The Use of the Learner’s Mother Tongue in Teaching English as a Foreign Language in Some Libyan Elementary Schools

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the use of Arabic language for teaching English in Libyan elementary schools. It intended to investigate to what extent teachers of English use Arabic in their classes and their ways and reasons of doing that. The participants of this study were 30 teachers of English language at elementary schools. The data of this study was collected by using a questionnaire, a focus group discussion and observations. The results of this study suggest that the teacher participants highly use Arabic language in their English classrooms. Their main reason of using Arabic in their English classrooms isthat usingArabic helps students understand grammar rules and the meaning of new words and expressions. The results also reveal that the students’ level of English, the time assigned to the subject in combination with the intensity of the teaching material make many teachers resort to Arabic as a technique to cover the materials of their courses.