Teachers' Use of the Mother Tongue in English Language Classrooms in China's Mainland and Hong Kong

Research studies in a variety of contexts show that the extent to which teachers use the mother tongue to support target language learning in many EFL classrooms across the world is widely varied.It is difficult to obtain a reliable picture of the amount of mother tongue that teachers use and for what purpose.Most studies adopt observation and selfreport to explore this issue.This study provides a third perspective and a means of comparison between different situations:asking students to recollect their teachers’ use of the mother tongue when they were learning English in junior secondary school.It compares the amount of the mother tongue that teachers use and for what purpose between China’s Mainland and Hong Kong,and suggests a further study on the strategies for establishing a foreign language learning atmosphere while taking into account the contributions of the mother tongue.