This descriptive qualitative study attempted to understand, explore and report the occasions and reasons for which a tutor or a student would use the native language in the second language classroom in a national language policy context, like Ghana, where such practice is disallowed. To use the L1 in the L2 classroom or not has been an ongoing debate in Applied Linguistics and Teaching English as Second/Foreign Language (TESL/TESOL, TEFL), in that, while a group insists on a strict monolingual English-only ESL classroom, another group thinks a reasonable quantity of L1 and appropriate use of same in the ESL classroom could actually facilitate the teaching and learning of English. Data collection instruments were participant observation and semi-structured interviews. Participants were 13 language tutors and 53 second-year language specialism students, all from four Colleges of Education, and selected through purposive sampling. Results revealed that L1 is used as functional strategy in the L2 classroom, and serves various reasons; empathy, classroom management, identity, lack of comprehension, nurturing bilingualism. It is recommended, therefore, that, the national language policy of Ghana which limits the language of classroom instruction to English be made lax enough to allow for some appreciable amount of the L1 to aid ‘understanding’, which is the bedrock of education.

This paper investigates how Ghana, a developing country with her corresponding less technologically oriented education system, in the wake of the coronavirus disease, adapts, adopts and resorts to technology integration through online teaching and learning at the tertiary level, specifically, Colleges of Education. The study is a qualitative research work, which adopts the descriptive case study approach. The major data collection instruments were participant observation and semi-structured interviews. 29 language tutors spread across 4 language backgrounds-English, French, Fante and Twi, were interviewed. The data revealed that though technology is important and inevitable in the 21 st century educational system, it cannot replace the traditional face-to-face classroom setting completely. It was clear also that the teacher's attitude towards technology was very critical in the integration process. The study recommends that teachers be given technical support, training and adequate access to IT resources and infrastructure if integration can be done effectively to achieve the desired results.