Chapter One

The Influence of the Mother Tongue on Learning a Foreign

Language
Introduction

(Broughton, Brumfit, Pincas & Wilde, 1993) agree that “language allows every human

to produce utterances and not only to convey meaning” (p.26). In order to master a language

the learner should speak and practise it. Even though learners may sometimes lack the use of

the target language, they must try as much as they can avoid the influence of the mother

language while learning a foreign language in the classroom, since many scholars agree that it

is the best place for learning a language. If learners cannot transmit their ideas correctly, that

would influence their learning level. As (Kecskes & Papp, 2000) say that “the foreign

language is learned through instruction in classroom setting” (p.9) and they add that a good

learning should not only be in a classroom but also according to a set of instructions. That can

happen when interacting with the teacher who helps learners how to avoid the mother tongue

interference.

In this chapter, we will present the definition of both the Mother Tongue (MT) and the

Foreign Language (FL). In addition to the influence of the MT on learning a FL while

speaking. Then we will provide the definition of speaking skill. This will be followed by the

notion of transfer and its classifications.

1) Mother Tongue (MT)

The MT or the Native Language (NL) is the first acquired language in the person’s life

which controls his ideas and emotions. (Christopherson, 1973) says that “… there is

something unique about the ‘mother tongue’, the ‘native language’. It is our ‘own’ language”

(p.34). Also it is considered the strongest language because any person who wants to master

his MT no matter how difficult it is as Kecskes and Papp agree upon, that the mother tongue

is the language that any person wants to master no matter how it is hard to be practised and no
matter how many languages do the speaker speaks. Additionally, it is the shared language

between people from the same origins and backgrounds, having no idea how it was learnt as

(Christopherson, 1973) declared that “the fact that we can none of us recall how we learnt our

first language” (p.34). (Luc Sante, 1996) describes his mother tongue English as “for me the

French language long corresponded to the soul, while English was the world”. It does not

matter which or how much language does the person practise all he cares about is his

capability of using the MT, NL or First Language (L1) as (Sinha, Banerjee & Sharti, 2009)

categorised them. (Diebold, 1961) regarded that if a language called a NL, that it must be

learnt without any instructions in the childhood (p.99). Others preferred the term L1 which

was originally introduced by Catford(1959) that means primary language and he said that “

the language of its speaker’s intimate daily life”(p.165).

The MT controls a lot of progress of any acquired and learnt language.

2) Foreign Language (FL)

The FL is the learnt language in a classroom setting under restrictions and instructions.

Learning a new language is related to similarities and difficulties between the FL and the

NL.( Kecskes and Papp, 2000) say that “ students’ experiences and activities in the target

language are almost always restricted to the time spent in the classroom” (p.9). There are

many reasons why learners like to learn a new language, for good grades, for speaking

fluently and so on. Though it is not difficult to learn a foreign language, learners need to

follow certain methods as asking the