How is Turkish education system? How teachers teach the second language in class? What is the role of L1 in teaching a foreign language? Why is the use of L1 when learning L2 an important topic? What are some of the challenges in dealing with L1 in the classroom? How teachers teach the second language in class? What is the best model to teach? What is second language acquisition and critical age hypothesis? Am I bilingual or not?
How is our education system? In our education system, students cannot learn English or other foreign languages in a better way because of the insufficient teacher and insufficient curriculum of our country. However, I want to use all tools to teach better. If the student learns second or third language, the life can be different for them in many ways. Their critical thinking can be improved.
How teachers teach the second language in class? In our curriculum, as a method, teacher uses grammar translation method (word for word translation) and audio-lingual method, Students do not use English like natives. Student cannot speak effectively and fluently in the classes. Even if they speak in class, they will not expose this language outside the classroom. There is not enough time to making speaking activities in the classes, and teacher should apply the official curriculum ,therefore, there is not enough time to make speaking and listening practices. We have to memorize all irregular verbs, phrases and some verbs.
All the memorizing of word-lists did not make me a good speaker of the target language and not providing confidence or the ability to communicate with the native people. In our Turkish education System, we learned English with Behaviorist Approach. According to Lightbown & Spada, “Behaviorist theory explained learning in terms of imitation, practice, reinforcement and habit formation” (Lightbown & Spada, 2013, p. 34).
In our curriculum, students exposure many grammatical rules but they do not speak English or teachers do not make listening practice. Teachers always give fill in the blanks activities as activities and with these activities, teacher cannot check students' comprehension. In schools, only purpose is passing exams.
Teachers, instructors and senior staff also should consider students’ educational and family background, proficiency levels and ages and then they have to create curriculum and educational tools for students. Nevertheless, I think, in our education system, this cannot be possible at this level. Teachers and staff cannot give importance to English learning. They see this language like an alien. However, this language is a lingua franca and with this language, students can have a chance to improve themselves, and this language can help them find a qualified jobs.
According to Krashen’ acquisition-learning hypothesis of Monitor Model, we learn our first language unconsciously but we learn our second language consciously (Lightbown & Spada, 2013, p. 36). Therefore, we cannot learn second language without judgement. This judgement sometimes can stop our learning because we are afraid of making errors in front of the our classmates.
L1 has a great importance while teaching second or foreign language because students’ cultural / environmental background about first language affects them while learning. If the lesson or content is not related to their background, students will not contextualize the lesson effectively. Therefore, I can say that L1 reflects students’ background.
We can make always errors that are the process of learning, and they can be fossilized if someone does not correct them. Generally, teachers correct students’ errors with an explicit way. Students are corrected in front of their classmates. Sometimes, this can stop learning so teachers should be aware of students learning styles.
I did not expose this language in my critical age. According to critical age hypothesis, if children cannot expose two languages until puberty, they cannot learn and the language like natives. In my school, teachers taught grammar first and we translates sentences word-by-word and from native language into the foreign language. We had to memorize all verb changes or extensive lists of words and phrases.
In my primary school time, teacher did not use different methodologies such as the Grammar-Translation Method, Direct Method, and Audio-lingual Method. However, I want to use them together, if a method such as Audio lingual used alone, it can be problematic because student have to memorize all sentences and words as a dialogue but they cannot use the words efficiently which are taught by using drills because students don’t know how to use them in sentences.
Moreover, in class, there was no student interaction, no real meaningful practices. There were only rules and memorization, and main emphasis was on the ability to read and write fluently rather than speaking the language. However, it has been changing hopefully.
In our class, my English teachers spoke Turkish, they taught in this way, and s/he only gave the rules and wrote them on the board. “S+am/is/are+ V1+ing+ O”. This can be work in exams but in daily life, it does not work. This is explicit way learning and students cannot contextualize the lessons so they cannot learn better. Meaning can be different between first and second language and the sentence or word cannot give the same expression between L1 and L2. Sometimes, I cannot find the equal words while writing or speaking because I could not see the structural difference between English and Turkish in the primary school in detail. We could not compare two of them. I was not afraid of making errors in class, but my classmates did not like English, sometimes first language interfereS the second language. There can be difficulties to learn second language. There can be grammatical problems because of different structure forms between two languages. Therefore, mother tongue affects our second language learning in a bad way. For example in Turkish, there is SOV structure form but in English, SVO. Therefore, students start to use the same structure while putting the elements of sentences in the correct order in English.
Moreover, mother tongue can be beneficial also to learn the second language. There can be similarities between two languages. Therefore, learning can be easy. This is related to the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis. According to Lightbown and Spada,“According to CAH, where the first language and the target language are similar, learners should acquire target language structures with ease; where there are differences, learners should have difficulty” (Lightbown & Spada, 2013, p. 34). What is second language acquisition? In my opinion is that second language acquisition is related to everything, which is used to learn second language. It can be related to tools, methods, learners’ levels, ages, teachers etc. it is a process to learn it.
Moreover, in my opinion, I did not learn the language in authentic text and well defined context. We did not use newspapers or we did not use the text, which is related to finding the difference between pictures. In addition, we did not cooperate with my classmates. We always studied alone. Sometimes, we played games in class to find the English words in the teacher’s pictures but we did it only for reward (Behaviorist Approach).
What is the best model to teach? In my opinion, there is not the best model to teach especially in second language learning. I want to teach some parts while making role-play because students can see and listen at the same time so they can be learn better because their left and right brain is working at the same time. However, there is a limited time for teacher so teacher has to follow the curriculum.
Am I bilingual or not? I think that I am bilingual because if I can speak or understand a language not whole grammatically, this shows that person knows this language enough to live on. Bilingualism certainly has very advantages such as you can follow the world in terms of culture, technology etc. and you can find a qualified job. Therefore, I am a sequential bilingual which means that children “learn another language later” (Lightbown & Spada, 2013, p. 25) than the first language.
Communication and group works are the better way to teach. Students can learn with methods yes we know but how they will learn better. It is a real question. Is it a beneficial student’s native language to learn with second language? I want to learn it. How much does native language affect second language? How can second-language acquisition be affected by individual factors such as age and learning strategies?
In conclusion, teachers cannot see the students’ individual differences in the class. Teachers are not aware of the students’ styles of learning. According to Reid (1995), “Learning style has been used to describe an individual’s natural, habitual and preferred way of absorbing, processing and retaining new information and skills” (as cited in Lightbown & Spada, 2013, p. 59). Students can be visual, kinesthetic etc. learners. Moreover, senior staff does not give importance to foreign languages in our country. Students cannot expose and use the English language outside the classes, and our students cannot speak effectively and fluently. We expose many grammatical rules (in explicit way) but we don’t have enough speaking, listening practices and activities in the classes or outside the classes.
Methods, contextualizing the lesson with the real life classrooms activities are authentic texts are beneficial for students to learn new information in second language learning. Teachers, institutions and senior staff should observe students and they have to look at students’ ages, levels, background, proficiency levels after that they have to create curriculum and educational tools for them.
WORK CITED
Lightbown, P., & Spada, N. (2013). How languages are learned. Oxford [england]: Oxford University Press.
Additional Resources:
https://coerll.utexas.edu/methods/modules/reading/04/
