In recent years there has been a move towards re-examining the role of the mother tongue in the foreign language teaching process. Indeed, as recently as the April 1998 edition No 9 of The Journal, Robert Tuck examined the 'taboo' of translation. The previously existing situation saw the use of any language elements other than those derived from the target language being virtually banished. Perhaps this position can be traced to fears of errors being generated as a result of 'interference' from the mother tongue or a vision of English being an entirely separate, somehow superior, entity. Perhaps it stems from a reaction against the Grammar-Translation Method, which may have been the previous foreign language learning experience of many current British teachers or even promoted by publishers seeking to provide the teaching profession with text books, and themselves with profit, for universal use around the world. However, given the fact that the majority of language teachers teaching outside Britain are operating in mono-lingual teaching contexts, it seems counter-productive to ignore the insights that can be gained from a more overt reference to and direct work with our students' mother tongue.

Harbord (ELT Journal 46/4, 1992) observes that students, particularly those at lower levels, will inevitably attempt to equate a target language item or structure with a mother tongue equivalent, regardless of whether they have 'permission' to do so or not. This is an entirely natural tendency which we would be churlish to try and exclude totally: at a simple level of vocabulary, how can the equation of apple to maqa be excluded from our students' own learning strategies and how does attemotinz to exclude this process affect our teaching efficiency? While students should be encouraged to try and explain what they want to say and express themselves, as far as possible, in the target language, a total ban on the mother tongue could result in some students being excluded from the language activity in progress. Again at a simple level, we cannot exclude items such as "What is maca in English, please, teacher?" Or if a particular student is having a particular difficulty, there is no reason to insist on the use of the target language when resorting to the mother tongue would enable the student to gain more direct access to a solution to the particular problem from the teacher. At group level, there is perhaps a role for the mother tongue in stimulating the exchange of ideas that can be transmitted in the target language at the later stage of the individual groups reporting back to the class and the general class discussion.

Any approach to teaching English to students whose mother tongue is Portuguese would surely benefit from insights derived from studies of a 'contrastive linguistics' type. At the level of sounds and pronunciation it is possible to predict which English vowel and consonant sounds will require greater attention in the classroom if we know which of these sounds do not exist in Portuguese. As far as consonants are concerned, to illustrate only one situation, the voiceless palato-alveolar affricate as in church, child, chair ("Charles chose the chubby chicken."), and its voiced pair as in jelly, jam, juice ("Jeremy Jones jerked Joan's jersey.") may cause problems in isolation or in contrast with the voiceless palato-alveolar fricative as in ship, shop, shoe. Armed with this knowledge, the teacher can prepare pronunciation tasks directly relevant to the Portuguese student's needs.

Minimal pairs ships or chips? 1 sheep 2 cherry 3 shop 4 cash 5 watch cheers or jeers? 1 joke 2 chin 3 Jerry 4 jaw 5 badge

With vowels a common area of difficulty for Portuguese mother tongue students of English is to distinguish between the long vowel sound in at in contrast to the short vowel sound in it, and intensive pronunciation work may be required at lower levels using minimal pairs exercises. An additional difficulty is that associated with the frequency and significance of the 'schwa' vowel sound as in aain, amuse, &me, and tasks identifying the context and variety possible for the occurrence of this vowel would prove invaluable for Portuguese students, who have a tendency to over-value vowels in unstressed positions. (See Fig. 2.)

The LONG and the SHORT of it eat /i:/ or it /I/? 1 is 2 pip   3   bean 4 lip 5 feet 6     seeks 7 slipper   8   meal 9 Jerry 10 jaw badge

At the level of lexis and syntax, experienced teachers find regular patterns of error which can be attributed to the influence of Portuguese on our students' production, to the extent that some errors have become considered almost classic expressions of Ibero-English.

Making students aware of the need to be more careful with these specific points inevitably involves referring back to the Portuguese language which is at the root of these errors. At higher levels a consistent approach to the use of error correction exercises such as these

may provide a stimulating alternative for those students who have achieved as much as they can through study on a 'general English' course, that is to say a course which has paid scant regard to individual linguistic groups' problem areas, for example a course aimed at the UCLES Proficiency examination. Working at text level may prove more stimulating for higher level students as well as being vocationally relevant to students aiming to become teachers of English themselves.

Here, at advanced levels, there is also room to make direct reference to the use of translation as a valid tool for increasing students' awareness of where a degree of reliance on the mother tongue may be useful and where it can lead to problems. This is the area commonly associated with 'false friends' where specific lexical mis-matches can lead to meaning difficulties.

This is a vast area available for exploration and one which most students can see as being of direct relevance to their language learning process and as such can be said to possess, in the parlance of the 'communicative approach' gurus, high 'face validity' and high 'surrender value'. The use of translation in this instance is not a device to save time for more useful activities to follow or even to make our/their lives easier, but rather a tool to provoke discussion and speculation, to develop clarity and flexibility of thinking and to help our own and our students' awareness of the inevitable interaction between the mother tongue and the target language.

However, some degree of caution needs to be emphasised in order to avoid a situation where students become excessively dependent on mother tongue interventions and references in the classroom. It may be that the students begin to feel that they have not really 'understood' until a translation has been provided or that over-simplification and inaccurate translations lead to a failure to observe the distinction between equivalence of form, semantic equivalence and pragmatic features. Furthermore, students may resort to the use of Portuguese as a matter of course even when they have the necessary English or fail to realise that during many classroom activities it is essential that they use only English.