Revisiting the benefits of incorporating the students’ L1 in L2 Grammar instruction: Attitudes of EFL teachers and young learners in Cyprus

Abstract

The role of the students’ mother tongue in the L2 classroom has been heavily discussed in Second Language Acquisition literature. On the one hand, it is believed that L1 use deprives students of more L2 exposure (Kartika-Ningsih & Rose, 2018) yet others support that using the students’ L1 is a form of utilizing their prior knowledge (Hall & Cook 2012) and therefore disregarding that knowledge may be counter-productive when it comes to L2 instruction. Some argue that the positive influence of judicious L1 use has been more or less established and that the academic focus has shifted to the search of effective ways in which L1 use can maximize L2 learning (Copland & Neokleous, 2010) yet the need for concrete guidelines regarding the use of L1 remains (Tsagari & Diakou, 2015). The present study examined the views and attitudes of EFL teachers and young learners in Cyprus regarding L1 use in class and its effect on grammar instruction and comprehension. During the intervention phase, EFL students were taught by using two different instruction methods, one with a combination of English and Greek and one solely in English. After that, all the students had to complete three sets of tasks and at the end of the intervention they were given a questionnaire to elicit their views on L1 use in class. The teachers’ attitudes were elicited through semi-structured interviews. The analysis of the data showed that the grammar instruction with a combination of English and Greek was more effective for the students’ learning process than the instruction in English alone. The teachers’ attitudes ranged from neutral to negative although all the teachers admitted using the L1 in their lessons. Finally, young students expressed a preference for L1 use with the older groups appearing more confident in an all-English classroom.