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Different But Similar: Student Teachers’
Perspectives on the Use of L1 in Arab
and Jewish EFL Classroom Settings
Lily Orland-Barak and Hayuta Yinon
Faculty of Education, The University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel
The complex cultural mosaic of EFL teaching and teacher education in Israel calls for
the need to explore how different ethnic and cultural backgrounds shape prospective
EFL teachers’ perspectives about their roles and practices as communicative teachers;
an approach solidly entrenched in western, democratic views of teaching and learn-
ing. Focusing on one aspect of communicative language teaching, the function of
L1 and L2 for promoting communication, this qualitative-interpretative study
explored the perspectives that 14 Arab and Jewish EFL student teachers adopted
towards the use of L1 (mother tongue) and L2 (target language). The study was con-
ducted within the context of student teachers’ reflections on their classroom discourse
during practice teaching. Student teachers were asked to record, transcribe and reflect
on one classroom lesson implemented in their practice teaching through a series of
guiding questions. The questions aimed at encouraging reflection at levels of
mapping and naming teaching and learning behaviours, connecting between theor-
etical notions and their realisation in ‘action’, surfacing gaps between expectations
and reality, interpreting, scrutinising and appraising particular teaching and learning
behaviours. The inductive analysis revealed that both Jewish and Arab student
teachers exhibited new insights regarding the different purposes for which L1 can
be used in a communicative lesson. Novices reported to have gained a more situated
and realistic perspective of the various uses of mother tongue in communicative
teaching as a result of analysing their own classroom discourse. The findings shed
light on the striking similarities between Arab and Jewish student teachers in
regard to the new understandings gained about the use of L1/L2 in communicative
lessons. The uniform perspectives exhibited by novices, regardless of their socio-
cultural background, challenged our initial assumptions regarding the differences
that we would expect to find between Arab and Jewish student teachers on the
issue. Thus, as the title of this paper suggests, student teachers ‘however different’,
exhibited ‘similar’ perspectives towards the use of L1/L2 in EFL communicative
lessons. The question of why socio-cultural differences were mitigated is discussed
through three inter-related themes that might account for such similarities: (1) the
state of being a novice, (2) the ‘culture’ of EFL teaching and, (3) the homogeneous
character of the teacher education programme.
Keywords: second language teacher education, curriculum, classroom discourse
Within the complex cultural mosaic of EFL (English as a Foreign Language)
teaching and teacher education in Israel, recent studies suggest the need to
further explore how different ethnic and cultural backgrounds shape pros-
pective EFL teachers’ perspectives about their roles and practices as communi-
cative teachers; an approach solidly entrenched in western, democratic views
of teaching and learning. Focusing on one aspect of communicative language
91
0790-8318/05/01 091-23 $20.00/0 #2005 L. Orland-Barak & H. Yinon
LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND CURRICULUM Vol. 18, No. 1, 2005
teaching, the function of L1 and L2 for promoting communication, this study
explores the perspectives that Arab and Jewish EFL student teachers adopted
towards the use of L1 (mother tongue) and L2 (target language). The study
was conducted within the context of student teachers reflections on their class-
room discourse during practice teaching.
English as a Foreign Language in Israel
By contrast to English as a ‘second language’ (that is, learning the dominant
language spoken in the country of immigration, e.g. Spanish speaking immi-
grants in North America learning English), whereby the stress is on learning
the language as reflective of the culture of place where the language is
spoken, English in Israel is taught as a ‘foreign’ language. Solidly entrenched
as the ‘first’ foreign language English is, after Hebrew and Arabic, regarded
as one of the most valuable assets of a pluralingual Israeli citizen (Ministry
of Education, 2001) and, thus, constitutes a major challenge, both in the
Jewish and Arab sectors. As such, it is taught as a compulsory subject in all
state schools and constitutes an entry requirement to academic institutions
in the country. Both in the Jewish and Arab educational systems, English is
officially taught from the third or fourth grade up to the twelfth grade, with
an average of three to four weekly hours. In many private schools of the
Arab sector, English is taught from the first grade onwards. It should be
noted that the large number of hours devoted to teaching the subject was
decided upon regardless of the fact that in the Jewish sector English is taught
as the first foreign language, whereas in the Arab sector it is taught as the
third language. Given its high priority in the Jewish and Arab sectors, both
of which function within a centralised educational system through the
Ministry of Education, the rationale for the national English curriculum
makes its policy of achieving standards of excellence for teaching English clear:
...[English] is the foreign language for which there is the strongest local
demand. Therefore it is imperative to aim for the highest achievable
standards of excellence for the teaching of English as a Foreign Language
in Israeli schools...
This curriculum not only affirms the national need to set standards in
order to equip pupils with the knowledge of English that he modern
world demands, but also serves as the basis for quality education.
(Ministry of Education, 2001: 9 – 10)
To the exclusion of a short section entitled ‘Pupil Diversity’, which considers
the issue of pupils’ mother tongue and social/ethnic background as related
to foreign language acquisition, the English curriculum suggests a relatively
unified view of language teaching and learning across social, cultural and
ethnic contexts in Israel. Guided by prevalent worldwide views of English
as an international language and of teaching language for communicative
purposes (Ellis, 1987; Richards & Rodgers, 1986), the English curriculum
emphasises the importance of teaching pupils to socially interact, to access
information from a variety of sources and media, to present information in
an organised manner, to appreciate literature and other cultures through
92 Language, Culture and Curriculum
English, and to become aware of how the target language compares to Hebrew
and Arabic.
EFL teacher education in Israel
The unified view of language teaching and learning is also prevalent in
teacher education institutions in Israel. With the exception of a few colleges
affiliated with only Arab or Jewish orthodox populations, EFL teacher edu-
cation programmes are responsible for the induction of both Jewish and
Arab prospective teachers within the same programme. Furthermore, the
focus on developing prospective EFL teachers’ understandings of their roles
as ‘communicative teachers’, as envisioned by the national English curriculum,
is also reflected in these programmes, both at pre-service and in-service levels.
This implies preparing student teachers to implement communicative curricula
at schools, to learn how to plan lessons that focus on activities that develop
fluency alongside accuracy, to create maximum exposure to the target
languge and opportunities for using it, to build on pupils’ prior knowledge
and experiences, and to create language rich environments which incorporate
task-based activities. Pivotal to this understanding is the importance of maxi-
mising the use of the target language (L2) in the classroom for purposes of
exposure, fluency and production. Hence, student teachers are encouraged to
plan and conduct communicative lessons carried out in the target language
(L2) and, consequently, to minimise the use of mother tongue (L1).
The uniform portrayal of learning to teach EFL that emerges from the above
description, seems to take little account of the diverse cultural, social, and
ethnic traditions that student teachers bring to teacher education from their
home background. Indeed, recent calls urge us to move away from the
tendency to relate to student teachers as a homogeneous group, ignoring
factors such as ethnic and cultural background (Troyna & Rivzi, 1997;
Wideen et al., 1998), towards examining the unique meanings that student
teachers attribute to the experience of learning to teach, as shaped by their
ethnic and cultural backgrounds (Fuller, 1992; Mazor, 2003) A cultural perspec-
tive to the process learning to teach, would contribute to new insights into
prospective teachers’ socialisation, consequently shedding light on ways in
which their idiosyncratic needs can be catered for in teacher education pro-
grammes (Guyton et al., 1996; Zeichner & Gore, 1990).
Research agendas that have recently taken up the above call, have yielded
important understandings regarding the difficulties that minority student
trainees experience throughout their training (Fuller, 1992; Guyton et al.,
1996) Some of these difficulties are found to be related to the lack of critical per-
spectives that monocultural teacher education programmes adopt towards
multicultural issues of pedagogical implications, often positioning minority
students in situations where they feel compelled to ‘put aside’ their ethnic iden-
tity in favour of the dominant culture (Al-Haj, 1988; Ginsberg & Clift, 1990)
In tune with these findings (Ivine, 1993; Martinez & O’Donnell, 1992) reported
that the presence of academics and teacher trainers from minority groups,
constituted an important source of support for these students who often felt
isolated, detached from their context of teaching practice, and struggling to
remain faithful to their identity (Jones et al., 1997; Siraj-Blatchford, 1991).
EFL Student Teachers’ Perspectives on L1 Use 93
From the perspective of beliefs about culture and diversity, studies focusing
on prospective teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning shed light on the
rigid nature of their beliefs about culture and diversity, contending that these
are shaped by their own life histories and experiences (Hollingsworth, 1989;
Pajares, 1992; Richardson, 1996). Indeed, as Causey et al.’s study (2000) corrobo-
rates, student teachers tended to believe that pupils, regardless of their cultural
background, were are all the same. Consequently, they believed that the same
pedagogy would be equally effective for all kinds of pupils. The findings
of their study along with others, call for need to create spaces for student tea-
chers to re-examine their own attitudes and beliefs towards diversity within the
teacher education programme, as well as for promoting prospective teachers’
ability to foster cultural pluralism by acquiring the necessary knowledge and
skills to teach students of diverse backgrounds (Eilam, 2002; Mazor, 2003).
Cultural perspectives
The missing ‘cultural lens’ in Israeli teacher education programmes is par-
ticularly conspicuous, given the continuing identity struggles entrenched in
the conflicting ‘melting pot’ of Israeli society (Kalekin-Fishman & Eden, 2003;
Leshem, 2001). Two important studies conducted in the context of teacher
education in Israel have shed light on the issue. Elbaz’s account of her experi-
ence with story telling in a workshop of co-existence in a university course in
the teacher education programme, highlights the differences that Arab and
Jewish student teachers exhibited in what went on ‘in their hearts and
minds’, and consequently, on the need to create opportunities for fostering
dialogue across cultures in teacher education programmes (Elbaz-Luwisch,
2001). In a large-scale study describing how Arab student teachers, educated
in Arab traditional, collectivist traditions ‘pass through’ a western-oriented
teacher education programme identified with a Jewish, individualistic
culture, Eilam (2002), discusses the unique difficulties that these student
teachers experienced. Specifically, she points to the hardships that students
attributed to making new meanings out of their prior knowledge and beliefs,
to studying in a second language (Hebrew) and to being exposed to a new
unfamiliar, academic style. Discussing the struggles of these students to
apply knowledge acquired in a western oriented context upon return to their
traditional Arab teaching contexts, Eilam urges us to attend to ethnic/cultural
differences as they play out in prospective students’ processes and outcomes of
learning to teach.
Although few, studies in EFL teacher learning in Israel offer similar insights
to how cultural diversity affects the process of learning to teach a foreign
language. Focusing on the meanings that Arab-Druze student teachers attri-
bute to learning to teach English in a setting that is culturally and socially differ-
ent from theirs, Mazor (2003) foregrounds the tensions that surface in the
process and the implications that these tensions have for students’ learning.
The findings of her study surface themes of identity as Druze students, as
well as concerns for their status as equal or different in the Jewish school
community. In teaching placements that are culturally different, the study high-
lights the expressed need of student teachers to be accepted by the school staff
as equals and, at the same time, to be acknowledged as different.
94 Language, Culture and Curriculum
Examining how cultural background affects patterns of teachers’ oral
feedback and interaction in EFL classes in three different cultural school
settings (Jewish secular school, Jewish ultra orthodox school, and Arab
school), Leshem (2001) found similarities and differences between the three
cultural settings. Specifically, in the Jewish orthodox context, her study
revealed the connection between the cultural context and the classroom
learning context in the way in which religious norms and codes of behaviour
imposed constraints on teaching and learning a foreign language. In the
Arab context, teachers’ talk revealed how cultural and political constraints
gravitate towards conservatism and, at the same time, towards the recognition
that the foreign language constitutes a window to the western world, often at
the expense of existing cultural and political norms.
Focus of the study
The differences and complexities highlighted in the above studies reinforce
the need to further explore how different ethnic and cultural backgrounds
shape the idiosyncratic meanings that prospective teachers in general, and
EFL teachers in particular, attribute to teaching and learning. Within the
complex cultural mosaic of EFL teaching in Israel, these studies raise important
questions regarding the meanings that prospective teachers from different
ethnic/cultural backgrounds attribute to their roles and practices as commu-
nicative teachers, an approach solidly entrenched in western, democratic
views of teaching and learning. Focusing on one aspect of communicative
language teaching, the function of L1 and L2 in promoting communication,
this study explores the meanings that Arab and Jewish student teachers attri-
buted to the use of L1 and L2 as they analysed their own lessons and classroom
discourse during practice teaching.
The decision to focus on the use of L1/L2 was based on several consider-
ations. First, the issue of maximum exposure to L2 and minimum use of
L1 is solidly entrenched in the curriculum as one of the major catalysts for
promoting a communication in the target language. This implies that the use
of English should be maximised during the lessons, an endeavour which
is often regarded by student teachers whose mother tongue is not English, as
threatening (Tabry-Awwad, 1996). This concern gains prominence in a
country like Israel where the majority of EFL student teachers in the Arab
and Jewish sectors are non-native speakers of English. More so, for EFL Arab
student teachers living in villages outside main cities and less exposed to
English and to western culture traditions that ‘transpire’ through the language,
the avoidance of L1 in English lessons is even more problematic. In addition, by
contrast to Jewish students who learn English as a first foreign language at
school, Arab students study English as a third language (Hebrew is learned
as a second language). Given these differences, we would assume that Arab
student teachers’ ethnic/cultural background would bear an influence on
their perceptions of the use of L1/L2 as compared to Jewish student teachers.
Secondly, as research shows, student teachers’ perceptions of their roles and
of their practice is highly influenced by their prior experiences as learners of a
foreign language (Burns, 1996). For example, the Arab school system is
regarded as highly traditional in its views about what constitutes effective
EFL Student Teachers’ Perspectives on L1 Use 95
language teaching. Thus, regardless of the ‘stated’ communicative policy
dictated by the English curriculum, EFL teaching in the Arab sector is still
heavily inclined towards traditional frontal, translation methods of learning
grammar and vocabulary as well as towards the use of L1 (Arabic) for expla-
nation and elaboration purposes (Leshem, 2001). It is, then, feasible to expect
that Arab student teachers would be influenced by these prior experiences as
pupils, and probably exhibit similar dispositions towards the use of L1, conse-
quently confronting difficulties in internalising messages that propagate the
avoidance of L1. In the Jewish sector, by contrast, the communicative approach
has gradually been filtering the educational system for the past 20 years.
Although still voicing many reservations, teachers in the Jewish secular
sector are more receptive to integrating communicative methodology into
their lessons. It would then be expected, that student teachers would be more
familiarised with communicative principles from their own histories as pupils.
Thirdly, previous study on EFL student teachers’ reflections on their own
classroom discourse (approximately half Jewish and half Arab) (Orland-Barak,
in progress), indicated that the majority of reflections touched upon issues
related to the use of L1 and L2 in communicative lessons, both by Arab and
Jewish students. This finding, suggesting the importance that student teachers
attribute to the topic, alongside findings from research on cultural perspectives
towards teaching a foreign language, prompted us to re-examine the data on
student teachers’ reflections on their own discourse, this time focusing on (1)
the kinds of understandings gained by student teachers on the use of L1 and
L2 in communicative English lessons, and (2) on how these understandings
compare across cultural/ethnic contexts of teaching.
The Study
The data examined in this paper was collected during an EFL methods
university course entitled Classroom Discourse: Students examine their own
practice. The course under investigation took place at the teaching department
of a major university in the north of Israel during the academic year of 2002.
The course, instructed by one of the researchers, required of student teachers
to conduct on-going readings on EFL methodology and on EFL classroom
discourse, and to record, transcribe and reflect on one classroom lesson
implemented in their practice teaching.
The course aimed at helping students to acquire tools for analysing class-
room discourse, at enhancing understandings about teaching and learning as
revealed through classroom discourse, at encouraging students to adopt a
critical stance towards their teaching, at analysing how different classroom
registers reflect particular approaches to teaching and teaching styles, at iden-
tifying the teaching style that characterised each student in light of predomi-
nant patterns identified in his/her own classroom discourse and, at
encouraging students to formulate new insights about teaching and about
their practice as a result of analysing their own discourse.
The participants were 14 female EFL student teachers, who took the course in
the last year of their studies toward a teaching certificate. Half of the student
teachers were Jewish and half were Arab.
96 Language, Culture and Curriculum
Data
As part of the requirements of the course, student teachers were asked to
record, transcribe and reflect on one classroom lesson implemented in their
practice teaching.
The final assignment required of students to reflect on their classroom dis-
course through a series of guiding questions provided by the course professor:
What did I plan to achieve in this lesson? What are my language, educational
and learning goals? What are the activities/tasks that I planned in order to
achieve these goals? What has the analysis of my discourse revealed about:
gaps between what I think I do/say/act and what actually happens? What
was I surprised to discover? What have I had learnt about myself? What
have I learned about my pupils? What have I learned about teaching and
learning? What are my strengths as revealed in the discourse? What would I
like to change in my classroom discourse? How would I make those changes
in my future teaching?
The above reflective questions aimed at encouraging student teachers’ reflec-
tions on their teaching experience (Dewey, 1933), at various levels of mapping
and naming predominant teaching and learning behaviours, connecting
between theoretical notions and their realisation in ‘action’, surfacing gaps
between expectations and reality, interpreting teaching and learning in a par-
ticular context, scrutinising and appraising particular teaching and learning
behaviours, and interpreting emergent views of teaching (Barlett, 1990;
Laboskey, 1994; Schon, 1987). The 14 papers submitted included a full tran-
scription of a taught lesson followed by a reflective analysis of the lesson
according to the guidelines described above.
Analysis
The analysis was conducted by the two researchers in two phases. The first
phase entailed hermeneutic cycles of close interpretative readings (Gadamer,
1982) of each paper, to identify recurrent connections between theory
(principles of pedagogy) and practice (the classroom discourse patterns that
characterise their teaching), as well as particular connections unique to each
case. Guided by a narrative inquiry approach (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990;
Olesen, 1994), the same process was repeated across cases to identify common-
alities across all data sources. One of the most recurrent categories that emerged
from the inductive analysis pertained to the ‘myths that students broke’ about
the use of L1 in a communicative lesson. Relevant quotations that supported
students’ reflections on the myth of the use of L1 in a communicative lesson
were identified in each paper.
During the second phase of data analysis, a new hermeneutic cycle of inter-
pretative readings was conducted, this time focusing on commonalities and
differences across student teachers’ reflections on the use of L1 in a communica-
tive lesson. Three major common categories emerged from the analysis: (1) using
L1 for clarification purposes, (2) using L1 for communication purposes and, (3)
using L1 for managerial purposes. Stud ent teachers’ quotations were then sorted
according to these three categories. Table 1 illustrates two examples from two
student teachers’ quotations, sorted according to the above three categories.
EFL Student Teachers’ Perspectives on L1 Use 97
Findings
As stated earlier, a predominant ‘broken myth’ surfaced in previous study
pertained to the use of the target language (L2) as it relates to the use of
mother tongue (L1) during English lessons. The present study, a re-examination
of students’ reflections on this myth, as they compared across Jewish and Arab
student teachers, yielded two major findings.
One, that both Jewish and Arab student teachers exhibited new insights
regarding the different purposes for which L1 can be used in a communicative
lesson. These were classified into three major themes/content categories: (1)
using L1 for clarification purposes; (2) using L1 for promoting communication
in L2 and for enhancing pupil participation; (3) using L1 to assist the novice
teacher in managerial aspects of the lesson and in building rapport with the
pupils. In relation to these three categories, the analysis revealed that novices
reported to have gained a more situated and realistic perspective of the
various uses of mother tongue in communicative teaching, as a result of
analysing their own classroom discourse.
A second finding from the analysis sheds light on the striking similarities
between Arab and Jewish student teachers in regard to the new understandings
that they claimed to have gained about the use of L1/L2 in communicative
lessons. The uniform perspectives exhibited by novices, regardless of their
socio-cultural background, challenges our initial assumptions regarding the
differences that we would expect to find between Arab and Jewish student
teachers on the issue. Thus, as the title of this paper suggests, this finding pos-
itions student teachers ‘however different’, as ‘similar’ in their perspectives
towards the use of L1/L2 in EFL communicative lessons.
Table 1 Student teachers’ quotations, sorted according to the categories
Using L1 for clarification
purposes
Using L1 for
communication
purposes
Using L1
for managerial
purposes
Maya I have realized that L1
is often an effective strategy
for clarification – especially
with weaker pupils and to
make sure that everyone
understands
The use of L1 is contrary
to what I had thought
sometimes helpful for
promoting communication
in L2 – to reassure pupils
or to stimulate them to
elaborate on a point
if they don’t know every
single word in English
Rina I believe that it is far better
to participate in Hebrew
rather than not participate
at all... This is not a
problem, but rather a sign
of learning
Using L1 for humour
or as an ice-breaker
has proved to be an
effective strategy
for classroom
management,
something I wasn’t
aware of
98 Language, Culture and Curriculum
Drawing on selected excerpts from student teachers’ reflections, we illustrate
each of the three emergent themes, focusing on the new understandings that
Jewish and Arab student teachers claimed to have gained about the use of
L1/L2 in communicative lessons.
L1 for comparison and clarification
The English Curriculum in Israel (Ministry of Education, 2001) describes
‘Appreciation of Language’ as one of the four major domains of foreign
language learning in Israel. This implies that teachers are encouraged to
foster opportunities for pupils to become aware of how the target language
compares to their mother tongue. To this end, L1 during the lesson is regarded
as a means to gain insight into the structure of the target language, as well as an
opportunity for furthering understandings of pupils’ mother tongue.
Specifically, the curriculum stresses aspects of learning such as identifying
words that are the same in English and in pupils’ mother tongue, becoming
aware that not all words can be translated on a one-to-one correspondence,
and becoming aware that languages use different idiomatic conventions and
draw on different cultural conventions, both syntactically and semantically.
The teaching context within which these differences are appreciated is,
however, described as one in which there is maximum exposure to the target
language, achieved by creating a language-rich environment that allows
pupils to take risks, to make errors and to experiment with the language
(p. 16) Thus, on the one hand, student teachers are made aware of the impor-
tance of L1 for L2 acquisition, but on the other hand, they are reminded that
tasks geared to focusing on differences and similarities across languages
should, ideally, be carried out in English.
The insights that Jewish and Arab student teachers alike claimed to have
gained on the use of L1 for purposes of comparison and clarification of mean-
ings in L2, portrays a more situated perspective of student teachers on the issue.
Such perspective takes into consideration sensitivities that student teachers
exhibited towards the language level of a particular population of pupils or
local needs that emerge during class time. It should be mentioned, however,
that student teachers did not mention pupils’ cultural background as a
methodological or pedagogical consideration in their use of L1 for clarification
or comparison.
Adda, a Jewish student teacher explains that she uses Hebrew because it
spares time, repetition and unnecessary misunderstandings: ‘When it comes
to certain terms, concepts or answers that the pupils really do not seem to
comprehend, it is preferable to use Hebrew’. Similarly, Vickie, an Arab
student teacher comments that when introducing new vocabulary to the
class, she often uses Arabic: ‘Whenever I thought that a word would be difficult
for the students, I gave them its Arabic equivalent...’. Sausan, too, claims to use
Arabic for translation when she ‘senses’ pupils’ misunderstandings: ‘The pupils
didn’t answer directly, so I realised that there was something wrong. I translated
the words into Arabic to be sure that pupils were with me’. Adding on the use of
Arabic for repetitions, she contends that ‘... repetition in Arabic aims to
decrease misunderstandings’. Lee’s statement on a missed opportunity to
clarify a misunderstanding by resorting to Hebrew, supports Samaheer’s
EFL Student Teachers’ Perspectives on L1 Use 99
point: ‘...I should have switched to L1 so that instructions would have been
clearer...this would have created less misunderstandings and frustrations for
the pupils while performing the task ...’. Arab and Jewish student teachers’
reflections on the benefits of L1 for clarification, carry a new connotation to
the communicative notion of minimising L1 in teachers’ talk, one which is
situated in the ‘real’ classroom and which addresses local pupils’ needs,
lacks, and wants, as well as the constraints of the 45 minute lesson.
By contrast to the above cases, however, Suzan espouses a strong position
against the use of Arabic in communicative lessons. Her statement reflects
her stated commitment to minimising the use of L1 in her talk:
...I only used Arabic to explain one or two words or some instructions
that were unclear. However, I think that using the mother tongue in teach-
ing a foreign language should be restricted to minimal use, only in order
to explain certain vocabulary that is difficult to paraphrase in English or
that cannot be showed through a visual trigger, but even then it
depends very much on the level of the class.
Suzan’s strong espoused commitment to minimising Arabic in her lessons is
particularly revealing because it somehow shatters our initial assumption that
if any, Jewish student teachers would probably be the ones to exhibit a tighter
commitment to minimising the use of mother tongue, due to their prior
language learning experiences as pupils in communicative teaching contexts.
As a matter of fact, not only did we find almost no evidence to support such
assumption, but we also discovered that the few native speakers student
teachers (two Arab and one Jewish) exhibited strong views supporting the
use of Hebrew or Arabic for clarification purposes.
Abeer, an Arab student teacher, native speaker of English writes:
In order to simplify matters, I talk to my students in Arabic and translate
things into Arabic. For purposes of clarification, I also give instructions,
frame and organise activities using L1... Although I know that as a
teacher I am privileged to be a native speaker of English and should
take advantage of this to promote the use of L2 and expose pupils to as
much English as possible, I find myself very often relying on my knowl-
edge of Arabic to explain it...
Similarly, Adda, a Jewish native speaker of English, reflects on her tendency
to use Hebrew in the lesson and on its positive consequences for learning:
When I analysed my discourse, I realised that I had spoken a lot in L1 for a
native English speaker, even more than non-native teachers would. The
only reason that I can think of ... is that as a native speaker I feel that I
will be misunderstood easily, especially in a class of weak learners.
Therefore, I tend to translate anytime I feel that the pupils may need
clarification ... I view this [translation] as a strength in this particular
class as they are weak learners, and I need to make certain that they
understand explanations, instructions and important words.
The use of L1 by teachers who are native speakers of English is not new.
Indeed, as few research studies point, EFL native speaker teachers report on
100 Language, Culture and Curriculum
their tendency to use the pupils’ mother tongue during the lesson for purposes
of clarification and in order to convey the message that they can communicate
with their pupils at more personal levels (Leshem, 2001) Adda and Abeer ’s
reflections on the use of L1 for clarification, support these findings. They also
illustrate a recurrent theme regarding the importance that student teachers
attribute to the use of L1 when teaching weak learners classes. For example,
Tania claims that when teaching a weak class, she translates to Hebrew
words and phrases ‘here and there while discussing, or while working on a
task or filling in a worksheet’. Manal, too, turns to Arabic ‘when I want to
lead pupils to the correct answer in English, especially in a weak class ... or
when nobody knows the answer so I give the Arabic translation...’.
L1 for promoting communication and pupil participation
A core principle in communicative language teaching acknowledges the
importance of creating contexts for using the target language, through peer
and group interaction, problem solving activities, exchange of ideas and
opinions, and tasks in English outside the classroom (p. 16). The issue of
promoting communication and encouraging active participation in the
foreign language is solidly entrenched in student teachers’ understandings of
their roles. It was therefore, not surprising to find that many reflective entries
alluded to this issue. Yet beyond describing what ‘moves’ in their teaching
promoted (or not) communication and participation, Arab and Jewish
student teachers made intrinsic connections between strategies for promoting
communication, pupil participation, and the use of L1.
In a section entitled ‘New uses of L1 in a communicative lesson’, Maya, a
Jewish student teacher, first shares with the reader her initial views about
the use of L2 for enhancing participation in a communicative lesson:
‘...According to the English curriculum, I used to agree that we should
allow for maximum exposure and use of the target language, this would even-
tually help pupils to become more fluent in the language’. As she analyses her
discourse, however, she becomes aware of how much she uses L1 on the
one hand, and how it often promotes participation, on the other hand.
This leads her to exhibit a more situated view of the potential of L1 for pupil
participation:
... I have realised that the use of L1 in my lesson is certainly not mini-
mised as ‘theory’ says it should be. I was surprised to see how many of
my telling moves are in Hebrew ... yet although this might often stop
the kind of natural conversation that I would like to develop, it certainly
helps the weaker pupils to participate and to show that they are involved
in the lesson...
As she further connects between her moves in L1 and its consequences for
learning and participation, she articulates a more local understanding of the
use of L1 for learning:
Code switching from L2 to L1 is inevitable where all pupils share the same
L1. I believe it is far better to participate in Hebrew rather than not partici-
pate at all. This is not a problem but a sign of learning. L1 has also proved
EFL Student Teachers’ Perspectives on L1 Use 101
to be beneficial for humour purposes. This, in turn, serves as an icebreaker
and encourages certain pupils who seldom participate to react and often
respond.
Maya’s allusion to the use of L1 as an icebreaker is reminiscent of Adda’s
remark that she often uses Hebrew to make a pupil feel welcomed: ‘I used
L1 with Sarit [one if her pupils] because I wanted her to feel welcomed, I
wanted to let her know, this way, that her participation is more important to
me than whether she speaks English or not.’
The grounded insight that Maya gains regarding code switching to L1
amongst pupils who share the same mother tongue is, indeed, supported in
research by the claim that the use of L1 may increase efficiency of instruction
only if the learners in a class share the same L1 (Larsen-Freeman, 1986)
Furthermore, her allusion to the use of L1 not as a problem but as a sign of
learning, together with Adda’s account of her use Hebrew for educational pur-
poses, are encouraging. They reflect a less instrumental and more educational
view of their roles as language teachers.
Similar kinds of connections were made by Arab student teachers on
the issue of promoting communication, pupil participation, and the use of
L1. Consider, for example, Sanna’s analysis of how her use of L1 promotes
participation and eventually enhances learning on certain occasions:
There are times when I have to use L1 [Arabic] in order to help a pupil to
elaborate on the correct answer in English. Contrary to what I had thought
was ‘sacred’ in communicative teaching, that is, that I should avoid L1 as
much as possible, the use of L1 for these purposes has proved to be ben-
eficial and effective for ‘speeding up’ processes that sometimes ‘get stuck’
and can interfere with the main focus of the lesson.
Likewise, alluding to the judicious use of Arabic during fluency activities,
and to its potential for triggering prior knowledge and, consequently, for
enhancing participation, Rama writes:
Since this is a strong class, one of the things I wanted to achieve is to allow
for a variety of responses and opinions related to the main idea of the
passage. Sometimes I have to use L1 to stress a point or to encourage
pupils to elaborate on a specific language aspect from their answers.
I think this was beneficial for the development of the discourse: I followed
the principle that I should develop fluency on the one hand and draw
their attention to accuracy on the other... I also noticed that one of my
patterns is that I manage to elicit more prior knowledge and experiences
by sometimes throwing a provocative question in L1. Pupils become more
attentive to my change of register and respond to my trigger in English ...
it’s kind of a shared code...I know I should not use L1 for translating, and
I don’t, I rather use it for motivating or encouraging certain students to
elaborate their ideas in L2.
Notice the recurrent use of modal verbs such as ‘should’, ‘have to’ and
‘must’ in the above excerpts. According to Sweetser (1990), the use of modals
of obligation and necessity often reflects the culture specific norms, expectation
102 Language, Culture and Curriculum
roles, and concepts defining relationships between people and events. The
frequent use of these modals by both Arab and Jewish student teachers,
suggests something about their common need to be accountable to the
teacher training programmes’ agenda. In a sense, as Sweeter would contend,
it reflects the particular ‘culture’ that seems to characterise the process of learn-
ing to teach and the state of being a novice. These two issues are elaborated in
our discussion.
L1 for managerial and rapport purposes
Establishing a positive rapport, gaining respect, being ‘liked’ by the pupils
and managing a class are, as research shows, major concerns of novices at
their beginning stages of teaching (Hollingsworth, 1989; Rust, 1994; Vonk,
1994; Zeichner & Gore, 1990). Indeed, student teachers’ reflections on these
aspects of their teaching were recurrent. An interesting insight discerned
from these reflections, pertained to the way in which student teachers con-
nected between classroom management, rapport and their use of L1 during
the lesson. The general finding for this theme pertained to the important func-
tion that both Jewish and Arab student teachers attributed to use of L1 for
establishing a positive rapport with the pupils, for creating an empathetic
atmosphere in class, and for gaining control, and sustaining classroom
management.
In her reflections Rama admits that she uses Arabic ‘for discipline matters
that [she] do[es] not seem to solve in L2’. Like Maya and Adda in the previous
section, she also mentions having learned ‘to use L1 for humour, which
creates a positive atmosphere in class.’ Similarly, Carmel becomes aware of
her tendency to turn to Hebrew when she ‘senses’ ‘a lack of response ... or
in the case of discipline matters...’.
Danna, a Jewish native speaker of English emphasises the added value of
using Hebrew as a native speaker, as a way of conveying empathy towards
the pupils:
As a native English speaker, I was surprised to discover the amount of L1
that I use during the lesson ... and although I thought that this was a
strict ‘don’t’ in communicative language teaching, I view aspects of my
use of Hebrew as a strength. For one, it shows the pupils that I can
connect to them in their mother tongue and that I am not detached from
their reality...
Considering the ‘managerial’ purposes for which she chooses to resort to L1,
their implications for the controlling nature of her discourse and, consequently,
for impeding opportunities for language use, Maya critically writes:
I have realised that part of my tendency to control has to do with the way
in which I use L1 in the classroom. I get impatient when pupils do not
provide with the response I am looking for so I tend to translate a lot
and to repeat a lot through translation ... when presenting new vocabu-
lary, although I try to use different techniques for presenting the meaning
of a word in English I end up translating the word most of the time in the
fear that I would loose them if things are not clear enough ... this leaves
EFL Student Teachers’ Perspectives on L1 Use 103
little room for practice in context ... I wonder whether pupils remember
the translation and not the new word in English...
Having mentioned the above implications, however, she recognises her need
to often rely on L1 in order to ‘survive’ as a novice: ‘... using Hebrew beyond
what is mentioned in the principles of the new curriculum is also helpful
for surviving in my first year of teaching because it often helps to build
relationships with the pupils...’
From the opposite perspective of how the complete absence of L1 can lead to
unwanted outcomes, especially as a novice, Lee writes:
The lack of L1 in my speech, is sometimes viewed by the pupils as a weak-
ness, as if I don’t want to get closer to them ...the overuse of repetitions I
make in the target language in order to avoid L1, often leads to a chaotic
atmosphere and I lose control ... and this is even more problematic
because they know I am a new teacher...
The close similarities between Jewish and Arab student teachers’ concerns in
regard to classroom management and teacher pupil-relationships, shatter again
our initial assumptions regarding the impact of cultural differences on
students’ perceptions of their roles. We know, for example, that individuals
often find it difficult to escape from the roles that cultural traditions have
defined for them. (Handy, 1993). In the case of Arab student teachers, for
example, we would expect less concerns over matters of establishing authority,
since the teacher is perceived as authority on possession of knowledge. By con-
trast, in the Jewish educational system, characterised by a more permissive
culture with less social distance between teachers and pupils, we would
expect novices to report on more concerns and dilemmas on the issue of estab-
lishing rapport and gaining a position of authority in the classroom. As the
above excerpts illustrate, this was not the case. Arab and Jewish student
teachers, however different, exhibited similar connections between the use
of L1 and classroom management: Why? Let us now turn to possible interpre-
tations of our findings.
Discussion
We return to our initial question: How do student teachers’ perspectives on
the use of L1 in teaching English as a foreign language compare in Arab and
Jewish classroom settings? and, What can be learned from this comparison?
Our major finding, that Jewish and Arab student teachers alike exhibited
similar situated understandings regarding the different purposes for which
L1 can be used in a communicative lesson, raises the question of why socio-
cultural differences were mitigated, contrary to initial expectations. We
discuss three interrelated themes that might account for our finding, as
suggested by our title ‘Different however Similar’: (1) the state of being a
novice, (2) the ‘culture’ of EFL teaching, and (3) the homogeneous character
of the teacher education programme.
104 Language, Culture and Curriculum
The state of being a novice
Along the novice– expert continuum of professional development, student
teachers, however different in their socio-cultural background, fall into the
same category: they are all novices (Berliner, 2001; Britzman, 1991; Kagan,
1992) Such singularity might help to explain why participants reasoned and
behaved in similar ways in regard to the use of L1 in their teaching. As charac-
teristic of novices, all student teachers exhibited deep concerns with establish-
ing a positive rapport with their pupils, with managing the classroom
(Britzman, 1991; Fuller & Bown, 1975; Rust, 1994) and with their own perform-
ance. These three major themes, classroom teaching, images of their pro-
fessional self, and views of ‘significant others’, known to be recurrent in
novices’ thinking and concerns about their practice (MacLaughlin, 1991)
threaded through the various meanings that student teachers attributed to
the use of L1/L2: student teachers reflected on the use of L1 for clarification
purposes, for promoting communication in L2 (issues related to teaching),
and for managing the classroom, and building rapport and a professional
‘status’ in the eyes of the pupils (issues related to professional image and
‘significant others’).
In this respect, an important insight gained from novices’ numerous concerns
with the use of L1 (including novices who are native speakers of English), per-
tains to the crucial function that they attribute to the use of mother tongue in the
foreign language lesson, as a channel for establishing relationships with their
pupils, and as a strategy for maintaining control and for conveying empathy
towards pupils who exhibit difficulties in learning a foreign language. The
use of L1 for these purposes suggests something about novices’ shared effort
to survive their first year of teaching, by resorting to L1 as a strategy in the
process of building their new professional image. This ‘survival need’ seems
to transcend cultural differences, idiosyncratic language learning histories, or
the demands of an external communicative curriculum.
Student teachers’ similar concerns on the use of L1 for the above purposes
reflects, indeed, their novice state. Having stated this, however, Jewish and
Arab students’ reflections on these concerns were not unidimensional and
rigid, as many studies on novices’ thinking suggest (Hollingsworth, 1989;
Rust, 1994). Rather, the analysis of their reflections suggested that they hold
multiple perspectives on the issue, and that they reason about them integra-
tively rather than discretely. For example, when considering the use of
Arabic for clarification, Suzan (see earlier sections) also mentions the impli-
cations of her choice for the role that she adopts and for the controlling
nature of her discourse. Likewise, Maya describes how, by avoiding the use
of Hebrew to create a communicative setting, she might be encouraging
certain pupils but, at the same, hindering others. Indeed, both Arab and
Jewish student teachers reflected on the impact of their use of L1 for pupils’
participation and language performance, and on how their use of L1 surfaced
predominant patterns of teacher talk and their fears and insecurities as novices.
These connections between predominant ‘moves’ in L1 and their consequences
for teaching and learning suggest a more integrative orientation towards their
roles and practices.
EFL Student Teachers’ Perspectives on L1 Use 105
Our finding supports Guillaume and Rudney’s study (1993), Kwo’s study
(1996), and Tabry-Awwad’s study (1996), who contend that novices hold
multiple concerns about teaching even at initial stages of their training. In
her study of Arab EFL student teachers in Israel, for example, Tabry-Awwad
(1996) concluded that student teachers were continuously dealing with a
number of concerns, ranging from those related to class control, mastery of
content, adequacy in fulfilling their role, limitations and frustrations, and
their own ability to relate to them. Her findings along with ours, challenge
prevalent conceptions that initial learning to teach consists mainly of a vague
apprehension of the experience (Fuller & Bown, 1975) or that managerial
concerns have to be in place before novices begin to consider pedagogy and
content knowledge (Hollingsworth, 1989).
It should also be noted that as novices and as foreign speakers of English,
Jewish and Arab students alike did not connect the use of L1/L2 to the fact
that they were non-native speakers of contradictory requirements: those of
the traditional Arab society and those of the competitive Israeli society
(Leshem, 2001). Moreover, most parents in the Arab sector still regard school
as an authoritarian and traditional institution. Consequently, they pose less
threat to teachers’ authority as compared to Jewish parents, who expect
greater accountability from teachers, hence creating more stress upon teachers
(Sarsur, 1985). Moreover, frontal traditional teaching is still the most prevalent
method of teaching in the Arab sector (Mari). Given these differences, we had
initially expected to find variations in Arab and Jewish student teachers’
accounts of their teaching experience, especially on issues related to classroom
management, to teacher – pupil relationships, and to communicative methods
of teaching.
The similarities identified suggest that prospective foreign language teachers
alike see themselves acting as ‘cultural workers’ to socialise pupils into new
cultural/linguistic practices (Giroux, 1988) that would provide access to the
outside world. In the Arab sector, such undertaking is often at the expense of
alienating pupils from their ethnical identity, or from existing cultural and
political norms (Amara, 2000). In addition, since the foreign language class-
room environment is often the sole source of exposure to the target language,
EFL teachers, regardless of their different cultural backgrounds, see themselves
responsible for maximising opportunities to practice the language. Thus, EFL
teaching becomes a ‘cultural island’ and the EFL teacher is cast in the somewhat
onerous role of sole provider of experience in the target language (p. 264).
Indeed, in Mazor’s study (2003), Druze student teachers saw themselves
committed to teaching communicatively, despite the strict traditional non-
communicative orientation of Druze schools.
The ‘cultural island’ that English language teaching produces, has also been
discussed in the context of the collectionist paradigm within which EFL has
emerged. As Holliday (1994) contends, the methodologies designed for a
North American or British model may not adapt easily to other part of the
English language education profession, namely characterised by state
education and non-commercial in orientation (primary, secondary schools,
universities, and colleges). Such a different scenario of culture in English
language education needs to consider different parameters for classroom
106 Language, Culture and Curriculum
teaching, addressing the interactive, social and often opaque features of the
classroom, devoid of a language-rich environment (Breen, 1986). Thus rather
than looking at the innovative culture of communicative methodology we
should be looking at ways in which the norms of the host culture need to be
adapted and scrutinised and often seen as intrusive into the norms of the
national culture. (Holliday, 1994).
The homogeneous character of EFL teacher education
The question of why socio-cultural differences were mitigated in students’
reflections on the use of L1 in a communicative lesson, can also be attributed
to the homogeneous character of EFL teacher education. Criticising the
‘cultural island’ that it produces, Holliday (1994) contends that English
language teaching creates a professionalism which is ethnocentric, failing to
appreciate the social backgrounds of others. In this view, EFL teacher education
programmes work within a homogeneous, collectionist paradigm of teaching,
drawing on a universal and specialised track of methodology (p. 73). It follows,
then, that in trying to comply with this homogeneous view of language teach-
ing, EFL teachers do not attribute enough weight to the specific cultural needs,
lacks, and wants of their teaching context. Goodson (1988) would argue that the
absence of such connections reflects prevalent views of the esoteric, specialised
character of English as an academic subject. This, consequently, determines the
attitudes and allegiances of teachers towards that culture from the moment
they begin their training (Stenhouse, 1975). This was reflected in the findings
of our study. Despite the fact that student teachers exhibited situated under-
standings of the use of L1/L2 in communicative lessons, these were not articu-
lated in relation to the idiosyncratic features of the cultural milieu of their
teaching context.
The above claim calls for the need to adapt second languge teaching method-
ologies to the particularities of the EFL context. This would require what Geertz
(1983) refers to as the development of a ‘local knowledge’ that is different from
the cumulative weight of published theory building, and which has to be dis-
covered and activated anew at each instructional encounter (Geertz, 1983). EFL
teacher education programmes, by and large, do not place enough emphasis on
the construction of such ‘local knowledge’. Hence, the homogeneous character
of EFL teacher education. Guided by the same goal, i.e. to educate prospective
teachers to teach English as an international language for communication, pro-
grammes are constructed around a similar ‘language of practice’ (Freeman,
1993), embedding similar concerns, and often less attentive to the cultural
particularities of a given teaching context (Burns, 1996). Thus, we argue, that
the difficulty in distinguishing between Arab and Jewish student teachers’
perspectives on the various dimensions of EFL teaching, might also be a conse-
quence of the homogeneous nature of the teacher education programme.
Our conjectures can be further explored in light of Powell’s study on case-
based teaching English, as we had initially expected. This was intriguing,
especially in light of research findings that point to the tensions that EFL
teachers who are non-native speakers of English report on this matter (Tabry-
Awwad, 1996). Moreover, our findings, especially for the Arab sector, contrast
Tabry-Awwad’s findings in her study of Arab EFL student teachers in Israel.
EFL Student Teachers’ Perspectives on L1 Use 107
Tabry-Awwad, found that a major concern that novices exhibited pertained to
their image as speakers of English (p. 53). Amongst the various explanations for
the recurrence of this theme in novices’ concerns, Tabry-Awwad suggests that
student teachers were probably trying to follow models of excellent EFL
teachers who were native speakers of English from past experiences as
pupils, or that they were comparing themselves to other fellow student
teachers who were native speakers of English in the same teacher training
programme (p. 54). We can add to Tabry-Awwad’s interpretation our initial
conjecture regarding the impact of these students’ history as foreign language
learners, in a system where the use of mother tongue prevails as a methodology
for learning a language.
By contrast, however, our study suggests that Arab novices did not exhibit
major concerns as foreign language speakers of English. Their reflections
focused on their efforts to make new sense of the use of L1 for facilitating the
foreign language to their pupils, rather than as a strategy for avoiding the
use of L2 in uncomfortable communicative situations as non-native speakers.
The contrast between the two studies on this issue might be partly attributed
to the difference between a university teacher training programme which
recruits students only upon completion of a BA in English (as in the present
study) and a college training programme where English as a subject matter is
learned parallel to pedagogical courses (as in Tabry-Awwad’s study).
Students in a university programme would probably feel more secure about
their subject matter knowledge than college students do, although this might
not necessarily be true in actual performance. The difference in findings
might also be attributed to the fact that the majority of student teachers in
our study (to the exclusion of three native speakers) were non-native speakers
of English. This probably created a more homogeneous reference group, redu-
cing feelings of inadequacy and insecurity on the part of non-native speakers.
The absence of reflections on novices’ concerns as non-native speakers of
English can also be attributed to the fact that the reflective task (see earlier
section) was devoid of guiding questions that encouraged students to
connect between internalised models of the use of L1 in English lessons from
early school experiences (Lortie, 1975) or from informal language experiences
(Almarza, 1996; Freeman, 1993; Horowitz, 1986) with their present perspectives
of themselves as speakers of English and of the use of L1 in the foreign
language classroom.
The ‘culture’ of EFL teaching and teacher education
The similarities exhibited by student teachers in their perspectives on the use
of L1/L2 can also be explained through the fact that within the Israeli multi-
cultural web and political conflict, English seems to act as a neutral, homo-
geneous environment (Leshem, 2001). Despite the cultural complexities that
teaching English as a foreign language might engender when cultural aspects
of the foreign language meet with the local culture of the teacher and the
learner, or when a minority culture is accountable to a national dominant
culture, English is recognised by all as the window to accessing the outside
the world, both socially and economically (Fishman et al., 1977; Olshtain,
108 Language, Culture and Curriculum
1985). Moreover, as stated at the outset of this paper, this recognition is strongly
emphasised in the English curriculum:
English is without question the major language in the world ...and is now
solidly entrenched as a ‘first foreign language’ in Israel ... for Israelis,
whatever other languages they may use, English is the customary language
for international communication or for overcoming barriers to the flow of
information, goods, and people across national boundaries. (p. 9)
Thus, it is possible to contend that, under certain circumstances, diverse
identities can exhibit cultural convergence (Ben Rafael et al., 1994), leading, in
our case, to similarities in the way teaching English as a Foreign Language is
perceived by both Jewish and Arab prospective teachers. Thus, TEFL seems
to constitute a unique ‘melting pot’, a kind of culture within a culture, with
its unique norms and system of ‘interrelated symbols that provide ... a tra-
dition and recipe for both teachers and students ... about what sort of beha-
viour acceptable (Murphy, 1986) hence mitigating differences across ethnic
and cultural groups and blurring issues of identity.
The view that EFL teaching constitutes a cultural melting pot is, however,
paradoxical, given the striking differences in orientation between Jewish and
Arab educational systems in Israel. By contrast to the western, modern orien-
tation that characterises most of the Jewish secular educational sector, the
Arab educational system is still caught up in the internal conflict of tradition-
alism versus modernism. Along with being entrenched in a well defined
system of traditional values and customs, Israeli Arab society is in constant
contact with western oriented Israeli society and culture in all spheres and is,
as a result, inevitably affected by it. This generates a need and a desire to
imitate the behavioural codes of the dominant culture, creating an imbalance
in the behavioural codes of the individual in the Arab minority group. By con-
trast to the Jewish school, then, the Arab school has to manipulate between in
homogeneous teacher education contexts (Powell, 2000). Describing case-based
teaching in homogeneous teacher education contexts where student teachers
come from a similar socio-cultural background, he concluded that student
teachers held the same situated knowledge about their interpretations of the
case. Moreover, they all shared ‘a localized and homogeneous cognitive
potential ...demonstrate[ing] an inability to move the discussion beyond loca-
lised ways of knowing’ (p. 405). Such limited situated knowledge, he contends,
emerges from common practices and professional standards shared by the
prospective students in her programme. In light of her findings, Powell calls
for moving beyond state level constraining factors to help prospective teachers
to achieve ‘the kind of pedagogical emancipation [that would] build them as
critical professionals’ (p. 408). Comparing our study to Powell’s study, it is
interesting to notice that although the student teachers in our study were
from heterogeneous cultural backgrounds they, too, held homogeneous per-
spectives about teaching and learning. Juxtaposing the findings from both
studies, we can therefore extend Powells’ question of how a particular
teacher education pedagogy can help student teachers (both) from similar
(and different) socio-cultural backgrounds step beyond localised ways of
EFL Student Teachers’ Perspectives on L1 Use 109
knowing (often implicitly propagated by the homogeneous orientation of the
teacher education programme).
The culturally homogeneous nature of student teachers’ reflections can also
be understood through Lacey’s concept of socialisation into teaching, whereby
the individual struggles to become a member of a professional community of
teaching (Lacey, 1977) At the initial stages of pre-service education, this pro-
fessional community is primarily represented by the culture of the teacher edu-
cation programme (Calderhead, 1987; Olson & Osborn, 1991). Thus, novices see
their task as ‘fitting in the supervising teachers’ routines’ and meeting the
expectations of college tutors in (Calderhead, 1987) The stress of being
watched and assessed by the criteria set by the teacher education institution
often leads novices to behave (and reflect on their teaching) in a way that
they think would ‘please’ the external requirements of the programme
(Calderhead, 1987). If the programme is devoid of contents and tasks that
attend to cultural differences and dilemmas that emerge from teaching commu-
nicatively in educational settings that are non-communicative, then, in their
struggle to comply to what is expected from them, novices might not ‘see it
fit’ to attend to issues that are not explicitly recognised by the programme as
important.
Conclusion
We wonder, then, whether the similarities identified across prospective
teachers with different cultural background are, indeed, encouraging news
for us teacher educators. On the one hand, drawing on the premise that
novices share similar concerns (strengthened by our findings) we can work
on ways in which those similarities can bring Jewish and Arab student teachers
together in shared dialogue as part of the content of our programmes. At the
same time, however, the finding is disturbing in that it stresses the missing
orientation of our programme to legitimise differences, and to voice concerns
related to the paradoxes that might emerge when implementing a modern,
western language methodology in a traditional teaching context. Further-
more, we ask whether such cultural dilemmas ‘get blurred’ and substituted
by a neutral orientation to language teaching and learning, or whether they
will reappear when student teachers are inducted into their ‘real’ teaching
contexts, each with its unique cultural features. Mazor’s study (2003) and
Eilam’s study (2002) remind us that these dilemmas will reoccur. Likewise,
Holliday (1994) cautions us that ‘teachers return from their training pro-
grammes unable to implement what they have learnt, because it does not fit
the conditions needs and philosophies of their classrooms, students institutions
and communities’ (Holliday, 1994). His emphasis on the need to pay more
attention to the social needs of all the people we expect to use communicative
methodologies, is reinforced by Kalekin-Fishman and Eden in the context of
Israeli teacher education:
Among the implications of the surge of immigration is lively awareness of
differences among cultural groups and recognition of the so-called
‘nation-state’ a variety of cultures is legitimate. Among the implications
of this consciousness is the sense that systems of education have to
110 Language, Culture and Curriculum
adjust to the presence of many cultural groups. Among others such impli-
cation implies that in this light the preparation of teachers has to be
revised. (Kalekin-Fishman & Eden, 2003: 1 – 2)
Thus, the similar perspectives that student teachers exhibited towards the
use of L1 in Arab and Jewish EFL classroom settings, although useful for estab-
lishing channels of communication between both groups, raise controversial
questions regarding their preparation for teaching in multicultural contexts.
For us, teacher educators, they call for integrating a more ‘culturally-sensitive
methodology’ into the contents and tasks of our EFL teacher education
programmes.
Correspondence
Any correspondence should be directed to Lily Orland-Barak, Faculty
of Education, The University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel (lilyb@construct.
haifa.ac.il).
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