Teaching ESL with and without the first language

In an ESL environment, there are obviously two languages. The language being taught as a second language, in this case English. And then the primary or first language of the student, which cannot be written off. It could be Korean, Japanese, Spanish, French and in my case it is Chinese.

So it's debatable as to whether the first language is crucial during ESL. There's only one significant explanation to me, as to what makes the language learning process impactful: that is the learning environment. The learning environment is made up of many things, however basically, it has a teacher and a scenario which is the opportunity to teach something together with all other possibilities surrounding it.

In the classroom, the teacher has certain responsibilities. One of them is making the class interesting enough for the student to participate. Another is class control, making it possible to teach without unnecessary interruptions. And also very important is making it possible for the student to understand what is being taught. Sometimes we make compromises in the latter and implore the use of the first language to ease our burden in explanation and demonstration of what is being communicated. Because what else would the first language be good for?

Not to get me wrong, this could be really good in a lot of instances. Easy control, easy communication of game rules, easy connection with the student because there's common ground, because in my classes whenever I speak the first language, students are always intrigued, they always say, wow you can also speak Chinese and then they want to chat in Chinese. 

But, my biggest advice would be, don't ever use the first language in a situation where the second language is sufficient.

Easy to say, difficult to do, because as humans we have a basic tendency to gravitate towards what is easy. That is basically what habits and instincts are. We require instincts built out of familiar circumstances so that we don't have to repeat certain thought processes. These form our habits and make life easier for us. So whenever communicating with the student in the Second language becomes difficult, we quickly embrace the use of the first language. Invariably for the student, whenever understanding in the second language becomes difficult, they seek the first language’s comfort, not necessarily for translation or need I say interpretation because languages don’t always translate well.  

There was a time when I couldn’t speak Chinese and my colleague teachers would try their painstaking best to explain things in English. Now that I can speak sufficient Chinese, whenever I try to communicate in English, they would always say “speak Chinese”. Flight to the relaxing land of comfort.

I did a backtrack of my recent two years of teaching, a time when I wasn't fluent in Chinese as compared to when I became more fluent in speaking Chinese. And my conclusion is that teaching was more difficult when I couldn't use the first language freely in my lessons, however my lessons were the most effective during that time. 

So currently, one of my resolutions is to reduce my use of the first language significantly. Rather to use possible methods to make the student understand directly what I mean. Obviously I'm not an idiot, this could vary depending on the level you teach. So use this advice with discretion.

Why?

Because speaking the first language is not the problem. Students familiarizing for wrong reasons is the problem. It's a problem when they begin to reject the need to understand things directly. It becomes a problem when they begin to seek translation from the teacher for whatever he or she says.

Let me leave you with a rather ambiguous thought. How did anyone learn a first language ever so perfectly without the assistance of another language? Why then would the first language be necessary during ESL?