Teaching english through spanish: a secondary school EFL teachers`s language choices in the foreign language classroom

The present study examines the language used by a Spanish secondary school teacher of English. Taking as a basic premise that exposure to the foreign language is conducive to language learning, transcripts of classroom discourse were analysed to identify the pedagogical functions present in the teacher's speech and the language used to express them. The results show an overwhelming reliance by the teacher on the students' first language for all of the most frequently occurring functions. Instances of target language use and code switching were also identified. The implications of these results are discussed in the light of previous studies and suggestions are made for increasing target language use in foreign language classrooms.