The Ecology of Language in Classrooms at a University in Eastern Ukraine

Using an ecology of language framework, the purpose of this study was to examine the degree to which English as a medium of instruction (EMI) at a private university in eastern Ukraine allows for the use of Ukrainian, the state language, or Russian, the predominantly spoken language, in large cities in eastern Ukraine. Uses of English and Russian or Ukrainian were documented over nine months in the form of ethnographic field notes, audio recording, and video recording. Semi-structured interviews and informal conversations captured student and teacher attitudes towards English and Russian or Ukrainian use. Similar to practices in observed English as a foreign language classes at the same university, the authors found multiple pedagogical purposes for using the predominant native language (L1), Russian. Teachers and students consider the use of the L1 in the classroom to be a natural function of the need for comprehension. Ukrainian appeared in a limited form, but in ways that indexed its position as a national language. Attitudes towards Ukrainian also supported the ideology of Ukrainian's position as a state language.

Keywords: Russian; Ukrainian; ecology of language; university; language attitudes; ethnography

Over the past 300 years, Ukraine has seen wide shifts in the status of the Russian and Ukrainian languages. In the nineteenth century under the Russian Empire and during most of the twentieth century under the Soviet Union, Russian was the language of power and prestige, especially in large cities in eastern Ukraine (Bilaniuk [4]; Bilaniuk and Melnyk [5]; Fishman [9]; Friedman [10]; Solchanyk [27]; Shevelov [25]). Ukrainian was the primary language in the first decade of the Soviet Union (Bilaniuk [4]; Magocsi [17]; Shevelov [25]), and has been the sole state language since 1989, two years before independence. Since 1991, 'Ukrainianization' policies have asserted the use of Ukrainian in multiple domains including education while striving to respect the rights of speakers of Russian and other languages. There has been a resulting increase in Ukrainian-medium classes at elementary and secondary schools (Arel [2]; Bilaniuk and Melnyk [5]), but the shift to Ukrainian at the university level has been more gradual because Russian has historically been the language of research and academic discourse. During this time, English has gained prestige and presence in Ukraine (Ministry of Education and Science [18]) and is slowly appearing as a medium of instruction at select universities and medical schools.

The purpose of this paper is to show how practices and attitudes towards English as a medium of instruction (EMI) at one university in Ukraine can support the maintenance of Russian and Ukrainian. Drawing on an ecology of language framework (Haugen [12]; see also Creese and Martin [7]; Edwards [8]; Hornberger [13]; Pennycook [22]; Phillipson and Skutnabb-Kangas [23]), the three research questions addressed are:

• What is the dependence of students' success in their university English-medium courses on their previous English as a foreign language (EFL) learning opportunities?
• What are the reasons teachers and students use Russian and Ukrainian in EMI classes? How do these reasons compare with practices in EFL classes?
• What are students' and teachers' attitudes towards the use of Russian or Ukrainian in these classes? What is the impact of those attitudes on actual use?

Recent research at multiple levels of education has revealed through surveys and qualitative methods that the majority of teachers and students see the importance of using both English and native languages in English-language classes. The main purposes respondents support or implement the use of the native language (L1) in the EFL classroom are: (1) explanations of concepts that students do not understand; (2) grammar explanations or use of general metalinguistic language; and (3) classroom management or discipline (Al-Nofaie [1]; Kang [14]; Kim and Petraki [16]; Nazary [19]; Schweers [24]; Tang [28]).

In EMI contexts, Kerlkaan, Moreira, and Boersma [15] found that the foreign language department at a university in Portugal recognized the need for English while being sensitive to the cultural value of additional foreign languages and Portuguese. Arkın [3] surveyed Turkish university students who acknowledged a need for EMI at the tertiary level but felt EMI would be more effective with EFL teaching and mother-tongue support. Söderlundh [26] conducted ethnographic research in a university in Sweden and found that teachers allowed dynamic use of multiple languages for exams, and students use Swedish during discussions where English might be expected.

Similar research has not been reported previously on EFL or EMI in higher education in Ukraine, and information on EMI in higher education institutions in post-Soviet republics is extremely limited (Bulajeva and Hogan-Brun [6]; Pavlenko [21]. Generally speaking, the existing research on the subject under discussion does not provide any conclusive evidence concerning the attitudes to EFL and EMI in relation to the use of L1 in the post-Soviet space and Ukraine in particular. This study seeks to address this gap in the literature by delineating the use of the L1 in both EFL and EMI classes at a university.

For writing this article, all data were collected at one Ukrainian tertiary educational institution: Alfred Nobel University in Dnipropetrovsk. Of course, this university cannot be considered as representing all tertiary schools in Ukraine or even as quite typical of them. But it is one of the recognized leaders of higher education in Ukraine, that leadership being confirmed by the 'Leader of the Branch' National Certificate and medal conferred on the university by the state statistical authorities in 2009 after calculating the ratings and activity results of over 300,000 different organizations and enterprises in Ukraine for that year. Alfred Nobel University's efforts to distinguish itself as a leader among universities are especially pronounced in the area of teaching English as a foreign language. Whereas many universities in Dnipropetrovsk (and possibly the rest of Ukraine) are offering EFL for only two or four semesters as required by the Ukrainian Ministry of Education, this university encourages students of all specialties (majors) to learn EFL for all five years of study.

Alfred Nobel University is also introducing English immersion programs in teaching professional subjects, including those directly related to students' majors. Its principal achievement in that area was the establishment of a partnership with the University of Wales to provide a four-year English-medium joint degree program in international management (hereafter referred to as the 'Wales program'). This is why this particular university was especially interesting for research as representing the most advanced trends towards EMI in Ukrainian higher education.

This study synthesizes an insider-expert's knowledge of education in Ukraine with systematic participant-observation ethnographic research. The first author is a native Ukrainian with a doctorate in educational science and has been a full professor at the university since 2000. Based on his personal experience of teaching EFL and EMI courses, as well as the outcomes of previous research on immersion education in Ukraine (see Tarnopolsky et. al. [30]), he formulated a framework of reasons Ukrainian teachers and students at the university are prone to use their L1 in EFL and EMI courses.

The second author is an American researcher in Educational Linguistics with two years' prior experience teaching at universities in Ukraine. She spent nine months conducting ethnographic research at Alfred Nobel University with three main groups of students: (1) 24 third-year students taking international economics in English; (2) nine second-year philology students in their English practice (EFL) classes; and (3) 25 Wales program students. In the last group, eight of the students were from Nigeria and Algeria. The Algerian students were not available for interviews, so the remainder of the article focuses on students from Ukraine and Nigeria.

Over the nine-month period, fifty-two 80-minute class meetings of EMI courses by nine teachers were observed by the second author, including three class meetings led by the first author. During the same time period, fifty 80-minute EFL class meetings taught by seven teachers were observed by the second author, including 33 class meetings led by the first author, two class meetings led by substitute teachers for focal subgroups, and two EFL classes taught to nonfocal groups that were occasionally observed by the second author. One-third of all lessons were audio recorded or video recorded. Finally, the second author was a guest English teacher for two groups of university professors who were being prepared to teach in English. Eleven of these lessons were audio recorded or written up in field notes and were also analyzed.

Among the three groups of participants, 30 students and teachers (including the first author) were selected for semi-structured interviews about their personal background, attitudes towards English, Russian, and Ukrainian, and language practices in the classroom. Most of the interviewees were also shown audio or video clips of teaching and language activities and given a chance to comment on them. Finally, informal interviews were conducted with teachers in different departments, and there were regular consultancy meetings between the two authors at the university throughout the year.

Upon completion of field work and interviews, field notes, audio and video transcripts, and interview transcripts were open-coded by the second author using the Atlas.ti software. Data were flagged for both explicit references to attitudes and practices in interviews, and classroom practices which explicitly or implicitly reflect underlying attitudes. The data were reviewed a second time to identify tokens of Russian or Ukrainian use. Tokens were sorted according to the first author's framework into the following tables: reasons teachers used Russian in EMI or EFL classes, reasons students used Russian in EMI or EFL classes, and reasons the teacher and students used Russian in English classes for university professors. The second author added or merged categories of reasons for L1 use as suggested by the data. In addition, video segments and audio transcripts of the first author's classes were occasionally shown to him to verify the language and purpose of the switch to L1, creating a further reflexive development of both authors' formulations about the use of Russian or Ukrainian in the EFL and EMI context.

Tarnopolsky [29] discussed the causes of such popularity of commercial forms of EFL teaching, which can be summarized into four causes. First, in state-owned educational institutions, the centralized development and obligatory nature of the EFL curricula, syllabi, and other regulating documents does not favor the learner-centered approach (Nunan [20], nor does it take into account the conditions and learners' needs. Second, commercial EFL programs give teachers and students the opportunity to allocate as much time as necessary to EFL classes but not more than is really acceptable for both parties. Third, commercial EFL teaching uses the most advanced teaching methods and materials as compared to state schools. The three causes discussed above give rise to the fourth cause: in the former USSR, the population did not trust the state-owned educational institutions' ability to effectively teach English to their students. The same mistrust and the same belief are active in today's Ukraine too.

The four causes just analyzed give reasonable grounds to suppose that a Ukrainian student with a sufficient level of English for the purposes of studying academic subjects in English at Alfred Nobel University may have had not only EFL classes in public school but also a private tutor or private language school studies. This supposition was supported by the interview data. Of 24 students interviewed, three-quarters of them indicated receiving additional language training from a tutor or a commercial language school, and one student had both. Students' time in these extracurricular activities ranged widely, from six months to seven years. Three of the students specifically gave criticisms of the public school system as part of the rationale for studying English elsewhere. Only one student felt his tutor was not ultimately the reason his language improved, attributing his success instead to Internet communication and watching movies. Four other students directly attributed their development in English to travel, work, or study abroad.

The majority of tokens in this study point to the use of Russian by teachers and students in EFL and EMI classes for multiple but interrelated purposes. Therefore, this section first presents reasons teachers used Russian in EFL classes and shows how those purposes are similar to or different from EMI classes, and repeats this process for student uses of Russian in EFL and EMI classes. Additional, nuanced support for these uses is evidenced by the researcher's (and her students') use of Russian in researcher-led EMI classes. Finally, uses of Ukrainian across these contexts – which were more limited but nevertheless meaningful – are discussed. Across these four categories, purposes for using an L1 include both psychological reasons (i.e. easing the burden of learning in a foreign language) and ecological reasons (i.e. using language during particular times in a lesson).

Using Russian in EFL classes and in EMI classes is a typical phenomenon at the university. The purposes of teachers using Russian in EFL classes are mostly connected with:

• explaining to students the meanings and usage of some vocabulary or repeating the vocabulary in English and Russian when using the target language can take too long or may lead students to incorrectly grasp some specificities of such meanings and usage;
• explaining to students some grammatical phenomena which may be difficult for them to clearly understand if the explanations are done in English or that may require the introduction of quite a number of otherwise unnecessary English grammar terms;
• doing inter-language and inter-cultural comparisons, especially when such comparisons involve more than two languages and cultures – e.g. comparing the British and American varieties of the English language on the one hand and Ukrainian/Russian on the other hand, or comparing American, British, Russian, and Ukrainian cultural phenomena;
• checking students' comprehension in doubtful cases;
• translating course materials when without recourse to Russian it may be too difficult for students to understand (e.g. a passage in the text that they are reading);
• providing the Russian equivalent of a word in response to a student's request (in English or English mixed with Russian) for clarification or repetition of a word;
• switching to Russian (most often without a specific pedagogical goal) in cases when students ask them questions in Russian;
• explaining organizational matters (e.g. class time and room changes, instructions for homework assignments, and grades);
• talking with students before or after the bell; and
• disciplining students for tardiness or other inappropriate behavior in class.

The purposes of teachers using Russian during classes in EMI courses are quite similar to those of EFL classes. Two purposes that were not noticeable in EMI courses are grammatical explanations and translation of course materials. The former is connected with the fact that explicit language instruction is not offered in EMI courses at the university, even when the teacher has a background in EFL pedagogy. The latter is connected with the relative use of textbooks in the two types of classes. EFL classes almost always rely on textbooks (either developed by the faculty of the university or purchased from companies such as Cambridge and Oxford). In contrast, EMI is a relatively new phenomenon in this context, and finding textbooks which suit this purpose was identified by teachers and students as a challenge for this university.

Two additional purposes of teachers using Russian as employed by the first author and/or observed by the second author in EMI courses (but not in EFL classes) were:

• explaining in Russian or repeating in English and Russian subject-specific English terminology encountered by students during lectures, practical classes/seminars, and in their course readings and
• occasional (mostly infrequent) situations when the teacher does not know or forgets a required word or word combination in English and has no choice but to slip back to his/her own mother tongue to help himself/herself out.

Among these purposes, the most prevalent were providing vocabulary in both English and Russian, whether it was content-specific or a general word needed to understand the content. Generally, such words or phrases were uttered by the teacher in both Russian and English in the course of the lecture, as Extract 1 from an economics class illustrates (original language from audio file, 21 April 2011; hereafter in all excerpts, the Russian language will appear in italics with the English translation in brackets).

Extract 1. Svetlana Petrovna[1] provides vocabulary in Russian.

1 SP: So by applying his organizational and entrepreneurial skills, each

• 2 entrepreneur, wants to get income in a definite form. This form is called
• 3 a profit. (7.0) So, income is dokhod. Profit is pribyl'. Clear? So, as an
• 4 economic notion, profit is, money earned as well. But, profit in this case
• 5 is the money earning got after goods selling (sic) and costs deduction.
• 6 (4.0) So, that's the salary of entrepreneur. But if you are talking about the
• 7 salary, there are no direct costs from the side of the hired worker. But
• 8 there are costs which are spent by the entrepreneur to organize the
• 9 business, to organize the technical work, to organize the production of the
• 10 certain goods or services. So the profit is the um, earnings after costs
• 11 deduction. If the income is the general sum of money after the sale of
• 12 products and services, profit is the money earnings got after selling and
• 13 costs deduction. To est', dokhod minus izderzhki. Na proisvodstvo. [That
• 14 is to say, income minus costs. Of production.]

In this example, a student from Nigeria had just asked the economics professor if profit and income are the same. The teacher explained the difference between the economic-specific words 'income' and 'profit' in English, then provided the Russian equivalents (line 3). The teacher also used Russian to summarize the rule in calculating profit (line 13). In general, this professor stated her concern to the researcher about ensuring the integration and cooperation among the Nigerian and Ukrainian students. That could be interpreted as an underlying belief that the switch to Russian was not a slip in talking to a student from Nigeria, but rather targeted at Ukrainian students who might have been similarly confused.

Switches connected with requests for explanation or clarification from students, conducting class business, or the beginning or end of the lesson were also common. Extract 2 offers an example of the use of language before, during, and after class (original language from video file, 9 December 2010).

Extract 2. Larisa Ivanovna uses Russian after the bell rings.

1 LI: So here, everything depends on the tariff rate itself. And, uh, there's

• 2 some optimal tariff rate when government make, when uh there's possible
• 3 national economy to maximize national welfare. We will study this next
• 4 time, and for exporting country, the results will be negative, and the whole
• 5 results will (Music plays to signal the end of class). That's all. Tak, v
• 6 sleduiushchii raz potomu shto u nas idut zadachi, ya vam formuly dam v
• 7 sleduiushchii raz. Vam prosto nado umet' razbirat'sya na grafikakh i
• 8 chitat' po grafikam. I v sleduiushchii raz testy na komp'iutere.
• 9 Popraktikuemsya, eto eshche poka (xx). [So, next time, because we have
• 10 to have practice exercises, I will give you the formula next time. You just
• 11 have to review the charts and read the charts. And next time there
• 12 will be a test on the computer. We will do it for practice, it's not yet
• 13 (xx).]

In this example, the teacher explained the meaning of a graph in English. In fact, the entire lesson was conducted in English, but the moment the bell rang, she switched to Russian to give them homework instructions and information about the next class. Such a move illustrates a number of functions of Russian at this moment. It signals the boundaries of when a lesson begins and ends, and indicates the information shared was not lesson content anymore. Explaining such information in Russian rather than English also saves time, as students (who in this class were all native Russian-speaking) and the teacher may have another class to go to or may not pay strong attention in English once the bell has rung.

Inter-language comparisons were the rarest in EMI classes while fairly common in EFL classes, as Extract 3 illustrates. The students had pictures of different professions in front of them, and they were supposed to name the profession. One of the pictures showed a lawyer, but the teacher decided that, due to the multiplicity of lexical items' meanings in English and Russian or Ukrainian, it was necessary to explain the specific names for lawyers in the British court system, and how those concepts map to the professions in the Russian language and the Ukrainian legal system (original language from video file, 6 October 2010).

Extract 3. Viktor Andreyevich explains the term lawyer.

1 VA: Who can they be?

• 2 Grigore: Lawyers.
• 3 VA: Lawyers. But lawyers. Well, lawyer, is a generic name. Generic
• 4 name. Obobshchenniye. But lawyers can be, no [well] if in Russian
• 5 sudyi, advokaty, prokurory [judges, lawyers, prosecutors]. So since there
• 6 are three of them, these lawyers belong to what we call advokaty. What's
• 7 advokat in English for the British court system? Who knows? (0.8
• 8 seconds) Nobody knows. There are two names.... So, in the British law,
• 9 there are two types of what we call advokaty. One is a solicitor.
• 10 Solicitor. ((Writes word on board and spells it out orally)): S-o-l-i-c-i-t-or.
• 11 Solicitor. And the other one is a barrister. B-a-double r-i-s-ter. Barrister.

Note that in this example, the teacher also repeats the word 'generic name' in English and Russian without any markers. The term is a metalinguistic descriptor of the word 'lawyer' which future economists do not need to know. The teacher wants to be sure the students understand this word so they are not distracted by an unknown word and thereby lose the meaning of the sentence.

Conversely, the use of Russian for disciplinary reasons was rarer in EFL classes than in EMI courses. This, combined with the knowledge that (with one exception) EFL teachers on average used Russian twice as often as EMI teachers, suggests that sustained input in the target language and more restricted use of the L1 may cause students to tune out faster, leading teachers to use disciplinary measures more often to keep learners behaving appropriately in the classroom.

Students were observed using Russian in EFL classes when:

• they did not know or understand some vocabulary, grammar, or specific cultural phenomena and asked their teacher for explanations;
• it was too difficult for them to understand some meaningful material (e.g. a passage in the text that they were reading) and they explicitly requested explanations in Russian;
• they asked for explanations when and how to do a particular in-class or out-of-class assignment or other organizational problems;
• they inadvertently slipped into Russian in pair or small group activities;
• they asked a teacher or peer (or answered) some language, organizational, or other lesson-related or lesson-unrelated questions in a soft voice;
• they found themselves switching to Russian during a class discussion or when responding to a teacher's question because they had forgotten the word in the target language, did not know the word, or were caught up in the heat of debate; and
• they were talking with teachers or peers before or after the bell.

The cases of students' reverting to Russian in EMI classes are practically identical to their use of Russian in EFL classes. The most prevalent reason for switching as observed in both types of classes was in whole class discussions as the following example with a teacher and two students from a social science class indicates (original language from audio file, 6 December 2010).

Extract 4. Andrei uses Russian while answering Viktoria Sergeyevna's questions.

1 VS: So, and what is amnesia? What is amnesia?

• 2 Sergei: Mmm, if I understand, I think that it's uh, it is when you lose
• 3 access to your memories.
• 4 VS: Mm hmm. so, and what kind of uh, so and uh-
• 5 Sergei: Long term memory.
• 6 VS: So, long term memory. So and uh, amnesia is a kind of
• 7 Psychological disorder. It is a kind of disorder and when you lose
• 8 uh, access to the information stored in our long term memory
• 9 Andrei: So it can be uh, (pause)
• 10 Sergei: We may find this access (xx)
• 11 Andrei: Some physical or (quiet) kak budet [how would you say]
• 12 VS: Mmm?
• 13 Andrei: Prichiny (xx) [reasons]
• 14 VS: Reasons
• 15 Andrei: Reasons can lead to, or some psychological...
• 16 VS: Psychological, and so, and some psychological reasons
• 17 can lead to amnesia. And what are they? Some negative
• 18 experiences. And-
• 19 Sergei: Also, maybe, something like, for example, when someone
• 20 hit you,
• 21 VS: Mm hmm.
• 22 Sergei: You can lose your memory. Also I have heard-
• 23 VS: Or some physical so, injuries can lead to amnesia because
• 24 some, and part of your brain is damaged. So that's, amnesia.
• 25 Sergei: I heard a story when, when a man, he was ill on, canker...
• 26 VS: Cancer
• 27 Sergei: Cancer, yes, they cut out part out of his brain, a small part, uh,
• 28 I don't remember where, but after it he cannot (quiet)
• 29 Andrei: Zapomnit' [remember]
• 30 VS: Remember
• 31 Sergei: He cannot remember anything.

Here, we see two students attempting to answer review questions posed by the teacher. At line 11, one student, Andrei, pauses and asks in Russian, 'how would you say' and then says the Russian equivalent of the word 'reasons.' The teacher provides the equivalent in English, then helps the student reformulate the whole sentence in more target-like English. Later, another student, Sergei, also pauses (line 28). It is not audible on the tape, but likely Sergei turns to Andrei and says the Russian word, hoping Andrei knows it. Instead, Andrei repeats it out loud for the teacher (line 29), who again provides the English equivalent (line 30).

In other cases, a student's switch to Russian took the form of a question to the teacher which may or may not be a serious question. In the following example, a student asked a question immediately following the teacher's explanation in Russian about the difference between income and profit shown in Extract 1 (original language from audio file, 14 December 2010).

Extract 5. Sergei and Svetlana Petrovna use Russian for humorous purposes.

1 Sergei: I eto budet chistaya pribyl'? [And this is the net profit?]

• 2 SP: This is the profit. Sam ty chistaya pribyl'. Seychas dal'she budet.
• 3 [You yourself are the net profit. We're moving on now.]
• 4 Sergei: (Laughing) Eto budet chistaya pribyl'? [This is the net profit?]
• 5 SP: So...er...to calculate the costs which were spent by the
• 6 entrepreneur to organize...

In line 1, Sergei asks a sincere confirmation check in Russian which the teacher answers in line 2 in both sincere English and a joke in Russian before moving on to the next topic, using English to signal a return to the main task at hand. The use of a joke in Russian here reflects a number of issues about learning in a foreign language. One, it is difficult to make such jokes in a nonnative language. Two, such jokes may lighten the burden of learning in a foreign language. Three, the student's desire (as expressed in line 4) to extend the discussion of the joke rather than move on may reflect a less-than-serious attitude to education in general that is typical of first-year university students, regardless of the language of instruction.

The volume of data on the use of Russian in EFL classes led by the second author (hereafter referred to as the researcher) for university teachers is limited but shows that the researcher switched most often for inter-language comparisons, as part of comprehension checks, and in response to students' switches to Russian. Unlike the university EFL teachers, the researcher spent very little time teaching grammar and, when she did, she did not use metalanguage or heavy description in Russian. The rationale was that her co-teachers were already providing detailed input (in English, Russian, or a combination) about grammar; the researcher wanted to focus on speaking and communication (especially as it related to teaching in English). Even if the researcher had taught grammar, it would have required a high level of metalanguage in Russian to offer such an explanation.

Qualitatively, the use of Russian by the researcher was strongly connected to two factors. One was the behavior observed by the researcher in other classes, as the following field notes excerpt indicates:

I [the researcher] talked about grade inflation and said it's a problem in the U.S. too, though students will often complain about low grades. Also, the problem may be a bit different here (in Ukraine) because grades are given orally. 'You know orally?' I didn't translate. (Field notes, 10 September 2010)

The comment 'I didn't translate' suggests that even after one and half weeks of observing classes, the researcher had already internalized the notion that a comprehension check question is usually followed by a translation into Russian (not Ukrainian). The other factor in the researcher's use of Russian was the perceived level of English of the teachers, as the next vignette illustrates:

I [the researcher] then said in English, "I propose we meet one time next week, then next week we decide when we will meet." But my rate of speech plus the unusual content (which was in more than one sentence) made it difficult for them to understand. So I summarized in Russian: my vstretemsia odin raz na sleduiushchey (sic) nedele, i togda my reshim kogda my budem obychno vstrechatsya. One of the teachers summarized that as "we will meet only this one time?" (Original language from field notes, 27 January 2011)

Like the university students, the teachers in these groups most often switched during the course of discussion. All switches were noted to occur more frequently in the intermediate-level group than in the advanced-level group. At the beginning of the year, the researcher's reaction to teachers' use of Russian was oriented both to her own level of Russian and the perceived future needs of the teachers, as this unedited field notes excerpt illustrates:

One of my [the researcher's] students, Yaroslav Denisovich, got stuck on the word nastroen. I asked, does it mean "upset?" The other students said, no, that's rastroen. Yaroslav Denisovich then used other words in English to explain. I responded that it sounded like "positive attitude." The researcher's co-teacher came in. Yaroslav Denisovich said nastroen positivno and the co-teacher said "positive attitude." I said, "of course it's easier to say the word in Russian and get the translation. But, when you explained it in English, I understood it perfectly." My goal was to get students to only use English, because I couldn't support them in Russian. Also if they had to teach only in English, they had to speak only English. They were not using it strategically/proactively as the English teachers did, but in a way that was stumbling. It could be embarrassing in the classroom. (Original language from field notes, 10 September 2010)

By the time the researcher began working with the intermediate group, her Russian ability and confidence had improved; concurrently, her teaching approach became more pragmatic. When the researcher did not know the translation directly, she used a dictionary to look up the word and offer the Russian equivalent.

Ukrainian was rarely heard in EFL or EMI classes. In an EFL class, a substitute teacher for Viktoria Sergeyevna explained the English word 'dabble' by saying, 'I like to dance, but I won't appear on Tantsi z Zirkamy ["Dancing with the Stars"]' (paraphrased quote from original language, field notes, 26 May 2011). In a Wales program economics class discussion about Ukrainian labor laws, Precious asked her teacher, Dmitri Bogdanovich, why she is not allowed to work in Ukraine. He responded, 'Your visa says O. It means Osvita, education' (paraphrased quote in original language, field notes, 7 December 2010). Viktor Andreyevich twice referred to titles of textbooks for EMI classes in Ukrainian. While these instantiations of Ukrainian all serve educational purposes, they do not fit in the same pedagogical framework Russian does. Rather, they index the Ukrainian language's position as the official language of entertainment media and government documents, and the predominant language of published written works.

Nearly all of the teachers and students interviewed who were asked about the use of Russian/Ukrainian in their English classes took a pragmatic approach. A common response by students was that the teacher's use of the L1 is 'normal' because it makes it easier for students to understand, as the following quote indicates (original English from audio file, 24 February 2011):

I feel okay, because many, um, students in our group, uh, sometimes not understand something, or, mm, don't know the word, or don't understand the sentence so our teacher has to explain. It's normal I think just for first time maybe. (Wales program student)

Even students who felt that using the L1 in English-medium classes was inappropriate recognized the necessity of L1 use at times for the purposes of aiding comprehension or professional development, as the following quotes indicate (original language from audio file, 29 March 2011 and 6 April 2011):

Um, I don't like it much, but sometimes when maybe someone can't understand maybe the meaning of the word or something like this, it's better to explain him in Russian. (International Economics student)

While the previous examples indicate that teachers' use of the L1 (generally identified as Russian) in English classes was normal or at least justified, students' use of the L1 was viewed slightly more negatively by both teachers and students. Three students were self-critical; they felt using Russian indicated a lack of vocabulary or difficulty in knowing what to say even in Russian about a topic. Teachers would prefer their students to use only English, but recognized that students may need to use Russian until they develop the necessary skills and content knowledge in English to communicate without the use of the L1, as the following interview quote from an EFL teacher indicates (original language from audio file, 20 February 2011):

Viktor Andreyevich: I would prefer them not [speaking Russian]. But again, from the practical point of view, it's not always possible. And if I swoop on students for every Russian word that they use, well I can only frighten them or maybe to make them feel that uh, you know, it's a kind of frightening or nervous experience, so uh, actually I believe that the better they know English and they're progressing quite well, the rarer such cases are going to be...of course I would prefer them to use English but in reality it's not always possible.

For the foreign students in the English-medium courses, the switch from English to Russian in their classes by teachers and students cannot be said to aid comprehension. However, the students interviewed demonstrated a surprisingly positive outlook towards their teachers' and classmates' using Russian, as this interview quote from a Nigerian Wales program student, Precious, indicates (original language from audio file, 3 March 2011):

Researcher: How do you feel when people use Russian and Ukrainian in the classes, like the teachers and the students?

Precious: I feel very happy because, I really like, I really love the language. And I have desire, I have the desire to learn it, and to speak very well. Because I think my course is really connected to international relationship.

Researcher: Okay.

Precious: For you to relate with people, you must be able to speak some languages.

We cannot conclude that international students always feel positive about the use of Russian, especially when there were instances when Precious told her classmates she did not understand what they were saying. Yet, there were also a few instances Nigerian students switched to Russian for single words like greetings, da (yes) or ponyatno (it is understood), indexing solidarity with the dominant language outside the classroom. Extract 6 shows how Precious switched to Russian to speak with a Ukrainian student, Nikolai, who used Russian in a group activity (original language from audio file, 17 December 2010).

Extract 6. Precious speaks to Nikolai in Russian.

1 Precious: Nikolai, we need to ask them questions. What questions can we ask

• 2 them.
• 3 Nikolai: Vobsche ya ne ponimaiu. [In general I don't understand.]
• 4 Precious: Ty ne ponimaesh? Ya skazala. [You don't understand? I said.]

What comes through is not only Precious' shift to Russian in response to Nikolai's switch. Her repetition of Nikolai's words (with the necessary conjugation shift from 'I' to 'you') signals an oppositional stance (see Goodwin [11]) as Precious strives to get Nikolai to participate appropriately in the task.

It has been shown that neither the teachers nor the students at Alfred Nobel University doubt the necessity and inevitability of recurrently using L1 in the conditions under discussion. Furthermore, they cannot understand why the L1 should be avoided if, in fact, it makes learning easier and faster, not damaging or slowing down the process of target language acquisition. The degree of the necessity of the L1 is connected with students' current state of knowledge of English, which in turn is connected to the amount and thoroughness of preparation the students received before entering EFL and EMI classes at the university.

Based on these findings, the following explicit and implicit justifications for using students' L1 in EFL and EMI classes at this university can be listed. First, limited use of L1 facilitates students' understanding of the target language structure and communication in it, as well as the target culture and content matter of the subjects being learned. It helps to check that understanding, to make students realize inter-language and inter-cultural similarities and differences more clearly; it even may accelerate and improve the target language acquisition if it is not overused. Second, limited, occasional, and fragmentary recourse to the mother tongue of all those who work in the dominantly monolingual classroom lightens the psychological burden for a while, allowing a return to communication in the target language feeling a little rested from it. This burden includes both the extra effort required to speak, read, write, and listen in a foreign language, and the artificiality of communicating in a target language which is imposed on them (or that they willingly and consciously impose on themselves). More research is needed to determine whether L1 use in English-medium classes leads to balanced bilingualism in the content areas. Nevertheless, the presence of two L1s in both EMI and EFL classes indicates their current and future strength in the language ecology.

The authors wish to thank the following organizations and people: the rector of Alfred Nobel University, Professor Borys Kholod, for sanctioning the research conducted at the university; the administration, teachers, staff, and students of Alfred Nobel University for their willing participation and support of this research project; Elena Ivanishena for her assistance with transcription; and Siwon Lee of the University of Pennsylvania and two reviewers from Language and Education, for providing comments on previous drafts.