TO USE OR NOT TO USE TRANSLATION IN CLASS

Nowadays, the use of translation in the teaching of English is a very controversial topic, especially if we, as teachers, want our students get a communicative competence in the target language. For some time, many researchers and teachers have prevailed that English ought to be learnt through English and not by the use of the first language, but for other authors, the use of translation can bring benefits for both, teachers and students. According to our experience, we can say that we feel comfortable in class when we get our students speak and think in English most of the time and when they try to avoid translation as much as possible. We use translation after have tried other techniques such as mimings, realias, visual aids or multiple examples. We dont want them to become dependent on translation and try to make all their effort to understand meaning from context. The most important of this is that we have to encourage learners to immerse themselves in the language especially because our students, who are future merchant marines, are going to be in contact and work with people from all over the world and they need to learn to survive in a linguistic environment. In class, they can imagine that they are studying with a native speaker teacher who doesnt know anything about Spanish, in this case.

On the other hand, it doesnt mean that we cant allow our learners to speak in the first language; on the contrary, they can use it to clarify questions or when they are trying to say something but having difficulty but it cannot serve as primary language of communication. Besides, they can use it to clarify meaning of some words in the second language. Teachers can translate to make clear the meaning of some words, expressions and idioms that are difficult to explain in English but we need to go back to English as soon as possible and encourage our students to do the same.

Also, we consider that collaborative dialogue is important because it allows learners to build linguistic understanding concerning a number of language tasks.

As cook stated in her article using the first language in the classroom (2001) L1 provides scaffolding for the students to help each other To conclude, we can say that there is no rule that we should never use the first language. As Penny Ur says: Using first language is not bad in itself, it is one more technique at our disposal for helping our students learn but it needs to be used like any other technique, appropriately. Teachers can use translation during communication as a final resource after several attempts.