To Use or Not to Use: First Language in Tertiary Instruction of English as a Foreign Language

The issue of whether first language (L1) use in teaching foreign languages (FL) is justified can be considered from various perspectives. The diachronic perspective considers the role of L1 in FL instruction along with the development of teaching methods and linguistic theories. The taxonomic perspective concerns the arguments for and against L1 use taking into account its cognitive, social and affective aspects. The role of L1 can also be viewed from the empirical perspective considering the effects of its use and examining attitudes, beliefs etc. of participants in the dynamic process of FL teaching and learning. The survey presented in this paper aims to investigate and compare the perception of using Croatian in tertiary English for Specific Purposes (ESP) instruction concerning L1 use. Two groups of respondents involved in the study were undergraduate nonlinguistic majors at a Croatian university and ESP instructors in various higher education institutions in several Croatian universities. The questions that the research in this paper addresses is 1) whether the tertiary students‘ perception of using Croatian as L1 in teaching EFL corresponds to that maintained by tertiary language instructors and 2) whether students and instructors, respectively, support the usage of L1 in the tertiary EFL classroom. First language use is explored in terms of necessity, frequency, usefulness and its appropriateness for selected examples of usage. The presented findings comprise those obtained by quantitative as well as qualitative data analysis