Translation as an Interactionist Tool in Second Language Acquisition in EFL Classes

The processes of learning and teaching second languages have become essential recently. There are many factors that facilitate or impede these processes. One of these factors is using the students’ L1 in general and in providing L1 lexical translation equivalence in particular. The previous literature on SLA has dealt with the perceptions of teachers and students about this issue, but no research up to date has dealt with the effect of using L1 lexical translation equivalence on the students’ listening and speaking skills. The data of this study was gathered at the Faculty of Women, Ain Shams University, Egypt where EFL students and their EFL instructors faced this challenge of whether or not they should use L1 lexical translation equivalence as a tool to acquire EFL. This study investigated some questions like how much the use of L1 lexical translation equivalence can facilitate or impede the process of SLA. The participants in this study were 40 first year undergraduate students at the BA level from two departments; history department and physics and mathematics department. The researcher gathered precise numerical data to support the research by using a listening test within the framework of the interaction approach. The results of this study showed that the use of L1 lexical translation equivalence helped one class only, the physics and mathematics class. The results of this study may be considered of great interest for both SL researchers and EFL teachers.