Is 50% of Arabic Enough to Teach English? The Problematic Use of Translation in the 21st Century Moroccan English Classroom

One of the perennial controversies in an EFL/ ESL classroom is whether to use or not to use translation in bi/ multilingual contexts. And here, I am referring to the use of Modern Standard Arabic (MSA)/ Moroccan dialect (Darija), Amazigh, or French in the Moroccan English classroom. To understand the complexity of this inter-lingual aspect, this paper aims at verifying the impact of using translation on the learning process of bilingual/ multilingual learners of English. It espouses the contention that the use of the existing linguistic repertoire is cognitively and practically unavoidable, especially in a mobile digital era. For assessing the credibility of this claim, a mixed methods approach is chosen to weigh out the adoption or rejection of using translation in foreign language learning and teaching. 52 middle and high school teachers were randomly selected to investigate the amount of translation used to teach English in their classes, and how it affects the students’ acquisition of this language. Through classroom observations, unstructured interviews, and a questionnaire, the data were collected to measure the consistence of an inter-language phenomenon that has kept haunting EFL/ESL theoreticians and practitioners alike. The findings show that more than half of the instructors favor the moderate use of translation in their teaching. By taking into consideration the learning experience of the teacher, the age of the learners, and the motivation factors that correspond with the rising of the mobile and communication technologies available, the need to use translation is seen as inescapable. Hence, it is calling for a judicious adoption that would prioritize the fulfillment of communicative, cross-linguistic, and cross-cultural competencies in foreign language learning.