IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ibn/eltjnl/v6y2013i7p139.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Code-Switching in English as a Foreign Language Classroom: Teachers’ Attitudes

Author

Listed:
  • Engku Haliza Engku Ibrahim
  • Mohamed Ismail Ahamad Shah
  • Najwa Tgk. Armia

Abstract

Code-switching has always been an intriguing phenomenon to sociolinguists. While the general attitude to it seems negative, people seem to code-switch quite frequently. Teachers of English as a foreign language too frequently claim that they do not like to code-switch in the language classroom for various reasons – many are of the opinion that only the target language should be used in the classroom. This study looks at the teachers’ attitudes towards code-switching in teaching English as a foreign language to Malay students at one of the local universities in Malaysia. Data was collected through observations, questionnaires and interviews. Each teacher was observed, their language use were recorded, transcribed and then analyzed using the functions proposed by Gumperz (1982). The results of the study showed that teachers do code-switch in the language classroom, despite their claim that they do not. Analysis of the data showed that, in most cases, code switching by teachers was done to serve pedagogical purposes.

Suggested Citation

  • Engku Haliza Engku Ibrahim & Mohamed Ismail Ahamad Shah & Najwa Tgk. Armia, 2013. "Code-Switching in English as a Foreign Language Classroom: Teachers’ Attitudes," English Language Teaching, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 6(7), pages 139-139, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:ibn:eltjnl:v:6:y:2013:i:7:p:139
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/elt/article/download/28012/16900
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/elt/article/view/28012
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • R00 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General - - - General
    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ibn:eltjnl:v:6:y:2013:i:7:p:139. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Canadian Center of Science and Education (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cepflch.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.