The use of the learner's own language in language teaching is a contentious issue. It is a topic that has been largely ignored in the most widely used teacher training manuals for English language teachers and on UK-based pre- and in-service training courses such as CELTA. (Early editions of some handbooks (Scrivener, 1994; Harmer, 1983) paid very little attention to the use of the students’ own language in language classrooms. Both writers, however, have more recently made clear that they consider this an important issue.) It is also a topic which has featured very infrequently at ELT conferences in the last twenty-five years. Many language teaching organisations (from schools and school chains to language departments in colleges and universities) have policies banning the use of the mother tongue in language teaching classes.

There has been a steady stream of dissent (e.g. Bolitho, 1983; Atkinson, 1987; Prodromou, 2002), but, it seems, these voices have not been widely heard. At the same time, many teachers have continued to use the language that they share with their students. Research (Copland & Neokleous, 2011) tells us that many of these teachers under-report the amount of L1 they use in the class, suggesting that they do so with a sense of guilt. Luke Prodromou (2002, p. 5) has suggested that this guilt has cramped the potential of translation as a classroom resource.

Language teachers who use their mother tongue in the classroom, even teachers who write translations on the board, should be reassured. 2010 saw the publication of Guy Cook's awardwinning Translation in Language Teaching. Critical reaction to the book has revealed an academic consensus on the role and use of the mother tongue. Such respected names as Vygotsky, Halliday and Widdowson were already on record as advocates of own-language use in learning another language. Following publication of Cook's book, a string of well-known ELT trainers, writers and researchers (e.g. Jane Willis, Tessa Woodward and Rod Bolitho) supported the use of L1 when interviewed by the British Council for a series of YouTube videos (British Council, 2010).