Humanising Language Teaching
Year 5; Issue 1; January 03

Using the Mother Tongue
Making the most of the learner's language

Sheelagh Deller and Mario Rinvolucri,
ETp-Delta, 2002.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about this book is the fact that there is a publisher willing, enlightened and brave enough to publish it. It's also worth noting that this publisher is not one of the market leaders. Thanks to publishers such as Delta we are now able to have books on the market which do not necessarily create big money, but do engender new ideas, attitudes and some risk-taking.

This book applauds the use of the mother tongue when teaching a foreign language. It advocates a judicious use of the mother tongue in order to help learners understand and associate with the target language. The activities are designed to exploit the mother tongue for a particular purpose. The authors believe that the mother tongue is a resource that should not and cannot be ignored. However, it is not a resource to be used without a reason. To illustrate this the introduction is followed by a section entitled Advocating and Avoiding Mother Tongue.

A simple example of using the mother tongue as a learning tool is the correction exercise in the grammar section. The teacher identifies the student errors they want to work on and writes correct sentences in English for each one. They then dictate these sentences in English but ask the students to write them only in Mother Tongue. The students then compare their MT sentences before translating them back into English. In this way they are forced to focus on specific detailed differences between their language and the target language.

The book is very user friendly in that it is not too cluttered. The contents page at the beginning identifies which levels the exercises are suitable for – these range from beginner to advanced. The rubric in the heading of each exercise states clearly the kind of class and teacher the exercise is suitable for, and the purpose of the exercise.

There are activities that can be used by teachers ranging from zero knowledge of the mother tongue up to native knowledge, and this is clearly stated at the beginning of each exercise. Most of the exercises are generic ideas which can be adapted for primary, secondary and adult learners, ranging from beginner to advanced.

There are two parts to the book. Part A works on Classroom Management and the exercises here can be used at all levels by using a varying degree of mother tongue. Part B is called Living Language and consists of five sections each with their own introduction: Grammar, Vocabulary, Input, Output, and using Translation.

The grammar section includes a number of contrastive activities designed to make grammar less frightening and more accessible, such as Contrastive Grammar Recognition, Student-Student tests and Grammar Translation Multiple Choice.
In the vocabulary section activities such as Contrasting Collocations and Working with Loan Words are ways of enabling student to extend their vocabulary and work on collocation.
The Skills section is divided into Input and Output and includes examples of using the mother tongue to allow student to prepare their output, and to tackle texts that are more difficult than their level suggests. Good examples of these are Cooperative Reading Comprehension and Mumbling Stories.
The last section Using Translation has a number of imaginative translation exercises such as Code Switching and Translating Literally which will particularly appeal to learner with strong linguistic intelligences.

This book needed to be written. For different teachers in different situations it will have a different impact. But in general it will at least help to generate a more open-minded attitude to using the mother tongue in the classroom. It is a sad truism that once an idea is in a book, it can act as an endorsement and permission for teachers who in fact have been using that idea 'illegally' all their teaching lives.

If I am a non-native teacher of English teaching in my own country I will find this book a great comfort and help. It will allow me to use my knowledge of the two languages, my first hand knowledge of the problems that speakers of my MT face when learning English and the similarities and differences between my language and English, and it will help me to enable my students to notice these. I will be using the mother tongue in exercises that have a specific objective and rationale, rather than in an ad hoc way when it suits me.

If I am a native speaker teacher of English teaching in another country and I have a full working knowledge of their language the same will apply.

If I am a native speaker of English teaching in another country and I have a working knowledge of their language the book still offers me many opportunities to exploit the mother tongue to help my learners.

If I am a native speaker of English teaching learners whose language I don't know at all, or teaching a multi-lingual class, I can still use many of the ideas in this book. In fact I could even use many of the activities that claim to need a working knowledge of the mother tongue. However, to do this I must be prepared to hand over the expertise to my students. What I will be doing will be giving them a system to exploit the mother tongue without my intervention.

If I teach in a country where the grammar translation method is still standard, this book will enable me to use the mother tongue for a variety of purposes other than straight translation – in fact to use if more as a means to an end rather than as an end in itself.

If I teach any foreign language I can use this book.

Finally I would recommend reading the personal prefaces and the prologue. This could help you to get inside the authors' ways of thinking and approach. This is particularly relevant if the idea of using the mother tongue is something you are not convinced about!. Having tried some of the exercises in this book you may well feel differently. But if you're still not convinced, why not get some feedback from your students (the book provides ways of doing this) and then send this to HLT?

The authors are both experienced language teachers, trainers and ELT writers. Mario Rinvolucri speaks a number of languages and has an unending fascination for them. His personal experience of learning and picking up other languages is a major contribution to the book. Sheelagh Deller only speaks two and a half languages – but has been using the mother tongue in her teaching for many years in situations where she has no knowledge of that mother tongue.

This is a book to be enjoyed. Be prepared to take a few risks, watch your students increase in confidence, and enjoy the freedom it gives you all.