The most controversial debate that is going on in teaching ESL is whether the use of L1 in L2 learning is necessary or not. My experience in ESL teaching is almost naught. However, teaching English courses to non-native speakers has interesting experiences with me that I have gained through two ways. The first one is by using L1 while teaching English grammar course in a class and second by using English only while teaching the same course in another similar class. This choice was rather biased and unfair for the college management. English-only-medium in the classroom was the circulation but I was taking the risk at this point which I explicate in what follows. I did not have any principle of my own for this choice either because it was neither to challenge the system of the college nor to be popular among the students who would learn English through L1. Neither was it my intention of doing so, too.
The students’ selection was made on the basis of their performance in previous examinations. So, comparatively higher scorers, who were assumed to be fast learner, were in the first section. And the rest were in the second. No one would expect me to use L1 in first section but everyone in the second wanted me to use L1 from the very beginning of our session. At first, I tried to convince the latter that doing so was to challenge the management. I taught them the way I taught in the first section for a few days. But later something triggered me that it was injustice not to hear the voice of majority, not to understand their desire and passion of learning L2 through L1-- a comfortable way for both of us. It was comfortable because I could make them every lesson clear and because they could ask openly if any problems would arise- no language problem, no communication gap among us at all. Thus, I began accordingly by risking my position. As the days passed, I found this most productive and fruitful because I saw their active participation in class discussion. The only trouble I had was when I had to switch L1 to English-only medium promptly while someone would be inspecting this “English class” overtly or covertly.
This resulted two worlds- the world inside the classroom and the world outside, especially in the case of first section students. I used to find myself at a distance with them because of their disinclination to communicate with me in English as I was always speaking English with them inside and outside the class. I never found anyone from this section to approach me and ask any questions because of their hesitation to follow English-only-medium principle. But the students from second section invariably used to be walking around me to share their thoughts and problems, views and visions as candidly as they could. This I continued throughout the session, sometimes being guilty and sometimes being proud. It was because I did not know whether or not I made right decision to teach L2 through L1. But when I read “Reexamining English Only in the ESL Classroom,” I found myself as a right character who had made abrupt decision even by risking the position. This article, in a way, has expunged my long ingrained notion and biased erroneous western humanistic vision of teaching English to L2 learners with English Only medium.
