An Investigation into the Effect of Consciousness-Raising toward Differing Conversational Rules in L1 and L2 on Learners’ Speaking Accuracy

Within the context of language professions, there is a hot debate over the contributions of first language (mother tongue) to the quality of EFL learning and teaching as well as the application of translation as a language learning/teaching resource. As a current controversy within the context of second language teaching, both educators and teachers are discussing whether the use of mother tongue in L2 classes can be beneficial or not. To the same aim, this study sought to explore the effect of teaching English conversational rules in Persian and English on the accuracy of Iranian EFL learners. The results of independent samples T-test indicated that the use of L1 contributed to enhancement of accuracy of participants‟ speaking performance. Despite the fact the findings of the present study showed that L1 contributed to an enhancement in terms of overall speaking accuracy, we should draw conclusions cautiously. All the participants in this study spoke Persian as their first language. Moreover, they all came from the same cultural and educational background. A question of research interest can be whether a study on subjects from different nationalities and with different mother tongues would yield the same results.

Keywords:

First Language , Second Language , Speaking Skill , Accuracy , Consciousness Raising , Conversational Rules