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The article is concerned with the use of the mother tongue in bilingual content teaching as well as in conventional foreign language classes. The controversy over the mother tongue as a help or a hindrance is examined by way of an analysis of a history lesson taught in English as a foreign language. The article makes the point that brief episodes of switching to the mother tongue can function as a learning aid to enhance communicative competence in the foreign language. Even though the second language remains the working language, the teacher serves as a bilingual dictionary so that the mother tongue becomes an ally of the foreign language. It can be used as a short-cut to communication as well as in language practice. Successful classrooms usually have a dual focus: on content as well as on language. It is part of the art of teaching to know when to briefly focus on language without cutting off the thread of serious communication.
Wolfgang Butzkamm (Tue,) studied this question.