INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHERS
ISSN: 3030-332X Impact factor: 8,293
Volume 10, issue 1, February 2025
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Kenjabayev Jahongir Abdisalimovich
Superviser, PhD associate professor
of Foreign Philology department
Nematova Malika
Magister of the International Innovation University
THE ROLE OF MOTHER TONGUE IN TEACHING FOREIGN LANGUAGE
Annotation:
This article focuses on how mother tongues affect foreign language instruction,
using EFL as an example. It also reveals potential obstacles that educators may encounter and
suggests solutions.
Keywords:
mother tongue, EFL, methodology of foreign language teaching, modern approaches,
language experience.
In some situations, speaking in one’s mother tongue during foreign language instruction
might be beneficial. According to Willis, teachers might not always speak English unless they
are teaching multilingual classrooms, and there are situations when using one’s mother tongue
rather than English could be more cost-effective.
This can be done for example when:
• Explaining the meaning or use of new words would be time-consuming.
• Introducing the aims of the lesson or the next activity to make sure pupils know what they are
learning.
• When checking of pupils’ understanding after the presentation stage.
• Discussing the main ideas of a reading passage, but only when the aim is to improve the
reading skills.
• Pupils got teacher’s permission to use their mother tongue, but it is important to make clear
when pupils must stop using the mother tongue and return to English. Auerbuch adds other
possibilities:
• Classroom management.
• Language analysis.
• Presenting grammar rules.
• Discussing cross-cultural issues.
• Giving instructions and prompts.
• Explaining errors.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHERS
ISSN: 3030-332X Impact factor: 8,293
Volume 10, issue 1, February 2025
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As stated above, the reasonable use of mother tongue can play its role in some cases, but
the target language should remain the main language. There is several functions of mother
tongue at foreign language lessons.
1. Motivational function
. The native language is often used in the formulation of the goal of the
lesson in the teacher’s presentation before introducing new material. Many teachers use the
native language of students summarizing the material at the end of the lesson.
It is a very important moment of the lesson; teacher should say what students have learned at the
lesson in order to provide a sense of progress, for example: “So, let’s sum up. Why do we need
Present Continuous Tense? What can we tell about its functions?” Thus, summing up the lesson
can serve simultaneously as an additional explanation, a kind of “framework design”.
2. Educational function.
The native language is used to explain the peculiarities of the
articulation of individual sounds at the stage of formation of sound-producing skills (usually at
the elementary level). This concerns, first of all, those sounds that are absent in the students’
native language (for example, sounds [θ] and [∂], nasal [η]) or sounds that are partially coincide
with similar sounds of the native language, ([s], [t], [h], [r]). Many teachers use native language
of students presenting new grammatical material. Teachers try to explain more accurately the
meaning of the new grammatical construction, pay attention to its features and forms,
demonstrate use in speech; thus, examples in Russian can be visual material for comparison.
Mother tongue is used by teachers in the process of explanation of material of linguistic and
cultural nature, when comparison of cultural realities of different countries makes it possible to
remove difficulties in understanding the features of life and the world view of representatives of
another culture.
3. Organizational function.
Using a variety of game technologies, the communicative approach
to teaching foreign languages helps students become more cognitively and linguistically active,
improve their understanding of lexical and grammatical content, and develop their speech
abilities. Explaining the rules of new games in the students' native tongue makes more sense; it
will guarantee that all pupils comprehend the instructions accurately and save playing time.
4. Semantic function.
When other approaches to teaching foreign words, like direct
demonstration (demonstration or illustrative visibility), synonyms-antonyms, speculation on
word-building elements (suffixes, prefixes, word building, conversion), and foreign
interpretation of the meaning of words (definition), cannot be used, teachers typically employ the
students’ mother tongue. In this instance, one or two words are translated.
5. Control function.
When students are given isolated words, phrases (including idioms),
individual sentences (including proverbs or sayings), or statements in their native language, so-
called “reverse translation” works well for enhancing or managing the development of lexical
and grammatical skills.
Students can work alone or in pairs to translate them into a foreign language.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHERS
ISSN: 3030-332X Impact factor: 8,293
Volume 10, issue 1, February 2025
https://wordlyknowledge.uz/index.php/IJSR
worldly knowledge
Index:
google scholar, research gate, research bib, zenodo, open aire.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=ru&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=wosjournals.com&btnG
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Worldly-Knowledge
https://journalseeker.researchbib.com/view/issn/3030-332X
202
Used literature:
1.
Krashen S.D. (1981). Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning.-
Oxford: Pergamon Press Inc.
2.
Tang J. (2002). Using L1 in the English Classroom. -English Teaching Forum.
3.
Willis J. (2002). A Framework for Task-Based Learning.-New York: Longman.
