Turnbull and Dailey-O’Cain state in the introduction to this collection of studies that despite the amount of literature on the topic of first language (L1) use in second language (L2) classrooms, no book has focused only on this issue. Given the interest in the topic, such a book is certainly appropriate. Although this volume presents nine thought-provoking empirical studies, the chapters necessarily “unify what is known about this topic” (p. 1), as Turnbull and Dailey-O’Cain suggest. Rather than unifying the views, the book provides a good overview of the diversity of perspectives on the issue. For example, some agree with Patkowski, who examined different types of codeswitching by heritage and nonheritage learners in a dual-immersion program. She states that when students are allowed to speak any language, they will often prefer to speak the L1, which can “undermine the entire purpose of the program” (p. 112). Nevertheless, it is well known that judicious L1 use can be an effective teaching tool.
Six chapters, including Patkowski’s, discuss codeswitching as it occurs in L2 instructional contexts. McMillan and Turnbull interviewed and observed two late-immersion French teachers in Canada. Evans studied asynchronous computer-mediated communication between L2 French learners in England and L2 English learners in Canada and France. Nagy and Robinson observed Hungarian English teachers of young learners, and Fuller observed children in a German-English bilingual school in Germany. Finally, Dailey-O’Cain and Liebscher examined German language university classes in Canada, and Levine studied his interactions with university L2 German learners in individual pairwork.
Macaro discusses an unpublished master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation, both of which studied English classes in China. The first examines the use of the L1 to translate unknown vocabulary and the second examined students’ reactions to the teachers’ translations. The first study, which found no effect of L1 use on vocabulary retention, is the only (quasi-) experimental study in the volume and the only one directly addressing the actual effects of using the L1 on learning.
Blythe’s chapter is unique in that it discusses the use of instructional materials from bilinguals, with L2 learners of French, that include spoken texts by nonnative speakers of French who sometimes switched into English. The goal of the study was in part to determine if the students noticed the use of English and how they felt about listening to nonnative French speakers. The materials were designed to raise the students’ awareness of bilingual behavior, and Blythe sees the classroom as a place where students should be considered “‘incipient bilinguals’ rather than ‘aspiring monolinguals’” (p. 165).
Although this book could be recommended to anyone interested in the topic of L1 use, it presents a lot of description of what naturally occurs instead of focusing on what is best for the students. One student in Blythe’s study points out that the use of English in the materials “defeats the purpose of the exercises” (p. 172). Furthermore, it is uncertain how students in these studies are assessed. For example, what happens if they codeswitch on proficiency exams? Many of the studies emphasize that codeswitching is normal, but only some are convincing in arguing that it may be helpful. Dailey-O’Cain and Liebscher, for example, present codeswitching as a way to scaffold interaction, which seems appealing.
Finally, Turnbull and Dailey-O’Cain talk about the judicious use of the L1 but never elaborate. Perhaps it is their intention to leave it up to the reader to decide what is judicious in which contexts, and it is possible to think of many good reasons to use the L1. Nevertheless, at some point, it is important to acknowledge that there might be not-so-good reasons to use the L1 and that teachers or students might want to use more of the L2 but need to learn appropriate strategies for doing so.
