VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** PHÙNG THỊ HIỀN TEACHERS’ USE OF THE MOTHER TONGUE IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASSROOMS FOR YOUNG LEARNERS AT A LANGUAGE CENTER: A CASE STUDY (ĐIỂN CỨU VỀ VIỆC SỬ DỤNG TIẾNG MẸ ĐẺ CỦA GIÁO VIÊN TRONG LỚP HỌC TIẾNG ANH CHO TRẺ EM Ở MỘT TRUNG TÂM NGOẠI NGỮ) M.A Minor Thesis Field: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10 Hanoi – 2012 VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** PHÙNG THỊ HIỀN TEACHERS’ USE OF THE MOTHER TONGUE IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASSROOMS FOR YOUNG LEARNERS AT A LANGUAGE CENTER: A CASE STUDY (ĐIỂN CỨU VỀ VIỆC SỬ DỤNG TIẾNG MẸ ĐẺ CỦA GIÁO VIÊN TRONG LỚP HỌC TIẾNG ANH CHO TRẺ EM Ở MỘT TRUNG TÂM NGOẠI NGỮ) M.A Minor Thesis Field: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10 Supervisor: Do Thi Thanh Ha, Ph D Hanoi – 2012 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF TABLES, ABBREVIATIONS vii PART I: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale of the study Aims and Objectives of the study Scope of the study Methods of the study Layout of the thesis PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Young learners 1.2 History of the use of L1 in L2 classroom 1.3 Debating surrounding the use of L1 in the L2 classroom 1.3.1 Arguments against L1 use 1.3.2 Arguments favoring L1 use 1.4 Use of L1 in L2 classroom 12 1.5 The amount of L1 in the English classroom 13 1.6 Empirical researches 14 v CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 16 2.1 Qualitative Multi case study approach 16 2.2 Setting and Participants 17 2.2.1 Setting 17 2.2.2 Participants 18 2.3 Data collection Instruments 18 2.3.1 Classroom observation 18 2.3.2 Stimulated Recall 19 2.3.3 Semi Structured Interview 20 2.4 Data collection procedure 20 2.5 Data analysis 20 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 22 3.1 Findings 22 3.1.1 Case (teacher in class for 5-6 years old students) 22 3.1.2 Case (teacher in class for 6- years old students) 26 3.1.3 Case (teacher in class for above years old students) 29 3.2 Discussions 33 PART III: CONCLUSION 38 Summary of major findings 38 Recommendations 39 Limitations 40 vi Suggestions for further study 40 REFERENCES 42 APPENDICES vii LIST OF TABLES Table 22 Table 2: 26 Table 3: .30 LIST OF ABRREVIATIONS MT: mother tongue L1: first language TL: target language L2: second language EFL: English as a foreign language ELT: English Language teaching GTM: Grammar Translation Method SR: Stimulated Recall PART I: INTRODUCTION Rationale of the study In the process of foreign language teaching, the issue of the mother tongue (MT) itself has been debated for many years The various views are reflections on the methodological changes in English language teaching, which have in such way brought different perspectives on the role of mother tongue For a long time, many popular English language-teaching methods tend to discourage the use of the first language (L1) in the second language (L2) classroom As a result, the English only approach has become a dominant and often understood to be the hallmarks of good language teaching Despite the almost undeniable acceptance of the monolingual belief to EFL classes, recent years have witnessed a considerable shift of views among the ELT professionals concerning the utility of students‟ mother tongue (MT) in the L2 classroom What the reasons for the ignorance of MT use are, when and how the MT can be applied in the classroom and how much L1 should be used in the classroom are currently main seeking among scholars, linguists and teachers In the global scale, there have been various studies focusing on this topic such as the studies conducted by Schweers (1999) at the University of Puerto Rico, Beressa (2003) at Adama Teachers College, Tang (2002) at a university in Beijing, Duff and Polio (2009) at University of California, Al-Nofaie (2010) in Saudi public schools It is obvious that most of them have investigated this issue at high level of education In addition, these studies emphasized mainly the use of the first language from two sides: teachers and learners In Vietnamese context, however, it is rather difficult to find research in this topic Kieu Hang Kim Anh (2010) investigated the attitudes of Vietnamese University teachers toward Vietnamese use in English language teaching Some other research is carried out by graduate students as their M A thesis like the works by Tran Ngoc Thuong (2010) on teachers‟ and students‟ attitude toward the use of the MT at a high school, or Do Thi Khanh Van (2010) with her emphasis on the role and use of the L1 in learning vocabulary in English classes at a university Comes to the conclusion, there still exists huge gaps on the reality of using the mother tongue in classroom at every level, in every aspect in Vietnam Therefore, there is a need to investigate the issue of the MT use in second language classroom from different perspectives and in different fields such as from teachers‟ and students‟ views, in learning of grammar, vocabulary, skills, etc This study focused on only one of those factors that are teacher‟s use of MT in classes for young learners The reason the researcher focused on teachers‟ use of the MT is that teachers‟ talk or language choice in the L2 classroom has a central role and is of great significance to language learners One of the main reasons for the interest is that EFL classroom and teachers are the only and the primary resources of the L2 for EFL students (Polio & Duff, 1994) Schweers (1999) also pointed out that if the teacher used L2, the learners would use it also, and this created the opportunity for them to interact with their teachers and peers However, Song (2009) asserted that if teachers shared the same MT with their students, they might hardly avoid the use of L1 Hopefully, the findings of this study will contribute to the pedagogic methodology, especially in teaching English to young children Aims and objectives of the study The aim of this study is to examine teacher‟s use of the MT- Vietnamese in English language classroom for young learners at an English centre The objectives of the study are investigating the amount of L1 use by teachers of different levels and the reasons underlying their L1 using In addition, teachers‟ belief about L1 use is also addressed in order to find out the concordance to their practices In order to achieve the aim, the study addresses these following main questions: How much L1 is used and in which sections teachers use L1 in the classroom? Why teachers use the mother tongue? What are teachers‟ beliefs about MT use? Do teacher‟s beliefs correlate to their practices? Scope of the study In practice, L1 can be used by both students and teachers in L2 classroom However, within the framework of this minor thesis, the study only focuses on teachers‟ use of the MT in English classes for young learners Specifically, the study aims at investigating the amount of L1 use by teachers of different levels and the reasons underlying their L1 using In addition, teachers‟ belief about L1 use is also addressed in order to find out the concordance to their practices Methods of the study The study is carried out in form of a qualitative multi case study approach in which three teachers teaching three different levels for young learners will be investigated in order to compare and contrast their MT use in L2 classroom Three research methods, including classroom observation, stimulated recall interview, and semi- structured interview are used to reach the aim of the study The researcher believes that the combination of different methods to collect data could provide more reliable and valid information for analysis Classroom observations are used to discover the amount and in which sections Vietnamese was used Stimulated recall interview was applied to gain insights into teachers‟ rationale of using the MT in the classroom The recall interviews were fully transcribed and analyzed qualitatively according to emerging themes The semi-structured interviews are to explore teachers‟ opinions of the use of the first language in the classroom, and then compared with teacher‟s practices Semi structured interviews were conducted after finishing all observations and stimulated interviews As in the case of stimulated recall, semi structured interviews were transcribed fully Layout of the thesis This thesis consists of three parts, namely Introduction, Development and Conclusion Part I, the Introduction, presents the rationale, the aims, the scope, the method and the design of the study Part II, the development, consists of three chapters Chapter 1, the Literature review, presents background of the study This includes major arguments against and for the use of L1, the use and amount of L1 in L2 classroom In addition, it reviews some previous studies related to the topic Chapter 2, the Methodology, introduces the participants, the data collection instruments and data analysis procedure Chapter (Results and Discussions) mainly deals with the results and the discussion of the findings Part III is the Conclusion of the study In this part, the major findings, some recommendations, limitations of the research as well as suggestions for further study are presented The appendixes are the last part of the study following the reference ... read and understand foreign language literature, and translate each language into the other It is believed that everything in English should be taught by translating from the target language into... into the MT and vice versa (Larsen- Freeman, 2000:74) Therefore, the language most used in the class is the students‟ native language Patel and Jain (2008) also state that, in GTM, because of the. .. that non- native teachers could achieve all of the characteristics such as 11 fluency and appropriate use of language in the process of training He went further in arguing that non-native teachers