Towards a principled use of l1 - Observing an efl teacher's l1 use in Rural Sabah, Malaysia

Abstract

The article described a study to understand a teacher's usage of first language (L1) in rural Sabah, Malaysia. Literature findings discovered a growing understanding that L1 should be used to assist a learner in learning L2 and that despite some studies done in Malaysian schools, none are based on English Language classrooms in rural Sabah, East Malaysia. Approximately 400 minutes of the teacher's classroom sessions were recorded, and any use of L1 is coded, and then categorised, based on the coding system developed by Sali (2014). The codes revealed that L1 is primarily used for academic and managerial purposes, with more efforts made on giving instructions, talking about learning, and eliciting objectives in mind. There was also the use of languages other than L1, primarily the students' ethnic tongue. Findings were compared against Principled Use of L1 (Cook, 2001), and suggestions were made to assist and further enhance the L1 use of the teacher, keeping in mind the contextual uniqueness of rural Sabah, Malaysia. A larger-scale study could be replicated to confirm the findings further, and to develop a principled use of L1 for rural Sabah ESL/EFL teachers to follow.