What is the Bilingual Approach of Language Teaching?

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What is the Bilingual Approach of Language Teaching?

The coming up of the Bilingual method in the teaching of foreign languages has opened up new fields of knowledge and possibilities regarding the use of the L1 In foreign language teaching.

The origin of the Bilingual method goes back to Prof. C. J. Dodson of the North Wales University, who made use of Welsh in the teaching of English and other foreign languages to discover the effective and systematic use of L1 in the teaching of L2.

The assumption underlying the method, as per Prof. Dodson is that the mother tongue of the learner is the most potential resource at his disposal in the learning of a language, and instead of shutting the door upon the mother – tongue, the resource should be systematically employed in the teaching of the foreign language.

The mother tongue is learnt by the child in real-life situations and thus has various ideas and concepts in his mind because of the direct experience. These experiences can be employed successfully in the teaching of English.