The Inevitable Use Of Mother Tongue In High School English Teaching And Learning

It has long been a controversial issue whether native language should be involved in a foreign language teaching and learning. Historically, the way to deal with the use of mother tongue went to extremes: either excluding it or relying on it. However, in recent years, a compromise trend of the limiting use of mother tongue has been in vogue.Since there is inevitable use of MT in high school English teaching and learning, the question is how much mother tongue there is in high school English teaching and learning. To answer it, I conducted a survey in Senior One in Xiamen Second Foreign Language School. Eighty-three students and five English teachers answered the questionnaires. The result is that the amount of MT use in our class ranges from 30 to 60 percent.So, I put forward some suggestions. First, teachers should take a tolerant attitude towards the use of MT in English teaching and learning. While looking into learner variation to seek the reasons to explain the differences among the students, I believe that the goal of English teaching is to create English users, which means that students take away something of benefit no matter the level at which they stop learning English. Last, I suggest some learner strategies to facilitate learning.