Use of language in learning

There has been little if any published research into the role that L1 plays in an international student's learning processes, except in the area of Second Language Acquisition.

If there is one area of education where you might expect the use of L1 in an L2 classroom to be detrimental, it is in the area of language learning; and indeed there has been considerable debate among language teachers on this issue over the years.

Recent research, however, focussing on the context of collaborative learning, where two or more students work together to complete an assignment, indicates that when learners do resort to use of their first language, it is principally for such purposes as:

• moving the task along (clarifying aims, methods and terminology; assigning and facilitating sub-tasks; conceptual analysis beyond what can be achieved in L2)
• focussing attention on specific features of the task or of the data at hand

as well as for

• interpersonal communication (sharing emotional reactions such as satisfaction or frustration; disagreement; dealing with off-task matters) ( Swain & Lapkin, 2000, p. 257-8).

This research tends to support a common-sense view that using a common first-language may

assist learners 'to gain control of the task' ( Brooks & Donato, 1994, p. 271) and work with the task at a higher cognitive level than might have been possible had they been working individually…. Only when learners gain a shared understanding of what they need to do can they proceed with the task. The use of the L1 could also help learners provide each other with definitions of unknown words more directly and perhaps more successfully.

Storch & Wigglesworth, 2003, p. 268