LEARNERS’ PERSPECTIVES ON NATIVE LANGUAGE USAGE IN ENGLISH-FOR-LAW CLASSES AT A VIETNAMESE TERTIARY INSTITUTION

Recent years have seen a growing tendency to take full advantage of native language, also known as mother tongue (L1) into language teaching and learning, particularly in English-for-Specific-Purposes (ESP) contexts, due to its undeniable benefits affirmed in the existing literature. This study focuses on examining learners’ perceptions of the use of first language (L1) in English-for-law classes at a tertiary institution. To achieve its objectives, the study employed a mixed-method approach involving survey questionnaires with 158 students, along with semi structured interviews with nine randomly selected ones. The quantitative results were treated with the support of the SPSS v26.0 while qualitative data obtained from the interview were analyzed for further explanation. The findings revealed learners’ positive views on the role of L1 and its use as a way of teaching and learning as well as a scaffolding technique in acquiring legal English. Interestingly, statistically divergence in learners’ views was denoted with reference to duration of legal English studying, their level English proficiency and their majors. Such results were expected to contribute to the existing literature of L1 utilization in ESP learning contexts.