The practice of policy: Teacher attitudes toward “English only”

For some language educators, communicative-style language teaching, by definition, entails viewing the use of the learners’ first language (L1) as counterproductive to the learning process or as an unfortunate but sometimes necessary recourse. However, recent research has shown that L1 use can serve important cognitive, communicative, and social functions in communicative foreign and second language (L2) classrooms (Turnbull and Dailey-O’Cain, 2009; see also Butzkamm and Caldwell, 2009). The current article documents an attitudinal survey of 29 ‘native-English speaker’ teachers at a Japanese university where the exclusive use of the target language is promoted as a key feature of the optimal foreign language learning environment. Results indicated that, contrary to the official policy, many teachers believed that selective use of the students’ L1, by the teacher or by students, could enhance L2 learning in various ways within a communicative framework. The authors argue that teachers and students themselves are best placed to determine, based on the immediate context of the classroom, what constitutes optimal use of the target language and the L1.