are also given in this chapter

2.1 Subjects of the study

The subjects of this study will be about 110 first-year students of Thai Nguyen University of Education and the teachers of the Foreign Language Faculty of Thai Nguyen University of Education These 110 students have different levels of English because they are from different areas of the country Some (coming from city) have learnt English for 9 years, while others(coming from mountainous areas where English

is not considered very important) are just the beginners of English The teachers of this study are those who have been teaching English for a long time and have much experience in teaching methodology

2.2 Data collection instrument

The study will consist of three parts with different subjects One part will involve a survey questionnaire and the other parts will be an interview and a classroom observation

The questionnaire consists of a number of open-ended and closed-ended questions printed and typed in a definite order and form and submitted to a sampling population The responses of the questionnaire are elicited and used for the study of the research The purpose of the survey questionnaire is to examine the role of the mother tongue and the students' attitudes towards the use of the mother tongue in the teaching and the learning of English One of the advantages of the survey questionnaire is that the writer can collect the opinions in the fastest way but it still guarantees the accuracy and honesty of the results Griffee (2012) agreed that questionnaire can be used to gather the data in a short period of time and also help to collect data in a group which is too large to observe directly The persuasive numbers

of the results will assist exactly the role of the first language in teaching second language It is often a good way of collecting a large number of quantitative data The questionnaire consists of 8 questions with different contents about the learners' use and attitudes towards the use of the mother tongue in the language classroom the questions

range from ticking (√) to multiple choice For each question, the participants are

suggested to give their thought or explain their answer if necessary

The interview will aim at finding the teachers' opinions about the use of the mother tongue in teaching English and how they use it in their lessons Many researcher considered interviewing as a friendly method in research because it does not require any statistical analysis (Griffee, 2012) The interview is conducted in English since all

of the teachers are specialists in English while the survey questionnaire was in the mother tongue (Vietnamese) The reason for this is that most of the teachers in this study have been teaching for at least 10 years; therefore, their opinions are useful for

my research in evaluating the effectiveness of using the first language in the teaching

of the second language Collecting data from the learners' point of view and the teacher's point of view, who are the participants of the language lessons, can provide the researcher a full picture of the fact in using native language in the classroom The last part will focus on classroom observation in order to experience the fact of the use of the mother tongue in English classes It will be able to help avoid the subjective elements in collecting data The observation is carried out in 10 English classes of Thai Nguyen University of Education The students' use and attitude in the language class will

be counted as well as the teachers' use of the mother tongue An observation sheet was prepared in order to have the exact categories that the researcher needs to observe In addition, to make sure of the reliability of the result, no participant is announced about the content of the observation beforehand In this way, the researcher can identify the way the teachers use the mother tongue and the fact of using it in class

2.3 Data analysis

After being collected, the data will be further interpreted and analyzed The data consisted of both quantitative and qualitative questionnaires with 110 students and an interview with 10 teachers The respondents provide the information using standard

closed and open-ended questions about their perception and reaction towards the use of the mother tongue in the language class After all the data are collected, they are analyzed to have the best overview on the use of the native language in English lessons Then the data will be categorized and the number of the answers will be counted The statistic result will be counted with the following formula:

N1

N2

In which:

P = percentage

N1 = the number of the participants choose an item

N2 = The total number of the participants

The result and data are shown in numbers of tables and charts in order to have the best view on the fact of using L1 in the L2 classroom and to compare variables in each question In the interview part, the data is collected and analyzed basing on the teachers' opinion about several interview questions The responses for the interview questions will be sorted out and analyzed in terms of the similarity in the content of the response

The result of the classroom observation will be counted by the number of times that the teachers use Vietnamese for a single purpose on the observation sheets These data are then analyzed and compared to find out in which situations the teachers often use the mother tongue most in reality Also, the recorded time of the use of mother

tongue in class by both the teachers and students is counted approximately only This

data is then compared with the results of survey questionnaire and interviews

Summary

This chapter provides a detailed description of the methodology employed in this study The first-year students of K46 course and the English teachers of the foreign language faculty at Thai Nguyen University of Education are chosen to participate in this study

CHAPTER 3 THE RESULTS OF THE STUDY

The previous theoretical part focuses on the general aspects of using the mother tongue and the target language in foreign language classes The following part concentrates more on the practical use of the mother tongue in the classroom as well as the learners' responses and attitudes towards the use of the native language The teachers' points of view and the class observation are also considered as an important data collection instrument to support the hypothesis of the study

3.1 The situation of English Teaching and the Learning at Thai Nguyen University of Education

In order to understand the study and support the research, it is important to identify the teaching and learning condition of Thai Nguyen University

Thai Nguyen University has more than ten thousand students learning in different faculties, which all have the need to equip their students with certain knowledge of English for their majors However, many of the students are the beginners of English Some have learnt English for 3 years at high school Others have never learnt it before This really leads to some difficulties for the teachers in their teaching because of the differences in the students‟ level Additionally, for the students from mountainous areas who do not have many chances to use English in everyday life like those in the big city, English is a difficult subject to master The lack of knowledge as well as some important skills in English is an obstacle to most students to understand the whole lesson in English Furthermore, the number of students per class is too big for the teachers to control the whole class during the lesson With the number of more than 50 students per class, it is impossible for the teacher to take care of each student and observe how t hey learn during the semester In those conditions, the question is whether using monolingual method can bring effectiveness in the lesson

Before the fact in using the mother tongue in the class and its contribution to the study of the second language in the student's points of view was found out, the reasons for learning English were given to all the participants

Table 1: Reasons for the learning of English

2.English is an international language, so it's useful for communicative

in class In other words, to promote and stimulate those students in class, besides interesting activities, it is necessary to make them feel more confident and know what they are studying 26% of the students chose to learn English for communicative purposes, while the number of the students who learn English for both reasons is 18%

It means that although most of the learners do not realize the importance of English in their life, there are still a number of students who want to learn it for the communicative purpose or for their future jobs

Chart 1: Students' years of learning English

It is important to emphasize that students' levels of English are not the same which results from the different spans of time that they learnt English at high school

As can be seen from the chart, most of the students have learnt English long enough (20% have learnt English for 9 years, 45% for 7 years and 23% for 3 years) to get a certain knowledge of basic English On the other hand, a number of students (12%) had not been lucky enough to know the language until they became students of Thai Nguyen University of Education This fact may result in their difficulty in learning in the same class with the same curriculum

3.2 Result of the survey questionnaire

The survey questionnaire was given to the 110 1st-year students under study It consisted of 8 questions Each question consisted of specific detail about the practice

of using bilingualism as a teaching aid in class by both the teachers and students as well as their attitude towards it The results of the responses from student groups were presented and analyzed with the help of tables and bar graphs in the following pages

As mentioned above, most of the students have learnt English for several years It

is a compulsory subject at school so they had to learn it in order to upgrade and graduate However, the question is whether those years of learning English can make them confident in understanding the whole lesson in English That question was given to those participants and the result shows that more than 90% of the participants said "yes" to the use of the first language in learning English As previously mentioned, it is important to emphasize that using the first language all the time is not effective and it even has negatives effects on their study, but the problem is how much mother tongue should be used in the language classroom That question will be answered and discussed later

Table 2: The use of mother tongue in second language class

referred from the result that the majority of the participants showed their approval of the help of the first language in the English class This data proves the fact that although most of the students have learnt English for several years, their communicative skills and language knowledge are not good enough for them to comprehend all the things that the teachers say in English

Chart 2: Frequency of using mother

a lot little sometimes never

Chart 3: Aspects of second language to be

taught in mother tongue

16

2

10 8

34

26

4

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

sp

ki ng w tin g lis te

ni ng

re ad

in g

gr amm ar

vo ca

bu la ry

According to the result, the use of L1 is necessary, but it should not be used constantly Although the students who were asked to give explanation for their choice agreed that this would also hamper the process of language learning to some extent, it could help them understand the lecture much more if it was used with a suitable amount

in the lesson Also, the students also gave their own reason for their choice Below are some typical explanation from the students (which was translated into English):

"In the beginning, student's communicative skills are not good enough, so it's necessary to use first language in order to help students to understand the lesson"

"It is necessary to use much English in the lesson but it should be integrated with a little use of mother tongue, because there is a lot of difficult vocabulary and grammar that need explaining in mother tongue"

Generally speaking, most of the students agreed with the fact that the first language should not be used too much in the language class to have a more effective lesson However, the question is when to use it and how to use it This problem was raised to all first-year students and the result was shown in chart 3 and table 3 As being said before, most of the students said that it was useful to teach English with a little integration of the first language in class so that it would be more effective, especially in teaching grammar and vocabulary Therefore, 34% selected grammar and 26% vocabulary that should be taught the in first language On the contrary, only 2% chose writing as a specific skill that should be taught in the first language while listening and reading was chosen by 10% and 8% as skills that they wanted the teacher to explain in the mother tongue In this chart, speaking skills was in the middle with 16% of choice

Table 3: Situations for the teachers to speak in the first language

1 Explaining the meanings of some difficult words 84%

5 Explaining the use of some phrases or concepts 54 %