“Englishing” the L1: Reconsidering the use of the mother tongue EFL classroom

A standing tradition in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) has emphasized that for effective learning to occur, classroom practices should solely be conducted in the target language. Whilst this view has been prevalent for a long time, a better understanding of the role of the mother tongue have motivated practitioners to re- consider traditional practices in favour of more inclusive and encompassing ones. This short-scale study focuses on mature learners of EFL at an ab-initio level in compulsory education to negotiate basic communication in English. This is what we refer to as ‘englishing’ or the successful use of the previous linguistic knowledge in L1 to solve communicative problems in English through metacognition. Although it is not possible to generalize results, the experience showed that the L1 becomes an effective tool enabling mature learners to transfer expertise between languages, whilst helping them to develop learning autonomy through shared cognition