Communicative language teaching: is there a place for L1 in L2 learning?A case study in Spain and Norway

Resumen

For decades, Second Language Acquisition (SLA)1 has been studied through different approaches and after several obsolete models such as the grammar-based or audio-lingual, a communication-based model was developed, becoming the current main approach used across the globe today, the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). While it has been considerably successful, it is heterogeneous in principle and has had innovative approaches derived from it (CLIL, task-based, etc.). On the other hand, multilingual models (e.g. DMM [Dynamic Model of Multilingualism]) and plurilingual approaches have started to be considered; however, they are still seen in juxtaposition to CLT, where the language learner “is not explicitly taken into account as a plurilingual subject (able, for example, to call on the resources of his mother tongue(s) or of another foreign language of which he already has some knowledge)” (Coste et al. 2009: 9). In this paper we explore how L1 could be included in the CLT approach and we will propose a new model, which we tested in a pilot test as part of a broader study. The evidence obtained in our study suggests that L1 has an important role in language learning and that, using CLT guidelines, it can be included in a communicative approach.