Wolfgang Butzkamm (born 11 November 1938) is Professor Emeritus of English as a foreign language at Aachen University, Germany.
He is credited with the development of a principled and systematic approach to the role of the mother tongue in foreign language teaching which radically differs from a target-language-only philosophy prevailing in many countries.
Butzkamm was inspired by C. J. Dodson's language teaching and the bilingual method when he pioneered his “aufgeklärte Einsprachigkeit” (enlightened or informed monolingualism) in 1973, which in Germany has become almost a stock phrase.
Idiomatic translation and mother tongue mirroring combined provide immediate access to a complete meaning of foreign language constructions, often making further explanations superfluous.
By contrast, the currently accepted approach seems to see the mother tongue as an intruder only, and a persistent temptation for pupils and (tired) teachers to fall back on, more of a hindrance than a help.
Successful learners capitalise on the vast amount of both linguistic skills and world knowledge they have already accumulated via the mother tongue.