外語學習課室中母語的使用──多少母語才適當？

HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH? A Study of the Use of the Mother Tongue in Second Language Instruction

在筆者任教的學校擁有許多教學多樣化的英語教師，他們在教學時傾於使用中文加以說明來達到輔助效果。教師和學生對於是否需要使用母語輔助說明，持有不同的見解。筆者以15 組共708 位的學生做為調查對象，藉以了解這種使用母語輔助說明的方式是否對學生學習英語有所影響。如果答案是肯定的，它對學生又有那些方面的影響。我們發現大多數受測學生支援雙語教學方式，但極少證據顯示使用雙語對各程度的學生有正面的幫助。事實上，學生喜依賴母語解釋與其英文程度確實相關。然而，依據學生自我評量的多項回歸分析確實指出，僅用一種語言的教師在評分時是最嚴苛的。據推測，這是由於某些相互關連的因素如整體教學的嚴格，並無和單一語言教學直接相關。究竟這些因素為何，以及何以與單一語言教學緊緊相互關連，實留下許多進一步的研究空間。

The English teaching faculty at the authors’ institution contains a wide range ofteachers with varying ability and inclination to use Chinese in the classroom.Teachers and students alike differ on whether explanations should be offered in themother tongue, and to what degree. The authors surveyed 708 students across 15language lab sections in an effort to determine whether classroom language policymatters, and if so, what the direction of its influence should be. We found apreponderance of subjective student support for bilingual instruction, but very littleevidence that it makes a positive contribution to graded student performance. Infact, the study found strong evidence that students’ preference for mother-tongueexplanation is associated with poor grade performance, but the students expressingthis preference included both those not getting any L1 instruction and those at riskof becoming too dependent upon it. Examination of individual teachers andclasses did reveal a significant association between pure monolingual instructionand low grades, but also suggested that this could be due as much to correlatedtraits like overall pedagogic strictness as to language policy per se. Exactly whatother teaching traits are most closely correlated with monolingual instruction, andhow they influence student learning provides an interesting venue for furtherresearch.