Dr. Ali Roohani, Khadijeh Dayeri & Ebtesam Abbasi Montazeri
Shahrekord University, Shahrekord University & Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Iran
Considering the ongoing debate over the role of first language (L1) in EFL context, this study aimed to investigate the communicative purposes for which language teachers use L1 in their elementary EFL classrooms. It also explored the teachers and students’ perspectives on the use of L1 in language classrooms. Four EFL teachers working in two language institutes took part in this study. Data consisted of 20 lesson-hour audio-recorded observations of four elementary EFL classrooms and semi-structured interviews with EFL teachers and students. The Solution elementary textbook was taught in all classes. To achieve the purpose of the study, a framework developed by Sali (2014) was used. Findings revealed that L1 was mostly used for the fulfillment of a major communicative function, namely the academic function (i.e., reviewing, eliciting). Several new sub-functions such as asking for clarification and talking about classroom routines were also discovered. Moreover, the interview analysis indicated that the students had a positive attitude towards the use of L1 for the comprehension of content (e.g., grammatical points and vocabulary) in the classroom, whereas teachers favored a judicious use of L1 in their classrooms. The findings imply that L1 use could have a facilitative role in the process of language learning in elementary EFL classrooms and thus the potentials of purposeful use of L1 in facilitating language learning need to be taken into account by EFL teachers.
The above abstract is a part of the article which was accepted at The Second International Conference on Current Issues of Languages, Dialects and Linguistics (WWW.TLLL.IR), 1-2 February 2018, Ahwaz.
