I love that Penny brought up about the use of L1.

I love that Penny brought up about the use of L1. People here believe that using L1 in lessons is a taboo and those who are found using L1 could be simply labelled as incompetent.

It is true after all that using L1 can also be a waste of time especially when it is incomprehensible. People suggest the use of simple English in second language classrooms to make input comprehensible yet often teachers are unsure of the level of simple English people are talking about.

A brief explanation from Penny on the use of L1 has made me feel more confident with my teaching. Thank you Penny!

Comments

  1. Penny UrNovember 29, 2017 at 6:50 AM

    You're welcome!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Elizabeth BekesDecember 1, 2017 at 6:50 AM

    I think one of the problems is that not all teachers are aware of effective classroom language and/or may not have the skill to create simplified language on the spot. Yesterday I was one of four judges at a Spelling Bee competition, and the announcer found it difficult to come up with appropriate sample sentences that would have clarified the meaning of the word in a way that was not more complicated than the word itself.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Scott GrayDecember 18, 2017 at 3:51 AM

    I agree that we should use the target language as much as possible but we do live in the real world and proper use of L1 is fine. I think we just have to watch that we don't fall into habits of doing things without thinking or just reacting. As others have said, never say never, is the way to go. It is the teacher's job to juggle that to give the best chance to learn the knowledge.
    Just be ware of how you use it and even mistakes can bring good things. One example I can give is here in Japan we used flash cards but we always used articles. We would show a picture of a cat and say "a cat" or show a picture of three elephants and say "three elephants" or "some elephants". It is unnatural for a native teacher to do this but because Japanese doesn't really have articles we had to do this to make it easy for the kids to pick it up. So many kids when shown a picture of a cat would say "It is cat." so we had the teachers do unnatural things so the kids to learn and I think that is a main point Penny is trying to get across. Keep focus on what you are doing and stay on task. Choose the best ways to teach but remember the teacher has to make decisions.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Penny UrDecember 18, 2017 at 6:39 AM

    Scott - I also in my teaching used to do exactly the same: 'a cat' not just 'cat' when showing a picture, because there are no indefinite articles in Hebrew either! I think that's just one illustration of how important it is to know the students' mother tongue, if you're teaching in this sort of situation (when all, or nearly all, the students have the same L1). .

    ReplyDelete

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