I share L1 with my group of adult beginners, and I don't want to fall back on translation, though it seems the easiest way, and my students expect me to do just this. I almost read it in their eyes: "Stop fooling around and tell us the Russian word for THIS!" I've been taught to believe in teaching English through English, but I sometimes doubt whether it's worth the effort.
To what extent is it acceptable to use translation in teaching beginners?Is there any point in my feeling guilty every time I resort to L1?
I suspect that this question has been widely discussed before, but I haven't found much on the matter, so, please, what do you think?
monolingual beginner group in EFL setting
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Hello Kimberly,
I teach English to adults here in Germany, and, as I have quite a high level of German myself, I find that using L1 with the beginners is okay. What I like is that the students do whatever activity we are working on in English. That I quite often answer their questions in German, go over the task before hand in German and review the results in their mother tongue doesn't seem to have much (if any) negative effect. A nice way of getting them away, slowly, from L1 dependence is to give answers to their queries in both languages. I can quite understand your worries about using L1 in the classroom, and I think that opinion is quite divided on this point, but in the reality of my teaching situation (where I see most of my students once a week for two or three teaching hours) an expedient use of German makes for swifter, and quite often surer, progress.
I teach English to adults here in Germany, and, as I have quite a high level of German myself, I find that using L1 with the beginners is okay. What I like is that the students do whatever activity we are working on in English. That I quite often answer their questions in German, go over the task before hand in German and review the results in their mother tongue doesn't seem to have much (if any) negative effect. A nice way of getting them away, slowly, from L1 dependence is to give answers to their queries in both languages. I can quite understand your worries about using L1 in the classroom, and I think that opinion is quite divided on this point, but in the reality of my teaching situation (where I see most of my students once a week for two or three teaching hours) an expedient use of German makes for swifter, and quite often surer, progress.
Hello, Macavity,
Thank you very much for your reassuring reply.
I understand that it is probably OK to use L1 to give instructions and feedback or clarify some tricky grammar points, but I wouldn't like to translate while explaining the meaning of new vocabulary, since they may link an English word to its L1 "equivalent", which would interfere with their languange production. Do you feel equally cautious about it?
Also, when you say that you answer their queries in both languages, do you mean that you answer first in English, and, if they don't understand, in German? Do they make an effort to understand if they know that they're going to hear the same in German? And at which point do you drop giving the German version?
Best wishes,
Kimberley
Thank you very much for your reassuring reply.
I understand that it is probably OK to use L1 to give instructions and feedback or clarify some tricky grammar points, but I wouldn't like to translate while explaining the meaning of new vocabulary, since they may link an English word to its L1 "equivalent", which would interfere with their languange production. Do you feel equally cautious about it?
Also, when you say that you answer their queries in both languages, do you mean that you answer first in English, and, if they don't understand, in German? Do they make an effort to understand if they know that they're going to hear the same in German? And at which point do you drop giving the German version?
Best wishes,
Kimberley
Hello Kimberly,
sorry that I haven’t replied any sooner, I was away for a few days. OK, so the way that I handle things with my beginners is this. When we encounter new words in the English text (whatever they might be ) I set about explaining these through English. I try to avoid giving them the German equivalent, but in reality there’s often someone in the group who can’t refrain from blurting this out! On the other hand, it does seem to me that some items are less likely to interfere with production if the German is supplied, e.g., closed lists like the days of the week; and also I feel that some function words and other items of little or no lexical reference can be translated without too much worry about interference or transfer (although caution needs to be exercised here, for example preps and pronouns are something I usually avoid translating). I don’t normally deny any item that I’m able to supply if I’m asked for the English word for something that the student only knows in German. However, I nearly always throw it open to the group first; I find that it is far more effective if the new item comes from another student (and it allows me to keep a check on who knows what). As for answering their questions in both languages, yes I do give the English version first, and no I don’t think it makes them lazy knowing that I’m willing to explain things in German for those who haven’t understood. Often other students – those for whom the penny has already dropped – will take on this role for themselves ,and, although I didn’t like this at all at first, I’ve come to accept it as part of the normal psychology of a group of learners with the same L1. It’s difficult to say exactly when I drop the German version – I think it’s when I perceive that there are fewer blank faces staring back at me and I feel that enough of the students have grasped the gist of things and that we are able to go on without too many whispered voices saying, „was hat er gesagt?“
BW,
Mac
sorry that I haven’t replied any sooner, I was away for a few days. OK, so the way that I handle things with my beginners is this. When we encounter new words in the English text (whatever they might be ) I set about explaining these through English. I try to avoid giving them the German equivalent, but in reality there’s often someone in the group who can’t refrain from blurting this out! On the other hand, it does seem to me that some items are less likely to interfere with production if the German is supplied, e.g., closed lists like the days of the week; and also I feel that some function words and other items of little or no lexical reference can be translated without too much worry about interference or transfer (although caution needs to be exercised here, for example preps and pronouns are something I usually avoid translating). I don’t normally deny any item that I’m able to supply if I’m asked for the English word for something that the student only knows in German. However, I nearly always throw it open to the group first; I find that it is far more effective if the new item comes from another student (and it allows me to keep a check on who knows what). As for answering their questions in both languages, yes I do give the English version first, and no I don’t think it makes them lazy knowing that I’m willing to explain things in German for those who haven’t understood. Often other students – those for whom the penny has already dropped – will take on this role for themselves ,and, although I didn’t like this at all at first, I’ve come to accept it as part of the normal psychology of a group of learners with the same L1. It’s difficult to say exactly when I drop the German version – I think it’s when I perceive that there are fewer blank faces staring back at me and I feel that enough of the students have grasped the gist of things and that we are able to go on without too many whispered voices saying, „was hat er gesagt?“
BW,
Mac
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Sally Olsen
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It is funny, but I think that I stick the same word in all languages together in my brain rather than have a seperate area for Japanese, Mongolian, Greenlandic, etc. When I think of a table, I think of it first in English and then try and remeber the word in all the other languages I know. Not for everything of course and not all the time. The more automatic the language becomes, the more I seem to stick the words together in groups or phrases or even sentences. So I don't think that it hurts to have translation at the beginning because some people might learn that way more easily. As I get older, I find that I am forgetting the latest language I learned more quickly and still remember Spanish, my second language more completely. I know that when I am speaking to someone and have to use another language without much warning, I often have to go through Spanish and then French, which I learned more thorougly and when I was young before I can remember the Japanese.