Uses of first and foreign languages as learning resources in a foreign language classroom

In South Korea, many senior high school English teachers consider Korean as a helpful medium of instruction for their subject, although many also feel that they need to develop students' practical command of spoken English, and, therefore, they also see the need to use English as a medium for teaching. This article provides an account of an exploratory study of how Korean, the students' first language (L1), and English, a foreign language (L2), are used as communication and pedagogic resources in English lessons taught by an experienced teacher. We will focus on the ways in which the two languages are used to manage classroom interactions and to facilitate teaching and learning activities. Drawing on concepts and analytic frameworks from the fields of formative assessment, code-switching/translanguaging and classroom discourse analysis, this paper aims at making a contribution to the renewed debate on the use of L1 in L2 learning and teaching. Copyright © 2017 AsiaTEFL.org. All rights reserved.