What will my mother do if I use her tongue?

This is the question!

As educators we all know that we and the learners need to use L1 in an EFL class. First we need to use it in order to communicate. Some of the information that the learners try to impart in the classroom is of great importance to them. And they could do this via their L1. So the mother tongue is important for teacher-pupil relationship. What can we do to turn this into something useful? We could use the things they tell us in L1 as a way to vocabulary work for instance. We could do activities related to their interests if they use their mother tongue and they can express themselves.

Another and to me the most important reason why we should use L1 in EFL classess is security. The children that we try to teach a foreign language mostly come from overprotective families (at least this is the situation in Turkey). Therefore they want to feel secure again when they come to the EFL classroom. Because they come to a new environment and they encounter with unknown faces, they usually feel depressed at least strange unless they are too extrovert. So it will be helpful to speak to them in their own languages and gradually endear them to more English in class.

Of course there are good ways to accomplish this when they become self-confident learners in the classroom. This may take a few weeks. The best ways to avoid the mother tongue are using gestures, using words that are similar or using the same word in the two languages followed by eachother. We could first teach the English words that are same in their language such as taxi, t-shirt, and television.

In the course of time they will get used to English in class and we can use some signs to set the time for speaking in their mother tongue. For example; when we show a white flag or a card this means it is time to speak in their L1 for three minutes especially in group activities. We shouldn't forget that they are only preschool students and they really need this. But when they see the red flag on the board they can only speak and understand English.

I often use puppets to provide the use of English in class. It’s effective because they believe that these puppets can only spaek and understand English and there is no way other than trying to speak English.Another advantage of this is that they don’t feel themselves forced to speak English but instead they feel that they help somebody who cannot speak their language.

As a result they are kids, they are cute and naive. It’s not that much hard to make them believe that they should speak in another language for some good reason:)