Reflections on the article - Principles for code choice in the foreing language classroom: A focus on grammaring by Glenn S. Levine

REFLECTIONS ON THE ARTICLE ‘PRINCIPLES FOR CODE CHOICE IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM: A FOCUS ON GRAMMARING’ BY GLENN S. LEVINE

Glenn S. Levine (2014). Principles for code choice in the foreign language classroom: A focus on grammaring . Language Teaching, 47, pp 332-348 doi:10.1017/S0261444811000498

The subject about the L1 use in language acquisition, raised by Levine (2014), has been my concern for many years of learning and teaching English. As a student I had been reprimanded for speaking my mother tongue in the classroom and consequently, I have limited its use in my teaching profession. Now, encouraged to reconsider my practice, I have become more aware of the possibilities of the L1 use and the reasons why it is not only justified but also beneficial for the L2 acquisition. 
Levine (2014) introduces the discussed subject as understudied and the use of the L1 as undesirable and stigmated. In her article she states that the L1 has a natural place in the language classroom and serves lots of pedagogical, discursive and social functions. Therefore students can benefit from principled use of their native language, so that they can create room for rich communication and effective learning, with the aforementioned functions as a baseline. Further, the author proposes that legitimating the L1 as part of learner ‘talk about language’ in the classroom can support or even enrich L2 learning.
Levine (2014) lists a set of reasons why the L1 should be a part of language pedagogy. First, she acknowledges that a foreign language classroom is a multilingual space or at least shares similarities with bilingual speech communities, as two or more languages are routinely used by all participants and speakers regularly alternate between languages.
Second, Levine (2014) highlights that the L2 is already a part of communication and cognition at all learning stages. Third, she focuses on the aim of instructed L2 acquisition, and mentions with regret that many professionals do not view the language classroom from the multilingual perspective but create a monolingual one. These three main reasons for using the L1 in the teaching process are followed by more evident ones like reducing anxiety or respecting learners’ identity in their dominant language (Levine 2014).
In the following part of her article Levine (2014) establishes 'status quo' for classroom code choice citing various sources. She notices that the tendency appears to be that the teacher uses the L2 ...