Using the Mother Tongue

Professional Perspectives

by Sheelagh Deller, Mario Rinvolucri

Using the Mother Tongue, part of the Professional Perspectives series, offers a variety of practical ways to make use of what is a very valuable resource by:

*providing ideas and guidelines on when and how to use the mother tongue
*encouraging teachers to use the mother tongue selectively and effectively
*raising awareness of the similarities and differences between languages
*building links between the mother tongue and the foreign language through comparison and translation

The use of the mother tongue in the foreign language classroom has often been officially discouraged; however, many teachers have recognised that in practice using one’s own language to learn a foreign language is natural, necessary and efficient.

250 pages, Paperback

Published October 1, 2002

About the author

I have been involved in EFL in a number of ways since the early 80’s. I followed the track of teaching one to one, then groups, then teachers, then teacher trainers and alongside that writing articles and books. One of my current interests is CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) and most of my work has been through Pilgrims, Canterbury.

In 2002 Delta published Using the Mother Tongue which I wrote with Mario Rinvolucri. This is a controversial topic which we feel is very important and judging by people’s reactions to it it’s certainly creating a stir!

I spend most of my time working with teachers on courses in UK or in their countries. I have been fortunate enough to travel extensively and be exposed to a number of different cultures and teaching situations. However, I still make sure I regularly teach language learners as that is the basis for my training work.

Another aspect of my working life is giving plenary talks and workshops at conferences in many different countries.

As for my non-working life, I have 3 grown up sons, live in Canterbury, love and play tennis, and relax by gardening and cooking.

Reviews

[Karen Chung · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this book on the recommendation of a LinkedIn ELT Professionals group member, for which I am very grateful. For decades there's been an unhelpful orthodoxy of not using the students' mother tongue in English and other foreign language instruction. In fact judicious use of the students' native language can mean clearer, more accurate, more efficient, and deeper teaching and learning. I ended up finding only a couple ideas I may actually use in my teaching, but the book was still well worthwhile to work through for the ideas and perspective it provided. Recommended to language teachers, especially if you know a bit of the home language(s) of your students!

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