The Use of First and Second Language in Chinese University EFL Classrooms

268 Pages·2016·2.937 MB·

by  Yi Du (auth.)

Yi Du
The Use of First
and Second
Language in
Chinese University
EFL Classrooms
The Use of First and Second Language in Chinese
University EFL Classrooms
Yi Du
The Use of First and Second
Language in Chinese
University EFL Classrooms
123
YiDu
English Department
NorthChina Electric Power University
Beijing
China
ISBN978-981-10-1910-4 ISBN978-981-10-1911-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-1911-1
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2016944919
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Foreword
Thefirsttime Irecallhavingtothinkabout thepotentialrole ofthemother tongue
in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teaching was when I was presented with
‘the shrimp problem’. It was 1971 and I was on an initial training course in
Stockholm, preparing for 2 years teaching EFL in Sweden. During one of the
sessions thelecturer asked ustodiscusswhat we would doif aSwedishlearnerof
Englishhadshownustheword‘shrimp’inatextandhadaskedwhatitmeant.We
offered various solutions, such as showing the learner a picture of a shrimp, or
drawing a shrimp on the blackboard, or describing what a shrimp looks like.
None of these suggestions satisfied the lecturer. Did we really think we would
happentohaveapictureofashrimpwithus?Didwethinkourskillsofdrawingor
description were good enough to make clear that what we had drawn or described
was a shrimp (and not a prawn or a crayfish, for example). According to the
lecturer, the most effective, accurate and rapid solution to the shrimp problem was
to translate shrimp into Swedish, ‘räka’. When one of us then asked ‘But what do
we do if we don’t know the Swedish word?’, the lecturer’s response was ‘In that
case, tell them to look it up in a dictionary’. (These days, of course, learners can
findmeaningsandphotographswithacoupleofclicksontheirsmartphone,butthat
option was not available in 1971!).
Myshrimp exampleillustrates anissueof central importancetoteachers ofany
foreign language(L2):whentomakeappropriateuseofthemothertongue (L1)in
class. An overarching principle of L2 instruction—whatever the method or
approach being followed—is that teachers should maximise the learners’ exposure
to the L2, to help them get used to hearing and seeing it in natural use and to
gradually build their comprehension skills. But the key lies in that word ‘max-
imise’—i.e.theaimshouldbetousetheL2asmuchaspossible,andtheL1aslittle
as possible; very few would now argue that teachers’ use of the L1 should be
banned altogether, although that was a tenet of some past ‘methods’.
Most teachers and methodologists accept there is a place for the L1 in the L2
classroom. Among the reasons that researchers have most frequently been given,
whentheyhaveaskedteacherswhenandwhytheyusetheL1inclassare:tosave
v
vi Foreword
class time; to highlight differences between L1 and L2 grammar; and to ensure
everyoneunderstandsthecurrentteachingpoint.However,whatwethinkweknow
about teachers’useoftheL1 tendstocome fromresearchbasedonquestionnaires
which teachers have completed in the abstract, i.e. reflecting on what they believe
theiruseoftheL1tobe,ratherthanfromanalysingrecordingsofactualclassroom
interaction between teacher and learners.
Sotheparticular value ofYi Du’sresearch,which isnow being made available
inbookform,derives from two distinctive elementsofits design. First, it involves
in-depthanalysisofclassroomrecordingsandinterviewswithteacherswhohadthe
opportunity to review (and explore) the motivation for particular instances of their
L1 use in class. Second, it is set in a context of EFL teaching, the Chinese uni-
versity classroom, where the choices that these different teachers made in terms of
L1/L2 use can be set against a shared background of cultural and pedagogic
assumptions—whether these beexplicit inofficialpolicydocuments, orimplicitas
professionalnorms.ThepicturethatYiDurevealsisrealisticallycomplex,notleast
onthebasicsofhowmuchteachersusetheL1inclassandwhy.Workingwithher
four teacher informants, she unpicks the interwoven influences on their use of
Chinese in university EFL classes and assesses the extent to which her classroom
data match the teachers’ perceptions of their own L1 use.
I helped supervise Yi Du’s original Ph.D. research at the University of
Edinburgh and Professor Vivian Cook, a leading authority on L1/L2 use in the
classroom, acted as her external examiner. Iamconfident that readers of this book
would find not only echoes of our own classroom practice but also plenty offood
for thought, as Yi Du explores individual teachers’ rationales for using the mother
tongue,inaninstitutionalcontextwhichwecancompareandcontrastwithourown
experience in other EFL settings.
April 2016 Prof. Tony Lynch
University of Edinburgh
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank many people whose contribution, support and advice are of
great importance to the completion of this book. First of all, I wish to thank,
sincerely, the four teachers who allowed me to observe their lessons and devoted
generous time to my research. Without their participation, I would not have been
able to carry out this study. I am especially grateful to my Ph.D. supervisors,
Mr. Brian Parkinson and Prof. Tony Lynch, for their insightful guidance and
constant support throughout the process of my study. I also wish to give special
thanks to the anonymous reviewers and the editors for their assistance in the
preparationofthisbook.Finally,Iwouldliketothankmyfamily,inparticular,my
grandparents,ZhengxinYuandLingYu,andmyhusband,XuexingZeng,fortheir
loveandencouragementwhichenabledmetostaymotivatedtocompletethisbook.
vii
Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Issues Relevant to the L1 in L2 Learning and Teaching. . . . . . . . 2
1.2.1 Power and Politics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2.2 Teacher Education. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2.3 Teacher Cognition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.2.4 Culture of Learning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.2.5 Teaching Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.3 The Objectives of the Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.4 Overview of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Part I Background and Design
2 The L1 in L2 Learning and Teaching. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2 The Role of the L1 in L2 Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2.1 Arguments for the Negative Role of the L1 in L2
Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2.2 Arguments for the Positive Role of the L1
in L2 Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.3 The L1 in L2 Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.3.1 An Early Attempt to Conduct L2 Teaching in the L2 . . . . 29
2.3.2 The Grammar-Translation Method. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.3.3 The Direct Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.3.4 The Audiolingual Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.3.5 Communicative Language Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.3.6 The Natural Approach. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.3.7 Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.3.8 L2 Teaching Methods in China. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
ix
x Contents
2.4 Empirical Studies on Teachers’ L1 and L2 Use. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.4.1 Quantity of Teachers’ L1 and L2 Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.4.2 Functions of Teachers’ L1 Use. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
2.4.3 Factors Influencing Teachers’ Language Choice . . . . . . . . 38
2.4.4 Teachers’ Perceptions of L1 Use. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
2.4.5 Students’ Perceptions of Their Teachers’ L1 Use . . . . . . . 42
2.4.6 Optimal Use of the L1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3 Code-Switching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.2 Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.2.1 Code-Switching and Code-Mixing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.2.2 Code-Switching and Borrowing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.3 Grammatical Aspects of Code-Switching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.3.1 Types of Code-Switching. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.3.2 Grammatical Constraints on Code-Switching . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.4 Pragmatic Aspects of Code-Switching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.4.1 Situational Versus Metaphorical Code-Switching. . . . . . . . 52
3.4.2 Conversational Functions of Code-Switching . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.4.3 The Markedness Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.4.4 A Sequential Analysis of Code-Switching:
The Conversation Analysis Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.5 Code-Switching in the Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4 Research Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
4.2 Data Collection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
4.2.1 Background Description. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4.2.2 Classroom Observation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
4.2.3 Interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
4.2.4 Stimulated Recall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
4.3 Approaches to Lesson Data Analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
4.3.1 Analytical Approaches to the Pragmatic Aspects
of Code-Switching: The Taxonomic Approach Versus
the Markedness Model and the Conversation Analysis
Approach. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
4.3.2 Sequential Analysis of Classroom Discourse:
An Approach Based on the Concept of ‘Frame’ . . . . . . . . 82
4.3.3 Criteria for Grammatical Analysis of Code-Switching . . . . 84
4.3.4 Units of Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Part II Results
5 Classroom Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
5.2 Analysis of the Teachers’ Code-Switching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Contents xi
5.2.1 Procedures of Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
5.2.2 Taxonomy of Functional Categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
5.2.3 Results. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
5.2.4 Further Considerations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
5.2.5 Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
5.3 Global Analysis [Quantitative] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
5.3.1 Coding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
5.3.2 Results. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
5.3.3 Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
5.4 Global Analysis [Qualitative] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
5.4.1 Framing Classroom Discourse. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
5.4.2 Results. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
5.4.3 Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
6 Interviews. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
6.2 Results. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
6.2.1 Anne. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
6.2.2 Betty. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
6.2.3 Carl. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
6.2.4 David . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
6.3 Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
7 Stimulated Recall. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
7.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
7.2 Results. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
7.2.1 Anne. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
7.2.2 Betty. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
7.2.3 Carl. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
7.2.4 David . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
7.3 Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Part III Conclusions
8 Discussion and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
8.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
8.2 Overview of the Major Findings of the Study. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
8.2.1 The Quantity of L1 and L2 Use by the Teachers. . . . . . . . 219
8.2.2 The Grammatical Patterns of the Teachers’
Language Use. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
8.2.3 The Circumstances and Functions of Teachers’
L1 Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
8.2.4 The Teachers’ Perceptions of and Reasons
for Their Own Language Use. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
8.2.5 The Observer’s Perceptions of the Teachers’
Language Use. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223