The Use of L1 in English Language Classrooms: A Case of Dera Ghazi Khan Punjab

The use of first language has always been an element of concern for the educationists, particularly, in case of English language classrooms. L1 is used in a number of ways in schools specifically in English language classrooms. There are classes where the practices of teaching and learning are solely carried out in L1- in this case Siraiki and Urdu. In this study the aim was to explore the use of L1 in English language classrooms at the given locale. The objectives were to identify the practices and the reasons behind such use of L1 in English language classrooms. The data was collected through classroom observations and follow-up interviews with the teachers. Both the methods involved two separate tools for the collection of data. For classroom observation, an observation sheet was used and for interviews the researcher used a recorder to help in transcription and analysis of the data. Finally, the results reflected that the L1 usage existed in various forms like code-switching, mixing, and in most of the cases, its sole use. The various reasons behind that have been discussed in the results section.