Primary school teachers are torn between official advice to use their students’ L1s as a pedagogic tool on the one hand (e.g. Bourne 2002), and formal or informal prohibition of such approaches in their schools on the other (e.g. Pattision High School 2017, Edstrom 2008). This review set out to address this implicit collective uncertainty by investigating the following questions:
RQ1. What is the nature and extent of empirical research on the effects of using L1-mediated teaching approaches in L2 settings with primary and pre-school-aged language learners, on outcomes relating to either L2 proficiency or academic attainment, or both?
And
RQ 2. What, if anything, can be concluded about the effects of L1-mediated teaching approaches in L2 primary school settings?
Responses to these questions are summarised in the following sections.
3.7.1 The nature of the research
3.7.1.1 Skills focus
In the main, the skills focus in the literature was related to L2 literacy. Only one study addressed skills specifically associated with speaking. No studies addressed outcomes associated directly with listening and understanding.
Four studies investigated the effects of L1-mediated teaching approaches on one or more skills related to reading: reading comprehension, oral reading rate, vocabulary knowledge, phonological awareness, and letter knowledge. One study used reading as the vehicle for using the L1, but assessed outcomes associated with writing proficiency.
Explicit vocabulary teaching formed the focus for five studies, all of which compared using the L1 to explain the meanings of unfamiliar words with using alternatives that used only the L2, or only picture cues. In four of these studies, vocabulary teaching was contexualised through reading activities.
One study assessed the effects of using the L1 as a pedagogical tool on oral and written proficiency in the L2.
All but one study was conducted in ‘naturalistic’ contexts. That is to say, the interventions were carried out in schools or in the home and reflected the kinds of activities that take place in those
places, as a matter of course. One study is better described as a ‘laboratory’ study. While it took place in schools, the intervention did not reflect typical classroom practices.
3.7.1.2 Location and languages
Four of the ten studies were conducted in North America (three in the USA and one in Canada). Four were conducted in Europe (one each in Cyprus, Italy, England, and Spain). Two were conducted in East Asia (Taiwan and South Korea). In one study, the participants represented a variety of L1s. In all other studies the participants shared the same L1, either the main language of the region in which the study was conducted (Mandarin, Korean, Italian, Cypriot, Catalan), or that of significant linguistic minority in the country (Spanish, Cantonese).
3.7.1.3 Methods
Methodologically, the majority of studies (eight of ten) used designs robust enough to allow
relatively confident causal inferences to be made, though only three of these unequivocally allocated participants to interventions using unbiased methods. These studies taken together do not clarify whether L1-mediated approaches are helpful or not (though there appears to be is promise in using the L1 to teach L2 vocabulary). The remaining studies used designs that are less robust, which, when taken together do not give a clear indication of the effects of using pupils’ L1s either.
3.7.2 Extent of the research
The extent of empirical research that assesses the effects of L1-mediated teaching approaches in non-bilingual primary and pre-primary schools is extremely small; only ten relevant studies were located. Of these, about a third were located in grey literature, in this case Master’s and Doctoral theses. Only seven were published in peer reviewed journals in the thirty-five year period covered by this review (and one of these was a write up of a Bachelor’s dissertation). The ubiquity of advice to use the L1 as a pedagogical tool for multilingual learners in primary schools is extremely hard to reconcile with the apparent lack of interest among the SLA community in evaluating related approaches and publishing them in the peer reviewed literature.
3.7.3 Implications for practice
Teachers in non-bilingual primary and pre-primary schools who are considering investing in ways to use their multilingual pupils’ L1s as a teaching and learning tool in the belief that it will raise those pupils’ L2 proficiency or their academic attainment must do so cautiously. Equally, policy makers in primary schools who are considering imposing ‘English Only’ rules or other prohibitions of pupils’ L1 use in their schools must act with similar caution. There is an extremely small body of research comparing L1-mediated teaching approaches with alternatives in such contexts, and, taken as a whole, the results of this body of research are equivocal.
There appears to be promise in using children’s L1s to explain the meanings of L2 vocabulary items. The literature suggests that this approach might be most effective when it incorporates discussion of the words in a meaningful context, such as during reading. This has only been assessed in
linguistically homogeneous groups of students, and so the implications for teachers of students who represent a variety of different L1s are not clear.
There may also be promise in helping multilingual children to identify similarities and differences between their L1 and L2 as a means to improve production in the L2. Though, implementing this requires that teachers possess considerable knowledge about the linguistic structures of both languages, and thus provides a significant challenge to teachers of linguistically diverse classes.
3.7.4 Implications for future research
In order for primary and pre-primary school teachers to have clear evidence upon which to base their understanding of the effects of using L1-mediated teaching approaches in L2 settings, much more intervention research needs to be conducted.
Using L1 to teach vocabulary may be helpful. More comparisons of L1-mediated vocabulary teaching with approaches that use only L2 would help to determine whether the positive findings of the three small studies described here are more widely applicable.
Studies that assess the effects of using L1 on proficiency in writing, speaking and listening are notable by their relative absence from the literature. Research that assesses, for example, the effects of asking children to draft written compositions in L1 before re-writing them in L2 would be valuable additions to the evidence base.
The overwhelming majority of studies in this review were conducted in contexts where all students shared the same L1. It is imperative that more research is conducted in contexts where a variety of L1s are represented. Linguistically diverse classrooms, particularly in Europe where transmigration of linguistically heterogeneous populations is common, are increasingly the norm. Research to assess ways to meet the language needs of a linguistically diverse classroom should include a combination of efficacy trials that assess whether the principle of L1-mediated teaching is sound, and process evaluations to help understand the delivery of interventions to linguistically diverse groups of students.
3.7.6 Limitations of this systematic review
I have made every effort to locate as much relevant research as possible given the resources available to me while preparing this review. However, inevitably some reports may have been missed.
3.7.6.1 Electronic searching, hand searching, and language of publication
All searches were conducted initially using electronic resources, then reference lists of included reports were scanned for additional possibly relevant studies. However, no hand searching of paper journals was done. In addition, although efforts were made to include studies published in languages other than English, this was only possible if they had English language abstracts. Clearly, searches that use only English search terms will return only records of foreign language studies for which authors have taken the trouble to translate their abstracts into English. While this might be common for peer reviewed literature it is less likely to be true for the grey literature. Also, while I did contact some authors of eligible and potentially eligible studies to ask for clarification about elements of their reports, and while doing so asked them if they knew of any other studies that may meet my inclusion criteria, I did not canvass for suggestions from the academics in the field more generally. Therefore, my efforts to include as much of the relevant information on L1-mediated learning in L2 settings as possible can only be said to go so far. I must concede that I may have missed studies published in languages other than English that might make important contributions to understanding the totality of the evidence.3.7.6.2 Grey literature and publication bias
Locating grey literature was not limited to issues of language of publication. It is possible that there are relevant studies written in English that have not been catalogued in the online bibliographic databases, but which would have nonetheless added important information to this review. In addition, publication bias is likely to be responsible for making it difficult to locate the totality of the relevant evidence. Publication bias (where so called ‘null’ and ‘negative’ findings are systematically underrepresented in the published literature compared to so called ‘positive’ findings) affects all areas of academic research, and research on bilingualism is no different (De Bruin et al. 2014).
3.7.6.3 Quality assurance
I was able to recruit help to double screen a portion of the studies included in the second screening phase (studies that could not be excluded on the basis of their abstracts alone), but I was unable to recruit help for the initial abstract screening, or to double data extract from the studies that were ultimately included in the review. In any update of this review, a second reviewer must be recruited to help minimise potential bias in assessing the literature.
Finally, the original search for this review was conducted in April 2015. New evidence may have been generated in the intervening time. An update of this systematic review is necessary if it is to be considered for wider publication.