Responsibilty

M.T.I. stands for Mother Tongue Interference. It is basically the collective formed by all the problems experienced by English learners when using the L2 language and that are at the same time the result of an involuntary mixture between L1 and L2. The stage when learners are developing English structures in their minds and using them either correctly or incorrectly is called metalanguage and it is in this stage when MTI most often takes place. MTI apparently occurs at a subconscious level so the learner does not notice there is a problem in what he or she says and therefore the intervention of a third party (a teacher or another learner) is usually required to make a correction. 

My experience as a teacher is mostly with Spanish speakers who are learning English, and as such I can only refer to that group. There are numerous examples of MTI in this group, perhaps due to the afinity of both languages which are really more similar than different. Of course there are those who happen more frequently than others and one of those that stand out is the use of the word RESPONSIBILITY. In Spanish we have the word RESPONSABILIDAD and one may argue that the fact their respective spelling is so similar should give no trouble to the learner, but the truth is it probably does. Students are taught the word RESPONSIBILITY as the English version of RESPOSABILIDAD and are presented with the right spelling. Still the moment they need to use the word they create a new one in the form of RESPONSABILITY which is of course neither English nor Spanish. I don´t think we could label it as Spanglish either but as an expression of Metalanguage and thus understand the processes by which and how Metalanguage occurs. 

MTI is not the product of bad teaching, or poor learning for that matter. It is a complex event that is perhaps explained in the way our subconscious works. That part of our brain simply does not understand our necessity to learn another language since most, if not all, our basic needs are met with the use of our L1 language. Thus if we want to eat or drink we just express it in L1 and another language is consequently unnecessary. 

It would be interesting to know how  MTI occurs in different settings (where languages other than Spanish are spoken) and what other EFL teachers do in order to deal with this problem.