This study investigated the issue of L1 use in the L2 classroom from the students' perspective. Specifically, the focus of this study was on the characteristics of learners who desired L1 classroom support in their L2 learning. For the purposes of the study, a convenience sample of 380 Japanese university-level EFL participants completed a series of questionnaires and an L2 proficiency test. After the data had been subjected to descriptive and inferential analysis, the results suggested that L2 proficiency could be the strongest predictor of desire for L1 support in the EFL classroom, followed by L2 ambiguity tolerance and L2 learning motivation, respectively. Moreover, gender was not found to be a statistically significant variable. It was concluded that in order to promote a fruitful match between the students' learning style and the teacher's instructional methods, an English only EFL classroom is not always suitable in the Japanese context.