Many people have their own opinion about the use of mother tongue in the ESL classroom. Some people may think that the use of mother tongue does not have a good contribution to the progress of the students’ achievement, but some others have
the opposite view. In addition, a lot of books have discussed it but not all of these books share the same opinion on this issue. In a real ESL classroom, sometimes we may find the teachers use mother tongue to explain the material, especially the difficult one. However, some people have questioned the role of mother tongue in
helping the students.
Corder (1992) said that “the role of the mother tongue has been in connection with the process of learning, and we may have come to the conclusion that its effect is predominantly heuristic and facilitatory, it helps in the process of discovery and
creation.” Although he generally agrees with the use of mother tongue, Atkinson (1987) warns that it may bring the bad result for the learners. He stated, “The teacher and/or the students begin to feel that they have not ‘really’ understood any item of language until it has been translated.” These different opinions may create the different effect in its application in teaching English for learners. |