PROYECTO THALES – CICA - INTERNET

Considering the teachers’ beliefs on the use of students’ first language and translation in ESL classrooms, the data shows that the teachers’ ages differ considerably. Teacher A was 70 years old whereas teacher B was 35 years old. Regarding the question number one which asked them if it is useful for the ESL students to use translation when writing, teacher A replied “Perhaps initially and then for a short period of time only, otherwise strongly disagree” whereas, teacher B just agreed. It shows that teacher B, being younger than teacher A, was not so much in favor of restricting the use of the L1 in the ESL classrooms, which might be due to current trends in ESL ideology and methodology, where the focus has shifted to language awareness and consciousness raising.

Regarding question number 2, again when they were asked if the use of bilingual dictionary could help students to translate new words, the two teachers gave completely different answers. Teacher A disagreed whereas teacher B agreed. Again this is further evidence of aforementioned point that two teachers each supported different ideologies regarding the ESL learning and the use of L1 and translation.

Next, when they were asked if translation could be a useful tool for students to grasp real meaning, teacher A strongly disagreed whereas teacher B agreed. Once again we observe that teacher B was more in favor of the use of L1 in second language learning.

Further evidence of the teachers’ divergent viewpoints in regard to the use of the L1 and translation was question number 6, which asked if translation was useless in English classrooms and would only waste the students time and cause delay in their language learning procedure. Teacher A strongly agreed while teacher B was not sure. Even when the question was posed if English instructors should instruct the students how to use translation in their writing , in order to take the best advantage of this instrument in their language learning, teacher A replied “strongly disagree” and teacher B replied just “disagree”.

Therefore, it can be seen that nowadays some teachers have also started to realize the importance of the use of L1 in second language learning, while some others may be of older generation, still look at the use of L1 and translation in the ESL classrooms as a taboo. When we look at the students’ opinions and beliefs about the use of L1 and translation in the classrooms the same disagreement can be observed which might be a reflection of the different perspectives of their teachers.

CHAPTER SIX

CONCLUSION

The present research has a limited objective. It seeks to establish whether or not the learners’ L1 and the use of translation from the L1, have a positive effect on the quality of pre-advanced and advanced learners’ writing in their L2, English. It is a small- scale study, the findings of which cannot be generalized beyond its immediate context. It investigates two types of writing, Direct and Indirect (translated). The former was written directly in English and the latter was written first in Russian and then translated into English.

The findings of this research revealed that fifteen out of twenty five (60%) participants gained advantage from translated writing and ten Advanced level participants (40%), wrote better in their direct writing. In fact, it showed that the quality of the compositions was very much influenced by the writing modes of the participants as well as their fluency in both first language and the target language. Those with a lower knowledge of English benefited the most from translated writing and there was not any significant difference in the writing of the participants who were more proficient in English. Students’ responses to various questionnaires in this research showed that the majority of the students strongly believed and supported direct writing as being more beneficial in their second language learning. Although translation was considered to be quite time-consuming and harmful to their second language learning in the long term, they found translation to be an effective instrument to be used for their English essay writings, especially for students with lower proficiency in English. They said that it helped them to expand their vocabulary as well as to improve their grammar. They took advantage of dictionaries as a L1 reference to help them in this regard. Considering the students’ beliefs and comments about the use of

translation and a bilingual dictionary, the majority of learners confirmed that the use of translation and L1 was mostly beneficial for learners at lower levels of proficiency. However, they also believed that since English was their second language, the use of a dictionary was always needed even at very advanced levels. They believed that after staying more than ten years in a country like the USA or UK, they might not need to use their L1 and dictionaries any more.

They also commented on some sad memories. They said that due to the prohibition on the use of a Russian-English dictionary in the classroom, they had experienced some misunderstanding of the topics of the writing tasks or class discussions. Hence, sometimes it led them to be humiliated by others and to feel embarrassed. Furthermore, they said that it could even cause them to lose marks for not being able to answer the questions correctly or sufficiently.

The researcher of this study believes that the above complaints are serious obstacles to students’ improvement in their second language learning as they prevent them from participating in classroom discussions and resulted in them losing their self-confidence which is the most important factor in second language learning.