Factors Affecting Target Language Use in the Classroom

Nakayama Noriko

広島大学大学院教育学研究科紀要. 第二部, 文化教育開発関連領域

Bulletin of the Graduate School of Education, Hiroshima University. Part. II, Arts and science education

Within the profession, the fact that there are two groups of foreign language instructors is often overlooked: native and non-native speaking teachers. The present study focuses on non-native speaking teachers with special emphasis on English language teachers. Teachers of the English language have been encouraged by curricular documents and inspectors' reports which show an increase in the amount of target language use in the classrooms since the advent of the communicative approach. Even though there is no pedagogical evidence to show that more target language input results in more effective acquisition, the stress on teachers' quantity of target language use remains. Also, while native and non-native teachers differ in terms of their language proficiency, there are few studies focusing on target language use by non-NESTs (non-Native English Speaking Teachers). Previous studies show that exclusive use of the target language in classroom practice tends to be more idealistic than realistic, and that there is much uncertainty among non-NESTs as to how their language use should be adapted to their teaching philosophy. It has been revealed that there is a general consensus concerning the reasons for low usage of the target language, such as lack of confidence in the target language, large class size, and pupils' misbehaviour. The study discussed here identifies problems with target language usage faced by 172 non-NESTs from 16 countries, and aims to discern the real reasons behind those problems.

Non-NESTs

Medium of instruction

Target language use

Education [ 370 ]

eng

広島大学大学院教育学研究科

国立情報学研究所

[ISSN] 1346-5554

[NCID] AA11618725