Abstract:

This study addresses second language education by using the unique sociolinguistic landscape of Brunei as a reference point. It provides an empirical illustration that learning a second language (L2 English) can be improved by exploiting the learners’ educational mother tongue (L1 Bahasa Melayu) as a pedagogical and cognitive resource via a Contrastive Linguistic Input (CLI) teaching approach. This teaching approach was applied in an intervention programme in a secondary government school, comparing a control group and an experimental group in Year 8, across the following target features: present tense, past tense, plurality, adjectives and articles. Specifically, the primary aim of CLI was to raise learners’ awareness of how their L1 contrasts explicitly with the L2, and to transfer this awareness into their L2 oral and written performance. The major finding was that the treatment significantly improved the experimental group’s achievement in both oral and written tasks across most of the target features. Quantitative analyses of learners’ oral and written performance were also carried out in terms of different teachers and gender of learners. The interviews revealed changes in teachers’ and learners’ perceptions and attitudes towards CLI. These findings contribute to the existing literature on L2 teachers’ professional development as they could be encouraged to reflect more critically on their choice of language use in the L2 classroom. This study also sheds light on the role of the L1 in L2 learning and the way it informs L2 research.

Keywords:

Contrastive linguistic input, awareness, educational mother tongue, second language.