Investigation into Norwegian Teachers’ Perspectives on the Use of Students' Mother Tongue in the EFL Classroom

Abstract

This paper reports the results of a questionnaire-based study that examined Norwegian EFL teachers’ views on the use of students' mother tongue (MT) in teaching English as a foreign language (EFL). It focuses on the teachers’ attitudes towards the use of MT and their aspirations to create an English-only or a bilingual environment in the EFL classroom. Twenty-four in-service EFL teachers enrolled in an EFL endorsement course at a university in Mid-Norway completed the questionnaire. The responses suggest that while the majority of the participating teachers used Norwegian when teaching English, they also would like to minimize their reliance on students' MT and increase the use of the target language. Future research directions and baseline implications for language teacher education are discussed.