Example research essay topic: Native Speakers Target Language - 1,801 words

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Ever since God punished the people who wanted to build the Tower of Babel with the confusion of tongues in the time of old testament, people around the world have faced the problem of communication. When giving out a historical overview of second-language teaching in Second-Language Acquisition in Childhood, McLaughlin stated: As early as the third millennium B. C. , in what was probably the worlds first great civilization, the Sumerians had scribed devoted exclusively to education. When the country was conquered by the Akkadians in the last quarter of the third millennium, these scribes complied the oldest known bilingual dictionaries. Long continuous passages were translated from Sumerian into Akkadian, line by line. (McLaughlin 2) It was since then that people started exploring the arts of language. For years, people have been arguing about the most appropriate methods to teach a second language (L 2).

One question that teachers encounter in the classroom is the use of the learners native language (L 1). While a group of people think that teaching of the target language should involve no L 1, another group of people consider L 1 as a help to L 2 teaching. Throughout the years, L 2 teachers around the world have been analyzing the data they gathered for years along with their personal experiences to find out which approach of L 2 teaching works best for teachers themselves. Those who are in favor of the Grammar-Translation method believe that L 1 holds great significance in L 2 teaching and learning. They teach grammar rules in the mother tongue of the learners as a basis of instruction.

Methods such as the Natural Approach, the Silent Way, Total Physical Response, Audio-Lingual Method, and the Direct Method emphasize different concepts of language teaching and learning but followers of these methods all avoid L 1 in the classroom. As the debate goes on, it is crucial for all the L 2 teachers to first ponder on the goal of language teaching and then to decide what role they want L 1 to play in their L 2 classroom. For a L 2 learner who lives in an environment where the target language is not used on a daily basis, such as English taught in Taiwan, exposure to L 2 helps accomplish the goal of language learning, which is to communicate. The use of L 1 in L 2 classrooms is primarily based on the Grammar-Translation method which emerged in the nineteenth century. It stresses on the ability to read literature in L 2, but to learn grammar rules and vocabulary in L 1. In the classroom, teachers have authority while students follow instructions to learn what teachers know.

Students learn by translating from one language to the other. Grammar is usually learned deductively on the basis of grammar rules and examples. Students memorize the rules, and then apply them to other examples. L 1 provides keys to meanings in L 2 and it is also used freely in class.

Because of the nature of the grammar-translation method, reading and writing are primary skills but pronunciation and other speaking or listening skills are not emphasized or in many cases disregarded. In Taiwan, English is taught in junior high and senior high schools though some children start taking English classes when they are still in elementary school. In junior high and senior high schools, English is taught in Chinese mainly due to the problems of class management and class time. Teachers seem to always find it more efficient to go through the teaching materials in Chinese.

They apply literally the grammar-translation method in class with the hope that the students will get good grades to enter a high school or a university. Students learn to read and write through the translation between Chinese and English. However, most of the parents and students often complain that such a teaching method leads them to become test machines who know only how to answer grammar questions or translation exercises on the test sheet but not to use English as a language. Another potential crisis facing these students is that too much stress on vocabulary, translation and the whole grammar structure blurs the most important part of language which is the idea it carries. Students depend so much on the translation of each single word, the structure of each sentence, and the formation of the language that they neglect the communicative message brought by the language. Language grows into a subject to learn, to be analyzed.

It loses its function to be the bridge for people to convey their thoughts and feelings. Some of the L 2 teachers who are not native speakers of the target language might find it easier to deal with the use of L 1 than that of L 2. That is, they are more comfortable with L 1 than L 2 so they choose to use L 1 in their L 2 classroom. It was an easy method for the teacher to use. Classes could be taught in the students native language with little teaching skill or foreign-language speaking skill needed by the instructor. Objectives were limited and attainable.

Vocabulary lists, printed grammar rules, and sample sentences to translate, followed by reading selections, provided maximum control for teachers and students. (Bowen 20) The teachers might even project the idea of being comfortable with L 1 to their students. Because they feel that it is more comfortable using L 1 in the L 2 classroom, they think that it is also more comfortable for the students to learn L 2 in L 1. Anthea Tillyer, a teacher at City University of New York stated that the notion of making students comfortable by using L 1 may be a case of comfort now, pay later. She pointed out that to learn a new language, one has to face a few moments of discomfort but the skilled teacher will use L 2 to make students feel comfortable and not simply assume that the only way to reduce stress is to use L 1. (Tillyer) Another English teacher at the University of Macau, Dick Tibbetts, also mentioned that: EFL students often have no exposure to English outside the classroom. No street conversation, no TV, no newspapers or magazines. This makes the exposure to English time in class that much more important.

You just cannot spend too much of this valuable teaching time using L 1. You also need to show that English is a real language, not a textbook subject, by giving classroom instructions in English. (Tibbetts) Marianna Scheffer, a teacher in Hawaii learned from her experience that: only the most minimal use of L 1 can be justified in teaching L 2. It would be easy to cater to students by providing them with the pleasing and understandable input of their own language, but it does not do them a favor Students will not learn L 2 until they actually commit to using it as a living language. (Scheffer) Teachers simply cannot use what they consider the effortless way in an L 2 classroom. They are responsible for giving L 2 students opportunities to understand that like learning any other thing, learning a language entails hard work and pain.

However, they learn it faster and more efficiently only when they become comfortable with the target language. A lot of L 2 teaching methods have their different foci but all of them ask for the use of L 2 in the classroom. Take the Direct Method for example, all four skills, reading, writing, speaking, listening, are worked on from the beginning but pronunciation is stressed especially. Followers of the Direct Method believe that sounds are basic and carry the melody of the language and that speech, not writing, is the basis of language.

Translation is not used at all. L 1 is considered a resource because of the overlap that is bound to exist between the two languages. Teachers might have some knowledge of the students L 1 as an aid to the instructions but L 1 is not used in class. With the Audio-Lingual Method, students learn through imitation and repetition and teachers provide good models. It emphasizes everyday speech. Such methods exercised with the use of L 2 take care of the concept of communication we are looking for.

David Nunan who has been doing research on language teaching methodology and learning strategies draws attention to one of the types of classroom action, which is teacher talk. In language classrooms it is particularly important because the medium is the message. The modifications which teachers make to their language, the questions they ask, the feedback they provide and the types of instructions and explanations they provide can all have an important bearing, not only on the effective management of the classroom, but also on the acquisition by learners of the target language (Nunan 7. ) Students need to process the input they receive before they can produce output. If what they hear from the teachers is L 1 most of the time, they are not getting enough input of L 2 to be processed. Thus the expectation teachers have for the students output of L 2 will be hard to be fulfilled. Though students in Taiwan are required to study English from junior high school, a lot of parents take their children to English classes when they are still in elementary school.

As mentioned previously, parents are not satisfied with the English education their children are receiving at school. They find that cram schools with native speakers of English are a better environment for children to learn L 2. One famous professor in the filed of TESOL field, Lily Fillmore, found that children who are successful in acquiring English interact directly and frequently with people who know the language well. (q. In Bredekamp) Such a situation results in the prosperity of the English cram schools with native speakers of English as instructors in Taiwan. Despite the expensive tuition, the parents are still willing to send their children to these cram schools because no matter how much progress their children have made, they all seem to be able to use English as a medium of communication, rather than a tool to get good grades.

During the past few years, going to a place where the target language is used for a short period of time has become popular among the English learners in Taiwan. Students, as young as ten years old or even younger, are sent to the States by their parents to learn English during summer vacation or winter vacation. Myriam Met, a teacher at Montgomery County public school points out the function of a foreign language immersion program: Total immersion is the most effective way of developing foreign language proficiency. The intensity of the immer's...

Research essay sample on Native Speakers Target Language