A Study On Mother Tongue Use In The College-level Foreign Language Classroom

Since 1980s, the issue of TL/L1 use in the FL/L2 classroom has drawn the attention of quite a lot of applied linguists and teachers. Quite a lot of theoretical and empirical studies have been conducted and various conclusions have been arrived at. Yet due to different contexts in which different studies took place, no conclusion is generalizable enough to reveal the whole picture of language use in all the FL classrooms worldwide.The present study is conducted in the college-level FL classrooms, intending to reveal the features of language use in such a context in China. Questions involved in this study include the following:1) How often is Chinese used in the college-level FL classrooms?2) What attitudes do teachers and students respectively hold towards L1 use in the FL classroom?3) What are the actual and potential functions of L1 use in the FL classroom?4) When do teachers and students tend to use L1 in the FL classroom?5) What are the possible factors affecting language use in the FL classroom? As to the above questions, the study finds:1) Chinese was widely used in the college level FL classrooms, both on part of teachers and on part of students. The amount of Chinese use in the class is negatively correlated to students' English proficiency. When the teacher senses the students are in a low English proficiency, he or she tends to use more mother tongue. And students with low English proficiency also tend to rely more on their mother tongue in classroom communication.2) The majority of the teachers and students hold a positive attitude towards occasional use of Chinese in the FL classroom. And L1 use on teacher's part is considered to be more useful thus more acceptable than on students' part.3) Both teachers and students acknowledge the functions of L1 use in facilitating students' FL acquisition. The main functions of teacher's use of the mother tongue in...