Using Mother Tongue in Language Classrooms
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This document discusses using a student's mother tongue (MT) in the language classroom. It argues that excluding MT is counterproductive and presents disadvantages like lack of understanding. The root cause of banning MT was the Direct Method from 1900, but it fails to recognize differences from MT acquisition. The document advocates judicious use of MT through translation, jokes, stories and other activities to build confidence and clarify meaning without overusing MT. Teachers should plan appropriately to integrate MT in a way that helps students learn.
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Using Mother Tongue in Language Classrooms
- 1. Breaking the Myth : The Use of Portuguese (MT) in the Language Classroom
- 11. Attempt to “ Think ” in English Freud localiza no campo da linguagem a aquisição de conhecimentos posteriores, por levar em conta a hierarquia que estabeleceu originariamente as funções dos campos associativos da linguagem na língua materna. “ A função da linguagem apresenta excelentes exemplos de novas aquisições. É o caso de aprender a ler e a escrever relacionados com a atividade primária da linguagem... se aprendo a falar e a compreender diversas línguas estrangeiras, se, além do alfabeto aprendido em primeiro lugar, aprendo também o grego e o hebraico, se, ao lado de minha grafia uso também a estenografia e outras escritas – todas essas atividades estão evidentemente localizadas nas mesmas áreas que conhecemos como centros da primeira língua aprendida.” (Freud, apud Moraes, 1999, p. 24-25)
- 22. Is this what we expect? Empty students with no life experience ? No stories in Portuguese ? Very limited ability to be themselves?
- 23. We already have content! Why not use it? Build upon existing skills! Music Movies Family Sports Art Education Work
- 28. Translation L2 > MT
- 30. Translation L2 > MT
- 31. Translation L2 > MT Noah Vosen : [ in car, on cell phone ] Perhaps we can arrange a meeting. Jason Bourne : Where are you now? Noah Vosen : I'm sitting in my office. Jason Bourne : I doubt that. Noah Vosen : Why would you doubt that? Jason Bourne : If you were in your office right now we'd be having this conversation face-to-face. Variation: If you were my boss, I’d report to you.
- 32. Translation MT > L2
- 33. Translation MT > L2
- 34. Just for Fun…
Hinweis der Redaktion
- Welcome to this workshop Breaking the Myth – The Use of Portuguese in the Language Classroom. Well, it’s NOT me in the picture, just so you know… They are the Mythbusters, do you know them? It’s a great show, I highly recommend it! They do kind of what I am doing here today… They break myths! I am well aware that I will be swimming against the tide here… It is a widespread concept that the MT is counterproductive to learning a foreign language. So, I’ll talk about the use of Portuguese in the language classroom, as a resource for learning, and NOT as an obstacle, as it is understood today by many institutions, teachers and methods. I hope this workshop will be of great value to you and your students.
- Let’s get something straight before we start: for the purposes of our discussion here today, our Mother Tongue (MT) will be PORTUGUESE, and our target language will be ENGLISH. (How many here are English teachers? And teachers of other languages? And students?) READ SLIDE. The ideas and principles we are going to practice today can be applied to the teaching of any second language by maximizing the students’ mother tongue in the process. Ok, let’s take a look at the structure of this workshop, but before that, I would like to ask you some questions on where you stand on this… and learn a little bit about you all…..
- By show of hands, please let me know who here….. Good! It’s good to know who exactly we are talking to. The structure of this workshop is the following…
- I expect this workshop to be very participatory and democratic. I usually like to participate a lot in events I go to... Well, maybe too much (for those who’ve witnessed me in any of the workshops here...). I hope nobody is seeking revenge here... I remember once I was at a workshop being given by Isa Mara Lando, who is by the way, an excellent speaker. I loved her workshop! Well, at the end of the workshop, I had to apologize, cause I think I made some 6 to 7 comments and questions...... at each 20 minutes! She of course said that my participation was very good and that she liked a responsive audience. And so do I... So bring the questions and comments on... You can ask questions at any time.
- To start with, we will take a look at our subject matter today… These are some taboos we have been facing for many years. So these are some topics we are going to discuss here… 1- counterproductive 2- translation 3- forced = I never liked the idea that someone needs to be forced to do anything (at least if you’re not at gunpoint). 4- think in English – this is a classic one - I was reading an article “Tradução Mental – a receita que não funciona” and they say that, because of the different languages structures, students need to RELEARN how to think ! How is that possible ? Can we be free from our mother language? We’ll discuss that later, even with some insights from Freud. (oh yeah, we’re going deep…..) 5- are we supposed to completely forget our experiences, our culture, ourselves , everything ? Do we need to recreate ourselves from scratch? Our life experiences won’t be of any value in the language acquisition process?? Let’s move ahead to understand how these concepts came up….
- One of the main reasons for the concept that MT should be banned from the language classroom was the appearance of the Direct Method, also called Natural Method ( partly because of its attempt to imitate MT acquisition, or in other words, to imitate the process of a baby learning his mother tongue… thus being supposedly “natural”.) No translation was allowed in class, at any level. Not even bilingual dictionaries! So it meant that students were to be completely deprived of their Mother Tongue. Association of ideas = English – English explanations that take too much time. And this is where the concept that target language acquisition needs to be similar to Mother Tongue acquisition came from. We still hear that a lot around here… Let’s see more….
- The direct method came in handy to English speaking countries, specially to their political and commercial interests. They could publish teaching material to any market without having to worry about local languages. They started having mixed language classrooms, with students from different nationalities. And their teachers were monolingual. It soon spread to monolingual classrooms all over the world. And this is a concept we still see everyday in our country… that native speakers are better teachers, even when ( or specially when ) they can’t say a word in Portuguese.
- So, bottom line…. It became a necessity in these countries due to mixed language classrooms. Of course there is no way of using each student’s mother tongue in the classroom. So the learning process is much longer… and sometimes frustrating for the student… We will get into details later on the extra time it takes to teach a language without using MT
- So this is why we have today this concept that using the MT is counterproductive… Translation in the classroom is bad…. We have imported these misconceptions into our classrooms… BUT we don’t need to do that!
- I want to stop quickly at this concept of Attempting to Imitate MT acquisition, because this has been one of the main pillars of this mother tongue prohibition… It is said that people should learn a second language the same way they learned their own Mother Tongue! Intuitively. Without interference from any other language. But Mother Tongue acquisition can’t be compared to Second Language acquisition… They are two completely different processes! This baby, for example, he has no life experience whatsoever… He is starting from scratch! He will need around 18,250 hours of meaningful interaction to be able to speak just like a 5-year old! Imagine an adult learner (or your student) with that kind of exposition to a second language! He would be teaching YOU soon!! Second language learners end up less proficient but learn much faster . Of course, if an adult learner goes to an English speaking country and stays there for a few months without any help from his mother tongue, he or she will be fluent due to the full exposition to the target language. However, this is not the case for learners in their own countries, such as our case here in Brazil.
- Let’s take a look at the frequently-mentioned goal that many teachers and institutions set and students seek… By reading what Freud says, we conclude that it is impossible to separate different areas for foreign languages. I am aware of some scientific researches that point out a different area of our brain for foreign languages. I am not going deeper into that area. Scientifically OR psychologically speaking, our mind CAN’T forget or set aside our mother tongue. I won’t go any further into whether it is possible or not to actually think in English. This would be a very long conversation, with many different points of view… Instead, I want to focus on the fact that when we set this as a goal, we create this expectation in our students, and this implies in NOT using their mother tongue at any time. And this often leads to frustration. As mentioned earlier, we have a lot to miss if we ignore the student’s most valuable asset: their mother tongue.
- Still on the “thinking in English” matter, this is my humble theory, that through the use of our mother tongue and the associations we make with our target language, we become fluent with a strong influence of our mother tongue, even as we think. It just happens a lot faster than in earlier learning stages. Think of your mind as a computer processor, like an old 486 and compare it to the latest Intel Core Duo. I take myself as an example… I’ve been fluent for many years, and yet I catch myself making associations with my mother tongue before I say something in English… The ability to translate well helps you convey and understand meaning. I just feel that it happens a lot faster than it did in my early stages of learning.
- Alright, after identifying the root causes for the misconception that the students’ mother tongue should be left out of the classroom, let’s take a look at the main disadvantages of FORBIDDING Portuguese in the learning process.
- This is the first and obvious disadvantage of NOT using MT in class. EXAMPLES: I remember when I tried to explain CHIP IN to en elementary class, without the use of Portuguese… I gave many explanations, tried many examples, and after a few mistaken attempts by the students to get the meaning, one of them shouts out “ AH, é fazer uma vaquinha???” For us teachers, it seems easy to grasp our explanations… They sound like the best and clearest in the world to us… But this is not true for many students… They may not have the same facility we have to grasp meaning… They need more input and more verification of understanding…
- HAVE YOU EVER HAD ANY FUNNY SITUATION WHEN TRYING TO TEACH ONLY USING ENGLISH?
- It goes without saying that it takes a lot more time to explain structure, vocabulary or whatever it is you’re teaching when you don’t use the students’ mother tongue. And yet, your students might not understand completely. Let’s take the example of this teacher… It took him 10 minutes to explain 4 expressions. What do you think is the average time? Of course this varies from case to case… Have you ever timed yourself when explaining something? Can you think of how much more extra practice time you would have if you used MT to explain some ideas and concepts?
- Most times, your explanation contains more unknown words than the vocabulary, expression or structure at hand. It digresses from the focus of the task. PLAY VIDEO His language is so complex that if students could understand clearly what he is saying, they wouldn’t need an explanation on ING forms!!! This same explanation could be done in MT, and would be more productive. So there would be more practice time.
- Well, I’m sure most teachers here are real artists… We need to learn these skills in order to explain concepts without using the mother tongue… I need two volunteers here… for a hands-on activity.
- Let’s practice some Please explain the word ALTHOUGH to a student without using Portuguese…. You are an elementary student (might confuse it with ALEM DE, DEVIDO AO FATO DE, POR CAUSA DE, etc…)… One can apply the principles and … B) They conned me… (pregar um golpe) Although I was sick, I came to work yesterday. I'm personally interested in the solution to this problem, because one never knows when such a problem will occur elsewhere Resilient = flexivel, solido, que se recupera r ápido
- Oftentimes, students feel they are not doing as well as they should be because they can ’t understand much of what the teacher is saying… This usually creates a false expectation to the student and results in demotivation and frustration.. In addition to that, they don’t feel at ease to ask questions, at the risk of feeling stupid or interrupting too much…
- The GOOD NEWS IS: WE ALREADY HAVE CONTENT!! It is impossible to forget our Mother Tongue and our entire existence. We will make associations with what we already know, and need to make these correlations when learning a second language. Ignoring MT is a very serious mistake!! My point here is that one cannot ignore students’ reality and experiences when teaching a second language. We need to consider their interactions, what they want to communicate, not only the contents of our program. When we ban Portuguese from the classroom, we are shutting the doors to our students experiences, their schemata
- I would like to give you an overview of my experience… Just to clarify, I am a champion for the maximum use of English in the classroom. The Mother Tongue activities work as a tool for practicing vocabulary and structure. Many years ago, when I was 19, I trained Americans here in Brazil on language and culture. We lived together for months, so it was intensive training. There were other Brazilian trainers as well, and a group of Americans was coming to Brazil. Many of the Brazilian trainers didn’t speak any English, and they knew I did. There was a general idea that the Americans being trained by me wouldn’t learn appropriately because we would resort to English and the American wouldn’t be “forced” to speak Portuguese all the time. And that the Americans being trained by the Brazilians who didn’t speak English would learn faster. To everyone’s surprise (and I confess that even to my own!) the Americans I trained ended up speaking Portuguese faster and better. And this was due to one reason: I spoke their tongue to explain vocabulary and structure. And then we practiced the rest of the time. This was when I first became aware that the mother tongue plays an important role in the learning process, and can’t be ignored. Explain how I learned from music, from the Americans (basketball, expressions like dead meat, pull an all-nighter, etc…), and my note-taking system. When teaching for some schools, I felt the frustration from students, and even mine… I once got reported to the school’s administration because I used a few sentences in MT to clarify meaning… The students were not aware that they benefitted from that exercise…
- So, in order to start a revolution in your teaching method, you will need to test these techniques and see for yourself that they work, and then reeducate your students so they can reap the benefits from bringing their experiences to class through their Mother Tongue. This is necessary because of the known misconception they have about MT.
- Now let’s start on the real benefits of using MT as a tool… How can we benefit from it? Is there a limit to use MT? Of course! We don’t want to overuse MT in the classroom. We could compare MT in the classroom to a drug… Whereas it has therapeutic potential, it can also damage your health or become addictive if overused. USE EXAMPLES FROM THESE TOPICS:
- Teacher Reads out loud / Have students read it / Clarify questions using MT / Students Read Again (role play) / Students read again switching characters / Students Translate Orally / Students Act Out in MT and L2 Grammar points = Past Tense
- Activity suggestion This gives students the opportunity to identify chunks of language and act out a conversation. Then they can even improvise (depending on their level). When the activity is enjoyable and fun, they’ll remember new vocabulary and structures. Even more when they build something on their own, based on the story.
- Variation = I’ll start by sending you to our worst customer. Is that the best you can do? (variation) Mom, guess who’s going on a business trip? The level of creativity can also be improved. It depends a lot on the mood the teacher sets. Grammar = Present Perfect / Present Simple / Future Simple
- IF sentences activity – scene from the movie Bourne Identity / Supremacy ? Generated great results = visual aids + translation Actually, it is almost impossible to teach If sentences without the equivalents in Portuguese. Practice + translation + role play = memorization and understanding of IF SENTENCES
- This activity is from MT to target language. Follow the same process. The teacher can have students remember or create short stories like this in MT, and then translate into English. FORM COUPLES TO WORK ON THE TRANSLATION, and THEN COMPARE WITH TEACHER’S VERSION OR THEIR OWN VERSIONS This requires the teacher to be very confident about his English and class preparation. Variation = teacher can take story home to translate and bring next class
- After all students act this out without looking at their sheets, focus on grammar points and vocabulary variation.
- By playing with these literal translations, they identify the nature of chunks and will understand that they can’t translate word-for-word. This activity will generate a lot of laughter. DO YOU KNOW ANY OTHER LITERAL TRANSLATIONS THAT WORK? (e.g. kill time, time flies, cry over spilled milk) Out of sight out of mind – this shows how Brazilians are more emotional than foreigners… O que os olhos n ão vêem o coração não sente OU longe dos olhos longe do coração MIND for English speakers HEART for Brazilians
- Jokes are fun – we can go MT > L2 or the other way around.
- The doctor told the patient: “You have very little time left to live...” and the patient asked “Oh my God, doctor... What can I do ?”… to which the doctor replied “Instant noodles”.
- Some stories are good to practice verb tenses and vocabulary.
- This is a great activity that involves translation, and produces great results!
- After any activity which involves structure practice and new vocabulary, I highly recommend that students create with new language and write it down through a system where they can REVIEW later. Show MY Note-taking system.
- One example of a limited use of MT is spot translation , which is a quick word in MT as an aside during primarily English communication. Spot translation, when used well, can prevent a class from becoming a perpetual negotiation of meaning.
- Show how this works.
- We are looking for a few great teachers, so drop us a line!