Answering all the Burning Questions About the Use of Target Language in Class with Dr. Diane Neubauer

Get ready to join us in an incredible conversation with Dr. Diane Neubauer about the use of the target language in language classes! In episode 39, we explored all your burning questions about using the target language in class like whether the use of target language is equally effective for language acquisition or whether we should let students use their first language in class.

Dr. Diane Neubaur is a Mandarin Chinese teacher. She has taught all the levels online and face-to-face. In May 2022, she completed her Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in Teaching and Learning, Foreign Language, and ESL Education.

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to get so many of your questions answered. Click play above or listen on your favorite podcast player. 

Here are a few highlights from our conversation:

Effects of the Use of Target Language

In a study that Diane was a third author in, her and the researchers looked at a large school district with French and Spanish language teachers. The researchers were interested in what the teachers said they did in the classroom, what were things that were important to them about their methodology, and how did they identify themselves in terms of if they used a description of what kind of teacher they were.

So, did they call themselves a CI teacher, a task-based teacher, a Grammar Translation teacher? They were looking at what they found important in the classroom in terms of things like target language use, how much they said they use the target language. Then, the researchers compared that to student outcomes on the district’s proficiency test.

The Results

What they found in that study was that level one and two had better proficiency scores where teachers said that they used more target language. In year three and four, especially with Spanish, that wasn’t such a big deal. Diane shares more about the findings of this study in episode 39.

Communicating in the Target Language

Diane and I went on to discuss how when we both started teaching, we were making sure we had a certain method or that an activity went a certain way. Then, Diane explained how she thought what Communicative Language Teaching was supposed to be was to make students talk and practice drills. Then, she realized that it’s not about forcing students to say dialogues or rehearsing lines. That’s not communication. Communication is about interpretation of meaning, as well as the expression of meaning.

Should we allow students to use English sometimes?

I asked Diane this question, and she gave an in-depth answer that included research from her own dissertation and that from another language researcher. Listen to episode 39 for all of the details. The goal Diane explained, is to first evaluate what you are assessing at that moment. Maybe it is the target language and how well they understand and can speak the language or maybe it’s that you want to know if they comprehended the content of the material you provided them. 

Strategy for Using the Target Language

I asked Diane for one or two strategies to help language teachers use the target language more in their classrooms. One was to poll students about this aspect of teaching. Get their perspective on what’s happening in the classroom.

The second strategy she shared is an ongoing strategy. Record yourself while you’re teaching, and reflect on what you saw happen. Listen to more about these strategies in the episode above or here. 

Dr. Diane Neubaur info https://www.linkedin.com/in/diane-neubauer-33783687

As always, you can find all of the Growing with Proficiency The Podcast episodes here.