THE USE OF THE MOTHER TONGUE IN ESP TEACHING AND LEARNING FROM THE STUDENTS’ PERSPECTIVE: THE CASE OF SERBIAN

Abstract

Since the introduction of the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach, the use of the mother tongue (L1) in second language teaching and learning has been minimized, if not entirely excluded. However, scholarly interest in the question of the importance of L1 has recently been renewed. In light of this, the aim of this paper is to examine how often university students use Serbian as their L1 in learning English for Specific Purposes (ESP), as well as how they perceive their teachers’ use of L1. A total of 146 students participated in the research conducted by means of a questionnaire exploring their practice and beliefs regarding L1. Additionally, structured interviews were conducted with 12 students. Answers obtained through the questionnaire were analyzed by means of the Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U tests, while content analysis was employed for the analysis of the interview responses. Statistically significant differences were found with respect to the year and field of study, the length of time the students had been learning English, and the level of their language proficiency. The interview responses showed that the students employ L1 in both classroom and individual learning and that their ESP teachers also use it as a scaffolding technique or for teaching terminological standardization and contrastive analysis.