Using Mother Tongue in Teaching English. In Teaching Monolingual Classes (1993).

Atkinson suggests 'a careful, limited use of L1' to help students get the maximum benefit from activities which in other respects will be carried out in the target language. The mother tongue may be useful in the procedural stages of a class, for example:

setting up pair and group work sorting out an activity which is clearly not working checking comprehension

Beyond these basically managerial functions of L1, Atkinson also suggests using the L1 for translation as a teaching technique. From my research with teachers, the overall rationale for this procedural use of L1 is that it is necessary to keep the lesson from slowing down or because things just can't be done any other way. In general, students seem sceptical about the use of L1 in the classroom, particularly at higher levels. However, the bilingual / bicultural teachers are in a position to enrich the process of learning by using the mother tongue as a resource, and then, by using the L1 culture, they can facilitate the progress of their students towards the other tongue, the other culture. Atkinson, D. 1993. Teaching Monolingual Classes (Longman)