Can I use L1 in my monolingual class?

Many teachers tend to avoid students’ L1 in their lessons. It is believed that students learn better and faster when fully immersed in English. However, some people are convinced that students’ L1 can aid some language concepts and new ideas. We will try to decide which of these methods, when and why works better in our classroom. We are going to look at some features of monolingual classes, their advantages and limitations, and implications for lessons. Also, we will learn more about the reasons why students use Russian and how we can take advantage of them, different ways to deal with L1 from students’ and teachers’ perspective. Finally, we are going to look at some case studies and brainstorm which method can be applied to deal with problems.