The Impact of Student‟s First Language on their Listening Skill The Case of First Year Master EFL Students of Belhadj Bouchaib University Center

Abstract

The present work is in the field of English language learning.It is an analysis of the impact of the mother tongue on the listening skill in EFL classes. The aim of the current study is to check the influence of the mother tongue on learning / teaching the listening skill in tertiary education. The aim is to shed light on the reasons that lie behind the use of L1 in listening sessions by first year Master EFL students at Belhadj Bouchaib University Centre .This work also attempts to investigate whether the use of L1 is beneficial or not i.e. It cheeks whether its use is positive, negative or both at the same time. It therefore tackles what relates the learners‟ mother tongue to the listening skill. It focuses on the difficulties that students and teachers encounter on the listening session referring to bits and pieces from L1. We have worked with EFL students and teachers. Their opinions have been collected through two anonymous questionnaires. The first was administrated to the students while the second was filled in by the teachers. The results obtained have revealed that the impact of mother tongue can be positive and negative. The hypotheses that we put earlier in this work have also been confirmed.