“What’s pavement? – Chodník.” Code-switching in EFL Classrooms
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| Year of publication | 2020 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | The role of the mother tongue in English language teaching has always been a contentious issue, however, it is starting to be commonly accepted that the mother tongue has its role and significance in foreign language classrooms. That is why this study focuses on code-switching (i.e. the participants’ alternation from English into Czech or vice versa) in EFL classrooms as a naturally occurring phenomenon. Since code-switching serves many functions in EFL classrooms, the goal of this conversation-analytic study is to provide an insight into how teachers and students code-switch while dealing with word meaning. The data collection consists of 13 hours and 30 minutes of recordings from five different upper-secondary schools. In each school, three to five consecutive English language lessons were recorded in the final year. All students and their teachers spoke Czech, therefore Czech could be used to explain word meanings and everybody would understand it. The analysis shows that Czech is commonly used in EFL classes to deal with word meaning, even though the teacher maximizes the use of target language and uses English as the main language in the classroom. Thus, the study contributes to our understanding of language choice and language use in foreign language classrooms. |
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