 Is it okay to speak the students' native language in class?
What's your viewpoint and why?
I know this has probably been discussed over and again, but I didn't see a topic for it on the last two pages, so figured it might not be a problem to bring it up for debate/discussion.
At first I was completely for speaking only English in the classroom, no matter the level of the student. Now, I'm not so sure, though. I have an elementary class. When we get stuck on a word and they don't believe in just 'moving on', even after five minutes of getting nowhere, it just seems to detract from their interest if they cannot grasp the point in English. They are just beginning after all. I'm not saying that I feel it should be that if they don't understand then right away saying it in Spanish (my students' native language), but I feel that if they truly are unable to understand the meaning in a beginner or elementary class, that they should be given the meaning in their native tongue. I think it helps maintain their attention, especially when one has eight 12-year-olds. I've tried having them look it up in the English-only dictionary and a lot of the time they don't even understand the definition, so it just causes more confusion.  |