aware of many of the finer points of language; (5) they have acquired the secondary skills of reading and writing. The mother tongue is therefore the greatest asset people bring to the task of foreign language learning. It provides an indispensable Language Acquisition Support System - a term used by Jerome Bruner in the context of first language acquisition - which makes instruction possible in the first place. Successful learners capitalise on the vast amount of both linguistic skills and world knowledge they have already accumulated via the mother tongue. For the most part, they need not reconceptualise their world in the new language. The path breaking power of L1 grammar is not dependent on the fact that both languages share similar grammatical features. It is because all languages have evolved means of expressing abstract ideas such as possession, number, agent, instrument, negation, cause, condition, obligation etc., no matter how they do this, that one natural language is enough to open the door for the grammars of other languages. In a deep sense, we only learn language once. That is why, according to Butzkamm, the monolingual orthodoxy, with or without small concessions, cannot be supported in any respect. The target-language-only credo must be overturned and foreign language teaching methodology stood on its feet again. Butzkamm and Caldwell's (2009) call for a paradigm shift is in line with Hall and Cook's conclusion in their state-of-the-art article (2012, 299) that “the way is open for a major paradigm shift in language teaching and learning”. However, in Butzkamm's “informed monolingualism”, not a single monolingual technique, simple or sophisticated, is thrown out. Bilingual techniques are clearly intended to enrich existing methodologies, and not to impoverish them. Teachers will have to decide which technique will serve their purpose best in a given situation. To sum it up in one maxim: Teach English through English – but with the help of the mother tongue. References Butzkamm, W. (1973/1978), Aufgeklärte Einsprachigkeit. Zur Entdogmatisierung der Methode im Fremdsprachenunterricht.(Enlightened monolingualism. Taking the dogma out of foreign language methodology) Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer. Butzkamm, W. (1989 / 2002), Psycholinguistik des Fremdsprachenunterrichts: Von der Muttersprache zur Fremdsprache. (The psycholinguistics of foreign language teaching. From mother tongue to foreign language) Tübingen/Basel: Francke. Butzkamm, W. (1998), "Code-Switching in a Bilingual History Lesson: The Mother Tongue as a Conversational Lubricant". In: International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 1:2, 81-99. Butzkamm, W. (2000), „Generative