Teachers' and students' perceptions of the use of the target or native language in the French foreign language classroom

Interest in the use of either the target language or the native language in the foreign language classroom has mainly generated research which has used a dichotomous framework for analyzing the use of language in the foreign language classroom. Most of the studies either advocate exclusive use of the target language, while others posit that not only is exclusive use almost never achieved but that excluding the native language from the foreign language classroom can be a hindrance to classroom interaction, negotiation and meaningful communication. The present study examined teachers'and students'perceptions of language choice in the classroom. In order to carry out the research five high school teachers of French as a foreign language from four high schools were interviewed using an interview schedule adapted from Duff and Polio 1990. The questionnaire captured teachers' language choice in the foreign language classroom and the functions associated with each choice. The same teachers were also administered a teacher talk survey in order to determine what percentage of the time they used either the target language (TL) or the native language (NL) in their classrooms. Additionally questionnaires were administered to 281 high school students to determine their perception about the use of English in the foreign language classroom.;The analysis of my study revealed that teachers do code switch and that the TL and the NL were used for different functions. The NL was predominantly used for teaching new vocabulary, difficult grammatical concepts and for correcting major student behavior issues. It was observed that more than three thirds of the students surveyed wanted the use of English in their French classroom. More than half indicated that the NL should be used between 30% to 50% of the time. Interestingly, also was the fact that more than two thirds of the students thought English should be used for explaining difficult concepts, for introducing new materials and for making students feel confident and comfortable in the foreign language classroom.